Mike Reviews Shows Consider To Be Stinkers – CWA Bodyguards Vs Bandits

Happy Stinky Saturday Everyone!

This month’s Stinker Review came courtesy of CandygramForMongo, so thank/blame them for this review. What I do with these reviews is look at a show that has a bad reputation and see if that reputation is deserved or not. CWA Bodyguards Vs Bandits was a pay per view produced by the Confederate Wrestling Alliance, a company that ran out of Dallas from 1995 to 1997.

I didn’t really know much about CWA or the whole Bodyguards Vs Bandits concept, but thankfully Wrestling Epicentre was able to shed some light on the matter;

“Though the CWA had local TV, those tapes are extremely hard to come by. But, believe it or not, they did do a pay-per-view. This is that pay-per-view. The event, unbranded though attributed to the CWA brand, was called Bodyguards and Bandits. Nearest we can tell, it was a pay per view concept to attempt to create a solitary star by putting him, a virtually untrained wrestler, over the NWA and GWF faithfuls”

http://wrestlingepicenter.com/cart/product_info.php?products_id=1794

Well I don’t see how that can’t be awesome, so let’s all brace ourselves and see whether Bodyguards Vs Bandits is as Stinky as many say.

You can view the card for Bodyguards Vs Bandits by clicking below;

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=37823&page=3

The event is emanating from Dallas, Texas on the 5th of January 1996, and airing later on pay per view on the 2nd of February 1996

Calling the action are Doyle King, Ray Mancini and Angel of Death

Due to the violent nature of the event, Request suggests that it should be viewed by adults only. Honestly I think that disclaimer is there because Bodyguards Vs Bandits is going to be so dumb that even kids might see through it.

Boom Boom Mancini, a boxer of some kind, is at Alcatraz for some reason, and gives us a tour. Sadly they don’t bump into Roddy Piper along the way. We then get some promos from the wrestlers;

Guido Falcone does a pretty decent one, talking about how big and scary he is. It’s exactly what someone who has never watched wrestling before would think a wrestling promo is like.

Dom Minaldi stumbles over his and doesn’t really have much to say. I believe he is the non-wrestler that Wrestling Epicentre mentioned.

John Hawk does a decent promo, which is to be expected as that was always a strong part of his game. Mancini is an absolutely awful interviewer, not even knowing how to pronounce the word “Lariat” (I mean, COME ON, it’s hardly advanced ancient Latin or something) but Hawk is a pro and just keeps motoring through with his promo.

High Voltage have the hickest of hick accents that you’ll ever hear, but they at least make Skandor Akbar sound dangerous, getting the Heels over somewhat/

Marc Valiant is blander than dry oatmeal in a white gym sock, but his promo is serviceable.

Polish Power Scott Putski certainly looks the part, but his promo is pretty average. Still, I’ll take average on this show.

Rod Price delivers a solid promo, and he also manages to power through Mancini being an awful interviewer when he gets the name of Price’s finisher wrong. Seriously, where did they find this guy? Is he reading small print cue cards without having his reading glasses on or something?

Firebreaker Chip cuts one of the most generic Heel promos ever, talking about how he’s what a real man looks like and that he’s got twisted steel and sex appeal. This was one those promos that you’d see on an afternoon sitcom where the lead character accidentally finds themselves in a charity wrestling match for that weeks storyline as a sitcom writer who has perhaps watched all of 5 minutes of Pro Wrestling in their lives has to script a promo for the mean Heel wrestler.

