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If Starrcade 1992 started off Tag Team Titans I guess it is only fitting that Strange and Unusual Tag Teams ends our theme. Fink is here to introduce the Strange and Unusual Teams that have appeared in the WWE and WCW.
-The Moondogs vs. Tony Garea & Rick Martel(c) for the WWE Tag Team Titles-
This is from Championship Wrestling and aired on March 17th, 1981. The Moondogs are managed by Lou Albano and he certainly adds to the strangeness of the team. The Moondogs names are Rex and King, which is funny because Rex means king in Latin. I wonder if that was intentional. Martel and one of the Moondogs start this off and Martel gets an early armdrag. Vince McMahon is calling the action with Pat Patterson. Martel is bodyslammed but he kicks out and takes over Moondog with an armdrag. Garea is tagged in and Vince notes that it is indeed Rex in the ring. He elbows Garea in the corner, bodyslams but misses an elbow so he tags in his brother, King. Martel is tagged in and he works on King’s arm. King is sent to the corner and armdragged out on the rebound. Well, Martel has shown that he can do an armdrag. Garea is tagged in and he sends King chest-first into the corner. He covers but only gets a one count out of that. Rex is tagged in and he manages to make a drop toe hold look bad. How hard can it be to just fall forward? This guy kneeled down and then sort of flopped forward. There was no grace to that move and he just looked like a chump doing it. Garea shoulderblocks Rex down and tries an O’Connor’s roll that is blocked by Rex holding onto the ropes. Martel tags in and drives and elbow into Rex’ arm and hooks another arm-bar. Rex misses a clothesline and he tags in King who gets taken down with an armdrag. That’s like #5 for Martel in the match. Garea comes in and shoulderblocks King and follows with a sunset flip for two. Martel gets double-teamed by the Dogs, and even Albano gets in a cheapshot. Rex sends Martel into the corner via a battering ram. He tries a second time and Martel blocks. King tags out and Martel tries making the tag but Rex is able to hold him off. Martel is mercilessly choked. Martel blocks a backdrop attempt with a boot to the face but he can’t make the tag. A shoulderblock knocks both guys down but Rex is up first and he covers for two. Martel is double-teamed in the corner but he fights out and eventually makes the tag to Garea. He back drops Rex and hooks him in an abdominal stretch. That draws in King who breaks the hold. Martel dropkicks Rex to the outside and Garea just chokes away at King. The ref tries to break it up but he’s shoved aside and all hell has broken loose. Martel spars with Albano and Rex nails Garea with a bone that knocks him out. King covers and gets the pinfall at 12:09. The Moondogs are your new Tag Team Champions. I didn’t think the titles would switch hands here. This was slow in the beginning, very slow, but the last few minutes were surprisingly good. **1/2.
-The Wild Samoans vs. The Strongbows(c) for the WWE Tag Team Titles-
This is another Championship Wrestling match (from March 8th, 1983) and it features another tag title bout where Albano’s team is the challengers. I can’t be certain because I don’t know the tag team history but we saw the Strongbows win the titles from the team of Fuji & Saito during the main monthly matches and they may have been champs this whole time. They won the titles in late June of 82 and I doubt they held the titles for 10 months. I have a feeling that this match will be about the same in terms of story as the previous match. The faces control first, then the heels control, and then the hot tag is made the heels win due to manager interference and the ref having a case of turnmybackitis. Jay grabs an early sleeper on Sika and Afa wisely pulls him out of the ring to break the hold. Afa is armdragged over and Jay tags in Jules. Jules gets pushed into the Samoan corner and Sika is tagged in. Jules escapes and tags in Jay. He’s sent headfirst into the corner but his tribal dance makes it impossible for him to sell a move. He’s taken down with an elbow anyway and he quickly tags in Jules who again ends up in the wrong corner. Jules blocks a back drop attempt with a boot and tags in Jay. We take a quick cut to the audience and return with Jay getting chopped down. Jay makes the tag without anyone knowing it but the ref didn’t see it and he doesn’t allow it. The Samoans let Jay go to his corner so Jules can be tagged in. That’s not really sound strategy on the Samoans but they are wild so what can you expect. Soon all four men are in the ring and Jay is headbutted to the outside and Jules eats a double clothesline. Jules takes a Samoan Drop to end this at 5:52. That was a quick match for 1983 leading me to think that maybe this was clipped in some way. I’m happy it was because I couldn’t have sat through this any longer. 1/2*.
