TNA Weekly PPV #3
Date: July 3, 2002
Location: Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee
Commentators: Don West, Mike Tenay, Ed Ferrara

We’re into the home city of the company for the next few years now and we’re going to get our first title defense too. We’re also getting tag champions tonight in the form of a one night tournament. Also if that’s not enough tag team wrestling for you, we’ve got the official main event: Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. Jeff Jarrett/K-Krush. Let’s get to it.

As the announcers talk, the NWA President, a big fat balding guy, comes up and says some people are coming to TNA. He has a trophy which is to welcome TNA to the NWA. He’s been in Japan and next week, a guy named Omori is getting a world title match.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: James Storm/Chris Harris vs. The Johnsons

Oh geez it’s the Johnsons. They’re named Dick and Rod and we’ll say Rod starts with Harris. Harris speeds things up and hits some armdrags followed by a Thesz Press to take over. Off to Storm who hits a headscissors to put Rod down. The Johnsons start cheating and hit a double powerbomb on Storm to take over.

A suplex puts Storm down and a double shoulder block gets two. We’ll say Dick jumps into a boot and Storm superkicks him down. There’s the hot tag to Harris who cleans house. He spears Rod down but his cross body gets caught. Storm dropkicks Harris’ back so that he falls on Rod for the pin to advance.

Rating: D+. Nothing special here but you could see the talent in the team that would become known as AMW. At the end of the day here though, they were a one note joke written by a five year old. There’s only so much credibility you can give to a match like this one. The ending was good though and that dropkick was pretty awesome looking.

Post match the Johnsons’ manager Mortimer Plumtree yells at them and gets a chokeslam for his efforts.

Here’s Scott Hall who says Hey Yo but here’s Jarrett for a rebuttal. Jarrett says no one wants to hear Hall talk so get out. They’re about to brawl but the fat guy President says go away. Jarrett says he’ll wait for the main event. As he backs away, K-Krush sneaks in and beats down Hall. Scratch the beats down line and replace it with “gets caught in a fallaway slam and is clotheslined to the floor”.

Harris and Storm have been attacked and there’s blood everywhere.

Anthony Ingram vs. Monty Brown

After Brown says he wants Shamrock, the squashing commences. After a powerslam the Alpha Bomb (starts in a slam position but Brown swings him into the air and powerbombs him down) gets the pin. Brown has what sounds like Abyss’ old music.

Goldilocks can’t find the NWA President. Two blonde guys haven’t either. A midget named Puppet says he’ll do the interview instead. He wants a fight against a Hollywood famous short person. Next.

NWA World Tag Team Title Tournament First Round: Rainbow Express vs. Apolo/Buff Bagwell

Before the match, Buff and Apolo say nothing of note. Bruce and Bagwell get us going with Buff controlling early. He slams Bruce down and hits a Vader Bomb for two. Here’s Alicia for some reason as it’s off to Lenny. Alicia (Ryan Shamrock) goes over to Ed Ferrara and gives him money. Apolo hits something on Bruce for two. No idea what it was as we were looking at Alicia, which to be fair is a better idea.

Apolo chops away at Lenny and hits an elbow to the face to take him down. Bruce gets involved and Lenny hits a running DDT for two to take over. Bruce gets tagged in via a kiss to the hand and they do the World’s Greatest Tag Team jump over the back onto the other guy’s back spot. Lenny drops an elbow for two but walks into a full nelson slam to put both guys down. Hot tag brings in Bagwell and his offense looks pretty awful. Buff and Lenny collide and roll to the floor as Apolo superkicks Bruce down. TKO looks to finish but Lenny makes the save. A Blockbuster puts Bruce down but Lenny superkicks Buff for the pin.

Rating: D. Nothing to see here again. The Express are supposed to be interesting because they’re gay or whatever, but it’s not working at all. Bagwell keeps getting blamed for posing and showboating too much here which I guess is the story, but who in the world would be interested in Buff Bagwell in 2002? Nothing to see here.

Buff talks to himself so Ferrara gets a mic. Bagwell says he’s Marcus, not Buff and he wants to go home. Ok then.

Here’s Shamrock for a chat. He doesn’t care about Monty Brown because Brown has only had one match and now he wants a title shot. Correct me if I’m wrong but hasn’t Shamrock only had one match at this point? Tonight he’s got Malice and then a Japanese guys next week. After that, maybe it’s time for Monty Brown. We cut to Mitchell in the crowd who says that Shamrock will have his hands full with Malice tonight and Shamrock will never make it to Omori and Monty. The lights go out and when they come up, Shamrock is down and Malice is standing over Shamrock.

Jerry Lynn comes up to Bill Behrens and asks if he can get in the tournament in Harris/Storm’s place if he can find a partner. Behrens sends him away because he doesn’t have time right now.

Puppet vs. Todd Stone

Little people time. Puppet yells about midgets before the match. This is a hardcore match apparently. Puppet hits him with a kendo stick as he gets in, followed by a trashcan shot to the head. Stone gets the trashcan put over his head and Puppet pounds on it with the stick. A horrible TKO into the can gets the pin for Puppet. This match exists and that’s as kind as I can be to it.

Puppet hits the referee with the stick post match. Borash gets a shot too. Even Don West gets hit.

Shamrock is being looked at.

We recap Francine and the lingerie battle royal last week.

Miss TNA: Taylor Vaughn vs. Francine

Vaughn is defending. Francine whips her with a belt like she did to Ferrara last week. Vaughn gets the belt and chokes away. This is thrown out in less than a minute.

Ferrara holds Francine’s hand up as she won but she puts his hand on her breast. That gets him a beating with the belt.

Here’s Hermie Sadler, a NASCAR driver, with his pit crew. K-Krush comes out and says no one around here like NASCAR. Sadler gets in his face and the two of them are having a match next week. West says 500 million people like NASCAR. I’d like to see some stats behind that.

NWA World Title: Ken Shamrock vs. Malice

Malice is more famous as The Wall in WCW. I probably should have mentioned that earlier. Shamrock is all banged up but he comes in anyway, only to get beaten down almost immediately. Shamrock gets knocked down to the floor and Malice stomps him against the railing. Back in and Shamrock gets draped over the top rope and Malice hammers away. Ken grabs the arm into a quick armbar but Malice powers him right back down.

Malice sends him to the floor and puts on a dragon sleeper which is quickly broken. As they’re coming back in Shamrock grabs a bad ankle lock but Malice makes the rope. A pair of release belly to back suplexes put Shamrock down but a regular suplex is blocked. Shamrock snaps off a suplex of his own and the belly to belly out of nowhere retains the title.

Rating: D. Malice looked good here but the ending sucked. It basically cut the legs out from under Malice because all of that offense he put in couldn’t slow the champ down and then a pair of suplexes are enough for a pin? I didn’t like this for the most part and it didn’t do anyone any favors at all. This would be the end of Malice’s time around the title.

X-Division Title: David Young vs. AJ Styles

AJ is listed as being from Atlanta here instead of Gainesville. Young jumps the champ from behind but AJ speeds things up and dropkicks Young down. A rana puts Young on the floor and AJ kind of botches a flip dive, with his legs hitting the apron on the way down. Back in the ring that gets two but a second springboard attempt is countered, sending AJ’s throat into the top rope.

Young follows up with an Asai Moonsault which gets two back in the ring. The spinebuster is blocked as is a German suplex by Styles flips. Bobcat is on her phone now as the match isn’t interesting enough to her. Young sends AJ back first into the corner for two. A crucifix gets two for Styles but Young takes out his knee and hits an enziguri for two. After a quick chinlock a powerslam gets two for David.

A brainbuster only gets two but Styles’ kickouts are getting weaker and weaker. Back to the chinlock but Styles fights out of it again and superkicks Young down for two. The moonsault into the reverse DDT gets another two count. AJ tries to speed things up again but walks into a spinebuster for two. That looked great too. Young puts him on the top rope for a top rope rana, but AJ blocks it in mid air and hits the Styles Clash off the middle rope to retain.

