Jesse Barr vs. Pez Whatley
ER: A match made completely worthwhile by the finish. Up until the finishing stretch I was prepared to write "Yep this sure is some undercard wrestling. Well Barr did work his chin lock fairly effectively and I appreciate that" and be done with it. But then we go on an excellent one minute run to finish on a perfect high note: Barr throws Whatley through the ropes to the floor, fast, and the cameras pan to Whatley and what appears to be a ringside security guard facing away from the ring while eating popcorn and literally reading a fucking magazine. When Whatley tries to get back in the ring he's greeted by Barr's legitimately great kneelift - the best piece of offense all match - and I love how Whatley's reaction is to get obliterated by the kneelift and desperately try to roll back to the floor before being dragged back in. All of that is made worth it by Barr taking one of the greatest banana peel bumps I've seen when Whatley sweeps his leg. Barr made it look like he had no idea the football was being pulled.
MD: Nice way to get acclimated to 1984 here. The ref, especially does a great job in both checking Barr before the match (showing Barr that if he doesn't agree, then he'll declare Pez the winner) and then catching the hairpull on the top wristlock cutoffs the second or third time Barr does it. Barr was maybe 25 here and you had to wonder what his ceiling might have been at this point. He looked good, high energy especially on a kneelift catching Pez on the way in and then bumping big for Pez's finishing stuff, and Pez, of course, knew exactly what he was doing and played to the crowd well between it. Ok opening match but I'm glad they didn't decide it needed to be a time limit draw.
TKG: Fuck all that, this ruled and was ridiculously hot for an opener. Pez Whatley backdrop driver may be the most impressive suplex on a show with great throws. Just holds Barr up in impressive lift before perfectly dropping him. Whatley just looks like a hoss throughout this dominating on mat. Why wasn’t Whatley in the Varsity Club? Why didn’t he get a Triple Crown title challenge. You watch that suplex and shocking that it wasn’t finisher. Barr actually hits a desperation knee to get straight back on offense. And really the high knee lift is Barr’s only move. Was Barr doing a loaded knee pad gimmick? Barr refuses to let ref Scrappy McGowan check his kneepads before the match until Scrappy threatens him with DQ, all of his offense and comebacks and signature bump built around knee lift. Hits a knee lift for control and then slaps on a chinlock. Whatley wins with this high neck yolk move (instead of a bulldog from behind he yolks opponent down from the front), Whatley goes for it several times and never quite gets it till the win. First time, I thought it was a crossbody that he got too much height with, second time I thought it was a Mil style in ring tope and when he finally hits it clean, clear that is what he was going for and match is over. The moves based match structure had a real first round of a early 2000’s Super Eight feel to it, and you could totally see Ketner booking a Billy Fives, Scoot Andrews, Barr, Pez 4 way dance for the next month.
The Spoiler vs. Johnny Rich
ER: Spoiler standing on the top rope looks like a magic trick. It looks like an illusion. He's standing so still, like he's not even standing on anything at all. Don Jardine is a man the same age as me and twice my size, yet he stands effortlessly on the ropes with the grace of El Hijo del Santo. Watch him. Watch his entire body. At one point he appears to be only standing on one leg, right leg on one set of ropes, left leg on another, until one of the legs lifts...and the rest of his body doesn't move. His entire body is still, no part of him looks like he is countering weight to maintain balance. He looks like he is standing on solid ground. He looks incredible. You've never seen anyone walk the ropes like Spoiler. Fenix, Komander, Elix Skipper, any name, none are comparable to what Spoiler does.
I could go on and on about the unreality of his rope work - if this wasn't a full card and only this match, I would write several paragraphs on him standing on the ropes - but maybe the greatest thing about it is how he uses his rope work for heel heat. I don't think there has ever been a heel who has used "look how well I balance on the top rope" as the basis for his heel heat, but there is Spoiler on the top rope, striking and holding a pose like a large buccaneer, showing off his balance to a bunch of husbands and wives out on a Sunday. The Spoiler draws heat from standing still on a very high point, and the crowd starts coming alive for Rich's comeback because of it. Johnny Rich does this thing where his punches keep looking better the deeper into the match we go, and it makes the crowd louder and more responsive. And then my man hits the blade for Spoiler's claw, and we get this incredible, violent, wrenched in claw that Spoiler made look like he was breaking Rich's entire upper torso. The shot of Rich, still standing, body being contorted while held in the claw, blood covering his face quick, made me go from "Man Spoiler matches always deliver" to "oh wow they did something special in just 6 minutes".
MD: Great look at the Spoiler and I'm glad people will see him that are unaware. Hot start to this as he clubbers right away in the corner only for Rich to fire back. But then the size advantage takes over as he just hefts him up and then tosses him into the corner. The rope walk elbow drop is just super striking because he does it with ease and without hesitation and he followed it up by draping Rich in the ropes and kicking the ropes and they made it look great and painful. Someone needs to steal that.
