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Episode 4: Starrcade '86
34 Plays6 years ago
It's the gift that keeps on giving, whether you particularly want it to or not, as Starrcade '86 is an hour longer...much of which is made up of video packages for other shows. But don't worry, there's wrestling too! Which is more powerful, whip or chain? Who will win when the Road Warriors and the Midnight Express battle high above the ring? (Gravity. Gravity wins.) And will Ric Flair retain his title against bold new crowd favorite babyface...Nikita Koloff? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Opening Remarks
00:00:00
Speaker
It's kind of funny that he's done B, but he's actually not Australian. Yeah, New Zealand is not Australia. I believe that's their official tagline.
00:00:36
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man who won a title at last year's show, but was forced to surrender it in January, Alec Bridget. Yeah, it was a rough time for me, but I got past you. And the master of the fence match, John Mullins. I like fences. How was Thanksgiving, guys? You all stuff full of turkey?
00:01:06
Speaker
I only had two pieces, but I was thoroughly stuffed. You didn't see how big the pieces were, so they could have been like, you know, two pounds. That is true. No, everyone else kind of hoarded. I was only present for like half of it. I was chasing three and four year olds around.
Main Topic: Starrcade 86 Overview
00:01:25
Speaker
We're into the calories somehow. Yeah. Well, tonight we're taking a look at Starrcade 86, The Skywalkers. Let's see if we're still feeling thankful by the end.
The Magnum TA Incident and Its Impact
00:01:37
Speaker
Now, before we get started on the actual show, there's a very big and very sad change since last year's show that we really need to discuss here. And that's what happened to Magnum TA. He was clearly on the rise in Jim Crocker promotions last year, being primed to be one of their biggest stars. And it shouldn't surprise anyone that that continued into 1986 as his path continued inexorably towards a world title match.
00:02:03
Speaker
but on October 14, 1986, as he drove in the rain, he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a telephone pole. He survived, but the accident destroyed vertebrae in his spine. This spelled the end of his in-ring career, though he would continue to make non-wrestling appearances for Jim Crocker Promotions and later WCW.
00:02:23
Speaker
It was a tragic end to a very promising career. I think we can agree that Magnum TA had the potential to be one of the greats. I'd even venture to say he earned his place on that list from last year's match alone. He was a true performer, but though his performances in the ring ended, I'm very glad that the man himself survived and was able to go on and live his life. A big change from the apparent direction of last year. Obviously it's not in anyone's control, but
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's really awkwardly handled on the shows because they run a show that technically happens after the accident, but they just don't mention it because it was pre-taped. So I'm watching a show that happened years after the accident. There's no mention whatsoever. He's even there doing a promo, but then the next week suddenly like, Oh, what happened? Like, Oh, that happened already. But I mean, it's just a loss, but yeah. Yeah. The life goes sometimes.
00:03:24
Speaker
I'd like to see some other matches before October 14th to see where he goes, but I'm not familiar with his time there. Yeah, I've last year's match is the only Magnum TA match that I've actually seen, and I definitely would like to see more. On a show front, Magnum's accident forced Jim Crocker Promotions Booker, Dusty Rhodes, to go looking for another promising baby face to face Ric Flair, and he picked Nikita Koloff.
00:03:55
Speaker
More on that when we get to the world title match. Yes.
Starrcade 86 Event Details
00:04:02
Speaker
Starrcade86, the Skywalkers, took place at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina, in front of about 16,000 fans, and in the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, in the front of about 14,000. So we're doing the two arenas thing again this year, which seemed all right last year, so fine by me.
00:04:22
Speaker
Another 47,000 fans tuned in over closed circuit television. Interestingly, the Coliseum numbers are about the same as last year, but closed circuit television numbers are up and Omni numbers are down. I'm not sure if that means anything in particular. Maybe they just changed seating arrangements, but I just found it a interesting difference.
00:04:46
Speaker
Unlike last year, we have two different announce crews this time. At Greensboro Coliseum, we have Bob Coddle and Johnny Weaver, while at the Omni, we have Tony Schiavone and Rick Stewart. Interestingly, while Greensboro has ring announcer Tom Miller at the Omni, Tony's doing the ring announcing. I kind of like that Jim Crocker promotions keeps being so willing to experiment like this. You know, they might not always get it right, but they do seem to always be trying something different, and that's kind of cool.
00:05:16
Speaker
Now, I will say Johnny Weaver is such a very tiny presence on the show. I don't like having one announcer that occasionally changes voices very briefly, but yeah. Yeah, Weaver doesn't do a lot on commentary. I don't think he's...
00:05:31
Speaker
Terrible, but now I've heard other former wrestlers go into announcing and there's a pattern with them that I rather like that they Will start talking about How a move supposed to work or how you're supposed to put it on or you know get into the intricacies of holds and and in different moves Mm-hmm Weaver does none of that over the course of the show so he kind of misses out on what makes a former wrestler as an announcer very fun and
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, his forums will definitely be interesting contrast when we get a few servers down the line when we have Jesse Ventura. Yeah. You'll definitely see a difference in what Jesse Ventura as a former wrestler and actually fully formed character brings. Yeah, they actually have a lot of former wrestler announcers in WCW. You have Ventura, you have Dusty Rhodes eventually, and you have Larry Zabisco. Right, that's the other one, yeah.
00:06:22
Speaker
Out of all that list, the one I'm most interested in hearing is Dusty Rhodes. Dusty is one of my favorite WCW commentators, and you will love hearing him commentate on matches, I promise you. He has so many Dusty-isms.
00:06:40
Speaker
The Rockin' Starrcade theme welcomes us to the show. As we get a laser light spectacular, complete with laser projections of Starrcade and Skywalkers on a big screen above the ring, he interspers with shots of the imposing scaffold that will be used for the Skywalkers match. Tom Miller at the Coliseum welcomes everyone to the show, with a shot of him overlaid over a shot of the scaffold. I guess to get them both in the same shot since they're in totally different arenas.
00:07:06
Speaker
Why not just have Tony do the show intro then? I don't know. Yeah, that's a lot of anything about that. We get the national anthem right at the start again, the same nice instrumental version as last year. It's the exact same. You can tell it's on a tape because the tape fails towards the end of the song and starts skipping. Consistency. Yes.
00:07:30
Speaker
There's one super excited lady in the crowd who noticed herself on the screen, and she's standing right next to this tall guy that looks just like Luke Harper from the modern WWE. Yeah, I was kind of amazed to see that.
00:07:43
Speaker
Um, did you guys like the, uh, laser light show? I thought that was pretty cool. Actually, it was appropriately. Yeah. It brought me back. I'm trying to remember there was like, uh, I forget if it was at the science center or great explorations or maybe Mosey. There was some show that I went to that was, uh, one of those, uh, laser light, uh, spectacular things. I distinctly remember that at one point during the show, they played, uh, I forget what the actual song title is now, but.
00:08:13
Speaker
that do the hammer, the hammer time. Oh, yeah. So they had a laser laser light show going to the him doing the hammer on on a screen, which was pretty awesome. It was very 80s, but it was a bigger feel than they've had before. I think for their intro, these are becoming showier. Yeah. We're not quite to the everyone has pyro stage. Yes. We'll get there eventually.
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm just happy that a lot of people now have intro music. Yeah. You can associate it with the character. Plus, Dusty's on, what, his third theme now? Yeah. This one was better. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's just weird that he's had three now. Some people have had zero the entire time. Yes. Our first match is at the Greensboro Coliseum. Let's go to the ring.
Match Highlights and Analysis
00:09:04
Speaker
So our first match at the Coliseum is Tim Horner and Nelson Royal versus Rocky Crenoodle, formerly known as Keith Larson, and Don Crenoodle. As I mentioned, Rocky Crenoodle used to go by Keith Larson under the angle that he didn't want to use Brother Don's name because he wanted to earn his way to the top or some such. I guess that didn't go so well, so he decided, eh, I'll take a shortcut. Well, I mean, that or he didn't want to be Crenoodle. I mean, I don't blame him, honestly. Yeah, that is true. Yeah.
00:09:34
Speaker
So going into this match, they asked Don Cornoodle who he thought he would win this match. And he said Harley Race. Oh, nice. It's consistent. Rocky and Horner start us off, trading arm drags and hammer locks to struggle for control. After a missed dropkick, Rocky tags out to Dawn. Horner surprises Dawn with a slam at first and gets two.
00:10:01
Speaker
but Don catches Horner and gets a big power slam for his own two, forcing Horner to tag out. Royal comes in and the two are even, with Royal catching Don and holds, but Don powering out, until Don hits the turnbuckle hard on a charge. Royal and Horner try to take control, but when Royal grabs a sleeper, Don walks to his corner with Royal on his back and tags Rocky, who comes in with a sunset flip off the top rope to grab Royal off Don's back and take him down for two. Nice spot.
00:10:29
Speaker
Rocky keeps the advantage until he misses a crossbody, and Horner comes in for the two to try dodging around each other until they collide as they both try leap frogs and butt heads. Rocky manages to tag Don, and he gets a huge, stalling vertical suplex for two. A later splash misses, and would have even if Horner hadn't dodged, but Horner's barely taken advantage before Don tags Rocky.
00:10:53
Speaker
Rocky gets a stalling overhead press for two, then grabs Horner for a backdrop, but Horner flips over him and he and Rocky struggle for positioning until Rocky rolls him up from behind, but Horner keeps the momentum going and rolls on top for the pin.
00:11:07
Speaker
It was fine. Obviously there's no story to it. It's really just, here's some guys in fairly generic outfits doing good. If nothing super impressive, there's a couple of good spots. Like you mentioned the powering up that super hole is kind of nice, but nothing really stands out among the whole thing to me. It's solid, but unremarkable. I'd say the flip off the top was nice. I have that down there and I have, uh, in my notes, a tumbleweed finisher.
00:11:38
Speaker
That's a perfect name. That's a good name, yeah. Yeah, I didn't think this was too bad. No. It had a pretty good pace to it. They had that classic tag team mix of the big power guy and the smaller athletic guy on both sides, and it worked pretty well. I actually really liked Don Crenoodle in this match. Yeah.
00:11:58
Speaker
I haven't ever actually seen him wrestle, just fail to make predictions, so it was nice to actually see what this guy did for his career. He's got some pretty good power spots, so he seemed pretty good in the ring. Rocky and Horner were both pretty fast, but seemed a little bit awkward at times.
00:12:16
Speaker
I'd say Nelson Royal felt like kind of the weak link for me. He's not necessarily bad, but he didn't do that much, and his spots against Don felt a little bit repetitive. They do a spot where a shoulder block works, and then a second attempt's countered into a hold twice in a tag match, in a short tag match, you know? So. How old is Nelson? Nothing against him. I was just curious. I'm gonna guess under 100. You're a great guesser, John.
00:12:46
Speaker
He was born in 1935. This is 1986, so about 50. 50-51, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's the one thing I will note. It's kind of weird.
00:12:58
Speaker
Jim Proctor Promotions brought in Tim Horner and Brad Armstrong, who were the Lightning Express. So he would assume they would be in the tag team match, but for some reason they decided Brad Armstrong should be in the other match, and they just stuck Tim Horner with an older veteran guy for no apparent reason. So the whole thing is kind of where they put it together. Don Conneal left the NBA following year, so he's not on the next show as far as I'm aware. His brother has no Wiki page, so who knows what happened to him?
00:13:29
Speaker
I looked, I could not find one. And I mentioned earlier that Tim Horner and Brad Armstrong were often teaming together. Infusingly, Nelson Royal, after this, go back to being a single wrestler, and he starts feeding with Scott Armstrong. So he teamed up with Brad Armstrong's partner, and then started fighting Brad Armstrong's brother. Okay, interesting. A lot of family's interested. Maybe he's mad because Brad Armstrong wouldn't team up with him. Yeah, although he also won, so I don't know what he's complaining about. Yeah, yeah, true.
00:14:00
Speaker
Our second match is over at the Omni. It is Brad Armstrong versus gorgeous Jimmy Garvin with Precious. Brad Armstrong is not only not tagging with his tag team partner, but he's in a completely different state. Yes. That would really make sure he wouldn't try to sneak back in, I guess. Yeah.
00:14:19
Speaker
Basically Jimmy Garvin is the new healer heavily promoting at this point. It's liberation on the, I'm so pretty, I'm better than you kind of character. Brother Armstrong is a young upcoming guy. They decided he should be a match with them. Let's play all the rest of it. All right.
00:14:37
Speaker
Garvin comes out in super sparkly suspenders, pants, and armbands, and a big fluffy coat, and does muscle poses for the crowd. Then he strips down to plain white tights. At least he's got blue knee pads, so it doesn't look quite like he's just out there in his underwear. Yeah. Brad Armstrong looks uncannily like Magnum TA did last year. Same tights and hair, just different facial hair. It's pretty starking, yeah.
00:15:05
Speaker
Also, I have to note that the referee's name is Scrappy McGowan. Yes. I believe my life is complete. Two canoodles and a Scrappy McGowan so far after the start. Yeah, it's a pretty good night for names. Yeah.
00:15:22
Speaker
Armstrong and Garvin start out aggressively shoving each other around the ring, and Garvin yells at the crowd. They trade holds, and an annoyed Garvin ruffles Armstrong's hair during a rope break to get him angry, but it backfires as Armstrong takes control and gets some two counts off knee strikes on the mat.
00:15:39
Speaker
They rapidly trade takedowns, and Armstrong gets a headlock on Garvan, but Garvan uses the tights to pull him over into a pin attempt. Armstrong points it out, and Scrappy actually notices. When does the ref ever notice that? It's weird. I've seen so many matches where they don't catch it and suddenly this guy is on point.
00:16:00
Speaker
Garvin gets some leg holds, and he and Precious taunt the fans. Armstrong escapes and gets an arm lock, holding on through several escape attempts, until Precious distracts Scrappy for a moment, and Garvin grabs the hair to get Armstrong in a head scissors hold. Dagnabbit, says Tony. The crowd notifies Scrappy that Garvin has been cheating, so Garvin yells for them to shut up.
00:16:28
Speaker
They work around the head scissors until Armstrong escapes. Precious hurls abuse at Armstrong, and Scrappy catches more Garvin tight pulling, and Armstrong nearly puts Garvin out with a headlock. Frustrated, Garvin gets vicious and ends up throwing Armstrong out over the middle rope. Precious yells at Armstrong to get back in, and Garvin repeatedly kicks him off the apron. Eventually, Armstrong makes it back in, and Garvin gets several two counts as he drops Armstrong on the top rope, pulls his hair, and hits a backbreaker.
00:16:57
Speaker
Time's running out and they really pick up the pace and trade some hard punches and kicks before they each try roll-ups for quick pin attempts. As the time ticks down, Garvan hits a body slam and climbs up to the top, but the bell rings as he comes off for a splash. Armstrong dodges and nails him right in the face with a good right hook, but the match is over.
00:17:19
Speaker
Post-match, Precious gets into the ring and hurls yet more abuse at Armstrong, and Garvin tries to stink up behind him. But Armstrong catches him and hits multiple punches to his face to knock him back out of the ring. Precious encourages Garvin to go back to the locker room, and Garvin yells, I can beat him, baby! I can beat him! And tells Armstrong he's lucky she's holding him back.
00:17:41
Speaker
It's definitely an interesting one for me because there's really not much story, but they work the mat so well. It feels like their story. They do all these little things throughout that make it clear. If you'd never watched any buildup or any of the shows, if you were the first person time watching wrestling show even, which the Bible probably were back at this point, you would get who the bad guy is. You would get the characters or all of that in there really well.
00:18:10
Speaker
My only real negative in the match is that this is the first match at the arena where they have the scaffold. There's a lot of awkwardness of trying to avoid walking under it and walking around it. That's really not their fault. It's oddly put together sets. Yeah, you get weird camera angles sometimes with those matches, don't you? Yeah. That's the other one. Yeah. Cause they can't quite get the same shots.
00:18:33
Speaker
Precious was annoying. I'm sorry. It is just like whenever the audio cut in, he's like, get in there, get in there. And even with the distractions, when he has him in the scissor hold and he's like, shut up, I'm lounging here because he's not. He looks so bored. I was expecting him just to put his head, his arm behind his head while he's holding the thing.
00:18:58
Speaker
There was so many close calls. I was really wondering if the ref knew how to count to three because there was like two, two, two over and over again. It's not guest for a steamboat. So we're pretty safe on that. You hear the announcer at the very end and he's like, there's 15 seconds left. And I'm like, so they get to like, there are 15 seconds of fame. And then he's like, no, I'm not going to jump off.
00:19:25
Speaker
Forget it. So it wasn't really the best ending for me. I mean, I don't like to see a draw, but it just seems weird. We're certain they talk about time limits and some of the others don't even get halfway through the time limit. Yeah. I don't recall ever hearing anything about time limits after this match.
00:19:45
Speaker
I don't think so, no. I mean, they might have announced how many, what the time limit was at the start of the match. Sure. I mean, they don't have someone coming over with loudspeaker and saying, you know, 10 minutes remaining, five minutes remaining or anything like that. When you do it that way, it's kind of a dead giveaway that you're going to have a time limit draw or at least get really, really close to it.
