thebrainfollower

I'd agree watching it back on tape it's a good match, but it's really hard for a live crowd (and especially for kids) to get behind someone you've never heard of or seen before. Virtually every newcomer to the WWF got some sort of introduction, vignettes, whatever, but in this instance I don't recall anything other than the match being announced. Add to that a burnt out crowd over that way way too long Harts-Knights match (with five out of eight guys being people no one cared about) and the R and R were behind a massive eight ball. Plus it was just a one shot deal and the WWF had no interest in bringing them in full time really. Thinking it over I did see them live again in the early attitude era as part of the NWA angle but that sure as heck didn't help their case any. And yeah Bulldogs were more exciting than the Harts and probably better in their prime but as US workers their prime was what, a year and 2/3 or so? As US workers it would be their WWF debut to Dynamite's injury right? After that I would say the Harts surpassed them. And yeah I should preface all my opinions are purely subjective. I would never claim to be enough of an expert on anyone to offer a truly objective view, even if I thought such a thing was really possible on any wrestlers with maybe the exception of the one wrestler I know I've seen every televised match of (who shall not be named due to fear of mockery)

Also I should add my opinion of the Rock and Roll Express is probably massively tainted by the fact that I saw them live exactly once, at the 1993 Survivor Series. I'm sure if you sat them down and asked them what the least interested crowd they ever performed in front of in North America was, that one would be the first choice.

I consider the Harts more fun for me to watch than the Rock and Roll Express. Is Bret a better tag team wrestler than Ricky Morton? No probably not but the Harts are a better team overall. It would be like if you paired Ricky with El Gigante and then tried to make the argument they were a great team cause of Ricky (and no Robert's nowhere near that bad but I genuinely think he's average at best) If I was held at gunpoint and forced to rate guys out of a 10 as tag workers I'd put Neidhart a 7 and Bret an eight. Ricky at a 9 and Robert around 5 or so. But I genuinely prefer 80's WWF to 80's JCP stuff when I choose what to watch from that decade. It's what I grew up with and I prefer the style. That's just a personal preference. Plus nobody ever nearly got killed being on the giving end of Bret Hart's selling (one of my major major hates of 80's and older southern wrestling was the fact that the audience was a physical threat to the performers at times. That is 100 percent unacceptable to me and morally deplorable. Same thing was true in the WWWF for Pedro's opponents. Say what you will about Vince McMahon but he brought that nonsense to an end. I'm a stage actor and if some moron ever pulled a knife on me during a show I'm not sure what I'd do.

Thanks for the response JerryvonKramer. Yup those are in order for me. Here's my reasoning. 1 - I just think Arn and Tully were the greatest tag team of all time. All their JCP stuff is gold and when I'm thinking about watching a WWF 80's house show, a major factor will be if there's a good tag match on it. Now if there's a good Arn-Tully match (and there aren't that many WWF house shows available with them on it) I'm in for sure. 2 - I finally got my hands on most of their early Mid South run and I am loving it. Mr. Wrestling II is not one of my favorite people at all and the fact that I'm loving that feud was a major reason for me to boost them up. I honestly prefer version 1 simply because a lot of Stan Lane's offense sort of jars to me with the character of the team. Why I put the Rockers at 3 is simply because almost all of their WWF stuff is fun to watch. Their POP match is a lost classic in how to make monsters look like world beaters, their matches with the Rougeaus are fun (there's one where they use the fans to help them do subtle heel stuff and drive the R's absolutely insane that drives me to laughter every time I see it), their few matches with the Harts are amazing, heck the Twin Towers match is a great power vs speed story. I honestly can't think of a single Rockers match I've seen from their WWF run I haven't enjoyed and the fact that that doesn't even include their best feud (Rose, Sommers) makes it an easy call to put them at #3. Harts are sort of harder to explain. As a kid Bret Hart was one of my favorites even back in 86 when I first started. I legit don't know why, I was seven years old, what did I know but I really liked the guy. I'm not gonna sit here and claim Jim Neidhart was anything more than an adequate worker on his best day and yet I don't feel Bret carried him exactly. The Harts had a lot of great fun matches and its very rare for their WWF house show stuff not to be the 1st or 2nd best match of the night (I've got about 50 or so Hart Foundation house show matches in my collection) Bulldogs are great but their period of greatness was small due to injury and plus this list was for US stuff so I excluded all their Japanese matches. At the end they really were a shell sadly. I'm not as sold on the Rock and Rolls. A lot of their great matches I think its the opposition that does it for me. When they are in against say the Koloff's I'm just not as interested. I'm with you Parv on podcasts in that I don't see what the heck Robert Gibson really brings to the show. I would place him about with the Anvil in quality and I think Bret Hart was the better worker to Ricky Morton. The Road Warriors are that high on the list not for their work but for their impact. Looking at that epic Vince vs. the World thread I get the sense that if Hawk and Animal had signed with Vince in January 0f 84 with Hogan it's game over, RIP NWA and welcome to a monopoly in 84 rather than 2001. Seriously how often do see tag teams that double the house the same way Hogan did in that era? For that reason alone they belong on the list. Ted Dibiase and Doctor Death and the Rougeau's are more personal favorite picks. The Rougeaus particularly always hold up their end and do some really funny comedy bits when called for (check out the aforementioned Rockers stuff or a great test of strength shoulderblock challenge bit from a Harts match to see what I mean) As far as WCCW teams go, I really cannot stand the Freebirds or the Von Erichs and don't think their stuff holds up well. But that's a personal opinion for what I want to watch rather than a general view on quality.

