Derivative Gimmicks

[flyonthewall2983]

I was completely blanking on that name lol

[FLIK]

Old and Fat? Eadie and Darsow weren't ripped. But they weren't blobs. Darsow must have been at least the same age as Hawk & Animal.

Yup, Eadie was much older then all of them but Darsow was actually younger then Hawk.

[Matt D]

At what point did Demolition become heels? I know it was some time between Mania and Summerslam in '90. Was there an angle to set it up? Were they already heels by the time Crush was introduced?

They were wrestling the Harts to Double DQs on House Shows as early as April 21 (With Mania happening 20 days earlier), though they also wrestled the Bolsheviks on the Superstars that aired that day and were total, over faces. Unless there's a fancam out there, we don't have any of those Pre-Summerslam matches. On SNME that aired 4/28, the Harts challenged them and they interfered in the Harts vs Rockers match, which was the beginning of it, though they were still quite over as faces on the 5/19 Superstars, including a fairly sympathetic promo about the Harts. Graham has first appearance of "BA" on house shows on June 1, so that must be when Ax's health scare happened, abouts. On TV Crush debuted on the 6/23 Superstars. Still kids in the crowd waving Demolition figures. Super quick squash. But this put a spin on things immediately. On the 7/7 superstars, Vince went out of his way to show that the fans were giving Demos a thumbs down and he portrayed them as unfair and running scared. Their promo on the Harts was completely heelish. On the 7/14 Superstars, on the Brother Love Show, Demolition jumps the Harts 3 on 2 and that's the clincher.

[goodhelmet]

Old and Fat? Eadie and Darsow weren't ripped. But they weren't blobs. Darsow must have been at least the same age as Hawk & Animal.

Yup, Eadie was much older then all of them but Darsow was actually younger then Hawk.

 

The point is in perception. Compared to the LOD, Demolition looked fat. For a 13 year old wrestling fan, I think they would take LOD over Demolition every time.

[Loss]

It's interesting to me that people remember Demolition and discuss them so much today. To me, they were a forgettable team. I'm re-thinking that a little because obviously, they weren't, or they would have been forgotten. But it does make me wonder what I was missing.

 

As for being the third hottest act, were they really hotter than all but two of these acts?

 

* Hulk Hogan

* Ultimate Warrior

* Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri

* Jake Roberts

* Ted DiBiase

 

The 1990 yearbook will be coming in a few months and I'll go in with an open mind, as Demolition will be pretty well represented.

[Marty]

At what point did Demolition become heels? I know it was some time between Mania and Summerslam in '90. Was there an angle to set it up? Were they already heels by the time Crush was introduced?

They were wrestling the Harts to Double DQs on House Shows as early as April 21 (With Mania happening 20 days earlier), though they also wrestled the Bolsheviks on the Superstars that aired that day and were total, over faces. Unless there's a fancam out there, we don't have any of those Pre-Summerslam matches. On SNME that aired 4/28, the Harts challenged them and they interfered in the Harts vs Rockers match, which was the beginning of it, though they were still quite over as faces on the 5/19 Superstars, including a fairly sympathetic promo about the Harts. Graham has first appearance of "BA" on house shows on June 1, so that must be when Ax's health scare happened, abouts. On TV Crush debuted on the 6/23 Superstars. Still kids in the crowd waving Demolition figures. Super quick squash. But this put a spin on things immediately. On the 7/7 superstars, Vince went out of his way to show that the fans were giving Demos a thumbs down and he portrayed them as unfair and running scared. Their promo on the Harts was completely heelish. On the 7/14 Superstars, on the Brother Love Show, Demolition jumps the Harts 3 on 2 and that's the clincher.

 

Yeah, it was a gradual turn. Very well done, too, as they were badasses before (thus fans cheered them), but they turned into badasses that didn't need too but decided to use numbers to their advantage.

 

It's interesting to me that people remember Demolition and discuss them so much today. To me, they were a forgettable team. I'm re-thinking that a little because obviously, they weren't, or they would have been forgotten. But it does make me wonder what I was missing.

 

As for being the third hottest act, were they really hotter than all but two of these acts?