12 Man Tag Team Football Match
The Bandits: Alex Porteau, Firebreaker Chip, Guido Falcone, John Hawk, Rod Price and Shawn Summers w/ General Skandar Akbar
Vs
The Bodyguards: High Voltage (Bo Vegas and Devon Michaels), Dom Minaldi, Marc Valiant, Scott Putski and Steve “Do It To It” Cox w/ Ivan Putski

Porteau wrestled as “The Pug” in the WWF and didn’t get out of prelims. Chip actually was a US Tag Champ in WCW for a bit, but he never really caught on there. Falcone mostly worked in GWF in Texas and did some jobs for the WWF. Hawk would go on to win the WWE Title under the name John Bradshaw Layfield. Rod Price is another GWF regular who also did some shots for ECW in the second half of the 90’s. I think he even made it onto one of the ECW Video Games. Summers mostly wrestled for GWF and in Puerto Rico.

Vegas doesn’t even have a CageMatch.net profile, so I can’t tell you much about him. Michaels mostly wrestled for GWF and the NWA. Minaldi is another guy without a CageMatch profile, and he kind of just looks like a big dude they decided to throw in there. Valiant is another GWF and NWA guy. Putski is the son of Ivan Putski and had brief runs in both the WWF and WCW in the 90’s but he never attained the same level of success as his father. I’ve actually seen Cox wrestle before, as he was in one of the better matches on the AWA Super Clash III card.

Right so this is under “Football Rules” which means the following

4 Quarters of 15 Minutes each
A Pin Fall gets you 7 Points
You get penalised 3 Points for throwing someone over the top rope and 1 Point for getting DQ’ed

That sounds needlessly convoluted, but hey-ho. The production values aren’t that great here, and some of the wrestlers have the wrong graphics when they enter. The sound isn’t great either. It all looks very low rent, which would be fine for a local promotion doing their thing on a small TV network, but when you compare how this show looks to when ECW managed to make the ECW Arena look borderline presentable for Barely Legal, it’s a striking difference. If you’re going to charge people actual money to watch your show then it’s important that your show doesn’t look and sound like crud, and that you can at least get the match graphics correct. They are at least shooting it in a way in order to make the building look reasonably full, which helps with perception somewhat.

Quarter 1

Price and Putski start us out, and Price is taking some comical over the top bumps that would even make Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 2005 say “alright, steady on”. It’s watchable though at least. Hawk gets in next, and wrestles very similarly to how he would 10 years later in WWE by just clobbering everyone he faces with punches and kicks. Putski responds with standard babyface shine stuff such as hip tosses and body slams, and then the babyfaces make some quick tags in order to work over Hawk and Price, doing the old “hold your opponent in a wristlock so that your partner can come off the ropes with an axe handle” spot.

I like how they’ve essentially colour coded each side here, with the Bodyguards wearing white whilst the Bandits wear black, just in case anyone wasn’t sure who the Faces and Heels were. It can be left in no doubt just from looking at what attire the wrestlers are wearing. The actual wrestling thus far hasn’t been too bad. It hasn’t been especially good either, but people are bumping and feeding properly and everyone is working their respective roles correctly, so it hasn’t been a disaster. The crowd actually seems quite into the action as well, which usually enhances the enjoyment factor of a match regardless of the actual aptitude of the wrestlers within it.

The audio seems out of sync at points in comparison to the action in the ring, but that might be because of the recording as opposed to the show itself, so I’ll be lenient for the time being. Shawn Summers, despite being no bigger than Chip or Hawk, seems to think he’s a Road Warrior of some kind because he refuses to bump for both a dropkick and a clothesline at certain points, even though it’s Marc Valiant who is delivering the moves and he looks plenty big enough to be bumping Summers around. Porteau also doesn’t seem that interested selling much either. Price drops a leg on Valiant and makes the cover, but the Quarter runs out and we end things a 0-0 with 3 more Quarters to go

End of Quarter 1
Current Scores: Bodyguards 0-0 Bandits, Dusseldorf Dwarves 3-1 Scunthorpe Porkers, Fishguard Sharks 7-0 Unfortunate and Diamonds

Boom Boom Minaldi continues to be AWFUL on commentary during the break in play, sounding like he’s got 2 thirds of a baked potato in his mouth as he stumbles over everything he’s trying to say. I’m not going to make a punch drunk joke, because apparently he’s a boxer and that might actually be what’s causing him to be so horrifically bad at this, but how someone allowed him on the commentary desk after he was so bad doing pre-taped interviews is beyond me. Angel of Death is actually quite good, with a smooth Barry White style voice going on, although he’s a certain few octaves higher than Mr. White.