We take a look at Head Cheese, the great team of Al Snow and Steve Blackman. Al Snow had Head with him and he tried to lighten up Blackman’s whole persona. On this episode of Smackdown (the 02/03/00 episode), Al makes Steve wear a cheese head and they formed Head Cheese!
-The Oddities vs. Kaientai-
This is from the 1998 Summerslam held in Madison Square Garden on August 30th. The Oddities (Kurgan, Golga, Luna Vachon and Giant Silva) are accompanied by the Insane Clown Posse. It’s always nice of Vince to make fun of people’s learning disabilities and general freaks to make a buck. This has giant mess written all over it. Golga was actually played by John Tenta who is better known as Earthquake. Kaientai comes out making fun of the Oddities and it’s going to be four on three in favor of the little guys. I only recognize Taka and Funaki. Should I even bother recapping this atrocity? Taka starts off with Golga and Taka slams Golga’s head into the corner which does absolutely nothing. Golga headbutts all four members of Kaientai and steals the shoe of Kaientai’s manager. He smells it and it’s pretty bad according to him. He pours water in the shoe and when the manager runs in he gets the shoe water splashed in his face. Kurrgan tags in and he gets on his knees to fight Funaki. Funaki tries a crossbody but is caught and sidewalk slammed down. Kaientai try a quadruple team that fails miserably. Kurrgan plays tug of war with the Kaientai manager and the member of Kaientai before he dances like a buffoon some more. Giant Silva is tagged in and the four members try to take him down – and fail. Silva puts all four guys into the corner before press-slamming Taka onto the rest of them who had escaped to ringside. Golga comes in and powerslams one of them but he’s taken down with a double dropkick and a double bodyslam. Kaientai delivers a top rope headbutt and three top rope-splashes and a series of elbowdrops. Taka hits a seated dropkick to the face of Golga but Golga comes back with a clothesline that knocks down all four of them! Kaientai keep missing Golga and he tags in Kurrgan. Kurrgan goes to work and nearly kills Taka with a big boot. Funaki eats a sidewalk slam and Kaientai quadruple teams Kurrgan. Giant Silva makes the save. Luna gets involved, too. The four members of Kaientai are chokeslammed together by Silva and Kurrgan and Golga comes in to cover all four of them for the pinfall at 10:12. We see Jayson Williams of the Nets at ringside and he was so impressed with this match that he’d later shoot and kill his limousine driver. This was a big waste of time but it wasn’t offensive enough to earn negative stars. DUD. In fact, the only good thing about this match being here is that I don’t have to review it anymore when I watch Summerslam 1998 and do that review.
We look at the 4/29/04 SmackDown and we see Rico standing with Jackie and holding the tag team titles. He asks why Charlie Haas is not coming out because he doesn’t have his wrestling trunks. It turns out that Jackie has them. Charlie has to wear one of Rico’s outfits. Rico was playing an over the top homosexual character, pushing the boundaries set by Goldust about 8 years earlier, only not as interesting. We look back to the week before with Haas winning the tag titles and then realizing that his partner was Rico and he was a bit upset about that. Haas comes out and his tights look ridiculous, of course. It’s like something the Rockers or Brutus Beefcake would’ve worn but even more colorful.
