Death Valley Days: Road Report

ACTION Wrestling Death Valley Days: Road Report 2/28/26

MD: Usual disclaimer to start. This is Segunda Caida, of course. But I don't personally have a hand in these shows. It's all Phil, Eric, Matt G, and JR. I get no privileged info. Up until now at least, I don't suggest that they try to book Marco Corleone. While I'm proud of these guys for putting their money where their mouth is, my mouth is here. I wouldn't say what you're about to read is fully unbiased, but it does have a level of distance at least. That said, they're doing great. But they already have a Matt, and he could hit an Iconoclasm on me.  

It's also been great seeing so many people write about the show in general. Engage with pro wrestling, write about it, talk about your experiences. That's the spirit that drove DVDVR and this place and the internet needs more of it once again.

Ok, on with the show.

Darian Bengston vs Ryan Mooney

MD: Kicking things off and setting the tone, this was for the ACTION title, one of the two title matches on the card. Bengston is free-flowing, technical, engaging, dynamic, entertaining. He's constant motion, shifting from one hold and position to the next. 

It was up to Mooney to stop him cold as many ways as possible then. Sometimes that meant throwing himself headlong at Bengston, foot first off the ropes and with a body block from off the top. Sometimes it meant throwing Bengston all around the ring with tricked out offense. And yeah, sometimes, especially when things got particularly hairy and Bengston inched closer to the Makabe Lock, that meant biting. 

As things escalated, tricks that worked earlier in the match failed later on, like a hitter who had seen a pitcher a couple of times late in a game, and that was true first and foremost for the biting. Bengston was able to redirect Mooney's hand right into his own mouth, lock the legs, and flip over for the Makabe Lock. This was solid, smart, straightforward. Both men were stylized in their approaches but the match itself was grounded and easily accessible compared to what was to come.

Angus Legstrong vs Oldman Youngboy

MD: I made the choice to write about this all at once, because it, even more than the DEAN shows, is a single card and should be looked at as such. In some ways, this match is here to prep everyone for the BattlARTS match to come, but it's also to pull people out of their comfort zone. Bengston vs Mooney was very much in their comfort zone, something well executed and familiar.

This though? 

This probably took a lot of the crowd for a ride into Parts Unknown. Legstrong looks like a mostly bald Cliff Clavin, if he had the strongest legs in the world, which he immediately showed off. Youngboy returned the favor with a super impressive bridge. 

And then they were off to the races. Gritty grappling where nothing was given and everything was opportunistic. In theory, it was a bit like a CWF undercard match where Eddie Graham sent a couple of guys out to shoot. 

Back on their feet, neither getting a decided advantage (though Legstrong was able to get Youngboy to go for a rope break), they each utilized more of a professional wrestling flourish. Youngboy faked high and picked a leg with a roll; later on he'd hit a beautiful takedown scissoring Legstrong (ironically enough) with his legs. Legstrong, on the other hand, was able to get Youngboy in a vulnerable position and just paintbrushed him.

Maybe, just maybe, Oldboy was winning on points, but none of that mattered after Legstrong hit the first real bomb of the match, a literal one. Oldboy, on instinct, managed a kickout on the folding press, but Legstrong did his best SENKA impression and bullied Oldboy over for the pin. 

This was two men plying their trade, showing off their skill, presenting a vision of what pro wrestling can and should be that's very different than most of what we've gotten this century and it was very welcome to see.

Isaiah Broner vs Jake Shepherd

MD: Exactly what it should have been (which is something you can say about every match on the card, really). Two behemoths going at it. Jake Shepherd possesses real Jerry Blackwell energy in the best way. There's just something about how he moves. They just threw shots at each other to start and Broner got the better of him. Shepherd had this way of shaking his leg as he stumbled backwards. When you're a super heavyweight, every movement matters. It draws the eyes, it tugs at the imagination. By stumbling back like that, it put over Broner's shot in a massive way. 

Then he crashed right through him (which is no small feat). They ended up on the floor and Broner started to get the best of him again, but there was Shepherd out of nowhere with an unlikely kick. He had an answer. And then he punctuated it with an absolutely brutal splash on the floor. Much of the rest of the match was Broner trying to heft Shepherd up for what the commentators thought might be a Death Valley Driver. Eventually, after catching him on the ropes, he did get him up, and then he planted him with the craziest F5 you'll ever see. I could have watched these two throw massive shots at each other all night, but clearly in a clash this titanic, something had to give. Broner's always worth watching, no question; we knew that. But Shepherd is such a perfect DVDVR guy.

