Carny Speak

Pitbulls def. JT Smith & Stevie Richards in 11:54. The Bulls beat the hell out of Smith forever, including when he made a false comeback on the floor, only for Pitbull 1 to waffle him with a chairshot to the head. Richards got the hot tag and it was a superkick party twenty years ahead of its time, but Pitbull 1 gave him a quick powerslam for the win. This was a super long squash essentially, but everything looked pretty good. *1/2

911 def. Young Dragons in 0:48. 911 gave them both simultaneous, horribly mistimed chokeslams for the win, then did it again after the match, which looked at least slightly better. The Dragons were stretchered away. 911 was crazy over, but this looked horrible. 1/4*

Tazmaniac def. Al Snow in 8:10. This was Snow’s ECW debut and he did a good job. There was a lot of subplot going on with the Pitbulls and Jason backing Snow, while Tazmaniac had Paul E and 911 backing him up. It kind of took away from the solid action in the ring, but 911 was so incredibly fucking over.Taz won with an exploder kind of out of nowhere. **1/2

Shane Douglas def. Hack Myers in 20:59. This is one of those moments where you have to be happy ECW ran their house shows the way they did, as we get the Shaw challenging for the ECW World Title. I was actually mesmerized by Douglas early, watching him do a fantastic job of getting a good world title match out of Hack Myers. Then, it got really long with Douglas working restholds forever. I mean, they really lost the crowd trying to fill time. Douglas eventually won with the belly-to-belly. **

Tommy Dreamer & Peaches def. Tommy Cairo & Angel in 2:24. Dreamer hit Cairo with a piledriver, then decked Angel with a right hand for the win. That was pretty much the whole match. Sandman and Woman came out to beat the shit out of Dreamer with a cane. Cactus Jack tried to run in to stop it but got his clock cleaned as well, doing a massive This match was nothing but the crowd went nuts for Sandman, who was the heel. 1/2*

World Tag Team Title Match: Public Enemy def. Cactus Jack & Mikey Whipwreck in 10:19. They had Hack Myers take Jack’s place because of the attack in the prior match, but Cactus eventually made his way back out with his head heavily bandaged. To show you Foley’s dedication to the story, this guy was wrestling on a PPV headlined by Hulk Hogan a few months ago, and now he’s getting his brains scrambled and balding in front of about 400 people. This was a lot of walking around the arena and brawling, but pretty wild and the stuff mostly looked good. Rocco was supposed to swanton Whipwreck on top of a table, putting him through it, but it didn’t break, and Whipwreck just rolled off. The finish was flat because the crowd expected the table to cooperate, but this was a brawl that was mostly good. **3/4

They started with the breaking news that the Ron Simmons experiment was FINALLY over since Vader beat him at a house show in Baltimore. That’s probably the best way they could have started the year.

Cactus Jack & Barbarian def. Tom Zenk & Johnny Gunn in 5:48. Zenk & Gunn were fine for this role, although it should be noted that Gunn was better than Zenk in this match. Barbarian won with a boot to Gunn’s head behind the ref’s back. It had it’s moments and was mostly fine. **

They recapped Starrcade in depth, including showing footage of Bill Watts and Henry Aaron standing together, which is obviously hilarious in hindsight. Fuck, the production for this PPV was fucking abysmal. They showed A LOT of highlights, and nothing came across as exciting in the slightest. Muta won in a real headsctatcher. Battle Bowl was always a horrendous event.

Tony Schiavone interviewed college football coach, Howard Schnellenberger, about his former University of Louisville player, Erik Watts. This was before college football was the juggernaut it is now, Schellengerger didn’t have charisma, and it was all to hopelessly attempt to put over Erik Watts.

Erik Watts def. Mustafa Saed in 2:36 . Yes, this is Erik Watts against one-half of the Gangstas. Saed was as green as his neon tights, and Watts was bad, eventually winning with the STF. The boos in the crowd for Watts were noticeable.

They aired Rick Rude’s promo from Starrcade, where he correctly pointed out he might be stripped of his US title due to injury, despite Sting getting to keep the WCW title when Vader injured him last year. Rude was intense and believable here.

Teddy Long interviewed Cactus Jack, who cut a decent promo on Erik Watts, and also cut a promo on Van Hammer for Tony Atlas. Atlas said a couple of lines and flexed his biceps, but that was about it. Hammer v. Atlas sounds ungodly horrible, but this interview was fine.

