Bradshaw vs Vader (WWF, 9-27-1998)

WWF Breakdown: In Your House, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

I felt like watching some matches featuring JBL, everyone’s favorite world class ass-sucking toady, a man independently wealthy outside of Vince McMahon’s net, but one who so loves bullying anyone he perceives as inferior that he’s got to stay in good with Vince so he can jack himself off and have a safety net if the old stock market portfolio suddenly isn’t doing so hot.

I don’t hate JBL the wrestler, mind you — not at all. By every report of him ever he is a big fucking dickhead of a person, but I was a fan of his as far back as the Justin Hawk Bradshaw days. I didn’t know then what I know now, that Bradshaw was merely emulating greater men, your Bruiser Brodys and Stan Hansens and Blackjack Mulligans and the like, that Bradshaw was, on TV, a shiny WWF version of true big country hoss badassery, but even after I understood that, I still liked him as a wrestler. He threw a genuinely great and vicious lariat as if he meant to take the opponent’s head clean off their shoulders, and he had some cool roughneck offense otherwise, too.

So yes, John Layfield the person bad, boo. John Bradshaw Layfield the wrestler, I still enjoy his shit, or at least I think I do.

I remember being psyched about this match because I was hoping it would be one where poor Vader got out of the doldrums. I was 16 and knew a little, thought I knew it all, because I didn’t have the internet yet so I was comparing my vast knowledge of PWI Almanacs and the local wrestling hotline to the dummies at school who though Wrath was going to be the one to beat Goldberg. Then you get the internet, find out there are thousands of grown adults who know WAY more than you ever imagined possible, and you get a nice reality check. I got a few along the way before I learned to keep my fat mouth shut and maybe sit at the tree and learn something from these ancient 25-to-35 year old folks, some of whom had been reading Dave Meltzer’s news and star ratings since I was begging my grandparents to order WrestleMania III on pay-per-view. (They didn’t.) So I gobbled up all the Meltzer-written history I could as quickly as I could, and then I found out that some of these people rejected Dave Meltzer! BUT HOW?!

Anyway, now I’m closing in on 37 in a few months. A lot of the guys who were this age then would write about their troubles finding time to review wrestling — an important task, of course — because they had kids and wives and jobs that made them leave their house and some of their pride and dignity along the way. I am this old and I have no kids, I had a wife once but woof, and I work out of my home, earning just enough to consider it the ideal situation because I’ve got a roof over my head and my cat is fed with the food he likes best, never mind the paycheck-to-paycheck struggle and the amount of Cup Soup I eat to keep things above water.

I saw a baby this morning when I stopped at the BP and I thought, “Goddamn, imagine having a baby.” And for a second I thought that’d be great. But then I remembered that I still get text message invites to the bar at 1:30am because people know there’s a legitimate chance I’ll head down there, and I realized it probably would cause too drastic a life shift for me. Maybe I would adapt and grow and be a good father. Or maybe I’d be like my own parents and suck so bad that the kid had to grow up with its grandparents while I fucked around doing God knows what as far away as I could get, telling myself that I deserve my own happiness, trying to forget the great responsibility I tossed aside to someone else. Perhaps I would try to keep my own father’s schedule and show up a couple times a year until I died young.

Anyway, this match has Vader as he winds down his WWF career. I didn’t know at the time that it was winding down, that this was the last pay-per-view match he’d have in the WWF, that he was about to job his way out of the Fed with losses on RAW to Al Snow and Marc Mero and a Heat job for young Edge, that he’d finish up on the road in late October losing in IC title three-ways with Ken Shamrock and either The Rock or Mankind. Between all that he got to lose to The Rock in State College, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Hershey, Green Bay, and Rockford.

So the big man surely is checked out. I remember this match happening because I was excited about it, because I figured maybe Bradshaw and Vader would be a good matchup for Vader to remember he’s Vader, and for my low key fave Bradshaw to get in and kick some ass with a fellow big man. But watching now, I expect very little.

