Found Footage Friday: LOST 1990 WWF HOUSE SHOW~!

WWF House Show Wisconsin Fieldhouse 10/28/90

ER: I love these "undocumented" WWF house shows so much. It's like they never existed, WWF out here running secret shows in podunk towns. Matt and I wrote about a WWF Boy Scout Fundraiser show from '92, which is one of my favorite show reviews we've ever done for Segunda Caida. These shows are special. The WWF showing up in some nothing central Wisconsin town with $9 tickets sold at the local hardware store, like when some mudshow Harlem Clowns barnstormers played members my small childhood town's fire and police departments in our high school gymnasium. I was $9, my dad took me and a couple friends, and we laughed when this one Healdsburg, CA cop kept getting Clowned. I had no idea who the Harlem Clowns were before but saw the ads in our local paper, the Healdsburg Tribune, and Healdsburg wasn't a place that got "events". We were going to a town event, like when the fair would come to town. That's the best part about a show like this: It's not filmed as a wrestling show. It's filmed as a Town Event. WWF sold cheap tickets to a show at Marshfield, Wisconsin's high school gym and we get to watch the home video. My dad didn't bring the camcorder to that Harlem Clowns game, the way he would to my baseball games or recitals, but somebody's dad did. If there are a few guys out there who run a Barnstorming Basketball blog, I hope they find it. 

1. Shane Douglas vs. Black Bart

MD: This is amazing footage to have in the first place as we'd never even had the card for this, just the date. This is clipped, but you still get probably half the match. Tail end of 1990 is when I first got into wrestling as a kid (a little bit of a late arriver) so seeing Black Bart and Shane Douglas in a WWF ring is just natural for me. As an opening match on a B or C show, things could have been a lot worse. Bart was a well-oiled machine by 91; he knew what to do. He knew what not to do. He knew when to do it. He could still execute it well enough. He was never going to be the star that he claims he was going to be if you listen to him do interviews now but he could be just as valuable on an undercard as he was in 85 when he was feuding with Ron Bass in JCP. He was solid enough here that it makes me want to go back and look at his WCW and GWF stuff the following year. It's funny to think that your real bottom of the card heels in 90 WWF were Buddy Rose and Black Bart. Your bottom of the card faces were Powers and Brunzell with Douglas just a bit above them maybe as a real up and comer. Bart worked Dustin a lot around this time as well.

From what we see here, it's paint by numbers, but the numbers add up and the paint is vibrant and the kids in the crowd are into it. Douglas is snappy in his shine, including a nice headscissors takeover and Bart sailing across the ring on an armdrag. We don't see the actual transition but we come in with Bart dropping Shane over the top rope. They then work a chinlock up and down but Shane gets the crowd behind him and he's dynamic enough in the rope running out of it. The finish is a sunset flip back out of the corner and it gets a big pop. Douglas had some legs as a babyface here and they could have done something with him. There are probably dozens of shoot interviews I'm not going to listen to for why they didn't. 90-91 Bart is the one that might get another look from us though.

ER: I thought this was a great opener, and I don't think I realized how good Black Bart would be for Shane Douglas. I have seen more than enough early 90s Douglas and I don't think he typically looks as good as he did here. Bart is a big guy, the kind of big guy that dads in the crowd look at and think "yeah now that's a big guy" and the perfect kind of big guy to take Douglas's babyface fire. There were hundreds of guys working matches just like this and Bart and Douglas were doing it better than most of them. Bart really was a (for me at least) much better Ron Bass, but I don't think I ever thought of Shane Douglas as being a potentially great Ricky Morton. He looked like a great Ricky here. His two headscissors were incredible. Everything Douglas did, Bart made look better, but those headscissors would have looked great against anyone. They were the classic Robert Gibson/Marty Jannetty style and Bart is a big sold guy who is able to "stand" with them longer. Those style headscissors are always more satisfying to me when you can see the babyface actually working to take their opponent over, so Bart being able to hold Douglas up for that pause before getting slid across the ring just makes them pop. The crowd is wild for everything they do (a beautiful running theme on the afternoon) and it made the simplest things sing. 

2. Warlord vs. Tom Stone

MD: This is more like it. Tom Stone has a windbreaker that fits 1990 perfectly. Warlord is lacking Slick but has the full half helmet and armor and staff. I watched some 87 Warlord in New Japan recently where he was the Dangerous Violence Warlord and very green. That Warlord would have given Stone half of the match. This one did not. It was worked like an enhancement match. Real Immovable Object vs. Stoppable Force stuff. Stone tried some clotheslines and punches and staggered Warlord a little but he did a good job portraying how shocked he was that things weren't working instead of doing what Duggan or Bossman would do and build up momentum. That meant he ran into a clothesline eventually. Warlord was really good at setting his stuff up, a bit lift of the arm before coming down with it, that sort of thing, but the impact never lived up to the preamble. Stone's big comeback was two eye rakes and the biting of the eye which seemed to confuse the crowd more than anything else. Then he ran into a lovely big boot and ate the running power slam. This didn't try to be more than what it should have been because of the setting. That meant no lengthy nerve hold. Unless Stone's family was in the crowd, I don't think anyone was disappointed at its absence.

ER: I'm a big Tom Rocky Stone guy, even though he's someone we barely write about. He's a guy I kept trying to get on the DVDVR 80s AWA set, just because I wanted him represented somehow. What's the best Tom Stone match? I have no idea. He didn't get anywhere near the same match length opportunities as the similar-but-different Iron Mike Sharpe, was never used by WWF as a job guy who would put up a fight or could occasionally win. Stone had to do things to stand out while rarely getting out of 2 minute losses. Here, we get 5 minutes of Stone and while none of his offense is really sold, it's a much broader picture of the kind of personality Stone could bring to a loss (that looked like it was headed towards a loss every second of the match). I love his windbreaker, love his dedication to the job guy singlet (the one with the horizontal strap joining the shoulder straps), and love how he still knew how to land offense that looked good while knowing it wouldn't be acknowledged. His clotheslines looked great, his punches looked even better - grabbing Warlord's head with his left and throwing heavy shots with his right - but his perplexed looks in the corner took the cake. He had no entry point into Warlord, he knew he had no entry point, and knew he had no shot. 

Everybody in Marshfield knew that Tom Stone had no shot. He was Mr. Belding in a way that is necessary but now completely unrepresented in wrestling. I don't think any wrestler projected School Principal than Tom Stone. If you didn't know better, you'd think he actually was a teacher at Marshfield High. We have all watched and attended wrestling shows where a teacher from that gymnasium's high school got into the ring. I went to a show at Antioch High School to see Greg Valentine and Sabu and Antioch High School's football coach wrestle. Tom Stone is the most subtly, skillfully acted goofball science teacher wrestling at his school's fundraiser. He's made for this show. He's the fucking Bruno Sammartino of this specific kind of show. His frustration at his own ineffectiveness, a great "here it goes" shake of the head, and a total surprise when he raked at Warlord's eyes and actually bit his eye! A reminder that Tom Stone is a bad guy who actually wants to win. A great pro wrestler. 

