Andrew Lutzke
Courtesy of the WWE Network
“Mean” Gene Okerlund hosts this tape highlighting the bad guys that the fans loved to hate. Bobby Heenan, King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd join Gene to provide a heel’s perspective and keep Okerlund from burying their friends too much. The heels cackle evilly as “Mean” Gene runs down the angles we are going to see. Seeing heels laughing at their handiwork is always great.
Scott McGhee vs. Jake “the Snake” Roberts
Ernie Ladd, Gorilla Monsoon and “Lord” Alfred Hayes call the action. Roberts mauls McGhee and drives him to the mat. McGhee does a nice job rolling his eyes in the back of his head as he sells the beating. McGhee starts to make a comeback, but the crowd is lukewarm to his efforts.
Roberts tries to get his snake bag, to no avail. McGhee misses a knee and eats a short clothesline. Monsoon uses medical terms and it breaks Hayes up. Roberts delivers the DDT for the win in short order. Roberts plays with the snake and McGhee’s corpse for a few minutes to really drive home the gimmick. McGhee was the son of wrestler Geoff Portz and was actually a pushed commodity in the territories before coming to the WWF.
Pat Patterson vs. Tor Kamata
This is from the famous Shea Stadium show in 1980. Monsoon calls Kamata “a big Jap”. Kamata gets the jump on Patterson, but misses a top rope maneuver he tries way too early. Patterson hits his own top rope knee and I thought we might get a flash finish. Kamata is battered, so he chucks a handful of salt in Patterson’s face for a quick DQ. This was an odd choice to stick on here as neither man was relevant to the WWF in 1986, minus Patterson’s cameos as a backstage stooge breaking up fights on TV.
WWF champion Pedro Morales vs. George “The Animal” Steele
Steele slugs Morales to the mat quickly, but isn’t too pleased to feel the champion’s fists in retaliation. Steele tries to square up to Morales, but seems wary of enduring more punches. We skip ahead to Steele pounding on the champ. Morales is slammed head first several times into the steel connectors of the turnbuckle. Morales manages to cut the Animal off and slams his head back and forth onto the steel connectors of two different corners. Morales gnaws on the bloody head of Steele, to a big ovation from the fans. The ref calls the match due to Steele’s blood loss, which isn’t all that bad. Steele hits Morales with a foreign object, but Morales gets the gimmick and chases Steele from ringside. This seemed like a fun brawl, with a hot crowd between two smart workers who got a lot of reaction with limited physical toll on their bodies.
Andre the Giant vs. “The Big Cat” Ernie Ladd
We are joined in progress with Andre dominating his fellow big man. Ladd uses his mysteriously taped thumb to down the Giant with several blows. Andre is tangled in the ropes and stomped. Andre finally gets pissed and grabs Ladd’s hand, driving his own “loaded thumb” into Ladd’s face. Andre misses a splash, but Ladd retreats instead of making a move on Andre. Ladd takes a walk to the showers to accept a count-out loss. They only showed around 3-minutes of the action. Ladd took good bumps, and Andre showed that a baby face of any size can sell.
Gorilla Monsoon vs. “Captain” Lou Albano
Albano is merely fat here, and not morbidly obese. Albano stalls, as he wants none of his large opponent’s wrath. Albano eats a few punches and the crowd roars. The Captain goes to Monsoon’s eyes several times to delay the inevitable. Monsoon gets pissed and moves the ref out of the way so he can batter this pissant manager.
Gorilla slugs Albano and pokes his eyes for good measure. Albano blades from the blows and takes an awesome bump up and over the ropes. Albano walks off instead of taking anymore abuse. The crowd is went crazy for every blow Monsoon landed and roared even louder when Albano walked off, not caring for a moment that the match went only a few minutes.
Andre the Giant and “Chief” Jay Strongbow vs. Blackjack Lanza and Stan “The Man” Stasiak
Strongbow brings Stasiak in the action with a flying headscissors and quickly scores a number of takedowns. This suddenly ends after maybe a minute and I have no idea why this clip was shown. Maybe I had another Network glitch?
