NWA World Wide
Date: January 2, 1988
Location: Omni, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 12,700
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, David Crockett

Smackdown is downloading so here’s something to fill in the time. This is World Wide which I’ve done a little bit of before and I rather liked it. This is early 1988 and I’d expect a lot of squashes. Sting is rapidly on the rise and would get his big break in late March, so expect him to be taking the Magnum route and crushing someone in about thirty seconds. Let’s get to it.

We open with Lex Luger taking his shirt off and shouting that he wants someone. Oh he wants Arn.

Opening sequence.

Larry and Baby Doll say they want Windham’s Western States Heritage Title. That’s Larry Z in case you’re confused.

Ricky Morton vs. Mike Force

Force jumps him but Morton grabs a backslide for a fast pin. Might have lasted 20 seconds.

Ad for the Bunkhouse Stampede. What a mess that was.

Ricky Morton stands up for America post match because he doesn’t like the Sheepherders running down the red white and blue.

Tony talks about the Bunkhouse Stampede which is a battle royal in a cage and you had to throw people out of the cage to win it. See how it’s kind of a mess? Jim Crockett comes in and announces that Hawk will get a title shot at that show. Dusty, the US Champion and one of the favorites going into the Stampede. He wants the money you win for the Stampede.

Ron Garvin vs. Thunderfoot #1

Thunderfoot, half of a team of masked guys, jumps Garvin in the corner but is knocked down, stomped and pinned in maybe 30 seconds.

Luger still wants Arn Anderson. Anderson drew first blood so Luger says no more.

Sting vs. Thunderfoot #2

I was right: Deathlock in 32 seconds.

Flair says that he’s awesome because he’s world champion and therefore better than anyone else. Michael Hayes has been running his mouth. Flair doesn’t like blue jeans and tennis shoes. He also doesn’t like defending the title against Hayes. As for Sting, he’s the new model that wants to replace Flair. That makes Flair laugh. Hawk can bring it on.

Eddie Gilbert vs. George South

This is also a squash but at least we get 90 seconds to it. The Hot Shot ends it quick. I know I’m leaving a lot out of it but what is there to say? Gilbert stalls a lot then hits the Hot Shot for the pin. That’s about it.

The Legion of Doom says they’ll be ready for the weightlifting challenge. Hawk says women and limos and jets don’t win the world title.

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff

The former are tag champions and the latter are the US/TV Champions respectfully but this is non-title. Nikita and Tully start us off. There must be a million dollars worth of feuds in there. Tully tries power against Nikita so Koloff holds him in the air for awhile. Off to Arn and Anderson ducks to the floor to avoid the Sickle. We take a break and come back with the Horsemen on the floor again.

They come back in and Dusty takes them down on his own before putting Tully in the really bad figure four. Arn makes the save and takes a leg crank of his own. Arn gets in some right hands but Dusty pops up and slams him down. There’s a slam and Dusty hooks a sleeper. We take another break and come back with Anderson tagging in Dusty to work over Rhodes even more. The Horsemen work on the arm but Dusty manages a DDT out of nowhere to take Arn down. Off to Nikita who goes into Beast Mode. Sickle kills Tully but Arn makes the save as everything breaks down. Nikita is thrown over the top for the DQ.

Rating: C-. Not bad here as they were in the pretty standard face in peril formula. Nikita was awesome until the end of the decade when he had to get off steroids and lost most of his muscle mass. Either way, it’s cool to see the late 80s version of Koloff run over people. He was one of the top faces in the company at this point and was in main event feuds like this one.

Flair comes out to help in a Horseman beatdown but Lex runs in to take out Arn.

Paul Jones says his men (Powers of Pain) are stronger than the Road Warriors.

Big Bubba Rogers/Midnight Express vs. Kendall Windham/Mighty Wilbur/Italian Stallion

Wilbur is a BIG country boy. He and Lane start us off with Lane jumping into a massive bearhug. Off to Eaton and Windham which sounds a lot better than it really is. The Midnights double team as only they can. Cornette is on commentary to explain why they’re awesome. Here’s Bubba for about two seconds and here’s Eaton again. Kendall falls into a tag to the Stallion who hits the worst looking monkey flip I can remember in a long time. Bubba runs him over and there’s the Flapjack for the pin.

Rating: C+. This was a pretty common thing to see from the Midnights as they made an art form out of the squash. This was the six man variety and Cornette on commentary made it even better. Kendall was trained by his brother but just wasn’t nearly as good. Wilbur was too much like Norman the Lunatic for his own good I think which is why you never hear about him.

Overall Rating: C+. There are two ways to do shows like these. This would be the right one. This was so fast paced that it stays exciting. While most of these matches are squashes, they’re kept fast so no one has the time to get boring. That’s a very good idea and the whole show works better that way. Good stuff.

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Superstars of Wrestling
Date: January 16, 1988
Location: Von Braun Center, Huntsville, Alabama
Attendance: 8,500
Commentators: Bruno Sammartino, Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

It’s another show here but we’ve got a new location at least. This is where the first TNA show took place but that was about fourteen years from now. This is six days before the first Royal Rumble but we’ve got a few weeks of TV to get through before that’s acknowledged, which will likely get on my nerves. Let’s get to it.

The marketing boss of the arena welcomes us to the show. That’s different.

As always, the announcers open the show and we get the opening sequence. Vince tells us who’s coming today.

Strike Force vs. Dusty Wolfe/Iron Mike Sharpe

Strike force are tag champions but this is non title. Martel starts with Sharpe and we get to something very special to me. As usual we get a voiceover from the Fink talking about an upcoming house show, this one at a high school on Wednesday night, February 3. That night, I was being born. Tito vs. Wolfe now and the champs’ dominance continues. Tito gets beaten down for a few seconds until it’s off to Martel who cleans house with dropkicks and Tito’s Figure Four ends this.

Rating: D. Boring match, but the announcement of the house show was really cool to hear. Strike Force is a team I’ve always liked and they were pretty underrated. For some reason despite holding the titles for six months, they’re viewed as transitional champions. I’ve never really gotten that.

UPDATE! With Craig DeGeorge!

Hogan vs. Andre II is announced for February 5, LIVE on NBC. We look at Mania III and the controversy over the slam. Not the famous one, the one early in the match. Andre jumped Hogan on a SNME and beat him down.

Van Van Horne vs. Greg Valentine

Yes, that’s the right name for the jobber. The squashing continues and we hear more about that February 3 house show. There’s a butterfly suplex for two and we hear from some fans if Brutus Beefcake should be allowed to cut hair. Valentine pulls up off a pin and drops an elbow. Figure Four ends this.

House show ads.

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Tiger Chung Lee

Bigelow is the second biggest face in the company at this point. A bunch of headbutts, a bunch of forearms, a few slams, slingshot splash and we’re done.

Ron Bass vs. Rex King

Bass is an evil cowboy. He wears a black hat and names his rope. Scott Casey, a cowboy who wears a white hat, says that Texas doesn’t like Ron Bass. Ok then. Bass allows a few free shots before finishing with more or less a Pedigree minutes the arm trap.

Hogan and Bigelow talk about being all ready to face DiBiase and Andre.

We get a clip of Matilda being dognapped.

British Bulldogs vs. Gino Carabello/Brian Costello

Costello is a long running Superstars jobber. Take a guess as to what happens in this one. Smith powerslams him but doesn’t cover. Dynamite comes in for the delayed vertical and we cut to the platform for a shot of the Islanders and Heenan. Dynamite gets the pin with a belly to back superplex. Total squash.

The Islanders and Heenan have dog food. Heenan says Tunney knows where the dog is so go find him. The Bulldogs run off and Heenan says they’re innocent.

Don Muraco vs. Dave Wagner

It’s confirmed that Matilda’s whereabouts are known but not her condition. Not much contract so far until he clotheslines Wagner in the corner and pounds him down like he owes Muraco money. Muraco goes up and drives his knee into Wagner’s chest. Tombstone ends this squash.

Rating: D. Another dull match but seeing the tombstone in the 80s is interesting. Muraco wouldn’t be around a ton longer before he headed to the indies like the dreadful UWF. Other than that, there’s not much here but it’s a squash so what exactly was I looking for in the first place?

Bad News is coming.

Ted DiBiase vs. Brady Boone

DiBiase says he’s going to buy the world title. Boone gets some slams and the fans erupt. DiBiase was hated man. Ted slams him down, goes to the middle rope and falls backwards with an elbow for the pin. I like that.

House show stuff, including shows where DiBiase would team with Andre against Bigelow and Hogan. Ted would have the title at that point for all of one day.

The Bulldogs say Matilda is in bad shape.

Vince tells us what’s coming next week and that’s it.

Overall Rating: D. They packed in a lot of stuff but the announcement of Hogan vs. Andre II was bigger than anything else. The Bulldogs getting their dog back was a storyline development to end a quick story. Other than that though, there isn’t much going on at all here but we’d be getting to the tournament stuff soon enough.

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The Main Event I
Date: February 5, 1988
Location: Market Square Arena, Indianapolis, Indiana
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura

So this is by far and away the most famous of these shows with one of the most famous endings in company history. This is live and as usual there was a full card before this part started. That being said, the two or three matches we get here are to put it mildly pretty bad.

The main focus here is Hogan vs. Andre the rematch. The main idea here is that Hogan might have gotten pinned at Mania and there might have been a slow count. This is still the highest rated wrestling program in the history of televised wrestling, drawing a 15.2 rating and 33 MILLION viewers on national television on a Friday night. In other words, over 10% of the entire country was watching this. Let that sink in for a bit. It was only an hour long but this was epic. Let’s get to it.

Jesse has some leopard skin crown on or something like that. He’s here from Hollywood or something apparently. He predicts Hogan loses, which is what he’s predicted about a thousand times. He also says Honky and the Harts will win. Jesse’s rant about Hogan is funny stuff as always.

We get a training montage of Hogan set to what would become Jake Roberts’ music. He looks extra roidy here.

Honky says this isn’t about fighting but romance as Liz wants him apparently. Elvis lyrics are added.

Intercontinental Title: Randy Savage vs. Honky Tonk Man

This was supposed to be the big other match at Mania but instead Savage got the world title due to Honky being a jerk. Savage cuts Liz off and says he’ll win. Dang I love late 80s WWF. Massive pop for Savage as it’s clear he’s going to be a huge deal. This is an old stomping ground for Savage’s indy company so he’s a huge fan favorite. Honky dances for Liz while Randy has his attention on Jimmy.

Basically Honky has been the biggest jerk in the world to Savage and Liz lately so Randy wants to kill him, literally. Jimmy’s interference gives Honky the early advantage but Savage remembers he’s Randy Savage and it’s 1988 so he takes over for a bit. He misses a charge though and Savage might be in trouble now.

