Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Tag Teams of Yore



I've been watching a ton of vintage tag-team matches recently.
Part of that is because I picked up this fine WWE Home Video. Some Amazon reviewers were complaining about the way the set is sequenced (it jumps from era to era, promotion to promotion with no rhyme nor reason), but I love that it does that. The sequencing is very in-synch with how my mind works so I can definitely appreciate it. It's great to be able to skip from the Bulldogs/Hart Foundation to the Steiners' match at Supershow '91 to the Freebirds/Von Erichs and so forth. My only complaint would be the brutally unfunny intros and outros by the Miz and Morrison. Please, please tell me that these things weren't scripted. I can give them a pass if they just attempted to wing it and failed miserably, it happens, but if someone actually got paid to write them--well...my contact info will be included at the end of this post.

But before I did that, I spent some quality time with Steven Johnson and Greg Oliver's excellent book Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Tag Teams, which had me combing through my meager archives looking for more Arn and Tully matches, as well as anything at all featuring the British Bulldogs or Midnight Express.
Their ranking of the Top 25 Teams of All Time is provocative, but ultimately solid and well-reasoned, in my opinion.
The main problem is the Outsiders weren't mentioned at all!!! C'mon guys! I know I'm a huge, unrepentant mark for Big Kev and the Bad Guy; but not even a mention?
I had to revisit a few of the teams in their Top 10, including, the Midnight Express.

Even as a kid I could tell "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton was a great wrestler but I never liked "Loverboy" Dennis and I hated Cornette (well done, sir) so my final verdict on them was simple: lame. It didn't help that they got programmed against the Road Warriors a lot during that era, which would have reduced anyone to being sorry in the eyes of 10-year old me (even the Horsemen at first). I'll never forget years later in the act of ridiculing me for still watching this stuff, my friend Ryan emotionally saying how the Horsemen's ambush of the Road Warriors, was "the LAST STRAW" (he actually used far more colorful language) and had killed his fledgling fandom once and for all. His adolescent self just couldn't buy the spectacle of gnarly old Ole Anderson and puny Tully Blanchard actually slapping Hawk around. It turned him off forever. Such was our level of markdom for the Warriors in their prime.
Back to the Midnights, by the time "Sweet" Stan came into the fold, I'd started to appreciate them a little more, partially because by that time I absolutely hated the Rock 'n Roll Express and loathed the candyass Fantastics. Also the Midnights were true workhorses who wrestled on television every damn week and always had innovative new finishers like the "Trash Compactor."
I recently viewed a three pack of their matches:
vs. the Fantastics (Great American Bash 1988)
vs. the Rock n' Roll Express (1990)
vs. the Southern Boys (1990)

Man, "Beautiful" Bobby was way better than I'd even remembered. Such a smooth worker with great aerial moves. The chemistry this edition of the Midnight Express had was top-notch, crisp and all three of these matches were exciting and entertaining beyond belief. It was great seeing "The Rocket Launcher" again after all these years and I can see how their emphasis on aerial moves, timing and teamwork was such a huge influence on many of the wrestlers that came after them.


Speaking of Johnson and Oliver, their book on Heels is phenomenal and did more to enhance my understanding and appreciation of the level of psychology it takes to generate heat and be a truly unforgettable heel than almost any book on wrestling I've encountered thus far.
I hope to start a series of posts dealing with ring psychology and the art of heeling, heavily indebted to their work, very soon.

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