The Fan-Cam Files: WWF @ Cornwall, Ontario – 10.02.1994

We’re in Cornwall, Ontario, home of Cornwall Aces of the AHL and… well, not much else. It’s a 40,000+ population area according to more recent census reports (so you can likely knock it down a little bit for mid 90’s estimations), situated where Ontario, Quebec, and New York state converge. The building seated roughly 4,000 people in 1994 (renovations expanded it to 5,000 in the early 2000’s), and if the numbers are accurate, this was a mostly capacity crowd for a matinee. It’s also the only listed card for Cornwall in 1994, and the WWF wouldn’t return until the following September.

For the curious, the WWF ran a show at the Palace in Auburn Hills, MI, drawing a reported 2,500 fans (the building was home of the Detroit Pistons and hosted SummerSlam 1993 with 14,000 in attendance on the night). Yes, CORNWALL drew a better number than The Palace, but likely still came in second as far as gate goes for obvious reasons. The Palace were treated to this lineup (part of the Hart Attack Tour): The Bushwhackers def. Well Dunn, Adam Bomb pinned Johnny Polo (subbing for Bam Bam Bigelow), Mabel pinned Kwang, Jeff Jarrett def. Sparky Plugg, Shawn Michaels and Diesel retained the Tag Titles over Fatu and Sionne, Alundra Blayze retained the Women’s Title against Bull Nakano, Bret Hart retained the WWF Title against Jim Neidhart, and The Undertaker def. Yokozuna in a Casket Match. Yes, THAT LINEUP DREW 2,500!

Opening Match: P.J. Walker vs. Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz:
Now THIS is what I call a house show opening match from a bygone era. P.J. Walker is your typical enhancement talent of the time, nothing that particularly stands out, but he DOES have a cheap victory over Irwin R. Schyster thanks to a distraction from Razor Ramon, so that’s something. Walker was signed to a contract around this time, and would be repackaged as the Portuguese Man O’War Aldo Montoya (with his major claim to fame being a mask that was mocked as a jock-strap). As for his opponent… Do I have enough time for this one? Excuse me… *sips a bottle of Orange Prime*

The Major League Baseball Players Association strike of 1994 wiped out the last month of the regular season, as well as the postseason, meaning the World Series would not take place for the first time since 1904 (and to date is the last time such an incident occurred). The WWF began broadcasting ads about how their season never ends (which of course is hilarious to say when you don’t have a union, but that’s a topic for another day), and coincidentally, a new wrestler was revealed: Abe “Knuckleball” Schwartz. Vignettes were shown for a few weeks of him participating in baseball activities like batting practice, presented in black-and-white to give it some kind of old-fashioned feel. Fans who stuck around through 1993 might remember seeing the same character appear one time on TV, as part of the Intercontinental Title Battle Royal, but there he was simply known as “The M.V.P.” Some suggest the name was “Most Violent Player”, but the name was never mentioned by Vince McMahon or Bobby Heenan, and perhaps was a name used for dark matches at TV tapings around the same time.

ANYWAY… under the baseball face-paint is our old friend Steve Lombardi, best known as The Brooklyn Brawler. After a handful of squash matches, Abe would start appearing in the crowd, having gone on strike (complete with picket signs), and that would be the end of the character, no doubt having tickled Vince McMahon’s funny bone once or twice before becoming a bore and dropped because it;s STEVE LOMBARDI and the gimmick had failure written all over it from the second we saw the geek in the vignettes. Did I mention his theme music was “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”? HAR-F’N-HAR. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go into such detail, but how often is ABE SCHWARTZ appearing in anything I cover? OK, time for the match…

Walker comes out to CRANK IT UP. OH MY GOD, THAT THEME LIVES ON! 5-seconds into the match, one guy can be heard hollering “boring”, much to the amusement of the party recording the footage. Whip to the ropes, Abe slides between Walker’s legs and signals safe. OK, that popped me, because it’s so ridiculous. They do the international and Abe yanks the hair to cut off Walker’s momentum. After some chain work, Walker pulls off the hip toss, scoop slam and dropkick combo. Abe powders out, possibly looking for some Big League Chew. Abe gets back into the character, belly-bumping PJ like he’s an Umpire. Schwartz takes control with a swinging neck breaker and sends Walker over the top rope with a clothesline. Back inside, a wind-up punch delivers a two-count. We kill time with a pair of-chinlocks, with Schwartz getting the occasional near-fall peppered in between. Walker finally makes the big comeback after a THIRD chin-lock. Schwartz counters the mounted corner punches with an inverted atomic drop and small package for two. Walker ducks a clothesline and pulls out the O’Connor Roll, but Abe reverses and grabs the tights to get the three at 11:02. This was your standard cookie-cutter prelim match that Steve Lombardi has done for a decade at this point. I think they went to the well one time too much with the chin-lock, but otherwise, this was perfectly fine and at times amusing. **

