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Episode 50! AWA SuperClash III
41 Plays2 years ago
We've reached episode 50! To celebrate, we take a trip back to the late 1980s for a reunion with performers from the early days of our podcast...at SuperClash III! Lots of old friends are back: Wahoo McDaniel, Manny Fernandez, Hector Guerrero, Ron Garvin...even Jimmy Valiant! Plus: Jerry Lawler vs. Kerry Von Erich in a match to unite two belts (and several companies), our thoughts on the wrestling weaponry scale of effectiveness, and a metric ton of promos. There's one Mona Lisa, one Leaning Tower of Pisa...and one Let's Go to the Ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/letsgo2thering , or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Notes
00:00:00
Speaker
So Al, just out of curiosity, how many pages do you have for notes on this? So with spacing, I have about four and a half. You want to hazard a guess of how many mine are? Go with 35. You're close, but 41.
00:00:20
Speaker
Ah. I was going to guess 50 just for synchronicity sake. I should have aimed for that. I think if I had actually divided up the promos a little bit more, then I might have hit that. But I tried to condense the pages more than that. Understandably so.
Podcast Introduction and Hosts
00:01:04
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man with wobblier knees than Rufus R. Freight Train Jones, Alec Bridget. Yeah, we need to get those fics at some point, but you know, I don't have enough time. Figured I'd do a call back since this is episode 50. Fair enough, yeah. I'll go over that. How's it going tonight, Al? Good, how about you?
00:01:33
Speaker
I am absolutely thrilled because, as I noted, we have reached our 50th episode. Wow. It is mind boggling to think that we have done this many. Right? Yeah. Our first episode, covering Starrcade 1983, was released back on September 5th, 2018. So we've now been at this for more than four years. Oh, wow.
00:01:56
Speaker
We've covered five complete series in the process, and next year we'll be starting on our sixth. It's been an amazing ride and a lot of fun. You have any thoughts on reaching episode 50L?
00:02:08
Speaker
I'm just amazed. I mean, that wasn't really keeping track of how many episodes we're doing. Obviously, we've been doing them straight for a while now. So obviously, these things add up. But yeah, I didn't think, oh, wow, we're at 20 or while we're 30. It's just a thing we were doing and now something we're at 50. Yeah, I think it only dawned on me, like at the start of the Hog and Road Wild series, like, oh, hey, my episode numbers in my folders are in the high 40s. Huh? I need to start thinking about what we're doing for 50 then.
00:02:39
Speaker
Take away things worked out in a weird enough way that we just, we did the series in the wrap up and then hit 50. Could not have planned that. Right. That's yeah. No, that's hilarious. We were like on like a random hog wild or road wild show and then, Oh, it's up. It's up 50. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah.
Celebrating the 50th Episode and AWA Super Clash III Overview
00:02:55
Speaker
Well, tonight to celebrate, we wanted to do something a little bit unusual. So we're taking a look at the AWA show super clash three.
00:03:05
Speaker
In the process, we get to go back to the 80s, which frankly both of us really needed after so many NWO era shows. Yes. And we get to have a reunion with quite a few of the folks who were on some of our earliest episodes. Perhaps most notably, or perhaps with most dread, the boogie-woogie man, Jimmy Valiant. Yeah, for me, he's like the anti-DDP. Who, incidentally, is also on this show. Yes, that is true as well.
00:03:37
Speaker
So, how did Super Clash 3 come about?
AWA's Alliances and Challenges Against WWF
00:03:40
Speaker
Well, let's say that it's the 1980s, and your name is Vern Ganya. You run the American Wrestling Association, the AWA. Yay, yay, yay.
00:03:53
Speaker
Now it had a long, successful run, and coincidentally, you also had several long, successful runs as world champion. But in 1985, things aren't so good. A couple years ago, you had a falling out with one Hulk Hogan, who ended up leaving to go to a rival promotion, the WWF. And now, they've made him a megastar.
00:04:19
Speaker
Worse, they've grabbed a heck of a lot more people from your promotion in the intervening years. So what do you do?
00:04:26
Speaker
Well, happily, you formed an alliance, Pro Wrestling USA, with other promotions, most notably Jim Crockett promotions, along with several other NWA-aligned promoters. It probably hurt your pride a little, considering that you split off from the NWA back in the 1960s, but it's important to form a national presence, especially since the WWF just held their first ever WrestleMania show, starring, of course, Hulk Hogan.
00:04:52
Speaker
So, you and your NWA buddies created your first supercard, Super Clash. It goes over pretty well. You even get to have your title match, Stan Hansen versus Rick Martell, as the main event, over a clash between NWA champ Rick Flair and the very popular Magnum TA. Even if their match runs near 20 minutes and yours about a tenth of that.
00:05:17
Speaker
Unfortunately, the Alliance falls apart not long afterwards. Reportedly, you're not happy that the Crocats are trying to recruit your guys. And the Crocats aren't happy that you disagree with them about how much money that you owe them. Oh.
00:05:33
Speaker
But you bravely forge ahead. It takes a couple more years, but in 1987, you're ready for another go at the big show, Super Clash 2. This time, you don't bring in any other partners. It's all AWA all the time, baby. You crown an excellent performer, Kurt Hennig, as your world champion. Somewhat oddly, you do that halfway through your show, but it's all good.
00:05:59
Speaker
until 1988 hits and Kurt Hennig goes off to, guess where? That's right, the WWF. So now it's 1988. Years of talent raids have taken their toll, but you still want to make your company a true rival to the WWF. It's time to bite the bullet and partner with other organizations again.
00:06:23
Speaker
This time, you opt for Memphis's Continental Wrestling Association, CWA, renamed the Championship Wrestling Association, also CWA. You even grant your world title to their Jerry the King Lawler. The World Class Wrestling Association, or WCWA, formerly World Class Championship Wrestling, WCCW, gets involved as well, and you bring in powerful women of wrestling, POWW, for some variety and just to, you know, get another acronym in there.
00:06:52
Speaker
Your goal? Super Clash 3. Which should not only bring you national attention, but also cement a lasting alliance between you, the CWA, and the WCWA by unifying the AWA and WCWA titles in a match involving the CWAs, Jerry Lawler, and WCWA's, Kerry Von Erich.
00:07:17
Speaker
AWA Superclass III was held on December 13th, 1988 at the UIC Pavilion, now the Credit Union One Arena, in Chicago, Illinois, in front of 1,672 fans. Happily, we can actually do a direct comparison to see just how good a number that is, as Jim Crockett Promotions was in the same building for Starrcade 1987, with 9,000 fans in attendance.
00:07:47
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The UIC Pavilion reportedly holds about nine thousand five hundred people for wrestling or boxing shows. So Jim Crocker promotions just about had a full house. The A.W.A., not so much. Not so much. No, you can definitely tell. Oh, yeah. On this show and many shots. They should have just tried to put the fake digital crowd in there like they did later. If only, man, that would make this the most epic show of all time. Yeah.
00:08:17
Speaker
Superclash 3 earned 45,000 pay-per-view buys. That actually beats Starrcade 1987's 16,500, thanks to Vince McMahon's massive sabotage play as we covered on that episode. Yeah. But it is absolutely crushed by Starrcade 1988's 140,000. Wow. And what about the WWF during 1988?
00:08:43
Speaker
Their biggest show of the year, WrestleMania 4, got 485,000. Wow. And in just a few short months, 1989's WrestleMania 5, featuring the explosion of the MegaPowers, hits an amazing 767,000. Wow. So yeah, well we might like to say that there's three big 1980s wrestling promotions. It's not really much of a contest between them at the moment. No.
00:09:11
Speaker
Will the AWA find success and create a mega-promotion to rival the WWF? To find out, let's go to the ring.
Setting the Stage for Super Clash III
00:09:22
Speaker
We open with shots of the Arena Lights and the Super Clash 3 logo. Host Lee Marshall, there's a familiar face, welcomes us to the show, referring to WCWA as WCCW, it varies all the time honestly, and adding the CWF to the list of acronyms. That probably refers to the Continental Wrestling Federation, formerly Continental Championship Wrestling CCW, and Southeastern Championship Wrestling SECW.
00:09:52
Speaker
The alternative, I believe, Championship Wrestling from Florida was most definitely not aligned with the AWA at this time. No. By the way, if you want to really confuse things, there's actually two different CWA's in wrestling. Oh, of course there are. There's also the Catch Wrestling Association based out of Austria. Okay. Well, at least that one's from a foreign country, so it's unlikely to be involved in this. No, no. I don't think Otto Vons is going to show up on here.
00:10:18
Speaker
Lee throws to Larry Nelson, who almost immediately brings Lee over to discuss the title match. Lee has a great mullet. Sorry, I'll stop. I gotta get at least one for show.
00:10:33
Speaker
Larry and Lee both favor Jerry the King Lawler in the night's world title match. The crowd is not particularly thrilled with that judgment, and Lee acknowledges the presence of lots of Kerry Von Erich fans, but restates that both he and Larry favor Lawler. The crowd boos again, so Larry jokes they better stop saying that or they might not make it out alive.
00:10:55
Speaker
It's kind of weird. And then it's not the only show that does it. It's kind of weird the downturn is talking directly to the feed for the people watching outside is like protected for everyone in the arena here. Yeah, I think it's only for this opening segment. Oh, yeah. I think it also is when Lee does interviews with the wrestlers at ringside, as he does a lot. Yes, he does. Yeah.
00:11:14
Speaker
I don't think they're getting it for the main commentary table stuff or anything, yeah. I just find that weird in general on shows when they're typically talking to the audience at home and it's like, let's make sure that people in the arena hear it, even though it doesn't really matter at all in this case. Would it be less weird if they had been standing in the ring at the time? I think that's what gets me on it as they're standing at ringside so half the crowd can't see them but can hear them over the loudspeakers.
00:11:38
Speaker
That is weird, yeah. I will tell you, there is one wrestling show, which I don't think we'll ever cover, that actually ran commentary over the House of Mikes, the whole show. That would sound like an interesting watch. Yes, I've heard not great things about it. For many reasons, but that's not helping.
00:11:56
Speaker
The two also, rather too excitedly, discuss another upcoming match, the Beverly Hills Street Fight lingerie battle royale. Larry sends Lee over to join Ray the Crippler Stevens, who will be with Lee on commentary tonight. We last saw Ray Stevens on Slamboree 1994, where he was part of the various quick interviews with Legends. I remember honestly really liking his short segment there. Yeah, he was good.
00:12:24
Speaker
I do have to say, Larry and Lee actually had some pretty good chemistry during this segment. Yeah. They seemed very natural together. Other than when he has to shill the line he's being given, blatantly, by Vern Ghani and other people, I actually enjoyed his commentary as a whole. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about the look of the arena a bit, shall we?
00:12:44
Speaker
Sure. The ring bears the Superclass 3 logo, but it's clearly just a sign taped to the ring apron, rather than an apron specifically for this show. It looks really cheap.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yeah. I'm just kind of surprised they didn't have like a general super clash one. Like reuse the super clash one ring apron like throw them in storage and just like slap a two on or something. I feel like that would look less cheap than the whole thing being like Velcroed on. Like it has a look of when you want to put something on your denim jacket and you like, you know, use the iron on the hatches.
00:13:18
Speaker
It just looks like they an hour before the show realized, oh, crap, we don't actually have a super class three rating apron. Let's take some of these signs we had sitting outside to announce it to fans and cut them out and stick them on there. Yes, it does not look good. I do have to say to get them as like compliment. I really like the A.W.A. logo itself, though. Oh, yeah. No, it's a standard logo that they have that's on the ring. That's that looks genuinely nice. It's very dignified. No, it is. Yeah.
00:13:46
Speaker
Additionally, in a clear attempt to hide the fact that the arena is barely one-fifth full, the only lights on are the ones focused on the ring itself. Yes. So we can see like the first couple rows of the crowd and then quickly lose any others than the infinite void of the Endless Abyss. Yes. I forget which Starrcade it was that was like that, but yeah, I was flashing back to one of the early Starrcades when they did that. It was 84 or 85. Yeah, I think it's one of those two, yeah. Yeah.
00:14:12
Speaker
Larry throws to ring announcer Gary Michael Cappetta, giving us another familiar face as we set up for our first match. Cappetta runs down the sanctioning bodies and staff for the event, which is a nice touch. It makes it sound more official and like an actual sport. I really liked that. Most notably, our referees tonight are Mike Figueroa,
Guerrero Brothers vs. The RPMs and Cactus Jack
00:14:34
Speaker
Marty Miller, and Mike Enos. Yeah.
00:14:38
Speaker
Yes, in fact, before he was a wrestler, Mike Enos spent some time as a referee. So match number one is the Guerrero brothers, Hector, Mondo, and Chavo Sr. versus the RPMs, Mike Davis and Tommy Lane, and Cactus Jack. The referee for this one is Mike Enos.
00:15:02
Speaker
The RPMs are former AWA Southern Tag Team Champions, winning and losing the belts multiple times against the Midnight Rockers. Oh, okay. That's Sean Michaels and Mark DiGennetti, right? Correct, yes. The Midnight Rockers became the Rockers, yes. That is cool. Yeah, it's because I've alternately, I think on this show they call them the RPMs, but they're often referenced as the Rock and Roll RPMs. Yes, yeah. I think they do actually have that in the match graphic. Okay, yeah, I can't remember a bad part, yeah.
00:15:30
Speaker
I also have to note grammatically that they've kind of annoying for me because the R in RPMs is already plural. RPM is rotation per minute. Yeah, that's true. That is interesting. Of all the problems with the show, it's very low, but just the thing I noticed the more I think about it. Nobody gets an entrance. No.
00:15:51
Speaker
The commentators build up the skills of both teams, but note that the Guerrero's have been together longer, being actual brothers. Hector, of course, automatically wins any Eddie Guerrero look-alike contest, despite being a full 13 years older. Yes! Somehow, the commentators go the entire match without ever referring to Davis or Lane individually, always just saying the RPMs. Yeah. So, my apologies if I get the names reversed. I believe that the short-haired one is Davis and the long-haired one is Lane, but I could be wrong.
00:16:20
Speaker
I don't recall, but I think that's right. There's one point where one of them tags in and I think it's Lee says, Oh, and a tag too. And then he just pauses. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't know which one is which. So he just kind of like pauses and then goes on with something else.
00:16:39
Speaker
Anyway, assuming I'm right on that, Hector and Davis start. Hector easily evades and counters Davis and Lane in turn, and tags are made to Mondo and Jack. The ring is super duper loud tonight. Yes. Every step sounds like someone banging on a timpani. Mondo outwrestles Jack, but Jack clubs him down, flings him outside, and follows, only to be flipped to the concrete by Chavo in a move only barely caught by the cameras. Yeah.
00:17:07
Speaker
Back in, the Guerrero's take turns tagging in to jump onto Jack's leg. Hector and Mondo wishbone Jack's legs, though Mondo appeared to almost forget that spot. Jack finally tags Lane, and Hector tags Chavo. Chavo lands in impressive flying head scissors, but Davis is in to stomp Chavo to break up the scissors hold. I think there was an actual tag, but the camera missed it.
00:17:32
Speaker
Chavo dodges a double-closed line and takes both down with a crossbody, and the Guerrero's take turns splashing both Lane and Davis, then knock down an entering Jack and pile on like a bunch of defensive line men piling on a fumbled football. Which is obviously not a legal pinfall, but was hilarious. Back to Jack and Chavo, and Jack gets Chavo in the RPM corner, where the heels trade in and out, beating Chavo up as Mondo accidentally distracts Enos with his protest.
00:17:59
Speaker
Chavo finally rolls away from Jack and tags Hector, who hits cool rotating drop kicks to each heel in turn. They're neat. He doesn't like jump and then kick. He kind of like brings his legs up in a kicking position already. Yeah. It's a really interesting way of doing drop kicks.
00:18:16
Speaker
Mondo joins the dropkick party, and finally everyone brawls. Lane holds Hector for a Davis clothesline, but Hector dodges and Davis nails Lane. Hector disposes of Davis and dives out onto him, and Mondo does the same to Jack, missed by the cameras, as Chavo hits a moonsault press off the top rope to Lane for the three count and the win. The Guerrero's celebrate as Davis checks on Lane and Jack rages about the loss. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a really fun, very chaotic opener.
00:18:45
Speaker
In many ways, it's funny because WCW finally learned the best way to open the show is with half-cruiser weights and wrestling these kind of matches.
00:18:54
Speaker
And so it's interesting that one thing AWE did seem to get right at this point, even if not from the same mindset as having this kind of match open the show. Yeah. I also noted the similarity between this and, uh, WSW is like 96 through 99, roughly openers pretty much where they're really depending a lot on, on a staple of really good cruiser weights, uh, including of course at times Eddie Guerrero. So seeing the Guerrero's here was really cool for that. Very cool. Yeah.
00:19:23
Speaker
I liked the teamwork they had. They had to help their family through day one to borrow things for yourselves. Teamwork then going on was really nice.
00:19:32
Speaker
Uh, for me, the RPMs were fine, but it's not like an identity I could find of their like wrestling style. You know, there's not like the Anderson where they pick a body part or the other minute express, right? Yeah. They don't think wrong, but they're kind of just blank slates, at least in this match. Maybe there's like matches I haven't seen of theirs where they like more personal matches or like regular rivals, Reese, they have. But in here, the RPMs and catches are mostly there to react, but do have decent teamwork spots.
00:20:03
Speaker
It's pretty basic, 80s tag team wrestling, just with the six main component. So it keeps the pace a little faster. There's less slowdown to stop for Matt. Cause there's always more people to do stuff. As you noted, the camera missions that dive to the outside, which it's gotta be annoying if you're, if you're the rows of doing it, like looking back at, Hey, like, Hey, look at that guy did like, Oh, I could, didn't see it. Like, ah, Dios mio. But yeah, it was a good match.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah I agree, I thought this was quite a nice opener. The Guerrero's are an excellent tag team that mix some amazing acrobatics with very good timing and tag team tactics, making for a really exciting performance. The RPMs in Cactus Jack I thought did their part and engaged in some really nice double teaming and some brutal strikes to provide a nice counterpoint to the Guerrero's flashier style.
00:20:52
Speaker
They kept a rapid pace here, taking advantage of the six man formula to keep things constantly moving and to trade out any time there was even the slightest hint of potential slowdown. So all told, this was a fun, creative and really entertaining opener. Exactly the kind of thing that you want for your show. Yeah. I think they made a wise choice in putting this on first. It's a really good thing that just gets people charged up to watch. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's so weird seeing Mick Foley here. It is. Yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
Because this is still before WCW, right? I believe so, yeah. Because he's feuding with Sting later. So I know that's got to be a little bit later, a couple of years from this show. I think the first time that he showed up on a Starrcade, if I remember correctly, was the 91 Battle Bull. That sounds right. So yeah, I think it's a year or two before he's in WCW. I think he's about five years into his career at this point, if I recall looking that up. That sounds right, yeah.
00:21:52
Speaker
It's really interesting to see, you know, we're, we're seeing like all these people from the really earliest arcade run and mid eighties wrestlers. And then Mick Foley's up there with them. I'm like, Oh, hello. Yeah. It's interesting glimpse of the future here as one, one sixth of a tag team match like this. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:12
Speaker
So, Mondo Guerrero, who, alternately, so his name is spelled M-A-N-D-O. Yes. That's R. Mondo, right? Is the... Yeah, correct, yeah. He's most notable for training the original wrestlers in GLOW. Oh, okay. Some of them we'll see in action later in the show. There's a whole thing I'll go over how we went from GLOW to POW in there. Okay.
00:22:33
Speaker
Fittingly, when it came for Netflix to make the dramatization of the Glow Wrestling Company, they hired Chavo Jr. to train the actresses to play wrestlers there. That is cool. So, kept it in the Guerrero family, huh? Exactly. That is neat. As for Chavo Sr., he would last hold wrestling gold in 2004.
00:22:53
Speaker
He has a very brief run where he's managing his son, Chavo Jr., of course, and he inadvertently wins the Cruiserweight title, ultimately about a month or so. Oh, cool. He's Chavo Classic, they call him. Distinguished of two of them. That's actually a cool name. Yes. I like that. It was a fun but fairly brief run, unfortunately.
00:23:11
Speaker
As far as Cactus Jack goes, he would take around the AWA and WCWA winning the latter's tag team titles twice in 1989. He once won them with a guy named Scott Braddock and the other time he won with a guy named Super Zodiac 2. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. He thought masked assassins were weird enough. Now there's not only a Zodiac, but he's a Super Zodiac and he's the second one. Huh.
00:23:38
Speaker
Yeah. I kind of want to see a picture of what he looks like. Like, is he have a funny app or was just a random, like, you know, fat guy wearing a black mask? You know, it's a 50, 50 shot with A's wrestling. It's either way over the top or it's really, really boring. Yeah. Nick Foley is the, with Scott Braddock, I believe, is the last tag team champion for the WCWA before what happens when the company gets changed out. Oh, okay. So he's historically important to that company as well. Oh, that's, that's neat.
00:24:09
Speaker
We cut backstage where Larry Nelson is with Nina, the POW World Champ. Is it POW? Yes, it shouldn't be. Yeah, I thought it was powerful women of wrestling. It is. But then they always say it POW. Yes, that's correct. That's weird. It should be POW. Yes, yes, it should. Okay.
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm kind of made that you didn't, that didn't occur to you until just now. That's like this millions of times and never occurred to me. Okay. All right. Yes. Oh boy.
00:24:46
Speaker
Larry says that Nina is favored in the lingerie battle royal. Nina says she's not sure she's favored, but she's definitely dressed the best, showing off her dress. She says the ten grand would be nice for Christmas shopping, but she's more excited to just be here and see the action and excitement in the wrestlers. Larry asks her who her top opponent is. Nina says it'll be fun because there will be clothes flying and doesn't answer his question at all. Larry wishes her luck.
00:25:11
Speaker
Despite the subject matter and despite basically ignoring Larry's last question, Nina came off as a pretty nice person here. No, she does. Yeah. She's full of praise for the performance she just saw and seems to really celebrate the Guerrero's win during the intro, which is kind of cool. She just seems thrilled to be here. So it was pretty endearing. Yeah. She is, of course, Ivory. Yes. Most well-known from WWEF and WWE. Yes. Yeah. Need to see some people in the earlier days of their careers on this show. Sure.
Jarrett vs. Embry for WCWA Light Heavyweight Championship
00:25:40
Speaker
We move on to our second match, which is a 21-year-old Jeff Jarrett versus flamboyant Eric Embry for Jarrett's WCCW or WCWA light heavyweight championship. Referee for this one is Mike Figueroa.
00:25:58
Speaker
Embry and Jarrett are longtime rivals in the organizations that not even just this company, they compete across multiple companies due to the sort of open nature of these companies working together with their relationships. They would trade this title a number of times between them. I think four or five times they counted, I don't know the exact number. Most notably, for me anyways, they had a big title match at AWA's Christmas Star Wars.
00:26:20
Speaker
Okay. Apparently that was the recurring thing they would do. They'd have shows and they were just Christmas Star Wars, like Thanksgiving Star Wars. I feel like it's a copyright violation. Maybe. For sure. I mean, obviously they mean it's like a battle between their stars, but they also clearly want to put Star Wars on a poster, so you'll go, ooh. Yeah. They did it for a while, that gained suit apparently, so I guess it worked for them.
