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Hart Foundation vs. British Bulldogs (11/8/85)


I’ve been thinking a lot about tag team wrestling lately, mostly how it is perceived as being a dying artform, which is a fair assessment if the only wrestling you watch is the WWE. For the past year or so, there’s been talk that the WWE are going to make a serious effort to revamp their tag team division, which, despite a good number of teams that stand out above your Smoking Gunns and your Highlanders, has mostly been a shambles for the better part of the decade. The term “tag team specialist” is rarely bandied about anymore, and that’s probably because tag team specialists don’t make as much money as popular singles competitors do. Just when it seemed like Evan Bourne and Kofi Kingston were going to change that, forming a tag team popular enough to have their own shirts (honestly, when’s the last time a tag team had a t-shirt?), Bourne was suspended for his second violation of the WWE wellness policy, and we’re left with a WWE tag team division that features an odd mix of the good-but-undistinguished (Primo and Epico, The Usos), random pairings that worked out better than first expected (Jack Swagger and Dolph Ziggler, Curt Hawkins and Tyler Recks), and teams that, frankly, don’t make a whole lot of sense (Kofi Kingston and R-Truth, the house show pairing of Santino and Mason Ryan). There is rampant internet speculation/hope that the artists formerly known as Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero were signed by the company to take the division to the promised land, but those hanging onto this particular dream have failed to note the treatment the last few good-to-great WWE Tag Teams — The Hart Dynasty, Chris Jericho and Big Show, Cryme Time, Cade and Murdoch — were handled: Just as a pair was getting over (obviously circumstances for Jerishow were different), the team was hastily split up/feuded/future endeavored.

I’m not saying this as a way of saying that the WWE tag team division is never going to get better. They’re a few teams away from really having something, but, just the same, things will probably never be the way they were when tag team wrestling served as a platform for new wrestlers to hone their craft and get comfortable in front of an audience. Point in case, this match right here. You might not realize it, looking at the men in the ring before most of them had established their personalities and chisled their physiques, but two of the participants in this contest — Bret Hart and Davey Boy Smith — would go on from their respective teams and be main eventers for much of the 90s. The other two went down completely different roads — Neidhart was, for lack of a better term, a career tag team specialist (say what you will about the New Foundation, but Owen Hart was a star shortly thereafter), and the Dynamite Kid, who was at this point already the godfather of lightheavyweight wrestling, wound up mentally and physically ravaged and was mostly out of the business by the early 90s.

But forgetting all of that, what this match, what the WWF tag team division had that it currently lacks, are teams with a) a sense of continuity and b) personality. You look at the Bulldogs and the Harts, and you’re looking at two of the best teams ever, two teams who seem to have been built to their partner’s specifications. Hart was small, still nervous on the microphone. Neidhart was large and charismatic. Davey Boy was powerful. Dynamite Kid was lightning quick. Tag teams used to compliment each other. Now they’re thrown together because two dudes had nothing better to do.

Not only were the Harts and Bulldogs great tag teams, they were great opponents. They feuded for much of the time the Bulldogs were in the WWF, and each match felt fresh and unique, regardless of time or place. The Bulldogs and the Foundation would later compete over the WWF Tag Team Titles, but here they’re merely in it to win it, two teams testing each other and trying to prove to each other who the better men are. Few tag team divisions in history were well-stocked enough to handle a feud of this magnitude concurrent to what the champions were doing, but both the WWF and the NWA/WCW had that going for years. Moreover, the tag teams of that era were just as over as some of the singles stars. Listen to the reaction the fans have for this match. Realize that the Road Warriors are one of the best draws of all time, that a feud like the Midnight Express could have a 15 year run without growing stale.