00:20:07
Speaker
This was a little repetitive to me with the headlock and head scissor spots and kind of sticking with those for quite a while. But I really liked it otherwise. Armstrong's very good at just like a quick intense wrestling style and Garvin has some pretty tremendous crowd interaction. The two really wrestled quickly and they kept struggling for control at all times so the match really never feels like it slows down even if they're in holds or things like that.
00:20:33
Speaker
I actually really enjoyed Precious on the outside. I thought she was pretty hilarious at times, particularly when Armstrong's knocked outside and she just keeps yelling for him to, get back in there, get back in there, and then just Garvin knocks him down and she's like, come on, what are you a wimp? Get back in there.
00:20:50
Speaker
I found that pretty funny. I didn't. She is constantly yelling throughout the entire match though, so I can see that too. There's a good story to the match, I think overall, and I liked actually for once having a ref that was at least somewhat wise to the heels cheating for once.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, I see that. So, but I will agree the ending brings it down. I'd never really liked the time limit draw thing. No, there's so many ways that you can end a wrestling match other than that. And it just doesn't work too well. Plus, it feels like they mistimed it a little like Garvin might have been supposed to come off the ropes in the splash and then the bell rings when the bell actually rings just as he's jumping. So it's like.
00:21:33
Speaker
It's almost like he should hear the bell and not jump they couldn't they could have fudged it You know, I would just feel like he's not in on the air yet. Yeah Yeah Was they have like a three-flow though? They'll hold the clock if the ball still in motion or something. Yeah True. Yeah. Well, I mean it did have a sense of urgency and or suspense or whatever as you know that we kept on building and building and then just nothing I
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah. It is always weird doing inclusive finishes designed to build up to another match at your biggest show of the year. Yeah, true. That's just two really good wrestlers stuck in an awkward position in booking wise. They each had some good exchanges throughout the match and just again, wished it ended a little bit differently. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:20
Speaker
So after this, going in 1987, right on time would go to the UWF, the Universal Wrestling Federation. What do you guys is better than me in the world? I could be one notch above. Yeah, true. Based out of Texas. And unfortunately, Dean Parker Motions in 1987 would buy the UWF.
00:22:37
Speaker
So he is back again. I mean, good for us, but it's weird that he leaves. I think it's literally dragged back in the company. He just left because the one he joined was in bought by them. He was scouting. Yeah, there you go. He's a spy. Our next match is back at the Coliseum. Hector Guerrero and Baron Von Reschke versus Shaska Watley and the Barbarian.
00:23:06
Speaker
Hector Guerrero, we have to note, I think, looks uncannily like Eddie. Yes. I forget, are brothers cousins? They're brothers, yeah. Brothers, yeah. But I mean, aside from being clearly separated by a few years, they're darn near identical twins. It's amazing. Yeah.
00:23:25
Speaker
So we're at the point in the 80s where we're getting managers for every group, and we're also getting larger groups. In the WBF, you have the Hennen family coming around this point, and you have Slickwood have several people. So we'd have this large group. So we'd have like five managers for like 50 people. Yeah. So that's where we are at this point, where we have Paul Jones and his army, which means he's dressing in weird camel fatigues.
00:23:52
Speaker
The group includes Shoshko Watley, a barbarian who's there from last year. Probably still mad. They think of that $10,000 from the arm wrestling contest. I mean, I would be. And Baron Von Rashki or Rach, as they sometimes say it, they get the really, really, really emphasized her letters. It's very distracting for me. A month before the show, they have a six man match on TV where the Baron loses yet again. I guess it's been a recurring thing and they turn on and beat him up.
00:24:22
Speaker
Again, he's a heel who's been betrayed by his manager, which I guess makes you a good guy, even though he didn't really do anything different to be a good guy. He just is by default. Yeah. Hector Guerrero in another promotion. Hector was in a team with 3A Timbal made Fernandez, who is now also a bad guy in Paul Jones.
00:24:43
Speaker
So I guess Baron just made a collect call next cause I said, Hey, your tech partner betrayed you. Mine betrayed me. Let's pick a tag team. Okay then. And thus this bizarre, zoomly one time tag team is born. All right.
00:24:56
Speaker
Hector Guerrero has the most stereotypical Mexican music this side of actually giving him the Mexican hat dance song as his theme. Yeah, it's pretty bad. Or awesome. Yeah, that too. And he also comes out wearing a wide sombrero and two bandoliers of bullets, which are better than belts. Yes, because they're also belts.
00:25:19
Speaker
It looks weird with just wrestling trunks though. It's like he was dressing up for a cowboy film and just forgot the rest of his outfit. You're playing borderlands. He's a male stripper that is also a cowboy. What's hard to entertain about that? All right. Not a big leap. Shaska Watley has a top hat and a long coat, which also looks a little weird worn over just wrestling trunks. Yes.
00:25:48
Speaker
All four brawl to start, with Guerrero and Baron reversing the heel's attempts to whip them into each other and knocking Barbarian out of the ring. Guerrero runs rings around Watley and hits a nice springboard body press and a drop kick.
00:26:01
Speaker
but Watley rakes his eyes and tags Barbarian. Guerrero tries to stay ahead of him, but Barbarian catches him and tosses him on the ropes, then ties him up in the ropes and charges what Watley holds him. Guerrero dodges, and Barbarian goes through the ropes, and Guerrero jumps over the top rope and hits a body splash to take Barbarian down to the floor. Watley quickly smacks Guerrero into the ring post, though. Is that the first jump out of the ring?
00:26:27
Speaker
land on somebody move that we've seen so far? I'm pretty sure it's their first Plancia, yeah. I think so. Yeah. So that's a notable spot then. Trust it to be a Guerrero that does it. Yes, appreciate that. The crowd certainly enjoyed that part. Yeah.
00:26:43
Speaker
With Guerrero dazed, the heels take advantage and start trading off to beat him up, including a big leg drop from Barbarian, as the crowds chant something unintelligible, and Bob tells us Johnny Weaver has left the announce table to go try to interview Dusty Rhodes.
00:26:58
Speaker
Guerrero takes a beating, with Watley and Barbarian trading off and Barbarian landing some big slams and backbreakers. Finally, Watley punches Guerrero down and spits on him, but Guerrero recovers, spits back in Watley's face, and dives for his corner to tag Baron. The Baron beats up both heels and gets his claw hold on Watley, but is broken by Barbarian. Guerrero comes in to hold off Barbarian, and the Baron dodges a splash from Watley in the corner, then hits an elbow drop for the three.
00:27:28
Speaker
Post-match, the Heels throw Guerrero out and beat up the Baron, finishing with Barbarian's flying headbutt, before Guerrero comes in and dropkicks Watley to encourage them to leave. The crowd starts chanting something unintelligible again. I could never figure out what the heck they were seeing with this one. Yeah, we were both trying to figure out, I can't tell what they're saying. I googled it. Yeah? There's nothing. I couldn't find, I was typing and I was like, what's his catchphrase?
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, there's gotta be something related to either Hector or the Baron, but I could not figure it out. Yeah. It's definitely a nicked one for me because...
00:28:11
Speaker
Like we were talking about before, there's a good dynamic with the tag team. We have a big, strong guy and a smaller, quicker guy. This has definitely had that dynamic, but it has, I don't know, it has both the best version of that with Hector Guerrero, but also the worst version of that is Baron von Roschke, who cannot do much at this point. He's not much younger, I think, than Nelson. Well, he might be in Baron the same age.
00:28:38
Speaker
He was born in 1940. So he's 46, which is yeah, so he does look like he's about 112 though.
00:28:50
Speaker
But yeah, it's one of those things where Hector's in the match. I really liked it. The ones Baron got in it really kind of dropped down for me. Yeah. Kind of the same on the other side too, where Baron is not like the best wrestler, but he has a clear style and he does all his moves that he can't do very well. There's no like sloppiness to looseness to it. Chaska Watley is just kind of okay. It's only really when it's Hector and barbarian, the match really delivers for me.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I just have the word spit takes. Okay. I just put, you know, some bullet points. Yeah, sure. It seems more offensive than some of the other things they do. They're spitting on each other a bit. Yeah, that bothers me. Flu season. Yeah, true.
00:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, this match is kind of entirely the face imperil segment of a tag match. There's not much beyond Guerrero just bumping around for the two heals. He does it quite well. Oh, yeah, sure. Like you said, he's the best part of this match by far. He gets a few hope spots, but really it's just him getting beat up for an extended period of time and then tagging in the Baron for not a heck of a lot.
00:30:10
Speaker
Barbarian's still pretty imposing, and I liked him getting to show off his strength. Didn't feel like his kicks were as good as last year. He did the side kicks last year, straight on this year, and he doesn't seem as good at those. It was really cool to see the dive to the outside.
00:30:25
Speaker
And actually, John, I really liked the trading spit spot, just because it was the first part of the match that actually seemed like there was intensity to it. Oh, that's true. But up until then, it was just like, it's kind of by the numbers, just Guerrero getting beat up. Right. Which you'd think would feel intense, but there's no, like, real emotion to it. Yeah. Where at that point, you're finally like, oh my gosh, they actually care about this. So I don't know. I can see it's like, it's kind of gross too, but.
00:30:55
Speaker
Are you familiar with Eddie Guerrero, John? Yes. Yeah. He's one of the first people I saw wrestle in in real life. Oh, cool. Nice. I think the second or third match.
00:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, he's pretty amazing, and we'll see him in the late 90s. I think Hector's a pretty respectable wrestler from what I've seen here anyway. Yeah. What I meant to say was in person, not in real life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get you. Good. Just check. Those were all cartoons, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Animated series. Yeah. You watch Hulk Hogan's Rockin' Wrestling. Yeah, there you go.
00:31:37
Speaker
There's a good match here, but he had to completely restructure it. Yeah. Like Baron really didn't add anything to this match at all for me. No. Other than being a big talk on the corner, who does one hole, which he doesn't even have to do completely. He has arguably the two laziest, uh, easiest do finishers you can have. Because the head claw was what they gave, would give to the great Kali. Yeah. And to, um, Brian Adams, was it? When he became a crush? Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker
So if you don't know how to ending in wrestling, but you're big and tall, just grab a guy's head and they'll sort of lay down while you hold them. Second laziest being the sort of fall on the elbow drop. We also saw that elbow drop finisher on the first show we did on Starrcade83 done by Jimmy Valiant to end his match. That was, it's like, yeah, when an elbow drop finishes a match, you got nothing.
00:32:32
Speaker
I'll say there's also the weird aspect where when they go outside the ring from the Planche and the fighting out there, it's so dim. It's like brightly lit right around the ring, but then pitch black darkness. It's the infinite abyss. Yeah. Right. I don't know if that's you, John, but it's just he's fighting and then he's surrounded by space. It's very odd to me. Yeah. Well, the greatest fear is the unknown. There you go. Yeah. To win this match, you must conquer your own fear.
00:33:02
Speaker
That's got to be a tagline for some match somewhere. Yeah. It really should be for the scaffold match. Honestly, there's not much interaction between these groups anymore. The Paul Jones army thing keeps going through three to 87. There's really no big aspects of it afterwards. Two good things happened for two people. The match at least Hector Guerrero becomes laser Tron spell with a Z. Okay. Sure. Wondering. Yes.
00:33:30
Speaker
And Barbarian joins the powers of pain. So one of them definitely benefits more from this than the others. Yes. And Hector Guerrero, of course, is also the gobbledygooker. He is. Yes. Have you seen the gobbledygooker?
00:33:47
Speaker
I want to. I'll have to show you later, but it's one of the single worst stunts ever pulled by the WWF, where for Survivor Series, they've got this giant egg at ringside, and like for months they've been building up what's in this giant egg, find out at Survivor Series, what's in this giant egg, find out at Survivor Series, and it finally hatches at Survivor Series. And it's a man in a turkey outfit who does a dance.
00:34:17
Speaker
the fans hurl abuse at it. Yeah. So it's very quickly buried and never used again. Oh, it didn't show up at the WrestleMania gimmick by the Royal West. Yes. Yeah. But that was intended to make. Yes. Oh yeah. Absolutely. They could have introduced another Russian person like the nesting dolls. The key to call off comes over to the WWF and hatches out those dolls. That'd be great.
00:34:47
Speaker
Next up, we go backstage, where Weaver says that Dusty Rhodes has been conspicuous by his absence and hasn't granted anyone any interviews. He tries to get in Dusty's room to get an interview, and Dusty tells him to leave him alone. That was worth our time. That's a first. Yeah. So, great work there, Johnny. That was worth you leaving the announcers' table.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think you could just total see left. They also could have just had him come back and say, try to talk dusty road. And he went. Yeah, I don't know why we really need to spend time on it. So let's not. All right. Back at the Omni, we have a tag match with the Russian team of Crusher Khrushchev and the Russian Bear Ivan Koloff versus the Kansas Jayhawks, Bobby Jagger's and Dutch Mantel.
00:35:36
Speaker
in a no DQ match for the Russian's NWA United States Tag Team Championship. Dutch Mantel is a very, very hairy man. Yeah. George Daniel Steele looks like Clean Shave in my comparison. Yeah. I think a lot. Pedo would root for him. Yeah. Don't want to harm him. Yeah, I can see that.
00:36:02
Speaker
So if you remember from the last show, we had the national tag team titles, which are care of promotion that JCP bought out. They were sort of folded and disbanded, and they decided to make United States Tag Team Champions, which is very similar to national, but I guess more clarified, maybe. National could be any country, I guess. Yeah. In the finals a few weeks before the show,
00:36:31
Speaker
It came down to the Russians and the Kansas Jayhawks, and the Russians won. Obviously, they're champions now. They fought a couple times after that, but inclusively, I feel like I just qualified. So they made this No Deque match. Okay. Both teams come out with their weapons on them. Ivan has his chain, and Mantel has a whip that I believe they called Shoe Baby. I think that's something like that. Baby, I don't know.
00:37:01
Speaker
Mantell and Ivan start, and it quickly goes against Ivan, with Mantell and Jaggers trading off for some punching and kicking. Ivan manages to escape on a wrist lock and tag Khrushchev, who batters Mantell for a bit until Jaggers comes in to even the odds. Tony notes that ref Scrappy McGowan is counting to five for warnings to break, but wrestlers don't have to follow his instructions. So why is he counting? Keeping practice, I guess? It's a habit, I guess. Muscle memory.
00:37:31
Speaker
Mantell and Jaggers team up to choke Khrushchev in the corner, and Mantell beckons to Ivan to get him to run in, then tells the ref he's running in so the ref will go stop it. It's a cute spot, but again, why is he bothering to stop it? This is no DQ. Yeah.
00:37:45
Speaker
No one wants to get hurt. Khrushchev dodges a leg scissors to get free, and Ivan gets himself in trouble again on a mischarge into the corner, letting the Jayhawks beat him up some more. He gets over to Khrushchev, who gets knocked down but grabs Mantel's leg, and Ivan kicks Mantel out of the ring. Tony and Rick tell us that the Kremlin is upset about what happened with Nikita, and if the Russians lost here it would shake Moscow,
00:38:10
Speaker
but then the announcers have to stop for a moment as Khrushchev drives Mantel's head into their table and drops him knee-first on the barricade. Back in, Ivan and Khrushchev double-team Mantel, and Khrushchev punches Jaggers to get him to come in and get the ref to stop him to allow more double-teaming because everyone has forgotten that this is no DQ. Mantel eventually escapes with a tag to Jaggers, and a four-man brawl starts up. Ivan goes and gets his chain and Mantel gets his whip, and whip beats chain as Mantel gets both Russians in the legs.
00:38:39
Speaker
Mantell follows Khrushchev outside, but Khrushchev has the chain and nails him with it, then climbs up and smashes jaggers with it as he's bouncing off the ropes, letting Ivan get the three. Post-match, the Russians get the belts and celebrate as a despondent Mantell checks on his partner. Brawling, more brawling. My summary of the match. I also note that it's confusing that they distract the referee.
00:39:05
Speaker
For the finish, they hit the chain, you know, get it, no DQ. Yeah. It's weird, because at this point, three really veteran wrestlers, Khrushchev's the only one that's not been wrestling too long at this point. Mantel is on the tail end of his career in the ring, same with Koloff and all of them. And maybe that's the problem. Maybe they've worked so many matches that they can't help but work a match like not even though it's no DQ.
00:39:34
Speaker
I don't know. It'd be nice if that was part of the story, but it's just them seemingly forgetting half the time, how the match works. Yeah. My one positive for the match, the only thing I really remember that well, other than the change spot is seeing different until I grabbed the whip thinking, so can he actually use this thing?
00:39:52
Speaker
Cause there's a long history of people at wrestling where people have guitars. They can, they cannot play. Or of course the dynamic dude you're going for years from now would both come out carrying skateboard, but never actually ride them. Not even once. Yes. As far as I ever know. So I'm like, Oh, he actually knows how to use the whip. Yeah. That's one point quite well with that. Yeah. That's real. I remember that in the chain spot. All right.
00:40:17
Speaker
While you were talking, I looked up the name of the whip. It is Shoe Baby.