00:26:48
Speaker
Neither guy gets an entrance. Embry gets a nice sparkly robe and a misspelled flamboyant. They added a U. Maybe it's a regional thing? Jera gets an awesome sparkly jacket in red, white, and blue with a gold J on the back. He looks so young here. He's only 21. I believe he's roughly three years into his career. Sounds about right, yeah.
00:27:12
Speaker
His outfit, blue tights with red boots and no shirt, is massively better than what he's going to wear for much of the 1990s. Should have stuck with this, Jeff. Interestingly, Vern Ganya replaces Ray on commentary for this one, so it's Lee and Vern for this one. Yeah, they do that a few times with the show. I'm not really sure what the point of that is.
00:27:34
Speaker
I'll just change it up, I guess. I guess so. Lee builds this up as the current champ versus the former champ, and Vern praises Jarrett as a fine young athlete. They prove evenly matched early on, trading hammer locks and wrist locks, and even countering each other's hip tosses so many times that they end up in the ropes. Embry shoves Jarrett, so Jarrett shoves him right back. Lee says it's like they're wrestling into a mirror. Jarrett works the arm a bit, but Embry clotheslines the crap out of him, looking satisfied.
00:28:05
Speaker
Jarett dodges a second and hits his own, then goes for a crossbody, but Embry dodges and Jarett hits the ropes hard. He rolls out, cradling his left shoulder, and takes a nine count to get back in. Embry works the shoulder, but Jarett gets a boot up on a corner charge and hits an absolutely beautiful second rope drop kick, but lands on his shoulder and can't follow up.
00:28:27
Speaker
He recovers enough to get two counts with a sunset flip and backslide, and one with a small package and sunset flip, but Embry reverses the last for the three count and the win. Embry celebrates as Vern praises Jarrah's performance and says that shoulder injury just took too much out of him. Lee goes to meet the new champ, but first let's talk about this match. Thoughts on it?
00:28:51
Speaker
I thought it was good, but it definitely feels too short. I don't know if that's just a thing because of what would later become cruiserweights just don't get enough time, which is obviously a recurring thing in wrestling, you know, for the next three or four decades or so, arguably still today, depending on the promotion. Or if it's just, if there's a legit nature to the injury, I'm honestly not sure on that one. If that's not legit, Jared does a really good job selling it because it seems pretty legit.
00:29:17
Speaker
I agree with you, but at the same time, it is Jeff Jared and he's really good at that. Right. So I think that is just the story they're going for. Gotcha. But yeah, he does an amazing job with it enough that yeah, the first time I was watching this, I was like, is that is that legit? That could be. Yeah.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, two other things. If it's a legit injury, it's probably not explained why the match is shorter and why it just ends properly on a pinfall exchange. But if it's not, then they just shortchanged a match that was actually going pretty well.
00:29:48
Speaker
The other argument I would say against it being a legit injury is the first thing that Embry does when they get back into the ring is aggressively attack that shoulder. The one that got hurt and then Jarratt also during that drop kick lands on the shoulder. I think if it was a legit one they might put in a little bit of arm work but it wouldn't have been as aggressive and I don't think it would have intentionally landed on the thing. They clearly made that the story of the match that Jarratt's arm is bothering him and he can't.
00:30:16
Speaker
recover as fast from moves and stuff. So I think it was legit. I'm sorry, I think it wasn't legit. I think it wasn't. We can keep it straight. Yeah. But yeah, it is done so well that you could believe it's legit. Yeah, easily. Just get this one match that kind of wishes I got more time because it seemed like it was building up something then the injury or injury angle happens and it started going again and then just kind of just stops. It's disappointing in that regard, but the action they gave you up until that's good.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah, for quite a short match, I thought this was really nice. They started off with a really excellent portrayal of just how evenly matched the two were as they countered each other at a blistering pace. Embry proved himself a little stronger, Jared a little faster, but one critical mistake by Jared made the difference and slowed Jared down just enough that he couldn't take advantage of any further good moves. So Embry was able to just wait for the right moment to get the win.
00:31:09
Speaker
Considering it goes about four minutes, this was just very, very well plotted and put together and both guys put on a good show. You can definitely tell that they worked together before as they're so smooth together. Like you, I would have loved this to be double the time, but for what it was, it was great and a clear sign of Jared's talent. Agreed, yes. You can definitely see why this guy goes on to be a big part of the 1990s. Absolutely.
00:31:34
Speaker
Eric Embry would actually drop this title 17 days later, so December 30th, to, of all people, Cactus Jack. Oh, okay. That actually sounds like an interesting match, given Embry clearly is a talented guy. Yeah. It'd be cool to see that, actually. Yes. Yeah, so December 30th, yeah, he loses the title of Cactus Jack. However, in a rare inverse of a common thread that he shows, he would actually win the title back in January.
00:32:00
Speaker
So I guess a January blessing instead of a January curse? There you go, for his part anyway, yeah. The belt itself would stop being a thing by May of 89. They just weren't giving it attention. And I think it's a problem with removing other people like him and Jarrett up high up the card. And unfortunately, at this point, a light heavyweight title is deemed a low tier belt. So once the regular competitors aren't fighting for it, they just don't care about it anymore. They didn't build up a new class of people to fight for it after the original class left.
00:32:30
Speaker
Exactly. Uh, interesting Jeff Derritt note here for you. Jeff Derritt would have massive success in the tag team division in WCWA. After the show, he'd win the title four times. Oh, wow. He went in with Caravan, Eric, Matt Bourne, the future don't get the clown. Okay. And of all people mill masquerists. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's an interesting tag team. Yes. That all happened in 1989. Okay.
00:32:57
Speaker
That's not like over like three years. It happens. Like he has four title range with three different partners in the last year. This is still a thing. That's fascinating. Yeah. He's not busy. Apparently Lee meets Embry at ringside.
00:33:14
Speaker
Lee says that no one has held the title more often or with more honor. Embry says the belt is where it belongs, and he's held it more and longer than anyone. He says it's a shame that Jarrett hurt his shoulder, but that's the brakes, and he promises that Jarrett will be the first in line for a match whenever Jarrett wants. He's happy, but he cuts the interview short to go see how Jarrett is. Lee calls him a gracious champion.
00:33:38
Speaker
About half this interview is Embry just repeating what Lee already said, but to be fair the dude has not had more than like 15 seconds to rest after that match. Yeah. He does a pretty good job regardless of building himself up as the proper champion while at the same time praising his opponent and showing concern for his safety. He gives the feud the feel of a respectful competition between rivals. Embry values Jared as a competitor and wants to face him at his best. I thought it was quite nicely done.
00:34:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, it was good. You don't get a lot of promo time with him, but yeah, you declared it what his character is supposed to be at this point, so it's nice, nice to sink, I would say. Yeah. We occasionally see these guys on these shows that you only see them like once, but you wish that they showed up on more shows. And I think Embry is one of those for me after this performance. He seems to be a pretty good promo and good in the ring. I don't know that we ever will get him on a WCW show, but it'd be neat to see some more of him.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think we do, unfortunately, but we might find some way to cross-pass them, hopefully. Yeah. We cut backstage to Larry Nelson, who is with The Terrorist, another POW wrestler. Larry says this battle royal is happening because The Terrorist destroyed Brandy Mae's cutoffs. Are those kind of already destroyed just by existing? I mean, halfway, yeah.
00:34:57
Speaker
The Terrorist says she'll rip everyone else's clothes off too. She praises her own looks and says she's as hot as the desert sands. Larry gets somewhat flustered, but manages to give us a let's go to the ring. Hey! This was just an introductory segment for one of the wrestling characters from POW and one of the match types that really shouldn't have been created, but was. Yes. Ah well. Yeah, the thing with POW is it's a lot of carryover from GLOW.
00:35:26
Speaker
They just took their characters and tweaked them slightly to avoid copyright issues. Yeah. Yeah. So she was Palestine, which I think is worse. It's more specific. Yeah. Going around and calling yourself the terrorist, obviously not a great name in general. Yeah. But the fact that one is so laser focused on this one group of people is probably worse, I think, long term. Yeah. It's weird too, because I think when she begins her promo, she does actually give a name.
00:35:52
Speaker
But then she still just calls herself the terrorist, though, actually, I do have to rephrase that. At a few points on the show, they actually do call her the Syrian terrorist. Oh, OK. So apparently she is still representing a specific group of people. It's just a different specific group of people this time than in glow. So I guess that's that tweaking you mentioned. I guess so. Maybe they could have done a little bit more tweaking, I think, but still. Yeah. Of all things a tweak, the country is not the issue. Yes, exactly.
00:36:20
Speaker
We did at least get a let's go to the ring out of it though, so that was nice. Yes. Our third match is the Boogie Woogie Man, Handsome Jimmy Valiant versus Wayne Bloom, sadly without the building wrecking sledgehammer.
Jimmy Valiant vs. Wayne Bloom
00:36:36
Speaker
Yes. The referee for this one is Marty Miller. Commentary is still Lee and Vern for this.
00:36:44
Speaker
Valiant, today, has considerably less facial hair than normal, and has opted for blue and black striped pants and bandana. Lee notes that Valiant dresses brighter each time he sees him. Bloom attacks, but Valiant beats him down and elbow drops him for the three count in the win. Yep. I believe that may be a record for shortest match recap in Let's Go to the Ring history, but I'm not absolutely sure. There's been a few other short ones, but that's gotta be right up there.
00:37:14
Speaker
Yeah, I would say that that would that's gonna be pretty low on the list. Yeah. Liam Verne did not even get to finish their discussion about Valiant's costume. That's how short the match was. Bloom freaks out as Valiant jogs around giving fans high fives and makes his exit. Thoughts on this? Well, it was short. It was short. Yeah, that is how we like our Jimmy Valiant appearances.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, as far as like a move you can just hit suddenly and beat somebody, that like elbow drop for like three feet off the ground while standing is not really up there. It's such a basic move, right? It's like, yeah, I realize this is the 80s and Valiant is also, you know, an earlier era wrestler kind of. So the finishers are not what they become in like the 90s of this, like, you know, super epic move that gets screamed at the top of the announcer's lungs or things like that. But
00:38:06
Speaker
I mean, still, you see elbow drops pretty frequently by this point in the 80s, unless it's Randy Savage's, you know, one from the skies. Yeah. It just doesn't seem like that should be a match and or at least not this early. Like, yeah, I could see it being one much later on. But yeah, at this point. Yeah, the elbow drop like that as a finisher only works if you're like a really large person. Loch Ness doing that when especially Loch Ness is where he drops the whole side of his body and you. Yeah, that's right.
00:38:36
Speaker
Yeah, but Jimmy Valient's a pretty normal sized wrestler compared to the other competitors. If anything, I think Wayne Bloom is a little more massive. He is, yes. It's shocking to see him just like hit the guy a couple times, elbow drop him, and that's it.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah. It reminded me of a show we did like the last series where the one guy wins by doing like the sort of diving forearm shot because that's his finish. But it's like three matches after Booker T does it like three times as fast and it's not even a finisher. Yeah. Like, huh, that doesn't make any sense. It's just better I guess.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, as far as Jimmy Valley matches go, it's definitely the best, I guess. Objectively not, but for me, I guess. Yeah, I think I vaguely recall that one of his last two matches on his original appearance, I actually rather liked. I don't remember which one it was off the top of my head, but I remember one of them was like, you know, he's grown on me a little bit and this was below that. But I know you and John like that tag one.
00:39:39
Speaker
The one with Ron Garvin in address, right? Yeah, that was... Yes. Yeah, that one was actually kind of okay, I think. Yeah. Yeah, I think probably, I don't know, out of the, I believe, five Jimmy Valiant matches that I've seen, I think this is probably second best, which is kind of not good. Right. But we'll see. Not going back to check. No, I blame you.
00:40:01
Speaker
In credit, I guess they are quite energetic here and the hits do look pretty good. But, uh, recorded match time is 24 seconds. Ouch, Wayne. Ouch. Yeah. Who did you make mad? Yeah. Maybe Bloom would have done better if his soon to be destruction crewmate, Mike Enos, was the referee. Yeah. As it is, Bloom got, well, destroyed. Yes. It's more of a special appearance than a match and a bit of a waste of young performer that could have been built up a bit. Yeah, agreed.
00:40:32
Speaker
As you mentioned, as we recall, if you watch the AWA re-pilot episode, Bloom and Enos would become tag team and they would reign in AWA as the tag team champions while simultaneously wrestling as masked jobbers in WCW, managed by Ole Anderson. They were the new, like new Minnesota wrecking crew. Ah, right, right, right. And they put masks on there, just get, basically got beat up by the Steiners.
00:40:55
Speaker
And then in AW, of course, the destruction crew where they would wreck buildings with apparently telekinetic sledgehammers. Yes. Because they were like a mile away from that thing. Yes, correct. That is the best video on that episode. That is so funny. And some recent history note for you, Wayne Blumson is a pro wrestler working in NXT as Von Wagner. Oh, that's cool.
00:41:20
Speaker
He's a big scary looking dude with a very like caveman face. He has a sort of pronounced brow. Okay. He's a big scary looking dude. Well, good for him. I know that's cool that his, uh, his family still is involved in, in pro wrestling. He's also not the only one in this match still wrestling. Oh God. Jimmy Valiant's last match was, and this is true in May of 2022. Wow. Yeah. Wow.
00:41:47
Speaker
Do you know how old Timmy Vammage is, by the way? Sure, go ahead. 80 years old. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Well, you know, more power to you, man. If you're still able to keep on going at that age, I mean, during good health, good job. Yeah, he was, former World War II was still going on. Wow. That's, you know, again, like, yeah, more power to him. If he can still keep going and doing what he loves, then I can't say that I begrudge him that, honestly. Yeah. Just be careful, you know, don't get yourself hurt.
00:42:17
Speaker
Obviously, yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely don't wish that on him, but it's just amazing. Like, wait, that's from 2022? Oh, my Lord. That is fascinating. Yeah. Not that I expected to see you doing research. Oh, no. We cut backstage to Larry Nelson again, who is with David McLean and Bambi of POW. David is shocked by the fast match. He's actually still buttoning up his tux jacket when they cut to him.
00:42:46
Speaker
He builds up the POW battle royale coming up, and Larry greets Bambi. She says she's going to win ten grand. Larry asks her who the toughest competition will be. She brings up Peggy Lee Leather and Luna Vachon. Larry calls her adorable, but also calls her an incredible athlete.
00:43:03
Speaker
David says Brandi May, not present, will get revenge for her ripped shorts on the terrorist tonight. Larry asks if Bambi is going after anyone, and she says Peggy Lee Leather for breaking a trophy, but Larry cuts her off as they're desperately out of time. You think they had time after the last match?
00:43:21
Speaker
Bambi, somewhat appropriately I guess, looks like a deer in headlights in this. Yes. Though she kind of pulls it together and delivers a reasonable build to the match by the end. Larry comes off I felt as pretty disrespectful to her. A bit, yes. He does at least mention she's an incredible athlete in between calling her adorable and cutting her off. Yeah, true.
00:43:42
Speaker
David McLean does not come off well here at all, chattering mostly about women ripping other women's clothes off, which, yes, is the match they're building up, but that's not an excuse as part of the problem. Yeah, it's weird. He obviously has pretty good TV presence. Obviously his content is questionable. Yeah. But I mean, he was like, he's like the host, like the face of glow, which he originally founded. So he definitely more comfortable in front of camera than she is. It's just a shame he didn't have anything better to say in front of the camera.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have a critique of his actual screen presence or anything. He's fine on that. I think if he had better content to go over, I would accept him as an announcer, an interviewer kind of role, or authority figure role, whatever. He's perfectly good on camera. Just what he's discussing is not great. Right. Yeah, not a good look for POW or for the AWA for this one, frankly. Our fourth match.
00:44:39
Speaker
is Brickhouse Brown versus Iceman King Parsons for Parsons WCWA Texas Heavyweight Championship.
WCWA Texas Heavyweight Championship: Parsons vs. Brown
00:44:48
Speaker
Referee for this one is Mike Figueroa. And we're still on Lee Inverne here.
00:44:53
Speaker
So it's not something about this match, but I found some history to share since where the odds we're going to talk about the anyway, Texas heavyweight title over again. So previous title holders in the buildup, this show include a mix of names. You might know Bob Mark Lewin. That's the name. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was on, wasn't he the very first episode? Yes, he was. I think it was Kevin Sullivan's partner or something. Correct. Yes. That's Mark Lewin. Wow. So I have the dingo warrior. That would be ultimate warrior. Correct.
00:45:20
Speaker
We also have Sting's buddy Al Perez. Oh, okay. Texas heavyweight champion and the name from earlier, Matt Bourne. Okay. He has a lot of history with his belt. Doesn't seem like it's a lot of history. Like at the time, it's not like big names win the belts, but a lot of noble names that pass through or in and out of territories that become big stars.
00:45:41
Speaker
That is one of the interesting things in going back to watch the AWA shows and things in this era in general in any company is seeing the guys that will be big stars in the future or seeing them connected to things when at this point they're just starting out or they're trying out early characters and stuff and then later on they'll hit the big time with something massive. It's neat to look back at the early years
00:46:05
Speaker
when they're either just getting their start in their iconic role or even in a role that's not going to work out for them and then they find something later. Exactly. It's cool to see that side of their performances. Absolutely. Brickhouse Brown actually gets an entrance. No music, but we do at least see him walk to the ring.
00:46:26
Speaker
Both guys are wearing blue coats. Brown has more of a jacket with puffy sleeves and a cowboy hat, while Parsons has kind of a ringmaster look going on with a shiny vest, top hat, and cane. He also has a penguin on the back of his vest because Iceman, I guess. Yes. He also has perhaps the single strangest haircut that I have ever seen.
00:46:47
Speaker
Yeah. His hair is shaved into three stripes, like combining hawk and animal's haircuts. But then the side stripes end in, no joke, dyed blonde pigtails. Yeah. I have no idea what was going on there, but I'm just glad that Dean Malenko got just the Iceman moniker, not the overall look. Let's put it that way. Yes. One young ding probably saw the blonde thing. I can make this work, but less stupid.
00:47:16
Speaker
No, I'm not saying the dye blonde rat tail is not still stupid. It's just less. It's less stupid. It's a qualified compliment. Yes. Brown, meanwhile, is absolutely ripped. Yes, yes. That guy has a good look.
00:47:34
Speaker
Parsons gets in Brown's face and shoves him, so Brown shoves him down. Brown gets a headlock, Parsons whips free, and Brown shoulder blocks him down. Iceman celebrates on a leapfrog, but Brown dropkicks him, and Parsons retreats. Back in, they repeat the headlock-whipped shoulder block, and Brown gets an awkward backslide for two. Parsons retreats again, and Vern jokes that Brown almost put him on ice.
00:47:58
Speaker
Back in, headlock and whip, but Parsons counters with a knee strike this time, and earns two counts with a short-arm clothesline and a very nice snap suplex. Vern, by the way, pronounces it su-play like Gordon Soli does. I was wondering if you'd catch that. Yeah, I thought that. I'm like, oh, no. We're on su-plays now. Brown gets his own with a high-velocity crossbody. Parsons decks him for two.
00:48:22
Speaker
Brown back body drops out of Piledriver and beats Parsons up, but Parsons asks for a timeout, but Brown just continues the beating and gets two with a flying body press as Iceman gets a foot on the ropes. Brown thinks he's won, and that gives time for Parsons to strap something to his hand and slug Brown and hide the object and pin him for the three count and the win. Vern disapproves of that trickery. He's not angry, just disappointed. Yes.
00:48:50
Speaker
Lee goes to chat with Parsons, but first let's discuss this one. So thoughts on it? That was a pretty good, but it's also a pretty basic match.
00:48:59
Speaker
It feels like it's a mix of when you get a veteran, which I believe Parsons does this point, and you have a younger guy who you'd know has the look, which you're going for. He just needs seasoning, just needs time and practice. So you try to pick a basic match that can work to his strengths, like how they give warriors short matches, or you put them with them like Rick Rude. It's that kind of thing.
00:49:22
Speaker
Yeah, so if you watch this match, like if you've never seen wrestling, you might be, oh, surprised by certain things. But if you've seen enough wrestling, there's no like inversions of expectations here. There's no like surprises really. It's a good, simple match that works.
00:49:38
Speaker
If you had the exact same match with people with less charisma and less presence, it wouldn't be good at all. Right. Yeah. They slide by on a lot of that with style. Like the backslide, for instance, it's not the best execution, but the way they do it and like sort of the character, they play it all with little details throughout and make it a little better to recover the fact that it's not a very great backslide. It would have been nice if they'd actually given Brown his big moment here.
00:50:03
Speaker
Cause that's the thing we'll discuss with the show. It feels like they don't want to give away the big match finishes and like they don't want stories to end on this show. This show is like designed to get you to try to like track down the other promotion shows or like live events. Yeah. It's just like sort of stalling.
00:50:21
Speaker
I can see that it's kind of more the, hey, here are the feuds that exists in our various promotions. We're not going to do feud enders on this show. We're treating this, despite it being kind of our big show of the year as the start of things or the mid feud. Let's try to attract some more eyeballs. It's kind of the late nineties. WSW thing where Nitro's the focus. Yes. Agreed. It's a little more understandable here since this is a show that combines like what, what did the count come to like four or five different promotions?
00:50:49
Speaker
Yeah. Another one we'll talk about later, yes. You can kind of see why they might have done the show that way, but it does mean that some people don't get their like their big moment on this show in the way you expect.
00:51:02
Speaker
At the same time, like if you give him Brown his moment, it seems like he has crowds to board and he's got a look that could really sell and like he could get a crowd going. Giving him the title, even if it's a short run, even like he loses it two weeks later on a show, you know, house show or something. And the time they're back recording TV again, parsing the champion. I still think the idea of him being champion even briefly would have helped them more.
00:51:27
Speaker
Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I mean, that's the thing that WCW runs into as well is like, would it really be that much of a problem for the big thing to happen on your pay-per-view? And like, are you for some reason thinking that people would stop watching at that point or would they be like, that's great. Now let's see what the next chapter is for this guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the idea of him being winning the title for me would be better ending here and it would be less cliche.
00:51:52
Speaker
Face thinks they won, heal wraps, vague object and taper on their hand punches, high objects and tights and winds. It's just way overdone. That's going to show up this size. Yeah, I thought once this got going, the two actually had some pretty nice strikes and Iceman's snap suplex was a sight to behold. But unfortunately, roughly the first half of the match was just repeated headlock whip free shoulder block spots. Yeah.
00:52:17
Speaker
And there's a few sloppy hits in the latter half that drag it down a bit. It's still a fun little match and it's clear that both guys have some talent. It just feels like this was a bit of an off night and the match plotting could have used a revision or two. Brown actually would get to win the title, but it'd be in February. So no generic curse for Iceman King Parsons. By the way, is he his nickname Iceman and his name is King Parsons? That actually is the case. His legitimate name is King Parsons.
00:52:45
Speaker
Okay, so he's not Iceman King Parsons, okay. No, he is Iceman King Parsons. I realize how awkward this sounds with the visual, that's what I'm trying to emphasize certainly. Yeah. In the soon two years or so that the title would remain active, the lesser champion would include the Punisher, AKA Mark Calloway. Wow. AKA The Intertaker, yep. That's a big one. As a name you haven't heard in a while, the Angel of Death, the man who was almost a black scorpion.