Jimmy chokes Randy while Honky shakes his hips for Liz. Savage makes the superhero comeback but can’t keep anything going for more than a few seconds at a time. The evildoers go after Liz while he’s down but he wakes up and isn’t very happy about this. He gets the double axe to Honky from the top to the outside and Honky is in trouble.

Another hits in the ring and it’s all Savage now. Hart is brought in the hard way as Gorilla would say and Honky accidentally drills him so Savage can get….a sleeper hold? Peggy Sue goes after Liz for no apparent reason and Honky still can’t get anything when Savage goes to save her. And Honky just takes the count out loss like a true heel.

Rating: C. Weak match here but the atmosphere and crowd were off the charts. This was a big feud and everyone wanted nothing more than to see Savage take Honky apart. This wasn’t a great match and it’s a shame that we never got a big blowoff match from these two as it would have drawn serious money on PPV as it did on house shows. The atmosphere carried this though.

Honky goes after Savage with the guitar after the match. I don’t see why Savage doesn’t charge as he could get there in time to avoid the shot. Jimmy hits him with the Megaphone and yet he avoids the shot anyway. Kind of odd but he clears the heels away and breaks the guitar.

We get a recap of Hogan vs. Andre which helps a lot as a lot of things I’ve read says that the three count was really confusing as was them saying the controversial count as we didn’t know which they were talking about. We also see Andre attacking Hogan and the contract signing at the first Royal Rumble. Oh and DiBiase owns Andre’s contract now.

DiBiase says money works for everything and that the Hulkamaniacs are nickels and dimes. Andre says he’ll never stop once he gets his hands on Hogan. The idea is simple: Andre gets the title from Hogan and DiBiase buys it from Andre for a ton of money.

WWF Title: Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

So yeah, this is the biggest match ever on television and still is to this day. Again: it got a FIFTEEN in ratings. To put that in perspective, Jay Leno gets about a three. Hogan says there was no controversy in the count and that he’s beaten Andre once and can again. He also says that he’s invested into his fans. Good promo as you can tell Hogan thrives in this kind of environment. Now if only they had noticed something: Hogan has the OLD design for the title in the interview but as he walks out you see the famous winged eagle title debut. Nice job guys. That interview was probably taped in late 87.

The pop for Hogan is just absurd as he’s almost at the height of his powers here. Ok so 87 was bigger but close enough. Hogan wants to start immediately but Hebner stops him. I’ve seen this match multiple times and this has me fired up very well. Andre stalls forever on the apron as Hogan is all kinds of fired up. Hogan gives the sign for slamming him and Andre’s face says nothing but “please.”

The crowd is electric as they do a masterful job of letting the tension build. Hogan has finally waited long enough and drills into the heels and cleans house. He hammers away early as you can definitely see a faster pace here than they had last time. Granted that might be due to Hogan needing to do more here as Andre is getting very bad very fast.

ALL Hogan here but Hogan can’t do much here other than strike. DiBiase is counting money so Hogan stomps on his hand for the fun of it. Big wind up punch and Andre WILL NOT GO DOWN. Hogan like an idiot tries to go up and gets the Flair treatment for his luck. Andre tries a diving headbutt and just misses completely. He chokes away and other than that and basic strikes he has nothing.

The idea here is that Andre’s offense is very limited but his size and power plus great selling by Hogan makes him seem like a killer. Andre gets a big boot to Hogan’s chest and falls down too. He chokes with the strap on his singlet and Hogan is in trouble. Hogan breaks a choke and it’s on all over again. A middle rope clothesline finally drops the Giant.

Hogan gets the legdrop but Virgil grabs the referee. Andre gets up and drills some headbutts and hits a suplex kind of move which was his finisher. Hogan clearly gets his shoulder well off the mat at about one and a half and the referee keeps counting anyway, getting to three and declaring Andre as the winner. And let the controversy begin.

Rating: C-. The match itself was just ok but obviously the biggest angle of all time happening here is the real story. The 9 minute match was a backdrop for that as Andre couldn’t do anything but choke for the most part which is fine given his physical condition at the time. Not bad at all, all things considered.

The referee says it was three and Hogan says he got his shoulder up which is absolutely true. Hebner gets the belt and hands it to Andre. This is the end of Hogan’s over four year title reign. Gene is at ringside and talks to Andre who calls it the world tag title for some reason and then surrenders it to DiBiase. The image of DiBiase with the belt around his waist is downright terrifying.

Hogan turns his attention to Hebner and here comes….Dave Hebner. There are TWO Dave Hebners as the fans are STUNNED. Hogan figures out what is going on as the guy that refereed the match was an impostor and we actually have an evil twin storyline. The evil one beats up the good one but Hogan gets his hands on him anyway to throw him to DiBiase and Andre.

We come back to the start of the tag title match but throw it to Hogan and Gene in the back and wonders how much the plastic surgery cost. He rants and raves about getting ripped off which for once is absolutely true. We see a replay of the count and Hogan’s arm is clearly up before two.

We see literally 25 seconds of the tag title match and go off the air before it ends. It was Strike Force defending against the Hart Foundation. Strike Force got a pin to retain.

Overall Rating: A+. A show that draws over ten percent of the entire country can be described as nothing else but a massive success. The ending is iconic and one of the most brilliant ideas of all time. This show worked like a charm and set up the tournament at Mania.

DiBiase would appear at some house shows over the weekend as champion and would defend against Bigelow as well as having some tag matches with Andre against Hogan and Bigelow. Great match and the biggest ratings draw in American wrestling history. Just an insane rating and some incredibly dramatic television makes this an undeniable success.

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Clash of the Champions 4: Seasons Beatings
Date: December 7, 1988
Location: UTC Arena, Chattanooga, Tennessee
Attendance: 8,000
Commentators: Jim Ross, Bob Caudle

This is the set-up show for Starrcade 88 which kind of sucked but oh well. That show was pretty good and since this is the best period for the NWA, this should be good. The main event is the Midnight Express vs. Flair/Windham, both of whom are Horsemen. This should be good based on the card, but I’ve been wrong before. Let’s get to it.

We open with a video talking about the previous battles that have led us here. Not much to say really.

US Tag Titles: Fantastics vs. Eddie Gilbert/Ron Simmons

This is a tournament final since the Midnight Express won the world titles and had to vacate these. Jason Hervey of course introduces everything since he’s the biggest celebrity EVER. Gilbert and Simmons had lost in the semis, but the team that beat them, the Sheepherders, had signed with WWF where they became the Bushwackers. The Fantastics are absolutely awesome so this should be decent.

They really put this over as a huge match which is the best thing they can do. Sometimes these shows would go up against major WWF shows, such as Summerslam or Mania, although this isn’t the case here. Both teams are faces here. Simmons and Fulton (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rodgers) start us off. Simmons uses a bunch of basic power stuff which makes sense since that’s his basic stuff.

I really hate Jason Hervey. He’s here every time so we just have to talk about him every time. The Fantastics speed things up and Simmons is in trouble because of it. Gilbert comes in. He’s more famous as a booker, originally being the booker for Eastern Championship Wrestling. His protégé and eventual replacement is more famous: Paul Heyman.

Gilbert and Fulton shake hands and get booed out of the building. That’s rather humorous. Top rope elbow misses Simmons and he hits a football tackle. That’s always awesome and works very well as there’s little that would hurt more than just barreling through someone like that. We hit the ten minute mark and it’s pretty much even. Gilbert is underrated in the ring.

We stick with the back and forth for awhile until the Fantastics finally wake up a bit and realize they’re a real team, taking over almost completely. Rodgers works on the arm of Simmons as we look for a hot tag. Ok there’s the tag and it’s cold at best. I don’t think there was enough done to call a tag hot at this point so that might have something to do with it.

This is a very long match that is going back and forth. We’re well over fifteen minutes at this point and I’ve seen no indication that we’re slowing down at all. Yeah we just hit 20. Simmons gets a huge powerslam off the top on Fulton to take over. Gilbert has a bad left shoulder and it gets injured again in the match so he has one good arm here. Since they’re an 80s tag team, the Fantastics jump on it like Elvis on a side of bacon.

The arm is now the focus of the match as we have some storytelling going on, making me smile. It sounds like the fans are chanting boring but it’s not clear. That’s not something you hear that often at an NWA show, at least not in the 80s. You don’t hear it now either but that’s because no one goes to the NWA shows anymore. We have five minutes to go here.

That arm is taking a BEATING. It’s all arm locks and shots to it. He finally gets out of it and rams Rodgers into the buckle but Fulton stops him as we hit two minutes to go. I think we skipped over three minutes to go but whatever. Gilbert gets the Hot Shot out of nowhere to get us to even but he won’t tag with less than a minute to go. He slams into the post again and gets rolled up for the Fantastics to win the titles in a LONG match.

Rating: B-. This is a great example of avoiding the long equals good trap. This match is well over twenty five minutes long and it’s pretty good but by no means great. There was some decent stuff in there but the first 15 minutes could be chopped off and everything would be about the same here. At times there just isn’t a need to go long, but it doesn’t really hurt anything here. It’s ok I guess though.

Luger is the guest host tonight. Does he get the Bella Babies here? He would get Flair at Starrcade soon. Tony is with him and has an awesome mustache.

Italian Stallion vs. Steve Williams

That would be Dr. Death, as in the guy that made Austin change his name. This guys is awesome if he does things right. He’s also in the Varsity Club which was a great midcard heel faction. Rotunda, the leader of the group, laughs at the idea that Rick Steiner would get the TV Title from him at Starrcade. The Stallion isn’t well known at all but his trainees are: The Hardy Boys.

Stallion weighs 250 here and allegedly is a heavyweight. Williams is the heel here due to the guys he hangs out with. Starrcade was on a Monday this year. That’s odd but so was Mania 2 so maybe they have something going for them. Wrestling on Mondays. What a weird idea. JR keeps calling him Doc which makes me think of the graphics mod. That’s the only thing about Williams that makes me think of Doc.

I’m really not sure why this is getting time. On paper this should be a squash match as Williams is the newest piece of a heel stable against a guy that means nothing. Stallion stays on the floor forever and isn’t counted out for no apparent reason. Williams hits a delayed vertical and kills the comeback from Stallion in about 4 seconds. Now we get a top wristlock. This is going too long as we’re already at ten minutes.

Williams just plows through Stallion and then hits a dropkick that isn’t bad. Williams isn’t a guy that did a lot in America but he’s more or less a god in Japan. Sullivan interferes on the floor for no apparent reason as this has been domination. Stallion gets some punches and gets cheered. He then gets knocked down and we hit FIFTEEN MINUTES in this. Top rope splash misses from Williams and the comeback is happening again. A crossbody is caught into the Oklahoma Stampede (running powerslam) to end this.