00:40:26
Speaker
I have two quotes for the match. It's, uh, Kremlins and cattle hands or, or, um, some cow pokes end up in Moscow. So I, but there's nothing really remarkable. I did put a PETA joke in there. Yeah. It was just a little bit back and forth. It was weird for me, um, because one of the most notable part when shoe baby comes back out, they say that, Oh, he brought out the chain, which you can't see because of the camera angle.
00:40:55
Speaker
And I'm like, that's not a chain. That's a whip. And like it just tags there. I don't even know if it actually hits them, but like it's they make it look like it just touches their ankle and it somehow flips them all the way around. Yeah. So they weigh nothing when touched by a shoe baby. So when the chain comes out the end, I'm a little surprised. I know they announced it and everything. I thought they just mistakenly called the whip the chain. True. Yeah.
00:41:22
Speaker
I can see that. A whole Castlevania thing going on. Yeah, yeah. They just played enough Castlevania. They thought a whip would obviously be a chain whip eventually. Tony probably went backstage and then punched the wall and got some turkey out of it. Yeah. Belmont sounds like it could be from Texas. Yeah, probably. Yeah, stand in the corner holding the red gem, wait for the snare to come and carry to the end stage. Oh my gosh. That's a deep cut. Never even played that game. That's all I know. Yeah.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, there wasn't a lot to this one. It did have more tags than the previous match at least, so a little bit more of a flow that way, but again, why does it have tags? Right. You know, it's mostly punches and kicks on both sides, but it does at least get kind of a back and forth flow going. There's not a lot exciting into it until, like you said, the moments with the whip and the chain kind of woke me up a little bit.
00:42:12
Speaker
It's kind of weird and unfortunate that in a dq match those don't get introduced earlier If you had a little bit more involvement from those I think I would have been more into this And like you said everyone acts like this is a dq match for the most part like it's like it's a normal match So it could play out almost exactly the same way until the whip and chain get involved so i'm not really sure why they couldn't just do it as a normal match and then have the ref get knocked out and they start
00:42:41
Speaker
whipping and chaining each other. One of the times they did fall out, almost fell out of the ring and the crowd went crazy, I'm like, is that the only way you can be disqualified? I don't think there is a way to be, like even the top rope thing doesn't matter in this one. No, I think so. So I think that might have just been like, we're going to see more violence because they're outside the ring, I don't know. So we're just like, something happened, yay!
00:43:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's mostly forgettable, and the most interesting part of the match for me was Tony Imbrek's commentary on international politics. Was it Shoe Baby? No, I mean, he does a respectable job with the whip, but it's involved for such a short time that it's just like I wanted to see him doing a little more with it somehow. I don't know. Yeah. I'm used to seeing the old guy from the Dark Power sort of trying to use the whip
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah. Last LaRue. Last LaRue. Yeah. Yeah. It was like in his mid 70s and he's still, the only thing that's using a whip. So seeing it used by light female age guy at this point, at least as an improvement. Yeah. Yeah. There's no Indiana Jones though. No, that's the other one. Yes. Yeah. The Russians lose the tag titles in December, not to the day Hawks. If I recall correctly.
00:44:04
Speaker
And later in the year, they have Khrushchev doing other stuff, which we'll cover on Starrcade. So Ivan Koloff teamed with Dick Murdock to form another tag team. So now on like the third iteration of the tag team with Ivan Koloff, still called the Russian team, similarly based in the Olympics, I guess. Okay. Yeah, let's do it.
00:44:27
Speaker
So next up is at the Coliseum and we have Chief Wahoo McDaniel versus Ravishing Rick Rude with Paul Jones in an Indian strap match. So this is again part of the whole Paul Jones Army thing. Rick Rude is the young new guy they brought into the group.
00:44:50
Speaker
He basically has the same gimmick as Jimmy Garvin, but my best explanation that Jimmy Garvin's version is sort of ironic because he poses, but he's not like super impressive looking. So it's like, yeah, I'm really good looking. They're like, huh? Whereas recruit, obviously there's no denying that he was like ridiculously in shape at this point.
00:45:09
Speaker
There's a lot of really, really bad promos throughout the buildup where they say things I will not repeat. It's Wild McDaniel. There's good. It can only happen to 80 stuff like laser light shows. And there's bad. It can only happen to 80 stuff like what they say. We don't miss that. Wild McDaniel was apparently undefeated in Indian strap matches. He claims to have won over 300 of them, which I don't know how can verify that number, but I feel like that's the way to high.
00:45:38
Speaker
But to get that number, like Goldberg asked number, he's gotta be either inflating the number or he's done his entire life. So Rick Rood is so super confident that in one promo he brags about how you won't be able to scar me and mess my body up because I'm so good. But then the next promo he goes, well yeah, you may give me one scar, but I'll give you three scars for every one scar you give me. So he's losing confidence as the match approaches. He's getting nervous. Yeah.
00:46:09
Speaker
John, you mentioned everybody having their own theme music. Did you like Rick Roodes? All my comments are on that song. In his intro. I don't blame you. You know what it reminds me of? We're talking about different stuff. It reminds me of like he was like the template for maybe like Val Venus or something like that. It's just a really dirty intro.
00:46:38
Speaker
It's really like sultry and like film noir, but like not quite. And it comes out of nowhere because no one else has one like that. Yeah. I mean, Jimmy Garvin's is really low key. And then suddenly this is weird lady like a really over the top. Yeah. Like super sexy startup. And then, yeah, like the film noir detectives opening monologue, you know, the rain poured down like buckets as the dame walked into my office. She had a case. Yeah.
00:47:06
Speaker
I think I washed my hands after watching the intro. I was like, I just need to reset here. But the narration before it was really bad. You're so ravishing. That was awesome. Yeah, because I've watched the show and he didn't use that on the TV shows. So it was totally new to me. I did not expect that. Yeah, we were rid of stitches.
00:47:35
Speaker
Okay. Does he look like Freddie Mercury a little bit? A little bit. I can see that. Yeah. With the mustache and all I can, I can see. Okay. Sure. And the manager guy looks like Robin Williams a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So this strap match in contrast to the color match and the build rope matches that we've seen before is the touch all four corners to win type of strap match rather than the get a pin or submissions type of strap match.
00:48:04
Speaker
The sides argue first over who's going to put the strap bomb first, with yet Wahoo ultimately putting it on. The crowd screams in excitement as Rude poses for them, but they also love it when Wahoo smacks him in the butt with the strap to stop him. Weaver makes it back to the table just as the match is beginning.
00:48:22
Speaker
The two slowly pull towards each other with the strap, and Wahoo starts whipping Rude. Rude fights back, but Wahoo beats him with the strap and drags him down with it. Rude tries to roll out, but Wahoo drags him back in with the strap. Rude takes advantage with a headlock and some choking with the strap.
00:48:37
Speaker
and beats Wahoo up with punches and whips with the strap in the corner, then wraps the strap around his fist for more punches. A body slam takes Wahoo down, and Rude wraps his hands up and drags him to one corner, then two, but Wahoo hooks his legs around the bottom rope, then kicks Rude down when he pulls Wahoo free.
00:48:54
Speaker
Wahoo uses strap-assisted punches, pressure with the strap, and whips to weaken Rude, and takes him down with his chop, then tries his own turnbuckle drag. He makes three corners before falling prey to exactly the same kick he used to knock down Rude. Rude goes up top for a nice leaping knee drop, but Wahoo fights out of an attempt to drag him, so Rude tries going up again, and Wahoo pulls on the strap to take him down then hits an elbow drop.
00:49:19
Speaker
Paul Jones loses his mind outside as Wahoo drags Rude to one, two, three corners. Rude fights him on the fourth and Jones gets up to interfere, but Wahoo knocks him down with a chop. Rude elbows Wahoo from behind, but that sends Wahoo into the last turnbuckle and gives him the win. Post-match, Jones and Rude tie Wahoo to the ropes with the strap and beat him up, but Hector Guerrero and the Baron run down to save Wahoo.
00:49:47
Speaker
Weaver excitedly notes that we'll get to see the match ending again in slow motion, but instead they play a replay of Guerrero and the Baron making the save. Coddle starts to recap it, then pauses as he realizes it's not what he expected, so Weaver quickly takes over but sounds rather befuddled himself. I just wanted to wonder where the stipulation could work, and there are some legitimately good trap matches that work
00:50:15
Speaker
I don't know. I almost say they work in spite of being Strive Magic because some do use the gimmick well. Yeah. This one was kind of OK. The film we really got watched before was that.
00:50:25
Speaker
why have none so many of these and refer being so you newest career why would do a spot which would then show her to do it and then her would do it yeah which they can cover in practice but i guess i guess it works in that too this the other support aspects to that like why mcdowell's a big strong guy he's a full player his whole thing is being big and tough but he's being dragged he looks his legs on the ropes like you know someone desperate to you know
00:50:54
Speaker
knock it pulled somewhere and it's like, I think there's a more dignified way to do that. For a bad guy that makes perfect sense, like Rick Flair has grabbed Matt's crowd in the ropes, that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah, it just feels weird for him to do that. And I don't like the finish, obviously. I'm glad at least they cover Rude, because I was worried about it, like, Rude loses, like, oh, geez, Rude losing this guy.
00:51:17
Speaker
I guess that's the best way they could do the finish. It's the least offensive way for it, but... I mean, it is the finish to almost every strap match you will ever see. One guy has touched three corners. The other guy tries to stop him, but accidentally locks him into it. It's like the only way those ever end.
00:51:34
Speaker
That or the faces is walking along touching him and the heel touches them without him knowing it. So they're both, they're counter both going up at the same time. Yeah. But I mean, it's, I, I sold that issue with the way that works because they stop your count if you're knocked down. And while he was clearly being knocked down, but somehow they count anyways, it's strange. I don't like it. No. Any.
00:52:02
Speaker
Anytime you have to count over three, does it make any sense? You know, it wasn't like some of the other implement matches. You know, I didn't see a lot of people tugging the other people off the ropes, not that they expect Wahoo to go on the, on the top rope a bunch, but, um, you know, they weren't like wrapping it around them and tying them to the turnbuckle or the, the post or anything. And, you know, really utilizing it.
00:52:29
Speaker
Al did mention like the mentorship, like, yo, rude gets out of it. And then like, maybe he'll do one other thing and then I'll go straight to that. But that very few times that I can recall in the match where they ever like doing a tug of war thing, it was always within the same range of what the, so, you know, you didn't have that battle that you would normally, but I guess, I guess with the athletes being so different, maybe that's not what you should be expecting.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah, so I asked you this in previous years when we had a match with two people connected to each other by a length of cord This versus Piper versus Valentine. I was trying to avoid to say that I was really like I I'm not gonna even acknowledge it Yeah, there's no real comparison is there no no there's no creativity to it. It's just your average strap match and
00:53:21
Speaker
They even talked about them getting like, you know, burns or whatever, but like, you know, there is no blood in the thing. So it's not like they're even really fulfilling that promise or the, or, you know. Well, last year fulfilled their blood quota for the next century. I'm glad. I'm not saying I want that, but I'm just saying like all the things that they led up to, you know, I was saying like, if you give me one, I'll give you three kind of thing. I didn't see any of that. Yeah. Minor welts.
00:53:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't like the four corners, strap match type in general. There are a few good ones that I've seen particularly Sting versus Vader at, I think, Super Ball 93, is it? It might be. Somewhere around there. That's really, that one's really good, but most of them are basically this. Whip each other, then drag around the corner, then whip each other, then drag around the corner.
00:54:15
Speaker
The thing I will actually say I appreciate about this one is that there's only three attempts to do the drag. These matches can get extremely repetitive if they go really long because you just have people making that attempt and it always stops in the same darn type of way. It just gets so boring where this at least kept it kind of short. Roots knee drop off the top is really nice, but that is I think the only notable spot in the match. Intro.
00:54:43
Speaker
Yes, yes, okay. Yeah, I'll get I'll give the match credit for his intro as well. Yes I Do a question about whether or not strap matches are no DQ Because Paul Jones could definitely interfere and just died I guess they basically are but I mean he tries to interfere at the end and just gets knocked down So yeah, I just feel like he could have slid into the ring and just stood in the fourth corner and blocked it. Yeah, true Yeah
00:55:13
Speaker
Yeah. So Rick Rood leaves this company for the WWF in April. Wow. That's that soon. Yep. Good gosh. I didn't, I thought he had a couple of years here or something. Nope. Man. We will see him in a few shows down the line again, but yeah, he's gone for a while. Yeah. Like a lot of these, here's a cool new guy. He's gone. Yeah. Well, sorry. Cool film. No, our theme. We will never see you again. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:42
Speaker
We go backstage then for an interview with the Russian team. Rick Stewart is interviewing them. And we actually start out with silence for a bit before the sound slowly comes in as he intros the interview.
00:55:58
Speaker
thought this was pretty hilarious. Yeah. The two actually do a pretty respectable job of covering a heck of a lot of topics in a pretty short time. They nicely brag about their win. They build up the upcoming Bunkhouse Stampede. They get across how upset they are about Nikita. They express their faith in his fighting talent and they vow revenge. And they seem pretty dangerous and crazy and for one at least very Russian. Yeah.
00:56:23
Speaker
Pretty fun promo to me. Karcher still doesn't actually do an accent, but... No. But Ivan's doing the accent in spades, so... That's true. His accent for two. Yeah. I was just giggling the whole way through it.
00:56:37
Speaker
Fair enough. Because the accent is way too much. It's movie Russian. It's not actual Russian. It's an evil movie 80s Russian villain, right? Yeah. No, I don't know. Maybe it's my pet peeve when people intentionally show a language barrier. True, yeah. You can do the accent, sure, but just don't make it seem like... I know that they're playing a bit and everything.
00:57:08
Speaker
I can see that. But I enjoyed it as much as I could. Back at the Omni, our next match is Sam Houston versus superstar Bill Dundee for Houston's NWA Central States Heavyweight Championship.
In-depth Match Critiques and Performer Analysis
00:57:28
Speaker
The Central States territory was bought up by Jim Crockett Motions. So let's see what we can do with this title. What's confusing is so
00:57:37
Speaker
They had champions for their promotion. Then they're bought out. And in typical wrestling fashion, all the champions are then voided. So every title's empty, and we're gonna have new matches for them, which is weird, but I guess tradition at this point? Yeah. They had a match to determine who the Central State heavyweight champion would be, literally a week before this show. So yeah, six days earlier, they declared champion. Now they're fighting to determine who's still gonna be the champion after that show.
00:58:08
Speaker
So it was actually these two guys? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, that seems a little repetitive. Yeah, you should be establishing the title here, not doing a rematch for the title you established one week prior. Exactly.
00:58:25
Speaker
Bill Dundee has a sparkly multicolored jacket, and Sam Houston, who I swear looks younger than last year somehow, has an awesome long Texas flag coat to go with his cowboy hat this year. I thought that looked really cool, actually. He has more of a character, I think, this year than last year. He's gone from a three to a four, so that's something.
00:58:50
Speaker
Let's go Sam chants from the crowd bemused Dundee as they start fighting and the story of the match is set with Houston being strong and quick and Dundee being willing to fight dirty. Dundee goes for the hair early and takes brief advantage but Houston quickly fires back and gets a hard turnbuckle whip, head scissors which he holds and tells the ref to ask him, and rapid arm drags and a very nice drop kick. Dundee signals for a timeout.
00:59:18
Speaker
More hair pulling from Dundee, but Houston fights back and nearly gets his bulldog, and when that doesn't work he rapidly goes to a roll-up, which Dundee counters by pulling the tights. The ref yells at Dundee, who chucks Houston through the middle rope to the outside. You can hear a loud smack as it seems Houston hit the announce table on the way down. He's alright though, and he sends Dundee over the railing with an atomic drop. Dundee crawls under the railing and gets back to the apron, and Houston brings him somersaulting over the ropes with a whoa!
00:59:49
Speaker
Houston gets too eager and gets caught with a kick, and Dundee gets a nice fist drop for two. He starts doing the ask him thing too on a chinlock. And now when the crowd chants for Sam, Dundee yells at them. Dundee keeps control and ends up with a high angle Boston crab, then chokes Houston against the ropes when he powers out.
01:00:09
Speaker
Dundee chucks Houston out through the ropes again, and the ref makes him back off so Houston can get back in. So Dundee climbs the opposite turnbuckle, runs along the top rope, and jumps off to nail Houston with a double axe handle as he gets back in. Cool spot there and really unexpected. I was not thinking I was going to see somebody that looked like Bill Dundee running the top rope. That was pretty impressive. It's a different match.
01:00:33
Speaker
Houston fights back and he gets the fans cheering and sends Dundee reeling with big punches and a body slam, but he gets overeager again and misses a knee drop. Dundee grabs an Indian Death Lock, but Houston kicks him away into the ref who goes down. Houston's boot comes off in the process and Dundee quickly grabs that most deadly of weapons and nails Houston with it, but the ref getting back up caught sight of it and DQs Dundee.
01:01:01
Speaker
Post-match Dundee beats Houston with his own boot and yells at the crowd, but he's already lost the match. The replay does actually show that McGowan was just barely looking that way. So yeah, he probably could actually see it for like a split second anyway. And it's scrappy McGowan, the most clever and on-the-ball ref in all of wrestling history, apparently, judging from that earlier match. Evidently, yeah.
01:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, I like the match. The thing about me is kind of weird is, it's clear going into this match, if you read up on it, Superstar but Bill Dundee, he's been around a while. His wrestling career would end a few years after this, but he's still hanging around wrestling with a lot of other guys. So he's clearly here to be the solid veteran guy who works a young, energetic guy through a match, so he does his flashy moves and then beats the experienced guy.
01:01:53
Speaker
The problem is that he doesn't have any big flashy moves, really. And Bill Dundee has all the flashy moves and all the look and all the character. So it works, but only because Bill Dundee is so impressive to me. And Sam Houston is not like he's bad, but he's not Baron Vaughn, whatever his name was.
01:02:13
Speaker
I'm not going to try and match it again, but he just, you know, he just, he doesn't give me much. I know, you know, he's trying, I know he's doing moves. It's just, it's such a like blank slate thing for me with him. I don't get a lot out of him. And then I have the guy doing interesting moves and tying the crowd and wearing that bright red, the very pants he was wearing. Yeah, that's true. For me, he takes over the entire match. So it worked, but it works in the opposite way it's supposed to work.
01:02:42
Speaker
I agree with Al on some of that, like, you know, he did, you know, he had that good flying elbow and, uh, you know, he's, he's working the crowd for a little bit. Um, but you know, he, the match seems to go in waves where Dundee just continues just punching him a bunch and it gets dull at that point, but you know, then they have Houston do something else. So, you know, I didn't see a little bit of a, um, a back and forth.
01:03:10
Speaker
But I don't know. I don't know if I like the ref getting bumped. And then like, how is hitting someone with her boot worth the DQ? I mean, it's got to hurt less. It's got to hurt less than actually having a foot in it and delivering a kick. But whatever. Yeah. Well, and also, why is it a DQ? That's the other point of it as well. Well, you're using a foreign object. A weapon. Well, you know what it is. We were wearing it a minute ago. Yeah, I know. It should be a DQ once you kick somebody.
01:03:40
Speaker
None of this boot stuff makes any sense to me. And it happens all throughout wrestling. We will be harping on this every show, I'm sure. Yes.
01:03:50
Speaker
Yeah, ending aside, this was a really good match, I thought. Like I said, Dundee is quite good, and I really liked that he showed his increasing annoyance with Houston and with the crowd as the match went on, where he's kinda more bemused by it at the beginning, but he gets more vicious and annoyed as it becomes clear that he's not winning as easily as he wanted. His rope run spot was really impressive, and I was not expecting it at all. No, not at all.
01:04:18
Speaker
Houston I actually thought was really good. I really, really enjoyed his work this year. I felt like he had much more to him than the previous year. Some more polished moves going on. Last year he felt a little awkward here and there. This time it felt like everything was quick and snappy and he was doing it all quite well. His punches are pretty great in particular. I think he does a great job with those.
01:04:40
Speaker
I'm a little torn on the ending just because I felt like it could have been something more definitive, but I did actually like how it fitted with Dundee's story in the match of getting more and more irritated and he kind of starts out getting more vicious and then starts not thinking, I think, as he does things in the match. And so it's just him having that last moment where he doesn't think and just instinctively grabs the boot and smacks him and that ends up costing him. I hate the boot.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, but I like the idea of the finish where it's like he just instinctively goes for this off the refs down I'll cheat but the refs not actually down so they cost him which I thought was kind of a Different way of doing that finish at least Yeah, no, I yeah the way it played out was weird. Yeah, I understand your point
01:05:29
Speaker
it is still a non-finish for what had been actually a pretty nice match between these two. So I think in the grand scheme of things, it does drag it down a little bit, just not as much as I was expecting to when I first saw it. Oh, it's a DQ, so.
01:05:44
Speaker
I just feel like if they had done before, if they had done the actual title win match here, you would have assumed I would think a pretty similar match style-wise and everything, but you would have a clean finish. I don't know how they worked the finish in the actual match. I assume it's relatively clean because it has to be just a pinfall.
01:06:04
Speaker
You can add that finish on here instead of the one we got. Yeah, you do this match as for the title and do this exact same match, but Houston gets a definitive win in the ending and I think it's even better. Yes.
01:06:19
Speaker
I will note, if you know older wrestling, Dundee worked a lot with Jerry Lawler in Memphis, which would explain the bright flashy outfit and the fist drop. Yes. And the tone of the crowd, because Memphis is not super great on athletic wrestling, but it's really strong character work. Yes. I didn't make the association with Lawler until you said that, as far as a wardrobe choice.
01:06:42
Speaker
Yeah, but you can definitely see it once you know that right? Yeah makes sense. I can see it. I was just kind of trying to figure out what it was but um No, I I think there was a genuine frustration. I mean, I mean he at least he played that part and maybe the The um using the boot or whatever which might have slipped off accidentally. I don't know Is it like that's the idea?
01:07:04
Speaker
No, I mean like he's playing out that frustration and maybe it was intended for Houston to come back, you know, and he was just trying to fulfill his role as a heel.
01:07:16
Speaker
I mean there are cases in wrestling where wrestlers do something and the referee sees it and the ref the refs are in some cases by my understanding instructed to call the match as though it were real so if you see someone cheating DQ them so I mean that's always possible I think in this case it feels like that spot is set up so that the boot will come off but yeah you know it's always a possibility
01:07:42
Speaker
These two would keep fighting over the Central States title now in JCP, and Dundee would eventually win the title in January. Are you kidding me? No. January again. The cursed month is back. At least, at least it's not because Houston gets injured, right? No. At least there's that. It's just a storyline thing. Yes. Our next match is back at the Coliseum, and this time we have
01:08:12
Speaker
Jimmy Valiant with Big Mama versus Paul Jones in a hair versus hair match for Big Mama's hair, not Jimmy Valiant's for some reason with Evil Manny Fernandez locked in a cage. Jimmy Valiant versus Paul Jones again. Yup. Why?
01:08:30
Speaker
Okay, so as I mentioned, there's the very first show I watched the build up is the one that was tree taped before the Magnolia thing. So they proudly announced on that show the first match for Starrcade. And they got their video package announcing this match. Oh my gosh. This was the first match they announced for the show. This is going in, you know, this is why you're paying to watch the show.
01:08:54
Speaker
Apparently. So the buildup is that throughout basically all of 1986, to be valiant have been fighting Paul Jones in some way through associates and stuff like that. Before when the great American bashes
01:09:09
Speaker
He's teamed up with Shaska Watley, then known as Pez Watley, which I think is a better name than Shaska, personally. And in a promo before the match, he talks about how Pez Watley is one of the best up and coming African-American wrestlers.
01:09:28
Speaker
which apparently super sets off Pez-Wilde in storyline, who then takes a bribe and turns on him in a match and joins Paul to his army, and then at a later show during, actually on the Great American Bash War, it's Jimmy Fallon against Paul Jones, both hares against each other. And in that match, Manny Fernandez turns on him. If people keep betraying Jimmy Fallon, it's probably the beard and just everything about him does that.
01:09:58
Speaker
So he loses his hair to Paul Jones and then goes away for a little while, presumably to wrestle in other territories for a bit. So then they were in this video package on that first show, as I mentioned, where he's apparently despondent and he's sitting outside a bar and what looks like somewhere off of the set of the Blues Brothers and Big Mama drives up in her sex seventies Cadillac. It's crazy. She's trying to.
01:10:23
Speaker
trying to get him out of his funk, and she says that, she's getting one last shot, and she's putting her hair up against Paul Jones's hair. Okay, so it's her idea at least. Correct. Okay. They then spend three weeks of shows after that, saying the exact same line over and over and over again about her, which, whether it's Rick Rude, whether it's Mae Fernandez, or whether it's even Paul Jones, they refer to her as her becoming a, quote, bald-headed geek.
01:10:53
Speaker
That's apparently the only line they know to make fun of people for losing their hair. It's message focus. Yeah. There's just every promo was that, and then the things I say about Wild McDaniel. Really repetitive watching promos in the buildup of this show. So yeah, this is supposed to be the big blow off to like a two and a half year off and on feud with Paul Jones and Jimmy Valiant.
01:11:17
Speaker
The show's chopped up a bit in the version on the network, so we get the start of Valiance music, then a snap cut to the participants already in the ring, which was a little weird.
01:11:26
Speaker
Both sides amusingly mime shaving hair at each other as the ring announcer introduces the match. Jones and Fernandez shake their heads and mouth no at the news that by contractual agreement, Fernandez is going to be suspended in a cage high above the ring. So did they not read the contract then? Oh no, they had. It was mentioned in promo, but then I guess they assumed it wouldn't be followed up on. It probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but it seems like they're surprised at it. Not just disagreeing with it, but actually surprised. It is weird, yes.
01:11:56
Speaker
Jimmy Valiant is in costume as Halloween this year. Yes. Paul Jones, knowing Jimmy Valiant's love of ripping tuxes off people, has come in wrestling tights instead this year.
01:12:10
Speaker
Fernandez tries to sit in a chair outside and gets him ref Earl Hebner's face, but Nelson Royal and Tim Horner, along with the Baron, come down to fight him into the cage. Fernandez fights all of them off, only for Wahoo McDaniel to come down and chop him, which sends him falling into the cage. Jones comes over and tries to drag the cage back down as it gets razed into the air, but it gets dragged off and goes into the ring.
01:12:33
Speaker
Valiant beats Jones up with ease to start, ignoring Jones blows entirely and just punching him and tossing him around the ring. Caldwell tells us that losing Big Mama's hair to Jones would be the worst thing ever for Valiant, and that he's been depressed over the events of the feud with Jones.
01:12:49
Speaker
Valiant punches Jones in the corner and gets more aggressive, going for some choking, but Hebner pushes him away and Jones takes advantage of the distraction to get an object from his tights and smack Valiant in the face with it. Jones hides the object and mimes shaving to Big Mama, then lands kicks, knee drops, and punches on the fallen Valiant, then confidently goes for the pin. He gets two, and he freaks out at Hebner.
01:13:14
Speaker
Jones hits Valiant again and goes for another pin, but Valiant gets his foot on the ropes just before three. Jones tries a knee drop, but Valiant moves his leg out of the way and Jones hurts his leg.
01:13:24
Speaker
Limping, Jones gets the object out again and hides it as Valiant comes in, then Sucker punches him again. With his leg hurt, he's slow to cover, and he gets two. He goes for an Indian Deathlock, but Valiant punches him away, gets up, and gets his energy back, battering Jones with punches. A sleeper threatens to put Jones away, so he goes for the object, but Valiant sees it and pushes him away. Jones drops the object, and Valiant snatches it up and nails Jones in the face with it, getting the three.
01:13:53
Speaker
Valiant does still have the object in clear view of the ref during the count in mind. He does at least think to hide it afterwards. Post-match, Valiant gets clippers and shaves Joan's head while Fernandez's cage lowers. The shaving does not look like a pleasant experience. Joan's face is visibly pained and I'm not sure that that's all acting. No. Hebner lets Fernandez out of the cage and he runs in to attack Valiant, hitting rapid knee drops.
01:14:21
Speaker
Rude comes down and joins in, and Fernandez hits his flying forearm while Rude holds Valiant up. Fernandez gets a chair and helps Rude do a DDT type of move to take Valiant down on the chair. Rude and Fernandez cover up Jones' head and take him out of the arena, and Big Mama comes in to check on Valiant along with Wahoo and the Baron.
01:14:39
Speaker
Valiant lies unconscious for a while, and Hebner comes to check too. Slowly, Valiant regains consciousness and rolls over, and Wahoo and the Baron help him sit up and get out of the ring, then support him walking backstage. So I don't generally do a second watch, so I remember what I remember from watching the first time. I don't completely forgotten the four-nautic spot, maybe because my brain is trying to wipe the match out.
01:15:05
Speaker
And it was my next pick, I remember where I actually did a match here. I remember not that you said it, but I didn't remember writing my notes for it at all. I also forgot how overdramatic the finishes were. After the matches though, where they beat up Jimmy Vali and then it's like, will he be okay? Will he be okay? And I'm like, eh. I'm not that interested in clearly.
01:15:28
Speaker
I know Paul Jones used to be a wrestler and clearly that shows in certain parts in the match, which he prags about, but he's still fighting to be violent. Even at this point doesn't really give a lot, honestly. I guess I can say it's better than their first match against other at Starrcade, but that's not a bar I want to set for matches in general.
01:15:48
Speaker
I was excited and equally disappointed when the music was cut out abruptly. Like I was glad that I didn't have to endure the entire thing, but I kind of wanted a little bit of it. You know, it was just enough to think about it. Um, I loved the Halloween attire. I was like, you know, there's always something unexpected.
01:16:06
Speaker
The whole raging bull thing was as long as the match. True. True. Yeah. You know, there was more emphasis on that than I think the actual match. I mean, I knew that, you know, things were going to be in Valian's favor once he had someone on the side with, and you know, the other guy had no distraction or ally.
01:16:29
Speaker
I like that at the very end, like immediately he's cutting off his hair. Yes. And I was expecting like a Norelco commercial or something like, you know, some sort of where they're going to talk about the Clippers, you know, because Crockett is looking for sponsors. And you can find that at Sears.
01:16:52
Speaker
No, I didn't mind it so much. It was short. It was, I don't know if you would say it was sweet. You know, I like seeing volume because he just reminds me, look at this crazed old man that would do things. So there is that. So for you, for you, was it better or worse than the last time they fought an 84? There's less top hats in this one. And less stripping.
01:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not a fan. Yeah. I like that. No, like I said, I was glad this one was abrupt, just like the theme song. So this kind of shocks me, but I actually really liked this.
01:17:36
Speaker
I have not been a huge fan of Jimmy Valiant over the years, but this is the first time that he felt like he was actually the good guy in the match, rather than us being told that he was the good guy and him cheating first and everything.
01:17:54
Speaker
This felt more like an actual match than the last time they fought. It still feels like wrestler versus manager, but it feels like wrestler versus manager that isn't as insanely one-sided as the first time. Jones does have to cheat to get advantage, but once he does, he gets some real offense in and it looks like Valiant is in trouble. So this ended up feeling about as good to me as the Dillon versus Bass match last year that I liked.
01:18:19
Speaker
Not a great match, but entertaining enough. Like I said, without as many of the how is Valiant the good guy spots. I do feel it's a little weird that Paul Jones has Paul Jones's army and only Manny Fernandez is down there to get locked in the cage. It's like, why don't you just bring down the other guys and maybe they could have done a spot with the other guys trying to get in the face. Wrestlers fight them off while the, while the match goes on in the ring. Sure.
01:18:44
Speaker
But of the four Jimmy Valiant matches I've seen, this is, I guess it's a second best. The one last year edges it out just because of Ron Garvin's really awesome timing on that final punch. It's easily Jimmy Valiant's most likable performance though. Does that mean Jimmy Valiant is growing on me? Well, let's hope so.
01:19:09
Speaker
I mean, that's a good thing, right? I don't know. I'm questioning some of my life choices now. Well, it was a short match and there was plenty of energy in it. So, you know, hey, this one made it enjoyable. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I was surprised to see Rude afterwards be non-valiant. For some reason, I think they would be teamed up on the same side.
01:19:32
Speaker
I can actually see that, that they're two styles as, at the very least, Valiance, the guy that Roode brings around to make him look better. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I think I did mention before during Roode's match is that Roode finished at this point as a DDT, called the Roode Awakening. As soon as he goes to WBF for the next year, it's a neckbreaker, also called the Roode Awakening. I guess they weren't copyrighting the name, move names at that point.
01:19:57
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's the most logical way thing to name it. Oh, it's totally, it makes perfect sense why you would name it that. It's just funny that it's exactly the same in both promotions. I would have thought they would be different. Valiant finally leaves a 9th and A7. You're welcome, Bob. Despite my newfound kind of appreciation for him, I'm kind of glad that we're done with Jimmy Valiant. He can go out on a reasonably high note for me. There you go.
01:20:27
Speaker
We get a stunning video package about the upcoming second Bunkhouse Stampede, which involves... Yeah, which involves Nelson Royal from our first match of the night, sitting in front of a campfire, dressed in full cowboy garb and drinking coffee while a guitar gently strums,
01:20:52
Speaker
He drones on and on and on about how they used to fight things out on the trail. And we see shots of the first bunkhouse stampede match, which is basically a big battle royale with weapons. This was long and boring. This was anti-promotion. Yeah. It's a battle royale with weapons in it. You shouldn't really need to do much promotion for it, but somehow this made me want to watch the match less. Yeah, I can see that.
01:21:17
Speaker
Tony then tells us we're taking a short intermission after the long video. Why was the video not the intermission? Well, they want you to stay and watch this, man. No, I don't want to. I liked it. You did? Because I think it's the origin of when John Oliver does all these paid promotions with a cowboy explains things. Oh, God. Yeah. This is like where they got the idea.
01:21:45
Speaker
Yeah, this, for me, was pretty painful. And it's just like, this has nothing to do with the actual show that we're watching. Okay. Yeah. I'm gonna be honest. I did fast forward just a little bit during this part. I think it might be better if they at least weren't having this, the most gentle guitar in the universe playing in the background. The big bloody brawl going on. Yeah. And it was the shake hands with danger theme. I'd be up for it. Yeah.
