(10/04/1986) Col. DeBeers def. Curt Hennig by DQ at 9:56. This was Curt Hennig in a young babyface role, being heavily cheered by the fans with thunderous chants of “USA” against the foreign DeBeers. DeBeers was a good working heel here, selling like a champ, taking the occasional big oversell bump to get the crowd going. Hennig worked the arm over for a while at one point, then DeBeers got up selling it majorly, having to take a second in the corner to regroup while heavily favoring the wounded body part. Jesus, that was nice to see. They purposely tried to make the shit matter, as silly as that sounds in 2020. DeBeers’ offense was unspectacular but very solid. We never really got a big Hennig babyface comeback because he ended up on top of DeBeers quickly, and was raining down punches on him until the ref disqualified him for ignoring his warnings. I get they were building up Curt to win the title and become heel champion, but we still could have got a fucking Hennig babyface comeback, while maintaining maintaining the integrity of the foreshadowing. It made the cheap finish so less tolerable. It’s too bad, they had something going there until the end. **3/4
(06/12/1988) AWA World Tag Team Title Match: Greg Gagne & Robert Gibson def. Badd Company (champions with Diamond Dallas Page) by DQ at 11:21. Gagne was replacing Ricky Morton, who missed his connector flight, which sounds like code for riding the white horse, which is code in itself for doing a shit ton of cocaine. Pat Tanaka was the best guy in this match by far. He bumped his ass off for both the babyfaces. It was somewhat surreal watching Robert Gibson play Ricky Morton and doing the selling for his team. The match ended when Diamond threw Gagne over the top after Gagne’ made the team’s babyface comeback, which Tanaka shined in. There were some issues with Gibson and Diamond in the ring with each other, but this was another good match that ended terribly. At least Hennig’s shitty ending played a storyline purpose. This was just a copout. **1/2
Greg Gagne and Robert Gibson were interviewed after the match. Gagne did his usual Greg Brady-style promo, and as he did for well over a decade, Gibson alerted the audience that rock & roll was here to stay.
(05/03/1986) Sgt. Slaughter def. Nord the Barbarian (with Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie) by DQ at 5:24. Nord looked pretty green here, too big and athletic for his heat to look so inconsistent. He looked way too light far too often. Slaughter’s stuff was solid, including his big bump into the top turnbuckle spot. Slaughter had Nord in the cobra clutch until King Kong (Bruiser) Brody ran in for the DQ. Slaughter made his comeback and locked the cobra clutch on Brody for good measure until Nord made the save and both men retreated like fucking cowards. Jesus, Slaughter was booked to look like God out there. He beat the shit out of two monsters bigger than him and ran them both off. Even Hogan would normally have another babyface come out in a spot like this. They did shit like this to put Slaughter over and never even out their world title on him. *1/2
(01-15-1988) AWA World Tag Team Title Match: Midnight Rockers (champions) NC Bob Orton & Adrian Adonis in 15:56. Man, within the last two years of this, Orton and Adonis were working main events in different house show programs in the WWF, and here they are in South Dakota for Verne fucking Gagne. Adonis was enormous here, which is too bad because he was an awesome worker before his weight got out of control. Shawn Michaels was incredible playing Ricky Morton here, easily being the best thing I’ve seen tonight. This was one hundred percent Ricky Morton-level, at least. Orton and Adonis were both so much bigger than Shawn so their stuff looked really good. Jannetty’s hot tag was a little short, then all four men started brawling on the floor. The ref eventually stopped the match. You can argue this as another lame finish. ***1/2
(05/06/1989) Destruction Crew def. Wahoo McDaniel & Scott Norton by DQ. Norton’s stomach was enormous here. He honestly looked minimum six-seven months pregnant. It should also be noted, Norton was super fucking green here. The Crew, especially Wayne Bloom, did a good job bumping around for him, but he wasn’t fooling anyone. Almost as soon as the Crew got the heat on Wahoo, they hit him with one of their “metal” construction helmets, and Wahoo bladed out of nowhere. Who the fuck saw that one coming? Norton went all cockstrong and started bodyslamming everyone, including the referee, which got him disqualified. Wrestlers started running in to calm him down and he started bodyslamming them as well. I grew to really enjoy Scott Norton, possibly more than most, but he had no business being a heavily pushed guy on a national TV program. *1/4
Norton was interviewed and didn’t yet know how to do those short, snarling Scott Norton promos. Instead, he was quite wordy here and only showed even more how he wasn’t ready for this spot. Honestly, none of this was a bad angle, as much as it was just wasted on the wrong person.
Final Thoughts: The Rockers are on the shortlist of best babyface tag teams ever. Orton and Adonis were past their primes, but still very good old-school heel workers. Pat Tanaka was a real treat, I appreciated Col. DeBeers, and at least I don’t have to watch this version of Scott Norton again. This wasn’t a bad way to spend some time.
Carny Speak 