Gorilla Monsoon

[Judy Bagwell]

So I've never seen early episodes of Monday Night RAW and am not very familiar with the 1993-95 era of WWF in general so I've been watching each RAW and PPV from that timeframe. Gorilla's commentary on the WWF monthly arena shows in the mid-80s is awesome and I freely admit I could watch Monsoon and Okerlund/Hayes shoot the shit over an awful 20 minute draw with SD Jones any day of the week. The casual conversational style Monsoon has on these shows is really relaxing and really reminds me of watching with a friend who also watches wrestling. On these shows Monsoon makes you feel like you're right there with him. I know I'm in the minority in that regard though.

 

That being said, I'm up to the period in 1994 before Jim Ross returns where Monsoon does commentary again because Vince is busy with the trials and man this is sad to watch and listen to. He's basically become a caricature of himself, not knowing the product that well and shouting over promos while overusing the cliche stuff that made him charming in the 80s. However in 1994 it just makes everything he calls a chore to listen to. Savage is his color guy and Savage is just as bad (if not worse. I swear up and down he was, to put it bluntly, verbally shitposting in the hopes that Vince would get fed up and fire him. It's unbelievable how bad Savage is in the booth in 1994. He just doesn't want to be there anymore) and is really no help whatsoever. This combined with the poor in-ring product at the time (I've seen enough Kwang squash matches for one lifetime) just makes 1994 RAW a slog to get through. There's one point where even Savage is clowning on Monsoon's awful commentary; Monsoon makes a comment during a Nikolai Volkoff/1-2-3 Kid match in which the winner gets a title shot against Bret on a future RAW along the lines of, "you know, it makes me wonder if Ted Dibiase didn't buy Nikolai this title shot matchup" and a totally exasperated Randy Savage goes "gee, I wonder what gave you that idea, Gorilla?" which Monsoon completely no-sells and then he goes silent for a few seconds. I really cannot wait for Jim Ross to come back, because man this is hard to listen to, and I really love Gorilla's work and will defend it usually.

 

I dunno if it's him getting older and giving less of a shit about the product or what. I imagine losing Heenan didn't help. Other than Johnny Polo I don't think Gorilla was good with anybody after Bobby left. Polo does a pretty good job (and by all accounts Raven has said in shoots that both him and Gorilla liked working with each other) though, which makes me wish we got more out of the Monsoon/Polo tandem than we got. Once Ross returns for good in 1995 or so and Monsoon gets paired with him in a color commentary role he's a lot more tolerable, but what probably helps that is that Ross and Monsoon both liked each other.

 

Jesse comes off as annoying at times on the Saturday Night's Main Event broadcasts. But I think a lot of that is him trying to help the heels save face because they have to draw money post-Hogan.

 

oh god, yes. I always felt like I was alone in that regard, and this goes back to Monsoon. I love Jesse but there were times with McMahon where he'd be completely insufferable and just walk all over Vince, and Vince is just so bad at rebuttal stuff at this timeframe that Ventura just dominated the broadcast and sometimes got himself over more than the guys in the ring (love Heenan too but this was a habit of his as well). It's not as bad on Superstars (but that's not to say it's great), but on SNME it definitely can be a major detriment to the show at times. Monsoon would actually trade barbs with Jesse and Jesse is a MUCH better guy in the broadcast booth when he has someone that can keep up with him, which is why Monsoon and Ventura are a far, far better team to me than McMahon and Ventura.

as quick as Heenan was in his prime he nearly always detracted from the in ring work, he was wretched at times in the WCW burying top quality cruiser matches

[JRH]

Well, not to threadjack, but the thing about Heenan in WCW was that he was out of his element. In WWF, the announcing was to put over the gimmick first, and their wrestling ability second (unless the wrestler had no real gimmick to speak of, in which case they'd put over the current angle the wrestler was in). This continues to this day to be honest. In that format, Heenan shined. In WCW though, the gimmicks (even the goofiest ones) were just seen as part of the wrestler's personality and the wrestling was what was important, which meant people like Heenan had to rework their announcing drastically, and he just never really worked while doing that (though i will admit Heenan's commentary during Goldberg matches helped Goldberg quite a bit IMO).

[flyonthewall2983]

Guys on Reddit were talking about how he was flubbing people's names during the '92 Rumble when it was on the Network. Of course I've noticed it over the years, but it's not as bad because Heenan would come in and correct him in a way that befit their chemistry.

 

That WWE.com article in the first post is pretty great, btw. Interesting to hear about how much he still cared about the business when Ross came in.

[NintendoLogic]

The commentary in the DIY/Revival match made me think of Monsoon. When Gargano was in the inverted figure-four and Corey Graves was screaming about how we was definitely going to tap, he made it obvious that he wasn't and completely killed the drama of the moment. To me, that's far worse than anything Monsoon ever did. People like to bitch about him not putting over a headlock as a potential match-ender, but I don't remember him ever burying legitimate submission finishers.

[War is Raw]

How about Gorilla Monsoon, the wrestler?

I just saw Gorilla Monsoon's All Japan run so I believe I've seen all of Gorilla that's out there. Still less than 1% of his career, of course.

In his prime (1960s):

He oozed personality and charisma- a perfect for WWWF.

His style wasn't a realistic amateur wrestler or a brawler. He was like an intelligent monster, a bit hard to label. He was unique. Was not sadistic, but was tough. He took bumps and sold as a big man and was very mobile. His quickness made him for exciting to me compared to, say, Giant Baba who usually waited until the climax or 3rd fall to start showing running the ropes and doing his "highspots".

You can see he had "it" even as he became an occasional wrestler in the 1970s.

Later day counterparts of Gorilla would be a more logical and professional version of 1980s Bigelow, without the aerial moveset. Maybe a taller version than Jerry Blackwell. Definitely needs to be in "greatest big man" discussions, even if he's a victim of lack of footage.