The Wrestling Menu - Tag Team Poll Results, 1992 YIR & The Best WWE Match Ever?
    Submitted by DaveyBoy on Wednesday, July 16, 2003 at 7:27 AM EST


    THE WRESTLING MENU #53

    Welcome one and all to the 53rd edition of The Wrestling Menu, the column that is sure to satisfy your taste buds when it comes to discussing all things wrestling.

    Today at the start of the column, I have the much anticipated poll results for the best tag-team ever. While at the end of the column, I will have another poll for the best match ever. In between, I continue my monthly review of the 1990's with '1992:Year In Review'.


    APPETIZERS

    Best Tag-Team Ever: Poll Results

    Initially, I wasn't sure whether to post these results as total number of votes, or as a percentage. As it turned out, I received just under 100 votes & I asked a few LOP Forum members to make up the difference to 100. Also, I decided to scrap the distinction of pre & post-1995. It seemed most people who voted had at least seen pre-1995 tag-team wrestling on videotape. So here are the results you have been waiting for:

    (1) The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) = 19
    (2) Road Warriors / Legion Of Doom (Hawk & Animal) = 17
    (3) The British Bulldogs (DaveyBoy Smith & Dynamite Kid) = 15
    (4) Demolition (Ax & Smash) = 10
    (5) The New Age Outlaws (Road Dogg & Billy Gunn) = 8
    (6) The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott) = 7
    (7) The BrainBusters (Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard) = 6
    (8) The Dudley Boyz (Bubba-Ray & D-Von) = 5
    (9) Edge & Christian = 3
    (10T) The Rockers (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty) = 2
    (10T) The Hardy Boyz (Matt & Jeff) = 2

    Six other teams received one vote. They were
    (a) The SuperPowers (Randy Savage & Hulk Hogan)
    (b) The Midnight Express (Stane Lane & Bobby Eaton)
    (c) Strike Force (Tito Santana & Rick Martel)
    (d) The Outsiders (Scott Hall & Kevin Nash)
    (e) Harlem Heat (Booker T & Stevie Ray)
    (f) The Valiant Brothers (Jimmy & Johnny)

    So there you have it. It seems that my readers have voted The Hart Foundation as the best tag-team ever. A hard one to argue with I suppose. They had multiple tag-team title reigns & succeeded both as heels & faces. Personally, I thought The Road Warriors would win the poll, but I think the fact that the Hart's appealed to a more varied type of fan got them over the line in the end. Any surprises? I'm surprised at the 6 votes for The BrainBusters, as I was never really a fan. While I expected both The Hardy Boyz & The Outsiders to poll more than 3 total votes between them.


    MAIN

    1992: The Year In Review

    Please note that this is a continuation of my monthly series on the 1990's. Over the past couple of months, I have reviewed SummerSlam '90 & WrestleWar '91. This year in review is actually a review of a WWE video, titled "1992: The Year In Review". As per usual, in the dessert section of this column, I will take a topic from the review & speak in more detail about it.

    HOSTED BY: Sean Mooney. LENGTH: 3 hours & 15 minutes.

    The video starts off in the best possible way (both chronologically & angle-wise), as we have an official announcement by WWF President Jack Tunney that the WWF Title is now vacant, because he did not like the interference in the Hulk Hogan vs Undertaker match at the 'Tuesday In Texas' pay-per-view in late 1991. Furthermore, the winner of the 30 man Royal Rumble match would be the new champion. Because of this, the '92 Rumble may have been the most star-studded of them all. Put it this way, the last 5 entrants remaining were Piper, Savage, Sid, Hogan & Flair!!! Sixteen minutes are shown in all, including the last 12. Ric Flair ends up winning the vacant title in a legendary match, despite being the #3 entrant. In my opinion, the best Rumble match of all time!!! And possibly the best commentary as Bobby 'The Brain' Heenan begs & barracks hilariously for Flair.

    Next we see a decent 5 minute match between Bret Hart & The Mountie. This is used more to set up a separate WrestleMania feud, as after the match, The Hitman is attacked by The Nasty Boys & Jimmy Hart. But current InterContinental Champion, Roddy Piper, comes out to clean house. This results in a stare-down between Hart & Piper, who were scheduled to wrestle for the IC Title approximately a month later.

