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Straight-up Squash Matches


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In 1993 WWF had 5 one hour shows:  RAW, Superstars, Mania, Wrestling Challenge, and All-American Wrestling.  That's a lot of time to fill, and that means a lot of squash matches to book.

One of the most prolific, and probably the most interesting, of these time fillers was MATT BORNE, who you'd often see stretching and suplexing 2-3 different jabronis in a weekend.
 

And if you actually committed to watching squash matches closely, Matt Borne rewarded your attentive eye by giving you a different squash each time.  Nobody's squashes had the variety of Doink The Clown.

Most of the time, squash matches are wrestling's answer to the short program figure skating:  everybody watching knows what's going to happen, the sequence in which it will happen, and how long it's going to take.  You plot out your routine, give the judges your script so they know what order to expect the mandatory stunts in, and judge the technical merit of how precisely everyone did the same thing before giving the gold medal to the underage Russian chick with too much mascara every time Just Because.
 


In wrestling, it's take three minutes to hit your five moves of doom while the broadcast team plugs the merchandise catalog, the magazine, the hotline, the upcoming Pay Per View, give the cliff notes on the squasher's gimmick and/or current angle, and then it's time to hit the finisher and go home.  Once you've seen one of a name guy's squash, you've usually seen them all.  The closest you come to "variety" or "suspense" is whether or not the jobber gets a token move in and thus you should memorize his face for when he resurfaces as a Name Guy in a couple years.

But not Matt Borne's Doink. Sometimes he'd just straight up throw a suplex that made him look like the lost Steiner brother.  Other times he'd just sit on the guy and trash talk his way through a half nelson just to prove he could.

If you actually took the time to pay attention to a Doink squash match, Borne rewarded your close attention with a different wrinkle to every match.  Hell, he didn't even stick to the same finisher every time, never mind the preamble.  Multiple finishers? In 1993 WWF? And going through them with the jobbers?  Doink just squashed differently.  From his peers and even from himself.  Even with the Stump Puller, sometimes he'd roll through and take a pin with it instead of staying standing for the submission.

Each match was different than the last.  And that's worth while when you're doing the sheer volume of televised squashes that Matt Borne did as Doink in 93.
 

[And as is expected with me, some love for Bobby Heenan running his own ongoing storyline of insisting Doink was somebody vaguely familiar from wrestling's past, on the other side of a psychotic break and out for revenge, and struggling in vain to identify him.  Encouraging you to actually watch the squashes a little more closely than you may normally have, and appreciate the variety.]

 

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Also alot of squash matches weren’t great because they included guys who needed them, who needed those wins on the way to losing a bigger match. Monster heels are obviously the exception here. Atleast 1 of them appeared every hour. Besides them it was alot of Doink, Roma, Watts, etc. Matt Bourne was good enough and gave enough of a shit to make them entertaining. 

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Doink was then breaking point for the newsstand magazines and to a lesser extent, the newsletters, on the cartoonishness of the WWF. The "Apter mags" were vociferous in their hatred for this gimmick, a obvious pandering to the kiddie market and a blatant slap to the critics and old school fans who decried the circus atmosphere of McMahon's sports entertainment Goliath. It also didn't help that the WWF was restricting access to the writers and photographers of those magazines, effectively preventing them from competing with the WWF's own house magazine, The newsletters continue their cries about the repackaging of established workers to new simplistic gimmicks with no acknowledgement of their histories or true identities,  Well, it worked for VKM, at least in the short term and in hindsight, the Doink gimmicks had legs and was pretty good. Matt Bourne was 80% of the reason for this, it is plain to see now. The right worker can make any gimmick work. It's cool (and unexpected) how much love Doink is getting here lately. I am sure some other message board is mocking thee DVDVR for it right now...

- RAF

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I looked the dates up to see if the incoming idea would work but it said Buzz was gone from WCW after getting hurt at WrestleWar 90. That can’t be right can it? I thought sure he was around until his death which wasn’t expected.

Anyway similar to the Brian Pillman angle they came up with in 1990 that Dave Meltzer called the best angle in a long time (the original epic plan not what they ended up doing half ass...look it up if you haven’t!), they could have done this with Big Josh who was over as a happy midcard face.

Have Rich turn on Ms York, maybe after accidentally clocking him with the computer against some other midcard face who could use the win. Cut a promo apologizing to the fans immediately after who would have took him right back. Then on TV he does squashes followed by promos apologizing to  Big Josh who won’t appear and give Rich the pleasure of a formal apology and new friendship. Then the last TV show before Tommy Rich vs Buzz Sawyer at The Omni Rich says he has to put this behind him before he gets in the ring with Buzz whether Josh accepts the apology or not. Josh finally appears and says something to the extent that he’s moved on (with his team? He might have been the 6 Man champion by then) and that Rich should do the same. 
 