Dustin def. Vinnie Vegas in 6:22. Kevin Nash was so green, particularly struggling with both attempting and taking sunset flips. Nash really couldn’t do much that looked any good at all so there were some bearhugs. Dustin won with a Bulldog. Boring and bad. 3/4*

Tony Schiavone interviewed Barry Windham, Brian Pillman and Steve Austin. This is when Windham put the team of Austin and Pillman together so he could pursue singles titles. They made it seem like they would be a regular trio, but it didn’t really play out that way. Ironically, Austin was easily the worst promo of the three in this interview, but the other two did enough to save it.

Brian Pillman & Steve Austin def. Rikki Nelson & Ron Santo in 4:32. The future-Hollywood Blondes were selling their asses off, despite Nelson being really fucking bad here. The match didn’t click much when he was in. Eventually, Austin beat Santo with the stun gun. The Blondes tried, but Santo and Nelson weren’t suited to have a lot given to them.

They aired highlights of Sting v. Vader from Starrcade. The clips were pretty random, and also didn’t have the finish. They went to air the whole card for the upcoming Clash of the Champions but the Network cut it out.

Tony Atlas def. Van Hammer in 5:09. It wasn’t just what they messed up here, but how bad little things looked like shitty lockups and lazy kickouts. Good thing they gave up on the Hammer megapush right after this. Atlas won when Cactus tripped Hammer from the outside and held his leg down so Atlas could win. 1/2*

Up Close with Arn Anderson. Up Close was a popular ESPN interview show with the legendary interviewer, Roy Firestone, but in WCW it’s a segment hosted by Tony Schiavone, only to be replaced by Jesse Ventura here. Ventura, for a guy that has acted in major motion pictures, was awful here, especially when feigning outrage. Arn was good talking about being hurt by Erik Watts, and Bill Watts not giving him a new contract, but Jesse almost killed it.

Barry Windham def. Johnny B. Badd in 7:32. This was easily the best of the tourney matches so far, but still not very good. The atmosphere is really depressing for some reason; maybe it’s the horribly mic’d crowd. I didn’t think these two clicked, but Windham’s jumping DDT was awesome. **1/4

Shane Douglas & Ricky Steamboat were interviewed by Tony Schiavone. Douglas wasn’t bad, but Steamboat was the one that cut a fiery babyface promo on the possibility of facing Windham next week, since Windham gave him five stitches with a chairsjot. This was on the upper-echelon of Steamboat promos.

Ricky Steamboat def. Danny Spivey in 8:19. Spivey’s stuff looked pretty good, and Steamboat was a great seller as always. Steamboat won with a crossbody off the top. **1/2

Teddy Long interviewed Barry Windham, who cut a very good promo on Ricky Steamboat for next week.

Steve Williams def. John Nord in 9:18. I don’t know if Williams felt like he needed to break out all the stops to get an old friend a job or what, but these two broke out all the stops. Some of the highlights were Williams doing a suicide dive, Nord doing a pescadero, and Nord giving Williams a piledriver on the floor. It’s amazing Nord was this good here after showing none of it as the Berzerker in the years prior. Nord missed a knee off the top and Williams gave Nord an insane looking backdrop driver for the win. I liked it even more because Williams took a lot of Nord’s shit, was able to pull off one move out of nowhere for the win and went right back to selling. ***3/4

Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi def. Big Bossman & Stan Hansen in 15:12. A lot of this match was the big gaigin beating up Kobashi, and it looked really good. They had a couple of perfectly timed saves at the end, but didn’t overdo it. Finish was clever when Misawa tripped his own partner to avoid a Hansen lariat, sending Hansen to the floor. Kobashi ended up giving Bossman a suplex, and Misawa finished him with a frogsplash. Bossman was better here than he had been in years in WWF, and was always such a better worker as a heel. With that being said, Hansen was just always so great as an out-of-control cowboy. It started the moment he walked out the curtain, and ended as soon as he walked out of the arena. Misawa and Kobashi are two of the best ever, so this worked. ****1/4

Tenryu def. Hara in 12:43. The match was a little slow, but then they did an excellent job with Hara putting the heat on Tenryu, including throwing one Memphis-style right hand. That tickled me. Then, Tenru did some botched rollup coming into the ring for a fucking TERRIBLE finish. They looked like they were building to something special, but that was a poorly-exectuted bad idea. Read that sentence two or three times. Blah! **1/2

