Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 3: Starrcade '85
35 Plays7 years ago
Dusty Rhodes has had some Hard Times since Starrcade '84, but now he's back to take it out on Ric Flair. Will we actually get an honest-to-goodness finish this time? Will the Midnight Express escape a match against Jimmy Valiant with tuxedos intact? (Wait...didn't Jimmy Valiant lose a "Loser Leaves Town" match last time? Again?) Can Manny Fernandez hold on to the sombrero that he so casually tossed to the crowd last year? And who is the exciting third member of the announce team? For all this and more...let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Host Introductions and Show Overview
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring. I'm Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man who knows better than to give a buzzsaw the first two rounds, Alec Bridget. Thanks. And tomorrow's newspaper, John Mullins. I don't even know what I'm gonna say yet.
00:00:48
Speaker
How's it going, guys? What's new? Nothing too much since last time. Same old, same old. I'm finding new ways to keep myself irritated, but this is a nice, uh, bit of respite from that. Okay. We'll, uh, we'll see if we can, uh, prevent you from going to bed angry. All right.
Starrcade 85 Focus and Wrestling Context
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, tonight we're going to take a look at Starcade 85, The Gathering.
00:01:13
Speaker
There can be only one NWA World Heavyweight Champion. Got you there, didn't I? Before we begin though, what about the situation that we talked about last time? What happened with the WWF show on TBS?
00:01:33
Speaker
Well, Vince McMahon of the WWF was not happy, neither was Ted Turner of TBS. As we discussed last time, Turner had seen TBS's rating sink when the WWF replaced GCW, and as a result, he reached out to CWG, thought of as GCW's successor, and Bill Watts Mid-South to add other wrestling programs to TBS. I give thanks to Bill Watts Mid-South for being the only thing that wasn't a whole bunch of initials in those sentences. There you go.
00:02:04
Speaker
McMahon tried, late in his TBS run, to run a show featuring original squash matches and interviews rather than highlights of his other programs, but his expansion into TBS was losing him money, and ultimately, he decided it wasn't worth it. He started looking for a way out, and M walked Jim Crockett promotions, which have recently absorbed Ole Anderson's CWG. McMahon sold the time slot to Crockett.
00:02:31
Speaker
Jim Crocker Promotions started airing NWA affiliated content in the time slot once again, eventually renaming it WCW Saturday Night. It would go on to be the flagship, or as Dusty Rhodes would eventually call it, the mothership, show for Jim Crocker Promotions and later for WCW.
00:02:50
Speaker
Most importantly, this began the association between Jim Crockett Promotions and Ted Turner, and the show actually lasts well into the year 2000, although in 1995, it would be replaced as the primary show by the debuting Nitro. But that's a story for another time.
Impact of WWF's Exit and WrestleMania's Role
00:03:08
Speaker
But what about Vince McMahon? Well, he'd do alright for himself. Shortly after his last show on TBS, he would hold the very first WrestleMania. Like Starrcade before it, WrestleMania was a huge event around which the entire promotion, in this case the WWF, would be structured, a focal point for stories, and a chance to capture the attention of a wider audience.
00:03:32
Speaker
WrestleMania was a huge show, and aside from wrestlers, it involved celebrities like Cyndi Lauper, Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, and Liberace, which helped attract more eyes to the product. It was headlined by Hulk Hogan, teaming with Mr. T against Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper. Aside from Piper, there are some other names on the first WrestleMania that we'll recognize from earlier Starkades.
00:03:57
Speaker
Greg Valentine took on Junkyard Dog, and Ricky Steamboat took on Matt Bourne. So thinking back to Stark 883, Al and I both picked Piper as our MVP, and Jon picked Steamboat. Meanwhile, Piper versus Valentine was Jon's match of the night, and Steamboat was in the match Al and I both chose for our match of the night.
00:04:19
Speaker
And, of course, for 84, we all pick Steamboat's match for Match of the Night, and Al and I pick Steamboat as MVP. Now they're all in the first WrestleMania.
Dual Location Impact on Starrcade 85
00:04:29
Speaker
Yep. Harsh night for Jim Crocker Promotions, at least if you go by, you know, the illustrious Let's Go to the Ring MVP and Match of the Night awards. At least they have many different ends in this giant sombrero. That's true, that's true. They've got one up there.
00:04:46
Speaker
And a bit of a worrying night for us, honestly. Ricky Steamboat can't save us this time, guys. Uh-oh. But there's one more development to discuss.
00:04:57
Speaker
In July of 1985, Jim Crocker Promotions started up its second big show, The Great American Bash. So now they've got two big events to promote each year, one in the middle of the year and the other at the end. That series has a bit of an interesting beginning. The 1985 show is much like The Starcades, by my understanding, a single big show held in an arena and broadcast over closed-circuits television.
00:05:24
Speaker
The next two shows, though, in 1986 and 1987, are both summer tours for the company, and they consist of several shows each. It won't be until 1988 that the Great American Bash settles down and decides to just be a regular pay-per-view, and also, incidentally, the WWE Network currently only holds the Bash shows from 1988 on, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
00:05:48
Speaker
For now, we're just going to continue our coverage of the Starrcade series with Starrcade 85, The Gathering. Starrcade 85 was held at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina in front of about 16,000 fans. Starrcade 85 was also held at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia in front of another 16,000 fans.
00:06:12
Speaker
That's right, we're broadcasting from two different locations tonight, and the show will be alternating between the locations for its matches. So I'm curious, do you guys feel like it impacted the show? Not really. Not really? No. They talked about like intermissions and stuff, so you know, the jumps didn't, I didn't realize that it was at two places. That's why I was wondering if, because I knew I hadn't actually talked to you about that, because I don't, I think really ever say that on the show.
00:06:40
Speaker
that I recall. So I was wondering if it was even noticeable if you don't already know what's going on. Do you know which one the main event was at? Yes, Dusty and Flare are at the Omni in Atlanta. Basically they're alternating matches between the shows. Do they like have a like a big projector or something that shows what's happening at the other arena? I mean,
00:07:04
Speaker
I'm really not clear how that works in that case. I would assume so. I would assume that, because from what I understand about how closed circuit works, it's actually set up to broadcast two arenas like these, and it'd be arenas that Jim Crocker promotions normally toured to. So I would assume that what's going on is that you get to see a match actually happening in front of you at, say, the Coliseum, and then the next match is happening at the Omni, but you get to see it over closed circuit.
00:07:31
Speaker
Well, that would be really good because then you don't have to worry about setup time. They're working on the thing and you have nonstop action. Exactly. That's that's for me, that's one positive that I can note from it is there's obviously the cage later in the show. Right. And in previous episodes, we've noted that they go to like five billion interviews or the announcers talking for a really long time or something like that. And that's to stall for time while they set up this massive cage.
00:08:01
Speaker
instead in this show while they're setting up the cage they can be showing you a different match so it's an interesting experiment but it's actually i think kind of successful to me and i know wrestlemania 2 tries the same thing and is kind of derided for it yeah they only did it once so that's why it kind of seems to go all right here to me i don't know what it would have felt like being there i'd be curious about that experience because i mean i understand what you're saying how
00:08:28
Speaker
they can sort of cover the gaps there, but at the same time, you're watching a screen, you're watching whatever the match going on is, while someone is putting a cage together, like all around you. That's gonna be very distracting. Well yeah, and if you're paying to go and see a live show too, do you want to see it on the screen then? Does it feel like you're only getting half a show? Or are you getting enough matches there that you still feel like you got your money's worth? The ticket price might be adjusted too.
00:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have information on that, but it's definitely an interesting concept and it's interesting to know that that's another thing that WCW or Jim Crocker promotions actually did before the WWF tried it. Well, and the other thing to note is that WrestleMania 2 was done in three locations, first off. Had to get it one better, didn't he? Oh yeah.
00:09:20
Speaker
But on top of that, they didn't alternate. So I remember it's Chicago, New York, and LA. So they could Chicago first, so they get like four matches, and they spend the rest of their watching a screen. Right, where in this they alternate between them. Yeah. So that may make it actually an easier flow for the viewer.
00:09:39
Speaker
Right. And the trade-off, I think it was the last show, you've watched two hours of the screen and then, oh, people walk out. Yeah. It's gotta be interesting, but I don't know how well that works. And clearly I only did one, so maybe it didn't work. Yeah.
00:09:53
Speaker
So in addition to those in attendance, of course, we also had about 37,000 others joining by closed circuit television. So all in all, it actually is a pretty big night for Jim Crocker promotions. You've got two full arenas and enough joining by closed circuit to make up basically another two full arenas worth of people there. Yeah. The question would be how much of that cut do they get? And I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.
Starrcade 85 Begins: Matches and Key Events
00:10:22
Speaker
The show begins with a warning that this is TVMA. Right? Wow.
00:10:29
Speaker
This is the first time I think I've ever seen that watching something on the WWE Network. So I knew we're in for something here. We also start with an actual show opening. They have an actual production, music, logos, everything. And we get shots of the crowd in a wrestling lead-in that will become increasingly popular as the years go by.
00:10:53
Speaker
along with announcers Bob Caudill and Tony Schiavone, plus Tony Schiavone's amazing mustache. That is a separate entity and needs to be identified as such. It's great. He has it for such a short time. I just, I'm always, I'm just tickled when I, when I see the mustache.
00:11:17
Speaker
It's like a shooting star. Yeah. Bob Tony on the mustache. Welcome us all and wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Then throw back to the Coliseum to Johnny Weaver, who is now a backstage interviewer.
00:11:31
Speaker
Weaver sells the size of the crowd and poses awkwardly as they don't cut back to Bob and Tony quite at the right time. Tony talks up the Flair vs. Dusty match and Dusty getting back to Starrcade, then throws back to Weaver to talk up the I Quit match between Blanchard and Magnum.
00:11:47
Speaker
Weaver builds up the battles those two have had in the past, and mentions that he's going to try to get interviews with match winners. The cameraman, oddly, starts that shot off awkwardly focused to the left, and has to quickly adjust, even though it's the same shot they used like 10 seconds earlier. I cannot conceive of a single reason why Weaver should suddenly be out of frame. Maybe you saw a bee.
00:12:12
Speaker
Tony and Bob kick off the show, but as they speak, the feed cuts back to Weaver, who looks utterly confused about why the camera is on him again, even though he's clearly not supposed to be talking.
00:12:24
Speaker
All the Goodwill, this was great production, killed in the first five years. You could not have possibly done this opening more clumsily. It's great. Unless it was in a bowling alley. Yes, okay, I will give you that. This is, by the way, the same building from that Starrcade, but it's a completely different backdrop and everything.
00:12:47
Speaker
The ring announcer welcomes the crowd to the Coliseum and announces... The National Anthem. We actually get the National Anthem at the beginning of the show. Took them three years, but they finally put in the right place. It's a nice instrumental version this time. The cameraman still can't hold the flag shot steady at all, but, blessedly, they start cutting to different shots of the crowd instead of holding onto the shaky shot.
00:13:16
Speaker
We're ready for the first match, so let's go to the ring. Our first match is at the Coliseum, and it is Crusher Khrushchev versus Sam Houston for the vacant NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship. So if you remember from the last show, they decided to give the title to Buzz Tyler, who promptly got annoyed and quit and left with the belt.
00:13:43
Speaker
So now there's no champion souvenirs. Yeah. It's not the first or last time they'll happen in wrestling. So yeah, basically there's no something, no champion and no belt, but they got a new, got a new belt and they got new challengers. Good gosh. They had to get the new belt too. I would assume I wasn't quite clear on that. Yeah.
00:14:04
Speaker
The show theme welcomes the competitors to the ring, and new Russian, Crusher Khrushchev, gets mega boos. Sam Houston gets mega cheers. Houston, by the way, I found out is the half-brother of Jake Roberts, actually. I've heard that. Yeah, that's kind of cool. I think he was also married at some point to Baby Doll that we see later in the night, Tully Blanchard's valet. Wasn't he also at the Alamo, or was that a different one? Probably a different guy, I think. Different Sam Houston? Yeah, yeah. Just checking.
00:14:36
Speaker
Our ref in this match, Sonny Fargo, is dressed in a yellow bodysuit that makes him look like he's trying and failing to cosplay as April O'Neill from the Ninja Turtles. The 80s version, to clarify. I have to actually clarify which version of the Ninja Turtles I mean now. That is impressive given that that showed in debut of 1987, too. He's ahead of the curve. Yep. Maybe April O'Neill was dressed as Sonny Fargo. Or a banana. I can't disprove either statement.
00:15:06
Speaker
Bob builds up that Khrushchev has the weight advantage. Tony tries to say something, but his microphone's not working, so we just get mumbles. The match starts as power versus speed, as Tony agrees once his microphone finally starts working.
00:15:21
Speaker
With Houston dodging around Khrushchev and hitting quick punches, Khrushchev sometimes catches Houston with big strikes or power moves, most notably a double-handed choke slam, but Houston keeps coming back and using speed and quick transitions to keep ahead. Until Khrushchev reverses a whip and catches him coming back to send him flying into the air. Houston lands hard, stunned, and Khrushchev just starts mocking the crowd.
00:15:46
Speaker
Houston can't keep ahead of Khrushchev anymore, and he gets caught in several more power moves, his own moves not enough to turn the tide. Houston finally catches Khrushchev climbing up top, and lands a dropkick and several strikes, then a bulldog, but Khrushchev gets his foot on the ropes. Believing that he won, Houston turns his back and celebrates, which leaves him easy prey for Khrushchev's clothesline, the sickle. Houston gets his foot on the ropes too, but the ref misses it and counts three, awarding Khrushchev the title.
00:16:17
Speaker
I would say it's solid, but unremarkable. I don't know if I'm the only one that thought this, but there was an odd pacing that to me. Cause they would be a bunch of action. Then they would kind of stop going to hold. It's like, I don't know if they had the whole match not planned out. I don't know. It's something weird. Just there was no steady flow to it for me. They had a checklist of positions to do. And then they're like, let's relax for a little bit. We're setting up timing for the other show.
00:16:48
Speaker
And then you're right out. It's like a little bit then boy blunders like, yeah, I won. And I guess they told cruise chef to like, can you act like a bear for like 10 seconds at the end and make some weird, like crawling motions before sneaking up and doing your, your move. Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
Yeah, I could see I'm not actually entirely sure just how experienced these guys are at this point. So I could see if it's two guys that maybe aren't quite ready to call a match on the fly, trying to call a match on the fly, that that could lead to kind of the pacing.
00:17:27
Speaker
It wasn't as strong a notice for me, but I can see that going on there that you get like fast action, fast action, fast action, lay there, fast action, fast action, fast action, lay there. Plus they both couldn't change the wardrobe. They couldn't change it up. They're like, Oh, well, we'll just put them in red. I always, as a pet peeve, like you gotta, you gotta have at least different colored or something different. Right.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, you should differentiate yourselves from each other, probably pretty good. I think so. I'm usually the guy in the back row anyhow, like, okay. Yeah, for me it was respectable and pretty fast-paced, some little stalling bits aside. It generally worked for me. Houston has good fire but not much personality, but Khrushchev makes up with that with some pretty good intimidation tactics and yelling at the crowd.
00:18:16
Speaker
Houston's quite agile and has some pretty snappy punches, and Khrushchev did well with some power spots. There's some minor awkward spots, but aside from that, this was pretty good. The ending, like we mentioned last year though, is pretty strange for an opening match. It's confusing and not immediately obvious what happened, so it might kind of sap some momentum from the show as the crowd needs to try and figure it out.
