WRESTLERS OF THE DAY (Series 2) - DEMOLITION

[RIPPA]

Point of Order - I don't care which version of Demo you post, just keep it the Demos (meaning not Darsow's 5942 other gimmicks, etc...)

 

But here ya go - Best Tag Team ever according to lunatics who have posted on this board.

 

 

http://youtu.be/atPNZsDm240

 

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2lrh74_demolition-vs-genichiro-tenryu-koji-kitao-wwe-wrestlemania-vii-march-24-1991_sport

 

vs. Tenryu/Kitao

[Pete]

Say what you will about Tenryu, but his boys always dressed the part. WANT that tracksuit.

[Lazlo Woodbine]

Loved them when I was a kid. Even with the bondage gear and the monster paint they looked recognisable, like guys your dad worked with or something. Hard guys ground down by hard lives, slightly pudgy and past their prime. Those guys would surely agree to dress up as fetish clowns if it meant getting to look tough in front of big crowds. All time great theme tune too.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6y9tf_hart-foundation-vs-demolition-summe_sport

[J.T.]

Ax, Smash, & Crush add something new.

 

 

Sugar & Spice take on the indy Demolition combination of Smash & Blast.

 

 

Demos beat Arn & Tully to recover their titles on free television.

 

[J.T.]

I personally wouldn't proclaim Demolition the best team ever, but I can see the argument especially considering the handicap they were saddled with.. 

 

Eadie, Darsow, and Adams managed to work within the confines of the Demolition monster brawler gimmick even though they all had extensive backgrounds.   Eadie left his Masked Superstar arsenal in the locker room just as Darsow shied away from breaking out any of the signature moves gleaned from the billions of spots spots he'd used over dozens of gimmicks. 

 

And then there was Brian Adams, trained by Inoki and possessing a solid boxing and karate background, yet he did not incorporate any kicks or utilize his pugilistic skills when donning the Demolition Crush gimmick..

 

All that unused technique and Demolition still managed to stay in the title picture, wrestle smart, work stiff, and get convincing wins over really good teams.  Demo kept it simple.  They just beat people up.

 

Best team ever though?  I think my vote would go to either The Road Warriors, Williams / Gordy, or Hase / Mutoh,

 

I think it is sad that the youngest member of that team died first. 

[odessasteps]

[Victator]

Best Tag Team ever according to lunatics who have posted on this board.

 

You know my credentials yet still you question me. 

They are in my personal top five best teams. Ones I would say are outright better are Condrey/Eaton Midnites and Tully/Arn but not by much. 

http://drvictatorpresents.blogspot.com/2011/07/untitled-demolition-project.html

That is all the writing me and Matt did. That whole project was really fun and it makes me happy thinking about it.

[RIPPA]

I blame Matt more for the movement

 

JT's lists continue to have no credibility

[J.T.]

I blame Matt more for the movement

 

JT's lists continue to have no credibility

 

I am guessing I should've said Misawa / Kawada since there aren't too many Lucha teams you really mark for.

 

I am a huge MVC mark, so they will always be the best tag-team to me.  I only mention the Roadies because everyone else in the world does and you can't leave them out of the discussion.

[Victator]

I had been a big Demos fan for years. Honestly even if they were bad, I would love them just for the face paint. Matt contacted me initially because he knew how much I loved them. 

Music vidya I made
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vT3Pry46lzs

I really like the second theme the WWF gave them. It is so ominous and foreboding. Even though they only did that to kill the Demos popularity with LOD coming in. .

And my first one to them. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHQwQ50rsag

[odessasteps]

I blame Matt more for the movement

 

JT's lists continue to have no credibility

 

I am guessing I should've said Misawa / Kawada since there aren't too many Lucha teams you really mark for.

If it was ten years ago, saying Ultimo/Bucanero would not have been that outlandish.

If we could just get Cavernario and Hechicero to team regularly for the next 3-5 years...

[RIPPA]

Cavernario/Nakamura is Top 5 and they only had one match

[ricksilver]

I was there for that debut, my first-ever wrestling show. Even at age 13 it was underwhelming. If you would have told me at that show that 2 years later they'd be in a red-hot feud with the Horsemen over the WWF tag titles, I would have told you that you were very stupid. But it would have been me who was the stupid. Absolutely one of the anchors of that tag division until the end and probably my favorite WWF tag team ever other than the Hart Foundation. Is Demolition in the Hall of Fame? They should be.

 

EDIT: also, best theme song...ever.

[mattdangerously]

Demolition were better than the Road Warriors.

[Web Conn]

vs Powers of Pain

vs The Road Warriors

vs The Brain Busters

vs Honky Tonk Man and Greg Valentine

vs Paul Roma and Jim Powers

[J.H.]

See I always saw the Demos as being a lesser team that could be carried by better teams to really good matches. As far as favorite teams go, Midnights (either Lane/Eaton or Condrey/Eaton), Roadies, Hart Foundation and fabulous Ones top out my list, though a very strong argument can be made for Kawada/Taue or Jumping Bomb Angels

 

James 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

 

 I loved Demolition when it was Ax and Smash. When they added Crush, eh not as much. Yes, they still have the greatest entrance theme ever. 

[Victator]

See I always saw the Demos as being a lesser team that could be carried by better teams to really good matches. As far as favorite teams go, Midnights (either Lane/Eaton or Condrey/Eaton), Roadies, Hart Foundation and fabulous Ones top out my list, though a very strong argument can be made for Kawada/Taue or Jumping Bomb Angels

 

James 

Who is exactly carrying Bill Eadie? Who would he be working with where he is not calling the match?

