New Footage Friday: 1986 Crockett Cup!!

MD: Anyone reading this site will know the backstory here and how we thought it was always possible we were going to get this but never entirely sure. I know second-hand that people like Cornette had doubts as late as this year whether or not it existed. We lose five matches here, including Dundee/Landell vs Doc and Taylor and the Sheepherders vs the Guerreros, but what we got was great. Obviously we dropped everything to review it.

Fantastics vs. Fabulous Ones

PAS: This is a cool concept with heel Fabs facing the team that ripped off their entire gimmick. I didn't think there were any particularly excellent performances in this match, but the Southern tag formula is so solid, that even a baseline match in that style is going to be entertaining. I did like how vicious the Fabs were, gouging at eyes and spitting. I would be pissed if some LSAT tutor named himself Bill Schriber and stole all of my test tricks. Tommy Rogers had this weird open eyed smile on his face for much of the match like Forrest Gump, and Bobby Fulton sold pain with this over emotional cry face, I have a feeling the close up filming of these matches will do the Fantastics no favors. I really liked the finish, with Rogers doing a blind hot tag blocking a backdrop and rolling up Keirn

MD: Quick spoiler. This was the Fantastics' night. I can imagine other people are going to disagree, but out of their three great matches, this might have been my favorite. It was the most traditional of the three. There was such a novelty to see them against the Fabs, and picture perfect, totally on point, scraggly heel Fabs. I write this at the back end of four hours of wrestling, most of which being tags, so my memories aren't great, but this was just solid, solid tag work with two teams that were, on paper, mirror images of one another.

The shine was beautiful. The transition with a Lane superkick over the top rope while the ref was distracted was great. This was a show where every limb in the world was going to be worked over. Here it was the neck including the first of ten neck-clotheslines-over-the-top rope. This was the only one that ended with Keirn mocking the Fargo Strut though. Fulton, as much as almost anyone I've ever seen, was the distilled embodiment of (endearingly folksy yet somehow still emotionally true) Southern Pro Wrestling. Sometimes it's almost too much, almost too engaging. The look on his face after a hope spot when he realizes Keirn still has his leg so he can't make it to the corner is perfect Pro Wrestling. The finish was one of the freshest and most interesting on the whole show, with a blind tag and complex body positioning for the roll up.

Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner vs. Koko B. Ware/Italian Stallion

PAS: This was an awesome bit of business. I love that the WWE Network has become a Buzz Sawyer delivery system. Sawyer was incredible in this, just so many cool moments. He takes an insane bump into the ropes from a Koko dropkick, does this great amateur drop down instead of leapfrogging Stallion, suplexes Koko on the floor, misses his huge superfly splash, and does this awesome catch of Stallion leapfrog into a power over powerslam. Just an awesome show, everyone else was fine, and Koko takes a great bump to the floor, but man was Sawyer electric.

MD: This was really good. For some reason, it always amazes me just how giving Buzz Sawyer was considering all the stories about him. The way he bumped for Koko here was out of this world, or at least the normal physics for this world. He was an incredible stooge too, and not just with the big motions. There's a shit-eating grin on his face after a leapfrog but before he takes a body press by Koko that's top notch.

Here I thought at first that the shine might have been a bit too long, but ultimately, it just made the transition, a brutal suplex on the floor, one of the worst you'd ever see, all the more weighty. Koko's selling of the back was completely engaging and Buzz targeted it enthusiastically. Steiner and Stallion were fine in their roles, but this was the Buzz and Koko show.

Brett Sawyer/Danny Peterson vs. Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin/Black Bart

PAS: Shortish semi-squash, Sawyer and Peterson get in a little offense early, but basically go down pretty quickly. Bart had a nice clothesline, and Garvin's short brainbuster was super nasty looking, neck trauma for Peterson.

MD: I have a soft spot for Bart, having started watching wrestling in 1990 and watching as much as I could. He was all over WCW, WWF, and GWF if you watched everything in the year or two that followed. That said, I was not a fan of him on this night. Sawyer gave everything he had and frankly, for this part of the tournament, it was too much. He hit both an Alabama Jam and a top rope kneedrop onto Bart's arm, two of the biggest moves of the whole show, and they meant nothing. I thought it was too much even before Bart decided not to sell any of it. The most over thing in the match wasn't any of Sawyer's big offense but when he spat towards Garvin. That tells you something. Anyway, Garvin's brainbuster was great though.

Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton/Dennis Condrey) vs. Nelson Royal/Sam Houston

PAS: Really short match with Houston really getting fed to wood chipper. MX really moved through their stuff fast and violently. Houston does get a tag in, but Royal puts on a abdominal stretch and gets hit with a axehandle and pinned. Maybe 2 minutes.

