[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aS1Xfb6ckE[/embedyt]
There’s been a lot of negativity around Demolition in recent times due to them being part of a concussion lawsuit against Vince and the WWE. They’ve also recently lost the record for the longest reigning tag team champions to The New Day, which is a farce as far as i’m concerned, as let’s be brutally honest if it wasn’t for them being involved in the lawsuit, they’d still hold that record.
Anyway, onto the awesomeness that is Demolition. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s when the WWF landscape was full of oversized personalities with some awesome characters, the tag division had it’s own little twist, where most of the teams had at least one person wearing face paint, and in Demolition’s case they had facepaint and some weird, twisted S&M style attire.
Bill Eadie (Ax) and Barry Darsow (Smash) were the original members of the group who were three time WWF Tag Team Champions, and when Brian Adams (Crush) was added they used the freebird rule for a while before they went their separate ways for various reasons, but this isn’t what this is for, no no no, this is about the awesomeness of Demolition.
As was standard in the time period, the promos by the guys, Smash in particular were over the top, but at the same time it was so relevant to their names. There would be many references about Axing and Smashing, also Crushing when Crush was there, and when you add the deviousness of Mr Fuji in the promos it was something to behold and often stuck in my mind.
Demolition were also part of something very, very rare in the wrestling world. They were part of a tag team match where a double turn happened, where Demolition turned face and Powers of Pain turned heel with the support of Mr Fuji. Mr Fuji of course blamed Demolition for the turn, but that’s what he was masterful at. Plus who would have thought it, that a team wearing S&M gear and face paint would be over as a face team?
The Demolition duo were part of one of my earliest Royal Rumble match memories too, which can be seen in the video below:
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI5zeKe9SGE[/embedyt]
As a relative youngster, seeing your favourite tag team square off against each other right at the start of the Royal Rumble was exciting for me, and to be honest I still get goosebumps when the theme plays twice running.
Whilst Bill Eadie left for some reason i’ve never really looked into, Darsow became The Repo Man and Crush, well he stayed as Crush before getting more recognition as part of KroniK before his untimely death, the sad thing for me is Demolition may never get the recognition they deserve and take a spot in the WWE Hall Of Fame due to the whole concussion lawsuit and it’s a damn shame, as you can pretty much guarantee if Demolition weren’t a success in WWF, then the team that took over their mantle as the cool team, The Legion Of Doom wouldn’t have been as much of a success in WWF as their styles were very, very similar. My hope is that one day i’ll get to see the Axer and the Smasher in the Hall Of Fame. Crush could arguably get in on his own merits, or as part of KroniK but that’s for another day.
Thank you for the memories Demolition.
If anyone would like to share memories of Demolition with me, please do tweet me and send a message to the SLTD team and i’ll be in touch with you. Also if there’s any old skool team or wrestler you’d like me to share my memories of, please do tell me and i’ll write an article on them.
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