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Omar Padilla

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ONE SATURDAY MORNING
Calling Spots Edition

Life has been a BITCH these past couple of days, weeks and months. Not even watching wrestling has been able to help me. In fact, wrestling has made things worse.

Tuning into RAW every week for the past month and seeing Vince McMahon yap about a fake divorce is the stupidest crap I have seen this side of The Undertaker sacrificing Dennis Knight and turning him into Midio-e-an. And you know what, I STILL watch. Not because I'm interested, but because it just makes me feel SO good to know that I will enjoy a 3 minute screwjob special right after the 20 minute interview, a 3 minute commercial break and a replay of the last 3 minutes of THAT interview via the great "moments ago" replays. Thank you, Vince.

Oh well, enough of that crap. I'm not a smart mark by any means, but I can smell bullshit w/ the best of them. The real reason I'm here is to toss out a second installment of one of my "One Hit Wonders" which I called Spot Calling.

Normally, I'd review an old tape in this column, but my VCR has been taken over by the sudden impulse of recording anything that's on MTV by my siblings. Except for HeAT of course, because who watches THAT?

The first installment, which I wrote up about a year ago, came off pretty well. It brought me the most feedback I had gotten over anything and like usual, I ignored the requests for more. Until now. For those who don't know, calling spots is something that wrestlers do during the match to let each other know what to do next. Some are OBVIOUS and some are not. Just watch a Chyna match and I'm sure you'll hear the clumsy bitch say "HUH?" about ten times.

Some of the first ones I spotted were some subtle ones that I don't even know how *I* heard them. For example, at the 1998 Royal Rumble, HHH asks Val Venis if he can "Hold on, if I throw you out?" which is replied with a "Yeah". Next thing you know, HHH tosses Val over and Val hangs on to land on the apron. Get it??

By the way, HHH is another guy who is sometimes really audible. Moreso in 1998 because the crowd was so DEAD that you could hear pretty much anything during his matches. In any case, enough burying. Let's get to it...

Spot Call #1
The Event: Survivor Series 1991
The Match: Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, British Bulldog, Virgil Vs Ric Flair, Ted DiBiase, The Mountie & Warlord.
The Principles: Ted DiBiase and Bret Hart.

Bret Hart is one guy who is really solid and in this case it was DiBiase who got caught. The year before, these two put on a kick ass ending to their match at the '90 Survivor Series. So, during this seqeunce, DiBiase is working Bret over and they're in the corner. The director cuts to the camera that's in that corner with them. The cameraman has a straight shot of DiBiase getting ready to whip Bret to the opposite corner. That's when you SEE and HEAR DiBiase say, "Reverse, charge." That simple. Bret reverses the whip and charges with a knee. DiBiase moves out of the way and Bret crashes on the buckles. No big deal, but one case that was pretty obvious. The match ended being one of the BEST elimination matches I have seen, despite the finish.

Spot Call #2
The Event:SummerSlam 1990-
The Match: Queen Sherri Vs Sapphire & Dusty Rhodes Vs Randy Savage
The Principles:Dusty Rhodes, backstage personell

During this SummerSlam a match between "Sensational" Queen Sherri and the late Sapphire turned into a no contest due to Sapphire selling out to Ted DiBiase and not showing up for her match. During this, you can hear the director yell, "hit the music" and Dusty's music would start, but no Sapphire. This happens a couple of other times. Later that night, before Rhodes takes on Randy Savage, DiBiase comes out and reveals that Sapphire had soldout. He and Sapphire leave and Savage eventually defeats Rhodes. Backstage, while trying to flee in his limo, DiBiase is being asked why he did this. The director cuts to Dusty entering the backstage area, there's some talking going on and you can see Dusty standing there and doing nothing. Then you hear about three guys yelling, "go, go, go" and here comes Dusty trying to stop DiBiase's limo from leaving. To no avail.

I remember watching that live and being 9 years old and thinking, "Why the hell was he just standing there??" After this, Dusty started wearing some severed chicken's foot on his top hat and was then shipped back to WCW.

And one more for kicks....

Spot Call #3
(If I've done this one before, I apologize)
The Event: SummerSlam 1999
The Match: Tag Team Turmoil Match
The Principles: Edge

For this match, the WWF would have two tag teams in the ring. The losers are gone and the winners await the next team to hit the ring. The match started w/ Edge & Christian and The Hardy Boyz. This was also just when the WWF was discovering that these four guys= workrate. If you've seen this match, this is the debut of the Hardyz running along the top of the black barricade around ringside. Before that spot, Christan is working a chinlock on one of the Hardyz. The camera has a shot of it which includes Edge standing on the apron behind them. You can then see Edge, looking at the cameramen at ringside and waving his hand, telling them to move out of the way. The action then spills outside and Jeff Hardy and Edge run the barricades on opposite sides and Edge hits a spear on Jeff w/out any of the photographers getting in the way. Edge so TOTALLY cares!

And w/ that I'll end it. I'll have some more spot calling soon and maybe some video reviews. If any of you have some examples of calling spots, send em my way and I'll post them in my next column. Until then, Vince, puh-lease shut up.

Hitman!

Omar Padilla
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