Doink the Clown (w/ Dink) vs. Nikolai Volkoff:
Wow, I was given an Abe Knuckleball Schwartz appearance, and now I get the New Generation return of Nikolai Volkoff! The blessings are plentiful this evening! Alright, time for more story time: Nikolai Volkoff started popping up as an audience member in the early months of 1994 (wearing his one and only suit). Eventually it was revealed he had fallen on hard times (but could afford front row seats) and Ted Dibiase jumped at the opportunity to give him work, embarrassing him on an edition of The King’s Court where he was given new gear with cent signs on them (hence the nickname Nickel and Dime Volkoff) and “Property of the Million Dollar Man” on his rear-end. I’m not going to lie… I was 9-years old at the time and was laughing along with Dibiase and Lawler. The natural story is Volkoff eventually turns on the boss who mistreats him, but after a few weeks, he’s just a normal heel without any hesitation (and is then taken off TV because it’s Volkoff and he’s washed). Doink is doing a bunch of TV stuff with Jerry Lawler, including the introduction of a bunch of little people as more Doink doppelgangers and little Princes for the King. After Survivor Series, that’s it for him in a meaningful role on TV.

Lockup and Volkoff with a knee to the chest, followed by some soft clubbing blows. Doink with some comedy nonsense hiding behind Volkoff’s back and angering him enough to take a bump for a drop toe hold. Doink works the arm. Volkoff makes it to the ropes, but Dink bites his hand in clear view of the referee and the ref doesn’t even bother to force the break! Volkoff counters a back body-drop and throws more strikes softer than baby poop. Doink avoids a knee drop and “connects” with a dropkick. Whip to the corner, Volkoff misses a charge, and Doink rolls him up for three at 4:02. Being short is for the best, because Nikolai had NOTHING to offer in 1994. Everything he did looked like it couldn’t damage a mosquito, and his bumping is and always has been atrocious. Doink looked fine doing the bare minimum of pro wrestling holds. ½*

Duke “The Dumpster” Droese vs. Tatanka:
Welcome to the era of heel Tatanka. After weeks of accusations thrown at Lex Luger for selling out to Ted Dibiase, it was Tatanka who sold out, defeated Luger in an underwhelming 6-minute match, and laid a beating on him to really show how much of a scrub Lex Luger turned into. In some of his first appearances after the turn, Tatanka began showing up in nice suits and looking like how most people would expect of someone joining Dibiase for a big payday… and then that was abandoned and he’s wrestling in the same old gear (eventually switching it to darker colors, but come on…). Duke Droese is the poster boy of the occupational gimmicks of the New Generation (and who doesn’t love the myth that he was hired solely for the reason he was the 500th ranked person in the PWI 500). Other than a short angle with Jerry Lawler, Droese is nothing more than enhancement talent through the rest of 1994 and all of 1995.

Tatanka is still using his own theme music. I don’t know the exact date he started coming out exclusively to Dibiase’s, but I always assumed it wasn’t long after SummerSlam. He attacks from behind with chops. Duke ducks a clothesline, hits a shoulder block, and sends Tatanka to the floor with a dropkick. Welcome to Heel Tatanka hell, as he wanders around for a while and Duke is just standing there. Tatanka calls for a test-of-strength and we milk this for a while too. Sure enough Tatanka lands a boot to the body and throws more chops. Duke cuts him off and works the arm. He hits some clotheslines, but a third attempt sees him getting tossed over the ropes. Crowd musters a small “Dumpster!” chant as Tatanka chokes. Those poor bastards. We get our first chin-lock, with Duke doing the escape, only to get cut off. Tatanka with a suplex for a two-count, then back to the chin-lock. This one lasts a while. Droese teases escape but is thrown down. Why are you taking 4 or 5 bumps just to stay in a chin-lock? Tatanka just holds this one FOR-EV-ER. Tatanka cuts off the comeback, but Duke finally gets it going, planting Tatanka with a slam and catching him off the ropes with a powerslam. “It’s time to take out the trash!” Yup. Tatanka cuts him off, AGAIN. Duke misses a blind body press out of the corner and the End of the Trail finishes at 14:19. When the topic of heel Tatanka comes up, I always mention how lazy his matches are, and his idea of heel heat is doing 5-minute chin-locks. Sure enough, that’s what he brought here. Stalling and long rest-holds. Not working the crowd, not doing anything interesting, just the most basic bottom of the barrel “heel” shtick you can think of without putting in any effort. *