Rich eventually rolls in (and to the other side of the ring so he can recover) and fires back with jabs, but pressing Spoiler into the corner is no good. He'll just grab your head and use it to steady himself as he walks the ropes. From there, he started utilizing the claw, getting Rich out of the ring with it and then immediately catching him on the way back in, leaving him a bloody mess. I'm happy people will get introduced to Spoiler this way (And Rich was perfectly fine in his role with fiery but futile comebacks).
TKG: The Spoiler putting Rich in a cat’s cradle is the greatest yo-yo trick ever done with a wrestling ring..
Ted Dibiase vs. Mr. R
ER: This was not designed to be a great match, but instead was worked like the first six minutes of a bigger match, all basic Mr. R side headlocks floated over into Dibiase pin attempts and then back again. I had never seen any of the Mr. R angle and my favorite part of this was Rich avoiding Jesse Barr and Spoiler's attacks as he rolled out of the ring and jumped the rail. The fans were into this and all they did was headlock shoulderblock stuff, showed how over the full angle was.
MD: We had maybe 25 seconds of this previously. I imagine those might have been the 25 seconds we needed but we have so little actual Mr. R footage, this is still interesting. They worked the first five minutes of a very conventional match with the usual chain wrestling. Dibiase was very into it and this was fine, but it's interesting just how normal and conventional it was. After about five minutes, Dibiase calls his cronies in and the heels all try to get Mr. R's mask, but he darts out of the ring like a trickster and hops the rail and wins by DQ. The energy at the end with the angle bit was very good but this was really all just a tease.
TKG: There was some cool fighting for top wristlock stuff here but this reminded me of a lot of the Mid South Dibiase technical fussbudgeting with no direction killing time before the loaded glove finish. I kind of need to feel like you are stealing a win for me to get mad at a DQ.
Les Thornton vs. Tommy Rogers
ER: My God Les Thornton is a little tank. Tommy Rogers had a real credible side headlock and he really cranked it in a few times, especially on one spot where Thornton tried to push off, but just when I thought I knew what snug was, Thornton made me say "whoa" aloud (in the bathroom at work where I was watching this) at how violent his reversal to headscissors was. Thornton pulled off the headscissor with such speed and force, in a way I haven't seen. Rogers couldn't have stopped this if he wanted to. Made me want to see a Thornton/Finlay match. Every headscissor looked great and Rogers sold his frustration in them so well. His hair pulls are done with such a quick snap that it made me smile when Rogers finally broke a headscissors with a knee straight to the head. Rogers has a clean sunset flip that looks like an actual pin, and Thornton really thunderclaps his ears with his legs to break. Love the bounce Rogers got on Thornton's butterfly suplex and how both men made every headlock exchange look like actual struggle and applied pressure. The finish had a couple things that didn't quite work. Thornton has a way of taking Rogers dropkicks that makes Tommy look like a chump, and Rogers tried a back suplex that saw him dropping Thornton's full weight onto himself. Thornton's pin reversal win looked like it didn't even have half the leverage of any of the headlock/headscissor exchanges. Basically I loved the first 13 a lot more than the last 2.
MD: I thought this was going to be wrestled straight but as it went on Thorton leaned heel. There was a lot of ref interaction early. I liked him the first match but he got a little too involved here turning holds over, kicking the arms off when they were holding the ropes, etc. They did some really neat things with headscissors right after pins including a transition into a takeover from Rogers i'm not sure I'd ever seen.
The match opens up midway as Thorton starts to introduce heel tactics. It leads to a really big extended comeback by Rogers where Thorton keeps trying to cut him off but can't. That played more to Rogers' strengths so it was better than if this was just wrestled clean. The fans were pretty into it by the end and when Thornton holds onto the tights to win, they are very much not happy with him.
TKG: Meltzer wrote about Malenko v Benoit from Road Wild that it would be a great match with a different audience and I was like “fuck that, they would have worked it differently for different crowd”,,,the best part of that match is how hostile the work was making the crowd. I was joking with Phil the other day about a Les Thorton v Scott Mcghee match which the WWF had booked to kill heat and send crowd to concessions. I assume Vince Sr was getting percentage of concessions and built into his card formula were these log technical draws that were intended to get a hostile crowd response and send people to concession stands and my memory of Thorton v Mcghee was that crowd started “boring” chants from moment they came to ring but actually never left their seats for concessions, transfixed; just couldn’t take eyes of one guy has a headlock which other guy counters with a leg scissors and just got more and more hostile about the idea that it was holding their attention. Match had a bunch of same elements while that one was built around egging on hostility while this is built around the pops for the face and encouraging the cheers. We don’t build matches to kill crowds anymore and kind of miss it as an art….but this was really cool too
Wahoo McDaniel vs. Nikolai Volkoff
MD: Basically a slugfest. Volkoff had big over the top punches. Wahoo had straight shots and chops. Volkoff did do this one shot to the face that I thought was amazing and Wahoo, as he was firing back, did a chop where he just ran through Volkoff in a way that I hadn't seen him do too many times before. Volkoff did get one bearhug in there but it was functional and led to a wild clap escape by Wahoo. He hit both of his backbreaker variations (including the press slam one). Things got wild on the floor with Wahoo dodging a chairshot. This was one of those matches where it was just interesting to see how they made the noise for their strikes. Not stomps so much as recoil jumps, things like that. Eventually the ref, who had been all over the show as noted, tried to get in the way of a Wahoo choke and both guys ultimately tossed him for the no contest. Wahoo tried a bunch of elbowdrops to crush Volkoff but he kept on rolling to safety.
