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I rewatched the Powers of Pain vs. Rockers MSG 1/15/90 match again last night and think it may be the best WWF tag match from 1985-1995. However, while watching it sort of struck me as to whether this match being great was a result of the Rocker's WWF formula being perfected or them actually adapting to really play up the POP strengths in a way no other teams did. As a result, I decided to do a huge revisit on the Rockers WWF stuff on the P2B board and figured I could cross reference my reviews here.

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Rockers vs Conquistadors (Boston Garden, 9/7/1988)

 

I can never tell the Conquistadors apart so this may be helter skelter reviewing. Lord Al, Billy Graham, and Sean Mooney are on commentary. Conquistadors get early advantage with arm drags and slams. Them strutting and celebrating is great and gets Lord Al all excited. Rockers return with their standard flash segment of double team moves and stereo dropkicks sending the Conquistadors to the outside. Rockers are working on the arm and Graham calls for them to take off the mask of the conquistadors. Marty gets an assist from Shawn as he performs a monkey flip on both Conquistadors. Mooney keeps confusing Shawn and Marty. Really nice splash by Shawn on the arm of the Conquistador.

 

Conquistadors finally gain the advantage with a shot to the kidneys of Marty from the apron of the Conquistador. Marty does really good bumping and they are working over the back of Marty. The offense from the Conquistadors is not really impressive and mainly consists of them clubbing the back. Graham says this match has been 2/3rd dominated by the Conquistadors which is completely insane. We are eight minutes in and they have been on offense for around two of those. Decent backbreaker from the Conquistador but this face in peril segment is not real inspiring and the crowd is dead. We then get the dreaded nerve hold which is a staple of any foreign heel. This mercifully doesn’t last too long and Marty gets a hope spot with a splash for two. Marty takes the best bumps on back drops. Really terrible clothesline thrown by the Conquistador and Al gets all pissed at the way he covered marty. We get a double clothesline that looks real bad to and Marty is able to hot tag in Shawn. Shawn shows good fire but misses a dropkick by a country mile. Big fistdrop by Shawn and the Conquistadors run into each other and a big splash from Shawn finishes off the match in around 12 minutes.

 

Not a very good debut for the Rockers. I place a lot of the blame with the Conquistadors as their offense looked clunky and weak. However, the Rockers were a little sloppy and uncoordinated to. The crowd was also pretty indifferent. Certainly much better things are ahead.

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I am trying to convince Phil to synch up with me and watch all of the Rockers vs. Rose Somers matches so we can rank them the way we ranked Choshu-Fujinami.

 

This is a good idea. Matches are all pretty different and not cookie cutter. I would recommend watching them along with other notable tags from the set if you are going to bundle watch.

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I need to go back and watch more Rockers matches, cause I never really liked the Rockers. But for reasons that have nothing to do with how good they were. I first saw them in the AWA and by that time, to be honest, we'd ( "we" being me and my pal Joey was my only pal who also watched wrestling), we'd only watch the AWA if nothing else was going on, or out of a "It's wrestling, put it on." mentality. So we'd not really pay that much attention, and were all "Who are these two clowns ripping off the Rock N Roll Express and Midnight Express? Oh I think I saw their names in the PWI listings for Central States" and "Who The fuck is Doug Somers?" and leave it at that.

 

And their big run in WWF was right during the time I wasn't really watching wrestling anymore, and when I did it was a random WCW Clash or Saturday Night. So I need to check out more than I've seen.

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Even though it was delayed for months, thanks to their own stupidity, I really think that the Rockers showed up ath the perfect time in the WWF. They were the only tag team at the time that had the combo of being talented, experienced, and also were young and 'happening.' Dynamite's back was pretty much fried. Bret and Jim had just recently turned babyface and they were popular, but not the same way that Shawn and Marty were. Roma and Powers never shook the jobber label. The Rougeaus were about to turn heel, or already had. Were the Killer B's even still around?

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Even though it was delayed for months, thanks to their own stupidity, I really think that the Rockers showed up ath the perfect time in the WWF. They were the only tag team at the time that had the combo of being talented, experienced, and also were young and 'happening.' Dynamite's back was pretty much fried. Bret and Jim had just recently turned babyface and they were popular, but not the same way that Shawn and Marty were. Roma and Powers never shook the jobber label. The Rougeaus were about to turn heel, or already had. Were the Killer B's even still around?