Kasey Owens vs Adrian Alanis

MD: Character should always drive action, but that's especially true when you're deviating from conventional narratives. This was heel vs heel, but it was completely driven by who these two were.

That meant Owens came out, turnbuckle in hand, causing a fit and demanding the ref to check Alanis. That let him slip the brass knuckles into the turnbuckle himself, presumably to use later. 

Once the action started however, it was more akin to goofus and gallant, if both were heels. Alanis had one poised piece of offense after another, posing in between. Owens, on the other hand had cheapshots and finger pulling. 

After Alanis nearly got the win with a Flosion and Owens finally hooked in the Chicken Wing, things completely devolved into one of the best and rarest forms of wrestling there is, a dirty rotten scoundrels scenario. A crutch ended up in the ring, then one chair after the other. Owens tried to use the turnbuckle. The ref was yelling at them. They were yelling at the ref. They were yelling at each other. Then they both went for the Eddy Guerrero chair fakeout at the same time and only came to when it was obvious the ref was going to throw the match. It was fun stuff and completely different than anything else on the card and most things you'll see on any card all year. 

Alanis felt a little more out of his element though, which allowed Owens to get the better of him. Instead of getting to use the knucks, he ensured that Alanis went head first into the turnbuckle. I'm not 100% sure about the actual physics of that, but the pro wrestling physics (which tend to be more moral than anything else) were spot on, and the slovenly trickster of yore beat the slicker athlete on this night.  

Slim J vs Tim Bosby

MD: Slim J looked like the most professional professional wrestler in the world here. This was sharp as you'd expect, one of the most imaginative, versatile babyfaces of the century, with some of the best, smartest instincts, against a dynamo of a athletic base with bomb after bomb after bomb for offense. 

Slim tried to pry off an arm early, and he'd have some success with that technique, but there was always the sense that Bosby was just too big and too much for it to slow him down enough. Even then, were it not for Hales getting involved, maybe it would have been. But Dylan did get in the way and that let Bosby start in on the back. 

Some of his offense looked like it broke Slim in half. Despite that, Slim would climb up and around, bound over, hit from every angle as he was want to do, but he couldn't turn the tide. A match like this, while being as pro wrestling as it possibly can be, also has a bit of that sports feel. Bosby had the ball and was driving on net again and again but no matter the pressure, Slim J didn't break. And once he got ball possession, he ran with it. 

Even then, it seemed like it all came to naught as Bosby finally planted him with an F5, something they had conditioned the crowd to be a match-ender earlier in the night in the Broner match. It led to a huge kickout here. Finally, after a couple of finishing stretch counters, Bosby hit a spinecrunching German and it looked like that might be it. It just wasn't that sort of night though. It was, instead, the sort of night where Slim leaned as hard as anyone possibly could into being an arch-babyface, hulked up, ripped the shirt, nailed Dylan off the apron, and wholly immune to even the idea of negative consequence of that distracted action, took Bosby up, over, and around for the pin. And for at least a few minutes, all was right in the world. 

You know what? Sometimes we need that. Sometimes we need pro wrestling to be that. Why the hell not here and now?

Toby Klein vs Nathan Mowery

MD: Variety is the spice of life, and if you ask these guys, blood is a viable spice. This would be the death match portion of the show. The great thing about using a VCR as a ranged weapon, like Klein did to start this before Mowery could even make it to the ring, is that then you can use the tape from the VHS itself as a garotte. It's economical when you think about it.

This was about as straightforward as could be. Two maniacs (said affectionately) jabbing jagged objects ranging from antlers to a handsaw into each other's forehead and then peppering the bloody remnants with punches. Occasionally you'd get a DDT. More likely you'd get a chair, or a door, or a light tube. 

If there was the overarching theme to the night, it was wrestlers giving it their all, not in the A for Effort sort of way, but instead in that these characters, these unique, twisted, brilliant, wonderful entities, were pressing up against each other in this overwhelming cacophony of violence, technique, and grit that would drown out all the petty, meager worries of the day. And that was completely at play here. These two were, in this moment, the very most of their class, of their type, and they battled each other with all the trappings of their chosen style. It just so happens that Mowry had the Reverend at his side and the means to set his elbow on fire. Past that? Could have gone either way.