Rating: D. This went WAY too long. You could literally cut 80% of this match off and it does the same thing. This actually went over fifteen minutes and Stallion was on offense for all of 1 total minute. We get it: Williams is awesome. You don’t have to make us watch him beat up a no name guy for a quarter of an hour to prove it.

Oh look: we get to interview JASON HERVEY. He’s going to be at Starrcade. He’s the older brother from the Wonder Years. That’s why he’s on all these shows. Dang he’s annoying.

Magnum TA is here and has the Junkyard Dog with him. Dog is going to help in the next match if the heels get out of hand or something.

We see a clip of the Road Warriors turning on Dusty and trying to blind him.

We run down the card for Starrcade 88. Decent sounding show I guess.

Ivan Koloff vs. Paul Jones

Jones was a heel manager for a long time. It’s billed as a handicap match because Koloff has to have an arm behind his back. Koloff used to work for Jones but now hates him of course. What a coincidence. This is rather boring. Jones used to be a wrestler so he’s not terrible but he’s getting destroyed which makes this rather pointless. Jones finally takes over and Koloff’s arm is now hurt.

This is very slow paced and about as limited as possible from a moveset perspective since Koloff can only punch and Jones can only punch and stomp. Jones brings in a foreign object but Koloff gets it and pops Jones with it to win. The referee has no issue with this apparently. The Russian Assassins run down to beat up Koloff afterwards. Cue JYD for the save. This would be a tag match at Starrcade.

Rating: D. Again the issue here is that there wasn’t much you could really do. It was just punching and kicking and while that’s ok for a little bit, you need more to make a match. Also, they needed to take a page from Heenan on how to run a manager match. It isn’t supposed to go nearly 9 minutes for one thing. That’s way too much again, so it fits with the show so far.

Luger talks about what’s going on here. He’s the total good guy face here and it’s rather annoying.

Sting comes down and is either insane or high as a kite. He does the Flair running around all over the ring even though the interview was on the floor.

Six Man Titles: Dusty Rhodes vs. Animal

Dusty and the Road Warriors were the 6 man champions but the guys with painted faces turned heel and put their spike in Dusty’s eye. The winner gets to pick who teams with them for the titles. This is also no DQ. And Dusty isn’t here. We throw it to Rick Steiner and Magnum TA. Rick hears voices from a guy named Alex. I don’t think this went anywhere. Apparently Alex is the face drawn on his hand. Remember: WE WRESTLE IN THE NWA!

Dusty is here after a commercial with his eye patched. I’m guessing the Sizzler was closing and he wanted another three plates or so. Rhodes trying to run is sad. Big elbow misses and Animal is kind of controlling. They’re moving quickly but it’s a mess to put it mildly. Dusty works the knee and hooks the figure four but throws the referee out. Animal’s manager, Paul Ellering, hits Dusty in the eye to take over. Hawk runs in and beats up Dusty. Sting runs in and beats up Hawk. Dusty gets a chair and beats the heck out of Animal….for a DQ….in a no DQ match. Sure why not.

Rating: C+. This was the most overbooked 3 minute match this side of the Attitude Era. However, it was never boring which is a nice perk for tonight. Sting and Dusty would beat them at Starrcade if that matters. The ending here is completely idiotic which is why it’s a lower rating. The Road Warriors would pick Tenryu as their partner and then a month later the belts would be retired. Fun but insane.

Apparently Starrcade is on Monday because Sunday was Christmas Day. That makes sense then.

Ric Flair/Barry Windham vs. Midnight Express

Yeah this works. It’s Eaton and Lane this time around so this should be GREAT. Cornette is at his absolute most evil at this point and it’s great. Flair and Windham have the world and US Titles here. I think you can guess who has which. Dillon and Cornette have a staredown, which is a DREAM match for most members of the IWC. Flair and Eaton start us off. This works also.

They really like calling him Slick Ric here. Flair of course gets beaten up to start, which is very standard fare for him. Lane comes in and does a weird little dance. His martial arts and karate were always cool. Windham takes over and is described as looking like an eagle coming off the top. What kind of eagle wears a glove, tights and boots? I think the Express are faces here actually, which feels wrong even to type. Eaton is looking awesome here.

Lane hooks a figure four as does Eaton for a double figure four. Yeah they’re definitely faces. Then again they’re against the Horsemen so how could they not be the popular ones? As the heels take over, Paul E. Dangerously takes is here with comments. He has the original Midnight Express, Randy Rose and Dennis Condrey, to fight the current and more famous Express.

This is pretty back and forth here and is pretty good so far. Windham hits a nice powerslam as the Horsemen take over again. Eaton just beats up Flair and it looks great. Hot tag to Lane as Windham comes in too and it’s on again. Eaton hits the Alabama Jam but Dillon tries to interfere. Cornette BLASTS him with the tennis racket but Flair gets a shot to Eaton with a shoe and the more or less dead Windham gets the pin.

Rating: B. Very physical match here with both teams looking completely solid the whole way through. The Express was taking it to the Horsemen here which isn’t something you would have expected. Very entertaining match and it fits with the name of the Clash of the Champions, even though the Express had recently lost the tag belts to the Road Warriors. Solid match and a good main event.

Cornette goes on a rant of course, talking about how great the Express is and how they’re better than the Horsemen and only Dillon cost them the match. He goes off about the other Midnight Express. To be able to go on such long winded speeches like he does and not stumble over everything really is impressive.

We recap the night and Luger says he’s ready to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. The show is definitely not bad, but there are matches that just need to have less time. You have a total of five matches here and while they’re all at least watchable, so much more could have been put into this show. I mean did we really need 45 minutes for the first two matches? They weren’t bad, but they weren’t particularly good. The late 80s NWA is a very acquired taste and this wasn’t a particularly great show. It’s not bad though, although nothing worth tracking down.

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Clash of the Champions 3: Fall Brawl
Date: September 7, 1988
Location: Albany Civic Center, Albany, Georgia
Attendance: 3,700
Commentators: Jim Ross, Bob Caudle

This is roughly the 837th show called Fall Brawl out of about 3847 of them. It’s late 88 and therefore this is a tricky show to call. The main event is Sting vs. Windham which should be awesome. This is one of the odd 90 minutes shows, making it about 75 minutes on the commercial free version. There isn’t anything special coming up as Starrcade was in December. This is just a show and on paper it could go either way. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is about Sting being so close before but losing at the very last moment. Oh and he’s fighting Windham, a Horseman, in the main event. That’s about all there is here.

TV Title: Mike Rotunda vs. Brad Armstrong

Rotunda was a mega heel at this point and the champion. He’s considered unbeatable in 20 minutes. He’s the leader of the Varsity Club at this point. We take a break and come back for the opening bell. I think this was broadcast live. Rotunda takes him to the mat early and stalls a lot. Armstrong wakes up and sends Rotunda to the floor where he wants time out.

He speeds things up and gets a dropkick to Rotunda for two. That was a nice flurry for him and it’s another great moment of Armstrong that you don’t often get to see. We take a break with Rotunda getting back in. Back with Rotunda getting a knee to the ribs and taking over. Sullivan adds some cheating on the floor as Rotunda stalls. For once though that makes sense as he wants to burn off as much of that time limit as he could.

Suplex back in over the ropes gets two for the champion. The kickout gets a nice pop too. People were dying to see Rotunda lose and when he finally did the explosion is great. Chinlock goes on but Armstrong hangs on. Armstrong Georgias Up but gets knocked right back down. There’s a “That’s the Night That They Drove Old Dixie Down” joke somewhere in there.

Back to the chinlock as we’re wasting time, which like I said makes sense in this case. Here comes Armstrong who gets some shots in but runs into a clothesline for a long two. The crowd is eating this up with a spoon mind you. Just after the kickout we take another break. They do those very abruptly on this show.

Back with another chinlock and now Steve Williams, former member of the Varsity Club, playing cheerleader at ringside. Rotunda goes way old school with an airplane spin but he goes down too. Two minutes left as the ending is very clear here. Armstrong gets the left shoulder up and the fans are literally standing. To his credit Rotunda goes for the pins still with a small package at one minute to go. There seems to be an incentive to Armstrong lasting here. Naturally he does and for some reason it’s a huge deal. Apparently this is a huge underdog story or something. Williams comes in to celebrate.

Rating: D+. This is a fine example of a match where long does not mean good. This was mainly chinlock which is never a recipe for something good. Armstrong would get a lot better and Rotunda would lose very soon. This wasn’t much, but Armstrong is a guy I could watch for days so I can’t complain here. Still though, kind of weak. Ok maybe I can complain a little.

We see Jimmy Garvin getting a cinderblock dropped on his leg to end the Garvins vs. Varsity Club feud. Garvin would be gone for months.

Nikita Koloff/Steve Williams vs. The Sheepherders

The sheep dudes are of course the Bushwhackers and are absolutely insane here. This is a challenge match of some sort. Koloff is over here as is Williams. Williams gets taken to the corner and fights them off so Koloff and Williams have a standoff with the evildoers and are like BRING IT ON. It’s a shame Williams turned face. As a heel he was more or less the Brock Lesnar of his day.

Doc (Williams’ nickname, short for Dr. Death) runs over both guys like they’re not even there. We talk about the Midnight Express vs. the Horsemen. This was the top tag feud at the time and would be done in less than ten days with the titles changing hands at a house show and never being mentioned again as the Horsemen went to the WWF and wouldn’t be seen for 2-3 years and Blanchard more or less never wrestling again other than once a year at legends shows. Great thing to push no? This was when Crockett was selling to Turner so everything was completely up in the air if you couldn’t tell that.

Koloff runs them out of the ring with ease as well. It should be noted that the Sheepherders have a flag bearer named Rip Morgan who is more or less just a lackey. Williams hits a clothesline to send Luke to the floor. This has been domination. Doc crushes Luke (who is called Luke Williams here so it’s a bit confusing. If I say Williams I only mean Steve) with a top rope cross body for two.

Koloff in now and then back to Williams. This has to shift control soon here. Doc works on Luke’s arm and then it’s back off to Koloff who works on it as well. Ah there’s a thumb to the eye to break the momentum which lasts about 3 seconds as it’s back to Doc. Williams gets a running charge but his shoulder hits the post as I think we have our face in peril as we take a break.

Back with Williams no selling punches from Luke. Butch comes in from behind to take Doc down again as we hit the chinlock. Now let’s talk about the tag titles again. Williams causes some heel miscommunication and it’s off to Koloff. The flag bearer hits Koloff in the back and the heels take over one more time. Luke hits a middle rope headbutt for two. Butch spits at Williams, allowing double teaming to occur.