00:53:13
Speaker
after the band who was also almost Black Scorpion earlier. Correct. You have Lord Humongous. That's Sid Vicious, right? Yeah. He's one of like five people to play that, but in this case, yes, it is Sid Vicious. Oh, cool. Lord Humongous, in this case you don't know, is version of the character from Mad Max The Road Warrior. Right. It was a very popular thing to do in regional territories. Get a big decked guy and put a hockey mask on him. Yeah.
00:53:38
Speaker
I also have Jerry Lawler, who would win the Texas heavyweight championship. And keeping a familiar connection, his son, Brian Christopher, would also hold the title. Okay. And my both least and most personal favorite in all in one, a wrestler named Pi, P Y Chu Hee, was also a Texas heavyweight champion. That is a man named Phil Hickerson. Okay. Where they put a little makeup on and now he's Asian. Oh boy. Yeah.
00:54:08
Speaker
That was in the early 90s. It's a small part of history, but you google the guy, you're like, wow. We both believe he's Asian, because he's clearly not. They didn't put a mask on or anything. They just put a little bit of markings on his face. It's clearly just the guy that works at a dive bar. I don't know. He's leading your fooling here. It's very strange.
00:54:27
Speaker
What's the James Bond movie? You Only Live Twice, I think it is, where we're supposed to believe that Sean Connery totally looks Japanese. Like, oh, come on. Even leaving aside the fact that you just shouldn't do that. Right. It's kind of ridiculous.
00:54:44
Speaker
And believe it or not, the title lineage of this belt actually still continues to this day, although, or at least to a very recent history. Oh wow. The title stops being relevant in like early nineties and people will bring in any permission, but by the belt, you buy it from like belt collectors and go, it's our belt for this company now. Okay.
00:55:04
Speaker
That happened back in, I think 2019 was the last time someone bought it from a collector. It sat in a collection for like 10 years or so. This guy bought it, and he was working regional territories, and he's like, I'm tech subway champion now. They held a term in which, of course, he booked himself to win, and he held the belt for about a year before the title was officially vacated as of May of this year because he stopped wrestling. Oh, okay. But yeah, this belt being competed for in 1988 was technically still active as of May of 2022.
00:55:32
Speaker
In spite of the company that it's for not being a thing since like 1995, actually earlier than that. Okay. Kind of weird how that works. You just buy a belt and now it's, now it's your company's belt. Now, if only they would have Jimmy Valiant win it, then we could connect it to last match is a very surprising continuation and have Von Wagner beat Jimmy Valiant for the title. Tie everything together. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of, a lot of 2022 connection. I did not expect to see on a show from nice nitty. Yeah.
00:56:02
Speaker
Lee is at ringside with Parsons. Lee says Parsons gave Brown his shot. Parsons says he didn't have to worry about outhouse Brown. He taught Brown everything Brown knows, but only taught him what he wanted him to know. Like his mama says, it bees that way sometimes.
00:56:20
Speaker
Thought this was a perfectly good short promo. I don't know too much about either Parsons or Brown coming into this, but in a few quick moments, Iceman gave me a good feel for a longer, more complex relationship between the two than the match had managed to portray. Yeah, I'd like to see more of Iceman based on this promo, honestly. It seems like he has a good, strong personality.
00:56:39
Speaker
More interesting, he's got a pretty good history as a big time regional wrestler. I don't know if you ever made it to a big national company per se, but if you lived in the territories, I'm sure you would have seen him and you would have been a star that would either pass through your territory or hang around for a while. Yeah, it seems like a solid villain character that has an interesting personality. I could see him, if he had made it to WCW, probably being a solid mid-card heel for them. Yeah, I could see that for sure.
00:57:09
Speaker
Yeah, I thought he was good. Yeah, he's definitely, he's got a very particular vibe he's going for. He's going for sort of regional bad guy. Yeah, not a complex character, but he's a good character. Definitely curious to see if he shows up anytime soon. Yeah. Do you like his tattoos, by the way? I did not notice his tattoos, actually.
00:57:29
Speaker
I was trying to look this up and find out if there's a story for this or not because these people did work in the same area together, but I don't know if they ever wrestle each other. Soulman Rocky Johnson, The Rock's dad. You know, he has the two birds tattooed on his pectoral muscles. Okay. I think they're supposed to be doves. I don't remember the story in that, but he had those. Parsons has similar tattoos in his chest, but I believe they're supposed to be penguins, like his whole Iceman thing. Right, yeah.
00:57:56
Speaker
So I don't know if that was like a feud thing or if he's just getting dressed as Rocky Johnson. He's like, ooh, it's a great tattoo idea and just got penguins on his man boobs. But he did, and he does. We go backstage to Larry Nelson again, who is with POW wrestler's Brandy Mae and the very, very, very tiny Pocahontas.
00:58:17
Speaker
Larry says he's getting paid to talk to beautiful ladies. He asked Brandy Mae about the Cutoffs incident. Brandy says she's not going to lose any clothes and that she's going to win. Larry calls her gorgeous, calls Pocahontas gorgeous, and bends way, way, way down to ask Pocahontas about the 10 grand opportunity. Pocahontas says she feels good, and even if there's worthy competition, she'll take home the 10 grand.
00:58:40
Speaker
Two more really quick interviews here. It's it's enormously bizarre that a heated POW feud is about cut off shorts. Yeah. Literally, Brandy is mad that the terrorist ruined clothing that was already pretty much ruined. Yeah. What kind of stakes are we having this show? It's so weird. It's like if a feud was about, you know, someone bashing a car up with a sledgehammer after the car had already been in an auto wreck. Yeah.
00:59:11
Speaker
I may be giving away my opinion of cut off shorts and torn jeans and stuff, but it's just a weird thing to be feuding about. Oh no, you did more damage to the clothes that are already supposed to be damaged. To say nothing of the fact that the feud is about clothes in the first place, it's just strange. Well, obviously it's about clothes because it's women, so that's the 80s mindset, I guess. Yeah.
00:59:36
Speaker
I do think Brandy and Pocahontas did fine here. And having to bend over like that, I'm sure Larry is thankful this was a really short interview. Yeah, I bet. That could not have been fun for his back. No. Yeah, it's fine. Like I said, there's definitely low stakes in the pow portion of the show. It's just good for them to fight each other. It's no flare steamboat, you know, personal rivalry for sure. Yeah.
01:00:03
Speaker
Our fifth match is Bad Company duties. Paul Diamond and Pat Tanaka and Medusa Michelli with Diamond Dallas Page. And I think it's the terrorist actually in the background. They refer to her occasionally as the Diamond Doll, but it looks pretty much identical to the terrorist and is dressed the same way. So I'm pretty sure it's her. It might be. I don't recall that part.
01:00:32
Speaker
Opposed by the Top Guns, Ricky Rice and Derek Starfire Dukes, which is an awesome name. And Wendy Richter in a dual championship match for Richter's AWA World Women's Championship and Bag Company's AWA World Tag Team Championship.
Tag Team Matches and Bad Company
01:00:49
Speaker
Referee for this match is Mike Enos. And commentary is back to Lee and Ray.
01:00:54
Speaker
Badusa became the WWE Women's World Champion back in late 1987. They tell she won when the previous champion, Cheri Martell, left the company to go join the WWF. There's another one. Yep. 17 days before this show, they had a house show match where she lost the title to Winnie Richter. Okay. Richter, of course, is famous for being like the face of the rock and wrestling in WWF.
01:01:20
Speaker
Right. Yeah. There's a rare case of a WWF performer coming to the AWA. Right. Mind you, in her case, it's because they literally screwed her out of the title. Yes. She's part of the original screw job. So, understandably, now I'm hanging on that company. Supposedly, literally left. Like, didn't even change. She just took her bag and left, like, right after the match, drove away. But you can understand. Oh, yeah. No, totally. As far as bad company, they've been holding the title since March. They last beat the Midnight Rockers for the belts. Okay.
01:01:51
Speaker
Oh, that would have been neat. Did Wendy Richter ever team up with John Tenta? Because that would be like the perfect tag team, you know, Richter and the earthquake. Both Richter's women's title and Bad Company's tag belts are on the line here.
01:02:13
Speaker
This feels like a case of we're the book and title match before the big show. Like it just made more sense if they didn't have Richter win the belt barely two weeks before this. If it was all of them are on the heel side. Yeah, exactly. So like, Oh, the heels got put all the towels on the line against the faces. Yeah.
01:02:31
Speaker
After Capetta intros the top guns and Richter, Diamond Dallas Page grabs a microphone, congratulating Richter on pulling off a fluke win for the women's title. He runs down other sporting flukes, including the Chicago Bears winning the Super Bowl, which incidentally refers to the year that Mongo McMichael was on the team. Oh, fun coincidence there. Yeah. Page introduces his team and says there's going to be no flukes tonight.
01:02:58
Speaker
Medusa's outfit is just plain confusing. It's a shiny white bodysuit, but with parts cut out of it, almost at random and most of one leg missing. It's like the designer looked into the future, saw Jeff Jarrett's outfit and said, yeah, that, but more random and on the whole body. It's very specific note there. Yeah. It's not the same people that end up traveling in timeout. If there's one thing that movies have shown me, it's that. Fair, fair enough. Yeah.
01:03:27
Speaker
The rule for this match is that the women can only fight the women and the men can only fight the men.
01:03:35
Speaker
The guns and Richter win an opening gender-segregated brawl. Medusa and Diamond, that's Paul Diamond, retreat outside, and the guns double-team Tanaka, ending with a double back body drop that gets two as Inos was busy finally getting Rice to go to his corner. Dukes works Tanaka's arm and sends him butt over tea kettle with a clothesline and gets two with a drop kick, but Tanaka whips him to the ropes and Medusa distracts Inos so Diamond can kick Dukes from outside and switch in without a tag.
01:04:04
Speaker
Oddly, she had tried a distraction moments earlier too, but nothing happened. So I wonder if she just went for it too early. Yeah, that was really weird. They distract their free and they're just like waiting for a call like, oh, they're free to extract it. And then nothing happened. Nothing happens. And then like 10 seconds later, they distract the referee again. And what was supposed to happen happens. I think they just have their timing wrong. That sounds like it. Yeah. Didn't read DDP's binder quite close enough. No.
01:04:32
Speaker
Diamond sidewalk slam, and double underhook suplex, and it gets two off a boot to the face. Diamond tricks Rice into charging, which distracts Enos, so the heals triple team Dukes until he dodges the Diamond jumping knee, and Diamond lands hard on the middle rope. Dukes tags Richter, who grabs Medusa, who snaps her neck across the ropes.
01:04:51
Speaker
That one's on you, Richter. Yes. Could have just waited for her to get in. Medusa snaps suplex, but Richter fights back, knocks Diamond off the apron, and hits a slightly scary powerbomb. Oh yeah. For zero, as a returning Diamond breaks it up. Dukes could have stopped that, but instead ran past Diamond to hit Tanaka. Good job, man. Well, he learned tag teamwork from the public enemy. Yes.
01:05:17
Speaker
Everybody gets in. Tanaka throws Dukes out, and with Enos distracted by Rice and Diamond brawling, Medusa holds Richter for a Tanaka-Savat kick. Again, but this time Richter dodges and Tanaka nails Medusa. Dukes returns and entirely misses a dropkick on Tanaka, as Richter pins Medusa for the three-count and the win.
01:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's he almost almost makes contact and Tanaka is generous enough to sell it anyway. But yeah, it's pretty clear that he hit nothing but air. It's not a defense. If I'm trying to go somewhere and someone jumps at me, you know, they don't hit me. I would stop, too. It's a jump scare. Yeah, exactly. What was he doing to knock us in a horror movie here? Yeah, exactly. Medusa angry stomps on Richter, but the top guns make the save and spank Medusa because that's necessary.
01:06:09
Speaker
Yeah. Medusa slaps Dukes and dives out of the ring, but Richter tries to drag her back in by the foot, but Medusa escapes anyway. The Top Guns and Richter are announced as a trio of champions, and the Top Guns are handed the tag belts, celebrating as Lee Marshall goes to get a word with Medusa. But first, thoughts? It's a decent match, but it's not great, unfortunately.
01:06:32
Speaker
The big issue with this match is so much of it is obviously planned out. Like they don't cover. The seams are all very visible. It's not a seamless execution of these things. Yeah. Like when they go to the triple whip from the corner spot, one guy for a witch is already ready and there too, we're not even close to ready. I think it's rice. You see him looking back behind him repeatedly. Yeah. Like he's ready for his part of it. And he's like, Oh, you guys aren't in the corner yet. And I'll just, let's stay here for a bit. Mm-hmm.
01:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of little miscues like that or the things that don't quite work. And it's a shame because the talent here is good. I mean, Diamond and Janak were never like the greatest team, but they're always a solid hand. Very, very solid tag team, yeah. Oh, yeah. I can't think of like a moment where they're like, oh, they probably messed something up. Like, oh man, I can't believe they're in this match. They're terrible or anything like that. No, yeah. And Medusa, of course, we both enjoy most of the time when she shows up on WCW shows. Yeah.
01:07:25
Speaker
I don't have a lot of experience with Winnie Richter because I was too young to be watching wrestling at this point, obviously. And I didn't get it until the editor era, even until I got to that. But looking at history, I know she has a strong reputation as a vegan worker. She was hit one of the stronger workers in an era when wrestlers weren't given a lot of time and focus, unfortunately.
01:07:47
Speaker
And as you noted, she's a very big part of the build to the first WrestleMania and the rock and wrestling stuff. So yeah. Yeah. Aside from that one power bomb that got a little scary, I think she was very, very solid as a performer. Yeah. I thought Medusa's snap suplex was like she was kind of low to the ground. She was, but I kind of liked it. Okay. It worried me for a second. For me, that one looked more stylistic. Okay. Where the power bomb looked more like, oh, this might be going wrong, but then they saved it.
01:08:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're right in that. But yeah, just like Richter's head is too close to the mat for my liking as I'm watching the spot go. I can see that. Yeah. It's slightly ironic, by the way, that Medusa is on the receiving end of a sloppy power bomb this time. Yes. Considering what was it? Star K99? I was wondering if you remember that. Yeah. Yeah. But that went courageous. That was frightening. Well, actually, which is the more frightening power bomb? That one? The one in this show or the Sid Vicious attempt to Kevin Nash?
01:08:44
Speaker
I think the Medusa one to Kevin courageous is the scariest right followed by the Sid Vicious to Kevin Nash and then this one okay because this one at least I think she does like get her up there it's just she's coming down kind of crooked if I recall yes so it doesn't look as much like she's potentially going to neck her it's just kind of a sloppy one not super super dangerous looking
01:09:07
Speaker
Yeah, the Nash one is scary because he's probably getting Nash up and rotated up into position. Nash is upside down longer than you want to be. I'm sure he wanted to be. And Nash is just being so long. It's kind of hard to get him above the ground if you're not able to get him fully in the power bump position. Yes. I think those two on that show were very close. This one's not as scary as those for sure, but it's just a little bit scary.
01:09:34
Speaker
really have to discuss the logic what was supposed to happen and what did happen at that finish. Patinaka just straight up kicks Wendy Richter and just doesn't go down. Just is like, I'm going to hold you for a second kick. Apparently this is a logic. And then the second kick hits Baduksa right in the chest and she's instantly knocked out. Yes. And obviously what happened is it's a miscue. So obviously the goal wasn't for when you were to completely no sell a kick from
01:10:04
Speaker
the kick that knocks out. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But she was like, takes it like, yeah, what, what are you gonna do about it? And then send the second one goes off again. Everyone reviewed DDP binders more before the match. Yes, exactly. He's probably not heavily involved in the match planning at this point, but it's, you know, I keep the binder joke going. I get it.
01:10:25
Speaker
Yeah, ultimately, other than a couple of things like the suplex there and there's some good double team stuff, there's no amazing spots and there's just a lot of stuff that's not quite polished here. I guess it's, you know, the law of averages, the more people involved in the match, the more chance for things to go wrong, more human error can happen. It's a lot of good people here. It's just a kind of shame they didn't quite get all the pieces moving in the right place at the right time for a thing to go. Yeah.
01:10:53
Speaker
And obviously how the results pan out is a little confusing as well, but they have to address later in the show. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that when it's brought back up. Correct.
01:11:02
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a nice little match. It did feel like it was on fast forward the entire way, though, with vastly abbreviated versions of all the normal tag match parts. On the bright side, that meant lots of fast action, but it also meant nothing really got time to develop. And we didn't get to see some elements of the match properly happen at all. For instance, Medusa and Richter barely got any time against each other. I don't think Rice ever actually tags in. Yeah, me, might not actually say that.
01:11:28
Speaker
That said, I did find some of it pretty nice. Great suplexes from Diamond and from Medusa, I thought. Fast action from everyone, especially Medusa and Richter's short exchange late match. And some nice double teams by the top guns. This was quite fun, but I really would have liked it to be about double the time so they could have played with the concept and the special rules a little bit more. For sure. Despite the confusion with the ending, bad company are actually still the champions.
01:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, apparently it wasn't made clear enough for either the referee or the announcers or somebody. Or the wrestlers, apparently. Correct. Yes. Well, I mean, did somebody hand you the belt? You're like, great. I accept the belt. I do. Okay. Yeah, sure. I, I, I support them in that one. Yeah. So that company actually is still a champion at this point. They would hold them until March of 89. They lose them to the Olympian, which is a team of Kim Petaire and Brad Reingans, which is a fun name to say.
01:12:23
Speaker
That sounds like a beefy team. Yes. Uh, Ryan Goode is not a super important part of wrestling history. However, there's research on him. Because of his legit wrestling credentials, he worked in Japan. Like even where there's two Russian guys we saw way back in the start here that also worked in Japan because they were so good. They are so good. Yeah. He worked there for a while and he was apparently a big part in the negotiations between New Japan and WCW that happened on 1995.
01:12:50
Speaker
Oh, interesting. So if you want to thank him for, at least in part, for Target National A5 happening, feel free. Which we enjoyed. Yeah, it was a good show. Thanks. What was his name again? Brad Reingans. Thanks, Brad Reingans. And just to get one more in here, the tag titles that are currently at this point held by bad company would be deactivated. You guessed it, January of 1991. So it's a year or so out, but it's still a January bad event. Yep.
01:13:18
Speaker
The top guns sadly would not get a comeback like Maverick did in this year. Had to work then somewhere. Yeah. I think that was legally required. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Uh, they actually split not long after the show to work as singles wrestlers. Rice would put on a mask and become the unknown soldier while Duke's, uh, would infamously lose a loser gets painted yellow match. All of that takes place as far as the infamous eight away team challenge series. Gotcha.
01:13:47
Speaker
And just to take everything full circle, Rector will remain champion until September of where she would, wait for it, leave the AWA. Lee Marshall goes to chat with a ticked off Medusa. Lee calls Medusa the former women's champ and Medusa demands his respect. He says he did call her a prior champion.
01:14:09
Speaker
She says she didn't need a man in her corner and she and Tanaka shout at each other until she slaps him and shoves Paige. Tanaka and Diamond shout that she's a loser. Paige is incensed that the tag belts were taken and says bad company were not pinned. Lee asks if Medusa has been taken out of the Diamond Exchange and Paige says he doesn't even know the bimbo and demands to know where the belts are.
01:14:35
Speaker
So this was more than a little confusing. Yeah. Apparently, no one's quite sure whether the rules of that last match meant that the top guns became tag champs or not. As you noted, they did not. They did not, yes.
01:14:46
Speaker
Still, the actual confrontation between Medusa and Bad Company was well done, and Paige immediately disavowing all knowledge of Medusa despite her just being in the batch with his guys was pretty funny. Yeah. It's like the most unbelievable denial ever. I've never seen it before. Yeah, but Paige pulls it off pretty well. Yeah, it's interesting seeing like the earlier, sort of grunge-ier version DDP.
Kerry's Championship Ambitions and Delivery
01:15:12
Speaker
He actually does have a kind of neat look here, but you can definitely tell he's not yet a wrestler. Right, yeah. Yeah, that hair he has is thick and very voluminous. Yes, he has good hair. I will give him that. It's like another call, but the thing you put on your seats in your car, like you put cloth on the back of your seats, it's kind of like that, because it's so thick. It's like right in the middle like that. Okay. That's the best visual I have for his big poofy hair.
01:15:40
Speaker
Nice thing DDP like this, but yeah, that's a good segment. It is genuinely cool to see DDP in manager mode. We haven't gotten the chance to do that yet, and that was neat. We cut backstage where Larry Nelson is with Carrie Von Eric and his little daughter. Carrie holding his title and kneeling next to the kid was pretty cute.
01:16:01
Speaker
Well, ladies and gentlemen, there is the first big surprise coming up next to the battle for the International Television Championship. And, of course, in the main event, Kerry Von Erich, a big favorite. This crowd's gonna go nuts when you walk out there to face Jerry Lawler. And who is this gorgeous young lady you got with you? Well, this is my little girl, Holly. But, you know, I have such high expectations tonight. I'm planning on taking that title. I've come here for one reason, and that is to show the world that there's only one world champion.
01:16:26
Speaker
The thing is, there's one world, there's one Eiffel Tower, there's one Mona Lisa. How can there be two world champions? And so, we're here to finish it tonight, and I'll tell you what, Lawler, I'm coming fist in fire. No game's gonna be tonight, because I'm coming for you, and I'm coming to beat you, because I will prove to the world that I am the one and only World Heavyweight Champion, the United World Heavyweight Champion. Kerry, I've already been out there, and I can tell you this, you got a big home court advantage. They're ready to go nuts when you come walking out there.
01:16:55
Speaker
Well, thank you. I just say, God bless them. I'm so happy that it's here in Chicago, because Chicago is a great place. But hey, Texas, I wish you were there. All of America, I wish we were there, but we can't be. Well, we're in Texas on pay-per-view. And ladies and gentlemen, good luck to Kerry Vaughan. Eric, let's get back to the ring and the action.
01:17:13
Speaker
Kerry got a bit muddled at a few points here and made a few perplexing statements, most notably being glad to be in Chicago, but wishing he could be in Texas and also everywhere else. But he got his central point across. The desire to prove that he's the one true world champion could have been better, could have been worse. He does come off as a nice guy at least posing with your kids will do that for you.
01:17:32
Speaker
That definitely helps. It works for Steamboat, obviously, yeah. Yes, Steamboat has the greatest face entrance of all time on some of the shows coming out with his adorable infant son. Yeah, wearing matching outfits, yeah. If you wonder who the good guy is in a match, that immediately answers the question for you, no doubt. 100%, yeah.
01:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, as far as promos go, Cameron actually definitely gets the point across, but yeah, his delivery is a bit off. You can't quite place what's off about it, like he doesn't necessarily mess up a line. No. But it's like, is there something about it that doesn't feel quite right?
01:18:06
Speaker
It feels like he's the sort of guy that can come up with a promo idea, but he maybe needs someone there to edit it and clarify a few points. And he just doesn't get that on this show. Right. He gets good concepts for his promo, but doesn't quite deliver them right and doesn't quite clarify them to the degree he needs to workshop it a little bit more. And maybe it could be quite good.
