The Coliseum Video Rant 1A: Into Dorkness
Jesse Baker writes: “please do a review of the first WWE coliseum home video if only for completion sake”
How could I have guessed that he’d be the one with the OCD reaction to me skipping it? So here’s the first ever Coliseum Video in a special single tape edition!
Wrestling’s Bloopers, Bleeps & Bodyslams!
Hosted by Gorilla Monsoon. Did you know that WWF superstars can LITERALLY fly in and out of the squared circle?
This is an 80 minute collection of clips rather than matches.
- Andre the Giant humiliates Don Muraco during a 10-man tag match. 0 for 1.
- Freddie Blassie gives advice to the lovelorn on TNT. Funny for a little bit but runs way too long. 0 for 2.
- Iron Mike Sharpe squashes some dude, who loses his toupee during the match! That’s a funny bit. 1 for 3.
- Tiger Chung Lee tries to break bricks on TNT, without much success. Vince McMahon is nearly cracking up watching him fail. 2 for 4.
- Lou Albano has a soundbite on TNT. 2 for 5.
- Tony Atlas and Paul Orndorff have a posedown at what appears to be the nightclub from the intros of Seinfeld. Atlas wins the popular vote and Orndorff attacks him. Dunno if this went anywhere. 2 for 6.
- Iron Sheik introduces Vince McMahon to his camel. Sheik is actually trying to focus the interview on Sgt. Slaughter and Vince keeps trying to crack him up and throw him off by insulting the camel. 3 for 7.
- Vince interviews Kamala and Fred Blassie on TNT, and Kamala tries to eat a live chicken. 3 for 8.
- MIDGET MADNESS with the Haiti Kid. 3 for 9.
- Ivan Putski teaches Vince how to polka. 3 for 10.
- Hulk Hogan’s PYTHON POWDER. This of course is the greatest segment on any wrestling tape, ever. 4 for 11.
- Lou Albano gives advice to the lovelorn on TNT. Lou complains about people who don’t use deodorant and are fat. Albano improvising and getting more and more worked up is funny stuff. 5 for 12.
- The Samoans give a cooking demonstration on TNT, which Lord Alfred describes as “smelling worse than the bubonic plague.” Oh, that wacky racism. 5 for 13.
- Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas win the tag titles from the Samoans when Lou Albano accidentally breaks a chair over Afa’s head. Then on TNT, Lou Albano denies all responsibility and throws his team under the bus. Now that’s a heel. 6 for 14.
- Sal Bellomo makes pizza for Vince and Alfred. This gets a point for Vince making a joke about Alfred’s cocaine use. 7 for 15.
- Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch take Mean Gene on a tour of the mean streets of New York. Okerlund and Adonis basically just riff and interact with various weirdos they meet along the way. Mean Gene stiffing the hot dog vendor because he’s too cheap is just tremendous. 8 for 16.
- Johnny V gives his advice for the lovelorn on TNT. His gag is that he misses the obvious sexual overtones of the letters, and it’s not that funny. 8 for 17.
- Andre sings the Fish Song on TNT and cracks everyone up. Gotta love him. 9 for 18.
- Cyndi Lauper appears on Piper’s Pit and Lou Albano interrupts. 9 for 19.
- Butcher Vachon gets married on TNT, and we get a wacky array of terrible wedding gifts at the reception. Blassie buys them glasses so his wife can inspect the tiny cheap diamonds on the ring. Ha! George Steele gives a toast while the heel managers egg him on and everyone seems to be legitimately pounding back the sauce. You can see Sika sitting in the background and just losing it every time some crazy thing happens or Lou Albano says something stupid. Even Jesse Ventura breaks up after Albano randomly comes by and burps into Vince’s microphone. Dr. D, drunk and pissed off at Vince, shoves the cake into the bride’s face, triggering a food fight to Vince’s horror. But then he goes ahead and throws a pie at George Steele anyway. It was lacking a snake in the wedding gifts and thus can’t be the greatest wrestling wedding reception in history, but it was damn close. Well worth looking up on YouTube and it basically saved the tape. Anyone know who the girl with the wrestling mask was? Albano and Steele tear her shirt off at the end before she’s hustled off to the side by the producers. 10 for 20.