Warlord looked like trash. I've watched a lot of Maxx Muscle matches and Warlord was not as good as Maxx Muscle. He has no weight of any kind behind anything he did. His big boot was light, his clothesline soft. That's not really important. If Warlord had walked by me in my town's high school gym when I was 9 years old, my jaw would have been dropped. Gassed out guy in a helmet and Conan weapon would impress the hell out of 9 year old me. Warlord looks huge in a high school gym. You've never seen a bigger person in that building. His match ending powerslam was a real powerslam, an important lesson for wrestlers in "ending the match on a high note". Save your best thing for your last thing. Marshfield will remember Warlord's size and powerslam and nothing else he did. That means it worked. 

 

3. Sgt. Slaughter vs. Nikolai Volkoff

MD: Legitimately shocking. Slaughter came out to huge, huge heat with Adnan and the flag and singing the Iraqi anthem and calling people maggots. Volkoff had a huge pop and the US flag. I do like how this is an inversion. By that I mean, if you ever see a parody of pro wrestling, you'll never see the foreign guy as the face and the American as the turncoat, and Volkoff was super super over during the summer of 90. The whole bit he did with the scouts made him something like the third or fourth top babyface in WWF, at least for a few months. It really did set up the heel Slaughter character well and this was a mauling. Slaughter ambushed Volkoff from behind as Adnan was waving the flag at him and he never let up. His stuff was pointed and credible, mean, just rubbing Volkoff's face in the ground, plastering him with shots from every angle, just being relentless. Warlord is supposed to be slow and methodological, but the difference in the actual perceived impact was telling. You keep looking for Volkoff's comeback and it never gets there. He just eats a bunch of elbow drops and the camel clutch, followed by a post match beating.

ER: When Matt sent me the card for this show it hadn't crossed my mind that Sgt. Slaughter would be bringing his Iraqi Sympathizer routine to this high school. It would have been so fucking wild if someone came flying an Iraqi flag into my school when I was a kid. How could people in central Wisconsin process a guy coming into their town and rooting for Iraq? Do they know the formula? Could they understand it was all part of the show? What's the percentage of Believers? The Gulf War was fresh in 1990. I, a child, would not have been permitted to show any kind of allegiance with Iraq on school grounds and I wish I could have seen the reactions from my town's adults. Sgt. Slaughter praising Iraq and shouting a G rated Tracy Smothers promo at the unexpecting crowd is an incredible sight on its own, but, even as a child, I would have expected Sgt. Slaughter's comeuppance to be arriving any minute. 

Matt's not wrong about how loved Volkoff was that summer, but even if he hadn't been, it was a man waving a large American flag in the face of a man waving an Iraqi flag at what was basically the onset of the Gulf War. Everybody in that building knew that America would come out of this looking good. 

And then Sgt. Slaughter just fucked Volkoff up for several minutes and got him to tap without ever absorbing a single shot, then continued fucking Volkoff up after winning. I and everyone in Marshfield knew that it was only a matter of time before one of Slaughter's constant barrage of kicks to the ribs and big man shots to the body got turned back against him, and instead American got run the fuck over and buried like if the first 15 minutes of Red Dawn had been the whole movie. I don't know if I have ever seen America fare worse in a high school gymnasium. This might be our greatest document of America in the role of Yoji Anjo flying to America fight Rickson Gracie. 

4. Rockers vs. Power and Glory

MD: Really good tag. Great Michaels performance too but everyone was on here. It started with Jannetty hitting a top rope fist on Hercules who was swinging his chain in the middle of the ring for an awesome visual to start and never really let up. Rockers kept outquicking Power and Glory's attempt to cheat to take over to keep the shine but it was overall pretty brisk. Nothing wore out its welcome. When Jannetty was in there (and getting a chant), Shawn was engaged on the apron. It took a fairly complex series of three or four cheating attempts to finally take over on Michaels. They mostly worked over his leg. There was a great hope spot where Roma was stepping on the ankle to prevent him from tag and so he could taunt Jannetty and Michaels worked himself halfway up and did a sort of falling punch which looked perfect given the HH quality. They were drawing a bunch of heat by attacking Jannetty on the apron and focusing on the leg, building to Michaels kicking Herc into the corner on a spinning toe hold. Jannetty came in hot setting up the finish where Michaels, having been tossed outside, pulled Hercules away allowing Jannetty to duck the double clothesline and hit a cross body on Roma. Fans were into this and if anything, I could have used an extra minute or two.

ER: Great tag match from two of the great WWF tag teams. Power and Glory were so good. Of course the Rockers were good but Power and Glory were so good. Hercules and Paul Roma are each guys who don't give enough credit. Hercules' as a worker keeps looking better and better the more I revisit that era. He's another act that plays huge in a high school gym. Look how he swings the chains, knowing exactly how close he can stand to Marty Jannetty to not actually chain whip the man while still swinging the chains at full extension. Paul Roma, meanwhile, holds up tremendously, as he's the greasiest slimeball around and looks and acts like someone who should be the greasiest slimeball around. He was born into being an asshole. You cannot look like Paul Roma and not be a jackoff. This building understood that on sight, and they also understood that the Rockers were the coolest boys in town. Marty Jannetty especially got a huge reaction, and the opening of this match should have been the way a classic PPV match happened. Hercules swinging chains in Marty's face, Marty climbing to the top rope and leaping off with a fist to the face. 

I love watching southern tag formula in American gyms. Bad versions of it usually work, great versions of it lead to ear splitting joyous reactions. When Marty tags in after Michaels has been getting his leg kicked and stomped over? It's impossible to picture anything or anyone getting a louder reaction. Power and Glory did nothing over the top to work over Michaels' knee, other than look exactly the way Power and Glory look and simply kicking and stomping at his leg. They didn't need to do anything else, the energy was perfect. It could have gone on another 10 minutes and it only would have gotten better with each minute. This crowd would have been along for every stomp and every close tag. I do wish Michaels had been cut off from a tag one or two or three more times, but this deserved every scream of that hot tag. The Marty chants are calorific icing. 

5. Koko B. Ware vs. Boris Zhukov

MD: Koko looks like a million bucks here. Most entertaining, compelling, engaging babyface in the world. Zhukov does his part to start, stalling early while Koko keeps the USA chants going and holds court in the ring, and then walking right into a whole lot of stooing shtick. The best bit was when Koko would headbutt him and Zhukov would stagger and then Koko would mock the stagger. Legitimately funny stuff. Eventually Zhukov dragged him down into that nerve hold I was worried about in the Warlord match, but it worked here far better. Some good hope spots and cutoffs before Koko came back and eventually won it with a missile dropkick so high that he basically bounced off the top of Zhukov's head. I'm not doing this one justice but it was very good for what it was.

ER: Was every person on this roster just the perfect High School Gym Attraction? Any child who sees Koko B. Ware dance into their gym, literal parrot on his shoulder, bronze suit glittering, looking like the coolest confident most fun person in the world. A Megastar cartoon of a man. I dated a girl my age whose connection to wrestling was watching Sunday morning WWF with her brother, and Koko B. Ware was her favorite. How couldn't he be the favorite? Do you know how wide I smiled and how my voice went up when a hot girl told me she loved Koko B. Ware at some point in her life. That's special. We'll have that. I smile when I pass my Koko Hasbro. If, instead of Koko B. Ware - a name every American should be allowed to hear once in their life, because it's a fake name that has a real chance to stick with someone after hearing it just one time. What's a better pro wrestler name than Koko B. Ware? Gorilla Monsoon? Probably. But not many. We should have been given Attitude era Koko. Lives would have changed. The charm of children asking questions on pro wrestling handhelds is one of the truly innocent and charming experiences in our scumbag obsession of choice. Suddenly every child in every part of this building had questions when Koko B. Ware appeared in their lives. 

