Found Footage Friday: CROCKETT CUP 87 NIGHT 1~!

Crockett Cup 87 Night 1 JCP 4/10/87

ROUND 1

Bobby Jaggers/Rocky King vs. Thunderfoot I/Thunderfoot II

MD: It immediately bugs me why Dutch Mantell isn't with Jaggers. I know, I know, but the last match on Cagematch for Dutch before 4/10/87? End of March with Jaggers against the Thunderfeet! But he was wrestling Adrian Street for Continental on this date for some reason. So we get Jaggers and King. The winners here would face the top seed Raging and Ravishing in the second round. Thunderfeet are Ligon and Deaton, and Deaton and Jaggers probably would have been a good team. They're fine. This is fine. Jaggers has a nice double clothesline comeback. That was the best part of this past one Thunderfoot bump. 1987 Baltimore fans didn't seem to like King much. Probably best not to dig too deep there. Finish was a whole lot of nothing with King putting his head down not once but twice and getting caught both times, but with all the matches they had, they had to save some finishes.

ER: 1987 was crazy, man. This show drew over 13,000 people and you have Joel Deaton in a mask looking like a Mama's Family tag team that is wrestling Mama for some reason. Bobby Jaggers was really great in this. His offense hit really hard and his worked stuff had excellent execution. His Hitman elbow is really clean and he throws the non-Deaton Thunderfoot up into a really high back body drop. Jaggers was a really great seller too, took offense in an athletic way that belied his body. He looked like smaller Dusty Rhodes and honestly I might be a believer in the real Small Dusty potential of Jaggers. We need a Jaggers deep dive evaluation. Man Baltimore really got on Rocky King for a crossed up spot. People were actually saying Boo. 

Bill Dundee/Barbarian vs. Tim Horner/Mike Rotundo

MD: Yes, Capetta called him Rotundo. Tony called him Rotunda. If I have my timelines right, Horner was in between the short run with Ole earlier in the year and Lightning Express being the UWF tag champs a bit after this. He matched up really well with Dundee, who, to his credit, was very good in this player/coach role, telling Barbarian where to toss people and what not. This probably had a little too much Rotunda. If Horner was face-in-peril instead I probably would have gone for it more. Rotunda just doesn't inspire the same sort of sympathy. Dude just kind of sweats his way through his selling. Horner and Dundee did a great job keeping the fans into it on the apron though and Barb really did look like a force.

ER: How perfect does Barbarian looked? Could you imagine what a shame it would have been if this man never found pro wrestling? I can't even picture what it would be like walking through life in 1987. What a life. It's funny watching a specimen like that work Tim Horner and Mike Rotunda as almost equals instead of a guy ripping their intestines out and eating their face off their skull. Bill Dundee was excellent in this. Mid-South undersized heel Dundee is the peak of the Dean Malenko kind of fast moving juniors base who can move quickly and smoothly through chained exchanges. Dundee has his Lawler level execution of bumping, two of the greatest ever at putting over offense through controlled movement. He's the kind of guy you want to see doing things at every moment of the match. I thought it was actually more interesting that they tweaked the formula and had Rotunda as the FIP while Horner handled the hot tag. Rotunda as a face in peril might be the most interesting match structure of his career, forcing emotion out of him. He is more interesting being controlled than in control. Horner is really fun in the hot tag role and it's something you never see in this formula: the smallest looking guy in a match with Bill Dundee as the guy set on fire. I thought it worked best as the least traditional version of this match and 

Shaska Whatley/Teijo Khan vs. Jimmy Valiant/Lazer Tron

MD: This was a blast for the few minutes it lasted. So much of that was on the contrast between Valiant and Hector and how much Whatley committed to all the stooge spots. They'd run them bang bang bang in quick succession and it was pretty delightful. Valiant would draw his ire and he'd just run crashing into the corner and then they'd feed into heel miscommunication and double atomic drops and what not. They did a little bit of heat on Valiant and then a finishing sequence where the ref missed a pin after a pretty slick roll dodge/move off the ropes by Lasertron. When he looked back, Lasertron dumped Whatley over the top inadvertently to draw the DQ. Again they need lots of finishes for this thing. It's a shame we won't see more of that pairing here though.

ER: Sure sounds like the Baltimore crowd is chanting Shoeshine Boy at Whatley. It's crazy that Teijo Khan went on an All Japan tour. How'd that even go. I want a documentary on this guy spending a couple weeks in Japan doing Asian Face the entire time. Great Shaska Whatley heel comedy bump match. He looks like Johnathan Gresham's dad and takes these big empty pool senton bumps for everything, it's great. He throws these comically wide missed strikes to set up his bumps. He worked like Exotico Bad News Brown and it ruled. Whatley is a super over babyface in new to us 1983 Omni footage, and here the fans hate him more as a heel than they love Jimmy Valiant as a face. Lazer Tron stumbles on the Solar rope flip entrance. That's something Hector weirdly got better at doing the older he got. It's like some old man Mexican lucha power. Hector needed some years behind him before it could work. Needed another decade. Hector's at age 43 looked as great as Solar doing it at 53. 

