One and Only Demolition Thread

[Victator]

. Because sober, they are pretty goddam terrible. And really gay. I like the masks, though.

No they aren't.

[S.L.L.]

I am extremely intoxicated right now. I'm going to watch some Demolition matches and see if they are any better drunk than sober. Because sober, they are pretty goddam terrible. And really gay. I like the masks, though.

As long as I brought it up earlier...what is the wrestling that isn't really gay?

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I am extremely intoxicated right now. I'm going to watch some Demolition matches and see if they are any better drunk than sober. Because sober, they are pretty goddam terrible. And really gay. I like the masks, though.

As long as I brought it up earlier...what is the wrestling that isn't really gay?

 

Good point.

 

I guess whenever you have two or more dudes involved in a physical competition (staged or legit), there's going to be a certain level of gayness. That is especially true in wrestling.

 

I look at it like this: If I saw Ric Flair walking down the street wearing his wrestling trunks and sequined robe, I would find it odd, but gay isn't the first thing that would come to mind.

 

If I saw Demolition walking down the street with their fat pasty white bodies decked out in leather studded outfits, I would assume that they just had sex with each other or forced some other dude to have sex with them.

 

Creepy is probably a better adjective for Demolition than gay. And not creepy in a good way.

[Victator]

If I saw Demolition walking down the street with their fat pasty white bodies decked out in leather studded outfits,

Fat? You must work for WWE.

[Cox]

C'mon Victator. I'm willing to listen to most of the arguments for and against Demolition in this thread, but Eadie and Darsow were indisputably fat.

[Victator]

Compared to who? Eadie especially was not fat.

[Cox]

 

Granted, those outfits didn't exactly do them any favors, but Eadie has a very noticeable gut while in Demolition, which you can see even while wearing a belt. I like Eadie, but by the end of his career, dude was fat.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Oh for Christ's sake. Demolition stunk because Bill Eadie looked ridiculous as soon as he took off the cool studded black hood and revealed a middle aged guy in clown makeup with his hair slicked back.

It's bad enough that you're gonna get beaten up and raped. But by CLOWNS? That's extra scary!

 

I'll give ya that.

[Victator]

 

Granted, those outfits didn't exactly do them any favors, but Eadie has a very noticeable gut while in Demolition, which you can see even while wearing a belt. I like Eadie, but by the end of his career, dude was fat.

I saw a match where Eadie had to pull the straps down and he looked surprisingly cut.

[S.L.L.]

Granted, those outfits didn't exactly do them any favors, but Eadie has a very noticeable gut while in Demolition, which you can see even while wearing a belt. I like Eadie, but by the end of his career, dude was fat.

The thing is, a lot of guys from that era and earlier (and to a lesser degree, after) had guts, including quite a few guys with guts more prominent than theirs. I get saying they're fat. I don't get the people who use it as a criticism. I don't get the people who can praise Murdoch, Rose, Gordy, Race, Hansen, etc., not to mention actual fat fat guys like Vader and Hashimoto, and then turn around and say Demolition are "too fat".

[rainmakerrtv]

The Demos were more beefy than fat.

[Loss]

So what. Can they work or not? Are they good in their role or not? I'm gay, and all you straight guys care more about male body types than I do. Who gives a shit? Jesus. They're fat/no they're not fat for two pages?

[Troy]

So what. Can they work or not? Are they good in their role or not? I'm gay, and all you straight guys care more about male body types than I do. Who gives a shit? Jesus. They're fat/no they're not fat for two pages?

This may be post of the year

 

I was never a Demolition fan. I haven't seen much to judge but they seemed average/solid to me

[Guest Slickster]

I was amused how in the WWE 12 video game Ax and Smash are built like Ryback.

[rzombie1988]

Ax and Smash were in really good shape in 1988.

[Kevin Ridge]

I really never viewed Demolition as being a couple of fat guys. But over on DVDVR years back I got criticized for calling Yoko fat so maybe I'm not the one to judge. I thought they had a pretty decent look to them with some kick ass entrance music. They looked like a couple of guys who could kick ass. Not saying they had a ton of great matches but always thought they were a solid team.

[Jingus]

We found Kamala's best match ever.

WHAT IS IT!?

 

This never got answered.

[Exposer]

We found Kamala's best match ever.

WHAT IS IT!?

 

This never got answered.

 

It will when the set comes out

[goodhelmet]

We found Kamala's best match ever.

WHAT IS IT!?

 

This never got answered.

 

It will when the set comes out

 

Exactly. Trying to keep some shit a surprise. Was hoping this would disappear in all the talk of how fat Demolition are.

 

Speaking of which, the point was not if they could wrestle but if the two wrestlers fit the gimmick. I mean, fuck, I love Bill Eadie. I pushed for his matches on the NJ set and the Mid South set. I am hoping he will pop up on the WWF set. However, the wrestler doesn't really fit the gimmick. Darsow as demon warlord really feels out of place. For instance, if U Warrior and Sting came into the WWF as Demolition, in the same make up and outfits, it really would have been an instance of two guys filling out the gimmick of Vince's vision of his two Road Warriors. There have to be more roided dudes from the 80s who could fill the gimmick. The problem with Demolition is that when they took off the masks, they just weren't as scary.

 

Make sure we are keeping the two arguments separate.

 

1. Do the two wrestlers fit the gimmick / was it a cool gimmick?

 

2. Were they a good team / have great matches?

 

You can think the two wrestlers were joke in the gimmick but still think they were a good team. Or you can think they were a cool team with shit matches. Or you can think they were a shit team with a shit gimmick. Or you can think they were a great team with a great gimmick.

 

At this point, I think the gimmick was lame / Roadie ripoffs with wrestlers that didn't fit the costumes. It has nothing to do with the quality of matches for the most part. Maybe if you want to say that when they were trying to portray themselves as badasses but didn't wrestle like badasses, it hurt the matches. This is a valid argument. For me, the jury is still out on if they were a good team. The matches I have seen so far have not blown me away. Still, between Exposer, Kris Z and myself, we will watch every handheld, tv special, commercial tape, house show and compilation to make sure they get a fair shake in the 80s process. Right now though, I want to find more Moondogs vs. Garea/Martel matches.

[Tim Evans]

Best Kamala match I have seen is either the match where he does nothing but chop Invader in the head from Puerto Rico or the unified title match vs Lawler from 1992.

 

2012 Demolition is tough to watch.

[Cox]

We found Kamala's best match ever.

WHAT IS IT!?

 

This never got answered.

 

It will when the set comes out

 

Exactly. Trying to keep some shit a surprise. Was hoping this would disappear in all the talk of how fat Demolition are.

 

Speaking of which, the point was not if they could wrestle but if the two wrestlers fit the gimmick. I mean, fuck, I love Bill Eadie. I pushed for his matches on the NJ set and the Mid South set. I am hoping he will pop up on the WWF set. However, the wrestler doesn't really fit the gimmick. Darsow as demon warlord really feels out of place. For instance, if U Warrior and Sting came into the WWF as Demolition, in the same make up and outfits, it really would have been an instance of two guys filling out the gimmick of Vince's vision of his two Road Warriors. There have to be more roided dudes from the 80s who could fill the gimmick. The problem with Demolition is that when they took off the masks, they just weren't as scary.

 

Make sure we are keeping the two arguments separate.

 

1. Do the two wrestlers fit the gimmick / was it a cool gimmick?

 

2. Were they a good team / have great matches?

 

You can think the two wrestlers were joke in the gimmick but still think they were a good team. Or you can think they were a cool team with shit matches. Or you can think they were a shit team with a shit gimmick. Or you can think they were a great team with a great gimmick.

 

At this point, I think the gimmick was lame / Roadie ripoffs with wrestlers that didn't fit the costumes. It has nothing to do with the quality of matches for the most part. Maybe if you want to say that when they were trying to portray themselves as badasses but didn't wrestle like badasses, it hurt the matches. This is a valid argument. For me, the jury is still out on if they were a good team. The matches I have seen so far have not blown me away. Still, between Exposer, Kris Z and myself, we will watch every handheld, tv special, commercial tape, house show and compilation to make sure they get a fair shake in the 80s process. Right now though, I want to find more Moondogs vs. Garea/Martel matches.

 

As a person who has no dog in this fight (I have no problem with Demolition, but I have a million other things I'd rather watch than Demolition matches right now), I think the problem is your perception of Demolition as Road Warriors ripoffs. I think the only similarities between the two teams is that they were face painted tag teams who started off as heels, but got cheered enough that they became babyfaces without a real turn. Otherwise, I don't think Demolition were really that similar. Their look was more of a ripoff of KISS than the Roadies, unlike the Powers of Pain, who were a 100% ripoff of Demolition. They wrestled a different style, they cut different promos, they had a different look...I mean, I'm not going to say I don't see it on a superficial level, but on a macro level, I don't think it's there. I think they had other goals in mind with Demolition, to where I don't even know if they had real plans for the Demos when they brought them in (they were left off the WM3 card when just about every other guy in the company worked the show). While their careers followed a similar projectory, I think that was coincidental.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Well, when the Warriors finally did arrive in WWF their first angle was with Demolition and it was based on the Warriors calling them Road Warrior rip-offs. And Demo was saying "No, they're ripping US off!" in a display of heels saying outrageous lies.

So, yeah. Demolition were Vince's Road Warriors.

[Matt D]

You'll notice in my stuff that I never, ever talk about the gimmick. I have no nostalgia for them. I don't really care about the music. I thought they were lame as a kid (but then I hated Earthquake, Bossman, and Haku matches too, so yeah). I'm almost entirely talking about ring presence (knowing where you are at all times, timing, positioning, general savvy), match structure, and playing one's role in the ring (in as knowing when to give, when not to give, and how much).

 

Vic and others can argue about the rest. I don't care at all about the mythos. It's the matches that made me write about them, and the matches in a comparative manner. the breadth of them. When it comes to the things I mentioned, however, they're in another bracket from the Road Warriors. Eadie is a god king superworker compared to them and Darsow does a lot of what they do well but a lot more on top of that, especially coached by Eadie.

 

To me, the big question is how much was actually intentional and how much of it was just Eadie wanting to make his opponents work for everything in order to protect himself, but knowing what he had to do to put both teams and the match over. The matches could be so much better structured than most of the 80s WWF tag output solely on that fact, but since they switched things up so much, even against the same teams, I tend to think it's more deliberate than that.

 

The way Demolition sells and gives couldn't be more different from how the Road Warriors do it. Their gimmick might be similar but in the ring they are VERY different.

[Victator]

Well, when the Warriors finally did arrive in WWF their first angle was with Demolition and it was based on the Warriors calling them Road Warrior rip-offs. And Demo was saying "No, they're ripping US off!" in a display of heels saying outrageous lies.

So, yeah. Demolition were Vince's Road Warriors.

That was more playing off of stupid NWA fans perceptions.

 

I think Demolition was initially intended to be the new top heel team. They were not suppose to get over like they did and they decided to turn them face.

[goodhelmet]

The way Demolition sells and gives couldn't be more different from how the Road Warriors do it. Their gimmick might be similar but in the ring they are VERY different.

I don't think anyone is arguing this. I know I'm not.

 

Where you and I have a disconnect are in the quality of the matches, at least the ones I have watched. You love them. I think they have been merely ok with Darsow actively sucking. We may never be able to bridge that disconnect.