One of the few bright spots left as the AWA was dying.
History
In mid 1989, two trainees of AWA referee Eddie Sharkey’s were about to get their big break. Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom had accomplished very little in their singles careers. (As a matter of fact, at December 1988’s Superclash Bloom was defeated by Jimmy Valiant in under thirty seconds.) Enos’s gimmick as a construction worker was about to come into play.
Johnny Valiant began managing the repackaged Bloom and Enos. They now wore bright orange tights and came to the ring wearing safety vests and carrying sledgehammers. They were known as the Destruction Crew – Mean Mike Enos and Wayne “the Train†Bloom.
The Destruction Crew soon made an impact. In September the Crew was facing AWA World Tag Team champions Ken Patera and Brad Rheingans in a car lifting contest. The Crew jumped the champions and sent their rivals home with injuries.
That set up a tournament to crown new champions. The Crew first disposed of Sgt. Slaughter and Baron Von Raschke, and wound up defeated Greg Gagne and Paul Diamond to claim the belts on October 1st.
The Crew didn’t just win the championships. They also won the PWI Rookie of the Year award for 1989.
The Crew would dominate the tag team scene in the AWA for months. Their finisher, the Wrecking Ball, consisted of Enos lifting an opponent up onto his shoulders so Bloom could hit them with a top rope clothesline. The move was considered so devastating by the AWA that they banned all moves from the top rope that hit an opponent who was lying in the ring or “elevated†(as in the Wrecking Ball). The Crew simply ignored the new rule. After all, champions can’t lose their titles by disqualification, right?
The Crew had heavy competition as well. It seemed like every team in the AWA was gunning for them. They carefully avoided challenges from both the Texas Hangmen (Killer and Psycho) and the Lumberjacks (John Nord and Scott Norton) by suggesting that the two teams battle it out for a title shot. While this was going on, they also faced challenges from DJ Peterson, who’d sworn to keep trying until he found a partner who could defeat the Crew.
The Crew overcame all challengers for nearly a year. However, on August 11, at one of the final AWA on ESPN tapings, DJ Peterson allied himself with The Trooper (Del Wilkes, better known as the Patriot) and defeated the Crew to claim the belts. They would be the final AWA Tag Team champions.
Thanks to the magic of Youtube, here are a couple of the Crew’s matches to enjoy. First is a match where the Crew faced the Trooper and Paul Diamond in two parts.
Also, here’s a match where the Crew faced off against DJ Peterson and former champion Brad Rheingans.
In a period when the AWA was dying before viewers’ eyes, the Destruction Crew was a bright spot. Enos and Bloom were good wrestlers. They weren’t well known (like most of the AWA roster apart from champion Larry Zbyszko and his top challengers like Nikita Koloff), but they were skilled. Their interviews held up well. They looked like wrestlers.
Oh, of course the AWA helped build them up. Indirectly outlawing the Wrecking Ball as such a devastating move only helped build their reputation, as did their refusal to follow the rule.
Sadly, the AWA closure would mark the end of the peak of the Crew’s careers. Although they would move on to stays in the NWA, WWF, and WCW, they would never again achieve the success they did in the AWA. And they didn’t even have to hit anyone with their sledgehammers to get there.
While the AWA was shutting down, Bloom and Enos debuted under masks for the NWA as the Minnesota Wrecking Crew 2. After a feud with the Steiner Brothers fizzled, they headed to All-Japan as the Destruction Crew before returning to the US in mid-1991. Now in the WWF they were in the gimmick that most fans remember – the arrogant Beverly Brothers. By the end of 1992, the Beverlys (Beau and Blake) were effectively removed from the title hunt.
Wayne Bloom left the WWF in April of 1993 and began making sporadic independent appearances, including some for Herb Abrams’s UWF. In 1997 Bloom headed to WCW where he and Enos tagged again, but both left in 1998 and Bloom retired permanently in 1999.
Mike Enos stayed with the WWF for a few more months as Blake Beverly and competed as a singles wrestler. Enos then headed to New Japan before heading to WCW in late 1994. First billed as the Mauler and then his real name, Enos found himself in the tag team scene once again. He tagged with Dick Slater as Rough & Ready, but the team never went anywhere. In 1997 he joined forces with the returning Wayne Bloom, but the team again didn’t break out. After Bloom left, Enos found himself strictly working as enhancement talent and mainly confined to the weekend shows. Enos retired in 2000.
