The SmarK Rant for Coliseum Video Presents US Rampage 92

– Hosted by Sean Mooney again, with a western theme this time.

– Undertaker v. Razor Ramon.

This was during Ramon’s initial heel push, and he was undefeated at this point. Ramon attacks to start, but gets choked out in the corner for his troubles. He keeps slugging back on Taker, finally knocking him down with a forearm, but only momentarily. Taker chokes him out in the corner and Razor bails, but loses a minor brawl outside. Back in, Taker slams him and misses his elbow, which by then he had refined into a situp spot. Ramon clotheslines him to the floor, but gets necksnapped while going after him. It’s actually kind of interesting to watch a 1991 UT match and then see him growing as a worker by the next year. They slug it out and Taker tries to go old school, which back then was new school, and Ramon counters him and slugs away to take over. They brawl outside and Ramon gets nowhere, so he hits him with a chair a few times, rather surprisingly avoiding a DQ. Taker just shakes it off, and clotheslines Ramon as they head back in. Ramon needs the heavy artillery, so he goes to the abdominal stretch and even Gorilla Monsoon calls it a waste of time. More punching from both guys as this is going nowhere slowly, and Ramon goes to the chinlock to hopefully come up with some sort of plan. Ramon is bleeding from the temple from something, and quite openly badmouthing Paul Bearer as a result, so you can probably fill in the blanks there. Taker fights out of the chinlock and gets the flying clothesline, so Ramon takes a walk at 8:54. Good god, what a car wreck. 0 for 1.

– Intercontinental title: Bret Hart v. Shawn Michaels.

Shawn takes him down with an armdrag and starts mocking him early. Boy, this stuff takes on so much more of an aura considering what happened years later. At this point they were still friends in real life. They exchange hammerlocks and Shawn gets sent to the floor as a result, allowing Bret to yank him back in by the arm and go to work on that. Shawn eludes him in the corner, so Bret clotheslines him for two. Bret goes back to the arm again and then turns a spinebuster into a catapult, which gets two. Back to the arm again, but Bret runs into the knee and Shawn takes over. A shot from Sherri sets up a two-count for Shawn. High knee gets two. We hit the chinlock and Bret fights out of that, but runs into an elbow, which gets two for Shawn. Back to the chinlock, but Bret powers out again, and catches an exasperated Shawn with a small package for two. Shawn slugs away and gets two, and it’s back to the chinlock again. Bret slugs out and walks into a sleeper as a result, but sends Shawn into the corner to break. Shawn dropkicks him for two, as he has more energy. He sends Bret back into the corner, and Bret comes out of there with a clothesline. Shawn staggers into an atomic drop that puts him in the corner, and Bret works him over there and hits him with a clothesline to the back of the head. Backbreaker, second rope elbow get two. What, no russian leg sweep? Shawn backslides him for two, so Bret rolls him up for two. Bret grabs a headlock and they collide, but Shawn is up first with some sweet chin music. He sets up for the side suplex, but Bret reverses to a rollup for two. Another superkick is blocked with an atomic drop, but Shawn flips over into a rollup for two, and Bret reverses for two. Sherri gets involved and Shawn charges, but collides with his manager and Bret rolls him up for the pin at 13:31 to retain. This was flirting with **** most of the way through. 1 for 2, duh.

– Makeup tips with Sensational Sherri makes for easy fast forward material.

– 40-man battle royale.

This is a bunch of midcarders and some bottom-of-the-barrel jobbers, although there’s a guy named Bruce Mitchell in there. He does kind of look like the Torch writer, which makes me wonder a little. Skinner and Rick Martel are out quickly, much faster than you’d expect in a match where The Dublin Destroyer is a major force. Jobbers fly out without much fanfare as it’s all just a big mess of people without any flow to it. We finally get down to a watchable amount of people, although with the only marquee names in there being Bret Hart and Tatanka it’s not hard to guess who’s gonna win. Tatanka goes out soon after, however, leaving us with Bret, Bulldog, Virgil, Koko B Ware, the Beverly Brothers and a Nasty Boy. It’s quickly down to the Beverlies against Bret and Bulldog after a whole lotta nothing, and the Hart contingent handles the Bevs pretty easily until Bulldog collides with Bret and Beau on the ropes and accidentally eliminates Hart, leaving himself against the Beverlies. They toss Bulldog, but he hangs on and tosses Blake, and then finishes off Beau for the anticlimactic win. 1 for 3.