Rip Rogers def. Roddy Piper in 6:45. It has to be noted that while I’ve always loved Piper’s work during this time, Roger’s was phenomenal here. This was 1980 and Rip was doing axhandles from the top to the floor like he was Randy Savage. He also used an Oklahoma Stampede-style powerslam, a rarity during this time. Between the innovation, bumping and selling, I’m all in on Rip Rogers. Piper was a good babyface-in-peril and making the comeback, especially with Rip bumping Rogers bumping for him. The finish was kind of shitty with Rogers hitting Piper with something in his tights, but it made sense since Rogers needed a win as a new member of the Rose army and he wasn’t beating Piper clean. ***

Buddy Rose and Rip Rogers cut a promo. Buddy was a little jumpy, but put over the Rose army and cut a promo for an upcoming Rose Army v. Sheepherders & mystery partner match, saying the Sheepherders can’t find a partner. This was underwhelming by Buddy Rose standards but effective.

On the other hand, Piper was the fucking man. First, he blamed himself for being tricked by someone that had only wrestled a couple of years, which was awesome. You see, a man that makes excuses after losing a fight, kind of sounds like a pussy, whether the gripe is justified or not. He said he wouldn’t team with the Sheepherders against the army because he didn’t trust him, but still cut an awesome promo on Buddy. He basically talked about him having a small dick, saying he dressed like a woman, and cut a promo on behalf of GREEN PEACE. This was tremendous Roddy Piper here.

Grappler NC Billy Jack Haynes in 5:45. This was dying days Portland, but the fans were still relatively into it. They did a deal where all the wrestlers were forced to leave the arena, except Scotty the Body, who was handcuffed to the guardrail on commentary. Grappler isn’t wearing the mask, but face paint here. Even in “street clothes”, Haynes has to pander to the Oregonians by wearing green and yellow. This was short and more a setup for a rematch, but the action was fine. Honestly, it was pretty tame for a street fight. They did an ABYSMAL finish where Grappler put some sort of deadly chemical in his mouth to spray on to Haynes (read that sentence two or threw times). He stalks Haynes and then blows it in mist form on his back and Haynes sells it going down. Apparently this chemical will fuck up a back, but is just fine for an open mouth. *1/2

Buddy Rose NC Matt Borne in 2/3 falls in 12:39. Now, this was a wild fucking match. After winning the first fall quickly with a piledriver, Borne went and cut a promo about how Rose’s 275 lbs. made it easy to drop him on his tiny brain. The crowd loved that, and that was important since they were trying to turn Borne babyface here. Borne juiced heavy from a post shot in the second fall just to rally the troops behind him even more. Rose won with the second fall after a chairshot to the head. Referee Sandy Barr was trying to get Borne ready for a third fall because he was pummeled, in a nice little touch. Borne eventually came back and bloodied Rose, beginning to use a chair on him, tossing the referee to the side in the process, prompting the stoppage. You can argue the . ****

Hennig def. Convict in 16:14. The Convict was Ed Wistowski (Col. Debeers) in a mask and children’s Halloween costume of a prisoner. This was so long and so fucking boring, as the Convict dominated most of it with a lot of holds on the mat. You can see Hennig did some nice things here, but wasn’t anywhere near peak Curt Hennig. He won the first fall out of nowhere and the second with his dropkick off the top. *1/4

Ricky Steamboat def. Greg Valentine by countout at 14:19. This was everything I could have wanted and more. It was everything you’d think it would be – Valentine getting the heat on Steamboat was awesome, Steamboat’s comeback was phenomenal, and it was an incredibly well-built match. It was so fucking good, they turned the MSG crowd into a southern wrestling crowd. They started reacting to every babyface strike with a sound and there were loud “Steamboat” chants. They worked this match so perfectly, and you could tell the way the roof came off the place the last few minutes. The start of the Steamboat comeback was ao special because there was NOT a transition spot. He was walking around outside selling, started walking around and getting the fans hyped up, then started beating Valentine’s ass and the crowd lost their shit. The finish was shitty – there is absolutely no arguing that, but this was still a great fucklng match that made Steamboat, who was only there a few months by this point, a legit star. Was there a better WWF match in 1985? ****1/2

British Bulldogs def. Moondogs at 18:32. This went on forever. Lord Al Hayes was burying the Bullldogs, saying none of the holds they were putting on the Moondogs would beat them. The crowd did heat up for the Dynamite Kid comeback because it was a Dynamite Kid comeback, but the match did drag overall. Hayes, who was really fucking salty for some reason, said the Bulldogs looked like losers at first. Jesus. Who pissed in his tea. **

Roddy Piper promo backstage. He seemed a little jittery in the beginning, possibly due to heavy cocaine use, but got on track and was incredible here. Just something short to get the match going with Snuka. The highlight had to be when he called himself a snake – pure venom and pure poison. Bad fucking ass.

