Dark Pegasus Video Review: Allied Powers: The World’s Greatest Tag Teams (Disc Two)

Allied Powers: The World’s Greatest Tag Teams (Disc Two) by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Examiner.com Your hosts are John Morrison and The Miz. WWF Tag Team Titles: Strike Force vs. Demolition (w/Mr. Fuji — 03/27/88). This is the famous start to the most dominant tag reign in history, rivaling and perhaps surpassing the men they were imitating – the Road Warriors. Smash immediately gets on the fans’ good side by pummeling Martel. Strike Force uses a lot of doubleteams because they can’t match power with the Demos. Tito gets caught and clotheslined to play face-in-peril. Ax hits a powerslam, and Smash tries to crush Tito’s throat. Tito finally avoids an elbowdrop and tags out to Martel. The fans wake up a bit, but at this point it looks like they’re just burned out. Martel puts Smash in the Boston Crab, and Tito tries to keep Ax from interfering, but it just backfires. The ref gets distracted by Tito and Mr. Fuji, so Ax grabs Fuji’s cane and nails Martel with it for the win and the titles at 8:05. **1/2 WWF Tag Team Titles: The U.S. Express (w/Lou Albano) vs. The Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff (w/Freddie Blassie — 03/31/85). The Express is future Horseman Barry Windham and future IRS Mike Rotundo. The Express has new Baywatch-esque music for the DVD. Despite the fact that he was a former champ, Sheik wasn’t much more than a glorified midcarder at best. Sheik shoulderblocks Rotundo but tries again and gets hiptossed. Sheik hooks the tights a lot to draw some heat from the audience. Ah, the little things. Rotundo plays face-in-peril and takes a long abdominal stretch from the Sheik. He eventually hiptosses out, and it’s the HOT TAG TO WINDHAM! Barry destroys every foreigner in sight and hits the bulldog on Nikolai. Sheik makes the save, so Rotundo gives him a knuckle sammitch. The ref gets distracted trying to put Rotundo out, so Sheik grabs the cane and nails Windham with it for the win and the titles at 5:00. Seemed longer. ** WWF vs. WCW Tag Team Titles: The Hardy Boyz vs. The Dudley Boyz (w/Stacy Keibler — 11/18/01). Ah, Duchess of Dudleyville Stacy. ::drool:: This match-up was already long played out at this point. Heyman makes a half-hearted attempt to make it interesting by saying they’ve never faced off in a cage before. It doesn’t come into play much early as the Hardyz hit their usual tandem moves. Jeff plays face-in-peril briefly before they throw out the tag rules and just start brawling. The Dudz launch Matt into the cage face first. They try the same thing with Jeff, but he lands on the top rope and scurries up the cage. Bubba catches him, though, and drags him back in for a Doomsday Device. Sick spot as Bubba avalanches Matt’s face into the cage. Stacy approves, and I approve of Stacy, so by proxy, I approve of that spot. The Dudz go up, but D-Von misses the diving headbutt, and Bubba misses the senton. The Hardyz try the same, but this time, they successfully connect with the legdrop/splash combo. D-Von stops the count, though. Bubba calls for the tables, so Stacy uses her feminine wiles (or, actually, ass cheeks) to distract Nick Patrick and steal the key. She unlocks the door and tosses in a table. Matt breaks up the 3D and goes out over the top. The crowd thinks the Hardyz have won, but BOTH guys have to go out to win. That leaves Jeff alone in a 2-on-1. STRATEGERY! Jeff knocks D-Von onto the table and climbs up the cage. Matt screams for him to come down so they can, you know, win the match. Instead, Jeff realizes there is a hole in his heart, and that hole can only be filled by putting another man through a table. He comes off the top with the Swanton, but it misses. Moron. D-Von covers and picks up the win and both sets of titles at 15:45. This would be the catalyst for Matt’s heel turn, even though Jeff was clearly the selfish one. **3/4 WCW World Tag Team Titles: Harlem Heat (w/Sensuous Sherri & Col. Parker) vs. The Outsiders. This would be the death of the WCW tag team titles until 1999 as the Outsiders would play keep-away until WCW decided it was silly not to have fighting tag team champions. Heenan teases sympathies for the nWo by noting the number of nWo fans in the audience and calling for HH to be disqualified for tossing Hall over the top. The match sucks something fierce. Hall is fairly motivated here, but Nash is starting to show signs of the lazy bastard he’d become. The fans chant “Razor” as Hall plants one on Sherri. The finish sees Booker hit the Harlem Hangover on Hall, but Col. Parker hands his cane over to Nash to save his own hide. Nash blasts Stevie with the cane, and Hall covers for the win and the titles at 13:06. I don’t think anyone expected this to be any good. Booker was the only one with a will and ability to work. Hall and Nash were just riding the tidal wave that was the nWo. *1/4 Was there really a need to double dip on the next match? It’s on the Horsemen DVD too. NWA Tag Team Titles: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (w/JJ Dillon) vs. Sting & Nikita Koloff. Sting failed to wrest the World Title from the Nature Boy, so he got shunted back down the card a bit to vie for the tag titles with whichever partner wasn’t doing anything. Enter Nikita. Sting and Nikita clean house early, and Sting hits Arn with a pescado to a HUGE pop. This crowd is on FIRE, popping for virtually everything the faces do. The faces isolate Blanchard and work over his arm. We’re clipped to the Horseman in control after Dillon cheapshotted Nikita. Arn’s pump-splash meets Nikita’s knees, and Sting gets the hot tag. Sting is a house of fire, press-slamming Tully and bulldogging Arn. He grabs a sleeper on Arn with about a minute left to go. Sting blocks a sunset flip from Tully and gives him a Stinger Splash. SCORPION DEATHLOCK! Nikita tackles Arn as the bell rings at 20:06. Much better as a full match than as a clipped one. ***1/4 2/3 Falls: Nick Bockwinkel & Ray Stevens vs. Red Bastien & Billy Robinson (12/72) First Fall: Bockwinkel and Stevens had been ducking Bastien and Robinson, but they got so cocky that they signed an open contract. Newer fans will probably find a lot to like in Billy Robinson. His British style is so unique that it looks like nothing in the mainstream today. The closest you’ll find is Colt Cabana. Billy takes a bad fall to the floor to assume the face-in-peril role. Stevens and Bockwinkel work him over with stiff slugs but nothing too exciting. Robinson and Stevens collide in the middle of the ring for the double KO. That allows Bastien to get the hot tag. He pins Stevens after an atomic drop (9:17). Second Fall: Robinson kicks Bockwinkel’s ass all over the ring. Bastien tags in and slingshots Bockwinkel into a Robinson forearm. Nice. The champs cheat behind the ref’s back to take over on Robinson once again. Billy blocks a piledriver with a kick to the head and tags in Bastien again. Bastien goes nuts on Bockwinkel with dropkicks. That sets up Billy Robinson’s one-handed backbreaker at 14:32. Woo hoo! New champs? No. Turns out promoter Wally Karbo couldn’t make it for the titles because of an obscure rule involving the time limit. This holds up quite well today. ***1/2 Rey Mysterio & Shawn Michaels vs. Miz & Morrison (11/17/08). Michaels and Rey are too quick for the ex-champs as they bedazzle Morrison and hit dives out onto both Miz and Morrison. We take a commercial and come back to Miz holding Shawn in a chinlock. Shawn escapes and tags in Rey, who gets more of the same. Rey takes the Bret bump to the corner for two. The usual Raw match follows, except when Shawn and Rey clean house and appear to be cruising to a victory, Morrison busts out his own superkick on Shawn to give Miz and Morrison the win at 8:02. Mostly memorable for the ending. Miz and Morrison just didn’t have anyone decent to feud with, which is unfortunate because neither did London & Kendrick and the two teams would have been natural rivals. **3/4 WWF Tag Team Titles: The Hart Foundation (w/Danny Davis & Jimmy Hart) vs. The Rougeau Brothers (03/07/87). The Rougeaus are the babyfaces here, in case you were confused. They won a previous match against the Harts to set this up. Long stallfest to start. The Rougeaus take over on Bret with their wacky doubleteams. The Harts cheat to take over on Raymond. The ref doesn’t see Raymond make the tag, but a Hart doubleteam goes awry. HOT TAG TO JACQUES! Bret begs off. Something’s just wrong about that. The Rougeaus run the Harts into one another and hit Le Bomb de Rougeaux. Jacques rolls up the Hitman, but Davis sneaks in behind the ref’s back and rolls them back over for the win at 14:51. The Harts had literally dozens if not hundreds of matches just like this with the Rougeaus, Killer Bees, Bulldogs, and Strike Force, so while they’re good, they tend to blend together. *** Special Features Badstreet music video. Woooo hoooo! Animal Advice from the British Bulldogs Gene Okerlund visits the Hart Foundation HQ Camouflage, Bushwhacker style Gene Okerlund interviews Demolition (the introduction of Crush) LOD returns to Chicago The Cutting Room Floor: The Conquistadors (“Viva las Essa Rios!”) The Rock ‘n’ Sock Connection Break Up? DX and the Meaning of Controversy The Miz & John Morrison – “Mizfits & Mofos” Music Video

The 411: And more to come.
Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]