Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah The Butcher (6/15/86)

[El Boricua]

Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah The Butcher (6/15/86)

[elliott]

Oh man Abby is an ominous motherfucker coming to the ring. I’m disappointed every time there’s a Colon entrance and We Are the World doesn’t play. WTF Carlos? This is a little more tentative to start than usual for these two. They don’t just start blasting each other from the very beginning. They’re more cautious this time. They know blood will be spilled. They finally lock up and Colon goes right for Abby’s eyes setting the tone and we go into a punch exchange finishing with Colon getting the better of deuling headbutts. Colon keeps going after Abby’s eyes, which is awesome. I mean Colon is a babyface and all, but Abby is all that is evil and would absolutely stab out Colon’s eye with a fork and eat it in front of him. So fuck it looks blind this motherfuker. Colon pulls out his own pencil and stabs Abby in the face with it and the crowd goes fucking insane. This is ultimate payback. I was just kidding about the fork in the eye thing earlier but this is motherfucking PENCIL IN THE EYE. Fuck me. Abby’s covered in blood and is just in a complete daze. He’s not selling pain so much as he looks like he’s gone into shock. Colon works over the cut so he’s basically punching and biting in the eye over and over. This is crazy. Colon is just beating the fuck out of Abby and Abby is selling it like a champ. There is blood all over one of the ringside cameras taking this whole spectacle to the next level. The ref got the pencil away so Colon continued to just destroy Abby before getting a chair and bashing Abby with it. ABBY WON’T FUCKING GO DOWN. He’s just taking ALL of this. Getting bashed in the face over and over again. Colon’s attack on the eye is as relentless as it is horrific. Despite all of this there are still moments where Abby tries to start to mount a comeback but Colon just cuts him off and continues to destroy him. A doctor comes in to check on Abby and does a terrible job by deeming Abby fit to continue to Colon continues to just kill him over and over again. The doctor comes back to check on Abby by seemingly poking him in the eyes several times. Some old dudes come in to check on Abby to see if he can continue. Colon continues to stop on him as Abby lays there helplessly. Finally the match is called off by the ref. Colon knocks the ref out and continues his beatdown of Abbdullah. This is totally completely bizarre. 22 minutes of Abdullah getting the absolute shit kicked out of him. People will hate this. I thought it was totally compelling in an utterly bizarre way.

[AJS]

Yes I thought I was going to hate this with a passion but I was transfixed. Seriously this is one of the most brutal bouts i've ever seen. Abdullah took an absolute pasting here, to the point where I want to change Colon's name to Carlos the Butcher. I actually felt kind of unwell throughout a lot of this. Colon digging his fingers into Abdullah face was so disgusting and painful looking that my own eye started hurting for a bit!. Butcher took such a hammering that i was begging him to stay down, but he just kept getting back up for more punishment. Add the fork and the blood on the camera and you've got one seriously crazy bout. I normally despise matches like this but I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Not sure if I could ever watch it again though!

[KB8]

I'm not really sure where to start with this one. I honestly don't think you could do this match anywhere other than in Puerto Rico. It starts out with them being a bit more hesitant, not trying to claw each other's face off straight away. I love how Abby backs Colon into the ropes and that entire side of the crowd are in uproar the instant Abby reaches down to his boot. The ref' is actually pretty great here, constantly checking to see if Abby hasn't pulled a fork from somewhere, really putting across how much of a menace he is. They throw a few headbutts, trade some strikes...then Colon gets a pencil from who knows where and stabs Abby in the eye! He's just digging this pencil into the eye, trying to gouge the eye out with his fingers, biting the eye. For the rest of the match it's basically Colon punching and biting and stabbing Abby while trying to rip his eye out and Abby just takes all of this and sells the crap out of it. At one point we even get some blood splatter on one of the ringside cameras. I actually started to feel sympathy for Abdullah the fucking Butcher because of the monumental fatboy shitkicking he was taking. This was like the time Token got fed up with all of Cartman's racist horse shit and just kicked fuck out of him on the Christian Rock Festival stage, except this Cartman is a psychopath (or more of a psychopath) who stabs people with a fork and Token kicked fuck out of him for twenty whole minutes. And the crowd eats it all up! The doctor comes in to check on Abby, Abby pushes him away because he will not die, so Colon goes back to punching him in the eye and smashing him with a wooden chair and standing on his head! Abby throws maybe six strikes the whole match. The rest of it is Colon abusing him. Relentlessly. There was one bit where Colon was peppering him with fists against the ropes and Abby was almost convulsing on his feet, bouncing off the ropes as if they were the only thing keeping him upright. I'm not sure how good this actually was, but it was one of the most engrossing, borderline-disturbing matches I've seen in ages. Maybe ever.

