I forget what Forum or Group I was surfing, but someone recently posted a link to an old black & white Tag Team match on YouTube featuring The Crusher and The Bruiser. This is not a new upload to YouTube — it’s from 2015 — but I decided to watch these cheating brutes in action and I found the cruel double-teaming very entertaining.
Normally I don’t blog about these old 1960’s matches because:
- The black & white TV era is before my time (believe it or not) so these old matches don’t trigger me as much as the early color studio matches I grew up on;
- The video quality and camera work are usually sub-par for purposes of creating GIFs and JPEGs for my blog; and
- The action can often be too sportsmanlike and competitive for my liking. 1950’s and 60 matches are usually not as flamboyant and campy, not as sexy, as 1970s and 80’s rasslin style.
However I’m making an exception for this match because the Heel cheating is so wonderfully blatant and non-stop — and because the commentators really do a great job selling us on the animal savagery of this Tag Team.
For example, here is how one of the commentators describes the Bruiser at about 2:13 into the video:
“He reminds me of an animal! You see him looking down this way. You know, he scares me half to death when I watch him… You never know about him though — he may jump down and tear your head off!”
Now imagine being a scrawny little pre-teen tuned into this program, watching the violent slaughter in the ring and hearing a grown man admit to the entire world that he is “scared to death” of these big-bellied blonds in their snug black underwear.
How could a youngster in this situation experience any feelings but awe and respect for these “animals”, while also feeling anxious and excited? If a grown man is humbly admitting his fear — presumably his submissiveness lest they decide to destroy him — then surely said scrawny pre-teen would feel utterly powerless and out-manned! And then perhaps begin to swoon…
It’s a Best of Three Falls match and the Heels win the first fall by leaping repeatedly onto the trunk-wearing jobber’s lower back to bust it. I think this move is so fuckin mean looking. Clearly the powerless ref has zero chance of controlling these beasts!
Then between falls, Bruiser and Crusher decide to beat down the other jobber in the singlet for no apparent reason. Again the ref is useless at enforcing any law and order — and this chaos would be very appealing to a youngster tired of being ordered to follow the rules at home and at school.
In my childhood memories, Da Bruiser and Da Crusher were harmless, fun-loving old clowns who enjoyed beer, cigars, and polka dancing. These earlier personas were clearly much more brutal, heartless, and therefore awe-inspiring to see in action. All their hair-pulling, nose-punching, and double-teaming is just deliciously ruthless.
At 2:44 into the video, the commentator implies that these chubby blond brutes experience a sado-masochistic arousal, dancing around the possibility of sexual orgasm, resulting from their violent behavior:
“When they start wrestling, they turn themselves on so much, believe me, they aren’t theirselves any more… They put themselves in, not a trance, but they are a state of real, uhhh, competitiveness — combat!” (Does he mean “climax”?)
Later the Singlet Jobber’s nose begins to bleed, so the Heels begin focusing their kicks and punches on his open wound to keep the blood flowing (which, as I recall from my younger days, was extremely triggering and morbidly fascinating to me.) How inexplicably cruel! I’d think to myself as I adjusted my jeans…
I understand this old match and this article won’t be appealing to all my readers. But wrestle-pervs of a certain age, or with certain sadistic kinks, may absolutely revel in these thick-bodied Tag Team killers turned loose on their hapless victims. It definitely worked for me.
They finish off the Singlet Jobber using the same spine-busting stomps off the Top Rope, which I thought was a spectacular ending to the fight — as if they know this back-breaking torture is 100% effective and they can break any man with their cruel assault. (No wonder the commentator is scared to death of them!)
