Demolition’s Debut (w/ Randy Colley as Smash) & Cena/Orton I (and other Dream Matches!)

Just AWFUL, haha.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time, I have even more “Guys Workshopping Their Gimmicks” stuff, as DEMOLITION makes their WWF debut and it’s the only two televised matches featuring RANDY COLLEY as Smash! This apparently never worked out, as fans recognized him as a Moondog (ie. a JTTS) and he was swapped out for new hire Barry Darsow, and that was that. Here they take on what I think are higher-end jobbers Jerry Allen & Sivi Afi.

Keeping up with that theme, let’s check out some Ohio Valley Wrestling!! WWF’s Developmental Promotion has a bunch of future main eventers in it- the Tag Champions Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin go up against the heels from last week’s column, Smooth Johnny Spade & Sly Scraper (Sylvester Terkay as a Bruiser Brody knockoff)! Then it’s the first ever JOHN CENA/RANDY ORTON match, as Orton takes on “The Prototype” in two separate matches! More of Danny Doring & Roadkill, as ECW’s rising midcarders try to take the ECW Tag Team Titles from the FBI (Guido & Mamaluke) in Mississauga, Ontario! Then one last Bilvis Wesley match as he takes on Steve Corino in the dying days of ECW!

DEMOLITION (Ax & Smash, w/ Johnny V) vs. SALVATORE BELLOMO & MARIO MANCINI:
(WWF Superstars, 1/17/87)
* Yes, someone uploaded the only two televised matches of MOONDOG REX “Smash”, back when the Demos were managed by Johnny V and had mostly black facepaint. Really hideous crap, too- it’s just sludgly black paint with tiny bits of other colors. Ax has YELLOW PAINT over one side of his mouth and Smash has a yellow forehead with blue hair. The story I always heard is that Rex (Randy Colley) was too recognizable as an ex-JTTS loser, and so got dropped. The Jobbers look HILARIOUS- Bellomo has a goofy red striped singlet on and a really broad torso while Mancini is just flabby and in red trunks.

Ax, nowhere near as roided as he’d later become, hammers the shit out of Bellomo and slams him, bringing in Smash for some right hands. Back to Ax, who bounces Bellomo around (great “stiff-body” bumps by Bellomo, looking helpless) but lets him tag out. Mancini fares no better, Smash skooshing his face into the mat repeatedly. We get an overdub by Finkel to hype things AND a Johnny V inset interview as it’s just an aimless brawl, but Mancini gets dumped so Ax can slam him on the floor. Smash with a double-axehandle and they debut Demolition Decaptiation to win at (3:46).

Rating: 1/2* (more or less an effective squash- just pummeling two guys, fighting dirty a bit, then cheating. 2/5 on the Squash Scale)

GOD. It’s like… someone thought “KISS” would work, but figured it should be black to be less of a copy. Then added primary colors for all the makeup not realizing how shitty that would look.

DEMOLITION (Ax & Smash, w/ Johnny V) vs. JERRY ALLEN & SIVI AFI:
(WWF Wrestling Challenge, 1/25/87)
* The second match, with Monsoon & Bobby Heenan having to act like they don’t know either man! The jobbers here are MASSIVELY roided- only in the WWF would you see two giant roid-monsters in that kind of a role. Allen is tall and bulging all over, in blue trunks, while Afi is short and in black. Ax has RED HAIR of all things and Smash’s is kind of green.

when you have the crew put on makeup without doing a camera test first.

Ax wins an International on Allen and he & Smash tee off on him with overhands, and there’s a weird jobber tag where Allen eats a shot and stumbles over to Afi for the tag while Ax is like “yeah whatever”. Heenan: “You know Sivi Afi’s no midget but he’s DWARFED by these guys”, and then they both the fuck out of a sunset flip, Smash going diagonally. Afi keeps trying to get all his shit in, but Smash ignores him and dumps they guy into the eager arms of Ax, who whips him into the guardrail. Allen gest a tag but charges into the post. Smash hits a shitty double-axehandle and Ax comes in with Demolition Decapitation for the pin at (2:49), Heenan making a big deal out of how emotionless Ax seems (“What a cruel man!”).

