Heroes of Wrestling

Legacy Review

Heroes of Wrestling

October 10, 1999 from the Casino Magic Hotel and Casino in Bay St. Louis, MS

Commentary: Randy Rosenbloom and Dutch Mantel

You knew I was going to get to this one eventually. It's 1999 and wrestling is the hottest it's ever been thanks to the Monday Night Wars/NWO/Attitude Era. To try to piggyback off that, a group of TV people you've never heard of and a production company you've never heard of had a brainwave: why don't any of the big companies do legend shows anymore? They figured that was a gap they could exploit. This was planned to be the first of a series of PPVs if all went well. It didn't. In fact it's safe to say nothing involving this went well.

Among those approached to be on this show and were smart enough to smell the coming disaster and decline: Sid Vicious (who ended up returning to WCW around the time of this show), Terry Funk, Vader, Nick Bockwinkel, The Honky Tonk Man, Ted DiBiase and Bam Bam Bigelow. Gordon Solie was advertised to be on commentary, but had to withdraw the day of the show due to the throat cancer diagnosis that would sadly claim his life the next year. Rosenbloom is his last second replacement. He's a generally respected play by play man for sports in general, but he knew nothing about wrestling and it showed early and often during the broadcast. Mantel is also a replacement for DiBiase, who was advertised to be on color commentary and also bailed the day of the show.

The show opens with a nice "In memory of Gorilla Monsoon" graphic. He had passed away just days earlier. It immediately gets weird after that though, with the intro video focused not on the wrestlers, but on the Mississippi gulf coast and its recovery from Hurricane Camille. We have pyro! Damn, they probably blew half the budget on that. The stage setup honestly isn't too shabby. It not unlike what you'd commonly see at indy shows in the early 2000s. The ring announcer is named Crisper. Heh. Crisper. There's one of those padded signs set up on the hard camera side of the ring advertising the casino's phone number. Hope that thing's velcroed on.

The Samoan SWAT Team (w/Paul Adams and Sika) def Marty Janetty and Tommy Rogers in 10:00- Janetty and Rogers are actually a fairly cool teamup. Janetty of course was half of The Rockers with Shawn Michaels in AWA and WWF, while Rogers was half of the predominately Southern team The Fantastics, a historically underrated team that had a short but very good run in late Jim Crockett Promotions/early WCW. I have no idea who this Paul Adams guy is but he looks like he's trying to be a Dollar General Paul E Dangerously. Before the match he gets in the ref's face, then grabs a mic and cuts an interminably long promo trying to get the crowd to boo him and the SST but only manages to bore the pants off of everyone. And then keeps going some more. No talent and a complete lack of self awareness. The SST do the short version of their ceremony before we get going. Samu and Janetty start with both playing to the crowd. By the way, Mantel is already bitching at Rosenbloom and it sounds way more real that worked. And it's only 10 minutes into the show. Samu wins the early lockups and the phone number sign is already knocked over. Crisper quickly gets up to fix it. Heh. Crisper. Janetty gets an amdrag and dropkick. After a weak donnybrooking attempt the faces clear the ring, leading to some more stalling in and out of the ring. Janetty ducks a shot in the SST corner and Samu hits Fatu. Another Janetty armdrag. Mantel corrects Rosenbloom, who called it a slam. "It's called an armdrag". Rosenbloom miscalling moves will go on all night, particularly with dropkicks. Both sides swap and reset. Fatu offers Rogers a handshake. He tries a kick but Rogers catches it. Double clothesline from the faces. Janetty crossbody for 2. Janetty ducks a clothesline but Samu kicks him from the apron, sending Janetty in peril. Fatu hits the crotch headbutt. Janetty gets tossed to the floor and Samu nails him with a chair. Rosenbloom is HORRIFIED a wrestler would resort to such tactics. "That's unethical!". Which is a pretty hilarious reaction because you know it's legitimate. Back in Janetty dodges a Vader bomb and gets the tag to Rogers. Dropkick. Powerslam. Rogers tries to give the SST a double noggin knocker. That goes as well as always and Rogers takes a double headbutt instead. Rogers ducks a double clothesline and hits a double DDT, followed by a double bulldog. Double dropkick. Janetty hits a plancha! While that's happening Samu hits Rogers with a TKO and that gets the pin. Crap match, but the stretch run wasn't completely terrible. 3/4*

The show encourages us to visit scoopswrestling.com and heroesofwrestling.com. I wonder what those two sites are now? I am not curious enough to actually check. After that we get footage of Steele and Sherri checking into the hotel and commentary commenting on how they've looked very couply since arriving. The video ends with Steele pulling Sherri's dress off as they get into their room! Well, guess that confirms that. We then go live to Sherri and Steele in the backstage interview area. Sherri uses her dress to direct Steele on the right direction to go to get to the ring. Wonder if Jill Biden's tried that one yet?

