Andrew Lutzke
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentary Crew
After the emergence of The Road Warriors in Georgia Championship Wrestling in late 1983 and their subsequent successes in their cross country and international pathway of destruction, many other promoters tried to create their own versions of the Road Warriors (who were themselves “rip offs” of characters from the “Mad Max” movie series).
These teams included The Powers of Pain, The Master Blasters, The Maxx Brothers, and The Blade Runners – among others. The WWF resisted creating their own version until late 1986 when Vince McMahon repackaged two veterans into “Demolition”. Firstly Vince retooled his “Super Machine (who had been out of WWF action since late October) into “Ax”. Ax was Bill Eadie, a former “Mongol” warrior who later went on to great success under a hood as simply the “Masked Superstar” – a gimmick that allowed Eadie to headline in the NWA, AWA and WWF. His partner would be Randy Colley, a veteran of over 10 years of various southern promotions, the Gulf Coast and even the WWF under tag team gimmicks like “The Spoiler”, “The Assassins” and most famously “The Moondogs”. It was as Moondog Rex that saw Colley capture the WWF tag titles in 1981. Colley also enjoyed singles success – most recently as “The Nightmare” aka “The Masked Champion” in Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling. Colley was 37 by this point and Eadie was 40, so this new team was not built for long term success.
Demolition debuted on January 4th 1987 at a house show. The tag team scene in the WWF was loaded at this time with the roster boasting of the Islanders (Haku and Tama), The Killer Bees, Volkoff and The Iron Shiek, The Hart Foundation, The Dream Team (Beefcake and Valentine- soon to be Dino Bravo and Valentine), The Rougeau Brothers, The British Bulldogs, The U.S. Express (Rotonda and Spivey), The Can-Am Connection (Rick Martel and Tom Zenk), and Bob Orton jr. teaming with The Magnificent Muraco.
Demolition was paired with “Luscious” Johnny V., who was an odd choice to put with two face paint covered, leather clad bad asses – especially since Johnny V. already had a tag team in his stable. Thankfully Mr. Fuji would take over in a matter of months as Demolition’s manager, Fuji’s devious gimmick fit the team MUCH better.
Changing managers wouldn’t be the only significant change for Demolition. The WWF decided after one TV taping that Colley was too recognizable as “Smash” and since The Moondogs had been glorified jobbers for much of the past year, it was felt it would hurt Demolition’s chances at getting over. Colley would be very upset over this and sued the WWF – claiming to have created the gimmick. Colley then took the gimmick to the independent scene:
Eadie was offered several names as replacements for Colley and after some debate, it was determined that Barry Darsow would step into the role of Smash. Darsow broke into the business several years earlier, ironically also as a Mongol. Darsow would go onto the Mid-South as Russian turncoat “Crusher” Darsow and eventually he would be known as Crusher Khruschev in Jim Crockett Promotions.
Demolition weren’t quite established enough yet to find a spot on the Wrestlemania 3 card but they were going on a long winning streak on TV and house shows. Demolition would have to wait until October to actually have an angle. Demolition would injure Brady Boone during a squash match and it was revealed that Boone was Billy Jack Haynes cousin. Haynes would join with Ken Patera to try and seek revenge. After dispatching of Patera and Haynes over the next couple of months, Demolition set their sights on the World tag team champions, Strike Force. Tito Santana and Rick Martel had captured the belts that fall from the Hart Foundation, fulfilling the destiny that was to belong to the Can-Am Connection, had Tom Zenk not left the WWF over a money dispute.
Demolition collided with Strike Force at Wrestlemania 4 and thanks to a shot from Mr. Fuji’s cane, Ax and Smash captured the tag gold. A few weeks after that, Demolition made sure to eliminate Strike Force from competition by injuring Rick Martel and putting him out of action for many months.
Demolition saw it’s newest and stiffest challenge emerge that July when the Warlord and Barbarian entered the WWF. The “Powers of Pain” were the only team in the WWF that could match muscle with the champs and they quickly rose to the rank of number one contender, chasing Demolition from summer until finally blowing their final chance at the straps at Wrestlemania 5. In the middle of the this feud, Mr. Fuji surprisingly turned on Demolition and sided with the P.O.P. This made Demolition babyfaces for the first time in their WWF run.
The title defenses didn’t get any easier after Wrestlemania, as the massive tag team known as the “Twin Towers” were next up to challenge Demolition. The Big Bossman and the “African Dream” Akeem each weighed in the 400 pound range and they had enough credibility to spend months battling Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan prior to turning their attention to the tag champs. Meanwhile, Demolition also faced the cunning duo of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard on Saturday Night’s Main Event in both May and July – the second match ended with Andre the Giant interfering and costing Demolition the titles.
Demolition would get a measure of revenge on Andre at Summerslam ’89 when they teamed with Hacksaw Jim Duggan to battle with Andre and the Twin Towers. Demolition would chase Tully and Arn into the Fall and ultimately recapture the tag belts in early October.
After holding the belts for 478 days during their first reign, this reign lasted a mere 72 days as Demolition were upended by the Colossal Connection (Andre the Giant and Haku) in December of 1989.
Demolition were determined to once again hold the titles and they pursued Andre and Haku until Wrestlemania 6, where they became the first team to “Three-peat” as champions in the WWF.