01:18:26
Speaker
It's one of the things that this was on a later show, like this is on a WCW show, for instance. They just see him do live promos for and realize this. I don't know, it's not a mean way, but they would have had him do it pre-tape. Yeah. They have a couple of ones, you know, they could work through it. Oh, don't try this, emphasize this, don't emphasize this. They take two or three takes and take the best take and run that. Yeah. I think he's heard a little bit here too, by the idea that I think they're going for this like respectful competition tone between him and Lawler.
01:18:53
Speaker
And I think that maybe doesn't work as well for him as the couple other ones he gets on this show, particularly the post-match promo, as we'll see later. I think he's a lot better in. Yeah. Because he's able to just be showing genuine emotion. I can see that, yeah. Where with this, I think he's trying to go for a calm and respectful and it just, you end up not feeling anything from him here really. Yeah, it's a case of where they gave him promos with notes. He's more of a guy and they should, works more like off the cuff. Yeah, I could see that. That might be it as well. Fair enough, yeah.
01:19:25
Speaker
Our sixth match is Greg Ganya versus the man with the hands of stone, Ron Garvin, for the disputed AWA International Television Championship. International television, so what, you can only fight for it on the BBC? Yeah. Referee for this one is Marty Miller, and this one we are on Lee and Ray for commentary, as it would be just a tad too much nepotism for Vern to call his son's match.
01:19:54
Speaker
Maybe just a hair, yeah. Two note, first off, AWA International is different from WCW International. They shared offices at one point, but they didn't talk. I guess they wanted a mid-card singles title. I don't know why they went with international TV aspect of it. Very strange title for it, yeah.
01:20:18
Speaker
But it's not like they want to read up on it because it's a very short history. They didn't like build it as like an international belt, like, you know, oh, we're going to go to all Japan or something and have a bunch of matches and it'll be great fighting guys, you know, for national honor or anything. It was just a thing they did on the local show. Yeah. So I don't know what makes it international about it at all. You kind of wonder if they meant intercontinental. They just got the wrong word for it or something. And then, oh, crap, let's just go with it. Yeah, it's very possible.
01:20:44
Speaker
So the title was introduced in late 1987 and it won by Greg Gane over Adrian Adonis. He won the tournament via disqualification, our hero. I don't know why his dad books him to win a title via DQ. I don't get that. Sorry son, I can't have you pin the guy because people would say things. Be in via DQ and that's okay.
01:21:11
Speaker
On September, they'll be matching him and Ron Garvin. Technic Garvin would win, but due to circumstances like with not able to find details on, because I can't watch AWTV on the network slash peacock. I think at some point, one of the commentators does mention that they watched the tape and it looked like Garvin used an object to hit Gonya, so I think that might be- Okay, I missed that then. The title is disputed at that point, and for some reason it takes till December to have a match to crown the new champion. Okay.
01:21:47
Speaker
Nobody gets an entrance again. Just a quick announcement of the competitors, and we're off.
01:21:52
Speaker
They shove each other and brawl around. Gania gets two with a back body drop, but Garvan lands multiple headbutts and sits down on a Gania sunset flip for two. Lee says Garvan has knocked out Rick Flair and Dusty Rhodes, each with a single punch. That probably happened at some point during their various angles, I imagine, but... Flair, I think they're referring to how he won the title from him. Probably, yeah. Back with the 87, I think.
01:22:16
Speaker
Ray and Lee agree that they do not want to test the Hands of Stone themselves. Good call. Yeah. Gania gets two off dropping on Garvin's arm, but Garvin wins a brawl with a headbutt and bites and chokes Gania. Gania returns fire with corner punches and Garvin gives a good dazed look. Lee says we're five minutes in and they're both exhausted, which doesn't sound as complimentary as he must have thought it would. Yeah, right. Garvin's small package for two, but Gania tries a crossbody-ish thing. Uh-huh.
01:22:44
Speaker
And they spill backwards over the ropes. Slowly. The ref counts, and Garvin smashes Ganya to the broadcast table, but Ganya sends him to the ring post. At nine, Ganya slides back in, with Garvin left outside at ten for the count-out, giving Ganya the win and the vacant title.
Greg Gagne's Title Journey
01:23:01
Speaker
The crowd is not thrilled. No.
01:23:05
Speaker
Garvin gets in and slaps a sleeper on Gania, but he ducks into the corner and drops Garvin into the turnbuckle to escape, then slaps on his own sleeper. Garvin escapes outside. Rey is somehow convinced that the ruling was a disqualification for Garvin throwing Gania over the top rope, despite the fact that it was clearly a countout. Thoughts on this one?
01:23:26
Speaker
So I'll give it a positive first. Okay. They made it feel like this is a real heated fight between them. Don't get a lot of intensity, at least in the other part of the show. It's much more of like a worked sort of thing. Everyone's just wrestling each other. So credit there, they really make it feel like there's something personal going on. Like they've had a lot of fights and you know, they were mad at each other. Yeah, absolutely. I agree.
01:23:49
Speaker
The downside is they don't really give you much variety in the actual match because of that. I think their mindset is, let's make out a fight because this is like a blood feud. Not to foreshadow later events in the show by saying blood feud, but I don't know, they don't work a raging match for me anyways. Because of that, it's a very punch and chop filled affair.
01:24:10
Speaker
Which makes sense story-wise, but there's a balancing point for me where when you have these blood feuds, Savage would, you know, come in really intense. It's like Flair, for instance. They have a lot of blood feuds going between the two of them. But eventually the match turns into a regular match. Whereas this one never really gets that second gear. It seems like it's just kind of getting started and they never get to the point where they work a normal match. There's just a lot of punching and shoving and all that.
01:24:36
Speaker
The ending is very awkward as well. I don't think they're trying to leave it open in storyline because it's like it's not quite an over the top rope throw because it takes them like three and a half minutes it feels like to get over the ropes the outside. Yeah. And then they have a super fast 10 count.
01:24:53
Speaker
All the ref counts on this show are like hyper speed. Yeah, it's crazy. I feel like that was like, that was like a four at best. If you were counting like a normal person. Yes. That was a four 10 count. Yeah. Yeah. That happens repeatedly on the show that like the refs at nine in the length of time, it would take another ref to get to like three or four on a. Yeah.
01:25:11
Speaker
WWF or WCW show in the 90s. So I do recall like, I think from some of the other earlier shows we've watched, I think the counts are just some sometimes faster back then, but this feels especially fast on this show. Yeah. Well, that's a common thing in the A's and even in the 90s, when a countout is supposed to be part of the story, the refs always count faster. They want to guarantee it.
01:25:33
Speaker
And lastly, so, as stated, Greg Garnier wins a tournament via disqualification to win the title, and then he loses it in a surf-scree fashion, and then he wins it back via count-out. Yeah. In a blood feud. Yeah. Doesn't really do him any favors. No, I agree.
01:25:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm in agreement on this for the most part. Garvan is a good tough guy character and he does some good strikes. Gania wasn't bad himself, getting in and trading good solid-looking blows. I would have liked either a little more complexity mixed in with the brawling or just even more vicious and wild brawling. As it is, it comes off a tad flat despite the fact that they did go for it pretty well there.
01:26:17
Speaker
The ending was well timed, but it's not a great way of providing a resolution to a storyline where the title has already been disputed once. Yes. And there's not a strong portrayal of Ganya watching the refs count like in... I think it was Barry Windham versus Bam Bam Bigelow from an early Starcase. I was wondering if you could reference that. I was thinking the same thing, yeah.
01:26:35
Speaker
That one goes off a little better because Wyndham really looks like that's his plan. Yes. To get Bam Bam outside, get him riled up and distract him, injure him, win by count out. So that one worked better for me at the time because it felt like it's still built naturally from the match where this one, it just kind of feels like Ganya lucked into it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So it just comes off like to borrow DDP's phrasing a fluke. Yeah. This still wasn't bad, but it's just kind of there.
01:27:05
Speaker
Yeah. Like for me, it never got to the point where it became a regular match that was just heated. Right. It was just, I'm going to punch it, but it punches him more and a couple of wrestling holes and then just suddenly ends. Yeah. Which, like I said, would be fine if they just went ahead and really, really went for it and did just a truly over the top vicious brawl. Yeah.
01:27:24
Speaker
They did a good solid brawl, but just never quite went to that next level with it. And like I said, also didn't ever turn it into a a normal match. Yeah. So it kind of remains in first gear or second gear. Maybe it never goes all the way full. Correct. Yeah.
01:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder if it's like a combination of timing and people in charge, they don't get like, would be not even like a hardcore match, but more akin to that kind of match. Yeah. Because they were mad at each other, they were chopping your chest and punching, but that's it. Yeah, they don't work in any way more complicated, or like, you know, weapons or just any degree at all.
01:28:01
Speaker
And that feels like a Vern Gandhi don't use weapons kind of thing. We know Vern's opinion of hardcore matches from that one Slamberee that he and Luthaz gave their opinion. Yes, exactly. So yeah, that's I think probably a fair guess that this is a case where that type of match actually probably would have been beneficial here, but Vern just doesn't like that. So they didn't go to it and it kind of hurts the storyline.
01:28:27
Speaker
If you're going to do this, you want to have a, like, there must be finality to the match set things. So like, you know, there was a qualification, no count outs. We must be a winner. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Because it's already been disputed once we're taking out the chance for it to be disputed again. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a reason why Garvin, um, would lose this match and they sort of described a weird half fashion. Okay. Well, he was going to the WBF and he did want to lose. Gotcha.
01:28:56
Speaker
He didn't get pinned, he wouldn't be losing on his way out, so they found this the way where he loses because he's not going to be around to hold the title, but also he didn't look bad. Right. Though it could have done it better.
01:29:07
Speaker
As for Gany, he would hold the title until late 1989, where he would officially retire from in-ring action due to what I'm guessing is a combination of real and K-fave injuries. They would do an angle where he'd be attacked by the pre-WF Yokozuna, who would splash him on the outside of the floor, supposedly K-favaging his leg so he couldn't wrestle anymore. That'll do it? Yeah, yeah. That's why when we see him next at the AWA Re-Pilot episode, he is not wrestling.
01:29:36
Speaker
So just give me the full journey here. He wins a tournament to get given this title by his father, which he went via DQ. Then he screwed out of the title, it's great fashion that the belts held up. He then wins the belt back via count out and then retires a champion. Okay. Yeah. That's the prestigious history of the AWA international TV championship. Lee Marshall goes to chat with Greg Gunya at ringside.
01:30:07
Speaker
Greg Gagne, I've seen you in a lot of wrestling matches and I don't know that I've seen one quite this demanding. There's the one with Ron Garvin. It is credit what credit's due. Ron Garvin is one of the great competitors in the sport today. And that was a dogfight out there.
01:30:24
Speaker
Unfortunately for me, I beat the count back in and I've got the title. He's over yelling here that this isn't done. Well Garvin, anytime you want a shot at that baby, whether it's here in Chicago, wherever it is, you can have it. Ron Garvin apparently ready to take up the challenge right now. Rep. Marty Miller trying to calm Ron Garvin down.
01:30:48
Speaker
Garvin says you stole the belt. You saw the match with Russ, I said ten times to get back in. I was out, he didn't have to come out for me. That's his fault, he blew it. Well, Ray Stevens and I, we said, God, you must be nuts to start exchanging the right hands with Ron Garvin, but you must have really been pumped up for this one, Greg. I really was. You know, since this has been held up by Stanley Blackburn, the last match we had,
01:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, I've trained hard and I was ready for this one. The fans here, they like Ron Garvin, that's their prerogative. He's a good athlete. He reminds me a lot of the Chicago Bears. My brother tonight, I was in Minnesota Vikings and we just steamrolled Chicago. There he is, the international television champion, Greg Ganya. I actually really liked this promo.
01:31:34
Speaker
Okay. I think Ganya got some pretty complicated character points across. He actually plays heel for the crowd here. Right. But in such a way that he could still believably be a face elsewhere.
01:31:46
Speaker
He can come off as making an excuse for accepting a cheap win, but he also makes a perfectly good point that it was Garvan's error to come out after him and go after him outside, and then goes on to promise a Garvan a rematch so he can still be seen as a fighting champion if needed. So it leaves a lot of paths open for the story and it kind of explains things nicely in character. So I rather liked it.
01:32:09
Speaker
And to be fair, AWA is based out of Minnesota. Yes. So going to Vikings versus Bears thing does make sense for him and character and for the promotion. Yeah. When they go back to the AWA show, people will hear that line and be like, yay, because it's Minnesota. Wait, wait, no, no, no. Bob, they'll go yay, yay. Yes, yay, yay, yay for the AWA. Yeah. You got all three yays. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
01:32:32
Speaker
But yeah, I thought this was just one of those great instances, we'll see another one later in the show, of a person being able to play heel in the moment because clearly that's what the live crowd wants, but in such a way that they're able to still be a face when they go back to their normal TV show. Yeah, I can see that. So that was quite cool. Yeah, for me it's some rare cases where I got a stronger feeling for the guy from a post-match promo than I got from the match itself. Yep. Much like with Parsons in the earlier match, I felt that way about him, yeah.
01:33:01
Speaker
I didn't have anything wrong with Gonya's performance, instead of the match itself, but yeah, that promo definitely has more nuance and detail than you would get in that match, for sure. Yeah, what he did there in that promo was not easy to do. No. It's genuinely impressive that he was able to do that. I think my impression of Greg Gonya rose after seeing that promo. Yeah, it wasn't that bad at all. It was, like I said, a complex thing to try and get across in a short amount of time, especially after a match. So, hey, fair play to him.
01:33:32
Speaker
We go backstage to Larry Nelson, who is with Jerry the King Lawler.
01:33:39
Speaker
Can I ask you about your strategy tonight? Obviously, he's had trouble with his leg. Is that what you're going for? Well, I'm gonna tell you something. I've wrestled Kerry Von Erich a couple times in the past, and initially, that was my strategy. I thought, because I had heard from all sorts of sources about, of course, everybody knows that he had, had been in a serious motorcycle accident, had had surgery, extensive surgery on his ankle, and I thought that that would be the route to take. But I found out that either, uh,
01:34:04
Speaker
either it's completely 100% well or either he's devised a way to protect that leg very well so I'm not going to come out here and say right now exactly what strategy I'm going to take but I will tell you this no I'm not going to go after that leg because as I found in the past that's not the route to take with Kerry Von Erich you know he's a big man he's a very strong man he's got muscles in places where most people don't even have places and that can be and that is I'm just going to give you that little bit of information that can be used against Kerry Von Erich as well as it can work in his favor
01:34:32
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, the comments of Jerry the King Lawler as we await the main event, let's go to the ring. Larry gives us another let's go to the ring there. Hey. Oh, Larry, I didn't know you were such a fan. I thought this was a nice promo by Lawler, showing him thinking over his strategy for the match. He doesn't reveal much here and really, would you? Right, yeah. But I like the twist of explaining that he's not going for the most obvious weakness because he thinks that'd be too obvious to his opponent too.
01:35:02
Speaker
I do also have to note, Lawler looks really good with the belt. He does. Yeah. I will say it's funny. So like I said, I started watching wrestling at 2000. So my experience with Lawler early on is really not him as a wrestler. He's just him as the announcer. Right. Yeah. I've heard him make that line about muscles in place and most people in other places. Yeah. So many times I've heard people. I know he used that about what is his name? Chris Masters. Right. Which you've seen him. Yeah. That definitely makes sense. He has a very similar build to Caravan Herrick.
01:35:32
Speaker
So it's funny hearing him use that so much earlier than I'm used to and as like a wrestler, yeah. It's just a lolerism, it's not an announcer thing, it's a lolerism. Exactly, yeah. This should kind of go without saying that loler is very experienced and very natural speaking in front of a microphone and camera. You can tell this is a man who's used to giving promos. Yes. And has a very good plan for how to do them, yeah. Exactly.
01:35:56
Speaker
And of course, the story they're referencing with Kerry's leg, famously, is that after a serious motorcycle accident in 1986, his right leg was severely damaged, and doctors were ultimately unable to save his right foot and had to amputate it. Kerry continued wrestling with a prosthesis, and while a vague leg injury was acknowledged as it was here, the amputation was actually kept secret. It was, yeah.
01:36:20
Speaker
He actually does an impressive job, as we'll see in the match later, of wrestling with this prosthetic. If you did not know, I don't think you would detect anything weird about his performance at all. No. And indeed, even knowing, I struggled to spot anything that led onto it. He does a really, really amazing job of disguising it.
01:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, the way the story is told, the people he worked with in the matches, Bozy didn't know about it. Even at the point where he hid it, like he wouldn't take his boot off around other people in the locker room, he'd wait till they're all gone and he would take it off. I've heard that he even would literally shower with his boots on. I would say I've heard that as well, yeah. Yeah. Just one of those strange but fascinating wrestling stories, right? For sure, yeah. Our seventh match.
01:37:07
Speaker
is the POWW street fight over the top rope lingerie battle royale for $10,000.
Lingerie Battle Royale
01:37:15
Speaker
Referee for this one is Mike Enos. On the plus side, someone will definitely get paid on this show. But we'll talk about that later. So just to add some more academics this episode, I should note that POWW, POWW, which again stands for powerful women of wrestling,
01:37:33
Speaker
As opposed to, say, powerful organization of women wrestlers, which, you know, would be POW. Yes. Would align with a company called the WWA, but would close by the end of 1989. So they aren't this clear. The WWE is not connected to the WCWA or the CWA. Yes. Or the AWA, for that matter.
01:37:55
Speaker
Oh my gosh, so many acronyms. There's a lot of A's and W's. This is the all acronym episode. Yeah, yeah. Or the AAE, obviously.
01:38:06
Speaker
POW would be formed by GLOW founder, David McLean, who we saw earlier. Basically what happened was there was some sort of back office issue and he left the company. He even found the GLOW, which if you watch the Netflix show, you know about. He has an analog that's not called David McLean for legal reasons, but it's clearly David McLean. So he left and after he left, there apparently was more issues that came with management in his place and a bunch of GLOW wrestlers were unhappy with their pay or lack thereof. So they left to join the company that he founded, which is POW.
01:38:37
Speaker
So that's why you have all these versions of characters that were just named slightly differently. Palestine becomes just the Syrian terrorist, or Bambi was something else. Brandi May was the farmer's daughter, which is actually Amy the farmer's daughter, excuse me. And other variations like that. Then of course, Luna Vichon is just always Luna Vichon, because- Because Luna Vichon. If you're named Luna Vichon, you're good. You don't have to pick a name. Yeah, pretty much. But they do have a belt. It was a tiara.
01:39:07
Speaker
You don't sound surprised when I said that too, I noticed. No, no, not at all. But yeah, so that's where we are. Oh boy. This is the part of the show they promoted heavily. Like take around folks is coming up later. There's constant reminders whenever they are cutting to an interviewer coming back from an interview. It's like still to come lingerie a battle royale. And you're like, Oh my gosh.
01:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's almost like it's a weird carryover of these people are used to running TV shows. Right. Yeah, it feels like they're going to ads. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like I might I might go to cut away from the pay-per-view I'm watching. Yeah. Not a channel. Good. Slightly strangely, the match title card shows over the top rope in quotation marks, which makes it look like they're saying that they're only saying it's over the top rope, but it isn't really. Our commentary team for this one is Lee Marshall and David McLean.
01:39:58
Speaker
According to Wikipedia, because they never actually bother to list all the participants on the show, our participants are Bambi, Peggy Lee Leather, Lori Lynn, Brandy Mae, Malibu, Nina, Pocahontas, and Luna Vachon.
01:40:16
Speaker
You can be eliminated, either by being thrown over the top rope, or by having your clothes ripped off to some unspecified degree. Charming. As this is a battle royale, I'm not gonna try and give a full play-by-play of the action, but I'll try and hit the high spots anyway. Or what qualifies for those? I would say if you found some, feel free. Terrorist is nearly thrown out early, but escapes. Laurie Lynn is first out.
01:40:42
Speaker
Brandy Mae goes after the terrorist because, you know, cut off shorts. Sure. People try to rip people's clothes off and brawl badly. Pocahontas is eliminated via, I guess, clothes ripping? Sure. Terrorist is put outside but not over the top. Someone goes over the top and the commentators don't say her name, but I think from earlier commentary it was Malibu. Nina is out over the top.
01:41:04
Speaker
Peggy Lee Leather is at the receiving end of one of the wispiest double clothesline spots I have ever seen and does an extremely fake wobble cell. Terrorist gets back in and goes after Brandy Mae. Leather joins her, but off-camera something happens and Bambi ends up fighting Leather. Bambi does some perfectly acceptable throws. She's actually fairly good. Terrorist and Brandy Mae roll around on the mat.
01:41:28
Speaker
McClain weirdly proclaims that this shows why the Terrorist is as hot as the Desert Sands. I have no idea what he's getting at. Bambi and Leather go over the top rope together. So we're down to Luna and Terrorist versus Brandy Mae. Brandy Mae tries to eliminate Luna, but Terrorist pulls her away. McClain says it's ironic that Terrorist and Brandy Mae, the reasons that the match was taking place in the first place, are still in it.
01:41:58
Speaker
I'm not sure he understands what that word means. Yeah. Luna goes up on the top rope, which is never a good idea in a battle royale. And indeed, Brandy Mae punches her and she falls out to the floor. Terrorist slides out under the bottom rope because we needed this to take some more time. Sure. McLean realizes he'd better check to make sure he actually brought the ten grand check. Oh good. He did. Goodness. I can't handle this trauma.
01:42:25
Speaker
Terrorist pulls Brandi Mae's leg to trip her and gets back in. Brandi knocks her down and rips off large chunks of her outfit. The crowd chants, take it off. McClain and Lee claim that they're chanting Brandi Mae. That's not even close. Terrorist chokes Mae with a piece of her stockings. Lee's commentary sounds increasingly sarcastic as this goes on.
01:42:49
Speaker
Terrorist headbutts May and dumps her over the top rope, but May lands on the apron, so Terrorist just boots her off for the win in the 10 grand. Terrorist celebrates and McClain gets in and hands over the check. The Terrorist says she never lies. One guy, literally one guy, tries to start a feeble USH yet. Oh, thoughts on this.
01:43:14
Speaker
I mean, so for all the hyperbole and all the qualifiers they added to this match description, it is a surprisingly dull match. It is. It's very, very dull. Cause I mean, just a lot of bad adaptation of women wrestling you would get even up until like into late 2000s when the vision was not being treated well. And then people like, you know, Trish Stratus and Lita and those kinds of lady wrestlers really just became wrestlers and not lady wrestlers. Right.
01:43:42
Speaker
Even at that point when it was, you know, Stacey Keebler and Torrey Wilson, they couldn't work that much. But people booking these matches and running these shows knew to book the right length on these things. Right. They had this very brief, quote unquote, titillating affairs kind of things going on. And that'd be it. That'd just be a thing to break between a big match and another big match. This match goes longer than the Greg Gagne Ron Garvin match. According to repeat, this match goes longer than any of the matches before it.
01:44:09
Speaker
It's 836 and the second longest one is 635. This is two minutes long in the opener with way less going on. I don't think this is the worst Battle Royale ever, but I'm struggling to think of ones that are much worse.
01:44:27
Speaker
I think, I think it is important to qualify it because it's people with very limited training and not really set to work a match like this. So it's one thing when fairly untrained people do a match like this, and then like really good wrestlers just have a really boring bad battle royal. It's different standard. You know, battle royals are not an easy match type to work. No.