 

Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (w/Sherri Martel) def George "The Animal" Steele in 6:37- Valentine cuts a promo in the ring to try to get some heat and is mildly more successful than Paul Adams. He says he's going to be the one leaving with Sherri after the match, telegraphing even more what's obviously coming. While Animal does some of his shimmying around Valentine hops out of the ring and stalks Sherri. Sherri gets in the ring and Steele hugs her. Then Steele bites Valentine's arm! He wants a turnbuckle pad to mount on his wall with all the other ones but the ref stops him. Mantel goes on an insane rant about putting salt and pepper on Valentine's arm and how "everything's better with a little seasoning". Now the ref is ordering Steele to take his shirt off! What? Since when is that illegal? Is this an official HOW rule? Steele starts taking his shirt off and of course Valentine attacks him when it's covering his face. He does some token stomps on Steele's knee, setting up a figure four that will never come. Sherri then chokes Steele while he can't see! Well, at least they're getting the obvious turn out of the way early. Valentine drops some elbows on Steele's head while he STILL has the shirt over his face! I know he's supposed to have the mental acuity of a coconut, but seriously, how long does it take to get a shirt off? FINALLY Steele gets the shirt off. He gets a spike from somewhere and hits Valentine with it. And he's supposed to be the face. He hands it off to Sherri. Valentine comes back with some forearms and Steele low blows him. The ref has seen all of this, by the way. But hey, made damn sure that wrestler took his shirt off. Can't have that. Now Valentine has the spike and hits Steele with it. Steele punches back and Valentine bails. Mantel gets off his headset to talk to Sherri, which also ends up going nowhere. Steele knocks Valentine down and claims the spike back. While Steele is on the floor Sherri hits him with a chair! Valentine covers and gets the pin. After the bell Steele takes Valentine out, then tosses Sherri over the top rope and chases them both to the back. Steele gets back in the ring and finally kills the buckle pad that's been staring at him all night. Valentine sneaks back in with the chair and hits Steele. Steele chases him to the back again. DUD

Commentary vamps while the ring gets cleaned up. AHHH! Feedback! That was nasty as they cut to backstage again. The guy they've got doing backstage interviews is taking his job extremely seriously.

 

2 Cold Scorpio def Julio Fantastico in 9:37- Fantasico is the odd guy out on this show, a young guy rather than a legend. He had done and would continue to do occasional jobber work in both WWF/E and WCW, and had smaller midcard runs in ECW and later TNA, all as Julio Dinero. Scorpio comes out with a replica Big Gold Belt. Closest he's ever gotten to a world title. Commentary makes no mention of it. While Scorpio is taking his time high fiveing everyone around ringside Capt. Lou Albano joins commentary for this match. He immediately starts ranting nonsensically. Basic start with some standing switches. Both guys do fancy carthweel escapes out of armwringers. Hammerlock exchange. Speed run and Fantastico hits a dropkick. "Not legdrop" Albano has to tell Rosenbloom. Scorpio gets an armdrag but Fantastico quickly reverses on the mat. More flippy counters and Scorpio dropkicks and armdrags Fantastico. Fantastico flips over in a snap mare attempt. He hits a shoulderblock and struts a little. Another combo sequence from Scorpio sends Fantastico to the floor. Dive from Scorpio that the camera almost completely missed. Back in Scorpio hits some corner chops. Fantastico tries to backdrop him over the top but Scorpio lands on the apron. Fantastico springboard dropkick! He flips over the top rope and skins the cat to show off. Plancha. Scorpio almost missed catching him. Scorpio backdrops Fantastico over the guardrail into the crowd! Fantastico's legs definitely had to have hit someone in the front row. They brawl into the crowd and the cameras completely lose them. So much for that. Back in Fantastico hits a sneaky style low blow. Half and half suplex with a bridge for 2. Scorpio gets 360 clotheslined to the floor and takes a rough bump off the apron going down. Coming back in Scorpio hits a slingshot splash for 2. He goes up to the second rope. Fantastico pushes the ref into the ropes, goes up, and bulldogs Scorpio off for 2. Scorpio spinning heel kick. Setup slam. Spinning legdrop off the second rope. Scorpio goes up top, does as much of the 450 splash as he's still capable of, and gets the pin. That's by far the best thing you'll see on this show. Unlike everyone else appearing tonight Fantastico looked like he was trying to prove something, and Scorpio was mostly willing to keep up with him. They even almost got the crowd into it. **

Rosenbloom has a press release from HOW- Albano has been named commissioner! I don't know who's more shocked, Albano or all of us that they even bothered to try to fill that role. Albano gives a speech about how he'll call it all down the middle and uphold the rule book and all the usual jazz, then pretend cries and thanks the people putting on "the greatest production of all time". Dude, you got the job already.

