The Way I C It 01.07.08: Smooth Moves: The Tag Teams

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 01.07.2008

An RoH rant to back up all the others, and the much-requested tag team edition of Smooth Moves! With guest host Scott Hall Daniel Wilcox!

Greetings Humanity! It's the first The Way I C It of the year, and it's a big one! The holiday decorations are down, we've already seen an early match of the year candidate in Michaels – Kennedy, and by the time you read this it's likely we will have seen a second with both Kim-Kong (see what I did there) and Angle-Cage being able to pull the house down. That said, this week did not provide much for me to C, so we'll launch straight into the feedback, plus a little on the Way I C RoH. HAJIME!

The Way U C Me

when the ECW Orginals met in a Fatal-4-Way on ECW (i dont remember when) Dreamer gave RVD a sick looking piledriver that RVD sold as if he died. Also, SAbu breaking the table with his head on the ECW after 'Mania was sick as well.

Posted By: tim (Guest) on December 31, 2007 at 02:07 PM

The table bump was nice, yea. Thing about Sabu is that he is so hit-and-miss. He goes for some wild spots and when they come off they look incredible, but the majority of the time they don't come off, especially these days, and he ends up looking goofy. As for RVD, he is a selling GOD. Too bad his forearms and punches look so weak.

you just pushed the guys you liked

Posted By: Myles (Guest) on December 31, 2007 at 02:55 PM

Just to show I don't mind negative criticism. Especially when it's wrong. I don't like Lashley, and I have him winning the title. I love CM Punk and I have him doing nothing.

"CM Punk will flounder in the midcard all year, and I will cry. Shelton will take the ECW title from him, and Punk will end up being in every #1 Contender multi-person match of the year (Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank, Beat the Clock, etc.), where he will come close and lose each time." I thought that was Tommy Dreamer's job?

Posted By: MC42 (Guest) on December 31, 2007 at 03:48 PM

I don't see Dreamer staying active for much longer. Besides, I think Punk will take Dreamer's bridesmaid act one step further, even losing out in multi-brand contender matches. Punk is not being allowed to use his big strengths, that being mic work and high-impact moves, and his character is suffering for it. He really needs to be the smarmy, cocky heel who thinks he's better than everyone because he's clean as a whistle. I don't buy that WWE should have ridden him to the title in the Signature Scandal days, it was too soon, but if they do decide to elevate him, they need to turn him heel and have him go this route. We live in hope.

Lashley will be the first black man to hold the WWE title, and he will do so in 2008. ----i guess booker t is not black enough for you.

Posted By: justine (Guest) on December 31, 2007 at 09:21 PM

Booker won the World Heavyweight Title, not the WWE Title.

Posted By: Ricky (Guest) on December 31, 2007 at 09:51 PM

Thanks Ricky! This really grinds my gears, that no black man has ever held the WWE title. We've had Samoans, Latinos and Canadians, but never a black man.

Wasn't it D'Lo Brown who was doing the "european champion from a different country each week" gimmick?

Posted By: Samer (Guest) on January 01, 2008 at 02:24 PM

He did it originally, yes, but Al Snow took it a step further and came out with his theme music changed to suit the country. He even had "Head" translated into the appropriate language. He'd come down with a picture of a "famous" person from the country in question: Tony Danza for Italy, and Hong Kong Phooey for Hong Kong. Yes, Al relocated Hong Kong.

Ha! I remember the Al Snow, euro champ thing. I remember one week he was representing Transylvania and came out dressed like Vlad Dracula with a box of Count Chocula and I think Head had fangs. I still crack up at that visual.

Posted By: rashid (Guest) on January 02, 2008 at 12:01 AM

WHY DO I NOT REMEMBER THIS!? That would rule in so many ways. By email, D-Nick X has more info on the Emerald Flowsion/Northern Lights Bomb issue:

Hello Chris, I´m writing again to tell you that I have made a mistake, because a Northern Lights Bomb its a Scoop Brainbuster, not a Scoop DDT like I have said. And that in a way you were right on what you said about the Northern Lights Bomb and the Emerald Frosion.
The difference between a Northern Lights Bomb and an Emerald Frosion, is that on the Emerald Frosion the attacking wrestler flips the the receiver to his side, driving him to the mat neck and shoulder first, like in a Powerslam.
And in the Northern Lights Bomb, the receiving wrestler is held upside down, and then he is dropped to the side or back of the attacking wrestler head first, like in a Brainbuster. This happens mostly in Japan (weird, no?).
But there is a variation of the Northern Lights Bomb, I think its the one Al Snow used in WWF, were the wrestler is droppped neck and shoulder first, like in an Emerald Frosion. I think that Snow used the Northern Lights Bomb that way because of the WWF banned moves policy.
And here is were the confusion apperars.
This differences would be more apparent with some clips, and sorry for not providing them to you.
Well that´s all, keep up with the great work and I´ll will be looking forward to your next column.
Regards
D-Nick X
PS: here is the link I supossely sent to you:



Here you can see a top rope Vertebraker by Drake Younger to the Necro Butcher onto a chair. It´s on the 2:40 minute mark.

