Evolution Schematic 11.28.06: Yokozuna (Part 2)

Writer’s Notes

Russo is not illogical. He’s merely focused too much on the unexpected. Any major Russo storyline will have, somewhere in it, logic. People just forget about it because they are focused too much on the shocking twist or they don’t like what he’s done or they have bad memories or they aren’t paying attention.

And Big Bossman lifted the god damm briefcase.

Part 1 reviewed Yokozuna’s career from it’s beginnings as part of the huge Samoan Wrestling family, up to the point when things went downhill, overall, at Wrestlemania X.

Phase 8- Yokozuna CRUSH! I’m sorry, Yokozuna & Crush, my mistake.

Yoko, having lost the World title to Bret Hart, was despondent. But Mr. Fuji and Jim Cornette got him back on track. Ok, so the odds weren’t good on him winning the world title again any time soon. Well then, there’s plenty of other gold lying around. So, almost immediately after Yoko lost his rematches with Bret, then was embarrassed on an episode of Raw when Earthquake beat him in a sumo match, he began teaming regularly with Crush, another Cornette client, and they chased the Headshrinkers, who were WWF Tag Team Champions, beloved, and blood relatives of Yoko. But he didn’t care, he wanted gold! He wanted to be the best! Screw family!

Alas, despite getting shots, Crush and Yoko never did get the tag titles, losing their biggest chance at King Of The Ring 94 when Lex Luger distracted Crush enough for him to get pinned. And then, as Yoko wondered what to do, an old skeleton in the closet came back to haunt him.

Phase 9- Rest In Peace…If your blubber ever stops jiggling.

For after a couple of months, the Undertaker returned. Now, if he had been under the control of Ted DiBiase, then maybe Yoko would have been ok. But he wasn’t, he was under the control of Paul Bearer.

And he was pissed about that whole “Mass Heel Army That Saved Yoko’s Mass Ass” at the Rumble. So, he challenged Yoko to a rematch in another Casket match, without the belt on the line. And, to ensure that no-one interfered, a special guest trouble-shooting referee was hired.

Chuck Fucking Norris.

(Insert favourite Chuck Fact here. Probably the one about how his tears cure cancer, but it’s a shame he’s never cried.)

So, in the main event of Survivor Series 94, Taker and Yoko brawled, with Chuck ensuring no-one interfered. Well, that didn’t actually work out as planned, since Chuck (obviously deciding to make the fight fairer and give Yokozuna a freebee) got ‘distracted’ by Bam Bam Bigelow and King Kong Bundy of DiBiase’s Corporation, the two men fresh off winning their Survivor Series match. While Chuck was ‘distracted’, IRS interfered, nailing Taker and almost giving Yoko the win. But Taker came back, and eventually slammed the casket shut, trapping Yoko inside.

He wouldn’t be back for a while. After all, he had failed, he lost, he just wasn’t good enough, he was too fat, so on and so forth. He did wrestle a few shows after Survivor Series, enough to fulfill his contract, but then he left, possibly seeking other fields to conquer, new horizons. But then, a man called him, and offered him a chance at redemption. And the irony was delicious, something Yoko knew about very well…

Phase 10- Owen Hart & Yokozuna- YOUR WWF Tag Team Champions!

See, Shawn Michaels and Diesel had a bad falling out. That happens a lot in Pro Wrestling. But at the time, they were World Tag Team Champions. Thus, they vacated the belts, and a tournament was held to find new champs. In that tournament, Owen Hart teamed with Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart, and they were eliminated in the opening round by The Headshrinkers.

Owen then proceeded to bitch and moan and moan and bitch. Eventually, fed up with it, the champions, The Smoking Gunns (who won the titles from the tournament winners, Bob Holly and The 1-2-3 Kid), gave Owen a title shot at Wrestlemania XI for himself and any partner he wanted. Owen had a good one in mind, and hyped it up as the show drew nearer, then, on the night, he revealed to the world his partner.

Given the heading of this phase, it should be fairly obvious who he picked.

Indeed, Owen had brought back the man who had beaten his brother for the WWF Title 2 years ago at that same event. And, just like then, Yoko was successful, although Owen was the one who officially got the pin, giving the duo their first WWF tag team titles, and Owen’s first WWF title full stop.

The unlikely duo were surprisingly dominate, taking on and defeating many of the best tag teams the WWF had to offer at the time, The Smoking Gunns at the very first In Your House, The Allied Powers at the second In Your House, and many more. But Owen and Yoko did have their singles careers, Yoko beating Lex Luger in a (slightly) old school match to advance to the Quarter Finals of the 95 King Of The Ring tourney. There, however, his scheduled opponent, Razor Ramon, was injured, and thus Savio Vega beat IRS for the slot, and then, in their match, triggered a big brawl between Yoko, Owen, himself and Razor, and ended up winning the match by Count Out when Yoko couldn’t enter the ring in time.

But then, Cornette and Fuji managed to wrangle out a very, VERY nice match for the tag team, although it wasn’t all wine and roses.

Phase 10b- Another shot at the real gold!

See, at the time, Shawn Michaels and Diesel had patched things up. Shawn was IC champ, and Diesel was World Champ. And they remembered, they were Tag Champs before, and never lost the belts! Give us back our belts! And thus, the IYH#3 Triple Header match was signed. At the PPV, in a tag match, all 3 belts would be on the line. Whoever was pinned lost their belt to whoever pinned them. Which did put Yoko and Owen at a disadvantage, given that that meant they weren’t that happy to see the other guy get a pin, since that meant no new title for them.