    A week before WrestleMania 8 however, Piper has a non-title match with Shawn Michaels. I'm talking the classic heel Michaels here, with Sensational Sherri Martel in his corner. This is a fascinating 7 minute bout between the quick up-and-comer & the brawling veteran. Michaels eventually wins by Disqualification after a botched interference attempt by Bret Hart. Disappointingly, only the aftermath of the WrestleMania 8 match between Hart & Piper is shown.

    We then see a corny, long & out-of-place Hulk Hogan tribute. This includes a sit-down interview & clips from his legendary WrestleMania 3 match against Andre The Giant & WrestleMania 6 match against The Ultimate Warrior. We then jump back to January as we see the classic piece of footage where Shawn Michaels turns heel by superkicking his ex-Rockers partner Marty Jannetty & then throws him through a window during a 'Barber Shop' segment. Fast forward 9 months to October where Jannetty returns, & we see a match between the two for Shawn's InterContinental Title. HBK wins a great 8 minute bout.

    Next we focus on The Undertaker. And I'm talking about the "old-school" Undertaker here. First, a decent 3 minute big man match against The Berzerker from late-April. This is followed by his terrible Survivor Series Coffin match victory over Kamala, which is pretty much aimed at the 10-15 year-old age group.

    Speaking of the young kiddies, they were all as scared as hell at the next superstar featured; Papa Shango. He is shown briefly setting a jobber's feet on fire on this tape. Continuing the look at 1992 newcomers, the ex-convict Nailz is shown getting revenge on The Big Bossman. It always amuses me to talk about Nailz, because this was the guy who in real life got into a contract dispute with Vince McMahon, tried to tear Vince literally apart backstage, and then tried to sue him by claiming that Vince fondled his genitals during a one-on-one meeting. Sorry, but that tale is just too hilarious not to tell!!! Anyway, back at the ranch, the final newcomer to be shown is Tatanka. His brief feud over body-odor with 'The Model' Rick Martel is highlighted.

    Next we swing to the WWF Tag-Team Title situation, and get to see a rather interesting bout between The Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon) against Money Inc. (IRS & Ted Dibiase). Money Inc. are attacked by their stablemates. The Nasty Boys, before the match, but still win the titles 7 minutes later when Earthquake falls to the Million Dollar Dream. Afterwards, The Nasty Boys complete their face turn, as they attack Jimmy Hart.

    Back to the WWF Title we go, as footage is shown of Ric Flair & Curt Hennig costing Randy Savage his match against The Ultimate Warrior at SummerSlam. Following this is the September bout where Flair beats Savage for the World Title after 15 minutes. Not the greatest spectacle due to Savage going into this match with a leg injury, but it's always great watching the heel tactics of Flair & Hennig, while listening to Bobby Heenan's commentary. Plus, Savage vs Flair, will go down in my opinion as one of the greatest feuds ever. Whether that be the WWF or WCW version, it doesn't really matter. A brief clip is then shown of Bret Hart defeating Flair for his first world title in Saskatoon, Canada.

    The penultimate match on this video collection is one hell of a collectors piece. It's the main event from Survivor Series for the WWF Title between Bret Hart & Shawn Michaels. Both men were arguably 2-3 years from their peak at this stage & the bout may have even disappointed some people at the time. Hart controlled the pace, if not the offense, of this 26 minute match which at the end of the day, was a little too slow-paced for my liking. But both competitors showed their enormous potential here, resulting in one of the two holding the title over the majority of the next 4 years. Personally, I liked this match because it was a risk by the WWF at the time & it paved the way for the future. It was far from perfect & 5 minutes too long, but I really liked it.

    Now, I'm not going to talk about the final match on this video just yet, as it is going to be spoken of in detail in the 'Dessert' section today. In conclusion, like most year-end compilations, this video is a great collectors piece. The Royal Rumble, SummerSlam & Survivor Series main events were all very good, while everything in between brings back great memories. The obvious flaw is practically no footage from WrestleMania 8. I presume this was done to protect the buyrate for the WWF's biggest pay-per-view of the year. At the very least, more clips should have been shown. Despite that, I thoroughly recommend buying this video, if only for the fact that it is a very well put together synopsis of the year & it includes (in my opinion) the greatest WWE match of all time.....


    DESSERT

    The Best WWE Match Ever?