TKG: Crap, was Nikolai Volkoff always this bad? It is Wahoo, you can hit him. He won’t cry. Volkoff’s lift before backbreaker is always impressive but c’mon. Wahoo keeps on leaning into strikes and Volkoff pulls them even more. Aways a joy to see Wahoo tee off on someone but Volkoff is a shitty guy for him to be stuck against.
ER: Damn, was Nikolai Volkoff always this good? Do I like Nikolai Volkoff now? Wahoo is Wahoo and the chops (more than one to the face!) are great and his comeback had the heaviest shots of the match, but has Volkoff been good this whole time and I just haven't sought out any of it? Is the Don Muraco Eastern Championship Wrestling Title match good? Is the '94 WWF run good? Volkoff was a big weird guy here and I loved the way he kept awkwardly kicking at Wahoo's forehead like he was Bad Taue. Imagine how great Volkoff could have been had he just been Bad Taue? He throws his kicks up with the same awkwardness of Taue, but with normal body proportions so his legs aren't as long. He does two great backbreakers to Wahoo. Well, one good back backbreaker and one incredible backbreaker. Volkoff is one of our few wrestlers to make gear a part of his backbreaker. It must be so humiliating to not only have your back broken, but to have your singlet or trunks stretched and wedged and rearranged during the lift. Volkoff kept lifting higher and Wahoo's singlet kept stretching further, an insult I think worse than mussing someone's hair. He bumped bigger than I expected when Wahoo started firing back, getting upended by a running chop and pinballing all the way across the ring for Wahoo's excellent shoulder shrug to the jaw.
Jake Roberts vs. Ron Garvin
MD: Just an exceptional match. With these GCW Omnis, we see the Jake Roberts that we were always promised, the master of psychology, of bringing the crowds up and down and using every dirty trick. He was good later on but was too much a babyface and without the room to breathe like he had here. His ribs were taped coming in so we had his reach and leverage and dirty tricks and Ellering at ringside against the promise that at some point in the match, Garvin would get free and use the hands of stone to punch those ribs.
They built it and built it and built it, Roberts leaning hard on the ref disallowing punches and utilizing every hairpull, tights pull, piece of rope to choke, distraction from Ellering, everything he can manage. At one point he goads Garvin into the corner (with Garvin having the advantage) only for Ellering to pull the leg out. So much of the match is just a seated armbar, but they work it so well, with hope spots like Garvin pulling Roberts' shirt up to expose the taped ribs, just that. It's so good. He gets him once but Roberts' escapes, and then when he finally gets him and ties him up in the ropes, laying in shot after shot, the place comes unglued. The ref takes a great bump and while Garvin's able to stop Ellering from using the chair, Jake blindsides him and DDTs him on the chair. When the ref comes too he hits a couple of insult to injury elbow drops for the pin, keeping the program going and getting huge heat. Just a brilliant match, maybe even a perfect one for what they were trying to accomplish.
TKG: I think of Garvin as a guy who is relentless on offense, and less of as a guy who is really great at selling but he is…he isn’t bumping for strikes but somehow by standing tall and selling the toughness of not going down, he makes the strikes look far more legit. Also I am so used to TOUGH manager Paul Ellering, that exasperated throwing hands in the air freaking out Ellering was super fun.