 

The Men From Down Under def The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff (w/Nikita Breznikoff) in 8:42- The Men From Down Under are Luke and Butch, commonly known as the Bushwhackers but we can't use that name because WWF still has the copyright on it. Dunno why they didn't just bring the Sheepherders name back. Maybe because they're still faces here instead of heels. Look at me, trying to find logic in Heroes of Wrestling decisions. A pointless task if there ever was one. Volkoff and Sheik were actually WWF tag champs together back at the very first Wrestlemania. Sheiky Baby looks like he's barely mobile just walking to the ring. I know I've already blown my one allowed political joke with one Biden dig already, but....damn he walks like presidential years Biden, like he could tip over at any moment. Volkoff does the usual Soviet national anthem singing even though the Soviet Union collapsed nearly a decade earlier. Sheik then gives us a demonstration of his traditional club swinging, which fortunately doesn't require him to walk. Rosenbloom adds failing geography to his complete lack of wrestling knowledge, calling the heel team the "Iron Curtain team" when Iran was thousands of miles away from the Iron Curtain because it's in, you know, ASIA. Also, again, the Iron Curtain fell almost 10 years before this show. Kinda funny they've got the crowd doing all this USA chanting when the face team are Kiwis. The heels do the Suzuki-Gun jump before the bell with the camera focused on Volkoff and Butch in the ring. The 'Whackers hit double clotheslines to clear the ring. THE PHONE NUMBER AD IS DOWN! Sheik gets a mic and threatens to leave. Please do, it'd save us from what's coming next. When they get back in Volkoff quickly starts pounding away on Luke. The majority of the rest of the match is Volkoff pounds on Luke, Sheik tags in, tries to do one move, then tags right back out, start over. The worst thing is as bad as Sheik looks, Volkoff is almost as bad. That's right, the Bushwhackers in 1999 are the superior in ring workers in this match. That's terrifying. Butch keeps running in for no reason to keep the ref distracted. Volkoff needs two tries at getting Luke up for a backbreaker. Rosenbloom asks if that's the bear hug. Sheik comes in and slaps on the worst camel clutch ever. To slightly strain his back and make him annoyed. Finally Luke dodges a Volkoff elbow drop with Volkoff selling it like he slipped on a banana peel and tags Butch. Butch goes on about the worst hot tag run of all time. It's almost physically painful watching this. Everyone gets in the pool and the heels double up on Butch. Volkoff gets some kind of international object and of course Sheik takes it, takes his only bump of the match, and the MFDU get the pin. You know, I was inclined to go a bit easy on this match going in. Then I watched it. There's a reason this match has gotten about as many negative stars as there are stars in the sky. I'm adding on more. MINUS FIVE STARS

We go to a video recap of Stan Lane jumping Tully Blanchard getting out of his limo. Say what you will, that's a classic Four Horsemen setup. More feedback! Gah, my ears. And I'm very sensitive to high pitched noises like that. Killing me here. We go back to the tape and slightly bleeding Tully cuts a very impassioned promo, about a quarter on Lane and the rest on all the people I'm sure he's angry at in real life, including Jim Herd and "WWF contract writers". It's honestly good stuff. Way too good for this show.

 

