Saturday 13 March 2010

VADER!.. AND HANSEN! EYE POPPING!.. LITERALLY!

So I watched some of Goodhelmet's Vader set today. Lots of punches were thrown. Nasty looking punches.

Big Van Vader v Stan Hansen (New Japan v All Japan Super Show, 2/10/90)

This is quite the famous (or infamous... I dunno... whatever) little match. As an actual *match*, it's nothing special, but it's mostly talked about for the fact they hit each other really hard because Vader's a big grizzly bear with a Road Warrior-esque haircut and Hansen's a surly, tobacco chewing Texan and those two combustible elements combine to create such stiffness that causes Vader's eye to pop out its socket. I'm not entirely sure what actually does the damage - or at least enough damage to cause one's eyeball to do the jump - but I'm assuming it's one of Hansen's punches to the side of the head, because they're throwing fists and forearms right off the bat and about five minutes in they kind of go into a clinch, and when they come out of it Vader looks like he's been stung in the eye by that big wasp in the old Donkey Kong games. Rest of the match is pretty fuckin' stiff because they really lay it in despite Vader being in as bad shape as he is. There's some nice rib-work on Hansen, though, which big Stan sells really well. They work a bunch of teased double count-out spots that the crowd eat up, too. Of course, it eventually does finish in that exact way, but it's hardly surprising given the fact it's Hansen... and Vader... and nobody's "losing". You know how it goes. As a brawl that's more or less built around two guys stiffing the shit out of each other, it's almost like a precursor to the Vader/Foley Saturday Night match from April '93, only this has Vader's opponent giving it as good as he gets, as opposed to Vader assaulting the opponent for the duration.

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