You Say You Want a Revolution

I know this is predominantly an Islanders blog...and, I guess, a place for me to talk about old school pro wrestling...but last night, the New England Revolution made it to their third consecutive MLS Cup game and that bears mentioning. I'm sure it has been on ESPN but if you missed it, go out of your way to see the bicycle kick game-winner by Taylor Twellman that sent the Revs past the Chicago Fire and through to DC for the Cup Final game on November 18.

I am a big Revs fan and trust me, over the years, Steve Nichols' boys
have delivered all sorts of stomach punches to the fans in big games.
For instance, last season, striker Taylor Twellman scored a goal in
extra time that looked like it was going to punk the monkey that had
been on the teams' back, only to see Brian Ching of the Houston Dynamo
tie it immediately afterward to send the game to a shootout. Despite
epic saves by Revs goalkeeper Matt Reis, the Revs were sent packing
without hardware and pretty much cemented their reputation as the
Buffalo Bills of Major League Soccer. And yes, I nearly threw up in my
mouth as I typed out that fun little reminder to myself.

This season, the Revs took home the first trophy in team history, the
Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, by beating FC Dallas of MLS in the final. The
victory allowed the team to hush some of the talk about their lack of
closing ability but also narrowed the vision of the players and fans,
who desperately want the Revs to finally bring the MLS Cup trophy back
to Gillette Stadium.

Manager Steve Nichol has done an outstanding job of keeping his core
players together so that the Revolution are always competitive in a
league where players are often ushered in and out of various
organizations like people standing in lines at the bakery. He's built
his team just like they do in baseball--with strength right up the
middle of the park. Captain Steve Ralston has moved into a playmaking
role and has flourished playing in front of epic holding MF Shalrie
Joseph. On the backline, the Revs sport the reigning MLS Defender of
the Year Michael Parkhurst and behind him is one of the most consistent
goalies in league history, Matt Reis.

While the Revs celebrated with the crystal Eastern Conference
championship trophy, the hockey guy in me was surprised that the Revs
players would even pick up the trophy because there was more work to do
in ten days against the winner of Saturday's Houston-Kansas City game.
What we can't begrudge is the fact that the Revolution have made it to
the Cup finals for the third straight year and for the fourth time in
team history. That is quite a compliment to the organization, the
Kraft family, and to Steve Nichol. But there is still unfinished
business for the team from Boston, city of champions.

OK, after writing that, I have to come clean. I have no idea how to
segue to talking about wrestling, so this sentence will have to suffice.
Here we go.

WWE 24/7 is showing the 1990 Survivor Series from Hartford this month.
I had never seen the TV broadcast before because I was at the event
live.

The 1990 SS is known for two debuts: First, The Undertaker. The second
was the ill-conceived Survivor Series mascot, the fabled Gobbeldygooker.

A lot has been written about both. First, let me give a little
back-story.

For months--and for all you people who are newer to wrestling, this is
how they used to build anticipation: making you wait--Mean Gene would do
interviews from a stage and there'd be this giant egg next to him.
Vince and Roddy Piper would speculate what or who was going to emerge
from the egg. Seriously. The freaking egg took on a life of it's own.
When it was announced that the egg would "hatch" at the Survivor Series,
the payoff had to be huge because so much had been made of it.

Smart fans speculated about the egg and most thought a new wrestler
would be debuting. At the same time, the WWF had signed away Mean Mark
Callous from WCW. Callous, who has wrestled with Sid Vicious in a tag
team called The Skyscrapers (managed by Teddy Long), was known to be
debuting on the show as well. His debut was built up for weeks as a
mystery partner of Ted DiBiase's in his Survivor Series match against
Dusty Rhodes' team. So, before the match, Ted got on the stick and
announced that his mystery partner was being lead to the ring by his
manager, Brother Love. Callous was announced as (Cliff Clavin Little
Known Fact coming up) "Kane the Undertaker" and proceeded to knock the
Thanksgiving tryptophan out of Dusty Rhodes from the ring to the
dressing room and back to WCW as the new booker.

(Quick note: The Whole "Kane the Undertaker" thing has been erased from
the WWE's memory banks. The tape has DiBiase saying introducing him
only as "The Undertaker" but trust me, he was originally called Kane but
they dropped it until they needed a character to be his brother and
Glenn Jacobs became The Big Red Machine. That is Cliff Clavin Little
Known Fact #2.)

A little later that night, we had the unveiling. Mean Gene was a real
trouper and man did he try, but the let down when a guy (Eddie
Guerrero's brother Hector, actually) in a big turkey suit came out to
dance was freaking palpable. I was surprised at the booing on the
broadcast because I thought that Vince and his manipulation machine
might have edited it out but it was not nearly as loud on TV as it was
in the arena. I don't want to say that the crowd hated it but we, you
know, really, really hated it. Violently hated it. After all of the
build up, Vince would have needed Sting or Ric Flair to come out of the
thing but instead, he gave us the living embodiment of a fart in church.
Yes, The Gobbeldygooker was the proverbial turd in the proverbial punch
bowl and the fans were incredibly upset. In fact, The Gobbeldygooker's
Circling Vortex of Suck totally killed the crowd that night by the time
they got around to the final match when Hulk Hogan (ugh) and The
Ultimate Warrior (bah) were crowned The Ultimate Survivors (blech). The
only fun was yelling, "The Rangers suck!" as "The Chicken Dance" was
echoing throughout the rink. Yep, "The Chicken Dance" for a guy in a
turkey suit. I don't know why. Also, "Dixie". That makes no sense
either.

For historical purposes only, I recommend checking out this event. You
get the debut of an iconic wrestling character and what can probably be
pegged as the worst idea of Vince McMahon's life, the Gobbeldygooker.
In hindsight, it only looks more and more ridiculous. Also startling
are the physiques of most of the wrestlers on the card. There was more
juice in the Hartford Civic Center than there ever has been at a Minute
Maid orange grove in Florida. It's crazy and jarring. If you think the
steroid problem is bad now in wrestling, trust me, you have no idea.