The Name on the Marquee: The WWF’s Most Unusual Matches…Ever! (1993)

-Deviating from my 1980s sequence for the moment…

-At least one of you was hoping I was reviewing the Bret/Shawn ladder match when you clicked on this the last time. To clear up the confusion, the tape I was reviewing last time was released in 1985 and titled “The Most Unusual Matches Ever.” This video was released in late 1993 with the title “The Most Unusual Matches…Ever!” So you can see how it’s totally different. The WWF actually released three different home videos with this same title…Not with volume numbers or anything as if it was a series, just three different videos titled “Most Unusual Matches Ever.” The second release appears to be the rarest, as you had to be a Columbia House member to obtain it, and I guess most wrestling fans decided they’d rather sidestep being forced to order a bunch of Deon Estus and Jesus Jones cassettes. This is release #3, from Good Times Home Video, the geniuses who brought you the Sonny & Cher reunion special from “Late Night with David Letterman,” but with “I Got You, Babe” edited out.

-Hosted by Gorilla Monsoon.

LADDER MATCH FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: BRET “Hitman” HART (champion) vs. SHAWN MICHAELS (with Sensational Sherri)
-So, in 1992 Vince decided that he really was impressed with Shawn Michaels’ work as a newly-turned heel and wanted to put the Intercontinental Title on him. Told of the plan, reigning champion Bret pitched two ideas to Vince about how to do it: (A) If Summerslam ’92 was going to be in Wembley Stadium, drop the belt to transitional champion Davey Boy Smith and have him be the guy to lose to Michaels. (B) If the show was going to be in the Cap Centre in Washington, D.C., drop the title to Shawn in something called a Ladder Match, which Stampede Wrestling had done a few times over the years but Vince had never heard of it. Bret offered to do one with Shawn at a TV taping for a demonstration, and here you go. Vince, by the way, elected to go to Wembley Stadium and this gimmick match was subsequently forgotten & buried for about a year and a half.

-Gorilla Monsoon & Lord Alfred Hayes are on commentary and Gorilla notes that this is “a most unusual type of match.” Hey, that’s the name of the tape, lolz! Instead of having the belt already hung, as is the style now, they start the match with the referee strapping the belt to the cable and the camera watches it slowly raise. They should go back to doing that actually, because it’s a neat visual. All right, all right, actual match…

Collar-and-elbow and Shawn punches away in the corner. Bret blocks a hiptoss off the ropes and gets the advantage with a clothesline and a few punches of his own. Backdrop by Bret and more punching. Irish whip is nicely sold by Shawn. Headbutt by the Hitman followed by an uppercut. Bret starts to leave for the ladder but Shawn dives over to the ropes to pull him back in and stomps Bret. Elbow by Shawn and a knee off the ropes. Shawn leaves the ring and heads up the aisle to get the ladder. Nice bit of psychology (and even Gorilla notes this after the fact) as Bret simply stays on the mat and rests while Shawn does all the work of folding the ladder and dragging it back to the ring. When he gets there, Bret is waiting and attacks him at ringside. Bret continues the assault inside the ring and heads out to get the ladder that Shawn dropped. Sherri tries to steal the ladder and Bret leaves to chase her back to the locker room…all the while, Shawn is unfolding the ladder and climbing to get the belt, and the crowd absolutely SCREAMS for Bret to stop him. He does and punches away until Shawn’s dazed, and then Bret starts his own climb, which Shawn stops. Shawn rams Bret into the turnbuckle, then drags the ladder over to the corner to ram it into Bret’s stomach a few times. He tries to get a running start to do the same thing and Bret moves, but Shawn regains his bearings quickly and continues the assault. Kneelift off the ropes by Bret gives him the advantage again, but Shawn reverses an Irish whip into the ladder. Shawn positions the ladder and again the crowd is begging for Bret to stop him, and Bret does indeed grab the leg. Shawn stops him and starts the climb again, but Bret tips the ladder and Shawn falls off, with the ladder landing on top of him. Bret climbs for the belt, but Shawn rams his face into a step and Bret falls off. Shawn stomps him a few times for good measure and starts the climb, but a few punches to the gut prevent that. Shawn props up the ladder in the corner and rams Bret’s face into it. Irish whip into the opposite corner, but Shawn eats a boot on the follow-up. Clothesline by Bret and both men are out of it.