Bees were just about done at that point...Blair left right before Survivor Series.

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Rockers vs Conquistadors (LA Sports Arena, 7/15/1988)

 

Gorilla, Mooney, and Superstar are on commentary for this one. Gorilla pushes for Graham to become the Rockers manager. Match starts with Conquistador taking Marty down with a waistlock and Marty using his speed to escape. Marty gets a nearfall off a crossbody in the early going and locks on a headlock. The Conqusitador goads Shawn into the ring and then they double team while the official tends to Shawn. Marty tries to crossbody both Conquistadors and does so with a dropkick assist from Shawn. Rockers do a real nice sequence where they each give two bodyslams, stereo dropkicks sending the Conquistadors to the outside, and then stereo dives on the outside. Ventura comes out to jaw with Graham and joins commentary. This pisses me off as you can hear stuff going on in the ring as they focus on Jesse. Marty is the one with the splash on the arm in this match and Shawn does some really neat cranking on the arm. Double elbow on the Conquistador as this match has been all Rockers.

 

Conquistadors catch Shawn with a punch on a leap frog and take over. Conquistador offense is very punch, kick, choke oriented but the shots is more precise and stiffer here. Shawn does his crazy bump into the corner. Nice hope spot as Shawn kicks out of a pin attempt and send the Conquistador to the floor, but then the Conquistadors switch to remain on offense. Gorilla cant stop talking about Jesse instead of the match which is annoying. I really like the vicious lucha brawling side of the Conquistadors more than the strutting, clunky style we saw them utilize in the Boston match. Shawn does a good tree standing in the forest style bump off an elbow. This has been really good in cutting off his hope spots. Graham claims Shawn got luck that the ref counted slow. Announcing is terrible.

 

Marty gets the hot tag to a MONSTER pop. Marty has a great hot tag sequence hitting moves and the Conquistadors flying everywhere. Shawn hiptosses Marty onto a Conquistador and then hits the flying fist from the top for the victory in around 15 minutes.

 

Wow what a difference 6 days makes. Graham’s site shows that they worked two more times between Boston and this so perhaps they worked out their problems in the Boston match. This was a really good tag match showing the Rockers as fast and energetic. I can’t wait for their MSG match with the Conquistadors now.

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Rockers vs Fabulous Rougeau Brothers (MSG, 7/25/1988)

 

This is the Rockers MSG debut. Lord Alfred, Billy Graham, and Mooney on commentary for this one. Rougeaus are being sporty and offer a handshake in the early going. Jacques and Shawn start with some basic headlock oriented wrestling. Jacques hits a great dropkick with Michaels bouncing off the apron. Jacques again shakes Shawn’s hand. Shawn dropkick misses but Jacques sells anyway. Lord Al calls him out on it on commentary. Tough sequence execution wise for Shawn. Marty and Raymond then get tagged in. Raymond clamps on a full nelson that gets flipped around and then the action picks up a bit and Raymond nails Marty with a back elbow. He goes for it again but Marty reverses into his own back elbow.

 

Shawn gets caught coming in and the Rougeaus start working over the leg and ankle. Jacques starts up a USA chant on the apron and gets booed. Awesome. Shawn quickly tags out on first counter and Marty starts working over the arm of Jacques. Work on the arm is not bad but not great either and pace is really slow. Shawn speeds it up a bit with a crossbody. Marty gets tagged in and caught by the Rougeaus.

 

They start targeting his back and using more heel type aggression and maneuvers. Raymond is jawing on the apron with Shawn while Jacques locks on an abdominal stretch. I always love Raymond’s karate kick to the gut. Hope spot for Marty but it gets stunted with a dropkick to the back with Marty up in the Hart Attack position. Jacques misses a flying bodyblock though and Shawn gets the tag.

Shawn again misses a dropkick and he is off tonight. Lord Al is not giving him any breaks either. Big fistdrop from the top but broken up by Jacques. Shawn goes to the top again but gets crotched by Jacques and Raymond covers for the win just under 15 minutes. Afterwards the Bulldogs come out and they have a shoving match with the Rougeaus.

