Soup's "A Blind Eye to the Blind Tag"

[bradhindsight]

Good stuff here:

 

A Blind Eye to the Blind Tag

[soup23]

In doing research for this, I found two things interesting.

 

1. How Demolition was positioned throughout the cards in mid-late 1988 and how the matches vs. The Powers of Pain on the surface felt weaker positioned than the Demo vs. Strike Force rematches

 

2. How truly rare a PPV like Wreslewar 1990 is in WWE. That show has a ton of long matches with 4 15minute plus matches and three of them being tag matches. WWE PPV's can have a good amount of wrestling but they still are a company that mainly has PPV's where they get their shit in as far as skits, diva matches, etc. 2009 is a little bit of a blindspot for me and I kind of dred watching 2009 DX but it was a time period in the fall where it looks like they were pushing tag team matches and tag teams well.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Soup, great article as you definitely did way more research than someone who normally laments the death of tag wrestling. Not saying I would expect anything else, but given what constitutes wrestling journalism in some parts this is really well-done. As you know I am plowing through the 80s "Golden Age" of the WWF Tag Division, but I have been more focused on the quality, not the placement of the matches so that was interesting to read. Demolition was definitely the Ace of the WWF Tag Division and positioned to be their best draw. People tend to overrate Hart Foundation team, but especially as a draw like they were someone how the biggest tag team of the 80s. Which brings to my first quibble, Bret Hart was not really treated as a tag specialist in 1989, in fact you would be hard pressed to find many tag matches. He worked Honky, Mr. Perfect (for most of the year) and Bravo in house show programs. On TV, he had draws with Valentine & Martel and a double countout with DiBiase. Besides the top two heels, Savage & Rude, who he did not interact with he always got at least one inconclusive finish with them. He only worked tag matches at Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and a short Primetime Wrestling program with the Powers of Pain. Vince realized with Eadie retiring and the IC title tied up, it was best to move Bret back into the tag division and began the Hart Foundation's program with Rockers, which led to them getting the belts off Demolition. Point is maybe Vince wanted to repush the idea of Bret as a tag wrestler so that's why the commentary was the way it was, but Bret was basically a singles wrestler in 1989 in everything, but name only.

 

My next quibble is no mention of Warrior & Road Warriors vs Demolition, which was from my understanding a big main event program in the Fall of 1990. I understand the Road Warriors were main event acts in the AWA & NWA (something you could have added to bolster your case). I feel like this was Vince showing LOD that he would treat them as main event acts too. However, I felt because of how tag wrestling was viewed in WWF, instead of pushing Road Warriors, this buried Ultimate Warrior when he was especially vulnerable in his nascent run with the belt. I was going to actually make a whole Ultimate Warrior thread about this once I watch the matches.

 

Questions are was Warriors vs Demolition the main event program of Fall 1990? Did it draw? Were the pops good? Did it harm Warrior? I have Demolition vs Rockers from 1990 to finish. I was thinking of doing Demolition vs Colossal Connection next, but I think I will just jump to this now.

[soup23]

Soup, great article as you definitely did way more research than someone who normally laments the death of tag wrestling. Not saying I would expect anything else, but given what constitutes wrestling journalism in some parts this is really well-done. As you know I am plowing through the 80s "Golden Age" of the WWF Tag Division, but I have been more focused on the quality, not the placement of the matches so that was interesting to read. Demolition was definitely the Ace of the WWF Tag Division and positioned to be their best draw. People tend to overrate Hart Foundation team, but especially as a draw like they were someone how the biggest tag team of the 80s. Which brings to my first quibble, Bret Hart was not really treated as a tag specialist in 1989, in fact you would be hard pressed to find many tag matches. He worked Honky, Mr. Perfect (for most of the year) and Bravo in house show programs. On TV, he had draws with Valentine & Martel and a double countout with DiBiase. Besides the top two heels, Savage & Rude, who he did not interact with he always got at least one inconclusive finish with them. He only worked tag matches at Wrestlemania, Summerslam, and a short Primetime Wrestling program with the Powers of Pain. Vince realized with Eadie retiring and the IC title tied up, it was best to move Bret back into the tag division and began the Hart Foundation's program with Rockers, which led to them getting the belts off Demolition. Point is maybe Vince wanted to repush the idea of Bret as a tag wrestler so that's why the commentary was the way it was, but Bret was basically a singles wrestler in 1989 in everything, but name only.

 

My next quibble is no mention of Warrior & Road Warriors vs Demolition, which was from my understanding a big main event program in the Fall of 1990. I understand the Road Warriors were main event acts in the AWA & NWA (something you could have added to bolster your case). I feel like this was Vince showing LOD that he would treat them as main event acts too. However, I felt because of how tag wrestling was viewed in WWF, instead of pushing Road Warriors, this buried Ultimate Warrior when he was especially vulnerable in his nascent run with the belt. I was going to actually make a whole Ultimate Warrior thread about this once I watch the matches.

 

Questions are was Warriors vs Demolition the main event program of Fall 1990? Did it draw? Were the pops good? Did it harm Warrior? I have Demolition vs Rockers from 1990 to finish. I was thinking of doing Demolition vs Colossal Connection next, but I think I will just jump to this now.

I agree with you on Bret in 1989. He was mixing it up with a good many singles stars sort of as a template of what he could do as a singles. I was mainly focusing on 1990 where it seems like they back track and he is predominantly with Anvil. I don't really know what the reasoning was for the Hart Foundation to get the win at SummerSlam 1990 as honestly the Rockers winning at that point could have been built up and they could have done a good lengthy reign. In watching the 1990 yearbook, it didn't really feel like Bret was sticking out as a singles star until he got the rub in the 1990 Survivor Series match.

 

Really think/hope you do jump to the Road Warriors vs. Demolition stuff now. I think from what we saw (again only inclusive of the 1990 yearbook which I do think is a fair sampling to analyze), the program was a dud all around for all parties involved. Warrior looked weak as the champion getting involved in this stuff that was below both Hogan vs. Quake and the impeding Slaughter stuff. Even worse, at the tail end of the year it looked like he was avoiding Slaughter and Macho to be involved in a multi tag team feud.

 

The Road Warriors have an awesome moment where they come in at SSlam to a huge pop, but otherwise they were marginalized and quite frankly just not as over/cool as they were a few years earlier. Vince did make them goofier and that combined with what we are seeing of them as a performer (they are still pushed in early 1990 WCW but not as the be all end all they once were and more as a way to elevate Doom). Demolition really has a "Freebird" fall from grace as after the SSlam loss to the Harts, they seem finished and extremely old with Crush coming in as an inferior member and them trying to hang on until the WM 7 defeat. I know in the battle royal to determine who would face the harts at WM 7, Demolition felt around the 5-6 most important tag team in the match which is shocking considering where they were at a year before.

 

Thanks for the words on the article. I have a lot of fun piling through these results and do think the potential is in WWE now to make the tag division an important facet of the overall company.