Prior to Wrestlemania, the Hart Foundation had challenged the winner of the Wrestlemania tag title match and the threat of the former champions was enough for Demolition to find a third member to give themselves a competitive advantage. This led to Demolition bringing in Crush, a massive but green worker and turning heel along the way. In reality Eadie was suffering some health issues and the WWF brass figured they should try and save their hot act by finding a replacement.
When the battle between the Hart Foundation and Demolition finally went down at SummerSlam ’90, the heel trio tried to switch out and use an extra man in order to gain control over the Hart Foundation, but ultimately the Legion of Doom would come down to turn the odds in the favor of side of good and Demolition once again found themselves without the gold.
The trio would seek their revenge on the L.O.D. in a series of matches with World champ The Ultimate Warrior joining forces with Hawk and Animal. This combo would clash on national TV on “Saturday Night’s Main Event” and also at the Survivor Series. Ax would be removed from the WWF roster soon after and Demolition rejoined Mr. Fuji and became a mid-card tag team before dissolving shortly after Wrestlemania 7.
Ax would go on to work independent promotions as “Axis the Demolisher” and also sought legal action against the WWF for rights to the gimmick. Ax would briefly form a new version of Demolition with “Crash” and ultimately he and Smash would reunite in the 2000’s to work the independents under the gimmick.
Smash would end up staying in the WWF as Repo Man, before going to WCW and having several failed gimmicks there.
Crush would receive a decent singles push starting in 1992 but between jail stints and other various factors would never capture the potential that he seemed to have in 92-93. A WCW run in 1998 demotivated him further and he became a poor worker. After a brief WWF return, Crush would die prematurely at age 43 due to drug use.
On a final trivial note, the WWF teased a Demolition return in the late 90’s in their magazine. One month “The Informer: Barred from the back!” article stated rumors that hinted toward Demolition making a return. To add to the tease, the following month Demolition was the featured stars in the “From Rookies to Legends” column.
The Shoot:
Eadie watched wrestling with his Grandma as a college kid – Pittsburgh area.
His neighbor was a state athletic commissioner and introduced him to the area’s booker.
Ax was a teacher at this point and a football coach.
Geeto Mongol was his trainer – it took 3 months before he’d let him try moves, before that it was all bumps.
He puts over Ole Anderson for stepping back his role while he was a booker.
Eadie and Dusty Rhodes never got along.
Bill says booking somebody too strong can be a detriment because if you make him work longer matches, the fans might feel that the guy is getting worse since he’s not squashing people anymore.
Booking was adaptable to Eadie’s skills as a teacher and coach where things had to change on the fly.
Vince Sr. wanted Eadie to work a cowboy gimmick.
Now guys are shoehorned into a gimmick regardless of their real personality.
He became Geeto’s assistant booker within months of starting out.
George Scott gave Eadie the Masked Superstar gimmick and his first real push.
He refused the WWF’s offer to come in during the mid 80’s wrestling war because he had deals in Japan and liked living close to home in Georgia.
Vince Sr. would always have start and end dates, feud ideas and money laid out for Eadie when he toured WWF.
Masked Superstar was created because The Spoiler thought he was too big to replace and so another masked gimmick was brought in.
George Scott would sit in the stands to gauge fan reaction to the angles and matches.
Eadie worked each gimmick he had differently – Mongol was a mauler, Masked Superstar was technical, and Demolition was brutal/technical mix.
WCW wanted Bill to come in and book, but he had a deal with Global lined up.
Terry Taylor is put over a guy who should’ve been a booker somewhere.
Ax feels he should have passed on the Red Rooster gimmick.
Verne Gagne wanted Eadie to move up to Minnesota during his 1985 run.
Verne called Eadie into his hotel room, told him he wanted to put him over Martel for the AWA strap.
Gagne told him he also wanted him to cancel his New Japan bookings and switch to All Japan and defend the title for $7500 a week – $2000 of which will be kicked back to Verne for “booking fees”.
Eadie turned the whole thing down and told Verne he makes 10K a week from New Japan and doesn’t have to give any of it to anyone.
Both the Hogan versus Flair and Road Warriors versus Demolition feuds were missing something despite being dream matches.
Wahoo McDaniel taught Eadie to only say things that will make his character credible.
Eadie would refuse goofy angles. He wanted to be an ass kicker.
Demolition was never asked to split in real life.
Now we get to the booking. Eadie is asked to book how he would split Demolition:
Ax picks right after Wrestlemania 6 as the starting point, before Crush comes in.
Demolition announces that Fuji wants to return as their manager and that they will be bringing in Crush to make the team even stronger.
Fuji gets in Crush’s ear and says Smash and you need to get rid of Ax.
Crush falls for Fuji’s lines slowly and Fuji is brought back into the fold.
Fuji interferes and costs Ax a win for the team.
Ax wants Fuji fired again – so Fuji keeps setting Ax up to lose.
Fuji starts to make Crush and Smash as a unit and have Ax at ringside – but Fuji makes sure Ax still gets his part of the purse – trying to make the other 2 jealous.
Ax finally has enough and attacks Fuji – Crush attacks him and Smash joins in eventually.
Ax then gets a 1 on 1 series with Crush. Smash sits back torn.
Smash ultimately joins Ax and that sets up Fuji and Crush versus Smash and Ax.
Final Thoughts:
This was perhaps the best “Guest Booker” I’ve seen so far and that was because the first hour was basically a straight forward shoot. The remaining time was a simple, stream lined angle without a lot of implausible bluster that fills other “Guest Booker” DVDs I’ve seen. Recommended to see!
