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Episode 2: Starrcade '84
33 Plays7 years ago
A year has passed since Dusty Rhodes boldly battled audio problems to issue his challenge to Ric Flair...now, it's time to find out who wins the title - as well as a million dollars - at Starrcade '84: The Million Dollar Challenge. It's also time to find out if Ricky Steamboat or Tully Blanchard will take home the gold and the money in Starrcade '84: The Twenty Thousand Dollar Challenge. Will Jimmy Valiant have to leave town again (and if he does, will he actually do it this time)? And will Assassin #1 get his revenge on Paul Jones for not cheating well enough for him? To find out...let's go to the ring!
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:26
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we look back on the good old days, and not so good old days, of World Championship Wrestling, series by series. I'm Bob Moore, and I'm joined by Alec Pridgen, who's currently recording from 75 feet in the air and deserves all your praise. It's very, very cold up here. And John Mullins, who was rumored to be a druid, but it turns out he just played one of the 13th age tabletop RPG. Say hello John.
Starrcade 84 and Wrestling Rivalries
00:00:54
Speaker
Hello John.
00:00:57
Speaker
Second episode, how's it going, guys? Pretty good, pretty good. Thank you, Blaine. I'm not doing bad. Just looking forward to talking some wrestling. All right. Well, this episode, we're going to take a look at Starrcade 84, the Million Dollar Challenge. I was three. And sadly, this is not my first memory. I'm actually, I think I'd be glad about that myself.
00:01:25
Speaker
Before we get started on the actual show, we need to address one of the most pivotal events of the developing rivalry between the future WCW and the WWF, a day known as Black Saturday.
00:01:38
Speaker
Vince McMahon, in the midst of his national expansion, had a national cable deal with the USA Network. As the WWF expanded, however, he thought it would need a second station, and was interested in the time slot currently held by Georgia Championship Wrestling on Ted Turner's TBS. McMahon made an offer to Turner for the time slot, but was turned down.
00:02:00
Speaker
McMahon, never one to give up too easily, came up with a different plan. If he couldn't have the time slot, he'd just buy Georgia Championship Wrestling itself and get the time slot that way. Contacting Jack and Jerry Briscoe and Jim Barnett, three of the owners, he convinced them to sell their stakes in GCW to him, giving him control over GCW, and by extension, the time slot.
00:02:23
Speaker
A fourth owner, Ole Anderson, was ousted by my understanding, and went on to found Championship Wrestling from Georgia, CWG. On July 14, 1984, McMahon simply replaced GCW's weekly World Championship Wrestling show with highlights from his own other programs, which by the way went counter to a promise that he made to Ted Turner to provide original programming to TBS.
00:02:48
Speaker
This change, along with the difference in the WWF's larger than life atmosphere compared to the more sports like GCW, would not go over very well with GCW's fans. TBS got letter after letter after letter from angry fans as the ratings fell.
00:03:03
Speaker
Ted Turner was not happy with McMahon, and McMahon wasn't too happy with Turner either once Turner added further wrestling programming to his station to try and make up for the sagging ratings. Turner added shows from Ole Anderson's Championship Wrestling from Georgia and Bill Watt's Mid-South Wrestling. McMahon had thought his WWF would be the only wrestling content on TBS.
Starrcade 84 Event Matches
00:03:24
Speaker
This situation continues into 1985, so we'll see the resolution to it when we cover Starrcade 1985. For now, though, suffice to say it doesn't go particularly well for the WWF, and it's a very important stop on the way to the formation of the true WCW.
00:03:42
Speaker
Starrcade 84, The Million Dollar Challenge, aired on Thanksgiving Day, November 22, 1984, from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina, in front of a crowd of 15,821. About another 26,000 watched over closed-circuit television.
00:04:01
Speaker
We open with a short video of the finish to Starrcade83's main event, showing the slightly awkward body press off the top that got Flare the Wind over Race. Bob Coddle and Gordon Soli welcome us to the show, and build up the matches that they have, along with the $1 million prize for the NWA World Title match. Rather than the wonderful bowling alley backdrop that you were fond of last time, John, they're now sitting in a booth above the arena, with a ring visible through a window behind them.
00:04:28
Speaker
I thought it was actually a pretty cool look, except for the points in the show where a fan walks by the window and stares in for a while or mugs for the camera. There's also a long period near the end where it's all blacked at the arena. You see the reflection, which is a little odd too. Yeah, when they have the lights off in the arena for some unknown reason. I like that it showed how long the pauses were. There wasn't any announcing or anything. When they're talking in there, did they hear that out on the ring?
00:04:57
Speaker
I mean, sometimes, like on TV tapings, stuff will happen between, like, he'll come out, they'll go to commercial break and he'll sort of rile up the crowd, then they'll come back, like no time would pass, but no, there's nothing with the announce team as far as I know. Okay. The two shows I've been to that were actually tapings of shows, I didn't hear the announce team at all. All right. We go right to the first match, but at least we did get an introduction this time. Let's go to the ring.
00:05:27
Speaker
The ring announcer says that this is the premier wrestling event of the decade, apparently, or the century, as he says the second time that he gives his introduction, before he shuffles through his notes and then asks the referee something. Did he lose his place right at the start of the show? That sounds like something I would do.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, he kind of gone over that many things in 20 seconds. Yeah, I checked if there were any dark matches on this show and I don't think there were, so it's not like they've done anything. This is literally your first page, buddy. Yeah. Our first match is Denny Brown versus Mike Davis for Davis's NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship.
00:06:08
Speaker
Davis won the title at an event they didn't bother to show you on television. They just sort of told you it happened. And then they announced there was going to be a match for it, and that's really all there is. They're on the last show separately, but they don't, like, interact at all.
00:06:21
Speaker
Yeah. I'm used to modern shows where they have to, like, stand across the ring for them, like, make angry faces and think, oh, we're gonna get you. But no, it's like they're not even aware of each other. I think we've said before, this is kind of the sports period of it. So it really is just the storyline is this guy's got the title, this guy's challenging for the title. Right. That's it, I guess. It's okay for most, yeah. Interesting note, Denny Brown and Mike Davis, they're both from Florida. But this isn't the Florida-centric title, which we'll get later in the night.
00:06:52
Speaker
There's fast action to start with Denny Brown in control, using whips to the ropes, arm drags, and some very nice flying head scissors to repeatedly take Davis down. Brown works an arm bar in between further arm drags, along with a neat overhead throw and a fireman's carry. Eventually, Davis ducks as Brown runs off the ropes at him, and Brown falls over him through the ropes and out of the ring. He sells the back, and Davis actually goes out and helps him back in, even holding the ropes for him. Sportsmanship!
00:07:22
Speaker
Davis takes over with body slams and a backbreaker, but can't keep Brown down for the three. Davis tries some whips into the ropes, but Brown keeps countering with forearm shots as he comes back, including one where he hops up to the second rope and then rebounds off towards Davis. They trade control for a bit until they collide on another Irish whip and both go down.
00:07:41
Speaker
They slowly get to their feet and Brown hits a forearm to send Davis into the corner where he hits more forearms. Davis whips Brown into the corner and hits a belly to back suplex bridging for the three count. Except that the ref hands the belt to Brown. Even though the announcer proclaims Davis the winner and still champion.
00:08:02
Speaker
I will give credit to Davis's reaction here. He looks totally stunned and he just bellows what? Loud enough to be heard really far in the distance. I missed that when we were first watching because I was pretty much having the same reaction. Sure. Yeah, I can see that. So, Sully and Coddle are confused at first, but eventually they explained that Brown got his shoulder up and Davis had his down. It's a really confusing ending for the first match.
00:08:28
Speaker
it actually gets worse if you look at it again, because if you watch the way it plays out, Davis does the move, and they're both down, the ref looks at him, not at Brown, and starts counting while staring directly at his shoulders, as if the other guy is not also down. Yeah. But there's nothing, no reason why you should not look at all towards the other direction. Right, yeah, I should be checking him still.
00:08:51
Speaker
Davis does show great sportsmanship again by going over to congratulate Brown. It was kind of cool to see that even after a controversial ending. And we did get a replay as well. There's actual replays this time, guys, rather than no replays, but someone being thanked for replays. They're spoiling us. But it doesn't really make things any clearer because it actually cuts off before the three, which is a recurring theme with the replays, and I don't get why they did that.
00:09:17
Speaker
Well, you know, they don't want to spoil what had already happened on this show. Yeah, I got nothing. I'm fairly new to this early, early WCW. I'm used to watching later WCW or current wrestling like I do regularly. So I'm used to what a cruiserweight, which is what the term is now, is I'm used to luchadores and Japanese wrestlers and people that wrestle in style.
00:09:43
Speaker
It's something really against them, because they do a good job, but I don't know, it's not what I'm used to. So it's kind of hard for me to get into it as much as maybe I should be. I don't know, I'm too used to later stuff, so this doesn't quite feel like what I expected it to be. It's close to the idea of the later opening matches, but it's not the same type of performance quite. Right.
Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair Build-up
00:10:10
Speaker
Exactly. If you didn't watch wrestling and someone brought Mike Davis, Denny Brown, and then Ric Flair out, you wouldn't go, oh, Ric Flair's obviously not the junior heavyweight. Whereas you're looking at wrestling later, even WCW, it's, you know, Rey Mysterio, psychosis. And then, then you and Ric Flair, you go, okay, Ric Flair is obviously not the cruiserweight. These guys are.
00:10:35
Speaker
Right, okay. I think everyone was surprised by this. Like, you know, the whole staging in the beginning where he's got this pile of papers flipping through trying to, you know, the announcer's trying to get his place and everyone's setting up. And then the controversial pen in reversal. I'm just wondering if this is sort of something that they added at the last minute or what, but I mean, I felt like it was, you know, watching wrestling, I've always felt that
00:11:03
Speaker
To a certain degree, there's a storyline and someone's supposed to win or whatever. But with this one, it's kind of genuine. They're like, all right, these two people are going to show up and see what happens. Huh.
00:11:16
Speaker
I could see that, actually, if it's one of the cases where they didn't inform the announcers of the finish or things like that, because at least from what Tony Schiavone has said, one of the announcers on this show that goes on to being the voice of WCW, he has been fairly open with the fact over the years that they didn't always tell him what was going to happen, and sometimes that gets you a good reaction from the announcers, and sometimes it gets you blank stares and confusion.
00:11:45
Speaker
I thought it was a nice match, a pretty fast-paced one. Pretty smooth overall. A few of Brown's moves did get a little bit sloppy. The rebound forearm in particular kind of looked like it might have been intended to be a splash at first, and he just improvised when he wasn't getting the distance he wanted. Could be, yeah.
00:12:01
Speaker
There was a little too much reliance on whipping each other into the ropes or corners that seemed to get to be about every other move. And it got pretty repetitive. But overall I liked it pretty well and I thought that the sportsmanship shown by Davis was actually really cool. It's rare in wrestling to see the wrestlers go outside and no one then tries to whip each other into the railing or the turnbuckle or anything like that. It's just
00:12:25
Speaker
He just goes out there and says, hey, come back in and holds the ropes for him. And it's like, oh, that's kind of a cool way of doing a face versus face match. The ending, though, yeah, that was awful. Not a good way to end your first match. Just confuse everyone with the very first thing. You want your first ending on the show, I think, to be pretty clean so people can keep that momentum.
00:12:50
Speaker
maybe they were thinking, oh, we'll shock them with something and that'll make them pay closer attention. But I think it kind of saps the saps things of momentum for me.
00:13:01
Speaker
Coming in 1983, the title that they're fighting over here was held by a Japanese wrestler, I believe his name is Shinjiro Itani, I might be saying that wrong. According to Wikipedia, there must be some sort of dispute with the companies, because suddenly they just say someone else won the title, and then they're defending it. A couple of champions later, we have Davis, and then obviously Brown wins on this show.
00:13:26
Speaker
Basically, immediately following this in 1985, it goes back to being the original champion who wasn't actually beaten by anybody for the title. Huh. So the Vice President of NWA is the head of all Japan pro wrestling. At this point, New Japan pro wrestling, which sounds somewhat different, leads to NWA. At which point, they take the title off of Atani, who they just give it back to, and give it back to Diddy Brown because he wanted a Starrcade.
00:13:56
Speaker
Okay. We go back to Tony Schiavone in the dressing room. Tony builds up that after winning the title last year, Claire has competed as champion all over the country and he's still champion now. He, he did have a brief break in the middle of the year as we discussed, but you know, he's, he's, he's still champion. It's technically a true statement. Yes. And we go right back out for our second match. This is Brian Adidas versus Mr. Ito. Interesting note here.
00:14:27
Speaker
He was definitely called Adidas on the show, but his name is apparently Adidas when he shows up later in world-class championship wrestling. I kind of wonder if the shoe company maybe found out in suit or something and he had to change it. To be fair, it is spelled differently. Adidas is with an A and he's with an I, I believe. Or it's the other way around. Either way, it's not the same.
00:14:49
Speaker
Anyway, yeah, I kept waiting for, you know, like a Mike Nike or a Joey Reebok or something like that to come on out. Chris Converse. That actually needs to be a wrestler's name. Drew Balance. There you go. There you go. That's going at that. And Mr. Ito is known as the Japanese Terror, apparently.
00:15:14
Speaker
Brian Adidas gets monster cheers as the announcer notes that he's quote, very popular. That seems to be an understatement. Apparently, yeah. My understanding is that he's a friend of the Von Erics. So maybe that's carried over to here in some way.
00:15:32
Speaker
Got some chain wrestling to start, with the two evenly matched. Adidas escapes a headlock from Ido and puts on his own, but Ido flips into a pin attempt before getting free. Ido gets control with an armlock and pulls Adidas's hair to keep him from fighting free a few times, but Adidas escapes and gets his own arm bar, hanging on through Ido's escape attempts.
00:15:54
Speaker
Ito does eventually punch his way free, and the two brawl for a few moments before Adidas catches Ito coming off of the ropes and lifts him on his shoulders for the airplane spin, which gets the three. Oddly, Adidas just walks right out of the ring after that, not even bothering to wait for the announcement of his win. The crowd's happy anyway. Well, you know, he's gotta... gotta catch a bus back home, I guess, immediately during the show. I thought he left just so he could avoid some sort of retaliation, you know?
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, maybe, but it's just like, it's strange. He doesn't even like pump his fists in the air or anything. Just like, well, I'm done. Go back, collect my check. Well, he was stuck in the spin cycle for a while, so. Yeah, true. Nothing goes wrong. Nothing is super impressive either.
00:16:43
Speaker
And I, I've been, I know more about Adidas just from watching shows, but he doesn't do a whole lot on the shows he's on. If I told him I went a couple of times and Ido is really just announced as being the match has no buildup or prior TV announces. So yeah, it's two guys. I don't really know all that well fighting briefly. Then it just stops. Yeah. It's like they had a checklist to like, yep, spin around. Yeah.
00:17:12
Speaker
It was a really, really short match. There was some moderately promising action. The chain wrestling towards the beginning is pretty good. The work around Adidas' armbar is alright. I did like one bit where Ido tries to slam Adidas down to get out of the armbar, but Adidas just hangs on and flips him right over to keep it going. That was a pretty cool bit.
00:17:36
Speaker
The match just ends really, really quickly, and I couldn't get a sense for what either of these guys had. It just felt like I got the start of the story, then it skips over the middle and just went straight to the end. It doesn't feel like it really adds anything to the show. It could easily have been skipped.
00:17:52
Speaker
It's rare that I must say you could really cut a match and it wouldn't affect the show at all. Maybe the Carlos Colon, Do the Butcher match from last year's show. But yeah, it's like I said, nothing bad on the match. It's not that I can go, this is messed up here. This is not good there. It's all fine. It's just I have no context to anything and no reason to really get invested.
00:18:12
Speaker
Right. Just had to fill a time slot. Yeah. Sorry, guys. We needed a Japanese wrestler in the show, so that's what we got. Yeah. Because we needed 11 matches on this show. Yeah. Post-match, Soli suggests that Adidas may be dropping a couple pounds to go after the World Junior Heavyweight title. Honestly, he did seem pretty nimble, so okay. But he also adds that Adidas might go for Flair's title instead.
00:18:39
Speaker
Third match is Mike Graham versus Jesse Barr for Barr's NWA Florida Heavyweight Championship. It's really, really dark during the introductions for this one. Oddly, as I mentioned, we had the World Junior Heavyweight match earlier with two guys from Florida. We are now having the Florida Heavyweight Championship, but while Mike Graham is from Florida, Jesse Barr is from Oregon.
00:19:07
Speaker
So we got both competitors from Florida during the World Junior heavyweight match, but not for the Florida heavyweight match. Can they trade titles? Yeah. Graham starts off strong, catching Barr with several smooth takedowns, including one that transitions into a pin so fast, he actually yells to the ref to let him know that he's got Barr pinned.
