There's something I've been wanting to experiment with here on Work/Shoot. Usually I do a general sweep of recent events in WWE, ROH, or New Japan, just giving my two cents on current angles and match-ups, but I'd like to--maybe once a week or once every two weeks--dive into a single match for a little analysis.
Now don't expect total play-by-play; there's people out there like John Canton and R.D. Reynolds who do that stuff better than I ever could. What I'd like to do is "autopsy" an older match every now and then and see what worked and what didn't. For this inaugural edition, I picked a pretty basic squash match featuring an established star of the time and a future WWE Hall of Famer.
(It's also the first match on the first disc of the Shawn Michaels: My Journey DVD set.)
It's 1985. George Gray, better known as the One Man Gang, is plowing through jobbers and other "enhancement talent" in the now-defunct World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW). Nowadays, WCCW is known mostly for the rise of the Fabulous Freebirds and the tragic story of the Von Erich family, but back then it was your WWE equivalent if you lived down here in Texas. One Man Gang is your classic "big man" style worker. He's a mean spirited, impatient heel whose rage ban barely be contained within a 20' x 20' wrestling ring.
On the other end of the beat down is a very young white meat babyface named Sean Michaels. This is before the Rockers, before Brutus Beefcake's Barber Shop, before D-Generation X, before all of that. He's almost a nobody here; a ham-and-egger paying his dues on his back. When exactly he switched from Sean to "Shawn" is a mystery for another day . . .
The ring announcer here cracks me up. He puts over One Man Gang as an unpredictable loon and seems legitimately frightened while introducing him, a splash of realism that's missing from today's ring announcers. How Lilian Garcia can introduce sadists like Kane and Bray Wyatt without batting an eyelash is beyond me. Moreover, he almost sounds sympathetic in his intro for young Sean Michaels, adding to the aura surrounding OMG. The announcer's behavior is a boon to the match, giving the whole affair an underground "fight club" feel.
Right from the bell, OMG is on Sean like a wild bear protecting her cubs. His offense isn't anything flashy, but when you're the size of a truck it doesn't have to be. Sean is in full "sell mode" here, bouncing off of OMG like a tennis ball off a brick wall. Sean hardly has time to breathe between beatings, and soon finds himself rolling out of the ring to take five and regroup.
The impromptu time out doesn't do jack squat for poor Sean. As soon as he manages to get back in the ring, OMG has returned him to canvas face first, getting a quick and easy one-two-three and securing a victory.
The brief moment Sean spends outside the ring catching his breath serves a purpose. The crowd is given a moment to see OMG for the force of destruction he is, and as the worried Sean tries to pick his spot to reenter the ring, the sounds of fearful women and young fans gasping at the power of OMG only adds to his mystique. This moment is more important than the match itself. It keeps this from being the usual squash, and generates the idea that OMG is not only a dominating force, but also capable of inspiring fear and doubt in his opponents.
With his mohawk and decorative chains, OMG looks like a Mad Max or Warriors extra. His sheer girth and "country strong" physique makes him look less like the shredded, glistening MMA guys we have now and more like a legit bad dude you might actually run into in a biker bar. There aren't enough of these body types in wrestling anymore. There used to be more . . . I dunno . . . street tough-ish looking characters.
Everyone's too damn pretty now.
For what it is (and it isn't much), this is a successful match. The crowd really feels for Shawn as he takes this lickin', and One Man Gang walks out looking like a contender for any title he decides he wants to get his hands on. It's a small slice of WCCW goodness, and very "old school" in its presentation.
Thanks for reading! Next time I'll pick a match with a little more meat on its bones, so I can really dig in, but thanks for joining me on the experiment regardless. Shout at me on Twitter (@ChrisBComics) or drop me a line (backissuechris@gmail.com).
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