Jamesen Shook vs Tank

MD: Speaking of characters (but then I could start literally every one of these matches like that; that's the strength of this card!)... Shook and Tank. 

For a guy with just a few years under his belt, Shook is markedly good at commanding a room. He's very entertaining, especially when he's taking stuff. He wrestled this match big even in a small room, and you need to wrestle big to stand out against Tank. 

Tank's got the mass, but he's a center of gravity not because of what he is but because of who he is. It's because of the timing, the gravitas, some of the best punches you could possibly see in 2026 (or 2016 or...), and the wisdom to know how to twist the act just a little depending on his opponent, like here with the eyepoke. Meanwhile, Shook was living up to his name, arms flailing at every shot.

Even so, there's over a thirty year age gap between these two, and you got the sense that Tank wanted to win this one through crook as much as hook, just to show that he was canny, that he was the master of whatever game you put in front of him. Thus the feigned knee injury. If he had just plowed through, maybe he could have won this thing, likely he could have, but he wanted to win it on his terms and that gave Shook exactly what he needed to get a roll up and slip away with his title for yet another day.

Karl Greco-Malenko vs Matt Mako

MD: So Greco-Malenko could be Timothy Olyphant's stunt double on Justified, and I mean that in the very best way. He doesn't need to be though, because he's already Karl Greco-Malenko, and that's more than enough.

Back during the DEAN~!!! 1 review here, I noted my own difficulties in writing about shoot style given that it tends to be so free-flowing and full of primarily intrinsic storytelling. I've watched a lot of Newborn UWF since then, and I've more or less come up with a framework to see me through.

You're looking for the contrasts. They say styles make fights, but it's really a combination of character, physical attributes, and preferences (you can call that styles, I guess). If you can map out all three through the action, you've got things managed.

Here, Mako was younger, stronger, faster. He wanted that armbar. Was he starstruck a bit? Hard to say. Greco-Malenko was savvy with plenty to prove. They both had hunger but it maybe manifested differently, and it's in that difference, as much as all the skill and technique between them, that a fight like this shines.

The sum of it felt fairly equal to me. Mako looked for his opportunities, was quicker to grapple, was more the aggressor. Greco-Malenko had answers for mostly everything; sometimes that was firing off palmstrikes, both when in a hold and not. Sometimes it was a clever reversal. There was one time where he avoided a rope break by spinning out into a leglock. That was the sort of escape that would have gotten a huge pop in Japan decades ago from educated fans who knew the skill needed to not just settle on grabbing the rope and the crowd here, to their credit, understood and reacted just as they should have. 

In the most whimsical part of the match (proof positive that just like when Tank went for the eyepoke or the double drop down chair spot between Alanis and Owens, humor can find its way into almost any situation if the wrestlers are talented enough and allow their humanity to shine through), Greco-Malenko turned things around into a floating bodyscissors with his hands outstretched like he was king of the world. 

In the end, Mako came close, very close, to prying that arm off and getting what he wanted, using a fakeout punch to score a huge takedown, but maybe he wanted it too badly and Greco-Malenko was able to pull out one last counter into a heel hook and seize victory. It was a triumphant return in every way for Greco-Malenko with Mako looking all the better for pushing the old master as far as he did.

Mad Dog Connelly vs Slade

MD: Six minutes. Six minutes bell to bell, almost exactly. Maybe off by five seconds, maybe. 

That could be the review, right? I could stop there. That they packed this much violence, animosity, and mayhem into just six minutes. For a complete match with a beginning middle and end, it might be second for second, the most ... well, let me leave hyperbole aside. 

This was hot iron clashing with cold iron. Mad Dog Connelly is, and I say this with great fondness and at a great distance, a maniac. He channels the gaping wounds of the world into rage, seeking vengeance for all the wrongs done by man and done upon man. Slade on the other hand is a stone cold sociopath, the sort of man that would gleefully inflict those wrongs in the first place. There are universes of torment to be found in the eyes of Mad Dog Connelly. Within Slade's? Nothing, nothing at all. 