00:19:30
Speaker
Barr pulls Graham's hair and keeps Graham in a wrist lock via similar means through several escape attempts. The ref asks Barr if he's pulling the hair and Barr very sincerely shakes his head, sending his own wonderful hair flipping side to side. They trade control back and forth, with Graham largely trying to go after Barr's legs in preparation for his figure four. Once again, does everyone use that move these days?
00:19:55
Speaker
Bar repeatedly escapes attempts at that hold and goes after Graham's arms. Solely tells us that Graham has a lingering pectoral injury that Bar is going after. Bar continues cheating to take and keep control, but Graham keeps fighting back. At one point with Graham in a headlock, Coddle tells us that Graham is having to figure a way to get out of the powerful tentacles of Jesse Bar. Is Bar a Lovecraftian monster now?
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah, that is definitely a weird comparison. Graham finally gets a shin breaker, a lot of strikes to Barr's legs, and the figure four, only for Barr to escape again by getting the ropes. Graham gets a sunset flip, but Barr escapes, throws Graham into the ref so the ref misses another Graham roll-up, and counters another pin with the aid of the tights. Finally, Graham gets an atomic drop, but Barr takes him down by the legs to get him into a pin and puts the feet on the ropes for the win.
00:20:51
Speaker
Barra leaves the ring almost as fast as Adidas that did last match, but he at least takes time to brag about still being champion as he leaves. Well, say just comparing the Tapiras matches first that the quick exit at least makes more sense. True. He's a bad guy that cheated and, you know, maybe he's thinking the ref looks at that replay he might try and throw the match again, but if I just leave, then he can't do that. And it's not like he KO'd Graham. Graham might come chasing after him or something, yeah. So that makes some sense, yeah.
00:21:22
Speaker
But I thought it's definitely more positive in this one than the previous two. But again, not saying other matches were bad, it's just both of them really lacked those extra little things that you expect in wrestling matches. Whether it's someone sticking with the crowd, whether they, you know, shot a catchphrase, you know, Sting has his, you know, his yell, flares against Wu. Little touches like that.
00:21:43
Speaker
help you sort of connect to the match, to the person. Two guys wrestling, one guy starts, you know, yelling at the crowd, you go, okay, he's obviously the bad guy. Or one guy, you know, like, trying to like, stamping the match, trying to get the crowd to cheer for me, okay, he's the good guy. This one definitely had that, which is nice. The recent matches just didn't have anything like that.
00:22:05
Speaker
I like that this one had more variety. They all had their own repertoire of moves, and they went back and forth, back and forth. It wasn't just a gram or bar, but they all worked their way to the ropes. And as you know, if you touch the ropes, you get the special powers and everything. Of course. And not only did they
00:22:26
Speaker
do that but it also had the controversial ending where you know someone cheated i was hoping they would do a reversal like you know after they reviewed the tape or whatever and oh there's never a review of the tape john oh okay even if there's an instant replay the referee's decision is final okay yeah
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah, I thought it was a decent little match if one that centered a great deal around hair pulling. Barr's just constantly pulling the hair to the point it got a little silly that he was able to keep denying it to the ref. But it was fun watching him keep shaking that head and hair if is all the same. Sure.
00:23:03
Speaker
He also made a nice habit of accusing Graham of cheating to distract from himself, which was pretty fun. Pretty good heel work there, and I definitely wanted to see Graham show him up. It helped that Graham did a pretty nice job of selling the holds and the hair-pilling, if an extremely loud one. He howled to the high heavens anytime his hair got pulled, which was fun.
00:23:23
Speaker
The match built pretty effectively to the figure four from Graham, but it didn't really seem to mean much once he got it. I think Barr just kind of gets the ropes again in record time and they just move on. I did enjoy, however, that in the lead up to the figure four, Barr tries to go for Graham's hair again, and Graham finally gets wise to it and just starts smacking him away really hard. Like, do not do that again. Really nice bit.
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, little things like that, I really appreciate. Yeah. So the match has a really clear story for this one, which I think is kind of what you guys were saying. There's more of a plot to this one than in the earlier matches. Yeah. And they were more than capable of getting that story across. The ending sequence just felt a little bit flat, but nothing really wrong with it. It's just nothing particularly exceptional. Yeah, see that.
00:24:16
Speaker
There's a lot of tension for the title, mostly in Florida. At one point the title was held up, which is not the same as being vacated. This means they're not sure who the winner is and they may be simplified again.
00:24:29
Speaker
However, it is vacated later in the year when it's then champion, Herco's Hernandez, which was assassin number two without all his stuff on. He's holding that championship and apparently gets in a backstage fight with Wada McDaniel. I believe he's definitely stripped the title. I don't think he's actually fired, but he's, yeah. So there's a title being held up and topping vacated both within a year of time for the one title. Shades of things to come.
00:24:56
Speaker
This match will be changed after the next match.
00:25:00
Speaker
Uh, I think it's, I think it's the next match where we get the guy in the blue bodysuit instead of the normal rep outfit. Yeah. I didn't actually note down when that happened though. So let's mention it at this point. There's an odd blue bodysuit ref that I don't know why he's dressed like that. It must be from another organization that they've split the refereeing duties and that's the outfit in that card. But weird look for a ref.
00:25:27
Speaker
I can't believe you didn't notice that the referee for the first three matches was. It's Earl Habner.
00:25:33
Speaker
Oh my gosh, really? Yeah. I did not catch that at all. You will see him on most of these shows through 88. That is funny. He literally jumps to WDF, you know, vague spoiler alert if you don't want wrestling for the last 30 years, for the whole Hogan and Andre match, we switched the twin referees. That's when he enters the company. That's interesting. I did not know that at all. Yeah. He was around the entire time. I was like, that looks like what happened to her. I googled, I'm like, Oh, it is real heaven. That's why.
00:26:03
Speaker
Our next match is Assassin No. 1, the shorter Assassin, and Buzz Tyler versus the Zambui Express. That's Elijah Akeem and Kareem Muhammad with Paul Jones, and it's a tag team elimination match.
00:26:26
Speaker
Paul Jones brings in the Nabooie Express at some point during 84. It's important because he loses Assassin No. 2 after he's unmasked by Jimmy Valiant. And during this point, he tries to help Assassin No. 1 to steal his number even though he's clearly the only one there. I still understand that. That's rather strange, isn't it? I would at least, I would switch it to say No. 1 Assassin. That's not just me, if I was, if I was calling myself that, I'd switch that. I could see that.
00:26:56
Speaker
But he's trying to help him out, but his interference keeps backfiring, so finally, task number one just turns on him, whereupon he immediately sixes new tag team on him. Buzz Tyler really doesn't have any interaction with the group before. So, originally this match is announced, but the weeks were the show, it's been completely different. So they announced they're having a six-man elimination body slam match.
00:27:24
Speaker
where it's gonna be then Booey Express and Superstar Billy Graham against Buzz Tyler and- American Starship was there? Yeah, the American Starship. It's a great, great tag team name, which is the original gimmick of Scott Hall. Yes. The week after that, they then announced that Superstar Billy Graham is the number one contender for the US title for layer on the show. And this sort of quietly retained they didn't announce the match already.
00:27:53
Speaker
Even on the last show, they don't really talk about this match happening. Although at the beginning of Assassin, everyone is saying he's going to be out there wishing to be valiant for a different match. Yes. But then this match kind of still happens. Okay. Can I just say that I really, really wish that they kept it as an elimination body slam match because it would have been shorter. That's true. It's not a particularly long match, but I could have done with less of it all the same. Yeah. You liked it, huh? Match of the night. You got that sense? Yeah.
00:28:22
Speaker
So this is billed as a tag team elimination match, but it's also announced as a one-fall match. I'm not sure how that works. You'd need at least two falls for it to be elimination, wouldn't you? You have to pin them both at the same time. Oh, okay. Is that how it works? I mean, technically, every normal tag team match is a one-fall elimination match. You can pin one guy and then it's a tag team. This is very weird. You've never called that, but that would be how it works.
00:28:52
Speaker
Assassin and Buzz Tyler start out with some weird pointing taunts to, well, Assassin yells what I think he's saying is Greensboro over and over to get the crowd to cheer, but it's just kind of a weird moment where it's really hard to tell exactly what he's saying. Also, it's weird that Assassin is now a face.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, again, he's a bad guy up until like three before the show, and then he turned on his manager because he's not cheating correctly. So it's not like I disagree with you cheating, it's like be better at cheating. Yes, exactly. Okay, that makes sense as a good guy then.
00:29:31
Speaker
We start off with a big brawl, with all four men in the ring. Assassin and Buzz get the advantage, and the match proper starts off with Buzz and Kareem. Buzz has inherited Rufus R. Freight Train Jones' Shaking Dees dance, I noticed.
00:29:46
Speaker
Buzz easily disposes of Karim, and he tags in Elijah while Buzz tags in Assassin. Assassin continues to dominate, and he and Buzz beat Elijah up in their corner. Elijah tags in Karim, who finally takes control for a bit with strikes and chokes on Buzz. In the Express trade-off, striking Buzz until Buzz regains control with some strikes, and all four end up brawling in the ring again.
00:30:07
Speaker
Buzz and Elijah end up outside the ring and we see the ref counting, and then the ref turns to watch Assassin and Karim in the ring instead. Assassin and Karim collide, and Assassin falls on top for the pin. Post-match, Assassin goes for Paul Jones, but he runs away and takes cover by Elijah while Karim rolls out to join them, and at that point we're finally told that, yes, Elijah and Buzz were actually counted out. Even Soli and Caudal sounded pretty confused about that for a little while.
00:30:35
Speaker
It's really not that interesting, it's, I mean, I have obviously more context to the story than you guys do, what little there really is. And it's, I don't know, again, it's like, BudStar especially is not bad, he's got a little bit of air of presence. So that's the number one tries to do that, which is a big change from last year's show, where he's just a guy, and a head bunch of people. Then Boo Express, you really can't do much with them.
00:31:01
Speaker
The other team only really works. Like if they were a WVF team, you'd have the rockers against them, that kind of team. So they, you know, guys are running back and forth and they're being bumped off of. That's the only way they work. Any other team, you'd be just bored to tears because they're just sort of walking around and punching each other softly and then falling over. Yeah.
00:31:22
Speaker
And yes, the elimination aspect, especially when being promised a body slam elimination match, is really disappointing because apparently it happens just off-screen. The ref counts are like four and two people are eliminated without any announcement. And it's like three seconds before the pin. Right. It's also super pointless as well. Yeah.
00:31:45
Speaker
I was surprised at Assassin's behavior as well. I haven't familiarized myself with him from a previous showing. Maybe he was just doing, you know, acting differently as a ruse or, you know, to get in... I don't know. I mostly attributed to Dusty backstage saying, hey, you're a good guy now, you gotta dance, you gotta shake around. That's what I do.
00:32:09
Speaker
Yeah. But I can't confirm that, obviously. It's like you have no character. Get a character. Quickly. And that's his best idea. Yes. Masking was a big thing with other superstars. I can see that with, like, the luchadores, you know. Yeah. It's a real big deal there, yeah. Did they ever do that with Assassin later on? Or is that... Not to my knowledge. In fact, he shows up later as a manager and is still wearing his mask.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, he, from what I'm saying, he never unmasked officially. At some point he changed his gimmick, but changed his different mask gimmick. So he doesn't like lose a match and then he's forced to do something else. And I just kind of stopped doing it. Yeah, this was not good. There's no major screw-ups on anyone's part, but there's nothing of any interest either. It's just a bunch of basic strikes and people brawling and
00:33:06
Speaker
much like the first match from Starrcade 83 that also involved Assassin No. 1 and Leg Wiggling. It just never feels like the faces are in any real kind of danger whatsoever. Even when the Express land a few strikes on Buzz, he just fights him off and we go right to the finish from there.
00:33:22
Speaker
and it's a really confusing ending like we mentioned where the eliminations aren't clear and uh so that pretty much killed anything that the match actually did have for me really dull match really bad ending i did not like this one at all i was thinking you know one that you could have adjusted that and there's i don't think there's anything to be clear i don't think there's any situation where
00:33:46
Speaker
Any combination of this makes an amazing match, must-see kind of thing. There's obviously a low ceiling on this. But that said, if you didn't have the Adidas Edo match, because nothing really came of it, put Adidas and some other guy, smaller fast running jumping guy, against the Express.
00:34:07
Speaker
So you could have like I was saying with, you know, like a, like a rock and roll express kind of thing or rockers where you have two stories. You have fast, agile guys, and you have slow, powerful, hard to knock over guys. Yeah. If that just been a straight match, that would have been better.
00:34:23
Speaker
Obviously we can't really take Denny away from his title match or anything, but if you could get like Denny Brown and Adidas into this, they could probably bump around for these guys and they could bring the excitement and those guys could just be there and look big and powerful and everything and it would work. I think part of the problem with this match is
00:34:44
Speaker
The Zambui Express don't even get to look big and powerful. It's true. They're just there and they punch a few times and then they just get their butts kicked. They're just there to be antagonists. Yeah, they're just like props for the match for a little bit. Yeah. To let Buzz and Assassin show their moves off and Buzz and Assassin don't really have any moves to show off other than leg wiggles. Yeah.
00:35:11
Speaker
I was actually a little angry after watching this match, like why is this, why did you even bother with this? It's so pointless. Any follow-up from the amazing pointless match, Al? Yeah, I got a bunch of little things. Not too much with the people involved. The reason why I mention that is because the Zenboo Express break up in 1985, pretty early in that year in fact, yeah. So there's no, sadly there's no great Zenboo Express match at Stark at 85 if you look forward to.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah. Once they both leave, they don't do a super amount of note outside of wrestling. One of them, Cream, which is obviously his actual name, would find a wrestling school and train one notable pupil, New Jack. So yeah, more reason for Bob to like the team. Without him, he wouldn't have New Jack. Oh, man.
00:36:04
Speaker
Let's ask the number one, we'll see a little bit of him on layer shows, never in this much of a focus. And after he leaves wrestling officially, he deforms own wrestling school called the Power Plant, which is where more notable wrestlers like Goldberg are trained. So a good counterbalance maybe to the new Jack thing for you. Okay.
00:36:25
Speaker
Buzz Tyler hangs around for about the next half a year or so in this company. He wins the Mid-Atlantic title, hangs around for a while, and then in July, abruptly quits Mid-Atlantic and wrestling entirely.
00:36:41
Speaker
He is just gone. He's also gone with the title belt because he claims Dusty Rhodes owed him money. Who knows? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he didn't. I don't know. He quits wrestling all together and leads with the belt. I assume they got it back at some point. So no one really long-term proffered that at this match, which I guess is appropriate. Yeah. Okay.
00:37:05
Speaker
Amusingly they cut to Coddle and Soli following that match while they're still reading their notes and Soli kind of looks up in surprise for a moment and then recovers quickly and talks about the upcoming interview with Dusty Rhodes. Soli and Coddle build up the million dollar challenge again and review some of the match results so far. We go back to the dressing room for an interview with Dusty Rhodes who is chilling in a chair with his jacket draped over him.
00:37:32
Speaker
You have been all over the world. You're one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling, if not the top name. The question is, is this the biggest night of your life? Well, Tony, throughout the history of wrestling throughout this country, Dusty Rose and Ric Flair, names have been etched in stone throughout the world. I told Ric Flair live on television, I said, people got to make a choice. The people have to come sooner or later, find out who is the greatest wrestler, who is the greatest
00:37:57
Speaker
Man alive on this earth today, Professor Rick Fly. I know you're listening somewhere in this building. The talking is over. There's no more talking. There's no more bobbing and show business around and driving your big cars and showing your big watches and your fancy house and your fancy diamond rings. That's the Rosie American dream. Relax in here.
00:38:16
Speaker
Send me a live in a color by satellite throughout this world telling you one thing very surely from now one million dollars goes in my pocket Rick flair. The world's title goes in my pocket Rick flair and you are going to be yesterday's newspaper. And let me tell you something else. Everybody take heed.
00:38:33
Speaker
Joe Frazier, wherever y'all be listening because I don't want you sticking your nose in my business. Me and Flair, one million dollars, I'm resting. I have nothing else to say about this thing except I'm the prettiest man living alive anywhere in the universe. That's it. One of my goals in life now is to tell someone that they're going to be like yesterday's newspaper and have it actually sound cool. Yeah.
00:38:58
Speaker
Do you think it sounded cool when Dusty said it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get that draw, though. Long gate words. I do, right.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah, for me, I love Dusty Rhodes interviews, and even with his oddly very chill pose with the jacket over him, this one's no exception. He has tons of charisma, and he's got a great challenging tone. It makes it clear that he respects Rick for what he's been able to accomplish, but he definitely believes he's gonna win. He has some nice shots in there too about Rick showing off his wealth. I think Dusty's best when he plays up his kind of common man gimmick, and that's a good kind of nod to it.