[WingedEagle]

Abby comes out in a mask borrowed from your latest terrorist video. Great shine with Colon hopping around as he throws punches, and then gets down to business with the fork. Just maniacal violence from these guys every time out.

 

They really love shots to the gut as transitions. Here Abby catches Colon with a kick. Abby's blood literally flies up onto the camera! WWC production! That's an additional quarter star. Abby really doesn't do much here beyond bleed and take punches and biting, but he does it so damn well. More blood on the camera as Colon digs into Abby's eyes. This is just some nasty, intense violence. This match must play much better to the TV audience than the live crowd.

 

Our big high spot that pops the crowd is actually Colon hitting Abby with a monkey flip. Eventually a ref stoppage as Abby is bleeding buckets while Colon is carried on fans' shoulders afterwards.

 

This was some incredible violence yet never reached the point death match nonsense where I want to forget I knew it existed. I know Colon/Hansen will top this but if a whole lot else does there is a lot of goodness to come.

 

****

[Migs]

This starts off like a pretty standard version of their match, although the violence does seem to escalate a bit. The pencil spots, with Abby's blood literally splattering on the camera definitely unique. The camera man doesn't bother to clean it, which really re-enforces the violence. Colon controls so much that it's a bit like he's trying to kill a zombie, if that makes sense. Colon dominating so much just didn't work for me for some reason. Were they trying to indicate that Colon had stayed the beast once and for all? If so, it didn't quite seem climactic enough. Were they trying to put Abby over as a babyface for the future? Either way, I'm not as high on this as others, but maybe some of the Extras will provide context that increases my appreciation.

 

***

[dawho5]

One bit of circumstance here that will add a little to this match. That last 6-man ended with Colon being "blinded" where they put it out there that he might never be able to see or wrestle again. So that might give a little insight as to why this happens the way it does. Abby's false starts on going to the trunks were really great. Abby using the old heel trick of ducking outside the ropes tells you something is up. He usually doesn't go that route, it's almost like he's a little afraid of Colon even before the nastiness starts. Colon's attack on the eye was grisly and awful and horrible. But completely justified given the circumstances. Abby sells it in the most amazing way. I think the description of him looking like he's gone into shock is right. He looks like a guy who is out on his feet and running on pure instinct. This is a great match not for structure, but for Colon's over-the-top brutal offense even for PR, Abby's selling, the grisly close-up camera work and the revenge Colon exacts for being temporarily blinded. Looking back, maybe not Abdullah's best idea ever.

[Kronos]

Apparently, the story is that recently Abby tried to blind Carlos, and this is the revenge match. It's the first WWC, first Colon, and one of the few Abdullah matches I have seen.

They start off simply, with some lockups and trading blows. Colon keeps trying to fight dirty, though -- going for the eye, fishhooking the nostril, etc. I am not supercrazy about Abby's way of leaning into his opponent, head-first. Just under 10 min in, Abby has been carved open and even bleeds on the camera lense. Now every time we see a view from that apron cameraman, we see the blood drops. That's unexpectedly graphic.

Nearly half way through, the match is just kind of slow and dull. The crowd aren't into it, either, which probably hurts my enthusiasm.

The second half of the match continues to have Abby more and more beaten, doing very little about it. Colon does throw a pretty awesome monkey flip - awesome because of Abby's size, of course. The crowd pops a little for that. Abby later waves off a doctor, stumbles to his feet, and throws a few counterstrikes. But then he's back to getting his ass kicked in slow motion.

Eventually, it ends with Abby rolling out of the ring after a zillion kicks to the head. Colon hits him a few times with a chair and then chases the stumbling Abdullah through the crowd.

What a weird match. At just under 25 min, it's probably 10 minutes too long. Maybe if I saw this as a blowoff of a big feud, it would mean more. But I don't care for Colon here, and Abby shows little of the personality I have seen in the my few other matches from him.

Fascinating, but in a slogging trainwreck kind of way.

[Mr JMML]

I love this match, the greatest Abdullah match I've seen.