00:18:43
Speaker
But it's the right pacing of match I felt to kind of start things off pretty hot. Another thing that kind of hurts the ending of the match is that we go straight to the Omni for the next match with no pause for discussion with the announcers or anything. So they are like dead silent after the finish of the match until the start of the next one, which is weird when it's a controversial finish. I actually kind of like the ending to the match because
00:19:11
Speaker
It really disestablished who was the face and who was, you know, the villain for me because they both did the same thing. Different positions, both had their legs on the end except Cruz Jeff pulled the leg before the ref noticed as he was getting up. Yeah, true. So, you know, I was like, oh, I guess he's just, he wants it more. Yeah. It's like, I don't think the ending would bother me if it weren't for the first match of the show.
00:19:38
Speaker
Just because I always feel like for the first match, you should do something nice and clear cut so that the crowd can just get behind something and get into something. And either they get to celebrate when a face wins or they get angry when the heel wins. But for me, don't make it confusing. But I can see where you're coming from on. It definitely shows who's the good guy and who's the bad guy. Sure. Yeah. Plus, you know, Russia. Yes.
00:20:06
Speaker
So they have a rematch in January, which Sam Houston then wins. Unfortunately, during said rematch, Khrushchev injures his arm, I believe it is, and he's out for six months. Ouch. I'll be back by Starrcade, but yeah. Okay.
00:20:25
Speaker
Our next match is at the Omni, and it's the Raging Bull Manny Fernandez vs. Abdullah the Butcher with Paul Jones in a Mexican Deathmatch to get Fernandez Sombrero from a pole.
00:20:39
Speaker
The general idea is just that Paul Jones has a bunch of guys working for him, thankfully not Zembu Express anymore, but so he has a bunch of people that sort of, it's a very 80s thing where a manager, a real manager has like seven or eight clients, so all these feuds are overlapped, so he comes out three or four times a show. That's really just Manny Fernandez's feuding with Paul Jones, so this time he's fighting Abdullah. Okay.
00:21:06
Speaker
Someone in the crowd grabs Abdullah's headgear as he comes in, and Paul Jones has to help him get it back. Abdullah's head actually already looks like it's bleeding during his entrance. Manny Fernandez has entrance music now. It kind of sounds like a country version of Easy Like Sunday Morning. He still has a pretty good entrance outfit with his sparkly sombrero and chaps, and he keeps the shirt and jeans on this time instead of going to normal wrestling gear. He also still has that weird dyed blonde portion of his hair that I still can't figure out.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah. So the only way for this match to end is for someone to grab Manny Sombrero from the pole stuck at the ring post. So unfortunately, no one from the crowd is getting the Sombrero this year. Yeah, it's weird that the last last year he throws it just begin a match. Now suddenly it's super important to get that. Yes.
00:22:00
Speaker
Fernandez is bleeding moments in, as Abdullah abuses his face with an object he snuck in, and with the hammer from the ring bell. Fernandez manages to recover and get several strikes of his own, followed by a legitimately impressive monkey flip. I did not expect that to work with a guy as big as Abdullah. Yeah, cried to him that way through.
00:22:20
Speaker
He takes off his boot to use it as a weapon, and I've never really understood how that's better than just kicking a guy with the boot on your foot, but it's wrestling. Abdullah's shaky spasm selling is wonderfully over the top.
00:22:34
Speaker
Tony notes that Fernandez is fighting for his heritage in the form of the sombrero. He also notes that the referee can't interfere in the match in any way, right as we see the ref physically stopping Jones from coming in. So that's okay? The wrestlers trade control of both Fernandez's boots and batter each other between trying to climb for the sombrero, and Fernandez gets his belt involved too. He even hits a moderately respectable suplex on Abdullah.
00:23:01
Speaker
Abdullah starts fading, but gets his own object and nails Fernandez in the crotch with it. Fernandez sells with a forward flip, as one does. Fernandez comes back with his flying forearm, dubbed the flying burrito, and hits a second one off the second rope. He misses a splash, but dodges an Abdullah shoulder block in the corner, scampers up, and grabs the sombrero as the ref again stops Jones from interfering. Fernandez celebrates outside as Jones shouts at the crowd and complains.
00:23:31
Speaker
We get a replay of the flying burritos rather than the finish. Well, so the bar from Duel of the Butchers match, for me, it was pretty low, getting the first arcade, and I honestly give them other experience watching Duel of the Butchers matches later. That said, it's the best one I've seen, and take that as much of the compliment as you want it to be.
00:23:50
Speaker
Fernandez has a general, he's somewhat charismatic and he has a general good look and he moves well. He never quite has, there's always that certain something that stars have. He doesn't quite have that, but he's not lacking anything either. There's kind of the free middle ground for me where he's pretty good, but I don't remember many of Fernandez matches that much. I remember him more than matches.
00:24:15
Speaker
I had no expectation of Abdullah winning this one. That said, they did have at one point he got up and was grabbing the hat and then inexplicably loses all coordination for about a couple seconds and then decides to throw his hands up in the air and flop.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, he does the big dramatic fall. That was great. Yeah. But it's more for comedic effect. There are really good ladder matches, and that's kind of what this is, or something that involves putting something in a pogo ball or whatever they do now. And it always bothers me that they always take
00:25:02
Speaker
a minute to get to the last rung or whatever. I know it's to build suspense and everything, but I'd rather someone run into the ladder and knock them down or something just make it more exciting rather than, come on.
00:25:16
Speaker
Yeah, you always question you can do all these like flippy moves and running clothes lines and drop kicks and all this stuff and then Oh climbing a ladder climbing a ladder is the hardest thing in the universe all of a sudden, right? And yeah, you sometimes get that in these types of matches too.
00:25:35
Speaker
I'm actually shocked how much I liked this one. I kind of enjoyed it quite a bit. It's not much more than some brawling in blood, but Fernandez is really, really good at bumping around for Abdullah, and he makes everything look like it has some impact, and that really helps the match.
00:25:53
Speaker
Abdullah himself really just did some simple striking and some hits with objects, but he was up for a Fernandez monkey flip and suplex, and those are legitimately impressive spots. And he did his best to keep things interesting with dramatic slash comedic falls in his own selling.
00:26:10
Speaker
Fernandez really did all he could to make this entertaining and give it some good spots, and it actually had a pretty good flow, I thought. This was much better than Abdullah versus Cologne, and much better than Fernandez versus Black Bart. Yes, very much so. That's not something I thought I would be saying.
00:26:28
Speaker
I agree with you there, but I was still not expecting, you know, even with the warning in the beginning that there would be blood immediately. Yeah, they go right to it, this show. Yeah. It's kind of darn near every match on this show. It's every match except the first one. Yeah. Although I think like on one of the matches, it's a die rather than actual blood.
00:26:52
Speaker
I'm not sure on that, honestly. Well, maybe it's the quality of the film. It looked pink. Yeah, so surprisingly decent match from these guys. You know, it's not going to make my match of the night list or anything, but it was way better than I thought it was going to be when I saw who was in it. Following that match, we go back for our first interview and Weaver is interviewing Crusher Khrushchev.
00:27:21
Speaker
Khrushchev says that he's the happiest man in the world, and thanks Ivan and Nikita Kolov for making him what he is today, a Russian athlete. He's sure his motherland Russia is proud. He will defend anywhere against anyone from any country and will show that Russians, which he totally is, are superior athletes.
00:27:40
Speaker
Weaver asked him his thoughts on the Coloffs' coming defense against the Rock and Roll Express. Khrushchev says the Rock and Roll Express and American refs have been unfair to them, but the Coloffs are going to defend their titles and prove they're superior. Khrushchev compliments Houston's performance, but says that he won anyway, and he's bigger, stronger, and a Russian athlete. So this was kind of odd.
00:28:03
Speaker
a bit. Khrushchev calls himself Russian, but is very much not Russian. No. He is not even remotely attempting a Russian accent. I looked this up and I think the story here is that he's not a Russian. He is an American turncoat who sided with the Russians. So he's calling himself a Russian because he's chosen to be Russian, not because he's actually Russian.
00:28:25
Speaker
You got implants. So it's still kind of a strange wording for him to say it that way, though. So I kind of wonder if they went with that just because Darso couldn't manage a Russian accent. I don't know. I also have to know Johnny Weaver, by the way, said they're defending their titles in the fence match. Yes, I've missed that. Yeah. Yeah, he calls a cage match a fence match. I wonder if that actually was the name for those at some point. I don't know.
00:28:54
Speaker
Well, I mean, I know the furry first cage match was two guys in a small cage, like barely fits two people. So I can't imagine who started calling them that at that point.
00:29:03
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Khrushchev stumbles on his words a bit, but he does get his points across. And I did like, once again, getting to hear someone talk about someone else's match and complimenting their opponent. I think that's always a good thing that we mentioned on the last show. If you build up the person that you beat, then you also look better, but it also helps their career.
00:29:27
Speaker
He did a pretty decent job with that, but he's a little stumbly and has to restart some sentences from time to time. Yeah, it's weird that they don't have Ivan Koloff out there with them. They don't think they have an Ivan Koloff, essentially, as their manager, as the veteran wrestler. Yeah. It's weird that he's not there, like, side by side with them.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's odd. We'll note this as the night goes on, I'm sure, but you don't really get any pre-match interviews tonight. No. This is the closest thing we get to a pre-match interview because he does comment on the Koloff's match before it happens, but he's not one of the participants in that match, so. True. He went to the wrong stadium. I know they're trying to work on the storyline, I know, but
00:30:18
Speaker
It just didn't come across, like you said, it wasn't as smooth as it could have been. Our next match tonight is back at the Coliseum. And it is Ron Bass versus Black Bart with James J. Dillon in a Texas Bull Rope match. And the condition on this is that if Bass wins, he gets a second Texas Bull Rope match with Dillon. Five minute one.
00:30:45
Speaker
So if your call last year's show, even though they weren't actually in a match together, even though they were tag champions, Black Bart and Ron Bass were partners. They're part of the long riders under, say, manager, or Dylan. Some point between these two shows, they split up. Ron Bass sort of became a good guy and has been trying to get his hands on Dylan because he's the evil manager. Yeah. Hopefully he's more talented than the assassin number one doing the exact same story last year. Yes.
00:31:15
Speaker
Did he at least become an actual good guy? Or was it just, uh, I disagree with how poorly you're cheating for me. I think he's an actual good guy at that point. Okay. Both Bass and Bart make their entrances to the Starrcade theme. Dylan, accompanying Bart, is wearing a tuxedo t-shirt like Jimmy Valiant was last year, because he obviously wants to be ready for his match, but also look good.
00:31:40
Speaker
It breathes. Tony notes that the rules are absolutely no rules. Anything goes, but that you have to pin your man. That's a rule.
00:31:54
Speaker
The rope attached to the wrestler's wrist has a cowbell on it, and Bass opens the match by smacking Black Bart with said cowbell multiple times and grinding it against his head to get him bleeding. He takes the time to tell Dylan that he's going to have him for five minutes, but that lets Bart turn things around with a hard slug to the gut and several cowbell shots, as Dylan yells that Bass will never get those five minutes. Bass is bleeding now too.
00:32:18
Speaker
Tony tries to start a conversation with Bob Coddle about Dylan being worried, but Coddle doesn't respond. I'm pretty sure his microphone died there too. Not a good night for that. Bass comes back and hits Bart more with the cowbell, and grinds the bull rope across Bart's open head wound. That looked like it hurt. Shortly after, we get a great line from Tony. The big cowboy, and I guess both of them are cowboys, but Black Bart coming right up with an uppercut.
00:32:49
Speaker
They do a big Hollywood knife fight spot with Bart trying to shove the bell into Bass's face while Bass struggles to hold it back. It's a bell. Just saying. Yeah. I feel like we get a spot similar to this in a later match, which is much better. Yes. Yes. So this is our preview, I guess. If it had Christopher Walken saying it needs more cowbell. Yes. That would be ideal.
00:33:17
Speaker
Well they go back and forth a bit more, but Bass wears Bart down and Dylan pleads with Bart to get up and keep fighting. To no avail as Bass finally comes off the top and hits Bart with the cowbell for the three.
00:33:30
Speaker
I was thinking about it when we were in description and I guess functionally it makes sense that Dylan's coming out dressed to wrestle because obviously in his mind he knows the script. He knows he's going to wrestle, but it feels like it would be more effective if he came out dressed like he normally did. We're in touch with you, because he knows 100% that his guy is going to win. Get more of a shock reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Because honestly what it feels like is he's planning for a failure.
00:33:57
Speaker
He's like, well, I better even smash because my guy's going to lose. They're backstage before the match. He claps Black Bart on the shoulder and says, man, I got to tell you, I have so little faith in you. That's really got to hurt. Yeah, it could hurt morale. I think they could have done a better condition to win. They could have had, you know, you had to actually hit him in the head three times with the cowbell to count him out.
00:34:21
Speaker
Not that I enjoy that sort of thing, but it would make the whole trying to hit that on the other guy's head seem a little bit more, that's the condition to win. Yeah. Yeah. For me, this was just, it's kind of a bunch of punching in strikes with the cowbell and rope and it works well enough, but it never really strives to be anything more.
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, I was wondering, John, what you would feel like, because this is kind of a similar match type to the Piper versus Valentine one. Yeah. So what's your thoughts? How do they compare?
00:34:56
Speaker
I mean they do utilize the rope. I mean obviously they don't compare at all. I mean the Piper one was much better. It seems a little bit more, it seems more lethal to have it attached at the neck rather than the wrist. It's different in that like there's just a bunch of metal attached at both the wrist and you know they have the cowbell so it just seems like a totally different match.
00:35:17
Speaker
But you know, there are there's a series in the middle where Double horseshoes because I can't think of the guy's name right now is as utilizing the rope pretty well He's got it wrapped around his neck and he's delivered a strike pulling him down doing it, you know Other than that some of the exchanges just don't they don't have anything on that that previous match. Sorry
00:35:39
Speaker
My feeling on it was this feels like it should have emotion, but it doesn't have a lot of emotion. Right. And it doesn't have that intensity that Piper versus Valentine managed. Yeah, they're wrong. Ryan Bass was a pretty good wrestler and all, but he definitely didn't have the emotional range that Piper did. Piper really made you feel that emotion. Even if you didn't watch the buildup, just from watching him, you know how he felt. Yes.
00:36:08
Speaker
I did like Bass and Dylan taking time to yell taunts at each other. That was a cool little spot, and they add a little bit of what the rest of the match was missing in a motion. But yeah, there's not really much interesting to this one. It's capably performed. Bard in particular does a pretty nice job of showing his deteriorating condition over the course of the match, but the match just doesn't have a heck of a lot to it. The crowd seemed to like it.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah, true. The announcers actually point this out over the course of the match, but it is rather strange that Dylan never tries to interfere in this. Yes. I'm not quite sure why that's a plot point. Why in a no DQ match does he not try something at some point, especially if when this guy loses, he's going to get beaten up. You know, right. It seems like he'd be more likely to interfere here, not less, but they actually take the time to point out that he's not interfering, which is just struck me as strange.
00:37:09
Speaker
So I don't hate the match, I'll be wrong, but the problem is it reminds me of many other matches that are better. Because aside from the Piper Valentine match, it reminds me a bit of the Dick Slater match with Ron Bass, where he has a story where he's constantly tasting dated dill and is on the outside trying to get to him. And I like that much better. Yeah.
00:37:32
Speaker
The outcome, I don't know if I didn't have any of the storyline leading up to it, you know, to get that rivalry. I know that they were both long riders together and they've had a falling out. And I'll mention that too. It just seems like the extra five minutes, they could have explained it better. Like, I really just want to beat up my old manager.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, rather than if you lose, you get punished more. This is something that really would have benefited from a pre-match promo. Yes. Right? Absolutely. Or announcer is talking about things more. Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:08
Speaker
But I mean, am I wrong is the premise that, you know, they've had a falling out and I want to get at the manager, which is fine. You can come, come at me, but you got to win against this guy. Exactly. Yes. Okay. Okay. So that's Dylan doesn't want Dylan obviously doesn't want to get in the ring with him. So he's put Bart up as this wall that if you can beat black Bart, which obviously you won't, then you can get in the ring with me for five minutes. All right. Yeah. Okay.