– Rick Martel v. Tatanka.

Yet another in their endless series of midcard filler matches. Martel’s pre-match attack goes nowhere and Tatanka chases him out of the ring with a clothesline. Back in and Tatanka hits him with an atomic drop and clotheslines him out again, this time falling victim to some choking before reversing Martel into the post. They brawl outside and Martel catches him with more choking as they head back in again, but he misses a blind charge and Tatanka goes to work on the arm. He misses his own charge, however, and Martel takes over with a backdrop suplex and starts targeting the back. Side salto gets two. He resumes the choking again and we hit the chinlock, but Tatanka uses the power of Native Americans all over the world to fight out of it. Sadly, he runs into a knee, allowing Martel to get a backbreaker, but a splash hits knees. And it’s ethnic stereotype comeback time, as he catches Martel coming off the second rope and fights back with chops. Martel catches him with a stungun, however, and then preens for JUST a bit too long and gets rolled up for the pin at 7:13. Boy, didn’t see that finish coming. At all. 1 for 4.

– The Legion of Doom & Precious Paul Ellering v. The Beverly Brothers & The Genius.

Just what the world was waiting for. I do believe this was the only time Ellering actually stepped into the ring in the WWF, but I could be wrong. I’m not expecting much past a comedy match here, so anything over that should be a bonus. Ellering starts with Poffo, who has a hilarious neon green and black bodysuit with “G” all over it. Ellering gets a backslide for two and a neckbreaker, but ends up in the heel corner. Ellering makes a blind tag while getting whipped into the ropes, however, and Animal comes in to deal with Blake, but gets powerslammed. Animal comes back with one of his own and the heels regroup outside. So Beau decides to try against Hawk, who fakes a handshake to psyche him out. Well, that obviously wouldn’t work against the Genius, for obvious reasons. He’s just lucky it was Beau. We continue the stallfest until Beau attacks Hawk, but gets rammed into the mat for his troubles. Hawk is content to throw punches in the corner, as everyone is obviously super-motivated tonight. For those who need a guide, that was sarcasm. More stalling and now Blake attacks Hawk, dropping him on the top rope, which has zero effect on him. Blake runs away from Hawk’s comeback, but gets dragged back in the ring again. Hawk misses a charge and eats some ringpost, and thus is your face-in-peril. Yeah, asking Hawk to sell, great move. Back in the ring, Blake gets a neckbreaker and Beau follows with a double axehandle and rolling necksnap. Blake adds the backbreaker and tries coming off the top, but misses a diving headbutt and it’s hot tag Animal. Houses are cleaned and Animal gets a shoulderblock on Beau for two, then DDTs both of the Bevs at the same time. It turns into something a bit BONZO GONZO and Hawk gets a bizarre flying splash onto Beau for the pin at 10:03. I have no idea what they were going for there. 1 for 5. Ellering and Genius were non-factors.

– Tito Santana & Virgil v. Money Inc.

Interesting note from the Wrestlemania XX DVD, which featured a trivia section for each of the previous Wrestlemanias — IRS and Dibiase are the only team in WWF/E history to not only come into two consecutive Wrestlemanias (VIII and IX) with the tag titles, but to successfully defend them both years (retain via countout against the Natural Disasters and retain via DQ against Beefcake & Hogan). I hadn’t actually stopped to consider that before, but there ya go. Santana starts with IRS and gets slammed right off the bat, but comes back with a hiptoss to send the heels reeling. Tito and Virgil do some double-teaming on the arm of IRS, which draws Dibiase into the ring. Dibiase works Virgil over in the corner, but gets atomic dropped into the corner and pinballed by the babyfaces. That gets two. Tito grabs an armbar, but runs into Irwin’s knee and the heels take over. IRS drops elbows for one, and Dibiase works him over in the corner. Tito comes back with a sunset flip for two, but Dibiase pounds him right back down again. Irwin comes in with a shot from the top for two. We hit the chinlock, as Dibiase lends leverage from the apron. Ted switches in and gets two as well. Back to the chinlock with more cheating from IRS, but Virgil is OUTRAGED by the blatant disregard for the rules, which of course allows even more cheating from the heels. Tito elbows out of the chinlock, but IRS retains control and Money Inc adds more punishment in the corner. The crowd is unreasonably hot for friggin’ Virgil and Matador, so it must have been early in the tapings. Dibiase tries a piledriver, but Tito reverses out and makes the false tag to Virgil, as everyone is really fired up in this thing for some reason. As Virgil gets escorted out a couple of times, more damage is done by the heels, and they’ve really got this crowd pissed off now, in the good way. Finally Tito hits Dibiase with a neckbreaker and makes the HOT tag to Virgil, and boy is the crowd ready for that one. He cleans house with the usual babyface offense, and a legsweep gets two on IRS. It’s BONZO GONZO and the heels collide, and the faces even add stereo dropkicks for good measure. However, Virgil tries to suplex IRS into the ring, and Dibiase grabs the leg for the pin at 9:45. To say that one exceeded expections would be an understatement. 2 for 6.