We get a series of clips of Don Muraco being a ruffian against Pedro Morales –slamming him into the railing, then we flash to a match with Muraco facing Special Delivery Jones. Jones dominates him with a headlock which goes on for several minutes. This seems like an odd thing to highlight given the gist of everything else we have seen so far on this video. Muraco scores a powerslam out of nowhere and steals the win….Yeah this was a waste of time to show.
Muraco is next shown cutting a promo on “Tuesday Night Titans”. He and Mr. Fuji are on top of the “dark side” and he looks down and spits on all below him. Muraco likes to fuck fat women, unlike Ricky Steamboat who prefers pretty blonds. Okay, I take back anything bad I ever said about Muraco thanks to that line!
Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat vs. Mr. Fuji
We are joined in progress as we see the close of this TV match. Steamboat scores the win, only for Muraco to attack him with a chair on the concrete. This angle was made fun of on Mid-South TV as they accused the WWF of using “break away” chairs on TV, unlike Mid-South wrestlers who properly concuss one another with stiff chair shots.
We see highlights of Roddy Piper: The infamous Jimmy Snuka attack on Piper’s Pit is shown. Next is Piper losing his mind on Tuesday Night Titans, screaming before slapping “Lord” Alfred Hayes. Jobber Frankie Williams is beat up on the “Pit”. Lou Albano and Piper scream at one another on TNT before he smacks Albano. Piper goes on the set of the “A-Team” and makes fun of Mr.T. We then see clips of Piper fighting Andre, Snuka, Lou Thesz, and the Tonga Kid.
Intercontinental Champ Tito Santana vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage
We see the ending of their match as Savage uses a foreign object to steal the gold from Santana. The crowd seemingly gives Savage a big ovation for winning the title.
Corporal Kirchner vs. The Iron Sheik
Sheik attacks before Kirchner can even get in the ring. Sheik lays in the boots, but the American hero has enough of that and drives Sheik’s nuts into the ring post. He delivers several suplexes on the Sheik, but misses a dropkick. This allows the Sheik to gain the advantage. Sheik locks in the abdominal stretch, but gets flipped out of it. The announcers are really playing up the fact that Kirchner is inexperienced and it’s costing him greater success.
Sheik dumps him to the floor and Nikolai Volkoff cheap shots the Corporal. Kirchner is counted out after that attack. The heels then double team him, but Kirchner fights back and scares off the heels with a chair.
We see clips of the 1985 “Manager of the Year” ceremony. Heenan loses, so he attacks Lou Albano with the trophy. Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy then batter Hillbilly Jim, splashing him several times.
Andre the Giant vs. “Big” John Studd
We see clips of Andre being downed, with Heenan then grabbing a large pair of scissors. Andre bites Studd to avoid another haircut. Studd is slammed. Andre then prepares to cut Studd’s hair. Bundy rumbles down to ringside, splashing Andre numerous times before the babyface locker room clears out to chase off the heels. Good angle!
We then see a clip from “Saturday night’s Main Event” with Bundy attacking Hogan from behind after a match with Don Muraco. Hogan endures several splashes.
Andre the Giant and S.D. Jones vs. Ken Patera and “Big” John Studd
This is clipped to the finish, where Studd and Patera slam Andre together. They then deliver a 2-on-1 beat down, culminating with the heels cutting his hair. This of course spawned months and months of main event tag matches across the country. Also notable is Vince McMahon’s verbiage of the heels “raping the dignity” of Andre.
Final thoughts: At a breezy hour and ten minutes, this is a fun look at a plethora of notable heels from an earlier era. The video is edited due to technical issues. This appears to mean we missed seeing Terry Funk attacking ring announcer Mel Phillips, and other clips that have vanished into the ether….or the Network glitched out on me again….and to Hell with it all…
