Date: April 14th, 2004
Location: Rexhall Place, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Match: Randy Orton (Intercontinental Champion) vs. Cactus Jack (Challenger)
Background: Mick Foley is a man of many faces. During his tenure in the WWF/E from 1996-2008, the self-proclaimed "hardcore legend" treated fans to a multitude of different characters that each embodied a portion of Foley's real life personality.
Mankind, Foley's first gimmick (1) in the WWF/E, was tortured soul who enjoyed pain, physically abused himself and others, all while wearing a Hannibal Lecter style mask that was meant to convey the character's fractured self-view. Ostracized as a child for being fat and unpopular, especially to members of the opposite sex, Mankind represented Foley's self-view during his formative years while growing up in Setauket, NY, a small town on the North Shore of Long Island.
Dude Love, Foley's second character, was the opposite of Mankind. A character he invented as a teenager while attending Ward Melville High School, Dude Love was a late 60's sex, drugs, and rock n' roll hippie that was the embodiment of cool and a man who always, always, got the ladies.
The last and final character, and the one that is represented in this week's match selection, is Cactus Jack. A hardcore, sadistic outlaw from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico who would stop at nothing from defeating his opponents in the ring, even if it meant the use of various weapons which usually ended up in self-mutilation.
Foley actually debuted the Cactus Jack character on the independent circuit in the mid-1980's and in Ted Turner's WCW from 1991-1994, however, it wasn't until 1997 that the WWF/E audience caught a glimpse of this version of Foley. A version that would be used sporadically over the course of the next 11 years until Foley's departure from the company in 2008.
This match took place in 2004 and features one of the WWE's rising stars at the time, Randy Orton. A third generation superstar and the son of "Cowboy" Bob Orton, Randy needed that one big feud (2) that would make him a legitimate superstar for years to come. It's a time honored tradition in the wrestling business that older established stars, preferably champions, put over (3) younger wrestlers in order to give the younger talent the rub (4) they need. Oddly, Orton is the Intercontinental Champion in this match, however, winning a lower-tiered title doesn't mean your a star these days. If I remember correctly, Randy didn't beat the best competition on his way to the title. He was a heel (5) at this point and it makes sense that a heel wrestler would lie, cheat and steal his way to a title as...you know...bad guys do those sort of things.
Anyway, Vince McMahon called on Mick Foley to come out of semi-retirement for this match in the hopes that Randy would get that much needed boost by beating the hardcore legend in a match that was stacked against him.
With all that said, here....we....go.
Workrate: Wow, what can I say, let's throw workrate right out of the equation here as a sound technical wrestling match this was not. But it wasn't supposed to be. This was supposed to be a disgusting, sadistic hardcore match fashioned after the famous "King of the Deathmatch" tournaments from Japan during the mid-90's which used props such as barbed-wire, tables, trash cans, fire and C4 explosives. Yes, you read that right, actual C4 explosives. And who was the 1995 "King of the Deathmatch" you ask? That's right - Cactus Jack himself.
The first portion of the match takes place mostly outside the ring, a normal occurrence in hardcore matches, where Randy repeatedly hits Cactus with various weapons. We even get the now famous, "back suplex onto the steel ramp" which Foley always ended up taking during his WWF/E matches that had no stipulations. Yes, folks, that's his actual head hitting the ramp and, no, he didn't put his hand up. Now I know what you're going to say. Wrestlers fake these moves by placing their hand up and hitting the ramp or the mat to make an elaborate sound thereby creating the illusion that the impact was real. Yes, this is true for most wrestlers. But not Mick Foley. Mick literally made a career of taking actual hits in the ring because he believed that the more real things got, the better his performance would be in the eyes of the fans and his peers. Whether that makes him an idiot or a genius, I still haven't figured out.
The match continues and we get some truly awful images of a barbed-wire bat being raked across Randy Orton's forehead. Again, folks, contrary to popular belief, there are no "blood capsules" in professional wrestling. The way they bleed from the head is an art form known as "blading." The way it works is that a wrestler has a small razor blade inserted into the tape around one of his/her wrists. When he or she is hit with an object or a stiff punch that in reality would cause someone to open up via a wound, said wrestler puts his hands around his head, cradles into the fetal position to ensure the cameras have no view, removes the razor blade and cuts their forehead multiple times horizontally. The wounds are skin deep, but because of the amount of blood vessels in the forehead, the bleeding is much more pronounced even though the wound is not very serious. They take it a step further by holding their breath and breathing out through the nose so the blood comes out faster.
As the match progresses, we get several horrific sequences where Cactus ends up being embedded in a table full of barbed-wire and an even more amazing spot where Randy gets impaled onto a bed of thumb tacks. Seeing the thumb tacks sticking out of Randy's back as he gets up in a state of shock is enough to make even the most hardcore of fans a bit squeamish. Some more outside the ring brawling ensues and Cactus even hits his famous flying elbow off the rampway onto a stack of tables as Orton is helpless to get out of the way.
Crowd Involvement: I love Canada. I really do. These people know their wrestling. Some of the greatest crowds, minus the Bret Hart match I reviewed last week, have been in Canada.
Let me digress for a minute and give you my top 3 Canadian crowds:
3) Edmonton, Alberta: Not just because their featured in this match. Prior to the horrific events of June 2007, Chris Benoit was Edmonton's favorite son. I can remember watching an episode of RAW back in 2004 where Chris returned to his hometown as WWE Champion and the crowd giving him a several minute ovation. It's too bad Chris became a monster, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include this great town on the list.
2) Toronto, Ontario: Site of multiple Wrestlemania's and the crowd that turned Hogan vs The Rock from Wrestlemania 18 into my all-time favorite match. These people literally changed the landscape of the WWF/E in 2002 by their reaction to Hulk Hogan.
1) Montreal, Quebec: Outside of New York, NY and MSG, this is BY FAR the greatest wrestling city/crowd in North America. In fact, they might be better. Sorry brethren. The reaction they gave Hogan on RAW after WM 18 and their continued persecution of Vince McMahon, Earl Hebner and Shawn Michaels 10+ years after the Montrea Screwjob is nothing short of epic. Did I mention you can use both hands at Montreal strip clubs? That alone is enough in my book to own the number one spot on this list.
Okay, I'm back. What was I writing about? Oh yeah, strip clubs. So you can use both hands and the dancers take you back to this room and then they proceed to.......wait........that wasn't it. Oh right! Crowd involvement. Okay, well, the crowd was great here. They chanted the obligatory, "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit" chant when they should have and made the match that much more entertaining with their knowledge.
Finish: Made total sense and accomplished what Vince set out to do. Randy beats Cactus clean with multiple RKO's (Orton's finishing maneuver) and the story ends up being that the young kid took all of Cactus's abuse and best shots in match he owns and beat him. No better way to establish a rising superstar than that.
Footnotes:
1) Gimmick: a wrestler's character or persona
2) Fued: a storyline/dispute between two wrestlers that normally ends up in a match
3) Over: In this case, allow another wrestler to win a match/beat you4) Rub: The benefits a wrestler gets from the fans after beating another wrestler
5) Heel: badguy
WWE Backlash 2004 - Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley - No Holds Barred
WWE Information MySpace Video
No comments:
Post a Comment