There are some sick, sick spots in that match. Sick. I'm not a fan of hardcore matches just for the sake of hardcore, but even discounting that there's still some nice stuff here. That superplex was insane. As for the comparison between the moves, you're pretty much spot-on, and there's nothing I can add either way.

The Way I C RoH

Before I get started, I recommend that EVERYONE who is a fan of Ring of Honor reads Ari's excellent rant against smarks. When I watched Nigel's promo on the Video Wire - the same Nigel that RoH fans have been clamouring for months, if not years, to win the big one – I almost went through my monitor and back in time to the Manhattan centre with a glock and a slapjack. Hey RoH fans...are you off your meds? The man got hurt entertaining you. He risks his life and well-being every time he steps in the ring to please you. When Bryan Danielson got hurt and missed time, did you boo him? No. Samoa Joe? No. Why Nigel?

Anyway, due to finances, release schedules, postage and timeconstraints, I normally watch my RoH several months behind. As a result, I barely contribute to the RoH round tables because I don't read the spoilers. I am currently watching Manhattan Mayhem II and have some thoughts about the few shows before it.

As much as I love The Briscoes, and as good as their matches with Steenerico were, by the time Manhattan Mayhem rolled around, I was fed up with watching them go at it. Gabe tried to freshen it up with gimmick matches and singles matches, but it still seemed old. Hopefully Man Up and the ladder match will fix that for me.

Watching Morishima – Danielson at MM II, you can see how badly that eye injury was bothering him. Takes a ton of guts to carry on in those circumstances, but you have to wonder if the brains are inversely proportional...

Mike Quackenbush really needs to be in RoH more, just so he can win a few. Danielson – Quackenbush was good, but it would be better if Quack had been elevated to a point just below AmDrag. They won't do that while he's a prt-timer.

I must be the only writer on this site who likes the Blade/Edwards tag team.

Jack Evans – flippy moves are fun, but learn to throw a forearm first.

I LOVE Chris Hero. The most over heel in the company since Jimmy Rave. He will be in Orlando or Stamford before much longer, and you can take that to the bank.

That's pretty much The Way I C Things this week, so let us move on to:

Smooth Moves – The Tag Team Edition

Some of the most awe-inspiring and devastating moves in wrestling history have been performed by tag teams. In recent years, the double-team move has become something of a lost art in mainstream feds, as the art of tag team wrestling has died slowly over the last 15 years. As teams like the Legion of Doom, Demolition, the Hart Foundation, and soon the Steiners and Dudleys have bowed out of the limelight, very few REAL tag teams, who work together and are actually billed as a team, have emerged to take over the mantle. In smaller feds like Ring of Honor, tag team wrestling still enjoys an elevated place on the card, and as a result the double-team moves are more frequent and more polished.

Of course, no discussion of tag team moves can be done solo! That would be like one person holding the tag team belts! Imagine something so ludicrous as, say Samoa Joe or Kurt Angle holding tag team gold on…oh wait. Well, Russo isn't booking this column, so allow me to introduce my partner…Scott Hall!

Scott Hall: I'm sick, ese. Can't make it.

Well, looks like the food poisoning strikes again! Well, in his place, I have his non-union English equivalent. He is the Commissioner of Desire Championship Wrestling, and has more than a hundred photos of Maria stuck to his walls, funnily enough without any visible adhesive. The man, the legend: D-Dub, Daniel Wilcox!

D-Dub: *Tosses toothpick* …Hey, yo! It's nice to see that my status as a legend has finally been recognized. I'd like to thank Chris for inviting me to help out with the column today, as I'm big fan of tag team wrestling and it's a damn shame that neither TNA nor WWE has anything close to a decent division right now (though John Morrison and The Miz are amazing). So it was good to go back and look at some double team moves that remind me of how fun tag wrestling used to be.

Lansdellicious: Maybe we should move to Orlando and call ourselves the New Bulldogs, D-Dub and Lansdellicious, and dominate the universe. Or something. I think TNA has more of a tag division than WWE has had in some time, and you have NO IDEA how much it hurts me to admit to that. So, D-Dub, what do you have for us?