00:38:39
Speaker
So it aligns, but it doesn't feel the way he just like walks in immediately, takes off his shirt and starts fighting. It's not like he's afraid. Yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
The next match, also at the Coliseum obviously, since it involves the same people, starts up pretty much immediately as, like you said John, Dylan just lunges straight in and starts stomping on Bass before Bart's even out of the ring. He aggressively attacks Bass and doesn't even pause as the ref puts the rope on his wrist. He goes for a pin even as the announcer is calling the match start, but Bass kicks out.
00:39:12
Speaker
Dylan goes to use the cowbell and chokes Bass with the rope, but Bass gets to his feet and glares at Dylan. Dylan flees, but he's dragged back by the rope and gets battered with the cowbell and punches. Oddly, Tony notes that this is two on one, even though Bart hasn't actually done anything. But it turns out that Tony is precognitive, because after Bass accidentally knocks out the ref with the cowbell, Bart jumps in and hits a pile driver, then puts Dylan on top for the three.
00:39:43
Speaker
It's not bad, but it is mostly just storyline. It's just Dylan attacks him for a little bit, then his limited advantage wears off, but then he cheats to win. I also don't know why he needed to strike throw free given that no DQ. Yeah, that's confusing. Especially after saying it's two on one. Yeah.
00:40:05
Speaker
No, it's not bad, but it's a non-wrestler. I mean, Ben and Dylan did wrestle at some point, but he's not a wrestler at this point against a guy. And the story is just that he's not capable of fighting him. So there's only so much you can do with it. Yeah.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not a fan of beating up the person that's not capable. You know, I'm just not a fan of it. And I understand that, like you said, the plot points might have been, like, you get a little bit of vengeance in there, but nope, it was a mess. I'm actually surprised. I actually like this a lot.
00:40:42
Speaker
I don't know, I think in part it's just J.J. Dillon is really, really good at his job for me, but he has so much character. I like Dillon, yeah. I like Dillon. I mean, just for me, that made this really, really entertaining. And in contrast to last year's wrestler versus manager match with Valiant versus Jones,
00:41:01
Speaker
Dylan acts like such a total jerk in the opening moments where he just rushes in before it's even ready and starts kicking him around and doing everything he can and just doing this massive assault that I didn't mind seeing it turned around on him even though knowing he's less of a combatant.
00:41:20
Speaker
Dylan's oh crap look when Bass does start fighting back is absolutely tremendous. I think Bass seems to raise his game a little bit from a character standpoint in this one. He gets a little bit more emotion in it. I guess maybe, I don't know if you'll agree with this, but I don't think that we can call this a good match, but I think we can call it a good performance. Dylan and Bass will do fine. Yeah, he does, he does.
00:41:47
Speaker
But like you said, yeah, final spot, really confusing. Why do we have to have a rough bump in an ODQ match? Bart can just jump in and do the piledriver, it's fine. Dylan, I think makes this the best version of this that I've seen, but it's still the best version of this that I've seen. Yeah.
00:42:05
Speaker
I almost wonder if you could have made this a Naughty Cube match that's a handicap match, but just storyline and Dylan is anytime he's confronted and he's too scared to really fight. Yeah, that would have worked for me. That's probably a better way of doing the storyline where Dylan's already in the match, but he's got an advantage because Bart's in there too. They could have had him all tied up. Yeah. Three-way rope match, you know, and they could have been tugging him back and forth and punching him. That would be absolutely hilarious, and I endorse that entirely.
00:42:38
Speaker
If you're looking for long-term effect of Black Bart and Ron Bass fighting, you're not going to get it because Black Bart leaves for WCCW, which is a world-class championship wrestling in Texas. Ron Bass sort of hangs around territory for a little while longer, but doesn't really do a whole lot in the next year. Did you Dylan? Obviously his career picks up a bit next year, but that's all safe for now. Yeah.
00:43:05
Speaker
Our next match is going to be another two-parter here. It's superstar Billy Graham versus the Barbarian with Paul Jones in an arm wrestling match. The second show after Last Year's Starrcade, Paul Jones builds up that he is a new client, and by all his superlatives, he's clearly talking about super-superlately Graham. Right.
00:43:31
Speaker
And sure enough, the next show, he back says, yes, it's really Graham. So he becomes part of, it's officially known as Paul Jones's army. I think that's what his first stable was called at this point. He's involved in the first credit American bash part of Paul Jones army, but ultimately just like with Bassen Bart situation, he ends up splitting.
00:43:55
Speaker
And thus now he's a, he's a good guy again for kind of weirdly for assassin. Number one reasons it's because he turned heel and then it's just, well, I'm not a heel anymore. Yeah. I didn't really seem to do anything differently. I have a big reason for it. It's just, yeah, no. Yeah. Superstar Billy Graham is superstar Billy Graham, I guess. Yeah.
00:44:22
Speaker
Barbarian comes out to the same Starrcade theme. Billy Graham, however, has a knockoff of the final countdown. He's so amazingly blatant. Best song of the night. Yes. He's very much dressed like Hulk Hogan now, too, in tie-dye that emphasizes red and yellow and wearing a bandana. The ring announcer announces the Barbarian as the Barbarian Barbarian.
00:44:49
Speaker
Billy Graham, he announces as Mr. Charisma. The ring announcer also says that it's going to be fun. Good to know. I think, I'm going to let me decide what time I'm going to miss the ring announcer and not you. Thanks. It's the only time that he says it in the night, by the way. I've never, never hear him say that again. He gets up to 20 by Billy Graham. There you go.
00:45:13
Speaker
Barbarian needs to use his left hand as his right is in a cast. Graham agrees and says it doesn't matter which hand Barbarian uses as he's just gonna break his left hand too. Tony builds up that Barbarian isn't familiar with arm wrestling. The two arm wrestle, Barbarian looks like he might win, and then Graham wins. Actually, it's not entirely clear if he actually wins by getting Barbarian's arm down or by DQ for Jones whacking him with the cane right as he gets Barbarian's arm down.
00:45:41
Speaker
timing was really weird in that. I feel like you should have attacked him right when it's clear that his guy's gonna lose, but he does it like right afterwards.
00:45:50
Speaker
So that was obviously nothing just to set up for the actual wrestling match. But the crowd is actually surprisingly into it. And I do have to give Jones credit for being pretty darn funny behind Barbarians back. He is miming with his cane like he's arm wrestling himself and just like wiggling the cane to the to the side like, no, no, push him down, push him down. I thought the acting was a little over the top. Yeah, just slightly so.
00:46:19
Speaker
references. Oh my gosh, I didn't even get that. Ah. Barbarian comes right after Graham as Graham reels from the shop with Jones Kane, and he and Jones team up to kick Graham while the ref is getting the table out of the ring. Graham is already bleeding.
00:46:39
Speaker
Barbarian continues beating Graham up entirely one-sided. Oddly, we get a little audio cutting in that sounds like an interview starting up backstage. It says, "'Abdulla the Butcher,' first of all," and then it cuts really quickly. Not sure exactly what was going on there. We will not get an interview with Abdulla the Butcher or anyone that has been in a match with Abdulla the Butcher at any point tonight.
00:47:02
Speaker
I have a theory on that actually. So, you know, there's a whole thing where when you transmit video and audio through space, it takes, you know, years and years to get places. I'm thinking this is what happened to the audio we lost at the first arcade with Dusty Rhodes. It is now finally got here. So Dusty Rhodes was talking to Abdullah the Butcher. Yeah. Okay. That sounds like something he would be doing that first night. I mean, it's similar body types.
00:47:31
Speaker
Barbarian hits a couple sidekicks and misses a leg drop, but cuts off Graham's comeback. He misses a flying headbutt though, and that lets Graham finally land a few strikes and get his bear hug. The ref lifts Barbarian's arm a few times, and he does keep the arm up, but Jones interferes anyway with a shot with the cane for the DQ.
00:47:51
Speaker
Post match, Graham gets the cane and hits Jones, but Barbarian hits him from behind and drags him outside, then slams him into the ring post. Graham falls over the barricade, and the Barbarian beats him up with the barricade and a ringside chair. The ref gets between Graham and the Barbarian, just as Bob Cottle notes that he's been unable to stop it so far. And the Barbarian just stops and goes away while the ref holds up Graham's hand in victory. Yeah, so obviously the first part's pretty pointless.
00:48:18
Speaker
I mean, the plus side, I guess, is I really don't, at this point, not care much for watching Billy Graham Bresl.
00:48:25
Speaker
at least with the entire body, but in wrestling with just his arm, it's at least sort of catering to his strengths. Yeah. No pun intended for once. The actual match is, I mean, it's better than last year. I don't know how long we can use 84 as the sort of benchmark for quality. I mean, we will all show obviously, but next year, I think we can't do that again. But it's definitely better than that match with him and Wahoo McDaniel.
00:48:52
Speaker
But I think it's pretty much solely because of Barbarian. He's at that point where I've seen him a lot later. I know he's never a huge star. He never like a draw for me, but never drives the match down. So if nothing else, having a younger, more athletic opponent with Graham is an improvement over last year's show. Yeah. He's dependable. Yeah.
00:49:17
Speaker
dealing on the match makes it at least so interesting, but it's not above a certain level still. I liked it. I mean, anytime you see like a pumped up master Roshi and tie dye, it's going to be pretty good. And I know that the whole arm wrestling thing in the beginning was, you know, just kind of a get the crowd worked up, but you know, you know, it's, there are worse beginnings. Yeah, true.
00:49:45
Speaker
And I thought the card table will get used, you know, it really wasn't, but yeah. But no, I didn't, I didn't rub me the wrong way. And, uh, I was very happy to see some outside the ring action, which I don't really recall any other star caves really focusing on that. Yeah, not really, not too heavily yet. Yeah. So I was like, okay, they're using the whole arena. They're working the whole arena and you know, they gets a little bit more.
00:50:11
Speaker
Variety out there Huh, so you you you agree with the ring announcer then this was fun. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah Yeah, I I felt like the ring announcer lied to me
00:50:28
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Billy Graham doesn't really do much for me. He's in this match, especially all he's really doing is selling for the barbarian. And then he just has a couple of punches and bear hug and the match is done. Okay. Yeah. The bear hugs. Don't I'm, I'm not a fan of the bear. I'll give you that. Okay. It's again, standing still putting my arms up. You can hug me.
00:50:50
Speaker
But I do agree, Barbarian I think made things moderately interesting. His sidekicks look pretty darn good in particular.
00:51:00
Speaker
But that's about all the match had for me. And the ending of both the arm wrestling and the regular match makes zero sense. Like I said, in the arm wrestling match, Jones should interfere earlier if he's going to. And in this match, Barbarian does not appear to be going out to the bear hug yet. And Jones just jumps in and loses the match for him for no good reason.
00:51:24
Speaker
Graham also never really gets to look good here. He doesn't look good in the ending brawl or in the match itself. It always feels like Graham is built up as this really big name, but both times I've seen him so far, he just kind of gets beaten up and unceremoniously loses the match or unceremoniously gets DQ'd and then beaten up. It doesn't seem to match the image.
00:51:48
Speaker
Honestly, it'd be nice if I could find, I'm sure I came somewhere, matches from the early 70s, where I think Graham and Dusty even fight back in the day. Yeah. Over the title, probably in Florida even. I really need to see him before everything's starting to break down and he's just trying to look as above as possible to cover up that. Yeah.
00:52:10
Speaker
Just to get a real actual, fully rounded view of him, but yeah, this part not doing anything for me. Yeah. Cause he's got charisma. He's got charisma in spades. So I can imagine a situation where you get him in the right, you know, in there against the right person and Dusty may be that person that you could get something fairly good. It's just, I ain't seeing it yet. Yeah.
00:52:34
Speaker
They get points for grooming. They all came in. They look good. You got good face paint. You know, the hair's all styled. Come on. Although did Jones have his Dracula cape this year? I don't think he did. I don't think he had his Dracula cape this year, no, unfortunately. It's a shame. This shoe doesn't really go anywhere because Graham goes to WF in June. Okay.
00:52:59
Speaker
Our next match is back at the Coliseum and it's the nature boy Buddy Landell with James J. Dillon versus Terry Taylor for the NWA National Heavyweight Championship. Earlier in the year, J.J. Dillon tries to align himself with Flair and that doesn't work because, let's be honest, Flair doesn't really need anybody to promote him or talk for him or do anything for him really. So he's like, I don't need you.
00:53:26
Speaker
I'm not Black Bart. That's probably an actual quote from them, you know. That's what I would say if I was Ric Flair. There'd be a woo involved as well. Oh yeah, of course. So to that end, he finds Buddy Landell and starts calling him Nature Boy. Okay. He explains in a couple promos on the shows, not this one of course, because that'd be helpful, that his goal is to get Buddy Landell a world title shot.
00:53:56
Speaker
because he's going to prove that Bayland Dell is the real nature of the way. So to get a Tyler shot, he's got to put himself high up in the pecking order. So he needs a title. So that means he needs the NWA national heavyweight title. So it actually is a revenge kind of storyline against Ric Flair. Uh, to a certain extent, yes. That's, that's man, that makes the Landell interview. We'll get to later even weirder. Okay. Says Ooh.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say, so Buddy Landell is basically the same gimmick as Ric Flair, just less woos. Yeah. And to be fair, Ric Flair was also not the first nature boy. Yes. We had Buddy Rogers, right? Yes. He, in fact, beats Buddy Rogers to become nature boy as Rogers' England career is winding down. That's like in the mid 70s, I believe. Why doesn't he go by Buddy Flair? Or to say, at least Buddy here is kind of carrying on. Yeah.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah, so Buddy Landell is the other nature boy. And Terry Taylor has a Florida jacket because he's from Florida, you see. That is the extent of his character that I could determine. Yeah, pretty much. Old Florida man gimmick. Yeah. Landell comes out on his own at star as the announcers tell us that Dylan is not here because he's suffering the effects of the bull rope match.
00:55:23
Speaker
We get a lockup to start. Landell mocks Taylor, with Taylor getting in his face. They lock up again, but Landell slaps Taylor in the chest, only for Taylor to fire right back with a slap to the face, then knocks Landell down in shock. Arrogance keeps getting Landell in trouble, and Taylor counters his holds and gets very close to a win on several pin attempts.
00:55:44
Speaker
Bob Coddle takes a moment to note that this is a copyright presentation of Jim Crockett promotions and any use without their permission is prohibited. I'll call them right up as soon as I invent a time machine. Frustrated, Landell finally smartens up and hits Taylor with some vicious strikes, though a boot from Taylor earns Landell's version of a flair flop. A bandaged Dylan finally appears at ringside to provide encouragement as the trade holds and both transition to more hard hits and power moves.
00:56:13
Speaker
It feels really weird to hear JJ Dylan yell encouragement to the nature boy, and then look in the ring and see someone other than Ric Flair. A chinlock goes awry for Landell, as Taylor crawls towards the corner and then hurls Landell off into the bottom turnbuckle pad. Cool spot. Taylor gets a nice suplex, as Tony and Bob build up his superplex finisher, but Landell shoves Taylor into the ref twice, and that gives Dylan the chance to jump up with that deadliest weapon of all, the shoe.
00:56:43
Speaker
Taylor shoves Landell into Dylan instead, and then takes Landell to the top rope, but Dylan shoves Taylor's leg so that Landell falls on top for the three. Dylan gets in to celebrate with Landell, and the crowd boos mightily.
00:56:58
Speaker
Kind of like the very first match we had, it's one of the, nothing really goes wrong. I can't say, oh, you know, this spot's not very good or this guy's not talented or, you know, there's no real obvious negative complaints, but I don't know, Buddy Landell as a heel is, I don't know, not super effective to me. He's not bad, but he's not Ric Flair. And that's going to be the problem with his gimmick. If you're going full tilt to try and be Ric Flair, that's just not going to work.