00:39:43
Speaker
One thing for me though, Dusty spends the entire interview shaking his finger at the screen. Feels like I'm getting lectured at school or something. If you're the prettiest man alive in the universe, you can do what you want, I guess. I guess so. I love, yeah, he just goes through all this stuff for this interview of really challenging tone and everything. He's just like, oh yeah, one more thing. I'm really pretty. Where did that come from, Dusty?
00:40:08
Speaker
He's confident. He's confident and as cool as a Cajun cucumber. Yeah, there you go. Craziness. Good kind of craziness. Why is he called the American Dream again? It's just his thing. Dusty has like a billion and one nicknames over the course of his career. And yeah, American Dream is the one that really sticks.
00:40:32
Speaker
He also, I think this year, has claimed his bionic elbow from Greg Valentine as well. So I don't know if there was any angle that transferred that name or if that just was something they were always both doing, but you know. Next up is Manny Fernandez, the Raging Bull, versus Black Bart with JJ Dillon for Bart's NWA Brass Knuckles Championship.
00:41:00
Speaker
So I'll go over this a little bit later as well, but there's a weird story throughout this show in the buildup where they're clearly building up to a match between Tali Blanchard
00:41:12
Speaker
and Dick Slater and separately of building up Ron Bass and by association Blackbark is his tag partner and rig his team boat but then they just quickly reversed that for no single reason to kind of leave Blackbark in kind of a weird situation because him and Ron Bass are technically the mid-Atlantic tag team champions but they're both apparently also both singles champions. I mean for Nana's meanwhile is
00:41:42
Speaker
tag team team is Dusty Road to this point as well. Now it's just like, well, you can't wrestle with Dusty Road. Like, where can I wrestle with Bron Bass and this and that? So this match has kind of happened because you're sure you're available. This guy's also got a belt that I'd literally never mentioned before in any promo. We've never seen wearing the belt that I recall. Weird. They just announced having a match with Rats and Bells Championship and I was like, oh, that exists? I didn't know, I had no idea what this team is.
00:42:11
Speaker
So yeah, there's really no much story there. They don't react at all. It's a weird name for the title. The Brass Knuckles Championship. I guess the idea of it is more of like what you'll get later with like the hardcore title. Yeah. I guess is the idea, but it's just an odd name to choose for it that I didn't quite get why you went for that particular one. It just all sounds like Texas to me. Yeah, I guess so.
00:42:37
Speaker
Manny Fernandez has a sweet sombrero as he comes out. Really, really sparkly. Fernandez chucks his sombrero out to the crowd, so I thought maybe it's cheaper than it looks, but Soli actually says it's worth $200. And somebody must be really, really happy now. I'd be happy to catch a $200 sparkly sombrero from somebody at Starrcade. Would you wear it, though? I probably would.
00:43:05
Speaker
I gotta admit, I would be sitting here wearing a sparkly sombrero if I had one. Maybe just that night. We were single tomorrow.
00:43:15
Speaker
Fernandez, much like Kabuki last year, has a pretty unique look and a really kind of great look in his entrance gear, but he takes most of it off to just kind of end up dressed like anyone else. Especially with this being a street fight, it seems like it might have been a good idea to keep some of that stuff on for a unique look. His small snatch of dyed blonde hair at the very bottom of the back of his haircut is unique at least, I guess.
00:43:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's foreshadowing wrestlers like Sting that would have the weird little rat tail, a little puffed of hair at the back. But he doesn't actually have a rat tail. It's perfectly even with the rest of his haircut. It's just this little snatch of blonde that I've specifically dyed this section of my hair, I don't understand. When you ask you when it is, it's the reverse Scott Steiner. When Scott Steiner grows his black goatee and then dyes the soul patch blonde. Ah, there you go. Clearly, Scott Steiner learned from A. Fernandez. There you go, okay.
00:44:10
Speaker
Fernandez controls early on with various strikes, and we get an overhead shot that Soli of course makes sure to note is beautiful, though he doesn't specify just how far the cameraman is in the air tonight. Soli notes that neither man has a glass jaw, and that it's actually a detriment as it means that they're going to take more punishment before going down.
00:44:31
Speaker
Bart lands a few hard hits to Fernanda's forehead to get him bleeding, and slowly notes that scar tissue on Fernanda's forehead bleeds more easily. Fernanda gets back in control, and he sends Bart out of the ring, and jumps off the apron with an overhead punch. They get back in, and slowly notes that the hit out of the ring wasn't a DQ, only because of Brass Knuckles' rules. Keep that in mind when we inevitably see a billion people getting clotheslined out of the ring on later shows, and that's just never mentioned.
00:45:00
Speaker
Yep. Fernandez continues the beating with a big haymaker and an interesting rotating splash. And that gets Bart bleeding. Not the splash, probably the haymaker. Yeah, I'll do something. Bart gets control with a shot to Fernandez's crotch and lays in heavy strikes that keep knocking Fernandez down, only for Bart to drag him back to his feet. Bart eventually drops Fernandez's neck first on the ropes and shoves the ref away to get over his lasso, but Fernandez catches him with a roll-up for the three.
00:45:31
Speaker
So my first question is, does he distract the referee for the lasso? Like, is the lasso not legal? In the brass knuckles match? Yeah. Yeah, you'd think that, I think it's just like, it's not so much a distraction as an irritation, but yeah, it's kind of a, we got a ref bump in a brass knuckles match. Yeah. What? Yeah, but my notes were brawling, brawling blood. Decent finish.
00:45:59
Speaker
That was the extent of my thorough coverage. Yeah. Yeah. I was actually surprised by the blood for, you know, like, you know, I expected it to either, you know, be an all blood or no blood event. Yeah. This is kind of taking the place of the Piper versus Valentine match, I guess from the previous year, but not, not as well. Yeah. I don't know. I was just waiting for someone to lose an eye with the, uh,
00:46:26
Speaker
You know, they, they seem to be, you know, they weren't pulling punches and, you know, look ferocious at some point, but I think that maybe I was just, I was still in the shock that they started bleeding apparently over nothing. Yeah, true.
00:46:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was just a bunch of brawling for me. It's hard to really think of much to say about this one. There is some character to it, I guess, so that kind of helped it. And Fernandez had a couple cool little spots. Overall, though, it's just two guys trading off punching each other and dragging each other to their feet so that they can punch each other again. And there wasn't a lot to maintain any interest here. I do kind of like Fernandez's act. I think I would like to see more of him in a different type of match and see if
00:47:13
Speaker
and see if he has more, but there wasn't much to keep me invested in this one. I do need to take a moment to mention that this match simultaneously has some of the best and the worst camera work of the night. There's a really, really great shot laid in the match that used the overhead camera, and it shows Bart knocking Fernandez down and then hitting a huge jumping elbow drop.
00:47:35
Speaker
and it looks really, really cool from that angle. But there's also two shots earlier on where we miss things. First, there's what seemed like it might be a cool little rapid striking combo that Fernandez does early in the match, but the camera's way too far away and showing Bart directly in front of Fernandez, so you get to see none of that.
00:47:55
Speaker
And later in the match, there's some kind of move that Fernandez uses to get back in control after Bart's been beating him up for a while. And we just completely miss it. It's just really weird to have really shoddy and really great visual work in the same match. Right.
00:48:12
Speaker
at least there's good footage of them doing stuff off the ropes rather than just you know running and going all you know just bouncing off yeah they don't they at least doesn't get in a eternal loop of irish whips or anything like that but yeah just not again another match on this show with just not a lot to it yeah
00:48:34
Speaker
The nicest story of Maven is when the title is, he loses in January. And then in March, he loses the tag titles to heal to the Dusty. Aww. The mid-length tag titles that are currently at this point being held by Ron Bass and Black Bart are just fully vacated quickly and just don't exist anymore by the middle of the next year. So we definitely are seeing a lot of changes in the title structure over the next year, it looks like. Yeah.
00:49:04
Speaker
maybe things consolidating somewhat. They definitely, yeah, when we get to 86, 87, that definitely happens a lot more. Yeah, there's a little bit here and there where there's promotional championships that kind of just get less important. Yeah. The same way there, at one point there was like a US title for like every other state in America, and they slowly whittled down to just the one. So like you can have the United States Championship from Texas,
00:49:31
Speaker
which is different than the United States Championship from Florida or from, you know, Idaho. Yeah. But having just one makes a lot simpler. Yeah. Less confusing for sure. They could do a cool graphic with like a,
00:49:44
Speaker
a flag and you'd take the star off and put it on your belt. If I could see that, that'd be funny. A giant star spangled belt once you're the United States champion. That's how they should have formed the US title. As someone go around and win a belt from every one of the 50 states and declare it the United States Championship. I think we've already got a United States Championship at this point, but that would be so great.
00:50:14
Speaker
After the match, Soli notes that Fernandez has two titles, and we get a replay of the finish as Coddle and Soli point out that JJ Dillon and Bart's plan backfired. Soli notes that we'll have a seven minute intermission, and we'll have some highlights from Starrcade 83 and some interviews.
00:50:30
Speaker
The only Starrcade 83 highlight that we get, though, is the replay of the finish to the Flare versus Race match again, so I'm not sure if that means that's the only highlight they had or if they played the wrong video package. Both, probably. Probably. After the extremely short highlight package, we go back to Tony interviewing Ricky Steamboat.
00:50:54
Speaker
Tony explains that Blanchard and the Long Riders injured Steamboat's back and asks him how he's feeling. Steamboat says that everyone's been looking forward to Starrcade 84, and he starts off talking about previous issues involving the US title tournament, but he says he's on a different path now. He ended up with Blanchard and his pals coming into his gym, hurting his brother, and then trying to hurt him just before Starrcade 84. He goes over his injuries, including torn muscles, a bad bruise, and floating ribs.
00:51:24
Speaker
He mentions that he's been going to the chiropractor every day, but that it's only been two days. Steamboat says he's putting the pain out of his mind and focusing on Blanchard as the evening is so important to him that he and Blanchard have both put up lots of money. Steamboat says he doesn't want Blanchard to know how bad he's hurt. So maybe he shouldn't have explained it then? Maybe not. Blanchard will know that he's been down before, but no matter what, hurt or well, a wrestler still carries on.
00:51:53
Speaker
Blanchard is nothing but a yellow-bellied coward, and he can't go anywhere because of the contract. Steamboat will remember that Blanchard tried to keep him out of Starrcade 84. I thought this was a longer interview than Steamboat tried last year, and it feels a lot less focused and snappy than he managed before. He's in pain. Yeah, he is in pain.
00:52:15
Speaker
It's still not a bad interview. He has a few good lines. I particularly like his closing about remembering that Blanchard tried to keep him out of Starrcade. You know, not just the fact that he was attacked, but the fact that it's before this big important event that he really wanted to be a part of. Steamboat always does feel genuine. Oh yeah.
00:52:34
Speaker
So you get a feeling, even if it's not a polished interview, he gets the point across, he gets you liking him during it and feeling for him. But yeah, there's some oddities in it, like him saying that he doesn't want Blanchard to know how much pain he's in almost immediately after he explains his injuries in detail.
00:52:52
Speaker
and him building up that he's been going for the chiropractor every day for two days. Just like, that's a great line. But yeah, there's emotion in there and it does help build the match. It's definitely longer and it's less effective in general, but if you cut it down, just the bullet points are where it still works.
00:53:12
Speaker
Doesn't make sense to hear him call someone else a yellow-bellied coward. It seems like he would be, you know, have a little bit more sense of sportsmanship about it, even though he has been treated poorly. I just think that normally it doesn't have to do name calling. He's going to let his skills speak for him in the ring. I can see that. Yeah. It doesn't feel like that quite fits Steamboat. He should be the respectful challenger generally. What's the great insult that you sent me that he has though, midway through well?
00:53:40
Speaker
He's trying to antagonize Tully Blanchard coming to fight him. So he says, I believe the quote is, your mother sucks eggs and your father eats refried beans. He says, how do you feel about that? And he walks off. Yeah. So as you said, Jon, insults not really Steamboat's game, I don't think.
00:54:05
Speaker
Tony says that he's going to find Blanchard to talk to him too. We go back to Soli and Coddle, and Soli says that Steamboat is articulate, I'm not sure that I agree in particular this time, and that Jim Crockett has said that he's intense and fired up and that Blanchard should have a tough evening. Coddle notes that due to the contract, Blanchard can lose the title if he's disqualified or counted out. So he's lost the champion's advantage, basically.
00:54:32
Speaker
Then we go back to Tony, and Tony's with Tully Blanchard and James J. Dillon. Tony asks if they were trying to injure Steamboat before the big match, and J.J. Dillon denies any nefarious plans. Dillon objects to the end of the Fernandez match and says that people are trying to slander him, the long riders, and Blanchard. He says that Steamboat is just crying because he knows that Blanchard is the superior wrestler.
00:54:57
Speaker
Blanchard agrees, and says that Steamboat keeps having to make excuses because Blanchard keeps taking him to the time limit. He taunts Steamboat over the money that he had to put up, and says that it's sad Steamboat has had to make excuses. He says Steamboat's fans are going to cheer him anyway, no matter Steamboat's injuries, but Blanchard is going to win, and then he's going after the world title. Tony says that the attack on Steamboat had to give Blanchard the advantage, and J.J. Dillon wonderfully just glares at him, fists on hips like, dang it, Shivani, why won't you buy our BS?
00:55:27
Speaker
Yeah. I really liked this one. I think Dylan in particular was really great as he twisted the situation around to make it look like people are conspiring against him. And Blanchard did a great job as a hateable heel, ignoring his own misdeeds to try to make it look like Steamboat was the whiner and the coward. I definitely wanted to see Steamboat beat this man.
00:55:50
Speaker
I like that he's blaming Steamboat for being so backstabbable. And they didn't make a boot if the boot fits reference during the whole thing, so I was a little disappointed. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:10
Speaker
Like you're saying before, I could have shortened Steamboat 1 to just saying, you know, they hurt me, but I'm going to still come back at you. So then they would feel even worse because he's simple, respectful, you know, this is hard, but I'm going to fight through it. And then they're just completely dismissive and insulting. Yeah. Even more effective that way, but it still works the way it is.
00:56:30
Speaker
They turn up their insults enough that steamboat going low still feels like him going high in comparison, I think. Oh yeah. But yeah, I think it'd be a little bit of a stronger comparison if he'd ironed his out a little bit more and kept the insult out of it and just been the, the respectful challenger still maybe. Exactly. Yeah.
00:56:53
Speaker
Soli points out that Blanchard is already looking beyond this match, planning on challenging for the world title, but that he best pay attention to Steamboat. Thought that was a nice little bit of commentary there from Soli.
00:57:07
Speaker
Soli and Cottle discuss the upcoming Wahoo match as a fan glances in the window, and Soli notes that they take a long time just to list the titles that superstar Billy Graham has won in Kung Fu, Karate, Jiu Jitsu, and Weightlifting and Powerlifting. I buy the last two. I'm not sure about the previous three from looking at superstar Billy Graham later and the condition of his martial arts chops.
00:57:35
Speaker
Yeah, so it's a whole adult thing is really weird. If you watch him really in his career, he's very much proto Hogan. He has tie dye, you got the big flingy mustache, he has the hair, and then he leaves wrestling, then comes back as his head shaved. And now he's doing karate and just, it'd be like if Hogan did that, if Hogan left, if Hogan debuted in WWE, you'd still be doing karate. Yes. You'd be like, but, but I know who you are. Yeah. It's very weird. That's very strange.
00:58:07
Speaker
Our next match is Paul Jones versus Jimmy Valiant in a Tuxedo Street Fight Loser Leaves Town match. Because we needed that level of complexity for a Jimmy Valiant match. So this is kind of a weird one. Well, yeah. Understatement. Granted. So there's a bunch of matches in this show where
00:58:29
Speaker
I guess a lot of the story is even further back than I watched, like with the Steamboat one, they talk about stuff happening a few months ago, they reference the U.S. tile term in March and April. I appreciate that it's long-term, but they don't even just summarize on the later shows what's happening. So stuff like this was really weird, because Jimmy Fallon doesn't actually show up until the very last show.
00:58:53
Speaker
Um, and they play a video package explaining how he had unmasked assassin number two, who comes Hercules. But then he makes no appearances over like three or four shows. And then suddenly he's in a loserly town match and also a tuxedo match, which I guess because Paul Jones over tuxedo, he's going to, I guess he's on a game, but he never has a promo. Like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to dress up like you and do it better than you or something like that.
