Monday, October 29, 2007

A Sensational Upset!

This old WWF match caught me completely by surprise. Rockin' Robin vs Sensational Sherry Martel, the reigning WWF champion in a non-title match. I wasn't expecting very much. Sure, I liked Robin & Sherry, but neither of them fit the prototype, to coin a phrase I use over and over again on this blog.
I am happy to say that I was most pleasantly surprised by the way the action played out.
Sherry wound up on the mat and while she was taking a moment to recover, Robin climbed up to the third rope and waited. Sherry got to her feet on unsteady legs and began looking for her opponent. From this point on, the collage above tells the story. Robin leaps off of the top rope, grabs Sherry's head as she's coming down and rams it into the mat in a modified bulldog move.
BAM! Sherry is face down on the mat completely stunned. Robin rolls her over and covers her for the pin! 1,2,3! A sensational upset, just the way I like it.
Kudos and eternal appreciation to whoever put this match together. These final 20 or so seconds have been seared into my brain and remain a source of inspiration to this very day.

Does anyone out there have stories of their favorite upsets? As a fan, I would love to hear about them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

In pro, I consider it an upset when a heel scores anything approaching a clean win over a face. The best example I can think of was when Akira Hokuto finally forced Madusa out of WCW at GAB 1997. At the time the buxom Madusa was wearing that American flag-like outfit, giving her a bit of superheroine appeal though lacking actual superpowers. Madusa came out so confident and determined, bearing the burden of all those patriotic cheers. Close match, until Madusa’s knee is injured, as every heroine bravely risks. The knee is put in a long and excruciating submission hold. But she battles on, with little hope. Madusa finally defeated on her own turf by a smaller, despised foreigner looking very much the villain, who didn’t even do an unusual amount of cheating. Then lots of attention to the tearful defeated heroine, and the fans’ marking out for her makes it all the more humiliating, at least as I see it.

Can’t find the vid, but here’s speculation on the injury:

http://www.ddtdigest.com/updates/19970616.htm

Another example is Jane Blond being completely savaged by the scantily-clad, more physical Jungle Grrrl. Jane may have been something of a jobber in that promotion (I don‘t know), but with the spy persona she definitely has a heroine thing going and seems quite invincible in her sexy intro. Only when hit by a vicious finishing move as a first move does she realize what she’s in for. Still game, but moans in pain a lot throughout the match. Nice sales job. Finally winds up taking far more punishment from her sadistic opponent than was necessary to put her away--another risk a courageous heroine faces daily. Notice how she’s summarily kicked away at the end and has to slither out to avoid an even worse disaster (guess!). I only wish the camera could have stayed on defeated Jane for another 5 or 10... hours.

Clip here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEFZJVs7WMQ

Jonnie R said...

Wow, that was a great comment. Thanks.
Speaking of WOW, there was a match between Jungle Grrrl and Teri Gold which, in my opinion at the time, was considered an upset. JG flew off the top rope and landed squarely on Teri resulting in a clean pin.
Also, back in the POWW days, Luna Vachon upset Candi Divine in the same manner. I even remember the commentator stating that even though Luna was one half of the tag team champs, this is still considered an upset.
I'll probably write about both these matches in the future.
Thanks again for your excellent comment!

Anonymous said...

Speaking of upsets, here the awesome Lisa Marie is dominated by a smaller girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtpfpNC1qS8

Jonnie R said...

That Lisa Marie clip is pretty awesome too. Thanks for posting it.
Robin, the other woman in the clip, also scored an awesome boxing KO against Lisa Marie in anothher California Supremes vid.
It was a beautiful thing!!!