Jimmy Garvin/Ron Garvin vs. Ricky Lee Jones/Italian Stallion

MD: Nothing here. Jones was Ricky Gibson actually, so that's interesting, but past some mat wrestling with Ron Garvin, he didn't get to do much. This was face vs face and while the fans were happy to see the Garvins and very eager to see them get the Midnights in Round 2 stemming from the fire angle that turned Jimmy face, this was sportsmanlike and quick. Jimmy won with a sunset flip out of nowhere. It's a shame that they couldn't have done RnR vs Ricky Gibson somehow but I think Morton was out with an eye injury. They could have even teamed Ricky Gibson with Robert and that would have been cool for one night too but alas, no.

Denny Brown/Todd Champion vs. The Mulkeys

MD: Big Mulkey chants. They were super over. Unfortunately, the bracketing meant they couldn't win here because the winners would face Baba/Takagi and they couldn't have Baba booed. They set this up so well on TV too by building up a fake team called the Gladiators for a couple of weeks and then doing a match vs the Mulkeys to see who would get in only for the Mulkeys to score the huge upset. They could have set up the brackets so a heel team could have faced them in round two though. Ah well. The fans popped for every bit of Mulkey offense (Which was basically a double back body drop and vertical suplex) but Brown hits a huge back body drop of his own and an Oklahoma Roll for the win. (again Ah well. I can't believe I'm complaining so much about 1987 Crockett booking here. I am enjoying this, honest!)

Nelson Royal/Mike Graham vs. Steve Keirn/George South

MD: Another baffling one was Keirn and Graham had teamed in the 70s and would team again in 87 Florida. This was actually a great performance by Royal and to a lesser degree Keirn. Royal was working South pretty even to start and the fans wanted nothing to do with it, chanting boring, so he decided to take it a different direction and work with a huge chip on his shoulder towards Keirn. Some very clever stuff and when they did pair off it was some great wrestling. Two problems: 1) I'm not sure South and Graham were on board, so it felt like a parejas increibles match or something with a heel and a face on both sides and 2) the match was booked to go to a draw. The crowd cheered the time call and cheered even more the draw since it meant both teams wouldn't be moving on. Not a good sign. Keirn did something awesome towards the end, tossing Graham over the top rope as the ref was distracted (should have drawn a DQ) and then dropping to the mat. Fun stuff, but it didn't amount to anything. This made me want to see a Royal vs Keirn match though.

Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov vs. Bob & Brad Armstrong

MD: We only had a couple of minutes of this before. Now we have the full thing. Not a ton to say about it overall though. Pietrov pretty convincingly handles Bob (who honestly makes him look great) until Brad gets the hot tag and comes in hot. The Russians try to use the chain and get caught. Pretty simple and straightforward but effective nonetheless. It's interesting to lose some of the "real" teams in round 1 like this. Ivan and Vlad were seeded actually, with the Mod Squad who were the only seeded teams having to wrestle in Round 1.

Mod Squad vs. Baron Von Raschke/Wahoo McDaniel

MD: Speaking of the Mod Squad, they had Dundee with them and they were the Florida Tag Champs, thus the seeding. Fun to watch Wahoo chop Dundee and then the two of them early on. They double teamed him though and he worked from underneath for a few minutes. Baron came in hot, which is a pretty funny image and the fans went nuts for the goosestepping/claw. Wahoo flew across the ring with a chop too but that drew the ref which allowed Dundee to slip in some knucks which meant the Florida tag champs moved on to the second round. Guess you had to protect them since they'd be an act moving forward?

ROUND 2

Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude vs. Thunderfoot I/Thunderfoot II

MD: Now this is an interesting match up because it's heel vs heel and neither side is redeemable at all. Jones went on the mic at the start to remind everyone that Raging 'n' Ravishing were the #1 seed. Midway through Thunderfoot #1 actually mouthed off to Jones while he had Manny in a headlock. He almost immediately got tossed off and thrashed of course. Eventually he made the tag and it looked like they were going to take over on Manny but Rude rushed right in, heel that he was, and broke it up. That led to a pretty quick DDT and the pin. Post match they stomped on The Thunderfeet for their audacity. 

Bill Dundee/Barbarian vs. Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff

MD: Another interesting one since this is the first match up between Dusty and Dundee to make tape (there was the ill fated 87 Memphis show where Dundee beat Dusty to be the "King of Memphis" but we don't have that). And it went about as you'd expect. Dusty caught Dundee's foot, elbowed him the skull; Dundee went head over heels and then out to the floor, where he immediately got scared by Nikita. Then he ran right in and tried to box Dusty which went about as well for him as you'd think. Fun stuff. The fans had wanted Nikita vs Barbarian from the get go, so they did that next, only for Dundee to cheat their way on top by choking Nikita (who had the neck brace) with the tag rope. Eventually Dundee tried to punch Nikita which led to a posing comeback, Barbarian cutting it off, Dusty coming in, and Nikita hitting both of his opponents with the sickle. Since they knew this was going short, they made the most of this.