 

Eh. This was not a bad match but not good at all either. I liked the Rougeaus being sportsman and progressively using more heel techniques but the payoff at the end, while pretty cheap felt kind of hollow. The control segments of body work were also uninspiring and the pace was a lot slower than both previous Rockers matches.

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Rockers vs Danny Davis/Mike Sharpe (Prime Time Wrestling, 9/20/1988)

 

Marty and Davis start out. Marty gets a neat headscissors takeover which draws Sharpe in. Shawn and Marty give both members a headscissors then although Shawn nearly completely botches his. Shawn works over the arm of Davis. Davis really sucks with weak strikes, soft bumping, and goofy selling. We get the trademark arm work including the splash on the arm.

 

Sharpe backs Marty in the corner and starts clobbering him. Marty fires back and again go to work on the arm of Sharpe. They do a couple of decent sequences were Sharpe gains the advantage but Marty uses his speed and smarts to regain the advantage. Shawn gets caught in the corner and worked over. Davis blocks a monkey flip. Big elbow by Sharpe and good bump by Shawn. Double clothesline puts both men down and Shawn is able to get the tag to Marty. All four men are in and we get a neat finish with Marty sending Sharpe into the ropes and Shawn taking him out with a splash for the three count.

 

This was not a very good match but that was not what I was expecting. I still was able to get some interesting takeaways. So far, Marty has been the clear leader and

more polished worker of the team. This match also gave the right amount of offense to Sharpe/Davis in that it didn’t completely bury them since they are name guys but the Rockers dominated most of the match.

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I know there are a few Rockers matches during their AWA stint where they worked other promotions with the belts. I THINK one was in Bama. Khawk would know. In any event I need to watch that stuff

They worked a 6-man in Continental with Danny Davis as The Midnight Rock n Rollers against "Golden Boy" Mike Golden and The Sheepherders.
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Rockers vs Conquistadors (MSG, 9/29/1988)

 

Trongard, Graham, and Lord Al Hayes on commentary. We get another unique opening with the Conquistadors playing cat and mouse staying away from Marty and then trapping him. They put him in a torture rack and alternate. Shawn has enough of that and sends the conquistadors flying and gets Marty passed to him in a cool spot. Amazing at how varied each opening between these three has been. The Conquistadors have a different demeanor in this match and consult with each other.

 

This leads to the Rocker standby of cranking the arm but that is short lived as the Conquistadors trap him again and start hammering away. Shawn again comes in for the assist and monkey flips Marty right into a clothesline. That was a rinse and repeat sequence but ended in another exciting conclusion so it is fine by me. Offense is again varying on the arm.

 

Conquistadors get advantage with a nasty right hand to Shawn. They throw him in and he takes his great bump into the corner. The Conquistadors then pounce on him with some nice looking boots and offense. Great dropkick by the Conquistador. This was followed by huge back body drop. Pace is really quick with their work. It is not very complicated or really focused on a body part but is vicious, smart, and fast. Shawn is also selling well. Hope spot on sunset flip is short lived as he gets booted from the Conquistador on the outside. They also do a pretty good job in showing Marty showing some restraint on the apron and not being totally detrimental to his partner. Half of the time, the Conquistador will have a discussion with the official allowing the interference to occur. Conquistadors do their switcheroo spot on the outside. Shawn fights his away out of the corner to the cheers of the crowd, however he is unable to make the tag. Nerve hold is applied to Shawn which is my least favorite sequence of the match so far. An abdominal stretch would have been more effective. It was short lived as Shawn again gets a hope spot and comes firing off the ropes but gets back elbowed. They really milked this. Conquistador misses a senton and Shawn tags in marty to a big pop.

 

Typical house of fire with a Conquistador taking a nasty bump on backdrop. Pier six occurs and one of the Conquistador clears out of the ring after he collides with Shawn. Shawn bounces back though and hits a big splash off martys shoulders for the victory in just under 15 minutes.

