The SmarK 24-7 Rant for Legends and Shorties!
OK, back for another round of random stuff from the Legends section featuring Roddy Piper and the Shorties section featuring football players turned wrestlers. Kind of a weird month, thematically. This is just a collection of match rants that I haven’t done before, it’s not one big show or anything.
– The only really great part of the Piper Hall of Fame show is the bit from Mid-Atlantic Wrestling where he steals the title belt from Jack Brisco and then holds it ransom for $10,000. The babyfaces pool their money and buy it back from him, at which point Piper accuses them of short-changing him, and finally Brisco offers him a title match on the spot to settle things. Brisco is going to win with the sleeper, but Piper hits him with a roll of coins, in clear sight, and wins the title for real. Everyone is disgusted and they’re actually showing the coins on the mat, and Piper is STILL denying everything, claiming “That punch was nothing but power! Power…and money!” Awesome. The rest is just the Wrestlemania main event and his HOF speech. Bleh.
– Roddy Piper v. Jake Roberts. From Mid-Atlantic in 82, very early in the career of the Snake. Jake looks more like Bob Orton here with his afro. Jake blocks a hiptoss and gets one of his own, and they exchange wristlocks. Piper goes with the cheapshot and works a facelock on the mat, while Ricky Steamboat is morally outraged on color commentary. They slug it out and Roberts starts bleeding from an old cut, so Piper gets a backdrop suplex. Jake comes back with a sunset flip for two, and Piper slugs him down for two in return. Melodramatic kneelift gets two. Piper tries the sleeper and Jake lands in the ropes to force a break, and he makes the comeback with his own kneelift for two. Sadly, Sgt. Slaughter trips him up for the DQ at 6:56. ** Ricky Steamboat makes the save to cut off any further shenanigans from the heels.
– Roddy Piper v. Paul Orndorff. From MSG in 1985, after the famous split between them. Giant brawl to start as Orndorff goes crazy and chases him to the floor, and then back in with an elbow off the top. He starts going after the arm and Piper gives him the old crazy eye, but Paul takes him down and works the arm. Blind charge hits knee and Piper clobbers him with a lariat out of the corner to take over, then throws knees and punches on the ropes. Orndorff comes back with a backslide for two, but Piper gives him the THREE STOOGES EYEPOKE~! to stop that momentum swing. Piper chases him out, but Orndorff headlocks him on the floor, so Piper sends him into the post to slow it down again. Back in, he controls with a facelock on the mat and they do a nice reversal sequence into another Orndorff backslide for two. He fights back, bigtime, and Piper’s selling of the punches is great stuff. Paul charges with a bodypress and they do the SNME double countout finish tease, but Orndorff drags him back in by the hair and pounds him on the apron instead. He yanks Piper in by the hair and it’s more great comic selling from Hot Rod, as Orndorff goes up to finish before Bob Orton runs in for the DQ at 8:45. Heel beatdown follows as we’re denied a proper blowoff to this AGAIN. Well, we know Piper didn’t do jobs, so it’s not like it would have been expected anyway. Super-hot brawl, and Team Piper just kicks the CRAP out of Orndorff afterwards to really draw heat. Bulldogs make the save and you know there’s a good six-man tag in there somewhere. ***
OK, now over to the football players…
– Brian Pillman & Bruce Hart & Hiro Hase v. Makhan Singh & Jerry Morrow & Great Gama. Ah, Bad Company, my favourite team as a kid before I was smartened up enough to realize just why Bruce Hart never lost. Joined in progress with Pillman cleaning house on the heels and hitting Morrow with a pescado. Back in the ring, Pillman gets a flying splash for two, but Gama breaks it up and takes over. Hase gets helped back to the dressing room due to a rib injury, leaving the faces 3-on-2. Over to Makhan (Mike Shaw, aka Bastion Booger), who plays hide-the-object and clotheslines Pillman for two. Bearhug sets up the false tag to Bruce Hart, but just allows Makhan to get the avalanche for two. Gama is next up with the Cobra sleeper, but Pillman won’t go down. Morrow comes in next and drops the headbutt for two, but Bruce saves and earns a yellow card. Gama charges and hits boot, but Pillman can’t make it over to the corner. Enzuigiri allows him to get there, and Bruce is in and slugging away. Bruce goes for the patented clothesline, but Morrow holds down the top rope and then gives Bruce a neckbreaker on the floor. Back in, Gama goes up and things look bad, but Hase returns to trip him up and Bruce gets a small package for the pin at 6:15. Hey, the bookerman goes over, how about that? Good hard-working Stampede stuff. ***
– WWWF World title: Bruno Sammartino v. Ernie Ladd. From MSG in 1976. Ladd immediately loads up a foreign object in his tights for safekeeping, but Bruno takes him down with the top wristlock. Ladd makes the ropes, so Bruno does it again. Ladd keeps backing off, which is pretty funny coming from a guy as huge as he is, and shoots in with a bearhug and keeps Bruno tied up on the mat with that. Bruno’s in the ropes, so the ref breaks it up, and Ladd switches to a choke while maneuvering Bruno around to hide it from the ref. Bruno has had ENOUGH and slugs away on the Big Cat, then backdrops him out of the corner. Holy cow, way to bump for a guy that’s like 7 feet tall. Bruno kicks him on the mat and now Ernie goes with the contingency plan…in his pants. The foreign object, that is. Bruno is out and Ladd keeps hitting him with the phantom object, setting up a legdrop. Ladd goes up to finish, but misses a splash and Bruno pins him at 10:18 to retain. Typical Bruno stuff, but Ladd was a very different wrestler than you’d expect for someone his size. **1/2
– WCW World title: Hollywood Hogan v. Goldberg. I don’t remember if I ever did a proper rant for this one, but it’s short so why not? From Nitro in July of 1998, of course. This was originally supposed to be a dark match for the live crowd so that Hogan could claim that he drew a record house without losing the title, but things went crazy leading up to the show and suddenly it became a title match on live TV. This remains one of the few jobs that Hogan never got back again. Goldberg grabs a headlock to start and overpowers Hogan, but Hulk backs off into the ropes. They do the test of strength and Goldberg wins that pretty easily to draw a big pop, and Hogan goes to the ropes again. Hogan finally throws punches to take over and uses his trusty weightlifting belt, but Goldberg steals it and gets rid of it. Hogan goes low and gets a clothesline for two, then chokes him down, but the elbows miss. Goldberg pops up and clotheslines him out of the ring. Hogan retrieves his belt in a nice touch and tosses Goldberg, and uses a chair to take over again. Back in, the legdrop hits twice and the nWo starts coming out to celebrate, but Goldberg kicks out. Spear, Jackhammer, and history is made at 8:12. One of the loudest pops EVER for that, as fans were almost as shocked at getting a totally clean title change as anything, I think. Clearly this was the match that Hogan should have given Sting at Starrcade 97. Not a good match or anything, but it was the total deconstruction of the Hogan match and should have brought in a new era. But it didn’t, and WCW is gone. *1/2