Koloff kicks out of an elbow. The crowd is white hot here which is a good sign for later on in the night. Koloff stands up and uses the power of Communism or something to…get beaten down by a punch from Luke. There’s a sleeper by Luke to fill some time. Ross really likes reminding us that the Sheepherders have been partners for ten years. We hit the fifteen minute mark as Koloff breaks the hold.

Luke keeps hammering away on him as the rest that Koloff got didn’t last very long. Koloff is like screw it and punches the heck out of Luke. The flag bearer hits Williams in the back with the flag so there’s no Doc for Nikita to tag. Luke misses a top rope headbutt and there’s Doc for a tag and a ROAR. Morgan, the flag dude, is in there now too. Doc gets chop blocked when setting for a slam. Back to Koloff who ENDS Butch with a Russian Sickle (clothesline with the arm hooked at an angle) for the pin. Sick clothesline.

Rating: B-. Better match than the first here which worked rather well. This was a formula tag match but the crowd carried this to a higher grade than it probably should get. The big power guys were awesome at their job of being the monsters that the crowd was going to pop for. Also that clothesline was great. I usually don’t like simple moves like those as finishers but this was one of those times where if he had kicked out it would have been awful. This was Nikita’s last match for almost three years as his wife was very sick and he stopped to be with her.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Kevin Sullivan

This is a grudge match for no apparent reason. Dusty’s booking around this time was uh….bad. Basically he made Russo in 2000 look like Jim Cornette with whatever roster and money he wanted complete with mind control powers to keep people from arguing. Sullivan is completely insane at this point and more or less turning into a demonic character. This became very fun when the Road Warriors took turns beating the living heck out of him. I’d assume this is for JUSTICE or something like that.

Dusty hammers away to start and we hit the floor almost immediately where Dusty hammers him towards the announce table. All Dusty to start here. He rams Kevin into the table a bunch of times then throws him into Gary Hart, Sullivan’s manager. Sullivan has something made of metal in the ring so Dusty chills on the floor. My guess is he’s looking for a taco.

Kevin slaps away at Dusty’s chest but the power of fat jiggling stops any pain. Dusty hammers him out to the floor and then does the same in the corner. A bunch of elbows follow but Sullivan gets a shot to the throat which sends Dusty spiraling out of control. Out to the floor goes the fat boy and Hart hits him in the head with his shoe.

Back in and it’s a chinlock. Hart distracts the referee so Sullivan can use a spike that he’s been known to use in the past. Hey look it’s more chinlock! We talk about Jimmy Garvin getting hurt by Sullivan and the feud with the Garvins vs. Sullivan. Dusty gets a low blow to break the hold and here comes Dusty.

Sullivan tries the spike again but Dusty steals it to drill him in the head. The referee is like whatever man and counts anyway but Hart makes the save. Dusty goes after Hart but Al Perez runs out with a chain and drills Dusty which isn’t a DQ and the double team is on. Dusty gets a stupid spot as they try to double clothesline him with the chain so he dives on it and pulls them into each other. Then he pins Hart for the win. I give up.

Rating: D-. Yeah this was bad. The match made no sense, there might have been one wrestling move in there somewhere and no one could tell what was going on. Not to mention there were multiple interferences and Dusty pinned the manager to win. See what I meant about his booking being out there? Case in point, this next match.

Ah wait as we have to have a football player here. He’s refereeing an upcoming Flair vs. Luger title match. Flair comes out and humiliates him by just outthinking him in a funny bit that wasn’t supposed to be funny.

Ricky Morton vs. Ivan Koloff

It’s a chain match here as in the touch all four corners type. Yes this is another one of those matches/angles that made zero sense. It’s supposed to lead to a face turn for Ivan but no one cared and the whole point to it, his nephew Nikita saving him, meant nothing as Nikita had already left the arena so there was no one to help and get the angle over. Koloff overpowers him to start of course and uses the chain to clothesline him.

The announcers talk about how Jones (manager) had said Koloff was the weak link in the chain (get it?) and has to win here. Yeah think they’re giving it away easily enough? Koloff uses power to start as this is HIS match. And now we talk about the football player (John Ayers) and how he earned his reputation on a field, not by talking. Morton heads to the floor and pulls Ivan down to the mat.

Back in the ring now with Ricky in control. And never mind as it’s back to Ivan again. He gets two corners but Ricky hits him in the knee to break that up. Morton tries to drag him but Ivan is like “In Soviet Russia, opponent pulls you” and breaks that up. Ivan goes up but gets pulled down by the chain as we take a break. It never ceases to amaze me that Koloff is a former WWF Champion. That’s always odd to see. Back with Morton getting three but Jones holding out his riding crop for more leverage. Then he loses his grip and Ricky wins. Ok then.

Rating: D. Another weak match here and the only point was to set up the post match face turn by force. Jones and Koloff were completely worthless and some of the weakest heels of all time. This went nowhere at all and is a gimmick that I can’t stand anymore. It doesn’t prove anything and this was no exception. Bad match.

Koloff hits Jones post match but the Russian Assassin makes the save. Another runs out for the double beatdown as there’s no Nikita to save. They hang Koloff over the ropes so we take a break.

US Title: Sting vs. Barry Windham

This should be good. Ayers, the aforementioned football player, is doing commentary for this. Sting can wear yellow and be manly doing it. Sting gets some armdrags to frustrate Windham to start. Ayers hasn’t said a word yet. Wait is he on commentary or just at ringside? They speed things up and of course Sting wins that portion. Windham hids on the floor with JJ.

Back in and Windham gets a belly to back suplex which is no sold and Sting hits a pair of sweet dropkicks to send Windham back to the floor. Test of strength goes on and Windham kicks him in the gut to take over. Punches in the corner of course result in an atomic drop as this has been about 95% Sting. Sting gets the punches in the corner as I guess Windham didn’t learn a thing from moments ago.

Sting misses his big elbow as always and Windham takes over for real. Barry sends him to the floor where Windham hammers away. We talk about the Claw Hold of Windham’s which is something I’ve never been a fan of. Not Windham’s per se but the hold in general. Back in and Sting gets a sunset flip for two but that’s the end of his offense here.

Powerslam by Windham gets no cover. A falling punch gets two as Windham is in control. We’re ten minutes in now and Windham misses a splash in the corner so Sting shoves him over the top to the floor. Shouldn’t that be a DQ? We adjust the rules again because that’s not the finish. Sting rams Windham into various metal objects to bust him open. Into the table now as Windham looks gone.

Sting gets a dropkick but Windham is in the ropes. Sleeper by Sting and the champion is in trouble. Naturally it isn’t the finish but Sting holds it for a good while. Barry goes after the knee to escape and it’s a Figure Four. Barry shifted Sting’s torso to the middle of the ring before putting it on which is the sign of a great worker. Sting taps but that would mean waiting about six years before it meant anything in America.

Windham gets caught cheating and the hold has to be broken. Barry shifts over to a delayed belly to back suplex but here comes Sting on one leg. He manages a suplex but holds the knee afterwards. I can live with that I guess. Barry cops a feel of Sting’s chest. Oh wait it’s the claw. On Sting’s chest. Well sure why not. Sting hammers away to break it up. I guess he’s just not that kind of wrestler to let someone feel him up in their first match.

Sting slingshots Barry back in after he knocked him out to the floor a second ago. Since this is a major match we get a ref bump. See? It wasn’t just an Attitude Era thing. Stinger Splash hits and here comes the Scorpion but JJ brings in a chair which Barry drills Sting with. That gets two as John Ayers, the football player, comes in and stops the count, telling the referee what happened. Sting and Ayers pose to end the show.

Rating: B+. If this had anything resembling a good ending it’s pushing an A. These two had a 20 minute war out there with neither guybeing able to take over for the most part and it was very back and forth. Sting was awesome at this point and had it not been for Dusty losing his mind, Barry could have been the biggest star not named Hogan in the world. Anyway, this was a great match with a bad ending, which would become one of WCW’s trademarks.

Overall Rating: B-. This was a hard one to grade. It’s definitely more good than bad and the commercials hurt it a lot. The first match is certainly watchable and the tag is good. The two “special” matches more or less suck, but a great main event makes up for a lot of that. It’s one of the better shows in this series, but that’s not saying much. Anyway, decent show but other than the main event there’s nothing worth going out of your way to see. See the main event though.

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Clash of the Champions 2: Miami Mayhem
Date: June 8, 1988
Location: James L. Knight Center, Miami, Florida
Attendance: 2,400
Commentators: Bob Caudle, Tony Schiavone

It’s the second show in this series and the main event, while still a big match, isn’t quite Sting vs. Flair for the title. Instead Sting and Dusty are teaming up to take on Arn and Tully for the tag titles. They really didn’t know what they were doing yet with this stuff so it’s kind of hard to know what to expect. We’re building to Bash 88 here so there’s that to look forward to. Let’s get to it.

Various people are here, namely being “celebrities” that aren’t really celebrities.

Ah let’s make sure to talk about the NWA promoters because the NWA actually thinks that either they mean something or that anyone other than them cares.

It’s going to be really hard to take Tony seriously with that mustache. He and Bob run down the card.

US Title: Barry Windham vs. Brad Armstrong

Barry is champion here of course and would hold the title for about 9 months and is a Horseman here. Feeling out process to start as we look at a random sign in the audience instead of an armdrag by Brad. Now let’s look at Dillon in the middle of a move. Are these guys following the TNA playbook for camera cuts? Brad gets a slam and Barry chills on the floor a bit.

Headlock takeover by Brad as we hit the mat. After a solid sequence on the mat, Barry heads into the corner to hide as this is taking its sweet time. Windham starts using his power but can’t hit a big elbow. Crowd is red hot here. Off to the headlock to waste some time and QUIT CUTTING TO THE FREAKING CROWD!!! It’s like this show has ADD or something.

Big slam hits as this is almost all Armstrong. Off to another chinlock as they keep getting going and then stopping which is rather annoying. Windham gets out of the way and the Horseman takes over. Powerslam gets two. Figure four goes on because when you have a monster like Windham, the right thing is to have him use a submission hold on a body part he hasn’t touched all match. This is what we mean by bad psychology.

You know Teddy, if you actually watched the wrestlers you might see something happen. I guess he looks at Dillon’s hair and gets jealous or something. This hold goes on longer than should be humanly possible but that’s wrestling for you I guess. This hold has been on for over two minutes now. Windham is either really bad at this hold or Armstrong has legs of steel.