6. Texas Tornado vs. Mr. Perfect

MD: I don't know about this one. It had some weird, weird structural things that would have made more sense if Perfect had the belt and wasn't the challenger. He attacked Kerry on the way in, but Kerry came back, hit the tornado punch on the floor, and then started play King of the Mountain, keeping Perfect out of the ring. It was pretty back and forth after that with Perfect able to chip away but never hold control for long. Kerry was going to Kerry. They definitely felt more room to breathe given that this was a house show that no one was ever going to see. Perfect BLOCKED the discus punch on the inside. Kerry hit it another time or two in the match incidentally, just twirling around after his punches. Kerry kicked out of the PerfectPlex. At some point, you got the sense that maybe they were just having fun with it because they were on a B show in Wisconsin? 

The finish was fun with Perfect undoing the turnbuckles but Kerry cutting him off and running him across the ring to faceplant him into the metal. Perfect did a triple gainer in the air exactly as you'd want him to in that situation but he still managed to kick out at too. It didn't matter much though as Kerry just spun around the ring at full speed to hit the tornado punch one last time for the win. Post-match, Hennig just decided to lay there for a bit. It was an entertaining house show performance (and has value along those lines certainly) but I don't it necessarily had the substance to go along with the sizzle.

ER: I wish we had sound during Kerry's entrance because that crowd looked loud and Kerry took a long time with it, slow walked it in his perfect jacket. But we have all of this full match, and I loved it a lot more than Matt. I thought this was a great match, a stiff dominating heel Perfect performance against a tough fight back aw shucks babyface Kerry performance. Kerry spammed variations on the discus punch in between a consistently dominant Perfect attack. This was really physical. When Perfect bumped for Kerry, he bumped for Kerry, but when he hit Kerry he hit Kerry. Every punch and every chop Perfect threw played directly into this camcorder lens 12 riser seats up. Perfect was an unrelenting attacker, smothering our sculpted god. Two different times in this match, Perfect flung himself over the top rope to the floor to continue an attack as quickly as possible. Our cameraman misses a huge Perfect bump to the floor that gets the gym jumping to their feet, but you can see his feet go over the top, and it looked no different than him flying out to the floor just to punch Kerry in the face. Blocking the discus punch was a legit surprise, and a heel out punching the babyface champion famous for his punches. That's a hero facing a real threat, and Perfect looked like a real threat, easily the most violent worker on the show. Kerry kicking out of the Perfect Plex would have shocked me live; Perfect flipping for a discus punch would have delighted me.  

7. Earthquake vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

MD: Earthquake had Hart with him and Jimmy even did the introduction for him. There was some fun house show goofing here too with Duggan catching Earthquake trying to cheapshot him a number of times. Quake was one of the best ever at knowing just how much to give and exactly when to give it. He was doing all of the Hogan poses too and it got big heat. He knew how to be a monster. He knew how to accentuate the things that made him larger than life. It's not quite the same as how Andre did it, because Andre had such a unique presence that he was accentuating being Andre. With Quake it was more about running a scientific experiment to prove beyond any matter of doubt that physics actually matter. Duggan got in a lot of shots and even got close once or twice (close being making him wobble or teasing a slam). Jimmy helped him take over eventually and he had some bear hugs that didn't look like the most amazing things in the world from the HH vantage but were naturally believable enough. Duggan was able to get hope spots through dodging and firing back but he was cut off. His comeback was pro wrestling perfection as Quake wobbled more and more, including this bit of remarkable fancy footwork to really get it across and build up the drama, before Duggan finally hit the three point stance. Hart intervened but eventually got squashed in the corner as Duggan moved and they sent the fans home happy with a quick roll up pin. We have the Summerslam Fever match between these two and some tags, but I think this was a pretty rare matchup overall and unsurprisingly, they matched up well together.

ER: Earthquake looks so massive here, in ways that we will never see in pro wrestling again. I don't think people realize just how much a big fat bearded guy fearlessly running ropes as fearlessly as God himself meant to our fandom. I don't know if I've committed to anything in my life as fearlessly as Earthquake commits to running ropes, and honestly it inspires me. I've been going on and on about how every wrestler on this roster is made to shine in a high school gymnasium but will you look at how perfect Earthquake and Jim Duggan look in high school gym of a town that had a Carl's Jr. but didn't get a McDonalds until 1991. Duggan's punches all looked like shit, and it didn't matter, because when it came time for Earthquake to tease out a Berzerkeresque spot where he legs keep splitting farther and farther apart with each subsequent Hacksaw clothesline, we were somehow witnessing Earthquake putting more faith into his adductor muscles than he puts into the ropes. I was so certain he was hitting the mat on that third clothesline, plopped down on his butt, and when he went full leg spread hunch forward it was like the greatest Andre spot that Andre never did. These men knew. Some kid went into their town's new-ish McDonalds that day and told them "Nick sent me," and later that night saw Earthquake vanquished by America. What a day. 

Read more!

Otto Wanz Upload Challenge 5: Black Bart and Great Kokina

Otto Wanz vs. Black Bart (Johnson) CWA 7/9/88

MD: This was legitimately good. Very good maybe. Black Bart is a guy that would make every roster in the 80s better. That doesn't mean you'd put him at the top, but he added depth and played a role in the undercard and if need be mid card. He had size and presence and while you might not expect him to win, he could believably do damage. He was a much better opponent for late 80s Wanz than Ottman. He also got to put his hand over his heart for the bugler playing the national anthem which felt like a big moment for him. There was nothing pretty about this. They did the unclean breaks and revenge bit to start, but on a Wanz clean break later, Bart got a hammering cheapshot in and stayed on top for most of the rest of the match, broken up by rousing Wanz comebacks (including the slam and senton after Bart failed at a slam of his own). Bart didn't try anything too. He punched, kicked, hammered, clubbered, but it was all appropriate. He took up time and ate up space and sucked the air out of the proceedings. All Otto had to do was sell and fire back when he had the chance. Wanz even bladed on the outside, which felt like a big deal, and led to some satisfying woundwork. Eventually, Bart missed a charge and went flying over the ropes, and then bladed big himself as Otto got revenge on the outside, setting up the slam and the splash for the win. Otto gave a ton here and the crowd hated Bart for it, but that just meant they went up all the higher for the win. No restholds here (and I never use that word lightly), nothing fancy, just straightforward beatdown, selling, and comeback, and it 100% worked. Otto was secure enough in himself to give what he needed to Bart to make it happen. 

Otto Wanz vs. Great Kokina, Prince of Hawaii CWA 12/17/88

MD: Not great. A story of two matches. When they were really laying it into each other, it was enjoyable. The rest was a litany of nerve holds, forehead claws, and chinlocks. I don't think Otto was bad from working underneath, but he wasn't great either. He just wasn't. He had the crowd naturally but he didn't lead them. There wasn't a build to a big moment in fighting out of holds. There wasn't an ebb and a flow. He was better at timing comebacks fighting out of the corner, for instance. This too, by the way, like apparently every Wanz match, started with just that. Kokina could bump big at this point, but he only did once, early. The match had no sense of escalation or build, just a constant drone of back and forth blows and revisiting holds. I did like the last minute or so, with a larger than life overhead shot and Wanz hitting a big slam. It's just that a guy like Hogan, for instance, would have teased that earlier in the match to make the payoff more meaningful. Wanz doesn't often get to that level of storytelling. Then again, if you listen to the fans, he doesn't necessarily have to.

