The Samoans spend most of the match outside the ring walking around, which you’d think would cause some sort of dive but Jannetty is in no mood to earn his money tonight. Jannetty goes blatantly low behind the referee’s back. Dutch starts correcting Rosenbloom a few minutes in and then starts talking all over him because he’s useless. Seriously now, couldn’t they afford a decent PBP guy? I know Solie wasn’t available but come on.
The faces hit a bunch of dropkicks and clear the ring out. Yeah, let’s get our priorities right here. Jannetty dislodges that piece of advertising in the early going so someone comes out to stand it up. How’d they get 2000 people to watch this? Oh and if you were interested the casino we’re in is Casino Magic (1-800-5MAGIC5). This instantly feels like a cheap ass Indy show. Dutch reminds us how old everyone is out here. Adams is some bush league manager who delivers a LONG cookie cutter promo pre-match. Fatu isn’t Rikishi but rather the Samoan Savage, Sam Fatu. Then the production guys put Marty Jannetty’s name up as the SST come out here. Ok, first up the announcer reads a horrible “tonight someone’s getting their ass whooped in here tonight” introduction before flubbing the “Argle of Samoa”. The Samoan Swat Team (Fatu/Samu) w/Paul Adams v Marty Jannetty/Tommy Rogers
Creator Bill Stone intended it to be a series of events but the show came off SO badly that he had no chance of doing more events. Mantell stresses this is “one night only” and runs down the card. Rosenbloom plugs the 2000 crowd and reminds me of Michael Buffer. A long and embarrassing black screen follows. Sadly he passed away not long afterwards.īACKSTAGE King Kong Bundy cuts a promo on Yokozuna who shows up to cause a weak pull apart brawl. It was supposed to be Gordon Solie but he was too ill to take part. Hosts are Randy Rosenbloom and Dutch Mantell. We’re in Bay St Louis, Mississippi at a casino. Well, if there’s a show that sucks worse than WCW I have to see it. Heroes of Wrestling, a debacle from start to finish is famed for having a main event that ranked at minus five stars and an infamously bad drunken promo from Jake Roberts. 1999, wasn’t that the year they ran that Heroes of Wrestling show? Bingo. St Valentines Day Massacre perhaps, or Armageddon, or Survivor Series? Then it came to me in a flash. I figured it was something I’d forgotten about because 1999 had a lot of bad shows. The email in question teased me by asking me the question do you know what the worst show from 1999 was? I scoured my archives for a really bad WWF show. Young Wrestlers is a co-production by Kaliber Film and Turkey's Filmalti, and Wide House handles the international rights.During my run of WCW shows in 1999 I was reminded that the worst show of the year didn’t even come from WCW. Secondly, this has been a sport that the Turks have been proud of for centuries, celebrating its manliness – and if there is a homosexual thread to it, it runs much deeper than we have been led to believe recently. Firstly, the boys, whose competition takes place on the sidelines of the main event, are not wrestling covered in olive oil, like their grown-up counterparts, so to the untrained eye their fights look just like regular, Greco-Roman wrestling. It is probably true that the sport has attracted international attention mostly because of its homosexual implications (just watch any YouTube video with "Turkish oil wrestling" in the title), but the film does not go there. Gümürhan shapes the film as an observational documentary, catching telling moments and always keeping the big picture in mind. We watch their everyday routine, with the coaches not only pushing them in terms of physical exercise and imparting the finesse of the sport, but also ensuring they do not fall behind with their studies – a fail in maths or languages could mean that they have to leave the training centre.Ī feeling of camaraderie, finely contrasted with competition, pervades the film, and this goes for the coaches, too – they are sensitive to the boys' needs and the delicate situation they are in. Some of them find it hard, like Baran, a motherless boy with a weight problem who sneaks into the teachers' room to phone his grandpa, while for some, like the super-talented Beytullah, the real trouble is his health, which might prevent him from becoming a champion. Mostly hailing from poor villages, the kids are separated from their families for the first time. The boys all live, study and train in the Wrestling Training Centre in Amasya, a city in north-central Anatolia, along with other youngsters aged between ten and 18. The film follows several 12-year-old boys as they are preparing for a competition in Turkish oil wrestling, a sport that has been gaining international attention in recent years thanks to social media.