And here they were, in the middle of the ring, two dynamically opposing forces throwing fists, throwing heads, throwing each other. When they were done wailing on one another in the ring, they went to the floor. There they entered into an unholy pact to bloody one another with the crash of bone on bone alone. Goal achieved, Mad Dog drank in the fruits of their collective effort.

Things boiled over. This wasn't six minutes due to curfew. This wasn't six minutes due to people wanting to go home. This wasn't six minutes due to another show starting on IWTV. This was six minutes because it couldn't possibly be seven. Something had to give, and after the gutwrench and after the choke slam, what gave was Slade's throat with the chain from the dog collar wrapped around it. Violent fiend that he may be, he's still only flesh and blood and bone and sinew after all. Of course, the bell wouldn't stop these two. Six minutes now, but the promise of more to come. I'd expect nothing less from such polar entities of wrath and spite.

MD: Which takes us to the end of the card. I leaned hard into the six minutes of Connelly vs Slade, but look too at the tight two hours that this show came in under. It had a little bit of everything, an ode to the sort of shows that were written about by those of the Death Valley Driver faithful two decades ago, and those that they obtained on tape. 

There was conventional wrestling, Slim J vs Bosby being a modern version of Tito Santana vs a Heenan Family member in its own way. There was like vs like, contrast vs contrast. A deathmatch, a shoot style classic, a hoss fight, title matches, an outright war. It ran the gamut, with the underlying unifying element being the competitiveness, the struggle, wrestlers giving it their all across different styles. 

And that's exactly what pro wrestling, in all of its variety and gripping wonder, is all about, right?

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Found Footage Friday: 1991 WWF TAPING~!

WWF London Ontario 2/16/91

MD: This is all new save for the Crush vs. Butch match, and therefore, we'll cover the rest.

Koko B. Ware vs. The Barbarian

MD: Early on, Lord Alfred talks about seeing a young, young Barbarian in Puerto Rico when he was wrestling there with Monsoon and I wish we had 70s Lord Alfred in Puerto Rico. Ah well.

This was very good, especially the early feeling out process. They framed each and every exchange well, Barbarian's early strength (holding him up in a one-handed choke, which you never seen), and then Koko chipping away at him with dropkicks, until he went sailing over the top and menaced the camera man. Back in the ring, Koko was able to fire back with shots to the face, but Barbarian hefted him over the top and then crushed him against the post on the outside and that was that. 

Pretty good face-in-peril with some nice hope spots (including a sunset flip in). The nerve hold could have been a little more active, maybe, but the crowd came up for Koko getting the elbows in on his comeback. That got cutoff but then Barbarian missed an elbow drop and Koko was back in it. They actually had me on a couple of the nearfalls even though intellectually, I knew there was no way Koko won this one. Barbarian won it with a hotshot out of nowhere, which really did feel like the ultimate match-ender for this time period. A guy ends up with his throat draped over the top and it's over.

ER: I was impressed with how well Koko overcame the size difference here. 1991 is some Peak Gas WWF (see how fucking jacked Bushwhacker Butch is in the match after this) and Barbarian looks immovable. Well, Koko moved him real well and threw babyface punches so good that they believably kept moving him. I love Koko, a great sympathetic babyface seller who knew how to take bumps that garner even more sympathy. His low fast backdrop to the floor made the bump look more tough and his selling once he was on the floor built it more. Barbarian will slam your spine into the ringpost but a great salesman like Koko will make it look truly backbreaking. Koko has two strong nearfalls: an inside cradle that was pulled off quick, and his missile dropkick which was done well enough that I bit on it as a finish. He took Barbarian's hotshot finish so exuberantly that the top rope practically touched the bottom. Frankie wasn't there to see the loss. 

Ted Dibiase vs. Jimmy Snuka

MD: Pretty interesting point in time and space here as Snuka actually got on the mic and brought out Virgil to Dibiase's horror. Virgil was super over as you can imagine. Once this got going, it didn't wear out its welcome. Dibiase got sneak attacked by Snuka while distracted and then everything he tried for the next couple of minutes backfired on him. Honestly, this is as good as I can remember seeing Snuka look in this run and so much of it is due to the set up. Dibiase did take over by getting a gutshot up to counter a double axe-handle, and they built to Dibiase trying to suplex him in and Virgil grabbing the leg to set up the upset. Dibiase got rocked by him post match. Very effective, crowd-pleasing stuff to help get over what they were doing with Virgil.

