Found Footage Friday: '86 CROCKETT HANDHELD~! GARVIN~! FLAIR~! NIKITA~! ARN~! MAGNUM~! DUSTY~! RAGING BULL~! WAHOO~!

JCP Handheld Cincinnati 4/27/86

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: We just get five minutes clipped here. It's a real morality play though. Clear, clear lines. Garvin earns nothing. Whenever Wahoo gets the chants, he's smacking him around the ring. Garvin begs off and gets a cheapshot low. He uses Precious pulling the hair from the outside to distract so he can take over. He uses an eye rake. When he's in charge he's laying in stomps or tossing Wahoo into the rail. Wahoo has big definitive shots. Garvin is underhanded and peppers things in. Night and day. Wahoo comes back, does the war dance, hits the chops, but Garvin kicks out at one and runs away to the draw a count out and fight for another day. 

ER: I don't think I ever thought Cincinnati was a place Crockett even toured but I'm also old enough now that a lot of information sounds like new information. I know they ran Cleveland frequently but maybe I didn't ever think about Cincinnati as Crockett Country because we didn't have footage until some guy who loves awful chili that tastes like pumpkin pie brought a camera to document it. I'm glad he did. He wanted the match bad enough to record it as fully as he could while editing on the fly to save battery for the bigger matches. This man, who smelled of raw onion, knew Flair and Garvin had worked broadways in the Carolinas. He couldn't risk it. So we got this clipped, but it's house show perfection. The crowd is so entertained by professional house show Wahoo, not murdering Garvin but doing all his same painful strikes and Native Stooges chops. Wahoo hits Garvin hard and forces Garvin to work up to him. Garvin had excellent worked stomps and the way Wahoo sold being punched in the corner could teach every wrestler today. Watch Wahoo flinch away from a shot under the ribs, reflexively rear back for a punch, before taking another. The best punches and strikers are almost always the best at selling punches. 

Baron von Raschke/Ivan Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Hector Guerrero

MD: This was probably a rough 20 minute draw that turned into a good 13 minute clipped draw. Though there was nothing we saw in those 13 minutes to really make me think the full 20 would have been that much of a slog. They went with a double heat structure with a long shine that consisted of Raschke being a pole in the center of the ring that Hector got to roll around and Ivan's arm getting worked over as he bumped, stooged, and fed more. First heat was on Manny and had some good assisted holds that drew in Hector and got heat. Then Hector got to make a big house of fire entrance with rapid punches until he got swept under. The idea was that once he got the hot tag (again rolling all over the place) there just wasn't enough time for Manny to get the win, though he came real close. I don't remember too many draws being worked quite this and it's a solid structure on paper. 

Most fascinating thing to me is just watching the Baron. He lost the offense once by goose stepping and setting up the claw. He had a way of both hitting offense (even stomps) and bumping that he'd move his waist but not his abdomen. He's like an old action figure without enough points of articulation. You can make him sit up in the middle, but then you can't bend his knees or waist. And he still takes bumps and hits offense, but it's amazingly stilted. I've seen plenty of Baron matches but maybe it was just worse by 86? Anyway, maybe this was helped by the clipping, maybe not, but it worked for me.

ER: We love guys who move weird and nobody moves around a ring weirder than 1986 Baron, who is my exact age but he moves like someone re-animated a 75 year old monster from memory. His bumps are terrible, taken only one way, rolling back to his seat waving his arms like he's Accredited Giant Gonzalez. I like how Manny works like Chavo when he teams with Hector. I wonder how he worked when he teamed with Chavo. Probably like an asskicker. Manny hits like a rock and pulls off a flying headscissors, Hector brings energy and the crowd loves his evasive tumbling. Koloff works like the best Haruka Eigen. He did an All Japan tour in 1990 when he was in his late 50s and I need to see every match we have from that tour. I loved how he bumped for Hector's late match hot tag, Korakuen would have gone wild for the ways he ran into the turnbuckles and bounced his way halfway back across the ring. While I'm curious how Baron worked his bearhug, I respect the camera's choice to edit. 

