The Enlightenment: Classic Superstars of Wrestling — The Wild, the Weird, the Wacky & the Women

Classic Superstars of Wrestling — “The Wild, the Weird, the Wacky & the Women.

Your host is Brian Webster.

The Missing Link (w/Sheena) vs. The New Spoiler.

Wild West Wrestling in Ft. Worth, 1988-ish The Spoiler is Jeff Gaylord, but I would swear it’s John Layfield underneath that mask. They actually leave in Link’s Quiet Riot entrance music. Greatest entrance theme ever, outside of Iron Man, of course. Link reverses a charge and battering rams his head into Spoiler’s chest. Spoiler does a lot of power stuff that isn’t very good. Yep, it’s Gaylord. Link front powerslams him and goes up so far in the other corner that you just know someone’s going to have to interfere because he’ll never be able to jump that far. Sure enough, Jack Victory and John Tatum attack for the DQ at 1:31. Solomon Grundy and Jeff Raitz make the save for the Link. 1/4*

Quiet Riot “Bang Your Head” music video for the Missing Link.

Wild Bill Irwin & Big Bertha Young vs. Black Bart & Skandor Akbar.

GWF, 1991. Big Bertha Young is Gary Young in drag playing his “twin sister.” Of course, this fact scares the hell out of homophobic Bart and Akbar. Bart refuses to lock up with Bertha, so “she” pinches his ass. There really is no wrestling going on here. The heels stall as Young hits on them. Young takes a headlock on Akbar and rubs his face her breasts. Akbar freaks out, so Young grabs his ass. The announcers make Scott Putski jokes as Bertha hits Bart with the Thesz Press for the win at 5:48. Not much wrestling, but I found Akbar and Bart’s reactions to Young’s antics hilarious. **

Little Tokyo vs. The Karate Kid.

USWA, 1990. Tokyo actually had a pretty prolific career for a midget wrestler. Karate Kid does some cool flying headscissors, but Tokyo takes over from there. Sadly, Karate Kid looks just like Chris Benoit would a few years later. Tom Pritchard sounds disturbingly like Roddy Piper on commentary. Tojo Yamamoto wanders down to ringside and gives Tokyo some advice. Karate Kid powerslams Tokyo for two. They slug it out, and Tojo blasts salt into Kid’s eyes. Tokyo covers for the win at 7:00. Long for a midget match, but they were working well together. *1/2

Kevin Sullivan & The Purple Haze (w/The Fallen Angel) vs. Steve Apollo & Rob Van Winkle.

Florida, 1985. Nancy Sullivan was quite the looker at this point. Purple Haze was Mark Lewin after his best days were behind him. I don’t believe Rob Van Winkle is any relation to Vanilla Ice. He and Apollo are basically jobbers for the Satanic heels to dismantle. Lewin screams in agony as he puts Apollo out with a sleeper at 2:09. On the outside, Sullivan strangles his own girlfriend for fun. The usual demented stuff from Sullivan, but not much of a match. 1/2*

Kerry Von Erich vs. Kamala (w/Skandor Akbar).

WCCW, 1989. This is the dying days of WCCW before Von Erich left for the WWF. This is one of the last big money matches for the territory as the bookers were always sure to keep Kamala away from the Von Erich boys in the ring. The result was a sort of dream match for WCCW fans. JIP as Kerry hits the Discuss Punch early and tries to slam Kamala. Kamala is too fat, though, and crashes down on him. Kamala finishes a huge upset with the splash at 2:44 (shown). 1/2*

AWA Women’s Title: Sherri Martel vs. Candy Devine.

Wild West Wrestling, 1988. Martel is defending the AWA Title on a tour of Texas against the former champette. Martel pulls out every chick fight heel tactic she can – scratching, biting, clawing the eyes, hair-pulling. I find myself disturbingly aware of her nipples. Sherri tosses Devine to the floor, so Candy crawls under the ring and dropkicks Sherri out while she’s looking for her. Back in, Devine catapults her once, but Sherri takes out the referee on a second try. Not sure what the point of that was since nothing happened while he was out. Sherri reverses a Boston Crab, but Candy rolls through to a pin attempt for two. Devine with the bodyscissors, but Sherri grabs her hair and slams her to counter. You wouldn’t think Sherri would be that strong, nor Devine’s hair would be that strong. Sherri get a pinfall off a shoulderblock, but the ref sees Devine’s foot on the ropes. Devine gets a crossbody but pulls Sherri up at 2. Sherri avoids a second-rope splash and picks up with win at 8:35. It ranged between decent and awful. 3/4*

The Bushwhackers vs. Bastion Booger & King Kaluha.

Venezuela, 1993. Someone should have teamed up King Kaluha and Alexis Smirnoff. I’d like to say this match is thankfully short, but there’s truly nothing to be thankful for. It’s your basic Whackers comedy match, highlighted only by the fact that Kaluha reminds me of one of the extra characters from “WCW vs. NWO – World Tour.” Pacoloco kicked ass. I realize he was just a Dick Togo ripoff, but he could totally Tron The Unknown. I wish the new generation of games had that mode where you could do eliminations on the tag teams. I once teamed up Puchteca and Pacoloco and took them through the tournament mode and had to have Puchteca come back against both Steiner Bros.. That was hard. Kaluha chokes Luke. So, lovely weather we’re having. Did you know the toilet was invented by a man named “Hopper?” Luke gets the false tag but is able to avoid Kaluha’s charge and make the tag for real. The Whackers hit Kaluha with the battering ram for the win at 10:49. This is what hell is like. At least it had comedy, though. 1/4*

The 411: I'm not much of a fan of goofy stuff, so this didn't please me much. Gary Young's "Big Bertha" was fun, but the rest is pure Wrestlecrap. Thumbs down.
Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]