00:57:28
Speaker
you should really have done it where he's trying to act like flair but he can't do it so he tries something different a little bit like he's trying to be the better version the superior Ric Flair but yeah it's it's it's fine unlike previous matches and previous shows where they have a story finish this at least helps story because it shows that Dylan is willing to do anything to get Lindell this title to get him a shot of Ric Flair so once I actually don't mind this finish
00:57:56
Speaker
the way they do it. But other than that, it's just not a super memorable match for me. Neither guy does that certain Genesee qua that makes me connect with them. So it's two guys that are talented, but not mostly invested, really. Okay.
00:58:11
Speaker
First, let me say that I think that both of them are pretty athletic. Sure. At no point did I think that they were even pulling punches. They were whipping around like, like serious. Yeah, there's some hard strikes in this match. They didn't sell every hit, but they were like immediately deliver it right back. Yeah. Lots of jumping and pulling down from the ropes, you know, finish and the turnabouts, they had some points where, you know, they gave each person a small chance to be ahead.
00:58:42
Speaker
I'm not buying the fake Ric Flair thing, though. I actually, I really enjoyed this match. I do see what you're saying. It's weird to have a guy that's doing the same gimmick as Ric Flair, but less well on a show that is headlined by Ric Flair. But if I could separate myself from that a little bit, I thought Landell did a pretty good job as a heel here.
00:59:09
Speaker
He was eminently punchable and had some good really arrogant start to the match, transitioning into really, really vicious punches and moves as the match went on. Taylor, for his part, is really, really athletic and has a pretty solid offense. And he's not a big personality himself, but he kind of didn't need to be because Landell was filling in that section of the match, kind of.
00:59:35
Speaker
So he just needed to be able to respond to a personality and he does so, especially with the slap early in the match that had to make Landell's head ring.
00:59:43
Speaker
Yeah, I like that spot. I thought this match had a good mix of action in contrast to some of the earlier matches that we've seen tonight. They start out with mat holes, they move onto grappling, they get into some strikes, they end up in power moves. There's a variety of offense that the guys are doing in this one that we haven't really had quite tonight yet.
01:00:07
Speaker
For me, I enjoyed some of the earlier matches on the card to some extent or another, but this is the first match that to me felt like more of a complete package. It's the most fully formed, yeah. Yeah. It feels like maybe it doesn't reach particularly high levels.
01:00:24
Speaker
but it's not really missing anything. They have the character aspects, they have a variety of different types of offense, they have some emotion moments, and they have, like you pointed out, an ending that's complex, but it serves a story. There's a lot in here that works together, and it's not really missing anything that it would need to succeed. So I found myself getting into the match pretty well in this case.
01:00:49
Speaker
He was thinking about it as you described it, and he said, I have no complaints about the match. There's nothing they do wrong.
01:00:55
Speaker
Maybe part of my issue with it is that I know I don't have Steamboat. And I feel like this is a Steamboat spot. Like Steamboat would have won this national title. And then you'd send Nature Boy, Bloody and Del after him. He'd be this, just wrong, like a former that gets screwed over on the way. True. Yeah. I can see you swap Terry Taylor out for Ricky Steamboat. And there's no question the match gets better.
01:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, and I fully understand that's not fair to Terry Taylor, but I can't help it. I like the bare knuckle boxing aspect and just a lot of whips. It was literally like watching something at 1.5 speed compared to some of the other matches tonight. Yeah, they were going pretty fast.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yeah, well, especially coming off of, off of Billy Graham. Yes. Yeah. No, he was moving around that map. They hugged. Yes. Hope it weren't super. We mostly invested on seeing what happens with by Lindell fighting. We flare because it doesn't happen.
01:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, Buddy Landell has what people usually refer to as personal demons. He's fired in January, a great month for the company, as we will see going forward, plus with Crushers injury from earlier mentioned. He's fired for personal demons and issues. So they dip into the title, at least they made the title off of him physically before he left. Unlike with Tyler.
01:02:31
Speaker
And just coming into a show in January, they announced that there'd been a match between Dusty Rhodes and Buddy Lindell, and Rhodes did one title, which he didn't.
01:02:44
Speaker
But yeah, they usually just move the tile to Dusty, forgetting the whole thing of you need this tile to get to Flare, because obviously Dusty doesn't need a tile to get to Flare, he keeps getting to Rick Flare. But they basically turn into a story of people like Blanchard and the Anderson's trying to get the title away from him that way.
01:03:05
Speaker
Okay. And when speaking of Z title, so this title comes in as part of when they bought our GCW, as you mentioned in the intro, all these national titles are from that.
01:03:16
Speaker
Uh, this title is actually gone by September, so it does not feature the next year's show. Okay. They decided it's not worth having a national title and a world title, which I kind of agree with. And a US title. Yes. So they merged it with the US title. So the plus side, this will be the best national title match on Starrcade history. True. True. It'd be hard to beat. Exactly.
01:03:42
Speaker
Our next match is back at the Omni, and it is the Minnesota Wrecking Crew. That's like a terrific name. That is Ollie and Arne Anderson. Yes. Versus Wahoo McDaniel and Billy Jack Haynes for Ollie and Arne's NWA National Tag Team Championship. Arne Anderson is here. I am so happy.
01:04:13
Speaker
Also, Aron has only been wrestling for about three years at this point. He debuted in 1982. So as I just mentioned before, when they bought GCW, they bought their titles, which brought in Owen Anderson as the national tag team champions.
01:04:32
Speaker
So they decided to get them some challengers. So they took Wylie McDaniel and Billy Jack Haines, who was sort of their big rising star at the point, because he has this, the look they want. And they brought them into the match as challengers, which confusingly, they are the United States tag team champions. Yes. Challenging for the national tag team championships. And a company that also has world tag team championships. Yes.
01:04:57
Speaker
You get more accusing later in the wrap-up, but it's already accusing now. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got the United States Tag Team Champions challenging for the National Tag Team Championship. Mm-hmm. So those are apparently different things. Yes. So what is the national title for Canada? That doesn't make a lick of sense that you've got a national title and a US title in the same company. Yeah, unless you argue that the United States title covers our territories.
01:05:27
Speaker
National only covers landlocked u.s. I don't think so You're up. You're down with Canada. I'm down with that. Okay. They're named Ollie and Arne. Yes. Mm-hmm. It's like sawmill gravy
01:05:43
Speaker
They're lumberjack names. That's good. Now, they aren't actually related, but you can immediately see why Arne was made part of Oli's fictional wrestling family. The two totally look like they're related, and their in-ring styles feel very, very similar to each other.
01:06:00
Speaker
This actually feels like exactly where Arndt should be right now. He's getting to learn from working with a guy with a really, really similar wrestling style and really similar attitude. It's kind of back to what we were feeling on the first arcade, where you kept seeing tag teams made up of an older wrestler and a younger wrestler with similar styles. That's what they're doing here again with Ole and Arndt, and it really seems to work well.
01:06:25
Speaker
Before we had Arnaudley, we had Gene and Ole Anderson as well. They're like the set. I was mastered. Oh, yes. Yeah. There you go.
01:06:38
Speaker
Hanes and Arne start us off, and Hanes dominates with power. Arne quickly tags out to Oli, and things don't go much better for him as he loses a slugfest than another one before Hanes tags out to Wahoo and Oli tags Arne. They trade holds, with Arne beautifully transitioning from Wahoo's headlock into a head scissor on the ground.
01:06:59
Speaker
but Wahoo gets lured into the Anderson's corner and the two take control. Arne and Oli trade off and start wearing Wahoo down, focusing on the arm to weaken his chops. Wahoo gets spots of offense, but the Andersons quickly tag in and out to make sure someone can always stop him from getting to Haynes, while taking advantage of Haynes' protest to double-team Wahoo. Wahoo finally hits chops to Oli and does a commando roll to tag Haynes. I was not expecting our first commando roll tag to come from Wahoo McDaniel.
01:07:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's always funny because you make a slight pause to prepare yourself to do the roll and then you do it and you could take that pause and you'd be in the back of the head and stopped. Yeah. Or you could walk the same distance without rolling. Yeah, pretty much. That's resting for you though.
01:07:48
Speaker
The crowd erupts as Haynes beats up both Andersons and hits a double noggin knocker. But after a double team from the Andersons, Haynes rather unceremoniously tags back out, letting Wahoo back in to hit Arne with his big chop. It looks much better on Arne Anderson than on Billy Graham. Though Ollie makes the save.
01:08:08
Speaker
The Andersons double team Wahoo while Haines protests the ref again, but Wahoo drives Arne to the corner and starts chopping him. Only for Oli to grab his leg to trip him, Arne quickly gets the pin with Oli holding Wahoo's leg to keep him down for the three.
01:08:25
Speaker
So obviously I've missed my feelings on Wild McDaniel pretty clear from previous shows and from earlier references in this show. Daniel doesn't really give me anything in this match. He doesn't... it's like he's so bad he takes away from the match and they're like, oh, the match is not good anymore, but...
01:08:42
Speaker
He really, at this point, doesn't have anything to give me. Thankfully, we have Billy Jack Haynes, who, while he's not the most polished wrestler, he has a natural look and really clearly connected with the live crowd there. So when he takes over, even if you necessarily don't like Billy Jack Haynes, it feels big when he takes over. It's a big moment he gets in the ring.
01:09:06
Speaker
And obviously the high point being the Anderson's because they're the Anderson's, even like we staying less than a year and then being a tag team, it feels like they've been attacked in her life. Yeah. And incredibly seamless. They immediately work super well together and know all of each other's spots and moments. It's yeah. Terrific tag work. Yeah. They do cover for each other really well. They, they don't miss a beat. Like you could, you could see that they would be brothers. It wouldn't be hard to put them together.
01:09:37
Speaker
No, it's a good match. Yeah, I thought this was a really fun little tag match. And like you said, the Andersons work terrifically together. And they're the glue that holds this together. Yes. Wahoo, I thought actually was pretty good to me. He makes a much better baby face than he does a heel. And he doesn't have a lot of offense, but he did a very good job of keeping sympathy from the crowd and from me in the face of the Anderson's really quick tag work and focused offense.
01:10:04
Speaker
Hanes, when he tags in, it's a big moment, but otherwise he's just kind of there. And it surprised me how little he's involved in the match. He's in it very briefly at the beginning, then he gets the hot tag, and then he tags back out in like a matter of moments.
01:10:21
Speaker
Is that really all he had? I don't know. It feels strange. There's lots of clever teamwork from the Andersons, and there's one bit in particular that I have to highlight where Wahoo chops Arne down, and Arne, as he's falling, both tags Ole and catches Wahoo's leg with his own legs to hold him in place as Ole gets in the ring. That is some coordination.
01:10:50
Speaker
And I'm probably rating this match a billion points higher just for having Arne Anderson here. He's one of my favorites and it's cool to see him getting to show his stuff so early into his run in the company. Good match and good to see Wahoo getting to have something a little bit more involved than the one last year. I feel like Wahoo can go someone in the ring to me. He just needs the right opponents and the Andersons are definitely the right opponents.
01:11:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm going to go back to what's going to play Graham. I feel like I need to see older matches with him to see the full version of him. Because, yeah, I mean, he's not terrible, but just he he doesn't do much other than to chop and yeah, bunch and chop.
01:11:33
Speaker
I feel like Wahoo's probably still at this point a guy that is good to put in a tag team with less experienced wrestlers because maybe even if he can't do as much in the ring anymore, he can kind of keep the other guy organized. Right. That's what feels weird about it because that's his role in 83. Yeah. And then they promoted him in 84 and he's back to the spot in 85. Yeah. Kind of a strange career trajectory there. Yeah, exactly.
01:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's pretty much a one-sided affair quality-wise for me, but the other side is not detrimental. It's just they have nothing overall. It really is for the Anderson's for me. You know, nobody drags the match down. No. It's just you can tell which side is responsible for this match going particularly well. Yeah. And it's the Anderson's.
01:12:22
Speaker
Well, and coming back, I was saying before, maybe unfairly for with poor Terry Taylor, just so I'll be even with this. If this was the innocence against, say, Dick Slater and Ricky Steamboat or some commission of that, it would be a really, really strong match. Yes. But because it's not, it's a good match. That's stiff. Yeah, I can agree with that easily, yeah.
01:12:47
Speaker
The Andersons are doing pretty well at this point until it only gets written in January. Dang it. Yeah, I know. It's a really bad month form. Just like with another title, they decide we don't need this second tag title. So we're going to get rid of this tag title and we're going to introduce the United States Tag Team Championships. And if that's confusing, let me sort of explain.
01:13:11
Speaker
Billy Jack Haynes and Walt Dana were the United States Tag Team Champions of Florida. Okay. The national version of the United States Tag Team Champions didn't exist until the national Tag Team Champions were vacated. Oh my gosh. How did they find a way to make that even more confusing than it already was? So Florida.
01:13:39
Speaker
had a United States title. They had the United States title and U.S. tag these tags from championships. Yes. Wow. Just about every state that had a major NWA branch had their own U.S. title and some version of their own tag titles. Wow. Yep. That's terrific. That's absolutely beautiful.
01:14:03
Speaker
It really opened what had made so much more sense to just say that the titles that Billy Jack Haynes and Walt McDaniel had were the new titles, that they already brought in those titles. But nope, we're gonna name it the exact same thing or what we said they had, but we're not just letting them be those champions. We're intentionally not taking the lineage of that title. Correct. That's bizarre.
01:14:29
Speaker
Oh, in the middle of this following year, Bo Deckhain gets in an unclear argument with somebody backstage and leaves the company. Okay. So I hope we weren't connected to him, but like, but I endow because, yeah, no more of that. Apparently. All right. At least Arne Anderson sticks around. Yep. That's true. We go backstage and Weaver tells us that we're taking a 15 minute intermission, which is thankfully cut.
01:14:59
Speaker
We come back in with Weaver interviewing Landell and Dylan. Weaver builds up that Dylan had an impressive victory tonight, and Dylan says that Starrcade85 has been one of the greatest nights of his career and will go down as the greatest event in wrestling history. Who is? Jim Crocker Promotions IS professional wrestling. He thought that Bart could take down Bass, but he was prepared, and now he's the uncrowned champion of the Bull Rope match. Please don't invent another title belt for that.
01:15:29
Speaker
He says Landell won, and proved that all the experts who said he wasn't ready were wrong. Dylan was right, and now Landell has the title that's the stepping stone to the World Championship.
01:15:40
Speaker
Weaver joins Dylan and congratulating Landell. Landell says Dylan turned his career around. Landell has modeled his career off of Tully Blanchard, Ric Flair, and Arnaud Lee Anderson. He's a champion now. Everyone can say what they want, but he can now say he's the quote, world's national heavyweight champion. He will take on anyone, anytime. In the words of Ric Flair, I said it.
01:16:10
Speaker
JJ Dillon's part of this interview is terrific. Yes. He has that perfect mix of boastfulness and almost plausibility that seems perfect for a wrestling manager.
01:16:20
Speaker
I'm really happy to be seeing his promos because I've not actually seen much of his early promo work before, and he's really good. He's been a really fun discovery. I love that he basically assigns himself a new title for his victory in the match. And he also gets in a little bit of building himself up with Landell's success. Like, I'm the one that did this. I'm the one that was right when everyone else was wrong. I love that.
01:16:47
Speaker
Lendell for me was not as good. No. He's not bad, but he seems to get a little muddled. And what's really confusing with this is his tone towards Flair here feels entirely at odds with what we've been told about him so far. Here he sounds very respectful towards Rick Flair. He says, I've modeled my career off of him. Yeah. And says, you have to live like a champion. Well, he seems to be talking about how Rick Flair's
01:17:14
Speaker
been living, although he does say that Nature Boy's been playing possum, but I couldn't tell obviously since there's two Nature Boys in the company which one he meant and what he meant by that. So he sounds kind of admiring towards Ric Flair when this entire angle is about, from what you said, Al, him claiming to be the real Nature Boy and wanting to get at Ric Flair. So it doesn't really make sense there.