MD: This was a whole lot of nothing, just a minute or two, but that whole lot was the Midnights looking amazing. They were the team you wish that you saw more of on this night. Eaton had the best punch of the night and that was saying something.

Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

PAS: This was only about 5 minutes, and I really wish it went longer. Just love both of these teams. Garvin is pasting people as usual, and it is really fun to watch him treat Rick Steiner the way Rick Steiner would treat everyone else he wrestles. The Maddogs beat on TA for a bit, including some punches to the forehead which seem to bruise him up good, then we get a great hot tag to Garvin who is throwing taters, and a quick belly to belly pin. These teams had great chemistry, and I wish we got a longer run from Sawyer and Steiner, what a pair of asskickers.

MD: The most interesting part of Magnum's game to me is always his selling. This is a guy who is supposed to portray a double-tough leather jacket Americana mustache biker ideal and he's not afraid to give and give and give. I think some of it is the explosiveness of the belly-to-belly which he can hit sort of out of anywhere, but I wonder if it's something he got from tagging with Wrestling II and being groomed by Dusty. The fans went along with him for the ride here. My favorite thing in all of this was probably Garvin slapping Steiner in the face after he wouldn't budge on the shoulder blocks. His peppering in of punches after the hot tag was good too. Steiner seemed a little lost at the end and that Belly to Belly sure was close to the ropes. This was perfectly fine and perfectly fun.

Road Warriors vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

MD: Not a lot to say here. You get the sense that Wahoo just wanted to get out of there before the crowd booed him too much. The best part of this was Tony and Ross trading off on the mic to open the evening session. I did like when Ross started to mention piledrivers and off the top rope moves and everyone booed until they realized he was saying they were legal on this night.

Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Jimmy Valiant/Manny Fernandez

MD: All of the pre-match stuff was fun. For a totally unnecessary moment on a packed show, Shaska cut a good promo on Valiant. I liked the Russian solidarity trying to get Gorchenko over. The Russians' formula was a bit bonkers by this point, with Ivan 1970s stooging and Nikita coming in to dominate. Obviously the fans loved every time he ran into Valiant's fist, but it's pretty dissonant. More about that the next time they show up.

Sheepherders vs. Rock and Roll Express

MD: Ah, our hated enemy, New Zealand. The Rock'n'Roll stuff with the flag at the beginning was great. They felt like such a big deal even though this was only sort of a cameo appearance for them. I caught this one on the bus, sans notes. Robert was FIP (body part of choice: shoulder/arm after a missed corner charge). Lots of interesting varied, relentless offense by the Sheepherders, including a bit second rope hammer to a prone Robert. The hot tag was super hot but the finish was BS as they hit an interfering Victory with the flag, not even one of the Sheepherders. They start a solid bullshit chant, complete with a "Blind Ref" sign in the crowd, after the fact though.

PAS:  Pretty by the numbers R+Rs match which is a great number to listen to. Sheepherders are pretty basic, but their basic stuff looks good, if you are going to stomp a shoulder,  stomp that shit. Gibson is as good an FIP as Morton and Morton is an all time great hot tag. That was an awful finish though, lots of ways to have the R+Rs lose and look strong without that fart.

Fantastics vs. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

MD: This was excellent. They were laying it in to one another, especially Tully. I liked the comfort food and novelty elements of the Fabs match, but this was worked as hard as possible, with everything basically hitting. What really took it over the top, though, was just how committed everyone was in their reactions. If it comes off like it matters to the wrestlers, it's going to matter to the crowd, and no one could make it feel like it mattered quite like Arn and Tully. When Arn really gets to come in against Rogers, we hear him say "I'm gonna enjoy this" while rubbing his hands together. The sheer offense he manages to express a moment later when Rogers tells him to kiss his ass popped the crowd huge.

I loved the comeback here. They just couldn't put Fulton away, so everything finally escalates to another suplex attempt on the floor. Fulton's able to escape by the skin of his teeth and after some real hard work, a minute later he's rolling for the hot tag. They went around the loop one or two times more before the finish (with the heels reacting again, JJ flying into the ring, Arn slamming his own head repeatedly onto the turnbuckle in frustration. These guys made you care).

PAS: This was really good, you don't think of Tully and Fulton as all time great punchers, but they looked like Dundee and Lawler here. Tully and Arn are great vicious pricks, and we have J.J. wandering around outside being a sleazy fuck. God is JJ great, he feels like a Southern Preacher who preaches about Jesus while owning 50 percent of a Miami youth hostel with a pool boy he met on vacation. Arn's two big spots, the spinebuster and gordbuster are both huge spots that always feel like finishes, and I love how sure he is of himself when he hits them.