ER: 1984 t-shirt Jake is such an amazing era of Jake Roberts. He never looked more like the most dangerous Molly Hatchet roadie. The load out guy who everyone fears but everyone knows is the guy who can get you crank...and beyond. He did not look like a wrestler or move like a wrestler and it's what made him one of the most compelling wrestlers. He did not throw his uppercut like a wrestler. When he throws five downward punches at Garvin's face when Garvin has him by the leg, he punches like a carny. When the throws cross chops at Garvin's throat they're...maybe the best non-punch strike you've seen. Jake is wearing a t-shirt to cover up his taped ribs, and this might be the only Garvin match I've seen based around him throwing body shots. Once he starts teeing off on Jake's ribs, even tying him up in the ropes like Andre, the crows loses their mind. The whole thing is incredible. Roberts stifles Garvin for so long and escapes at the right moments, and it all burns down as Roberts is finally getting his ribs battered while he sells it like he's doing kabuki, bent at the waist on tip toes. The finish is dynamite, with Garvin being spiked right on Ellering's chair with a DDT. You can't fake the way Garvin takes this DDT, that's a man going vertebrae first onto that chair. The best past is Jake doesn't pin him after that. He rouses the ref by shoving him the way a big brother would shove his little brother after calling him numb nuts, then when the ref is watching he falls onto Garvin with an elbowdrop. He grabs at his ribs on impact, totally worth it. Had this been on one of the DVDVR 80s sets, we would have called it one of the greatest Jake matches. Now we can.
The Road Warriors vs. Stan Hansen/King Kong Bundy
PAS: In my mind this is an insane Kaiju battle, a tag version of Andre vs. Hansen. It wasn't that, much more of a traditional tag match, but it was delightful. I am going to leave Eric and Matt to rhapsodize about the initial lock up, but man was that beautiful stuff. We don't have a ton of Road Warriors stooging and bumping, and they do a great job of that early, I can't remember seeing Stan Hansen working face in peril, and we get a nice spoonful at once, I have definitely not seen hot tag Bundy, and hot tag Bundy was incredible. I wanted a bit more of an explosion at the end, it felt like this was a match setting up a huge gimmick blowoff, which never happened, but man what a treat.
MD: Finish or no finish, the fans got their money's worth on this one. It was, in some ways, very weird in the entire history of wrestling. GCW Roadies were still raw, were very willing to stooge and show ass in a way that they really wouldn't later. Bundy was a big towering babyface, and Hansen played face-in-peril. We don't have a ton of performances like this out of him.
When they did finally take over on him, it was by focusing on the arm, the old Hansen standard, but his hope spots were great and rousing, just big booming attempts to fire back, with the fans getting behind him, before he'd get cut off. There were only so many teams in the world that could believably keep him down like this but the Road Warriors in 84 were on that list and they really made it work. Bundy coming in at the end was like a wrecking ball and yes, this broke down with Ellering grabbing Bundy's leg and all four guys firing off until the ref called it. It's great that the Road Warriors became what they did, but I do wonder what I would have looked like if they stayed on this road instead. Just a tremendous Hansen performance overall and a new piece of a puzzle that was already feeling complete.
TKG: This was way more a standard tag than I was picturing but a pretty great standard tag. I assume most of this will be covered by everyone else but I really loved all the Hansen face in peril trying to make sure that he still was getting blood flow to his fingers while the Road Warriors working over his arm.
Ric Flair vs. Brad Armstrong
MD: This went how you'd expect it to go except for that maybe it stayed clean (though with Flair still strutting when he did well) for quite a while. I loved Brad's energy on his hope spots/comebacks. The bit where he climbs the bottom rope to start firing back on Flair was great and I want to see Daniel Garcia implement that as part of his act ASAP. Just super, balanced pro wrestling with a little something for everyone who might be watching in 1984. More of this please, and soon.
ER: I want to know more about the Donald Sutherland/Kurt Vonnegut led couple who left at the same time with the cool younger leather jacket couple. Leather jacket guy had his hand on his girl's inner thigh and they had just found out this Brad Armstrong headlock had hit the 10 minute mark. They made a look before both getting up at the exact same time and I didn't see a single solitary second the rest of the show where it looked like they even know they were there. A bunch of kids take their place and the 13 year old on the end is wearing a sleeveless Union Jack and has his arms crossed the entire time. He's the fucking coolest 13 year old I have ever seen at a wrestling show.
TKG: The weird thing about the “traditional long slow build Flair main event” is how fucking fast paced it is. Like this is the fastest paced match on show. In theory Flair is trying to slow it down but it never slows and just builds. I also really like the way it feels like 2/3 falls match where it has parts, an initial technical fall section, a brawling section and a quick running exchange section that feel like they build off each other. At one point Flair does his first set of chops during the technical section to regain control and those are completely different than the type of chops he does during the actual brawling section.
TKG: Referee Scrappy McGowan worked this entire show solo and it is a real impressive performance. HE is neither a tough ref who is completely in control nor a ref in over his head struggling to assert himself but instead just a perfect medium. Guy who gets manipulated by heels but also stops heels from cheating. Of the Georgia refs, he isn’t one that I think of as getting talked up but he was really great throughout this show.
Labels: Brad Armstrong, Jake Roberts, King Kong Bundy, Les Thornton, Nikolai Volkoff, Ric Flair, Road Warriors, Ron Garvin, Stan Hansen, Ted Dibiase, The Spoiler, Tommy Rich, Wahoo McDaniel
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