ER: See I thought this was pretty great, kept me exciting the entire time listening to the loud Bremen crowds "OttO! OttO!" chants to rally every second of Kokina control. I love that we can go back to 1988 Germany to find a match where Kokina is the smaller guy in the match, and it's the kind of minimalist heavyweight wrestling that really appeals to me. I am becoming a big fan of the Otto Wanz slow motion between-round recaps, love watching Kokina take a snapmare and thinking it looks like Kobashi taking a backdrop driver. Otto is great at selling in nerve holds, with his expressive color changing face and excessive sweating, beating his chest and pawing at Kokina's hands. Both man had nice bumps, though Kokina didn't bump nearly as much as he would in just a year or two. He still landed heavy whenever he went down, made it look like Otto was really throwing around a boulder in there. Both he and Otto had a quick bump through the ropes to the floor, and it felt epic whenever we got a knockdown. The strikes all looked good, loved whenever Otto would back up Kokina with his forearms to the chest, and Kokina had big chops of his own and clonked him with a headbutt. I wish we got a better shot of Otto's rolling senton and bodyslam to finish the match (we cut away to a top down view for some reason, only time in the match), but this was what I wanted to see. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday: '86 BASH BASH

Charlotte 7/5/86


Denny Brown vs. Steve Regal

MD: This was about as by the numbers as you could get, but it really worked, especially for the crowd. They did everything rote that you'd expect in a NWA style junior heavyweight heel vs face match like this, letting Regal have an early advantage only to get clowned with repetitions of armdrags and slams, have him complain about imaginary hair pulls in the midst of a long but engaging headlock sequence only to take over by pulling the hair himself. They even did the ref pushing distraction to start (but only start) the comeback. The hope spots mostly worked (though one elbow on a duck spot was messed up but was somehow visually novel and effective anyway). The Regal chinlock/headlock got heat but also had to fill too big a chunk of the fifteen minutes but I do like just how hard Brown had to work on the comeback. He wasn't really fully back in it until the last minute, despite a ton of hope spots. Honestly, this might be the best I've ever seen heel Regal look. It helped that he was in there against Brown instead of Zumhofe. That said, I don't think the post-match back and forth really helped either guy.

ER: I think starting off a big show like this with a time limit draw seems a bit much, and I don't think there was enough material to fill the time. They could have been put in the spot of "kill some time, let people get situated", and that's fine, but you could still have lopped 5 minutes off this. That said, color me a Regal fan, from his incredible lavender ring jacket (legitimately an all time ring jacket) to the way he makes the simplest babyface offense look meaningful, this guy is good. Denny had plenty of nice armdrags and a real nice floatover headlock takeover, and Regal took them all with aplomb. I loved so many of Regal's attacks, the guy has a gutbusting knee to the stomach, and he sets up quality comeuppance spots for Brown during the entire runtime. I liked the Regal/Houston match we got much more, but I would have been into this live.

Robert Gibson vs. Black Bart

MD: You have to feel a little bad for Robert here, second on the card when his partner was main-eventing. This was really good though, with Bart basing well for Gibson and Gibson, still very over despite card placement, working hard from underneath. I liked Bart a lot more here than in the Crockett Cup performances. He took all of Gibson's offense really well, including some great headscissor takeovers. Gibson returned the favor after Bart's clothesline out of nowhere switched the momentum, bounding out of the ring on punches and bumping all over the place. The comeback wasn't super inspired but the fans were into it and Bart wasn't at all hurt by the loss since it was a quick move that came out of nowhere.

ER: I actually saw this as Gibson getting to be the first "star" that the fans got to see, so even though Ricky was in a huge match on top, Gibson was the guy who got to show how big a card this was. "Robert Gibson is in the 2nd match? This card must be stacked!" This was a nice length, short and quick paced, with Gibson getting a ton of flash with some big headscissors. He eats a huge clothesline from Bart, and takes a couple of super impressive fast almost lucha bumps to the floor, and really that's all I'm going to need from something like this. Ricky is the guy I always end up seeking more, but when Robert is on like this I love it.

The Andersons vs. Sam Houston/Nelson Royal

MD: It's such a simple joy to watch the Andersons work. They take the most basic notions of tag team wrestling: make a tag if you're losing the advantage, work over a body part, stop your opponent from tagging even by cheating if need be, and do it so doggedly and persistently that the story basically writes itself. They're so focused on the arm here that it doesn't matter which of their opponents are in. Arn was better at anyone at snatching a leg to stop someone from tagging. At the same time, switching the babyfaces out in the midst of it means they get to have the babyfaces make a few hot tags that actually almost work as hope spots. Royal, effectively surly old guy that he was, fights his way into the ring only to end up getting his arm torn apart too.

Houston looked about as good as he ever would get a chance to. The rocker dropper-set up flip over into an arm drag (a 1986 version at that) early in the match felt more meaningful and struggle-filled than I've ever seen it. He was desperately trying to get over on Arn who was basically bullying him and going that far over the top was the only way to do it. The bulldog at the end, including Arn's flopping foot sell, was entirely believable as a nearfall. This was just a little over ten minutes but felt longer in a good way due to the reliability of the Andersons' approach.

Manny Fernandez vs. Baron von Raschke

MD: This wildly exceeded expectations. If a match was going to play to what Von Raschke could still do as a heel in 1986, this was it. First off, he was out there in a yellow shirt and jeans and there was something so casual and commonplace for an over the hill nazi. You get the sense that he'd be found somewhere in South America, old and decrepit, hunted by those trying to bring him to justice and end up in a desperate scrape. He had next to nothing left in his arsenal: the claw, a foreign object, his belt, the ringside area as a weapon, the mostly useless Paul Jones, and ultimately, Manny missing two big moves. He actually came off as cruel and vicious instead of an outright parody.

Manny, on the other hand, had everything he needed to work the crowd: fire, big offense, blood, selling, Jones hitting him from the outside, some brutal revenge. The crowd loved him at the beginning. They loved him when Von Raschke was beating him in the middle. They loved his comeback with the boot. They loved the lightning pin at the end. I'm not sure the structure makes a heck of a lot of sense to me, in as things built to Manny's big comeback but after he got it, he crashed and burned and had to survive just long enough more to get a roll up out of nowhere. This probably should have ended with the boot shot off the top rope, but for an 86 heel Von Raschke match, it was pretty spirited for what it was.

Jimmy Garvin vs. Wahoo McDaniel

MD: The pre-match shenanigans, with Precious yelling at Wahoo, and Wahoo ultimately taking it out on Garvin as the two were trying to have a moment or six, were absolute gold. Wahoo was so good at these, just peppering Garvin with the strap whenever Garvin tried any part of his normal act, pulling him back in the ring, just having an answer for every flamboyant thing Garvin wanted to do and an even better one when Garvin haplessly tried to contain him.

Ultimately, Garvin got enough sneak shots in that Wahoo bled, but despite Precious' cheerleading as Garvin dragged him around the ring to a corner or two, it was ultimately inevitable. Wahoo knew it, Garvin knew it and the crowd, knowing it, was ready and primed for Wahoo, bloody mess or not, to fire back, open Garvin up with the strap, spit at Precious, and drag his way to victory.

