Stan Hansen vs. Carlos Colon (10/12/86)

[El Boricua]

Stan Hansen vs. Carlos Colon (10/12/86)

[elliott]

Enter Hansen.

 

Hansen jumps Carlos at the bell and is all over him with punches, stoms, slams and starts choking him with the bullrope. Ref tries to stop Hansen so Hansen destroys the ref including posting him. The energy Hansen brings is insane. He is just all over the place storming around like a Wildman. He posts Colon by whippning him into the post with the bull rope wrapped around Colon’s neck. Hansen is using any and everything he can get his ands on to just destroy Colon. They eventually get into the ring and Hansen continues his assault on the now bloody Colon (gross). Hansen is just a force of nature in this. Colon is phenomenal selling. He isn’t even close to Invader’s level at Invader’s best. But Colon is much more understated which is nice after watching Funk stumbling around. I love that all of the offense Colon is able to mount comes by using Hansen’s wild man momentum against him. Almost all of Colon’s hope spots are based on things like Hansen charging into the corner and Colon moving at just the last second. Or Hansen actually hitting the lariat and pulling Colon up at the count of 2 setting up Colon’s comeback. Hansen’s selling when it is time to sell is fantastic as it always is. Colon gets some payback posting Hansen and busting him open and working in his kick to the balls before continuing to work the cut with punches. . Al Perez sneaks out and loads Hansen’s elbow pad and Hansen kills Colon with a lariat as the ref counts the 3. Phenomenal match. This is 11 minutes of fucking spectacular.

[AJS]

I approached this match with some trepidation. I'm aware that Colon vs Hansen is considered a classic series by many, and often I find when matches/feuds are built up to be amazing, they often end up falling short for me. I do wonder if I would have appreciated this match as much if I had randomly played it on youtube, but in the context of this set it's another amazing match in a comp full of them.

 

I'm sure that far more knowledgable and eloquent people than me on this board have written great essays on why they love this one or any of the other matches in the series, and I don't think I have anything new or different to add. I think i'll just highlight three things that jumped out to me when watching:

 

1) It never lets up

 

From the moment Hansen jumps Colon until the end, there is know let up. the two guys go at it full pelt. Seriously this does not slow down for a single moment, it is just high intensity action from start to finish.

 

2) I felt the hatred

 

I don't know the context of this feud, but I really felt like these guys hated each other guts. everything they did to each other looked like it really hurt. It was like I was watching a real fight between two people who can't stand each other. Well, as real as a worked match can look. The intensity was of the charts in this one; the elbows, kicks and punches looked full on (Colon must be one of the greatest punchers ever), and the two wrestlers were seemingly giving everything they had.

 

3) The time didn't matter

 

This set had quite a few matches early on that I struggled with due to length. I felt that some bouts were just getting started and then they would abruptly end. This match was fairly short but it didn't matter this time. I felt that I got everything I needed and more in these 11 minutes.

 

I can't wait to see the other bouts between these two.

[WingedEagle]

Enter Hansen.

 

Hansen is just a force of nature in this. Colon is phenomenal selling.

 

What he said. Hansen absolutely brought out the best in Colon and delivered a pace and energy unmatched by anyone else I've seen in Puerto Rico. I originally watched this feud a year or two ago and had this as their second best outing behind the cage match. That's still the case thus far. The ref is destroyed and Hansen soon uses everything he can get his hands on to murder Colon.

 

Carlos Colon isn't a particularly expressive seller. He's willing to bleed and abuse his body as we've seen in the Abdullah matches. He does that here but due to the nature and impact of Hansen's offense compared with Abby's the way he staggers about and goes down hits on a different note. Colon teases the comeback on a couple occasions but Hansen's able to cut them short each time before finishing things with a loaded lariat while setting up return encounters. They cut an incredible pace here and is really an all time brawl given how hard and quick they accomplish things. This is how you kick off a blood feud.

 

Did Hansen work Puerto Rico at all leading up to this match or literally come to town and wreck this havoc?

 

****1/4

[El Boricua]

Did Hansen work Puerto Rico at all leading up to this match or literally come to town and wreck this havoc?

 

Yes, he had a previous run in 1984 where he and Brody wreaked havoc on the tecnicos. This culminated in the unlikely alliance of Calros Colon and Abdullah the Butcher teaming up to take on Hansen and Brody in a three match tag series that culminated in a supercage match. The second match was a lumberjack match and is included in the Extras.

[WingedEagle]

Boricua, as always, thanks for the background. Haven't been good about integrating the extras into the set yet. Hopefully get there before finishing it but either way they will be watched.

[KB8]

And now for a look at a completely different kind of crazy person. Where Terry Funk is unhinged and liable to do something nuts at any moment, he IS pretty goofy. It doesn't mean you should be any less wary of him, but you can laugh at him sometimes (just make sure he doesn't notice). Hansen...there's nothing funny about Hansen. There are no goofball antics with him, no instances where you go, "that guy's a maniac, but it was funny that time he got his pants pulled down and bounced around bare-arsed." He's just a whirlwind of chaos and violence and there's no building up to it. There's no simmering, no bubbling below the surface before it erupts. It's front and centre for everyone to see the second he hits the scene. And it's infectious. The way he carries himself, his demeanour, everything about him sets off everyone else around him, to the point where the whole arena ends up rabid. It's like when one dog on the street starts barking. It sets off the neighbour's, which sets off the other neighbour's, and before you know it every dog on the block is howling. That's what Hansen brings with his presence. It's a chain reaction of palpable fucking craziness. I'll be honest, my expectations for this feud were through the roof, and that was before I'd gotten a handle on how good Colon was. After those Colon/Abby matches they were even higher. The best brawler of all time coming into THIS territory, working against the ace...of course I was expecting something special. And fuck, how about this for a place to start? Hansen was so amazing in this. He takes out the referee inside half a minute, then wraps the bullrope around Colon's neck and swings him into the ring posts. Security literally have to follow Hansen around the ringside area because he's kicking barricades and getting in fans' faces and generally being a madman. He breaks a foot stool or something over Colon's head and jabs the broken corner of it into his face. Hansen's energy is seriously something to behold. He never stops; it's just constant crazy. At one point he picks up one of the many pieces of garbage lying in the ring, shows it to the crowd like "thank you for this crushed up Coke can, I'm now going to stab your hero in the head with it" and stabs Colon in the head with it. Colon's selling through all of this was great as well. He's fighting the odds from the very beginning and at times it feels like all he can possibly hope to do is slow Hansen's momentum rather than actually gain an upper hand. But the more he does stop the momentum, the more he can chip away at him. Every time Hansen loses control, it takes him a little longer to regain it. Stan sold that cumulative damage in a way that made it look like Colon's attacks were mounting up, and it made everything Colon did feel truly earned, because Hansen never gave him anything easily. It all got the crowd behind their boy even more, so by the end they're just losing their mind. When he finally managed to take firm control - after a good old kick in the balls - it was like he'd climbed a mountain, despite the mountain trying to throw him off at every turn. Then Al Perez had to come and spoil his party. Awesome first installment in this feud. I'm ready for everything else these two did together.

[dawho5]

Hansen is absolutely amazing in this. He and Colon have incredible chemistry. Colon's fighting from underneath was almost as incredible as Hansen's psychotic assault from before the bell.