01:17:36
Speaker
I did love him constantly mugging for the camera during Dylan's promo though. He's just like preening in front of the camera the entire time. Yeah, Landell doesn't give a whole lot verbally. His general presence is fine. But yeah, he's not a whole lot at this point. There's a lot of stumbling in his speech, so. Yeah. But he gets points for enthusiasm. And for also inventing a new title belt.
01:18:05
Speaker
since he's apparently won the world national title. He's something about intestinal fortitude that didn't exist. Yeah, Dylan. Yeah, he tried to say that he had a fortitude that he didn't realize existed, but he says he has an fortitude that did not exist. That's true. Yeah. So even Dylan isn't immune to flipping a line or two.
01:18:30
Speaker
To be fair, he's lost like a liter of blood. Yes, true. He has a better use than most. Yeah. The average human has 4.5 liters of blood. Oh, that's good to know.
Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard Match Setup
01:18:40
Speaker
Just so you know. I watched a bunch of things on mosquitoes today. Our next match is back at the Colosseum, and it is Magnum TA versus Tully Blanchard, accompanied by Babydoll.
01:18:55
Speaker
in an I Quit Steel Cage match. This is for Tully's United States Heavyweight Championship.
01:19:18
Speaker
Going ahead, you know, a year from that, they've been building them up really strongly. He actually won the US title, held it for a while, then in July, he was beat in dubious circumstances by Tully Blanchard. And ever since then, they've been doing this thing where, looks like with Steamboat, they were doing the year before, he would, you know, win via the qualification or a countout, or they go to time them a draw, and you would find ways to avoid losing the title.
01:19:46
Speaker
I get so frustrated by the build up of this that he absolutely asked for an I quit match. Tully and his manager do not want to have anything to do with this. It's kind of weirdly built up on the show is because on one show they say the manager asked for the match but the manager's not going to give it to him. Then on the next show they go, well you have this I quit match management agreed to. I guess they did.
01:20:14
Speaker
I felt like there'd be more drama on the show itself about being forced into it, but it's like, we're not having that match. We're having this match. Yeah. I don't know. I watched all the shows, but I feel like I'm missing something. Yeah. I don't know. It's like a second show we'll be watching. I don't know. I do have to note that calling it an I quit Steel Cage match sort of implies that you have to beat the Steel Cage up so much that it wants to quit. Point. It's a fence match.
01:20:42
Speaker
Yeah, oh, sorry, it's a fence matcher. Yes, yeah, yeah. Tully comes to the ring, accompanied by his valet, Baby Doll, and is wearing a white and red robe with his name in big lettering on the back.
Magnum TA vs Tully Blanchard Match Analysis
01:20:53
Speaker
Magnum TA, oddly gets no entrance at all. He's just standing in the ring with his awesome hair and awesome mustache as Tully gets in. And of course he got the name Magnum TA for looking like Magnum PI. Mm-hmm. I probably announced a Magnum TI the first time. Yeah, someone had that in their head probably and just flubbed it. Yeah. The ring announcer, incidentally, says that he is introducing the proponents. Oh.
01:21:20
Speaker
So I guess rather than a match, this is actually one half of a debate on the subject of I-Quit steel cage matches with Tully and Magnum in favor of them. Let's see if we agree with them, shall we? Yeah. Magnum is introduced as the vastly popular Magnum TA. The crowd clearly agrees. Bob Caudle tells us that Baby Doll is Tully's inspiration.
01:21:44
Speaker
Tully opens the match by pushing Magnum into the corner, but Magnum blocks the punch and fires back with a big punch that sends Tully scampering across the ring. The two struggle for control, even rolling around on the mat. From the opening moments, regular tactics and discipline are thrown up a window, and it's clear we're going to see something different.
01:22:01
Speaker
Both wrestlers throw every big hit they can muster at the other, trying to take solid control, but they're evenly matched. Tully goes for the cage first and gets Magnum bleeding, but Magnum fires back fast with some big hooks until he only escapes by grabbing the tights and pulling Magnum face first into the cage a second time.
01:22:20
Speaker
That gives us our first microphone moment, as Tully grabs the microphone and jams it in Magnum's face and shouts for him to give up, but Magnum refuses. Tully even grinds the microphone in Magnum's face for some extra pain, and after he drops it, the ref blows in it to make sure it even still works. Magnum shows Tully how the cage feels, and then grabs Tully's shoulder in a death grip that gets Tully howling. There's blood all over Tully's shoulder at that point. It looks like it either has a gas from the cage, or it might just be blood from Magnum himself.
01:22:50
Speaker
I believe he has natural gas in his arm. Yeah, I couldn't tell looking at it, but there's a lot of blood there, so probably. Tully won't give up either, though, and the two batter each other so hard that somebody, not sure which one, gets bleeped as they react to the pain. They keep grabbing the microphone and asking, only for each other to bellow no so loudly that the microphone is kinda pointless, but it serves as an effective weapon at least.
01:23:15
Speaker
Tully, in particular, at one point sounds like Kirk screaming his rage at Khan in Star Trek II. Battered and bloody, the two escalate even further until someone, presumably Baby Doll, throws in a wooden chair. Tully breaks the chair and rips apart off to serve as a wooden spike, and he lunges at Magnum so they can do a much better version of the Hollywood knife fight spot that we mentioned earlier, with Magnum desperately trying to hold the spike back from his face.
01:23:43
Speaker
Finally, Magnum manages to kick Tully away and grab the spike himself, and he swiftly pushes it to Tully's head near the eye as blood pours down Tully's face. Tully gives up, loudly and enthusiastically.
01:23:58
Speaker
Post-match, Babydoll climbs in and we see Magnum standing over a beaten Tully, spike in hand, exhausted but still furious. We hold that shot as Magnum glares down at Tully, gripping the spike tightly, but finally he casts the spike away, ending the violence, and accepts the title from the referee. Great moment there, I thought. It's kind of the classic question that you see in a lot of movies of the, will the hero go too far and become the villain himself?
01:24:28
Speaker
It's a weird one to both critique and praise, because on one hand, the match really is them throwing each other the cage, punching each other, and eventually using the chair as a weapon. I usually like matches where, like John's point with the match with Terry Taylor, where there's a lot of action and variety of it. So you would think at face value would not like this match, because it's just them punching each other and bleeding everywhere. But it's just something about the way they do it.
01:24:58
Speaker
I think Magnum feels very natural and vengeful. Like I didn't watch six months of show of where he's getting madder and madder about this. But you get that feeling just watching the match.
01:25:12
Speaker
and totally nearly won my MVP last show with a match of Steamboat, because he's so good at being hated. Like with Anderson, there's never any issue where there's a disconnect, there's an awkward pause, or he forgets a thing, or a Steamboat in the same way. It's always very natural and flew with him.
01:25:32
Speaker
It's too close to say whether this is better than the Piper Valentine match, but it's definitely up there. I did not think it would be at that point. I'm thinking there's just a lot of, just a lot of blood and punching, but they really made it work. Now we'll say given all they do in this match, it's not a match I want to see all the time. No.
01:25:55
Speaker
But if this is the one time you do this kind of match, you did it really well this time. The best people and the best way of doing it. It's the only match I've ever seen, which reminds me of the Lucia Fulti zombie movie where the woman was being pushed towards the wind spike on the door. That's not a weird thing to remind of in a wrestling match, but here we go. It ended better at least for Magnum, thankfully.
01:26:24
Speaker
friggin awesome intro. I love the smoke machines, the robe, the glitz and glam.
01:26:32
Speaker
The match was a little bit long and it honestly, until it got to the point where they had the shiv show up, I was like, holy crap. It was like one of the few times I'm like, okay, they're just going to slip and this is going to be like a career ending eye gouge. And you know, he's either going to be blind or dead. Just one little thing. It looked like they were really saying that. In fact, I put down cherish the moment with shiv relay.
01:27:01
Speaker
who is some sort of sponsor. And I'm glad they did the turnabout thing, like some sort of 80s street fighter movie. He has a chance to go the same route or is he going to take the high ground kind of thing. But yeah, both times I'm like, okay, they're not going to stab each other. And they did. So this was not the match I was talking about where I thought there was fake blood for sure. No, absolutely not.
01:27:26
Speaker
With cage matches, I was actually very surprised to see the chair show up. Yeah. I thought the top was covered. Maybe it was just the camera angles or whatever. For whatever in my mind, the chair was always there. They decided to finally use it.
01:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, he, uh, he definitely catches it from someone off camera. I didn't see who tossed it, but it's gotta be Babydoll, because no one else is there that would be doing that, but it's got a good arm on her, because it's pretty high up to get it over the cage wall.
01:27:57
Speaker
Yeah. I've watched Mick Foley try to throw a chair into a stillcade match and fail like three times in a row. Yeah. I cried to her for getting that one of her. Yeah, this does feel like a Foley-esque kind of ending. Yeah, I'll be honest. Since we watched the show, I have been waiting to hear your opinion specifically on this because you liked the Piper versus Valentine match so much. And I wasn't sure if this would feel similar to it in the level of intensity or if you'd feel that one was definitively better than the other.
01:28:28
Speaker
There are two different things, but I definitely had an extreme response to the shift showing up.
01:28:38
Speaker
Now, it may be my personal experience of being hit in the eye with a weapon being an idiot, but it was a really powerful moment to make. Yeah. Them struggling over that feels a lot more intense than the earlier version of it with a bell. Yeah, this was largely a brawl, but what a brawl.
01:29:04
Speaker
Like you said, Al, I think you've got this legitimate feeling of hatred between these two men. It's a different level of aggression that you need for a match like this to work and I think it gets there. Things really escalate over the course of the match and even in really small ways. I noticed they start out asking if someone wants to give up, then punching them if they don't or hitting them with the microphone if they don't.
01:29:27
Speaker
And then later in the match, they come over, grab the microphone, and smack them with the microphone first, and then ask if they want to get in. So it's even little ways like that, like the match gets bigger as it goes on. Moves get harsher and harsher. My personal favorite was what I can only describe as Tully face suplexing Magnum into the steel cage at one point.
01:29:47
Speaker
They both sell exceptionally well and there's some great parts where they're both really clearly like running on fumes but throwing every last bit of energy they've got into every punch. The wooden spike spot is shocking and brutal and stands out. Like you said Al, this is not something I want to see in every match, but it is a perfect way to end this match and it feels like a natural end to the escalation.
01:30:11
Speaker
So we've had a lot of brawls tonight, but this one feels like a legitimate brawl and that makes a world of difference. There's a passion in there that makes it work. And to be fair, there's some more variety than in some of the other brawls that we've seen tonight. I've already mentioned this, but it really brought to mind Piper versus Valentine for the level of intensity and emotion in it that really for me, matched it for that match. It says something.
01:30:39
Speaker
that even on a show that's filled with blood in matches, this match stands out. And it makes you wonder how much more it would have stood out if they'd held back on the blood in all the other matches, if they'd made this the only bloody match, or if they made this the only brawling match.
01:30:55
Speaker
Especially if they hadn't had everyone bleeding in the match that comes up next. Yeah. Which really digs away from that as well. Yeah. I've seen a lot of wrestling shows, obviously, in the last almost 20 years now. So am I taking to think of where they're intentionally having someone bleeding on both the forehead and the arm? Because that was like a legit bleeding of his arm in some form. Yeah. Because seeing him on the next show, his arm is wrapped up like a mummy. Oh, okay. That is legit. Wow.
01:31:20
Speaker
That arm spot is extra rough. And it
Atlanta Street Fight Highlights
01:31:24
Speaker
being a one and done thing in this match, I think helps it. Because at this match, they go above, even just being able to bleed, which happens all the time on this show. Yeah. It's not a standard I want to set, but in this case, it's really good. This is one of the first matches I've ever seen in any of the wrestling that I've seen over the years, where I actually thought the ref was like part of a ragdoll physics simulator.
01:31:49
Speaker
Because there are several shots where the ref just flies at the camera. It's true. On the plus side of after all the previous matches I talked about, Pilwing tiled and then losing him in January, that cursed month apparently, Magnum managed to hold his title throughout May.
01:32:08
Speaker
And at that point, even then, he doesn't lose it in normal fashion. They find a way to have him shipped with the title, because at that point, it's clear that following this show and things took months, he is the top guy they're trying to push as the next guy challenge Flare. And we'll see how that plays out next show. Our next match is at the Omni. And now for something completely different.
01:32:38
Speaker
The match is The Boogie Woogie Man, Jimmy Valiant, and Miss Atlanta Lively, a cross-dressing Ron Garvin, with Big Mama versus The Midnight Express. That's beautiful Bobby Eaton and loverboy Dennis Condrey, managed by Jim Cornett, in an Atlanta street fight. Uh, Ald, can you tell me why Jimmy Valiant is back again?
01:33:03
Speaker
Yeah, I can't answer that one for you, unfortunately. Yeah, they didn't really explain anything that I watched. I will say this is one of the few times that it is clear they're switching arenas, because Ivan, in fact, got the ring that coated blood, and he knows that half unassembled cage there. This is an Atlanta street fight. Yes. Whereas they were just in South Carolina. So it's nice that they put that in there in the eighth match of the show, a clear division of where they were at.
01:33:31
Speaker
Ron Garvin, who at this point is Hanson Stowe and Ron Garvin, he's run afoul of the Minute Express and their great manager, Jim Cornette. Jimmy Valley is just always up for fighting people, apparently. And for once, he's not in disguise. Yes. Or facing a loser leave town stipulation, which is nice.
01:33:48
Speaker
So yeah, he says he has a partner challenge of an express. Jim Cornette, in his natural fashion, is like, ah, I don't care what he is, blah, blah, blah. Says all sorts of great, crazy stuff. And then he says it's Miss Land Lightly. He's like, oh, he brought some blonde in here, blah, blah, blah. And then it's clearly not a blonde lady. He's still not clear if he knows it's Ron Garvin, but. Yeah, it's not too clear if the announcers know it's Ron Garvin or not either on the show.
01:34:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, what's different about this is when in the build-up to Starkade 3, there's no to be valiant because he's extraordinarily not allowed to be there. So we only have Charlie Robin of my own town. Right. And this case, except for a couple of things building up this match in the final shows,
01:34:34
Speaker
And then suddenly, Lively is not like wrestling matches. However, Ron Garvin is wrestling matches, and no one sees him make a connection. He's wrestling regular squash matches as himself, and then he's just wearing the Wigan thing next to Jimmy Valiant. Interesting. Yeah, so essentially, they co-op Jimmy Valiant taking a break from fighting Paul Jones, I guess, which he will do the rest of 1986. He needed a break, so he'd figure he'd fight with Jim Cornett instead.
01:35:03
Speaker
Jim Cornette gives the Midnight Expresses ring introductions, and they all come to the ring in tuxes. Jimmy Valiant's team has some really nice piano music that I'm sure is probably a ripoff of something, but I couldn't tell what. So, Jimmy Valiant is teamed up with a cross-dressing Ron Garvin, and he also has a female valet. So we have a team with two female names. One is Miss Atlanta Lively, the other is Big Mama.
01:35:33
Speaker
How is it possible that Big Mama is not the name they assigned to cross-dressing Ron Garvin? Right. How does he get Miss Atlanta lively? There's got to be some joke there that I'm missing. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, honestly. They might have already introduced her as Big Mama. Yeah, she's probably already there and then that's it's just such an unusual specific name. They could have had it be like Bigger Mama. There you go.