This is falls count anywhere. Vader’s out first, then Bradshaw, lean and clean shaven, is backstage with young Michael Cole. Bradshaw gets me FIRED THE FUCK UP: “Hell no, it’s not gonna be pretty! I didn’t come here to wrestle that fat bastard, I came here to fight him. Vader, you’re fixin’ to find out, it’s survival of the fittest, not the fattest.”

JR apologizes for Bradshaw’s “choice of language.” FAT BASTARD. Bradshaw saunters down to the ring as JR puts over his conditioning and appearance because we are again trying to push Bradshaw as a solo act, which had been stopped-and-started a few times over a few years.

JR tells me also that “Vader has battled injuries, and, uh, weight issues, here in the WWF.”

The big men circle each other, Bradshaw pushes Vader to the corner and lays in with boots and clubbing forearm shots, then a hard chop to the chest and a hard knee to the midsection. Right hand from Bradshaw, and another. Bradshaw sends Vader to the other corner and follows in with a hard clothesline. Vader goes down like a sad sack and Bradshaw picks him up and slams him, then drops an elbow for two.

Vader reverses a whip to the ropes and misses a clothesline, but comes off the other side and nails Bradshaw with the VADER BODY ATTACK. Elbow down to the thigh, then Vader off the ropes with a big splash for two.

JR tells us how we got here, reminding me because I had forgotten — they tried to team, didn’t get along at all, and now they are fighting. Works for me. Bradshaw with a big boot, then Vader backs to the ropes and Bradshaw clotheslines him out to the floor.

Bradshaw follows out and posts Vader’s skull, then drops him with the lariat. Fan: “HIT HIM WITH YOUR FAT ASS!” Vader gets his head rammed into the ring bell, then Bradshaw picks it up and hits Vader with it. More shots and Bradshaw rams Vader’s head into the Spanish desk, and hits another short arm lariat and an elbowdrop. Bradshaw covers on the floor for two.

Vader ducks a right hand and Bradshaw punches the post, then they do that again, and then Vader comes back with his own short-arm lariat. Vader whips Bradshaw hard into the steps. Vader picks up the steps and gingerly touches Bradshaw with them, then lays in with half-hearted Vader strikes before throwing Bradshaw back into the ring.

The crowd is pretty much totally disinterested as Vader swings and misses a couple of sweeping punches, and Bradshaw fires back, taking the advantage again with a few strikes. Bradshaw with a backdrop driver, which Vader ain’t taking like it’s Japan or anything.

Bradshaw charges Vader and misses, flying over the ropes to the floor again. Vader follows and hammers Bradshaw with big shots. They fight into the entrance aisle and Vader just kicks Bradshaw right in the fucking nuts, which of course is legal in this match. Vader covers for two.

Bradshaw whipped into the apron and Vader follows with a clothesline. Vader shoves Bradshaw back into the ring, then drags Bradshaw over to the corner. We know fuck all is happening because Vader goes up for the second rope splash instead of the Vader Bomb. I mean, the splash hits, but if he wanted to win there, it would have been the Vader Bomb.

Vader goes back up to the second rope and hits the Vader Bomb. Cover gets only two, as we are killing Vader right off tonight, baby. Vader sends him off the ropes, Bradshaw ducks a clothesline and kills Vader with the Clothesline from Hell, but Vader kicks out at two!

Bradshaw is pissed, he gets up and calls Vader a son of a bitch, then levels him with another lariat! “Git up, bastard!” Then Bradshaw hits…a lame reverse neckbreaker for the win. I guess killing people with a monster lariat wasn’t flashy enough for the ATTITUDE ERA.

Rating: 3/5. Vader’s heart is half in this at best but Bradshaw really throws himself into his lariats and strikes and he carries the checked-out legend to a perfectly enjoyable 8-minute match. I say often that good crowds help me get into matches more than I might otherwise, but I also am no longer much affected by bad crowds, because more often than not a bad crowd, at least in modern wrestling, is not the fault of the people in the ring at the moment but the way they’ve been presented. Vader had been dead in the water for almost two years at this point and there was no reason to care about him. Bradshaw had been stopped and started at various points and there was no reason to care about him or take seriously this latest attempt at a push. So I get it. And I acknowledge that there’s really no heat here. But the match is fun enough clubberin’ and that’s more important to me.