[kafkonia]

The Roadies looked like they'd beat you up because they liked it.

 

The Demos looked like they'd beat you up because they... liked it.

 

I was a WWF kid, so that could colour my opinion, but I feel like the Road Warriors never really gave much for their opponents, while Demolition helped to get their opponents over. That gives them the edge in my book.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I feel like LOD's work doesn't hold up as well because of them not giving as much. Squashing job guys is fine because that's their purpose, but I don't feel like LOD would have had the same quality of matches that Demolition had with the likes of the Hart Foundation, British Bulldogs, or Rockers.

[BurningBeard]

It probably has something to do with me seeing Demolition first but I too prefer them to LOD. They had the smash mouth approach to matches but weren't averse to giving stuff back either. I think they're one of the definitive WWF tag teams.

[Matt D]

I just haven't had any time to post anything yet.

 

Do I think Demolition is the best team of all time? No. I don't. Do I think they accomplished something fairly impressive that completely and utterly bypasses most of the traditional metrics of "smart" fans appreciating wrestlers? Absolutely. 

 

In fact, they helped me break free from the fallacy of workrate dogmatism in analyzing and rating pro wrestling. 

 

How did they do that? Accidentally. Benoit died in the same month I moved in with my wife-to-be and stepson-to-be. I'd been relatively casual for a year or two before that, but after that happened, I stopped watching wrestling. I started back up a couple of years later (2009), as I had a chunk of free time most days on the exercise bike. We'd just stumbled through the highspot and bump laden 2000s though, and I didn't want to see a bunch of headdrops and stupid contrived indy moves, even if I cheered them as much as anyone seven years earlier. Instead I went for comfort food, back to the late 80s and early, early 90s WWF, mainly on Dailymotion which had whole shows of Superstars/Wrestling Challenge/PTW, etc. At first, I was just watching the SNME's and PPVs, but I started in on the MSG/Boston/Copps/etc. shows as well. This was as far from the Nitro and/or ROH style as you could get, and was, in a lot of ways, the first time in my adult watching life that I sought out whole shows instead of just highly pimped, highly rated matches. Instead I was watching a lot of matches that people generally told other people NOT to watch.

 

The last thing I was looking for was a bunch of Demolition matches. I had no love for them from when I was a kid. I liked small "technical" wrestlers or high-flyers. I liked the Rockers and the Hart Foundation. I'm sure I would have liked the babyface Rogs and Killer Bees and Bulldogs, etc. I liked Zenk and Pillman. I liked the Young Pistols. I had no use for the Road Warriors or Demolition or the Powers of Pain or Freebirds or Patriots or Murdoch/Slater. I liked the Orient Express and High Energy. I have absolutely no nostalgia for Demolition. As a kid I thought they were slow and plodding. Boring as could be.

 

But I was watching everything, so I watched them, and what I came to appreciate was how their matches varied, and how they worked so many different opponents so many different ways, both as babyfaces and heels, and always so logically. As heels, they would give their opponents offense, but it had to be earned. They would give in shines but their opponents had to keep on them, and if they let up for a moment, they'd take back the advantage. This was during an era where someone like Dynamite Kid would just eat people twice his size alive for 3/5th of a match, the "heel-in-peril" WWF house style of tag team wrestling. Demolition would make the faces grab and arm and work on it, to double team constantly, to find some way to overcome their size and intensity. It was a watered down but far more appropriate and giving way of doing what Brody and Hansen would do in AJPW. The difference was that they would sell. It just had to be earned. And it'd be different for different opponents. Michaels bitches about the 88 MSG match, but Eadie sells rapid fire for the Rockers' offense. When they face the Harts in 88 at Summerslam, they portray Bret as a huge deal, actually begging off from him. They had built up a large amount of karma, of reputation, over the last year and a half, and Bret, in that match was the beneficiary of it. That's how it was a lot of times. Teams, even in losses, came out of matches with Demolition looking better than they came in. You couldn't say that about a lot of other monster teams. In some ways, they're the exact opposite of the Road Warriors for a lot of their run.

 

I like most of their babyface work even more. There are some matches that just don't work, like the Bolsheviks squash or the Orient Express match or what's probably most remembered, the Powers of Pain feud, but in general, it's really satisfying to see how they work the Brainbusters completely different than the Twin Towers, and how they'd work them differently than the Colossal Connection. They play Face in Peril and manage just these great hot tags and house of fire sequences against the Towers, especially. They portray frustration so well and play right into the Brainbusters hands and then get righteous revenge against them. There's amazing variety in their work, even match to match in the same series (The Towers series is a great example of that). 

 

I think Eadie is one of the most underrated guys in wrestling, but again, it's not about five star matches or workrate classics, so he's going to stay underrated. It's about logic and versatility, and elevating their opponents both in victory and loss, and keeping heat without stepping all over people, and knowing exactly why he's doing everything he does. It's about timing comebacks and cut off spots, about making shines and hot tags feel earned and thus all the more resonate. It's about being hot for a span of years without really being able to resort to a bunch of high spots and headdrops, both as faces and heels, against a plethora of opponents of all shapes and sizes.

 

I think Demolition was great and it's not due to the aura or nostalgia. The problem is that you can't really see it on one match, or two matches. You can't even fully see it just by watching Demolition matches. You have to watch their opponents against other teams too, to get a sense of the landscape. You need to really see the whole picture before it comes into focus, but once it does, you see just how impressive a picture it is. It's just that what makes them great relative to other teams goes against star ratings and workrate and everything else that we're used to looking at.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

I'm out of likes for the day, but I love Matt D's post, so you get this.