01:36:03
Speaker
The Express charge at Valiant and Lively, but get facefuls of powder for their trouble. Lively starts off beating up Eaton, and Valiant batters Condrey with a chair outside. As Caudill notes that this is a, most unique match. And both announcers pretend that Miss Atlanta Lively is not in fact Ron Garvin dressed as a woman. The teams switch off dance partners, and things turn bad for Lively, but Valiant soon comes back to help.
01:36:29
Speaker
Condri and Eaton produce their own powder, and use their belts on the blinded Valiant and Lively. But Valiant and Lively come back with Valiant's favorite pastime, ripping tuxedos off of people. Yep.
01:36:41
Speaker
Cornette saves his team's dignity by nailing Lively with his tennis racket. Even this match has blood, as by now Condrey and Lively are both bleeding. The Express manage to keep Valiant away and double team Lively. Valiant eventually makes it in, but he gets double teamed, and Condrey holds him down as Eaton comes off the top, only for Lively to suddenly lunge in and nail Eaton right in the jaw with a hard punch, getting the pin for three.
01:37:08
Speaker
Post-match, lively and valiant, stripped Jim Cornette to his heart boxers, but the Express saved him from any further torment. So kind of like talking about Dilla Butcher earlier, this sort of by default is the best of me by a match I've seen, in that something is always happening. Much like even when you have, you know, airplane is great for being constant, you know, rapid-fire jokes, most of them good. Even when you get, you know, bad airplane-style movies or bad airplane sequels, depending on your point of view,
01:37:38
Speaker
whether or not you like the joke, there's another one five seconds later. So something is always happening here. So at least it covers up for anything. I will say this match doesn't play to the Manana Express's strength of them being a tag team. Because, I mean, they try their best with the structure when they keep the one person out, and the double team, but it's weird that you put a tag team that have them fighting a, just four people fighting each other match. But you don't really need a tag team structure of four.
01:38:06
Speaker
And you already have two disconnected people that aren't actually a tag team together. Something feels really weird about this. My best explanation for why they do this is because they have an actual tag team match, title match with the Rock and Roll Express. Yeah. We're really famous for their tag teamwork. See, I guess you want to have two of those in a row, but it feels like a weird use of an express to have in this kind of match. It's at least variety, I guess, for the show. Yeah. Definitely a variety.
01:38:34
Speaker
I didn't hate it, but it's weird that everyone's bleeding, especially after the emotional impact of the last match, but it's, it's passable. It's forgettable. Well, I liked it. Okay. You put out good music in the beginning and then you got Jimmy Valentine just dancing. I don't know. It just, it just makes me smile.
01:38:54
Speaker
Although it has a whole wedding in Atlantic City or Vegas. It's all over the place. But there's action.
01:39:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard to follow kind of, but it is kind of fun. I think it's clearly not intended to be taken totally seriously. For me, it worked as a cool down kind of from the the Magnum versus Tully match that's so intense and so serious. And so, you know, it gets you worked up and everything. And this is a case where it really actually helped a lot, I think, to see Jimmy Valiant come out there with
01:39:36
Speaker
Ron Garvin and Drag and just...
01:39:39
Speaker
have this chaotic little often funny exhibition with the Midnight Express. One thing that really does help this match is that both teams actually pretty convincingly work as teams. They're really, really always paying attention to what's going on with their partner. Even though it's a chaotic match, they're always coming back over to help or double teaming when they can. There's a fluidity to it. It doesn't feel mechanical when they switch off or anything like that, which is nice.
01:40:08
Speaker
It's hard to evaluate Garvin's performance. I'm not sure how much this style is similar to his normal wrestling style, but his strikes do look pretty good, and I have to say his timing on the finish for me was excellent. He kind of shows up out of nowhere and just slugs Eaton in the jaw as he's coming down. It's a really, really well timed spot, I thought.
01:40:29
Speaker
It's Cesaro-esque to me. Yeah, yeah. No, it's pretty good. But yeah, weird match, really chaotic, but it actually kind of works for me. However, this appears to be a really common problem with Jimmy Valiant matches. Once again, he and his partner are the ones that start off the match with dirty tricks. Yes, I was kind of to that. But we're supposed to root for them. It's this weird, good guy, bad guy dynamic that doesn't quite work with Jimmy Valiant sometimes.
01:40:59
Speaker
know why that is. It feels like if you'd have the Express try the powder and they get the powder from them and then throw it in their faces, that would work. But it doesn't work for Jimmy Valiant to constantly start out his matches by trying to cheat. Yeah. He also has a session with ripping tuxes off people as well. Yeah, true. That's kind of a go-to southern wrestling thing. You embarrass the guy and all that, but it's definitely very prevalent with him. Yes, definitely his thing.
01:41:31
Speaker
Also, how in the heck did that wig stay on for the entire match? That is impressive. That was amazing. I hope it didn't hurt too much removing it later with, you know, the super glue they must have used to stick that to Voron Garvan's head. That was... I kept expecting that thing to fall off, like every move that they did, and it just continually stays on. He's not even like having to reach up to adjust it or anything.
01:41:57
Speaker
Now, clearly, they have used, like, super tape. Or staples, I don't know. So was this the match, John, that you thought was fake blood? No. Oh, okay, I'm surprised. Me too. The theme sort of goes a separate way. He's been expressed going after the tag titles and the whole one government drag thing thankfully ends, so. Okay. Well, for now, it happens again many times in the future of his career, but
01:42:29
Speaker
Uh, after that match, we go backstage again
Magnum TA's Victory and Reflection
01:42:31
Speaker
for an interview with Magnum TA. What a jubilation it is down here because another major belt has changed hands here tonight at the Gathering Star K85. The United States Heavyweight Championship now belongs to Magnum TA. My congratulations, Magnum. The belt's back where it belongs.
01:42:51
Speaker
Tully Blanchard, this had never been any kind of an awkward match. That didn't rustle. That's what it took to get back what was rightfully mine. But now things start all over again, because now the United States Heavyweight Championship, the most prestigious belt in the world, bar none, except the world's heavyweight championship, is back where it belongs.
01:43:11
Speaker
Tully Blanchard, you and I have done it all over the country. We've wrestled this thing many, many times. I'm not putting up in any closet anywhere. Anybody, Nikita Koloff, Buddy Landell, anybody out there, Arne Anderson, this belt right here is a fighting champions belt. I've had the taste of it before. I just went through the battle of my life. I think I left a little something on me in that ring. Maybe something I'll never get back again. But I can assure anybody out there,
01:43:40
Speaker
Anybody at all that has any aspirations of taking this away from me, you better think twice. Because the United States Heavyweight Championship belt and Magnum TA are going to be together for a long, long time. Anybody out there that thinks they can do something about it, put your name on the dotted line, brother. I'm not a hard man to find. I'm Magnum TA, United States Heavyweight Champion. I'd vote for him.
01:44:11
Speaker
I thought that was one heck of a promo. He really built up the brutality of the match that we witnessed between him and Tully, and he seems genuinely upset by how far over the line the feud between the two of them went.
01:44:26
Speaker
So it feels like a very proper ending to the story where he's closing the door on that chapter and opening up a new one. One villain's vanquished, but Magnum's not gonna take a break. He's gonna be a fighting champion, and he really, really sounds like one here. But he never loses the enormity of what happened in the match between him and Tully.
01:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, I like that he brought that up because again, the story was that he was trying to get Tully in a match and they would find ways around it and find ways to cheat. So Tully is like, you know, he's this crazy guy who wants to put me in an equip match, a deal. Then you see an aftermath, even he's like, I wish we didn't have to do this, but he's just very direct about it. Well, I had to do this, it's not something we do all the time, but this is what had to happen and now it's been done and that's what it is.
01:45:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it does close the chapter. I will say in a non-spoilery way for the next show, it's interesting that he mentions Nikita Koloff, but that's all.
Rock and Roll Express vs Russians Match
01:45:25
Speaker
Our next match is back at the Colosseum, and it is the Rock and Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, accompanied by Don Cardoodle, versus Ivan and Nikita Koloff, accompanied by Crusher Khrushchev, in a steel cage match for the Russian's NWA World Tag Team Championship.
01:45:47
Speaker
sort of in the opposite of how the following January is really bad for the Indibue in this territory. The previous July, apparently, is pretty good because July is when Magnum loses the title, though setting up the match we got tonight. It's also when the Rock and Roll Express lose their tag titles to the Russians, thus saying this match up tonight. Great American Bash, right?
01:46:08
Speaker
I believe that would be the case, yeah, in around that time period. Basically, the Rockland Freshland champions, they lost them through nefarious meaning to the Russians. So to make sure no one interferes, we're in a steel cage match and tiles are on the line.
01:46:22
Speaker
Alright. The Russians entered to the Russian national anthem, escorted by their turncoat buddy Khrushchev. It's genuinely pretty intimidating to see them stride confidently down the aisle, bathed in red light towards the cage. The Rock and Roll Express are accompanied by rock music, cool blue light, and monster cheers.
01:46:43
Speaker
Oddly, despite this being a no disqualification steel cage match, and it's definitely announced as such this time, the teams obey normal tag rules. Ricky Morton and Nikita Kolev start us off.
01:46:56
Speaker
Morton plays, keep away from the big angry Russian, and tries to hit Nikita when he can. Morton frustrates Nikita, but Nikita still lands a heavy forearm and knee strike before tagging Ivan. Morton starts making some headway until he makes the mistake of grabbing a headlock, and Ivan picks him up and crotches him on the top rope. Bob during this point accidentally calls Ivan Nikita.
01:47:20
Speaker
A quick tag to Gibson gets Morton out of trouble, and the Rock and Roll Express start rapidly tagging in and out, hitting quick drop kicks, fist drops, and flying punches on Ivan, and even smashing him into the cage. Finally, Ivan manages an eye rake to give him time to tag Nikita. Gibson gamely takes Nikita down with the leg scissors, but Nikita gets back up, catches hold of Gibson, and hurls him face first into the cage. Morton tries to come in, but the ref warns him off. Why?
01:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a question. Nikita and Ivan start trading off now and Gibson fires back each time he's hit, but he can't get any momentum with the other Russian just tagging in and resuming the beat down. Nikita even bites Gibson for a Tony. Expect anything from the Russians.
01:48:06
Speaker
Morton jumps in to help Gibson from time to time, but the ref keeps sending him away. Tony notes that the ref is powerless as the wrestlers don't have to follow his orders, but Morton does just go back each time he's warned anyway, so kind of weird. Gibson ends up so dazed he can't even find his corner when he does get free for a moment. Crenoodle starts leading the crowd in a USA chant, and Gibson manages a dropkick on Ivan for a pin attempt.
01:48:31
Speaker
But the ref is down. The camera actually misses Hal, but presumably Ivan bumped into him as he fell. The ref's still down for an Ivan pin attempt later, so at least they're even. The crowd at this point is so excited. They are just constant noise.
01:48:50
Speaker
Ivan lifts Gibson up and he sneaks into tag to Morton as Ivan hurls him at the ropes. Gibson bounces off the ropes and Ivan sends him flipping overhead to the mat, but Morton jumps in underneath his flying partner and rolls up Ivan for the three count, with Gibson tackling Nikita to keep him away.
01:49:08
Speaker
Post-match, the Russians shoved Morton out of the ring over the cage and beat the heck out of Gibson with the aid of Khrushchev and their big chain, hitting some monster double and triple teams and whipping him with the chain. Outside, we see that Knudel is down too, having fainted in the final moments of the match from the fear that someone would ask him to predict a winner. Or maybe Khrushchev ambushed him, you know, whichever. Other wrestlers charred down to try and help and the Russians beat some of them up too on their way out before leaving the carnage behind them.
01:49:39
Speaker
So yeah, this is a really good match as far as the story and the buildup to the tag. It's hampered maybe a little bit in a way by the Steel Cage gimmick because there's no reason why they're probably standing next to the cage with their back to it, waiting for the tags.
01:49:57
Speaker
But to their credit, they do use the cage as a weapon. It's not like the cage is fully superfluous, it's the whole thing. Right. I mean, granted, the cage will keep Dunk Noodle from breaking another crutch on somebody. Yes. But that's not the biggest reason to have that. Obviously, if you've never seen a Rock and Roll Express match, this is a good one to go with. I don't know the exact time how long they've been doing this, but they definitely have this formula down pat.
01:50:22
Speaker
Yes. They really build up that their guy just can't get away. But in a way that he's always fighting, which is a tricky thing to manage. Because you have to constantly be in trouble to reasonably agree that they can't just run over or roll over and tag. But you also keep interesting as well. Not everyone can do it, unfortunately. Yeah, the rock and roll, similar to like Ricky's Steamboat, I think are very good at getting in trouble, but never looking like they're dead. Exactly.
01:50:52
Speaker
I don't know how long this has been their thing, but it definitely becomes their thing for the next 30 plus years. Even to this day, they're still wrestling. It's understandable why it is because they're really good at it.
01:51:06
Speaker
Of the finishes well executed, all the timing involved on all four of people's parts is pretty impressive. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of those finishes where everyone has to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time and pull off their moves perfectly. Yes. And they do. Yes. It's pretty amazing.
01:51:25
Speaker
I was actually kind of surprised at how much I liked it. Athleticism on both sides. I did feel like everyone was in the game throughout the whole match. Like it was said before, it was a little weird having people outside the cage as well. But other than that, it was enjoyable. It had a nice flow and I was not expecting the ending. I mean, I was expecting the outcome, but not the way it was achieved.
01:51:50
Speaker
Yeah, I actually almost missed Gibson getting the tag. He's that fast. Just reaching out there all of a sudden, sudden tag and then like, Oh, wait, Morton's legal. You know, it's fascinating that that ending. Camera work hasn't been super awesome. No, no.
01:52:10
Speaker
So that might be part of it. I agree. This was really, really fun. Really fast paced, never really seems to slow down at all. Nikita looks a lot more polished than last year. He seems to be able to participate in the match a little more. He got to look really, really strong. And anytime he gets in the ring, it's kind of like I said, play keep away from the big angry Russian, which helps the rock and roll express make those dodge around the ring spots really fun, too.
01:52:39
Speaker
The only real negative to this match, I think, is just the rules confusion. This is a no DQ match, so one, why are we doing normal tag rules? Two, why are people listening when the ref is telling them to get out of the ring? Three, why is he doing five counts on chokes and things like that? None of those things are gonna lead to a DQ, so the ref really should just back off and count pinfalls. Yeah.
01:53:01
Speaker
It's odd because it doesn't make much sense, but it actually probably does help the match to do it that way. It has a really good natural tag match rhythm. It just doesn't actually make sense from a rules perspective. I understand that that is an issue to me. I would say it feels like they knew what a Rockwell Express tag match has to be. But for some reason, they also decided a cage to be involved. Yeah. And maybe for the detriment, they didn't adjust the match at all for that.
01:53:31
Speaker
Yeah. So it does work and it's a very, very fun match. I'm not going to take anything away from there, but yeah, it's just, if you start thinking about the rules of the match, it doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense. But if you just allow yourself to not think about that, it's, it's a pretty darn cool match. I think it's February. Thankfully that January and more were passed that month.
01:53:55
Speaker
I believe it's February, it might be March or April in that time period. It's a fairly short reign for the Rock and Roll Express because they lose to the Midnight Express. And if that will continue for all eternity. Yes. And I'm not really upset about it because they're always really good. Yeah. Even when you change partners in Midnight Express later, still good. Our final match is back at the Omni.
Dusty Rhodes vs Ric Flair Championship Battle
01:54:20
Speaker
And it is Dusty Rhodes versus Ric Flair in a rematch from last year for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
01:54:30
Speaker
As I mentioned in the beginning, this is when they started doing Great American Bash. As such, they were building up other matches as part of that, and they had Dusty, Selfly Defend, I believe it's his TV title at the time. Afterwards, Arne, Oli, and Flare attack him, and in Kayfabe, as far as I know, only break his ankle.