 

* Hulk Hogan

* Ultimate Warrior

* Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri

* Jake Roberts

* Ted DiBiase

 

The 1990 yearbook will be coming in a few months and I'll go in with an open mind, as Demolition will be pretty well represented.

A lot of it depends what promotion you grew up watching, I think. Obviously, if you were a JCP fan, than you saw the Road Warriors and you realized what arguable knockoffs Demolition were. But since things were still pretty regional, if you grew up watching WWF, it's a different story. Since I'm in Eastern Ontario in Canada and have been all my life, I didn't see much JCP aside from if Pro Wrestling Plus was on (and it took a while before we got cable, so that's another thing) and if I was lucky to find a PWI mag in the newsstands. WWF was on all the time on Saturday afternoons though and Demolition was present (in fact, in my case, I actually watched WWF wrestling *after* seeing the cartoon) and Demolition was one of the first acts I recall seeing. Once I got to know all the WWF tag teams, I realized how different they were compared to them. The different look, the face paint, etc. I recall merch of them being sold during their initial heel run too (like the postcard with Fuji) and for heels, that wasn't done too often. Lots of other things that stood out. Obviously, this didn't happen right away for them, but by '88, they were starting to stand out, as far as tag teams go anyway. I can't speak for other fans, but within the closed universe of the WWF, they did stand out, as far as characters go anyway.

 

As for as your list goes, you can probably pinpoint around late 89/early 90 that they were arguably the third hottest act. Hogan and Warrior have them beat, but the others you can certainly make that argument. Savage & Sherri were removed from main events more less (No Holds Barred PPV and SNME notwithstanding) and onto Duggan and Dusty. DiBiase's '89 was, from a push perspective, kinda unremarkable, as I don't remember anything outstanding with his feud with Roberts. Same goes with Jake, as I don't recall the DiBiase feud being as heated as the Rude and Andre feuds were. Memory may be off, but for those three, that time seems relatively ho-hum.

[Matt D]

It's interesting to me that people remember Demolition and discuss them so much today. To me, they were a forgettable team. I'm re-thinking that a little because obviously, they weren't, or they would have been forgotten. But it does make me wonder what I was missing.

 

As for being the third hottest act, were they really hotter than all but two of these acts?

 

* Hulk Hogan

* Ultimate Warrior

* Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri

* Jake Roberts

* Ted DiBiase

 

The 1990 yearbook will be coming in a few months and I'll go in with an open mind, as Demolition will be pretty well represented.

1990 is not a great year for them, in ring, unfortunately, mainly due to a dearth of matches on tape and the addition of Adams. There's a really solid Colossal Connection match but it's right around Christmas 89, not into 90. I find Summerslam 90 way overrated, but part of that is because it's a Harts match, not a Demolition match (no Eadie). The 88 Summerslam match is a much more interesting hybrid of the two teams' styles. There just isn't a ton of good footage in 90.

 

Like I said, all of those Hart matches just didn't happen on MSG cards. In January/Feb when they were feuding with Andre/Haku, they weren't on the MSG shows. In March, there's a pretty lackluster Orient Express match as the OX had just debuted and were a little too protected for it to work right. The Smash/Crush Rockers match is okay but it's a pale shadow of the 88 match. The best of the bunch MSG wise is the 6 Man with LOD + Warrior which is at least a novelty. There's really next to nothing in 90 relative to the 3 years beforehand.

 

Smash/Crush is HUGELY different than Ax/Smash. Eadie brought the structure. Crush had presence and a couple of big power moves that SOME people probably think Demolition was lacking, but they lose so much without Eadie.

 

Also, i didn't like EITHER the LOD or Demolition as a kid, but later on I watched a bunch of Demos matches and they played to a lot of of what I liked at that point.

 

I even wrote about it.

[El-P]

Obviously I didn't get NWA when I was a kid, so I was knew the Demos before and I had no notion thar the Road Warriors even existed. As soon as the LOD popped up, they made the Demos totally irrelevant to me. Doomsday Device, tall jacked up guy throwing jobbers around and doing amazing power moves... There was just no comparison at all.

[Cox]

It's interesting to me that people remember Demolition and discuss them so much today. To me, they were a forgettable team. I'm re-thinking that a little because obviously, they weren't, or they would have been forgotten. But it does make me wonder what I was missing.