-Shawn makes it to his feet first, but Bret hooks the legs and slingshots him into the ladder, and Shawn appears to be out cold. Just to make sure, Bret does a backbreaker. He climbs the ladder and has his fingers on the belt when Shawn miraculously wakes up and stops him, but a double shoulderblock takes out both men again. Shawn is again the first to his feet and begins another climb, but Bret climbs the opposite side and they knock each other off. A fistfight erupts and Bret goes for a move off the rope, but Sherri grabs his leg long enough for Shawn to hit him with a not-super-quite-yet-but-certainly-better-than-averagekick. He follows with a back suplex (called a “side suplex” by Gorilla, but whatever it is, it’s what Shawn was using as a finisher at the time). Shawn goes for the gold, but Bret dropkicks the ladder and Shawn falls completely out of the ring, and that buys Bret enough time to climb the ladder and grab the belt. 0 for 1. Needed more punching. Hogan would have made this match work. Nah, screwing with you, of course this gets a point! 1 for 1. Interesting to watch the evolution of the spots in this match, as the ladder, when in use as a weapon, was treated pretty much the same as a chair, with no thought given to creative things to do with it, and the crowd didn’t even give a crap if it was a weapon or not, their attention was totally invested in making sure that the guy in pink climbed the ladder first.

-Before we move on, gotta pause and point out your post-production stupidity of the night. Bret was a former WWF Heavyweight Champion chasing that title again by the time this video was released, so they mute the audio when Mike McGuirk declares him “still Intercontinental Champion”…Even though we were shown close-ups of the belt for the entire match and Gorilla & Alfred talked over and over again about how the winner of the match would walk away with the Intercontinental Title. We may be wrestling fans, but I assure you, we have just enough gray matter to understand “this match happened a long time ago.”

$10,000 CHALLENGE: 1-2-3 KID vs. RAZOR RAMON
-This is a rematch from a far more famous bout from early in the run of “Monday Night RAW.” A scrawny jobber named The Kid (who changed his name every week) wrestled Razor Ramon after being fed to other heels and losing rather decisively; the commentators were even laughing at him for coming back to wrestle Ramon. Surprise, surprise, Razor makes one mistake, The Kid capitalizes and gets a fluke victory. The Embarassed Guy spent the following weeks demanding a rematch, but the now renamed 1-2-3 Kid refused because, for obvious reasons, he was kinda scared of Razor. So Razor offered a cash incentive and just kept increasing it until Kid caved. $10,000 turned out to be the magic number. So what makes this match unusual is that a guy is going to show up for a match, and he’ll be paid for it? Wouldn’t that be more suited for an ECW Most Unusual Matches release?

Crowd is taunting “1-2-3” to taunt Razor, who showed up with a comic book-style giant bag filled with money and “$10,000” printed on the side. Razor is in the ring waiting to pounce and the Kid doesn’t want to get in the ring. Razor attempts to attack him on the apron, but gets a faceful of turnbuckle, and Kid goes for a sunset flip immediately for two. Kid goes off the ropes and gets a kick to the face and goes for the pin again for two. This has to be the only angle in history where portraying the face as a coward is working. All the psychology is built around him being terrified of Razor and the crowd loves him for it. More kicks, but Ramon reverses a flying bodypress into an overhead slam. Chop and a beel throw by Razor. Clothesline and an elbowdrop, plus a few stomps to show who’s jefe. They duel for a hiptoss, which eventually turns into a chokeslam by Razor. Abdominal stretch and Razor hooks the leg, which makes me wish Gorilla was doing commentary for this match. He drops Kid on the mat and just slaps him on the head for fun. Powerslam by Razor, who isn’t going for the win at all. Just punishment. Back suplex off the ropes and we get the signal for the Razor’s Edge, but Razor tosses him outside the ring and pulls back the mats to do it on the exposed concrete. Kid uses his last ounce of strength to reverse to a backdrop. Kid goes to the top rope but just flat-out slips and falls to the concrete. Vince praises him for a gallant effort while Bobby Heenan makes fun of him. Razor takes him back into the ring and chops away and Irish whips the Kid, and they mirror the finish to the last match as Kid dodges a charge into the corner and gets the moonsault, but Razor kicks out. That leaves Kid totally out of ideas, so he grabs the bag of money and sprints out of the arena and into a waiting car, which speeds off while Razor looks surprised as hell. 2 for 2. Not much more than a typical TV main event for this period, but I really enjoyed the psychology. On Kid’s end, he wasn’t looking for a decisive victory (knowing that he couldn’t get it), he was just looking to get another fluke victory, and all of his offense was geared towards trying to daze Razor for exactly three seconds. And when that failed, he went to plan B and got the cash dishonestly. On Razor’s end, you had a guy so angry that he just wanted to beat the guy up and flat-out forgetting to go for the pin, and by looking to be a bully instead of a winner, he ended up losing $10,000.