The Pulse
Pretty middling stuff most of the way, but that wedding reception was one of the craziest things you’ll see from the 80s and ran for about 15 minutes on its own. And with a .500 record, that makes this one a thumbs up.
Maybe now he will stop placing pins into his Scott Keith voodoo doll.
ReplyDelete'Tony Atlas and Paul Orndorff have a posedown at what appears to be the
ReplyDeletenightclub from the intros of Seinfeld. Atlas wins the popular vote and
Orndorff attacks him. Dunno if this went anywhere. 2 for 6.'
this is where atlas calls orndorff the N word...
nincompoop
Great rally for the tape to get to .500 after a 1-for-3 start. I remember seeing this when I was a little kid, I'm sure I'd appreciate it a lot more now.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure I rented this in the late 80s. Back when I was attending Musician's Institute, I met a fellow wrestling fan and we rented pretty much every wrestling tape available at the local Wherehouse. I think we started with tapes featuring Andre and Piper, and went from there. Good times.
ReplyDeleteGood times.
Voodoo works?
ReplyDeleteWho knew?
Heh.
*grabs John Cena voodoo doll*
ReplyDeleteWell, it may have taken black magic of some kind for him to come back so quickly. Either that, or he just wasn't hurt as badly as initially thought.
ReplyDelete*grabs my AJ Lee blowup doll*
ReplyDeleteThis led me from Sheik and his camel to this gem of an interview:
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/HO6VrehQ5WQ?t=2m11s
"Sweetwater, Texas.. I just wanna know: who comes from SWEETWATER, TEXAS!?""Cameraman, ZOOM IT!"
According to this article in the Los Angeles Times, Vachon's wife in the segment was someone named Diane Page. This is an interesting article that was written in March of 1985.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/1985-03-08/entertainment/ca-32558_1_cream-pie
*grabs Natalya blowup doll*
ReplyDelete*taps to the Sharpshooter in 3:13*
I'll have to convert my Best of the WWF Vol. 5 VHS if you're really down to run through the whole series..
ReplyDeleteNow I don't feel so bad about not updating from OSX 10.5.
ReplyDelete3 for 10 was an even bigger hole to dig out of.
ReplyDeleteThree cheers for Jesse Baker!
ReplyDeleteThat article just totally no-sold Wrestlemania.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching all of the shows prior to WrestleMania, it really wasnt heavily pushed until a few weeks after this article was published. In fact, the March 9th eidition of Championship Wrestling started to heavily push the event, which was the day after this came out. The Piper & Orndorff vs. Hogan & Mr. T match was announced the week prior. Also, WrestleMania was not doing well in sales for closed-circuit lcoations until the week prior, which saw a huge spike in sales. Some cities even dropped carrying the event all together due to low sales.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS2GuXN9k3k
ReplyDeleteTurns out that wrestler who lost his toupee in the Iron Mike Sharpe match, Steve Gray, actually sued the hairpiece company for "emotional distress":
ReplyDeletehttp://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19830903&id=jX1iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=cHcNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4303,324325
And yes, I registered just to post that.
The second half of this tape really seems to be the selling point. I suppose you need to build up to the good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they purposely constructed the segments on the video to match how they build cards (especially something like the early Wrestlemanias). Slow build in the beginning with some filler before going for the kill in the second half...
No point for the Orndorff-Atlas posedown? The skit that featured The Spoiler in the audience, wearing his mask AND a turtleneck sweater? Think again!
ReplyDeleteThat was an amazing series of backhanded compliments in that column. "No, no, I know it SOUNDS low-brow, but it's a lot of fun, honest." I guess the Mainstream Media attitude hasn't changed much in almost 30 years.
