After a brief anniversary break comes a reminder that, while some of the wrestling moments that stuck with me were highly emotional, such as the last one from this very WrestleMania, many others I remember for being silly.
Very few moments reached the heights of silly that this "blindfold match" did, and that includes the build up.
Let's start with the participants:
I may have mentioned...
repeatedly...
how much I hated Rick Martel back then, due to his and Tito Santana's amazing acting jobs when he turned heel, and left his partner to be battered by the Brain Busters.
Part of the reason for this was his heel turn involved an entirely new persona which he jumped into with verve and gusto...The Model.
He wore sunglasses, a bow tie, and (the peak of fashion) a polyester blazer, often in pastel colors. Just in case his outfit and new attitude weren't clear enough, (since this was the time of in your face of cartoony gimmicks) he often wore a giant button that said, "I am a model."
Subtlety- not a priority in professional wrestling.
He also developed his own fragrance called (what else?) Arrogance.
Because back in the fun times of wrestling, they still played to the arena more than the cameras, (reducing subtlety further) Arrogance came not in a perfume bottle, or even a fancy Gorgeous George style atomizer.
No, it came in a Looney Tunes looking bug spray dispenser.
This made it not only a festive character piece, but a handy foreign object in and out the ring, whether used for smiting or spraying.
He retained his strength and athleticism, making him a dangerous opponent, with a believable submission hold of a finisher, the Boston Crab.
One opponent who found himself on the receiving end of the Arrogance spray was Jake "the Snake" Roberts.
His persona remained a constant.
Quiet and sinister on the microphone, he was always creepy. He walked methodically to the ring with an ever present sack over his shoulder.
His wrestling style was also methodical, peppered with explosive moments where he'd strike...
Like a snake!
Get it?
(Again...subtlety, not a priority.)
He'd end matches with one of my all time favorite finishers- the DDT.
I liked it because it could be spontaneous, without elaborate, dance like set ups.
And it looked like something that could knock a man unconscious.
Jake would grab the opponent in a front facelock.
(That's a headlock where the guy is facing the other way, putting the opponent's head under Jake's arm.) Sometimes it would come out of nowhere, sometimes Jake would spin a finger to announce its arrival against a confused or injured opponent.
Then Jake would tap the back of the poor clod's head, and sit/ fall over backwards, driving the thusly locked face of his foe into the ground.
(Legend says the first use of this move by Jake, the man who named it, was due to an accidental fall backwards. Who am I to argue with a fun story like that?)
The DDT would inevitably render the other wrestler immobile. Following its application, to either cheers or boos (depending on if the crowd was supposed to like him that week) Jake would pull Damien, his huge python, out of the sack and let him slither over his unconscious opponent. Many wrestlers, particularly those with non-Kayfabe snake phobias, would regain their senses in record time and beat a hasty retreat from the ring.
"The End."
My personal favorite was "Damien's Dinner Time."
On one of many "talk shows" they used to frame promos, (in this case the Brother Love Show) "The Model" Martel sprayed "The Snake" Roberts in the face with his flit dispenser of Arrogance and BLINDED HIM!!!
Kayfabe breaking aside-Jake went out of his way to sell his injury, wearing uncomfortable white contact lenses for promos he cut afterwards.
Unlike most physical based professions where blindness might be an impediment, a retribution match would go forward at WrestleMania VII.
In order for the match to be fair, the obvious solution was both men would be blindfolded.
Why Jake needed to be blindfolded when he was already blinded,
and why a heel who was open and honest about cheating would want the match to be fair
are left as questions for the ages.
They hyped it up endlessly before the big day. Blind Jake would fumble onto camera and quietly, but sinisterly talk of retribution. Martel, more boisterous, would somehow both come off as a jerk, and someone who was honorable about the evenly blind match.
When it was go time, they both had a black sack over their heads.
Kayfabe breaking aside- Which you could kind of see through, even from the outside.
But never mind that now.
Then, in a meeting shown on countless highlight reels, the two men spent eight and a half minutes wandering around the ring, occasionally bumping into each other forwards and backwards, while being directed around by the enthusiastic cheers and commands of sixteen thousand wrestling fans, thrilled to be part of the action.
And miraculously (although not really noted on that day) Jake's blindness.
When I finally got to see the whole thing on disc, it surpassed my ridiculousness expectations.
Really, the glorious silliness of that age was the biggest draw for me.
Rick Martel continued as "The Model" eventually feuding with "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels in a battle of the "pretty boys." They fought over Sensational Sherri (Martel...no relation). It culminated in 1992's SummerSlam with a "not in the face" match, as they were both SOOO good looking.
That went about as well as one would expect, with the two of them "accidentally" both hitting each other in the face and knocking Sherri out and then repeatedly dropping her as they battled over who would carry her to the locker room...leading to an eventual double count out.
Yes, silliness reigned quite a while in the WWF and it was glorious.
(Kayfabe, involving a motor and hamburger meat.
No animals were hurt for real...
People sustained life long mental and physical injuries, however.)
After that Jake turned heel for "reasons" but as usual had no changes to his style, attitude, wrestling moves or finisher, introducing "Lucifer" Damien's "big brother." He then had a series of bouts with
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