Quarter 2

Valiant is still hurting following the end of Quarter 1, so Price continues to work him over, with Valiant bumping and feeding reasonably well for him. Price ends up soup canning Valiant to the floor, leading to the rest of the Bandits beating Valiant up until the referee comes over to stop it. Road Warrior Pug continues to refuse to sell anything, even though Valiant is just as muscular as him and even looks slightly taller. Valiant tries to hip toss Hawk at one stage and Hawk doesn’t get the timing right, so Valiant switches to a Fujiwara Arm Bar. That was pretty slick, and you’d probably think it was the planned spot all along if you didn’t know what to look for.

Valiant has been in there for a while now and he could really do with making a tag, as he’s blowing out his arse. I don’t blame him though, as this match has been mostly all action and his opponents have been tagging out constantly whilst he’s been stuck in there. Road Warrior Porteau tags back in, and still seemingly has no interest in selling anything, although he does bump and feed nicely for Vegas’ hot tag, only to then quickly pop up and tag out after taking a series of quick fire bumps. Firebreaker Chip is supposedly the Champion of CWA. I mean, he looks the part, but making a WCW lower mid-carder hold your top belt probably isn’t the best look. At least someone like Hawk didn’t have that sort of stink on him even though he hadn’t had the same level of “exposure” that Chip benefited from.

We finally get to see Minaldi get in there to do a bit with Falcone, and he looks greener than a considerably less accurate Koopa shell. Hawk decides to just get in there and clobber Minaldi with stomps as that doesn’t require Minaldi to actually do any wrestling. Michaels quickly tags in to replace Minaldi, after a big load of nothing whilst Minaldi was in there. Michaels and Chip do a quick bit, with Chip playing possum with a fake knee injury following a leapfrog before catching Michaels with an inside cradle to get our first pin fall of the evening.

Bodyguards 0-7 Bandits – Pin Fall (Chip over Michaels with an inside cradle)

The Bandits work over Michaels for the remainder of the round, but they can’t keep him down for another three and we go into half time with the match being a one score game. We get an Alcatraz music video during the interval, followed by an interview with a former prisoner. What this is doing on a wrestling show I can’t tell you, but they seemed to think it was important to include it. Seeing as the whole point of this show is that it’s built around a supposed Football match, rather than spending time interviewing ex-cons shouldn’t they be interviewing, oh I don’t know, FOOTBALLERS?!?!

End of Quarter 2
Current Scores: Bodyguards 0-7 Bandits, Cheesy Wombats 1-0 Carpenter and Punchly, Stockport County 0-0 Two Headed Sex Beasts, Dorset Washboards 5-3 Radish Vienna

Quarter 3

No sooner has the Quarter started then the Bodyguards are back in it, as Michaels rolls through a Chip cross body and gets the three to tie us up.

Bodyguards 7-7 Bandits – Pin Fall (Michaels over Chip with a roll through on a cross body)

Vegas and Summers go at it, with Hawk illegally breaking up a pin and that gives The Bodyguards an extra point

Bodyguards 8-7 Bandits – DQ

We get another DQ straight after when Valiant comes into the ring to attack Summers, and they say it’s a top rope violation, but honestly I’ve rewound that multiple times and I have no idea when Summers was supposed to have been thrown over the top, as it looked like Valiant just came in and attacked him. Either the production team managed to edit out the spot, or it didn’t happen and they’re just making it up as they go along.

Bodyguards 8-10 Bandits – Over the Top DQ?