Rating: B. I was really digging this one as AJ in 2002 was incredible. Young wasn’t much but he had a good spinebuster and could do some other stuff decently. This was basically an AJ showcase match and that’s what it should be. The X-Division was a way to show off fast paced matches and they did that well here. Very good match.

Post match Bobcat gets in the ring to dance but gets shoved by AJ. That’s pretty heelish.

Goldie is with the Rainbow Express, who doesn’t like her hair. Joel Gertner hits on her and says the Express gets the titles because they don’t have anyone to fight. Gertner rhymes a lot and kisses her.

NWA World Tag Team Titles: Rainbow Express vs. ???/???

The NWA rules that they must have another match, so the opponents are AJ Styles/Jerry Lynn. The Express jumps them as they come in and the unnamed team is in trouble early. Lynn sends them to the floor and hits a slingshot dive followed by a corkscrew dive from Styles. Jerry and Lenny officially start and it’s time for gyrations. Lynn sends him into the corner and Bruce comes in illegally for some homosexual themed spots.

Lenny takes over and it’s off to Bruce via a kiss to the hand, freaking West out. Lynn is sent to the apron and he hits a legdrop to the back of a charging Bruce’s head to take over. Off to AJ who hits a spinwheel kick for two as West praises him nonstop. Back to Lynn who gets two off a bulldog. Back to Lenny who avoids a dropkick and puts on the Liontamer (screw the Tiger Tamer) while shouting to ASK HIM. AJ breaks it up with a clothesline and Bruce comes in sans tag.

Lenny comes back in quickly and a long delayed vertical suplex gets a sexual cover for two. West’s anti-gay shouting is kind of funny. Lynn comes back with a sunset flip out of the corner for two on Bruce and Bruce does the same for the same result. Bruce hooks a chinlock and then a headscissors to keep Lynn on the mat. Lynn escapes a powerbomb but Bruce escapes the Cradle Piledriver, only for Bruce to escape into a rollup for two.

Lynn DDTs Bruce down and both guys are dazed. Hot tag brings in AJ to face Lenny and things speed up. Everything breaks down and Lenny hits a Skull Crushing Finale on Styles for two. Cradle Piledriver takes Lenny down followed by Bruce and Jerry going to the floor. Spiral Tap to Lenny gives Lynn and Styles the titles.

Rating: C+. This was pretty good although it culminates one of the worst “tournaments” I’ve ever seen. The story works well as AJ beat Lynn last week and now they’re partners with AJ still holding the X Title. That would be the big feud for the next few weeks, although I’m not sure why, as AJ beat Lynn twice in a row last week. Yeah Lynn won once, but that still puts AJ up 2-1. The match was pretty good though.

The NWA President has been tied up in the back and has FU painted on his stomach. You know Cena had debuted about a week before this. I think I smell a conspiracy.

We recap Christopher vs. Krush last week which set up the tag match this week.

Scott Hall/Brian Christopher vs. K-Krush/Jeff Jarrett

It’s a brawl to start and all four head into the crowd. Hall and Jarrett head into the dancer’s cage as Christopher and Krush get in the ring. Hall knocks Jarrett onto the announce table as the Hip Hop Drop misses for Christopher. Scott comes into the ring and chokeslams Krush but Jeff is back in quickly. There haven’t been any tags at all yet. We finally get started with Hall vs. Jarrett and the good guys (Hall/Christopher) take over quickly.

Hall clotheslines Jarrett into the corner and it’s off to Brian who dances a bit too much and crotches himself in the corner. Off to Hall who is sent into Christopher while Christopher is on the apron before Hall collides with Jarrett. Jeff brings in Krush with a top rope dropkick but no cover. They badly mess up the spinning forearm as Krush lands on Hall’s back and Hall waits a few seconds before he falls. That looked pretty bad.

Back to Jeff for a cross body off the top but Hall rolls through for two. Jarrett hooks a sleeper and Hall reverses into a quick one of his own. Jarrett suplexes him down but can’t follow up. Christopher leaves the corner for some reason to yell at the referee, meaning Hall has no one to tag. Krush comes in with an ax kick and it’s off to a chinlock which is positioned so that Hall can stand up and hit an electric chair drop.

That gets followed up by a clothesline and it’s hot tag time, but Christopher won’t tag. Hall cleans house on his own including a punch to Christopher. Hall pulls Brian into the ring and beats him up too followed by an Outsider’s Edge to Krush. The referee went down in there somewhere. Brian breaks up an Edge on Jarrett and the Stroke pins Hall.

Rating: C-. This was the standard main event tag team match and it was nothing of note at all. At the end of the day, Grandmaster Sexay/Scott Hall vs. Jeff Jarrett/R-Truth isn’t a match that grabs me. There wasn’t much of a reason for this match to happen and it certainly wasn’t a big fight that we were dying to see. It wasn’t bad though and it sets up the main event feud for awhile.

Jarrett says he’s beaten Hall for years and he’s done it again here. Hall gets hit in the head with a trophy. Jarrett says he won’t get screwed again. The stretcher Hall is on is turned over to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was better than last week’s show overall as they cut out some of the nonsense but the main event was nowhere near the level of the one from last week. These earlier shows for the company were very dull at times and this was no exception, but you can see things starting to shape up a bit better. With only three shows done so far, that’s a good sign.

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NWA World Wide
Date: January 5, 1985
Location: Dorton Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina
Commentator: Tony Schiavone

This is a show that I did an episode of before and I’m back again. This is going to be squash heavy and that’s what the norm was back then. We’re just past Dusty losing on a decision kind of at Starrcade so we’ll probably talk about that some. The thing was back then, there was really just that one show for the whole year so the rest of the year, there wasn’t much else to talk about but house shows. Let’s get to it.

After a quick clip of a brawl between what looked like Don Kernoodle and Ivan Koloff, we get the intro sequence.

Dusty Rhodes and Manny Fernandez, the world tag champion, have been challenged by the Road Warriors. Manny accepts the challenge and we get a Road Warriors squash with Dusty talking about it. Seeing Ellering with blonde hair is a strange sight. The conclusion is that the Road Warriors are awesome, but they haven’t faced a team like the champs yet. Animal pins a jobber with the powerslam.

Ricky Steamboat welcomes us to the new year and says that he wants the NWA World Title this year. Steamboat would leave for the WWF at the end of February.

Tully Blanchard/Black Bart/Ron Bass vs. Tommy Lane/Lee Ramsey/David Diamond

Blanchard and Lane start things off. The squashing begins quickly as it’s off to Bass. He’s Mid-Atlantic Champion and Mid-Atlantic Tag Champions (different from Fernandez and Rhodes’ World Tag Titles). Blanchard is World TV Champion. Back to Blanchard who beats up Lane some more and throws him to the jobber corner for a tag.

There isn’t much to say here as it’s just the champions taking turns beating up Diamond. He gets sent to the floor and beaten up out there for a bit with some heel cheating. Ramsey comes in off a tag and everything breaks down. That doesn’t last long and it’s back to Bass beating up Ramsey. Blanchard comes back in and the slingshot suplex gets the pin.

Rating: D+. Nothing to say here as it was just a big beating. That being said, the idea of putting the tag team champions with the TV Champion would prove to be a great idea in about a year as they added Flair to the mix. That would be called the Four Horsemen. Anyway, just a squash here and it wasn’t that great.

Tony runs down a house show card VERY quickly. The Koloffs say they’ll win the battle royal.

Barbarian vs. Joel Deaton

Barbarian only debuted a few weeks ago and this might be his first match. He headbutts Joel and sends him out to the floor. Paul Jones, Barbarian’s worthless manager, adds in some cane shots for bad measure. There’s a bearhug but Deaton elbows his way out of it. A half superkick/half big boot puts Deaton down and Barbarian goes to the top twice, but both times he comes back down. He opts to choke and bite, followed by a chinlock for two arm drops. The comeback is quickly stopped and finally the top rope headbutt ends this.