I agree Don Muraco was a lazy great wrestler. He did main event the first ever show I attended so he gets props from me for that at least. As for his character, there's one element of it I never understood. I remember his promos in the Fuji era constantly referring to the dark side (one that sticks out is "we are on the dark side, we control the dark side" and I remember thinking did this guy watch Return of the Jedi that day? Was this some sort of Kevin Sullivan lite gimmick that never got fully explored or am I missing something?

Okay that's an interesting point about the demographics causing a backlash. I don't really understand it though in all non WWF cases, which was how I took the comment. If that's the case why didn't WCCW fans turn on the Von Erichs in say 83-84 get a backlash based on how threatening they would be to the 20 something male fans going to their shows. Seems their backlash happened much later and was due to very different issues. You do state this happened to blowjob tag teams and yeah the Von Erichs weren't really just a tag team, but in what way would they not be just as threatening to a guy than say Ricky Morton? So to say the Fantastics were better than the Harts you're interpreting that to mean they were more important where they worked. But if it's not the tag teams fault for the territories demise (and obviously it isn't), how is it their fault that they couldn't overcome Vince McMahon's (to name one promoter) anti tag team bias? The list of wrestlers who have failed to overcome his pre-conceived notions of what wrestling is is a fairly staggering list. I guess for me better is simply "who do I enjoy watching more". Usually when I watch the best Fantastics matches they aren't the focus for me, but maybe that's a sign of how good they were, that they could put on great matches on a regular basis and make their opponents stand out so well. I think in general it's really really hard to compare WWF and NWA tag teams because they served very different functions. Even when they do crossover the changes are staggering (I don't think even in his wildest dreams Dusty would have told Arn and Tully to job out to a newly turned face Sheepherders in comedy matches for 5 months straight)

Fascinating discussion. I grew up on 80's WWF and I would agree 100% that tag teams were never treated as important in the WWF as in JCP sure. Those house shows in 1990 main evented by Harts-Demos in the summer of 90 bombed (whether that's their fault or a side effect of Hogan being out and Warrior as champ I'm not so sure) but I don't feel comfortable ranking tag teams in importance at the time since my JCP, AWA, WCCW, Mid South etc viewing is after the fact. Instead I'm going to use a strange criteria. After finding matches to add to my collection and watching them once how often have I gone back and rewatched said matches with tag teams? As an experiment, I actually made a list of every movie, tv show, wrestling match and show I watched in 2012 as the year went along so this isn't that hard to do. BTW I don't think the Orient Express wrestled in the 80's in the WWF at all, or if they did it was 1-2 TV squashes to introduce them. The first major match I remember them having is vs. Demolition at the pre WM VI MSG show in Feb. The Brainbusters The Midnight Express - Condrey and Eaton The Rockers The Hart Foundation The British Bulldogs The Midnight Express - Eaton and Lane The Rock and Roll Express The Road Warriors Ted Dibiase and Dr. Death Steve Williams The Rougeau Brothers The Minnesota Wrecking Crew and the Islanders just missed the list. The only obvious biases I see in this list is that my collection of competitive pre Dusty JCP matches is pretty low and the AWA tends to help me fall asleep. And the only PYT match I have is them against the Fabs on Wrestling Gold so I am in no way qualified to comment on them as workers. I would say in general I need to be better at wanting to rewatch pre 84 US stuff. BTW off topic but is there a proper place to introduce yourself on this forum? I got in today and feel weird not at least doing so somewhere.

New poster, long time lurker very happy to be able to join. My favorite Sid story is a house show in Auburn MA he did two years ago. Can't remember the opponent but he was doing a Nazi esque Kurgan gimmick and managed by John Cena Sr. Sitting front row I actually heard Sid say loudly at the start of the match "No powerbomb, I don't feel like working tonight". And never were truer words spoken. Not one bump from Sid and his entire offense in a seven minute match consisted of the "you chinlock me, I fire three elbows into you to break it up" spot and the rollup he won with. No chokeslam, big boot, legdrop, not even a bodyslam or clothesline not even a punch for cripes sakes. It was legit the laziest performance I've ever seen from anyone and probably the worst as well. This was of course after making a ton in a busy busy line of autographs that stayed busy throughout the show.

This is the greatest moment in the history of our great sport for me, after months of waiting and trying I have finally made it to the greatest forum for online wrestling discussion, prowrestlingonly.com. Knowing my luck I'll be future endeavored soon. Anyway, this was a great great podcast and I hate to say that. Only because it makes me anticipate future god awful shows even more, since you two are clearly capable of being more entertaining than the shows themselves. If any indy company ever has a masked Welsh born wrestler called the Blackmailer I'll know Parv has moved to the US and is pursuing his dream, the breaking up over how horrible Jack Victory was at this show was great stuff. I would say that for once I do agree with Flair's comments in his autobiography that Ricky Steamboat had dated badly here and needed to update his image to remain the babyface in this feud. It wasn't a drastic overall, but I'd say 91-94 WCW Steamboat was more effective in this role, although it could have been simply by this point that fans weren't going to cheer for him against Flair. Far as the Fantastics go I'd rank them below the Harts, Rockers and Bulldogs and maybe on par with the Rougeau Brothers and a little bit above the Islanders as far as Hogan WWF tag teams go. I'd argue the case for longevity is why, when fans have turned on you after less than 2 years, I don't think you can fairly be compared to the best teams the WWF had to offer in the glory years of its tag division even if you have had a few more great matches than said teams.