01:22:16
Speaker
I feel like on this show, they're like, people are actually watching. We need to promote everything we're doing in a year at the expense and runtime of the show.
01:22:26
Speaker
Speaking of, coming back, Tony talks about the Jim Crockett Senior Memorial Cup Tag Team Tournament and throws to another video package. This one, at least, does not feature a cowboy droning on in front of a campfire. It just goes right to the matches of the last year's cup and shows up some clips. It is far, far too long. Yes. But it is kind of cool to see some of the participants. The sheep herders are there pre-Bushwhacker days.
01:22:51
Speaker
And so is Tiger Mask from Japan. He is, yeah. Who looks awesome. I have never been more glad to hear the Stargate theme in my life, as it means we're back to the actual show that we're watching. These packages together take up a full 10 minutes of the show. Our next batch is back at the Omni and is Big Bubba Rogers with Jim Cornette versus Ron Garvin in a Louisville street fight.
01:23:20
Speaker
What is a Louisville street fight? It's a street fight. I don't know. That involves Louisville somehow. Planes. If they use a bat or something that would make sense. It would make sense, yeah. Big Bubba Rodgers, of course, is much more famous as the big boss man in the WWF. He is very, very new here. He's only been wrestling for about a year. Yes. Ron Garvin, of course, is much more famous to us anyway as Miss Atlanta Lively from Starrcade85.
01:23:49
Speaker
Yep, that's true. I think Bill Rogers is really new. He actually came into JCP under, that's not his actual name. Was a generic enhancement talent. He comes out and gets beat up by Ron Garvin and such. That's he wrote, saw him recognize what he thought was spark of talent, quickly pulled him off TV, and then brought him back in as the bodyguard for Jim Cornette.
01:24:12
Speaker
So kind of like how we've had the Paul Jones Army thing, we've had people around Coronet and even Express feuding each other. So that's where that comes in. Ron Garvin wants to get his hands on Coronet, so his bodyguard fights him and that's what we have to match now. John, I have to ask you, was Big Bubba Roger's theme your favorite theme of the night?
01:24:35
Speaker
Yes. I mean, the Peter Gunn theme, the bastardized version or whatever. Yeah. I wonder if they would just change it just enough to get copyright issues. Oh, yeah. That's something they will do many times over the years. Yeah. I was thinking the moment that I came, I was like, this sounds so Blues Brothers. He even kind of looked at it with the hat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He looks either Blues Brothers or the boss's big tough thug from any random 80s action movie. Yeah.
01:25:05
Speaker
No, I picked it up right away. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was a pretty good look that Bubba had with the full outfit on. Oh, yeah, for sure. Jim Cornette, of course, gives his intro. So a Louisville street fight is a street fight where you can lose by pinfall or 10 count. Ron Peppers Bubba with punches to start and Bubba can't get his hands on him. Eventually he does and he chucks Ron outside. Cornette claims that Ron was trying to run away.
01:25:34
Speaker
Bubba throws Ron out a second time after some big clubbing strikes, so Ron grabs a drink from the announce table and throws it in Bubba's face to blind him and get a long series of punches in. Cornette hands Bubba a roll of coins, and Bubba eventually gets a chance to use it. That earns an 8 count before Ron's up, so Bubba knocks him right back down for another, then body slams and splashes Ron for a 2 count pin attempt and an 8 count again.
01:25:59
Speaker
Ron grabs a rope and chokes Bubba, then tries to tie him up. Bubba gets free and catches Ron with strikes and a lifting bear hug, which they work around for a bit. Tony tells us he's never witnessed such a brutal, violent match for a long time. Is a year really that long? Magnum versus Tony. You can't have forgotten, Tony. Only matches seems one bleeding from the arm.
01:26:24
Speaker
I think that's every single match that Bray Wyatt's in because of his confusing arm tattoo, but... Yes. There's a problem. Ron gets free via headbutts, and both are bleeding as Ron punches Bubba out of the ring. Cornette yells, Bubba, fight back! Bubba obliges, and Daze is Ron with a knee strike and throws him back in the ring, but he's too slow going up to the top turnbuckle and he gets hurled off. Ron gets a one count on a pin attempt, and Bubba hurls him off on top of ref Tommie Young, who passes out.
01:26:54
Speaker
Ron hits, the scariest pile driver I have ever seen, on Bubba, but Cornette nails him with the tennis racket. Young wakes up, and he starts counting. Young reaches 10 with both down, and declares that there must be a winner so the first man to his feet wins the match.
01:27:10
Speaker
Cornette gets in to encourage Bubba, but gets in Young's face and gets shoved down. So he rolls out, and Ron starts to regain consciousness, but as he gets up, Bubba grabs Young's arm to stop him from seeing, and Cornette nails Ron in the leg with the racket to knock him back down. Bubba gets up and wins the match. Post-match, Cornette flees with Bubba, and we get a replay of the Piledriver I never wanted to see again in my life, and Cornette elaborately loading the tennis racket and then smacking Ron with the racket.
01:27:39
Speaker
Honestly, I liked it a lot better than I thought I was going to. I mean, reading there's a street fight between Ron Garvin and Big Bubba thinking, oh, geez, this is gonna be real slow in plotting. This will be really interesting. There's enough little touches in there, like the drink throwing and moves they do that I think definitely benefit from Ron Garvin being the other person in the match. Because Bubba is there because he has this sort of presence and he can do a couple of moves that you wouldn't expect him to do. You obviously get more of that later when he starts doing spin kicks, which is pretty impressive.
01:28:08
Speaker
in doing more arrow moves. But yeah, it kind of worked for me in a way that some of these other matches where it's the veteran guy and the young impressive guy, they're building up for the future. It worked better for me than some of those did. Okay. I actually, yeah, I mean, and the other thing too is they really gimmick the whole thing up with the finish of them both being down.
01:28:31
Speaker
I will say the Paul Diver is a little scary, and the way I like the build up where he tries to pull him up by the belt, they feel like he really earned the move. I like that, yeah. I just think it looks like it lands maybe a little badly. It doesn't seem to. They seem like they're okay. I've seen some go far, far worse than that. Yeah. But yeah, no, that didn't bother me that much.
01:28:53
Speaker
Well, they protected run Garvin really well there as well with the bolt knocked down and the count and the tractor roof thing. No, I liked a lot better than I thought I was going to do, honestly. It's better an excuse than on paper. All right.
01:29:05
Speaker
I did like the match, although when looking at my notes, I think I was a little more critical of Bubba than I should have been. I mean, Garvin did throw a bunch of punches and Bubba does sell it, you know, I mean, as much as you can, but it looks like he's leaning into every punch. True. And then after he leans into the punch, it doesn't affect him until he decides to sway the other way. But he did a decent job selling it, you know, having that disparity or the difference in size. I'm glad they hugged it out.
01:29:37
Speaker
Towards the end, this is about the point where I was losing consciousness because of sleep deprivation. So the last note I have is Bubba casually exists his way to victory. And that pile driver was pretty impressive. I was not expecting that. OK.
01:29:58
Speaker
I did not particularly like this one. I can definitely see what both of you guys are saying. They do actually quite a lot over the course of the match. For me, it did feel very, very slow. There are points of the match that I really did like. I like the bit where
01:30:18
Speaker
Cornette just, you know, starts yelling at Bubba, fight him, fight him! You know, outside the ring and Bubba does actually just like get a little more intense there and start coming after him some more and all. The crowd seems to be reacting to it well. It just feels like they're trying to build this as like this is a blood-viewed kind of feel to it, but it just doesn't have that. It feels more like two guys just kind of drunkenly brawling.
01:30:42
Speaker
What I will compliment the match on quite a bit is the ending. That ending I think is really, really nicely done. It worked pretty well. I think they time it very nicely with Young being in exactly the right position for Bubba to reach up and grab him at exactly the right moment and Cornette just sneaking around and hitting Ron in the leg with the tennis racket was pretty amusing. Oh, there he is.
01:31:07
Speaker
So if they trim down the rest of the match a little bit, maybe I think I'd like it better, but as it is, it's just, it's kind of a good ending on top of a rather dull match for me.
01:31:18
Speaker
When they could have done, they probably helped your view of it, was if they did what they tried doing with the Dixielator match from 84, where he really wants to get at J.D. Dylan. Yes. And they play up that aspect of it. Now, you don't have to do it too much where you'll stop the match for it, but a time or two where if he's really going after Cornette, maybe, that might sell that story a little more for you. Yeah.
01:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, more Jim Cornette involvement in the match would be no bad thing. Right. The other thing I was going to say is there's a interesting bit of accidental foreshadowing that Jim Cornette helps Big Bubble in a match by attacking the guy's leg. Point. Yes. It's not planned, but it does happen.
01:32:03
Speaker
They basically keep this sort of alliance going. They figure Big Bud was really good with Cornette. He's even on next year's show he's still aligned with Cornette, so they keep it going for a while. After the first War Games match that they have during the Grand American Bash tour,
01:32:20
Speaker
A couple of people were actually injured in that match, the very first one, including Dylan and Rusty Rode, I believe. So they sub people out for the later ones, sort of let them ease into it. And at one point they subbed out Dylan for a masked wrestler called War Machine, who sadly not in full Ironman armor, but he is Big Bubba. That's cool. I can see him being pretty good in one of those actually, even at this stage in his career.
01:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, so he's out to look for it in ASO, and he gets to be in WarGames. Yeah. Yeah. And for him. Now we go back to the Coliseum for Tully Blanchard with JJ Dillon versus Dusty Rhodes in a first blood match for Dusty's NWA World Television Championship. Tully is the first of the four horsemen faction to have a match tonight. So at this point, I think we should take a moment to kind of discuss them a bit. Sure.
01:33:18
Speaker
Formed in late 1985, the group of Arn Anderson, Ole Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and Rick Flair began going by the name Four Horsemen, referencing, of course, the biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Managed by J.J. Dhillon, they are a huge part of the year 1986, and they're generally focused on keeping the title around Flair's waist by injuring anyone who might be coming after him and cheating in his matches.
01:33:42
Speaker
There are many incarnations of the group throughout the time that we're covering with many different members. The flair is pretty constant and Arne is in nearly everyone. It's one of the most famous factions that were clever. And despite its villainous origins, it kind of becomes a symbol of WCW's history and tradition as the years go on. I also have to mention, it has one of my personal favorite wrestling entrance themes in the mid-90s. It's this beautiful, like,
01:34:11
Speaker
dark guitar solo type of thing. It's really a cool theme. I will also mention that the Forestmen are currently the only faction inducted in the hall of fame as a group. DX and the people are not in the hall of fame yet, but Forestmen are officially in the hall of fame. Oh, interesting. That's how Rick plays the two time hall of famer. He has one himself, one with the Forestmen. Cool.
01:34:36
Speaker
So as you mentioned, the forestmen were a big part of this. Dusty's constantly throwing their side and they're throwing his. Dusty is essentially put in this spot where he's fighting the forestmen but he's not fighting Flare. With the one exception though the year and other parts like that. So he's there, it's like the sort of backbone of the undercarve you will of the forestmen. In the buildup to this they had Dusty loses cool and attack Tully's leg dramatically.
01:35:05
Speaker
And in return, they do a really weird bit where it's, they try to make it feel very real. So it's like, it's filmed, like handheld camera by, I assume, Tully or someone else in the car. And then I drive up to where Dusty's showing up at studio and attack him. And they do a bit where they like hold his hand still, and they both be hitting with a chair or some sort of object. And when the camera goes to the counter, they just black it out and implying it's like covered in blood or like bone or something, which probably means nothing actually happened to his hand.
01:35:34
Speaker
So, that's now the TV title champion they're fighting over that. We get purple smoke and blue lighting, and the ever-present Starrcade theme welcomes Tully Blanchard, his wonderful black and silver robe, and JJ Dillon to the ring. Dillon gives Tully some advice as they wait. Then we cut backstage, and some country rock music starts up, as Dusty's locker room door finally opens and he marches down the hallways backstage on his way to the ring.
01:36:00
Speaker
We get more smoke as he comes out. We get a good shot of the side of his face as the fans erupt, and we see that he's written Tully above each ear. That's a little odd, but nicely he's wearing a Magnum TA t-shirt in tribute. That's pretty awesome of him, I gotta say. So this is a first blood match. The first person to bleed loses.
01:36:22
Speaker
JJ Dhillon tries putting some head protection on Blanchard, but Dusty catches him and Hebner makes him take it off. So instead, Dhillon slathers Vaseline all over Blanchard's face. Hebner wipes it off. Dhillon makes the mistake of going to yell at Dusty and gets the bionic elbow as a reward. It gets him bleeding. I thought that was a good way to sell how dangerous that move could be for Tully in the match. We see it draw blood immediately after being hit, so we know if Dusty hits it just right, that could be all over for Tully.
01:36:53
Speaker
The crowd chants for Dusty as they circle. They're tentative to start, each knowing that a single blow in the right place could end the match. Eventually Tully gets Dusty into a corner, Dusty goes for the elbow, and Tully runs. Tully keeps trying to advance in various ways, but Dusty, clearly enjoying himself, keeps putting the elbow up and Tully scampers away every time, even finally rolling out of the ring on a particularly close call.
01:37:17
Speaker
A headbutt from Dusty gets Ref Earl having to check both men, but no one's bleeding yet. Dusty gets Tully in the corner for some strikes, but Tully skillfully protects his head so only lower chops land. Tully tries a leg takedown, and Dusty lands the elbow, but doesn't get Tully quite right.
01:37:34
Speaker
Dusty gets mega cheers for grabbing Tully's leg and drops a couple elbows before going after Tully's face again. Tully rolls out and tries a wild uppercut when he gets back in. Getting Dusty down, he claws at Dusty's face, but Dusty fights free and lands a massive, swinging double axe handle that sends Tully end over end. Dusty smashes Tully into the turnbuckle, but Dylan grabs Dusty's leg to trip him into Hebner, knocking Hebner down.
01:37:59
Speaker
Dylan tosses Tully his shoe, that most deadly of weapons, and Tully jumps off the turnbuckle with it, but Dusty catches him and suplexes him, right into poor Hebner. Dusty grabs the shoe but tosses the deadly weapon aside and hits the elbow instead, then pounds on Tully's forehead with punches, getting him bleeding, but the ref's out. Dylan quickly wipes Tully off, applies Vaseline, and hands him a roll of coins, and Tully slugs Dusty with the coins to get him bleeding.
01:38:27
Speaker
Dusty falls by Habner, who wakes up, sees him bleeding, and rings the bell. Dusty howls in anger as Tully scampers with Dylan. Dusty tries to explain to Habner that Habner doesn't agree, and Dusty shoves him out of the ring. So, I'm of two minds on this. During this pure laser match, it's really not that good, because they stall, and they stall, and they stall. They only do a few moves, really,
01:38:54
Speaker
On the other hand, it's 100% strong story. So it's really a good way to use Dusty at this point, because I'm not saying he can't wrestle at this point, obviously he can. He wrestles for like six more years after this, but it's clear at this point, he's starting to get a little more limited, but he can do longevity wise, like, you know, longer the match goes, the harder it gets for him. And ultimately, so he's getting older and he's a bigger guy, which is how that works.
01:39:22
Speaker
So it's a good way to use him, but yes, I can't quite agree with myself on whether it's good or not. That's kind of the way it is, because it's so overly worked and prepared and gimmicked that I shouldn't like it. But it's everything they do is done so well that I can't really hate it either. Yeah. So I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that 100% at any given time. I kind of sway back and forth.
01:39:47
Speaker
Dusty has grown. He looks like a little bit of Rodney Dangerfield at this point. I like, but it shows in his wrestling too. Like he throws totally around like a ragdoll a few times in the thing. It's just like, okay, well, there's some power behind this and some weight.
01:40:08
Speaker
I don't know if I like the ending because I
Critiques on Pacing and Show Dynamics
01:40:11
Speaker
wrote down Tully hits him with JJ's paymaker and I think the ref getting knocked down could have been sold a little bit better. Because he just flops and grazes the ref and he's hurt, he's hurt. But the suplex right after that was done well.
01:40:36
Speaker
For me, this was simple, but it was a lot of fun. Dusty and Tully are both great characters, so is JJ Dillon, and like you said, there's a really, really strong story to the match. If Dusty gets a solid hit with the elbow, it's all over. But there's still enough room for a twist, and they execute the twist pretty well, I think, overall.
01:40:54
Speaker
There's some neat spots in the match. I really liked Dusty catching Tully out of the corner and transitioning into the suplex. That was really cool. And the spots with the dodging around the elbow strike at the beginning were really funny and some great storytelling and Dusty clearly having a good time doing it. So they knew what they had to get across and they got what they had to get across across.
01:41:19
Speaker
Even if there's not a lot of complexity to this, it feels like a good focus match that's really easy to enjoy for me.
01:41:27
Speaker
Yeah, they could have done this match without the first blood assimilation and maybe just sold that Dusty's gotten so good that by now we can knock you out if he hits you right. I could see that too. And so you have to make matches, make it a regular match and you can have all the same stuff happen but you don't have to constantly checking for blood, you don't have all the silly stuff they do, which is, again, it works but it is silly.