Rating: D. This was exactly what you would expect so it wasn’t all that interesting. Jones was one of the most useless managers ever and I’m not sure anyone ever got the point of him. He eventually became this military (I think) kind of fanatic calling himself #1 Paul Jones. No one really cared but he did it anyway.

Tully says that he’s looking for a perfect ten woman, so here’s an address to send pictures to. This would be paid off in a few weeks I believe.

The Long Riders (Bart and Bass) talk about being tired of facing big numbers. Their manager JJ Dillon is off finding help for them.

Curtis Harrison vs. Assassin #1

Assassin takes Harrison to the mat and uses some technical stuff which is against his nature. A big right hand ends this quick. He’s called The Man With The Hands Of Stone, which would be used by Ronnie Garvin a few years later.

Paul Jones talks about his new man: Kung Fu Billy Graham. This was one of the most head scratching gimmick changes ever. World title here we come and all that jazz. There’s also some new guy named Magnum TA that he’d like a piece of.

Magnum TA vs. Doug Vines

Magnum armdrags him down and hooks an armbar. We’re thirty seconds in, making this one of Magnum’s longer matches. That’s not sarcasm by the way. His gimmick was he’d hit like two moves and then the belly to belly would get the pin. This is a MARATHON at two minutes with the finish I just said.

More house show ads. Flair is ready to defend against Harley Race in Greensboro. That sounds familiar. Don Kernoodle is ready to defend AMERICA.

Dusty is glad Kernoodle is back from injury. We get a clip of his first match back, which is the fight before the opening sequence. It’s about a flag or something. Dusty doesn’t like the Commie Koloffs so he’s offering to help capture the flag from them. Kernoodle got the flag back but Nikita ran in and took the flag back. Dusty came out for the save. He’s sweating just from this promo. Dusty wants the title back and likes Ricky Steamboat too. Tony looks bored out of his mind here. Dusty complains about the Russians some more and praises himself to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. For a 45 minute show with nothing but squashes, they covered a good deal of stuff here. This would be your typical NWA show of the time, which means it’s pretty good. Worldwide was the B show though which made it a little less interesting. The main show is World Championship Wrestling and if I can find that I’ll take a look. This was good though.

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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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SuperClash 1985
Date: April 20, 1985
Location: Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois
Attendance: 21,000
Commentator: Larry Nelson

Some of you might remember me talking about SuperClash III which was Lawler vs. Von Erich for the “unified” title. This is the original in the series and it’s one of those Pro Wrestling USA shows. In other words, the other companies (AWA/Crockett in this case) are banding together in a mostly futile attempt to fight off Vince because those national companies are evil so we need to join up into a national company to stop it. The main event is Magnum vs. Flair for the title in what should have been the main event of Starrcade 1986. Let’s get to it.

Nelson and Gagne welcome us to the show.

AWA Light Heavyweight Title: Steve Regal vs. Brad Rheingans

Regal is defending and is the heel. Brad is an Olympic weightlifter. Both guys are interviewed by Nelson on the way to the ring. Regal of course isn’t the British version. His name is Mr. Electricity, which would be a great gimmick for today’s Regal for the camp value if nothing else. There are a few rows of fans at ringside in bleachers (and by a few I mean about four) so it looks like there are about 200 people here. Then they go wide and you see 20,000 so it’s not so bad.

Brad easily overpowers him to start and controls with a headlock. Regal has been champion for over a year and a half. He works on the arm but Brad avoids a charge and works on Regal’s arm. In a really bad looking spot, Brad dropkicks him and the feet hit Regal, but Regal doesn’t move and Brad acts like he missed it. A bad looking clothesline by Regal results in more bad selling. This is really missing but it’s not completely horrible.

Off to a chinlock by the champ which is probably a good idea here as they need to collect their heads. It’s strange to see a power man in there fighting for a lighter title. We’re five minutes in and Regal might have cheated to keep his chinlock. Regal lets him up and drops a middle rope elbow. Another attempt at one hits mat and both guys are down. Brad starts his comeback with a backdrop for two. Atomic drop looks for a pin but Jimmy Garvin distracts the referee, allowing Regal to get a rollup to retain.

Rating: D. This one wasn’t really bad but it came and went and that’s about it. It’s not a good match and it’s not interesting either. This is one of those light heavyweight matches where it’s a match of regular wrestlers who weigh under a certain limit. They don’t wrestle any differently and it makes for a pretty dull match.

Regal says he didn’t cheat.

AWA Women’s Title: Sherri Martel vs. Candi Devine

Devine is defending. Rheingans jumps Regal before the match starts. Sherri stalls before the match and won’t let the referee pat her down for weapons. To be fair she’s wearing a form fitting one piece swimsuit so where would she hide them? Devine grabs a top wristlock but Sherri pulls the hair to take her down. Nelson sounds like Casey Kasem. Now Sherri works on the arm. Now Devine works on the arm.

Sherri gets in a shot to the head to take over before sending her out to the floor. Somehow Sherri loses track of the woman in a black outfit on a baseball field and Candi is able to sneak back in and dropkick Sherri to the floor. Boston Crab by Candi is reversed into a reversal by Sherri which gets two. Sherri drops a leg and a horrible small package for one. Back to the floor and Sherri knees her in the head to keep her out of the ring.

After that happens a few times Devine pulls Sherri to the floor and wraps the leg around the post. Back in and Devine works on the arm a bit more because we haven’t done that in awhile. Now Sherri hooks a headlock and this needs to end really badly. It’s 80s women’s wrestling so this isn’t going to be good by default (other than the Bomb Angels that is) but do we need eleven minutes of it? Sunset flip gets two for Devine. Finally Sherri wins with a top rope splash. Actually it was more like a knee to the chest as she overshot Candi but whatever.

Rating: D-. This was even worse than the previous one. The psychology was completely non-existent (wrap the leg around the post, TIME FOR AN ARMBAR!!!) as Devine was clearly there for her looks. Sherri was a heat machine but I never was huge on her in ring stuff. Pretty awful match.

Sherri says she’s the champion.

As I said, everyone is giving interviews before the match. I’m not going to bother recapping them unless something of note is said because most of them just say “I’ll win.”

Asian Six Man Tag Titles: Giant Baba/Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Harley Race/Bill Irwin/Scott Irwin

I can find no source claiming that these titles existed either before or after this show. The three Japanese guys are the defending champions but they have no belts. Baba has freaky skinny arms. Scott vs. Tenryu to start. They talk about the two former world champions here: Race and Tsuruta. That’s very interesting that they’re ignoring Baba being a three time NWA World Champion.

Ok so Scott is in the shirt. Got it. Race comes in to fight Tenryu and never mind as it’s Jumbo. Race is his usual old school heel self and it’s off to Bill. Bill makes a tag as Tsuruta counters a top wristlock. Off to Race vs. Baba as this match is really awkward. There’s no story here so there’s no heat to it. They tag in and out a lot and technically it’s ok, but it’s more like a collection of moves than a coherent match.

Bill gets a boot in and the fans are getting behind the heels. See what I mean about it not making a lot of sense? Tenryu is going to be playing Ricky Morton it seems. Piledriver gets two for Race. The Irwins hit a double back elbow for the same. Tenryu gets a boot up and it’s hot tag to Jumbo. Everything breaks down and Baba LAUNCHES Bill into the corner and to the floor. Back to Tenryu who gets a slam for two. Everything breaks down again and Baba hits a big boot on Bill for the pin to retain.

Rating: D. This show has been pretty meh so far and this match hasn’t helped anything. The fake champions defended their fake titles against guys they have no issue with right? On top of that like I said, there’s no issue here so the match isn’t anything interesting either. This felt off the whole time and it really brought it down. That and the heels being cheered because no one knew most of the Japanese guys.

The idiot Nelson calls Race the Legend of St. Louis.

Midget Championship: Little Mr. T. vs. Little Tokyo

This is something they’d do every now and then. The title had no continuity and one day a guy would be called champion for the sake of having a title match. These matches usually suck and it’ll probably have some unfunny comedy. This is one of those matches where there’s not much to say because again, there’s no story. Mr. T. gets caught in a quick armbar as for the fourth match in a row, Nelson isn’t sure if there was hair pulling or not.