00:59:20
Speaker
I just sort of dump all this stuff on you on the second to last show. I don't know, by the way, sass number one is now gonna be in his corner, also in tuxedo. We've seen two Jimmy Valiant matches and both of them revolve around a lose the leaves town match. That's his gimmick. Yeah, I guess so. He's just continually being threatened with leaving. Do tuxedo street fights have, I mean, like, you know, the everyday kind have like special rules in wrestling?
00:59:48
Speaker
So that's something that was really confusing to me watching this because normally when you see something like Tuxedo Street, a Tuxedo match or something like that, the idea is you strip off the Tuxedo to beat the guy that is like the first person to lose X amount of his Tuxedo has lost the match. That's clearly not the rule in this match. No. Because Tuxedo parts come off very freely
01:00:17
Speaker
as i'll get to in a moment and no one loses the match as a part of it so it's just it's like it's just a normal match they just happen to be well a normal street fight loser leaves town match but they just happen to be wearing tuxedos which is strange i know tuxedo matches were fairly common they're usually managers fighting other managers
01:00:39
Speaker
But yeah, they're almost never a street fight, and they're almost never a wrestler against a manager. Even if they were, they need to be a wrestler. We get actual entrances and entrance music this time, which was such a shift that I actually thought this was a video package rather than the start of the match. Paul Jones has a very nice tuxedo complete with a Dracula cape, and he's flanked by one of the Zambui Express again.
01:01:08
Speaker
Jimmy Valiant is led to the ring by the tuxedo clad assassin number one, and he wears a suit coat and suit pants over a t-shirt with the pattern of a tuxedo shirt and a bow tie on it. I kinda liked that, actually. Jimmy Valiant kisses the ring announcer before the announcements. The lights are really dark as the announcements begin, but finally come on so we can, you know, see. The ref argues a bit with Jones to get the express member out of the ring, but the assassin leaves more willingly.
01:01:38
Speaker
Valiant easily dominates and batters Jones, then chokes him with a small rope, ties the rope around his neck and around the top rope to immobilize him, and strips him of his tuxedo, as Soliancaudal nervously comment about this being a family show and then possibly needing to cut away depending on where Valiant goes with this.
01:01:57
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Eventually, Valiant does indeed strip Jones down to his wrestling tights and shoes, but Jones gets free while Valiant is celebrating, and gets a few hits in. Valiant just shrugs him off via shaking legs and arms, and gets a sleeper hold on the bleeding Jones, whose blood runs down Valiant's white sleeve. In a more dramatic match, that'd be quite the shot, actually.
01:02:22
Speaker
Jones is clearly out, and the ref drops his arm three times but just kind of ignores the third fall because the express member has gotten up on the ring apron. The ref goes over there to deal with him, and Valiant goes over and hits the ref from behind. Soli tries to tell us that he was going for the express, but Valiant really did just seem to kind of aim for the ref. Yes, he did.
01:02:44
Speaker
Assassin comes in to deal with the Express, but JJ Dillon sneaks in and clocks Valiant with an object of some kind in his hand, and Jones gets the pin on an unconscious Valiant. Valiant still lies unconscious as we go to Soli and Caudal, who explain that luscious Jimmy Valiant must now leave the promotion, because Jimmy Valiant has a billion names. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, it was my accent of my notes. I wrote down... I think that interesting, mostly just Paul Jones having his clothes ripped off. Cheap finish.
01:03:14
Speaker
I tried to be a good size by both points there. Yeah, that kind of captures it, doesn't it? You summed it up succinctly, but it's just all over the place. Yeah. And nothing really, there's nothing solid about it. It was just like, Oh, well, let's see what else we can do. Yeah, yeah. It's just
01:03:38
Speaker
Man, it wasn't really a match. It's an actual wrestler beating up a non-wrestler for a while. It's mercifully short, but it's kind of hard to get behind Jimmy Valiant when he binds the defenseless man to the ring-roves by his neck to beat him up and humiliate him by stripping him of his clothing. It'd be one thing if it was like, it's a tuxedo match, but Valiant starts out fighting him straight, and then Jones just cheats and cheats and cheats and cheats, and that eventually ticks him off where he does
01:04:08
Speaker
not that level but you know something to embarrass him but he just he like immediately goes for dirty dirty tricks against non-wrestler so who's the good guy again really weird pretty bad match
01:04:22
Speaker
I will give credit to Valiant on one thing, which is that when he's hit by the object at the end, he totally sells complete unconsciousness for the remainder of the camera footage of him. So there's no point where he gets up right afterwards or anything like that. He is out. So that was kind of nice.
01:04:43
Speaker
And also, like we said, what is the tuxedo stipulation here? It's just what they're wearing. It doesn't affect the match in any way whatsoever. Yeah. You could use it to have Paul Jones, like, hide things to gain the advantage of a valiant with in his ducks or something like that. You know, grab an object out of his pocket or something, but they don't use it at all.
01:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like if this had any TV buildup in the recent time, this would have, oh, we have some context. Like, you know, Paul Jones, like, you know, wouldn't fight Jimmy Fallon because he's not classy enough. Jimmy Fallon shows up in tuxedo or something. Yeah. Or even that shirt, you know, and then it sets up that part of it and then other stuff. But no, nothing's, this is both apparently important, but also kind of really stupid.
01:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like this is the end of like some kind of gigantic epic plot that we just haven't gotten at all. And like you said, maybe it's that it was on stuff from much earlier in the year that and we're just, you know, we're kind of doing the last few shows before a Stargate just to try and get it.
01:05:52
Speaker
I also would note, it's kind of funny that Zebu Express is a two-man team, but he comes out with only one of them. Like, was one of them just not feeling it? Like, I'm tired from the first show. They just agreed to, you know, Assassins coming out and there's only one of him, so even though he still called number one of two, but... Yeah. Yeah, that's another one that I was not happy was on the show, to be honest.
01:06:19
Speaker
Well, I have good news to follow up for you, Bob. Team Valley has not actually gone. I'll be back next year. Yeah, I kind of figured. Yeah, weirdly, do you joke that this is like the end of the big episode? I think it's actually like barely the beginning. Oh my God. This one for like a couple of years, I think. I don't know how much on Starrcade, but for me, I'm going to Wikipedia about it. This goes on for a while. Different guys under Paul Jones's tutelage.
01:06:41
Speaker
I'm very done with Jimmy Valiant, so I'm not pleased to hear he's coming back at this point. Yeah, one more show at least to try and win you back. Yeah. We'll see. Give him a shot. Following the match, we go back to Tony again, and this time he is with Ric Flair.
01:06:59
Speaker
Okay, thank you very much, Gordon Soli, and it's always a pleasure to be standing beside this man, the heavyweight champion of the world, Nature Boy, Ric Flair, and it's hard to say that you could be any better than you were one year ago at this time when you won the title. However, you have to be, because you wrestle the top competition every night of your life, and you're still the world heavyweight champion. But tonight, it's not only for the title, and a man you know very well, the American Dream Dusty Rhodes, it's for one million dollars.
01:07:23
Speaker
But Tony, the greatest honor to any wrestler in the world today is to be the World Heavyweight Champion. Only one honor greater than that, that's to win the World Heavyweight Championship and hang on to a fair period of time. This is Greensboro, North Carolina. I won the title here before. I've been all over the world where the people like me or dislike me.
01:07:41
Speaker
They know that when I get in a ring and they're looking at the best wrestler and the most qualified athlete today to be called the World Heavyweight Champion. Dusty Rhodes, one million dollars, Tony. The biggest purse ever put up for professional wrestling matches as far as I'm concerned. Any other purse for any sport of all time. A million dollars cash. Ric Flair is going in that ring, brother, gunning. And Dusty Rhodes, you lay over there as laid back as you want to, Daddy. I know you're watching me right now. You better be half the man.
01:08:10
Speaker
you've told these people you are because you're jumping on the number one stud in all of professional wrestling. Last year this time I stood with this man right before the match with Harley Race and I said he is ready and I can say that once again this year Rick Flair the world heavyweight champion is once again ready. Rick Flair's found his character guys. Hey!
01:08:30
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, he's not 100% of the way to the flare that we'll come to know. He doesn't completely lose his mind in his promos yet, but he has so much more charisma this year. And he's got some of that arrogant champion thing coming across already. The ending line that he gives is particularly good. The Dusty, you better be half the man that you've told people that you are. That's so good. Much, much more developed personality than last year. I was really happy to see that.
01:09:01
Speaker
definitely good to see Flair building up from where he was last year to where he is now. Yeah. He's, uh, I think he's still modest. He's very, I'm not going to say absolutely respectful of Dusty in this promo, but he feels like he still is acknowledging that Dusty is a threat. And most he's passive aggressive. Yeah.
01:09:27
Speaker
So yeah, it's a really interesting development to see with him. I'm curious to see how quickly he'll develop into the full-on complete over-the-top Ric Flair, but it was really cool to see how much he's changed. I like when they, in the beginning, you see him just, I would normally say someone pacing, but it looks more like Ric Flair's prowling. Yeah, true. He's like stalking something in the background, like two shots before this.
01:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, I guess it's supposed to make him look brooding, but it doesn't come off that way. It just looks goofy.
01:10:23
Speaker
Our next match is Dick Slater versus Ron Bass with J.J. Dillon for Bass's NWA Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship. We have the weird parallel stories that don't seem to intersect at all. Up until the last show, there's no Dick Slater, Ron Bass, or Black Bart interaction. He's clearly got a thing going with Tony Blanchard. They just come back and tell Blanchard's in his face about helping him, this and that.
01:10:53
Speaker
But then they announce two matches being different, and he's thrown into a tag match the night before, and now suddenly he's fighting for a title that he's seemingly not even interested in. I mean, I'm sure he wants it because it's in front of him, but he said nothing about wanting it before. It's about going to Ron Bass, and it's personal, it's just Ron Bass is a title, and I guess you get to fight for it instead of Steamboat does. Huh. Yeah, I was kind of thought there'd be more to it, but no.
01:11:20
Speaker
I mean, you'd assume this one would definitely show up on the Mid-Atlantic show, because it's the Mid-Atlantic championship, so... Oh yeah, no, they make a point of showing that Dick Slater is back. Yeah. And he's immediately getting into stuff with Toly Blanchard. There's, like, five shows they want, so there's no paths crossing between the two of them. Hmm. Strange. Yeah, I don't quite get it. Uh, we get the same entrance music again as Slater and Bass simultaneously come out to the ring.
01:11:50
Speaker
later is dominant to start, alternating between striking, working on a headlock, and running outside to chase JJ Dillon. He comes back to the headlock, though, and solely notes that Dick would, quote, fight a buzzsaw and give it the first two rounds.
01:12:10
Speaker
I would definitely be a bloodbath. I'm not entirely sure, again, what that means, but, you know, it sounds intense. Yeah? I'm not sure I would want to see Dix later try and put a headlock on a buzzsaw. That seems hazardous to his health. Yeah, that wouldn't have been pleasant.
01:12:29
Speaker
Knocking Bass out of the ring, Slater stops himself from going for Dylan again, and instead crawls on all fours over for a headbutt on a returning Bass. He tries to stomp Bass in the face, and the ref actually catches his foot.
01:12:42
Speaker
which lets Bass take control with heavy strikes, especially a vicious knee strike to the head. Slater ends up tangled in the ropes, and Bass and Dylan both start hitting him, the latter with the referee distracted, as he bounces back and forth in the ropes. The ref eventually glances over, and Dylan just cheerfully gives him a wave, acting really innocent.
01:13:04
Speaker
Bass keeps hammering a day's Slater, whose cells being so groggy that he can't even tell where his opponent is, swinging lazily in the air in the wrong direction frequently. Slater tries a comeback, but an eye rake from Bass and some more strikes from Dylan stop that. Slater starts stumbling around the turnbuckles and Bass follows, catching up at each corner to land some punches. Slater manages to dodge out of the way and get Bass into the corner, and starts firing back.
01:13:29
Speaker
The ref comes over to try to get them to break, but Slater just grabs him by the hair and flings him out of the way, then hits a belly-to-back suplex to Bass, going for a pin. There's no ref, so Dylan comes in and kicks Slater, who no sells, as Dylan freezes in fear. Slater body slams Dylan, sends him out, body slams Bass, and hits a leg drop to go for a pin, but the ref taps Slater on the shoulder.
01:13:51
Speaker
Slater thinks he's won, but the ref is actually entirely justifiably disqualifying him, so Bass wins the match. Dylan comes back in to celebrate, so Slater beats him up, beats Bass up, and poses to Cheers.
01:14:07
Speaker
So other than the finish, I really liked it. I haven't seen a whole lot of dicks later. I've seen more than Jon has, obviously. Or like in the one tag match last year. Yeah. But I haven't seen a lot of them solo. And it's nice to see what he can actually do. His crazy un-intercharacter definitely reminded me of D'Ambros today. I was gonna say that, yeah.
01:14:27
Speaker
I was thinking I'd watch it the first time for sure. But I'd be curious to see how much that ability did directly because it's very, very similar. He doesn't do a rebound clothesline out of it, but he does the get caught in the ropes and kind of rock back and forth thing that Ambrose is pretty good about. And they actually look similar at points. They do. Yeah. The hair especially. Yeah. There's a lot of interesting similarities there. So it was nice seeing them in a singles match, seeing what you actually can do at this point. It's a shame that they can't give you a clear finish on their biggest show of the year.
01:14:57
Speaker
Yeah. If I review everything but the finish, which I know you can't do in a wrestling match, it'd be really, really good. But yeah, the finish takes away a lot of it because it just kind of stops. It fits the character, but I don't know. I feel like it could have done a different way for that.
01:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, i'm actually like surprised about the ref, you know, the ref was tossed But wasn't the ref in like one or two matches before this also like like Assaulted as well and it didn't didn't change the outcome of the match. Well, there's the point where jesse bar
01:15:36
Speaker
like, shoves Mike Graham into the referee. It clearly isn't accidental, but you could reason that the ref thinks it's accidental, so that's why there's not a disqualification there. Was there another one? That Tuxedo match had some reference. Oh, right. I mean, but that's a Tux match, so.
01:15:52
Speaker
But they still, you know, it apparently was a pinfall match. Yes, true. And they used weapons, really. But yeah, I think in this one, it's just like there's absolutely no way that you can sell that as an accident. He clearly intentionally reaches over, grabs the man by his hair, and chucks him.
Slater and Ron Bass Match Analysis
01:16:10
Speaker
Normal ref bumps you can kind of sell his, oh, he accidentally ran into him, or oh, he intentionally accidentally ran into him. Yeah. But with this one, it's just like, no, this was blatant. Yeah.
01:16:22
Speaker
Who's entertaining, though? I mean, like, the match was, you know, upbeat, quick. Yeah, it's another brawl, but it feels like a better brawl. There's more character for me. Yeah. Mostly Slater, but Ron Bass is standing against him. He's potentially sound in the match, and even there's not a whole lot of character with him. You can tell by his general mannerisms.
01:16:45
Speaker
and aided by Dylan, that he's a bad guy and not to be liked. Yeah. It's a brawl, but it's a brawl with an actual story to it. Like a solid storyline of, you know, they start out with Slater, Wild and Unpredictable, but maybe getting himself in trouble by going after Dylan and stuff. Bass being more focused, but you know, this kind of big bully type of character.
01:17:07
Speaker
They kind of work a storyline of Dylan repeatedly trying to cheat on Bass's behalf in there, and it all works pretty well, I think. The opening's a little bit weird. There's a bit where Slater's kind of outside the ring for a bit and...
01:17:24
Speaker
You know, just gesturing at Bass and it feels like he's doing the cowardly stalling thing almost, but the crowd's really totally behind him still, so it's just kind of a bit of an odd moment to me. Especially with Bass saying, get in and fight me, get in and fight me, and you're just like, wait, which is the good guy, which is the bad guy here? And then it becomes clear when Dylan starts trying to cheat.
01:17:47
Speaker
Slater definitely, like I said, had a lot of character. I love there's one bit where he's got the headlock on Bass and Bass tries to roll him into the pin that we see a lot. And Slater gets out of that and keeps the headlock on and gives Bass a noogie. Yeah. I was like, what?
01:18:06
Speaker
That was a pretty fun bit. For me, the real standout of the match was Dylan. I loved his innocent act in front of the referee, and I loved his fearful, frozen reaction when he kicks Slater at the end and Slater just glares at him for it, and then gets up and batters him. Dylan was fun.
01:18:29
Speaker
I think my only issue with the Matt, like I said, is the finish. I could have seen you doing something where maybe Dylan and Hidra and the ref, and there's like a pause, and then Slater decides to, you know, clothesline the ref to hit him, and then gets dequeued. It just feels weird that I get that he's being antagonized, it's weird that he just gets self-dequeued sort of on his own. Yeah, I feel like, I think it worked fairly well to me in that it goes with his wild persona that he's had where- Sure.