Tully Blanchard def Stan Lane in 7:04- Important news: the phone number is back up. This would have been a pretty good match a decade before, when Tully was in the Horsemen and teaming with Arn Anderson, and Lane was one half of my personal favorite Midnight Express combination with Bobby Eaton. Lane takes the mic, says he's an announcer for ESPN now, and shows Crisper to do it right. Amazingly Lane doesn't make fun of his name. Heh. Crisper. Lane continues his promo during Tully's entrance. Tully charges in and Lane quickly evacuates the ring. DOWN GOES THE PHONE NUMBER! They finally give up on it after this. Chase around the ring and Lane attacks Tully getting back in. Clothesline. Lane does the most ridiculous sell off a Tully elbow to the back of his neck. Hiptoss and dropkick. Slugfest on the floor. Tully gets posted. Lane chokes him with a TV cable. Tully's cut from the limo attack has opened up again. Swinging neckbreaker from Lane back in for 2. A small section of the crowd starts up a "Horsemen suck" chant. Must be modern WCW fans. Bischoff almost went out of his way to bury the Horsemen's legacy. Lane does his karate thrust to the throat and puts on a modified cobra clutch. He drops Tully on the top rope. I'm not even going into the inane stupidity commentary is wrapping itself up in right now. Lane Russian leg sweep for 2. Tully tights pulls Lane to the floor and whips him into the guardrail. Tully puts on the figure four on the floor! Lane eye rakes to get free. Back in Tully slaps on a sleeper. Lane runs him into the general vicinity of the corner. He goes for a piledriver but Tully backdrops out. Lane hits a back suplex, and they do the "all four shoulders were down but Tully got one up and Lane didn't" finish. Rosenbloom is confused as hell and thinks the ref declared that Lane did an "illegal move" to hand Tully the win. Lane attacks again after the bell. Tully suplexes him and Lane leaves. 1/4*

 

Abdullah the Butcher (w/Honest John Cheatum) and The One Man Gang double countout in 7:34- OMG does some prematch chain and chair tossing. I have no idea who this Honest John guy is, and commentary certainly doesn't. Side note on that, the Cagematch listing for this show has a link to an Honest John wrestler, but it's the wrong Honest John. Even with a manager Abby is booked as the face in this match if you can believe that. OMG jumps before the bell and goes to town on Abby with his chain. Abby gets busted open. On the floor OMG gives Abby a chairshot to the head. Back in the ring there's another long chain beatdown. Eventually Abby puts OMG down with one shot, gets a fork out and goes to town on OMG with it. Now OMG is a bloody mess. Honest John temporarily grabs a commentary headset but seems mostly concerned with making sure everyone knows he's from Paducah, KY. Abby tosses the fork into the crowd! The camera focuses on the guy that caught it and we miss Abby dropping an elbow. The fight goes to the floor and it's a quick double countout. The brawl continues as a couple of security plants take shots. I hope they're plants. With this show there's no telling. DUD

Commentary shows off a blood stained folder that got caught in the brawl when they went through commentary. If that's Abby's you might want to burn it. We then cut to "surveillance camera" footage (sadly not GTV) of Albano and Snuka catching Bob Orton cheating at poker in the casino earlier in the day.

 

"Superfly" Jimmy Snuka (w/Capt. Lou Albano) def "Cowboy" Bob Orton in 11:46- I was going to question the ethics of Albano managing Snuka as the new commissioner, but then Mantel asks the same question and I suddenly have no interest anymore. Rosenbloom says Albano is basically making good on his final pre-commish commitment which is a fairly good answer. Snuka looks freaking ancient. Orton's gut would also rival my own. Snuka lands some shots in the corner out of the lockup. Going the other way Snuka gets a springboard crossbody. OK, he can still pull that off. Snuka small package for 2. Orton clotheslines Snuka against the ropes. Snuka tries to go over but can't. Orton barely gets Snuka up for a suplex back in. Backdrop for 2. Orton grabs Snuka's arm and welcome to most of the rest of the match. While in the Armbar of Forever Mantel gets bitchy with Rosenbloom again, and again it sounds more legit than worked. A small section ringside gets really into a "Bob is a faggot" chant and tries to get the whole arena into it. After a minute or so of that Orton finally lets go of Snuka to have some words with them. After that Snuka finally gets the comeback started with headbutt counter to a backdrop. Orton gets draped over the top rope and crotched. Chops from Snuka. Midring collision and Orton falls on top of Snuka for 2. Snuka goes up top. Orton crotches him and climbs up, looking for his superplex finisher. Albano grabs Snuka's foot to block it. Again, faces not acting like faces. I know it's the late '90s but this is a legends show. Snuka hits a crossbody off the top, not the full Superfly Splash, and it's over. DUD

Think this show has been bad? Buddy, you ain't seen bad yet. There's two matches left on the card: Jake Roberts vs Jim Neidhart, then the main event of King Kong Bundy vs "The former" Yokozuna (a weak attempt to dodge WWF's copyright) in the "1000 pound battle". We cut to the back and a promo with Roberts. He....does not look well. He rants about casino gambling and how he'll always cheat. "You want to play 21? I've got 22. You want to play blackjack? I've got two of those too". Yup, this is that promo. One of the most legendary of all Botchamania classics. Roberts tells the camera to get a shot of Damien, then flat out YELLS at the cameraman to get back on him. When he does Roberts is literally using the interview guy to prop himself up. It should be plainly obvious to anyone at this point that Roberts is drunk as shit and is in zero condition to work a wrestling match. But this is Heroes of Wrestling. Damn the torpedoes. Get Troi on the helm, this ship isn't going to crash itself.