Tokyo rams him into the buckle but Mr. T. comes back with a headbutt for two. Back to the armbar by T. until Tokyo comes back with strikes. He’s mean apparently. T. hooks a chinlock and then Tokyo kicks him in the shoulder. This is going nowhere. T. and the referee look at something in the air for no apparent reason. Here’s a test of strength which Tokyo controls but Mr. T. doesn’t pity that Japanese fool and stomps on Tokyo’s feet. Tokyo hooks a headlock again and T. hits a pair of Butt-Butts. You figure out what it is. Tokyo wins with a double chop.

Rating: D-. Is there a single good match on this whole show? There are enough to pick from (13) as the show runs over three hours, so there almost has to be one good one in here somewhere. It’s pretty clear that they were trying to fit as much in here as possible without really putting any effort into it. And they wonder why they went out of business.

IWA International Title: Mil Mascaras vs. Buddy Robers

This is called the Mexican Title but it’s an actual belt. Mascaras is champion here. Roberts is a Freebird so he’s a southern brawler, which doesn’t sound like it’s going to mesh that well with Masscaras. Mil moves around quickly and Roberts is getting frustrated. Mascaras hooks a full nelson and lifts him off the mat with it in a nice display of power. He uses a bunch of holds that get on Roberts’ nerves and this is bordering on a squash.

When all else fails, rake the eyes of the masked man. Buddy might hit him low before coming off the middle rope with an elbow for tow. Neckbreaker gets two. They slug it out and Roberts misses a running knee in the corner. He gets tied up and Mascaras doesn’t follow up due to being technico. Mascaras throws him around, slams him and comes off with the top rope cross body to retain.

Rating: C. This was by far the best match of the night up to this point. More than anything else, they kept this short. It also helped that there was a story, even though it was a simple one (one guy cheats, the other doesn’t). Mascaras was something different (and interesting, unlike the midgets or women) and made the match much more entertaining.

WCCW Texas Title: Kerry Von Erich vs. Jimmy Garvin

There seems to be more people around the ring now. Kerry wants the Claw before the match even begins but Precious gets in the way. Kerry is defending here. He takes the jacket off and we get the girl pop. We hear about Mike being in the hospital. That would be the injury he was rushed back from and that would drive him to suicide. Kerry tries the Claw but when Jimmy runs, Kerry does Jimmy’s strut.

Kerry speeds things up and the place is erupting off every move he makes. Garvin tries to cheat and gets run over for his efforts. Shoulder block gets two. Garvin gets in some offense but misses an elbow drop. Kerry misses a knee but doesn’t really get in trouble. A quick abdominal stretch is broken up and Garvin hooks a chinlock. Kerry gets knocked to the floor where Precious yells at him. Garvin won’t let him back in so Kerry stalls like a Zbyszko. Back in Kerry hits some discus punches but can’t get the Claw. Jimmy goes up but gets crotched and falls off, allowing Kerry to get the pin.

Rating: C-. Anticlimactic ending aside, this could have been a bad TV main event I guess. It’s a good example where the crowd can help a match as the fans were rabid for Kerry. What a shame it was that Fritz wouldn’t let his boys go outside of Texas because Kerry could have been a huge star on a national stage.

Nick Bockwinkel/Ray Stevens/Larry Zbyszko vs. Greg Gagne/Scott Hall/Curt Hennig

Old vs. new here. Hall with that mustache is something to see. Jack Brickhouse introduces the match. He reminisces for awhile and does LONG intros, taking almost three minutes to introduce six men. Hennig vs. Bockwinkel to get us going. The fans all start to get interested in something so the match stops for a few seconds. Bockwinkel flips Hennig around as Curt is a hot shot rookie at this point.

Hennig comes back so Nick hides in the corner. Off to Larry who only stalls about 40 seconds this time. Larry gets thrown around so he rants and raves for awhile. Off to Hall who works on Larry’s arm. Off to Gagne who jumps onto the arm off the top. Now Hennig works on the arm but Larry gets a suplex in to bring back Nick. Larry and Nick choke on Hennig in the corner until Hall comes over which doesn’t really do much.

Hennig gets knocked to the floor and worked over for a few minutes until it’s back inside for an abdominal stretch from Larry. Curt manages to tag Gagne but the referee misses it. Bockwinkel and Hennig collide as the match keeps going. Larry comes in and there’s the hot tag (with a POP) to Gagne. Everything breaks down and Hall powerslams Steves (both illegal) for the pin. Stevens never tagged into the match.

Rating: C-. Not the best six man in the world as it was more or less a three on two match given Stevens not coming in. The match wasn’t that good but the energy was there at the end. Hall looked like a completely different guy and Hennig has a small afro, so time has been kind to those guys. This was just barely ok.

AWA Tag Titles: Freebirds vs. Road Warriors

The Warriors are defending. This is Hayes/Gordy and they have their faces painted with the Confederate Flag. The champs clear the ring before the bell and are mad over because this is in Chicago. Hawk and Gordy start as Hayes walks around the field with people yelling at him. Hawk pounds on Terry so Terry heads off to bring in Hayes. Off to Animal as the Birds stall. Ok it’s Animal vs. Gordy.

The squashing continues with the Warriors taking their shots at Gordy. Michael comes back in again and gets pounded so much he crawls back to Gordy for a tag. Terry is like uh….not right now. Gordy finally wakes up and goes after the eyes before dodging a charging Hawk to send his shoulder into the post. Hayes comes back in and hits a side suplex for two. Piledriver by Gordy mostly works but Hawk doesn’t feel like selling that much.

Hayes goes up but Hawk slams him off the top but manages to tag before Hawk can. That’s kind of impressive. Gordy and Hawk collide but there’s the hot one to Animal. Hayes stays on the apron as Animal destroys Gordy, getting two off a powerslam. Everything breaks down and even Roberts and Ellering come in. Ellering gets dropped with a chair and Gordy accidentally pops Hayes. Powerslam to Hayes by Animal and a shoulder to Gordy looks to finish but Hayes comes off the middle rope with something around his hand to knock Animal out for the pin and the titles! The place is stunned.

Rating: D+. This one didn’t quite work either. The whole match was a mess and the ending was hard to follow due to everything going all nuts. The Warriors were still in the period where they would do nothing but run people over, which ran for about the next six or eight years. Bad match for the most part, but you know what’s coming.

Verne Gagne comes out and says hold on a minute. He reverses the decision and the Warriors get the titles back.

NWA Six Man Titles: Krusher Khruschev/Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Crusher/Dick the Bruiser/Baron Von Raschke

This is Crockett vs. AWA and the Russians are the champions of course. Big brawl to start and we eventually get down to Crusher vs. Krusher. Crusher bolo punches his way to prosperity and brings in the Baron. Nikita comes in and runs from the Claw. Nikita was a killing machine and he’s running from an old bald guy holding his hand in the air. Ivan comes in and gets beaten up by the old man as well.

Here’s Dick The Bruiser who is a scary man. He and the Crusher are identical. Dick and Ivan have a test of strength with the evil Russian cheating to escape. Back to Crusher vs. Krusher with Crusher taking over and bringing Baron back in. Ivan comes back in and takes Crusher down. He hits a legdrop which Nelson calls illegal. I’m not even touching that one. Crusher makes his comeback and it’s off to the Bruiser. Baron comes in and drops a leg which isn’t mentioned by Nelson. There’s the Claw and everything breaks down. We cut to a wide shot then go back to see Ivan pinning Baron.

Rating: D+. The ending is as quick as it sounds and since Larry didn’t see it either, we have no idea what knocked Baron out. I think you could see both other Russians but things were moving too fast. Nikita should have been in there running over people though as it’s what he was best at. This is the AWA though so it doesn’t think things through at times.

