Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have a hell of a find- a Mirror Match between Bruiser Brody and the guy who lifted all his stuff- Nord the Barbarian! Turns out they were old tag partners and occasional opponents, making that less of a theft and more of a “trainee” thing! But come see a mega-roided future Berzerker take on his elder self in Windy City Wrestling in 1988!
Next up, I have the most “1994” match ever, as Adam Bomb and the Smoking Gunns take on Kwang & Well Dunn- the Wippleman Dream Team. Next up is “Texas Tornado” Kerry Von Erich in his final televised WWF match against the Repo Man! Finally, I knock out a lucha match I reviewed ages ago as El Hijo Del Santo, Latin Lover & Heavy Metal face La Parka, Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther!
KING KONG BRUISER BRODY vs. NORD THE BARBARIAN:
(Windy City Wrestling, 1988?)
* !!!!!!!!!!! Completely wild! Bruiser Brody, shortly before he died, and he’s up against the guy who lifted nearly all his shit in John Nord (aka The Berzerker). They were actually tag partners in 1986 AWA, mentioned here, so it’s actually somewhat natural that Nord became one of the “Brody Clones”. The video quality here is NOT good, but Brody has black trunks and longer hair, and is less toned than a 25-ish Nord, who has short curly hair and brown trunks.
Both guys “Huss!” at each other and Nord comes roaring in for a lockup as the commentator puts over how both men are crazy people and this armbar “will be one of the FEW wrestling holds you’ll see throughout this match!”. “Neither one of these guys has an elevator that goes all the way up to the top”. The bump into each other, chop and drop to their hands & knees as this is set up as a total “Mirror Match”. Lotsa resting, then Nord hiptosses Brody and misses an elbow- they hit the floor and Nord shoves a table into him, then cuts him open on the ringpost and works the cut, doing a pretty decent job of biting and brawling. The commentator keeps calling the promotion “WCW” which is weird to hear, and Nord starts licking the blood in enjoyment, which would be awesome heeling if he was more into it- he’s just too green and is doing it too subtly. Brody flails around, gets dumped, stomped, etc., but FINALLY makes a comeback with strikes after about three minutes- he repeatedly boots Nord in the face, but Nord dropkicks him into the ref! Nord flies to the floor off a Big Boot and Brody chairshots him in the back and they knock the ref over again and he calls it a Double Disqualification at (10:12).
Naturally, like good wildmen they keep up the fight, Brody kicking Nord’s ass and strangling him with the camera cord in the crowd- they slug it out there until Nord finally bails, and Brody sends the fans home happy by throwing chairshots to the posts in the ring.
Solid little brawl in there- Nord was hella-green, but they didn’t give him anything he couldn’t handle, as he was able to pound away on a cut, bite at it, etc., effectively beating Brody at his own game until Brody hits the comeback. The finish was screwy but to be expected- these guys both fought the “Wildman Brawler” style which doesn’t exactly produce clean finishes even against law-abiding wrestlers, much less nutjobs. It’s pretty barebones and the first half was mostly resting in a single armbar and “They’re Equals” spots, but hey- ten minutes with a rookie Nord and it doesn’t suck- not bad!
Rating: **1/2 (arguably one of Nord’s best singles matches, even)
Kerry’s last year wrestling would be spent mostly in a weird daze, spinning around randomly, punching the air, and being almost uncontrollable. He was likable enough that most wrestlers felt bad for him, even while being annoyed at having to carry his coked-out self every night.
“THE TEXAS TORNADO” KERRY VON ERICH vs. THE REPO MAN:
(WWF Prime Time, June 15th 1992)
* Mid-1992 WWF had Repo Man acting as a total JTTS guy, and Kerry was shockingly STILL with the company. I have zero memory whatsoever of him during the time I started watching (Jan. 92), so it’s odd seeing him in the summer of that year fighting guys. Did he just not make Canadian TV?