01:54:52
Speaker
Which writes him up to you for a while. They then, in the month building up Starrcade, build the fact that he got doctor's permission that he got a special, like, walking boot made Hector's foot and ankle area better against that. So Dusty's giving himself a handicap to fight against in this match against Reflair.
01:55:10
Speaker
Okay. Now, we mentioned that there's no pre-match promos tonight. No. Yeah. So neither Flair nor Dusty gets a chance to talk tonight before their match, which certainly feels strange. And this match, a rematch from Starrcade 84, feels like it deserves an epic promo to build it up. Fortunately, Dusty Rhodes did provide one in the buildup on the October 29th, 1985 episode of Mid-Atlantic Wrestling.
01:55:41
Speaker
Here is the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. And Dusty, your fans welcome you back, man. First of all, I would like to thank the many, many fans throughout this country that wrote cards and letters to Dusty Rhodes' American Dream while I was down.
01:56:02
Speaker
Secondly, I want to thank Jim Crockett promotions for waiting and taking the time because I know how important it was. Starrcade 85, it is to the rest of the fans, it is to Jim Crockett promotion. And Dusty Rose, the American dream with that weight got what I wanted. Ric Flair, the world's heavyweight champion. I don't have to say a lot more about the way I feel about Ric Flair.
01:56:30
Speaker
No respect, no honor. There is no honor among thieves in the first place. He put hard times on dusty roads in his family. You don't know what hard times are, daddy. Hard times are when the textile workers around this country are out of work and got four or five kids and can't pay their wages, can't buy their food. Hard times are when the auto workers are out of work and they tell them go home. And hard times are when a man has worked with a job.
01:57:00
Speaker
30 years, 30 years, they give him a watch, kick him in the butt, and say, hey, a computer took your place, daddy. That's hard time. That's hard time. And Ric Flair, you put hard times on this country by taking dusty roads out. That's hard time.
01:57:23
Speaker
And we all had hard times together. I admit, I don't look like the athlete of the day supposed to look. My belly's just a little big. My heart is just a little big. But brother, I am bad, and they know I'm bad. And there were two bad people. One was John Wayne, and he's dead, brother. And the other was radio. Nature boy Rick Flair.
01:57:45
Speaker
The world's heavyweight title belongs to these people. I'm going to reach out right now. I want you at home to know my hand is touching your hand for this gathering of the biggest body of people in this country, in this universe, all over the world now. Reach it out.
01:58:04
Speaker
Because the love that was given me and this time I will repay you now Because I will be the next world's heavyweight champion on this hard time blues Dusty Rhodes Tour 85 and Ric Flair Nature Bar Let me leave you with this
01:58:32
Speaker
One way to hurt Ric Flair is to take what he cherishes more than anything in the world. That's the World Heavyweight title. I'm going to take it. I've been there twice. This time when I take it, Daddy, I'm going to take it for you. Let's gather for it. Don't let me down now, because I came back for you.
01:58:56
Speaker
for that man up there that died 10, 12 years ago and never got the opportunity to see a real wolf champion. I'm proud of you and thank God I have you and I love you. Love you. This is dusty roads. Yes.
01:59:19
Speaker
This is the famous Hard Times promo, which more than any other promo he will ever give tells you exactly what his character is. He is the avatar of the common man. He's a focus for hope for those who feel lost, powerless, and feel like the wealthy don't care. Rooting for Dusty's like rooting for yourself. In this promo he lays it all out there.
01:59:45
Speaker
He's not the sort of athlete you expect. He doesn't have the look, he doesn't have the shape, but he can win. And if he can win, we feel so can we. This promo shows the incredible connection that Dusty had with his audience. I get chills every time I watch it. When he reaches out, I reach out too. I want to feel that connection.
02:00:11
Speaker
It's absolutely beautiful and inspirational promo full of thanks for the fans and love for the fans. It is, I think, justifiably Dusty Rhodes most famous promo. Absolutely, yeah. I can see why. And it's not that he doesn't have other good ones. It's just this is epic. Oh, yeah, absolutely. No question about it.
02:00:39
Speaker
Uh, if you're curious, the man he's talking about at the end there, they says died 10, 12 years ago. That, uh, would be Jim Crockett senior. Okay. Yeah. He had passed in 1973. That's right. Dusty has much better music this year and some nice pyro, but a much less impressive entrance outfit with just a silver jacket instead of his robe.
02:01:03
Speaker
He poses at the entryway for quite a long time, psyching himself up, and then he marches down the aisle to the ring.
02:01:10
Speaker
Flair is shown posing at his entryway before his music even starts up, and he kept the robe look. It's not a frilly one this year. It's white and purple with Nature Boy on the back. Take that, Landell. Dusty gets huge cheers. Flair gets huge boos. The crowd is very clear on who the good and bad guys are this time.
02:01:34
Speaker
There's a stare down to start, and Dusty takes a moment to mock Flair's strut, and then dances a little. Dusty gets the better of an early slugfest, and Flair actually climbs all the way out of the ring and over the barricade, taking quite a while to come back in. Dusty outfights and outwrestles Flair, but Flair nails Dusty and his previously injured leg, which makes Dusty back right off.
02:01:58
Speaker
Flair keeps control, and when Dusty tries to fight back, another kick to Dusty's leg gets him to howl in pain and scamper outside and over the barricade. Dusty nurses the leg and the ref has to admonish him to get back in, prompting an, I'm trying, from Dusty. Dusty gets back in and goes after Flair's leg and the crowd loves it. Dusty gets perhaps the loudest sustained cheer of the night just for holding onto Flair's foot. Yeah, it's amazing, yeah.
02:02:28
Speaker
He progressively injures Flair's leg, even using the ring post, and fails Flair on a suplex and later ensures he's too slow climbing the top rope so Dusty can hurl him off. I'm sure it'll work fine next time, Rick. Keep trying. Both counter each other's attempts at figure fours, so Flair settles for stomping hard on Dusty's injured leg and Dusty howls in pain and curls up on the ground.
02:02:50
Speaker
Claire drags him to his feet, but Dusty whips Flair to the corner, and Flair flips over the top turnbuckle and falls to the ground outside, where Dusty rams his head into the barricade to get him bleeding.
02:03:01
Speaker
Back in, Dusty swings wide on some elbow strikes and accidentally knocks out ref Tommy Young, and Flare manages to hurl Dusty over the top rope while Young is out. Dusty climbs back in and falls more than jumps in a splash on Flare, and he lays there for quite a while before Young drags himself over to count. It gets two, and Caudal notes that Dusty certainly had more of a 6 or 7 count there if the ref hadn't been knocked out.
02:03:25
Speaker
Tony, however, rightly notes that if the ref hadn't been knocked out, the match would have ended in a DQ when Dusty was thrown over the top rope. A series of punches earns a flare flop, and Flare gets hurled at the corner again, but flips over the turnbuckle, lands on the apron, sprints along into the other corner, and climbs up, jumping off, only for Dusty to nail him in the gut. Aw. Almost, Rick. Almost. Get in there 25 years, it'll get there.
02:03:53
Speaker
Dusty hits the ropes on a missed kick and Flair gets the figure four. Dusty is in agony but refuses to give up and manages to roll the holdover. Flair gets the ropes and Young forces a break. Dusty goes for a pin off a big clothesline, but Flair actually throws him off with the kick out on top of Young. Was not expecting to see Dusty Rhodes hurled off of Ric Flair with force. That was kind of impressive.
02:04:19
Speaker
Dusty tries to grab Flair, but he collapses and sends Flair into Young to knock him out of the ring. Dusty gets the figure four, but there's no ref, and Arne and Ole come in. Dusty counters Arne and throws him out, but Ole nails him with a knee strike and scampers in time for another ref to come in, but Dusty kicks out. Flair gets up and he grabs Dusty, but Dusty quickly grabs him and rolls him up for the three.
02:04:47
Speaker
immediately post match other wrestlers raced to the ring to celebrate with Rhodes as the Anderson's helped Claire out of the ring. So this is where the match I wanted last show.
02:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah, I mean the match last year, obviously they had this whole angle idea where he's going to bleed and then the box is going to start the match and all this. And it's not like that's a terrible thing in of itself. Obviously we felt didn't work as part of the whole show, but it's not something just blatantly terrible and you should never, ever try it.
02:05:24
Speaker
In this case, we don't get any of that. We get a lot of stuff at the end, which is my only real negative, because there's a lot going on at the end of it. But we get 10 moments of action. We get clear points for the good guy to look strong, clear point for the bad guy to look strong. I know why it's done that. I think it's funny that Dusty got a special boot made, but didn't get it painted the same color as the other boot. Yeah.
02:05:52
Speaker
So it's obviously it's for the audience, you know, Shakespeare, you play to the back row, mainly the rafters. So anyone looking can tell which is the bad angle. So when flirt kicks it.
02:06:03
Speaker
That said, he should have probably made him look the same, so Flair would go, oh yeah, the white boot, and then kick that one. Admittedly, though, Flair is involved in injuring the ankle. No, yeah. He probably does already know which ankle is hurt. But in the heat of the moment, I could feel like if you could have him look the same, it would be that he's harder for him.
02:06:23
Speaker
don't paint the giant glowing video game target on your weak spot, right? Yeah, it's sniper, it's not, I keep, this is the last time I watched the show. It's not sniper elite, it's silent scope. Silent scope, yeah. Silent scope, we were talking about the villain, it's the area you were shooting with glows, glows, glows, you know, do it. It's, yeah, he did that to himself. Like, I know it's for the audience, it's for the man, and it works really well, but it's just funny that he did that. He made it so obvious where to attack him.
02:06:49
Speaker
I've really not seen a lot of young-ish Dusty, I might say he's really that young here, through the end of his wrestling career, but I've only seen later Dusty where, like in Fall Brawl, where he's just brawling and doing elbows, and even on the last show, when we'll get to, at some point in the future, where he only can't do a whole lot other than the Bionicle bow.
02:07:14
Speaker
So seeing this, seeing him at his relative peak, and more importantly with Flair, on a big match is really good for me. Going off what I was saying before, I don't have that moment with Billy Graham or with Wally McDaniel, feel like that. But this is the opposite. I get that moment with Dusty finally now, which is really nice to see. Yeah, my only real issue is the finish. I wish he could have had a clean finish there, but it is what it is.
02:07:45
Speaker
I didn't read ahead when it came to this so I had no idea who's the main match and I was like, serious? Is there gonna do it two years in a row? But I was, I can't think of a moment that I wasn't happier than last year's. Especially now hearing the speech that you so lovingly provided for me. I'm kind of mentally going through the match again and it's
02:08:12
Speaker
It's a lot better. I just had no framework to watch it, but it was a better performance from both. Like Al said, it was a little bit of theatrics and a little bit of Shakespearean, like, oh, here's my weak point. But it established a clear objective for the whole fight.
02:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, there's definitely a story of this match that's really, really strong, where Dusty has the injured leg, and Flair can be an utter jerk. And immediately, just anytime he gets in trouble, it's like the Steamboat Ribs spot from last year with Tully Blanchard, that anytime he gets the slightest bit in trouble, he's going for that leg. He kicks the leg, he strikes the leg, he pushes on that.
02:09:02
Speaker
on the knee on that leg to twist Dusty's ankle. He gets the figure four, you know, everything he's doing that's successful in the matches all around that leg injury. And Dusty, to his credit, sells it to High Heaving. Oh, yeah, yeah.
02:09:16
Speaker
lets you know that he is hurting really, really bad. There's actually a point just before Flare gets the figure four on that was really, I thought, a great point where Flare stomps on Dusty's leg and Dusty screams and actually beckons to the ref get over here. You see this look on his face for a moment that's like, I need to stop.
02:09:39
Speaker
And then he rethinks it and continues fighting. But I was just like, that's actually, that's brilliant. You have this guy who's all about, I'm going to fight. I'm going to get my revenge on this guy. And he's hurting so bad that he actually does clearly consider stopping the match. Yeah. That's, it's really quite amazing, especially considering his entire thing last year was don't ever stop by match. Yeah. So right.
02:10:06
Speaker
Yeah, really good match, hard fought, emotional. I could feel the weight of their prior interactions here. Flare is well and truly in full on heal mode in this match. It's not a transition like the last match he has right there from the start. Dusty feels like he is out to give Flare some serious pain and make him feel what Dusty had to feel.
02:10:30
Speaker
The match story feels like it's going to be about whose leg gives out first. And that's a great match story. But the ending does feel like a bit of a mismatch as a result. I felt like the interference didn't bother me. What bothered me was the dusty wins with a roll up. It feels like this is a match about leg injuries and it should end with a figure four.
02:10:55
Speaker
It actually should end with Flair tapping out to the figure of four, or not tapping out at this point, but giving up to the figure of four. I could see that. Or something that involves Dusty gets, uh, gets dependent because his leg gives out, you know, something that...
02:11:08
Speaker
plays off the leg storyline more. I could even see, you know, after all the sort of dust settles and they're batched, just two of them. Flair grabs the leg again and he's like, you know, sullying, he's going to do something and he gets hit by an acalbo because he's too cocky, arrogant. And that then, but yeah, I can see that point.
02:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. You know, they did have a leg lock, you know, close to the end, but it might've been better if he did like a reversal or something or did like a drop kick and hurt himself and then crawled over to him. You know, like he's willing to hurt himself to further to get the win. Well, the double sport and still win is still good though.
02:11:53
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, minor complaint. This is a really great match. And Flare and Dusty both have really well-established in-ring acts now that played off each other terrifically. And yeah, it gave us a great match with the weight of two years worth of storyline behind it. It really, it felt like the match lived up to that history. It's what we should have gotten last year. It's a shame that we couldn't have gotten that and then something even better for this show, but I'll sell for this, I guess.
02:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's that's the best description of this is this is what last year's match should have been. Yeah. Really fun, fun note to the slow motion replay that we get afterwards, showing the Anderson's attack catches that somebody from the ground had a great arm and nearly nails only with a crumpled up piece of trash as he's climbing out of the ring. It like goes right past his head.
02:12:51
Speaker
Tony meets Dusty backstage and congratulates him as the faces celebrate with champagne.
02:13:01
Speaker
This is a moment that is going to live in wrestling history. Congratulations. It was a long road back for this man, the American Dream Dusty Rhodes, and deservedly enjoying this moment. Billy Jack Haynes is here. Deservedly enjoying this moment. Dusty? We got it, Daddy. Let me tell you something. We got it. Way back.
02:13:21
Speaker
When Dusty Rose said this was for the textile workers, auto workers, car workers, all the blue collar people across this country, this great land, the American Dream came back from the bottom and is now World's Heavyweight Champion and I'm going to be that way for a long time. My man, Chief, we hear that nobody can beat the people, nobody can beat the world, and nobody can beat the American Dream.
02:13:50
Speaker
Surprisingly short promo from Dusty here, but it's really good for the time it gets. It does feel like with the buildup featuring the famous hard times promo that you should have gotten something maybe not equally epic, but a little longer for the ending, but it does work pretty darn well.
02:14:06
Speaker
It just kind of feels like maybe a bit of a rushed ending like, man, no, are they running out of time on the show and have to quick wrap things up. So tell Dusty, keep it, keep it fast. He does very nicely hit the same themes as his hard times promo though, and kind of bring it back to that, which I thought was nice.
02:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, this is good. You can make a 30 second promo. Yeah. That's supposed to be dramatic and fall on a big win. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that they were just cutting out and they did spend a lot of time with them celebrating in the ring and maybe they just didn't. I'm glad they spent the time on that. Yeah. So about two weeks later, they overturned the entire finish of the match. What?
02:14:50
Speaker
They bring out the referee on World Championship Wrestling TV to explain in the excruciating detail that he was planning to call the match to stop it so Dusty wouldn't be injured. He was afraid. Sending him to happen happened in July. But then he's knocked out. Then when he goes to call it a second time, he's knocked out again by Arm being thrown at him. And they replay all this.