We take a look at the Rock N’ Sock Connection and perhaps one of the highlights of their relationship and one of the high points of wrestling in general occurred on September 27th, 1999 on Raw with “This is Your Life, Rock.” Mankind brings out people from the Rock’s past. First is Rock’s home-economics teacher. Foley notes she’s the first one who smelled what the Rock was cooking. Rock was pissed that she wouldn’t let him make pancakes. Rock mentions that she should know her rolls. That’s funny. Rock tells her to know her role and shut her mouth and then take a stroll down jabroni drive into SmackDown hotel. Mankind brings out Rocky’s old coach. Rock remembers DDT’ing an opponent on the field during his last game and the coach made the Rock run sprints to punish him. Coach still has his whistle and Rock tells him to shine that whistle up real nice, turn that sumbitch sideways and stick it straight up his candy-ass. Since this is WWEClassics the bitch and ass were bleeped out. Mankind is 0 for 2 now. Mankind brings out Rock’s high school sweetheart. Rock remembers kissing her in the car but getting cut off at second base. The fans don’t like that either. Mankind failed with the guests so he gives Rock a present – a jacket saying Rock N’ Sock Connection. He even gives him a Mr. Rocko, a knock-off of Mr. Socko. Finally, Mankind unveils Yurple the Clown. Rock delivers another one of his catchphrases – It doesn’t matter what your name is and Mankind calls the Rock ungrateful for making fun of his friends. Yurple leads the fans in a birthday sing-along even though it isn’t even the Rock’s birthday! This is a very long segment but having seen it about four times while reviewing WWE DVD’s and such I can honestly say it is still an entertaining segment.
We head to the July 1st, 2002 Raw with another strange team – Booker T and Goldust. Goldust is dressed as Darth Vader for some reason. Booker calls himself Obi-Book-Kenobi. Okay, I was entertained by that.
-Unamericans(c) vs. Kane & Mystery Partner for the Tag Team Titles-
This is from the 9/23/02 Raw. Kane’s mystery partner was none-other than Gregory Helms who was now calling himself the Hurricane and coming out dressed as Green Lantern. The Unamericans are Christian and Lance Storm with Regal joining them. They are wearing shirts with an upside down American Flag. Hurricane and Christian start off with Hurricane taking a boot to the face but coming back with a high chop. Hurricane hits a neckbreaker off the second rope and delivers one to a charging Storm, too. Kane tagged in and he side slams Lance and press-slams Christian on top of him. Hurricane heads upstairs and is launched off by Kane onto the duo. Lance Storm interferes and this allows Regal to pull Storm to the outside. Hurricane wards him off but he’s chopped down with a baseball slide by Christian. Hurricane is hero in peril now and Christian hits a backbreaker for two. Christian sets up Hurricane for an inverted DDT but drops Hurricane’s shoulders over his knees. That gets two. Hurricane flips out of a back suplex and takes Christian down with an inverted DDT slam. Kane is tagged in and he backdrops Lance into oblivion. Regal gets involved and the Unamericans double team but Kane is right back with a double clothesline. He delivers a flying clothesline from the top. Test runs out to interfere and Regal nails Kane with the title belt. Storm covers but Kane kicks out at two. Test and Regal come out to complain but the referee tosses both of them to the back. Christian runs in and stomps on Kane but Hurricane it back up and takes out Christian with a top rope Rana. Lance ends up hitting Christian with a spinning heel kick and we get stereo chokeslams from Kane and Hurricane and Kane covers Lance for the pinfall and the titles at 6:26. This was a good TV match that was a little on the short side but not short on action. **1/2.
We end with some Bushwhackers zaniness from January 7th, 1989. They are at a restaurant and they eat like pigs. It’s kind of disgusting, actually.
-The Bottom Line- This is a nice 70-minute special feature. The Moondogs match and the HurriKane match were both decent and you get three title changes on here. Plus if you’ve never seen the This is Your Life Rock segment it’s well worth checking out. Of course it has to end on a horrible note (with the Bushwhackers) but overall I’d give it a mild recommendation.
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