Superstar Sleeze Posted March 25, 2013 Report Share Posted March 25, 2013 So in the High Flyers thread, I casually tossed out that match ranked among my favorite Road Warrior matches of all time. Then I realized I couldnt really think of any Road Warriors matches I really liked. So it is time to go back let myself reevaluate the Roadies' body of work. The Road Warriors vs Stan Hansen & Harley Race (Florida, 1985) When I saw this on the marquee, I knew I just had to see it. Could Stan Hansen make the Road Warriors sell? Unlike Greg Gagne, Stan Hansen was largely unsuccessful in making the Road Warriors sell. This match was quite the clusterfuck and never really found a rhythm. Hansen goes all "Leroy Jenkins" on poor Harley and runs up the ramp to beat on the Roadies. Harley does get a nice cowbell shot on Hawk while Hansen and Animal do some decent brawling. At this point, I was digging the match. Then they got in the ring and shit hit the fan. Animal did some blase headlock, arm work while Hawk and Hansen randomly took back to the outside. The Road Warriors looked like they had no clue what to do on offense. So Hansen and Race take over with some suplexes, headbutts and a piledriver, all of which Hawk quasi-no-sells. Hawk keeps cutting off Race/Hansen and it is just really hard for anybody to build rhythm because the Road Warriors keep cutting off these guys to do chinlocks. One of the best sequences is when Harley does a delayed vertical suplex and Hawk immediately tries to get up only for Harley to wrangle him and get a nearfall. Then Hawk just starts punching Harley in the head. Harley, who dos have an established hard head, just starts to no-sell it. Harley goes to headbutt him, but Hawk eye-rakes him. This clusterfuck is finally ended when Stan Hansen just chucks Bill Alfonso out of the way and brawls to the double DQ. This match had so much promise, but these guys could never get on the same page. The Road Warriors looked friggin' clueless out there for the most part. While it obvious why this occurred, but just looking at them makes the following a funny statement. Greg Gagne was more successful at getting the Road Warriors to sell than Stan Hansen. That is bizarro world stuff. AWA World Tag Champs The Road Warriors vs The Hennigs Starcage '85 The announcers explain to me before this match gets underway that this is a blood feud, which does nothing but elevate my expectations for violence. Yet the violence was on par with just any other plain 'ol match. I was expecting some brawling outside and some real deal violence. Larry The Ax and The Road Warriors do the irresistible force vs immovable object work, but it is not terribly interesting. Curt is the shining star of this match with his face in peril work, in terms of both hope spots and bumping/selling. Curt bumps big, yet tastefully, for the Road Warriors' offense especially one clothesline. Hawk showed some brutality with headlock punch and his big chops. Animal had a big powerslam. From what I have seen, the Road Warriors were not very good at the military press. I think it is because they didnt set it up right i.e. they try to deadlift their opponent. The best sequence of the match is at the end of the babyface shine Curt unleashing some high-octane babyface offense (high cross-body, dropkicks, a nasty chops), but gets caught trying to sunset flip Hawk. Nothin' doin' on that one. The heat segment does grind to a halt due to the chinlockery that the Road Warriors employ that bores me. Finally we hit the home stretch with Larry The Ax coming in with some clubbering. Tags Curt back in who hits one very awkward missile drop kick (he hits him at a 45 degree angle at his chest). Precious Paul interferes. Katie bar the door we have a pier six brawl a brewin. Everything gets thrown out. It was a pretty weak brawl, which makes this a weak finish. I definitely like Hawk more than Animal now. I know the Animal was the cooler head of the two, but is the general consensus that Hawk was the better worker? Still this is not a very good match outside of some Curt offense and bumping. But at the same time, it is a not bad match, but if they were going for blood feud match this definitely fell short of the mark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted March 26, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2013 NWA World Tag Champs Midnight Express vs The Road Warriors - 7/12/86 It has been much too long since I lapped up some down-home cooking from Crockett. I found this to be much more entertaining than the High Flyers, albeit that one did feature more actual wrestling content, whereas this one was all about the Midnights making the Roadies look like a million bucks with their bumping, stooging and stalling. All the while the Roadies stand tall and playing the irresistible force and immovable object at the same time. I think Hawk no-selling the piledriver in this case