– WWF World title: Randy Savage v. Repo Man.

Savage had a really good and underrated run as champion in 1992, and if not for his own insanity might have ended up with a more meaningful exit from the promotion than he got. Repo Man tries stealing the belt, and although you can’t fault him for the direct approach Savage doesn’t play that way and drags him back to the ring. Repo tries some choking as they get into the ring and tosses him right away, then sends him into the post. I see we’re going with the standard “Macho gets the shit kicked out of him and then finishes with the elbow out of nowhere” formula tonight. Repo works him over on the apron and chokes away back in the ring, but Savage hits him with the clothesline and gets a rare high cross from the top for two. Repo clobbers him down again and gets two. Repo takes him down with a snapmare for two, and hits the chinlock. However, Savage comes back quickly with the shoulderblock, before falling into the ropes and getting tied up. Instead of capitalizing, however, Repo chooses to undo a turnbuckle, and then uses his hook as a weapon while the ref fixes it. Hey, that was pretty smart, actually! That gets two. Small note — it’s funny to see these matches with Mike Chioda as referee, back when he had hair. Repo goes back to the chinlock yet again, until Savage breaks free and goes up with a double axehandle. However, he gets caught coming down and Repo takes over again. Blind charge hits boot and Savage hits him with the axehandle this time, for two. Repo goes for the hook again, but tries it in front of the ref, which allows Savage to sneak in and use it himself. Flying elbow, good night irene at 9:00. Too punchy-kicky and not enough offense from Savage, who definitely had it in cruise control here. 2 for 7.

– Berzerker & Papa Shango v. Undertaker & Ultimate Warrior.

Oh my god, this is a JOKE right? This is like some kind of bizarre punchline rather than a tag match someone would actually put together. To top it off, Lord Alfred Hayes calls Ultimate Warrior “one of the greatest wrestlers of all-time, if not THE greatest,” with a straight face! The worst thing is that we didn’t get any pre-match promos to build it up, because they would have been 100x more entertaining than the match would be. Sadly, we never got the Undertaker-Papa Shango showdown to we could discover if Undertaker’s powers were greater than voodoo, and really the Undertaker-Kama feud was no substitute. Berzerker and Undertaker slug it out to start, and that doesn’t go Berzerker’s way. Warrior comes in and adds a corner clothesline and some shoulderblocks, but a shot from Shango slows him down. Shango puts the beats on him in the corner, and as usual it’s tough to tell if Warrior is selling or having a seizure. Berzerker gets the big boot, but Warrior decides to go for the tag instead, resulting in Berzerker slowly diving to save it. It’s like these four guys who are so terrible at wrestling trying to do basic tag team stuff and looking all the more retarded for not being able to pull it off. They keep Warrior in the corner, but he backdrops Berzerker out of the ring and makes the hot tag. It’s so funny seeing Undertaker standing on the apron, trying to reach for the tag while attempting to never break character. Anyway, Taker cleans house and the faces do some double-teaming, which leads to Warrior finishing Berzerker with the usual at 7:50. Oh, this was bad, yes it was. When Warrior’s the guy who needs to do the selling, you’re in trouble. 2 for 8.

The Bottom Line: Um, well, there’s a good Shawn Michaels v. Bret Hart match on Rampage 92, but the rest of the two tapes is pretty much a pass unless you’re feeling REALLY generous.