Finishes on these are always tricky. Here though, it was nice and simple, with Precious tripping Wahoo on the first try, Wahoo using the strap to take back over when Garvin went up to the top, and then, finally, Wahoo staring Precious dead on, blood running down his face, channeling John Wayne as well as Bill Watts might have, as she assaulted him to try to stop him, once more, from getting that last corner. She failed. He triumphed. Garvin lamented. It was a great no-nonsense standing tall sort of visual and the fans popped for it huge.

PAS: I wanted to watch this after loving the Greensboro version so much. This was a very similar match, with a couple of wrinkles. Garvin doesn't cut himself as deep here, the set up with Wahoo dragging the strap across Garvin's head was the same, but Garvin bled a normal amount here, as opposed to a gruesome amount in Greensboro. I loved the transition in this match as Garvin is in the ring and Wahoo is on the floor and they are having a tug of war, Garvin smartly drops the strap sending Wahoo stumbling backwards into the ringside photographers, causing Jimmy to fly out of the ring and attack him brutally. Finish was similar and similarly great, and after seeing these two matches it feels like Garvin vs. Wahoo is a under the radar all time feud.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Tully Blanchard

MD: This might have been the most satisfying live crowd experience in the history of JCP. It involved Tully Blanchard getting punched about three hundred times. For a taped fixed/boxing match, this was about as good as you could get. There were two or three times where I wish they had timed a moment just a little better. For instance, the first time that Garvin basically got a hope spot just by stopping his selling and staring, bloody and empty-eyed, at Tully, the fans went nuts before he got cut off with a out-of-place body slam. Later on, when he got a comeback off of the same idea, they didn't milk it long enough to build the crowd back up.

By the way, that's one reason why this was so good: they didn't just box. There were wrestling moves peppered in, and due to the nature of the match, each one felt like a big deal. The first thing in the match was Tully trying a cheapshot charge only to get back body dropped and eat a huge Garvin fist. That set the tone for the next few minutes perfectly. When Tully, not having been able to get even two punches in the whole match, finally took over, it was with a cheap heel move, pulling Garvin into the post.

Wahoo and JJ were fun at ringside, with JJ using every trick to wake Tully back up and then selling the loss huge post-match. Maybe it could have gone half a round less to the same effect, but in general it was hugely satisfying. Who doesn't want to see one of the best punchers of the 80s pound one of the best punchees for ten minutes?

Greensboro Coliseum 7/26/86

Sam Houston vs. Steve Regal

PAS: This was surprisingly awesome. The crowd was totally rabid like this, it was like a hometown hero getting a shot at the NWA title, not just an opener. Houston is really great at taking simple bumps, he takes a turnbuckle smash like he was hit by a cinderblock, and the corner bump he took near the end was really fast and violent. They do a nice job working out of chinlock and Regal takes a nice backdrop. This was super simple wrestling but done really well.

ER: I don't have a ton to add, Phil covered the basics of a basic match, other than to say I have clearly been told incorrect info about Steve Regal over the years. The running online wrestling joke for as long as I've known there are two Steve Regals, was that this was the "wrong" Regal. No, clearly Mr. Electricity is just a different Steve Regal, because he rules in totally different ways than our more beloved Regal. This is the kind of well-worked, simple, quick paced match that would get a good reaction from any crowd, any era. I came away more impressed by Houston than I ever have, he really felt like a 0.7 Dustin Rhodes during a lot of this. I don't think I've ever seen someone take a nastier shot into the turnbuckles than Houston, I mean he whipped his face so hard into the buckles that it somehow looked like the most violent part of the match. I also dug him crashing hard into the corner after Regal shoved off a bulldog attempt, and was mystified by Houston yelling NARDS a bunch while in a chinlock. Regal looked like an absolute damn pro, like he could have easily slotted in as a fine replacement MX or Fabulous One, a guy who knew how to build to a nice backdrop and berate a referee while working a hold. If I got to see this exact match on every live card I went to, it would elevate every one of them.

Denny Brown and The Italian Stallion vs. Black Bart and Konga the Barbarian

PAS: Basic short tag match which did have some really fun Konga and Bart offense, along with a Denny Brown headscissors or two. Konga was an offensive machine in the mid 80's, press slam, big boot, top rope headbutt, it is weird that he never got a bigger push, I could just imagine what he could have done with Nikita's run.

Manny Fernandez vs. Baron von Raschke

PAS: This was a glove on a pole match and a fun bit of business. Fernandez offense was mostly backfists and he has some really great looking backfists, Baron's offense and bumping wasn't great but he really knows how to rile up a crowd. I am a mark for a claw section, and there was a great claw section here, with Manny busted open and trying to fight out, including hiptossing Baron who was able to keep the claw on.  Finish has Baron getting the black glove and putting it on, but getting hit with a flying forearm for the pin.

ER: You kind of know how an "item on a pole" match is going to go in this era, with the item getting grabbed and immediately leading to the finish (either the heel getting it and the babyface surprising him with something, or the face getting it and somehow losing it then getting beat by it), so the strength is in what they do in the meantime. Baron was a guy whose body language read older than his actual age. He was in his mid 40s here but was always a kind of rigid bumper, not someone who was going to make Manny's quicker attacks look very good. BUT, there are two very important setpieces that I really dug. I thought their first battle up top was really good, with Baron doing some fun shaky legs while he's holding onto the pole for support while Manny starts trying to get him down. But it takes several quick turns, with Baron not quite giving up on the loaded glove, readying himself to punch down at Manny, reaching again one last time, and eventually eating a big press slam. For a guy who can come off unnatural, I thought Baron did an excellent job at getting the mini story across. Now the big piece of the match was the awesome claw spot, with Manny busted open and Baron holding tight while blood starts to stream down Manny's face. It seriously looked like Baron was slowly digging his fingers deeper and deeper into Manny's brain, like we were seeing some awesome horror movie death. That long claw alone made this worthwhile. 

Jimmy Garvin vs. Wahoo McDaniel

PAS: Precious instructing the ring announcer to tell the fans not to smoke during Garvin's match was a masterful bit of heeling in North Carolina. This is a really excellent violent brawl. Garvin is a great heel in this kind of match, because he is going to dance around and preen and really make you want to see him get strapped. Early part of the match has Garvin constantly bailing to the floor and getting yanked back in to get smacked. Garvin is able to take over for a bit when he posts Wahoo which leads to the expected river of blood. Wahoo is able to get his revenge by pummeling Garvin into the corner and taking the strap and jamming and raking it across Garvin's forehead and Gorgeous Jimmy comes up with a full crimson mask. It goes back and forth with big shots until Wahoo just pounds Garvin down and drags him to the four corners, while marching through a wave of Precious punches and slaps. Jimmy gets a little post match revenge with the aerosol spray can, before bailing to the floor. Great example of the Wahoo strap match, I can imagine he had nasty fights like this for decades and it is cool we get to see one unearthed.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Tully Blanchard

PAS: I thought this was pretty awesome. It opens with JJ Dillion checking Garvin's hand wraps and Tully jumping him before the bell, it backfires with Garvin backdropping Tully and KO'ing him with a punch. He just lies there unconscious with Dillon tossing water on him trying to get him up. Garvin just massacres him for the opening couple of rounds of this match, hitting him with various big shots, and using head movement to dodge and counter. At one point JJ has to use smelling salts to wake Tully after another pre-bell KO. Tully is finally able to get an advantage and he has some great looking taped fist punches too. Wahoo is Garvin's second (after massacring his brother the match before) and Wahoo stop JJ interference and busts JJ open (the blood on this show is a bit much). Final has Tully get the sneaky win using brass knuckles, and he almost deserved it for the beating he absorbed. I am a punch enthusiast, and this had some really high level throwing of hands.  