01:41:52
Speaker
Yeah, it is, but for me, that was actually part of the fun of this one though. I think first blood matches are a little bit silly, so if you're doing one, just kind of lean into it a bit, and they did. It sounds weird to say a match where your goal is to make someone bleed is silly, but I mean, making someone bleed happens in every wrestling match, so the fact that you're making it your goal in this one is a little goofy.
01:42:16
Speaker
They really kind of leaned into it and played around with the idea and did the Vaseline thing and the headgear thing and the dodging around the elbow and all this stuff. So it all worked pretty well to me. I guess I had the same question about this. So they had the strap match. Is it no DQ? I think with this one, it actually Dylan's not.
01:42:37
Speaker
Entirely healthy after the beginning of it. So it makes a little more sense that he doesn't jump in No, I get that part. Yeah, but I make a point of doing the silver dollar point, but it's somehow super effective Yeah, D while the ref down and of course they mentioned the previous match and they do it with cornet You do that and the whole they spill over the ring and they're after my doesn't notice this it's kind of funny so if it is nobody if it is a DQ match you can be like wait, I
01:43:03
Speaker
What are these coins doing? I would assume it's first blood and no DQ then, but yeah. So the ref bumps there, so they're going to see the initial bleeding. I get that. It still makes sense why they need the ref bump in this one rather than like whip and chain bit in the earlier match. It's like, why does the ref have to not see that as blatantly no DQ or this one? If he sees Tully bleeding, then Tully loses the match. So of course you want to bump the ref still.
01:43:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm torn this match because it's so much stalling and so much silliness to what should be, we would think it'd be a serious match between Deseras and Play Blanchard rather. And over one of their big titles as well. Yeah. But I don't hate it, like I said, I'm torn on it. Yeah. It's controversial.
01:43:52
Speaker
Sure. I thought the ref was going to check Tully. Like, you know, when he's stumbling back away. Yeah. I thought they was going to check and make sure that he's like, oh, there's blood. Obviously, I mean, they sell that pretty strongly. Dylan also hustles him out of the ring really fast. He doesn't even let the ref have time to see if Tully was bleeding first.
01:44:13
Speaker
Obviously, it's not a common thing, but the last time we saw a teleplanter was that match with M.T.A., where he's bleeding from the arm. Yes. But yeah, this match is all, don't hit the head, because there's a whole place you can bleed from, apparently. Yeah. And clearly, he can bleed from the arm when he did that last show. Yep. But I'm also glad that's not a regular thing people do. Yes. It's just funny, because it's the same guy that it happened to, but now they act like it can happen.
01:44:37
Speaker
Dusty keeps feeding with the Four Horsemen, and that leads into War Games at Next American Bash. Ah, okay. Our next match is back at the Omni. This is the match that the show was named for, the Skywalkers match. We have the Legion of Doom, the Road Warriors, Hawk and Animal, with Paul Ellering, versus the Midnight Express, beautiful Bobby Eaton and loverboy Dennis Condrey, with Jim Cornette and Big Bubba Rogers.
01:45:07
Speaker
in a Skywalker's match, which is a scaffold match. Have I mentioned that I'm afraid of heights? Yes.
01:45:19
Speaker
come in day six, the World Warriors have come in and they are a scary team everywhere they go. They went the AWA, they gone through every promotion up until this point, except the BF where they'll go to in a couple of years. And so Cornet has the Express attack them outside of the ring, basically to ward off the threat coming from the future. They of course recover, then surround the show, and they decided to have the Skywalkers match.
01:45:46
Speaker
having a very bizarre problem where they walk around in normal clothes, but with their face paint on. As one does. As one does, yes. At a construction site where they crawl up a scaffold and start dropping watermelons and pumpkins off with the thing to show the danger of falling. Okay. It also leads to some really funny bits where Jim Cornette is telling you not to chant. You being the live audience, that is.
01:46:15
Speaker
which is intentionally done so they will chant it. Well, of course, yeah. I've seen him do, he does it a couple of times in the buildup. He goes, you know, everywhere I go, people can call me Watermelon Head because of that, because of that video package. And I don't want people doing that. I don't want people calling me Watermelon Head, like accenting it. And sure enough, they start doing it after he says it. Surprise, surprise. Yeah. But there's, but like before he does it in the promo, no one was doing it. They can stop doing that thing that you're about to do now. It's just kind of funny.
01:46:42
Speaker
they would kind of hand out signs to like the people in the audience that say watermelon head or how like drawings exactly yeah he also had a video package run where
01:46:55
Speaker
He in the buildup said, I'm going to show you my guys doing all these great moves. They're going to look out. I'm not going to prove they're not scared of it. And of course the video they play is them being scared to climb up it and then not want to go up there and everything. He even complains about how he, his mother paid all this money to buy a scaffold and use this time and empty studio to do it. He then, after they run the video package says, well, they didn't show the part afterwards. They started doing all the moves and I run that next week. And surprise, surprise. He did not run that video next week.
01:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, Cornette is a great like BS manager that all it just is wonderful So not surprised he had some good good bits leading up to this. He's the best part of the build-up for sure We get more laser lights as the Midnight Express make their entrance Dennis Condrey has dressed as America But the crowd still booze nice try
01:47:53
Speaker
Very awesome 80s rock music starts up that sounds like a Mega Man stage theme. And it welcomes the Road Warriors as Pyro goes off behind them. I'm not sure if this theme is dubbed in or not, because I've heard at some point that they were using Iron Man for their theme. So I could see you needing to dub that out if they were using it at this point, but maybe they'd stop by now. Yeah, if you could find a video of this that's not from the WWE Network, we could tell. Yeah, yeah.
01:48:21
Speaker
They march down to the ring and they climb right up the scaffold. Unsettlingly, Animal breaks apart of its barricade when he gets up top. They chuck their entrance gear down off the scaffold and they beckon the express up. This continues for a while. Animal takes the time to repair the barricade a little, thankfully.
01:48:41
Speaker
Well, let's be fair, you're saying barricade like it's like a wall, but it's actually, yeah, it's fourth and pieces of metal sort of hooked together. Yeah. Around the edge. PVC pipe. Yeah. I was being generous saying miles, sorry. Yeah. Small guard rail. Yeah, there you go. Yes. Meanwhile, the referees try to encourage the Express to climb up, and Cornette gives up on doing his ring intros this time and lets Tony do it.
01:49:06
Speaker
Condrine tentatively starts up, but sees the road warriors and starts climbing back down. Cornette encourages him to go up, and Eaton starts to go up after him. Condrine gets up towards the top and refuses to get on, as Cornette goes over and yells at Tony about this match being insane and stupid and ridiculous. Condrine and Eaton finally do get up top. Hawk and Animal immediately make the scaffold shake, and the Express dive to the scaffold floor to hold on.
01:49:31
Speaker
The match proper starts with them parrying off and brawling, and that's pretty much how things go for a while. They gingerly step around, careful of their footing, and land punches and careful stomps and stay very, very close to the handrails at all times. Condrey gets powder and blinds Hawk, and Eaton does the same to Animal as Cornette celebrates and taunts the announcers.
01:49:53
Speaker
The Express take control, and Condrey nearly pushes Hawk off, while Eaton struggles to do the same to Animal. Animal fights back, and Eaton briefly hangs from his leg before he gets hold of the lower part of the scaffold. The Road Warriors fight back, and everyone's back up top for more brawling. Eaton and Condrey bleed.
01:50:12
Speaker
Condrey tries to crawl down and Hawk pursues. Eaton goes to help and Animal goes after Eaton. Everybody ends up hanging from the underside of the scaffold and Eaton tries to climb across to get at Hawk. But Hawk knocks Condrey down and Animal kicks Eaton down and both land on the map below, giving the Legion of Doom the win. Post-match Bubba comes over to check on Eaton and Condrey
01:50:37
Speaker
And Cornet goes after Ellering, but Ellering gets his racket. Cornet flees up the scaffold, and Ellering follows, and Animal is still up top. Cornet hangs on the scaffold for dear life, and Animal shuffles him off the side and leaves him hanging. He drops, and Bubba is clearly supposed to catch him, but misses.
01:50:59
Speaker
Cornet lands badly and his legs give out, and Bubba and Eaton help carry him out as Cornet lets them know that his knee is hurt and that they'll need to carry him. By my understanding, Cornet tore every ligament in one knee, damaged the cartilage, and broke a bone. The way Cornet tells it, Bubba at first didn't realize he was actually hurt and not just selling. Cornet is helped out of the arena by Bubba and Eaton, and you can hear his pain cries loud and clear.
01:51:26
Speaker
From my understanding, what happened is that Bubba is supposed to catch him, but he's wearing these dark sunglasses as part of his gimmick, and he just literally can't see where Cornet is. So he doesn't actually see when he falls and only realizes that he's not in the right place as Cornet hits the ground, basically. Yeah. So. I mean, it's barely a match. It's mostly just the spectacle of will they climb and who will fall and when will they fall?
01:51:58
Speaker
I mean, I didn't love last year's previous match where it was this four people fighting and everyone bleeding and the one guy in drag for no apparent reason with them and I express, but this wasn't exactly the follow-up I was expecting. I was expecting like a rock and roll express, the express kind of match. But instead I'm getting that brawl from last year's show. And then this where they are scared to fall off a scaffold, which they should be as cornet proves later.
01:52:26
Speaker
So there's really not much match to talk about. It's them awkwardly standing there. Road Warrior Hawk had apparently had a minor break of his leg before the match even started. Oh my gosh. You could not have told, you know, tell that. No. He crawls, goes right up that ladder and seems probably steady. Yeah, he has no trouble. I was looking for it. Yeah. I was looking for anything, any sign. I couldn't see anything. Interesting. If I hadn't been told, I would not have believed his leg was broken. Wow. Fractured or broken?
01:52:55
Speaker
I'm not sure the extent. Obviously it was enough that he was walking around on it, but yeah, it was bad. Yeah. I liked it. Yeah.
01:53:06
Speaker
No, I mean, like the, especially the part where they're, um, they're going underneath the scaffolding and they're fighting on the, the actual ladders on the sides. I don't think I've seen a match like that before. You know, it's not a traditional ladder match. I was hoping, uh, Hawk would start yelling in the beginning, like a, like an actual Hawk, uh, cause that would be something that he would do. Yeah. And I'm just sorry that, you know, that, that, uh, some injuries were had.
01:53:34
Speaker
yeah i was kind of wondering when we were watching this whether this would be one that you'd end up liking because it is a very different match definitely so it kind of hit you that way of the this is something that i don't normally get to see kind of spectacle huh
01:53:50
Speaker
yeah that and like you know i can understand why some people you know this is what sold probably sold a bunch of tickets i don't think i've seen anything like that i think i like it better than a cage match personally but that's that's just me because it's there's it's open you know you like if a cage match if you knock someone over like there's cages bigger than the entire ring so there's less danger there um you can find more foothold or handholds and uh
01:54:19
Speaker
I was hoping they would do like the whole monkey bar thing at the end. Like I had to do his face the other way and they could, you know, make one of those. What were those toys that have like the four balls? Oh, the perpetual motion machines. Little kinetic sculpture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been hilarious. Give it a few years when this turns into like a comedy match or something and maybe we'll do it. I mean, it was just interesting for me. Yeah.
01:54:50
Speaker
Again, I also like Legion of Doom, so... Yeah, those guys are pretty awesome. No, it's not. Yeah, it's rentable. Sure. So, for my part, yeah, I can't say that I actually enjoyed watching this. I can say I was excited or rather terrified, I guess would be the more appropriate word. I'm deathly afraid of heights, so just the thought of this match got my heart pounding a mile a minute.
01:55:15
Speaker
As far as the match itself, Cornette's antics up until his fall are great, but as a match, I felt it was pretty slow-paced and pretty boring if you could overlook the fact that stepping even slightly wrong could send someone falling quite literally to their death. They understandably can't do much up there, and they have to be really, really careful with every single move that they make, so I can't blame anyone here for how slow the match is and how little happens in it, really.
01:55:42
Speaker
For me, it was just this weird mix of utterly boring and mind-bogglingly terrifying. And if I never see another scaffold match, it'll be too soon. Unfortunately, I know this won't be the only one I have to watch for this show. In fact, I think there's one on the very next Stargate. Well, I get why you say it was boring, though, because I think that the first three minutes of the match, you could tell that everyone involved was acclimating.
01:56:09
Speaker
Yeah, they're all you're going to get in a scaffold match is them walking side to side on the scaffold and punching each other. And there might be like one big spot where they do the dangling or something like that. But that's just for me. Like if I'm looking at it as
01:56:26
Speaker
a spectacle and as a, oh my gosh, what would it actually be like to be up there? I can muster some not interest so much as fear, but if I'm looking at it purely as a, what can they actually do in a match? I feel like I have doubts that any scaffold match that I ever watch will be different from this.
01:56:48
Speaker
I do agree the ending spot is pretty cool. Them dangling underneath it and swinging back and forth and fighting. That looked really neat and probably was also the safest way that they could have done the falls to end the match as it gets the height lower and lets you kind of swing yourself out and land as I've seen stuntmen land in training and all. Yeah, tuck your legs and tuck your head forward. Extend the duration of the fall. Yeah.
01:57:16
Speaker
doesn't work out so well for cornet but two out of three i guess the legs just bent the wrong way i do love that cornet acts like a teenage girl in a slasher film that he runs up he had to go upstairs in this case up scaffold to the spot where you definitely can't escape yeah and he has way more opportunity to escape than they do in those movies
01:57:38
Speaker
It's extra funny that a grown adult man thinks that's the best plan. Yeah. Yeah, poor Cornette. This is one of those moments where I really was really glad that I knew in advance that a guy went on to have a long career because as bad as that fall was, it could have been even worse easily.
01:57:53
Speaker
Hmm. I just realized something. The other really bad leg thing is as a seditious thing. Well, it'll be a while. Yes. But this is in 2001. Yeah. But anyways, that happened during a match where the reveal of the end is who the masked person is, his Broadway animal. Yep. So we have two, two graphic, that was more visually graphic, but they're both really bad. Leg injuries and dose debut shows both or animals connected with thread. All right. It's all up. It's all his fault. It's weird, man.
01:58:23
Speaker
I think Hawk actually came to our school, Bobby. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I forget which class it was, but he did like a little inspirational thing for like, you know, the period. Time wise, that wouldn't make sense. That's cool. Yeah. I don't, I didn't remember that myself, but I think, I think you're right on that. That makes sense. Time wise, cause that's around the time he, he's trying to turn his life around. Yeah. So I could see why he'd be doing that kind of stuff. Probably probably lived in the area at the time. Yeah.
01:58:51
Speaker
Early in 1887, the Manette Express is doing just well except for Jim Carr's leg, obviously. And then abruptly for taping, Dennis Connery doesn't show up.
01:59:02
Speaker
And he doesn't ever show up again. Well, at least 90 times soon. So they bring in a new guy to replace him, which we will see in the next arcade. All right. The road warriors also following this match ended up as part of the four horse members, everybody else feud, and they are in the first board game match as well. Okay. I can only imagine that's kind of awesome. Yeah.
01:59:27
Speaker
Back to Tony, and he tells us that there will be another Great American Bash next year, and we cut to yet another video showing highlights from Great American Bash 86. The guy doing this video sounds exactly like a 1940s advertising announcer. It's not a particularly good collection of clips, and it lingers on each bit for far too long. Do like five or ten seconds for each batch, guys. The coolest moment's not a whole dang section.
01:59:54
Speaker
Having this, I also have to say, kind of confuses things because we get to see Dusty win the title at Great American Bash 86, but then flares the champion tonight and we don't get any video coverage or explanation of what happened. That's true. They come back from the video and Tony announces another intermission. Then we come back with the credits.
02:00:21
Speaker
It shows over, guys. Yeah, if only. Close it up. With two more matches to go, they're doing the credits. They've unlearned the lessons they learned at Starrcade83. Altogether, video and credits eat up about another eight minutes between the matches. Yeah. I feel like 80, but most of the video package. Yeah, yeah.
02:00:46
Speaker
He keeps getting virtual runnels in the credits though. I don't know who he is, but he must be doing a lot backstage. Our next match is back at the Coliseum, and we get the Rock and Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, versus the Anderson Brothers, Ollie and Arne, in a steel cage match for the Express's NWA World Tag Team Championship. Save me from the evil video packages, Arne.
02:01:14
Speaker
following a tumultuous period where a bunch of people fight other tag titles, include them in Express and 86, that has eventually to go back to
02:01:23
Speaker
Ricky Morton and then company back in August. So they've been champions August through November at this point. And obviously the Anderson's are the big tag team portion of the four horsemen. And they express in one promo, I think, before this match, some point in the show, their goal is to get every single title they can and both hold them and to keep them.
02:01:46
Speaker
So that's basically all you need to know is that the Rockwell Express have the titles and the fourth one will have every title. So they got to fight. Okay.