ER: Agree that this feels like the best 1991 Snuka, but a lot of that felt like the best 1991 Dibiase. This was a basic 1991 Offense WWF match that Dibiase was working like an All Japan match. He took extra, probably unnecessary, snap off every surface Snuka bounced him off. Dibiase made every connection an impact, dedicated to making every slam into a turnbuckle look brain scrambling. He could have gotten away with going lighter on the 2nd night of a week straight of house shows. Snuka had timing and Weird Buff Old Guy energy, using simple offense like clubbing hands, and "grabbing Dibiase to shove him into a thing". I can't recall when I've been so impressed by someone getting their head bounced off the ring apron. Jimmy Snuka was in his late 40s and moved older than that, but Dibiase made him feel like a fighter. 

The camera doesn't film his fistdrops from the best angle but he does three of them and we keep seeing each one from a slightly different too close angle, and by the third it felt like a cool look at the up close magic form of his fistdrop. He was a guy whose Ace Worker status dipped after we watched the Mid South footage, a guy who plays incredibly in the greatest matches of all time but doesn't hold up in the weekly TV. But I'm quite high on 90s Dibiase. He started working more like Arn Anderson and I thought he was great. I love '93 Dibiase. He stands out in unique ways from the other strong WWF heel workers from that year (Doink, Michaels, Headshrinkers, Yokozuna) and takes his impact bumping to All Japan and locks it in until his injury. Ted Dibiase is destined to become one of our wrestlers whose discourse constantly waffles between overrated and underrated until we die, but I think any unearthed 90s footage has only added to his case as a great worker. 

Gen. Adnan vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

MD: I don't remember seeing a singles match between these two make tape during this run but I could be wrong. It's one of those things you'd see in house show results and wonder how they did it. Now we know. A lot of "Back to Iraq" chants by Duggan. Adnan snuck up on him with the turban, choked him, got slammed, and ate the three-point stance clothesline. Another crowd-pleaser but now we know what it'd look like at least.

ER: To think, looking like a reasonable facsimile to Saddam Hussein would get you a certain death gimmick as a decoy in one part of the world, while in another part it could net you a plum late career WWF gig. I have a ton of respect for Adnan Al-Kaissie's 90s WWF run. You're in your early 50s, haven't worked WWF since your 30s, and you happen to look like a dictator from the country you're from and don't have to get in actual shape for the gig. You get to have one minute matches on house shows where fans watch Saddam Hussein get no offense in on America (OR Canada!!) before quickly losing. It all ends with a main event PPV gig opposite Hulk Hogan. Also you get to wear incredible boots. It's one of wrestling's greatest gigs ever and should be celebrated as such. How many wrestlers get the chance to work in front of 20,000 people in a main event, ever, in their careers, let alone in their 50s? I wonder what his Summerslam paycheck looked like compared to Virgil's. 

Rick Martel vs. Jake Roberts

MD: Martel on the mic with just a few words about how everyone was jealous to ensure he wouldn't get any Canadian cheers. Jake had the blue and gold cobra crotch tights. Important everyone knows that. 

Very fun early. Martel ambushed but crashed into the post on a shoulder block attempt. Jake started on the arm, including lifting him up and holding him there for a second, and punches. Best part was when he faked high, causing Martel to duck, and then kneeled down to punch the model in the face. Big sell of the nose. Big pop. Jake really bathed in the DDT chants too, milking them.

Martel's control, after using the ref as a stalking horse, wasn't as interesting, but he had some good cut offs at least. Jake ended up trapped in the ropes as Martel went for Arrogance, but he got out while the ref was fighting with him and hit the DDT. He took forever, absolutely forever, to creep over and pin him. 

ER: It was truly stunning to watch how long Jake took to pin Martel after the DDT. They were both down so long that the ref started counting both down. I have no idea why Jake was down so long. He set up the DDT with a long stretch of being stuck in the ropes just like Andre, doing great physical work of stretching out his body as he tried to pull both arms out of the ropes. His physical work was so good, his selling for Martel so emotive, and his post DDT crawl was the slowest thing you have ever seen. 