They stall for a whole minute, Tornado trying to lure/taunt Repo into attacking him by deliberately turning his back, while Monsoon differentiates Repo Man from many “legitimate repossession people” who work for actual organizations (“he’s just a THIEF!”). Repo ducks spinning punches and bails as we enter two minutes with no real moves, but Repo reverses a wristlock with an eyepoke and throws punches and chokes- he adds “How’dya like that, Von Erich? Ya better pay your stinkin’ bills, ya got it?” while Monsoon asserts that Kerry comes from a very wealthy family (well I mean Fritz was running outta people to have to bail out of jail, so maybe!). Tornado reverses a whip and throws clotheslines, Repo accidentally selling a wrist-grab as one, too, and Hayes & Monsoon now talk about Fritz being a “nasty old man” who was hard to wrestle. OK was not expecting Fritz-bashing on commentary.
Kerry accidentally Discus Punches the POST and is writhing in agony, so Repo “sneaks in” and twists it using the ropes and backbreakers him, but misses an elbow- he “sneaks” back to Kerry’s front but has his punch blocked and Kerry… just punches him using that same hand, so I guess he’s fine. Discus Punch! He lands THE CLAW~~ right in the corner, but the ref won’t break it even though Repo’s basically hugging the bottom rope. So the heel just grabs for the hook Monsoon called attention to earlier in the match, and slugs Kerry with it for the DQ at (4:46). Von Erich is completely flat-backed off this and Repo sneaks away, Kerry only barely getting up at the end. And that’s it for the Texas Tornado on TV- he never sees WWF TV again and spends the rest of his time doing the job to Kamala on house shows before he gets released. He still has about eight more months left at this point, though.
A dreadful match, literally with 2 minutes of stalling until lockup, some basic stuff, then Kerry hurts his hand… then scores a comeback consisting entirely of punches using that same hand as if nothing had happened. Darsow tried to keep it together using basic heeling tactics, but it was roughly 3 minutes of basic stuff.
Rating: 1/2* (nothing much to it, and psychology you’d expect from a guy who was just falling apart behind the scenes)
Adam Bomb has now turned on his former manager, Harvey Wippleman, and taken up the midcard rank of “the babyface who jobs to the guy we actually want to push”.
ADAM BOMB & THE SMOKING GUNNS (Billy & Bart Gunn) vs. KWANG & WELL DUNN (Timothy Well & Steven Dunn) (w/ Harvey Wippleman)
(WWF Superstars, Aug. 2nd 1994)
* OH MY GOD, YES! What a weird Dream Match! Harvey’s former client Adam Bomb fighting all three of Harvey’s other guys, but with the Gunns as his partners! Bomb had just done a babyface turn in which his only real “push” was beating up on Kwang until he joined the JTTS legion, jobbing to Shawn, Mabel and others. On last week’s show he (in a blue singlet with neon yellow highlights I do NOT remember) fought Timothy Well, but attacked Harvey and got double-teamed. He fought back after a double-DDT and clotheslined both guys, beating their asses… which makes this look like a total pushover contest given how the heels didn’t even get any heat on him last week. All the heels are in black, while Bomb’s in the blue again.
The girls squeal for the Gunns removing their shirts as I marvel at BILLY GUNN being the smallest guy on his entire team- part of why people were stunned to see him seem so huge in AEW. Bart outsmarts Dunn by catching him copying Bart’s dodge move from earlier and splats him, then on a criss-cross, slingshots Billy into the ring for a shoulderblock. Well elbows out and Dunn does a blind tag so Kwang wipes out Billy with a roundhouse kick. Billy gets a crossbody as Vince & Lawler talk over each other, but Dunn scores a flying forearm. Well Dunn get a double-facecrusher as the heels work Billy over, and Dunn gets a snap suplex into a flying move that Billy dropkicks out of mid-air (sounds better than it looked, but Dunn sold it well)- this FINALLY sets up the hot tag to Adam Bomb- big side suplex for Dunn, followed by a flying clothesline! Well & Kwang hit the ring to break up the pin and get taken out by the Gunns, and Bomb dodges a charging Dunn so Harvey takes a bump to the floor. Dunn bemoans his mistake and turns around into the kick to set up the Atom Smasher (pumphandle slam) at (5:06)- Bomb and the Gunns win!
