Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah the Butcher (9/20/86)

[El Boricua]

Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah the Butcher (9/20/86)

[elliott]

Abby’s head is bandaged to start. Hmm. I wonder if they will open up that wound. Abby stabs Colon with something right away. Probably remembering the severe ass kicking Carlos served him up last time they met. Abby keeps on Colon from the start with some great headbutts and standing on top of him for way too long for such a fat man and staring out into the crowd. More great headbutts and fork stabbing continues. Colon is busted open by this point as you can imagine. He tires to fire back with punches but Abby keeps on top of Colon focusing on the cut. Biting him, chopping and punches and headbutting him. Colon is really good selling all of the damage here. This is like the opposite of their last match with Abby completely dominating Colon early on. Colon makes his comeback though and the crowd goes fucking nuts. Colon starts blasting Abby and tears into him and I swear to god I saw part of Abby’s brain for a split second. Colon basically confirms my suspicions that his kick to the balls is a signature spot and kicks Abby in the balls. Abby does his unbelievable see-saw through the ropes as Colon continues the assault. This is another really good match between these two. Damn. Abby gets back in and Colon continues beating on him with his jumping headbutts and finally a big punch off the ropes to take the monster down. Crowd goes nuts as Colon starts making attempts at the figure 4. Another gross close up of Abby’s bloody face and I’m pretty sure I see brain again. Gary Hart slips Abby what looks like a fork and Abby stabs Colon in the dick! HOLY SHIT! HE STABBED HIM IN THE DICK! WTF ABBY! A man must have a code. You can’t go around stabbing dudes in the dick. Fortunately, Colon has nuts of steel apparently as he’s back up suplexing Abby within seconds. It turns out Colon had his own fork and he ends up stabbing abby in the face with it for the win. Whoa! Beatdown of Carlos post match but he’s saved by a group of babyfaces. Damn. This was another really good Abby/Colon match other than the unnecessary dick stabbing at the end.

[AJS]

I was a bit nervous going in to this one. Still feeling a bit sick after the last match between these guys. Another really intense brawl. Early on I thought it was going to be a reversal of the earlier match with Abdullah destroying Carlos this time, but soon enough Colon was beating the crap out of Abby again. Nothing brutal in the match on the level of the eye gouging but still very full on, with Colon pasting a bloody Abby. Colon was particularly intense in this one. Not as compelling as the June match but still very good. Disc 3 has been amazing so far.

[WingedEagle]

Abby opens with his standard offense of punches and throat jabs, which I will apparently always love. Colon bleeds quickly and Abby bites it because Hepatitis. I've finished 3 discs of this set and not remotely tired of the brawling and violence. Colon punching his way back into things and the carthwheel cues the crowd that its time to go crazy for a comeback.

 

Props to Abby for selling like hell here -- whether its punching, clawing at a cut or bumping through the ropes to the damn floor, you absolutely can't say he doesn't put Colon over here. The low blow with the weapon was beyond silly for me, but its always cool to see Abdullah take a monkey flip and suplex so we'll accept it. Great fun and violence while it lasted but the shenanigans hold it back from being their best.

 

***1/2

[KB8]

Might be my favourite Colon performance yet. At first I figured this was going to be his Jerry Lawler performance, where he starts slow, gets beaten up for a while, then cartwheels (drops the strap) and makes his big comeback while the crowd goes nuts. And in a sense that's what we got...but at the same time it was much more than that. The first half was all Abby, jabbing Colon in the throat with a pencil, throwing big headbutts, biting Colon's forehead open and generally dominating. Then Carlos made his big comeback, complete with cartwheel and crowd going nuts. And THEN he went full caveman on Abby, and I've never seen Lawler blatantly punt a guy in the balls - repeatedly - or attempt to scalp someone with his teeth like Colon did here. He was rabid; not quite as savage as he was in the June match, but he was out for blood and wouldn't be satisfied with a mere trickle. Abdullah ruled on the back foot. Some of his weeble-wobble selling before finally going down was Blackwell-esque and he really milked his bumps for everything they were worth. It's one thing to go down for a leaping headbutt, but it's another to time it so that the crowd goes full on badger shit when it happens. In true Abdullah fashion, though, you could never count him out. He's always hiding a fork or a plain old jaggy stick somewhere, and this time he had Gary Hart with him so that made him even more dangerous. Case in point: we reach peak Puerto Rico level when Hart hands Abby a shiv and Abby STABS COLON IN THE DICK! I couldn't believe it when he did that. When Colon went and stood over him I thought, "he could stab him in the dick here. Wait...surely he wouldn't do that." But then he did! He actually stabbed him in the dick and I outright shouted "holy shit he stabbed him in the dick!" This match-up has delivered every time out, and there haven't been two that follow the same pattern yet (other than the pattern of blood and stabbing), which blows my previous "these Abby/Colon matches all probably have a similar formula but it feels like they'll throw just enough different wrinkles in there to keep it fresh" theory to bits. This was completely different to the June match, which was completely different to the March match, which was different to the very first match on the set (complete with post-match riot). And I think it's time I stopped comparing Colon to guys like Lawler or the Von Erichs or any other territory babyface mainstay. You can draw parallels, sure, but I've seen enough of him now that I think he absolutely stands on his own. This wasn't Carlos Colon doing a Jerry Lawler. This was Carlos Colon doing a Carlos Colon. And I hope he doesn't change for anybody.

[dawho5]

These two really know how to up the ante. A weapon shot to the junk is something new and probably something you will only ever see in PR. Colon monkey flipping Abby and then suplexing him was pretty sweet too. I've seen Abby matches before and didn't mind what he brought to the table. But it seems like Abby really gives 110% when he's up against Colon. The matches are usually pretty great for it too.