AWA American’s Title: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Boris Zhukov

Guess who the champion is. Boris jumps the champ to start but Sarge uses the powers of American to get control. The camera jumps to the crowd for some reason. Back to Slaughter destroying Boris, sending the shoulder into the post. They head to the floor and Zhukov slams him onto the mound. Boris controls with basic heel tactics back in the ring. Swinging neckbreaker gets two.

There are three matches left after this one and I don’t think I could take anything longer than that. This show has completely drained me. Out to the floor again and Boris slams him on the announce table. A piledriver out there is countered and Boris is slammed off the top back in. Nelson says the ring shifted an inch and then a foot. Dropkick by Sarge puts Boris down and he loads up the Cannon. The Cannon (short clothesline) hits the referee instead and Boris hits him with a loaded elbow pad. Sarge is busted and as the referee checks on it, Boris shoves the referee for the DQ.

Rating: D+. My mind is numb at this point. These matches mean nothing and we’re getting one cheap finish after another. Also the insane amount of punch/kick matches are making this unbearable. There hasn’t been a single match that I would call good and we’re over two hours into it. This needs to get done because it’s too late to be saved. This match was just another on the pile tonight.

Kamala vs. Jerry Blackwell

This is a $10,000 bodyslam challenge. Kamala is managed by Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissey. The Sheik used to manage Blackwell so there’s your story to the match. Kamala pounds on him to start and I keep trying to remember if he ever won a big match. The crowd reacts to it at least. Blackwell makes his comeback and uses general fat man stuff including a splash.

They try to slam each other which doesn’t work at all because more often than not you don’t just pick someone up and try to slam them. They slug it out and Kamala knocks him down with a chop to the head. There’s a splash and the idiot referee counts one. Here’s a nerve hold for a few seconds. Blackwell Hulks Up, splashes Kamala in the corner and slams him for the win.

Rating: D. It was short but this was one of those goofy fat man matches that they would have. The crowd would get into them which is the right idea. Blackwell was incredibly popular but he never would win the world title. Kamala was Kamala for the better part of ever so he was pretty set.

Post match Al-Kaissey and Kamala beat on Blackwell with a sword. Yeah they turn it on its side and hit him over the head with it. Baron with a ball bat finally makes the save.

AWA World Title: Rick Martel vs. Stan Hansen

Martel is defending. This is the next to last match thank goodness. Hansen jumps him to start and they go to the floor as the bell rings. Back in and it’s all Hansen. If I understood right this has a 25 minute time limit. The midgets got 45. Martel sunset flips him for two. Hansen takes him to the mat and chokes away before it’s a big brawl. They go to the floor and Hansen hits him with some chairs and it’s a DQ in about two and a half minutes. ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? We’ve had eleven other matches and the WORLD TITLE MATCH gets two and a half minutes? You couldn’t cut one of the six men matches down? I’m done.

Martel and Hansen brawl onto the field and into the dugout until Verne finally breaks it up.

NWA World Title: Magnum TA vs. Ric Flair

I need this. Flair in the 80s may be somewhat overrated, but Flair’s worst match ever is going to be a glass of water in the desert on this show. Magnum is young here but looks awesome. It’s such a shame what happened to him. Flair doesn’t have the big gold belt yet. Nelson: “Flair like to talk about his robes and his money and his possessions. Magnum TA likes to talk about winning the heavyweight championship of the world.”

They go to the mat to start and no one can get an advantage. They try it again and Magnum takes over with a hammerlock. Back up and Magnum wins a power match in a top wristlock. They speed things up and Magnum dropkicks him down followed by a gorilla press. Flair chops him in the corner but Magnum shrugs them off and it’s back to the arm. Flair throws him through the ropes but Magnum holds on and comes back in all fired up. His dropkick misses though and here comes Naitch.

The champ hits that one armed snapmare that you’ll see him do a lot. There’s the knee drop but he doesn’t cover. Butterfly suplex gets two. Abdominal stretch has Magnum in trouble but Flair gets caught pulling trunks so the hold has to be broken. Flair snapmares him down again but the knee misses. Magnum IMMEDIATELY throws on a figure four and the champ is in trouble. You don’t need a big long beatdown. This makes perfect sense so the psychology is right there. Love it.

Ric finally makes a rope but his knee is messed up now. Magnum tries to put it on again but Flair counters. A low blow takes TA down but Flair can’t capitalize. Suplex gets two for Magnum. Backslide for two. Flair pokes him in the eye and throws him to the floor. Magnum comes back with a sunset flip attempt but Flair punches him in the head to break it up. This time Flair hooks a hammerlock and puts his foot on the rope at the same time. Little things like those will always get someone booed, but for some reason no one does them anymore.

Flair stays on the arm and puts his foot on the rope but swears he didn’t do it. Again, little things. Crucifix position cradle gets two. Magnum fights up and hooks a sleeper. Flair slaps at the ropes but doesn’t grab them so the referee won’t break it up. The sleeper was Magnum’s finisher before he started using the belly to belly. A splash hits knees though and both guys are down.

Flair hits a kneecrusher out of nowhere and there’s the Figure Four. Magnum turns it over so Flair lets it go. He tries to hook it again just like Magnum did earlier but Flair’s is countered as well. Magnum throws him into the corner for the Flair Flip (Nelson thinks it’s a DQ but the referee says Flair flipped himself. Whatever) and they go to the floor. Flair is busted so Magnum pounds away at the cut.

Magnum is all fired up but Flair says bring it on. TA keeps pounding away at the cut and Flair is bleeding nice and strong. Big right hand gets two. Backdrop puts Flair down as he’s holding back on the belly to belly so far until he knows Flair is ready. They do the awesome backslide bridge out and the fans are all fired up now. There’s the belly to belly (powerslam according to Nelson) but Flair’s feet hit the referee. Magnum rolls him up but Flair pulls the tights into one of his own for the pin. Nelson: “Flair wins the title!”

Rating: B+. After the AWFUL stuff that we had to sit through for the last three hours, I’d have given anything that was good a solid grade here. Good match here and after Magnum had his best match ever in about two months, seeing this again in about fourteen months would have been awesome. Very good match and every time I see Magnum in a big one, it makes me kind of sad. He’d be 52 today so he could still be somewhat active. What a shame.

Overall Rating: Agoobwa. Until the main event this was going to be a rating that hadn’t been heard of yet. It’s not so much that it’s bad because some of these matches are okish, but THIRTEEN of them in a row isn’t enough for a very good main event to make this even salvageable. The lack of stories and the high amount of punch/kick matches bring this WAY down. Just too long and nothing interesting until the last match. Really bad show but if you’ve got 25 minutes to kill, you could do a lot worse than Flair vs. Magnum.

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NWA World Championship Wrestling
Date: February 15, 1986
Location: WTBS Studios, Atlanta, Georgia
Commentator: Tony Schiavone

This is the flagship show for the NWA. Their TV show was called World Championship Wrestling so when Turner took over in about two years, he just named the company after the TV show. Anyway, there are going to be a lot of squashes tonight and a lot of talk about this new group that formed last month (unofficially): the Four Horsemen. Let’s get to it.

We open with a clip of Tully vs. Dusty and Tully giving up, then getting piledriven. JJ gives Tully Dusty’s National Championship Belt.

Tony runs down the card.

Jimmy Valiant vs. Ron Rossi

Valiant is the dancing guy with a big beard. For you Chicago guys out there, he’s not here to start no trouble, he’s just here to do the Boogie Man Shuffle. Valiant murders him for a minute or two, knocks him to the floor, brings him back in, murders him some more and drops his big elbow to win. Don’t expect very many grades in this show.

JJ and Tully yell at Tony about Ron Rossi. JJ says that Tully can beat Rossi faster than Valiant did. Tully says he works better under pressure so he’s going to give himself four weeks to win Dusty’s National Heavyweight Title.

Cornette says that he’s been fined $5000 but mama has already sent in the check. As for the Rock N Roll Express, they do get fan mail from girls but they’re girls like these. He unfolds a picture of a fat woman in a swimsuit and says this is all they can get. The Midnights defend later.