D-Dub: The first double-team move that springs to mind as one of my favourites is the Double Superkick. Long-time fans will know that this move was popularized by The Rockers, Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels, but I first came across it when X-Pac and Justin Credible used it in 2001. I've always loved the superkick; it's quick, it's impactful and it looks like it hurts like a hell, especially if they can get a really good sound out of it. So naturally, a double superkick is going to be twice as nice! Now unfortunately, my search of youtube has found zero results of this move being performed by either The Rockers or X-Factor, which is a shame. I guess it just goes to show how underappreciated it is. I'd love to see a team utilize today; Paul London and Brian Kendrick or The Motor City Machineguns would be a perfect fit for this kind of move.

Lansdellicious: Wow, what an excellent first choice, and one which had not even occurred to me. The Stereo Superkick is a simple, effective move that almost anyone with a shred of flexibility can perform. In fact, as both Greasers can perform the move, I'd go so far as to say that they could use this. Better than the Crack in the Mouth, which really rankles with me. I hate it when tag teams use an individual move as a finisher, it smacks of no preparation. The Stereo Super Kick, when each person hits it from the opposite side thus crushing the opponent's head between two thrusting boots, is definitely worthy of this column.

D-Dub: Double-team move number two is one that has probably one more tag team championships than any other. I am of course talking about Bubba-Ray and D-Von's secret weapon – The 3D. For those not in the know, 3D stands for Dudley Death Drop. The move involves Tag Partner A (D-Von) deliver a flapjack on the opponent while Tag Partner B (Bubba) delivers a cutter on the same opponent at the same time. The move has captured tag team championships in ECW, WCW, WWE, TNA and HUSTLE. The 3D was no-doubt originated during The Dudleys' time spent in ECW in the nineties and they've taken the move with them wherever they went, but what you probably don't known is that the move was invented by Dean Malenko*. I guess it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise considering he is the man of 1000 holds. Not quite 1004 though, is it Dean? As well as the devastating 3D, Bubba and D-Von also utilize the 3D-B. In this variation D-Von will deliver a back suplex while Bubba simultaneously hits a neckbreaker on the unfortunate opponent. While not usually used as a finishing manoeuvre, this is still a great double team move that The Dudleyz have put their stamp on.

*Upon further research, it would seem that Dean Malenko also invented the Crippler Crossface. If the media stories that Chris Benoit used the move during the crimes of June last year, then that's gotta suck for Dean.


The Dudleyz (as Team 3D) performing the 3D on Chris Harris

Lansdellicious: There is also a lesser-known 3D-C, or Dudley Doomsday Device, which we shall get to later, I'm sure. Any discussion of tag team moves HAS to include the Dudleys, simply because they are one of the top 3 tag teams of the last 15 years, along with the Steiners and LoD. I didn't know Malenko invented it though, I always presumed Nova did...

D-Dub: So far I've looked at one striking double-team (the double superkick) and one grapple double-team (the 3-D) so now I'm going to look at some aerial antics of the double-team variation. One of the coolest looking visuals in wrestling for me, was Matt and Jeff Hardy performing Event Omega at WrestleMania 2000 from the top of two ladders. Event Omega, otherwise known as Falling Fate, sees the opponent downed on the canvas while the two tag partners ascend opposite turnbuckles. One partner performs a leg drop while the other performs a splash. While The Hardyz popularized this move in early 2000, variations had been used much earlier in ECW, most notably by Rob Van Dam and Sabu. What's great about this move is that it uses the fact that you have two guys to do as much damage as possible to an opponent – one guy crushes the opponents' ribs with a splash while the other attempts to cave his head in with a leg drop. Recently, The Motor City Machines Guns have been using a variation on the move where Sabin delivers a bulldog to his own partner from the top rope in order to perform the leg drop/splash combination.


Matt and Jeff Hardy perform Event Omega at around 30 seconds
Lansdellicious: Rockers, Dudleys and Hardy Boyz...how can you go wrong? The timing is what really makes this move great. Too many teams have attempted it and it ends up looking like two separate moves instead of one big kersplat. Wow, my spell check accepted kersplat, who knew? I have only seen the MCMG version once, and they hit it a bit off-centre, but the Hardyz have it down.

HOT TAG!!!!!

D-Dub: Now hold on one minute, how come I was the guy playing Ricky Morton face-in-peril? You're a bad host! Continue…

Lansdellicious: You should feel lucky, the only way Bayani "tags" his co-hosts is from behind.