02:15:14
Speaker
Dusty does not, he's less mad about it than he was last year. He had his match suddenly stopped by a boxer. He tries at his best in character to spin it positively. He says, you know, I don't know the champion and Flair's champion again, but Rick Flair can be pinned. I know I can pin Rick Flair. So he recovers that as best he can, but it's still, unfortunately, Dusty finish. Yes.
02:15:40
Speaker
designed apparently to get you to keep watching the show and to go see Garennek and Bash in 1986, where Dusty will win his third and final world title. Officially. Officially, for all of two weeks. Yeah. So it's due to the ref thinking he was injured.
02:15:58
Speaker
Well, the ref, as soon as there was interference, he said he was going to stop the match, because he was afraid... Oh, okay, so it's due to the interference. Okay, I get it. But even then, it wasn't like, I'm going to give you the cue win. He says he's going to stop the match, because he's afraid they're all going to run in and beat up Dusty Rhodes. Okay. Which, to be fair, they would probably still do if either the match was stopped. Yeah, true. It's a weird explanation, because I thought of what was going to be either
02:16:24
Speaker
Just like a normal DQ win or for the over-the-top rope thing. Well, well the ref was knocked out the first time Yeah, see that that's interesting. That's interesting. He his explanation is He said he was up. He saw Arden only come out and he's gonna stop the match because you watch it They don't actually hit the hit him while the ref is looking Yeah, Arden tried to hit him and it's thrown out onto the ref and then only hits him so wouldn't amend your cue you were just gonna just call the match apparently and
02:16:54
Speaker
It's just kind of a little weird, but yeah. Yeah, that's unfortunate. I think it does color this match. Yeah. You know, in a negative way, but it's not. It does take away from the match for me. Yeah. Because I know it doesn't last, but it doesn't take away so much that it stops it from being a good match. No. You know.
02:17:18
Speaker
I really wish they could have just let Dusty hold the title through to Great American Bash and then have him lose the player when you get that point. It's weird to return it so quickly. Yeah, him getting it. You know, especially following up on the really, really excellent Hard Times promo. Yeah. And then building on those same themes with his promo tonight, it would have been nice to have him actually get a title reign here. And then you can have him lose it, you know, even if you want to have him lose it before Great American Bash, have him lose it.
02:17:45
Speaker
Two months from now or you know in January like everyone else. Yeah, but yeah, it's
02:17:55
Speaker
It hurts it. It hurts it. Well, the whole, um, I was going to call it because he dusted. We get injured after, you know, you've been through the match. Makes no sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. Why would you reverse it at that point for that reason? I actually get it somewhat for the DQ reasons where it never happens in wrestling, but where you're like, Oh, I looked back at the match and yeah, this totally should have ended as a disqualification.
02:18:20
Speaker
Yeah, I know. What are you protecting him from now? Yeah, exactly. It's bad writing. Well, they layered so many equations for how the map returned, and then they picked the weakest one. Yes, exactly.
Show Wrap-up and Lessons Learned
02:18:36
Speaker
Tony and Bob wrap us up talking about all the new champions crowned tonight and the fact that it's Dusty's third time as champion. Prophets. Bob is sure that this means he will hold on to the title for a long time since it's the third time. Poor, poor Bob Cuddle. Bob notes that Jim Crocker Promotions is celebrating 50 years. Tony says that Dusty's pin on flair will live in his mind for a long time to come and that he'll see us again at Starrcade 86.
02:19:06
Speaker
We get a video package of big moments from the matches to finish, and Stark 885 is done. It's definitely a step up from last year's show. There's still weaker points, but the weaker points for me aren't so weak or so low that they can't recover. Those matches that are just okay or I don't like as much as I like other matches in the show, but there's not really a bad match, I would say.
02:19:35
Speaker
Yeah, everyone fighting Ron Garvin drag. It's not so bad that I can't enjoy the rest of the show. Yeah, it's a good show overall. It's a shame that long-term, almost none of this matters. Some of it they can't control people being injured and all that, but other stuff they have control over, like overturning
02:19:58
Speaker
Dusty's big win, or even Khrushchev, they returned his victory in January. Just he's then also hurt in that match. They have full control over that. Obviously they can't control Buddy Landell having personal issues and them calling a weird audible and just handing a title to Dusty Rhodes for it. But yeah, it's definitely a better show. It makes me feel like they can turn this around and obviously, and the company stays around for a while, but it's nice to see evidence that maybe they'll learn their lesson.
02:20:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think they learned quite a few lessons. I like that they pioneered two locations to kind of cut down on the the lull time on CCTV trying to appeal to that. They took some big hits losing some big names and when they not only
02:20:46
Speaker
took the new kids on the block, so to speak. With that new infusion, they also gave them chances to shine and be highlighted. Even in one of the promos, it talks about all new people go up against them, so they're setting them up for some time on the screen. I would say it's a new generation. Yeah. Yes.
02:21:09
Speaker
Obviously better finale, a little bit better lead up. And even though I've already made jokes about camera work and everything, it's still much better than having people stand up in front of the camera or have people pounding on glass trying to talk on announcers. I guess cutting out all those promos.
02:21:30
Speaker
It is odd in places, but I think it gives the show a little bit better flow. And while I'm not a big fan of blood and wrestling, and I don't know why I have even that feeling, you know, having played all the video games, it's like in every video. So it's not like it's a theme that just shows up during this era.
02:21:54
Speaker
I was surprised at the amount of blocks in the matches that I was not expecting anything. Like obviously the cage, anything with, you know, some sort of weapon or implement highlighted or no holds barred, yeah, I expect it. Or in the finale, I expect it.
02:22:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's a fair point. We have nine matches that all have some, if not all opponents bleeding. Yeah. I don't think Dusty actually bleeds. Dusty I don't think actually bleeds. It's weird everyone except Dusty bleeds in the show. Yeah. And the person that I was talking about with the blood was fake was actually Flair, even though I know it's not. But I'm like, the final shots when he's leaving the ring, the light hits and it looks bright pink.
02:22:38
Speaker
I know it's lighting and everything, but I guess they did some Kool-Aid in his hair or whatever. He's uh, he's actually a Klingon, you know, so. No, I don't know that. No, I enjoyed it. This is my first fence match.
02:22:55
Speaker
It's a hard show for me to categorize, because there's, like you said, a lot to like about it. The matches feel good overall. There's even some really surprising successes, like Abdullah the Butcher versus Manny Fernandez was actually entertaining. Who expected that? And the Jimmy Valiant and Miss Atlanta Lively versus the Midnight Express match is good, chaotic fun too. The only matches that really dragged the show down in particular for me were the superstar Billy Graham ones, and those weren't very long, so it's like,
02:23:26
Speaker
I didn't like them, so what, it's done fast. The show moves at a really good pace and it always keeps moving, but it does that by almost entirely cutting out the backstage segments and announcer conversations, which are two bits that I really liked from prior years, and that gave the shows the sports feel that I kind of enjoy. So it feels really strange to have matches end and then just unceremoniously move on to the next match this time. Tony and Bob often say absolutely nothing.
02:23:55
Speaker
Even in the case of a really controversial finish like the first match where he gets his foot on the ropes and the ref misses it I was like, oh they're gonna talk about that. No, they are silent until the start of the next match there. It's I Don't know it. Maybe that's just on the network version. Maybe there's a version of this that has some more commentary But it feels like an odd thing to cut. I
02:24:13
Speaker
It could be a structural thing maybe because they're coming from arena to arena and feed to feed that they're like, they don't know how much time they have to talk about this finish. So they're like, do I have 30 seconds or a minute? Well, let's just say nothing for 45 seconds instead.
02:24:29
Speaker
And who knows, maybe it's a technical issue where in order to get their sound on both feeds or something like that, they have to actually switch over their microphones. I don't know. So they might literally not be able to talk at those points at times. I don't know.
02:24:45
Speaker
Wasn't there two matches that had like no time limit and I thought that that was just their way of kind of syncing things up and Maybe they were expecting them to go longer so they could have those promos and and it didn't work out Yeah, I doubt that they were expecting things to necessarily go much longer, but it's just like Yeah, there's there's some parts where it feels like maybe it's not quite put together as well as it as you think it should be yet and
02:25:09
Speaker
But again, you know, trying something new here. So yeah, it's got an anthem in the beginning. They finally got that in the right place. Yeah, the show at its base feels good, but I do feel like all the gravitas is gone with the exception of the flair versus dusty match has some going in just by weight of its storyline and some of the matches gained some gravitas.
02:25:32
Speaker
in the post-match interviews, you know, or in the post-match events like Magnum standing over the beaten Tully and then giving a stellar interview and the Landell and Dylan interview kind of adding some context and some weight to the storylines going in there. But it's kind of up to the wrestlers and managers to add the gravitas to their storylines. The show itself does nothing to really put it there to begin with.
02:26:00
Speaker
So I like the show, but it felt small, I think is my feeling on it. And that was before you told me about how many things end in January, you know? Yeah. Titles change hands left, right, and center, but the wrestlers had to drag their title wins to importance rather than them coming preloaded with it due to the nature of the show.
02:26:24
Speaker
Maybe I'd feel different about it if I was watching all the TV leading up to the show and could see some of the build, and maybe that's where things are strongly there, but it just feels like something you should put on the actual show to some degree. Not long, but let the wrestlers say something. Especially if getting the time to do that meant you had to unfortunately cut the gram versus barbarian stuff. Yeah, yeah. If you're lost, I'd be willing to accept.
02:26:53
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. John's surprisingly in favor of that. I'm good with that though.
Transition to a New Wrestling Era
02:27:00
Speaker
For me personally, the show was a really interesting transition point. I think we're now hitting the era where there's more wrestlers I do recognize from my watching later eras than wrestlers I don't. Ric Flair is now complete. R.N. Anderson is here. The four horsemen are about to be formed.
02:27:16
Speaker
The Rock and Roll and Midnight Expresses are here. Terry Taylor's around. The Barbarian's around. There's a lot of names, some big, some not as big, that I know and that I've seen. And the show felt a lot more familiar as a result.
02:27:30
Speaker
The veterans of the earlier era are transitioning away. We don't have, say, Rufus Jones or Buzz Tyler or someone like that on the show. And Johnny Weaver is here, but he's on backstage interviewing duty. So the new era is rising. With this edition of Starrcade, it becomes clearer who's going to be the central type of wrestler to the new one. We're going to have skilled wrestlers, but with a focus on showy gimmicks and larger-than-life personalities.
02:27:56
Speaker
We're not losing the sports feel entirely, but we're starting to lean into the theater aspect of wrestling a little more. I would say it's definitely growing pain to string watching 83, where they're trying all this stuff, just very near to success. 84, they try to sort of counterbalance it too much in one way. 85, they're trying to count back the other way. They're still definitely stronger as a sort of growth of the show, but there's nothing still worth to do.
02:28:24
Speaker
I think that it is still a work in progress and they found some new things they could do better and fixed a lot of others.
Match of the Night and MVP Selection
02:28:35
Speaker
Well, let's do our match of the night and MVP then. Al, you want to go first?
02:28:40
Speaker
I think just for pure emotional aspects, I would go match the Knight to Magnum and Tully. Obviously I've spoken a lot about it, I don't need to recap all of that. That for me is, it felt like a really unique match the same way that Piper and Valentine did.
02:28:58
Speaker
And in that regard, my MVP is an active TA. For his form to the match is clear motion he portrays. The after match promo where he even, even he feels bad about how much he did. And ultimately it came down to be signed between him and Dusty. And it came down to that moment when he's holding the spike and he could do something more, but he realized he didn't have to. He's already won and he's got what he wanted. There was a down and a leaps.
02:29:27
Speaker
Yeah, that is so powerful. All right, John? I'm going to agree with Al on the match of the night. Just the appearance of the spike and like the part where they're setting it up at the beginning, it looks like he slips and you could very much gouge the guy's eye out. Kind of stuck with me. I actually kind of fast forward it a little bit.
02:29:51
Speaker
It was like, I wanted to make sure there was a good outcome before... Oh, okay, I get you. Yeah, no, I can understand that, yeah. You know, like, because I didn't want to go through that. But that was one of the most memorable part of the night. And watching this with you, my MVP has changed having hearing the hard times promo for Dusty. And, you know, it makes that celebration at the end of that much more poignant.
02:30:21
Speaker
So, dusty, but still, the match tonight that stuck out the most was the Magnum Ti. Magnum Ti in the steel cage match. Magnum Ti 85.
02:30:35
Speaker
All right. Well, it's such our effect here. The match of the night is Magnum TA versus Tully Blanchard. Flare versus Dusty was really good and nearly got there, especially with the hard times from running through my head. Sure. But Magnum versus Tully is something else. Like you, Al, I was flashing back to Piper versus Valentine there. It's maybe not quite as creative with its use of the weapons, but
02:31:01
Speaker
It's just as hard fought and perhaps even more emotional and it escalates crazily high to a really, really shocking finish. Stands out on a night full of brawls and blood already and feels like a very definitive feud ender.
02:31:17
Speaker
capped off by the amazing powerful moment with Magnum TA standing over his beaten foe and forcing himself to calm down and stop. That moment is going to stick with me for a long time, so there's absolutely no way that I can choose any other match for the match of the night.
02:31:33
Speaker
MVP is a harder choice. There's a lot of great performances on the show. Flair's great. Dusty's great. Arne's great. Ole's great. I'll even credit Landell, Taylor, both express teams, even Manny Fernandez for just doing such a great job with the duel of the butcher. And of course, JJ Dillon. I am swiftly coming to love.
02:31:56
Speaker
even for his in-ring work tonight. But really, there's only two names that I can consider for MVP. Magnum TA and Dolly Blanchard. I could go either way. Magnum was the center of by far the most powerful moment on the show, and it made me hold my breath and tension. I was transfixed by his performance there, and his promo afterwards provided the perfect cap to an excellent match.
02:32:22
Speaker
But the moment wouldn't have meant a thing without a terrific villain in Tully, who could believably take Magnum to that state and escalate things to the degree we believed a hero might take a drastic step and taint his victory. Tully was integral to the match and the story, and his willingness to be so totally and completely bested and to be left at the mercy of the hero was just as necessary as Magnum TA's heroism, passion, and righteous rage.
02:32:52
Speaker
One of us has to pick Tully, I think. Fair enough. It took two to make that moment work, and we have to collectively give them both credit for it. Magnum provided the intense performance and the raw emotion, but Tully provided the glue to hold it together and the selfless willingness to be entirely beaten. So my MVP for tonight is Tully Blanchard.
02:33:16
Speaker
Yeah, that was the person that I had in mind until you played the Hard Times thing. That's amazing. I was like... Tells you how good Hard Times is. Well, no, I just didn't have the frame of reference for the final match and I was surprised and happy to see Dusty and Flair up against each other again.
02:33:35
Speaker
but you know i thought they're okay well they don't have any new headliners yeah well great promo i mean that's that's what a great promo does is is totally set the stage for a match and make you just
02:33:49
Speaker
really want to see it and understand exactly why it's happening. And it's fascinating to me that it works in backwards context as well. You watch this match and have one reaction to it. And then like I said, you heard the hard times promo and it makes you rethink that match.
02:34:10
Speaker
This was a good show. Really enjoyed it a lot. And last year's show, the 84 show, I was kind of apprehensive about 85. Now I'm really looking forward to 86. This one felt very good. And with that, our review of Starrcade 85, The Gathering, comes to a close.
02:34:34
Speaker
But don't lose your head. We'll be back next month to take a look at Starrcade 86, The Skywalkers. To see the Road Warriors and the Midnight Express use the force of gravity. Sorry John, they just handed me so many movie puns.
02:34:59
Speaker
Many thanks to Pro Wrestling History for attendance and closed circuit figures. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.