I've watched a bunch of matches between these guys over the last couple years, and this is the best I've come across. I love guys in matching full body attire that do a bunch of switcheroo shtick, and there's some real good switcheroo shtick in this. The early torture rack switcheroo bit is especially great, and watching this match for the first time many moons ago might've been the first time I had seen it (although it probably wasn't). Shawn's FIP spell is really bossy, mostly because the dudes from somewhere in Latin America just choke and punch the shit out of him behind the ref's back. Seriously, 90% of their control segment consists of blatant cheating and illegally switching in and out so they can brutalise a pretty boy. Our ref' isn't all that great and spots most of the shenanigans because he's out of place or whatever, but Marty is always a great apron guy and does his best to keep looking frantic and giving the ref' a reason to scoot over and settle him down. Also gotta love how the Conquistadors are fully committed to legitimately keeping Michaels in *their* corner the whole time. Any time Shawn manages to slip away, somebody dressed as an Oscar will drag him back into the corner and start choking him with a tag rope or some shit. Crowd are plenty psyched for the hot tag and one of the Conquistadors takes a batshit Jerry Estrada bump off a backdrop that added several snowflakes to this whole affair. This is why tag team wrestling fucked rules (or ruled, IDK).
The Rockers v Demolition (MSG, 10/24/88)
I love this match. There's about 5 Rockers matches that are my go-to matches for getting me out of a wrestling slump, and this is one of them. It's been getting talked up quite a bit on PWO thanks to the whole Demolition discussion (part of the 'PG-13 vs. The World' thread that motivated me to watch some tag wrestling in the first place), and irrespective of whether or not one thinks Demolition are great, good, bad, shitty or whatever, this match seems to be one everybody can get behind as something good. And it waaaay is. Starts out with your simple brute force v speed/quickness dynamic. Demolition's offence/lack of offence has been one of the main issues that's been debated in the aforementioned thread. Some people don't think they bring enough offence/have enough good offence/whatever. Others are content with what they do bring because they make up for any shortcomings by excelling in other departments (structure/"storytelling"/whatever). I can't really comment either way because, other than this match, I don't think I've watched a Demolition match in about 3 years. Here they're mostly about the clubbering. But I'm easily enough pleased and I can get behind good clubbering, and well, the Demos have some fucking good clubbering. Ax is throwing some especially nasty looking shots and basically trying to manhandle Michaels. Shawn attempts a crossbody and Ax just catches him, struts around the ring with him in his arms, and drills him onto the mat hard. Then Shawn and Marty shift gears and the Demos are on the back foot, totally caught out by the speed and struggling to slow things down at all. Lots of quick tags, tonnes of arm wringers, ducking wild punches before throwing some peppering jabs; the Rockers are going a million miles an hour and the Demos can't keep up. Until Ax just cracks Jannetty in the face with a headbutt. You can run around like a 12 year old on speed all you want, but at some point you'll stop to catch a glimpse of that side boob and then the dude in the facepaint will fucking kill you. They work over Jannetty briefly, but Shawn's back in pretty soon and from there they head into Shawn in peril as he hits the ropes at a hundred miles an hour and completely hurls himself over the top as Smash pulls the rope down. Looked like the crazy fuck almost broke his back going over. The Demos slow things down to a crawl at this point. There's a great moment where Smash has Michaels in a Boston Crab and appears to be losing it, so he tags in Ax and Ax just calmly walks in and blast him in the spine with a big old clubber. Hot tag comes and Jannetty is house o' fired to the max, and there's an awesome nearfall off of a rocket launcher before Ax breaks it up. Crowd really buy into Shawn and Marty winning this, and you can tell by the way they just deflate when it doesn't happen. Finish is super nasty as Smash pick up Marty in a bearhug and walks him over to the corner, while Ax channels Stan Hansen and nukes him square in the face with a lariat. It's a shame this match-up didn't happen more often, because it's a great one.
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