Okay, this was constructed in kind of a funny manner- it’s a six-man, but they spend almost the entire time on two guys. Kwang only gets a single kick and some overhand shots, and Bart’s only in the first segment. Bomb spends 4.5 minutes standing on the apron while Billy gets worked over, and it’s almost ENTIRELY Steve Dunn in the ring, probably because he’s the only good wrestler on his team, hitting the smoothest offense and selling well. Billy does an okay job taking a beating, and you did NOT see the “Dropkick to reverse a flying move” a lot in the WWF, much less with a 6’5″ guy doing it. And Bomb, the guy they really wanna put over here, gets the hot tag into the easy win with some good stuff (the flying clothesline was LEGIT for such a big dude), but it was still only 30 seconds of stuff.
Rating: ** (the standard “Good enough TV match”)
EL HIJO DEL SANTO, LATIN LOVER & HEAVY METAL vs. FUERZA GUERRERA, LA PARKA & BLUE PANTHER:
(AAA, Aug. 26th 1994)
* Here’s another random Lucha trios match, this time featuring Juventud’s dad teaming with his frequent WCW partner La Parka & lucha legend Blue Panther (who has an adorable mask with a kitty drawn on it) against one of the top stars (the son of El Santo), the stripper-turned-luchadore Latin Lover, and the “guy in rock concert clothes” Heavy Metal.
PRIMERA CAIDA: Fuerza starts with Heavy Metal, and takes a lot of pratfalls, not doing too well compared to his glowering rival. Santo goes with Blue Panther, easily putting his burly opponent in an armhold- Panther does the Bob Backlund “lift them out and put them on his shoulder” thing, but Santo rolls through until Panther gets behind him and stretches the arms out, but Santo is more acrobatic and hits a Manami Toyota “roll up the body” sunset flip for two. La Parka & Latin Lover have a dance-off, La Parka throwing a tantrum over the ladies preferring his opponent, and he gets superkicked out of the ring after a brawl. The rudos gang up on Metal, then Santo, then Lover, clotheslining them all and dumping most of them- the refs just allow double & triple-teaming until the technicos are all beat up and the ref awards a fall to Fuerza while he’s camel-clutching Heavy Metal (12:29).
SEGUNDA CAIDA: Santo gets beaten up, taking a Samoan drop from Panther & backdrop suplex from Fuerza, not really going up that well. They tease a tag until Panther just pushes him to his corner (?) and Lover now takes a beating and a lot of rollup attempts from La Parka. Finally Santo & Metal come roaring back and beat up the heels, Santo armdragging Fuerza off the top & spinebustering him- he bails after a Lover superkick. Panther tries some bad acrobatics but gets knocked around by Santo, then Fuerza gets tossed around by Lover and does the Mulkey Bump to the floor. The technicos do more stuff and Metal moonsaults Fuerza, then Lover gets a bad rana on La Parka to pin him and Santo does a rolling cradle on Blue Panther to give him an embarrassing loss after rolling around the other two at (7:54).
TERCERA CAIDA: This fall is a mess straight away, as it’s just a wild brawl among everyone, and Fuerza & Santo tear off each other’s masks, responding by immediately throwing on the OTHER GUY’S. This leads to hilarity when Fuerza saves Blue Panther, who mistakes him for SANTO and kicks him square in the balls. Panther then accidentally knocks La Parka to the floor, and Heavy Metal uses a criss-cross to hit a tope suicida to him. Lover accidentally superkicks Santo, who goes to the floor and swaps masks again with Fuerza- Panther & Lover spinebuster each other in the ring, but Santo (with proper mask) comes flying in with a somersault senton and leaps onto Lover’s shoulders for an assisted splash to win at (2:10)- the technicos win!
Kind of a weird one, as a lot of lucha is- the rudos can double-team at will after getting dominated in the first fall. El Hijo del Santo is a guy I’ve seen in some amazing matches, but here seemed almost… ungainly in his movements and even going up for moves, but then he hits the “Manami Roll” and such just fine? The heels bounced around like bumbling boobs for the second fall, leading to easy babyface wins, though the pins were awkward as all hell, like Lover couldn’t quite pin Parka right and Santo didn’t have Panther down properly at first so had to do a generic pin. Then the third fall is super-heated and has a fun comic bit where the two guys swap masks and that gets Fuerza punted in the balls by his confused partner, and Santo hits his back then finishes off the opposing team captain. So I dunno- 20-ish minutes of random stuff and a lot of comedy.
Rating: **1/2 (kinda saved itself in the end)