Watching early forms of gimmicks is so fascinating to me- the way they must be workshopping all this stuff on the fly- Demolition swaps out a guy with Barry Darsow replacing Colley, changes the facepaint, adds theme music, drops Johnny V for Mr. Fuji, and goes from “emotionless bruisers” to “gleeful maniacs” who appear to enjoy inflicting pain. The makeup here is an atrocity- I bet you they didn’t want to copy the Road Warriors EXACTLY and so someone thought black would look cool, but then someone realized how shit that looks on TV (it hides facial expressions and drowns out all the other colors). They also figure out the red & green hair is too circus-y or something. Colley-Smash didn’t look THAT bad save that sunset flip spot (not sure whose fault that was) but didn’t look great- Darsow-Smash had a lot less experience but way more physical charisma. Colley is just… noticeably chubby and doesn’t have an intimidating powerhouse look. Eadie & Darsow tell the story of Colley being too recognizable to fans (apparently he got “MOOOOOOOOONDOG!” chants, but I never personally heard that here) and how Darsow fit the best of all the potential replacements. Colley & Eadie are said to have come up with the idea themselves, but Eadie said he “was gracious enough to step aside”). The match wasn’t terribly exciting- the Demos had weak brawling and mostly just did overhand clubbing with the trademark Jumping Axehandles or massacring dudes after lying them on the top rope.

Rating: 1/4* (pretty weak, uninteresting squash)

SOUTHERN TAG TEAM TITLES:
THE MINNESOTA STRETCHING CREW (Brock Lesnar & Shelton Benjamin) vs. SMOOTH & SLY (Smooth Johnny Spade & Sly Scraper):
(Ohio Valley Wrestling, April 14th 2001)
* Looking up more Spade content, I in fact see him AND Scraper in action, and it’s also got “OVW Brock”! Lesnar was of course the ultimate blue chipper prospect, but instead of a singles push, Cornette stuck him in a tag team with another collegiate wrestler and had them learn the ropes that way. The MSC are in matching maroon gear (the Minnesota University colors)- Shelton in shorts (man he ALWAYS wears those, huh?) and Brock a full-ass singlet, lol. I’m not sure why they’d have BROCK LESNAR looking as dorky as humanly possible, but he is green as grass. Scraper, aka Sylvester Terkay, is noticeably larger than Brock (but more of a beefy “Terry Gordy” type figure), and is in yellow trunks. Spade’s in white baggy pants this time.

Brock eats a knee from Scraper and immediately shows off for prospective WWF judges by working REALLY well in an International, rolling around perfectly and actually catching Scraper in the Scott Hall sack of shit slam. He tags out and Spade immediately runs into an overhead suplex, pinballing off Shelton and eating a spinebuster after a bit of an ugly runaround, him sorta getting in Shelton’s way (Shelton twice has to deadlift him with little help). Cornette again points out how Spade is no physical specimen but is dangerous “because of his evil mind (…) he’s the biggest smartass I’ve ever met in my life, and he makes people mad, and they make mistakes” to justify why such a shitty-looking guy is fighting swole freaks. Shelton hauls Spade up into a powerbomb position, stopping a rana counter with a Boston crab- Scraper runs in and facecrushes him to stop it. Scraper powers Shelton into a weird sit-out Dominator and hte heels double-team him for a bit. Spade hits a loose back elbow and Scraper gets a repeater ribbreaker. Spade goes up but gets spun into a slam. Spade can’t hold Shelton back as he makes the hot tag, but Lesnar merely back body drops Spade before Terkay puts on some brass knuckles and cracks him, drawing the DQ at (5:42). Shelton comes in and takes Scraper down, but Spade tackles him and they get run off by the officials before too much damage is done.

A pretty weak tag match- Spade now seems very loose and sloppy, being unable to jump up for moves by the big guys on a few occasions, and they don’t even do much heelish cheating or react that much to babyface comebacks. The Champs barely got to do anything, suggesting they’re so green they’re untrustworthy. Speaking of, Sly Scraper barely does anything either, and looks kind of like a lumbering ox out there.

Rating: *1/2 (not a great TV match)

RANDY ORTON vs. THE PROTOTYPE (w/ Kenny Bolin):
(Ohio Valley Wrestling, July 21st 2001)
* Recommended by Manjiimmortal is a pair of OVW matches starring future WWE main eventers! Can you imagine a time when Randy Orton and John Cena HADN’T faced each other on PPV so much that fans audibly groaned with disgust whenever it was announced? This is in fact their first-ever televised match. Here, Cena is “The Prototype”, even more bodybuilder-y than his WWE self, working for Bolin Services. Orton comes out to “Smack My Bitch Up” by the Prodigy. And man he looks YOUNG- I forgot how babyfaced he used to be. Cena’s so gaunt because of the roids that he already looks a bit aged. As someone who isn’t a fan of Randy’s stuff, I’m a bit curious about how his early work is, and what so amazed his coworkers (I remember Chris Benoit gushing about how good Orton was going to be at a Q&A in Edmonton). Orton’s in black shorts, Cena’s in black & green bisected ones.

