Behind The Match:Old School

[King Kamala 0]

Welcome to the first edition of Behind The Match:Old School. Today, we'll be looking back at one of the worst matches on one of the worst WWF shows of all time. We're talking about The Undertaker Vs Giant Gonzalez from WrestleMania IX.

 

The story behind this match begins at The 1993 Royal Rumble when Giant Gonzalez made his "surprise" debut attacking The Undertaker and eliminating The Undertaker. IIRC, Giant Gonzalez was brought in by Harvey Whippleman as revenge for 'Taker squashing Kamala at SummerSlam '92 and Survivor Series '92 (Remembering that makes me glad we never saw a Gonzalez-Kamala bout *shudders*).. Though they had a string of rematches, their match on wrestling's biggest stage is considered by most to be their worst and possibly one of the worst matches in WWF history. After their feud ended, The Undertaker was saddled with a string of lame opponents (Yokozuna, Fake Taker, Yoko again, King Kong Bundy, Kama, Mabel) that threatened to replace Gonzalez as the worst opponent of Taker's career. Luckily for Taker, the streak ended when Mankind arrived in the WWF and 'Taker enjoyed a career renaissance. Strangely enough, 'Taker has remained in the upper-echelon of the WWF ever since. Meanwhile, Gonzalez went on to do a forgettable face turn and have an even more forgettable aborted feud with Whippleman's new protege Adam Bomb. Shortly after, Giant Gonzalez retired to his native Argentina where he lives today, allegedly bound to a wheelchair.

 

For those who haven't had the distinct pleasure of seeing it, here's the match;

Part One

Part Two

 

 

 

Some Questions to Consider

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history?

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents?

[CanadianChris 0]

That match is definitely the worst match in WrestleMania history, and probably the worst non-gimmick match in WWF/E history. All time, it's certainly up there. Hogan/Warrior from Halloween Havoc would give it some competition, as would the Kennel from Hell match and the casket match from Royal Rumble 94, but it's definitely in the conversation.

 

El Gigante/Giant Gonzalez is unquestionably the worst wrestler I've ever seen in my 20+ years watching wrestling. When people talk about how good Ric Flair was, that's how BAD this guy was. Think of Andre the Giant's absolute lowest point physically, then take away all of Andre's charisma and ring presence, and you have El Gigante. To call him a stiff would be an insult to stiffs. Nathan Jones and The Great Khali could only dream of being this bad.

 

As for the Undertaker, I'd say he's one of the better big men ever. He can have excellent matches with talented opponents without necessarily needing to be carried, but he has trouble actually carrying a match. It's helped that he's gotten better opponents, yes, but I think a lot of it is how his character has evolved over the years. When he first debuted, he was billed as a guy who was indestructible, and it's really hard to book matches with guys who are supposed to be impossible to beat. So, you have to give him bigger and bigger opponents to make it seem even remotely possible that he could be beat. (Remember, it took ten guys to stuff him in the casket at Royal Rumble 94!) Because of that, he looks worse than he really is, because he's having matches with guys who just don't have any talent besides being huge. Also, because he was the face, he generally had to sell a lot, which wasn't his strong suit, and the talentless heels got in lots of offence, which didn't help the match quality either.

 

As he's evolved -- and I see the feud with Mankind as being the real turning point -- he's been made to seem more mortal, which means that he can go into the ring with a Shawn Michaels or a Bret Hart and the fans could actually buy him getting beat. Presto! He seems better because he's able to step in the ring with smaller, and generally more talented, opponents, and can show what he can do more, which makes him a better wrestler.

[Guest]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history? In pro wrestling history?

 

Yes, I would. It's one of the 20 worst. Is it as bad as some make it out to be, though? No, not really. Unfortunately, I have seen worse from better workers, which quite honestly, scares me.

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

Worst. Have you seen his selling? I'd be afraid to let the guy give me a bodyslam. Everything about him was the worst. He had the worst manager, the worst music, he was slow, his costume was the worst, hair was the worst, beard was the worst, punches were the worst...seriously, why did people waste their fuckin' time with this guy?

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents?

 

Both. At his worst, he was one of the worst five wrestlers in the WWF, without a doubt. Usually, the other guy he was facing was the worst, or the second worst. Now, you can't really say that's the case. He's been putting on good PPV matches at a semi-regular basis, but when you put him in there with a slug like Mark Henry, the matches are shit. Is that entirely his fault, no. There aren't many guys who can (could ever) drag a good match out of someone like that, and most of the guys that can aren't currently employed by the WWE, or in wrestling condition. I've always liked Taker, though. When I was a kid, he could do no wrong.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

El Gigante was awesome in WCW.