01:44:48
Speaker
You've got a lot of guys in the ring, or in this case, girls. Sure. You don't have a lot of room to pull off your usual spots that you might be able to do. You always got to be paying attention to where everyone else is so you don't accidentally clock someone you're not supposed to. Right. And, you know, there's a particular rhythm to a good battle royal that really takes experience and a good head for putting the match together. Yeah. To bring about. And obviously it helps if you're doing one that's more like the Royal Rumble or something where you have a natural flow to it.
01:45:16
Speaker
Yeah. The truncated entrances, yeah.
01:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's harder to get a standard battle royal to a really, really just impressively good match. But the ones that manage it, I think it really is a factor of just having experienced hands in there that can put together something more on the fly to handle the changing situations in the ring and know how to stay out of each other's way and everything. It just feels like you don't really have that here. So so I can't really entirely fault these performers. No.
01:45:46
Speaker
I think for the way this match goes, I think it's just a match that probably should not have been putting these people into, at least not without a lot more tutoring on exactly how this is going to go. Right. You know, go get DDP from backstage, half imploded out, give some more reminders and maybe this will go a little bit better, but it's just a disorganized mess, but I don't think it's necessarily their fault that it's a disorganized mess.
01:46:11
Speaker
I don't put the blame on the people because they're working with this complicated situation, especially for them, because they're just not the best experience in it. And they're thrown out there. And it doesn't help. I don't like the closed gimmick in the first place, but it also doesn't help with plotting out the match because that's such an indistinct ending condition for a wrestler that you're not quite sure when they're in enough danger to be worried about it when you're watching it.
01:46:38
Speaker
And, you know, it just actually takes a lot of time where being thrown over the top rope can be a nice, quick, snappy thing. And it's obvious when you're in danger from it. So I think that is one credit to what they did is I think more of the eliminations in this are being thrown out of the ring. That definitely does help it. But there's a lot working against this one, I think.
01:47:01
Speaker
If you're so inclined and you're of the right age and mindset, when you would get up on Saturday morning and watch glow or power, all the various iterations of the years, all the matches generally have the same level of talent in it. You watch not expecting a Ricky Steamboat, Ric Flair kind of situation. Everyone has roughly in the same level.
01:47:25
Speaker
But then you put on this show where you have these really experienced wrestlers with a variety of backgrounds and countries. Right. And territories. It looks inferior, yeah. Yeah. And it's unfortunate because, again, as you said, it's not these people's fault, but the contrast is there and there's nothing to do about that.
01:47:41
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Especially, I mean, you compare them to Medusa and Wendy Richter earlier. Yes. You have a direct comparison of what women's wrestling can look like if they're experienced performers, well-trained and everything. And then you bring in the pow crew and put them in a match that isn't a good one to show them off in the first place. Yeah. And they're kind of doomed by the concept.
01:48:03
Speaker
Yeah. They should have just done like an eight or 10 person, whatever that might never be tag team match. They just cover, come in, each do a couple of things survivor series kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But just adding so many layers, no clothes pun intended to something like this. It's just not going to make it better.
01:48:21
Speaker
Yeah, I do want to say once we got down towards the end of the match, it felt like there was a little bit more of a plot with the rivals squaring off. Sure. And a few of the moves started to be decent enough. I thought Bambi in particular had some pretty good throws. Yeah. In the match. But that's about all I can say for this. Otherwise, pretty much an utter waste of time and rather degrading to all involved as well.
01:48:48
Speaker
Lee Marshall goes to ringside to interview the terrorist. Lee says the terror- I was just thinking that sounds like the biography of some like really notable reporter or something. Interview the terrorist. It does, yeah. Lee says the terrorist told him in an earlier meeting that she would win this and she did. The terrorist says she told us she was going to win and she did. And then babbles in what I'm pretty sure were not actual words in any language. Yes, I'm very sure it was not.
01:49:15
Speaker
This is just there because Lee's been interviewing everybody after matches and tells us nothing that the terrorist didn't already say in her brief statement in the ring. Yeah. We go backstage to Larry Nelson, who is with Peggy Lee Leather, and soon after, Luna Fuchon.
01:49:30
Speaker
We are talking to one of the ladies who came up a little bit short in this situation. You did not get that $10,000 in tough competition.
01:49:46
Speaker
We know of the ambush that has been set before us. We have stood in the shadow and the strength of many warriors. And yes, we have learned our lessons well. You tell them, Peggy. Hey, and like I said before, every time I get one of these things where I can wish somebody to have a good Christmas, there's more than two of them to get on me, man. A lady brings a snake to Luna.
01:50:14
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, these ladies upset, of course, the terrorists winning. Can you control that snake? Good luck. Just take it easy. All I know right now is I won the shot at Nina, the power champion, because I know I can take her. I can take any woman one on one. You got two or three women coming up against you. You can't do nothing, man.
01:50:33
Speaker
Eggie Lee Leather, obviously upset, ladies and gentlemen, that close to $10,000. Brandy Mae, the last wrestler eliminated by the terrorist, and the terrorist has now come home victorious. $10,000 to do some Christmas shopping with. I don't see any of the other ladies in the area. I'm glad that Snake's out of here. Let's get back to the arena. Yes, Larry. I'm sure that's what the terrorist intends to do with $10,000. Yeah.
01:51:05
Speaker
Luna was nonsensical and hilarious here. Poor Peggy Lee Leather had to try three times to get her point across and make a challenge, but it was worth it for Luna going all croaking frog voice and freaking Larry out. Otherwise, I am very glad that the POW content is done here. Agreed, yes.
01:51:25
Speaker
We cut back to Lee Marshall, who has a copy of Pro Wrestling Illustrated. He introduces Bill Aptor of PWI. Aptor announces that Jerry the King Lawler won their Inspirational Wrestler of the Year award for 1988. Meanwhile, Colonel De Beers wanders around in the ring. Lee asks if Jerry Lawler is coming out, but it appears that won't happen. Aptor says he'll go backstage to hand it over. Professionally done, guys. Yes. Professionally done.
01:51:53
Speaker
Backstage again to Larry Nelson, who is with Sergeant Slaughter. Larry asks Slaughter about the boot camp matches rules. Slaughter says there are no rules. He's bringing his helmet and combat boots and advises people who can't stand seeing pain to go to the fridge and do what they have to do. Huh? He's coming after De Beers. We get another Let's Go to the Ring from Larry. Man, Larry Nelson is my favorite interviewer ever, starting tonight. I can see that.
01:52:22
Speaker
Sarge has good energy here, as usual, and does a good job building up his desire to fight De Beers, though he doesn't do much to clarify the match, and advising fans to go get something from the fridge is maybe not the best strategy for getting a good audience for your match. Yeah, that's fair. Still, I thought this was an enjoyable little promo. Yeah. It is funny that he says there's no rules when, in fact, there actually are rules for a bootcamp match. Yeah, yeah. There definitely are some rules. If nothing more, the ref still has to count a pinfall or do a submission.
01:52:51
Speaker
Well, yeah, I don't know if it's formal rules, I'm not an expert in bootcamp matches, but the announcers say, any you're wearing to the ring can be used as a weapon. Yes. So that's a rule. That is a rule. Yeah. That they say there are no rules and then listing three rules. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
01:53:09
Speaker
I always love Sergeant Slaughter is this ridiculous energy and delivery. But yeah, he's never a great promo, but he has a certain charm to him for sure. Yeah, I mean, he's one of those guys that I think you can't help liking hearing his promos, whether or not he makes much sense during them. He's fun. Yeah, for sure.
01:53:28
Speaker
I remember us on the other AWA episode that we've done, the promo with him and Baron Braun. They were clearly having a very grand time doing the promo together and it feels like Slaughter enjoys his promos. It does seem like that, yeah. Yeah. I think he's aware that he's playing a cartoon character. Yeah. Literally in his case. Yes.
01:53:51
Speaker
But I think of this for so you'll be clarifying this so it's hard to slaughter is builds coming from Parris Island right. Parris Island is famously one of the big boot camps that's the whole thing. So I get he wants to connect himself to that as a whole thing whether or not he says he served in the war because he did not.
01:54:10
Speaker
He's very pro-soldier, which is great. I have no problem with that. As long as he makes it clear that he's not speaking from experience. He has a character. Yeah, yeah. It's a line sometimes. He gets a little blurry with him, especially more recently.
01:54:23
Speaker
Okay, so hear me out. So he's from Parris Island. So he was born there? Is that the idea? Like he was born on the base and that's why it's his DNA. Yeah, I could see that. His blood red, white and blue and or I guess green and brown for the... That's possible. I mean, to be fair, like, you know, when people are announced as from such and such, it's not always referring to the place of their birth. It can be where their current residence is. Right. You know, there's a lot of wrestlers who's from changes over the course of their career because they moved.
01:54:53
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah.
Sergeant Slaughter vs. Colonel De Beers
01:54:54
Speaker
But I like the picture that he was like actually born there, like raised there. And like, that's why, that's why he has to do all this. So our eighth match is Sergeant Slaughter misspelled versus Colonel De Beers with diamond Dallas page in a bootcamp match. Referee for this one is Mike Figueroa and commentary is back to Lee and Ray. So this story is basically a pretty standard classic staple of eighties wrestling. It's America versus everyone else.
01:55:22
Speaker
Yes. They're all coming to get us because we're better and rah-rah and all that stuff. USA. USA. Exactly. The pairing of DDP and DeBeers does make a lot of sense if you think about it because where else do a lot of people get blood diamonds from?
01:55:37
Speaker
I'm not sure they were going for that, but this is the 80s, and we are right around apartheid being dealt with around the late 80s, so... Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's why he's this character, he's leading into that. As far as the actual story goes, they did an angle where Colonel Beers attacked Sergeant Slaughter and sent him to the hospital, so of course Sergeant Slaughter's back for revenge, he's gonna send him to the hospital in an itty-bitty-ditty bag.
01:56:03
Speaker
Knew you would reference that at some point. I love that line due to the movie. That's so great. Itty bitty ditty bag. No one can say that line seriously. Even me. Yeah. Made a good try at it, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. I know I don't have the base for that voice, but I did my best for the energy at least. Yeah.
01:56:25
Speaker
Kepeta explains the rules. You can bring anything you want and use anything you want and wrestle anywhere in the building. The ref can only count pins and check submissions. In a funny bit, Kepeta starts introducing De Beers, but as he starts to give his weight in pounds, DDP snatches the mic and gives the weight in kilos and finishes the introduction, then calls out private Slaughter. Slaughter gets an actual entrance with actual music. He is, I believe, the only person on the show that does this. Oh yeah.
01:56:55
Speaker
De Beers attacks, and Slaughter's helmet immediately falls off, but he fights back, landing multiple blows with a riding crop. De Beers falls on the helmet, which could not have felt great, but grabs it and clubs Sarge with it. One person loudly cheers for De Beers. I'm not sure if it might have been someone who came out with him.
01:57:15
Speaker
Maybe. De Beers chokes Sarge with his belt and beats him up with the riding crop as Page goes to the commentary table to explain that Bad Company did not in fact lose the tag titles because the Top Guns actually had to pin them to win the belts. Lee says Page was reminding them of that and Ray confirms it, but that is the first time that was actually clearly stated on the show. Yes. Trust Diamond Dallas Page and his trusty binder full of show notes to realize that clarification was needed.
01:57:43
Speaker
The timpani-like sound of the ring does give this kind of a military percussion soundtrack, I guess. Yeah.
01:57:49
Speaker
USA chant and Slaughter beats De Beers up inside and outside the ring. De Beers gets one of the poles holding the ropes and smashes that into Sarge. Back in, De Beers hits charging headbutts with the helmet. Page grabs Sarge from the apron, but in a premonition of roughly half of Road Wild 1999, Sarge dodges and De Beers nails Page with the helmet. Slaughter can enclose line and he headbutts De Beers with the helmet, which falls off.
01:58:18
Speaker
More helmet headbutts, and De Beers sells like he was shot with an actual cannon. Slaughter Cannon and Cobra Clutch on De Beers, and Paige beckons for someone, but too late. De Beers is out, and the ref calls for the bell, awarding Slaughter the win. Sheik Adnan Al Casey charges in, hitting Slaughter from behind and landing strikes. Slaughter fights off the heels, locking the Cobra Clutch on Al Casey, but De Beers clocks Sarge with the helmet, and the Iron Sheik runs in.
01:58:49
Speaker
Together, the Sheikhs and De Beers beat up Sarge. Iron Sheik stabs Sarge with something. Mike Enos runs in, but Iron Sheik reminds him that he's a referee today by slugging him and unceremoniously dumping him out.
01:59:02
Speaker
The Guerrero brothers make the save, but Sarge doesn't realize and takes a swing for Chavo, then chases after the heels, but the Iron Sheik escapes before Sarge can lock on the Cobra Clutch. Mondo finally gets Sarge calmed down, and Hector raises his arm at the announcement of his win. A dot matrix sign in the crowd proclaims that slaughter rules. Thoughts on this one? That is an okay match. Obviously you gotta know going into a match like this that it's not gonna be a technical match. It's gonna be punching and kicking and a lot of weapon shots.
01:59:32
Speaker
Yeah. That said, there's a certain, I want to say unintentional comedy to the match, where so much is built around the helmet as this like super dangerous weapon. Yeah. I mean, not as dangerous as a woman's high-heeled shoe or a boot taken off of the foot, obviously. But it's right up there. It's definitely right up there. Number three, probably, 54. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. Just above a two by four from Haxadim Duggan, obviously.
01:59:58
Speaker
Yeah, so much adults around this helmet. I love that, too, that De Beers is the one that gets the process of strapping the helmet on under your chin. Yes. It is actually Slaughter's helmet that he does not know how to wear it. Yeah. Like he can't get that poor thing strapped on his head. I feel full for him. Yes, my favorite spot of the entire show, not just in this match, is De Beers taking a headbutt with the helmet and doing a jumping back bump.
02:00:28
Speaker
Yes. He sells like he has been, like I said, shot with a cannon. Yes. It actually goes flying. It's hilarious. The physics don't even make sense. No, no, not at all. Yeah, he struck downward with the headbutt, then leaps up and back and take a full back bump. I love it so much.
02:00:45
Speaker
It would have made sense if Slaughter had done what he had done with the headbutt. Lower your head and charge into him. Yes. But Sarge does, you know, overhead head butts. Yeah. Comes downward for us. But, yeah, DeBeers springs backwards. It's hilarious. It's awesome. But, yeah, I mean, you know where you're getting it with the start of the Slaughter match, especially at this point.
02:01:06
Speaker
When you're going in full gimmick match, you know you're not going to get a technical classic. You're getting a lot of riding crops and everything. I will say it's very sportsman-like of starting to only bring the riding crop and helmet. Because according to the match rules, he could have brought a gun. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he could have made a very short match out of this, but he's playing fair.
02:01:25
Speaker
I did wonder, um, based on the description that they give of, I believe they say like whatever you wear to the ring is legal. Given that, um, you know, they come out later, would it have been legal for Al Casey and Iron Sheik to interfere if like De Beers carried them to the ring? Oh, yeah. Like, uh, like Papoose or whatever it is. Yeah. You have to have the babies after you're back. That is a weird mental image, man. Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome.
02:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, I think I'm in agreement. This was just people battering each other in a basic manner with weapons, but it was on the show to be something different and it succeeded in that. I do appreciate they had a few creative uses for the helmet and they went at it pretty well with their strikes. That is about all this really had going for it, but it's not an awful watch and it is quite short. Yeah.
02:02:13
Speaker
you know, getting back to what we said about the, uh, uh, Ganya versus Garvin match. If you mix these two matches together, I think you actually might've gotten a better hole because I think Garvin and Ganya do a little bit better with the basic brawling, but Slaughter and De Beers have some more creative spots in that actually involve some, you know, weapons and gimmicks and stuff. If you melded those two together, you'd have a pretty good hardcore ish match on the show without going like super hardcore at any point.
02:02:42
Speaker
I don't see it wouldn't be too hard to work, though, together because early in his career, one of the gimmicks they gave Greg Johnny was... Oh, right. Yeah, Rambo. Yeah, he was Rambo. He was trained by Zardna Slaughter. Yeah, you actually could have put them in a tag match. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Exactly. Despite that, though, I do have to say the most genuinely interesting thing about this match was Paige taking time out to clarify the ending of another match during it.
02:03:04
Speaker
True. Yeah. So weird aspect of this too. So the ending part where those two guys come in and attack him, they have a line about Iran and Iraq working together. Yes. Um, they literally just got through an eight year war against each other. Yeah. Yeah. It gets more uncomfortable in that when they do a promo later in the show where they both hold up a flag with Iran on it. Despite the fact that, yeah, again, as you said, Iraq and Iran were just through a war. Yeah. It literally ended in August of 88.
02:03:33
Speaker
that have been fighting for, I believe, literally the entirety of the 80s to this point. Yes, correct. I mean, I guess wrestling brought them together. That's something. Sure, okay. That's what I'm trying to put a positive spin on it. And I will say, as you noticed, it's funny that DDP's falls for the same manager gets on the ring apron and the attacking goes awry that he himself fell for in 1999.
02:03:54
Speaker
Yeah. Didn't learn a thing. DDP. No, maybe when he got knocked down, that page fell out of his binder. So he forgot about it. Oh, his memory is linked to those things. And, you know, you know, someone with actual video editing skills, so not me could really have fun. If you could like do the split screen, see if the timing's right and everything. Yeah. I assume he's probably a little faster in just being better shape or anything. But yeah, see how well they sync up together. That'd be funny. That would be funny.
02:04:23
Speaker
As we've covered, the pair of Slaughter and the Beers would of course become unlikely teammates as part of the AWA Team Challenge series. They were Sargis snipers. I still maintain it, we talked about it briefly.
02:04:37
Speaker
With a better company, that idea is kind of interesting. These people will force together. Yeah. I mean, they foam ring up on it and watching bits. They pull a lot of nonsense to try to add sort of flavor to the dozen matches they have every week over months. And they have some really dumb ones in there. Let's cover the Loser gets painted yellow match. Yeah. Yeah. Which, uh, engineally featured De Beers, by the way, no reference earlier. He's the heel in that. Of course.
02:05:06
Speaker
Uh, that series would also have DeBier's other finest moment, which he would lose the great American turkey hunt match. Right in time for Thanksgiving, by the way. Where two, two wrestlers fighting in control of a frozen turkey that's hanging on a pole at ringside. Sanitary. Yeah. Salmonella awesome. That portmanteau I can work with, I guess. Yeah.
02:05:30
Speaker
As for Sergeant Slaughter later on, Vern Guiney would pull one of his famous bait and switches, where he'd have a match between the later champion, which at this point would be Larry Zabisco and Sergeant Slaughter, where they would tease that Slaughter actually won the title from him. Then they'd pull the infamous Dusty finish, where they'd go, actually, this happened, so never mind. Gotcha. Really after that, Sergeant Slaughter left the company and turned against America. So thanks a lot, Vern. All your fault, Vern. Look what you did.
02:06:02
Speaker
I think we talked a bit about this on the team challenge episode, but the concept itself is not awful. Yeah. There's something very fun about the mixed up pairings. It's the same thing with battle bold. Like, yeah, the actual concept is not terrible. Yeah. And you can do neat things with people for us to work together that don't normally work together. Yeah. Or people that are friends, ending up opposing each other, but still managing to do respectful opposition and that kind of stuff. Sure.
02:06:27
Speaker
So you get moments like the Slaughter and Raschke promo that we referenced earlier that are genuinely fun. I feel like if that concept had come up before the dying days of the AWA, it could have been quite good. The problem is that it comes in
02:06:46
Speaker
as a emergency measure to try to save the company, rather than as a just, oh, this is an interesting idea. Let's do it. Yeah, I think the desperation factor damages it.
AWA Team Challenge Series
02:06:58
Speaker
Yes. And makes them do a lot of really stupid things with it rather than being able to take the time and plan it out and think, hey, what would be some genuinely neat angles that we could do with this?
02:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, I could see doing like team challenge as a show, right? Like a pay-per-view. You gotta see it. It can work in the way that Battle Bowl as a solo show the first time didn't work. Because you still have the basic premise. You'd have the mixed pairings. You have the three teams and everything. But it wouldn't be the same match all the time. Yeah.
02:07:26
Speaker
You'd have these two guys in different teams in single math, and you'd have a six-man. Yeah. Teen A did a similar thing. Teen A had a World Cup. I think it was Activision. I'd just been Teen A World Cup. But it was mostly Activision people. So they had, you know, FIDO four-ways, tag matches, ladder matches, all this stuff. Yeah. And they had point scoring. That could work. Yeah. It's a little bit like what WWE does with SmackDown versus Raw stuff. Yes.
02:07:50
Speaker
faces and heels working together because they're from the same show. Yes. Yeah. I could see the team challenge series having worked like an early version of something like that and with strong personalities and they're giving you some pretty good stuff. It's just, unfortunately, they're just kind of throwing everything at the wall when it finally comes up. Exactly. And nothing actually ends up sticking. So right. Lee Marshall goes to bring side to interview Sarge because of course he does. Yeah.
02:08:18
Speaker
Lee says he thought he'd already seen De Beers do the most despicable thing ever, but tonight topped it. And where did the Iron Sheik come from? Sarge says if he has to take on the whole world for the USA, he will. And he'll declare war on them. He says Iran and Iraq might be friends now, but when he's done with them, they won't have to worry if they're friends because they'll be six feet under. But the whole country's? I guess. Wow. Sarge recites the Pledge of Allegiance and the crowd and Lee Marshall join in.
02:08:48
Speaker
It's a bit uncomfortable when Sarge appears to transition to talking about declaring war on actual countries. Yeah. But they otherwise do a good job of building up the surprise of the double chic appearance here and setting up a continuing angle. Sure. Absolutely. I really liked the Pledge of Allegiance ending. Oh, yeah.
02:09:05
Speaker
Wrestling crowds will chant along with anything, face or heel, but man, that has to be like the ultimate crowd participation bit. The entire pledge of allegiance, it gets them to chant along with. That's great. Oh, absolutely. And Lee Marshall too, which was fun. Jim Duggan should have tried to get that going in his matches instead of the basic USA chant. It would have been interesting. Yeah. If we memorize the whole thing, yeah. Yeah, it's a fun short thing, casual xenophobia aside, yeah.
02:09:34
Speaker
You watch the show because you know when it is, it's a product of his time. It's not too offensive in this aspect to it, but yeah. I think it gets back to what we said is like, Sarge, I think here again, he's aware he's a cartoon character. Yes. And he just is having a lot of fun playing the character, so there is a certain entertainment value to that. Yeah, for sure.
02:09:57
Speaker
We go backstage where Bill Aptor has tracked down Jerry Lawler with Larry Nelson. Larry sucks up to Aptor, calling PWI his favorite. Aptor gives Lawler the inspirational wrestler award for his interpromotional matches. Lawler accepts the award. Larry asks Aptor who he favors in the title match and Aptor stumbles around trying not to give an opinion, so Lawler rescues him by claiming that after he unifies the titles tonight, he will win wrestler of the year. Good save, Jerry.
02:10:27
Speaker
There are so many non-match segments on this. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I think I counted 23 to 25 promos across the show. It's like, it's completely insane.
02:10:38
Speaker
Well, you were complaining about a previous show having no promos. It always happens that every single time that... When it rains, it pours, man. When it rains, it pours. It's bizarre, right? Like, even though we switched companies and went back in time a decade, somehow that still applies, that the show after I say there's not enough promo content, there will suddenly be an overabundance of promo content. It's insane. I know, right? It's definitely a quantity over quality circumstance. Yes, yes.