Cornette uses this main event to hard-sell the upcoming show featuring Orton vs. “Rico the Role Model” (Constantino) with Bob Orton Jr. in Randy’s corner. And yeah, Orton indeed looks smooth as silk in the ring, if uh, un-snug. Like it has that ethereal “this is just a show” quality of zero impact to it as he hits a dropkick, kneelift & cross-body. A similar powerslam and punches wear down Prototype, but he comes back with a whip-reversal and punches of his own. Orton rolls across the ring off a corner-whip, and Cena hits a side slam & short-arm clothesline. Prototype throws some of the whiffiest chops ever (why is the camera so close, lol?). Some slow strikes set up two snap suplexes for two, but goes up and Orton superplexes him down. Some feather-light punches work over Cena and Orton hits an inverted atomic drop into a clothesline (nice move as Cena is out of position so Orton takes a sec to “sinch it up” before hitting him- he is VERY young to be instinctively doing stuff like that), and Orton gets a Full-Nelson Slam (probably his finisher), but Bolin throws powder (hitting the ref). Rico comes in to beat up Orton, but BOBBY EATON comes out and… is mis-timed because Rico took a bump as soon as he got in, so he has to pull him up for some punches. The ref nearly counts a pin on Randy but Eaton interferes and that’s a DQ at (6:30).

This was two dudes going out there and having a very smooth, pre-planned, low-impact match right out of training school, from the looks of things. Orton’s stuff was so ethereal it looked like he could have delivered his offense to a grandma and not hurt her, and you could put phonebooks in the space between their hands and bodies on the strikes. It was just very soft, but I can see the trainers salivating over it because it’s probably super easy to take and exactly what the office would be looking for at this point (nothing worse than an overly-snug rookie, lol), and they can generally learn to tighten it up a bit later. Fine for what it was, even with lots of “walk & brawl” stuff and very basic offense.

Rating: *1/2 (not great for like… WWF RAW, but perfectly fine for a couple of trainees told to go out there and have a Generic Match)

RANDY ORTON vs. THE PROTOTYPE (w/ Kenny Bolin):
(Ohio Valley Wrestling, 2001)
* Their third-ever match features Orton now coming out to “Immigrant Song”. He’s now been signed by the WWF and this is to be his last match. Cena’s now in green & white shorts.

Orton beats Prototype around the ring, looking more snug than the last match, doing some acrobatics like dodging around him and hitting a crossbody off the second rope. Bolin gets slugged, but Randy ends up taking the Eddie Bump and Bolin throws some shots at him on the floor, too. Orton gets chucked into the post, but catches Prototype with a DDT counter and Cornette has the temerity to call some loose brawling “like Ali & Frazier in the Garden”. Orton fires off clotheslines, a neckbreaker, and goes up, but misses the Midcarder Crossbody! Prototype quickly locks in the Protoplex (kind of a side suplexy thing with a side bearhug) and Orton does the job on the way out at (4:49).

Rating: *1/2 (About as good as the last one- Orton’s stuff appears tighter, but the match doesn’t go back and forth much and is just Randy doing some stuff, messing up and selling, then getting a comeback and promptly losing)

ECW TAG TEAM TITLES:
THE FULL BLOODED ITALIANS (Guido Maritano & Tony Mamaluke, w/ Sal E. Graziano) vs. DANNY DORING & ROADKILL:
(ECW on TNN, Sept. 22nd 2000)
* It’s more of Doring & Roadkill, and it’s their shot at the ECW Tag Team Titles! Which apparently were held by the FBI! I recall ECW on TNN had something like nine million FBI matches on it as they were reliable good hands and mega-bumpers who could make others look good. Both guys are TINY, especially for this era of wrestling (where Billy Gunn looked like an average-sized dude), but super-ripped and Mamaluke was a hell of a bumper and Guido good at mat wrestling. This is filmed in Canada, which is probably why Doring is in pink & black- to kiss up.

