The Sheepherders vs Bobby Howell and Craig Whitford 09-09-1987
As a society, where do we fall on Sugar Ray?
I assumed as a culture we all have positive feelings about them, but you never know nowadays. I googled "Mark McGrath cancelled" to make sure he didn't do anything problematic, but the only thing that came up was they cancelled a cruise in 2013 during that Poop Cruise fiasco. Ironically Poop Cruise Fiasco opened for Sugar Ray on their '99 tour. Anyways, Sugar Ray was a band that came to me in a time period of unformed musical taste. As a child, VH1 and MTV were a constant in my house. The first time I ever heard "Fly" by Sugar Ray, I was like....whoa....this is different. I had never heard of Sugar Ray because I was 11 and I'd only heard of like 10 bands. But it had a cool video, it had a good hook, it had a dude randomly rapping over the lyrics. That would of course be Super Cat. To this day, if "Fly" comes on the radio and it's not the Super Cat version I get kind of bullshit about that. Sugar Ray followed that up with songs like "Every Morning" and "When It's Over" and became the kings of VH1's Top 20 Countdown. I don't mean this as an insult, but Sugar Ray was a great band for a 11 year old to get into. They had silly videos, they weren't dirty, and they were fairly toothless. I was 11 years old, I didn't need anything heavy....I just wanted something light. And also to Fly,
Sometime later on in the 90s, we got an N64 and biweekly trips to the Video Store became the norm. Trips to the video store were always a risk because you were liable to get sucked into a shitty game by cool box art. I don't even know why I picked it, but one week we decided to get Road Rash 64. Wait I know why I picked it, it's a game where you drive a motorcycle and try to kill other people on motorcycles. The math is legit.. It's basically Mad Max and the soundtrack was definitely a lot heavier than what I was used to. My musical taste had been evolving though , but man there was this one song on there I really liked.
"Mean Machine".
It was heavy and fast and loud and I thought man, I gotta get one of my friends with Kazaa to get me more from this band. I was too afraid to have it on my own computer. Anyways what band sings this? It's fucking Sugar Ray? WHAT? Go back and listen to anything before "Fly", Sugar Ray was a completely different band. They weren't exactly a punk or metal band, but they were way heavier and played way faster. There wasn't any acoustic ballads before Fly, i just Mark McGrath singing about chicks and cars. It blew my mind that this VH1 band could have snuck onto Headbanger's Ball and nobody would have batted an eye. How could these dudes go from singing about a mean machine to singing about their girlfriend's four post bed.
I couldn't understand.
That entire rambling metaphor can be translated to my thoughts on The Sheepherders/Bushwhackers experience. I grew up as a fan of The Bushwhackers because I was a kid and The Bushwhackers gimmick was that of big children. They were perfect for a little kid because they seemed like they were on my level intellectually. It didn't take me until I was a full grown adult before I found out about The Sheepherders. The idea that the goofy and loveable Bushwhackers were once The Evil Bloody Scourges of Southern Professional Wrestling didn't resonate with me. The Bushwhackers licked heads, not bit them. Luke and Butch did a silly walk, not attempt to murder people with weapons. Not all these analogies are clean folks. Going into this project, I still haven't seen much of The Sheepherders. I don't know if it's because I can't take them seriously as I saw the Bushwhackers first or a if I'm afraid it will damper The Bushwhackers for me or a some other third thing.
It's the third thing, which is I kind of forgot to ever watch them until I started a pro wrestling blog.
This week it's Luke and Butch, The Sheepherders vs Bobby Howell and Craig Whitford for an edition of UWF Power Pro Wrestling. This is our first entry for UWF, the former Mid-South Wrestling. I cannot get a good look at Howell and Whitford to make jokes about their appearances as The Sheepherders are all over them right away. Also I need to throw in there is The Sheepherders are accompanied by their flag bearer, Johnny Ace. Oh Johnny, I can't wait to talk about you. The Sheepherders rush the bell and toss out....oh they didn't identify which jobber is who.....let's say Howell. They're all over Whitford after that. They whip him into the corner for a double clothesline and then fist drop after fist drop. They aren't doing any vicious or special moves, but it's been a non stop assault since the jump. They whip Whitford into the ropes and do the headlock battering ram. It's so crazy that that move isn't a comedy spot in this match. I'm so used to The Bushwhackers doing it as their goofy finish, that to see them doing it as villainous bad guys is...well its upsetting. I am upset now. They hit a double gutbuster and get the pin-fall victory. 30 seconds was all it took
Nothing special squash match, but I appreciate that they didn't fuck around. Too many of these squashes are long and boring and need to get to the point. This is coming from a guy who wrote 2 paragraphs about Sugar Ray. It'll be interesting to see how Sheepherders vs Bushwhackers squashes compare to each other. At the end of the project I should do a comparison between them. Not now though, it's too early. I'll do it at the end
When its Over
TLDR Review
The Sheepherders make me feel unsettled. The Bushwhackers makes me feel special. Super Cat makes me fly
If you're interested in more condensed version of my thoughts, You can check out my Twitter where I talk about wrestling or stress out during Boston Celtics games. Hell, I'll even take suggestions for matches you want to see reviewed. You can also check out my Youtube where I make weird videos where I put on wigs in front of a camera to mask my true identity.