a toast to naitch.

Understand, whenever you are calling some young lass “damaged goods,” it’s because The Nature Boy explained the true meaning of that word. It’s his laugh, that taunting point, the knowing WHOO! and the feeling that your new lady is somebody else’s old lady. She rode Space Mountain and it went All Night Long.

the king is dead.

long live the king?

down with the king.

hopefully, that establishes my ethos (with a lil’ bit of pathos), now, on to the list (w/a side of logos)…

honorable mention (team) – midnight express.
the midnight express was just like the rock ‘n’ roll express, except, of course, better. from the veg-o-matic to the rocket launcher, the midnight express had a vast array of tag team maneuvers with great names. also, because of their sexy man-candy gimmicks, you can bet they got the bestest of older worn-out-my-favorite-band-is-touring-on-the-other-side-of-the-country trim when out on the road.

listen to KRS rock over their classic theme music.

[Click through to site to listen to the song]

honorable mention (move) – double stomp/cop killa.
low ki (loki, get it?) decided to change his ringname to senshi. that’s stupid. homicide, on the other hand, has been able to keep his ringname although he was forced to rename his version of the kudo driver to “the gringo killer.” although this move is spectacular (yes!) these two are no longer a team and i’ve never seen them in a match, so, since it’s my list, it doesn’t crack the top five.

5. spike piledriver.
before assorted indie drivers, powerbombs and even before the ddt — the piledriver was the scariest thing ever. not only did you have a sweat drenched malesack in a banana hammock against the back of your exposed neck, chances are, you were about to headbutt the concrete. after that thing that happened to that dude’s neck, the E basically outlawed the use of all variations of the piledriver, so generations of children won’t be able to understand the truly vicious nature of taking a spike piledriver. instead they are forced to live in a world where a ELEVATED FIREMAN’S CARRY is a legit no-kickout finisher.

fun fact: buffy the vampire’s character spike was named after this move. that’s why he’s so fuckin’ hardcore.

4. event omega. (the hardyz)
jumping from opposite ringposts is one of the coolest things you can ever do as a tag team. in fact, it may be the coolest thing you can do. i always tried something like this when i used my g.i.joes to wrestle. the hardyz have gone on to become somewhat of a sensation, but, when they had the tie dye gear w/the stupid headbands, seeing these guys pull this off on a saturday morn was one of the most totally radical moments a “kid” could have.

3. total elimination. (the eliminators)
outside of the questionable ring attire, the eliminators were one of my favorite parts of the old ecw. a couple of guys willing to brawl around the arena w/the likes of the gangstas and the pitbulls, but w/the technical skill to mix it up w/rey misterio, rob van dam & sabu. before kronus turned into a tub of goo & saturn started his short-lived crimefigting career, the total elimination was a beautiful display of violence.

2. double dropkick. (the rock ‘n’ roll express)
ricky & robert, or as heenan would say, “mickey mouse morton & donald duck gibson” dressed like teenage girls at a debbie gibson mall appearance. it was if someone shredded a trapper-keeper, grabbed some zubaz patterns and took still shots of an acid dream — blended it w/some of the sweetest rock-mullets ever and added a bandanna (or 10) to make the mound of AWESOME into a couple sentient beings. to put it in current context, it was like taking a M.I.A. album cover, creating a wiki to build upon the legend of the color clash then watching those zeros and ones come to life. as a slender likkle yout man dem, i empathized w/ricky & robert. robert, unhandsome and not.blonde would spend the majority of his time outside the ring watching his partner take a beasting from russians, horsemen & leather dandies.

but, of course, eventually ricky would make that desperate leap or dive roll to his corner so robert could enter, “a house on fire,” throwing punches, back body drops and single dropkicks. robert would typically catch a bit of the beating as ricky zero-min-recovered to join the fray and then, out of nowhere, the double dropkick.

1. the doomsday device. (the road warriors)
what countless top XX lists have showed me is that, despite personal preferences, their are certain inarguable facts in this world that you must accept. the road warriors (legion of doom, L.O.D. 2000) are the greatest tag team to ever sport a pair of spiked pads. that is the entry point for any tag team wrestling discussion. the road warriors were so great that a knockoff like demolition could still get rated like one of the best tag teams in history. that’s like greedy genius getting a sneaker design award.

Darsow “explains” his Swagger Jacking

i have never seen anyone kick out of the doomsday device when performed by the road warriors. now, maybe LOD 2000 or Animal & Heidenreich allowed a punk to kickout at some point in time, but I never saw that either, and like brokeback, will never watch any footage, even if it does exist.

we all know that wrestling has predetermined outcomes (read: fake) but anybody that’s taken a knife edge chop or allowed themselves to be on the receiving end of a figure four leglock can tell you that their is some real pain (read: ouch) involved. nothing illustrates how devastating a maneuver is (potentially) than by watching it performed by untrained idiots w/little to no parental supervision.

it is that “real” threat of pain that makes any wrestling move credible. coupled with the in match results — the doomsday device is the best tag team finisher ever.

cognitive dissonance explained.
cognitive dissonance in action.

it’s interesting to see how people (publicly) deal with information as it becomes available. it’s almost like seeing the actual wheels inside people’s minds turn to formulate the next thought. cognitive dissonance is one of those things i new existed before i had a psycho.jargon term to latch onto.

personally? i’m puting off “dealing” w/how i feel about the whole thing until i get all the details. my intial thought, like some of those linked to above was “what in the fuckin fuck!” but this “wait for the details thing” is good shit. coping through analysis — it’s like skipping directly to stage 5.