02:11:07
Speaker
fact that we have to bill after promos on the show I'd say twice I'm not counting his in that total okay yeah we have him twice in the show uh-huh normally he just a random guy see it ringside to keep tally on but he gets on camera twice in the show intentionally yeah except for us arcade 94 we haven't really had him yes make noise yes that's not a high show to compare to no no
02:11:35
Speaker
Our ninth match is the Samoan SWAT team, Samu and Fatu, with Free Bird Buddy Roberts versus Michael P.S. Hayes and Steve Do It To It Cox. For the SST's WCWA World Tag Team Championship. Referee for this one is Marty Miller and commentary is Lee Embre. The teams would trade the belts twice in the previous months with the SWAT team currently holding them on this show.
02:12:04
Speaker
The famous Von Erich's Freebird few goes for about three or four years. The Freebird kind of go their own separate ways for a while. Obviously, they regroup in WCW a couple years after this. At this point, it's the experienced Hayes and Cox, who's like a young, up-and-coming guy they're trying to promote. They're trying to promote this, man. Yes. And they give him the nickname, Do It To It. Yeah. That's not going to work. Oh, wait. You're saying that's like a negative, then? Yes. Interesting.
02:12:36
Speaker
Nobody gets an entrance. Steve Cox has some saved by the bell tights going on. Yes. The SST and Roberts wear Jagermeister shirts, which is certainly a different look for the SST.
02:12:50
Speaker
Hayes and Samu start. Samu overpowers Hayes, but Hayes stuns him and whips him to Cox's boot. Tag to Cox, and he works the arm and kicks Fatu away when he tries to break. Fatu straddles the ropes while arguing with Miller about leaving, so Hayes yanks the rope into his crotch. Samu uses the hair, but Cox ducks a huge flying body press. I think Samu might have cleared Cox even if he hadn't ducked. I think so. One heck of a leap. Yeah.
02:13:19
Speaker
Cox puts on an armbar, but Samu uses the hair to take him to Fatu, who holds him. But Cox dodges and Samu nails Fatu. Roberts calms Fatu down, and he gets back up, and they have another try. Samu spots Cox ducking, and stops, but goes for it again, and Cox ducks again, so Samu hits Fatu again.
02:13:38
Speaker
Semu is distraught, and Roberts calms fat too again, so he returns, pulls down the rope on a whip so Cox spills out to the floor, and smashes Cox into the commentary table to, uh, work out some aggression. Yeah. Hayes goes to help, but the SST draw him away and knock Cox flat again. Rey notes the impact vibrated his chair. Yes. It's almost a dusty-ism there. It is, yeah.
02:14:04
Speaker
Back in, Samu hits some kind of insane jumping, spinning, hair-pulling facebuster, and trades out to Fatu, who beats Cox down and easily stops comebacks by hurling him to the mat or the ropes until he and Cox close-line each other down. Cox makes the tag, and Hayes runs wild at Fatu and Samu. Cox comes in to fight Samu and dumps him outside and dives on him.
02:14:27
Speaker
Hayes DDTs Fatu, but Miller is distracted by Cox and Samu fighting, so Robert slips in and chaos Hayes with what the commentators variously say is his chained wallet or a loaded glove, and rolls Fatu on top for the three count and the win as Samu stops Cox from breaking it up.
02:14:45
Speaker
Cox goes in to check on the unconscious haze as the SST and Roberts celebrate outside. Cox tries to argue with Miller about the ending, which involves a lot of bouncing on the mat, but Miller insists he didn't see any cheating. The crowd chants, shoot the referee. Whoa. Dang. Escalated. You think this was an ECW show with violence like that? Yeah, no kidding. Cox, in a brilliant bit of improv, does actually mind taking aim at Miller and firing?
02:15:17
Speaker
Haze finally awakens but still rolls around slowly cradling his head and has to be helped out by Cox as he can barely walk. Thoughts on this?
02:15:28
Speaker
I thought it was a decent match but it was never really anything special for me. There's a lot of brawling and fairly basic action. A couple of flurges here and there like the crossbar you talked about or the hair pull sort of takedown. Looks nice. The ending is interesting because the ending is a slight version tweak of the one we got with Parsons. But it's the manager team that they have.
02:15:50
Speaker
I guess added the loaded wallet to dangerous weapons. I guess still below the boots. If it was a loaded wallet, because one of them says it's a wallet, the other says, oh, I thought it was a glove. And you're like, OK, whatever. Well, there's a bit earlier in the match when it's not going well, where Roberts points to his wallet at them. The idea is he's telling them, if you lose, you don't get paid, which is the answer to say. But then after the wallet may never be used as a weapon, they're like, oh, that's what he was referring to. I'm like, I don't think that was true, though.
02:16:20
Speaker
I think you're your own connection that's not there, guys. I could see that, though, being like he's saying, don't worry if it doesn't go our way, then I'll use the wallet. Yeah, it could be what they're going for. But yeah, it is funny that they explain it away. And then once they find different information, they go, oh, that's clearly what that meant. Yeah. You're disagreeing with yourself. One of my issues with following this match is that Cox's tights with the pants, especially, look too close to somewhere to the Samoan's tights. That's true. Yeah.
02:16:50
Speaker
I don't know why he's not wearing blue tights like his partner is. That's just not how you do it. Do it, man.
Samoan SWAT Team and Tag Team Dynamics
02:16:55
Speaker
I guess not. Cause he's wearing a blue jacket or something. Yeah. Cause you mean you have the Samoans that match up really well, even with their matching Eagermeister shirts initially. But then it's like, yeah, I'm just two guys that just wear different outfits, whatever.
02:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'm torn on this one. When there is action, they really go for it with some surprising leaps by Samu in particular. That flying body press, he could have gone clear out of the ring on that if he had just a touch more forward momentum. But considering this is a tag match, they spend quite a long time on basic holds, a wrist lock, an arm bar, and a chin lock, where nothing much happens, especially early in the match. They barely tag at all as well. I believe we get three tags total in the entire match. That sounds about right, yeah.
02:17:40
Speaker
The ending falls a bit flat at first. It isn't readily evident that Roberts has used a weapon of some kind on Hayes. So it feels weird that he's rendered entirely unconscious until the commentators kind of clue us in later on. Still, I do have to compliment Hayes for his selling on that. He very, very slowly and only partially recovers after the match. So really, really selling the shot. Overall, this wasn't bad, just I thought overly simple for a match this high on the card. Yeah.
02:18:09
Speaker
Like with the first match, it's interesting to see someone way before they got really famous. In this case, Fatu, the future Rikishi. Yes, yeah. Because he's actually quite a successful tag team guy at this stage in his career. I mean, we see him in WCW as well, and they are quite heavily featured. Yes, they are.
02:18:27
Speaker
I don't even know if I described this as like before he got famous. This is when he got famous in one role and then became famous in another role later. He's like got two successful instances of his career. Right. Which is kind of a neat thing for him. Absolutely, yeah.
02:18:44
Speaker
the Samoan's Watch team would lose the tag team titles in February to Kerry and Kevin Von Erich, the Von Erich we don't see in the show. Okay. However, there's a slight catch. They lose the titles because they left the company. Of course. They quit as champions.
02:18:59
Speaker
What happens is they just say Carrie and Kevin are the champions and if they fight someone else that we'll talk about later, let's just decide new champions. I don't know, maybe the Von Earecks fought them and had a massive and improper risk on them, but yeah, just, I feel it's more like, well, we know you guys aren't going to quit the world-class company, so, you know, you're champions now for this show.
02:19:23
Speaker
Larry Nelson is backstage with the Sheikhs, both of whom are holding up a flag labeled Iran. Note, not the Iranian flag, which does not have the word Iran printed in plain black text in the middle, but instead has Iran's national emblem in red.
02:19:37
Speaker
Also note that Sheikh Adnan Al-Kisi is from Iraq, legitimately. Yes. And as you pointed out earlier, Iraq and Iran had been at war since 1980, only finally making peace a few months prior in 1988. Yes. But you know what
Sheik and Casey's Feud with Slaughter
02:19:51
Speaker
the heck, let's just team these guys up and have them both hold up the flag for one of their countries. Yeah. That's fine. All countries other than America are pretty much the same thing, right? I believe so, yeah. There's a vague blur on the map, yeah.
02:20:04
Speaker
Larry says they interfered in something that was none of their business. Casey says he had a surprise for Slaughter, the AWA, and the wrestlers in the USA. He'll chase Slaughter until he's done with him. The surprise is the Iron Sheik. Casey holds up the Iran flag again as Sheik talks about his relationship with Slaughter. Sheik says Slaughter has a lot of support in his country, but his support is a law.
02:20:28
Speaker
Okay, getting past the awkwardness of this whole situation, these two do a good job of showing that they dislike Slaughter and intend to fight him. Yeah. But this is another promo where nobody really answers Larry's actual question, which was why they interfered in the bootcamp match. It would have been nice if they circled back to maybe Paige letting them know about the opportunity and showing them a binder full of plans or something. Sure. I don't know. Yeah. Lots of character here, but not enough story.
02:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, and again, this is the case of them setting up something they think you want to watch on a later show, rather than paying off something on this show to build up more things later. That's a trickiness of that.
02:21:06
Speaker
The one credit I will give them is they did actually give you a definitive ending to the Slaughter De Beers match. He does get the Copra clutch win. Yeah. It wasn't actually clear when I first watched that. I first misinterpreted that as a DQ win based on the Sheik's entering the ring, but the ref does clearly call for the bell before that happens. That's true. Yes. It is a actual clear slaughter win of the match at hand. Yeah. So I will give them some credit for that part of it anyway.
02:21:30
Speaker
So it's another slight version of the 1999 Road Wild finish where they try to run in too late. That's true, yeah. And Paige is involved again. Yes, yeah.
02:21:45
Speaker
years from now, they will of course be teamed back up together. Yes. In WWF. Yes. Managing, who else? Sergeant Slaughter. Sergeant Slaughter. Yes. Who has joined Iraq. So they've gone from the awkwardness of the Iraqi guy supporting Iran to the Iranian guy supporting Iraq. Yes. I guess that evens out. For judging, I don't know, judging xenophobia on points. Is that how that works? Sure. I don't
02:22:14
Speaker
It is funny looking at Wikipedia and seeing a picture of Adnano Casey with Saddam Hussein, by the way. Okay. That's a real picture. I'm like, whoa, that's interesting.
Strap Match: McDaniel vs. Fernandez
02:22:25
Speaker
Our 10th match is Manny Fernandez versus Wahoo McDaniel in a strap match. Referee for this one is Mike Enos and Lee and Ray are on commentary.
02:22:37
Speaker
It's the old timey wrestling face with their civic gimmick match. And of course it always comes down to that. They do mention in commentary that Fernando started to fight with him. So then when Wahoo naturally says, let's wrestle my gimmick match, he just doesn't want to do it, but they sort of force him into it. And based off of his reputation, I would not want to fight Wahoo McDaniel in a strap match since apparently he has literally never lost one. That is apparently true. Yes. Yeah.
02:23:03
Speaker
This is the four corners type of strap match where you win by touching all four corners of the ring in sequence. Yes. McDaniel and Fernandez are in the ring already as we return, as is Tatsumi Dragon Fujinami, the current IWGP champion. Fernandez takes exception to Kepeta taking time out to introduce Fujinami and snatches the mic, challenging him.
02:23:27
Speaker
I will not play this as he does use an offensive term for an Asian person in the middle of it. He does, yes. But I will note that in both voice and cadence, Manny Fernandez sounds almost identical to Scott Steiner. He does. Like if you told me that Scott Steiner patterned his entire promo style off of Manny Fernandez, I would believe you. Yeah. It's uncanny. When we first watched this, I started looking around for the Steiner's thinking that they had come out. Yeah.
02:23:55
Speaker
Fujinami brushes him off and tries to leave, but Fernandez gets in his face, challenging him to a match for the IWGP title. Wahoo, though, grabs Fernandez and notes that right now, Fernandez is facing him. Fernandez glares at him, so Fujinami grabs Fernandez, holding him for Wahoo to whip him hard with the strap, and even ripping Fernandez's vest off so it'll really hurt. Fernandez flees outside and a satisfied Fujinami makes his exit.
02:24:21
Speaker
Do you notice how much they, when they reference them, they call them Fujiyami a lot. I did not notice that. They, uh, towards the end, like when he comes back in, they say Fujiyami that they, they Fujiyami, the Japanese champion is here. Oh, they got three out of four syllables, four syllables correct. I guess. Yeah. And I got zero out of syllables. Oh boy.
02:24:47
Speaker
Wahoo puts the strap on and waits, as Lee notes that Wahoo has never lost a strap match. Fernandez won't put the strap on at first, but finally allows Enos to do it. Lee references Wahoo's strap match with Rick Rude from Starrcade86. Hopefully this will be better. We can only hope. They tug the strap, fighting for leverage, and Wahoo gathers the strap and smacks Fernandez with it repeatedly and uses it to snap Marim. We lose show audio for a moment.
02:25:15
Speaker
Fernandez lands a kick to the gut, or from Wahoo's expression, perhaps slightly lower, and floors Wahoo with strikes and a headbutt, beats him with a strap, and tries dragging him to the corners, but Wahoo kicks free. Fernandez, strap-assisted punches get Wahoo bleeding badly, but he wins a slugfest and opens Fernandez up as well. Lee notes the ref would be within his rights to stop the match with most seriously bleeding, but it goes on.
02:25:41
Speaker
Wahoo hits Fernandez in the throat with the strap and drags him to three corners, but Fernandez slugs him in the crotch. Fernandez lands a second rope knee drop and tags three corners, but goes up top for no good reason, and Wahoo obviously uses the strap to pull him down. Wahoo lands elbow drops and drags Fernandez to three corners, but Fernandez kicks free and accidentally kicks Wahoo into the final corner, giving Wahoo the win.
02:26:09
Speaker
Fernandez, incensed, gets up and wraps the strap around his fist, landing strikes, and the tube brawl. Fernandez takes off the strap and ties Wahoo to the ropes by it, then hurls Enos out of the ring when he tries to break it up. You are still a referee, Enos. Yes. Fernandez lands strikes and headbutts to Wahoo, who collapses to the mat. But suddenly, Fujinami charges the ring and makes the save, driving Fernandez off and freeing Wahoo from the ropes. Thoughts on this?
02:26:38
Speaker
Let's see, it's my comparative notes for you. Lots of chops, lots of slaps, lots of blood. Yeah, that's really all this batch is for the most part. I didn't add lots of stalling, at least at the beginning. That would definitely be applicable. Yeah.
02:26:55
Speaker
I mean, obviously, I understand where we're at at this point. I mean, again, I'm not to sound like I'm negative towards Wahoo in this regard. At this point, he's at a certain age where he's not going to have a super athletic, long, you know, match. He's not going to have an Iron Man match like a Ric Flair. Right. So I get what kind of match he can work and what emphasizes his abilities. Does that mean I find them very interesting, though?
02:27:20
Speaker
I know they're separated by a tag match, but I think having this and the slaughter match on are at least so close together. Is it a hindrance? Oh, okay. Because they're both, essentially, they're extended brawl with a very specific weapon. If you're gonna break it down into details like that. We've done the same show, it was okay, we'd have one early and then have one later, maybe. It just kind of backends this kind of thing.
02:27:42
Speaker
The ending is a little weird. It's not unheard of, obviously. The face went in an inadvertent way like that. But it's kind of a weird way to build Wahoo.
02:27:53
Speaker
He does pretty well, but ultimately he wins because of the fluke and then gets beat up. And that's pretty much how just about every strap match in the history of strap matches ends is some sort of accident like that. Despite the entire concept of the match being you got to beat up the other guy enough that you can actually drag him around to all four corners of the ring, it almost always ends with some kind of fluke like that. It's pretty common, yeah.
02:28:17
Speaker
You touch three and then you somehow accidentally get reversed into the fourth or something like that. Right. That's how almost all of them end, which seems at odds with the entire concept of what a strap match is supposed to mean. Yeah. It'd be like if every kade match ended with escaping. You're like, wait, but the point of the kade is that you can't escape. And then here you go. Once in a while, it's fine. But yeah, I just I don't see how this actually builds up Wahoo at all. Yeah. I mean, he looks OK in the match. He's competitive.
02:28:47
Speaker
He has this one move where he sort of rolls off his back and kicks you, which looks kind of cool. And to be fair, he is clearly the one doing the dragging at the end of the match. Oh, yeah, of course. Even though it's a fluke win, he is clearly in control at that point. Right. So there is that. But it's just, yeah, I'm in agreement on that. I think like this ending does not really help him if you had had him
02:29:13
Speaker
get kicked by Manny, but clearly intentionally throw himself at the corner. Yeah. That might have done it where it's like it's still him doing it, but this really just looks like no Manny just kicks him and he accidentally falls into the corner. And that's just, it looks goofy. Yeah. And then Fernandez like no cells, the whole match would beat him up. Yeah. Yeah.
02:29:32
Speaker
I'm never super fond of this type of match. I get the idea of it that you have to beat your opponent so badly they can't fight back as you circumnavigate the ring, but just always seems to lead to really slow-paced kind of anticlimactic endings. A pinfall, a submission, a knockout, those can be really fast things. Dragging a guy around to all four corners, even if it's done that way, is always going to be slow and will never come out of nowhere. So the only surprise ending to the match that can happen
02:29:59
Speaker
is the, oops, I accidentally knocked my opponent to the last corner he needed spot. So that's, of course, almost always the ending to the match, rendering it less a surprise and more an obvious, boring, predictable end. That said, these two did really go after each other quite well here and showed good intensity. Yeah. So I like this better than some other four corners strap matches that I've seen. It just it seems like the sort of match that you succeed in spite of. Yeah. Rather than because of. I agree with that. Yeah.
02:30:29
Speaker
It's good to see Wahoo and Manny again, but I wish it had been in a different match. I think it's what's a kind of a mixed objective here as well. Because it's Wahoo's signature batch is when he's done defeated in. So it's supposed to favor him. Baltimore, the finish is built around giving Manny an out, essentially, because it seemed like they're building him to fight Fujinami.
02:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like I think they've chosen the wrong match for this time in their feud and for where they want to go with it. It doesn't fit the situation. It doesn't fit what they try to do afterwards. Yeah, exactly. And again, there's another match on the show that's designed to sell you a match somewhere else. Yeah. In this case in New Japan, apparently. Okay. So it's another company to this list of acronyms and companies involved, I guess.
02:31:17
Speaker
Fernandez would eventually move down to Puerto Rico and wrestle a lot. We had a pretty good career there. Why would actually basically just stay with the AWE until they closed down. He worked some indies afterwards, but his health unfortunately got bad enough. He stopped wrestling a couple of years after that. Obviously we got him on, what was it, 93? I think it's the 93Slambery. I believe it was 93Slambery. Yeah. Yeah. So he got to, he got to have his, his last big match there, which is nice.
02:31:46
Speaker
Lee gets the ring attendance to bring Wahoo over rather than, you know, sending him to get medical attention. Of course. Wahoo says he's not sure this thing between him and Fernandez will ever be settled. Maybe out behind a building, maybe with a gun. But the strap match didn't do it. Both took a beating, but beating Fernandez isn't what Wahoo wants. He wants Fernandez dead. Do not get on Wahoo McDaniel's bad side. That's what I got from this. Yeah, sounds like it.
02:32:15
Speaker
Al, you want to take back any comments from previous shows? I think I'm okay at this point, but it's all the same, you know? I mean, I'm the guy that still won't say anything about Vader. I feel like I'm similarly safe, but you know, I still won't do it. Now we're at the risk.
02:32:33
Speaker
All told, while this promo did certainly qualify as intense and build emotion in the feud, I didn't really like the fact that it kind of minimized what had been quite a brutal fight. I don't know that I want to criticize the promo for that, honestly. It's more the idea that the feud should even continue after this.
02:32:49
Speaker
This felt like a match type and brutality level that should be used for the definitive end of the feud. Being put in the middle of it instead and paired with a promo that was fine if it had extreme in the middle of a feud rather than the end didn't really work.
02:33:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess you can argue that the finish that we discussed with the kick into the corner feels like not a final thing because it's not a pinfall or submission, but yeah. Otherwise, brutality of that match with the blood and the punching and striking felt like a final blow-off. It really is a where does this go from here, right, you know? Yeah. Because I don't think Maven has his own signature match to go to.
02:33:26
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, so nothing quite fits together. There's like a bunch of decent elements of this, but they're not all tied together very well. Yeah. So maybe it's a case of, hey, don't forget to keep watching ATWA TV and see what happens. Uh-huh. Yeah. And that's before they do that.
Lawler vs. Von Erich Title Unification
02:33:45
Speaker
Larry Nelson is backstage with Vern Gania and AWA president Stanley Blackburn.
02:33:51
Speaker
Larry says that was a war, and speaking of a war, well, first he asks Stanley if Vern can talk now. Stanley says Old Big Mouth can say anything he wants to. Vern notes he had been suspended a few weeks prior for letting the cat out of the bag about Super Clash 3. Vern says that last match got out of hand, and the two were in a war. Stanley says it should have been stopped, and Vern agrees that they'll instruct the referees that that's too much. When it gets that far, stop it.
02:34:18
Speaker
Larry asks Vern about the Lawler, Von Erich match, and which one he thinks will win. Vern says he can't pick a winner, Lawler has experience, Von Erich has size and strength. Vern starts to say something else, but Larry turns to Stanley, so Vern looks a tad miffed, but covers it vast. Larry asks if this is the greatest night ever in wrestling, and Stanley says it is, and he thinks it's a coin flip on who wins, but he secretly leans towards one of them. Vern notes Stanley is from Texas, so we can probably guess who he favors.
02:34:49
Speaker
Vern says it'll be a real battle and there's a lot at stake, getting the leagues together and seeing who is the best. Vern and Stanley seem to just almost sounded like I was saying Laverne and Shirley.
02:35:03
Speaker
Vern and Stanley seem to have a really good rapport here, joking at each other's expense frequently and having a good laugh, which gave this a fun atmosphere. That said, while I always love having interviews with folks outside of the match, competitors, to give their thoughts on who's going to win, as it makes the show feel more sports, and I really love that atmosphere. Sure. I felt like they were both a little too vague in their statements in this one, and didn't really go into any strategy thoughts or anything. Right. I can see that.
02:35:30
Speaker
There are bits in this that will be very important to the match story, of course, as we'll see. So this serves its purpose on the show, and it's a fun watch. But I just would have liked a little more analysis, especially from former wrestler Vern. No, yeah, I get that for sure. Did you notice the bit where Vern's about to say something and Larry cuts him off to ask Stanley a question, though? Yeah, yeah, he didn't like that. Looked a bit miffed, but he covered up pretty fast. So I imagine Larry heard about that one afterwards, though. Yes.
02:36:02
Speaker
It's good
02:36:18
Speaker
And they all have actually some really interesting thoughts on elements of the match strategy. And like Terry Funk, I think it is that brings up that just having the judges there will affect the strategy of the match and all. So they're not actually even like picking a winner necessarily, but they have some good thoughts that set up what the tactics of the match are going to be. And this one is a similar concept, but just doesn't go quite far enough with it, I think. Yeah, I can see your point. That makes sense.
