Monday, November 5, 2018

WRESTLING GOLD VOL. 1 2004 (VCI)

A few years ago I touched upon this on the blog, but this is the first of an in depth look at all five volumes of this remarkable series.

This and the subsequent reviews will, I hope, be of interest to people who remember when pro wrestling was a great sport and not some boring "entertainment" juggernaut financed by Saudi money for the sake of people with undeveloped minds. I do still like watching women wrestle because I like seeing beautiful women in interesting attire fight, but wrestling as a whole doesn't exist anymore.

The sad PC climate and "progressive" idiots in this day and age has caused wrestling to be a PC environment which has killed the business. This 5 disc set from VCI lets wrestling fans relive those great days when the sport was fun and the men were men.

This first volume contains 11 matches and runs 128 minutes. Jim Cornette and Dave Meltzer provide valuable and entertaining information. It is entitled "Busted Open".

Match 1 is the only women's match to offered in the entire set. We get to see Judy Martin vs. Sherri Martel. This was long before the "diva" days and Sherri shows why she made it very big in later years.

Match 2 features Shawn Michaels against Ken Johnson in a TV studio match. Michaels was in his rookie year and all of 20 years old.

Match number 3 is from Southwest Championship Wrestling and is a studio match featuring Tully Blanchard and Gino Hernandez against the tag team champs The Grapplers managed by Don Carson. A rare match between two heel tag teams with a surprise ending when Blanchard and Hernandez win Tully turns on his partner Hernandez.

Match number 4 is a follow up to the previous match. It features Tully Blanchard against Gino Hernandez which is a very brutal and bloody brawl. These two only wrestled against each other twice and then it was over.

Match 5 is a wild one between Bob Orton, Jr. and Adrian Adonis for the Texas Heavyweight belt. Adonis, who looked more like the Pillsbury Dough Boy was a very agile wrestler with a hell of a lot of stamina as you'll see in this match.

Match number 6 is a brutal and bloody brawl at the Hemisphere Arena in San Antonio, Texas featuring Bruiser Brody and Abdullah The Butcher. These two had some of the wildest matches ever seen in the Texas area and this is no exception. This is how wrestling should still be.

Match 7 is a great one again from The Hemisphere Area between Larry Zybisco and Scott Casey. Zybisco was always one of the greatest heels in the business.

Match 8 is a Pile Driver match between Jerry "The King" Lawler and Bob Sweetan. Lawler was becoming a heel at this time and he attempts to beat Sweetan with a pile driver.

The 9th match on the disc is a tag team classic pitting Terry Funk and Ivan Putski against Tully Blanchard and Gino Hernandez.The match is very well done and ends in a melee involving the above mentioned wrestlers as well as Rick Morton and Ken Lucas. More excitement from San Antonio.

Match number 10 is a bloody cage match featuring Dick Slater against The Mongolian Stomper managed by Don Carson. This is how cage matches used to be and it too ends in a wild brawl between Slater, Stomper, Carson, El Santo Negro and special referee Bob Sweetan. This one is a classic from San Antonio.

The 11th and final match on this disc is another San Antonio gem with Bruiser Brody going against Nick Bokwinkel managed by Bobby "The Brain" Heenan for the title help by Nick. The special referee is Lou Thez. Wrestling just doesn't get any better than this.

All in all a GREAT set of matches that wrestling fans of my age and older should really go for. Recommended, as they all are.

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