Wrestling's Country Boys with KB

[klunderbunker]

Wrestling’s Country Boys
Host: Gene Okerlund
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Gene Okerlund, Alfred Hayes, Jesse Ventura

Hillbillies in wrestling. They’re a constant gimmick that usually gets people up to the midcard and not much farther. Back in the mid 80s there was a whole stable of them in the WWF. Led by Hillbilly Jim we had Uncle Elmer and Cousin Junior. This is their story more or less. Let’s get to it.

This is another hour and twenty minute comp tapes and I really wouldn’t expect much of anything at all here.

We open with Hogan training Jim how to wrestle. He gives Jim a protein drink instead of regular food for breakfast. Jim’s comedy stuff was underrated.

Off to the gym where Hulk shows him how to lift weights. Hillbilly isn’t that good yet. Some things never change I guess. This is like the stupid cousin of Rocky’s montage.

Into the ring now as we’re still training. Hogan says don’t worry about wrestling. That’s just amusing. Hulk tests his conditioning and his balance. This is weird to see as Hogan is acting like a trainer here. Jim can’t even run the ropes yet. Hogan calls him Boss, channeling his inner Andre.

More montages as Jim slowly starts to get it. The bad 80s music in the background is perfect. There’s a running joke here of Hogan not liking Jim’s hat so he keeps throwing it on the ground. We get the backstory of Jim being discovered at a circus wrestling bears. In reality he worked for Lawler in Memphis and Vince gave him a job because he was freaking STRONG. Hogan sees him squeeze a trainer and says even if he’s not ready he’ll get him a match in a few weeks. Nice guy that Hulk.

Terry Gibbs vs. Hillbilly Jim

Our first match starts in progress almost 12 minutes into the tape. Hogan is at ringside with him. Jim uses very basic stuff like stand there and let the smaller guy run into you. Basic offense from Gibbs who is a career jobber. Jim slams him and the bear hug ends it in less than two minutes. Yeah it’s one of those tapes.

More training montages as Jim has it now. Hogan shows him some very basic stuff with a jobber like locking up and three reversals to a hammerlock. Yes, Hogan is showing someone how to do basic wrestling. Any arguments from people that think he doesn’t know what he’s doing now? The jobber puts Jim in it and he just powers out of it. Hogan gives him a pair of his boots which aren’t yellow for some reason. Hogan says he wore them for six months before winning the world title.

Hillbilly Jim vs. Rene Goulet

This is from the War to Settle the Score which more or less gave birth to Wrestlemania. BIG pop for Jim. Andy Warhol is here as is Danny DeVito. Since this was shown later on the syndicated show, those cameos are awesome. Jim is wearing Hogan’s boots. Good thing they were the same size. Jim chases him away to start as we’re into stalling mode.

Long headlock by Goulet which gets him nowhere. Jim does that chest out pose of his which is always fun. He’s a character that always would work because he wasn’t ever treated seriously. He would probably get over today if he was treated the same. Big old headlock by Jim as Goulet has nothing but that’s his job as a jobber.

Basically this is a long squash as Goulet can’t do much at all but gets in jobber offense to take some control. He bites Jim which just ticks the big old boy off. Very basic offense with the biggest move being a headbutt sets up the bearhug for the easy submission. Post match Goulet goes after some fan at ringside. That fan’s name: Mr. T. Guess how that goes for the jobber.

Rating: D. Like I said this was a very long squash at nearly eight minutes. The fans loved Jim though as he was just big and fun. What more can you ask of him than that really? The match was bad but the fans were way into it and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

Hillbilly broke his leg so he wants to manage. He comes on the Body Shop with his new guy: his Uncle Elmer who weighed about 7’0 and maybe 550lbs. Elmer says he scuffles rather than wrestles. That’s about it.

Jim is on Piper’s Pit and brings in Elmer. Piper makes fun of Jim, Elmer comes out, and so much for that.

Uncle Elmer vs. Tiger Chung Lee

Lee is more or less a fairly decent sized generic Asian jobber. Lee beats Elmer down in the corner and that gets him more or less nowhere due to the sheer fatness of Elmer. He’s listed at 406lbs which I’d put at pretty low. Tiger tries to run but more power moves and a bad looking legdrop ends this in less than two and a half minutes. No rating of course but it was bad.

Big John Studd vs. Uncle Elmer

I don’t see this ending well. The battles of the big men usually work pretty badly and I can’t imagine this going well. Heenan’s hair is all messed up here. Everything has been at MSG so far other than the Gibbs match if you were wondering. Studd jumps him and let’s say it’s on I guess.

Elmer is on the mat early as Studd unleashes the deadly stomps. More striking as Elmer pounds away. A few splashes to Studd means MORE COWBELL from Jim. A slam attempt brings in the managers to end this in a DQ. Jim almost gets Heenan but so much for that theory. Big brawl as for some reason Elmer beats up Heenan and Jim gets the fresh Studd. Elmer and Jim dance a bit. No rating but again it was bad.