01:18:58
Speaker
He clearly spends the early part of the match not really thinking through his actions. Yeah, sure. So for me, the ending actually worked pretty well. I didn't really mind it. I don't think that much. I think my mindset is that it could tie that to the earlier part of the match and also to Dylan talking about having to shoot the ref in the Black Bart match. So he'd go, well, you know, the ref interference, the distraction is going to hurt me. I'm going to use that to my advantage and then do that.
01:19:27
Speaker
It worked for the store. I wish you'd have clean finishes on your biggest show of the year, but yet it is what it is. Right. This one actually kind of made me like JJ, like the other ones. Other matches didn't have that feeling about him, but he played his role pretty well.
01:19:48
Speaker
Post-match, Coddle and Soli discuss the ending and note that Slater did have Bass pin for long enough for a win if only he hadn't thrown the ref away and gotten himself DQ'd. Coddle says he's got to at least feel good about getting some hits in on JJ Dillon, and Soli sternly notes, yeah, that's not going to help his pocketbook, unfortunately.
01:20:10
Speaker
Suddenly we get the national anthem. Like four matches from the top of the card for some reason. Yeah. The crowd chants USA as the flag is shown on screen. The cameraman cannot keep the shot still for this. It is wiggling or like I was getting motion sickness watching this thing.
01:20:29
Speaker
The anthem this time is instrumental, performed quite nicely on a trumpet. Like I said,
Anderson and Larson vs. Koloff Backstory
01:20:35
Speaker
it's an even stranger place for the anthem than last year. At least last year it highlighted the main event, but this year it's randomly done before the fourth match from the end. It does make a little bit more sense when you see who comes out for the next match. It's the Kfabe Russians, Ivan and Nikita Koloff.
01:20:53
Speaker
So our next match is Ole Anderson and Keith Larson, accompanied by Don Knudl versus Ivan and Nikita Koloff.
01:21:03
Speaker
And to build up to this, Don Cornoodle was a bad guy. It's a hard name to say, Don Cornoodle. Yes. It's a fun name to say, if anything else. He's a bad guy teamed up with Nikita Koloff. They're tag team champions up until they have the match with Fernandez and Dusty Rhodes. There's a funny bit where...
01:21:25
Speaker
He's basically being goaded into the match by Manny Fernandez, who tells him to design the contract and put his John Henry on there.
01:21:35
Speaker
It's not the right name. That's not the expression, yeah. Yeah, no. So they have a cage match, and I think he's actually even the one pinned, but the Russians turn on him because he agreed to the cage match, and they think that's why he lost. So the cage match, they beat him up at this whole angle where he stretches out, and his parents even walk into the ring. They do a promo where he's at home in bed with the neck brace on, like, I'm not sure I'll be back in wrestling.
01:22:04
Speaker
he does later promos saying that he made a call to ole Anderson the guy helped him in the rest in the first place and ole Anderson's gonna find a partner they got to ole Anderson in a promo where he's supposed to be mad like you know my student was beaten up he may never recover his livelihood but taken away but he just really sit chill sitting back in a chair maybe he's going for like a
01:22:30
Speaker
Like a taken style, really calm, I'm going to get you, I'm not mad, I'm just, I'm serious, but... I don't know, Jake Roberts type of problem. Yeah, yeah. It's not a bad problem, which is in the field of the level of intensity that I would think for this story. And then going into it, on the final show, Ole Anderson sends him a telegram. It kind of dates the show a little bit.
01:22:54
Speaker
to tell, yeah, he's into a telegram to tell him who his mystery part is gonna be, who is Keith Larson, who is the brother of Don Crenoodle, who I think, I don't know if that's K. Faber reality or not. I'm not actually sure, yeah. They treat it as a real life thing and they explain that Larson goes by that name so he doesn't sort of profit off his brother's success and that'd be his own man. I'll be fair, if I'm supposed to believe his first name is Keith, I feel like Keith Crenoodle is not a good wrestling name.
01:23:24
Speaker
Oh, that's an awesome wrestling name, man. Oh, okay. To each his own. Yeah. I like it better if it was like Kenny Granudel. I wish they associated it with like a place of the Windy City Canoodles. Yes. There's also a weird bit in the buildup where Granudel comes out with his brothers before the match is officially announced.
01:23:49
Speaker
and his mother, but not his father. And they talk about how his parents were with him this whole time. And then they wait a few minutes and they finally go, oh, by the way, your dad's not here because he, like many people has to work, which is fine. And then they play a video package of him. But it's weird that they bring two of them out in person and then play a video package rather than just do a video package for all three of them. It's an oddly structured thing. Weird.
01:24:17
Speaker
Knudel initially is not happy that his brother is in the match. He's phrasing it hurt just like he is. But ultimately he goes along with it. They come in for revenge against those Russians. All right. Ole Anderson and Keith Larson are, as you mentioned, accompanied by Larson's brother, Don Knudel. He's injured in on crutches. You said Larson uses a different name because he didn't want to benefit from Knudel's name. Yes. I like to think that it's actually because he was embarrassed that Knudel couldn't handle properly predicting match winners last year.
01:24:48
Speaker
Like five shirts from now, you'll still be on that. If we see Don Crenoodle every time, I will bring that up, I swear. Fair enough. The arena is bathed in red light as the Russians come out to the Russian national anthem carrying chains and wearing red shirts with yellow tacks that say Russia number one. They get monster booze. Oh, yeah. Cold war, baby.
01:25:13
Speaker
I do want to just point out that Larson's robe and Oli's trunks are also both red. Just saying. Anderson and Larson charge to start and tear off the Russian's propaganda shirts. Then knock Nikita out of the ring.
01:25:29
Speaker
Oli goes to his corner, Nikita to his, and the match proper starts with Larsen versus Ivan. Larsen quickly gets the advantage, and after a quick pinfall attempt, starts working on Ivan's arm. He and Oli trade off to keep that up for quite a while, but keep a fast pace the whole time and mix up their moves. Ivan keeps trying to get to his corner, but gets dragged back. Ivan actually begs Larsen to stop at one point, but he won't actually concede the match when the ref asks.
01:25:56
Speaker
Sully notes that Ollie and Larson are doing to Ivan what was done to Dunker Noodle.
01:26:02
Speaker
The trading continues, and just as the announcers are noting that Nikita hasn't been in yet, Ivan rakes Oli's eyes and tags Nikita. Nikita batters Oli and gets a bear hug. It starts elevated and Oli screams and struggles, but Nikita eventually sets him down and just keeps the hold on. Oli finally escapes with a cool little chin buster where he wraps his arms under Nikita's and lifts him just enough to smash his own head into the bottom of Nikita's chin.
01:26:28
Speaker
and crawls for his corner, he has to shake off his dizziness to make the tag. Larson comes in with a lot of fire, but gets hurt as Nikita dodges a dropkick, which Soli says would have knocked the top of Nikita's head off otherwise. I'm dubious.
01:26:52
Speaker
Nikita and Ivan beat up Larsen, but Larsen gets a roll-up on Ivan that Nikita breaks up, which brings Ole in to knock Nikita out of the ring. Nikita beats up Knudel outside, and Ole goes to stop him, which leads the ref over to try and break that up, which gives Ivan time to grab his chain and nail Larsen with it, then hide the chain for the ref to count the three.
01:27:14
Speaker
So this is a good example of how, like we were talking about with the previous show, how the tag match structure was kind of interesting and varied. There's good and bad ones and better and worse ones in that show. There's definitely, I think, the best way you could done that match. Because so, basically, you have Ole Anderson, who's a very experienced wrestler at this point.
01:27:35
Speaker
And you have Ivan Koloff, who's a very experienced wrestler at this point. Nikita's only in his first year of his career, right? I believe the time of that? I think so. I didn't actually take the time to look that one up. It's less than two years, for sure. I think he's in his first year around that time. So he's big and young and strong and can do clotheslines and you bear hug, obviously, but he's not
01:27:57
Speaker
going to control a match because he's just done that experience yet. Larson is kind of the same way. Larson is fairly new. He has that sort of youth and vigor, but not experience. So they wisely structure the match with the two veteran people controlling the match. Every people come in, do their thing, but don't stay or stay the welcome. It's kind of a shame with all this story that they can't get a clean finish, especially given that there's nothing on the line.
01:28:25
Speaker
Because it's worth noting that the Russian team, which had consisted of Ivan and Nikita Koloff and Don Knudel, are technically still the NWA's 6th Man Tag Team Champions. But you know, they've beaten up and betrayed their third partner and third man.
01:28:42
Speaker
But anybody's not like, you guys got to finish your titles now. It's really not until January that that comes into issue and they just bring in a new guy to be another Russian. Yeah. So you could have made this, there's no title. So why not let Ollie and Larson get a win in this situation? I don't quite understand that. Yeah, I can see that. While again, like somebody's match they wish the finish was better and cleaner, the actual match itself wasn't bad. Okay.
01:29:10
Speaker
No, the match had good flow. You guys are right in pointing out that there is a definite experience gap between the seasoned wrestler and the apprentice or whatever term you want to use. The whole playing into the patriotism and everything, of course you know that they're going to do something nefarious at the end. Yeah.
01:29:31
Speaker
To win so it wasn't really even though I enjoyed the matches. I just knew it was gonna happen at the end Yeah, yeah, I saw that in the very beginning Yeah, you get they it's a check offs chains. They bring the chains out at the beginning and You're like, I bet those are gonna be there at some point But you actually do I did actually forget during the match that they had those chains and then I like oh, yeah We had those lying in the corner. Yeah
01:29:58
Speaker
Yeah I thought it was a good fast-paced match. It'll be it because of the experience gap. It almost feels entirely backwards from the normal tag formula. That's true. That you normally get the face imperil and then he gets the hot tag to the other
01:30:14
Speaker
facing that guy comes in charging and beats down the heels and then maybe you know it goes any which way from there but in this case it was I've been playing heal in peril yeah for a long time and then Nikita gets I'm not sure what you call a heal version of a hot tag
01:30:29
Speaker
But yeah, like I said, Nikita's new to wrestling at this point, so that explains it. Larson and Ollie did a pretty good job keeping all the different arm work that they did interesting. They had a lot of different things to do, and Ollie in particular had some really vicious looking strikes and holds for it. I really loved, as I mentioned, the second escape from the bear hug with the kind of modified chin buster. That was a creative little spot.
01:30:54
Speaker
And Nikita looked pretty green, but he did his part. So I can't say that I felt like he's stumbling around in there or anything. And Ivan actually did a terrific job of selling the arm, actually almost too good because I was actually starting to feel pretty darn sympathetic to him early in the match.
01:31:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, long match, but it kept a good pace for the most part, and even the bear hug actually wasn't too long. I was afraid when that first came on, because I'm not a fan of bear hugs, but... No. Sure. No one is. Yeah. Especially not if you're in them. Post-match, the Russians try to continue the beating, but Knudel charges in and batters them with his crutch, breaking it over them and sending them scurrying out of the ring. Knudel and Ole check on Larsen as we go to the announcers.
01:31:45
Speaker
Soli says that he's glad to see Knudel using his philosophy differently these days, and he credits Oli and Larsen for that. Back at the ring, Larsen, Knudel, and Oli all get to their feet to the cheers of the crowd. Soli and Cawd will ask if there's been an official announcement from the ring announcer yet, and neither sure. I think he actually started to talk just before Knudel attacked, so he got interrupted there. Yeah, that happens sometimes. They'll play music and suddenly stop. Yeah.
01:32:13
Speaker
In January, the Russians find a new member for their trio, Crusher Khrushchev. That's an awesome name. It is, yeah. And it's spelled with a K in both cases, I wonder. Oh, of course. This Crusher with a K is... Ed Boom was watching clearly. More combat there.
Steamboat vs. Blanchard Match
01:32:30
Speaker
Crusher Khrushchev is, of course, Barry Darso. Future Smash demolition.
01:32:35
Speaker
Yet another Minnesotan is apparently Russian. Minnesota is a go-to save for Russians. It's really weird. Apparently so. Because the key does the same way, I believe. They're basically throughout the next year, they'll either defend their six-man titles or ultimately, as I mentioned before, two of them win the main titles from Manny and Dusty. So they just sort of stay in the tactile mix for that run.
01:33:04
Speaker
Soly and Kott will move us on to build up the Steamboat vs. Blanchard match, with both wrestlers having to put up $10,000 for it. There's definitely some Blanchard Steamboat interaction in the past. So I started watching the shows in October to build up for the show. The way they treat it, at least at that point, is that Steamboat had been out of wrestling again. Because, talking about last year, he left after Christmas.
01:33:27
Speaker
I've seemingly gone for wrestling forever, but he's back in a few months. I don't know the whole story of that, I don't know personally. He's back and much stuff happens earlier in the year with him and why McDaniel was blanchard. But then what brings him back to wrestling is Ron Bass and Black Bart due to Dylan messing with the gym and attacking his brother.
01:33:47
Speaker
And so sort of weirdly he's back and now he's fighting Blanchard again, who I guess you just remember he was mad at from earlier. And then they work with it in the last couple weeks, but it's weird that what brings him back is not the guy he's been fighting.
01:34:03
Speaker
Uh, just to reestablish, the disqualification rule has been waived. Yes. So we, and we have a no run rule. So that means that unlike a normal title match, if Tully is disqualified or runs away, he loses the title. Yes. They also have a 60 minute time limit in contrast to the normal television title. Well, I guess in contrast to the normal television title that we get later, where it's actually a 15 minute time limit. And in contrast to last year where it was a 60 minute time limit, but you could only win the title for the first 15.
01:34:34
Speaker
I still don't get that. Yeah, I don't understand that at all either. Steamboat comes out while faces from the previous match are still leaving, and he claps hands with them on the way. He has to really, really fight his way through the crowd to get to the ring, and he loses the lay he's wearing about his neck on the way. He barely manages to keep his jacket. It's a simple white one with a tree in his name on the back.
01:35:00
Speaker
His entrance music actually was really cool. It's not an entrance music that I normally hear for Steamboat, but it just sounded almost intimidating, but in a good guy kind of way. Yeah. Um, so I'm not sure if that was his normal music or if they just, you know, I'm not sure how they picked the entrance music for the show. A lot of people get the same one, but not Steamboat. His was, his was special. He goes around the ringside slapping hands with the fans like the best faces do and shakes hands with the ring announcer as he gets in.
01:35:30
Speaker
Blanchard has the same entrance music we've heard a few other times tonight. It starts playing long before he actually enters, but we do get some nice cycling colors from the lights as he does. Blanchard's robe is nice, a black one with silver sparkling designs and his name in red script on the back. It's a good look.
01:35:49
Speaker
i do have another music i don't like not sure in this eyes rewatch show again but i wonder if maybe the people managed by jaded dylan on same music that might be it because we hear it we hear the same piece a lot but it's normally a matches with dylan's guys i think the only time that might be associated with someone that's not technically is that slater and his opponent i think come out at the same time and i have it but
01:36:15
Speaker
That's still a Dylan guy that's coming out before it's later.
01:36:22
Speaker
Blanchard offers a hand to start, but Steamboat slaps it away. Blanchard opens up with some strikes to Steamboat's injured ribs, and an angry Steamboat fires back hard and beats him around the ring and even out to the apron before bringing him back in with a big suplex. He keeps up the offense, but Blanchard keeps sneaking in blows to the ribs. Eventually, they start to take their toll as Steamboat struggles to catch his breath.
01:36:47
Speaker
Blanchard circles Steamboat, and Steamboat slowly turns to try to keep the ribs away from Blanchard, while Caudalyn slowly explains that the ribs are stopping Steamboat from being able to get a second wind. Blanchard makes the mistake, however, of spitting at Steamboat, and Steamboat gives him a mighty glare.
01:37:05
Speaker
Blanchard somehow manages to run away in a cocky manner. He did it. But Steamboat catches him with a massive power slam and solidly takes control, getting several two counts in rapid succession. Steamboat even hits Blanchard's own slingshot suplex for two.
01:37:25
Speaker
The ribs still bother Steamboat though, and they slow him down enough for Blanchard to sneak an object into his hand. He uses it to take the advantage back, but Steamboat manages to fire back with a big splash and a sunset flip, only for Blanchard to hit him with the object again and sit down for the three.
01:37:44
Speaker
The story of this show so far is early matches are good, but generally unremarkable for one reason or another. And then it kind of gets not very good in the middle. It's debatable which one's worse. It's up to you, obviously. But you have to stuff some real low points on this point. Obviously, the last match is a little better. But for me, the Steamboat thing really is a nice, high mark.
01:38:08
Speaker
Because I was really worried going into this that you're having people injured. So the whole match is going to be him essentially handicapped. So he can't do his big moves, can't do this. So I'll move at the end and then I'll backfire. But he did a good job and balance for me of not forgetting that he's hurt. He's always good about psychology and that.
