The Powers of Pain

[HBsam31]

I have been re watching a lot of WWE from the late 80's early 90's. WWF if you will, and something that interested me a great deal was the powers of pain demolition double turn from Survivor Series 88. I am assuming the turn was mostly for the benefit of demolition who became big time faces, but what about the powers of Pain? I am a little sketchy but I think their only feud of note was against demolition which culminated at Wrestlemania 5 in a handicapped match with Mr Fuji taking the pin for his team and demolition retaining. It didn't seem like long after that the powers were split where in the end they had very mediocre singles careers. They were a decent team and with the addition of Mr Fuji it seemed they could only get better. So the questions are after the turn what could have been done to make the powers of pain have more of an impact as a team, what were they missing? or did they just plain suck and I thought different because was a young kid? Really interested to hear your feedback on this one.

 

[czar76]

I think a lot of it has to do with the Road Warriors. Demolition was an attempt to cash in on the gimmick but the Powers of Pain were the gimmick. It was the same in WCW. Crockett had attempted to come up with a team that could "realistically" beat the RW's instead he made a carbon copy. No one bought it. Same in WWE. U already had Demo who, while a good team and over as hell, were just the Vince version of the RW's. Again it was hard to buy if u were a fan of the original.
Plus neither member of the POP were all that good in the ring. The Warlord was pretty green and The Barbarian couldn't talk to save his life due to a heavy accent. Fuji was getting older and was used less and less.
All in all they were just a cheap imitation of a better imitation.

 

[MickeyJ3903]

My recollection (and I'm guessing I was probably a little older than you at that time) is that neither team was even a passable knock off of the Road Warriors; the best parts of Demolition were their tricked out goalie masks (chrome studs, leather trim, spray painted all nice and black), their entrance theme ("Here comes the Ax/here comes the Smasher), and Barry Darsow's elusive, always on the move bald spot. As for the PoP, I thought Barbarian was more interesting as a singles wrestler, and Warlord would have made a world class statue. Just one man's opinion, of course, influenced greatly by witnessing Hawk and Animal damn near kill a jobber named Nacho Barerra (I think I have that right) in a taped AWA squash match. Scared the hell out of me, seeing what those guys were capable of and how close to being utterly out of control they were. After that, Demolition kind of had the look of a couple of out of shape, ex-football players who had slopped on some grease paint so as to try out for the part of Tinman in the local theater company's Summerstock production of "Wizard of Oz." Like I said, though, the masks were freakin' cool.

 

[bigbootydaddyV]

Man... what a great moment that was... two teams who will definitely have a place in wrestling history. I was a really big fan of both teams gimmicks and I thought they did the switch perfectly. I just wished the PoP stayed a team longer, once they split it didn't help either IMO. They didn't suck that's for sure but I guess there was no room for them as a tag team at the time. I will admit the WWF did handle the split very well as they used managers to justify it FUCK I MISS MANAGERS!!! DAMN YOU WWE!!! I just think they fell through the cracks ultimately as there was nothing for them at the time as a tag team and there was nothing for them as single stars. I think before the switch they were pretty relevant as they were a team for a little while (I'm not sure what they did before though bc that was right before i started watching).

 

[GameOver]

The Powers of Pain were already a tag team in Jim Crocket promotiions b4 Demolition were even a glint in WWF's eye. and after they left WWF Barbarian and Warlord went to WCW as singles retaining their characters.

as for the which was the Road Warriors clone.

It is in the history books Vince tried to get the Road Warriors back in the early 80's but he couldn't for whatever reason, and soon after along came Demolition and The Powers of Pain. So i'd say they were both WWF's attempt, but Demolition got over and Power of Pain's inability to speak cost them big time i'd say.

That was Demolitions biggest strength, they looked cool and they could both talk the talk.

So it comes down to Demolition were WWF's answer to The Legion of Doom, but they hit big fast and faded almost as fast.

some pointless trivia, Ax was in the WWWF in the late 70's and was still there when it became WWF in 1983 and slammed Andre The Giant well b4 Hogan did at WrestleMania 3, and the reason for Crush being added leading upto SummerSlam 90 was Ax had a temporary heart condition so he was to take a spokeperson role for the team but his contract was terminated and they wrestled there last match as a team losing to The Warriors at Survivor Series 1990, leaving Crush and Smash to go solo

 

[nbkush]

The Powers of Pain split when the Legion of Doom were negotiating with the WWF in June 1990, they reportedly demanded that the Powers of Pain be split up and repackaged in different gimmicks due to thinking that they [the Warriors] would look like Powers of Pain-ripoffs when they entered the WWF due to their similar appearances. Thus, the Powers were split up, repackaged in different ring attires, and lost their familiar face paint.

 

[Ding_Dong_#2]

The big mistake with the Powers of Pain was them being babyfaces upon entering the WWF.

They should have come in and cleared house, as the Road Warriors did in the AWA; if they were going to rip off their image, then they may as well have taken all the good points of their charisma too.

What probably stopped this was Demolition being heels at the time, and with the Road Warriors demanding their dissolvement in 1990, they never really had any time to shine in all honesty.

If they walked into the business today, they would be among the top names in the business but it wouldn't have happened with the WWE mentality of no heavy hitters in WWE tag teams.

 

[Tattooed Jesus]

I loved PoP when they were in the NWA and managed by Paul Jones/Ivan Koloff, that were just bad ass! Their feud withe Road Warriors and Dusty Rhodes, from whom they won the NWA Six Man Tag Team Championship was awesome. My best memories of them in the NWA was the bench press contest they had with the Road Warriors where they shattered Animals face with the weights, and Animal wore the cool RW Painted Hockey mask for a few weeks.

When they got to the WWF I was so happy because I wanted them to destroy Demolition because I always thought they were the lamest ripoff of the Road Warriors. They were both fat and out of shape, there make up was god awful, and their attire looked like it belonged in a gay biker bar, they were just horrible. The double turn was well done though and I will always think of it as one of the best swerves in wrestling history.

The Road Warriors, Demolition, and Powers of Pain realistically couldn't have worked all at the same time in the WWF at the time though because they were all to similar. NWA had already run the storyline of the PoP coming together to take out the RW, WWF had already run the story of the PoP coming in to take out Demolition, so what were WWF gonna do have the Road Warriors come in to take out both PoP and Demolition?

 

[salopstick]

warlord was immediately thrown in a program with hogan, challenging for the title at house shows for about 3 months

 

[HBsam31]

This is what these forums should be about, learning about the thing we love and having fun. I did not know about the POP feud with the road warriors. I guess I was too young and did not know the other promotions as well at that time. To much time is spent here arguing about unrelated things. I found myself in an argument about race. Thanks for the input everyone. This is the reason I am here.