Headshrinkers, Beef & BEEF

Randy Savage v IRS (RAW, 1/17/94)

This was the main event of the show leading into the Royal Rumble, and it was pretty good. Gets about 12 minutes. Savage is all hyper and shit before the match starts because Crush is on commentary, so when Irwin is getting in the ring Savage just pounces on him and we're off to the races. Savage's sell of getting his head smashed into the steps was great. He takes the initial shot and then kind of takes a bump where he deliberately falls onto the stairs and tumbles down them (all two steps) really loudly. Irwin looked way better here than he did in the King of the Ring matches I watched forever ago. Savage being Savage definitely helps make a control segment compelling, but Irwin was bringing it on his end as well. Cool spot where Savage is down and lifts the foot up as Irwin is coming off the middle rope, but Irwin clocks it before going face first into it, instead landing on his feet, throwing Savage's leg out the way and hitting a regular elbow. Crush gets involved at the end to the surprise of nobody and the match gets tossed, but it leads to a bunch of guys - including Luger, Bret and Yoko - hitting the scene for good old Rumble warm-up.


The Headshrinkers v Men on a Mission (RAW, 1/24/94)

We were supposed to get the Headshrinkers v Bret and Owen Hart here, which probably would've ruled it, but Owen kicked Bret's leg out of his leg at the Rumble so Men on a Mission sub in for them. There's like 4 Samoan Heads Are Made of Granite spots and the Headshrinkers throw a bunch of superkicks. Like, 12 or something. Mo plays FIP and he's not terrible. I don't remember a thing about the guy as a worker, and "not terrible" is generally enough to keep me relatively happy these days, so I was pleasantly surprised and give thumbs up all around. Mabel is a guy I remember having a somewhat okay spinning/rolling wheel kick, but he hits one on Samu here that was kind of crummy. Although he's gigantic so you can still buy a dude that size causing some damage with a fucking wheel kick. Samu lobs a GIANT gob of spit in the air upon contact. Fatu's splash off the top is such an awesome looking spot. Beefy guys splashing people from the top rope should look devastating (and, to be fair, most beefy guys who've ever done that spot HAVE made it look devastating), and Fatu's looks like it'd just crush your insides. JR dropping an internal bleeding line would've pushed this into 6 star territory. But he didn't so fuck him.


Yokozuna & Crush v Typhoon & Mabel (Wrestling Challenge, 7/31/94)

Came across this on DVDVR and thought it sounded interesting. "Interesting" is about as far as it got, although I dug it for what it was (7 minutes of three superbeefs and a big hoss clubbering and so forth). Typhoon and Yoko do a great shoulderblock spot early where Yoko does his awesome teeter-totter sell after two big BEEFY shoulderblocks before eventually going down on the third. Then he gets up and takes a swing at nothing before falling on his rump. Crush and Yoko take over when Crush hits a side kick on Mabel. Looks like he's trying to hit him in the head, but he's standing too close when he throws it and his foot gets swallowed up by Mabel's gut. It tickles me to hear Stan Lane commentate on "expert martial arts" that look even worse than his. Crush's kick to the back of Typhoon's head that sends him reeling into a big belly-to-belly from Yoko is a nice finish, but I'm watching this with the memory of Chris Adams obliterating Kevin Von Erich with a superkick to the back of his head fresh in my mind, so some piddly Crush version seems less impressive.


1994 WWF Project