02:36:48
Speaker
So, our 11th match is Jerry the King Lawler versus the Modern Day Warrior, Kerry Von Erich with Frank Dussek. In a no disqualification title unification match for Lawler's AWA World Heavyweight Championship and Von Erich's WCWA or WCCW World Heavyweight Championship. Referee for this one is Marty Miller and our commentary team is Lee and Ray.
02:37:16
Speaker
Yeah, Lawler would win the title from Kurt Hennig. They have a match where, I guess, they supposedly had fan polling, and they'd build up to what I'm guessing on TV, and like you'd call in. They would vote on who the special guest referee was. Lawler obviously wanted his friend Jackie Fargo, and Kurt Hennig wanted his dad, Larry the accent, to do it. Seems trustworthy, I imagine. He'd be totally impartial. Yeah, he's got plenty of experience.
02:37:40
Speaker
Lawler, of course, being the face scenario, wins the viewer poll and his buddy gets to be a referee and he wins the title. Gotcha. Speaking of someone feared earlier in the show, four days before this at a house show they had overseas, Caravanarik would face Tatsumi Fujinami. Oh, okay, cool. And in that match, they would have this finish where it would get really bloody and violent and that should actually be stopped due to bleeding. Officially, the ruling on that show was Fujinami actually became champion.
02:38:09
Speaker
However, Fujinami refused to accept the title that way, and thus the title was handed back to Vinairex for setting this match up. Ah, okay. So you almost had a random last-minute swerve to Fujinami versus Lola, which would have been a good match out of the way, but yeah. That could be fascinating too, yeah. Fujinami, he was one part of that tag team match with the Steiners, right? Correct. Where his veteran experience manages to save the match after the one dude gets knocked loopy during it.
02:38:36
Speaker
He gets like, I would up right in the face. I think by this one, this diners. Yeah. Yeah. And, and thankfully Fujinami is there to just be like, Nope. Uh, here's how we can keep this going. Yeah, exactly. I think we really credited him with a lot on that one. So for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I would have been genuinely interested to see him versus Lawler or him versus Von Eric. Honestly, that's a, yeah, seems like quite a cool guy. So yeah. I don't know if that was at a televised thing or not, but let's see if I can find anything on that. Yeah.
02:39:00
Speaker
It is just weird though to have, let's have this big title match four days before having a big top unification on our one annoying pay-per-view event. Yeah. Lawler, with a nice deep red cape and a crown, is already in the ring as Kepeta hands ring announcing duties over to WGN radio announcer Al Lerner, who has a very nice mustache. Lerner announces Lawler to a mixed reaction from the crowd, and Lawler comes over to speak.
02:39:30
Speaker
I just wanted to say and repeat what's been said so many times before tonight. It's all come down to this. There should only be one world heavyweight champion. And after this match is over, there will be only one world heavyweight champion. And I understand that a lot of people out here, like Kerry Von Erich, I understand a lot of people out here watching.
02:40:12
Speaker
Thought that was a nice quick promo by Lawler. He never actually says anything heelish, but he nevertheless sets himself up as the one the crowd wants to see beaten to enhance Von Erich's reaction and give the crowd some guidance on the dynamics of the match.
02:40:25
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, again, like Reggania earlier, he can go on to other shows after this and play a face perfectly easily, but he can play the heel tonight without ever causing character disconnect. Yeah.
02:40:38
Speaker
Oh, incidentally, just a little extra background. So after you watch this show, because our learner is a WGN guy, I asked my dad about him, because my dad is a lifelong Cubs fan. Oh, okay, cool. He didn't know who our learner was. So that probably means our learner calls the White Sox games. Ah, okay. Because yeah, doesn't watch the White Sox. Gotcha. He's picked Chicago, but only one team in Chicago.
02:41:05
Speaker
Kerry Von Erich gets an actual entrance, albeit sans music, in a nice white robe with gold trim and an outline of Texas on the back. It's not quite flare level robe, but it's still quite a good attempt. Yeah. Lerner briefly has a little trouble making himself heard over the roaring crowd. Kerry seems to pause and check his arm in his robe sleeve for a moment, but goes back to posing for the crowd. Von Erich takes the microphone.
02:41:35
Speaker
What you said, Jerry Lara, about people who carry vinyl. I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to kick your butt from one end of Chicago all the way to the other. There is one Mona Lisa, one mini power pizza, and there's one World Heavyweight champion. And you look around, you're not here.
02:42:04
Speaker
I do get why they had him respond, but Kerry maybe prepare two different promos if you're gonna have to cut a promo twice. Yeah, maybe. Gives almost exactly the same one he did backstage. At least he's only gonna do it twice. Both guys hand over their belts to Miller, who raises both of them high, which would have been a cool shot if the cameras had gotten it. Yeah. But they're too busy focusing on Kerry, who is checking his arm again.
02:42:30
Speaker
Carrie takes the robe off, revealing some of the biggest muscles that ever muscled. Yes, that is for sure. He is built. Yeah.
02:42:42
Speaker
Lawler and Kerry trade shoves, and Lawler sells like he got thrown from a catapult. But in the corner, Lawler gets Kerry's arm and smacks it down hard over the turnbuckle. Lee knows that the arm is bleeding, and someone yells, Kerry's got a boo-boo. So there's at least one Lawler fan then. Nice.
02:43:00
Speaker
The bleeding actually was pre-existing. Yes. Reportedly due to Kerry forgetting that he had a razor blade taped to his finger for an intended bleeding spot late match and scratching his arm, cutting it pretty badly. Lawler there did some excellent quick thinking on spotting it to give it an in-match explanation. Exactly. Yeah. Really good work by Lawler there.
02:43:25
Speaker
Carrie breaks clean in the corner, but Lawler goes for a cheap shot, so Carrie decks him. Lawler goes butt over tea kettle, and retreats outside. Lee says both of these guys have beaten Rick Flair, Randy Savage, and Hulk Hogan. I didn't have time before the show to verify whether that was in fact true, but you can see why they're claiming it anyway.
02:43:47
Speaker
I mean, I could verify some of that. Veneric definitely briefly won the Innovate title over Flare. It was at, I think, the Datavine Eric Memorial Show. I know that's a real thing. I could definitely see the Savage and Lawler thing because Savage did come through that territory. He was there for quite a while because his dad worked there as well. The Hogan stuff I don't know anything about.
02:44:10
Speaker
I could see it being during his AWA days, maybe, if they met up with him there before he's really, really big. I think it's probably they beat Hulk Hogan, not they beat Hulk Hogan. Yes. It's one thing that's true, but also not true. Yeah.
02:44:30
Speaker
Back in, Kerry evades Lawler's clotheslines and lands monster clotheslines in return in some quick exchanges. Kerry gets two counts with a small package and a discus punch. Kerry's arm is clearly bothering him. Lawler uppercuts Kerry over the top rope, and Lee notes that this is no DQ. I don't believe they had actually said it before that, but, you know, appreciate the clarification, Lee. Yeah.
02:44:56
Speaker
Kerry discus punch from the apron, but he catches his foot on the ropes on a splash from the apron and comes down likely harder than intended on Lawler's knee. Lawler hits his pile driver, but Kerry no-sells, waits for the gloating Lawler to turn, and discus punches him for two and a half. Lawler blocks the iron claw and gets two with a snap mare, but Kerry's kick-out drops Lawler onto Miller. Kerry pile driver gets two when Miller eventually recovers.
02:45:24
Speaker
Carrie lands some massive haymakers. Outside, Lawler dodges a discus punch, and Carrie hits the ring post. Back in, Lawler gets the ref to check on Carrie, and sneaks an object from his tights, then sneaks in punches and fist drops with it whenever he can. Carrie is bleeding, intentionally this time. Yes!
02:45:46
Speaker
Lawler tries an object-assisted second-row fist drop, but Kerry catches him mid-jump with the iron claw to the midsection. Lawler screams and writhes. Miller keeps checking Kerry's head wound as he's bleeding very badly. Kerry switches the claw to Lawler's face. Lawler gets a brief rope break, but Kerry drags him away and puts the claw back on. Dusick tells Miller not to worry about Kerry bleeding because he's from Texas.
02:46:14
Speaker
Okay, I guess he's tough. I don't know but I just found that line funny. Yeah, no for sure Carrie whips Lawler to the corner and charges but Lawler dodges and Carrie eats ring post Lawler sneaks in more hits with the object Lee points out that Carrie's white ring gear is stained red and so is the ring Lawler lands fast punches and dodges around Carrie's does some really nice work there actually
02:46:41
Speaker
Eventually, Kerry is able to land a few haymakers of his own, and a discus punch, and they simultaneously slug each other down like solid versus liquid snake from Metal Gear Solid. There you go. Kerry eventually gets two off of that. Kerry slaps on the iron claw, earning repeated two counts. But even with the hold still on, Miller keeps checking the cut, and eventually calls for the bell.
02:47:07
Speaker
As Miller explains to an irate deucek, Lerner announces the result. With Carrie unable to see due to severe bleeding, it's a win for Lawler by referee stoppage. The crowd chants, bullshit. But Rey is in favor of the ruling because of the damage that could have been done to Carrie.
02:47:27
Speaker
Kerry takes both belts and storms off, as Lawler recovers and calls out after him. Miller goes to explain to Lawler and raises his arms in victory, as Lee explains the result to the crowd again. Thoughts on this one? I think it's a good match, at least to a point. And to be fair, that point isn't pretty late in the match, so it's not like a real real bad thing. The bleeding is a big thing this match. If you're not a fan of blood wrestling, it's definitely not a match for you.
02:47:55
Speaker
Yes, this one belongs on the TV MA Starrcade, right? Yes, yeah, exactly. The story they tell is really nice. Vinark obviously has the power advantage. Luller, even at this point, he's the wily veteran, having wrestled since like 1970 or something like that. It's just funny because he's still wrestling now off and on. He's definitely the wily veteran almost 40 years after the show.
02:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, Lawler's very much doing the same kind of act you get from the heel-ish, even when he's face flair late in his career. Yeah. Where he may be playing tricks and cheating and stuff like that, but you can still acknowledge that you like him because he's that legendary. Right, exactly. I think you have a similar feel with Lawler here. Yeah.
02:48:38
Speaker
But they definitely make a good dynamic and they have a good story as far as that goes. Eventually though, it definitely kind of gets a bit one note towards the late game. I guess late game is the right word in the match. There's a lot of discus punching and a lot of just working on the head. It makes sense in Storyline why he's trying to attack the head wound obviously and it makes sense that Cara is doing his big strike to win. But at a certain point, it kind of gets redundant a little bit.
02:49:07
Speaker
Is it just me or does it feel a little bit attitude-era main event in that way that's like Carrie's repeatedly doing his finisher? Yes. And Lawler's kind of doing a repeated finisher as well. Eventually they're gonna take enough of them and get knocked out. Yeah, I could definitely see that comparison.
02:49:23
Speaker
The only thing with the bleeding is, of course, as I mentioned, yeah, the carry-ax is only cutting himself for the match. Probably doesn't help his form, because yeah, at the very least it distracts him, but obviously he also has even less blood by the end of the match that he tended to have. Yeah. So that's not good. Yeah, I'm not clear on exactly how severe the arm injury was, but at least enough that it seems to be bothering him pretty badly over the course of the match. He's frequently checking it, pausing to go look at it real quick. I think he has deucek look at it at one point.
02:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, at the very least it's an attraction to him. Yeah, obviously they think that he's still good enough to continue wrestling, but it's clearly distracting him, yeah. Obviously the elephant in the room is the finish. This match is a pretty famous finish.
02:50:08
Speaker
I get why they go for it because they didn't really want Kerry to actually lose in the telecommunication match. They want to tell more of these stories and have more matches and they do actually do have return matches. So I guess in a way it worked. But same time, this is the most famous of the matches. Yeah. So I don't know if this will work out. They plan because people must remember the follow ups.
02:50:31
Speaker
Honestly, if I was booking this match, I could see building up the bleeding thing and maybe that plays out as a distraction. Like, the ref's trying to, like, you know, thinking he's gonna call the match because of the bleeding, so Karrie breaks off the hold. And maybe him and his, you know, the guy helping him, they're talking to a free, and well, that's happening. Lawler does some variation of the cheap finish to sort of hit him, you know, the weapon shot or a low blow or something.
02:50:57
Speaker
But then the clear thing is he hits his clean finish, but you know, he gets the advantage to get it. Yeah. He gets an Apollo driver after whatever, but then he does. And the referee, you go, well, I'm not going to stop the match now because you have a pinfall. I'm going to count it. So if we're going to use the bling thing, obviously they were building it up. I wouldn't say, honestly, not use it, but I wouldn't use it just have the match stop like that.
02:51:18
Speaker
I can see that argument, like even just do it as like, okay, the bleeding actually does interfere with Kerry's vision, so he misses something, Lawler stuns him and goes for the piledriver and wins. You can still then blame, I wasn't fighting at my best or something, but from what I have heard, this came about from this being one of those shows where it's different organizations joining together and neither one really wants their guy to lose. Sure.
02:51:43
Speaker
From what I understand about this, this is a case of just neither side being willing to let their guy take the pinfall. And so this is the best solution they could come up with to still have the match and have it have an ending that isn't a DQ or something. So it can be something that it will change his hands on. Right. Yeah, I get exit. I'm fine with the idea they're building up, but I would have had some sort of cheap finish.
02:52:07
Speaker
more memorable in a good way than this, which of course is memorable as the match where they stopped for bleeding and everything else, yeah. I don't think it really ruins the match, but I think they could have done more with this ending than what they did.
02:52:21
Speaker
This one was pretty strike-heavy and really not very complex action-wise, but man, they did make every single move count, and they sold very well for each other, landing big, heavy punches that rocked their targets. It looked epic.
02:52:38
Speaker
It definitely has quite a focused story based on Lawler recognizing that he can't overpower Kerry, opening up a cut, and working on getting Kerry bleeding as badly as he can. So while the action was somewhat simple, it was well performed, and both guys gave the match a dynamic, intense feel that rates it above its simple design. Agreed. Yeah. Like you said, it still maybe doesn't have quite enough content for its runtime, but it never really feels like it's slowing down too much except where Kerry is pausing to check his arm, which obviously wasn't the match plan.
02:53:09
Speaker
I'm not usually fond of ref stoppage as an ending, but I do have to say, as you noted, this did have a very effective build to that finish. It is clearly portrayed as Lawler's plan, one that he works quite hard to complete over the course of the match. For me, I don't find a mind here with one caveat. It is silly for the ref to stop the match with the iron claw still on Lawler.
02:53:34
Speaker
Kerry clearly has a good shot at winning while that's locked on, and the fact that he can't see doesn't matter while that's locked on. If they'd had Lawler manage to free himself one last time, or maybe also land another punch while Kerry couldn't see it coming, that would make a more solid ruling that, oh, he can't see, he can't defend himself.
02:53:51
Speaker
I accept your view on it as well that maybe, you know, use that to get to an actual pinfall. But if they just couldn't do a pinfall or any kind of more solid finish and had to do the ref stoppage, I would have at least had the iron claw get broken first. Yeah. Still, it does help it for me a lot that this isn't a cheap finish that prevents a resolution to the match. The title unification does still happen. Right. So the match still matters. It's not a non finish. Right. I'll agree with that. Yeah.
02:54:19
Speaker
All told, this was a solid 80s main event match that just struggled a little bit due to a pre-match injury and needed a bit of editing on its ending. This match has a little bit of a bad reputation, but I honestly don't think that's deserved. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah, I was saying the same thing, because I've heard so many things about it, you know, the idea is that somehow it's like super short or... Yeah. Notice it'll be shortened because of that, and it's definitely not.
02:54:43
Speaker
Yeah, the way people talk about it, it sounds like this is, you know, a three minute match that gets called an account of someone like spurting blood, like anime level, or something like that. And it's just being patently ridiculous or something. But this is a good like 18 minute match or something. Right. Somewhere around that line, you get a lot of action and the action is good. I don't really have too much of a problem with this match other than like, is it just a tiny bit of editing to the ending one way or another, I think could have made it just a tad better.
02:55:12
Speaker
I agree. And gotten them a better result out of it? Yes.
02:55:23
Speaker
Jerry, let me say something. You know, I stood right here and I told you, I have all the respect in the world for Kerry Von Eric. He is truly a great wrestler. And what a, what a terrible shame it would be if that man were to lose the sight in his eyes. The referee did the right thing. He saved the man's eyesight because if he had not stopped
02:55:58
Speaker
Lauler leans a little bit more openly heelish here than his pre-match promo, but he does a good job of drawing Heat onto himself in the process and reinforcing that this wasn't a happenstance ref stoppage, but his actual plan. Good work by Lauler here, turning a disappointed crowd reaction into useful Heat.
02:56:14
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. It's definitely, it's a good way to take the legit disdain that the live crowd and I'm imagining people watching at home with the carry fans have into a story. Like I said, if there's really an issue getting all the groups online and getting this done and they can't agree on how to do it, then you're making the most of that situation by you give them this finish and now law is effective heal for this crowd. Yeah. So when he comes back to Texas, he's, he's a real bad guy.
02:56:45
Speaker
The crowd's disapproval is not just Kerry lost, it's we don't really like that finish. Yes. And he turns that into we're disapproving because Kerry lost, or more accurately, we're disapproving because Lawler won. Right. Correct. He takes their dislike of the angle and makes that their in-story dislike of him. Exactly. Which is really, really, I mean, another wonderful Lawler save in this show, honestly. Mm-hmm. For sure.
02:57:14
Speaker
Backstage, Larry Nelson is with Stanley Blackburn in a not-particularly-medically-treated Carrie von Eric, who is still a mess of blood. Yeah. Holy crap, man, let the guy towel himself off first. At least he's not doing the problem with his kid this time.
02:57:28
Speaker
Yes. Oh my gosh, can you picture that? Don't worry, honey, I'm fine. I'm fine. And then do it. Yeah. It was reminding me of Ric Flair backstage on Starrcade 83, where not only is he still bloody from his match, but I think they like actually pour champagne over his open wounds. Oh, yeah. So like, oh my gosh, what are you doing? Yeah. Well, ladies and gentlemen, you heard Stanley Blackburn chirking earlier about how we had to get control, but that's not making it any easier for Kerry Von Erich.
02:57:58
Speaker
What happened tonight was completely unfair. I'll let me tell you this. I don't know if it was the referees or what, but I've never heard of a match in the state of Texas or anywhere else in the whole world where they stopped the match because somebody's cut up too bad or whatever. Really? You just had one four days ago. You were down with the iron claw. You were down for at least you're probably still down right here. Let's take a look at the replay. You'll be able to see it on the monitor over here now. I think we're going to you're going to be able to talk over this carry and hopefully we'll be able to see it.
02:58:27
Speaker
And we will see exactly what happened. All right, Kerry, describe what's going on. Well, right now, I'm counting him down. I just piledrived him. I'm going for the one, two, three. The referee's still on a can over there. I'm going for it. Look how long he's down, probably 15 seconds. So that's the first time. Now the second time will come with the iron claw. Now the referee finally comes.
02:58:45
Speaker
It's obvious Kerry was about two and three quarters of a second. Stanley Blackburn, I understand your point, but this is ridiculous. After the Wahoo McDaniel match and so much blood, it's ridiculous to let him go on that much. And I'd instructed the referee. I said, anytime there's too much blood, stop the matches. Well, look, Stanley, I had him down. I had him in the claw. He wasn't even about to move. Short on the replay if you don't believe what happened. The whole world saw it. I had already instructed the referee. I said, any further.
02:59:12
Speaker
future matches. If there's too much blood, stop it. Stanley Blackburn, will there be a rematch? I'm sure that's what Kerry Von Erich. Yes, sir, will be a rematch. You know, Stanley, there's one world champion. There's one Leaning Tower up here. There's one Eiffel Tower. And there's one world champion, and you're looking at him right here.
02:59:29
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, Kerry Von Erich, we're going to let him get out of here. He's a mess. He needs to get back to the area for what it's worth. Kerry Von Erich, a very valiant effort, a very valiant effort. Stanley Blackburn, we've got one more to go, but there's no way in the world it's going to top that one. I'm sorry, we had to stop it, but that's the rules. Let's get to the ring.
02:59:49
Speaker
Now this, I think, is where it was okay that Carrie repeated the earlier promo. Right. As the tone of it has changed. Yes. So it's just a good callback instead of him not being able to think of something else. Fair enough, yeah. This did really well to show that the storyline will continue and that Carrie will get another shot.
03:00:09
Speaker
But it's unfortunate that they didn't really have a good response to Kerry noting that he had Lawler down at the time the match was called, probably because there really isn't a great response to that. No. So yeah, as we said, if they just did the ending ever so slightly differently, it would have made this a bit stronger.
03:00:23
Speaker
Oh, you know what could have helped as well, you can think about it, is if Lawler had a manager, which would be a heal manager, and maybe his manager, precious referee, and then look at this blood, you gotta stop this match. You really play the angle of that, so Lawler wins the title that way, because his own man forked that.
03:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, the closest you get to that is there is one point in the match, at least where Lawler tells the referee, oh, you better check on Kerry. But I think that's actually in the build up to him using the object for the first time. I think he uses that to sneak the object into his hand. Yeah, I think that's what happened. Yeah, I think that would have made this a little bit stronger. But as a way to build a continuing feud, this was fine. Yeah, I think it's a good point to cover that. Well, yeah.
03:01:07
Speaker
Alright, so where do I begin here? I'm trying to make this simple, but there's really no way to make this simple. So following the show, which unfortunately as we talk about the attendance, and even the buy rate which wasn't bad is not great, there was issues of payment. A lot of people apparently were either not paid in full or some not paid at all apparently. According to Lawler, he was not paid at all for the show, which is... Seems like a bad idea. Yeah?
03:01:32
Speaker
your actual champion? Yeah, yeah, you just gave him both the belts and you're not gonna pay him. Maybe wait till you take the belt off and not to pay him if you're gonna be that way. But also you should pay him regardless, but you know, if you're gonna do it, do it right. As such, him and the CWA, the company that he was mainly working for, split from the AWA, and the AWA did not take that well, nor did they take his refusal to come back and do more dates since he wasn't paid.
03:02:00
Speaker
Well, so they buried him on TV saying, you know, the coward and yada, yada. And they, they officially stripped him of the title. And that of course happened in January. One more for the list.
03:02:14
Speaker
This view would go on. The Lawler and Fonnerik actually would trade the title back and forth at a pair of house shows in April. But then there'd be more issues that come up that Fritz Fonnerik, the patriarch of the family, would sell the WCWA to the CWA, at least combining the two confusing acronyms together, to form the USWA, the United States Wrestling Alliance. And of course, their champion was Lawler.
03:02:40
Speaker
Which is claimed to still be the combined WCWA and AWA titles, right? Correct. Despite the fact that Lawler has already been stripped of the AWA title, they just don't acknowledge that that happened. Correct. The unified title is in fact not unified. Yes. He would in fact briefly lose it to The Undertaker.
03:03:02
Speaker
Again, Mark Callaway before the fizz is going to take her. In April of 89, he's still in Texas territory. He's still kind of the U.F.A. champion. Even though this point he's holding a belt that represents one belt and not two. Yes. By August of 1990, Lola would be a six time U.S.W.A. champion. Wow. He believed in the, I guess maybe still does believe in the let's trade our big title around on TV and house shows to really draw an attendance kind of champion.
