Diesel & The British Bulldog vs. Men on a Mission (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I pay tribute to the deceased Robert Horne, aka “Mo” of Men on a Mission, with a pair of matches. First, a RAW prelude to SummerSlam as King Mabel & Mo face Diesel and the British Bulldog! Finding that short, I also looked up one of their first televised matches, as the Harlem Knights, then a pair of unnamed beasts, team up with the Memphis territory’s heel Brian Christopher as they face a three-man squad of jobbers in an extended squash until JEFF JARRETT comes out and decides it’s a Handicap match!

Next up it’s some promos featuring Memphis local the Dream Machine, as he both chokes a giant chicken and throttles LANCE RUSSELL in some great “unhinged heel” territory TV. Then I go to Japan to find Stan Hansen & Bruiser Brody in 1982 AJPW as they face Harley Race and Dirty Dick Slater! Afterwards, it’s 1988 All Japan as rookie John Tenta teams up with Yoshiaki Yatsu against Abdullah the Butcher and jobber Greg Brown! And finally, some sass from Tony Khan, as he uploaded Tyler Black (Seth Rollins) vs. El Generico (Sami Zayn) from 2008 Ring of Honor to the ROH YouTube channel a month ago!

DIESEL & “THE BRITISH BULLDOG” DAVEY BOY SMITH vs. MEN ON A MISSION (King Mabel & Sir Mo):
(WWF RAW, Aug. 21st 1995)
* In honor of the late Mo, it’s one of his highest profile matches- a WWF RAW match against Diesel and still babyface Davey Boy. This was an impromptu match to build anticipation to SummerSlam, with Diesel/Mabel as co-headliners. The heel MOM are in purple, black & gold gear. Mabel talks tough but makes sure he’s not in there against Diesel to start.

Diesel first laughs at Mo’s challenge, then makes an intense face and just beats him down, realizing he shouldn’t be selling much for the barely-active Mo. He completely flattens him with two monster clotheslines in the corner, then spams knees to the gut (huffing and puffing his cheeks out- this is HARD work and he’s already blowing up) and teases the Jacknife. Bulldog’s over the top cheering on the apron could only be an incoming heel turn- it’s too obviously disingenuous. And sure enough, when Mabel comes into the ring to challenge Diesel, Bulldog nails Big Daddy Cool from behind to set up Mabel’s huge rock bottom. Mabel holds Diesel up so Bulldog can taunt and slap him as it’s a Disqualification (does that count when your partner turns on you, lol?) at (2:23). Bulldog hits the Running Powerslam, leading to Mabel’s monster Legdrop (Diesel doing his “snap his legs vertical” on the sell). Mabel drops a leg to Diesel’s neck and puts the WWF Championship (Vince even calls it a BELT!) on his shoulder. Bulldog laughs off Jerry Lawler’s attempts at getting some information as to why he turned (“No comment”). Not the worst way to build drama for the Title match, though- establish one of the company’s major stars as a new heel backing up the Monster Heel.

Okay so as a Mo tribute this was just him getting slaughtered with ease by Diesel and then a screwjob finish. I’ll have to find another one, haha. Not bad selling, though! He dropped like a shot to that forearm and flopped around well while eating all that corner offense.

Rating: 1/2* (Diesel put in some REALLY good work, probably realizing he only had 2 minutes of work to do)

BRIAN CHRISTOPHER & THE HARLEM KNIGHTS (Nelson & Bobby Knight) vs. THE COWBOY, TIM SADLER & ASH MASTERS:
(Memphis, 3/13/1993)
* Way back to Mabel & Mo’s early years, as the Harlem Knights show up in Memphis as Brian Christopher’s goons. Both are in red tops and black pants, Mabel (Nelson) already sporting the parachute style. Both have white mohawks and keep shouting “HEEEEUHHHH!!! HEEEEUHHHH!” over and over again, complaining about being in the opening match when they should be main eventers. The Cowboy’s a shrimpy, scrawny guy with Adam Cole’s physique and black tights, Sadler has a black & yellow singlet, & Masters has purple tights and looks like he’s actually seen a gym before.

Bobby absolutely trucks Sadler with a back elbow, driving him right into the ropes, and beats him up so Nelson can slam him (Sadler takes an ass bump and goes ramrod-straight whenever he lands- kinda weird). A double elbowdrop flattens him as Christopher just does (horrible) commentary, not feeling like he needs to get involved. Bobby slaps Sadler around and then do-si-dos Nelson into a monster avalanche, then a front suplex/2nd rope legdrop crushes him, but Bobby wants to punish them some more. Bobby dumps him and drags Cowboy into the ring, which counts as a tag I guess, and beats him down and hits a powerslam. Nelson comes in with his rolling kick (wow, he was doing that from the beginning!). He won’t go for the pin, and another assisted avalanche kills Cowboy dead, but Nelson climbs the ropes and THE MIDDLE ROPE SNAPS- holy shit that coulda gone all kinds of wrong. Poor Nelson SLAMS his knee into the mat with his ankle on the bottom rope, but thankfully recovers with a regular legdrop to Cowboy, and knows to grab the middle rope and swing it around in a rage to emphasize it to the fans.

Cowboy’s corpse is laid out next to Sadler’s, and now it’s Ash’s turn. The big Knights hit a double dropkick (!), then Nelson follows with a DDT and walks on top of Ash’s body to tag Bobby, who is noticeably lumbering around. He blown up? In comes Jeff Jarrett to hit the apron and taunt the Knights & Christopher while Ash can’t get anything going. Jarrett wants a hot tag (HOW IS THIS LEGAL? IS MEMPHIS COMPLETELY LAWLESS?!). This inspires Christopher to finally tag in and beat up Masters, taunting Jarrett, but goes for a Flying Fistdrop (having a ton of issues since the middle rope is just flopping around) and MISSES, leading to a Jarrett hot tag! He beats on all three guys until Nelson can get him from behind because he won’t take bumps off single punches, and Nelson clotheslines Ash over the top while Jarrett gets his ass kicked. They hold his arms and legs so Nelson can hit a Running Splash, bringing in Jerry Lawler & Danny Davis with sticks to chase them off at (11:58). And after they bravely fought a handicap match against four men!

Kind of a fun bit of nonsense, though it ran WAY long for a squash- ideally these should be almost a third the length, even as a 6-man, because even good workers might run outta shit to try against jobbers in 12, never mind gigantic green kids. The idea was great, though- beat down two jobbers in a row with the usual offense to set them up. Good recovery from the middle rope breaking- that had to fucking SUCK for Mabel’s knee to hit the ring in an unplanned bump, but he quickly got up and hit another legdrop and shoot the rope around to be like “SEE? NOT MY FAULT!”. The first two jobbers kinda sucked, but Masters was okay. He probably got exhausted having to bump 100 times, but he had some decent “flop over dead” energy and kept crossing his legs to emphasize being thrown into a pile. Christopher’s commentary is GOD-AWFUL, though- he keeps stepping over the actual commentators, and says nothing of value (“He don’t look like no cowboy! He’s not even an Indian- he’s just a squaw!”), and keeps screeching constantly.

Rating: * (drastically long for a squash, but a tolerable way to indicate how invincible these guys are- they even “saved” the Knights by having Christopher be the guy to cock it up by overdoing it)

I was told I simply MUST check out some Dream Machine content. This guy is apparently a total lunatic in real life but was a fixture in Memphis- a short, doughy guy with an inability to tan and a standard Heelish Mask. In this clip from Memphis wrestling, Lance Russell makes a joke about The Dream Machine resembling Alley Oop (the comic strip caveman), and is immediately ASSAULTED by the raving Dream Machine, who grabs him by the collar and slams him into the commentary desk and drops him to the ground. His manager Jimmy Hart desperately tries to pull him off as a Memphis official comes out to help, at which point the lunatic screams “LAWLER YOU WILL BE TARRED AND FEATHERED! You will be tarred and feathered! I’LL KILL YOU, LAWLER! Nobody makes me looks like an (indecipherable) fool!”, at which point the official fines him a thousand dollars (omg that’s three years pay in Memphis!). Russell is incensed after, doing a great job of selling the frustration in the moment, muttering “Idiot!” while he readjusts his shirt.

Another promo sees him describe Dutch Mantell, who must have recently betrayed Hart, as a chicken. He throws out a dozen one-liners “I’m fired up baby, and I’m wired tighter than as a Gibson guitar on a Friday night…”. Jimmy makes fun of Dutch phoning him to be begged to let back into the stable, and declares he can return to the Jimmy Hart Family if he wears “The Mark of a Chicken”, and brings out a guy in a Big Bird-esque chicken outfit with a comically long neck, then Machine throttles the squealing chicken-man to the ground while raving at him like he’s actually Dutch.

I can’t even find any wrestling match clips longer than two minutes, but I’m guessing the promos are the reason anyone would want to check this dude out, haha.

STAN HANSEN & BRUISER BRODY vs. HARLEY RACE & DICK SLATER:
(All Japan, 12/02/1982)
* It’s more of Race vs. Hansen/Brody! And Race’s partner is now Dick Slater, which means we can maybe see him eat a clean fall. It’s wild seeing dudes have to rush through the entire crowd amidst a sea of back-pats- I’m used to seeing Japanese fans acting as if touching the wrestlers is Very Bad. I’m told this changed at some point in the ’80s, and very rapidly, so I’m thinking it must have been a universal thing the fans were told to do. Japanese fans are typically easier to course-correct in that manner- a culture that puts immense value on Doing What You’re Told. Hansen & Brody are in black trunks, Harley in blue, and Slater in crimson red.

Brody throws Slater around and puts on a headlock, openly calling spots on close-up. An International leads to him just making noise, and that’s all it takes to send the fans into an ovation, haha. Hansen grinds the SHIT out of a headlock (you can tell guys like him & Jumbo are the best when they make even the most basic offense look like they’re trying to hurt the other guy). He gets slammed, slams Slater, then Brody gets his own, but Race comes in to work him over, but Brody is defiant and THEY slam each other. Hansen swallows up Race with chinlocks, but Race slams & elbows him. He gets countered and double-whipped into going into the post, leading to a 4-way fight on the floor- Brody goes into an upright table but Stan gets into the ring, only for Harley to goad him into flying back out for another fistfight. Stan ends up in a fan’s seat, and Brody bites Harley when they hit the ring, then leapfrogs & dropkicks him for a pop.

Slater comes off the top with an elbow smash, boxing combo and atomic drop but Brody won’t even go down, and Stan comes in for a backdrop & elbow. Slater keeps trying rollups, but Harley comes in for a big slugfest of stiff shots and headbutts, missing his falling headbutt and getting clobbered- a double back-elbow puts him down, but Brody’s Kneedrop fails- Slater breaks it up. Harley gets a big vertical suplex and falling headbutt (humorously giving up on a second-rope version due to distance/inability to get up that high), and Brody fights up with blood on both guys’ foreheads and it turns into a rapidfire slugfest, continuing when Hansen & Slater do it, Dirty Dick missing an elbow and getting floored by a running knee. Even HE gets up immediately for another brawl, then a bloody-faced Harley hits the ring and it’s brawling ahoy- the ref gets launched over the top by Harley and a second one gets taken out by his chair. Brody brings his own in and Harley gets his ass kicked at it’s a DQ at (13:00), Stan & Brody winning because Harley tossed the ref. And even now they won’t stop scrapping, throwing chairs into everyone (only Dick is bothering to sell any of it), leading to Brody using a TABLE as a melee weapon against Harley’s chair.

A very solid, brutal wrestling match, featuring nothing fancy and just four dudes coming in, working basic sequences and stiff brawling, then tagging out, almost nobody selling for more than a couple seconds and just acting like ornery old cusses out to do damage. They just traded off doing the same stuff for 13 minutes until the DDQ finish. The crowd was more “generally into it” than going wild, as I think the work was just “ordinary” outside of the punch-trading, which went from slow & steady to vicious and “this is getting out of hand”.

Rating: **3/4 (nothing spectacular but fun, stiff brawling)

JOHN TENTA & YOSHIAKI YATSU vs. ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER & GREG BROWN:
(All Japan, 10/12/1982)
* More All Japan wildness, as EARTHQUAKE comes to town circa his pro wrestling debut, in a navy blue singlet with a Canadian flag on the chest (like his early WWF gear) and a merely barrel-shaped physique, alongside AJPW’s most reliable midcard pin-eater/match-filler/Ricky Morton, taking on ABDULLAH of all people, with some jobber I’ve never heard of. He is, in fact, a LITERAL jobber, having done that job in WWF & WCW around this time. He’s a mid-sized black guy in red trunks, Abdullah’s in black pants, and Yatsu’s in black trunks. Yatsu & Abdullah, the only two the fans know, get the best reactions- pretty mid-tier, though.

Baby Tenta only 25 years old, with the hairline of a 40-year old and hauling up ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER in a bearhug with ease.

We start with Yatsu trying kicks, but Abdullah works the throat until Yatsu can push him over to Tenta, who absolutely DWARFS the Butcher. Like Abby’s not the tallest dude, but holy shit- his entire aura deflates in front of a shoot 6’6″. Tenta actually drops straight to his back off a single throat-thrust and Brown’s in- Tenta sells a bit but there’s a funny moment when Brown tries a back elbow and gets deflected all the way to the ropes, then gets smashed down by a football charge. Tenta drops an elbow (OW) and tags in Yatsu for a horrible German suplex (Brown won’t jump into it). Brown quickly fires back with acrobatic punches and a wind-up kneedrop- hey, not bad! Yatsu surprises Abdullah with a slam but sells his back- he fires shots until Tenta comes in with a LIFTING BEARHUG (jesus this mfer is strong). Abby bites free and now it’s time for FAT GUY NO-SOLD SHOULDERBLOCKS! oh man Abdullah running hahaha. They do this again and again and the fans respond like “holy shit” to a dude easily stopping Abdullah’s momentum, but that sneaky fat fuck manages a throat thrust after teasing a bigger run- clever! A leaping elbowdrop hits- Yatsu saves. Abdullah absorbs two enzuigiris, then misses a shoulder-charge into the post- Yatsu hits the worst monkey flip in history (why try that on such a fat guy?), and the Butcher eats a double-clothesline but won’t even go down, firing back on Tenta- Brown hits a headbutt for two and works a chinlock, Tenta coming back with a bearhug into a Canadian backbreaker (holding the 220-lb. guy upside-down about chest high like it means nothing). Abdullah breaks it up and Tenta goes to fight him while Yatsu comes in and cleans up with a kneeling Figure-Four Leglock at (6:44). In the post-match, Abdullah crashes into Giant Baba at the commentary table and tries to throttle him before escaping.

Not bad! Somewhat filler-y and you could see everyone’s limits, but not bad. Yatsu keeps doing really bad lifts as everyone seems to be sandbagging his ass, and he’s not over nor very exciting- just hitting the All Japan Template moveset and being bland. Tenta is green and like… selling like he’s a normal dude instead of a monster. Abdullah seems to have only two things- not selling anything and coming back with a throat thrust to interrupt. He won’t even bump! Brown seemed athletic at first, but is also bland.

Rating: ** (perfectly acceptable tag match- lots of green or half-assed guys but fine)

TYLER BLACK (w/ Alison Wonderland) vs. EL GENERICO:
(Ring of Honor Night of the Butcher 2, 8/16/2008)
* A recommendation sees ROH giant Tyler Black! Who is actually current WWE star Seth Rollins, the ever-controversial “got a mega-push despite being not really that great at anything” Main Eventer. And his opponent is El Generico, who is Sami Zayn doing a podunk indie gimmick for like twenty fucking years before he threw away the mask and got incredibly over. Black is in black trunks with really long boots and kneepads, giving him a unique look- he towers over the lanky, pasty Generico, in black & red tights with a mask. Generico has just failed to win the ROH Title from Nigel McGuinness the night before.

Things get heated during the expected pre-match handshake and they immediately start brawling, ending up in the SHITTY AEW HOCKEY FIGHT spot (aka slapping each other’s shoulders while holding their heads- how far back DOES that spot go?)- Black gets a driving knee but eats a foot and hits the floor. Generico hits the “slide against their back, sorta” quebrada as commentary pitches the Generico/McGuinness match “available on DVD at ROH.com“. Generico with a flying crossbody and they trade momentum a few times with simple stuff (backdrops, backbreaker, etc.), Black selling with long gasps and grunts just like his apartment wrestling fetish videos… um, I mean, I bet! Generico gets stalled by Wonderland hitting the apron, allowing Black to hit a springboard lariat for two, then chokes him on the ropes and backflips off to show off. Okay, solid douchey heeling. Black keeps doing theatrical stomps and killing time, then hits a high-speed clothesline/snapmare/2nd-rope Perfect necksnap combo for two. Not bad. He keeps using a chinlock/neck-crank to kill time, barely even bothering to work it. They keep using quick counters and titty-slaps to stop offense, but Generico finally gets a flying rana… and immediately gets forearmed down. Black charges into a snap Michinoku Driver for a close two, then a flying splash. Black comes back with a neckbreaker, but Generico counters God’s Last Gift (cradle fisherman’s buster), then another springboard lariat, but ends up in Paroxysm (sit-out inverted ddt) for two. They trade running moves and Generico follows his boot up with a rollup. Black avoids the Brainbuster to the Top Turnbuckle, then hits a Springboard Super Rana but can’t get 3 with a superkick. He fails the Phoenix Splash finisher (corkscrew 450) but rolls through, but Generico instarecovers into a Yakuza Kick/Brainbuster for three (14:31)- El Generico wins.

A very solid “TV match” for the promotion, as they go a while and do a lot of work, mixing in some rest spots and such. It was funny how little offense each guy could string together before a counter, though- instead of heat sequences or shine it was “I’ll do 2 things, then you do 2 things” almost the entire match long, forgoing any kind of a story to show them DOIN’ STUFF. Like you’d hit two things and immediately get interrupted so the other guy can hit a big, flashy thing. And the MOVEZ style just keeps continuing, as they START doing what were big moves 15 years prior, then escalate into hitting multiple named moves then doing wild spots. The weirdest but was the insta-comebacks- guys eating huge offense but once it’s their turn, they hit things with perfect agility like nothing bad has ever happened to them. They used to call that the “Test Sell” but now everyone wants their shit to look pretty instead of look like they’ve been fighting. There are worse examples of it (YOUNG BUCKS) but I definitely notice it here. I can see right away why Tyler Black was an obvious “get” for a major promotion- a really tall, well-built guy who has some slick moves and puts his whole body into all his stuff. You need guys like that. Though ideally a company is FULL of guys like that and ones with more charisma are pushed further, but his rise to the top is very weird in general.

Rating: **1/2 (solid flashy TV match with wild moves and instant comebacks)