The SmarK Rant for Coliseum Video presents Brains Behind the Brawn

The SmarK Rant for Coliseum Video presents Brains Behind the Brawn

Could it be ANOTHER Coliseum video I’ve never reviewed? Thanks for the recommendation from Mike Campbell.

Hosted by Sean Mooney, and this appears to be from sometime in 1989 judging by the clips at the start of the video.

The theme here is pretty easy to understand, I’m assuming: The managers of the WWF!

First up, we take a special look at Bobby Heenan. He answers the question “What do you mean to the WWF?” Bobby thinks that’s a stupid question and because obviously he has Andre the Giant, Rick Rude, the Brainbusters, King Haku AND the Brooklyn Brawler, who doesn’t do well in the ring but he’s undefeated in the streets.

So first up, we take you back to January 1987, as Hulk Hogan shows up on Piper’s Pit, but Jesse Ventura brings out Andre the Giant with new manager Bobby Heenan, and Hogan is more shocked than when his son got busted for a DUI. And Bobby tells it like it is, calling Hulk the vermin who used Andre for three years while he was World champion, stealing all of Andre’s moments. And did Hulk ever offer Andre a championship match? NO HE DID NOT. And then the ice cold moment to end them all, as Hulk goes to embrace Andre and the Giant snaps “TAKE YOUR HANDS OFF MY SHOULDERS!” and then challenges Hulk to the title match and rips the cross and shirt off his chest.

Next week, Roddy Piper brings out a dejected Hogan, who is sadder than when Biden won the election in 2020, and asks him he’s going to man up and accept the challenge of the Giant at Wrestlemania. And then drama queen Hulk is all “WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TAKE A STAKE AND JAM IT INTO MY HEART” before accepting the challenge after all. Well he had to build up the anticipation.

And then the historic contract signing for the title match, as Jack Tunney wants them to sign but Bobby wants a new title belt made before he’ll sign anything. Which they did, although it only appeared once on Prime Time Wrestling. So again Andre is just ice cold, staring Hogan down while Hulk snaps “Sign it if you’re gonna sign it!”, losing his mind, probably with greed and jealousy if we’re being honest. And then Andre gives him the cold shoulder EN FRANCAIS and Hogan snaps “Speak to me in English when you’re talking to me!”, showing his true colors back in 1987.

And then we get the miscarriage of justice that was Wrestlemania III as Hogan somehow cheats and slams the 700 pound Andre, two days before he died, in front of 250,000 people at the New Orleans Superdome, before flying 17 times over the international date line to work a show in Japan and then flying home two days before he left.

Moving onto happier times for Bobby, Ted Dibiase announces a new deal he struck with the Heenan Family, agreeing to purchase the contract of Hercules to use as a slave. Hercules apparently wasn’t consulted on this and he gets all crazy for some reason, so Dibiase knocks him out with the briefcase.

Next up, we head to Royal Rumble 89 and the SUPER POSEDOWN between Warrior and Rick Rude, joining things with Rude doing his final montage of poses before Warrior does his own goofy posing and Rude lays him out with the flexor to set up Wrestlemania V.

Off to Saturday Night’s Main Event, as Bobby Heenan introduces his newest acquisition, Terry Taylor, who might be kind of clumsy and slow and skinny, but he’s got the one thing that matters: Bobby Heenan managing him. So we get the match from SNME between the Rooster and Tito Santana, with Bobby Heenan miked up at ringside and taking managerial advice from George Steinbrenner. “I’ve got a ring full of Winfields!” Yeah well Dave Winfield had the winning hit to give the Blue Jays the World Series so SHUT UP. Of course that was three years after this match so it was still a funny crack at the time. Anyway they have a normal match, but of course the payoff is Bobby freaking out and slapping the Rooster around for embarrassing him. Rooster comes back with a piledriver on Tito for two and drops him with a stungun, but he goes for his finisher, a devastating variation on the Henway, and Tito sends him to the floor. So Bobby throws his man back into the ring and Tito rolls him up for the pin, thus embarrassing Bobby all over again. So Bobby slaps him around and Terry beats him up on his way out of the Heenan Family. To be fair, his career went into the toilet after this so he probably should have stayed with Bobby.

Off to Prime Time Wrestling, as Bobby has a sitdown with the Rooster and they agree to go their own way in peaceful manner, shaking hands to seal the deal, at which point the Brooklyn Brawler makes his debut and storms the set, and lays out both Gorilla and the Rooster with a chair before beating him down.

The whole Bobby Heenan segment was about 40 minutes long on an 80 minute tape so I don’t foresee much time for everyone else.

Jimmy Hart is the next subject, as he talks about himself first, and won’t share the secret of his success because it’s none of our business. Fair.

We join things with Jimmy on Superstars in 1988, as Bret Hart is doing a singles match with Steve Lombardi, and fires Jimmy so he can do the match on his own, quickly finishing him with a piledriver.