Roddy Piper def. Jimmy Snuka by countout at 8:34. This was so fucking great. Piper took a great ass beating until he hit Snuka with a chair, causing Jimmy to do a major league juice job, as the blood dripped all over his torso. Piper got heat on him for a while until Snuka saw he was bleeding and beat the holy hell out of Piper. In a moment that dropped my jaw, Snuka broke out a TOPE in 1984. The crowd and Red Bastien (on commentary) were going crazy. As Snuka beat the shit out of him on the floor, Roddy rolled in the ring to avoid a double-countout, getting the cheap win in the process. Snuka went apeshit and destroyed the ref, finally needing about a half dozen guys to pull him off, though Snuka kept getting at Piper. This was well-designed and tremendously worked by both guys to be the first in-ring match in a program. It was great. ****

Hulk Hogan def. Harley Race at 9:56. They did a really good job of making this look like a brawl with a lot of stuff on the floor and brawling in the crowd. Race was good here, getting up and down for Hogan, plus doing crazy shit like headbutts to the floor from the apron. The good thing about the rules is all the cheating Hulk normally did was a legal here. Race brought the WWF title into the ring and smashed Hogan with it. When Race came off the top with headbutt, but Hogan hit him with the belt, causing Race to blade, then Hogan smashed him with the title for the pinfall. This was a very good match. ***1/2

(07/30/89 WCW Pro) Tommy Rich def. Iron Sheik at 6:12. This is one of those “everyone has wrestled for WCW” matches, as we have former NWA and WWF champions here, even if they held both titles for about a month combined. On a somewhat unrelated note – Can you imagine being a fly on the wall for a coke session between these two? You have a Southerner against a foreign menace here, so the Georgia crowd was going nuts. There was a shit ton of stalling, undoubtedly caused by the fact that Sheik could hardly move. Apparently, you can choke someone with a camera cord as long as you break by five, which seems terribly lenient for 1989 pro wrestling in a straight match. Rich did a good job selling for the less-than-stellar performance of the very-bloated Sheik, but there was nothing he could do to make this a good wrestling match. Rich won out of nowhere when he turned a suplex attempt into a small package. They didn’t have to do a lot for reactions, but this was still bad, mostly due to Sheik. *1/4

(04/15/89 WCW ME) Samoan Swat Team (with Paul E. Dangerously) def. Midnight Express (with Jim Cornette) in 14:19. Instead of doing things as managers to enhance the match, Cornette and Paul E. were handcuffed to Junkyard Dog in chairs at ringside, who looked like the uncle about to pass out in a food coma at a barbecue. They tried to work comedy spots, but none of them worked. The Samoans were fun to watch bump around for the Midnights. Man, they could get up and down for two big dudes. The match got dull and lost the crowd when the SST put the heat on Lane. Even during the comeback, Fatu and Eaton had some kind of miscommunication that looked like a botched hotshot. Samu eventually won with a flying headbutt on Eaton, as the Midnights did the favors before a brief run in Continental. After a fair amount of focus on Paul E. and Cornette during the match, the two just sort of uncuffed from Dog and went about their days. This was so blah. **

(06/11/89 WCW ME) Terry Funk def. Ranger Ross at 5:39. Before we start, I’d like to point out how much I hate Ranger Ross. As a kid growing up, I saw the devolvement of military gimmicks from Sgt. Slaughter to Cpl. Kirschner, then to Ranger fucking Ross. When you thought of US servicemen as a kid in the 80s, you’d think of these hulking badasses and here comes skinny pussy Ross with zero charisma to make up for it. Funk chastised Ross for not singing the national anthem or pledge of allegiance before the match, then attacked him when he started to. Funk was kicking Ross in the head with his hand over his heart doing the pledge. I fucking LOVE Terry Funk. Ross did shit to annoy me, such as setting up for the crane kick in a serious martial arts spot, or jumping over the top rope in a vertical leap (?) to the floor, in what can only be described as clumsy-looking. Funk finally put him out of his misery with a piledriver on the floor. Funk was so good in this era transitioning from crazy heel to selling coward in the same match. **1/2

