Carlos Colon vs. Stan Hansen (Texas Bullrope) (1/6/87)

[El Boricua]

Carlos Colon vs. Stan Hansen (Texas Bullrope) (1/6/87)

[elliott]

So the amazing 1986 comes to a close and Puerto Rico not to be denied in 1987 starts of with THIS fucking match. Crowd is enormous and hot as shit, which is the norm on this set. Hansen tires to jump Colon at the bell but Colon was ready for it and Colon has the brief early advantage. But Hansen IMMEDIATELY goes straight to choking Colon with the rope, which stopped the previous match. Colon gets some early payback by choking Hansen with the bullrope as the crowd goes INSANE. Colon is completely in charge early on and busts Hansen open. Hansen’s selling is awesome. Wounded Dog comeback as Hansen sees an opening and knees Colon in the face but its short lived. Hansen makes a real comeback when Colon goes to tap the turnbuckles and Hansen cuts him off. This spills back to the outside with Hansen cracking Colon with the cowbell and using the rope to whip him around. Back in the ring and now Hansen is choking Colon with the cowbell. This is so fucking awesome I hate doing a play by play. Hansen’s selling is beautiful. I know we like to joke that he only sells for the boss. But MAN is he selling for the boss. Hansen is actually in the conversation for best seller ever, people just don’t realize it. Colon is amazing on offense here just blasting away at Hansen. Seriously the crowd is off the charts. The tug of war spots as Colon goes for turnbuckles is terrific and I love how Hansen uses it to his advantage taking over and making comebacks when Colon is focused on going for turnbuckles. Hansen is stronger than Colon so its easier for him to drag Colon around so I love the way Colon combats that strategy as well. I love the spot where Colon smashes Hansen’s head into the ref’s foot. The way they use the rope in this match is just brilliant. The selling, the violence the heat, this is a tremendous match. I presume that everyone who is getting this set or reading this has seen this match so I don’t really need to put it over. But it is just incredible. 2^nd best match on the set so far and the gap between this and the Invader/Starr match is small. This is an all time match and performance.

[AJS]

I expected this to be great and my expectations were far exceeded. This was absolutely phenomenal and the best match of the set so far for me. Some of my favourite things:

 

1. Hansen chocking Colon with the rope and then Colon doing the same back.

2. Colon hitting Hansen with the cowbell

3. Frantic Hansen. I'm used to mean, brutal, crazy Hansen, but he looked panic stricken when Colon was chocking him with the rope.

4. There were a few times where Hansen almost touched the turnbuckle for the win but couldn't make it. Each more dramatic than the last. At one point Hansen is standing reaching with all his might for what seems like forever. The crowd goes bananas when Colon manages to pull him down.

5. The tug of war between the two at the end is a thing of beauty.

 

An incredible match that built and built. I mean they went at each other like crazy from the start, but managed to gradually increase the drama and intensity to point where the already molten crowd were losing their minds (I was too). Spectacular stuff.

[WingedEagle]

They did a lot of great things throughout this match that are worth mentioning. First off, the crowd is electric with many on their feet early on before the match itself even heats up. Both are bleeding fairly early here which, as always, adds to the violence and intensity. There's one point where Hansen is choking Colon with the bell so stiffly that it actually looks like Colon taps Hansen as though to tell him to lighten up. Pretty incredible if that's the case.

 

Hansen & Colon probably make better use of the cowbell than any strap match I can recall. They consistently go to it as a weapon, which makes all the sens in the world because if you've got a large and jagged piece of metal to gouge an opponent why wouldn't you try to use it at every opportunity? While a strap match is often a very restrictive gimmick, they do a great job working around it here by spilling to the floor, using it to choke each other as well as on its own as a legit weapon. Pretty creative stuff that doesn't limit them much at all and really serves to offer a different dimension to the feud.

 

Some really nice teases down the stretch with both looking to touch all 4 corners. The finish itself actually came off a bit flat for me as after all the cutoffs before corner #4, the delay before Colon finally got there here felt just as substantial as every prior opportunity, but it still gave us a great pop as Colon regains the title and then again another nice little post-match brawl to make clear this feud isn't over just yet.

