Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah the Butcher (9/21/85)

[El Boricua]

Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah the Butcher (9/21/85)

[elliott]

OH MY GOD! Carlos Colon comes out to We Are the World for his match against Abby. Million stars. Inifinity stars. I don’t even need to watch the match. Match stars with Carlos going right after Abby punching the crap out of him knocking him out of the ring. Carlos on fire early with punches kicks and the awesome jumping headbutts. Colon starts biting Abby’s ear like in their first match on the set. Colon hits a monkey flip on Abby which doesn’t look super great but its still a great spot. Colon keeps going after Abby’s ear with punching and biting. Abby manages to take back over and its your typical Abby offense. Throat chops and kicks and the like including standing on Colon which is always a great spot for a fat guy. Colon ends up blading so Abby works in more biting and headbutts before Colon works a comeback with his great punches leading to a kick to the balls. He goes back to Abby’s ear with punches and stomps. Abby eventually blades of course ad this turns into them taking turns just slugging the shit out of each other with punches and headbutts. Colon hits a double chop off the top and manages to suplex Abby before a ref bump takes out the referee. But even the shenanigans can’t slow Colon’s momentum as he keeps beating on Abby. Eventually they brawl outside the ring and end this with a double count out. I’m not sure how people feel about Abby these days but I’m really enjoying his work so far. This was perfectly enjoyable.

[KB8]

I doubt anybody who runs through this set will come out the other end of it proclaiming Carlos Colon v Abdullah the Butcher one of the great match-ups in wrestling history, but this is the second of a handful of Colon/Abby matches on these discs and so far they've gone two for two in having a perfectly enjoyable bloody brawl. Abby has actually been super fun in everything so far, from his manic facials to his hide-the-fork shtick to whipping out rapid fast uppercuts to guys' throats. Him and Colon have probably matched up a thousand and one times by this point, and this wasn't massively different from the match that opened the set, but it feels like they'll throw enough little wrinkles into what they're doing that it's never just move-for-move the exact same match. The layout might be more or less the same, but the majority of people watching these discs voted Ric Flair as their greatest wrestler of all time so I'm not buying "samey" as a criticism, especially when the layout is this effective. Colon comes out swinging to start and again goes after Abby's ear, then Abby takes over, they bleed, then they kick each other in the balls and it's a wild brawl to the finish. This had a few really great standalone spots as well, though, like Colon hitting a fucking monkey flip on Abby, then a vertical suplex, and Abby later standing on top of Colon with all of his body weight for about ten seconds. The ref' bump was pretty wimpy, but it led to J.J. Dillon getting popped by Colon and a near riot post-match, so you take the good with the bad.

[WingedEagle]

JJ Dillon is managing Abby, but the real highlight here is an incredible entrance for Colon to "We Are the World," running to the ring surrounded by kids. Moments before before he's about to bleed. They're throwing punches right away and Colon quickly puts Abby down. Quick shine and bailing by the heel. Still trying to make sense of this layout that seems common in PR where there's a seemingly never-ending shine where the heel taking over is routinely cut off. Finally we get to the heat with Abby biting & using taped fists to draw blood, but it feels like we move to the comeback incredibly quickly. JJ Dillon gets involved and bleeds as well before the double countout.

 

The action again here is solid and to some extent sounds better than it plays out, as the lack of transitions and flow held this back from levels that the effort and stuff they actually did should produce.

 

**1/2

[Migs]

Colon’s entrance looks like a non-staged version of the Hulk Hogan’s Rock’n’Wrestling intro. Absolutely incredible.

 

The problem with Abby as an opponent for Colon is that he doesn’t seem to make use of Colon’s energy, which is what impressed me so much about watching him against Flair and Tully. Why did Dillon juice? Why am I going to watch so many Abby matches? **1/4

[shoe]

Some early brawling. Colon taking it to Abby. Some biting by Colon. A monkey flip to Abby. The brawling seem pretty uninspired. Abby using head butts. This is pretty methodical.I enjoyed the punches by Abby from the knees. I like Abby working Colon's cut. JJ's bump gets a big reaction. Now it goes into the crowd. Just kind of just there. 1 3/4*

[dawho5]

Colon's entrance was incredible. Colon biting Abby's ear is something you just don't see every day. Abby standing on Colon was pretty sick looking. I did like the one facial expression Abby gave after Colon headbutted him early on. They did almost enough to keep ti interesting, but fell a bit short in spots. Still, not the worst Abby match you'll see by a long shot.