The Best of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=82 BGCOLOR="#006699" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>whacked Out wrestling (wOw)</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="whacked Out wrestling (wOw)"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <B>The Best of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=210 BGCOLOR="#FFCC66" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <IMG SRC="119c4cb0.jpg" border=0 width="196" height="203" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=398 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>The Best of Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff</I></div> <div> A little backstory: </div> <div> In 1990, Herb Abrams started his own independent wrestling federation and stole its name, The Universal Wrestling Federation, from Bill Watts' much beloved late '80s Mid South territory. The talent Abrams had was incredible--a young Cactus Jack, Bam Bam Bigelow, Steve Williams, Bob Orton, Jimmy Snuka, etc. However, the booking on the shows was horrid (as you'll see in a minute) and the fed today has a very infamous reputation among wrestling fans. Foley writes about him in his first book, HAVE A NICE DAY, and describes that Abrams was a man who had bright dreams of making it big in wrestling. Not having the talent to do that on his own, he bought a fed and making himself the star of the promotion, despite not even being an active wrestler! Sadly, Abrams died of a massive heart attack years back.</div> <bR> <div> The tape starts with...nothing. You know how some videos have white lines for a second or two before the presentation? Here, those lines last for five minutes. I seriously thought I had purchased a blank tape.</div> <bR> <div> Our commentators are Abrams (who sounds like a slightly less-hyper and far less cool Joey Styles) and Bruno Sammartino.</div> <bR> <div> Spitball Patterson vs. Paul Orndorff. Spitball is some jobber with a gut. Orndorff starts with an armbar, Spitball bails. Loser. Spitball bitches about Orndoff grabbing his hair, leading to some more stalling. Spitball traps Orndorff in a headlock, then doesn't release. Spitball works on Orndorff with blows and hammers, and that's the end of his offense. A crossbody from Orndorff gets two. Spitball bails after an elbowdrop. Orndorff works the neck and delivers a side suplex for two. An elbow off the top and piledriver finishes us off. Totally uninteresting, mundane squash match. ¼*   Steve Williams attacks Orndorff after the match with a chair, leading to a bladejob. Ya know, it's pretty sad when it takes one chair shot for Orndorff to go down, but about four for the ref to.</div> <bR> <div> Orndorff goes off in a pre-taped promo about rulebreaking or something like that and gets jumped by Dr. Death.</div> <bR> <div> Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Paul Orndorff. The two brawl to begin. Williams misses a turnbuckle charge and Orndorff rolls him up for two. A sunset flip from Orndorff gets two. Williams works Orndorff's leg and delivers a boot to the face to get two. The abdominal stretch follows. Williams hits a lowblow right in front of the ref, but the decision is not even as much as questioned. A pin attempt after a bearhug from Williams gets two. Orndorff claps his hands to escape (noticably not making contact with Williams' ears) and returns the lowblow. A brawl spills to the outside, where Williams gets introduced to the table and choked out by cables. The ref counts both men out, and, after the bell Orndorff ducks a stool shot against the ringpost. That was dissapointing, to say the least. *</div> <bR> <div> Cowboy Bob Orton vs. Paul Orndorff. The two lock up to start and Orton wins an overhead wristlock. Orndorff hits an armbar, then trades armdrags with Orton. Backslide from Orton gets two. A bit of stalling follows. Orndorff suplexes out of a bearhug and Orton calls for time. More stalling, as the fans start a "Wonderful" chant. Maybe this was the last match of a show and they were chanting, "Wonderful, it's almost over." Orton delivers a few punches to the face, then a sequence of kicks to knock Orndorff out of the ring. Elbow to the neck on the outside of the ring apron from Orton, who gets a mixed reaction. There are only about two or three cheers, which shows how big and loud the audience was to actually have it seem like a mixed reaction. Orton tries working the arm, but Orndorff returns with some slugs and a pair of elbows. Orton gets shoved to the outisde, then makes it back to seven...but Orndorff knocks him off, and the ref counts him out anyway. Yet another horrible ending to another weak match. This is the type of stuff I'd expect from a Billy Gunn match. *¾</div> <bR> <div> More stupid promos in which Orndorff claims he invented rulebreaking or something like that.</div> <div> Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Paul Orndorff. The audience is significantly empty here. I mean, there are ROWS of empty seats with a few business-type people in front. Anywho, standard stuff to start, Orndorff hits a Thesz Press and clotheslines both men outsie the ring on to a fancy carpet. Willaims is introudced to the steel ringpost, and I'm wondering when the time will expire. Orndorff grabs an unopened umbrella and clocks Williams with it. Williams blades, and Orndorff adds more damage by continuing to bust his head open. Orndorff is really in heel mode here. Bulldog connects, but Williams comes back. The two go outside again and the dumbass ref knocks over the security rope (similar to the ones banks use). Williams staggers after a series of headbutts and falls backwards, taking out the security rope as well. This is looking more and more like an episode of AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS than a wrestling match. Double ax handle connects with Orndorff. Williams slugs the ref, drawing the DQ. *¾ for the bladejob. The locker room runs into separate the two, but has no luck doing so. In fact, I think more time was spent with the post-match shenanigans than with the actual match itself.</div> <div> Abrams shills for other UWF Home Videos, then rips off the '80s WWF promo ("The UWF...What The Universe Is Watching").</div> <bR> <div> In Final: Future bookers, take notice--this is the exact way NOT to book a show. Four matches, one a squash, two countouts and a DQ. I mean, how hard is it to book matches between Williams/Orndorff? Simply tell them to go out there, beat the fuck out of each other, let them do their thing outside the ring, tell the ref not to bother counting them out, have Williams go over in the first match, set up a rematch, have Orndorff go over. Then trade jobs in each additional match. This isn't sophisticated booking here, it's more common sense...open-ended booking may help solve a situation in which jobbing will hurt either guys' heat (Austin vs. Rikishi from WWF NO MERCY 2000 would be an example, in which Austin was returning after an injury and Rikishi had been freshly turned heel), but neither guys' heat would be hurt from one doing to the job. It's stupid booking maneuvers as seen in this video that led to the UWF never making it above the indie status.</div> <bR> <div> Booking aside, match duration was slightly longer than RAW and quality was similar to a match from the midcard involving Billy Gunn. Thumbs down.</div> <bR> <div> "I tried so hard and got so far, in the end, it doesn't even matter."--Linkin Park</div> <bR> <div> Reach Chris B at horrorofpizza@yahoo.com</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>