It’s true, both the Hart Foundation and the British Bulldogs broke up, but they left an indelible mark on wrestling before splitting up, so much so that you could argue for their inclusion in any reputable pro-wrestling hall of fame without Bret Hart’s magnificent run as a top singles star, or the height of Davey Boy’s popularity, or Dynamite Kid’s series against Tiger Mask. The problem with the WWE tag team division today isn’t so much a lack of focus, but that the tag teams that might draw people’s interest are so often temporary pairings. It’s a near-miracle that a combination like Big Show and Chris Jericho went on as long as it did, and who knows how long Air Boom were meant for this world. Until the powers that be decide to find a few more teams like the Usos and Primo and Epico, teams that wouldn’t rightly function with anybody else at the helm, teams made up of something more than interchangeable parts, the division will continue to flounder, and the best examples of great tag team wrestling will continue to be the past, Japan, and the independent scene, where a good tag team or a good match can still draw a response like the one the Bulldogs and the Foundation got above.

Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart (5/7/94)


Bret Hart vs. Randy Savage-WWF Title by Stinger1981

Beyond their pretty well-regarded match from an episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event and their match at WCW’s Slamboree 1998, there aren’t too many 15-plus minute singles matches featuring the Hitman and Macho Man, which is really too bad. And when a 20-minute match like the one above happened for a prize like the WWF Title, it bizarrely went unrecorded unless, as is the case here, a fan in the crowd recorded it. Except for a few punches in the corner and a Savage body slam towards the end, nothing’s missing from this contest. If you’re having trouble distinguishing the two, Savage is the pink blob and Hart the pink and black. If you need to watch wrestling that has announcers, oh well. Pretend that the running commentary is Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler or something. One of the guys in the crowd says “UNBELIEVABLE” a lot like Vince would, and their call for the elbow drop and the crowd’s constant OOOHHHHH YEAHing is way more entertaining than the Todd Pettingail/Lord Alfred Hayes combo that would have called this match were it captured for Coliseum Home Video.

I like this match for a lot of reasons that relate to the reasons why I like Hart and Savage, but the reason I really dig this is the same reason why I can’t believe there aren’t video cameras at ringside: This bout represents the passing of the torch from Hulk Hogan’s Rock and Wrestling to the New Generation of Bret, Owen, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Yokozuna and so on. The reason that’s important is simple: Hogan, the face of the WWF from 1985 to 1993, wouldn’t lose to Bret Hart. At Wrestlemania VI he passed the torch for the Ultimate Warrior, but in 1993, when Hogan couldn’t ignore the clarion call of scripts like Suburban Commando and Santa With Muscles, he just wouldn’t put Hart over. It’s a wonder that Wrestlemania IX, where Hart lost the WWF Title to Yokozuna, only to have Yoko drop the title to Hogan THREE MINUTES LATER, didn’t kill Hart’s career at the top of the card.

But Bret’s a pretty magnanimous guy and, like Savage, he’s the sort of wrestler who could go out at any position on the card and put on the kind of match a wrestling fan would shell out cash for. In 1993, he was putting on great matches with Bam Bam Bigelow and Doink. In 1994, he was stealing shows with his brother Owen and the 1-2-3 Kid. In 1995 he had a cage match with Kane so good you forget Kane was wrestling as Jerry Lawler’s evil dentist, and he tore the house down with Kevin Nash, a stranger to tearing the house down. So Hart was doing just fine for himself, even if he had to contend with an endless amount of lame jokes from Jerry Lawler, and even if his mom and dad were in the crowd at seemingly every show so Vince could squeeze that extra bit of sympathy from the crowd. And Hogan, rather than going into that gentle night, went to WCW and did nothing new, burying Vader, Arn Anderson and Ric Flair, reprising his feud with Savage once Savage jumped ship, screwing up his feud with Sting, and burying Bill Goldberg via the fingerpoke of doom. So it’s probably for the best that Hart didn’t end up in a feud against Hogan, because he wasn’t much interested in giving anybody a rub until Wrestlemania X8.