(09/29/89 WCW PH) TV Title Match: Great Muta (champion, with Gary Hart) def. Dick Murdoch at 14:30. This match is fascinating on paper because it’s two great workers, but also two guys that have a rep of being incredibly lazy. When I saw the length of this match, I was concerned and it turned out to be rightfully so. There were a lot of leg holds and strikes to the leg. Psychologically it all made sense, but it was dull. Ross compared it to Inoki v. Ali at one point, which is like eating at a restaurant while positively comparing it to McDonald’s. To their credit, they did smart things like Muta cheating behind the ref’s back a lot to maintain heat from the crowd, but this was still really long and boring. Dick Slater came down to hit Murdoch with his cast behind the ref’s back. *1/2 and that might be generous, but they worked smart to keep the crowd into it for the most part.

The Steiners (with Missy Hyatt) def. Freebirds in 9:01: This was very early in the Steiners run as a team so Scott looks a lot more normal than he would in the future. Actually, even with that said, his arms aren’t cartoonish but they are fucking huge. The Birds were so over and got so much heat, they barely had to do anything. There was a lot of jawing with the crowd early over whether or not they were sissys. Even the hot tag to Rick was rather pedestrian even though the crowd was going nuts. The finish came when the ref was distracted and Scott helped Rick complete a crossbody on Garvin. This was okay, but these two teams had better matches, including the following month at the Clash.

US Title Match: Brian Pillman def. Lex Luger (champion) by DQ at 3:38. This was short, but all action and very well worked. Luger was so fucking awesome as a heel in 1989 but isn’t acknowledged as much as he should be for the way he sold for Pillman. A lot of times, bigger guys will say how’s it going to look realistic if he sells for the smaller guy. Well, the answer is to bump and sell your ass off, which Luger did in this entire series of matches. Luger was DQ’d just for bringing a chair into the ring, which prompted Sting to run out and clear house, beating Luger’s ass all the way down the aisle until Lex fled. Man, this was all so intense, especially given the time restrictions. **1/2

Chris Cruise interviewed Sting & Pillman. Both talked about Luger, and while Sting was more colorful and intense, Pillman was better with his wording, basically burying Luger for being a coward. The crowd was hot for all of this.

Ric Flair (with J.J. Dillon) def. Eddie Gilbert at 13:15. This was post-Ricky Steamboat, so really an opportunity for Flair to tie up loose ends with Gilbert. The crowd was very into this throughout but were going wild by the end when Flair was bumping all over the place for Gilbert. The match started a little slow, but it built to some credible near-falls by Eddie fucking Gilbert on Ric Flair, which speaks to their working ability. Gilbert rolled up Flair, but JJ Dillon tried to reverse their position behind the ref’s back, only to do it right in front of Tommy Young. Ugh, they were having such a good match, too. Why the fuck couldn’t Flair, who was headlining the next PPV, beat Gilbert, who wasn’t even on the show? I love Eddie Gilbert, but it’s absurd for there to be tomfoolery in the finish based on Gilbert’s position here. ***1/4

(01/14/1995) USWA Title Match: Brian Christopher (champion) def. Doug Gilbert (with Scott Bowden) in 6:00. This was a disappointing match. I’ve seen much better uses of these two than Christopher as a bland babyface and Gilbert as a slapstick heel, but that’s what we got here. When the ref was distracted, SID!~ came out with a shitty chokeslam on Christopher. Fuck, that looked bad given the size dynamics of the two involved in the move. You’d think Sid would just kill him dead and it would look stupendous. Even after that, Christopher got a rollup win just to make sure Gilbert looked like the biggest dork possible. Poor Dougie. *1/2

(03/1993) Scotty Flamingo and Brian Christopher cut a promo as USWA tag team champions. They were an acceptable upper-midcard/midcard heel tag team here. They were both over-the-top, but in a gentle way that wasn’t overbearing.