01:38:29
Speaker
but also not slowing down and changing so dramatically that it takes away from the match. It's a fine line with that because you don't want to pretend like you're not hurt, but you also don't want a quick, really responsive wrestler to just not do their moves anymore because they're selling a leg injury.
01:38:50
Speaker
My only negative again is the finish. It's the broken record I know. It's the theme of the night. My issue against an unclean finish, my bigger issue besides using weapon is that he uses the weapon and it doesn't actually get him the win. And then when he's in trouble, he uses it up in a second time and it works. Yeah. The surprise factor of the weapon is gone the second time. You should know it's coming, right? Exactly, yeah. I can see that.
01:39:20
Speaker
Steamboat, yeah, he did a great job selling the injuries, but, you know, he definitely has a surge of both emotion and energy when he's insulted, when he gets spit on. And he also looks like desperation when he gets, you know, he starts doing his big moves, but right before it, he needs that little motivation.
01:39:41
Speaker
Yeah, and you know some good acrobatic movements and It was actually kind of heartbreaking to see him lose, you know after all the his speech wasn't as good But I still was rooting for him. Yeah steamboats intensely like likable as a face, isn't he?
01:39:59
Speaker
It's similar to what we'll get with sting later on that if you don't like this man, you have no heart or soul. Yeah, you know Steamboat kind of I get that reaction for as well. We're just like you get behind him like so easily and
01:40:18
Speaker
Yeah, this was terrific. Steamboat and Blanchard work really, really well together. Steamboat's selling of the ribs, like you guys mentioned, was amazing. He did little subtle things to his performance that were brilliant where, like there's a bit where Blanchard is circling him and Steamboat keeps turning ever so slightly to make sure that the injured ribs are out of the way. And just the way he stands and every last movement that he makes in the match
01:40:46
Speaker
He looks like he's actually hurt. He is behaving in every way exactly like you would expect a person with injured ribs to behave. It's absolutely just beautiful selling. Blanchard is great at using the rib storyline as well.
01:41:03
Speaker
every moment that he gets he is taking a shot at those anytime he gets in trouble he is taking a shot at the ribs to try and get out of trouble even when he's woozy from steamboat battering him at points he will take wild swings clearly hoping he will find the ribs yeah it's just like
01:41:23
Speaker
perfect use of those by the heel too, which is absolutely amazing. That storyline in this match is wonderfully done. Steamboat's version of Tully's slingshot suplex was really, really great too. Very beautiful. Steamboat's always just great with the moves. Yeah, Tully made me want to see Steamboat batter him and win. And like you said, John, like actually crushed.
01:41:51
Speaker
when Steamboat loses this match. It's like, you want so badly to see Steamboat win. I was like actually deflated for a few moments when he doesn't. It was a really, really good one for that.
01:42:04
Speaker
I do have two minor complaints on it. One, I kind of wish that the ribs had factored into the ending too, like if you actually had to punch him in the ribs with the object to take him down, maybe. It's just such a focus of the match that it feels like that should factor in more. And then also Steamboat does a really, really beautiful splash towards the end of the match.
01:42:27
Speaker
but he's doing a beautiful splash with her ribs. And that's the one point in the match where it feels like you shouldn't have done that if you have an injury, right? Really minor points. Great, great match. Also, I want to take a moment to compliment Soli and Cottle here. They do an exceptional job on commentary of building up the injury angle, of pointing out every little thing that Steamboat is doing to emphasize it.
01:42:53
Speaker
and of explaining the effects that it's having on Steamboat's performance of him being just a little bit slower than normal, just having a little bit more time to recover and the effects on him not being able to get a second wind, not being able to draw breath and all fully. It made it easy to pick up on those subtle details of Steamboat's performance. This is one where I think everybody works together really well to make this as good as it possibly could be, and it was excellent.
01:43:25
Speaker
Post-match, Solely and Cottle build up the match's ferocity and Steamboat's heart for going into the match injured, but they also take a moment to build up Blanchard's, quote, tremendous second effort for kicking out of the big moves. It's a really good match. I'd watch it again. I don't think any match up to this point. No. Many of these matches I will be glad to never see again.
01:43:51
Speaker
I would look for the character development for Assassin number one and from out of town. But other than that, no. I think this is the first match that I wouldn't mind seeing the whole thing again start to finish, no problem. That's a pretty good compliment. I mean, you know, it definitely tells you the difference between it and the rest of the card.
01:44:15
Speaker
Yeah, so unfortunately for you, Jon, the streak of guy in the match you really liked leaving going WWEF continues. Because Steamboat is gone. After this one? Yep. He's back in 89, I want to say. But yeah, so unfortunately, yeah, he's gone for this. I don't know if it's, I would assume they knew in advance as to why he doesn't win the title. I don't think it's he's mad they didn't win the title and he leaves. I assume it's the other way around.
01:44:44
Speaker
Tully actually has it back and forth later in 95 with Dusty Rhodes, of all people. He loses the title, then gains it back, loses it again, then Dusty gains it back. Unfortunately, there's a whole thing I'll go in and war it up later, where did engineering on Dusty Rhodes, so he's then forced to vacate the title.
01:45:04
Speaker
Our
Graham vs. McDaniel Match and Reactions
01:45:05
Speaker
next match is superstar Billy Graham versus Wahoo McDaniel for McDaniel's NWA United States Heavyweight Championship. These actually, these are two of the best wrestling names. That's true. I do have to say I still love Wahoo McDaniel. Yeah. That's, that's just a great name.
01:45:26
Speaker
Uh, first I would note that Mike Graham, who you saw in the four title match, is not related to Super-Barbula Graham, in case you were wondering. Okay, I actually was wondering that, yeah. Yeah, no, there's a separate, um, Graham family. Yeah, they're not related at all. That's just two guys, like the previous show, there's two guys named Graham Baltham on the show with the two young blood, but at least those two are actually related. Yeah. Hmm. They announced that Super-Barbula Graham is coming to the territory.
01:45:53
Speaker
I'm announcing for, as mentioned, the six-man elimination Bodyslam match, where, presumably he'd be the heel, because he's teamed up with Zembu Express with Paul Jones, but then he suddenly, a good guy, a week later, announced to fight Wahoo, who's the heel for the title. Wahoo now, by the way, is full bad guy, having temporarily lost the title due to cheating, and then regaining, because this is the day when if you cheat too much, they'll strip the title.
01:46:23
Speaker
Sometimes, but not all the time. Yeah, it's not consistent. Basically, he has a title, he's caught cheating, and they strip him to the title. Didn't want to turn him over to the title, which they leave him in, because that'll show him, I guess. Anyways, back anyways.
01:46:41
Speaker
SwitzerlandGram does one pre-recorded promo. He says some less than PC things about why McDaniel. I would note that he meant he's the man with the human pythons, which is nice. He also says that no man can break his full Nelson hold, whether they're living or alive.
01:47:05
Speaker
This great promo is aired on the show 2H4 Starrcade. Then, on the next week's show, walkdana was told he's fighting SirServelyGram, and they play the promo again, in full, while suddenly he's looking at a screen just off camera. And that's really all you get. SirServelyGram is coming back, he got one promo, and he's gonna be here at the show. Okay then.
01:47:28
Speaker
Yeah. And he's a previous US title holder. Oh, okay. That's why he's, you know, throwing the title match. That makes sense anyway. Yeah. Superstar Billy Graham has very odd funky entrance music and does a lot of strange martial arts chops as he gets in before he flexes a bunch. He's got a sleeveless shirt with his logo on it and a headband with what looks like Kanji characters on it.
01:47:55
Speaker
The same entrance music we've heard lots of other times welcomes Wahoo and his great headrest to the ring. You mentioned he's fully heel here, but a lot of fans actually still shake hands with him as he comes down, and he gets similarly mixed reactions during the introductions. So I guess, much like me, people still kind of like Wahoo McDaniel, even if he's a bad guy now. Yeah. It's still not clear whether he's singular or plural, though, because sometimes he's Wahoo McDaniel's. Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's two. Maybe one's a bad guy and one's a good guy. And we just can't tell him apart, so they're just like, yeah.
01:48:25
Speaker
By the way, I caught while editing the last show. You actually did that once, too. Did I? Yeah. There you go. That's contagious. Yep. And yes, Soli tells us that superstar Billy Graham has 23-inch arms, and they're called the Pythons. Awesome. Hulk Hogan, of course, will use the same description for his arms later, but has to increase the inches by one. Yes, 24-inch. Just has to be better.
01:48:55
Speaker
Knuckle locked to start, and Wahoo strikes Graham to get out, but Graham pulls out his hair and slams him down. As they continue, the announcers note that Wahoo is at a disadvantage because Graham is bald and has no hair to grab.
01:49:12
Speaker
Graham dominates with his strength, but Wahoo takes brief control after putting his thumbs in Graham's eyes, hitting a few chops and punches. Graham comes back and gets the full Nelson on Wahoo, but Wahoo briefly escapes, only for Graham to put it back on. Wahoo slumps down, and Graham tries a pin, but gets two. Graham and Wahoo trade blows, and Graham counters a whip into the ropes with a shoulder block, but as he bounces off the ropes again, Wahoo hits a chop to knock him down and gets the three.
01:49:40
Speaker
Yeah, with my, or my notes, uh, slow brawling and posing, abrupt finish, joy. Yeah. So at this point, specifically Graham's whole thing is just being really big and buff, which he, to be fair, he is. He's definitely proto Hulk Hogan. At this point, proto Scott Steiner, as you'll see at the end, when he's big pop-up pump is a lot of that. Hmm.
01:50:07
Speaker
I don't know if he can't bump well at this point. I know later, a few years from now, he has issues with hips and stuff in WWF. I don't know if that's still an issue at this point or if that starts later. It's a impression people use a lot is all sizzling no steak. That's kind of his thing. He looks like he'd be this big dangerous guy, but then you just chop him once while he's running out the ropes and he goes down, back like a turtle, his arms up.
01:50:34
Speaker
Which I'm still confused by that ending because I get that that chop is apparently what I was finishing, although it's not that impactful to me. I don't know who's to blame for that. Maybe it looks better on other people.
01:50:47
Speaker
But Graham goes down, I guess he's starting to sell the shock of it. He has his arms and legs up, like fully. So he's being pinned, his shoulders are definitely not all the way down. I don't know if it's just bad posing in his part, which is weird because he's a bodybuilder. I think posing would be the one thing he would have down. Whether it's he doesn't like losing, so he sort of will commit to it or just coincidental, I don't know.
01:51:14
Speaker
But yeah, it's just kind of a shame with all this build up just being like the second most important match of the show, in theory, because they constantly mention, depending on who's US champion, they'll go, the United States champion is the number one contender by default. Yeah. Because you're the second highest champion, so you're the next in line. It makes sense.
01:51:32
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely does. It alternates a lot, depending on who has the title, which is kind of a shame. It should be ruled all the time. So with that in mind, with these two big names of lineage and wrestling, it's kind of a shame that the match isn't that good. Yeah. It didn't get a lot out of it, fortunately. I was surprised to see the chop. Yeah. The Tommy chop or whatever you want to call it.
01:51:58
Speaker
makes quick work at the end and it just seemed everything up in the match was interesting. I was surprised it was done. Yeah. It's abruptly just done. Yeah, it's really, really, really short. Even as short as it was for me, it had nothing. Ram didn't have anything but basic strikes and a decent Full Nelson. Same for Wahoo here minus the Full Nelson.
01:52:28
Speaker
Even the alignments seem really weird. The reaction suggests Graham's the face and Wahoo's kind of between face and heel, but Graham is clearly the first one to cheat by hair pulling, no less, which we saw in an earlier match tonight as the main focus of a heel's bad activity.
01:52:48
Speaker
So this was really dull, and I was quite glad when it was over, despite the extremely unceremonious ending. Wahoo's chop, like you said, did not look like it should take a guy as big as Graham down. No. But that's what we got. I want to say something good about this, actually, because I liked Wahoo at Starrcade83. You know, I kind of got a good feeling for him, but I've got nothing to say about this match that's any good.
01:53:17
Speaker
Why was this match second to last on the card? Do we need a buffer between Steamboat's match and Flair's match to make sure that you were down a little bit after the Steamboat match so that the Flair match didn't have to compete or something? It doesn't make any sense to me that this match is this high on the card with as little as it has to offer.
01:53:46
Speaker
Well, so yeah, in modern wrestling, there's a term, especially when you have like WV shows that run currently, where they have two big champions. They will generally have, by the end, they'll have one championship match, and then they'll have something happen after that before the main event match, which is usually a title match, or whatever is deemed more important. That spot, unfortunately, is called the death spot.
01:54:12
Speaker
Yeah. Because the crowd gets super hyped and then they're either deflated because the face loses or their emotions are spent because a face just won is a big celebratory moment. So you need that match to let them recover so they're back up for the next one.
01:54:31
Speaker
But whatever that match in that spot is, is kind of screwed unless they're really really good even then sometimes. They're still screwed. Because the crowd has nothing to give them. They need them to recuperate. And you're stuck being there.
01:54:44
Speaker
It's just you don't normally act like the crowd's not going to care. And this match appears to be like, well, we know this is the crowd's not going to react as strongly to anything after that Steamboat match. So we're going to send out something that they shouldn't react to anyway. Like this match deserves nothing.
01:55:08
Speaker
Wouldn't it be one of those, like Al was saying, wouldn't this be the death spot or be like where you try something gimmicky? Yeah, this is where the tuxedo thing goes. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Not that I liked the tuxedo match, but this would be a much better thing to put here. That's a very good point. I'll give you that, and that's good, yeah. Thanks. They could also just bring out Dusty Rhodes and just have him talk for a little bit, for fun.
01:55:39
Speaker
post-match, Graham complains to the ref that Wahoo was grabbing his pants on the on the pin, but the replay shows that Wahoo definitely did not do that, and Soli and Kottle call it absolutely uncontested. So again, who was the bad guy here? Very good question. Yeah.
01:55:59
Speaker
So the grand experiment of why McDaniel is the evil mega heel ends in March when he loses the US title. The other thing of note is so I watched the next two shows following this. So on the follow up show, Paul Jones is soatory for having beaten Jimmy Valiant in the way he did. And he interacts about having a new member of his stable. He says that this person he's bringing is a master of all the martial arts. And you won't believe the body in this guy. This is the way he says it.
01:56:29
Speaker
and I'll tell you next week if my new guy is. So I'm like, okay, well I gotta watch the next show. I don't think I was too confirmed when I'm pretty sure. The answer to this is, and the answer is yes, Super Serverly Gram is now, apparently at this point I'm being managed by Paul Jones. Okay.
Main Event: Flair vs. Rhodes
01:56:44
Speaker
So he does kind of become a heel? Yes. Okay, so that kind of makes some sense anyway. The announcers note that they have a 10 minute intermission, and they show the replay of Starrcade 83's ending again.
01:56:57
Speaker
Cottle says that Starrcade84 is topping 83 and they throw it to Tony Schiavone. Bob Cottle, I'm sorry. I very much disagree. Numerically it is. Numerically it is, yes. Tony is backstage with the three men acting as judges for tonight's main event. Duke Kiyomuka looks pretty serious. Smoke and Joe Frazier looks serious. And Kyle Petty could not smile any bigger if he tried.
01:57:27
Speaker
Tony tells us that the three will be judges, but that Frasier will also be the ref in the ring. If the match goes 60 minutes, the three will decide who wins. Tony asks for their thoughts. Duke says that they have two great wrestlers, and they'll judge watching their abilities. Whoever wins it, wins it. Joe Frasier says everyone knows it's a championship fight, and he's gonna make sure that the rules are kept. If he sees something wrong, or someone gets hurt, he'll call it off. He doesn't want anything to go wrong. It's just like boxing, no different.
01:57:56
Speaker
Petty says that in NASCAR, you have to be aggressive, and he's looking to see which wrestler is more aggressive. If it comes to their choice, he might have to mail his vote in if the wrestlers are getting rough. These three guys actually came off as really, really nice guys. Sure. Particularly Kyle Petty, who just seemed absolutely thrilled to be there. Yeah. He had a huge grin plastered on his face the whole time and could not be happier. Not the best promos. No. You could all agree on that, right?
01:58:26
Speaker
I like Joe. Yeah. They did get across what they wanted, what they needed to get across, I think for the most part. It did add to a sense of importance for the main event that we're setting up this judging situation for. It's different to other matches and that helps it feel unique and larger. I will say one thing about this. I did an issue with the format of the show.
01:58:53
Speaker
As weird as it's been, I understand doing the Judge promo near the end, but honestly, I would have reversed the order of airing the Dusty promo and the Judge's promo. Yeah. Because, so Dusty comes out, as we talked about, says, make sure, real Frazier, you don't stop this match. No matter what happens, before Joe Frazier said anything about stopping the match on this show. True. True. And then Joe Frazier comes out and says, I'm going to stop this match if I have to. That's a good point. Yeah.