 

This was a really good match that bordered on great at times. I really loved the first half of the match and was amazed at how different it felt from their previous encounters. The second half was a mix of good and bad as I felt the nerve hold made no sense and I would have liked to see Shawn sell the beating a little. Overall, the second best match of the trilogy and worth going out of your way to see.

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I'm a fan of that Conquistadors Mach as well. I watched a bunch of them a few years back and most of them sort of blended together in my head, but then I watched the MSG match again and thought it was probably their best. I'll have to re-watch the 7/15 match from LA. I haven't really been motivated to watch anything in a few months, but I usually stick on a Rockers disc to get me out of a wrestling slump (I'd go to bat for them as the best team in WWF/E history as well, btw).

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I can certainly attest this week that the Rockers match is a great watch after you finished studying for the CPA. Only downside is the matches are usually entergetic and it winds me up for another hour before I can go to sleep.

 

Also noticed where I have one more Conquistador match left at LA so that will be interesting when the Rockers are further implemented into the WWF.

 

Next match on the docket is vs. Demolition. I will preface by saying I know I can tolerate Demo more than some and probably would find myself in the middle of the Will/Vic spectrum in regards to them.

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Also,

 

when you're done with your write up, if you want to compare, here's ours:

http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/topic/5...t/#entry1149097

 

It's the first one we did so I probably would have written it up a little differently at the end. I'm curious what someone thinks coming from seeing a lot of Rockers matches instead of a lot of Demolition matches.

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The Demos match is one of my favourite tags ever.

 

The Rockers v Demolition (MSG, 10/24/88)

 

I love this match. There's about 5 Rockers matches that are my go-to matches for getting me out of a wrestling slump, and this is one of them. It's been getting talked up quite a bit on PWO thanks to the whole Demolition discussion (part of the 'PG-13 vs. The World' thread that motivated me to watch some tag wrestling in the first place), and irrespective of whether or not one thinks Demolition are great, good, bad, shitty or whatever, this match seems to be one everybody can get behind as something good. And it waaaay is. Starts out with your simple brute force v speed/quickness dynamic. Demolition's offence/lack of offence has been one of the main issues that's been debated in the aforementioned thread. Some people don't think they bring enough offence/have enough good offence/whatever. Others are content with what they do bring because they make up for any shortcomings by excelling in other departments (structure/"storytelling"/whatever). I can't really comment either way because, other than this match, I don't think I've watched a Demolition match in about 3 years. Here they're mostly about the clubbering. But I'm easily enough pleased and I can get behind good clubbering, and well, the Demos have some fucking good clubbering. Ax is throwing some especially nasty looking shots and basically trying to manhandle Michaels. Shawn attempts a crossbody and Ax just catches him, struts around the ring with him in his arms, and drills him onto the mat hard. Then Shawn and Marty shift gears and the Demos are on the back foot, totally caught out by the speed and struggling to slow things down at all. Lots of quick tags, tonnes of arm wringers, ducking wild punches before throwing some peppering jabs; the Rockers are going a million miles an hour and the Demos can't keep up. Until Ax just cracks Jannetty in the face with a headbutt. You can run around like a 12 year old on speed all you want, but at some point you'll stop to catch a glimpse of that side boob and then the dude in the facepaint will fucking kill you. They work over Jannetty briefly, but Shawn's back in pretty soon and from there they head into Shawn in peril as he hits the ropes at a hundred miles an hour and completely hurls himself over the top as Smash pulls the rope down. Looked like the crazy fuck almost broke his back going over. The Demos slow things down to a crawl at this point. There's a great moment where Smash has Michaels in a Boston Crab and appears to be losing it, so he tags in Ax and Ax just calmly walks in and blast him in the spine with a big old clubber. Hot tag comes and Jannetty is house o' fired to the max, and there's an awesome nearfall off of a rocket launcher before Ax breaks it up. Crowd really buy into Shawn and Marty winning this, and you can tell by the way they just deflate when it doesn't happen. Finish is super nasty as Smash pick up Marty in a bearhug and walks him over to the corner, while Ax channels Stan Hansen and nukes him square in the face with a lariat. It's a shame this match-up didn't happen more often, because it's a great one.

That's what I wrote about it a couple years ago. Apparently during one of the many Demolition run-arounds we've had here (might've even been the first).