Baron Von Raschke vs. Kent Glover

Raschke is an East German monster that was around forever. He’s managed by Paul Jones and is destroying the jobber here. Glover gets in a few shots but Baron pounds him down with clubbing forearms. Raschke hooks the Claw and we’re done.

Rating: D. Not much here as it was just a long squash. The Baron was nothing of note at all but he was fine for an old school evil foreign heel. I don’t recall him ever going past the midcard but by this point and he was later in his career, having been around nearly twenty years at this point. Then again if you were in Jones’ Army, it didn’t matter much anyway.

Jones introduces his newest man: Teijho Khan. He’s the stereotypical white guy playing an Asian.

The Barbarian vs. Paul Garner

Barbarian would join Jones’ Army eventually. Oh ok he’s already with him here. Garner is thrown around by the powerhouse of Barbarian. Garner tries to work on the arm but a headbutt sends him to the floor. Jones adds in a cane shot. I’m skipping over a lot of stuff here because there’s nothing interesting to it. It’s Barbarian beating on Garner with power moves and headbutts. BIG boot puts Garner down, setting up a powerslam and swan dive for the pin.

Rating: D-. This was a nearly 6 minute squash. Didn’t the point pretty much get proven after about two? That’s one of the other things that’ll happen on these shows: matches going FAR longer than the really need to. Squashes are somewhat entertaining but they lose steam quickly, which is why they rarely go long.

Jimmy Valiant says he’s behind Dusty and is ready for Tully. He’ll fight Paul Jones’ Army too.

Tully Blanchard vs. Ray Traylor

Yes, that’s Big Bossman as a jobber. He’s in a singlet here which looks like an S&M outfit on him. JJ is on commentary and sounds a little worried about Traylor’s size. Tully goes amateur on him but Traylor gets up and muscles him back into the corner. Traylor keeps using his weight to get him into the corner. Tully sweeps the leg and takes it to the mat again. He manages to get Traylor up and hit the slingshot suplex for the pin.

Rating: C+. Considering Traylor’s size (over 350lbs) that suplex at the end was awesome. Dusty was so impressed by the fact that Traylor could take it and make it look good that Traylor got a full time job out of this. He was kept off TV for three months and came back as Cornette’s unstoppable and unhurtable bodyguard Big Bubba Rogers and would jump to the WWF in about two years.

Tony talks about the inaugural Jim Crockett Senior Memorial Tag Team Tournament. What a mess that show was. Here’s Jim Crockett Jr. who thinks the tournament will be in Greensboro. There’s also mention of a new belt for Flair. That would be the Big Gold Belt, or the World Heavyweight Championship as it’s known today.

Ron Garvin vs. Art Pritts

What a name for the jobber. Garvin takes him to the mat very quickly and grabs a neck crank. Side roll gets two and Garvin lays on him. A forearm and knee lift put Pritts down and the fans seem to like Ronnie. I guess there was a radon leak or something in Atlanta. Garvin hits headbutts to what appeared to be Pritts’ hand. Ronnie hooks various stretches on Pritts and the Hands of Stone (big punch) ends this.

Rating: F. Any match with Ronnie Garvin in it is a failure by definition, but this one was boring on top of that. The squash went on too long again, which is becoming a recurring theme tonight. Maybe that’s an NWA WCW thing but it’s getting kind of dull. Two hours for this show might have been too long but this was their version of Raw.

Garvin says he and Flair will collide like two trains and he’s not going off the tracks. He respects Flair as a wrestler, not as a man. They’ll meet somewhere and that’s all that matters.

Cornette says Crockett won’t take away the tennis racket because it’s the security blanket that his mama gave him when she’s not there.

Tag Titles: Midnight Express vs. Ron Bass/Don Kernodle

This is Condrey/Eaton. Bass and Condrey start things off. Cornette sits in on commentary to make my day better. Bass sends him to the floor as Cornette says they’re just feeling the challengers out which is why they’re starting slow. Bass works on the arm and it’s off to Eaton. Eaton is slammed and it’s off to Kernodle. Scratch that as it was a high five and not a tag. Whatever.

Ok now it’s Kernodle. Condrey pounds on him as does Bobby. Kernodle hits a clothesline and we take a break. Back with the champs in control of Bass but he kicks both of them off at the same time. A double noggin knocker sends the champs into the corner again. Condrey tries a test of strength. Bass is in a competition with Barbarian for who the strongest guy in the company is at this point, so guess who wins.

Condrey cheats to take Bass down and Eaton hits the top rope legdrop for one. Cornette is at ringside now and is panicking. Bass suplexes Eaton down and tags in Don. Kernodle takes Condrey down and hits a neckbreaker for two. Off to Bass who works on a backbreaker. The Midnights double team to escape and it’s Condrey hooking a chinlock. Eaton goes up again and misses a top rope elbow this time. Bass comes back in with a pair of elbows for two. There’s the Claw but Cornette hits him with the racket for the DQ to save the titles.

Rating: D-. This didn’t work at all. The Midnights never looked like they had any momentum here and the challengers’ style totally clashed with theirs’. It’s probably the worst Midnights match I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen quite a few of them. Maybe it was just an off night?

The Rock N Roll Express clears the ring.

The Rock N Roll complains about Cornette and the racket when Dusty comes in. He has a present for them: a small cage that Cornette will be locked in during matches from now on. Dusty says he found it in a place that was kinky in San Francisco. I REALLY don’t want to know that story. This would be a staple of the Express matches.

Dusty and Baby Doll talk about Tully. I have no idea what they’re saying.

Rock N Roll Express vs. Larry Clarke/Bob Owens

The Express controls to start and take I think Clarke to the mat. Gibson comes in to elbow him down and hooks a headscissors. Total squash again here and there’s not much to talk about. They make a wish with Clarke’s legs and beat on both guys. Double dropkick puts Owens down for the pin.

Rating: D. Another boring squash. The Rock N Roll could feud with anyone but they were building up towards another Express showdown which was probably a classic. This was another boring squash though and it didn’t go anywhere at all. At least the show is almost over though.

The Russians warn the Americans that they’re coming for them. Not a specific American. Just any of them and they’re coming for the US Title. Magnum is watching from the ring. Ivan says there will be no Nikita matches after today until Magnum faces Nikita on this show for the US Title. Nikita speaks Russian about Magnum.

Magnum TA vs. Lee Peek

Here’s Magnum’s gimmick: he beats everyone in thirty seconds. Therefore he’s the match: headlock, shoulder, hip toss, dropkick, belly to belly, pin.

Magnum says he’ll do wrestling a favor and keep Nikita out of wrestling. He goes on a long rant against the Russian team as well.

TV Title: Arn Anderson vs. Sam Houston

Houston is Mid-Atlantic Champion here but it’s just Arn’s title on the line. Anderson headlocks him down and there’s a lot of stalling. Arn stalls on the floor a few times so Houston holds open the ropes for him to get outside easier. Houston speeds things up with dropkicks and Anderson slows things down. Down to the mat and Houston hooks a headlock. Anderson hits him in the ribs to slow things down again.

Arn goes to the arm which is his biggest tradition. He stomps away on it and Houston has a bad arm coming in anyway. Here’s an armbar and we take a break. Sam hammers away but ducks his head and Arn elbows him in the back to take him down again. There’s the hammerlock slam and a shortarm scissors. Anderson cranks on the arm for a few minutes and there’s not much to talk about in between.

Houston gets up and comes back with right hands. He monkey flips Arn out of the corner but a second results in an atomic drop. That only gets two so it’s arm time again. Houston fires off right hands and backdrops Anderson. A cross body misses and Houston crashes into the ropes and Anderson gets the pin.

Rating: C-. Not a great match as the match was mainly Anderson working on the arm. Sam Houston was never a guy that was interesting for me. He was so small and never got any interesting offense at all. Also being a guy from Texas and using the bulldog as a cowboy can only carry you so far.

Anderson says he’s champion and no one is going to take it from him.

Jim Cornette doesn’t like the idea of the cage. He HATES the idea of being 80 feet in the air. It was more like 20 but you get the idea.