 

I've got this a hair behind the first singles match as that was just a blistering, insane brawl where it felt like they were operating at a wholly different level than this match. I can totally see why some might prefer this match because of just how well they worked the gimmick, but it didn't take me to the same level as the the first pairing. The first time I watched this feud I had the cage match 1, the first match 2, this 3 and the penultimate singles match 4. Curious if that holds after watching disc 4.

 

****

[KB8]

There was pretty much no way this could live up to the hype I had for it. I first heard about the Hansen/Colon series - specifically this and the cage match - a few years back, but I held off on watching it because I knew there would be a Puerto Rico set eventually. I'd never read an actual review of this match because I wanted to go in fresh when I finally got to see it, but it was hard to miss the general point that it was great. Then I saw the lead-in matches and the hype only grew. I'd built this up without ever having seen it. It was unfair, because it couldn't possibly live up to what I'd made of it in my head. But then it did. And it was god damn incredible. I don't remember ever seeing Hansen take this much of a drubbing. I know Colon is the boss and everything, but Hansen really gave him a ton, and Colon certainly made the most of it. I mean, if you're going to beat on Stan Hansen for extended periods of time then you better do it like you mean it, and Colon did it like he meant it. It felt like whatever Colon had tapped into was beyond anything Hansen ever expected. He knew Colon would bring it, just not like this. I don't think anybody expected him to dominate, but there were points where he did just that. Colon had an answer for everything, and Hansen was phenomenal playing off it. At one point he even grabbed the referee's leg to keep himself from being dragged out the ring, and as the ref' was on the mat trying to scramble away Colon took Hansen's head and rammed it into the ref's boot. There was one sequence in the match that encapsulated the whole story. Hansen had touched three turnbuckles and was about to touch the fourth, having dragged Colon around the ring with him to get this far. Colon, in the opposite corner, wraps his legs around the bottom rope and holds onto the bullrope for dear life. It turns into a tug of war, Hansen trying to push forward, Colon trying to drag him back, the crowd at total fucking melting point. This is probably where a friend of mine would drop a Dragonball Z reference about Goku doing the Spirit Bomb or something. I mean these people are just living and dying with every single thing Colon does. And he eventually succeeds. They all do, Colon and his people, by yanking Hansen back and staying alive in the match. The scene after it, with Colon lying in the corner utterly spent, Hansen cussing out the world with his blood-coated face, the crowd going bananas...that is the motherfucking pro wrestling. I also loved how this was a gimmick match where the gimmick carried tremendous weight. They punched each other and headbutted each other and bit and scratched and tried to gouge each other's eyes out, but they absolutely slabbered each other with that cowbell. If one guy got within rage of the other, they were getting dinged in the head. If the cowbell wasn't on hand, they were getting strangled with that bullrope. The rope wasn't just a means of keeping them tied together -- in those guys' hands it was a weapon, and it got used again and again. They actually reached a point towards the end where I thought the drama might've peaked and they wouldn't be able to get it back for the finish, but they shut my mouth with the finish they did do. It was perfect. Look at that crowd. That is drama. And this is my new #1.

[Laney]

Finally finished Disc 3 and this is definitely the top of my list right now. I watched this match a few years ago and loved it. Upon rewatch I loved it even more. I would go as far as ranking this as one of my favorite matches of all time. Fantastic build up and drama with the touching of the corners. This kind of drama is what I miss in wrestling today. I would take this match over any six star near fall fest.

[dawho5]

So it's a bullrope match where both guys use the bullrope and the attached cowbell at every opportunity possible. And they milk the shit out of the fighting for the 4th corner spots in the best possible way to build drama. AND they come in hating each other, expressing it perfectly pre-match (Colon taking a swing at Hansen and getting a finger in the face while they jaw during the ref check) as well as throughout the match? Seems to me they did pretty much everything right they could have. Even threw in that awesome ref spot and buckets of blood to sweeten the deal. Fucking amazing.