Picking up where I left off in 2016, it’s finally time for the second in the Best of the WWF series. This is a heavy nostalgia area for me. This whole series was available at the video rental store in my home city (Max Videos), and I’d always get them. It was the only way to see wrestling outside WWF TV for me as a child.

It’s pretty wild to put Mr. Fuji on the cover in 1985, but here we go!

We start with the classic Coliseum Home Video intro video with the scrolling words leading to WWF clips mixed with ancient Roman pictures and great music. My second favourite WWF open, next to the symbol appearing over clouds with Gene Okerlund saying, “The WWF. It’s what the world is watching!”

Gorilla Monsoon is the host this time, so it’s a big step up from Vince. He really sells it as great historical footage and great matches from today put together just for me. For me? How nice of them.

Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas (c) vs Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch
“WWF Tag Team Championship”
WWF Championship Wrestling
April 17, 1984, aired May 26, 1984
Commentary By: Vince McMahon & Gene Okerlund

It’s a fun little match where Atlas and Johnson dominate, but some confusion leads to Adonis rolling Johnson from behind to win the belts. I really liked Altas doing a gorilla press on the floor to Murdoch, with Johnson punching him from inside the ring, leading to that finish.

Atlas and Johnson were so over and cool. They really should have been a big team going into the mid-80s.

Rating: Solid/10

Pedro Morales (c) vs Don Muraco
“WWF Intercontinental Championship”
WWF on MSG Network
January 22, 1983
Commentary By: Gorilla Monsoon & Vince McMahon

Muraco attacks before the bell, and Morales fights right back. The really cool being thrown into the corner and turning it into a sunset flip by Morales is awesome. The early goings are just Morales destroying Muraco and Muraco selling his ass off. He’s such a chicken shit that when Morales looks to jump off the top to the floor on him, Muraco hides under the ring. A massive low blow by Muraco brings things even, and that’s when Muraco can finally remove his shirt. Of course, Muraco uses it to choke Pedro, only for Pedro to low-blow him back!

Muraco ducked, and Morales hit the turnbuckle with his knee, which finally evens the tides and led to some good knee work by Muraco. After a pushoff of the figure-four, Morales has a comeback and does a backbreaker onto his hurt knee like an idiot. The Boston Crab he does is too close to the ropes, and his leg is too hurt to keep it on. Muraco still can’t control it, though. Morales keeps fighting, but the cross body by Muraco is caught, only for Morales’s leg to give up, and Muraco wins the belt.

It is a great, short, and intense brawl with amazing transitions that tell a wonderful story. I love these two against each other.

Rating: 8.25/10

Killer Kowalski vs Pedro Morales
WWWF at Madison Square Garden
July 22, 1974
Commentary By: Jesse Ventura

Into the vault. I love Gorilla giving background over the first few minutes of the match before they go to the actual commentary. He goes on about Killer’s Claw and how dangerous it is.

This is clipped a lot, but we get a lot of Kowalski working over Morales’s leg, and it looks good, as does Morales selling. Morales is so over, and his punching comeback is fucking awesome, with Kowalski falling all over the place for it. Kowalski’s reaction to getting bit by just running around and stomping in annoyance is awesome and hilarious. Eventually, they fight on the floor for a double countout.

Rating: Fun/10

We get a graphic that says:

Midget Madness

• Little Brutus & Sky Low Low vs Billy the Kid & The Jamaica Kid

Heavily clipped, and outside of the comedy moments, they did a lot of good stuff here from what we could see. If they didn’t force the comedy on these guys, they would have been stars. Weirdly, they cut away mid-match, and we are just in another match.

• Little Brutus & Sky Low Low vs Joey Russel & Sonny Boy Hayes

We got a few minutes of a nineteen-minute match, so there’s not much to say except it looked awesome. We literally got the end of a fall and a minute of the next.

Chief Jay Strongbow vs Prof. Toru Tanaka
WWWF on MSG Network
December 19, 1977
Commentary By: Lord Alfred Hayes

The ring looks tiny! Gorilla builds up Tanaka and then tells us to look out for Chief’s War Dance and how boring the match will be because it’s old.

We are joined in progress and clipped. Gorilla was right; it was boring, but the crowd loved Strongbow! A DQ ends it.

Rating: Whatever/10

A WWF Musical Interlude

Captain Lou Albano plays the piano for under 30 seconds. That is followed by Gene Okerlund playing piano and singing “Tutti Frutti” on TNT, with Hogan playing bass with the band and the band all wearing stupid, trucking WWF hats.

Tito Santana (c) vs Paul Orndorff
“WWF Intercontinental Championship”
WWF at Kiel Auditorium
September 1, 1984
Commentary By: Vince McMahon

It feels like they wanted to show the St. Louis crowd a more NWA-style match, as WWF just took over the territory. The structure was not typical for a WWF match from the time, and it had lots of cool nearfalls, a non-WWF structure, and a lot of action. Tito is one of the best babyface workers ever, and seeing him work from underneath is great. His hope spots are tremendous. The comeback was intense by Tito, as usual. They fought back and forth down the stretch, leading to a time-limit draw.

Rating: 7/10

Some Surprise Endings!!!

That appears on the screen, and we get a few clips of surprise match endings.

• Don Muraco vs Rocky Johnson

Rocky is beating up a bloodied Muraco until Muraco pulls the referee in front of him, causing Rocky to punch the referee out! Rocky gets disqualified.

• Bobo Brazil vs Freddie Blassie

Blassie’s leg gets trapped on the rope while trying to get into the ring and gets counted out.

• Andre the Giant vs The Black Demon

Andre accidentally unmasks Demon, to which Demon runs away, covering his face after the match.

Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs The Moondogs
“WWF Tag Team Championship Texas Death Match with Gorilla Monsoon as Referee”
WWF on PRISM Network
February 14, 1981
Commentary By: Lord Alfred Hayes

Gorilla takes no fucking shit and stops The Moondogs from cheating. We only got about the last two minutes of this match, but it was a fun finish.

Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito
“WWF Tag Team Championship”
WWF Championship Wrestling
October 13, 1981, aired October 31, 1981
Commentary By: Vince McMahon & Pat Patterson

We open with a long shine by the Garea and Martel team as they pick apart both Fuji and Saito before eventually Saito just overpowers Garea, and we get a face-in-peril segment. It’s pretty well down with Fuji and Saito constantly tagging and wearing him down. There are some decent nearfalls, too. It’s really a classic WWF tag structure, which leads to a hot tag by Martel, who is really one of the best at those. The finish rules as Garea is being removed from the ring, and Martel goes to the top for a cross-body win. However, Fuji tosses some salt into his eyes, Saito rolls him up, and the referee turns around to count the pin for the new Tag Team Champions!

Rating: Fun/10

Some post-credit scenes hype up future Coliseum Home Video tapes.

Final Thoughts

This tape had two matches for my spreadsheet, which is pretty damn good. The bad stuff was mostly clipped, and there was some cool old footage here. You really can’t complain about this tape.

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