At the Omni Rich does a prematch promo saying no matter what happened he’s ready for his match with Buzz. Of course in the meantime Jim Ross would have been making vague references to the obvious from the start. Buzz and Rich have a competitive match but Buzz ultimately gains the upper hand and beats Rich to a bloody pulp...like near death but won’t pin him. Ref tries to stop it gets tossed. Big Josh comes out with his ax for the rescue and Buzz backs off but doesn’t leave the ring. Staredown, mic less dialogue, and then Josh turns around and finishes Tommy Rich. Postmatch promo doesn’t need explaining. 
 

It’a raining here lol

Edited by BloodyChamp
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"From a little town in France" haha. Speaking of Sullivan, here's him knocking out a jobber with a punch, then waking him up with an elbow. 

...and here is the infamous Buzz Sawyer ass-stomp with censored Sullivan rant after. "IT'S NOT THE DOG'S FAULT!"

EDIT: Oooo, in the comments someone says the first part that got bleeped is "squatted, dropped the dog and bit the cord. She bit the cord". Which makes sense. Anyone know what the rest of it is? 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Wow a slightly juiced up Kevin Sullivan doing some pretty good wrestling. I guess he was a good worker once or he wouldn’t have worked for his whole life in this business. 
 

Match number 2 has made the rounds over the years. Such good stuff. That’s everything a heel squash is supposed to be really. They looked legit, furthered their heel mission without giving it away, had a brilliant heel commentator on the horn putting them over while the play by play man acted ashamed, and it was entertaining! And nice touch on the end. A new spin on a worn out take (the guys rescuing).

The Slaughterhouse was a perfect midcard heel stable that was just waiting for the right bunch to get serious on. They had a fun match on the Pro against Norman, Mike Rotunda, and a face Abdullah the Butcher who smashed a wooden chair to pieces while Lance Russell sold it like he always did. He was the Pat Summerall of wrestling lol! 

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On 5/22/2020 at 3:24 PM, Death From Above said:

If you had told 12 year old me that Doink the Clown would be one of the best-aging gimmicks I'd have never believed you, but evil Doink's fucking terrifying. Keep that shit away from me.

 

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On 5/19/2020 at 8:13 AM, BobbyWhioux said:

insisting Doink was somebody vaguely familiar from wrestling's past, on the other side of a psychotic break and out for revenge,

Never picked up on this in commentary, cool. I always thought a fun backstory for Doink would have been he was a harmless circus clown who ribbed a carnival shooter one too many times and got stretched to kingdom come  until it broke him mentally. Now here he is in the WWF just trying to have fun and he keeps on snapping 

Edited by BurningBeard
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1. They actually called a Fisherman Suplex a "Three-Handled Moss-Covered Family Credenza"?! 

2. Mike Bell landing like that out of the ring was exactly the landing I imagine Cougar Jay getting thrown by the SST had. 

Don't blow spots wrestling Perry Saturn, kids.

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I wish I could find one of those Ronnie Garvin squashes where David Crockett seems waaay too excited to see Garvin dominate and beat on another guy.

"Look at him. Just look at him Tony. Tying him up. Dominating him. Slapping him. Just look at him."

Settle down Hollywood Crockenettico.

Edited by cwoy2j
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16 hours ago, cwoy2j said:

I wish I could find one of those Ronnie Garvin squashes where David Crockett seems waaay too excited to see Garvin dominate and beat on another guy.

"Look at him. Just look at him Tony. Tying him up. Dominating him. Slapping him. Just look at him."

Settle down Hollywood Crockenettico.

There's a Road Warriors squash where Animal hits a shoulder block that just decimates a jobber, and David lets out a very orgasmic "OOOOOOHHH!", then is silent while the referee counts the pin, and then after the bell ring just quietly says, "that was good, Tony."

 

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1 hour ago, clintthecrippler said:

There's a Road Warriors squash where Animal hits a shoulder block that just decimates a jobber, and David lets out a very orgasmic "OOOOOOHHH!", then is silent while the referee counts the pin, and then after the bell ring just quietly says, "that was good, Tony."

 

His breathless, "look at him, just look at him Tony" always cracked me up.

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2 hours ago, Oyaji said:

David Crockett was a national treasure. I don't get the hate.

Anyone who hates David Crockett should be whipped like a dog, whipped like a dog Tony!

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