Cox gets in a bit for The Bodyguards, and he’s noticeably better than some of his team mates and the action picks up a bit when he’s in as a result. Some of the bumps for stuff like clotheslines have been pretty awful in this one though, which makes me think that maybe the ring was like concrete and the wrestlers just wanted to avoid taking flat back bump in it?. Putski sends Chip over the top rope at one stage, but it’s one of those bogus “the momentum took the opponent over, so it doesn’t count as throwing” moments, so it’s not a DQ. If you send someone over then it should be a DQ regardless I think. Chip and Putski go at it next, with Akbar hitting Putski with his cane, which somehow leads to both teams getting 3 points, as this match is officially going off the deep end.

Bodyguards 11-13 Bandits – Double DQ?

Seriously, how on Earth did the Bandits get a point there? Unless they counted that Putski over the top DQ from earlier? Apparently the ring announcer got it wrong and it’s actually 11-10 after all, although as I say that the Bodyguards do something to draw an infraction and now the score is level.

Bodyguards 11-11 Bandits – DQ

Hawk and Cox do a bit together, and it’s pretty watchable, with Hawk taking Cox’s head off with a Lariat, leading to Porteau coming in to make the pin for three

Bodyguards 11-18 Bandits – Pin Fall (John Hawk Lariat to Steve Cox followed by Alex Porteau pin)

The crowd is nowhere near as into this now as they were at the start, with the falls getting nowhere close to the same reactions. Honestly I think they should have just done an Iron Man match with Quarters, as the silly stuff with the DQ’s and the ring announcer getting the scores wrong has taken the crowd out of it a bit. The Quarter ends with no further scores.

End of Quarter 3
Current Scores: Bodyguards 11-18 Bandits, San Diego Suave 12-2 Dutch Dentists, Melbourne Chazwozza’s 3-2 Bacon Fries, Montreal Glee Club 6-2 Exeter Pensioners

Quarter 4

Angel of Death is annoyed at the suggestion they might bleep him if he swears here, whilst Price and Putski go at it on the mat. Price has a pretty impressive physique here, and still has some hair as well. My memory of Price in ECW was that he was bald and wrestling in a singlet because he wasn’t in the best cosmetic shape, so I guess the road owned him? It’s interesting that I immediately think of his ECW work first whenever I hear his name, when he was only really passing through in the grand scheme of things. Still, I’m an ECW fan who never really watched Global, so I guess it makes sense in that regard.

The crowd is getting pretty quiet now in all honesty, which is a shame as they were hot when the match first started, but as the bout has worn on they’ve gotten progressively less invested, which is not what you want from a match like this. The wrestling itself hasn’t been THAT bad in all honesty. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not been especially good either, but the majority of these wrestlers can be trusted to go in and at least have something bordering on a competent wrestling match. If they’d just taken these 12 wrestlers and put them in various combinations to put a 4-5 match card together, then it probably would have been a somewhat watchable event. Not pay per view worthy, but it might have been okay for free local TV.

We get some infractions from both sides due to folk interfering in front of the ref, which leaves the bout at a one score game as we enter the final 7-8 minutes of the fourth Quarter. They never really good into much detail as to WHY the ref is calling for these things, the score just changes at points.

Bodyguards 12-19 Bandits – DQ’s from each side

Chip tries to choke out Steve Cox, with Chip throwing Cox over the top rope to the floor at one stage when the ref isn’t looking, which should have been 3 points to The Bodyguards. The five minute call gets nary a peep from the crowd, which is really alarming as you’d be hoping the crowd would be freaking out knowing that the Bodyguards are 7 points down with so little time left, but instead they don’t seem to care. Dom Minaldi must be one of the worst wrestlers ever or he’s legitimately injured, as he came in briefly for a bit, was awful, and we’ve not seen him since. The crowd finally wakes up when Hawk accidentally Lariats Porteau and that allows Cox to get the pin to tie it up.