 

As for being the third hottest act, were they really hotter than all but two of these acts?

 

* Hulk Hogan

* Ultimate Warrior

* Randy Savage & Sensational Sherri

* Jake Roberts

* Ted DiBiase

 

The 1990 yearbook will be coming in a few months and I'll go in with an open mind, as Demolition will be pretty well represented.

I can say that among my circle of friends when I was 10-11 years old, Demolition was probably the #3 babyface act of the time behind Hogan and Warrior. We were all WWF fans who didn't watch WCW (yet - I started watching WCW about a year later) so it makes sense. That said, once the LOD came in, they kinda made the Demos irrelevent.

 

Also, for whatever it's worth, I don't really see Demolition as Road Warriors ripoffs. I'd say that about the Powers of Pain for sure, they were clearly modeled after the Roadies. Demolition always looked to me to be more of a KISS ripoff than a Road Warriors ripoff.

[Al]

Old and Fat? Eadie and Darsow weren't ripped. But they weren't blobs. Darsow must have been at least the same age as Hawk & Animal.

Heck, Darsow was practically in the same training group as the Road Warriors.

 

Demolition holds the record for longest combined reign(s) as tag team champions. So if you grew up in that era as many of us did, you'll remember them being better than they actually were.

[FLIK]

Also, for whatever it's worth, I don't really see Demolition as Road Warriors ripoffs.

Always thought the same myself actually. To me, they both wore pace paint and that's about it as far as major similarities go. Kinda like thinking Goldberg is an Austin copy because they were both bald white guys with goatees.

[Ricky Jackson]

I can remember when the Demos first debuted the Apter mags totally trashed them as being blatant Road Warrior rip-offs and treated them as a complete joke. Even though living in Canada I couldn't see JCP on TV (don't remember watching it on Pro Wrestling Plus, but that was a show I only caught sporadically anyway) and was a huge WWF fan, I totally bought into the pro-NWA propaganda of the Apter mags and held guys like Flair, Luger and the Roadies in mythical regard (The Roadies were always ranked number 1 in the tag team rankings even though they didn't hold any titles, so they had to be awesome!). So I didn't hold the Demos in very high regard at first, and defeating my beloved Strike Force for the straps didn't help my perception, but the face turn sucked me in and made me a fan. They were unique in the sense that they didn't change their style as faces, and they had a good run as fun ass-kickers for a year or more. Their theme music was also very memorable and is one of the more iconic themes of that era. I'm not saying the Demos are an all-time great team, but in the history of WWE they are one of the most fondly remembered, especially by the casual fans I know, and in a kayfabe ranking of the greatest teams in company history they would probably come out on top. I think they definitely carved out their own niche as a solid and super over team after initially being written off as Roadie imposters (Eventually by 1990 even the Apter mags capitulated, printing an article entitled "The Road Warriors: Demolition Rip-Offs?") and probably warrant a career revaluation.

[Ryan Faulconer]

There was a big LOD/Demolition dream match article in PWI's Wrestling Superstars magazine probably back around 1988 or so. Wrestling Superstars always had a dream match feature in every issue. The first one I remember was a 20 man battle royale with a one million dollar prize. Nikita Koloff, Flair and Brody were the last three and Nikita won by knocking the other two out at the same time with the Russian Sickle, IIRC.

 

I remember other dream matches like Ricky Morton vs. Robert Gibson, Flair vs. Savage and Hogan vs. Tyson. Hogan beats Tyson at Tyson's peak, IMSMR There were still a lot of photos circulating with interpromotional matchups that PWI could use to illustrate the matches. Wrestling Superstars was probably my favourite quarterly magazine with concepts like the dream match feature and assorted lists and contests.

 

Where i live in Canada the NWA/JCP was usually on every week but they would switch up the time slot from noon to mid afternoon to after midnight and leading into GLOW~! This was back in 87-89ish and I could never stay up late enough to watch NWA. VCRs (V-C-WHAT?) were a bit less user friendly back then too so it was hit or miss whether I'd get my latenight Saturday wrestling block each week. I had more posters of The Road Warriors in my room than anything else, including hockey players. When they turned on Sting I had to dig through my backup posters to replace them.

[Matt D]

I can remember when the Demos first debuted the Apter mags totally trashed them as being blatant Road Warrior rip-offs and treated them as a complete joke. Even though living in Canada I couldn't see JCP on TV (don't remember watching it on Pro Wrestling Plus, but that was a show I only caught sporadically anyway) and was a huge WWF fan, I totally bought into the pro-NWA propaganda of the Apter mags and held guys like Flair, Luger and the Roadies in mythical regard (The Roadies were always ranked number 1 in the tag team rankings even though they didn't hold any titles, so they had to be awesome!). So I didn't hold the Demos in very high regard at first, and defeating my beloved Strike Force for the straps didn't help my perception, but the face turn sucked me in and made me a fan. They were unique in the sense that they didn't change their style as faces, and they had a good run as fun ass-kickers for a year or more. Their theme music was also very memorable and is one of the more iconic themes of that era. I'm not saying the Demos are an all-time great team, but in the history of WWE they are one of the most fondly remembered, especially by the casual fans I know, and in a kayfabe ranking of the greatest teams in company history they would probably come out on top. I think they definitely carved out their own niche as a solid and super over team after initially being written off as Roadie imposters (Eventually by 1990 even the Apter mags capitulated, printing an article entitled "The Road Warriors: Demolition Rip-Offs?") and probably warrant a career revaluation.

I'm always glad for people to reevaluate Demolition.

 

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.p...p;hl=demolition

or

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/demolitionproject.htm

 

respectively.

 

And remember, the key is structure: when they gave, when they didn't give, how hot tags never came easy, and how yes, they generally break the wwf heel-in-peril dynamic.

[Ricky Jackson]

Loved the wacky Wrestling Superstars dream matches. One of my favorite wrestling mag covers ever:

 

 

Check out Jerry's unloved Pat O'Connor Memorial tag tournament thread for my Wrestling Superstars dream match parody. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=14288

[Ricky Jackson]

I can remember when the Demos first debuted the Apter mags totally trashed them as being blatant Road Warrior rip-offs and treated them as a complete joke. Even though living in Canada I couldn't see JCP on TV (don't remember watching it on Pro Wrestling Plus, but that was a show I only caught sporadically anyway) and was a huge WWF fan, I totally bought into the pro-NWA propaganda of the Apter mags and held guys like Flair, Luger and the Roadies in mythical regard (The Roadies were always ranked number 1 in the tag team rankings even though they didn't hold any titles, so they had to be awesome!). So I didn't hold the Demos in very high regard at first, and defeating my beloved Strike Force for the straps didn't help my perception, but the face turn sucked me in and made me a fan. They were unique in the sense that they didn't change their style as faces, and they had a good run as fun ass-kickers for a year or more. Their theme music was also very memorable and is one of the more iconic themes of that era. I'm not saying the Demos are an all-time great team, but in the history of WWE they are one of the most fondly remembered, especially by the casual fans I know, and in a kayfabe ranking of the greatest teams in company history they would probably come out on top. I think they definitely carved out their own niche as a solid and super over team after initially being written off as Roadie imposters (Eventually by 1990 even the Apter mags capitulated, printing an article entitled "The Road Warriors: Demolition Rip-Offs?") and probably warrant a career revaluation.

I'm always glad for people to reevaluate Demolition.

 

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.p...p;hl=demolition

or

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/demolitionproject.htm

 

respectively.

 

And remember, the key is structure: when they gave, when they didn't give, how hot tags never came easy, and how yes, they generally break the wwf heel-in-peril dynamic.

 

Great stuff Matt. Once again I'm blown away by the effort put into wrestling analysis exhibited by the people on this board.

[Negro Suave]

It's interesting that the Demos always come up in this discussion and for good reason.

 

Demos are a team that I loved when I was a kid. I wasn't big on the Road Warriors because they were more of the same to me. As an adult looking back I feel like I felt they weren't as good at storytelling beyond "We are big and bad and going to beat you up!" I watch a demolition match and I see a lot mroe give and take than I realized, and a lot more focus on telling a story. Demolition made their opponents look good while LOD looked good at the expense of their opponents.

 

And its easy to forget that Demolition was a pretty big deal for a while. They had an Ice Cream likeness AND they were on cereal box insert posters. That's pretty big I think at the Time Hogan and Macho Man were the other two selections. I'm a little foggy on the details but they were insanely popular for a while.

[NintendoLogic]

There's also the separate but related phenomenon of real-life fighters drawing inspiration from pro wrestling. Off the top of my head, you have Muhamamad Ali from Gorgeous George, Chael Sonnen from Superstar Billy Graham, and King Mo from Jerry Lawler.

[Guest Paul Kersey]

I had that issue.

 

Did the supercomputer that could simulate the matches have a name?

[JerryvonKramer]

Said it so many times now and I will continue to say it each and every single time it is brought up:

 

 

Two massively stacked guys with unusual haircuts with fucking spikes on their shoulders.

 

 

Two fat guys, one clearly middle aged, in KISS-tribute face paint, bondage gear and occasionally gimp masks.

 

I've never ever ever ever understood the ideas that the Demos were Road Warriors rip offs. Powers of Pain, sure, they look exactly the same, but Demolition don't even slightly resemble them. Whoever made the Goldberg / Austin comparison was wrong, because those two look pretty similar.

 

Last time this came up I got involved in a long dispute over my dislike of Demolition and their limited moveset, so I'll bail on it this time. Suffice it to say, my view hasn't changed -- but I do acknowledge they had a handful of good matches by WWF standards.

[Victator]

Old and Fat? Eadie and Darsow weren't ripped. But they weren't blobs. Darsow must have been at least the same age as Hawk & Animal.

Yup, Eadie was much older then all of them but Darsow was actually younger then Hawk.

 

The point is in perception. Compared to the LOD, Demolition looked fat. For a 13 year old wrestling fan, I think they would take LOD over Demolition every time.

 

Except for the three years they were the top tag team in the world and by a pretty wide margin. But oh wait, the Road Warriors are here.

 

Two fat guys

LOL at fat.

[JerryvonKramer]

I've somehow managed to miss a whole page of discussion here ... reading now.

[JerryvonKramer]

As for as your list goes, you can probably pinpoint around late 89/early 90 that they were arguably the third hottest act. Hogan and Warrior have them beat, but the others you can certainly make that argument. Savage & Sherri were removed from main events more less (No Holds Barred PPV and SNME notwithstanding) and onto Duggan and Dusty. DiBiase's '89 was, from a push perspective, kinda unremarkable, as I don't remember anything outstanding with his feud with Roberts. Same goes with Jake, as I don't recall the DiBiase feud being as heated as the Rude and Andre feuds were. Memory may be off, but for those three, that time seems relatively ho-hum.

The DiBiase / Jake feud didn't happen till 1990.

 

DiBiase was kind of in post-Hogan/ Savage limbo in 1989 because the Mega Powers exploding angle effectively gave him nothing to do. His PPV matches that year are nothing ... meaningless Beefcake match at Mania, meaningless Snuka match at Summerslam.

 

I'd argue he was still theoretical number 2 heel (behind Savage) in '89 as evidenced by being the final elimination at the Rumble (really, REALLY, booking now he would have gone over there for sure, but heels weren't allowed to win PPV main events in WWF at that time), and captain of the main event team vs. Hogan at Summerslam. Pretty sure DiBiase was Hogan's first real opponent after regaining the title as well. I'm just saying kayfabe-wise he was still "up there" as a top-tier guy.

[JerryvonKramer]

Speaking of DiBiase and getting back to the original topic, a question: was Million Dollar Man really the first evil rich guy gimmick? There are shades of it in the Horsemen, and shades of it in Cornette's character, but was there an out and out "baddie millionaire" before this?

[Ricky Jackson]

The Jake/DiBiase feud did start in 89, right after Mania V. There was a match between Jake and Virgil on Superstars where Ted "injured" Jake post match, allowing him to take time off for either rehab or to recuperate from injury, maybe both. Jake returned post-Summerslam and the feud was rekindled, with matches at MSG in late 89, Jake being on the Hogan side vs DiBiase's team at Survivor Series, and probably house show matches around the horn. Feud ended, of course, at Mania VI.