JJ tries to cheat for about the tenth time so the referee finally breaks it. Slam sets up Barry to go up top, only to miss a big elbow. Brad fires off and the fans are loving this. Top rope cross body gets two. Brad tries a second one but Barry rolls through it and grabs the Claw, his EVIL finisher, for the pin. That was a pretty sweet ending actually.

Rating: C+. Not bad here overall with the fans making this a lot better. The figure four in the middle kills it but the times where they were moving out there were really good. The ending helped it a lot as they needed a good ending to carry it through. Not a great match or anything but Armstrong rarely was bad and this was no exception.

Now it’s time for the show to grind to a screeching halt as we plug a sitcom about wrestling with a football player that will air this fall. It’s called Learning the Ropes which is about a teacher that moonlights as a wrestler and the NWA guys were on the show also. Now here are some of the issues: first of all the football player playing the main character stood about 6’7 and had a dark complexion (white, but with darker skin). He was played by the nearly pale and 6’1 Dr. Death Steve Williams for his matches as he wrestled in a mask as a jobber to the stars. Somehow, this lasted a whole season. The 80s never stop amazing me.

Anyway we’re told that the wrestlers are great athletes and how some of them are better athletes than the football players. We get a clip of the show which is more like a promo for it than a clip. This couldn’t be more 80s if they tried. Naturally this needs to be shown for so much time on Clash of the Champions right?

The Rock N Roll Express return to the company and will be at the Bash. They say they’re awesome.

We see Luger and Flair signing their contract for the title match on a yacht. There are a bunch of NWA guys in there and a bunch of business people that own the Chicago Blackhawks apparently. The NWA never quite got the idea of TV did they? The signing is nothing and they both say nothing of note. Total waste of time here.

The Horsemen arrive, 40 minutes into the show. Granted we’re just told this because we don’t need to see it right?

Back and the Horsemen haven’t arrived yet. Oh ok the Horsemen are but Flair is just getting here. THEN WHY ARE THEY ALL IN FLAIR’S LIMO??? Geez people figure out the basic stuff here. Flair says the Horsemen will keep the titles tonight.

US Tag Titles: Sheepherders vs. Fantastics

The Fantastics are champions here and are Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers. The Sheepherders would soon jump to the WWF and change their names to the Bushwhackers. Here though they’re insane heels and rather brutal. They have a flag bearer named Rip Morgan. Luger is just getting here so let’s cut to that before the match starts. The Horsemen jump him and annihilate him, ramming his head into the car and busting him open, which would play a big role in their title match.

Oh hey it’s time for the match. So were the wrestlers just chilling there? I’d bet on a tiddlywinks tournament. Rogers and Butch start us off. Off to Luke almost immediately who gets cross bodied for two. Off to Fulton and the beating begins. We get a weird moment where the Sheepherders can’t figure out who is legal so Fulton just stands there. Out to the floor and everything breaks down. Morgan gets a flag shot in so Fulton drills him.

Fulton vs. Luke in the ring now and Luke takes him down. In theory that is because the camera cut to the crowd to show us that there are in fact people still in the building. Rogers and Luke botch something completely and make what I think was supposed to be a crucifix almost a rollup. Rogers flips through a backdrop and lands on his feet. Everything breaks down again and the Fantastics clear the ring.

Butch vs. Rogers now with Butch taking over. It’s so weird to see him as an evil guy. Off to the chinlock which doesn’t last long. We hit an abdominal stretch as the Sheepherders cheat a lot. Rogers runs into a knee for two. The official time is all over the place as they go from start to five minutes in about four and from five to ten in about three. Fulton comes in and gets stomped down IMMEDIATELY.

Luke hammers away on Fulton as this has been one extreme to the other which is kind of a weird thing to see. Fulton fires back and takes Luke down a few times and knocks Butch down as well but it’s not enough for a tag yet. Here’s another weird part of the match as Fulton takes both Sheepherders down with a cross body and covers both guys. Rogers comes back in and covers both at once again with the referee seeming all cool with it. Both of the Fantastics keep covering both Sheepherders and everyone is cool with this. Weird indeed.

The Sheepherders bail for a bit as this has been more or less a mess. We get an actual tag by the Fantastics and Rogers works on Luke’s arm. Rogers gets knocked to the floor and might have hit his head. Butch throws him into the railing and Tommy takes a belt shot to the back. Where in the world is the referee during all this? After about 12 minutes of wrestling we’re told we’re 15 minutes in.

Chair to the back of Rogers with the referee like a foot away is missed as Rogers has been on the floor for like two minutes now. Back in and there’s STILL no referee for the cover. Heel miscommunication sees Butch hit Luke with a middle rope double axe handle. That goes nowhere because the Sheepherders won’t sell anything. Rogers gets a clothesline and that gets him nowhere at all AGAIN. Rogers rams their heads together and it’s off to Fulton. A rollup to Luke gets the pin that Butch probably broke it up anyway because they needed to end this I guess.

Rating: D. This was weird to say the least. They seemed rather confused out there and the Sheepherders wouldn’t sell a single thing. This would have been far better if they cut this down by about ten minutes but they have to have about 15 minutes a match in the NWA in this era. Not a good match at all which is rare for the Fantastics who I’m a fan of.

Dr. Death sits in on commentary for the next match. He rambles about Luger being awesome and sounds drunk.

Ronnie Garvin/Jimmy Garvin vs. Mike Rotundo/Rick Steiner

It’s Varsity Club time and the Gamesmaster Kevin Sullivan will be in a cage at ringside. There’s a big ordeal going on with the Garvin’s manager Precious and Sullivan which was never really resolved but was getting rather weird indeed. Just a grudge match here. Oh and Rotundo/a is the TV Champion. Steiner is the Florida champion which means nothing. He’s also a clueless putz.

Once again before the match we stop to talk about Luger and cut to Ross because that’s the guy we go to for a big moment I guess. And let’s just reair the thing because no one wants to see this tag match right? Back from a break and it’s a huge brawl. The Garvins hit a double sleeper on both guys before they get sent to the floor. The Varsity guys that is. Sullivan keeps looking at Precious and has something in his coat for her. They’re papers apparently. From what I understand this was supposed to result in an abortion storyline and that was WAY too hardcore for the 80s so it was dropped.

Ronnie gets two on Rick in the ring. Jimmy gets a hammerlock on Rick as we talk about Luger even more. There’s talk of the Tower of Doom which was one of if not the biggest mess you’ll ever see. Sullivan keeps pulling out papers that he wants to show Precious who keeps staring her down and she agrees to something or other. Oh and there’s a tag match going on too.

She has the key to the cage apparently. Rotundo works on Ronnie’s arm as Williams says he’s going to wrestle Rotundo later. Jimmy keeps running off to fight Sullivan even though he’s in a cage. The Varsity guys keep working on Ronnie’s arm as the match means nothing at all. Jimmy finally comes in and beats on Rick for a bit but that might be too interesting so let’s go with a front facelock for awhile.

This is an incredibly boring match as just like almost every match so far tonight they’ve been given way too much time. This is a two hour show and there are five matches. Since there are very few entrances and more or less no long term promos, there’s way too much time in these matches. Ronnie rolls up Rick for two. Off to Rotundo and since Garvin is the worst former world champion ever, Rotundo takes over with relative ease.

The Varsity Club works over Ron as we see Sullivan with the paper again. This needs to end and it needs to end very soon. The tag rope is used to choke Ron and he gets sent to the floor. Everything breaks down again and it’s Rick vs. Jimmy in the ring. Precious goes over to Sullivan who steals the key. Jimmy hits a brainbuster to win over Rick and Precious goes for the papers. Sullivan goes after her and Steve Williams makes the save.

Rating: D. Another match that is boring and way too long, although to be fair with the story being Precious and Sullivan there’s only so much that they can do. Not an interesting match as if you’re going to have a match as a backdrop for a story, don’t have the match be nearly 15 minutes long. Didn’t work at all.

Post match Precious pushes Jimmy away and leaves on her own. To say this was a mess was an understatement.

Road Warriors vs. Powers of Pain in a scaffold match is announced. This would never happen as the Powers jumped to the WWF because they didn’t want to have a scaffold match due to fear of that pesky death thing.

We talk about the Tower of Doom now because we need to waste more time I guess.

Al Perez vs. Nikita Koloff

Koloff you’ve probably heard of. Perez is a heel that is of no consequence for the most part. This is a challenge/grudge match or something like that. They stare each other down for awhile and Nikita shoves him around a lot. Nikita dominates here in one of the least interesting matches I’ve ever seen. The announcers just talk about the Horsemen to fill in time.

Gary Hart, Perez’s manager, interferes and Perez takes over for a bit. This is one of those matches that just keeps going and going with no one caring in the slightest. Hart interferes again and this keeps staying in first gear at best. After Nikita stays on the floor for a bit we hit the chinlock back in the ring. Camel clutch goes on and Koloff gets an electric chair drop to escape.

Koloff is knocked to the floor again because we haven’t been out there long enough in this never ending match yet right? Perez can’t suplex him so Nikita gets one of his own. Nikita makes his comeback and hammers away in the corner before he sends Perez to the floor. And here’s Larry Zbyszko to run in for the DQ and triple beatdown.

Rating: F. End this show already. Another boring match here with a stupid ending that was given about 8 minutes too long which makes the wrestling really boring in the process. This feud of course went nowhere and no one cared, but that’s the NWA for you. No wonder they went out of business.

World Tag Titles: Tully Blanchard/Arn Anderson vs. Sting/Dusty Rhodes

No entrance for the champions. Sting and Arn to start with Sting frustrating him badly. Sting works on the arm as we praise Dusty for no apparent reason. Off to Tully and Sting abuses him a bit too. Dusty, the STAR here I guess, comes in and beats on Tully a bit also. Tully does his usual great selling and it’s time for a figure four by Dusty who of course butchers the thing.

Arn gets a shot in and the Horsemen take over. Clothesline takes Tully down. Oh wait he’s from Texas so it’s a lariat. Off to Sting who cleans a few rooms. He tries the Scorpion on Blanchard but the Horsemen fight him off and send him into the post on the floor. Arn misses a Vader Bomb but Tully stops the tag.

Time to work on the arm which is pure Horsemen to put it mildly. Arn DDTs him on the floor which should kill Sting but JJ throws him back in. Nice guy that JJ. In an unintentionally funny spot, a DDT on the floor gets a one count. That’s just amusing. Backslide gets two for Sting and it’s a collision with him and Tully. Tag off to Dusty and everything breaks down. Dusty shoves the referee and the whole thing is thrown out as Windham, Rhodes’ future opponent, runs in to put the Claw on Dusty. The Horsemen beat down everyone and stand tall to end the show.