I’m digressing a bit, but the point is that Bret, in 1994, needed a win over an 80s legend to put himself over as the face of the 90s. He had an extended feud against Bob Backlund that, while good, didn’t really establish him as the face of the WWF, and he had that match at Wrestlemania VIII against Roddy Piper that, while good, didn’t put him over an ex-WWF Champion. There was Flair, certainly, but he wasn’t a WWF legend, and 100% of the time he was in the WWF, he was booked below Hogan. Savage, on the other hand, wasn’t above losing to Bret and, as a face who, in 1994, was trading in on his former legacy, would have made a lot of sense. It didn’t happen in TV, but it happened in Yokohama, and it’s pretty damn good if you ask me.

My favorite sequence in this match is the opening, where Hart just out-wrestles Savage. There are a few handshakes, because Macho figures that he’ll get his, but finally, when he’s had enough, he rakes the eyes and takes over. Perfect veteran wrestling. I’m not a huge fan of the end of this match, where Hart just kicks out of the elbow drop and goes about applying the Sharpshooter, but just about everything else is gold: Hart blindly taking Savage’s double axe handle while he’s outside the ring, Savage being back body dropped over the top rope (which looks incredibly dangerous), Hart’s plancha, the way Savage doesn’t do a front flip when Hart punches him in the gut to break his double axe handle attempt (which is the way Savage ALWAYS sold that move, and is the only logical way to do it)…just a crisp, crisp match. It’s surprising that it happened at a house show, and even more surprising that McMahon didn’t try to make any money off of it. These two could go, man.

Bret Hart vs. Roddy Piper (4/5/92)


Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Bret “Hitman” Hart-WWF… by TSteck160
Bret Hart’s first major singles title win on a big stage, and the last really good Roddy Piper match, this bout for the Intercontinental Championship sees both men, former rulebreakers turned fan favorites, coming to terms with their old, heelish ways. Will they respect each other? Will they clobber one another with a chair the second the referee has his back turned? Only time will tell.

If this match didn’t quite steal the show, it’s because the WWF Title match between Ric Flair and Randy Savage went on one match later and had a lot more going for it, emotionally. No matter, as this and Flair/Savage absolutely saved WrestleMania VIII from it’s abominable main event, which is only notable for Sid Vicious kicking out of Hulk Hogan’s leg drop because Papa Shango messed up what would have been an all-time horrific finish. Though this was Hart’s second Intercontinental Championship victory and not at all his first dance as a singles competitor, from here on out, there’d be no looking back to his days as a tag team wrestler. He’d go on to main event the show a year later, repeat at WrestleMania X, and headline once more at XXI, against Shawn Michaels. Piper would also go on to main event a few shows, most notably Starrcade 1996 against Hulk Hogan (11 years after they’d headlined WrestleMania I), but Piper was wrestling on a hip replacement and Hogan on reputation. Here, wrestling against his “cousin,” is the Roddy Piper that’s worth remembering. He had his moments after this match, but never quite to this level.

Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs. The Undertaker (2/8/97)


Hunter Hearst Helmsley vs The Undertaker-WWF IC Title
Uploaded by TSteck160. – Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.
If you’ve been watching Raw the past few weeks, you probably know that the prospective main event for Wrestlemania 27 is Triple H vs. The Undertaker. I’m not really sold on how that match is being presented for a plethora of reasons: Triple H’s return immediately diminished the Undertaker’s, the two had a six minute long starring contest, and it was announced online and not during a broadcast that the two would be wrestling without pretense. This left unresolved plenty of stuff: Triple H being put out of commission by Sheamus (which was killed dead a few hours ago), and Undertaker being buried by his brother Kane and Wade Barrett’s Nexus. Granted I can go the rest of my wrestling watching life without seeing another second of last year’s Kane/Taker feud, but I’m nothing if not hypercritical, and I can’t help but hate willful ignorance of plotholes.

But we’re not here to talk about the present. Let’s look at the past. The WWE is treating this Wrestlemania match like a marquee event, as they should. They’re also billing it as a first-time meeting between the two, at least at Wrestlemania, which is odd considering that this is the 10 year anniversary of one of the most successful Wrestlemanias of all time, which happened to have Triple H vs. The Undertaker neatly packed into its undercard. And while that match is nice (not quite the world-shaking spectacle it was when I was 13, but times change) and would probably illustrate what you should expect from the two, here instead we have what might stand as the first ever televised encounter between the two, from an episode of the syndicated Shotgun Saturday Night program.

