Stampede Classics Vol. IV Page 2
For those who keep e-mailing about it, Netcop Busts is not a rant,
it’s a tape that I made several years ago that compiled the worst
stuff I had ever seen in wrestling. The source tape literally fell apart
in 1999 after more than 300 copyings and I haven’t offered it since. I
understand that bootleg copies actually got really popular and you can
probably find a copy from a tape trader if you look hard enough, but
I’m no longer fielding inquiries about that sort of thing. Anyway,
Morgan bounces off Ness’ bulk like an asteroid sucked into the gravitational
field of Jupiter a few times before Ness literally falls on him and gets
the knockout win at 1:16. DUD
- And now, it’s time for everyone’s favorite part of any novelty
compilation…MIDGET MADNESS!
- Animal Manson & The San Francisco Kid v. Steve Logan & Coconut
Willie. Logan & Manson are random normal-sized jobbers. The Kid
piledrives Willie and bites away. Manson and Logan go next, and Logan
gets a monkey flip for two. The midgets get back in and Willie gets a
rolling cradle for two. The heels collide and Willie pins MANSON at
3:32. Okay, that was cute. DUD
- Tiger Jackson & Sky Low Low v. Little Beaver & Sonny Boy.
Sonny Boy moves Sky into his corner, but gets smacked accidentally by
Little Beaver. Tiger Jackson (later to gain worldwide fame and dignity
as Dink The Clown) gets a bodypress for two. Crowd chants “We want
Beaver!” and knowing Calgary it’s probably the animal they’re
talking about. Sonny Boy catapults Jackson into the turnbuckles, but it
takes two separate tries to get him that far. Sky comes in and Beaver
splashes him for the pin at 2:33. I don’t rate midget matches.
- Abdullah the Butcher v. Jerry Morrow. Butcher tosses him and won’t
let him back in, as he keeps knocking him off the apron. In fact, he
goes right through the announce table on one shot. Morrow is dead on the
floor and Bret Hart leaves the color position to tell him to stay down,
but Butcher drags him back in for the elbowdrop…which gets two.
Butcher punches the ref for the DQ at 5:21. Man there’s some bad
finishes on this tape. DUD
- Helmet match: Jim Neidhart v. Iron Mike Sharpe. This is early in
Neidhart’s career, as he was clean-shaven and sporting a full head of
hair. Both are wearing football helmets, because in Neidhart’s fantasy
world he was on the Oakland Raiders. Sharpe headbutts him, and Neidhart
responds. Neither does any damage, because they’re wearing helmets,
duh. JR Foley finally throws salt at Neidhart, and while the ref is
distracted Sharpe pulls off Jim’s helmet and delivers one more
headbutt for the pin at 1:44. The streak of bad matches lives. DUD
- But now the tape is saved! In 1988, even as the promotion was dying,
booker Bruce Hart nearly managed to create the one angle that might have
given it another burst of life if fate hadn’t intervened. Needing a
new monster heel, he found huge-but-unknown Karl Moffat and stuck him in
a pair of white coveralls and gave him a hockey mask as the entire range
of his character, naming him Jason the Terrible after Friday the 13th.
Then, in the brilliant part, he took WWF jobber Barry “O” Orton and
turned him into a whacked-out masked manager called “The Zodiak” who
prayed to the Almighty Luke and used a voice-distortion box to do all
the talking. All of their promos were shot over a moving starfield and
then filtered so the colors were reversed. On the first one shown here,
Jason spends the whole interview growling in the background, before
getting so excited at the prospect of beating up Mr. Hito that he
attacks the cameraman with his ever-present axe until Zodiak makes him
calm down and pray for forgiveness from Luke on the spot. To say these
guys got a cult following would be a drastic understatement – Jason
got so over as a monster heel (in fact one that established the exact
template from which Kane was created 10 years later – hell, Jason was
so scary that even Mr. Hito started wearing boots for the first time in
about 10 years) that he was turned face a few months later and probably
would have taken his act to the WWF if Davey Boy Smith hadn’t nearly
killed him in a car wreck soon after. Moffat’s leg was shattered and
his career was essentially ended. Zodiak became unneeded and lost a mask
v. mask match against Jason, revealing Barry Orton, at which point Ed
Whalen completed the burial by noting that he didn’t recognize him.
His identity was later confirmed on TV, which leads me to a story from
three years later, as the WWF did one of those incredibly boring 5-hour
Superstars tapings here in Edmonton to build up for Summerslam 91. Barry
O returned to the WWF as a jobber there, doing a job against some lame-o
midcard babyface, and I forget which one. I think it was either Virgil
or Greg Valentine. Anyway, the babyface gets their usual middling
reaction, but when Barry O is introduced the place goes NUTS and
everyone starts chanting “Zodiak! Zodiak!” until poor Barry has
trouble keeping a straight face. I don’t think that match ever made it
to the air. Anyway, there’s been a ton of people playing the fearsome
Jason character since Stampede, but none of them had the panache that
Karl Moffat did with it. I think that it was because he had black wrist
tape and painted a white “J” on each one. I dunno why, but for
someone as essentially crazy as Jason the Terrible to take the time to
do that always struck me as really neat.
- Jason the Terrible v. Hiro Hase. Jason pounds the crap out of Hase and
goes up for four flying headbutts with the hockey mask, picking up Hase
after each one before the ref finally does a mercifully-fast count on
the fourth one to prevent him from picking Hase up again at 2:04. DUD
- The Zodiak v. Chris Benoit. JIP as Benoit fights out of a headlock,
but Zodiak goes up and gets crotched. Superplex gets two. Benoit goes up
but hits knee. Zodiak tries a suplex, which is reversed. Blind charge
misses, and Benoit fights back. Gutwrench gets two. Snap suplex gets
two. Backslide gets two. Dropkick misses, but Benoit reverses a DDT into
a northern lights suplex for two. He stomps a mudhole, but Zodiak loads
up the mask and gets the cheap win at 4:26. **1/4
- And it’s more Jason & Zodiak promo awesomeness, as they have
words for the Hart Family. Zodiak threatens to “discombobulate” Owen
Hart, because LUKE IS ANGRY! These things have to be seen to be truly
appreciated for the works of art they were.
- Owen Hart v. Jason the Terrible. This match was HUGE when it finally
happened, and they ended up getting about 4 rematches out of it after
Jason had spent a couple of months plowing through the entire promotion
one-by-one. Why the WWF can’t figure this simple formula out anymore
is beyond me. Owen gets a kneedrop for two. Butterfly suplex and owen
goes up for a flying stomp and a kneedrop, but Zodiak distracts him long
enough for Jason to nail him from behind. Headbutt gets two. Owen gets a
crucifix for such a close two that everyone in the building thought it
was the finish. Jason gets a powerslam and goes up, but Owen superplexes
him for two. Back up for Owen with a Bombs Away, and Owen suplexes him
right out of the ring! Great bump from Jason. They keep fighting for the
double countout at 3:29. More matches were to come before Owen finally
triumphed. **
The Bottom Line:
A truly, truly HORRIBLE tape filled with bad gimmick matches and worse
finishes that is redeemed at the end by the genius of Zodiak &
Jason. If you’ve never seen them, drop some acid and check out their
promos, but otherwise this tape is a total pass.