Dusty Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson + Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff [Cage]

MD: This is still a bit clipped but you get the sense of what's going on and I loved the Dusty vs Arn portion until the finish. This being a house show, there was such freedom for Dusty to absolutely demolish Arn. Arn sold the cage at first, not the danger of it but the fact he couldn't get away. Then he managed to run himself knee first into the cage. Dusty took over on it with such one-of-a-kind timing on seizing the foot, taking him down, holding it, looking to the crowd, stomping, stomping again. If a conductor of an orchestra is primarily worried about controlling the time and volume, Dusty was the best conductor of a crowd I've ever seen. Just a virtuoso. 

After smashing and rubbing Arn's head against the cage a bit, Arn actually came back with these beautiful low kicks from the ground, just sweeping his leg against Dusty's as if he was dance fighting. He honed in and then, once he had a real advantage, the Russains came out with the chain. I would have probably liked it more if Dusty mounted a comeback and then they came in? But there was also the sense that this was the plan all along if Arn got even the smallest bit of advantage. 

I suppose it worked either way as Magnum rushed in to break it up and start his match with Nikita. This had a totally different feel. Magnum did control early including a goofy atomic drop that sent Nikita in (and justified the blading) and using the cage to help himself bound up to the top turnbuckle for a double axe handle.Nikita lawn darted himself head first into Magnum's gut to take over and Magnum worked well from underneath. At one point he ate a backbreaker and crawled on his knees across the ring and it really worked for me.

Great transition, maybe even an all time one honestly, as Nikita went for the sickle, Magnum moved, and he went arm first into the cage. Things opened up from there with Magnum throwing all sorts of punches and a great sweeping dropkick. I loved the finish too, as Magnum went to toss Nikita head first into the cage, but Nikita grabbed Magnum's head at the last second and they both went in at equal speed. Just a real symbolic sense of them being equals/rivals/fated. That led to a ten count where it seemed like Nikita might beat it but he collapsed and Magnum shot up at the last second to a huge pop. Lots to love here.

ER: I appreciate that we got a little handheld ambiance before the match, our documentarian filming the people at the Cincinnati Gardens, reminding us that Miller Lite tastes great and is less filling, giving us a too brief glimpse of the ringside guardrails getting moved around before the cage goes up. As Dusty goes after Arn's ankle, I appreciate that everything you hear yelled by the crowd sounds like create-a-crowd ADR. "Do it again, Dusty!" "Give it to him!" "Stomp that ankle, Dusty!" It's clipped up, but I'm glad we get Arn's killer missed knee strike into the cage, Dusty seated on the middle rope but dodging, Arn's knee going into the cage, Arn throwing the knee to actually connect with Dusty and thus hitting the cage just as his knee would have connected with Dusty's stomach. After getting his face ground into the cage, Arn misses a wild swing and takes perhaps the fastest faceplant I've seen from a miss, a reaction to a Dusty elbow that swings him into the mat faster than anything Dusty could have done to him. 

TA vs. Nikita portion is a real hot fight. Koloff was great at taking punches and Magnum was great at throwing them. Koloff took an axe handle better than most I've seen, really selling the impact in how he let it drive him spinning to the mat. Koloff is great at taking Magnum's punches, none better than in the aftermath of him missing the sickle into the cage. Magnum lands a jab to Koloff's nose and Nikita winces up like he's prematurely stopping a gush of blood. Wahoo hit this great swinging axe handle to Garvin's chest in the opener, and I thought that was the coolest strike of the night, until Magnum threw the same swinging axe handle at Nikita's face. It's funny that the "first man to his feet, Wins" finish came after both ran each other into the cage, which was treated much more seriously than Magnum straight up murdering Nikita with a piledriver moments before. I still loved the drama around both men getting to their feet. 

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Opening few minutes of this were great. Flair would press Garvin into the corner, try to take a liberty, smack him, immediately get smacked back, sell it with shock. It was a lovely bit of vaudeville. I'm torn on parts of this one overall. Flair's narratives just don't come together how I'd like. What happens in minute 17 doesn't necessarily stem logically from what happens in minute 6 like with other greatest-of-all-time wrestlers. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what happens in minute 17 isn't good and that it doesn't fit the moment or the characters. But it leaves me wondering if something was left on the table sometimes. But maybe I'm wrong and this is better and more organic somehow. 