The Smoking Gunns vs. The Heavenly Bodies:
Thank God, we’re finally getting a match that might actually be better than “OK.” AND WE’VE GOT A TV STORYLINE TO GO WITH THIS ONE! There was a scheduled match between the teams for Superstars, but shenanigans took place and the Heavenly Bodies destroyed the Gunn’s cowboy hats. As retaliation, the Gunns tore the foam wings off the Heavenly Bodies’ robes. Cornette tells a story that they did this without approval because they hated the wings, but this is around the time they introduced new gear after coming on board full time after spending time in late ‘93/early ‘94 as borrowed talent from Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

Billy and Prichard start. Dr. Tom goes for a cheap shot but Billy blocks and responds with a right hand. They do it again with the same result and soon we’ve got Bart and Del Ray in the action, and it’s the Gunns standing tall when the dust settles. Have I ever mentioned that Billy and Bart are deceptively tall? The Gunns take turns working the arm of both Prichard and Del Ray. At one point, Bart messes with Prichard’s hair after the 4th or 5th time of Prichard playing with it himself. To be fair, he has gorgeous hair. Billy and Bart do the illegal switch without justification. BOO THESE MEN! Billy sends Prichard to the ropes and meets him in the middle with a bulldog for two. The Bodies eventually get the heat on Bart, nearly TEN MINUTES IN. Bart gets dumped and worked over on the floor while Del Ray distracts the referee.

Back inside, Del Ray with a slam and assists Prichard with a leg drop for a two-count. Double-team effort in the corner and Del Ray with a bombs away from the top rope. Bart fights to his corner, but the referee misses the tag. This allows the Bodies to hit Bart with a double boot and snap mare combo for a near-fall. Bart surprises Prichard with a dropkick and wins the button-mashing lockup battle to bust out a suplex. Del Ray cuts off the tag and dances to the delight of one very vocal fan. Crisscross and they smack heads, setting up the hot tag for Billy. He runs wild as expected and clears Del Ray. He hoists Prichard onto his shoulders and Bart comes off the top for the big boom drop. Del Ray saves and hits a Super-Kick for two (illegally taking Prichard’s place in the ring, but the referee almost blew the spot looking at them too soon). Billy gets the blind tag and he hits a flying clothesline for the three-count at 15:53. With the under-card presented, you knew someone was going to do the heavy lifting, and these teams went a little longer than they probably should. After countless matches with the Headshrinkers, now the Gunns get a new regular dance partner and there’s fewer flashy spots that have been memorized through repetition. The match is a perfectly fine example of tag team wrestling, neither a bad or particularly good match, but it gets the job done. **½

WWF Intercontinental Championship Match: Razor Ramon (c) vs. Pierre:
Yup. You read that correctly. If you’re an American viewer and followed the product closely, the Quebecers finished up as a team in the dates leading up to the King of the Ring with Jacques Rougeau announcing his retirement and building up to a final match in the Fall. Pierre stuck around for a few weeks but was soon gone from TV and wouldn’t return until the calendar flips to 1995 and Jean-Pierre Lafitte is introduced. Despite that, Pierre was announced for several appearances in the New York market through the remainder of 1994. Definitely a weird time. Now if you were in the Montreal market, you probably wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong, since he was still present on matches taped exclusively for that audience in the build to the Jacques Rougeau retirement show.