SURVIVOR SERIES ELIMINATION MATCH: DOINK, DOINK, DOINK, & DOINK (with Mo) vs. BAM-BAM BIGELOW, BASTION BOOGER, & HEADSHRINKERS (with Afa & Luna Vachon)
-From the Boston Garden and the 1993 Survivor Series. Buckle up. Lost in all the impending stupidity is that Bastion Booger is wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “I May Be Fat, But You’re Ugly…And I Can Diet.” If he had built on that theme for promos, they might have had something with him.

-So Doink was freshly face-turned but still doing his “double vision” schtick. In the process he incurred Bam-Bam Bigelow’s wrath, and a Survivor Series match is signed with the promise of four Doinks. This, by the way, was the end of Doink as we knew him; when he initially turned face, he went the Rowdy Roddy Piper/Demolition route of being cheered by the fans but basically being the same total bastard he had always been. But as of THIS match…

-Doink’s music revs up but abruptly switches over to the entrance themes for the Bushwhackers & Men on a Mission, all of whom are in their regular gear but wearing the facepaint & wigs necessary for practicing Doinkologists. Vince notes that the Headshrinkers may be “disco-boob-ilated” by what they’re seeing, and he’ll top himself during the finish, believe it or not. The same crowd that chanted “boring” during a Rock & Roll Express-Heavenly Bodies match earlier in the night is now chanting “We Want Doink.” Boston is also the city that gave the world Dane Cook, so we’re up to two strikes now.

-We start with Booger and Luke. Booger goes for a quick splash but doesn’t cover. He goes for a tag but Luke bites Booger’s butt (sigh…) and Samu tags in to recapture the advantage with headbutts. The three Doinks standing on the apron begin offering Samu balloons. He eats one, which pops…he eats another, which pops…and the third is a water balloon, which surprises him so much that he falls over and gets pinned. Bobby Heenan does his damndest to try and save this by noting that we don’t really know if it was water or some kind of chemical, but, uh, it was probably water. Oh, there’s more.

-Fatu comes into the ring in an attempt to make a difference, and his hard Samoan head gets an advantage over Butch, who apparently tagged in. Booger is back in with a boot and a legdrop off the ropes (Boogermania!) and Bam-Bam gets into the match with a headbutt as the “We want Doink!” chant erupts again. Bigelow chokes away and Fatu attacks on the apron. Booger with a bodylam and a sitdown splash, but he forgets to go for the pin and gets distracted by some nearby bananas, just like in the Brisco-Funk one-hour draw in Florida back in ’73. He eats the banana and goes for another splash, but this time he misses and it’s a Bushwhacker battering ram followed by a legdrop from Mabel, and it’s Bye-bye Booger.

-Fatu gets back in the ring and attacks Butch with a turkey carcass…okay…and Mo gets in the ring and begins circling Fatu on a scooter. Bam-Bam’s had enough of that shit and dropkicks Mo off, then smashes the scooter. Fatu goes off the top rope with a splash but gets distracted by Booger’s banana peel from earlier, he picks it up and holds it aloft for some ill-defined reason, and Butch runs in with a water pail and threatens to splash the Samoan Dump Truck. He threatens Fatu once, which causes him to drop the banana peel, and then throws the pail at him, but it’s a bluff, as the pail is empty. Fatu backed up anyway in anticipation and…wait for it…slips on the banana peel, and he’s eliminated promptly. All I can do at a moment like this is throw up my arms and mention how much I appreciate it when one spot builds off of another.

-Bam-Bam clears the ring of three opponents but gets caught by surprise when Mabel comes in for a showdown. Shoulderblock is no-sold, but Mabel knocks Bam-Bam down with one of his own, but Bam-Bam avoids an avalanche and finally gets the shoulderblock he wanted. Luke attempts to make the save with a powerslam while Butch throws a bucket of something at Luna outside the ring. Bam-Bam is distracted and ends up taking a double-avalanche in the corner from M.O.M., and all four opponents pile on top of him for the final elimination and the win. Vince’s call of the action: “This is a cartoon! My goodness! Forget about Looney Tunes! Forget about Hanna-Barbera! They’ve got nothing on the WWF!” What can you say to critique this match when the boss already did it so eloquently? 2 for 3.