    Again, like last week with the tag-teams, please note the question mark in the topic title. It is there because (to be honest) this match is my favorite of all time, and it's sometimes hard to distinguish between the best & a person's favorite. I suppose I could say that in my opinion, this is the best WWE match ever, but I need to make it clear that I in no way believe it to be fact that it is.

    So what was the final match of the video compilation that DaveyBoy views as the greatest WWE match of all time...??? Well, it took place on August-29, 1992, at the SummerSlam pay-per-view & was held at Wembley Stadium in England, in front of a crowd of 80,355. The bout was for the InterContinental Title & lasted approximately 26 minutes. The match was between the champion, Bret Hart, against the challenger, 'The British Bulldog' Davey Boy Smith.

    Where do I start!?!?!? Well, to take advantage of the fact that we were in England & The Bulldog was a proud & patriotic englishman, the WWE had Lennox Lewis lead him out to the ring carrying the Union Jack. Remember that this was 1992 folks, so Lennox was not as well known to worldwide audiences at the time as he is now. Still, he was huge to Brits back then & his appearance only made the amazing crowd reaction that Davey Boy Smith got, just that little bit better/louder. In fact, there is no doubt whatsoever that it is the crowd atmosphere that results in this match getting my nod for best ever, above other similar classic encounters.

    One other thing that cannot be forgotten is that the 2 wrestlers were both faces at the time. In fact, they were almost the goodest of good guys. Obviously, The British Bulldog was always going to be the crowd favorite, but Bret also had his fans & was respected by the huge attendance. It was more a case of cheering Davey Boy, as opposed to booing Bret. Further on top of this, the 2 were Brother-In-Laws. Smith had married Bret's sister (Diana) & the WWF at the time made this part of the angle. In fact, if anything, the camera focused in on Diana way too much during the bout.

    So far we've got crowd involvement, 2 faces fighting & a family feud. Those 3 characteristics almost directly result in the next great aspect of this match; Psychology. The match was just played out perfectly. Bret, in particular knew exactly what he was doing in the ring. He literally had the huge crowd in the palm of his hands.

    In fact, I would go one step further than this & say that this was the match that proved to the WWE that Bret was ready for the World Title. Remember that it was seen as a little risky putting the title on Bret at the time, because of his lack of size & technical ability. He had also been one half of a tag-team for most of his WWE career at that point. But the way Bret played the crowd during this match was simply phenomenal. I wouldn't say he carried Davey Boy Smith throughout the bout, but he did lift him to a great match. I don't think it was any coincidence that Bret Hart won the WWF Title exactly 44 days later.

    For his part, Davey Boy Smith also successfully played his role in the match. While I would have to agree that only Bret Hart could have gotten such a fantastic match out of him at the time, The Bulldog very much stepped up that night. At the very least, he proved that he was an upper midcarder who was genuinely deserving of the world title shots he would get in later years.

    Look, I won't say that this is a perfect match. There were too many rest-holds & Smith wasn't always giving as good as he got, at different stages of the bout. But I don't think we will ever see a wrestling match that we can classify as "perfect". At approximately 26 minutes in length, the match gives everyone something to like, and the final 7 minutes are as exciting as you will ever see. The ending is near-perfect with The Bulldog reversing a sunset-flip for the clean pin. The cheers from the huge crowd of over 80,000 at the end of the match, still sends chills down my spine.

    VOTING TIME

    After the success of last week's poll & the link between that topic & this topic, I may as well have another vote. This time to see your opinion on which match was the greatest of all time...??? I might try & limit this to the WWF/WWE, but if you would like to mention any match from another promotion which you believe to be better than the best that the WWE has offered, then include that in your e-mail to me as well. Like I have done this week with the tag-team poll, I will have the results in the 'Appetizers' section of my column next Wednesday the 23rd.

    That about does it for edition #53 of The Wrestling Menu. Hopefully, I can get just as many votes for this weeks poll. I can't wait to see the results of all your opinions. My e-mail address is DaveyBoy123@bigpond.com

    Next Wednesday in The Wrestling Menu, I will obviously have the result of this poll, plus my predictions for the first SmackDown exclusive pay-per-view, Vengeance. Look out for the column same Wednesday time & same LOP channel next week. Until then, this is Davey Boy signing off & asking you to remember that dinner is best served in 3 courses.








    Stacy Keibler and Friends on the Beach Playing Volleyball!

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