RIP Lanny Poffo: ICW Eye of the Tiger Cage Match

Lanny Poffo vs. Rip Rogers ICW 11/16/82 - Eye of the Tiger Steel Cage Hair vs. Hair Television Title Match

Part 1
Part 2

MD: This followed a Randy Savage vs Ratamyus cage match that was (based on Lanny's commentary) more of a bloodbath. Unfortunately, that's not online, if we have it at all. Thanks to Rip Rogers, we have this. It, on the other hand, was a title match main event, worked primarily as a big title match, even with the no DQ and hair vs hair stip; it served as a contrast. That's not to say that it didn't escalate and that they didn't lay it in, but they started wrestling mostly clean for the first half and the cage itself didn't come into play until the last third. It worked for the match, though, with the wrestling mostly even and skilled (including a great Lanny bridge out of a side headlock that would have fit well in 1970s France) until Lanny took a couple of big back bumps into the turnbuckles and Rip started to hone in. Great selling from Lanny here. He was working for the back row, picking up a ton of sympathy along the way and knowing just when to fire up from underneath. All of Rip's stuff looked mean and credible, and when they started moving on towards slugging it out, Rip's headbutts and Lanny's right hand were both equally memorable. Lanny took some big bumps into the cage, only saved by a foot on the ropes and Rip then ate all of Lanny's flipping offense, getting his own foot on the ropes for the parallel. They gave Rip a visual fall after a rep bump to protect him after a wild dropkick, but in all of the chaos and cut off interference, Lanny scored a roll up and the fans went wild. 

The match stands on its own as a really solid main event with some great selling of exhaustion and big strikes down the stretch. What makes it doubly special today, however, is that 1982 Lanny narrates the entire match. You get a kayfabe explanation of everything he was doing throughout, what he was thinking, what he was feeling, why he used one move or another, all with his wry sense of self. He was in character, but his voice chimes through even forty years later. This was Lanny holding a title, wrestling in the main event as a local hero, putting his hair on the line, fighting from underneath in a cage, and explaining the whole thing in his singular voice.