This has been making the rounds and Stevie Richards has an interesting analysis of it. It's a WCW tv match, between Mike Rotunda, as the babyface "Captain" Mike Rotunda, against a jobber, called Death Row. Pay close attention to how Death Row handles himself in the ring, then watch as Rotunda schools him on wrestling, stretches him a bit, and then gives him a receipt for too many potatoes....



Here is Stevie breaking down what Death Row is doing wrong and how Rotunda tries to guide him, then finally loses his cool and teaches the guy a lesson in both respect and working a match.....



We've had this discussion before. As a babyface, Rotunda was bland as a BRAT Diet (Bananas, Rice And Toast); but, as a heel, he had more oomph, though no better personality. Personally, I hated the IRS gimmick, as it was cartoonish foolishness and Michael Wall Street was the same level of stupidity. The Varsity Club Mike Rotunda worked better, for me, as cocky a-hole jock worked pretty well and seemed a more natural fit for Rotunda. By all accounts, he was anything but that, as a real athlete; but, he knew how to play it. With Kevin Sullivan to do the talking and Rick Steiner to abuse, it worked like a treat. The ironic thing was that Steiner was the a-hole jock, in reality, as was Scott, based on everything I have heard from their collegiate days, right down to their locker room "pranks" as pros, which mostly seemed to resolve around bullying people who couldn't or wouldn't fight back. You'll notice they didn't take liberties with Butch Reed and Ron Simmons, as Doom, like they did Japanese teams and other WCW teams.

Stevie's analysis also points out that the claims that Steven/William Regal was shooting on Goldberg, trying to show him up, were pure nonsense. Here is the match....



At no point does Regal switch to working the right side, like Rotunda does, when he tries to settle Death Row down and get him back into a working frame of mind. Regal never lands anything in a short, sharp thrust, just in a working manner. He repositions Goldberg a couple of times to get them in a better spot to execute some moves that make Goldberg look better, when he pulls off a counter. It is Goldberg who is screwing up the match, with poor timing and ring positioning, requiring Regal to make adjustments; and, yet, typical of WCW politics, Regal gets the blame, Goldberg doesn't back him up by admitting he was lost in the match and Regal is penalized. Regal actually made Goldberg look like a better wrestler and fighter than all of the previous squash matches. Goldberg looks like he runs into his first piece of difficulty, but pulls out some unique stuff and wins decisively. It was a better job of making Goldberg look like a fighter than having Hugh Morris get potatoed and pancaked in a couple of minutes. As it was, its only about 6 or 7 minutes. If Regal wanted to show up Goldberg and teach him a lesson, like the conspiracy theories, he would have just held him on the mat and stretched him from here to Sunday. Compare to Rotunda, who is controlling Death Row with one arm and his hips and legs, cranking the neck and cutting off the airway, while turning him whichever way he wants. Regal never does anything like that. Even that little headbutt spot is not done in any way that would actually hurt Goldberg. if Regal really wanted to headbutt him, he'd do it to the bridge of the nose or the eye. He delivers it while pulling back, allowing Goldberg to twist back, rather than closing the distance, as in a real fight.

I worked with someone in the Navy, who went to school with the Steiners and his description, pre-internet, matches up with things that have circulated since the internet became a factor.  They basically sound like a pair of dumb jock bullies, messing with people to see if they will fight back.  When they wanted to work, as pros, they put on great matches; but, when they were not in that frame of mind or got ticked off about something, they were careless with people.

In their discussion about the WWA, Jim Cornette asked Baron Von Rashke if he ever had anyone try to test him, in the ring, since he had been a top collegiate wrestler and wrestled on the Army team.  He said a few people got cute and he would tweak them a little and they would go back to working, specifically mentioning Billy Robinson, as I recall (and Robinson had that rep and got shown up by Verne, as well).

I've read some things about some Japanese wrestlers, that they would try to test the foreigners, as well as they were used to laying it in, to look more realistic and Americans (and other foreigners) would have to respond to the challenge.  The Fantastics talked about the Rock N Roll Express preceding them in Japan and the Japanese guys were stiff with them and Ricky Morton not liking to work with them and not returning to Japan (or receiving an invitation from Baba to do so, again), though Robert could hold his own with them.  The Fantastics went in there and fought them, especially Tommy Rogers, who had a good amateur background, and they Japanese guys would settle down and work with them and they were brought back by Baba several times. 

The UK wrestlers seemed to have few problems with the Japanese, as they had a better foundation in actual wrestling than a lot of Americans, who were used to working.  The big American stars were usually left alone, though a few have said that some people tried to test their reactions, here and there and they always had their guard up, with certain guys.