Bam Bam Bigelow

[funkdoc]

It's interesting how well-regarded he still tends to be among e.g. the OSW Review kinda audiences who know their old WWF - think that suggests there's more to it than "omg flips".

If i had to wager a guess, i'd say a major factor in his rep is the LT match - that still gets brought up among the best celebrity matches ever.  Though i know the Mayweather match is widely preferred on this board, that seems to be a minority opinion elsewhere.  And, well, you can't get much brighter of a "carrying a broomstick" feather in your cap than that!  Folks just don't go in enough to see the lack of depth with a guy like Bammer...

[Superstar Sleeze]

Is there anything lamer than a super heavyweight with blue fucking flames tattooed to his head doing a cartwheel when he is announced by a ring announcer? Painful.

Bigelow is pretty shitty in my opinion. I didnt realize how extensive his New Japan run was but he was trash in both the Inoki and Vader matches I watched. Just had no idea how to use his mass effectively. 

Bigelow always seemed to work too small in my opinion. The Lawler match is his best match and that is Lawler's masterpiece. He walked Bam Bam by the hand through that match. The Spike Dudley squash that Grimmas brought up, RULES! Greatest squash ever. The one match I think saw thrown out that I do want to emphasize is the Rob Van Dam match from April 4, 1998. That is the one match where I feel like Bam Bam finally wrestles like a monster. 

I am definitely going to try to watch more from his New Japan run. The WWF run happens with opponents I am not that interested in watching so it will be many years before I get to that. I will keep an open mind, but Bam Bam is far more likely to end up on a Top 100 Worst Wrestlers Ever for me. 

[elliott]

3 hours ago, Superstar Sleeze said:

Is there anything lamer than a super heavyweight with blue fucking flames tattooed to his head doing a cartwheel when he is announced by a ring announcer? Painful.

Counter point. This was actually fucking awesome.

[El-P]

I concur.

And Bam Bam working like a cat was a huge part of his appeal and what made him so fun. That brought something different to the table and allowed his opponent to have different kinds of matches than they would with the usual "monster". See also : Vader. He won't make my list, but neither are OMG (whom I love), John Tenta (whom I love), Mark Henry (whom I enjoy) or King Kong Bundy (who's name is King Kong Bundy).

[elliott]

26 minutes ago, El-P said:

I concur.

And Bam Bam working like a cat was a huge part of his appeal and what made him so fun. That brought something different to the table and allowed his opponent to have different kinds of matches than they would with the usual "monster". See also : Vader. He won't make my list, but neither are OMG (whom I love), John Tenta (whom I love), Mark Henry (whom I enjoy) or King Kong Bundy (who's name is King Kong Bundy).

OOoh! Another counterpoint: King Kong Bundy Rules!!!

Bundy is someone I have really come to enjoy and I want to watch a lot more of in the coming years. I don't think he's a candidate for this project and I think he's maybe the worst of this crew of big super heavyweights. BUt he's in two of my all time favorite matches:

The $10,000 Challenge vs Lawler that I ranked as the 25th Greatest Match Ever last year 

w/ Rick Rude vs Lawler & Savage 9/10/84 that I have as the 48th Greatest match ever. 

None of the rest of those guys have a match in my top 50, let alone 2. Including Vader. Thats enough to make me want to dig a little deeper. 

[El-P]

25 minutes ago, elliott said:

OOoh! Another counterpoint: King Kong Bundy Rules!!!

Honestly it was more me being facetious, I have nothing against Bundy, I always enjoyed those old-school monsters. But I admit he's not close to One Man Gang or Tenta to me, I really enjoy them a lot more (and I have not seen that much of older Bundy).

[elliott]

Did you ever get around to watching much Jerry Blackwell?

[El-P]

Yep, but I had to check the old thread to see what I said back then about him (which is worth whatever is worth, although I doubt my opinion would change radically, if anything I'd probably be much less annoyed by the hulk-ups now, not that I would like them either but you get the point) :

"Kinda like the mix between a short One Man Gang and a proto-Mick Foley (those bumps as a heel). So yeah, really good worker. Although he had the very annoying habit as a babyface of doing no-sell hulk up/lawler up comebacks, which always suck no matter who you are. So I prefer him as a heel. Better than Bigelow, no doubt. Vader ? Nah."

But to be honest, I don't really remember what I had watched when I was into my AWA TV/matches watch. Kinda sucks to realize that your memory is kinda shot to a degree because you're aging !  

[NotJayTabb]

Bam Bam doesn't make the cut for me. When I was rewatching 94 WWF, it was surprising to me just how often Bammer was pretty disappointing. Even his squashes were pedestrian, which is damning when you consider the likes of Kwang and Adam Bomb were having fun jobber matches on Raw at the time. 

Admittedly I've not seen much of his ECW run, not my favourite promotion to watch, so I can still be turned. What would be the 3 best ECW Bigelow matches to watch as a starting point?

[Reel]

16 hours ago, NotJayTabb said:

What would be the 3 best ECW Bigelow matches to watch as a starting point?

I watched a ton of ECW last year and was generally left unenthused, but I think Bigelow was good there. My 3 match recs would be:

vs Sabu vs Taz - Hardcore TV 8/15/98

vs Taz - Living Dangerously 98

vs RVD - Hardcore TV 4/11/1998

Also the Spike Dudley matches are worth checking out, but you've probably seen the big spots from them at some point.