The Andersons vs. The Rock n Roll Express

MD: We had this, but only 15 or 16 minutes of it. We also have a match from the week before on TV too and as with the two mixed cage matches to come, it's interesting to see the differences and the similarities. In the week that followed, for instance, they made the early story centered around Arn mocking Morton's nose (and what the Horsemen did to it) more complex. In the first match, Arn mocked and Morton almost immediately got a drop down from behind and a straight drop DDT to clown Arn and get his nose. Here, they gave Arn a minute of actually doing some damage to Morton's nose first before basically doing the same thing.

The matches deviated from there with maybe the RnRs ultimately taking too much of the Bash one. If the alchemy is right and the stars align, a great heel team and a great face team can make heel-in-peril work. Ultimately, that was the case here. Even if the proportions were off, the work on Gibson's stomach and then most especially, the history-driven work on Morton's nose, was good enough and mean enough that they were able to get extra value out of less time. Where it hurt it, however, was in the comeback. They needed another minute or so to fire back and set up a potential finish as time ran out. In a perfect world, they could have siphoned off a minute from the shine to get it. In this world, however, they made a slightly dodgy structure work to the fullest and that's a massive testament to the two teams.

Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff

MD: Koloff vs Magnum was twice as long as what we had on the commercial tape. I will say that Koloff going 1-2-3 at the start of the match in Magnum's face to signify the 3-0 standings was pretty much the best.

The fans had seen so much already (they'd just seen Valiant getting defiantly but emotionally shaved), and there was some real patriotic desperation about Koloff sweeping Magnum. This was straightofrward and by the books, but solid as could be. Magnum grittily and just barely outwrestled Koloff to start. Koloff took advantage with a cheap shot in the corner. Magnum took a bunch of offense but valiantly fought back. Magnum bladed a gusher after a shot to the turnbuckle pad on the apron which seemed an odd choice, but it added gravitas to an already heavy situation, creating one of the more dramatic chinlock counters in wrestling history. Even after that, they took the crowd back down, with Koloff tossing Magnum out again and again, and Magnum selling and bleeding and fighting his way back to his feet and into the ring, until it built to one of the more dramatic sunset flips into the ring in wrestling history, and the crowd going absolutely molten as Magnum took the win and started to climb back in the series. These shows really were 80s JCP at its finest which maybe, just maybe, was pro wrestling at its finest.

Baby Doll and The Road Warriors vs. Jim Cornette and The Midnight Express

MD: This is the one brand new match on the top of the card for the second night. This one's really interesting because we have the Dusty/Magnum version on the other show. You can't not compare. It's obvious to see how they honed the act in the span of a couple of weeks. With this one as opposed to the first, Cornette starts with mic work, more thoroughly challenges Baby Doll to set up the start of the match, and it all has a more chaotic feel to lead into Baby Doll armdragging Eaton. This initial sequence felt way more out of place in the first match. That one went to blood and used the cage far more in the early going. You didn't need that as much with the Roadies since they were the gimmick in and of themselves. In the first match, Eaton went off the top of the cage with a hammer and then the transition came when he tried a second a little later. Here it was a knee drop which is way better (though the end transition was the same). Finally, in the first match, the finish was Baby Doll just pulling Cornette from the apron in and pinning him. Here, he tried to escape up the ropes and she pulled him off the top rope, then she got to hit a KO punch (thanks to a Road Warrior intervention) before the pin. Both matches had Cornette missing the opportunistic elbow drop to a big pop.

As a match, it was pretty much what you'd expect. The cage was more of a prop for Eaton and a thing to keep Cornette there than anything else. I love watching Eaton feed. He also had this great sense of just being exactly where he ought to be at all times. Something you'd never see today is the way he just covers the ring to prevent a tag or buy Condrey a few more seconds. There's no chance someone today would just act as a presence, as opposed to instead setting up some tandem spot. It's not like they weren't capable of those things either.

PAS: Really fun Eaton and Cornette performance, those two guys together were such a polished act for so many years and it is always fun to see a variation.  Eaton was pinballing all over the ring for the Roadies, flying into the cage, flying off the cage, slamming into the brick walls over and over, he even eats a great looking armdrag from Baby Doll. Cornette is of course excellent at taunting Baby Doll, running away, squirreling and then bumping huge for his final comeuppance. Roadies and Condrey were fine, but this was really an Eaton and Cornette show and a great one.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Hollywood Blondes, Dusty, Slater, Black, Dustin, Corino

Tommy Siegler/Roberto Soto/Argentine Apollo vs. Hollywood Blondes/Assassin ASWA 12/28/72

MD: This was a really interesting match from the Ann Gunkel promotion in Georgia. We have plenty of 70s footage but this feels more alien, if only because we don't usually see this Assassin and Roberts as a Hollywood Blond and Siegler's pretty rare, footage wise. Apollo looked great here, definitely the world's best Superfly Sifi Afi. Even if he was just aping parts of Rocca's act, he was doing it so well, that it didn't matter in the least. The guy died young of a heart attack, but it still feels surprising we didn't see him more into the early 80s. He could certainly go here. The Blonds were, of course, great stooges, but I thought everyone looked really good here.

This had a long shine with a few teases of the heels taking over. Past Apollo cartwheeling all over the place, and the heels stooging well, this was mostly notable for the announcers going out of their way to call Ann Gunkel the prettiest little girl promoter you ever did see.

The heat was equal parts boring and interesting. They ran through headscissors spots with all three babyfaces working from underneath. It felt a little like a lucha momentum shift instead of a classic face-in-peril. They were hot for all the tags but not as hot as they might have been. At one point the Assassin cut off Soto by turning a headlock into a belly-to-back which doesn't feel like a 70s spot at all no matter how common it'd be in, let's say 1990s AJPW (and both guys sold it as an impact too which was interesting). Siegler was the babyface that fought out of the headlock the best. I'd like to see more of him. After the final hot tag, this played out like a lucha comedy match from the 80s, with a few heel miscommunication spots and a lightning pin. Fun relic that showed off some elements that felt either experimental for the era or maybe connective tissue between what came before and what would come.

TKG: Was that Assassin Jody Hamilton? Cause damn he was once a lightheavy workrate machine. I mean still clearly doing "cerebral" gimmick but just workrate "cerebral". Kind of really the star of the heel team. Grey had an insane knee to the face, but Assassin was doing the more intricate stuff. The whole banged himself up a little loopy sell after hitting the big suplex to set up the reversal spot totally worked for me in the way that a lot of "I hit a big move then will be reversed next" signature 80s stuff doesn't. A lot of this was faces winning exchanges stuff and I thought they worked out a neat almost lucha hierarchy in how they set that up. Siegler gets the pin and was clearly being pushed here but was at the same time very clearly the low man on the totem pole. Apollo clearly captain (and the one guy to do the muga handstand escape out of the reverse headscissors that both other faces attempted to pull off) and Soto was an amazing workhorse who clearly was #2 guy on team. Soto is a machine on this and I need to see if there is much WWF Invaders on the network to look at. He also has a permanent thousand yard stare where his whole body communicates babyface but yeah mask makes sense.