Undertaker vs. Tugboat

MD: I don't have a lot to say about this but it's a great example of how the initial heel run Undertaker had total commitment to his character. He moved like a lurching zombie, ever creeping forward. It was a great act and has been rarely emulated. You could push him back but he'd keep coming in a way that was sort of unnerving. When they shoot to the audience for Superstars/Challenge matches and show scared kids, they were scared for a reason. And then, when least expected, like in the finish here, he'd do something extra quick or agile and it'd go from creeping doom to jump scare. Here it was vaulting over the top rope so he could climb up, take a few steps and hit an elbow drop to beat Tugboat. 

ER: Marvel at the front row of Very Canadian Men who all seemed amused/confused by the Undertaker. None of them understood what it was they were supposed to be seeing and silently stared accordingly. Imagine if zombie heel Undertaker actually worked like a heavyweight and hit like he was a big man. He could have been one of the scariest heels of all time. By the time he learned how to strike 15 years later he was incapable of ever being a heel. He had a kick to the ribs that was so light he may have confused people into thinking he was portraying a ghost who is incapable of making physical contact with our realm. His backward leap into the ringpost is a cool bump in theory but he doesn't know how to give it weight or impact. Tugboat is the one of the two who felt like a guy with potential. His powerslam has rotation that makes it feel big but a controlled landing that safely drops a 300 pound zombie. When Tugboat hit and then missed his leaping avalanche I was thinking how much more agile he was than Taker, but just then Taker leapt over the top rope to the apron and got to the top rope so fast that it was like I was watching a wrestler I'd never seen before. Taker's rope walk elbowdrop finisher was a cool piece of his arsenal that felt like a dead man falling off a roof. 

Brooklyn Brawler vs. Virgil

MD: One thing I appreciate about the Brawler's act is that they let him come out with Yankees gear. My guess is that if he came around today, he'd have Brawler written on his shirt instead. 

He did a good job of showing fear of Virgil early, which only helped him be over with the crowd. They had a nice bit of rope running with multiple leapfrogs too. In general, this went longer than it should have. Virgil took some big bumps including one through the ropes to the floor, but I do think this was set up to give him some ring time selling. The match was sacrificed to prep him for future matches which makes total sense. He won it with a power slam which is not a move you usually associate with him. 

ER: This era of Virgil's work was so weird. This match was smack dab between his babyface turn on Dibiase at the Rumble, and their big WrestleMania match next month. It is the only match Virgil worked in February. No matter your thoughts on Virgil's in ring, it is undeniable how well his babyface turn got over. Listen to the response he gets from the people of Ontario! This is a man they are rooting for! He hasn't wrestled as much as you might think for being on WWF TV for so many years, but he wrestles like a guy who is barely trained while also wrestling like a trained wrestler who is wrestling as an untrained wrestler. You see glimpses of a man who can't run the ropes, who throws clotheslines like he's only seen them portrayed in children's drawings, but also see a man who throws himself into big babyface bumps and knows how to use them to draw sympathy. His bump flying through the ropes with nothing slowing him down, back bump past the mats and onto the London Gardens floorboards, was the best bump on the show and kept his reaction peak. But he also took a "hard way" bump back into the ring that I thought was among the best of its kind. His powerslam looked terrible. 

Brawler is a worker I like more whenever I rewatch him. Any era. Virgil gets a great reaction for a bizarrely scarce post-turn match, but Brawler is great at keeping them interested in Virgil all match. What's the best Lombardi match? Is there a consensus? I think Tom once sold me on an Abe Knuckleball Schwartz/123 Kid match.  I don't think this one would be in the discussion for Best Lombardi match but it's a great showing and a professional handling of the green veteran Virgil. 

Hart Foundation vs. Power & Glory

MD: These two teams were very well matched. Bret started with Roma, lots of rope running ending with him catching him on a leapfrog and then hitting the inverted atomic drop/clothesline combo. Herc outpowered him but didn't outpower Anvil. He did catch Bret off the ropes and took over accordingly. They worked over Bret's back including some nice Roma backbreakers. We rarely get close up footage without commentary like this and you could hear how vocal Herc and Roma were in rooting for one another. To set up the hot tag, Bret climbed across the mat on his back using the ropes. Great stuff. Finish had Roma cut off the Hart Attack and Neidhart cut off the Powerplex and then everything spill out to the floor for a double countout. Post-match Harts ran P&G off but it mostly set up a second encounter. 