Another squash for Bret and he sends Jimmy Hart packing again, despite the fact that Jimmy’s name is right in the team name! It’s the HART Foundation! As in Jimmy Hart! So this time Bret beats Jerry Allen, who is apparently no slouch but no Bad news Brown.

Next up, we join a match in progress between the Hart Foundation and the Conquistadors, as we get an inset promo from Jimmy as he promises that the Hart Foundation will never be the tag team champions ever again and Bret Hart will never be on top of the WWF. Well he was spectacularly wrong about that one. Meanwhile Vince and Jesse have a funny run about Dibiase bribing Jesse with “a couple of Gs” which Jesse doesn’t even consider a bribe because he spends 10 times as much when he’s out on the town so that was basically just a gratuity to ensure a job well done.

Off to the Summerslam, as the Harts challenge the Demolition for the tag team titles and blow it. That match should have been way better.

Speaking of the Summerslam, Honky Tonk Man is also there and he stupidly throws out an open challenge to anyone in the dressing room to replace Brutus Beefcake, who was suffering from a big red X on his face, and the Ultimate Warrior answers and he’s finally the one who figures out how to cut the Gordian Knot and beats Honky in 30 seconds because he never overthinks anything, ever.

On Superstars, Warrior dares Honky Tonk to come and get his title back. So I believe this was one of the numerous segments with Warrior as champion that were taped BEFORE he won the title, where they’d shoot an angle early in the taping where Warrior “won” the title and worked the rest of the taping as “champion” before Jack Tunney ruled that it wasn’t a real title match and Honky stole it back at the end of the night.

So that whole Jimmy Hart segment was kind of a disappointment, since it only covered a couple of things in 1988 and it could have had the Flower Shop angle and DANNY F’N DAVIS and Honky winning the belt and THE ROUGEAU BROTHERS and all the classic stuff from 1987.

It’s time for Slick next!

First up, we jump right to Slick introducing the Bolsheviks on Superstars, weirdly skipping all of 1987 as well. They sing the Russian National anthem, which probably plays whenever Trump walks into his bedroom at Mar-A-Lago these days, and that’s the segment.

Brother Love brings out Hulk Hogan, a man who knows NO LOVE. This brings out Big Bossman and Slick, and they accuse Hogan of being out of control and in need of solitary confinement, so Bossman hits him in the throat with the nightstick and Slick maces him, allowing Bossman to handcuff him to the railing and beat him senseless with the nightstick. Probably should have complied. Just saying.

Next up, Mean Gene meets up with Slick on the mean streets, although Slick was supposed to take him to “deepest darkest Africa”, which turns out to be Slick playing jungle music on a boombox while we are introduced to the final form of the One Man Gang: THE AFRICAN DREAM, AKEEM. I’m sure these days people could nitpick something with this, but 1989 was a different time.

That’s it for the Slickster? OK then.

Next up, Mr. Fuji, who brags about getting rid of Demolition and replacing them with the Powers of Pain. This must be from before Wrestlemania because he brags about how they’re going to beat Demolition 3-on-2 when they get there.

First up, Demolition wins the tag team titles from Strike Force at Wrestlemania 4 in a brief clip. Then we jump right to Survivor Series as Fuj the Stooge turns on his team and costs them the match, before joining up with the Powers of Pain. The POP passive-aggressively turning heel by dusting off Fuji but still acting like total babyfaces was not a great start for them.

And that’s it for Fuji. Well that wasn’t very inspiring.

Next up, we’re apparently hearing from Frenchie Martin, who gets time on this tape in a weird equal time agreement despite managing someone who is LITERALLY THE WORST.

So for his one segment, of course we take a look at the bench press challenge at the original Royal Rumble. A 750 pound bench wouldn’t even get you into the NXT combine these days. Like I’m pretty sure Scott Steiner used to do those between Nitro segments while working on his promos. Usually with a freak sitting on each side of the barbell.

And we finish with Elizabeth, who is too distraught by the breakup of the Megapowers to be interviewed for this. Which I take to mean Randy Savage has her locked in a dressing room somewhere in Indianapolis during a house show. So we take a look at Macho Man winning the World title tournament at Turd Plaza, and then Summerslam 88 and Survivor Series 88 during better days for the Megapowers as we wrap up the tape. I mean, neither one of those matches was anything to show that Elizabeth was the “brains” behind anything. And of course, what do we end the segment about Randy Savage with? Hulk Hogan posing.

That Bobby Heenan feature was AWESOME and hit all the best stuff from 1987-89, but the rest kind of tailed off. In particular I was incredibly disappointed by the Jimmy Hart segment given what they had to work with. This could have been some S-tier greatness, but as it is I’d give it a mild recommendation for the Heenan stuff and the rest is hit or miss.