02:01:56
Speaker
It's unclear if this is no DQ or not. I don't recall it actually being mentioned, and no one really acts like it is, so I assume this is another one of those odd cage matches fought under normal tag rules where disqualifications do somehow apply. Those kind of stop happening later, but I guess they're actually kind of a thing around this time, judging from some of our earlier year stuff as well. I guess so.
02:02:18
Speaker
Olie and Gibson start, and it goes pretty well for Gibson despite some early double team attempts by the Andersons. He fights each of them in turn and does well, and the teams trade off a bit in different combinations with the express generally dominating, until Arne dodges out the corner as Gibson comes in with a jumping knee strike and Gibson rams his own knee into the cage.
02:02:37
Speaker
Arne starts abusing Gibson's leg with Rams into the cage, and he and Oli trade off with a variety of leg holds, stomps, leg drops, kicks, and slams, all targeted at Gibson's legs. Gibson gets occasional flashes of offense, but whenever he knocks Arne or Oli down, they just keep hold of his leg with one hand and tag their partner with the other as smooth as can be.
02:02:57
Speaker
Arne yells taunts at Morton, but Gibson finally manages to escape with an enziguri kick to Arne's face, and commando rolls out of the way of Arne's grab when Arne goes for his leg, and he gets the tag to Morton. Morton comes in with a lot of fire, but a tag to Ole stops that, as Ole kicks him in the gut and flings him hard into the cage. Twice. The Andersons methodically pick Morton apart, repeatedly injuring the head and face to get him dazed and bloodied, and then laying in a herding on his arm in every way they know how.
02:03:25
Speaker
The drag Morton around the ring and bad away his comeback attempts, and anytime Morton does land a good hit, a nice DDT being the standout, the other interesting comes in and puts a stop to that right away, and lays in even more of a hurting. A hammerlock slam, a vicious shoulder breaker, and some nasty arm locks for Moly, and Arne's absolutely beautiful spine buster, leave Morton laying.
02:03:47
Speaker
and if he ever finds a moment free, he doesn't have enough energy to even get to his corner. He drags himself over bit by bit, but an Anderson is always there to stop him, sometimes inches from the tag. Finally, Morton manages to desperately land a series of punches on Ole and get him wobbling, but Ole just fires back with a knee strike. But Morton rolls Ole up for two, which brings Arne in for the save. Gibson lunges in to fight Arne, and lands some blows in the corner to knock him down, while Ole picks Morton up for a body slam.
02:04:15
Speaker
As he does, Gibson turns and lands a dropkick, knocking Ole over with Morton on top of him, and the ref counts three. Post-match, the Andersons, enraged, beat up Gibson and Morton, and ran Morton into the cage again, but the Express escaped through the cage door and walk off, wounded but celebrating their victory.
02:04:34
Speaker
So I really liked this one a lot. Last year, we obviously had a tag title match in Decade with the Rockwell Express against the Russian team, which was in Ivan and Nikita, which was good. I definitely liked that match. But for me, this is the better version of that match because it's taken away from that other match. But there's a little weak point here and there in Nikita and Ivan's game from one another, whether it's aid, experience, what have you.
02:05:00
Speaker
there's really not a lot of hole anywhere in the game plan of aren't in only. So they really do the dynamic of stop the tag, control him. Even though he's fighting you, you keep fighting him and you can methodical and surgical strikes on limbs is amazing to watch. Obviously the spine buster is beautiful as always.
02:05:23
Speaker
If you're going to tell someone about 80s tag wrestling and you're explaining the idea that you always have the face and peril, some have often just the one back and forth express member as the cliche goes. Yeah. Playing, playing Ricky Morton is the expression that some people use for that. Yes. If you need, if you want to tell somebody how those matches go and you say, what match should I watch? It's this one. That's high praise. Yeah. So they.
02:05:50
Speaker
I like to watch the Andersons work. They do really good. I mean, it's seamless for most of the match. There's always a certain intensity to them as well as skill level. So that always races the bar just going in. You know what to expect. Ricky, I don't know. I kind of felt sorry for him. Yeah. And I think that was the point.
02:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. That's what he's good at, is getting your sympathy. Yeah, but it was a good match. I gotta ask you guys, because we actually see both Rock and Roll Express members in trouble in this match. We see Gibson at the beginning of it and then they transition to Morton. Morton is obviously the more famous of the members for doing the in trouble spot. Do you agree that he does it better or do you feel like
02:06:41
Speaker
I liked Gibson, but he did just fine. The key is how much you keep fighting. Because if someone's just beating you up and you just sort of lay there and get thrown around, there's no dynamic to it. But you have to have a little bit where you try to kick, or you try to get up away, and they always stop you. And that's what the Rock and Roll Express obviously got down from experience. In fact, they are literally suppressing today, mostly because one of them has quite a bit of almighty payoff, unfortunately.
02:07:07
Speaker
But yeah, I imagine they're not as crisp and smooth anymore 32 years later, but they do still the same act. Yeah. Cause it works. You just got to throw a bunch of right hands. Just keep throwing them. That's how you know they're fighting. You're fighting back.
02:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I mean, you've got probably the best face and peril tag team in the history of wrestling facing off against probably the best target and control and opponent tag team in the history of wrestling. There's no way this is going to suck. You know, yeah, this is like you said.
02:07:45
Speaker
This is a tag match that's like the example of what 80s tag wrestling should be. This is a tag match that I hope modern tag teams study because it is a master class in both sides of a tag match.
02:07:57
Speaker
Arne and Oli have gotten even better at smoothly keeping control of a match and tagging in and out without ever letting an opponent have a second free, and they lay down an impressive hurting on both Express over the course of the match in vastly different ways. The Express, meanwhile, are exciting in pullout, really quick snappy moves, the beautiful Enzaguri from Gibson in particular.
02:08:18
Speaker
And they do an amazing job of selling the beating while still keeping viewers convinced that if they can just make that tag, everything could turn around. Morton in particular is brilliant, I think, in this one. He constantly seems a split second from making the tag, but times his movement around the ring just right to not quite make it there in time.
02:08:38
Speaker
There's an arc to it, to like getting your hand out there just about to make the tag and knowing that your opponent's going to be able to interrupt you in time still. And he's the master. The ending was a surprise for me, but the good kind. I like that the express didn't actually manage a real comeback from the beat down. They just managed to surprise the Andersons to get the win.
02:09:04
Speaker
It was a good way to honor the story of the match so the faces didn't seem like Superman, but they were just smart and savvy enough to win the battle anyway. The slow motion post match shows Gibson still selling the leg injury during the pinfall too, which is awesome. That is nice. Yeah, this was a tremendous match. My complaints about is this or is this not a no DQ match aside with the cage match thing. That's like the only bad thing I can say about this. It's brilliant.
02:09:34
Speaker
Yeah, I can't disagree. Good acting on all ends. Yeah.
02:09:39
Speaker
And I thought I would also like to actually compliment the camera work. Okay. Which is a first. Maybe, yeah. Some of it looked really cinematic. They were doing ground up shots so you could get everyone in full view. You could see where all their hands and what the next hole was going. And they knew to get close enough to the mesh, so it looked like it was a shot from inside the cage. True.
02:10:05
Speaker
And when they were getting to the points where they were putting their head, you know, pushing them up against the cage, they knew to pull back just enough and already had it focused on the cage because they knew the face or whatever was going to be pressed up against it before the shot hits there, so.
02:10:21
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't really think about that during this, but I guess the fact that I wasn't thinking about the camera work is an indication of how the camera work was actually good during this one. And they do a good job of picking the right hammer angle for a lot of spots where you don't get to see what the person's doing to protect themselves from it. It just looks like a really hard hit. And they didn't resort to the giant pan where it's got the entire cage in the audience the whole time.
02:10:50
Speaker
Oh, no. Yeah. And the only reason why I remember that the camera works so vividly is there's one spot where one of the Anderson brothers has like an arm lock on him or something like that. And they have it like there's a it's a diamond and it has both their faces in the points of the diamond as it zooms in and then eventually the cage goes away. It just it looked like it was planned. Yeah, they actually thought it out a little more. That's nice.
02:11:19
Speaker
Good point. Yeah, I get that. In 1987, Ollie retires from wrestling, at least somewhat. He comes back a little bit later. So we have an opening of The Four Horsemen that will be filled during the year. And Bob knows who it is, but I won't pull up for John yet. The other story about it is, so I mentioned after his match, that Rick Wood leaves for WF in April. Between this show and that exit,
02:11:46
Speaker
Many of her nettas and Rick fruit were the tag team champions. So you're wondering, how do they handle that?
02:11:53
Speaker
He didn't, apparently didn't give him enough notice that they really had him lose title a week or two in advance and he's gone. They instead, what they do is they took a match between the Rock and Roll Express and them, which ended in a non-finish because it was taped weeks ago and didn't have the title change. That wasn't, it only wasn't planned for all Quiet Ways Out. They just ran that as if that was a new match and then said the Rooker was injured during that match.
02:12:23
Speaker
And the Rock and Roll Express got the tag titles back. That's funny. See ya. Our final match is at the Omni, and it's Ric Flair versus Nikita Koloff for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship. But yes, as we mentioned before, there's the car accident, which derails the match that was planned. So in the quick buildup, what they do is
02:12:52
Speaker
with storyline both Tully and Dusty being injured, they book a handicap match where it's Tully and Jay Dylan in a cage match against Dusty Rhodes, and if he loses, he's not gonna be a Starkade. That's what they frame, I guess they mean it's a title match, they don't say that, but they say if he loses, he's not gonna be a Starkade, so I assume that's what that means. They never clarify that.
02:13:16
Speaker
So he comes out for his match while they were in the cage. And he's walking in the ring. And behind him is clearly Nikita Koloff. You know, he's six foot six. He did not blend into a room. But somehow they're surprised when he's there and starts helping Dusty. I guess they thought he was really, really good at sneaking behind Dusty. He was waiting to attack him. But the video, yeah, he's walking right behind the entire way. And they're like, what are you doing here?
02:13:44
Speaker
And so he turned face abruptly because of what happened. And they do a video package the next week where Dusty talks about how he always knew Nikita was a great athlete, but he was always sort of misled. And he's not going to say that he's fully changed, but he's also not going to listen to anyone that doubts him about now supporting Nikita Koloff. And they brand themselves with the tag team name of the superpowers. Oh, okay.
02:14:13
Speaker
So basically, Dusty has hinged his entire character upon you believing that Nikita is now, well, he's not pro-America, but he's definitely not pro-Russia anymore. The show a week before Starrcade, the Russian team went and matched against some jobbers, and they start berating Dusty for working with Nikita. Dusty, being the British soloist, goes into the ring, and they start beating him up.
02:14:42
Speaker
And then finally, Nikita runs in after selling the doubt of it, runs in and knocks them both out, thus fully establishing that he is now definitely anti-Russian. Okay. Or at least anti the Russian team. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So he doesn't act like he's a completely different person. It's just, Dusty likes me and I'm, I'm gonna fight Rick Flair and Rick Flair is not afraid of him.
02:15:05
Speaker
I think they kind of sell it too, don't they? He was impressed by Magnum TA and matches that they had. They also sell that as well. So it's kind of out of honor for Magnum that he's... Yes. Yeah. He met Magnum a bunch of times at the Great American Bash Tour. Yes. Over the US title, I believe. So there's a couple of aspects to it, but yeah. It basically comes down to Dusty.
02:15:28
Speaker
putting his whole character behind this thing, you have to like him and believe him because I like him and I believe him. And obviously it works because he's dusty. To be fair, I think like considering the short notice and everything, that's probably about as good of a transition as you could expect. Yeah, they have basically two and a half weeks, three weeks. And if you've got to have someone tell the crowd, hey, like this person, Dusty's a good person to say it because the crowd loves him. That'll certainly be heard.
02:16:01
Speaker
Flair gets some flash paper set off behind him this time, and he's got a classy blue and silver robe. You can actually see bits of the remains of the flash paper rain down from above as he stands there. Someone calls Flair a son of a, you know, on the way to the ring. Yeah. You caught that. Yeah. Between Flair's entrance and Koloff's, we get a music video. Mm-hmm.
02:16:26
Speaker
It's set to a nice romantic song and features Magnum TA running on the beach while a lady looks on. We do get one shot of Magnum cheering in victory in the ring, but we get far more shots of a seagull flying in the sunset. So anyway, Magnum eventually meets up with the lady and they walk along the beach and watch the waves.
02:16:50
Speaker
It's kind of sweet that they wanted to do some sort of tribute video for Magnum, I guess, but this was kind of a weird one. You cut out the single shot that they show a couple times of Magnum cheering and victory, and you would have no idea that that guy was a wrestler. Yeah. He likes to run in the distance. What'd you think of it, John? Was this nice or? This was the highlight of the night. I knew it. I called it. I like the song, actually. I rather like the song.
02:17:20
Speaker
I don't know if it was some new age spa thing that was going to go on, like some healing seminar. Because it's a while before they cut to Magnum at all.
02:17:35
Speaker
just that lady and then some kind of this lady sitting in the beach and then you can see something something running in the distance but i know that the ages don't line up but i felt like that was his mom you know kind of looked like it at first we were wondering why that too yeah she looks younger when you see her more fully later in the video but
02:17:52
Speaker
Yeah, I was confused about what the relationship was here, and I'm guessing that's his wife or girlfriend I'm not sure at the time. Or maybe he can turn into a seagull or, you know, some other. It was confusing, but I mean, it's nice that they did something for him. I just kind of wish they'd done it better. Right. I also feel bad for Flairay to sit there and just wait for it.
02:18:18
Speaker
So it's a nice gesture. Yeah. It's like a, like a child's hand drawn birthday card. You understand the gesture, but it's also really like, eh, thanks. Thanks. John's silent at that.
02:18:33
Speaker
I don't mind judging children. Well, for me, it is different. Like I have a greater appreciation, you know, because I'm like, oh, good, you're drawing something. I like that. No, I mean, you like the video package. So I enjoyed the video package. No, I know what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. No, I honestly thought it was a different show and that this was a problem. We were really confused. Yeah. Yeah. When it loaded up, I was like, did we just switch to a different video?
02:19:04
Speaker
Music videos. Yeah Nikita coming to the ring totally looks like Goldberg He still has his Soviet jacket, but no longer has the Russian national anthem or the intimidating red lights He's currently the United States heavyweight champion. There's a little undercurrent of booze from some of the crowd. I guess lingering Russian guys sentiment but most of them are pretty happy to see Nikita and many more boo flair and
02:19:35
Speaker
So this Starrcade is the very first one where the NWA World Heavyweight Championship is represented by what will come to be known as the Big Gold Belt. The world title belt most associated with WCW's run. It was created in February 1986 to replace the older design. I mention that just because it is by far my favorite title design in wrestling. It's big, it's impressive, but I think it still looks classy and it just kind of screams champion.
02:20:05
Speaker
The irony of the course is that that belt was sort of co-opted through the merger that happened with WWF at the time. The point where it was used as one of their world titles for quite a while. And so anyway, which does still currently exist, when they suddenly have started really promoting title matches again, like with Cody and Nick Aldis, they have the old belt design you saw at Starkey 85. Yeah, at least it's an NWA title that's- No, yeah.
02:20:33
Speaker
It's just kind of funny that we're seeing the older belt now because of that. Yeah. The ref starts out the match by telling the men to shake hands, but both ignore him. Lockups go poorly for Flair as Nikita shoves him away across the ring and he takes a walk for a moment to think. He tries a test of strength and that goes poorly as well. His chops are utterly ignored and he even hurts his hand, shaking it off as he takes another walk.
02:21:00
Speaker
And back in, Nikita overpowers him on a wrist lock, and Flare springs back up and yells, now you get your butt kicked, you son of a gun. Nikita overpowers Flare and lands huge hip tosses and some impressive one-handed slams, and the crowd is now firmly on his side.
02:21:18
Speaker
Flair dodges a shoulder block and Nikita hits the turnbuckle, allowing Flair to hit a lengthy stalling vertical suplex. But Nikita just springs back up and Flair rolls out of the ring in frustration. Back in, Nikita just keeps overpowering Flair until Flair finally dodges a clothesline and Nikita spills out of the ring to the floor. Flair works on his leg and gets the figure 4, using the ropes for leverage, but Nikita finally rolls him over to force Flair to break.
02:21:44
Speaker
The leg's weak, so Flair uses that to keep ahead of the big angry Russian, then shoves him through the middle rope and smashes his face into the scaffold to get him bleeding. Flair works on the face, but Nikita powers out and resumes battering Flair. After Flair flips out of the ring, a second scaffold attempt ends with Flair meeting the metal himself, and both men are bleeding. Back in, they trade blows and Nikita earns a Flair flop, but a flying shoulder block hits both Flair and ref Tommy Young.
02:22:10
Speaker
Nikita hits an absolutely massive clothesline to Flair, but there's no ref. Nikita tries to help ref Scrappy McGowan help Young up, and Flair ambushes him with a knee strike for two, and is hurled onto McGowan. Nikita strikes Flair in the corner, and Young gets back in and tries to separate them, but Nikita pushes him away. A second try, and Flair hits him with a knee strike meant for Nikita. Young calls for the bell, and disqualifies both men to end the match.