01:59:22
Speaker
Maybe, maybe the whole show is not aired chronologically correct. Like, they have the anthems in the middle. That's true, yeah. That could be the beginning of the show. Yeah. Solely and Cottle build up the importance of the judges if the match goes to 60 minutes. And the level of responsibility they face in not just deciding who gets the title, but $1 million as well.
01:59:46
Speaker
So our final match is Dusty Rhodes versus Ric Flair for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship with special referee Joe Frazier and judges Duke Hiamuka, Joe Frazier, and Kyle Petty. So this has basically been building up since the previous show, if anyone wants to like hopefully watch the previous episode. Wink, wink.
02:00:11
Speaker
But yeah, Dusty says in that show he's gonna challenge the winner, and he hopes it's Flair, but he also at that point thinks it's gonna be race, and obviously it isn't. They definitely have some physical interaction throughout the year, but it's mostly just talking about how I'm gonna take Flair down to the show. Come October, which is where I start watching the shows, by that point Flair is fully a heel. He's the touring champion everyone loves to hate. He comes to your territory, I hope your local guy will beat him, and of course they don't.
02:00:41
Speaker
And they make a big deal once they announce target officially. The million dollar challenge things add to it. In this video package we like go to the bank and load a pallet of money up with like walk it out and like walk around with it. It's all very cheesy and kind of fun. The Irish side of the room is matched in advance and they decide to add the one million dollar challenge thing. The Joe Frazier is added fairly late. They talk about a little bit to it.
02:01:08
Speaker
They don't want to mention their judges that much. I think there's one mentioning them briefly on the previous show, but their phrase I think is definitely brought up. But yeah, I don't recall anything on the previous shows about Dofreja mentioning he might stop the fight early, or the match early, if he has to. So I don't know why Dusty is sort of saying that unprovoked. Unless they miss something.
02:01:30
Speaker
Maybe he was responding to Dusty, you know? Mm-hmm. But I mean, what inspired Dusty in the first place is, yeah, it's a chicken or the egg situation. He's not experienced in roughing a wrestling match, so it's kind of a don't do anything weird or... Yeah. We go to the ring and a bit of pyro goes off. Kottle says, and there's the big boom that introduces
02:01:55
Speaker
someone as we actually can't see yet because the lights are still off. Soli asked us to watch the proceedings as they occur, which I suspect was his not quite subtle way of trying to get someone to turn on the dang lights.
02:02:13
Speaker
really gentle, easy listening kind of music starts up, and that summons Dusty Rhodes to the ring in a really nice purple and silver robe. I guess the music is the dream thing, but it just sounds so quiet and peaceful that it doesn't actually sound right for wrestling, especially for Dusty Rhodes. The crowd, however, cheers like mad form.
02:02:37
Speaker
Flare, of course, still has also Sproch Zarathustra. He gets a more mixed reaction, but people are still pretty happy to see him overall. A bit too happy as they pull out his robe as he walks through the crowd, and he has to somewhat awkwardly clamber over the barricade with it falling partly open. Dusty has the same issue. They don't have a clear pathway for some reason. Yeah. They call through the crowd and then step over a thing. Yeah. Dusty has a robe like half off so he can step over the barricade. Cool for the guy.
02:03:08
Speaker
Flair's robe's pretty ornate, anyway. It's pink and silver with some really, really big frills on it that just looks definitely in the arrogant Flair look now. Oh, yeah. The judges are also announced. The crowd loves Kyle Petty. Guess the love is returned, because he's clearly happy, too. Yeah. They seem less enthusiastic about Smoke and Joe Frazier and much less about Duke Kyomuka. The announcer, oddly, says Petty and Kyomuka's names twice.
02:03:38
Speaker
I did notice that, that was really strange. Dusty shows himself the more powerful of the two to start, but Flare is quick to recover and plays looser with the rules, sneaking in hits when they get against the ropes. Flare strikes mostly annoy Dusty to start, and he lands hard blows of his own, but eventually Flare is able to land harder strikes to Dusty's head that slow him down. He gets cocky and pauses for a woo on a knee drop though, and Dusty dodges and slaps on the figure four.
02:04:07
Speaker
Flair fights and risks being pinned a few times while he howls in pain. He manages to get to the ropes eventually, but the hold has hurt his leg and he's slow to get going. Dusty dominates pretty solidly, but Flair tries variously to wrestle and strike his way to a comeback. Dusty counters or absorbs his best and keeps knocking him down.
02:04:26
Speaker
We get Flair's famous flop followed by his flip over the turnbuckle which lands him outside. Fraser tries to get between the two but Dusty Suplexes Flair back in anyway for a two count. They keep trading chops and Flair goes up top but gets slammed off. His match winning move from last time has failed him already. It will continue to do so for virtually every match for the rest of his career. Yes!
02:04:51
Speaker
Outside again, Flair slams Dusty into the ring post to get him bleeding badly from just above the eye. Dusty gets in, and the two continue to try to fight, with Flair continually hammering away at Dusty's wound. Frasier keeps getting between them, though, and goes to consult with Duke, then comes back in to push them apart again. The crowd boos mightily at this interruption, and Frasier calls for the bell. Frasier lifts Flair's arm, awarding the match to Flair,
02:05:20
Speaker
The crowd actually gives a pretty big cheer when he goes over and lifts their arm, but that turns to some boos as well as they, I think, realize what just happened. I feel really repetitive, but it's actually a pretty good match and then they do something down with the ending and it messes the whole thing up. Yeah.
02:05:39
Speaker
Obviously we didn't get as long real time build up for this match as you got at the time. You got a year of build up. True. We still, you know, we have the Tease of a Dusty Rose match and Trickflare match rather. And then we finally get it. It seemed like it's starting to build up something and then it probably stopped because the boxer says that it got too bad. And to be fair, it was a bad cut. Oh yeah. It's not like he kind of, for a different reason, it's not like he's really being healed, but it's...
02:06:10
Speaker
With all the, they constantly build up, someone's on the line, he has all these stakes, and then it's just, oh, we got something now. Yeah. You know, pay to see the show next year.
02:06:21
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't notice the foreshadowing until we started talking about it. Like, you know, about both Dusty and Joe Frazier talking about, you know, calling the match. But it's something about watching a match where, you know, the ref could take it, you know, actually physically take out both. Yeah.
02:06:41
Speaker
with no problem whatsoever. He was more energetic than both of them at some points when he's moving around. Like some of the refs, you know, go out of their way to get out of the action, but Joe's bouncing in, checking on things like, you know, and then bounces back out and he's moving along with them throughout the whole thing. So it's fun watching him too. Then, you know, he's not winded or anything. Just kind of speaks to his athleticism as a boxer.
02:07:08
Speaker
But I don't know why I'm going on about him. Oh because he was a very important part of the match. Yeah. Yeah, right. It's understandable
02:07:17
Speaker
But no, I enjoyed that quite a bit. And they did it twice where he checks his eye and everything. And I'm like, they're not going to do this. They're not. No, no, they're not going to do it. But they do. And I wonder if it's just one of those things where they're like, well, we have a lot of people who like flair and dusty. So we need to get this, make this be a technicality in order to preserve both fan bases.
02:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's definitely like we've still got more story to tell here So we want to we don't want to have something that feels like a definitive ending here We want to tell more with this. We want to do more with this going on going forward. So It accomplishes that we can debate I think whether it's the best way to accomplish that but it is that's their goal yeah, and they do accomplish that goal and
02:08:12
Speaker
I would make Dusty wear an eye patch for the next two weeks just to sell this. I would like to hear Dusty Rose try to do a pirate accent. I don't know about that. Yeah, like you said, I liked this one for the most part. It's hard fought. It definitely gets this feeling of one's power, one's tactics. Yeah.
02:08:38
Speaker
Dusty has the obvious weight advantage, but Flair's this really wily champion that keeps trying new things. The story of the match is very strong. Flair does a really good job of switching things up. Whenever something's not working against Dusty, he moves to something else. The one exception being he probably tries a few too many punches to Dusty's belly. That should probably be obvious that's not going to work in the first place. Yes, exactly.
02:09:06
Speaker
Dusty just keeps making steady progress and slowly wearing Flair down with his strength. So it's a good solid match story, I think. It was really cool to see a lot of Flair's famous spots already present here. Yeah. That, you know, last year we had Flair as a good performer in the ring, but you're like not recognizable really as Rick Flair in the ring fully.
02:09:30
Speaker
Now, he is fully recognizable as Ric Flair. He has, you know, the flop, he has the flip over the turnbuckle, he has the, I go up to the top rope, you grab me, and I go, no! You know. Doesn't quite yell that as loud as he'll get yet, but he's getting there. Yeah, yeah.
02:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, so his in-ring act feels almost entirely formed now, only one year on from when he was not really recognizable as fully Ric Flair in the ring. Dusty is surprisingly nimble for such a big dude. I've only seen late Dusty Rhodes matches, really, so I was not expecting that guy to be able to move as fast and as nimble as he did. So he was quite good in the match.
02:10:15
Speaker
He was strong when he needed to be, vulnerable when he needed to be. He's powerful, but it feels like he can be stopped. So many elbows. He likes them, yeah. And I did catch, they did definitely say bionic elbow at one point this year, so he's definitely claimed that from Valentine. The ending. The ending is well performed, but it's a terrible idea.
02:10:43
Speaker
Yeah. It's like looking at it, I can compliment every one of them involved in it for their performance during it. Dusty in particular is doing an exceptional job of selling the injury. He gets the cut over his eye. He really expertly sells not just the disorientation and then the blood loss and everything, but like not being able to see because of the blood and everything.
02:11:07
Speaker
The player gets amazingly vicious. Yes. He starts going for that cut like I have finally found a weakness. I can take this guy down. I also like the match kind of had this subplot in it of him starting out trying to just do reasonably straight competition.
02:11:24
Speaker
not doing an extreme amount of cheating. He does a few little bending of the rules here and there, but it's not extreme. Late in the match, he starts getting really willing to injure Dusty. And you can see this transition in Flair's character from arrogant to actually bad guy as the match goes on, I think. It's kind of a cool storyline there.
02:11:47
Speaker
But yeah, the actual ending, you know, just stopping the match and just awarding it to Flair based on the blood loss and him being blinded in the eye and everything just feels so weak. It's this great match, honestly, a really, really good match that feels epic. And then it just stops without an ending. And it's it's such a letdown. Yeah. Wouldn't have been better if they had like
02:12:13
Speaker
pause for a second and wrap Dusty's eye around the head kind of thing. And then Flair could dance around him and punch him in the side or something, and then eventually have that injury targeted again, and then they call the match. Yeah, you could try and keep it going, or have Dusty lose, but because of Flair expertly taking advantage of this unfortunate injury, so Dusty still then would come back with this very legitimate
02:12:42
Speaker
This was an accident that you took advantage of. It's not you beating me fully. You know, he can still come back. He doesn't, hasn't lost anything. It just feels like they want to try and find a way to end the match without either of them taking a pinfall. And it's, this is not a match that should end without somebody taking a pinfall. You know, like you said, Al, it's a year long build to this thing. You know, I can only imagine how disappointing it must've felt
02:13:09
Speaker
for someone that sat through the entire year of build and was getting so excited to see this epic match and then you get a good match but so so damaged yeah well they make a point of saying you know we have judges in case the match goes an hour long uh reading up on the match goes about 12 minutes long yeah it's not it's not long at all so it's one fifth of the possible time they can go it's
02:13:34
Speaker
So obviously we can't put ourselves in the shoes of someone who watched this happen in real time. 1984, you know, Wayne was matched, but we personally felt shortchanged by it. You know, first off, you probably shouldn't say that if the match goes over 60 minutes in any, anything that I've seen so far. Like if they said, if they said 30 or something like that, that would make more sense. But part of me hopes that, you know, that their intent was to have it go.
02:14:03
Speaker
Uh, you know, maybe twice as long or something like that, but the injury might've been legitimate. They were supposed to play it up and maybe they were supposed to cut and target the eye, but maybe it was some for a medical reason that they actually did cut it short. And, um, while I felt robbed, um, you'll notice, um, you know, I were speaking a little head, but I noticed when they were doing, you know, the interviews and the followups and everything later on in the show.
02:14:32
Speaker
You know, they're in the background, they're cutting to the ring and it is cleared out like quick. They're not staying and, you know, people aren't talking about the matches and doing stuff, which is my experience when I went to live shows, you know, you kind of hang out for a little bit.
02:14:48
Speaker
But it was it was dead. There's like five people. Yeah, maybe ten minutes later So I think a lot of others I'm speculating probably felt short changed as well. Yeah, I can definitely see that it like I think that's the best term for it is if it's your short change you feel like you were promised something and it didn't deliver and
02:15:13
Speaker
You know, like I said, I can say this was actually a pretty good match, but it's like I can say that and I can reason myself into thinking this was a good match, but anytime I actually think of the match, my thought is, man, that was disappointing.
02:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, the way he plays that is a little weird too, because he looks at the cut, and then that's meant to change you, like it's not enough. He's like, okay, maybe it's bad, but it's not so bad. Then he looks at it again, goes and talks to Kiyomoka, and then it's not clear what he said to him. Did he try to talk him out of it? And then he's like, you gotta say, you know, he tried to tell me he's not going, but I decided to no, put all my stuff, or he could have said the opposite, because he agreed that I should do it.
02:15:57
Speaker
But there's no follow up on that. Well, as a judge, he could have like, you know, while they're pausing the match, he could have looked at it too. You know, I mean, if they were trying to be all official about it and say, look, okay, two out of three judges think we should stop this. Maybe it is a legitimate way of ending the match here. Rather than just saying, yeah, do whatever you want. Yeah. I just want to say it explained what's supposed to have happened between the two of them.
02:16:24
Speaker
Post-match, Dusty flips out and goes after Frazier, but several of the face wrestlers from earlier in the night come out and hold Dusty back as Flair goes out and gets his check from Jim Crockett. Mandy Fernandez is there and ties a towel about Dusty's face to cover the eye, and then they escort Dusty from the ring. Soli and Caudill say that they understand Frazier's actions, and that even if it was for a million dollars, that eye is worth more than a million dollars.
02:16:51
Speaker
They say that Frazier was probably influenced by his boxing experience to think that the blood was more of a severe issue than it was for a wrestling match. Well, that's the last match on the show, but as with last year, we do have a little bit more to go with some further interviews. First up, we get backstage with Tony and Ric Flair.
02:17:14
Speaker
okay gordon solely we are here in the dressing room of the once again world heavyweight champion nature boy rick flare and that was quite a match as a matter of fact one of the most unusual matches that i've ever seen but you are one million dollars richer at this moment right here a million dollars
02:17:29
Speaker
It is unfortunate the way it happened. But I told you, I'm talking to you Dusty Rhodes, I'm talking to fans out there, that I got in that ring to go 120%. And don't think he wasn't in there going 120%. It's unfortunate he suffered the cut. Whether Joe Frazier should have stopped the match or not is not my business. All I went in that ring to do was make sure I walked out with this and with this. I've got them right here both, Tony. I'm thankful for this evening and I'm thankful
02:17:59
Speaker
to be the world champion. I'll be back here next year. Conan, thanks. I thought this was a great little interview. Yeah. Flair feels like he's midway between the face and heel here. He's not entirely satisfied with the match. Yeah. But he's willing to push aside any doubts because he got to keep the title and because he gets to take the money.
02:18:21
Speaker
So he's trying to sell himself as a fighting champion, but he's also totally willing to just take the win. It's pretty cool to watch his development here. And again, his interviews have improved so much from last year. I'm glad he gave the nod to Dusty. He didn't have to say, you know, that he gave 120% too. And he does play it off as like, you know, with Steamboat is like, just who's complaining about a boot in the back and now her couch at the eye.
02:18:50
Speaker
but he moves it forward. Yeah, I think Flair's always pretty good about that is he's always, I think he always understands that if you build up the other person, then if you beat them, it means something. Yeah, no, it's covered pretty well. It's definitely good to see the evolution of his character, Chrissy Riggos. Yeah. Soli praises Tony for racing around getting interviews, then segues into praising all the cameramen.
02:19:18
Speaker
He says he's not sure whether he wants to hear from Dusty, because Dusty's bound to be angry, and Coddle agrees that he has to be disappointed, but maybe he'll feel better after he finds out how severe the cut was. I guess justifying Frazier's decision is the idea there.
02:19:35
Speaker
Meanwhile, a fan hangs out in the background and peers through the window bobbing around and trying to get a look at it, something beyond the announcers. I think maybe he saw himself on their monitors or something like that. Yeah, so they really quickly cut to a shot of the ring. As Soli explains that Dusty has such a memory, he tells elephants what they forgot. I love Soli-isms. I'm coming to love this guy.