[King Cucaracha 0]

As discussed somewhere else, Gonzalez is honestly a better wrestler than Khali is. So he's not the worst ever, at least.

[King Kamala 0]

Nah, I don't agree with that at all. Taker's matches with Khali are better than his matches with Gonzalez. Saying that is kind of like saying I'd rather have my chest waxed than my balls though. But honestly, for what it was, the Last Man Standing match between 'Taker and Khali on Smackdown! a couple years back wasn't all that bad for what it was.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Not the worst match in history, not even in Wrestlemania history. Mr. T/Roddy Piper from Wrestlemania IX takes that honor. This was just a bad, boring, plodding match. It didn't expose the business, and there was not really a point where the match fell apart. That's what makes a match transcendingly bad in my book.

[Diamonddust 0]

I'll take Khali over El Gigante/Giant Gonzalez any day of the week because at least Khali has bulk to go with his height. Gonzalez was nothing but a lanky ex-basketball player with no mass.

[Jingus 0]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history? In pro wrestling history?

Absolutely not. Having seen hundreds of horrific indy matches between undertrained amateurs, lots of people who only watch Big Time Rasslin are seriously spoiled and have no idea what they're talking about when they say "worst match ever". Hell, I wouldn't even say this is the worst match that these two guys had (the Summerslam rematch was way longer and more boring), or even the worst match Taker has had at Wrestlemania (the one with Bundy at XI was just fucking terrible).

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

Pretty damn bad, but better than the Great Khali. Seriously. Here's a long essay I wrote at The Pit on the subject:

Okay, I have just murdered the past three hours of my life for the purposes of this discussion, watching nothing but Giant Khali and Gigante Gonzalez matches. My conclusions:

 

1. The two men did have some similarities in their work. Both of them tend to take their bumps in the same general manner. Their stomps look identical (and horrible).

 

2. Khali is incredibly uncoordinated and clumsy. Just look at the guy walk around the ring: his feet are constantly pointed in different directions, even when he's trying to walk in a straight line. He often seems to stumble when performing his moves, and sometimes it seems like he's always just a couple of inches from tripping and falling down. His striking ability with his hands is very inconsistent; sometimes his punches are Hogan-like in their laughable phoniness, and sometimes he looks like Vader stiffing the shit out of people. His application of the Tree Slam often looks downright dangerous, with his opponents commonly seeming to hit the back of their heads on the mat from the way he throws it. (In his RFVideo shoot interview, Eugene complained about how hard it was to take that move and how much it hurt.) Worst of all are his "headbutts", which are possibly even worse than Andre's, never coming anywhere near his opponent and always obviously whiffing.

 

3. Gonzalez on the other hand moves much more fluidly and more like a regular guy. He walks around with perfectly normal speed and dexterity, and remember that he is actually four inches taller than Khali and really shouldn't be the more agile of the two. He also uses a two-handed choke toss similar to the Tree Slam, and it looks much safer than Khali's version. He's got less of a moveset, but in 1993 WWF almost everyone had less of a moveset.

 

4. Khali never shows any emotion whatsoever. His facial expression NEVER changes. He rarely sells or even registers his opponent's offense. And WAY too often he does that pussy shit where he instinctively tries to block their strikes like it's a shootfight. It's not a gimmick, he even does this when he's clearly supposed to be getting hit cleanly. He's just a big baby and doesn't like getting hit. This is the kind of mistake that first-day trainees commonly make, but it's shockingly unprofessional coming from a Former World Champion who's been wrestling for twelve years. He's one of the least naturally talented performers in the entire company.

 

5. Gonzalez actually SELLS when someone hits him. Sometimes he overdoes it in a somewhat theatrical manner, but selling too much is always preferable to not selling enough. He shows emotions, shows different facial expressions, and generally acts like a human being and not a big robot.

 

6. Despite all this, Khali does tend to have better matches. I do not, however, credit Khali himself with that at all. He has a much better range of opponents than Gonzalez did, and has been booked much better. Khali cleanly pins world champions; Gonzalez routinely sucked up DQ losses to midcarders and rarely beat anyone but jobbers. Khali also has the advantage of a far superior support network of agents and writers who can painstakingly script his matches move-by-move in order to stretch his limited value to the breaking point.