Rating: D+. This was just there and another thrown out ending makes my eyes roll a lot. Sting wouldn’t do much for the rest of the year and Dusty would of course get a title somehow. Flair would hold the title forever and this whole feud with Luger would drag on for years with Luger never getting the pin over Flair. Almost a token main event here which isn’t a good thing at all.

Overall Rating: D-. Oh jeez this got bad in a hurry. The last hour is just mind numbingly uninteresting. Nothing really happens here and there are no long term implications of anything really. The Bash had nothing of note happening on it either as the champions were all the same by Starrcade. Weak show and a bad followup to the great first edition of this. The same problem runs through this whole show: WAY too long matches because the NWA thought long meant good, which was rarely the case.

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I asked what you guys wanted to see counted up next, so for the next 35 days: it’s the Clash of the Champions. Enjoy.

Edit: Oh and I totally lucked out as this will end on Sunday March 4. The Wrestlemania Count-Up will have to begin on March 5. I didn’t realize that until after I had posted this.

Clash of the Champions
Date: March 27, 1988
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Attendance: 6,000
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross

There’s quite a bit to say here. This show likely should have been called Crockett’s Revenge. Twice Vince had sabotaged Crockett’s attempt at a PPV debut. First he put on a show called Survivor Series on the same night as Starrcade 87, which was their version of Mania. He had told the PPV companies that if they didn’t show his show, they wouldn’t get Mania 4. The last PPV had been Mania 3, so this terrified the PPV guys. All but like 3 went with Vince. Crockett tried again in January with an awful show called Bunkhouse Stampede which focused on a battle royal. Vince put on a free show about a battle royal and called it the Royal Rumble.

So now it’s late March, which means Wrestlemania time. In fact, this is Wrestlemania night. So Crockett, the nice guy that he is, puts on this: a free show of PPV quality. The main event is Ric Flair vs. a former Horseman (bet a lot of you didn’t know that) who won a title shot and dared to ask Flair for it. He’s incredibly athletic, young, strong and popular. His name is Sting. This show is universally considered his coming out party as he went from a local guy in the UWF to a solid guy in Crockett, to a national star immediately after this match. In short, without this match, Sting means nothing to wrestling. Let’s get to it.

The opening video runs down the show in an incredibly laid back tone. The announcer is talking about revenge etc and sounds like he’s ordering dinner. Keep in mind this was on TBS (a cable channel) so there will be commercials.

Tony is kind of rocking a mustache.

TV Title: Mike Rotunda vs. Jimmy Garvin

Rotunda is in the Varsity Club here, which is based on the idea of them all being college athletes. Therefore, this is under college rules. There are three five minute periods and only a one count is needed. Teddy “I still have hair here” Long is referee. Rotunda (IRS later on) is kind of like Swagger-Lite. Garvin is nowhere near as good as Rotunda is on the mat so he’s the underdog here by a long stretch.

We see a LOT of the fans. We know they’re there dudes. There’s a lot of feeling out here with both guys doing basic stuff, which is the idea of the match so I can’t complain about it. The audio on this tape is horrible so I’ll have to do my best on it but I apologize if I miss something. The weird thing is that there’s basic pro stuff here which is almost completely against the idea. Rotunda goes insane on him and almost gets him as we go to the bell to end the first round.

There’s a 30 second rest period. Mike jumps him almost immediately and we get a slam, likely the most high impact move so far. We then have a slam off the top for a change of pace. Kevin Sullivan, Rotunda’s stable mate goes after Precious, Garvin’s wife. That allows a rollup on Garvin to end it. Rick Steiner, the other member of the Varsity Club, comes down and they beat up Garvin but he saves Precious in the end. This was part of a WEIRD angle where Sullivan tried to “get” Precious and had some kind of papers to make that happen. We never found out what they were and the angle never was finished, but dang it was out there.

Rating: D+. This is a hard one to grade as it was just so different from the traditional match, but this was really just a small piece in the epic feud between Garvin and the Varsity Club. This would dominate the midcard for most of a year as the Varsity Club was incredibly successful. Had the Horsemen not been the greatest stable ever and not been around at that time, it would be very interesting to see just how far these guys could have gone. They were that good. Anyway, this was just to have more Precious vs. Sullivan and Garvin vs. Rotunda so they could be introduced to the audience. No harm there.

Dr. Death talks about Dusty and Magnum who have been having some problems with heels lately. He wants the winner of Sting vs. Flair. Dang I’d pay to see either of those matches.

Ad for the Four Horsemen Vitamins. Take that Flintstones!

US Tag Titles: Midnight Express vs. Fantastics

The heels are the champions and if you don’t know who the heels are then you fail. It’s Eaton and Stan here for the historically challenged. The Fantastics jump them to start and it is on quick. We go immediately to the floor as this is a huge feud and has been for months. This was the golden era of tag wrestling and these two along with the Rock N Roll Express led the charge.

It’s still just a wild brawl with chairs and tables all over the place. Keep in mind this is 1988 so this stuff is incredibly extreme at the time, at least to the masses. Ross is panicking over all this stuff. This was when he was relatively young and got even more excited than he would later on. It was a regular tag situation for about 9 seconds before we hit the brawling again. Lane’s karate was always cool. The heels beat on Rogers for awhile in textbook fashion. They should be able to anyway since they were half of the guys that made up the modern tag formula.

He gets thrown to the floor and Eaton hits a bulldog on a table. This is an incredibly brutal match. Rogers is pretty much dead at this point and can barely stand but he keeps going. He makes a tag but the referee doesn’t see it. Fulton is like screw THAT and throws the referee out. The Rocket Launcher (Assisted top rope splash, the finisher of the Fantastics and later stolen by the Midnights) ends it. And then the original referee says no as it’s a DQ due to Fulton throwing the referee. Say it with me: DUSTY FINISH. The heels and Cornette beat the heck out of Rogers afterwards.

Rating: B+. Entertaining match here, but too short for my taste. This got about ten minutes and after a three minute brawl, seven minutes just feels too short. You give this another five minutes or so and it goes way up, possibly to near A+ levels. They never stop moving here and it’s just flat out entertaining. Very, very good match. The Fantastics would get the belts about a month later.

Ken Osmond, the guy that played Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver, is here and talks to Cornette. Comedy ensues.

Gary Hart and Al Perez issue a challenge to Dusty Rhodes for the US Title.

We get the top ten seeds for the Crockett Cup. We’ll have to do that someday.

10. Ivan Koloff/Dick Murdoch
9. Sting/Ron Garvin
8. Varsity Club
7. Fantastics
6. Barry Windham/Lex Luger
5. Powers of Pain
4. Midnight Express
3. Road Warriors
2. Nikita Koloff/Dusty Rhodes
1. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

Shockingly, Dusty would win the cup. Yeah imagine that: the booker and US Champion gets another trophy for himself.

Road Warriors/Dusty Rhodes vs. Powers of Pain/Ivan Koloff

There’s barbed wire between the ropes and Animal has a mask on his face because of an injury. Animal had been doing bench presses and the heels jumped him, hurting his face. The fans are one sided to say the least. The one thing they haven’t told us is how the guys get in the ring now that there is barbed wire set up around the ropes. Ah the crawl under. Well that was anticlimactic.

Animal is in a hockey mask due to face injuries. A grand total of nothing is going on here. No one is going near the barbed wire and it’s a bunch of punching and people doing their normal stuff. Hawk goes up for a punch from the top to really mix things up a bit. Tony points out how tired everyone is which is true and is quite sad really. Animal gets a powerslam on Warlord for two and then Barbarian misses a headbutt on Animal, hitting Warlord which lets Hawk get the pin. The heels beat down Animal after the match until Dusty makes the save. Well who else was going to do it?

Rating: D. Boring match here but just three and a half minutes or so. This feud never really went anywhere but it’s not like there was any substance to it anyway. At least this was short so that’s really all that matters. Dusty was just worthless in the ring at this point so he gave himself the US Title anyway.

There’s a new NWA show coming up and it meant nothing.

Nikita Koloff, in a suit, says he’s a new Russian and says he’s against drugs now. What the heck am I watching? He yells about Kevin Sullivan and says he’s going to win the world title.

Tag Titles: Barry Windham/Lex Luger vs. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

Luger is still fairly green here so I wouldn’t expect much out of him here. Blanchard is in the Rack in less than a minute so you can tell this is going to be a fun one. The champions have made three tags less than two minutes in. Windham comes in as the crowd is red hot here. In a dumb camera move Windham hits a big powerslam and covers but at two we jump to a shot of Dillon for no apparent reason.

Windham puts Blanchard to sleep on the floor. This is an incredibly fast paced match. Anderson gets the DDT and this is going too fast for me to type. The spinebuster hits Windham before it has a name. Windham hits a gutwrench suplex on Blanchard and both are down, marking the first time in the whole match where nothing is going on. Not bad for six minutes in.

Slingshot Suplex gets two on Windham and Blanchard is STUNNED. We’re waiting on the hot tag to Luger and there it is. The Package cleans house and Tony is losing his mind off of this. Dillon gets a chair for Arn but Luger reverses to send Anderson into it for the pin and the titles. The crowd ERUPTS over this as the Horsemen finally lost the belts, which was something people had been begging for since the day they won them, an agonizing six months ago. JR’s completely over the top announcing just makes it all the sweeter.

Rating: A-. This match is just shy of ten minutes and at most there are 30 seconds where something isn’t happening. I don’t even remember the cruiserweights going this fast during the Nitro shows. The idea here was do something completely different here which they did: no one went this fast at this time, at least no one major and it worked. I know it sounds really basic and it is but the fans HATED the Horsemen and were dying to see them lose the belts.

They had made a habit out of cheating or winning by DQ so many times that the fans were furious at them, so to see someone actually get the win, especially Luger who was kicked out like six weeks ago, was just a massive orgasm moment for everyone. And then Windham turned on Luger in a legit shock to join the Horsemen and make them into the unit that is considered the A-Team of the Horsemen if you can imagine that.

There are judges for the main event. There MUST be a winner. Remember that. The judges are Sandy Scott (former wrestler), Patty Mullin (Penthouse Pet), Ken Osmond (Leave it to Beaver) and Jason Hearvey (Wonder Years). Yeah I’m sure this isn’t going to go badly at all. There are four judges. No one saw a problem with this at all.

NWA World Title: Sting vs. Ric Flair

Sting is BRAND new at this point so this should be little more than a glorified squash. Flair’s entrance is nothing short of epic. Dillon, Flair’s manager, is in a cage at ringside. This would be like Evan Bourne getting a title shot. Ok maybe not that low but somewhere between him and Kingston. This is a legendary match but not for the in ring stuff. There we go.