Giant Baba/Tiger Mask vs. Jimmy Garvin/Black Bart

MD: This felt surreal, though not as surreal as the next Baba/Misawa match. The biggest thing to point out here was how the fans more or less booed or were indifferent two the Japanese wrestlers to start and how thoroughly Misawa won them over with his big spots. Bart probably didn't earn a trip to Japan with his selling. If Precious had swung at Baba post match like it looked like she was going to, she might have though?

PAS: It is weird how Jimmy Garvin worked both Misawa and Hashimoto in tag tournaments. He actually was a pretty good foil for Misawa's fast stuff, and Baba worked hard for mid 80s Baba. Not a great match but a pretty fun one.

The Road Warriors vs. The Midnight Express

MD: I sort of liked the story here where the Midnights were good enough to keep getting opportunities but just couldn't hold the offensive against the Road Warriors, which led to Cornette trying to escalate things with the tennis racket and getting caught. There's not much else to say here except for how good the Press-into-the-Ring spot with Eaton was.

Steve Williams/Terry Taylor vs. Nikita Koloff/Ivan Koloff

MD: First of all, it's a real shame we didn't get Bravo/Martel vs Williams/Taylor. Ah well. This was ok, but definitely worked towards a draw. It's also a shame, because in another setting, it could have been built to Doc and Nikita matching up with the crowd wildly behind Doc. As it was, the heel-in-peril on Ivan lasted forever and when they finally got to Doc vs Nikita, they defused it too much with stalling. I thought they could have worked the last minute of the draw a little more excitingly too. The post match carnage was something else though, just a total heel mauling in the Bill Watts style.

The Fantastics vs. The Sheepherders

MD: This became a bloodbath and an outright brawl towards the end. It's a heck of a spectacle and a testament to both the Fantastics (who wrestled three very different matches in one night) and the Sheepherders (who we only have a few minutes of vs the Guerreros). Phil will probably disagree with me, but I'm not sure it quite had the narrative meat it needed to stand up to the other two Fantastics matches on the show, no matter it's rep over time. They got some solid heat on Fulton on the outside but the comeback turned into a big blur. Blood's an awesome tool and it was used well here (as was the king of the mountain stuff we didn't see in the other tags), but all anyone's going to really remember is the pledge at the beginning and the flag shots and bleeding at the end (especially the blood on the bottom of Fulton's heels on that last dropkick. Wow). Near the end of an exhausting day of wrestling, I think this shut down the crowd for the next couple of matches.

PAS: I was surprised at how much of this was a standard tag until the blood started flowing. Once Fulton is cut the match skips a gear and we get a pretty exciting bloody brawl. Fulton's OTT selling work better here, as I bought his seizure selling as  guy bleeding to death more then I bought it when he breaks in out in random tag matches. By the end it got pretty out of control, but I wouldn't call this match legendary, the juice was a nice touch, and I like the match being thrown out, but for a match with the big rep it was more unique in context then in execution.

Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Giant Baba/Tiger Mask

MD: Totally surreal. Some of the biggest stars of decades and this felt like a piss break match that had to take the crowd back after what they had just witnessed. You got just the tiniest hint of Garvin and Baba firing back and forth on one another and an amazingly cool finish with Magnum just barely catching Misawa off the top with the belly-to-belly, but this was mostly dead, and I'm pretty sure I was too by this point.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Dick Slater

MD: We had this before, I think. Duggan was really over at this point. Slater had real heat at this point. The crowd remained dead for most of this. I liked the transition cementer with Duggan going through the rail. I liked the hope spot with Duggan chasing Slater around the ring. They started to wake up a bit for his big comeback and did light up for the finish.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair

MD: Paul Boesch is the best. This we only had 15 minutes of before. Back in late 92, WWF did these "Manager Cam" segments for CV, including one of the only Dibiase vs Santana matches we have in WWF on tape, where it's entirely focused on the manager. I love that we got this show without commentating, but there's a chunk of this that felt like the Baby Doll show. To their credit, the fans were back up for this. Dusty bled. Flair missed the knee drop to cause a transition and then missed the butt down on the leg in the ropes for another, which were both good inversions that you didn't see ALL that much. Flair bled. Dusty was smart enough to not lose on the boot shot, but to lose on the DQ and get to take out the ref as well. It's Dusty vs Flair. You've seen it.

The Road Warriors vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

MD: We had this before as well. I don't have a lot to say about it. It didn't feel like a dream match but it did feel like a culmination to a degree. I think nothing wore out its welcome (they could have spent too much time with the arm control work early, for instance, and they didn't). Magnum gave up a ton and the back focus was good. For the most part, until Animal's late chinlock, they kept it varied and interesting. I'm not sure this was the right match up to end the night. The fans seemed split. They popped somewhat for the belly to belly, but less for the hot tag that followed. Then they popped huge for the finish. Mrs. Crockett calling them the "Road Runners" at the end made the entire night worth it.