Bodyguards 19-19 Bandits – Pin Fall (Hawk accidentally Lariats his own partner and Cox gets the pin)

Annoyingly, Porteau is up mere seconds later to get some heat on Cox because the rules of the match require him to still be legal, which kind of takes a dump on Hawk’s finisher. The crowd finally starts making a bit of a noise now that we’re entering the final 2 minutes, so they’ve won them back over somewhat. Into the final 60 seconds we have 15 minutes of pay per view time left, which makes me think that we’re going into sudden death, and indeed that is the case, as Putski gets the Polish Hammer on Price, but the time runs out. Sadly they got the timing off with that, as the idea was that the clock was supposed to run out as Putski had it won, but he covered Price too soon so Price had to kick out and then the clock ran down a few seconds later.

End of Quarter 4
Current Scores: Bodyguards 19-19 Bandits, Arson Athletic 3-8 Royal Butt-Plug, Pepperidge Farm 0-0 Sean Waltman’s Dungarees, Britvic Cordials 7-7 Mancheliscestertonvillapool

Dom Minaldi finally gets in there again after being out of the match for ages,, but he’s more interested in going after Akbar’s hired muscle Hassan, which somehow isn’t a DQ, because reasons. Price tries to bodyslam Minaldi, but one of the blander Bodyguards dropkicks Minaldi onto Price and that’s enough for three.

WINNERS: THE BODYGUARDS (27-20)
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: The actual wrestling here ranged from awful to serviceable depending on who was in the ring, with Minaldi in particular being awful, whilst Porteau and Summers seemed determined to wrestle like giant powerhouses at points despite being the same size or smaller with the babyface team. Hawk and Price were decent enough for their respective experience levels, and I generally find Steve Cox to be an okay wrestler whenever I see him work, so he was fine anchoring his side, with High Voltage and Valiant being average but not bad. Honestly I just think the general concept of the match didn’t work and it would have been better to do just a normal pay per view of some kind. All the production snafus and people losing track of what the score was didn’t help either, and it certainly seemed to confuse not just me, but the crowd at times as well, when both teams would be just awarded points for some kind of infraction that usually wasn’t explained

Doyle King interviews Dom Minaldi, who puts over how painful wrestling is, which puts wrestling over somewhat at least.

General Akbar is not happy, thinking the officiating was biased and cost his team the match.

Hassan, Akbar’s hired muscle, saying he didn’t like how the Bodyguards were treating him. This is one of the worst promo segments I’ve ever seen, with Hassan breaking character at the end, meaning that Maffew needs to cue up “Beat It”

Apparently The Bodyguards will meet The Navy Seals in the next round, whilst The Bandits will have to survive an elimination playoff against The Quakers. I might have made that second one up…

Is It Really A Stinker?

The actual wrestling match started out looking like it wouldn’t be too bad, but it ended up unravelling to a certain degree. CWA looked to have a pretty by-the-numbers and generic roster for the most part, but they probably could have put on a watchable 90-120 minute long wrestling show if they’d booked the 12 wrestlers they had in a proper 4-5 match card. Some of the wrestlers were actually decent, with only really Dom Minaldi being what I would describe bad, and that looked to be because he wasn’t actually a wrestler and they just threw him in there in order to fill out The Bodyguard side.

The show itself was bad overall, with just the one match and the rest of the event being padded out with awful interviews and an hilariously bad music videos. The production was really bad as well, with some horrid camera cuts, to the point that some spots and decisions were being missed entirely. The commentary was pretty bad as well, although I got a kick out of Angel of Death for some reason, possibly down to him having one of the coolest voices I’ve ever heard from a wrestling commentator. Boom Boom Minaldi’s commentary was bordering on becoming classified as a war crime the longer it went on for though.

I find that if you’re starting to resent actually watching the show after a certain point, then that makes the show you’re watching pretty stinky, so I’m happy to call Bodyguards Vs Bandits a Stinker. If they ever bothered filming Bodyguards Vs Navy Seals, then I’m going to tell you all right now that I WONT be watching it!

Final Rating – Stinker