We are finally treated to an episode of TNT featuring Andre The Giant aka “the most extraordinary athlete in the world” as Vince McMahon will tell us repeatedly throughout this sixth episode of the show.
Lord Alfred Hayes continues to play his sidekick role well, even if his over-analytical descriptions of wrestlers is starting to feel overdone. Like a shape-shifting reptilian, however, McMahon continues to move from the stiff suit we saw in the first episode to the instigator-heel who annoys the wrestlers with his leading questions, bullies Hayes while making Hayes laugh about it, but still walks the line of informed talk show host.
It’s clear this is McMahon’s show, and the wrestlers are just here to get him over.
The show opens with Tiger Chung Lee, a wrestler whose name was probably the best thing about him. Lee talks about how he learned Tae Kwon Do growing up in Korea and uses the martial art as a form of defense. It’s Lee vs. a very young looking Steve Lombardi. Lee throws plenty of karate chops and kicks and wins with a sharpshooter submission that Mean Gene Okerlund called an “inverted Indian deathlock.”
Back in the TNT studios, McMahon is acting like a frat boy urging one of his buddies to take another shot of alcohol hoping to see him pass out. Only, instead of Jaegermeister, its’ gimmicked boards that McMahon dares Lee to break. McMahon first asks Lee to break a “solid brick” that looks anything but. Lee then moves on to “solid oak” boards that look anything but. Lee breaks one, but McMahon’s not impressed. He asks Lee to break two boards. Done.
McMahon is still not impressed. McMahon asks Lee to break three boards, and Lee is starting to get upset.
McMahon notes that Lee’s hand is bleeding from his chops to the brick and boards. Lee screamed at McMahon to be quiet. (“I am concentrating!”) Lee screams, breaks three boards, and McMahon is finally impressed. But, he’s not done causing trouble. He asks Lee about Mr. Fuji and whether “a rift” had developed between the two.
To illustrate his point, McMahon takes us to the Philadelphia Spectrum and a match between Fuji and Okerlund against The Wild Samoans. At one point, Lee is getting beaten up in the ring by Afa when Fuji came in and delivered a kick from behind to Afa’s back. This led to Okerlund’s most memorable comment:
“Reminiscent of Dec. 7, 1941, coming in from the blindside.”
That’s just how they called it in those days.
Fuji eventually turns on Lee for some reason that is never explained other than an attempt to turn Lee into a face. In the TNT studios, McMahon asked Lee if he would ever reconcile with Fuji and Lee instead says that Fuji humiliated him and he wants to challenge him and pin him in the middle of the ring. Lee was never really a big star in the WWE, although it appears, in the early days at least, that he was groomed for a push.
In a change to the format, McMahon takes us to a “feature match” between B. Brian Blair vs. “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff.
What a match. It’s amazing what a good bit of wrestling can do to remind you why you like wrestling. Blair looked jacked more so than I could remember. Orndorff looked great and Gorilla Monsoon let us know (“Look at that body!”).
Gary Michael Kapetta is the ring announcer. Orndorff plays a great heel, stalling before the match opens. He takes great care of his robe and Monsoon remarks that it is a “$3,000 ring robe.” It’s a great match with some headlocks and armbars that would make Randy Orton jealous. Monsoon on Orndorff: “It is his destiny to be a champion here in the World Wrestling Federation. In the near future. “Mr. Wonderful” will be carrying some kind of gold. You can bet on it.”
Uh, not really. Thanks, Hulk.
The Philadelphia crew isn’t chanting “This is awesome,” but they would be if this match was taking place in 2017. Orndorff pinned him with a small package after a lot of back-and-forth spots.
In the studio, Hayes is complaining that referee Dick Woerhle was a bit slow with a three count in Blair’s favor. Hayes acknowledges that it’s difficult to be a referee, but that he looks for “perfection” in everything. Snob. And then for the first time in history, McMahon sends us to a match to watch the referee. It’s Woerhle officiating a match between George “The Animal” Steele vs. Steve Lombardi…again.
Boy, was Steele freaky. He played the role of crazy man perfectly and the way the fans were looking at him was priceless. Steele really came across as a scary character. Steele finished Lombardi quickly with a chicken wing. After the match, Steele hits Woerhle with a foreign object and sends him flying into the ropes.
It’s fascinating to see an interview with a referee. I have seen this guy hundreds of times over the years, so it’s nice to see the man behind the three count. Woerhle was one of the refs who was a familiar face over the years, and who made wrestling seem more important. He was older and brought a sense of dignity and class to the matches.