Here, when Flair did take over, it felt clear like he was fed up from all the shots he took from Garvin and that he just wanted to lay shots in, not worried about winning or any sort of strategy. It was raw and human and effective, and I think the issue isn't it necessarily, but when he went into the finish and started to target the leg. I preferred him punching Garvin in the face to being just as mean about the leg, but then when things had to slip into some sort of finishing sequence, it wasn't one that matched the rest of the contest. My favorite shot he did was when he had Garvin draped over the top rope like Sheamus (or like he was setting him up for Eigen's spit spot) and instead of just whacking him in the chest, he punched him in the cheek. 

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe the narrative is that Flair was angry and he was mean and cruel but in the face of Garvin constantly firing back, maybe he was a coward and maybe he blinked first, and he went to the knee out of desperation and then tried to cover it with bluster like it was his plan all along. Maybe it's my fault for just not having enough faith in Flair. Maybe I'm not fair to Flair. Regardless, the finish did hit, with Garvin, leg torn up, eating a second shinbreaker anyway to punch Flair in the face. Both guys went sprawling to the floor and got counted out. You can't say the fans didn't get their money here at least.

ER: Love the guy in the crowd who, as Tommy Young is holding up Flair's title, keeps saying, "Garvin's leaving with it! Garvin's leaving with it!" Super physical match, which I greatly respect, and if we had it in full I'd say it's one of my favorite Flair matches of the era. We don't know how long the actual match may have gone, but we have 21+ minutes of it here and it's easy to think they went past 30, and they were fighting the whole time. Garvin unsurprisingly throws the hardest punches of the night while Flair takes the hardest bumps, but it's so much more than that. Unless edited out entirely, they don't hit the mat at all. No long builds out of headscissors, no wear down holds, just pure physicality in every exchange. Even though it had several staples of Every Town Paid to See My Shit Flair, this feels paced differently from a lot of Flair touring champ matches. The schtick blended into the fight a lot better than I've seen it in many highly acclaimed Flair matches, and his cumulative selling felt like a guy who really had been battered and beaten for 30 minutes. There were no moments where he was taking bigger bumps for Tommy Young or running ropes after selling fatigue, this was always fought like two men getting progressively worn down and hurt from their fight. 

When Flair goes into his own personal Showstopper mode, many things can feel disconnected from everything else in the match. This never felt that way, every blur of fighting felt like a part of their larger war, and every exchange had such physical power that by the time we were 30 in and both men were limping around the ring after each other, artistry out the window, scrambling and crawling over each other for any advantage, it felt like a righteous culmination to their war. Some of my favorite moments include Garvin popping Flair right in the forehead for a nearfall and shaking out his fist while still lying across Flair's body, fanning his fingers while still pressing Flair to the mat. It's no secret that Garvin has amazing punches, but you could randomly step into any minute of this match and see a perfect example of some all timers. Garvin's punches all look sped up, like the punch is sped up at the point of impact to make them look harder than they are, but Garvin is just that good. When he throws three perfect punches before rolling smoothly into a jackknife pin, I thought it was an honest to god real finish. 

Flair getting pressed off the top actually served the match, wasn't just an excuse for Flair to take one of his bumps. It leads immediately to Garvin dropping an elbow for 2, and the punches he rains down on Flair after the kickout are incredible, standing over him punching down at Flair, Flair groggily trying to sit up but just getting punched over and over, like he's being punished for kicking out. Garvin also does this beautiful thing where he takes a knee breaker and fucking decks Flair upon landing, before falling in a heap himself. Wrestling needs more guys who lash out instinctively upon feeling pain, before the pain consumes them and they are forced to sell. Garvin definitely sold the damage of that knee breaker, but he reacted like someone who stubs their toe and foolishly lashes out and attacks the bed frame he stubbed it on. It makes much more sense to have that reaction to a man trying to hurt you, and once you see Garvin deck Flair you wonder why it's something we don't see more. This is the most boiled down raw version of Misawa popping up to hit an elbow and it's beautiful. Great match, great war. 

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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.

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