Yes, that is Hunter Hearst Helmsley, the aristocrat whose pits don’t stink, the Intercontinental Champion coming down the stairs to Beethoven’s glorious 9th. 1997 was the year Triple H had finally broken free from Vince McMahon’s doghouse, and he responded by coming into his own as a performer in the ring and on the microphone. 1997 was also a year where things were a bit stale for the Undertaker, who was done feuding with Mankind and was waiting for the debut of Kane. Yes, Taker had some good stuff here and there with guys like Bret Hart and Steve Austin, but things needed to change. This match isn’t really much to watch, but it’s interesting to see HHH and Undertaker, a match that’s expected to carry the weight of Wrestlemania this year, given away for free on syndicated TV because both men were in transition.

The show this is on, Shotgun Saturday Night, was where Vince really tinkered with ideas that’d been lifted from ECW. The low lights, the rowdy crowds, and the sometimes crazy angles were part of a formula that worked really well in a South Philly bingo hall and showed promise for Vince, particularly when ECW invaded WWF for a few shows, and Shotgun served as a perfect forum to try out new things, as people weren’t going out of their way to search it out. So you’d see matches like Triple H vs. The Undertaker up above, or like Mankind vs. Bret Hart, which, to the best of my knowledge, only happened once on television:


Bret “Hitman” Hart vs Mankind
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Bret Hart vs. Mankind (1/25/97)
Or this Terry Funk interview, where the old bastard looks and sounds drunk, much to the ire of Stone Cold Steve Austin…
Best of all, these shows were done in front of small crowds in tiny, sometimes off-beat venues. Several shows took place at bars. The match between HHH and Undertaker takes place at Penn Station. In retrospect, Shotgun seems like a wasted opportunity. A match like Undertaker vs. Mankind in a subway station would have been crazy, perhaps living up to the unfulfilled promise of their Boiler Room brawl. But wrestler interaction with anything was rare, as when Mankind chased off those dancers or Undertaker charged through the crowd. Shotgun would later be taped before episodes of Raw, becoming  little more than a glorified try-out show, but it was fun while it lasted.

Bret Hart vs. Goldust (7/7/97)


Bret Hart vs. Goldust
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Poor Dustin Rhodes never really made it out of his dad’s shadow. He was always a good worker, but in WCW he was being pushed by Dusty, and in WWF he had a white-hot gimmick that doomed him to feuding against guys who thought he was a freak. Basically, he was built to be a midcard guy. That being said, he’s been a remarkably steady midcard guy for something like 20 years now, including a two-year renaissance in WWE, where his work on the defunct ECW brand and in the middle of Raw’s roster is a minor miracle if you consider where he was and what he was doing in TNA just before that (hint: it wasn’t very good).

This match comes from Goldust’s cool-down period. Things for him would never quite be as they were in 1995 and 1996, but he still managed to find his way into the WWF’s hottest feud that year, the USA/Canada war, the effects of which have dogged the WWE since the Montreal Screwjob. Canada, since 1997, has been a kind of Bizarroworld where popular faces are booed and America is hated and wrestling is respectable.

So this match happens the night after the Hart Foundation (comprised of three Canadians, one Brit, and a dude from Cincinnati, OH) beat the good ‘ol USA in a 5 vs. 5 tag team match. As far as pecking order goes, it’s the weakest member of Team USA going up against the strongest member of the Hart Foundation. The outcome is pretty predictable, but the match is good for its time and its constraints–two old hands cranking out a solid ten minute main event. Considering that they have to wrestle around the Harts, Team USA and the Disciples of the Apocalypse (who will probably never be mentioned on this blog again), everything ends splendidly and without the match-ending chaos that defined Vince Russo’s reign as the WWF’s chief writer.

And Goldust freakin’ cooks. How can I not post that?