 

Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart and King Kong Bundy def Jake "The Snake" Roberts and The Former Yokozuna in 16:34- This starts out as the scheduled Anvil vs Roberts singles match. Roberts isn't even in wrestling gear. For frak's sake his boots aren't even laced up. He puts Damien in his usual corner spot, then wanders back up the ramp and out the door. Hoo boy. After a minute he comes back, sans shirt. He wanders around ringside, then in a totally disgusting moment pretty much forces a woman sitting ringside to rub his chest. That would be a guaranteed lawsuit nowadays. Finally Roberts gets in the ring and the bell rings to start the match. Anvil quickly hops out. He has to know. He gets back in and tries to give it a go with a lockup. Roberts does an atrocious armdrag. Anvil hits some shots in the corner. They try some hammerlock reversals. Roberts has just enough wherewithal to do the early DDT tease and Anvil escapes. He's not the only one. Damien is escaping his bag because drunk Roberts didn't tie it tight enough. Roberts sees that and decides the only course of action is to take him all the way out. That leads to another of the most infamous moments from this debacle, Roberts dangling Damien like Damien is his dick and pretending to jerk it off. Anvil's off on some other side of the arena while this is happening and who can blame him. Roberts then lays down in the ring with Damien on top of him and pretends to make out. We're witnessing possibly the greatest disaster in the history of professional wrestling, right here right now. Imagine how you'd feel if you actually paid money to order this show. Someone in the back finally had some sense and sends Bundy out. Anvil attacks Roberts and wraps him up in a chinlock to try to keep him from doing anything else while they figure out what the hell they're going to do. Damien is back in the bag. Roberts dodges Anvil in the corner and manages to hit the short clothesline. Bundy gets in the ring and kicks off a 2 on 1 attack. Now Yokozuna makes his way out. He takes his robe off and good lord. Yoko's ass looks like it's going to cede from the rest of his body and establish its own independent country. Of ass. The heels do a beatdown on Yoko while Roberts lays on the ring apron. Crisper gets on the mic and announces this is now a tag team match. Playa. Anvil accidentally takes Bundy out. Roberts is lying on the floor oblivious to the world. A Bundy look alike bald guy that I think is Bundy's manager has words with both Bundy and Anvil, presumably on how the hell they're going to bring this home. Anvil looks legit pissed. Roberts has managed to get himself back in the ring. He staggers around a bit and collapses. At this point I'll take it as a win that he's not pissing in the corner or something. Roberts gets back on the floor and takes chairshots in the head from both Anvil and Bundy. Probably didn't even feel it. The bald manager guy chokes Roberts. They get Roberts back in the ring. Bundy covers him multiple times and has to get back up himself because Roberts won't kick out. Finally Roberts has one more flash of awareness, fights the heels off and tags Yoko. Donnybrook time. While Anvil and Yoko fight Bundy hits Roberts with the big splash and pins him, because contractually Roberts was the only guy that could take a loss. Not even getting into the "legal guy" debate here. Bundy and Anvil get the hell out of town. Yoko holds the bald guy and practically begs Roberts to DDT him. Roberts won't, so Yoko gives him a Samoan drop instead. Roberts gets Damien out again. After putting Damien on the bald guy Roberts starts to take his pants off. Someone in the back finally calls it and the screen quickly cuts to the websites. We get one final shot of the ring with Roberts down again and end show. Disaster doesn't even begin to cover it. If something like this happened today there'd be multiple class action lawsuits. MINUS FIVE STARS

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- I've seen the worst major company shows. I've seen the end of life AWA PPVs. I've seen the two major Herb Abrams UWF shows. But none of them are the bottom of the barrel. This one is. This is, by far and away, the single worst televised professional wrestling show anyone has ever put on, and may it remain the worst forever. I'd give it an F- but unlike other people I don't break my established system when it suits me. One final thought on commentary. Rosenbloom was awful for sure, but he had zero wrestling knowledge but was a professional and at least tried. Dirty Dutch, who didn't exactly cover himself in glory on his side of commentary either, has no such excuse.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: F