ReplyDeleteIt does, however, remind me of how much fun I USED to have watching wrestling, the banter between Gorilla and the Brain, or Jesse Ventura ridiculing Vince. Oh, and the matches were fun, too.
I don't have nearly as much fun as I used to, even when I go to the Garden for a house show. Maybe I'm just getting too old.
A worthy cause, sir!
ReplyDeleteKryptonians heal quickly.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide if I want this to be a work or shoot. Either way, you win the "best first post" award.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that was some great acting by Dr. D, but, well, I'm not sure he exactly had to reach to portray "drunk and pissed off at Vince". And Blassie offering, in the background, to set the bride up with his divorce lawyer, was pretty damn awesome, too. Great find!
ReplyDeleteI rented this video back in the day. The butcher Vachon wedding is classic. Mr and Mrs Executioner, Blassie tripping Sky Low Low. Dr D body slamming the groom, Captain Lou giving rubber bands as a wedding gift. Captain Lou and the Samoans signing. I remember the WWF Magazine doing an article on the wedding and the Minister was named Reverend Mayer Lioshitz, denomination unknown.
ReplyDeleteDr. D looking especially like the amalgamation of Steve Austin and Sid here!
ReplyDeleteVoodoo does work, actually.
ReplyDeleteForget the Huffington Post, this is the kind of investigative journalism you can ONLY find on the Blog of Doom.
ReplyDeleteSo it would seem.
ReplyDeleteKinda like the Jedi Mind Trick?
ReplyDeleteYes the Butcher's Wedding is one of the funniest wrestling bits I've ever seen. The Butcher could have gone face after what Dr Death did to his wife, but it was hilarious!
ReplyDeleteI hated that the tape cut out the best part of the Iron Sheik camel segment, it's the part at the very end where Vince and Alfred were about to end the segment when Sheik just blurted out of nowhere "I love to eat my camel, camel is delicious".
ReplyDeleteWell, everybody treats the voodoo'd dude as if they're dead. And the stress from being ignored gives you ulcers and you die.
ReplyDeleteOr they dope you on drugs and you belief yourself to be dead cause of placebo shit, y'dig?
My VCR started eating tapes a few weeks ago, when I was finally getting around to converting the last of my wrestling tapes to DVD-R.
ReplyDeleteThe "Wrestler Loses Toupee" article was posted right under "Child Killer Put To Death" and "Memorial Service Held For Two Marines Killed". That seem like a solid placement.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article, after losing the toupee, "The audience recognized Steve Gray as Steve Thunder and harassed him, causing him to lose his concentration and be defeated in two matches." That may be the greatest piece of journalism I have ever read.
Um. No, I'm not sure I dig at all.
ReplyDeleteIf you're saying that the medical industry kills you with various drugs, or perhaps doesn't treat you properly, yes, there is some truth in that.
I feel the same way about the shows. Not as much fun anymore. That's why I started watching all the old Coliseum Video tapes and house shows from 84-87. Nice to find all the house shows on youtube. I've been doing the recaps for all the Coliseum videos on my blog at nala310.wordpress.com and I think this was a fun little tape for it's time.
ReplyDelete...why are you talking about Big Pharma? I'm talking about Haitian voodoo.
ReplyDeleteThe people legitimately believed that the bokor had magical powers. When they were cursed to die, it kinda worked because they BELIEVED it worked (that's the placebo effect my friend).
So yeah, voodoo works. Kinda.
I understand the placebo effect; I just really didn't get what you were saying. I referenced big pharma because I thought you were drawing some sort of comparison.
ReplyDeleteBut, I get it now. Thank you for clarifying.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense either, this is like...pentiary information.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Loa were much more reasonable than pharma. I mean, you pay the Loa in tobacco and whiskey, what's the copay for Kaiser right now?