But then, on the night, Owen didn’t turn up, given that he was in Canada, where his wife was giving birth. What to do, what to do. Eventually, in order for the match to take place, Gorilla Monsoon ruled that The British Bulldog, a man who had reawakened the evil bastard within and new Camp Cornette member, was, for one night only, allowed to be one half of the WWF Tag Team Champions, and replaced Owen.

So the match went down, and Yoko and Bulldog held their own, but were fighting a losing battle when Owen ran in from the back, having magically arrived at the arena! He slid into the ring, charged, and was immediately powerbombed and pinned to give the Dudes With Attitude their second tag title reign.

Phase 11- WHAT?

The next night on Raw, this tag reign was ended as Owen was not a legal man, and hence could not lose his belt, since he wasn’t a champ at the time. So Owen and Yoko were given the titles back.

Phase 12- Huzzah!

And then promptly lost them for real to The Smoking Gunns.

Phase 13- D’oh!

Yoko then drifted away slightly from Owen, and seemed to be back on track when, helping Mabel, he managed to injure The Undertaker for a few months. But this led to Yoko being forced to fight Mabel at the 4th In Your House, where the two were both counted out as they brawled at ringside.

Then, at the 95 Survivor Series, the match Yoko was involved in was chosen at random, thus giving him the partners of Owen Hart (excellent), Dean Douglas (Good) and Razor Ramon (Bad) and opponents of Shawn Michaels (Good), Ahmed Johnson (Ok), Sid (Uh…) and The British Bulldog (Bad). And Yoko ended up being the last guy on his team!

Unfortunately that was 3 to 1 and he ended up being pinned, thus giving the match to Shawn, Johnson and Bulldog.

Yoko then lay low for a bit, before entering the Royal Rumble. That would be his ticket, all he had to do was win the Rumble again, and he’d be back on track to the big time! Sure, he got #9, but he was feared and respected, so that was all right. But then, after tossing Bob Backlund, King Mabel and Samoan Swat Team Member #2, he began to brawl with Vader.

And sure, normally that would be fine, the thing was, Vader was Cornette’s new client and golden child, and Yoko fighting him was not part of the plan. And then, to make matters worse, he and Vader got eliminated by Shawn Michaels. And sure, Shawn went on to win, but still, that sucked.

What sucked more was when Camp Cornette, Owen, Vader, Bulldog and Cornette attacked Yoko and injured his leg, putting him out for a bit. But when he came back, he came back slightly different…

Phase 14- Yokozuna, Fan Favourite.

Yoko returned a few weeks after his leg was injured, the injury not being that severe despite his size, and, with Mr. Fuji be his side, he was suddenly liked. His speaking probably had something to do with it, as he finally gave up the silent treatment and began to talk to the fans, his perfect English throwing some fans off but getting a decent, if unspectacular, fan following. His first match as a popular guy at the 6th In Your House was brief, as he won over The British Bulldog by DQ when Cornette slapped him around with the tennis racket, followed by a Camp Cornette beat down.

Yoko then got a Wrestlemania slot, as he teamed with Jake Roberts and Ahmed Johnson to fight Vader, Owen and Bulldog. Unfortunately, Vader pinned Roberts in that match.

Even more unfortunately, a few months while later, after Owen beat Yoko to advance in the Kuwaiti Cup, Yoko got a shot at Vader at the Beware Of The Dog PPV fiasco. And ended up being defeated by Vader.

This marked a tailspin for Yoko. He lost in the opening round of the 96 King Of The Ring tournament to Owen Hart. He lost to newcomer Steve Austin at the 96 Summerslam Free For All when the top rope broke under him and he fell back, an easy pin for Austin. And then, Yoko had one night where he could have got everything back, but didn’t.

Phase 15- One Night Only.

For the night after Summerslam, Shawn Michaels wasn’t feeling too crash hot. He had only just retained his belt over Vader. And yet, there he was, having to defend the belt against the then 700 pound Yokozuna. But Yoko was taking no chances. He knew this was probably his last shot at the belt, so he went all out. For one night, he reverted to his old ways, he talked Cornette into managing him, he wrestled a hard, brutal match. But in the end, Shawn retained, and Yoko was right back where he left off.

Phase 16- The whimper.

The last match of any note for Yoko in the WWF was the Survivor Series 96 match, where he ended up being DQed along with pretty much everyone else in the match. Shortly afterwards, he failed a New York State physical. The WWF, to its credit, kept him on the payroll, hoping he could regain the fitness he once had. But despite losing a fair chunk of weight, eventually the WWF ran out of patience, and he was fired in 1998.

Phase 17- The wilderness years.

Yoko, unable to lose the weight he needed to, ended up wrestling for small companies here and there, making a living. Although it seemed that the door to the WWF was still open, if only he could get in better shape, he never seemed anywhere near that level. In fact, his last major match proved it.

Phase 18- Heroes Of Wrestling.

He was scheduled to fight King Kong Bundy in the main event. He ended up in an impromptu tag match with Jake Roberts against Bundy and Jim Neidhart, fighting for a few seconds before Jake was pinned.

And if you don’t know the rest of it, consider yourself lucky.

End- Yoko 0, God 1

In the end, on a tour of England, Yokozuna died of a heart attack, possibly due to his fear of spiders, it is unknown. But whatever it was, he probably deserved better.

Conclusion

So, the career of Yokozuna tells us what, exactly? That fat Samoans can kick ass? That good breeding is everything? That silence is cool?

Well, yes, but overall, no.

The main lesson to be learnt from Yokozuna’s career is, oddly, an uplifting one. Because despite his size, his weight, his natural un-athleticness, Yokozuna was, on two occasions, the best wrestler in the world. And twice, he was part of the best tag team in the world. If a guy who looks like him can do that, anyone can do anything.

As long as they put their mind to work

And some weight behind it.