We get a clip from Tuesday Night Titans which is an awesome show that we need to get to someday if nothing else for the pure comedy values of it. They’re actually singing a country song. I use the term singing loosely of course. It’s a love song for no good reason.

In the same segment we get some country cooking including possum burgers. Jim says grace: Good food, good meat, thank you Lord cause we gonna eat. The idea here: Alfred is a British dude and he doesn’t mesh with the country boys. And then we do the same joke for about three minutes and it never really works but that’s how the show worked more or less.

Time for a trilogy of matches with Cousin Junior who continues to push through the idea of country boys are idiots. Jim is the scholar here if you get the concept.

Cousin Junior vs. Ron Shaw

Junior’s character eventually was used as Phineas Godwin. Shaw is of course a jobber. Junior gets a mule kick to end it in about a minute. Nothing else of note throughout the match.

Cousin Junior vs. Adrian Adonis

Adrian isn’t gay yet so this is before Mania II. He’s also getting fatter which was the sign of the end of his career. Junior gets some armdrags and Jim rings the cowbell. There is a ton of stalling here to put it mildly. We’re in Maryland apparently. I love how the stupidest of the hillbillies is the most versatile in the ring. Absolutely nothing going on here as we’re nearly three minutes in now and you can see how much I have to say about this.

Adonis takes over with DEVASTATING elbows and not much else. The cameras mess up as all of a sudden they’re flying everywhere so I’d assume someone was moving. More elbows get two as I’d assume this is the beginning of the comeback. Suplex by Adonis gets two. Jim cheats to help Junior out of trouble, nothing of note from Junior. Adonis ties him in the ropes and the referee disqualifies him for choking.

Rating: F. Bad wrestling, bad wrestlers, bad ending, stupid comedy. You figure the rest out.

Cousin Junior vs. Moondog Spot

This could set new levels for awful. Jim’s leg is getting better very rapidly here. The Moondogs were out there to say the least. Junior stomps after him and that goes nowhere. Spot hits the floor and we haven’t had any contact yet. We repeat the thing and the fans think this is boring. Well that’s an understatement.

Fans are ALL OVER them here. Jesse blasts them with basic jokes. Junior FINALLY does something, hitting a mule kick. And now we stall even more. The match is clipped here to more mule kicking. It’s a kick to a guy behind you if you were wondering. Junior keeps stopping after hitting more than like three moves in a row which is the main issue here.

Junior hits a splash for two as does another mule kick. And you thought Hogan’s offense was limited. I have issues with being impressed by a guy named Spotty. Jim distracts him and a big mule kick WHICH WE DON’T SEE BECAUSE THE CAMERA IS ON THE CROWD ends this without mercy.

Rating: F. Just end this freaking tape PLEASE.

Barry O/Jerry Adams vs. Uncle Elmer/Cousin Junior

Damn how broken was Jim’s leg??? Thankfully this is just a squash and the hillbillies do their usual thing. An Earthquake drop from Junior ends it. Elmer never got in.

The tape ends with the wedding from SNME which means cut and paste time.

We do the wedding with the wrestlers in their gear. If I remember right this was a legit wedding. I wonder if this is the dry run for the PPV wedding that Vince wanted to do for Stephanie. Vince is doing commentary on a wedding of all things. Oh and the groom is called Uncle Elmer as the minister.

Elmer can’t hear the minister and keeps fumbling over his lines. Jesse is cracking up over this and is clearly having a blast with this. We get to the end and Piper can’t hold his peace. Well you knew this was coming. Hogan, in a sleeveless shirt, glares at Piper and gets him to leave and there’s the end of it. This was just kind of odd as he was a total comedy character and this was a HUGELY hyped segment. I still don’t get this.

Ads for future tapes, all of which seem more interesting than this, end it.

Overall Rating: F. Totally boring here with a total lack of anything good. Jim, by far the biggest star and most popular member, is in two matches I think. This was horrible but it was the mid 80s so this was a lot more common. Just an awfully boring tape though as this whole thing took EIGHTY MINUTES. Stay far away obviously.

 

[The Brain]

I guess I have to give you some credit for sitting through that tape. What on Earth made you want to watch that? When I was a kid I used to rent all the Coliseum Video tapes and even back then I had no interest in this one. I thought Uncle Elmer was the worst wrestler I had ever seen. Then I saw Cousin Junior. I guess it's kind of a toss up as to who was worse. Who's brilliant idea was it to dedicate an entire tape to these guys? I wonder how many copies sold. I guess there are those who will watch anything WWF related. I always considered myself one of those guys, but as I said even as a little kid I avoided this.