 

7. Gonzalez had shitty matches. He was working in a shitty era, with a shitty gimmick, and had shitty opponents, so this is not surprising. I can't help but wonder what it might've been like if he'd been born fifteen years later, because after watching all these matches it's pretty obvious that he's the more athletically talented of the two.

 

8. Khali clearly has a much better steroid hookup than Gonzalez did. A better wardrobe designer also doesn't hurt.

 

 

In conclusion, Khali does admittedly have the superior body of work, but Gonzalez was overall a more talented performer.

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents?

Both. When guys like Yokozuna and Kamala are your best longterm opponents, that's pretty goddamn bad. Plus, no matter how fond people are of the original zombie gimmick and the urn and everything, they tend to forget that being a slow-moving, no-selling robot made a lot of his matches just terrible. No jokes about "what's changed?", please, go back and watch, Taker used to move a hell of a lot slower and sell a hell of a lot less.

[cabbageboy 0]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history?

Nah, it's really just typical early UT stuff. It's certainly not a good match but if it was just on a Raw or Superstars from back then no one would care about it. It's not like there were wildly missed spots or anything.

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

He's pretty bad, but not really much different than a bunch of other 7 ft. tall stiffs over the years. As noted if he had a better array of opponents and booking then maybe he wouldn't be perceived as such a waste.

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents?

 

Certainly both. UT never really had any sort of decent opponents until Mankind showed up and made him work, thus taking away the zombie aspect and making him a more rounded wrestler. I think UT was always pretty good but his gimmick and opponents didn't really add up to many good matches pre 1996.

[King Kamala 0]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history? There's really no way to tell what is the worst pro wrestling match in history given the hundreds of shitty obscure indy and regional promotions but even so, I doubt it was the worst match in history. In WWF history? It's certainly Top 10 but at the same time, The Undertaker has had comparably bad matches with Gonzalez and other assorted hosses.

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time? Again like the first one I can't really say but he's certainly the worst I've ever seen. I'm not sure if I've ever seen him pull off an actual wrestling move other than a rather poorly done chokeslam on some 200 pound jobbers. Just terrible. The best I can say about him at least he had different facial expressions unlike Khali even if only had three (awkward smiling as a babyface, the vaguely menacing look he had, and the look he had where he was selling where he sorta looked like he was being sodomized)

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents? Both, but probably moreso the latter than the former. Like King said, the Undertaker is still capable of an absolutely shitty match given the wrong opponent. In his first five or so years in the WWF, he was given almost nothing but the wrong opponents. The zombie gimmick as many stated certainly didn't help. But 'Taker was always capable of decent matches. Heck, he had a surprisingly good match with Luger at a WCW PPV as Mean Mark Calloway before his WWF days. I will say though that since MMA started having an influence on his style in '02ish, his workrates has kicked up a notch.

[spman 0]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history?

 

Hmm, worst Wrestlemania match of all time, maybe, but I would argue that there have been worse WWF matches overall. Some other really terrible matches to consider though include Dusty Rhodes and Sapphire vs Macho Man and Sherri at Wrestlemania 6, Undertaker vs Yokozuna at Royal Rumble 1994, Jerry Lawler vs Roddy Piper at King of the Ring 1994, Undertaker vs Undertaker at Summerslam 1994, Diesel vs Mable from Summerslam 1995, Warrior vs Goldust from that In Your House PPV where Goldust stalls for the entire match, and of course the infamous mixed tag on RAW with Jacky Gayda. That's just off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are far more, but I would say just about all of those were worse than Gonzalez vs Undertaker. Hell, I watched a fancam once of an Undertaker vs Nailz match at a house show that made the Gonzalez matches look like Flair vs Steamboat in comparison.

 

As far as all time worst including all possible promotions and gimmicks, I don't think anything ever in our lifetime will come close to topping the Doomsday Cage at Uncensored 1996. The idea was stupid, the match was abysmal, the rules were illogical and inconsistent, and it was just a complete and utter mess. The match was so bad that it effectively killed Hulkamania for good until the Nostolgia trip in 2002. Hogan like to argue that turning heel was his idea to reinvent his career and his character, but conveniently forgets that this match single handedly killed any remaining appeal he had with the fans as a babyface. He had no option other then the heel turn, otherwise he would have been done.