What’s great about TNT is that McMahon really invited some of these old timers to be part of the product. Clearly, McMahon is still feeling connected to his father and the product of old. Whether it’s Lou Thesz or Red Bastein, McMahon really treats these legends well, dropping much of his antagonistic gimmick and trying as much as he can to have a regular conversation.
Woerhle wasn’t too exciting, but did say he did his best to see everything in a match, but that if he disqualified everyone who cheated, “we wouldn’t have a match out there.” Woerhle said angry fans have chased him down alleys and some people have come after him with chains and bottles.
Up next is SD “Special Delivery” Jones, who has now appeared in five of the first six episodes of the show. News flash: Not only did Jones TALK on this episode, but he also WON A MATCH. I though Jones had lost every match he ever had. Jones talks softly, fully embracing his Antigua heritage, saying he can’t wait to return to the beautiful island because everyone there is waiting for him to come home. In the ring, Jones takes on some fat guy with a beard, who is never identified on film. Jones left his seat to play the drums with five band members, implied to be from Antigua, as part of the entertainment for the episode.
After the commercial break, McMahon promises to visit the old days with Tony Altamore.
I had never heard of this guy before. Here’s another example of McMahon possibly trying to honor his father by giving the old-timers some attention. It turns out that Altamore use to team with Capt. Lou Albano, forming a successful tag team called The Sicilians.
Not much there, but he did talk about Albano and how he at one time was a great tag team partner, but that he got lazy and left tag team wrestling to manager wrestler — and manage their money. The greatest part of this segment was a photo McMahon showed of Altamore and Albano together. Albano is practically unrecognizable, he’s so thin.
McMahon says up next: “The most extraordinary athlete of all-time: Andre The Giant.”
Before Andre comes out, Hayes comes out wearing Andre’s jacket. The plaid jacket droops over Hayes, who is still playing the role of bumbling stooge. McMahon talks about how Andre is “the most extraordinary athlete of all time.”
First, we get to see Andre in the ring against somebody only described as “Smirnov.” Andre looks just ridiculous. His hair is enormous, looking wilder than both The Wild Samoans put together. He is wearing red wrestling tights and yellow boots and wins with a boot to the face (a terrible one, that barely connects) and than a sitdown on the chest (equally terrible). Andre made Earthquake look like Lou Thesz with this splash of sorts.
McMahon unknowingly hints at WrestleMania 3, three years before it would happen, when he reminds us that Andre is undefeated, “however, I would suspect that the undefeated streak won’ last forever. Andre, of course, was not undefeated. He had lost to several other people, including Hulk Hogan, in matches not aired on television, prior to his undefeated gimmick.
Andre comes out and stands next to Hayes to show us how tall he is.
After taking a seat, he puts his hand over Hayes’ face much to McMahon’s glee, saying Hayes never looked so good. Andre’s fingers must have been thicker than three Magic Markers put together. If he wanted to hurt Hayes here he could have. Instead, he laughed.
McMahon tells Andre that “it is a pleasure to finally have you on TNT.”
Andre tells him he’s been on a lot of television shows and movies from The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and The Merv Griffin Show to The Fall Guy and BJ & The Bear. Hayes asked Andre what he thought of Big John Studd, and Andre sounded uninterested. He asked Hayes how big Andre was and Hayes replied, “365 pounds”. Andre replied, “That puts him in Sky Low Low class,” referring to the legendary midget wrestler.
Andre is really happy in this segment, laughing, affable and charming. He’s nothing like the angry man I remember in the buildup to the Mania 3 match with Hogan. Andre is in such a good mood that he volunteers to hang out with Jones’ band and sing. Andre heads over to the band and tells them to slow it down.
He calls out a woman from the studio to hold the microphone and Andre doesn’t sing. Instead he makes fish faces, and flaps his arms like he’s swimming. (See, acting like giant fish didn’t kill Andre, so people should stop complaining about Goldberg having to wear that blonde wig in the WWE.)
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The show wraps up with the introduction of Ugandan Giant Kamala who beats his belly like a crazy man. Kamala comes to the ring with his manager Freddie Blassie and his handler Friday. Kamala takes on another jobber in Jose Luis Rivera. Kamala wins after two splashes to the back and Rivera gets no offense.
The show ends with McMahon promising Crusher Blackwell will appear next week.
*****
This episode was clearly an insider’s episode. TNT offered an enlightening perspective of personalities who are an important part of wrestling history, even if they weren’t big stars. What continues to be great is that the show allows these guys to become stars, whether they win matches or not. We see them away from the squared circle as somewhat regular people. The authenticity is high and the humor is real. Although the show, of course, is scripted, there’s also enough free-form to make the show suspenseful and at times riveting.