Doring & Guido go first, doing a lame sequence and THAT gives us our “Pause For Applause” spot, haha. oh yeah that clunky backslide into two missed clotheslines & dropkicks was REALLY impressive. Like okay it was FINE but come on. This is weirdly cut, trimming bits where guys get tagged and enter the ring- it seems like commentary is being cut, too. Mamaluke does a flipover bump off a shoulderblock from Roadkill, flopping all over the ring. We’re clipped to him being thrown into Sal’s arms, but he counters an “Amish whip” into a DDT out of being wheelbarrowed. Guido plays keepaway with him but we’re clipped to him having been “compacted” and a Vader Bomb elbow has him convulsing on the mat. They give him the Lancaster Lariat of Lust (hart attack) but Doring eats shit on a pescado and Roadkill gets Russian legsweeped off the middle rope when he stands on it to yell at Sal. We’re clipped to Mamaluke hurt and Sal beating on Roadkill and smashing him against the guardrail to an “ECW!” chant. A double-team fails when Mamaluke botches a springboard, Joey suggesting it’s because Roadkill hit the ropes at the same time on the other side (… maybe?)- Roadkill pounces for the pin but Guido rolls him over and tries it himself (lol okay so he’s in “if this had hit…” mode).

Guido/Doring go and Guido’s “Kiss of Death” (unprettier) is countered to the G-Spot Suite (the stroke), and Roadkill powerbombs Mamaluke, who bumps so hard he does the Jack-O’ Pose off of it (LOOK IT UP!), and Guido takes a side slam- Springboard Double Clothesline! Roadkill avalanches the FBI and Doring hits the Bareback (reverse stunner, except this releases for some vague ass-slam). The Buggy Bang (wheelbarrow slam/guillotine legdrop) hits! New Cha– oh, Sal pulled the ref out! Clipped to Roadkill selling, but he pulls out the Barn-Burner (tko) on Mamaluke and goes up- his signature bump sees Guido shove him off and Roadkill goes through a table on the floor like a sack of shit. Doring slides in with Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am (double-arm lift to ddt) but Sal slithers in with a big chokeslam and the 600-pounder hits a Vader Bomb and that’s three at (7:06)- the FBI steal one by being dastardly heels.

Damn, what an effort! I mean it had flaws and was clipped weirdly (skipping a lot of transitions and even selling) but really had them going all-out, momentum shifting constantly, and more. More importantly, the FBI weren’t just shoving in all their MOVEZ but acting like dickhead heels and flinging themselves around to put the other guys over. Dudes had to LOVE hitting them with shit and seeing the guys do cartoon backwards rolls and ending up upside-down. There was LOTS of good cheating here, making it look like the babyfaces just had a 3-on-2 hopeless fight the entire time, making their big comebacks and nearfalls more compelling, especially when they hit their finisher and STILL can’t get it done because Sal is a dirty rotten cheater. Like Doring is still floppy and stinks, but 3 of the 4 guys were bumping like crazy and going all-out.

Rating: **3/4 (a great FBI bumping showcase, and probably even better without the weird clipping)

STEVE CORINO (w/ Jack Victory & Dawn Marie) vs. BILVIS WESLEY (w/ The Prodigy):
(ECW Hardcore TV, Fall 2000):
* The Prodigette starts us off cutting a promo about how the ECW crowd are misogynistic virgins who couldn’t get a woman as beautiful as her (sadly she doesn’t say “TELL ME WHEN I’M TELLING LIES!”), Joey Styles checking his glasses (LOL TO ASSERT THAT SHE IS UGLY YOU SEE). She says all the other women in the back are whores who get on their knees to get their pushes, drawing out Dawn Marie, who doesn’t say much but “Everyone came here to see me!”. Prodigette misses a clothesline and Dawn hits her with a Stone Cold Stunner (not… the PRETTIEST one but she is wearing high heels). This brings out Prodigy & Bilvis, who corner her until Jack Victory & Steve Corino come out to beat them down. Jack & Prodigy somehow nearly fuck up a run-in spot but Corino brawls with Bilvis and the match is on.

Corino does the Flip Flop & Fly, Dusty-style (wait, when did Corino turn babyface?), adding a shot to the nuts, then hits a leg lariat (Tracy Smothers-style) for two. Bilvis rolls under a clothesline and superkicks the King of Old School down. This single move has Corino just totally messed up, but Bilvis only manages a punch before attempting a really slow lift, Corino sliding down to hit a neckbreaker out of an inverted DDT (the Old School Expulsion) for the pin at (1:05). haha, poor Bilvis- I remember him as a jobber but not on THIS level. The best part of this is checking out the Prodigette’s Wikipedia page, and HOLY SHIT this bleeds of stronger “They wrote their own Wikipedia page” than anyone short of Kizarney! It’s got FOUR PARAGRAPHS on her run in Women Superstars Uncensored! Four paragraphs on her “early career”! Random innocuous matches listed as Wikipedia-worthy! It’s tremendous!

Rating: 1/4* (inoffensive nothing, but it’s basically a dude cosplaying bigger stars fighting a jobber)