What an awesome Murdoch and Adonis performance. Bumping, selling, stooging, feeding, offence, heat-garnering, cutting the ring off - just a real tour de force (if you will allow me the snootiness) of heel tag work. B. Brian Blair had been wrestling for about seven years by this point but still felt kind of white meat. Maybe this was his first go around in a venue this size. Either way the North-South Connection decided they were going to make him look like a superstar and get armdragged and bodyslammed all over the shop. After watching this I had to revisit another couple North-South matches from the WWF run and Adonis was fucking incredible in all of them. Like right up there as one of the best in the world even with the small sample size. I loved some of the little details he added to things, like when Blair had him in a headlock and Adonis dragged him over to the heel corner by his kneepad. He was also in full bump machine mode, maybe a little too dialled up for some folks but dialled up bump machines aren't something I'll really complain about. He takes a couple huge corner bumps, one where he goes upside down at impressive speed, another where he yeets himself into the post off a corner shoulderblock. There's one sequence towards the end where Blair is cleaning house and Adonis goes up top, Blair whips Murdoch into him, the collision leads to Adonis almost being backdropped off the turnbuckles by his own partner, Murdoch gets nailed, Adonis gets punched into the ropes where he flips backwards and gets tangled up, Murdoch then gets thrown across the ring into him, turns around and gets dropped with a punch and hit with a kneedrop, then he holds his face spinning on the mat like a wind-up toy while Adonis untangles himself and gets popped again. It was phenomenal. A little earlier Adonis had been knocked off the apron and Murdoch crawled over to the make the tag, holding his face with one hand, blindly reaching out with the other, then as Adonis managed to get back to the corner Blair yanked Murdoch away, Adonis reaching a little too far and falling arse over elbow into the ring. Just awesome heel horse shit from two of the best. When they eventually settle into a couple heat segments they cut the ring off spectacularly. Every time they tag out the person exiting the ring will hang around a few seconds extra just to hold the opponent in place. Sometimes that'll be Murdoch dropping on all fours to create a barricade so Adonis can measure a shot, other times it'll be one of them hanging onto an arm or leg to prevent retreat. They run the ref' ragged while choking Blair with the tag rope, run distraction so they can throw cheapshots, and one woman with gigantic hair flips Murdoch the bird and shouts "fuck you," which I can't imagine is a first for Murdoch all thing considered. The stuff with Backlund here was sort of weird. Were the WWF purposely trying to make him look like a goofball? He was getting Cena-like reactions with pockets of the Spectrum crowd tearing into him, and the camera even focused on a couple SLANDEROUS signs. One said "Bob Backlund is a chicken hawk" and another, in full block capitals, "BACKLUND IS A GEEK". He mostly sticks to the apron for the first half but any time he comes in the reception is less than favourable. At one point he walked in unprompted and picked up a piece of thrown garbage, got rid of it like a good spot, and was audibly booed. I think someone even threw something else at him personally. He's a good hot tag though, and a strong face in peril later. I love a good sunset flip and his sunset flip was GREAT, really thrusting his hips into it and using the leverage to drag Adonis into the pin, no lying on the mat while Adonis has to wave his arms around like he's struggling against nothing. He also has one of the best cat 'n' mouse scrambles I've ever seen, where he's crawling around trying to get away from the heels so he can scoot over for the tag, they're trying to grab him, and at no point did the actual grabbing part come easy for them because Backlund looked like he was determined to go over and make that tag. The last couple minutes felt like an actual finishing run, albeit a short one. It had drama, babyfaces trying to get the win, heels scrambling, and then an awesome, emphatic finish. The North-South absolutely fucking folded Blair with that Doomsday Device. Really an out of nowhere tremendous match.
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