The Evil History Of Pro Wrestling: Heroes Of Wrestling

Greg Valentine Vs. George Steele, on second, was an atrocious match.

It went six minutes; Valentine immediately walked around at ringside to stall. He took the mark’s money and didn’t even bother to run, but on a night like Heroes of Wrestling, it was the height of professionalism. When the wrestlers - as opposed to “the action” - made their way back into the ring, Steele spent the vast majority of the match slouched against the turnbuckles. 2 Cold Scorpio and Julio Fantastico at least had the good grace to move in their match, but just took turns doing moves at one another because they couldn’t be bothered to craft anything. They didn't execute the best wrestling moves ever, or anything, but it was positively state-of-the-art measured against the overall standard.

Then, the Bushwhackers Vs. Iron Sheik and Nikolai Kolfoff happened.

In a stunt match rating, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer awarded the bout -459.4* - “absolute zero” - labelling it “the worst match” he had ever rated in his life. His colleague, Bryan Alvarez, rated it “minus more stars than there are in the universe”.

Neither man was exaggerating. It may well be the single worst match ever. Matches exist in which the work is similarly catastrophic, but few, if any, are quite as bleak. This was not remotely entertaining in a perverse way. It was a sad watch.

Volkoff bumped like a statue off a double clothesline - with no hyperbole, he bumped on his ass like an inanimate object, a vase knocked off a windowsill. He could not execute the motion of a flat-back because not a single connective tissue existed in his body. “Statue” is the only adequate word - but that can’t be right, because that word can’t be wasted when the Iron Sheik’s performance happened.