02:22:38
Speaker
Post-match, Nikita clotheslines young, and other wrestlers come in to try to get between him and Flair, suffering more massive clotheslines. Bubba, Garvin, and Dundee finally hold Nikita for Flair to land some hits, but many of the face wrestlers come down to get between them and Brawl with the heels. I guess you just specified there Jimmy Garvin. Yeah. Because we've got two Garvins on the show now.
02:22:58
Speaker
Finally the two groups separate, and Young hands the belt to Flair, but Nikita lunges back over and the brawler reps once more. The faces finally get Nikita held down in the ring as the heels drag Flair back to the dressing room, and the fight at last ends.
02:23:12
Speaker
I was surprised how well-turned-out given I know how short the build is and how relatively new, you know, at this point, Nikita Koloff is. But kind of like with the Dusty Tully one, they knew exactly what the story was. The story is, Nikita is way too strong. Flare has to do something cheap and underhand to get the event, which he then does. I thought both of them did that part really well. It's a shame that they don't have a solid finish, like we mentioned with other matches.
02:23:41
Speaker
It's weird that it's double disqualification even though one guy shoves her up first. It's happened since and before in wrestling, but it's weird that it was a disqualification. Timing has to be perfect and it really wasn't for me here. But either way, it gets what they wanted. They wanted Flair not to lose the title and they also, it wasn't the key to look strong. So I understand why they did what they did, but I wish they'd gone different with this.
02:24:06
Speaker
I don't think I want Nikita to win the title, but maybe have him be a counter, something that's not just no decision whatsoever. Yeah. That's my only real negative on it is that, that and also as much as we praise the camera people at the other arena during the cage match, the people in the Omni here are really bad at not cutting away when both Flair and Nikita are laying the ground clearly blading themselves. They kind of looking at what are they doing? Let's zoom in closer. It's a documentary.
02:24:36
Speaker
Yeah. It definitely suffers from more of the, the scaffolds in the way shots too, that where they have to work their way around that. So they end up zoomed in too much or something on, and you miss some of what's going on in the match. Yeah. When you just the idea that anytime you're watching the match, like you just watch, like you don't know where he can pull matches by themselves. So if you know you're a random person pulling this match up, you're like, what is, what's, what is this thing around the ring? Yeah. Yeah. If you have no context of that, it's just bizarre.
02:25:03
Speaker
I really like the build-up in the beginning where obviously he plays it exactly how it looks. There's no way Flare can match the physicality of Nikita in any way, shape, or form, speed-wise or anything. So he just tries different angles until he finds something that works. And then he looks really good. I think he even poses at one point and show it off like, oh, I finally did it. And Nikita gets back up and he just
02:25:33
Speaker
Lunges out out of the ring. Yeah But I mean that's flair. Yeah. Yeah. I was just impressed with Nikita's speed and strength and I Don't think I like that, you know the double disqualifications especially when like not all the matches but most matches up till this point are no DQ and
02:25:57
Speaker
Yeah, there's yeah, there's been a lot of those I mean with the one das boot aside, you know Yeah, this this was a really really really fun match It's a little slower pace than some of the others, but it's not boring by any stretch of the imagination No, it just sets a careful pace and it keeps to it and allows plenty of time for character work
02:26:20
Speaker
Nikita is drastically improved. The first year, he didn't seem to have much. The second year, he clearly was learning his craft, but still they were protecting the amount of time they let him get exposed out there. Now, he doesn't seem to have a ton of moves, but what he does, he does really, really well.
02:26:38
Speaker
Tech Barbarian, yeah. Yeah. But everything looks like it would hurt, and his power is impressive. Those one-handed slams particularly were really cool. Oh, over the head, yeah. And then there's a cool spot actually where he does a elevated bear hug, and then he leans down into a couple of pin attempts that he's just keeping the held on flare, and they just picks him right back up off the mat, clean into the bear hug, which I thought was really cool. It's one of the only times you will ever hear me compliment a bear hug spot.
02:27:08
Speaker
He's built up as a massive and powerful threat to Flair, and he totally fulfills that role.
02:27:13
Speaker
Flair for his part is brilliant, and he gets the maximum mileage out of every single moment. He alternates from between cowering and strutting around confidently, begging for mercy and mocking his foe. This is the first time I think we get to see the Flair that believes he's better than the wrestler that he's facing. With race, he was the challenger proving himself, and then the couple times we've gotten him against Rhodes, he was facing a rival that he knew could potentially beat him.
02:27:40
Speaker
But with Nikita, he's facing an unproven young powerhouse. So he slowly comes around to the idea that Nikita might actually be able to win and that he's actually a pretty scary dude. I thought he did a great job of playing up how much that shakes him. I think you were noting that too, John, that it's like he has these moments where it's like, oh my gosh, I really am not hurting this guy and kind of scampers away and needs to cool down and figure out a new game plan and all.
02:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, so this entire match is Flair making Nikita look like a million bucks. Don't get me wrong, Nikita does his part and those clotheslines could do all the work themselves. But Flair put everything he could into making clear that Nikita is bigger than him, stronger than him, and could very well beat him. And it works. I came into this match feeling like it might be a little bit disappointing because Nikita, you know, like I said, wasn't much involved in 84 and was just a respectable part of the match in 85. But this ended up really fun to watch.
02:28:38
Speaker
It was nice to see the fully realized brick flare. First time I would say in this. E5 was close, but E6 is definitely the total package. Yeah. Just that extra little step of, I believe I'm better than you. It kind of takes it to the brick flare we truly know. Exactly. A lot of chops. Yes. That's also the brick flare we know.
02:29:03
Speaker
It's like, he's not a tree, you know, it's not, although, you know, his arms probably is around, you know, the biggest one, but, uh, I did like the, towards the end of the match. I mean, not that it was like a super long match. I mean, there was plenty of stuff after the match that lasts just as long as the main event. I liked that Nikita after doing all these big moves was still able to move as quick as he did. Yes. Yeah. He has really good stamina actually.
02:29:35
Speaker
I will note on the bit at the end where all the rest is in the ring, it's kind of funny that these guys who have, it's been a couple hours since their matches, I guess they went to the back, put on their dress pants and then just sat down. They're never put on shirts. It's not dress pants. It's like literally every single person there is wearing blue jeans. That's hilarious. So either they, nobody bothers to put a shirt on when they're done with the show or they all were sitting back, they're dressed normally, saw a fight break out, took their shirts off and then went out there.
02:30:04
Speaker
I believe that. Towards the middle of the year, Nikita loses the U.S. title and serves great fashion to protect him. He then gains the TV title in August, which goes into Starrcade of next year. Okay. Bruce Flair's title continues unabated. He does lose his title in September, also setting up Starrcade next year.
02:30:28
Speaker
Following the match, Rick Stewart starts trying to wrap up, but Tony has to interrupt to actually announce the end of the match to the crowd, fulfilling his double duty. The two go over the matches and throw to a highlight package to close the show. Unfortunately, the scariest pile driver I've ever seen makes the package, as does Cornette's injury. Yeah, I guess they didn't know the extent of his leg issue. Yeah, they were like, oh, what an awesome fall! Good job, Jim! He was a good pile driver. I can see why it made the cut.
02:30:54
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't like that one. I don't know what it is. Something about that one scared me. Weight ratios. Yeah. So, it's definitely a very long show. It's one of the ones where
02:31:14
Speaker
Unlike the 84 show, which felt long and had so many weak points or points that it didn't deliver. So it felt longer in that way. This is even longer than that, but all the matches for the most part deliver in some, at least one big major way. It's just that they're all longer. Even though they could same amount of matches technically as 85.
02:31:40
Speaker
but it's just they're all actual length matches. So it is longer, but I don't know, it doesn't feel longer because each match has its own story for the most part. And there's unlike 84, there's not random filler. So there's nothing that's pulling in consequential.
02:31:57
Speaker
There's stuff I liked better than others, but nothing is really bad in the show. Yeah.
Overall Show Critique and Reflections
02:32:01
Speaker
I agree with how the pacing on the show is a little bit, a little bit off and, uh, video packages while elaborate do kind of throw you for a little bit of a loop. Cause they usually don't involve the people that are going to be wrestling next. This one had at least a thousand percent more seagulls. So I am thankful for that.
02:32:26
Speaker
I like that there's an emergence of name moves like the claw. I don't know why I like that so much. Made from liar liar. Maybe. Yeah, that's true. Oh, there you go. Yeah. No one escapes the claw. Too many DQs, lots of Russians, which is always good.
02:32:46
Speaker
And I got to see Dusty, so I was happy with it. But I don't have Nikita's stamina, so it was, I had to break it up my watching into at least two or if not three different periods to get through it. I don't know if I would have fell asleep if I was actually in attendance, but I did like the main event, the Skywalkers. I know that you guys have expressed concerns and everything, but I really do like that they
02:33:15
Speaker
tried to use every bit of that prop as much as they could. Yeah, sure. No, I totally get that, yeah. Yeah, definitely more enticing to me than a cage. Okay. Even though the cage match was amazing too, so. All right. Yeah, for me, this was a very long show. It's three hours and 51 minutes long, so it's about an hour longer than all the other Star Cades we've watched. And for me, it was about an hour longer than it needed to be.
02:33:46
Speaker
For me, there actually were some matches that felt fairly inconsequential. The Whip vs. Chain match in particular I just didn't really need, and the Big Bubba vs. Ron Garvin one I could've just not really had on the show. It's not that they're necessarily awful matches or anything, it's just they don't feel like Starrcade, you know, these big important things.
02:34:08
Speaker
A lot of the night kind of feels like basic TV matches in that regard rather than big feud-enders. But I agree there's not really bad matches on the show. There's just some that just sort of exist. And 12 matches is just too many for one show. The last few matches bring the show way up. Skywalker's match accepted in my case but included in Jon's.
02:34:32
Speaker
Dusty vs. Tully is great fun, The Rock and Roll Express vs. The Andersons is just as great as I expected, and Flare vs. Nikita is way better than I would have expected. Between those and some acceptable-to-good earlier bouts, this ends up a pretty good show. It just takes some time to get there, and it's hard to watch in one sitting. So I guess there's a reason why I had multiple intermissions.
02:34:53
Speaker
It's use of time was puzzling too. I don't know why the company thought it was a good idea to interrupt the show with lengthy promos for other shows that have nothing to do with what's going on tonight. But, you know, they did. And it took up over 15 minutes.
02:35:08
Speaker
So that's a quarter of that extra hour that I was talking about right there. And again, we have no pre-match promos at all. It makes things fall pretty flat. I think the matches need some good promos, or at least clips from promos on other shows, something to build up some of these matches. You know, I know, like, if this were the actual time, I would be watching the TV shows to build up to them and everything.
02:35:33
Speaker
It's just like there should be something on the show, I think, to get you charged up for the match that's gonna come on. It's like a standalone. Yeah, so it can stand alone. So that when you watch a show 30 years after it was, you know, done that, you know what, you know what's going on still, right? You know? Yeah. Should plan for the future, guys.
Concluding Thoughts and Future Outlook
02:35:55
Speaker
This was still an entertaining show for me, but it felt like it combined the worst mistakes of the earlier shows. There's a lack of promos, the odd pacing, the lengthy delays, the odd camerawork, the credits in the strange position on the show, and it adds long videos that have nothing related to the current show and an overly long runtime. What I will give it credit for is variety. Yeah.
02:36:19
Speaker
Matches felt very different from each other this year. Last year I felt like we were seeing the same general concept over and over, and some just did it better, but this year I felt like most matches had something new to offer after the prior match. I would ultimately call this a good show. It's just, it's the first time that I feel like I have to say, maybe consider watching it in multiple settings, or hear pick and choose. These matches are quite good, and you maybe don't need to watch the entire thing.
02:36:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a really good show in here. They would definitely trim it. Yeah. Let's do Match of the Night in MVP, Al. Match of the Night for me has got to be the Rockwell Express for Zandersons.
02:37:06
Speaker
There's definitely some that come close to it, but we said now it's a template match for how these things are supposed to go. They really can't be anything else other than that. Plus other matches that are really in contention for me like the Key to Flare don't have solid concrete finishes, so that takes away matches from you. I can see that.
02:37:24
Speaker
MVP? That said MVP, I would probably sort of tie between Nikita and Flair because Nikita for over-impressing in a situation where he really had you something because he's replacing the Magnet DA in this match and this essentially his role in the company.
02:37:43
Speaker
And Flair's part, Flair is fully formed here, and he really plays as part of the cowardly but clever heal against the imposing overpowering force very well. If Nikita didn't deliver, Flair matched would be worse. Likewise, if Flair didn't do such a good job being the arrogant heal, then Nikita's would learn as well. So they had to both be at their games for me. That's why I tied up with them. Yeah. If you had to pick one,
02:38:12
Speaker
Probably Flair. Okay. I fully recognize, yeah, that's a hard choice, honestly, on those two are both quite good for that match. John, match of the night and MVP. I'm having a really hard time. I'm replaying the last two matches because they were standouts from everything else. There was a clear breaking point. You had Seagulls, you had
02:38:41
Speaker
two exemplary matches that both show skill and perfect archetypes of what those characters are supposed to be. You know, you got the imposing strength versus, you know, the skilled guy that can really sell it. And like you said, a tag match that not only has great camera work, but all that plays into it, but also has, uh,
02:39:10
Speaker
like a template for something, other great matches. Patch of the Night is going to be the Skywalker match. Because I like the uniqueness, the fact that Hawk went up there and did what he did with a broken leg. And I don't like that there was lots of consequences associated with that match, but it was pretty unique, I think. And some of that fear was genuine.
02:39:41
Speaker
Yeah. And to be fair, it's not like they were building in like a guaranteed consequences. They tried to make that fall safe. They just didn't go right. Yeah. I mean, I was saying that's, you know, it's the only thing that detract from it for me because I know that there was, you know, lingering effects. Yeah. But I think that's why it should be the match because it has the most overall change to any of the people involved. All right.
02:40:07
Speaker
I love the cage match and I love everyone involved. However, I'm probably going to go with Nikita for MVP. I don't know. I just like the rookies. I guess he's a rookie, but like in that position, if I had to name anyone that night that stood out the most to me, that would be him. Okay. Fair enough.
02:40:28
Speaker
There were a lot of individuals during the whole show that really did all the work for the match. Guerrero stood out also to me a lot. There was some firsts. He did the first tackle outside the ring and Wahoo did a good job and so did Dusty and Dundee.
02:40:52
Speaker
Yeah, during dark horses, that's definitely Doug D because I I knew him by rotation, but I never seen him wrestle. So I was very surprised what he did. We can do that. So surprise of the night is kind of what you call that or sure. Yeah.
02:41:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I would agree. Dundee was pretty surprising, was a fine wrestler and everything, but just that moment where he goes running across the ropes and jumps off and just like on top of the ropes and everything. I was not expecting that from him at all. So yeah, that was a shocker. John, was there somebody that surprised you in particular?
02:41:27
Speaker
That suplex. No, it was a pile driver. Sorry, I got the... Oh, okay. I got the thing, you know, on Bubba. I was not expecting that. So for me, Match of the Night.
02:41:43
Speaker
I mean, with the praise I heaped on it, there's no way I can choose anything other than Arnaudley versus the Rock and Roll Express. It's taking nothing away from Flair versus Nikita. Arnaudley versus the Rock and Roll is just like Mastercraft versus Mastercraft. They perfectly link up to showcase exactly what they can do together, and it was really thrilling to watch.
02:42:10
Speaker
There's other matches I enjoyed, but in this era, nobody's better at heel tag team wrestling than the Andersons, and nobody's better at face tag team wrestling than the Rock and Roll Express. So those two teams against each other just makes an amazing spectacle, and I loved every minute of it. That was just tremendous to watch.
02:42:29
Speaker
My MVP is Ric Flair. Nikita does his part in the match, definitely, but this is the first sign that we've seen of the Ric Flair that can take unestablished guys and raise them up and make you believe that a guy who wasn't in the world title picture last year should not only be in the world title picture, but could even win. He does it smoothly and easily, and he still manages to look like he deserves to be a champion himself.
02:42:56
Speaker
This is Ric Flair proving himself as truly worthy of being the focus of the company, a guy who doesn't just fight established names like Dusty, but can bring new guys up to his level. And I think he fulfills that role excellently here, and he's going to continue to fulfill that role for them for many years to come.
02:43:15
Speaker
This is the first year where I think we truly saw the flair that is worthy of being the true center of attention of the company, the one that they build everything around, because you can throw whoever you want against him, and he's going to give it his all, make them look like a million bucks, make you believe that they can beat him. Like you guys, I don't want to sell Nikita short at all. He did a tremendous job there.
02:43:42
Speaker
Just for me, seeing that side of Flare emerge, I think pulls it out for me. That about does it for our review of Starrcade 86, The Skywalkers. We'll be back next time for Starrcade 87, Chi Town Heat. That's what it's called. It has two features that make me incredibly happy. First off, there's only seven matches. Oh, thank goodness.
02:44:11
Speaker
And second is the Starrcade debut of The Man Called Sting. Many thanks to Pro Wrestling History for attendance and close circuit figures. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins signing off. Good night everybody. Happy Wrestling.