We start with a lot of basic stuff as you would expect. You can get away with a lot of stuff like this with a long time limit like they have to work with. We hear about Flair’s strength which is definitely not something you hear about on a regular basis. Sting dominates early so Flair bails like a good heel. There’s a lot of arm work going on in there which is a basic tactic that works well enough. Sting busts out a flying headscissors which isn’t something you see every day from him. We’re five minutes in and nothing of note has happened.

Tony tells us that if the match ends early we have some standby matches ready, one of which is Shane Douglas vs. Larry Zbyszko for the Western States Title. A title match is a standby match. Does that just sound odd to anyone else? Now of course those matches were never going to happen, but still it makes the belt sound even weaker than it already was. Sting STILL has that headlock on. Well there’s something going on at least….kind of.

Sting’s chest is bleeding from Flair’s chops. There’s headlock #4. Again thought hey have a lot of time left in this. The idea here makes sense though as Sting is young and nervous so he found something that works and he’s sticking with it. He’s trying to get a bunch of little victories where he can, such as a headlock like this. He’s won that battle so he can go from there. That’s probably looking into it too much but I love Sting so I’ll grasp at straws, especially when they come close to making sense.

He uses the headlock one more time as this is starting to get boring with nothing else going on. We look at the Penthouse Pet and Ross says she’s likely used to seeing action. Well ok then JR. We hit ten minutes and it’s the same situation as it was at five minutes past. Sting’s offense is shall we say limited. He hooks a bearhug which is a weird move for a face to use the majority of the time.

Well to be fair though the Scorpion works on the back so there’s a thought there. Fifteen minutes in and Sting has him on the mat in a bearhug which isn’t something you see every day but it works at least. Sting lets him go and is all fired up. The jumping elbow of course misses to get us back to even. Flair hasn’t controlled at all in fifteen minutes so far. And of course that changes just after I type that.

He works on Sting’s back for some reason instead of the legs, but I guess it could be because it slows Sting down. We’re twenty minutes in now as I think we’re speeding up the clock here. Either that or this is a rather uninteresting match. It’s not terrible or anything but there isn’t much going on here. Sting Hulks Up and the crowd wakes up with him. Ross loses his mind over this as I don’t think we’ve had any commercials in this match.

Sting goes for a Stinger’s Splash against the post and just guess how that goes for him. You would think a face would learn over time but apparently not. Flair goes to the wrist but Sting nips up in a cool move. He gets the Scorpion but Flair is in the ropes almost immediately as we have 20 minutes to go. Flair fakes Sting out of his shoes and puts him on the floor again. That looked great.

The idea here is that Flair can’t put Sting away as he just keeps coming back but Sting can’t finish Flair since all he has is the Scorpion. Ah and now we go for Sting’s knees. Now that’s more like it. The judges look at something completely different, showing how brilliant of an idea this was. We’re down to fifteen left. Figure Four goes on and Sting is in real trouble as it’s in the middle of the ring.

After being in it for like a minute and a half Sting turns it over to a very shocked reaction. Both guys have bad knees now so of course Sting is able to do a delayed vertical suplex on a 240lb man. We go abdominal stretch of all things over thirty minutes into a match. Well this is old school so that’s fine I guess. Ten minutes to go. Even after thirty five minutes Flair can’t get the top rope whatever. You have to call it that since there’s almost no way to know what it would be.

Sting hooks a Figure Four on Flair but since he’s not Jay Lethal it doesn’t work. They’re doing a lot of basic stuff here but extending it out to kill time. It’s working though so it’s not so bad. Nature Boy tries to get disqualified and that gets him nowhere. The fans are way into it now as things have cranked up a lot. Sting throws Flair over the judges’ table in a good looking spot.

We have five minutes left and Flair is reeling. You can see the ending coming a mile away but it’s still good stuff. Four minutes left and Sting no sells an atomic drop, apparently having balls of steel. The Splash misses though and Sting crashes to the floor. Three minutes left and they slow things down. Two minutes left and Sting gets a two count off a sunset flip.

I love how Sting no sells chops. He’s all like BRING IT ON BLONDIE as we hit one minute. The Splash hits and he gets the Scorpion with thirty seconds left. Just like Shawn in the Iron Man match, Flair doesn’t give up in the same hold. The time limit expires so we’re going to go to the judges. Sting controlled longer and likely did win the match if you go on a scoring system.

After a break for the judges to tally their scores, we get the results. The Penthouse chick says Flair. Some guy that hasn’t been mentioned at all yet says Sting. Hervey says Sting. Leave it to Beaver dude says Flair. The wrestler says it’s a draw, so Flair keeps the belt.

Rating: B. Well it’s long and solid but far from a classic. This was meant to do one thing though and that was get Sting over. To say that worked is an understatement. This is the definition of a match where even though he lost the guy got elevated a lot. This match flies by and is definitely worth checking out. Flair vs. Sting is a match that was always at least worth watching and this was one of their better ones. Coupling that as something historic and it’s easily recommended.

Overall Rating: B+. This is definitely a more fun show than Mania was. Everything has a purpose and it’s only about two hours long. With a great tag match and a very solid main event, how can you go wrong? The Mania numbers were higher than Mania 3 though so it’s not like this made a huge difference. Crockett was in trouble though as soon after this he was more or less broke and sold to Turner. Anyway though this was a great show and well worth checking out.

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Superstars of Wrestling
Date: January 8, 1988
Location: Sun Dome, Tampa, Florida
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Bruno Sammartino

Now a lot of you may have read some of my Superstars reviews from a few years ago, but in case you haven’t, here’s the basic idea: this is the A show of WWF at the time. Everything happened here and it was all that mattered. I have almost every show from January 88 – June of 88 and I’ll probably get a lot more so we’ll go through the first Rumble (which meant nothing), me being born, Hogan losing the title, Wrestlemania IV, and that’s about it since there were no PPVs between Mania and the debut of a new show called Summerslam. Let’s get to it.

Vince brags about Tampa for some reason and we get the opening sequence.

We’re going to get clips from SNME where Andre interfered in Hogan vs. Bundy.

Islanders vs. Jerry Grey/Lanny Poffo

Heenan has a dog leash with him which has no dog on it, which is a jab at the British Bulldogs. Poffo reads a poem before the match. Tama and Poffo start. The Bulldogs say they still can’t find Matilda. All they care about is if she’s ok. They want Tunney to do something about her missing. We can’t see half of the ring due to the window they’re in. Tama is back in and working on Grey. He dropkicks Grey down and Haku kicks Grey’s head off for the pin. Total squash. Expect to hear that a lot in these reviews.

Tunney says he’s going to take action because no one knows where Matilda is. Heenan warns him to stay calm. Tunney says until we know where Matilda is, the Islanders are suspended.

Willington Wilkins vs. Jake Roberts

Jake should kill him for such a horrible name. Vince and Jesse talk about the Islanders as Jake mauls Willington. Short clothesline and DDT end this quickl.

Time for the house show ads. This is for the MSG Show on January 25. Hogan/Bigelow vs. Virgil/DiBiase is the main event. Duggan comes in and says that he’s ready for Harley Race and the 2×4 will be there with him.

Dino Bravo vs. Scott Casey

Bravo is very strong and that’s about it. He’s also Canadian. Frenchy Martin in an inset says he speaks a lot of languages. Bravo runs over Casey and clotheslines him down. Casey gets a few moves in but Bravo hits his side suplex. Instead of pinning him with that, a belly to back suplex ends it. That was odd.

There’s a Boston Garden show later tonight and the main event is Rude vs. Hogan. Rude doesn’t care about the fans and says it’s about fighting and he’ll beat Hogan up for the title. He’s going to do a striptease around Hulk’s body. Hey if that’s what you’re into man. That match is on one of Hulk’s DVDs and Best of the WWF Volume 20. One of the dates is wrong also because that show was on the 9th and this was labeled as the 8th. It might be a syndication thing though.

Sam Houston vs. Terry Gibbs

Houston is Jake Robert’s real life half brother and likes to dance. Headlock takes Gibbs down. Gibbs was supposed to be a big deal (ok that’s a stretch but a deal of some sort) but he was never anything more than a jobber. Danny Davis says he’s waiting on Sam Houston. This was probably the high point of Davis’ singles career. He had more luck as a tag team guy. Gibbs comes back with a neckbreaker and a hard whip into the corner. A HHH knee takes Sam down but Gibbs gets slammed off the top and the bulldog (Sam’s finisher) ends it. This was more competitive than most Superstars matches but still too short to grade.

We get clips from SNME where Andre came in after a Hogan title defense and choked Hogan down again.

DiBiase and Virgil are in the arena and Ted says this isn’t over yet. He wants the WWF Title and he gets what he wants. DiBiase brings out the man that is going to bring him the WWF Title: Andre the Giant. Heenan is with him and DiBiase buys Andre’s contract for what I believe would be later revealed for $1 million. Now the interesting thing is that later on, Heenan bought Andre back for $100,000. See why he’s called the Brain? Heenan avoids a few years of beatings from Hulk and scores a $900,000 profit.

Sivi Afi vs. Butch Reed

JIVE SOUL BRO BABY!!! The announcers talk about Muraco saving Billy Graham from Reed and the One Man Gang. Out to the floor and Afi goes into the railing. Reed goes up and kills him with the flying tackle for the pin.

Demolition vs. Jim Evans/Mike Richards

This is heel Demolition with Fuji in their corner. Richards gets destroyed to start as Jesse recommends that Evans run. They take turns ramming Richards’ head into boots. A quick neck crank sets up a double Stun Gun and the Decapitator ends this quick. More squashing.

DiBiase talks about Andre and how he’ll get the title soon. As for Jake Roberts tonight, he’s cunning like Ted but DiBiase isn’t worried about him.

Overall Rating: D+. With these shows, you can never really go based on the wrestling because nothing is competitive but that was just the way things were back then. This was fine for the most part and we got a huge moment with Andre and DiBiase hooking up. This was huge because DiBiase was really just a guy talking before this but now he had a guy that can beat Hogan. This was huge.

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Continental Wrestling Federation TV
Date: October 22, 1988
Location: Montgomery Civic Center, Montgomery, Alabama
Commentators: Charlie Platt, Dutch Mantel

This is the last episode I have of this show and THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT. I can’t take much more of this horrible and boring show. The company isn’t remembered at all and like I said, there’s a reason for that: it’s not interesting at all. No one has anything resembling a personality and the champion is lucky to be on TV 15 seconds a week. Let’s get to it.

The champ is actually wrestling tonight. I’m shocked. Oh great: the Party Patrol is here AGAIN.