We would be remiss if we had a discussion of great tag team moves if we did not include the one and only Doomsday Device. Itself a variant of the Hart Attack clothesline, it was pioneered by the Road Warriors/Legion of Doom from very early in their career. Animal would place the victim on his shoulders, Hawk would climb to the tob and fly off with a lariat. At the point of contact, Animal would launch the victim off his shoulders and backwards, making for a very nasty-looking impact. The move itself is not hard to pull off, except for timing, but it looks like a million bucks. It's also dangerous as all get out: anytime you throw someone blind, you run the risk of a bad landing. In a match against the Godwins, LoD hit the Doomsday Device on Henry Godwin, legit breaking his neck when Godwin under-rotated on the landing and fell on his head. This lead to a farily intense feud between the teams when Henry returned, including a strap match and a career vs titles match. Finding a YouTube that was not 8 minutes long proved challenging.

There have been numerous variants on the Device over the years, proof that it is viewed as one of the iconic finishers in tag team wrestling. The Dudleys used a version where Bubba Ray falls backward with the victim instead of throwing him, making it safer. RoH darlings the Briscoes use a springboard version, which just looks nicer. This clip is short, and is missing the fact that Mark actually makes a running leap to the top first, but it will do:



Other variantsd include the Steiner Dog, with Rick hitting a bulldog from the top off Scott's shoulders, and the Shining Impact, as performed by Keiji "Great Muta" Mutoh and Bob Sapp. The Shining Impact is basically the same as other variants, with a Shining Wizard replacing the clothesline.

D-Dub: You know what my favourite use of the Doomsday Device was? When Christy Hemme nailed it on Melina, that was hot. But it's undoubtedly a great move and arguably the most recognizable double-team move in the business. Of course, no one ever did or ever could perform as well as The Road Warriors did, but it is certainly a move that any duo can pull off. I must admit that I did enjoy The Dudleys' version but then I guess that's just because that was probably the first version I saw which makes me wish I'd got into wrestling in the early nineties.

Lansdellicious: Another move which would have to be considered iconic in tag team wrestling is the Total Elimination. First seen in US wrestling in ECW, it was performed best by Kronus and Saturn, the Eliminators. It consists of a spinning heel kick and back leg trip executed at the same time. Like the majority of the move in this list. It's the combination of two relatively simple moves made to look twice as nasty due to excellent timing. That said, I never used to like the move when I first saw it, and I always asked myself why it was a finisher. A transition move and a freaking leg sweep? Then when I looked harder at it and realised that the body is being pushed in opposite directions simultaneously...



Recently, we've seen the Motor City Machine Guns hit it, and I believe a WWE team used it too. D-Dub?

D-Dub: I'm trying to think of that WWE team you mentioned; I definitely remember someone doing it but I'm not sure who. The likely candidates are Shannon Moore and Jimmy Wang Yang. Regardless, another great move here because it is pretty much unavoidable and devastating as long as the timing is right.

Lansdellicious: The last move for this week's edition is the nastiest one of the lot, the Ghetto Stomp/Cop Killa combo. Combining simple moves with good timing, as we have seen, results in nastiness. Combining NASTY moves with good timing results in, well, me marking liek leetle gurl. For those puzzling over what this move is, it involves Attacker A (Homicide in this case) getting the victim in position for the vertebreaker/cop killa/KudomeValentine, and Attacker B (Low Ki) coming off the top rope with a double stomp to the opponent's exposed groinal regions. At the point of contact from attacker B, attacker A drops to the matt to execute the vertebreaker. A video is worth a thousand Holy Shits:



D-Dub: That was the first time I've seen that done… holy shit. That is just wrong on so many levels but funny as hell, in a perverse, twisted sort of way. There really is nothing I can add to that, the video speaks volumes.

Lansdellicious: Well ladies and gentlemen, that's game set and match for another week. I would very much like to do a second part of this column, as there are so many moves we just didn't have time/space for this week. Feel free to let me know what you'd like to see in part 2. Who knows, it might just be next week. I'd like to thank D-Dub, Daniel Wilcox, for lending his expertise and passion for tag team wrestling to this week's column, and we hope to see him back again soon.

D-Dub: I'd be down for another week of this any time. Thanks for allowing me to participate! For more on tag team wrestling and more specifically the current state of tag team wrestling in the mainstream, I would advise readers to join me for Thoughts From The Top Rope tomorrow…

Lansdellicious: And I'd be glad to echo that sentiment. Now, I'll tag you in again for the pinfall, that make you happy? Okay boys and girls, until next week....

Lansdellicious – Out. SURIMATE!