actually enhances the match because it just screams badass and makes the Midnights shit their pants. Another great sequence sees Eaton powder on a criss-cross -> do the universal gesture that he is smart -> get military pressed back in by Animal -> steamrolled by Hawk back to the outside -> Animal steamrolls him. Just beautiful. Hawk goes for a top rope move and crashes and burns and this allows for Loverboy to whack him with racquet thus continuing the theme that only the Road Warriors can hurt the Road Warriors. The heat segment is well-worked lots of cheating, eye-gouges and double teaming, but way too short and Hawk sucks as a face in peril (not that Animal is any better, actually he is probably worse). Animal comes in and it is dropkicks galore and a big powerslam before the schmozz with Cornette hitting Animal with the tennis racquet to draw the DQ. I would be remiss not to mention that during the post-match shenanigans Baby Doll cold-cocks Cornette to the delight of the crowd. I think the High Flyers and this match are about equals in overall performance, but get to the same place in very different fashions. AWA World Tag Champs The Road Warriors vs The Fabulous Freebirds - AWA Superclash I I felt like the Life Cereal kid about this, Sleeze liked it, I really liked it. It was as good as the Midnight Express in all the ways the MX match was good and delivered a much better heat segment. First off the Freebirds are painted up with Confederate Flags on their faces, which I think is just a badass HEEL move. They get their asses handed to them by the Road Warriors on a couple different occasions and even Bam Bam is nervous to enter the ring with these behemoths. Eventually Hawk is overzealous and runs his shoulder into the post. Thus continuing the theme that only the Road Warriors can hurt the Road Warriors. Hawk is a much better face in peril here. Now, is he Ricky Morton? Fuck no. I actually kinda like how he is almost a machine insofar as he is constantly struggling to get to his feet after a Gordy suplex (the Gordy taunt after is bitchin), Hayes sidewalk slam and a Gordy piledriver. It feels like these guys are wrestling the Terminator and all they can do is stun it. Hawk is selling "dazed", but not to level of a traditional face in peril, which is actually really logical. Hayes gives him a bodyslam and goes up for a press slam. Up until that point, the Freebirds were giving Hawk no breathing room. Just by creating that much space, the Terminator erm I mean Hawk, rose again, and press slams Hayes off the top. Now Gordy is in, but they knock heads and everyone is down. HOT TAG TO ANIMAL~! Animal atomic drop on Gordy and now a powerslam. Here comes Hayes. Outside, Buddy Roberts fuckin nails Ellering with a chair so Hawk comes out and beats the shit out of Buddy. Animal press slams Gordy, powerslam to Hayes, clothesline, shoulder block, pins Gordy, no ref, Hayes fist drop off the top, GORDY PINS!!!! Clearly the decision doesn't stand, which is always a shitty finish, plus who the fuck does a Dusty Finish for the heels. That is stupid. Even with the shitty finish I have this over the MX match (which in retrospect, I am downgrading a little bit) and right there with the High Flyers match. If they just put the Road Warriors this would be the best Road Warriors I have seen. I watched the Bundy/Blackwell tag a while ago and thought that was a snoozefest; I just watched the Hennigs so it is better than that. Unless the Fabs can pull out an outstanding performance for themselves and the Roadies, I think the Freebirds will co-own the best Road Warriors match with the High Flyers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted March 27, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2013 AWA World Tag Champs Road Warriors vs The Fabulous Ones I would be remiss not to mention that The Crusher is in Fabulous Ones' gear complete with bowtie and suspenders. The Fabs were not up to task and were not able to deliver a match on par with the High Flyers or the Freebirds. Though it was more due to the Road Warriors unwillingness to work and sit in chinlocks during the heat segment. I liked the opening (wasnt really a shine) because the Fabs were the first tag to take it to the Warriors. The Roadies shrugged it off in their own way, but I was digging the opening bit. Then the heat segment started ok with your standard Roadies offense, but then they just ground everything to a halt with those chinlocks. Lane puts his knees up on an Animal splash attempt. Keirn does a quick house a fire sequence before a lame donnybrook breaks out that is an insult to all donnybrooks for causing a No Contest. The Crusher in his ridiculous, albeit fabulous outift, sends everyone packing. They could have a great match, but was very disappointing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted March 27, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2013 