02:20:01
Speaker
They go back to Tony with Dusty Rhodes, and Manny Fernandez is standing by.
02:20:08
Speaker
Thank you very much, Gordon Soli. This is an interview that I really do not look forward in doing. You see Dusty Rhodes right here with his world tag team partner, the raging bull Manny Fernandez. There it went, $1 million in the world's heavyweight title right out the window. I have never, ever in the history of my profession had a match stopped by any means. This is wrestling Joe Frazier. This ain't boxing. These are men. These are 101. We talking about a million dollars, Jack.
02:20:35
Speaker
We talking about the best we have to offer. Stitches in my head don't mean a damn to me, Joe Frazier. You better look around the country. You better be in the fighting shape of your life. Because somewhere, someplace, I'm going to get you Joe Frazier and Ric Flair. If you call this a victory, you need to go home and kiss your mama. This ain't no victory. This ain't over.
02:21:05
Speaker
Leave you with this. Spend your money well. Don't throw it away. Because the American Dream lives and will continually out. Get out of here. Well, fans, that's it from the American Dream Dusty Road. It's obviously a very upset man right now, but as he said, I'm sure he will be back.
02:21:31
Speaker
Yeah, great emotional interview from Dusty. He is not his usual cheerful self here. He is absolutely bellowing in rage, really selling his frustration at the decision and what it took from him. He definitely got across this is not over. And it honestly does help the ending of the match a bit to have two really good strong reactions from the wrestlers involved.
02:21:58
Speaker
The match was good. The ending brings it way down. Their reactions afterwards start, start kind of digging themselves out of that hole to me a little bit. It's not enough to get it all the way back up, but you know, that performance from, from flare was really strong and the performance from dusty is amazing here. So I will give them credit for taking lemons and making lemonade, I guess.
02:22:26
Speaker
Yeah. Like I said, it was definitely interesting to see the angry side of him, especially because he made a point of being so calm and ready for everything. And then when it goes wrong, you see the opposite reaction, which is nice. That's a huge contrast from earlier in the night. He's easy going. And then
02:22:42
Speaker
flips this switch and wow I think it's a it's not really a performance it's it's it's genuine frustration it's not something that even if he had they had let's assume that they had planned that outcome you know he definitely
02:23:05
Speaker
still feels defeated because he wasn't able, there's still X amount of minutes left in that, that match up to 60. I'm told that, you know, he doesn't get to get the spotlight or the ability to improve his career, let alone get the prize. Does he actually get Joe Frazier is what I want to know. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. Yeah.
02:23:27
Speaker
It feels like this is a case where he's allowing himself to feel the frustration that he would have where this illegitimate fight that went that way. And so it's not the absolute genuine emotion that Reclaire showed last year after winning the title, but it's about as close as you're going to get to that. Yeah, I have never seen dusty roads like this.
02:23:53
Speaker
I've seen some of his other intense promos. He has a hard times promo that's really famous, but those are more inspirational or they're a different mood. This is darkly angry Dusty and it's a really different thing and really, really interesting. So if nothing else, the odd ending of that match has at least given us that. I will note too that Dusty is the official booker of the entire show.
02:24:23
Speaker
which is, which honestly to me is more accurate to him because it's 100% his control how this goes. And he managed to sound like he's fully, it was taken out of his hand and he has no control over it. It's a terrific, terrific performance. It's a good performance, which is really good.
02:24:40
Speaker
Sully and Coddle wrap us up, saying that Starrcade was everything that they wanted, but they wouldn't want to be Ric Flair or Joe Frazier right now. Personally, I'd kind of like to be Ric Flair right then, because angry Dusty or no angry Dusty, he just won a million dollars. They cut to a video package covering the various matches for the night. Pretty well put together.
02:25:02
Speaker
One funny thing, it features the build-up to the finishes of all of the matches except the Ole and Larsen versus the Russians match and the Steamboat versus Blanchard match. Yeah, I noticed that. In the Russians match, we get Kernoodle beating them up and Steamboat shows his power slam from midway through. If you were just judging from this video package, you would assume the faces won both of those matches. Yeah.
02:25:26
Speaker
We also don't get video from the final match, just a shot of flair with his hand raised. Guess we didn't want to stall for even more time like last year. Yeah. We aren't quite done though. We go back to Tony one more time with Joe Frazier.
02:25:43
Speaker
Tony says that it must have been a bad cut for Fraser to stop the fight. Fraser says people are talking about the bucks, but the bucks have nothing to do with it. Dusty was in trouble. Fraser tried to warn them to break, but they kept going. How could Dusty continue with it bleeding over his eye?
02:25:59
Speaker
Tony asks if Frazier talked to the other judges. Frazier says he spoke with them before he went in the ring. Dusty was looking for flair and couldn't even find him, so Frazier had to stop the fight. Tony says that Frazier's seen a lot of cuts and asks again how bad the cut was. Frazier says it was very bad, bleeding over his eye, and he had to stop it.
02:26:34
Speaker
getting across his thoughts too well over the course of this. And they kind of say what they need to say in the first question, but continue the interview. Yeah. And Fraser just kind of keeps repeating himself. It's not really long, but it just doesn't feel that necessary. We already got virtually the same comments from Coddle and Soli. And so I think we probably could have just ended on the video package from my, from my. Yeah.
02:26:48
Speaker
This was pretty awkward.
02:27:04
Speaker
Maybe this was their attempt at a little bit of triage for a viewing audience. Blame Joe Frazier! Well, no. I mean, he's protecting Dusty at the end of the day. It may not necessarily tie up the, I'll get you Joe Frazier or anything, but at least you can see that he had Dusty's best interest. Yeah, I mean, it is.
02:27:29
Speaker
helpful, I guess, to get the philosophy from Frazier himself. But it's just kind of an awkward ending to the show. It's just like, Hey, we've got one more interview. Okay, we're done. Yeah. You know,
02:27:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you could have, I understand doing it, maybe play it on the show, like the next, next show, because it's like it's really placed following a calm but definitely serious promo by Flare and a super intense, super serious, dusty one to have me the third guy going, trying to explain things awkwardly. It doesn't follow the two very well, that's all I have to say. Yeah.
02:28:10
Speaker
I agree. That would have been a better delivery, but, you know, like the saying goes, you want to go to bed angry. At least there's a chance to soften the blow. No, I kind of understand. I can see that, yeah. Tony signs off, and Starrcade 84 comes to a close. So, what do you guys think about the overall show, Starrcade 84, The Million Dollar Challenge?
02:28:39
Speaker
Yes, it definitely is ups and downs as of a weird middle period where it's not super great But even consistently throughout the show even when it's good, but not great or serviceable not bad The finishes are almost always a question whether it's why did you only count one guy's pin and pull you know the other guy who's actually
02:29:02
Speaker
taking the move from the first match or the abruptness of a couple of the finishes, whether it's the US title match later in the show or the meeting Mr. Edo and then just constantly having like the false finishes like that throughout the show kind of hurts it. Because it makes you feel like you're not getting resolution of any kind on this show. Yeah. In fact, the only time, I'm trying to think, the only times you really get
02:29:29
Speaker
clear resolution is maybe weirdly enough in with Obama Daniel, singular, caught myself, and where he gets a straight victory that's cool and contested. And that's weird that he gets that one.
02:29:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's odd. I'm trying to get time for the faces. I'm not having something clear on which one of the two people in the first match. It fell through the face, or maybe they both are? I think they kind of both are in that one, honestly. Adidas has a clear win. That's true, yeah. But that match is so forgettable that, you know, we just demonstrated this. Yeah, I can definitely see what you're saying there.
02:30:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's just getting back to us before being shortchanged by it. They want you to pay to watch the show, their song is a big event, they blow off to all these stories, and they may be non-finishes like with the main event, or they give you
02:30:29
Speaker
finishes to make you pay to see it again. They want you to, you know, you don't get to, but they want you to pay to see Tolley and Steamboat fight again. You know, you want to see Anderson fight the Russians again. You want to see this or that. Yeah.
02:30:45
Speaker
They don't get all of those, but they, it feels like they're trying to squeeze more money out of you, which any show is to be fair, but there's, you can give people good finishes. Like you can have a face, win a major world title, like the rest of me at 30 within Orion. And you'll want the next year to see how he follows it up. Yeah. So you can give good happy finishes. That's still making them watch the next show. This is not just not an example of that unfortunately. Yeah. John thoughts?
02:31:16
Speaker
Let me just start by saying I'm not trying not to go to sleep angry. I like that at least it seemed like they were making an effort to put variety in there whether it played out that way or not.
02:31:33
Speaker
is another thing. They did try to pair the brass knuckles with the Roddy Piper thing, but you can't. You just can't do that. They did work on a few story lines and just had some, I don't want to say throwaway matches, but they had some fodder out there that could keep things light rather than you just taking this emotional roller coaster with the other
02:31:58
Speaker
storylines. But of course, with all the either abrupt or non-ideal endings, I can see how someone might be a little bit miffed at coming out to the event. It's not as positive a reaction as you would get last year. I remember last year you saying the people there probably thought this was pretty amazing. And yeah, this year you're feeling more like... They're clearing out.
02:32:29
Speaker
I'm sure it was successful from the, at least a monetary standpoint, where, you know, everyone paid for, is they still doing close circuit right now?
02:32:42
Speaker
So yeah, they have already earned their money there. You know, they have a couple storylines. They may get to salvage, you know, or at least a reignited rivalry because of, you know, when I argue over who stabbed who or who put a boot in the back or gouge their eye. I mean, they can, they can still play off of that. So there's some ways to salvage that. But no, I, I be kind of,
02:33:10
Speaker
I would hesitate buying another Starrcade ticket next year. Fortunately, you don't have any choice. No. Well, you know what I mean that way. If I was in attendance... I totally agree. If I had purchased Starrcade 84, I would be giving serious reconsiderations on Starrcade 85 because this is not
02:33:38
Speaker
a horrible show, but it's a disappointing show. I think you guys hit the nail on the head there. From a technical standpoint, it feels like it's better put together than last year. Yeah. Some weird shaking of the camera aside that we haven't really mentioned. I think that may be more like the video transfer to the network or whatever version they've got. Then I don't think that was there for the actual show likely.
02:34:03
Speaker
But it feels pretty well put together from a technical standpoint. It keeps moving at a good pace, which I really did appreciate. There's not really any points where the show slows down, where last year we had some pretty big stalls here and there. This year it keeps moving. But at the same time, the show's missing something this year. And I think it's a sense of importance
02:34:28
Speaker
that 83 has this really big sense of this epic event, this, this, you know, maybe once in a lifetime kind of show and 84 doesn't get there. Yeah. I'm loathe to admit it, but I think it's all those interviews that 83 had.
02:34:47
Speaker
They messed with the show's pacing, but they also really kept reiterating how historic the night was, how important the title match was, how important the tag title match was, and how much the wrestlers were rooting for other wrestlers or were interested in each other's matches. It all just felt really big. Yeah.
Event Critique and Highlights
02:35:07
Speaker
I'll say that. 84 doesn't feel big. No. Dusty and Player build up their match. They do a good job with it.
02:35:14
Speaker
but the other wrestlers don't seem to care about it. Um, really that much. Nobody's really talking about each other's matches. Nobody's talking about each other's stories. It's true. Matches just kind of happen. So I guess it's a kind of a case of be careful what you wish for. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. I said, Oh yeah, let's, let's take out some of these interviews. Let's have a snappier show and, and we got it. I'm not really happy with what I got.
02:35:42
Speaker
Like you guys were saying, 84 has some pretty good matches here and there, and honestly, despite the complaining I'm doing right now, it's not a hard watch. No. There's just so many matches on this show, and some don't have any time to develop, and some seem like they really could have easily been left off. Even the title matches, seven of the eleven matches are for some title or another.
02:36:08
Speaker
but it's hard to say all those titles really mean anything or needed to be defended on a national supercard.
02:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, the only way it could be worse is if they they gave the loser a second belt. This is exactly the same They had like a reunification match You know, I liked the Florida heavyweight champion match But do people in North Carolina care about who is the Florida heavyweight champion? It's we have all these title matches But we have two tag matches on the show and neither of them is for the tag titles Because the tag champs Fernandez and Rhodes are both in other matches. So
02:36:45
Speaker
It just feels like a bloated show. There's a lot of skippable stuff that doesn't feel important enough to make it on the card. And like you said, Al and John, there's so many disappointing endings or controversial moments or just problematic moments on the show where it's like, this doesn't go like you feel like it should, or this storyline isn't resolved in a good manner.
02:37:11
Speaker
It ends up a show that doesn't come close to fulfilling its potential. Except for the guy that got the $200 Sembroro. Yes. He went home happy. Or she. Or she. Possibly she as well. Yeah. Yeah. That person went home happy. The rest of the crowd, I don't know.
02:37:32
Speaker
We should look through that footage and see if there's a person in the sombrero waiting. That would be funny if you see if there's dirt when they're walking out, if you can spot the person with the sombrero. Yeah, that would be nice. That would be great. Whoever got Ricky Steamo's lei too probably is fairly happy. Maybe a crutch piece. Yeah, that thing exploded. So there's probably somebody in the crowd that got a piece of that, hopefully not to the face. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
02:38:01
Speaker
I am more interested in, I will probably watch the Steamboat. Thank you just for the acting and non-acting. And interested in J.J. Dillon. Yeah, there were some good characters that we discovered tonight, I think. It's not a terrible show and it's not worthless, for sure.
Match of the Night and Conclusion
02:38:19
Speaker
Alright, so let's do match of the night and MVP choices. Al? So, match of the night for me is pretty easy and intriguing to know what it's going to be. It's the Steamboat Toilet Blanchard match. Pretty much every match except for maybe one of them I had an issue with the finish in some way. But this one did so much right building up to it that I kind of gave them a little bit of a pass.
02:38:42
Speaker
And again, knowing the outside circumstances of where Steamboat, as far as I know, is leaving in advance, so you can't end with a title. I at least get in the past for, you're deflated from losing, but he didn't lose clean, so you want to see more. Unfortunately, you're not going to. Yeah. So I get them a little bit past for that because of the way it worked, because the match is so good before that. So yeah.
02:39:05
Speaker
And maybe he's a tricky one for me because I'm kind of torn. I mean, Steamboat would be almost too easy because he's so good. I feel bad not giving it to him. So I'm torn between honestly Slater, who I would not have thought I would say before I watched the show, because he did so many things I didn't expect him to do. I think when you watch your first Steamboat match, you don't know what you're going to get. And I've only seen him later in his career, but he's not doing half of what he's doing here.
02:39:35
Speaker
And kind of in a lot of ways I'm going to get wood between him and Dusty. Aside from the finish, I haven't seen a young Dusty match ever. I've seen older Dusty where it's all showmanship but there's no physicality to it.
02:39:52
Speaker
So picking MVP is kind of tricky. Tully was obviously great. A lot of really good people, but ultimately I have to go with Ricky Steamboat, just basically because literally my blow point note said, thank you Steamboat. And he had the best match in the show, so it's hard not to pick him. Especially because I know I can't pick him for like four more shows. Okay. John. MVP is Dusty. Awesome acting, awesome promos.
02:40:20
Speaker
You know, I knew he probably had more he wanted to give and genuine frustration, you know, and match is going to have to be a steamboat just because really good acting.
02:40:34
Speaker
Yeah for me, match of the night, Steamboat versus Blanchard. None of the other matches came anywhere close. Steamboat just as excellent this year as last year, though in different ways. He really got to show off his selling, and well it gave the match a different pace than his match in 83. It just proved he can work in a really different style.
02:40:54
Speaker
Always easy to get behind him, but that was aided by a great villain in Blanchard. Just an utter jerk used the injury angle to its fullest as much as he possibly could, and I just wanted to see Steamboat smack him. The spot where Tully spat at Steamboat was exceptional. Just this means war kind of look from Steamboat was great.
02:41:16
Speaker
And my MVP, I am going to take the easy way out and pick Ricky Steamboat. Fair enough. His performance was perfect in the ring. Yeah. And all the little subtleties in his performance more than made up for any problems he had on the microphone this year. So absolutely brilliant performer, taking nothing away from Tully Blanchard who did an exceptional job as well. But those little touches about Steamboat's performance just made it for me. And he's clearly MVP.
02:41:47
Speaker
And that'll do it for our review of Starrcade 84 The Million Dollar Challenge. I hope you've enjoyed listening to us tonight. Many thanks to ProWrestlingHistory.com for attendance and closed circuit figures for the show. We'll be back next month to have a look at Flare and Dusty's second Starrcade main event at Starrcade 85. Hopefully it will have an actual ending this time. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen and John Mullins, signing off. Good night everybody.