ER: This should have been better but there was a really great Bret/Roma match in the middle of a good enough tag match with a bad finish. I don't know if I've watched the Bret/Roma singles matches but now I'm going to, but if there are Hercules/Anvil matches I can probably skip them. This was two FTR teams that are better than FTR working a so so FTR match. I wonder what Bret's thoughts were about he and Anvil working over Herc's shoulder only for it to build to a Hercules gorilla press slam? That's the kind of backwards set up that Bret never wants to take part in, while feeling like a sequence Bret was mapping out. Bret matches don't build to the heel press slamming the babyface after getting his shoulder pummeled. 

Is P&G the best era of Paul Roma? Has to be. It's crazy they kept trying to make him a babyface. He looks so untrustworthy. He'd assault your girlfriend at a party while you were in the bathroom. Power & Glory Roma was fully in his element. The Bret/Roma stuff works so well because he's essentially working a heel Bret style, if Bret were a greasy forcible sexual assaulter. The snap was the same, the heel bumping was the yin to Bret's baby bumping yang. He's a great punch taker, a truly hateable piece of scum like Tully Blanchard who moves similar to Tully as well. I loved the work from everyone when Roma ad Hercules were tying Bret up in a bearhug; Bret's selling was compelling, Roma's bearhug was even better than Hercules', and Roma worked a false tag far better than you'd ever think from someone who teamed with Jim Powers. I don't remember the last time I saw a team work a modern false tag spot without also doing it with a I'm A Heel wink. Roma wasn't out for glory, he had business to take care of. 

The finish stunk, but there was a tremendous reveal while setting up the late match Hart Attack: The way it was filmed, you couldn't see where Roma was. He got knocked off the apron into the guardrail but his location couldn't be seen. As Bret started his run into the opposite ropes, he was expertly kept off camera to preserve the mystery behind whether Bret would hit it or whether Roma would make it back in time to grab his ankle. It was the latter, but until Bret went down it looked like he was gearing up to take Hercules' head off. 

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

MD: I know we already had one or two of these Sarge w/Sherri matches but I haven't seen them for a bit so I couldn't tell you how similar this was. All I generally remember is Sarge bumping all over the place and Sherri dying at the end. This starts with her doing a saluting ceremony with Sarge on the floor after Warrior runs in, including putting the title up to her waist to taunt him, and it's good stuff. Warrior gets Sarge's helmet and goes nuts with it which is also good stuff. 

Warrior chases Sherri around including the usual 1991 high culture bits of them coming out from under the ring with him having undressed her. That lets Sarge take over though and there's a pretty long heat which is well done. Sherri works her ass off helping and cheering on Sarge, especially in a never-ending Camel Clutch. That's going to end with him shrugging Sarge off of course. What's surprising is that the cut off has Sarge getting his knees up. They really make Warrior work for the comeback, which makes it all the more frustrating when he shoves the ref for basically no reason once he does come back. Post-match, he continues to cause havoc including the press slam on Sherri. It's impressive how much they got out of this honestly. 

ER: Sherri was looking THIS hot on Canadian house shows!? That's the major takeaway from this match, which was such a "should have been better" match that I feel I was too quick to give Hart Foundation/Power & Glory that title. Sarge looked more washed than I remember - great bumps still, including his classic over the ringpost that I love so much - with sludgy offense where he looked afraid to fall over too fast. His stomps and some of his other offense looked like he was working a kid with progeria, not as gassed up freak sporting his dumbest haircut in a lifetime of dumb haircuts. Warrior comes as close as humanly possible to hitting a 50 yard head of steam Pounce on a ringside cameraman who sprinted out in front of him like a wild rabbit. Warrior was only going to do so much to avoid him and this guy came about 3 inches from being driven brutally into the guardrail. It would have been the highlight of this event. The Canadian crowd clearly had no idea how they were expected to react to Warrior assaulting Sherri both physically and sexually, but they rightly sat in uncomfortable silence while he hit his hardest offense of the match on her, dropping her from his gorilla press with a real flop, then actually stepping on her as he exited the ring. I wonder how many in attendance had actually seen a woman this hot before. A satin pink teddy with black thigh highs? Girl, Detroit is thataway. 

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