The Midnight Express vs The Road Warriors - Starrcade: Night of the Skywalkers - Scaffold Match Even though, I own this on DVD, I have never seen it due to my blind prejudice towards scaffold matches (I have never seen one). I am actually terrified of heights myself. I felt bad for the wrestlers more than anything else. Road Warriors portrayed badasses well enough on that rickety structure. The MX use powder to get heat and try to blade to salvage this. They do a chicken spot and taking some pretty massive bumps. This is the match where Corny goes up there like a good manager and Bubba forget to catch him and Cornette just drops straight down on his feet and fucks up his knee. Ouch. I don't really want to see this match again, but part of me is glad I at least watched one scaffold match. With Magnum out for the show and they couldn't run Flair/Dusty for the 3rd time in a row in Starrcade, was the Skywalkers match supposed to be the major drawing card for this show? Also, I have the WWE DVD copy of the Andersons vs RnR and it is friggin clipped. Is the full match available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted March 28, 2013 Report Share Posted March 28, 2013 The full RNR vs. Andersons is available. Also, 2 legitinately great must-see scaffold matches exist.... Koko B. Ware vs. Bill Dundee & Invader vs. Chicky Starr. Two of the best matches of all time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rzombie1988 Posted March 28, 2013 Report Share Posted March 28, 2013 I'm not a Roadwarriors fan. They had good presence and charisma but their matches usually leave me with a lot to be desired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Death From Above Posted March 28, 2013 Report Share Posted March 28, 2013 That night of the skywalkers match is so scary. I mean, there's a wrestling match scaffold and then there's that thing. It just seems absurdly high (at least compared to other scaffolds I've seen in wrestling, though it is hard to judge) and Eaton seems like the only guy sort of half willing to even try anything because everyone is legit scared they're going to die. There isn't enough money in wrestling that could ever get me to do one of those things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyonthewall2983 Posted March 28, 2013 Report Share Posted March 28, 2013 I really liked the match they had with the Natural Disasters in Japan, a month or so before their Royal Rumble match. They come out to "Iron Man" and at one point, Tenta's sumo background is played up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
claw64 Posted April 2, 2014 Report Share Posted April 2, 2014 I really liked the Road Warriors against The Long Riders Wild Bill Irwin and Scott Irwin. Also enjoyed their feud with the Samoan Swat Team. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JKWebb Posted April 19, 2017 Report Share Posted April 19, 2017 Sleeze, do you remember the date of The Fabs vs. Road Warriors you watched? I know it has been a while. I think there are multiple matches out there, the one I most recently watched was (I believe to be) from 01/12/1985 with Lance Russell on commentary. I think that the only version on YouTube is cut at 2:85, but I saw full version on the highspots network. It may have been on the Memphis set, I just can't remember. There is a 20 minute match that may have been the one you watched from 11/08/1984 on YouTube from Canada. I enjoyed the one from Memphis, and thought The Road Warriors were bumping around quite a bit for the The Fabs. It's unfortunate that the highspots network doesn't have the date listed (or that I saw anyway). If you have the ability, you might want to check that one out. I think it went around 15 minutes or so. I thought it was really fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkeye12 Posted April 19, 2017 Report Share Posted April 19, 2017 I think the SST and Nasty Boys are the only two teams I've ever seen them mesh with at all other than a one shot here and there. Maybe it's because those two teams knew how to brawl, but also both could sell really well, which plays perfectly into what the LOD needed. For that reason, I think they'd have had good matches with Bubba and Devon because they fit that same mold. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superstar Sleeze Posted April 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2017 I am pretty sure it is one from Winnipeg. I recall it being relatively long. The fact my review says Da Crusher was involved means it was in the AWA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul sosnowski Posted June 22, 2017 Report Share Posted June 22, 2017 Just to clarify something, Midnights vs Road Warriors was broadcast on WCW Saturday Night on 7/12/86. Taped on 7/6 in Raleigh NC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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