PAS: The Assassin had Jody Hamilton's nose, so I am assuming it was him. Never thought I would see Jody Hamilton ripping off dropkicks and headscissors. I really enjoyed Apollo in this, he was clearly doing a tribute act, but he still had some really impressive agility and acrobatics. I loved his lightning fast one foot dropkicks. I would have liked to see a little more Buddy Roberts to get a better sense of him pre-Freebirds, but he seemingly had the least ring time of anyone in this match. Really enjoyable 20 minutes, which works as both a historical document and an entertaining wrestling match. 

Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat vs. Black Bart/Ron Bass/Tully Blanchard MAW 12/25/84

ER: You knew this was going to be absolute fire because everyone shows up dressed like they just got done with some yard work and Dick Slater wears a gigantic foam cowboy hat to the ring like he was Turd Ferguson. We don't get a finish to this, they're all out of time folks, but we get these six guys punching each other for 12 minutes and that's definitely something you want. Tully is the ultimate punching bag in this, falling all over the ring for everyone, and at one point Dusty and Dick are holding onto his belt while taking turns punching him, not letting him fall over the entire time. Black Bart stooges around the same way Necro Butcher does, which checks out as I believe he trained Necro. Ron Bass keeps spending time on the floor avoiding action, then entering only to get knocked right back. This was heavily controlled by the faces, but we do get a couple nice moments of Steamboat taking a beating, including a cool post-piledriver sell where he pushes himself backwards while on his knees looking lost in a fog, and he takes a monster bump over the ringpost to the floor. Not sure how much is missing or what this whole thing built to, but I loved every bit of it that we got.

TKG: Steamboat's superplex is so purty and Tully and Steamboat are great as I guess the Kikuchi and Fuchi's of this. Well that's all backwards as Jumbo, Taue, Fuchi are the face punishing heels heels while Dusty, Slater, Steamboat are the heel punishing faces. But AJPW should've done some touring bunkhouse matches. I was just watching the July 4, 81 Slater v Tiger Jeet Singh and Slater is so good at the babyface pacing of horseshit brawling and moves well between communicating moments of being a guy who just enjoys being in a fight and guy in a fight and then back.

MD: So this is more rare than found. It's a classic JCP TV match from the very end of 84. It's so cool to see Steamboat tag with Dusty and even just for Steamboat to interact with Bass. This was to establish Magnum as much as anything else. He's on the outside keeping JJ at bay. Just over the top bunkhouse brawl action with a crowd that was absolutely overjoyed to see every second of the bad guys running into the good guys' offense. Dusty looked like the biggest star in the world with his affectation-laden offense. Slater was a wild man, kicking, scraping, biting, using his boot to the fans' delight. This has the BS "We're out of time folks!" ending but sometimes you need a shot of that particular sort of disappointment in life just to remind you that you can't have everything you want. What we do have of this is way better than just being character building.

PAS: One thing I love about Slater and Dusty is that they always look like they are super excited to be in a fight. The opening seconds with Dusty in his bunkhouse gear, and Slater with the novelty foam cowboy hat just put a giant smile on my face. The smile didn't leave me until the cut off at the end of the match (this was a commercial tape for fucks sake, those things were expensive). Almost all chaotic brawling, with the heels mostly getting their comeuppance, flawless bit of business all around.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Corino UWF 6/8/07

MD: This is wilderness era Dustin, when he wasn't quite in the best shape. I had actually looked into this stuff not that long ago when a PR match popped up from 07. UWF was a TNA-affiliated promotion that was venturing north into the ECW Arena for some reason. There's actually a lot of potentially fun Dustin matches from this run, including matches with Scott Steiner and Aries and Damien Wayne and Bobby Houston. Probably the neatest thing about this, past the fact it simply exists is that Corino feuded with Dusty. Both guys got to cut promos. Corino brought out Mitch Williams, Philly's poor man's Bill Buckner, who at least seemed to have a blast out there as his heater (though he never got his comeuppance). The match itself was a decent enough brawl for their current physical state. It needed a few more minutes, but they bled early and hit each other hard and had a few imaginative spots with the bell. I liked how they sold the usually terrible finish to a bullrope match as Dustin having learned the tropes well from watching his dad. Now I just have to convince Phil to buy the Dustin Rhodes, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, Kirby Mack & TJ Mack vs. CW Anderson, Steve Corino, Hernandez, Homicide, & Elix Skipper double cage match from this promotion.

PAS: I am amused at the cheap heat use of Mitch Williams in Corino's corner, I wonder how much money you have to pay him to come out in a giant mustard colored dress shirt to get people to boo him. Pretty surprised we didn't get a Dusty elbow on him, but I imagine that would have cost more. Both Corino and Dustin are all time great bleeders and Corino especially seemed to blade two or three separate times. I enjoyed the dumbness of having to touch all the turnbuckles in a six sided ring. There were a couple of rude chair and cowbell shots, and this felt like a fun houseshow brawl, nothing all time great, but delivered what the crowd wanted.

Read more!

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING 4/6/85 THOUGHTS

PAS: Phil Schneider
LB: Lee Benaka


World Championship Wrestling 4/6/05

"Today is a free day"
Ole Anderson

PAS: I had a shit eating grin on my face this entire show

LB:  This show was a whole lot of fun, and it opened perfectly with an excerpt from Ole's confrontation with Thunderbolt Patterson.  The menace in Ole's voice was enough to fill the big freezer in the basement of Aunt Lena's house in Brainerd, Minnesota.

PAS:  Sam Houston v. Tully was pretty fun. Not super competitive but Houston always brings jobber fire. Perfect 10 Baby Doll has gigantic hands, I mean she looked like she could palm a pumpkin. The soft core porn video package of Tully turning down pussy in a search for Baby Doll was amazing. Tully was rocking some spectacular stunner shades, and knows how to show a lady a good time. I am only bummed the dicks in the WWE production department, put generic music over what was assuredly an amazing Hall and Oates tune.

LB:  Sam Houston was really tall.  I always liked him since I saw him in person wrestling the Warlord in the Municipal Auditorium in Topeka, Kansas, during the dying days of the Central States promotion in the mid-1980s.  What if Sam Huston would have seriously abused steroids?  Would he have been bulky and huge, or would his lankiness just have been exaggerated severely?  Tully's slingshot suplex didn't look really smooth due to Houston's height, but it was a nice enough match.  The Tully video was bizarre indeed.  Tully was sitting in a mansion at a opulent table eating alone, and a woman at the top of the stairs kept calling her to him.  Except that it was a music video, and it was all done in pantomime.  Tully evoked emotions of disinterest, exhaustion, and ennui balanced with a healthy dose of randiness.

PAS: Flair v. Gene Ligon was not one of your classic Flair v. Enhancement Guy matches, Ligon doesn't bring as much to the table as George South or Mike Jackson, and there were some points where they looked like they were on different pages.

LB:  I don't really remember much about this one, so I think Phil was right on here.