Nikita Koloff vs. Josh Stroud

Nikita kills him deader than dead. Josh fires off some right hands which just tick Nikita off a little more. The Sickle ends this.

Magnum runs out to help the jobber but the Russians beat him down. Dusty makes the save to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. This was a chore to sit through. The problem is that there are a lot of squashes which doesn’t mean that it’s interesting to sit through for the most part. It’s not a bad show and when you consider this was the flagship show back in the day, that makes it a lot more bearable. It doesn’t hold up well, but if this is what you grew up on it probably would help a lot.

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Wrestlewar 1990
Date: February 25, 1990
Location: Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Attendance: 9,894
Commentators: Jim Ross, Terry Funk

We’re into 1990 now and Funk has stepped into commentary, so we need a new feud for Flair. That man would have been Sting who had been thrown out of the Horsemen on February 6. At Starrcade, Sting had pinned Flair to win the Iron Man Tournament and asked for a title shot. Flair snapped and turned the Horsemen heel again, destroying Sting in the process. That night, Sting legit hut his knee so his title match tonight (which he was supposed to win) was postponed. The replacement? Lex Luger, who has had more classics with Flair than should be legally allowed. Let’s get to it.

This show is called Wild Thing. The NWA had a habit of adding random titles to shows which have nothing to do with them for the most part.

Dan Spivey is hurt and may be out tonight.

JR and Terry run down the card.

Teddy Long says Spivey is indeed hurt and there will be a replacement for him tonight. There’s another surprise later as well.

Kevin Sullivan/Buzz Sawyer vs. Dynamic Dudes

Sawyer is insane and that’s about all you need to know about him. He starts with Ace and these people are a bit more receptive than the Philly crowd was in our last show. Speaking of last shows, this is the final major show that Sawyer was on for WCW if that means anything for you. Ace sends him to the floor and a brawl breaks out on the outside. Shane and Sullivan come in and the Dudes keep control with the arm work.

Ace comes in to work on the arm more but Sullivan gets a tag. He also gets in a fight with Sawyer, much to the Dudes’ amusement. That’s smart: why break up a fight when you can get a breather? Sawyer’s arm goes into the post so Shane cranks on it. Out to the floor with Sawyer taking over. Sunset flip gets two for Ace and there’s the tag to Shane. Buzz immediately takes him down and hooks a bearhug to take Shane to the mat.

Sullivan comes in and pops Ace, which draws him in so that Sullivan can throw Shane to the floor. Everything breaks down and Johnny botches a flying headscissors. Sawyer goes up and hits a big old flying splash for the pin. That’s the interim Raw GM and the Executive Vice President of Talent Relations for you. Funk called it the Jam Sandwich, which is something Brodus should use.

Rating: C-. Not much here as none of these guys was much to watch at this point. I’ve never been a big fan of Shane and Ace is just ok. He never was all that good as his size became an issue for him but he was too slim to be a power guy. Not a very good match with a total contrast in styles that didn’t work at all.

Norman the Lunatic, who is a goofy character that isn’t all there upstairs, hits on Missy Hyatt.

Cactus Jack Manson vs. Norman the Lunatic

Yes it’s Mick Foley and no he doesn’t mean a thing yet. He’s pretty much just thrown onto the card here, much like Cuban Assassin was last time. Jack jumps him to start but gets thrown to the floor with ease. JR: “This will not be a battle of wits. It may be a battle of nitwits.” Also Jack’s favorite color is light black and wants to be the foreman of the Double Cross Ranch.

Jack rams Norman’s head into the buckle and Norman says do it again. A quick bearhug goes on Jack but he’s soon whipped over the corner and out to the floor in a big crash. Headbutt knocks Jack off the apron but misses a charge into the post. Back in and Cactus rips at his face. Cactus pounds him down and it’s off to a chinlock. The electric chair drop puts Jack down but a splash misses. Jack tries a sunset flip but Norman drops onto him for the pin.

Rating: D. Yeah it was bad but Foley of course would get a lot more going for him. Norman is more famous as Bastian Booger and a lot of other bad characters in WWF. Jack was clearly going to be a guy that bumped like mad, but at the end of the day what sets him apart is that he made people care about him as opposed to guys like say New Jack.

Jim Cornette talks about how things change but some things stay the same. Tonight the Midnights have the Rock N Roll Express, which is something that never changes.

Rock N Roll Express vs. Midnight Express

This is another one of those matches where the starting rating rises up from a C to a B. These guys feuded for probably 6 years on and off and had more classics than you could shake a stick at. Why you would want to shake a stick at it is beyond me but you get the idea. Gibson vs. Stan gets us going. Lane dives to the mat and they counter each other a lot. Gibson counters a counter and drops a fist onto Lane’s head to take over.

Cornette gets in an argument with Nick Patrick and wants to box him. This is an old spot they did which always gets a big reaction. Cornette is dispatched quickly and it’s Morton vs. Lane now. The fans are into this too. Bobby gets knocked to the floor and Lane shoves him down as well. We never got a big singles match between those two and I think that’s for the best.

Lane vs. Bobby now and they speed things up. Nothing seems to be coming out of the shove from a few moments ago. Off to a test of strength and Morton is losing. He climbs up Bobby, stands on his shoulders, and jumps onto Lane in the corner. Gibson runs off Lane and the Midnights are knocked to the floor. Cornette tries to get in and falls over the top rope so Gibson knocks back down. Both Midnights are double clotheslined to the floor as well and it’s been one sided for about the first eight minutes.

Back in now and it’s Gibson vs. Lane but Lane still can’t get anything going. Morton comes in for a double elbow but gets sent outside. Never mind again as Lane goes into the post. Now it’s Eaton again and it’s a slugout. Terry gets into this and they both tumble to the floor. Outside Lane slams Morton and the Midnights take over.

Now we get into a much more traditional tag match which was popularized if not perfected by these teams, making this a fun match. Morton is sent to the floor and rammed into various metal objects. He manages a sunset flip but Cornette grabs the referee. Morton tries an O’Connor Roll but Lane makes a blind tag and hooks a neckbreaker for two. Eaton goes after the arm with a single arm DDT and into a hammerlock.

Lane comes in for a quick reverse chinlock before bringing in Eaton for a top rope elbow. Back to the arm by Lane. Man the Midnights tag in fast. Eaton works on the arm again with the hammerlock and the Midnights set for the Rocket Launcher. It hits the knees though and here’s Gibson. Everything breaks down but he’s still 2-1. The Midnights load up the Flapjack but Gibson rolls through for the pin on Lane.

Rating: B+. Oh come on it’s the Midnights vs. Rock N Roll. There’s practically no way that this can be screwed up. It’s a great speed match and they know each other so well that they’re going to have a good match through familiarity if nothing else. Fun stuff here but somehow not their best work together.

The Road Warriors have Sting armbands on and are ready for the Chicago street fight up next.

Skyscrapers vs. Road Warriors

Street fight. The Skyscrapers are almost a revolving door of members and in this case it’s Mark Callous and a masked man who is played by Mike Enos. The Skyscrapers have Teddy Long to counter Paul Ellering. Long comes in to fight Ellering and is knocked to the floor with one punch. Everyone is in street clothes. What street these would be normal on I have no idea but the thought is there.

The Warriors dominate to start and here comes Doom for no apparent reason. They’re in suits and Teddy goes to join them. Enos gets in some offense to take over (he’s just the masked man here but I’ll be calling him Enos to keep things clearer) but it’s pretty short lived. The Road Warriors shrug it off and Hawk hits a running clothesline off the apron to Callous. They get back in and this slows down even more. The Warriors throw Callous out and the Doomsday Device kills Enos easily for the pin.

Rating: D. I love the Road Warriors but they need the right kind of team to make things work. The Skyscrapers were never quite a team that worked, at least not here. They were good at destroying jobbers and small people but having brawls like this was never really anything worth seeing.

Doom comes in post match and brawls with the Warriors in a much more entertaining fight. This feud never really happened as the Warriors jumped to the WWF in June.