Bullet talks about his issues as of late. We get a clip of last week with Bullet saving the Rich’s (they’re the Party Patrol if anyone is getting lost) from a beatdown by the tag champions last week. Brad Armstrong will be here before the end of the night. As Bullet leaves a guy in a hat with long hair but his face covered up jumps Bullet. And it’s Tony Anthony, the Dirty White Boy. Stubbs comes in too and it’s a big beatdown. The Rich’s make the save. This is still boring but it’s BY FAR the most developed and interesting angle in this company at the moment.

House show ads. What else did you expect?

Tom Pritchard vs. The Invader

Ok this is weird. Either this is in a different arena or they really don’t know how to do lighting, because the arena is full of people in one shot and in the next you can only see about three rows. Invader is just a guy in a mask. Pritchard is heavyweight champion. Now you can see like 15 rows full of people. This is a very oddly designed building. Mantel says Bullet has a bad shoulder injury. Invader hammers away but walks into a backdrop. Pritchard punches him down and drops an elbow for one. Off to a chinlock and then a middle rope cross body gets two. Enziguri gets the pin for the champ.

Rating: D. Mantel says this is a confidence builder for Pritchard. He’s the heavyweight champion. Why would he need a confidence builder? For a face champion, Pritchard certainly does have problems beating what appear to be just basic heel opponents. The lack of a feud for him isn’t making me interested in the title, especially when the Dirty White Boy vs. Bullet is clearly the top feud in the company.

Second batch of ads.

CWF Heavyweight Championship Tournament Final: Tom Pritchard vs. Dirty White Boy

This is from Birmingham and is the tournament final. Why we’re seeing this after knowing who won is beyond me but whatever. It’s joined in progress and Pritchard is on commentary for it. Neckbreaker gets two for White Boy. All White Boy at this point. Ron Fuller, a big shot in this area, is guest referee.

Pritchard starts a comeback with punches but walks into an atomic drop. This is apparently 25 minutes in and their third match each of the night. Anthony misses something off the top and Stubbs tries to interfere, only for Fuller to take care of him. Someone runs in and drills Anthony during the distraction for the pin. Well that was pretty heelish. Not enough to rate but what we saw was bad.

Party Patrol vs. The Count/The Grappler #2

Please….make it short. Davey and Grappler start things off and Davey uses that wide variety of arm drags of his. Arm work abounds and it’s on the right arm which is rather odd. The Rich’s are in the national top ten rankings of tag teams. I want to see these rankings. Then I want to slap whoever writes them. Off to Johnny and the Rich’s control with their usual boring stuff.

The camera cuts to just a shot of their feet as Grappler gets a suplex to take over. Count misses a middle rope elbow and it’s off to Johnny again. Or is that Davey? Actually who freaking cares? Headknocker takes Count (another masked guy) down and things break down a bit. Grappler is gone and Johnny suplexes Count. Off to Davey and they botch a Thesz Press for the pin.

Rating: F. I hate these guys. That is all.

House shows.

Willie B. Hert vs. Chuck Allen

Allen is a blonde dude and Hert is the same annoying dancing man that he’s always been. Willie grabs the arm and the announcers make fun of Allen for being fat. And apparently the director got bored with the match as we cut to a promo from Ron Fuller. The match continues to be boring as Fuller talks about how he’ll keep his title. The promo has nothing to do with this match but I’d rather hear Fuller talk than watch it so there you go. Hert is destroying him anyway. Suplex puts Allen down and pounds away. Allen rakes his eyes and that’s all of his offense. Neckbreaker and headbutt end this.

Rating: D-. When the TV show doesn’t want to watch the match on it, I think you should probably know how good things are. This was just an extended squash by what I presume is supposed to be a fun character in Hert. He never really does anything serious so what else would he be classified as?

Mr. Martin is here with his new protege. It’s….MASAHIRO CHONO??? Martin challenges Lord Humongous (Sid Vicious) to a loser leaves town match against Kokina (Yokozuna). I’m pretty sure Sid lost so he could go to the NWA.

Mr. Chono vs. The Equalizer

Allegedly this is Chono’s American debut. That’s certainly Masahiro Chono. Equalizer is another masked dude. I believe we’re clipped to Chono dominating. A backbreaker gets two as he pulls Equalizer up. He slaps him down in the corner and hooks an abdominal stretch. Equalizer gets in some basic shots and Chono is like I DON’T THINK SO IN JAPANESE! Owen Hart style spinwheel kick puts Equalizer down and a Cobra Clutch ends this. Total squash but what a random thing to see here.

House show ads. New idea there.

Ken Wayne says he’s Danny Davis’ worst nightmare. He won the title back from Davis at the Road to Birmingham so here’s a clip of it. It’s also hair vs. hair but since it’s clipped I won’t bother listing it as a full match. Clipped to Danny GUSHING blood. Top rope legdrop hits for Wayne and we’re told this is 30 minutes in. Wayne for to pin him but Davis rolls him up very quickly for the surprise pin. Post match Wayne hit him with a Coke bottle and cut Davis’ hair anyway.

Bullet is back with his arm in a sling. Stubbs tries to jump him but Bullet beats him down anyway. Anthony pops up and they work over Bullet’s arm again. Brad Armstrong makes the save. Willie B. Hert comes out also and he and Brad say they won’t let this happen to Bullet again.

Overall Rating: D. Better show but that’s probably due to the show featuring a lot of stuff that wasn’t from this week. The Bullet storyline wasn’t horrible but it was all they had going for it. Chono was a very surprising appearance but it was just in a squash and he would be back in Japan pretty soon. Probably the best of the four shows but that’s not saying much.

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Continental Championship Wrestling TV
Date: October 15, 1988
Location: Montgomery Civic Center, Montgomery, Alabama
Commentators: Charlie Platt, Dutch Mantel

Back to this one again with the final two shows that I have of this time period. I’ve done the shows from October 1st and 8th so if you’re curious as to what’s going on with this company, take a look at those two. I’ll be doing the 22nd after this so we’ll be able to get a good look at this period for this company. I don’t know anything about this show so let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of last week’s show where the Dirty White Girl caused the Bullet to be choked out by the Dirty White Boy. She wound up getting spanked but Bullet got beaten down anyway.

The announcers run down the card for a bit.

Detroit Demolition vs. Keith Steinborn

Demolition is dressed exactly like Axe or Smash. Powerslam ends this in about 40 seconds. Total squash and guess who won.

Tom Pritchard brags about winning the CWF Title. He’s a wanted man and that’s fine with him.

House show ads.

Ken Wayne vs. Willie B. Hert

Wayne is the US Junior Heavyweight Champion. Hert is your standard jolly dancing black man. Mantel won’t say who his mystery man is at the Night of Champions. Hert uses his power game to take over early and sends Wayne to the floor. I forgot how much the camera jumps in this company. Back in and Wayne hooks on a headlock to take over. I also forgot how boring the in ring stuff was in this company.

Hert counters some corner punches with an atomic drop. Wayne uses some of the worst choking I’ve ever seen so Hert throws him around with ease. This is so boring. Hert dances around and a headbutt gets two. This has been going about six minutes so far and they’ve had about a minute of “action”. Hert rams him into the buckle a bunch and then takes him to the floor, beats on him even more and after about 4 seconds it’s a double countout.

Rating: D-. Terribly dull match here but that’s par for the course for this company. Hert is a guy that’s there more for his gimmick and the dancing stuff rather than the wrestling itself. It gets annoying to see these matches go on this long (seven minutes or so) though with a weak ending like that.

More house show ads, and by that I mean the same ones as earlier.

Grappler #2 vs. Lee Peak

Grappler is the guy that went to a draw with Pritchard last week. Peak gets in some slams and a cross body gets two. Grappler comes back and drops a leg for two. Peak walks into something like a fisherman’s suplex for the pin. This was nothing.

House show ads again.

Austin Idol vs. Mark Pyle

That’s a bit too rhymy for me. Idol is the Universal Heartthrob and is very handsome I guess. Pyle is a military guy I think and stalls early on. Idol heads to the floor and Pyle grabs something in his tights. A shot to the ribs with that gives Pyle a quick advantage. And never mind as Idol pounds him down and wins with a figure four. Another squash.

Do we really need to hear these same ads four times?

Dirty White Boy and Ken Stubbs say they’ll be tag champions soon. Oh wait they already are. The lack of belts kind of threw me off. They had broken up for awhile but now they’re back together and the best.

Dirty White Boy/Jerry Stubbs vs. Party Patrol

I was hoping to avoid the Rich Cousins today. Stubbs vs. let’s say Johnny starts us off. Rich throws him around with arm drags and hooks a bar. That goes on for awhile until it’s off to Tony Anthony (Dirty White Boy) who walks into arm work as well. Has Davey been in at all yet? I don’t think he has. To the shock of no one paying attention, this is another very boring match.

The Dirty White Girl is named Mystic. Ok then. The Rich’s keep up control and everything breaks down. This is non-title I’d assume. The champs are sent to the floor and I don’t think they’ve had control at all during this match. Actually I don’t think they’ve even been on offense yet. The champs cheat to take over and Johnny is sent to the floor. Johnny gets beaten down for awhile and I sound like I’m writing a book for three year olds. Johnny rolls through for the hot tag, everything breaks down, and a foreign objects knocks Davey out for the pin.

Rating: D. Somewhat better match than earlier but that’s not really saying much. This was terribly boring and I’m not sure why I keep trying to get my hopes up for these matches anymore. The champions would keep the titles for a little while before losing them to the Bullet and his real life son Brad Armstrong.

The champions keep beating them down post match until Bullet makes the save.

House show ads #5.

The tag champs say they’ll take Bullet out.

Tim Horner vs. Mr. Martin

Who Martin is I’m not sure but who cares? His first name is Allen apparently. There’s a Samoan with Martin whose name is Kokina the Samoan Warrior. If my memory is right, he would be on the first episode of Monday Night Raw and be called Yokozuna. He hits Horner in the throat and then does it again. Yoko has long hair here which is a weird look for him. Horner takes over and stomps on Kokina’s fingers. He rams Martin into the Samoan and rolls him up for the pin. Too short to rate but it’s always cool to see future superstars like this.

The announcers wrap things up and we see the double DDT on the tag champs again to end the show. They’re really making a big deal out of that.

Overall Rating: D-. Another terribly boring show. I think there’s a reason you never hear anything about this company: IT SUCKED. I know it’s a different era and a very southern style, but at least in Memphis you had some characters that were interesting and could get the crowd into things. This is just bare bones wrestling and nothing of interest at all. Maybe they’re still resetting after the Road To Birmingham or whatever, but that was a long time ago now. Bad show.

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