-LUMBERJACK MATCH FOR THE INTERCONTINENTAL TITLE: SHAWN MICHAELS (champion) vs. HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN
-I can remember watching this match and actually being positive that Duggan was going over and winning the title. As I recall, my logic pretty much boiled down to “by virtue of tenure.” He was still over and he had been in the WWF since before I started watching. Besides that, this was my first exposure ever to a lumberjack match and upon learning the premise, it struck me, for some reason, as being totally unwinnable for Shawn Michaels. Of course, in the years that followed, I gradually learned that lumberjack matches are actually totally unwinnable for whoever is challenging. Seriously, has there EVER been a title change in a lumberjack match? (Your text-editing surprise of the night: “Unwinnable” is not a word.)

-Your lumberjacks, for those keeping track, are Yokozuna, Mister Fuji, Tatanka, Typhoon (Shockmaster), Terrific Terry Taylor (Cockmaster), Bob Backlund, Mister Perfect, Mr. Hughes, and Bam-Bam Bigelow. Shawn comes to the ring in street clothes & cowboy boots and hobbling on crutches, purportedly as a result of a Mister Perfect attack earlier in the show. Perfect grabs him by the hair and throws him in the ring, and Shawn immediately springs up, ready to fight. Good lord, this has perfect continuity with his 2008 angle. Duggan clotheslines him over the top rope and Perfect throws him right back in. Atomic drop by Duggan and then an extended bodyslam sequence. Elbowdrop by Duggan gets two as Vince, on commentary, notes that he can’t believe Shawn would fake an injury to get out of a title match. The jokes are writing themselves here; it’s mindblowing. Suplex by Duggan gets two. Forearm in the corner and an Irish whip gets a Flair flip from Michaels. Clubbing arms by Duggan. Vince notes that in all Duggan’s years in the WWF, he’s never had a title shot for either the World Title or the Intercontinental Title. That’s not actually true, but it’s good suspense building and probably another reason I expected a Duggan win here. Big clothesline by Duggan followed by shoulderblocks in the corner and some stomping. Shawn tries to escape but gets pushed back in by Typhoon. Chinlock by Duggan. Duggan keeps hammering away on Michaels and gets a bearhug. Slam by Duggan. Shawn finally attempts some offense with a punch but immediately gets headbutted into oblivion, and Duggan gets a front facelock. Elbow by Duggan and then he mauls Shawn some more in the corner. Duggan ties Shawn in the ropes andkicks away it him, then tosses Shawn over the top rope. He tosses him on the heel side, though, and they give him an opportunity to rest. Shawn attempts to run away, but Backlund & Perfect run down the aisle and carry him back to the ring.

Integrity preservation (more likely a commercial break) takes us to Duggan bodyslamming Michaels but missing kneedrop. Shawn takes off his cowboy boot and hits Duggan in the face with it, knocking him out of the ring because obviously a cowboy boot hurts more than a wrestling boot, and the heels work him over while forcing him back in. Shawn, having stumbled upon a strategy, knocks him out of the ring on that side again. Shawn continues his assault, but a USA chant turns out to function the same way as a can of spinach, and Duggan blocks a backdrop. Eyerake by Michaels, but Duggan reverses a turnbuckle ram. Irish whip, but Shawn is ready for him with a boot (and again, it’s a cowboy boot, so it’s like getting kicked in the face twice, or something). Funny moment on commentary as Shawn gets a headlock, and like the Piper-Hogan War to Settle the Score, Vince tries to call it a choke, but Heenan won’t let him: “That’s a headlock, don’t you know the hold?!” The clearly-able-to-breathe Duggan fights his way out of it and gets a clothesline. Backdrop by Duggan (and Shawn gets some amazing air on it). Duggan chokes Michaels out to show Vince what a choke looks like and gets some forearms on him. Shawn desperately goes for a move off the second rope but gets caught in a bodyslam, and Duggan goes for the pin, getting a two-count. Duggan, who, by the way, was once criticized by Bill Watts for “guzzling” his opponents, continues the asskicking.

Integrity preservation (another commercial) and Shawn is miraculously in control. He Irish whips Duggan but misses the follow-through (of course) and Bigelow hops on the apron to distract Duggan. Shawn sneaks up from behind and throws him out to Yokozuna’s side of the ring, and Yoko drops the leg on Duggan and rolls him back in the ring. Shawn goes for the pin but Perfect, having witnessed what happened, breaks the pin, and that’s a DQ for Shawn to retain. A spontaneous battle royal erupts, which is standard procedure for this kind of match. Hilarious (to me, anyway) moment as the Jobber’s Jobber himself, Iron Mike Sharpe, runs in from the locker room for no reason and immediately gets his ass kicked by Duggan. Not enough to save it. 2 for 4.

That’s it for this time around. Now, go to the most unusual website…ever! It’s Game Show Utopia.

The 411: Uh, let's see...there were four matches and I enjoyed two of them...I hope I do the math on this right...
Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]