Road Warriors vs. Teijho Khan/Shaska Whatley

MD: If anything (because of the tournament setting), Animal probably gave them too much. The fans were up for the hot tag to Hawk, but they would have been up for it even sooner. They had tried to ambush the Warriors to start but it got turned around immediately, with Hawk hitting an over the shoulder backbreaker into a power bomb of sorts and then Animal press slamming Khan, no small feat. There was a great moment where Khan and Whatley were pounding on Animal in the corner and he just shrugged them off to a huge pop (that's where the tag should have been probably?) but they kept on him until Hawk could get in and hit a quick power slam for the win. 

Midnight Express vs. Ron Garvin/Jimmy Garvin

MD: This we had from a single cam, maybe even a handheld, but here's the pro shot version. It's really a cliff notes version of the match they'd likely had around the horn since this is the biggest single feud being captured by the tournament. The pre-match is chaos with Precious chasing Cornette around and it all comes off great. Jimmy Garvin may have felt miscast as a babyface here, but he'd spent a chunk of time in Florida that way before getting the Gorgeous character and he got to show off his dropkick here, for instance. They get in and out of all of this quickly, Midnights taking over, laying it in and making the most of a few minutes, and then crashing into each other to set up the hot tag, Ron Garvin punching away, and Eaton almost sailing over the top on one before rolling to the floor. Ron almost got the pile driver on the floor, but Cornette really audibly cracked him with the racket when the ref wasn't looking. Midnights beat the count and Garvins don't and they move on to get future comeuppance, both in rematches and in the matches to come. Nice, compact piece of business here.

Giant Baba/Isao Takagi vs. Denny Brown/Todd Champion

MD: I'll be honest. You spend the whole match kind of sad it's not the Mulkeys vs. Baba and Takagi, with the latter playing heels. Instead they're amiable babyfaces and whenever Brown or Champion try anything, it doesn't go well for them. Lots of head chops. I like how Baba squares up before the Russian Leg Sweep because you just don't get that camera angle on it often. Takagi had his big corner charge and Brown sort of collapsed well out of the corner for it. This was sort of a lost opportunity relative to a more interesting set of opponents for them though. Imagine Dundee stooging for Baba for instance. 

Bob & Brad Armstrong vs. Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson

MD: Sullivan was in there as Ole had left the Horsemen. He was a fairly unique ringer for them given he hadn't been in JCP much at all in the prior years, but everyone knew him from magazines. I'd watched the TV leading up to this a year or two ago and this team was the most interesting to me. And they did ok. Early on Arn got outwrestled by Brad and Bob outpunched both of them, including fighting out of the corner and posing with a kung fu type deal that was pretty iconic. They took over on him by grabbing the leg off the ropes and did ok for a couple of minutes before Bob turned a double team around (literally, shifting Sullivan into Arn's outstretched knee in a pretty slick move). In the chaos that followed Brad got a sunset flip for the win. It was treated as an upset but one team was more used to working with each other than the other.

Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard vs. The Mod Squad

MD: Another interesting one on paper since it's heel/heel. Worth noting that it's not Tully and Arn. That really was a short lived team. This ended up being one of the highlights of night 1. Both teams cheated. The Mod Squad cheated better, taking advantage of some distractions by JJ where Dundee was able to coach them up. That's not to say the fans went for the Horsemen though. It was heel vs heel tournament action. Finish had everything break down. Tully got his feet up on a corner charge and hit a second rope elbow drop as JJ belted Dundee to prevent him from interfering (we had this hh before but we totally missed JJ belting Dundee). Unique stuff.

Big Bubba vs. Ole Anderson (Cage)

MD: This was out there but it's well worth watching. It's crazy to think how Bubba was used in 87 and 88, even 89, so early into his career. He was main eventing Bunkhouse Stampede finals with Dusty around the horn at the start of the year, moved right into the Ole feud, then became UWF champ. He moved over to WWF and had the run with Hogan and even a run in top positions on house shows against Demolition in 89. Then he'd be the #3 babyface in the company in early 91.This was mostly about Ole though. Amazing fire from someone who had seen so many babyfaces fire up against him. Just the way he spun around at the beginning. You'd never expect it out of him but you also weren't surprised to see he could manage it. Of course he could. This was just a slugfest but that was exactly what you wanted to be. Ole, when he fired back, did so with these great double sledges and everything built to Bubba missing the huge splash and Ole hitting a massive, belt assisted pile driver and then beating the ten count to win. It went just over 10 minutes and it was perfect at that length.