82.
Andre the Giant vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts
Wrestlemania V
This is one of the last matches where I don’t particularly have a lot to say. It feels like low hanging fruit to rag on a match featuring a man who suffered immense health problems later in his life and would unfortunately be a few years from passing. Jake has never been a renowned workrate guy, and while I’ve found myself to enjoy Andre’s prime a lot, unfortunately this is a far cry from that. If you told someone watching this match that Andre would be just four years from death, they’d probably say “yeah, sounds about right”. It’s hard to hold it against the performers, when it shouldn’t have gotten to this point. If you still want your Andre attraction match, don’t make it a nine minute match. There’s nothing they did in nine minutes you couldn’t have achieved in two or three. Particularly when Andre’s offence consists of chokes, nerve holds, and weak looking strikes. So while this match sucks, my criticism is more directed at McMahon for putting this on and giving it the time it got for an unsatisfying finish. The match is sad to watch and is one of those bad matches that gives me no enjoyment, whether ironic or otherwise.
Andre the Giant is deathly afraid of snakes, which acts like a theoretical equaliser for the much smaller Jake Roberts. Except it makes no real difference until the end of the match. In another piece of classic Andre the Giant mythology, Roberts has said that Damien did bite Andre in real life, leaving his fangs in his shoulder and Andre didn’t notice at all. Big John Studd, recently turned face, is the referee for this match featuring his previous Wrestlemania appearance. Tensions rise which leads to Andre attacking Big John Studd until he’s scared off by Damien leading to the disqualification win for Jake Roberts. There's interference from Ted DiBiase in there which briefly brings the crowd to life which is pretty lifeless when Andre is on offence (which is about 90% of this match).
Apologies for a shorter review, there’s not a great deal I want or feel the need to say. Thankfully there’s only a couple more matches in this list that are the same.
On the plus side, I’ve always been a fan of the aesthetic for the Wrestlemania 5 entrance way. So that’s nice.
Up next - a much more in depth review of nepotism, fellatio, and shampoo?
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