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Rockers vs Demolition (MSG, 10/24/1988)

 

Trongard, Superstar, and Lord Al on commentary. Ax and Shawn start out. Ax shows complete dominance in strength advantage right from the get go. Ax hammers Shawn down and catches his crossbody for a big powerslam. Shawn’s punches look good here and show the contrast of the two teams strengths as they are short, fast, and compact. Smash and Marty are in now. Marty uses some stick and move tactics to avoid punishment but again get caught and this time Smash hammers him down like Ax did Shawn. Rockers hit three dropkicks and get a quick cover on Smash. Demolition regroups. Rockers start ringing out Smash’s arm and do a magnificent job of tagging in and out in a furor to the delight of the crowd. Smash misses a charge in the corner doing more damage to his shoulder. They repeat the same arm spots with Ax and the crowd is really behind them.

 

Ax stunts all progress with a headbutt to Marty and Demo goes to work. Big double elbow from Demolition. Offense is not varied but clobbering and painful

looking. However, it is very short as Marty is able to tag in Shawn. Shawn comes in a house of fire but takes a nasty tumble to the outside when Ax pulls down the ropes. Fuji gets in a cane shot on the outside. Boston crab by Demo and work continues on Shawn’s back. Bearhug utilized as Shawn has had a couple of good hope spots mixed in. Shawn has a nasty elbow smash to get out of the bearhug and hits the hot tag to Marty.

Marty comes in and does a great sequence. Shawn comes back with offense too early for my liking and they do a double dropkick, double shoulderblock, and take out Fuji. Marty gets a sloppy looking splash that Smash breaks up. Smash catches Marty and Ax hits him with a huge clothesline to pick up the win for Demolition in 12 minutes.

 

Good match but a tad disappointing based on previous watches for me. The structure of the match is very well done with speed vs. power always being an underlining theme. I just think this match had one minor flaw and one major flaw that took me out of it a little bit. The minor flaw was Shawn bouncing back after the hot tag. This seems to be something of a reoccurring theme and even 30 more seconds of Marty holding his own after the hot tag would go a long way. The bigger problem in the match to me though was the lack of urgency on Demolition’s part. One could argue that being slow and plodding is part of their work and plays into the theme of the match but we hardly got any pin attempts or any hustle when Shawn was close to making the tag. A little more enthusiasm from them would have gone a long way because from a mechanics standpoint they were fine. Most of Demolition’s charisma in this match was exemplified in the opening sequences. Overall a good match but going in I thought it might be a serious contender to the Powers of Pain match. After watching, the POP match took this template and tightened it up for an overall better performance.

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The Rockers vs. Hart Foundation (Ft. Wayne 10/30/90)

 

This match will break up the chronological track I had been running down up to this point but this match is not on my Rockers compilation. This match also has a few unique factors going for it.

 

1. It is 2 out of 3 falls

2. It was taped for SNME that never occurred

3. The version I saw had no commentary

4. In the 2nd fall, the top rope breaks off on one side of the ring

5. The crowd is awful and barely cheers

6. It is the match of the phantom title change for the Rockers

 

Mixing in all of these mitigating circumstances, I thought this was a fabulous match. This thread is looking back at the Rockers but I would be remiss to not take a moment to talk about how great Bret Hart was in the first two falls of this match. I have always really liked Bret in face vs. face matches in that he works the match slightly different but still displays aggression towards his opponent. No hugging in the middle of the ring MMA bullshit when Bret wrestles another face. This work was really on display in the first fall and the second fall features him keeping everything together when the rope breaks and adapting some of his signature spots. He also kind of botches the ending to this match but overall a great performance for him.

 

I especially enjoyed the first two falls of this match. It being face vs. face, there is less emphasis on many of the traditional tag moments I have seen in the Rockers matches so far. We also got quite a bit more mat wrestling than is customary. Anvil was used as a powerhouse effectively and both Shawn and Marty did a good job trying their best to avoid his powerful shots. The work with the ring rope breaking was creative and gritty. The ending while kind of looking bad is a good feel good moment in Rockers history. Right now this is neck and neck with the POP match as my favorite Rockers match.

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