Pierre is still wearing the Quebecer pants but is sporting a red singlet instead of the repurposed Mountie shirt. Razor and Pierre with a lot of pantomiming to kick things off. Pierre pokes Razor a bunch and gets a toothpick to the face. They take turns working the arm, with Pierre holding onto a hammer-lock for a very long time. Razor eventually escapes, building momentum and sending Pierre through the ropes. There’s an edit in the footage (i couldn’t make it out, but sounded like a battery issue) and Pierre is in control of a chin-lock. Razor repeatedly fights to his feet but is brought down with a yank of the hair. Razor finally has enough and returns the favor, getting chewed out by the referee for it. Pierre quickly regains control and sits across the back with another chin-lock. Razor with more failed comeback attempts as the crowd loses interest. Ramon surprises Pierre with a chokeslam and makes the slow cover for a near-fall. A clothesline sends Pierre over the top rope and Ramon follows for a ringside brawl. Ramon ends up incapacitated and PIERRE wins by Count-Out at 13:46! Pierre demands the house mic, calling Ramon a chicken. They brawl for about 30-seconds until Ramon hits the Razor’s Edge. For a second I thought they were going for the match restart gimmick Ramon and Double J were doing a lot. This was a very dull match with tons of resting to kill time. As far as technique, everything looked good, it was just uninteresting to watch. *½

The 1-2-3 Kid vs. “The King of Harts” Owen Hart:
If this is the last match of the card, would you consider this one the Main Event, or Ramon vs. Pierre for the Intercontinental Title? After spending a good chunk of the Spring and Summer challenging his brother Bret for the WWF Championship, Owen is in a weird limbo now with Jim Neidhart getting a shot around the horn but Owen still has some connection to his Brother due to the angle involving Mr. Bob Backlund. The Kid, while a talented and exciting wrestler, never seems to be factored into any meaningful rivalries, and is mostly just an enhancement guy who is given a win here and there to remind us that he’s a spunky underdog who you can’t sleep on.

The crowd taunts Owen with a “We Want Bret” chant. Lockup and they trade wrist-locks, with both men doing their nip up counter. We get more of the same until Owen grabs the hair to take control. Feels like every match tonight had the heel doing an extended rest by using hair pulls to maintain the advantage. Kid escapes and slaps on a side headlock. Owen with the head-scissors counter. Kid rolls over into a cover but Owen bridges out and takes him over with a back-slide for two. Owen takes control again, punishing the midsection with headbutts and shoulder thrusts. Kid counters a third headbutt with a sunset flip. Owen lights Kid up with forearm uppercuts but misses a charge to the corner. Kid with the educated feet, whip across the ring and a monkey flip for two. Whip and jumping heel kick for two. Owen reverses another whip and hits the overhead belly-to-belly suplex… for three at 7:24. Well, that was sudden. This felt like the first half of a good 12-14 minute match, but they went home immediately. We’ve seen in the past they can put on a spectacular performance in under 5-minutes, but this wasn’t close to that level. **¼

Strength of Card: The biggest stars on the card are Razor Ramon and Owen Hart, one facing an opponent who wasn’t featured on American TV and the other stuck in limbo as he’s moving away from the main event scene. There’s only one match out of the six featured that has a TV storyline attached to it. With the Auburn Hills show loaded up (and still not drawing well), this crew was left to suffer, and I can’t imagine it being much worse. Grade: D+

Highs: The WWF came to Cornwall, Ontario!

Lows: Lots of disappointment. Razor Ramon’s house show formula, unless he feels motivated, seems to be selling for 14-minutes and going home with a terrible finish. The under-card is pretty dire, with Tatanka doing his dog sh*t heel shtick and killing the crowd against one of the New Generation’s typical occupational gimmick, not to mention dusting off a 55-year old Nikolai Volkoff.

The Rest: Owen vs The Kid and the Gunns vs Heavenly Bodies are both perfectly fine matches, but when that’s the best on the card, you’ve got a problem.

Final Thoughts: If I were paying to attend this card, I would’ve felt a bit ripped off. I can forgive the lack of stars, but you hope for the best of the situation and it just felt like a second-level effort from the people you could expect something decent out of. I’m not going to sit here and say “man, Doink vs Volkoff sucked!”, because that’s obvious, but Owen vs Kid, Gunns vs Heavenly Bodies, even Razor vs. Pierre… these all could’ve been better, and we’ve seen better from all of them. I’ve seen worse, but not much worse, and there’s no way I’d recommend checking this one out unless you’re like me and want to watch everything there is to watch. Grade: D-

As always, thank you for reading. I’m going to try and find something to bring me up from that let down of a show. Suggestions are always welcome, of course.