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

 

Gonzalez was bad, no doubt, but I can't really fault him for it. The man was damn near 8 feet tall, so he was obviously going to have limited mobility, and his ability to bump was almost non-existent. However despite his crappiness, both his runs in WCW and WWF were fairly short and it's not like the guy was ever pushed as a main event threat. I am much more offended by guys like Sid Vicious, Lex Luger, Scott Steiner, and other guys who got consistent pushes in the main event despite having little to no talent, and refusing th make even the slightest bit of effort to improve.

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents?

 

I am conflicted here, I've always dug the Undertakers character, but up until about 2002 I would have definitely included him on the list above with the people I consider to be the worst workers of all time. Somehow though as he got older, he seemed to improve. I however am not so convinced that The Undertaker improved so much as everyone else around him improved. He was no longer working with talentless slugs like Mable, Yokozuna, Gonzalez, and others. I've never seen Undertaker as a workhorse, he's always just been a consistent worker who can be carried to a good or even great match when he's working with the right opponent.

[cabbageboy 0]

Any talk of UT being one of the worst workers of all time should have been gone by 1998. After 2 years of having some actual decent opponents you could see he was capable of solid work.

 

Call me crazy but I kinda like UT vs. Yokozuna from RR 94. It is hilariously over the top and unforgettable, got more heel heat on Yoko for winning with 9 jobbers helping him, and made you want to see UT come back and kick his ass.

[Angle-plex 0]

Savage was awful on commentary here as well. Bad match. Gonzalez was HUGE though....what a big guy. I can see why promoters would want him as a side attraction.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

One of my favorite moments of Gonzalez's relatively short WWF run was a battle royal on Monday Night RAW where Randy Savage was the last entrant, and came off the top rope with a double axehandle onto the big man, then led everyone in the ring as they tossed him over the top rope.

[majormayhem1 0]

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history?

 

No. In fact, I thought they told a good story. This was one of the better matches on the card. The Giant takes out the Undertaker with the chloroform-soaked rag. The Undertaker seemingly rises from the dead, returns to the ring, and sets up the rematch for SummerSlam. The match (and the entire purpose) serves its purpose of building the mystique of "the dead man".

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

 

His work in WWF was much improved over his run in WCW. The WWF used him the right way. Devastating the competition at the 1993 Royal Rumble, the aformentioned Raw battle royal, a few squash matches on Superstars, and then in the big pay-per-views. Giants like Gonzalez and Khali get a lot of grief for having limited mobility. But, I don't think it's their place in wrestling to be doing moonsaults. Yes, the Giant Gonzalez gimmick was bad. However, you can only the blame the creator for that.

 

 

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

Welcome to the first edition of Behind The Match:Old School.

 

Cool shit. I'm diggin' these new topic series some of ya'll are doing.

 

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Some Questions to Consider

 

1. Would you say this is one of the worst matches in WWF history?In pro wrestling history?

 

I dunno, Ive seen some terrible matches in my day. This match was fucked beyond al means, but it still has that (nostalgic) charm of Taker taking on this man-beast at WM. I didn't know he was El Gigante as a kid, and I thought his muscle suit was really some kind of fucked up skin. Then, years later I watched the match while tripping acid, and it was craaaazy... Best match ever! if you'd asked me that night. man...

 

2. In a similar vein, where would you rank Giant Gonzalez among the worst pro wrestlers of all time?

 

El Gigante was cool in WCW when he was just muscle for Sting and his boys. Otherwise, yeah he's in the top 15, maybe.

 

3. In the past decade, do you think The Undertaker has dramatically improved or do you think he was just hindered in the early to mid 90s by a string of bad opponents? [/b]

 

Both. Mean Mark Callous wasn't great, but he still moved around and sold a little bit. The original Taker character was zombified, so it means that dude was playing his character all out because he was a scary mofucker as a kid.

 

On the other hand, once the Attitude Era set in, Taker started uping his game. He got in shape, got his cardio up and improved his speed. The bikertaker phase, he played the mind games, old school shit. So he was slower here, but not enough to fuck up his matches.

 

Then, once he went back to being the Dead Man, he stepped his game up for real. He's gotten at least one good match out of everybody he's worked with since then, give or take a few. Plus, dude seems to be in the best physical conditioning of his career. He can go all out, doing shit someone his size and age really shouldn't be able to pull off. His flexiblity and willingness to take moves has improved greatly over the years. His rise from the dead comebacks are usually timed better then they were back in the day.

 

So yeah, Mean Mark Callous to The Undertaker, I've always thought he had skills.