(03/1993) Southern Title Match: Jeff Jarrett def. Scotty Flamingo by DQ in 4:12. They did some chain wrestling that Jarrett got the better of until Brian Christopher ran in and attacked Jarrett. This was the beginning of a match, then a DQ. These two could have had a good match, but this was really nothing more than an angle to set up a future tag title match with Jarrett & Lawler v. Christopher & Flamingo. *1/4

(1988) Lance Russell interviews a sponsor. A young punk heel Curt Hennig came out pissed that Lawler beat him for the AWA title, so he started grappling with the sponsor – a middle-aged man in a suit – and took him down in a fucking front facelock. Lance was appalled at Hennig bullying this civilian. Hennig kept challenging Lawler to come out and when he didn’t, Hennig started destroying the set. Now, I will say I thought he needed a little more anger shown here, but it still worked. Lawler being out $40 for the very basic WMC TV set didn’t push him to obtain revenge, so Hennig grabbed Lance and was counting down punching him to get Lawler out. Lawler walked out in all his splendid douchiness and 80s beard, taking his jacket off and the two hooked up. Two guys came out and helped Hennig beat up on Lawler, one of which was the disgusting Buck Zumhoffe, holding him so Hennig could spit in his face and kick him right in the ding ding. Fuck, this was one of those incredible, memorable Memphis angles. Hennig wasn’t completely polished, but it worked because he was young, so he really shouldn’t have been in storyline. He came across like q Stan Gable-level heel from Revenge of the Nerds. Lawler was Christopher Reeve-like in the role of the hero, which is a compliment of the highest kind. 

(12/04/1987): Jerry Lawler def. Curt Hennig in 5:19. This was when Hennig was AWA champion, but the title wasn’t on the line. Hennig was incredible here just by working Lawler’s Memphis style with all the solid punches, but also taking the occasional big bump. It’s amazing how he could adapt like that. This was pretty fat-paced, as they even managed to sneak in a ref bump in just over five minutes. Lawler eventually won a very good match with the fist drop off the middle rope. ***1/2

(06/25/1984) Rock & Roll Express def. Randy Savage & Lanny Poffo (with Angelo Poffo) by DQ in 8:49. I just love Memphis Randy Savage. Honestly, as great as he was in the WWF, Memphis might be his best work. It was out of control Savage in an out-of-control territory and it just clicked. He and Morton were easily the two best here, which is completely expected. Ricky Morton bladed in this one just to put it over the top. Angelo Poffo pulled down the top rope so Gibson went crashing to the floor for the disqualification. That seemed like a shitty finish, but both teams started brawling on the floor until Savage gave Ricky Morton a piledriver on top of a table like a fucking madman. Gibson eventually chased the brothers off, but after the damage was done. This was excellent. **** 

Lance Russell interviews Jerry Jarrett. Jarrett was out there so Russell could present a trophy to him on behalf of a bunch of wrestling promoters that wanted to congratulate him on his success at a recent Mid-South Coliseum card. One of the men mentioned was Bill Watts, because lord know I can see Watts sitting in Oklahoma and thinking of a way to praise Jerry Jarrett. Jerry was about to walk away when King Kong Bundy, Rick Rude, and Jimmy Hart stopped him to complain about not being booked on said card. Interestingly enough, Bundy did more talking than Hart here. They took the tropy away until Randy Savage and Jerry Lawler came flying into the screen to make the save. Lawler was swinging a trash can, while Savage was throwing right hands. At one point he punched Hart, and Russell calmly said “hit him again.” There was so much back-and-forth and people are trying to break it up while they’re destroying the set and the walls are coming down, while Lawler is walking around with a torn shirt. The only thing I didn’t like here is that Hart would get punched and eventually get involved again, not laying there dead like a non-wrestler should when getting hit by top guys.

Lawler & Savage promo. This was a local promo for a match in bumfuck, Mississippi. Lawler was good at playing white meat babyface, talking about how happy he was to be back in this little hole-in-the-wall town, while Savage was his usual crazy self. He was pacing while Lawler spoke, then went off into his usual intense promo. This was fucking awesome!

No Disqualification Match: Jerry Lawler & Randy Savage v. King Kong Bundy & Rick Rude (with Jimmy Hart): This was an insanely wild brawl with chairs, a ringside table, ref bumps, and brawling in the crowd. Rude didn’t get his due as a worker until later in his career, but was a phenomenal working heel here, bumping and selling his ass off. I love Jerry Lawler, but Savage overshadowed him here by working so far ahead of his time. Savage gave Rude a back suplex with a bridge, only for Rude to get his shoulder up and the cheap win on Savage. What a wild fucking brawl. I didn’t care for the finish in a match like this, but this was still awesome. ***3/4

(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.