LB:  A Superstar Billy Graham squash was predictably sad.  Graham looked like today's Scott Steiner on a bad day, and his touted "Kung Fu" moves were hard to discern.  And Number One Paul Jones had his arm in a sling.  A rather sorry sight all around.

PAS: Lee is crazy, watching Kung Fun Billy Graham was just like watching Jet Li. The speed, the grace, the KUNG FU!!!

PAS: Goodhelmet really needs to put together a "homoerotic promo videos of the 80's" comp DVD. Magnum T.A. shirtless posing on his Harley like a Blue Boy centerfold would surely make the cut.

LB:  Magnum T.A. was just over the top and almost made me question my sexuality.  Almost.  This video should have turned him heel.  The shots of him making out with plain-looking bar chicks was not impressive, and the repeated close-ups of some woman licking her lips was disconcerting.

LB:  Yet another music video featured Jimmy Valiant prancing around to yet another generic soundtrack, certainly not "Boy from New York City".  It seemed to be stock footage of women walking around on a beach and Jimmy posing in front of old cars and small airplanes in a museum.  Not sure what it was trying to convey, but maybe the original soundtrack would have provided more of a clue.  And it was fun to see Tony Schiavone wilt when the Boogie Woogie Man planted a kiss on him at the beginning of his post-squash-match interview.

PAS: Three separate Dusty Rhodes promos, boy that producer must really like Dusty. They were pretty good promos though. If you have to hear from someone three times, it might as well be Stardust.

LB:  I especially liked the final promo, where a beat-up-looking Dusty was standing outside his limo with a drink in his hand, celebrating his win of the TV title.  He really did look like he was getting lit up after a bruising triumph, and it was a lot more real than any of the "backstage" celebrations you see on wresting shows these days.

PAS: Ivan Koloff really had a ridiculous Boris Badanoff Russian accent. Dusty Rhodes and Tommy Rich are the worlds greatest Moose and Squirrel.

LB:  Yeah, Ivan's accent was pretty thick.  At least they didn't let Nikita say too much back then.

PAS: Buddy Landell had probably the best squash just for the elbow drop, and man did pre-Horseman J.J. Dillion wear some dandyfied suits. He was resplendent in a maroon velvet tux with ruffled collar. I like exasperated executive J.J. way better then fake Don Carson, he didn't even clean his glasses once.

LB:  Buddy Landell was a lot of fun, with the Flair strut and taunts to the audience about being the real Nature Boy.  I love J.J. as an "exasperated executive" (perfect!) and wonder whether J.J. was wearing these dandy suits prior to this in the Central States when he was heading up the Rat Pack and trying to stuff Rufus R. Jones into a rat suit.  I think he was somewhere between executive and dandy back then.

PAS: Black Bart kills Ron Rossi by tossing him hard into the bottom rope, which snaps and Rossi lands very wrong on the floor. Only "Holy Fuck" moment of the show, but it was a big one.

LB:  Of course I was up getting another beer when this horrifying bump occurred.  J.J. thoughtfully kicked the limp snapped cable out of the way so that Bart could carefully put Ron Rossi back in the ring.  That's a tough way to earn $25.00.

PAS: Arn v. Raging Bull was pretty beautiful, nothing fancy, just solid blue collar wrestling. Everything looked hard and solid. It was mostly a set up for the Ole turn on Thunderbolt Patterson. The promo before hand was great, as Ole warns Patterson "I'm not going to touch you...not today"  and the Anderson's beat down on Manny and T-Bolt makes you want badly to see the Omni blow off. The post beat down Anderson promo was kind of strange, as Arn wasn't really giving an Arn promo, as he was much for Bobby Jaggersish, lots of "Daddys" and "Jacks", while Ole did the serious killer stuff great.

LB:  I was going to say the exact same thing about Arn's post-beatdown interview.  It was hard to accept the idea that these two were related, except for the last name and the early male-pattern baldness, as the pinched Minnesota accent clashed harshly with Arn's Georgia twang.  I think Ole tried to assert that their fathers were brothers, but that seemed to be made up on the spot and did not make much sense.  But you did want to see Thunderbolt try to gain revenge and prove that Ole wasn't "carrying" him for all that time.

LB:  Prior to the end of the show, the announcers teased an Avalance Buzz Tyler match and failed to deliver.  Damn!  That was the only fault of this great old show.

Read more!

WWE 24/7 SHORTIES -Phil and Lee Benaka

Shorties

Ron Garvin v. Big Bubba Rogers

PAS: This was easily the best match we watched on our day of ON DEMAND. Ronnie Garvin is one of my favorites, and really works best in a street fight setting where all he is required to do is throw his great punches. Even green as goose shit Bubba Rogers isn't afraid to take huge fat man bumps, like getting bealed off the top rope and flying outside the ring. Also we had some nice blood, including the visual of a spreading bloodstain on Bubba's dress shirt from Ronnie Garvin's open wound.

LB:  Bubba's weight looked more evenly distributed than his fatter-looking days as the Big Bossman.  However, if Ray Traylor were still alive today and flying from town to town for indie shows, he probably would be charged for two seats owning to his condition as a "man of size."  The opening sequence with Garvin tagging Bubba with quick punches was great.  Bubba's selling and frustration (along with that of boyish Jim Cornette) was enchanting.  I never did quite understand the rules of the Louisville Street Fight, other than it allowed managers to gratuitously interfere with tennis rackets for cheap endings.  The blood was great, and this match went on for a while but was always fun due to Garvin's manly offense.

Sweet Brown Sugar/Dizzy Hogan v. Jobber Black Bart/Ken Timbs

PAS: Short meaningless enhancement tag from Mid-Atlantic, placed on the show for the fact that Dizzy Hogan went on to be Brutus Beefcake and Sweet Brown Sugar wrestled as Koko B. Ware. Of course the Sweet Brown Sugar who wrestled in this match went on to be Skip Young, but I suppose that WWE on Demand editors have cross racial identification problems.

LB:  Phil and I had great fun as the night went on mistakenly identifying various African-American jobbers as future WWE superstars, including the future Bobby Lashley and Booker T.  Ken Timbs was the most enjoyable participant in this match in that he really seemed to care about making most every move mean something.  Jobber Black Bart didn't look much different than the James J. Dillon third-rate heel stable Black Bart who appeared on the 1985 WCW show that we watched later this night.  Was this the match that looked like it was filmed in front of two rows of spectators?  Aww, those early 1980s territory TV matches were the best.

Lord Al Hayes v. Bobby Heenan

PAS: This was a battle of the managers from AWA, and was a blast. Lord Al Hayes has a bunch of fun british escapes which work real well to frustrate Heenan. Heenan doesn't really bump big or bleed alot, but he does have surprisingly nice punches.

LB:  This match was another winner.  I actually had never seen His Lordship wrestle, although I have fond memories of seeing him manage the Super Destroyer Mark something-or-other in the Central States wrestling I grew up on.  Hayes was quite dickish with the boot grinding into the head and slaps.  Heenans hide-and-seek with the foreign object down his trunks was done pretty well.  I was surprised that Heenan was able to get his heat back so completely at the end of the match when he clocked Hayes and the referee with a chair.  And the ref got to his feet first, but I suppose His Lordship absorbed most of the impact.  It might have been better to have had Nick Bockwinkel help Heenan rough up Hayes at the end, but it's nice to see Bobby take care of himself.

Read more!