03:03:31
Speaker
He would lose and regain the title from the likes of the Soul Taker, which you might know as the Godfather slash Papa Shango. Okay. Yep. Slash at one point, he was the, uh, literally the Berenzamaty character. They didn't care about Kyberites there, obviously. He lost to someone named King Cobra. Okay. And he lost the title twice to Jimmy Valiant. All right. I assume after a 22nd match with Double Drop. I can only hope.
03:04:01
Speaker
So now things can be more confusing because WCWA does not like the direction this is going apparently. I'm sure there's more stuff. I'm sure it's about money. It's always about money and these things. They decide that they don't want to be involved in the USWA anymore. So the WCWA quits the USWA officially taking their title away from the unification. Now the USWA title, which represents the AWA and WCWA titles joined together represents neither of them. Correct.
03:04:32
Speaker
But it still exists somehow. Yes. The WSDWA would try to be a separate company again and run shows, but unfortunately they would close in November of that year. They could never quite get the crowds back. And as is noted, they're having a problem getting crowds beforehand, which is why the SuperFED was supposed to be formed.
03:04:50
Speaker
Even if you weren't already in trouble, I would imagine it's pretty darn hard to split off from a company after you've merged with it and get your crowds back. Yeah. You know, the fans have already kind of moved on at that point, I would imagine. So yeah, it's not too surprising. Yeah. You've crowned Lawler as your champion. Yeah. With this UW SMA stuff. And they're like, well, don't worry about him. Go see our shows instead. Yeah.
03:05:13
Speaker
So by September of 1990, all this has fallen apart. And unfortunately, their attempts to do shows for the next few months did not pan out. Okay. Yeah, that is one confusing title situation. Yeah. We've unified the titles. We've stripped him of one half of the title. He's still defending the title. The other half of the title has also left, but he still has the title. You're like, what?
03:05:38
Speaker
Yeah, someone could really have a field day trying to really diagram the history of the AWA title. Because I mean, you have, they gave Stan Hansen and then they wouldn't pay him enough again. That's a common thing. So he wouldn't get the belt back and supposedly he, eventually they kind of lost it against him. The story is he took the AWA belt, threw it in the ground in front of his truck, drove over it, and then shipped it back to them. Okay. But I'm sure helped the title a lot.
03:06:06
Speaker
That does sound like Stan Hansen. Other than spitting his shoe on him, that's very Stan Hansen. Though, to be fair, he may have accidentally driven over it because his eyesight is not great. Oh, that's true. He may have thrown down in a fit and just forgot it was there. After all of that, by September 1990, both companies have formally left the alliance, but still the third company formed from combining the company still existed for seven years.
03:06:33
Speaker
Yeah, the biggest winner out of this situation is a company that did not exist. Yeah. As of this show. Yeah. So by November, 1990, the world-class organization just down forever. And by January of that next year, 91, the ADA shut down forever. Yeah. The USWA ran until 1997. That's amazing. Yeah. Oh, what, incidentally, that's a bonus thing. Do you want to guess how many title reigns with the USWA championship Lawler has? Like total?
03:07:04
Speaker
Um, how many did you say it was when you gave the number earlier? Six. Okay. Uh, let's say 14. Uh, double that. Holy crap. He has a 28 time USWA champion. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. He really believes in let's throw the title around and then just draw the crowds, which I guess if you're doing purely live events, maybe you can get away with that. I guess he did for quite a while. Yeah.
03:07:35
Speaker
Oh, there's more. Yeah, apparently. Our twelfth and final match is The Rock and Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson, versus The Stud Stable, Robert Fuller, the future Colonel Robert Parker, and Jimmy Golden with Miss Sylvia for absolutely nothing of any consequence, making this a really weird thing to put on after a world title match, dang it. Yes. Referee for this match is Mike Kinos and our commentators are Lee and Ray.
03:08:05
Speaker
Here's a fun little note for you. Fuller and Golden are currently the CWA Tag Team Champions. Okay. They won the belt at a house show on November 7th, so a little over a month before this. Curiously, they don't wear the belts here, and the whole story is they really want to win the WCWA Tag Titles. Yeah, there's no mention of the CWA ones at all, so... I mean, sure, I get to win more titles, but it's weird. You already have championships that you don't wear.
03:08:31
Speaker
And that the Rock and Roll Express are somehow not going after their titles. Correct. Because they also are said as wanting to go after the WCWA ones. Yeah. No, really. Why is this happening now? I have no idea. Why would you ever put a tag match that isn't even for the tag titles after not only a world title match, but a world title unification match? Yeah.
03:08:54
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, now that you're completely emotionally drained and worn out from about the most epic stakes we could possibly have shown you, and just want to go home and talk about that controversial finish, here's a few poor sods to wrestle for absolutely nothing. Yeah. Okay, that's not quite true. As Lee implies, this is kinda sorta an unofficial number one contender's match for the tag titles, though he states that he's, quote, sure that bad company will have to take on the express that they win here in a tone of voice that suggests he very much is not. Yes.
03:09:24
Speaker
So yes, somehow this is effectively our main event. That's even stranger than that first Russell War. Yes. At least that one ended with a title match via a US tag title match, but at least it was for the belts. Yeah. Very, very strange. Yeah. The mat is stained with blood after that last match.
03:09:45
Speaker
Morton and Golden start off, and Golden pulls the hair to escape holds, but Morton counters with a shoulder block, hip toss, and a drop kick. Fuller in, Gibson in, and the Express send the stable fleeing outside. Sylvia, who has a kendo stick, warns Enos not to cheat the stable.
03:10:03
Speaker
Back in, Golden counters a front facelock with a suplex for one, but Morton bridges out and suplexes him for one, dodging a fuller stomp that hits Golden instead. Morton and Gibson send Golden to the corner and Fuller into Golden's face. Ow.
03:10:19
Speaker
Fuller encourages Golden, despite being responsible for the worst pain he's taken on match. Tags to Fuller and Gibson, and Golden soon needs Gibson from outside. The stable trade-off beating Gibson up, and Morton occasionally protests distracting Enos, which allows Sylvia to go to town on Gibson with her kendo stick. It's pretty rare for Gibson to be the Express's face in peril, that's normally Morton's role. Everything about this match, where it is and why it's happening, it just don't make sense.
03:10:49
Speaker
Golden has the absolute gall to put on a bear hug in a tag match. Yeah. Gibson bites him, and Lee strangely jokes about some magazine or another putting Rey on some kind of vampire list. Rey gets a good chuckle out of that, but I have no idea what they were referencing. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they have a World of Darkness RPG campaign going on behind the scenes. Why not?
03:11:15
Speaker
Abdominal stretch and Golden gets leverage from Fuller. Gibson counters a back body drop with a knee strike and tags Morton. Morton runs wild on Fuller and Golden, including a couple proto-Superman punches. Just not quite in the right jumping form but he gets the hang time. He does, yeah.
03:11:33
Speaker
Gibson joins in, and Morton flings Fuller outside. Express double dropkick for zero, as Enos doesn't count, as he's been trying to get the illegal men to leave the ring. The brawl goes on, ending up outside, and Enos calls for the bell. It's a double disqualification. The teams continue brawling at ringside until Morton gets a chair and chases the stud stable off. Morton gives a somewhat non-committal, yeah, to camera.
03:12:03
Speaker
Thoughts on this one? It's a decent match, but it's pretty nothing. Like, they don't settle anything, obviously. Yeah. It's not for anything. There's no stakes, right? Well, it's obviously not the shortest match in the show by a mile. Like, there's longer than a bunch of matches on the show. It's still too short. They try to cram a normal Rock and Roll Express match into a short time frame with a crowd that is just worn out.
03:12:25
Speaker
Yeah. There's one point where the crowd does actually start chanting, I think, for Gibson when he's trying to get to the ropes. Yeah. But it sounds feeble. It does, yeah. The Rock and LaRoe Express do a Herculean effort, I think, to get the crowd behind them, and even they can only manage to draw that much out of the crowd. Yeah. I don't think it says anything bad about the Express. I think it's just the placement on the show. Oh, 100%, yeah.
03:12:52
Speaker
You put this match before the world title match. Yeah. And I think it gets a much better reaction. Absolutely. Yeah. And of course, okay. So now that we've put this match in this weird spot and there's no stakes, we don't even send the crowd unhappy. Uh-huh. Yeah.
03:13:10
Speaker
You book a non-finish, arguably again, although technically the last match has a finish, but you know, it says referee stoppage. You book a non-finish after all this and I don't get what it accomplishes at all. Like why is this match and why is this match here? It's very, very strange. Because I mean, going back to WrestleWar, yeah, they had the big world title match and they had two tag title matches. Even in that defense, one, obviously they were both four actual belts.
03:13:39
Speaker
But the first one ends in a DQ, but the second one actually has a pinfall. I believe so, yeah. Yes. You sent the crowd home with an actual ending. Yeah. Even they were smart enough not to book the non-finished DQ match as the last one. Yeah.
03:13:54
Speaker
Yeah, the Express are always good for some fast tag team action, and the studs table seem like quite good foils for them, especially with Sylvia being very willing to just beat the crap out of people with that kendo stick of hers. Yeah. But we don't really get a match here thanks to the very, very sudden and unjustified ending. Yeah. The fact that this is the last match of the show, when it is for nothing, is weird enough.
03:14:18
Speaker
The fact that they've chosen to try to repair their relationship with the audience after disappointing with them with the finish of the world title match by immediately giving them a super short match that ends in a double DQ is just beyond bizarre. I know. I don't get it at all. It's a massive shame because I feel like I would have liked this if I got a full match out of it. Yeah. It was at least cool to see Fuller in his wrestling days, though. Yeah, absolutely.
03:14:45
Speaker
Golden and Fuller would fulfill their promise and win the WCWA tag titles in February. Of course, that's a situation where the SWAT team left the company and they put the titles on Kerry and Kevin. So yeah, the match between them and the side of the champions were. And they won the titles via DQ. Oh boy. I know, it's this company, right?
03:15:07
Speaker
By March of 89, Golden would leave the company. So they'd find a way around that. Fuller would have one more tactile run actually later that year with Brian Lee, AKA the fake undertaker. Oh, okay. Interestingly, I found this other thing.
03:15:23
Speaker
Before their title win over the Von Erics, Fuller and Golden would lose the CWA tag titles, the ones they again were currently holding but just didn't wear to the show apparently, to the team of Jed Grundy, who I know who that is, and Scott Steiner. Whoa. Yeah. Scott Steiner briefly holds the CWA tag titles. They would win them back on the 25th. That would be eight days after they won the WCWA belts. Okay.
03:15:52
Speaker
After he leaves the company, Golden would hang around a bit and eventually come back as a later protege under Fuller. You didn't recognize who that was? I did not recognize who that was. Jimmy Golden is Bunkhouse Buck. Oh, okay. All right. I knew you get four. I was curious if you'd get Golden, yeah. I got Fuller. I did not get Golden. Yeah, that's rather cool. He's wearing actual wrestling gear. That should throw you off, probably.
03:16:19
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. He's not wearing, you know, the weird, the cowboy up, but they get significantly less intimidating once he takes the coat off. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's cool. Oh, and as far as the other team in the match, the rock and roll express, they would never win the WCWA tag team titles. Those losers. They had to settle for winning, you know, every other tag title, like seven times. Yeah. There has to be one, right? They, they don't, don't take, you know, exactly.
03:16:50
Speaker
Lee meets with the Rock and Roll Express at Ringside. So many promos. Yeah. Lee says he knows the Express want to be five-time tag champs, but they were put to the test. Morton says there's been a lot of hearsay about the Express, that they broke up, but they were here together, live and in color, and they want to be five-time champs. Rock and Roll is forever solid gold, and there's not a tag team that can touch them. Gibson adds, yes, sir. Great contribution there, Gibson.
03:17:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm also here. He at least gets more in than Michael Hayes did on that one early Starrcade promo. Oh yeah. Please stop talking for two seconds so I can say something. That was so funny. Amazing. Solid promo by Morton though, but not enough to make up for a disappointing end to that match. It would have been much better as an exclamation point after an actual win. Yes, for sure.
03:17:47
Speaker
Larry is backstage with the stud stable because we can't just be done with interviews already. Larry says Golden is trying to catch his breath. Golden says he's in shape and he doesn't know why the ref stopped the match because they had the Express beaten. He looks forward to beating the Express and getting his hands on them again. Fuller says he doesn't like rock and roll, doesn't like Chicago. He says they should just put Chicago on the Tennessee River if they want to be something.
03:18:14
Speaker
Larry tries to wrap up and Golden warns him to never say he's out of air again. Fun little promo from these guys, especially the absurdity of Fuller suggesting that they should literally move the entire city of Chicago. Yeah. And Golden threatening Larry who does a quite good job of selling fear at it. Sure, yeah. I'm very tired of promos tonight, but this was still fun.
03:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, I can see doing all these bits, like especially the backstage one, would you run your next TV taping? Yeah. You're going to error, like, excerpt from the show and you can include these, like, say, oh, yeah, such does match happen. We talk to them after the match and then run it. Yeah, yeah.
03:18:53
Speaker
But yeah, it just seems like they're just, some reason, it's like when movies have to be 90 minutes. So they were in the credits at the beginning of the movie and then they were in the credits at the end and they just hit like 89 and it just, we made it. Yay. And we're done. Yeah. Yeah. Not actually content to fill 90 minutes, but technically it's 90 minutes. So you can't, you can claim anything against us. It's fine. It's just, yeah, it doesn't need to be on this show at this point, especially. Yeah.
03:19:21
Speaker
We go back to Lee, who is with Vern, to wrap things up. Vern thanks all the promoters who helped put this together, and Lee and Vern talk over the Kerry versus Lawler match, with Vern saying it reminded him of a Paul Caruso match, whoever that is. Yeah. Both say the ref made the right call ending the match, Vern noting no other sport would have let things go on with that much risk of permanent injury. Larry surfaces as Lee and Vern talk over Iron Sheik's appearance, and Vern says he's not sure how Sheik got in.
03:19:51
Speaker
Lingy signs off, and Vern again thanks the promoters as the audio fades out. We get the Superclash logo and theme music, and Superclash 3 is done. So, overall thoughts on Superclash 3? It's a decent show overall. It's for us to cover it's a fun nostalgia trip, seeing a lot of these people we haven't seen before, seeing people at earlier points in their career like seeing DDP, or seeing Medusa pre-WBF and pre-WCW is interesting.
03:20:21
Speaker
There's stuff with some down points in the match, obviously that Battle Royale, no one needs to tell you about that. There's points that are okay, but I've discussed that there's a feeling on the show that they don't want to get a finality because they want you to watch their local tapings and have some future Super Clash or other live event you should go to.
03:20:41
Speaker
It feels like there's way more of the story to be told. And that shouldn't be a feeling on your super show, I think. At least not so many times. Leaving things open to a certain degree is fine, but things are just prolonging necessarily. Yeah. Finishes happen, they shouldn't happen. Matches are really shortened at times, like the Emperor Jeff Jarrett match. And then some are just 24 seconds for some reason, like why are they on the show if they're 24 seconds? Yeah.
03:21:10
Speaker
I won't say it's a bad show overall, but it's definitely prolonged and it's be discussed. I think I like this point. The structure is all out of whack. There's so much in the show that really could be saved as stuff on your TV tapings that is on here just for some reason to make the show a certain length.
03:21:27
Speaker
I don't regret watching it, it's definitely a part of history. And there's people that I don't think we're ever going to cover again, like Lawler or any of the Von Erics. But yeah, as a whole, I can see why it wasn't the major success that saved these companies, assuming that was even possible. Which, who knows if that was even possible or not.
03:21:47
Speaker
Yeah, this show has a bit of a reputation, but I actually found it quite an easy watch for the most part. The action was generally solid, occasionally quite good, with the notable exception of the mid-show Street Fight lingerie battle royale, which I could definitely have done without. Most matches are less than 10 minutes long. In fact, most of them are about five minutes long. That's a weakness and a strength.
03:22:10
Speaker
They don't really get a lot of time to develop, but most of the time the action is fast-paced, there's little slowdown, and if there is something that you don't enjoy, it's generally done quite quickly and the show moves on. There's good variety, too. We've got singles, tag, six-man tag, six-person mix tag, hardcore-ish, strap match, and the aforementioned crappy battle royale. Not all variety is good. Yes, that's true.
03:22:35
Speaker
But regardless, I always appreciate having a show that varies up the match concepts and that knows how to spread the match types out around the show. For me, there wasn't any point on the show where things started to feel too samey. There was always variety either in gimmick or in the sort of action that the wrestlers were presenting. Where the show really does fail is in repeated failure to give satisfying finishes.
03:22:59
Speaker
We get a 24 second win by Valiant off a basic move. Greg Gagne winning a title by count out without any real build. The strap match ending in the only way strap matches ever end. A referee stoppage in the world title match, which even if I'll defend it somewhat could have been done better and comes off bad mixed with all the other non satisfying finishes. And a double DQ in what is effectively and bizarrely the main event. Yes.
03:23:24
Speaker
Out of 12 matches then, that's five that don't have what I would consider a satisfying end. That's nearly half the show. There was also entirely too much promo content on the show. Between Larry talking to everybody and their mother backstage and Lee grabbing every last exhausted wrestler as they just want to go backstage and have a nap after their match, it just feels like everybody is talking, talking, talking.
03:23:48
Speaker
I do appreciate shows with some real promo content, but very few of these were of actual consequence, several were of kind of poor quality or short-length or both, and they broke up the flow of the show severely. By the end of the show, I was genuinely irritated anytime I saw a microphone on screen, even if it wasn't in active use. I'm honestly still a little bit annoyed looking at the one I'm currently speaking into. Oh no.
03:24:14
Speaker
I guess I have a MTSD, Microphone Traumatic Stress Disorder. Fair enough.
03:24:22
Speaker
The commentary was unexceptional, but fine. Lee Marshall makes a fair play-by-play man, which surprised me a bit, as I haven't tended to find him that interesting as a color commentator when he shows up in WCW, but I think this role suits him pretty well. Ray and Vern didn't add a ton to the equation, but occasionally had some insightful comments or a good exchange with Lee. It felt like less of a team than it was Lee monologuing about the match as much of the time, and his fellow commentators occasionally remembering to speak up.
03:24:51
Speaker
Not bad, but not the free-flowing camaraderie of a good commentary team. Production was not great. No. With the basic backstage set, the lack of almost any entrances, and the show logo just being kind of taped on to the AWA standard ring apron. The cameras miss more than a few important spots, and the interviewers frequently don't get queued properly and spend several moments just staring at the camera before starting an interview. Yeah. Poor Lee is the most common victim there.
03:25:21
Speaker
Add all that to the fact that the audience appears to be falling into a black hole just beyond ringside, and the show feels far less professional than it really should. All told, Superglass 3 is not a bad show. It's just a flawed show. I did enjoy watching it, and it was really fun spending time with the AWA as it has just a bit of a different atmosphere from the WWF or WCW.
03:25:46
Speaker
And like you said, it was great to see the nostalgia trip that this show was going back to people that we haven't seen since like our first five episodes. And then of course, seeing the start of the careers of other wrestlers that will become very prominent in WCW and the WWF. It's a cool show from that perspective. But I freely admit that there are some major issues with the way this show plays out in terms of production, action, promos, and especially booking.
03:26:13
Speaker
None of it was enough to ruin the experience for me, but like you said, the AWA desperately needed an absolute classic of a show to save themselves at this point. And that's gotten nowhere close to what they needed. Yeah. All right, it's time for our match of the night and MVP. So Al, what's your match of the night?
03:26:36
Speaker
Um, it's not as competitive as I would hope, to be honest with you. You definitely have some strong matches. The opener is really fun. The second match with Jarrett is good. It's just too short. Well, it wouldn't normally be on my list. The serve camp value of the solder to beers match was there for me. Yeah. And obviously the main of the actual main event, the Vineric Lawler match is good. If separated from the stuff we discussed of whether or not they did the right call or how they did the call and all that.
03:27:06
Speaker
Um, for me, if I'm going to pick a match, basically this match, I'm fairly rewatch again. I got to go with the opener with the Guerrero's versus rock and roll PM's and Cactus Jack. Well, obviously didn't have stakes. They didn't have titles or a big story to it. As far as I know, it was very enjoyable and it did exactly what it was meant to do, which is get the crowd excited for the show. That's just a shame that every other match didn't follow suit.
03:27:31
Speaker
Yeah, for me, this was between the opening six-man tag or Embry versus Jarrett, and I'm going to go with the six-man tag as well. Okay. It was just what the show needed for an opener, fast-paced, exciting action with good acrobatics, providing a light-hearted but still impressive performance that helps get the audience in a good mood and ready to enjoy the show. It's in the same vein as we noted earlier, as WCW's great Cruiserweight Openers in the late 90s, and it works just as well. MVP?
03:28:01
Speaker
Yes, so there's a lot of people that stand out in their own way.
Event Highlights and MVP
03:28:05
Speaker
All three of the Guerrero's that had moments to shine for sure. Jared in his living time was nice. Embry, as you noted, was a good short promo. It's a shame he didn't have a longer match to highlight this. Parsons, you know, a lot of, a little bit here and there. Parsons is good in his own right.
03:28:21
Speaker
Both competitors in the main event have their own strong suits. Vinark doesn't necessarily agree with the best promo all three times, but he put everything out there, better or worse. Maybe he could have stopped the match earlier, but he definitely bled a lot for the company, and otherwise had a strong performance. For me, it's the guy that's had the most important job on the show, because he has to sell everything going forward.
03:28:47
Speaker
And I thought, in a little ways, as you highlighted and I've highlighted, the MVP of the show is Jerry Lawler. Then it's a full agreement. Nice. Because I am also giving this to Jerry the King Lawler. I had a feeling. He's a good, strong promo guy. He flexes his character to fit the will of the audience without breaking who he is. He provides some nice action and some good character work for his match. And he even thinks quickly to explain away some accidental bleeding before the audience can notice.
03:29:14
Speaker
And then he takes the audience's dissatisfaction with the end of his match and turns it into heat for himself quite brilliantly. He really puts on a great performance on this show every time he's featured on it and he's featured all over it. Yeah. So he deserves a ton of credit for his efforts. And that wraps up our review of Super Clash 3.
Social Media and Next Episode Announcement
03:29:36
Speaker
If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Twitter or Facebook, as let's go to the ring. Links will be available in the episode description.
03:29:44
Speaker
Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through. You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, High Heart Radio, Spotify, Stitcher Radio, TuneIn, Verbal, or Audible. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review, and share the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us. Many thanks to OSW Review for attendance and pay-per-view figures, and to Gina Trujillo for our logo.
03:30:15
Speaker
Next up, we're going to the movies. On Road Wild 1999, we found out that two wrestlers, Diamond Dallas Page and Goldberg, had been featured in films and decided to find out just how featured. So next up, we're going to take a look at Diamond Dallas Page in the 1999 film First Daughter. I am genuinely interested to see just how much of the film DDP is actually in. Me too. I know he's one of the bad guys, but I'm not sure how important. Right.
Closing and Thanks
03:30:46
Speaker
This is Bob Moore for Alec Bridget, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling. Any further thoughts on this one? Uh, no, I do not have any more thoughts. Okay. Uh, very specific way of stating that. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome.