Mike Reviews Demolition: Witness the Power

Happy Axing and Smashing Friday Everyone!

WWE Vault is providing the tape this week, as they uploaded this Demolition focused Home Video about a year ago and I’ve been meaning to watch it for a while. For those not familiar with Demolition, they were the WWF’s answer to The Road Warriors at the time. As face painted powerhouse brawlers, Ax (Bill Eadie) and Smash (Barry Darsow) enjoyed great success in their heyday. Indeed, for a long time Demolition were the record holders for the longest singular WWF Tag Title reign until The New Day finally eclipsed them in the 2010s.

This will just sound like me trying to be your standard internet wrestling contrarian (we call it “doing a Phred” in the biz) but I actually prefer Demolition to The Road Warriors. I thought they were overall better wrestlers and were capable of having a wider variety of matches. I also felt Demolition worked well as both Face and Heel, whereas I’ve tended to find the Heel work from the LOD a bit dull and samey. I always liked how Demolition walked the line as Heels, where they were effective bad asses on their own merit but they also still needed to cheat quite a bit as well. This always gave their Heel work an interesting dimension as they clearly were good wrestlers in kayfabe but they were never averse to taking a shortcut.

Witness the Power is essentially a compilation of some of Demolition’s biggest matches from 1988-89, along with a couple of bouts from the marathon TV tapings that the WWF would have at the time. SummerSlam, WrestleMania and Survivor Series events are covered here, and there’s a decent array of opponents for The Demos to do battle with. So join me, if you will, for a look back at Demolition. Oh, and try not to get their super catchy entrance music stuck in your head for the remainder of the week.

Your hosts are Demolition themselves! Ax invites us to relax and enjoy the tape, but his croaky Sean Dyche styled voice almost makes it sound like a threat. Smash’s vast array of gurning facial expressions are certainly something to behold.

WrestleMania IV
WWF World Tag Team Titles
Champions: Strike Force (Rick Martel & Tito Santana)
Vs
Challengers: The Demolition (Ax and Smash) w/ Mr. Fuji

Originally a big push had been planned for Martel with Tom Zenk, but Zenk ended up quitting because he was unhappy that Martel was making more money than him. The WWF still wanted to push Martel to the tag belts though, so they assigned him a new partner in Santana. Demolition had been gradually gaining more credibility as an act since the team was first formed, with Smash replacing Randy Culley, who was Ax’s original partner. Strike Force shine on The Demos to start, doing arm wringers and other traditional babyface offence, but Ax is eventually able to clatter Santana with an illegal clothesline behind the referee’s back and that’s the cut off.

Santana of course sells well whilst getting worked over, and Demolition look believable on offence as they punch, club, stomp and slam the life out of poor old Tito. They do a good job of building to the Martel hot tag, by having Santana get close a few times before finally making the tag. Martel looks really good whilst running wild on The Demo’s, going full 80s babyface with a slew of dropkicks. Sadly for The Champs though, the referee is too distracted by Santa and Fuji scrapping and thus isn’t there to call for the submission when Martel has Smash in THE DREADED YOUNG LION BOSTON CRAB. Ax uses the commotion to clobber Martel with Fuji’s cane and that’s enough for three when the referee gets in position to count.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: DEMOLITION
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: Sadly we didn’t hit the three star barrier, but this was solid enough tag team action and it started a long and successful reign for The Demos

SummerSlam 1988
WWF World Tag Team Titles
Champions: The Demolition (Ax and Smash) w/ Mr. Fuji and Jimmy Hart
Vs
Challengers: The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart)

The story here is that The Hart Foundation broke away from Jimmy Hart but he still had a managerial contract that he held over them and used to make their lives difficult, hence why he’s out there with The Demos here. Interestingly, despite The Foundation being the babyface team, they actually take the corner nearest the hard cam, when it’s normally the other way around because it creates the illusion of the babyface having to climb “uphill” to make a tag. The Foundation takes it to The Demos to start, but eventually a cheap shot from the apron to The Anvil leads to him getting worked over for a bit.

Bret is eventually able to get a tag and he runs wild on the Heels, delivering a nice dropkick to Smash at one stage. However, we’re doing a double heat segment here, as Bret gets sent into the corner and worked over in the Heel corner. Demolition do the usual of focusing on strikes and double teaming, with Bret’s shoulder being targeted after he hurt when he made his ill-fated trip into the buckles. Bret of course sells that all really well and The Demos do a good job of delivering violent targeted offence.

Smash gets Bret with a really nice Shoulder Breaker at one stage, but then he goes to a weak looking spinning arm hold which looks like it would be easy for Bret to escape from. Interestingly The Demos focus most of their attack on the right shoulder, when you normally work the left in the USA and Canada. I guess they wanted to mix up the formula a bit? Bret was very good at little things like that.

Anvil eventually gets the hot tag and runs wild on the Heels, as the crowd goes nuts for it. Anvil even busts out a dropkick at one stage, although it was done with slightly less grace than Bret’s was delivered with early on. Anvil ends up diving over the top rope onto Smash following that and delivers a Powerslam to Smash back inside the ring that gets a two count that the crowd totally bit on. They HAD the crowd right there and they are ANGRY that it wasn’t the three. This ultimately leads to Fuji and Jimmy Hart getting involved, as Smash clatters Bret with Jimmy’s megaphone when the ref isn’t looking and that gives The Demos the dirty win.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: DEMOLITION
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: This was good fun. Bret sold well during the second heat segment and the home stretch was executed nicely. The crowd really got into it by the end and seemed to genuinely think that Bret and Anvil could win the belts. Demolition sold big for the babyfaces when the time called for it, and that really added to the match. It’s great watching matches like this when the crowd is so invested, it really adds to the enjoyment for me

Demolition say they’re better without Mr. Fuji and that sends us to the Five Vs Five Tag Team Survivor Series bout from Survivor Series 1988. This match saw Demolition led a team of Ten against a team of ten led by The Powers of Pain (Warlord and Barbarian). The Powers were the babyfaces at the time, as they had walked out of JCP/NWA earlier in the year because they hadn’t wanted to take bumps off scaffolds when battling The Road Warriors. The Powers were matched up against The Demos over the summer and autumn, with neither one getting a clear decisive win in the feud. The Demos were continuously getting positive reactions from the crowds due to being cool butt kickers with an awesome entrance music, so the decision was made to switch both teams, with Demolition turning Face and The Powers turning Heel.

We get to see the closing moments of the match, as we’re now down to Demolition and The Conquistadors on one side, whilst Powers of Pain and The British Bulldogs are over on the other side. This was actually The Bulldogs last night in the WWF, and they were deliberately kept in the bout for as long as possible so that The Fabulous Rougeaus (who were on Demolition’s team) could be eliminated early and then flee the building in case Dynamite Kid fancied some revenge on Jacques for a brutal real-life backstage sneak attack from Jacques (which itself was a retaliatory action after Dynamite had previously brutalised Jacques). The entire match is generally regarded as a great bout due to it featuring so many talented teams battling it out.

The action we get to see here is good, as the bout is fought at a quick clip and everyone enters a strong performance. The Conquistadors spend most of their time getting battered, which makes sense as they were essentially an enhancement team, so them going this deep into the contest was considered a bit of an upset at the time. Eventually Dynamite misses a diving head butt from the top on Smash (why would you ever attempt that move in those rock hard 1980s WWF rings? No wonder he was bound to a wheelchair in later life) and is pinned to leave The Powers at a 1 on 2 disadvantage.

However, the big twist of the bout kicks in here, as Fuji starts taking umbrage with how his clients are wrestling the bout, leading to him jumping on the apron to yell some vague instructions. I don’t believe they really built up any issues between Fuji and his men prior to this show, with it largely happening out of the blue. Anyway, Fuji eventually gets sick of his men not following whatever his orders are, so he low bridges Smash, causing Smash to take a tumble to the floor and be counted out. A furious Ax then gives Fuji a bodyslam out on the floor when The Fuj tries attacking Ax with his walking cane. This leads to the Powers of Pain helping Fuji and bringing him over to their corner, where he promptly helps them win the bout. This is a Heel turn for The Powers and a Face turn for Demolition. Outside of their feud with The Road Warriors that never completed, I’d say this match and angle are probably the thing Powers of Pain are most remembered for. Interestingly, the crowd actually cheers when The Powers get the win here, almost as if they saw it as a babyface turn from Fuji, although they would soon get the desired fan responses once the storyline ramifications were rammed home on television.

We head back to Ax and Smash, who note that the next match was taped for Coliseum Video and was one of their first bouts free of Fuji’s control. They say this match proves they didn’t need Fuj The Stooge.

Home Video Exclusive
WWF Tag Team Titles
Challengers: The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov)
Vs
Champions: Demolition (Ax and Smash)

The Bolsheviks are two faux Russians, with Nikolai actually being from Croatia whilst Boris is from the southern United States. We get the usual gag where Nikolai tries to sing the Russian National Anthem, only for the music of the babyfaces to cut him off mid-song. Ring announcer Mike McGuirk actually announces Fuji as joining The Demos here, but he doesn’t join them. Nice to know they kept her well informed. Ironically, Barry Darsow actually played a faux Russian himself earlier in his career before jumping to the WWF and taking on the Smash persona instead.

These Home Video exclusive matches could sometimes be a bit limp, as the tapings where they took place would normally go on for many hours and fans could end up in a zombified state by the time things ended. The crowd doesn’t seem too enthused here in all honesty, but it’s not an especially good match in fairness. It’s mostly just your standard heavyweight slugfest, as was the style at the time. Zhukov takes some good bumps for The Demos in fairness to him, but Nikolai was very much past his physical peak by this stage in his career, as evidenced by him barely being able to take a snapmare, which is possibly one of the easiest bumps to take.

Smash manages to wake up the crowd briefly by calling Zhukov a “stinking commie”, but they die off again soon after. Zhukov then struggles to take a snapmare as well, which makes me wonder if the way The Demos are delivering the move is the cause of the bad bumping from the villains here. Demolition were still working out the kinks of their babyface act here. Thankfully they were able to mostly retain the aspects of their act that got them over as Heels to begin with whilst also selling and being babyfaces, but they haven’t quite got the formula down yet here. This is mostly an elongated squash the way it’s presented, as Demolition dominate basically the entire bout and ultimately pin Zhukov with Demolition Decapitation.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: DEMOLITION
RATING: *1/4

Thoughts: Not much to this one really. It felt like there was some editing to remove pretty much any offence The Bolsheviks had. Though this is Demolition’s tape, and you’d expect the focus to be on them, part of what makes wrestling entertaining is the give and take between opponents and when you remove that you ultimately make the story less interesting to engage in

Home Video Exclusive
WWF Tag Team Titles
The Honky Tonk Man and Greg “The Hammer” Valentine w/ Jimmy Hart Vs Demolition (Ax and Smash)

The Demos have the tag belts with them here but it’s Non-Title. The banners in the arena suggest that this one took place during a Saturday Night’s Main Event taping in, I believe, April. Honky and Hammer weren’t a regular team yet at this stage, but they were both clients of Hart, hence why they’re teamed up. Valentine was actually feuding with Ron Garvin at the time. They seem to be piping in fake crowd noise here, based on the volume levels versus how people in the crowd are actually behaving. The action is okay for the most part.

There’s nothing especially thrilling going on, but everything looks like it lands and the bumping/selling from all four is what it needs to be. The best bit is probably Hammer throwing snug shots at The Demos, who mostly just absorb them and keep coming. The referee ends up getting bumped, which leads to Honky attacking the Demos with Hart’s megaphone. Ronnie Garvin heads down in a referee outfit though and calls for the bell after seeing the blatant cheating by the Heels. Despite the relatively lame finish, the crowd still seem happy because the good guys won (and justifiably won as well).

WINNERS BY DQ: DEMOLITION
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was okay. Not anything I’d need to see again, but they worked a competent bout and the finish worked for the live crowd, so I’ll be generous

Saturday Night’s Main Event May 1989
WWF Tag Team Titles
Challengers: The Brain Busters (Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard) w/ Bobby “The Brain” Heenan
Vs
Champions: Demolition (Ax and Smash)

The Busters had jumped over from JCP/WCW in 1988 after more than a few fallings out with booker Dusty Rhodes. Tully and Arn had success working matches with The Road Warriors in the NWA by being excellent bumping Heels who could get clobbered by the powerhouse babyfaces, and that’s what we get in this bout. Tully and Arn bump all over the place for Demolition early on, and it’s entertaining stuff, especially with the exaggerated “oh no, we’re in considerable trouble” facial expressions that The Busters keep pulling out. Bobby Heenan even takes a bump at one stage, as Tully gets knocked out of the ring and lands on top of his manager, much to the amusement of the crowd.

Eventually Arn is able to cheap shot Smash from behind whilst the referee is distracted, and that leads to the challengers cutting Smash off and working some heat. The Busters are excellent at that as well, with Tully even working in a cocky strut at one stage just to rile both Ax and the crowd up. The Busters are especially good at working false hot tag teases, where Smash keeps trying to make it to his corner for a tag but the challengers always JUST manage to stop him before the tag can be made. There’s a wonderful tease where it looks like Smash is going to make it, but Tully sneaks on over and knocks Ax off the apron before it can be made. This brings an enraged Ax into the ring without a tag and this leads to the referee calling for a DQ.

WINNERS BY DQ: THE BRAIN BUSTERS (DEMOLITION RETAIN)
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: A good match with a weak finish. The finish did at least set up further matches between the two teams and gave The Busters a way to win without having to switch the belts. The Brain Busters were tremendous Heels, as they’d bump all over the place to make the babyfaces look good and then they’d rile up the crowd with their villainous antics during the heat as well. An almost perfect tag team in some ways, so much so that the WWF had no choice but to basically bring them in without any real substantial changes to their act and push them all the way to the belts. Knowing how much Vince McMahon hated pushing acts that weren’t his own, it’s a testament to how good The Brain Busters were that even he had to accept that they were just too good to drastically change them

WrestleMania V
Three on Two Handicap Match for the WWF Tag Team Titles
Challengers: The Powers of Pain (Warlord and Barbarian) and Mr. Fuji
Vs
Champions: Demolition (Ax and Smash)

This is the final blow-off to The Powers of Pain stealing Demolition’s manager, as they’re now battling at WrestleMania for the tag belts. Sadly this bout suffers because it was held at the Trump Plaza, with all of the actual wrestling fans stuck in the back row’s so that wealthy casino goers could take the decent seats and sit on their hands. The match is mostly just the two teams throwing fists at each other, which is about all you could do when these two collided. It’s a serviceable enough slugfest, but it’s nowhere near as good as the previous bout with The Brain Busters. There’s definitely some entertainment to be had from watching four hefty lads slugging one another, but two smaller villains getting thrown around and trying to find anyway they can to rescue themselves is just generally more entertaining to watch in my opinion.

Fuji actually looks okay when he gets in there, although he doesn’t have to do much. Considering how much Fuji was struggling to get around when he was managing Yokozuna in the 1990s, he’s relatively light on his feet here. The Heels work some heat on Ax, with Fuji even missing a Senton back splash off the top rope at one stage. I’m amazed Fuji took that bump on those notoriously concrete like old school WWF rings. Ax eventually manages to tag in Smash, which leads to all five wrestlers getting in there. Fuji tries to throw some salt in Smash’s eyes whilst the referee is distracted, but he accidentally catches Warlord with it instead and that leads to Fuji taking Demolition Decapitation to give The Demos the three count.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: DEMOLITION
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was about as good a match as you were going to get between these two teams, as they just weren’t suited for one another as opponents and couldn’t do much other than just punch each other. Adding in Fuji gave the match a slightly different flavour, and he actually did well in there, so the bout was okay overall, if a tad dull at points

Demolition say it’s tough on top when you have so many good teams to defend the belts against, but all the top teams will certainly get hurt should they try and wrest the belts away.

In Conclusion

This was a good recap of this era of Demolition, with their big WrestleMania, SummerSlam and Survivor Series bouts covered, along with the SNME bout with the Brain Busters. It might have been nice to see more interesting Home Video Exclusive content than what we got, but aside from that I thought this was a decent tape and a good starter pack if you don’t know much about Demolition and would like to get a flavour for what their act was.