US Tag Titles: Freebirds vs. Brian Pillman/Z-Man

The Birds are challenging here. They get sent to the floor immediately and the champs steal their clothes and dance around as Badstreet plays in the background. Funny moment. The crowd is all over the Birds. They weren’t much in the ring but they were heat machines. Today is Flair’s birthday according to JR. We finally get going with Brian vs. Hayes. Brian knocks him around with a clothesline and Garvin fluffs his hair.

Speaking of Garvin here he is and he gets Z-Man. Z takes him down with a headlock but misses a dropkick. Garvin, ever the Rhodes Scholar, ducks his head and gets kicked in the face. Back to Brian for another headlock. Hayes comes back in and things are going slowly to start, implying that they have a lot of time to work with. Sunset flip with a great jump gets two for Pillman.

Z-Man works on the arm and goes into a Fujiwar Armbar to Hayes. Back to Garvin who loses any advantage that Hayes had gotten on Z-Man. Pillman comes in as the fans seem a bit distracted. Hayes comes in and hooks a sleeper (sleep hold according to Ross) as JR talks about Paul Boesch, the promoter of Houston Wrestling for decades, demonstrating this hold in the second World War.

Brian escapes and sends him into the corner but charges into a great left hand to put him down. Brian rolls through a cross body for two. Back to Garvin as this is going a lot longer than I was expecting it to go. Since Garvin can’t manage to keep Brian in one place he makes the tag to Z-Man. Z-Man puts the Z Lock (sleeper) on Hayes but Garvin comes off the top for the save.

Garvin hooks a chinlock as this match has gone well over fifteen minutes so far. Now they mix things up with a Hayes chinlock. After 18 minutes, we’re told this is a rematch from the finals of the tournament where Z-Man and Pillman won the titles in the first place. Z-Man gets a small package for two. Hayes is like enough of that and goes back to the chinlock. JR thinks Hayes looks like Alice Cooper. Terry wants to know if Hayes knows who Buffalo Bill is.

Hayes goes up and kind of steps off with no significant contact being made. Back to Garvin as this needs to end really soon. Who decided to give the Birds over twenty minutes? Top rope fist gets two for Hayes after a non-tag. Bulldog gets two as Pillman breaks it up. Back to the chinlock #4 but Zenk drops him with a DDT of his own. There’s the tag to Pillman and the fans care more than I expected them to. Pillman cleans house but Hayes brings in a title but Pillman comes off the top with a cross body as the title is being taken out to retain the titles.

Rating: D. Technically the match was fine but MY GOODNESS this ran long. It clocks in at almost twenty four minutes which is just far too long. Pillman and Zenk can easily go that long but the Birds were already through their whole set of stuff at about 10 minutes in. The solution of course? Go 14 minutes past that. WAY too long and if you cut this to like 12 minutes it’s probably an okish match.

The Birds DDT both champs post match.

The Steiners are all fired up and dedicate their match to Sting. Rick calls himself a big bad bully beater upper.

Tag Titles: Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Steiner Brothers

This was supposed to be Tully/Arn but he failed a drug test and was pretty much finished in mainstream wrestling so they brought out Ole in the finals part of his in ring career to fill in for him. Scott starts with Arn and the ring is quickly cleared by pure power. The Steiners are champions if that’s unclear. The Andersons try to double team and that fails as well. Rick and Scott go after the knee of Ole so Ole bails and almost says some very bad words.

Rick vs. Ole now and it turns into another brawl very quickly with the champs clearing the ring again. Rick hooks on a headlock to Arn and JR talks about Rick wanting to be an elementary school science teacher. Terry wants to know why he isn’t anyone’s favorite wrestler. Arn gets in a knee and goes up but has Rick waiting on him. For once a Horseman thinks better of it and climbs down.

Arn bails to the floor and both Steiners are in again. That’s been a habit of theirs tonight. Back to Ole with a headlock on Scott which goes nowhere. Arn comes in again and takes an atomic drop, allowing him to do his great selling of it. Figure Four is broken up by Ole who then comes in legally. For some reason Ole tries amateur stuff on Scott who easily suplexes him and tags in Rick.

The Anderson get an advantage for what must have been a good three seconds but Rick suplexes Arn to stop it cold. Ole tries to hit Rick in the head and that goes about as well as anything else has. The Andersons are brothers at this point for those of you that try to keep track of how they’re related. They go after Rick’s arm which is their trademark. Ole tries to hit Rick in the head which is enough for Rick to make the tag back to Scott.

Scott and Arm go outside and Scott accidentally clotheslines the post. You know Arn is going to go after that like Elvis on a pound of bacon. Ole comes back in and the arm work continues. For some reason the Andersons keep switching off from the arm to general attacks which never work. A Vader Bomb gets knees and there’s a Frankensteiner and a hot tag to Rick. In a fast ending, Rick punches them both down and a fast small package pins Ole.

Rating: C-. It’s not bad but again this was long and not that great. The Andersons were a lot stupider than you would expect from them here which is very Un-Horsemenlike. It’s much better than the previous one but it’s still long and boring. It was too slow and these guys didn’t click at all for the most part.

The Andersons get in a double team move on the arm of Scott post match to injure it.

Lex says he’s nervous but he’s going to Rack Flair tonight and win the title.

Flair says that he’s great and has Woman says that Lex needs to get his engine started, whatever that means.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger

Sting is with Lex while Woman is with Flair. The idea here is that Sting was supposed to get the title shot here but legit injured his knee which makes this out to be a “tragedy” according to the introductions. This is the main event and we have 45 minutes to go during Flair’s entrance. Chain wrestling to start with no one having an advantage. Flair shoves the referee and is shoved right back.

Flair agrees to a test of strength and down goes Naitch. Flair bails to the floor and says Wooo a lot. Lex knocks him to the floor again so Ric takes the walk. Luger chases him down and the beating continues. Lex is US Champion here. A gorilla press by Luger puts Flair down so Flair tries the chops. Those do about as well as they do against Sting and Lex is all fired up.

There’s a bear hug which Luger bends forward for a two count. Luger hits ten punches in the corner but Flair ducks a clothesline and Luger falls to the floor. Flair chops away outside and back in they go. Scratch that as Flair dumps him again and calls for Woman to get on the apron. With the referee distracted Flair sends him into the barricade and chops him down. Flair punches him back down to the floor as I guess he’s looking for the countout.

Back in for more than ten seconds this time and Flair drops a knee on the head. Another knee drop hits for two. Lex pops up for his comeback but misses a corner charge and is right back down again. This is one of those matches that’s hard to make fun of because they both know what they’re doing and have such great chemistry together that there’s not much they can’t do together.

Flair hooks a hammerlock and stomps on the arm. Lex starts coming back again so Flair pokes him in the eyes, which Funk calls the Achilles Tendon of big men. Luger gets caught in another hammerlock and when he tries to punch his way out of it, the referee stops the fist, allowing Flair to poke him in the eye again. Ric works on the arm even more but Lex grabs the throat to break it up. He throws Flair into the corner for the Flair Flip and we go to the floor.

Flair chops Lex again and Luger is all fired up. Back in and Flair is caught in a sleeper which puts him down. The champ gets his foot on the ropes and manages a belly to back to escape. Luger suplexes him right back and goes after the knee. He wraps it around the post and tries a figure four. Even JR basically says it’s awful as he spins the wrong way, making him look like he’s a nine year old imitating it.

Ric fights up and chops some more but walks into a powerslam for two. The pop on the kickout was big as the fans thought it was over. Flair still can’t get that the chops don’t work and Lex is all fired up. After a quick exchange outside, Luger backslides him for two. Luger punches him in the corner but Flair atomic drops him, hurting Lex’s knee in the process. Where are these knee injuries in matches against people not named Flair?

A pair of top rope axhandles gets two for Flair. Butterfly suplex gets two. Here’s a sleeper by Flair as he hasn’t gone after the knee much yet. That gets broken after awhile and NOW it’s knee time. We’re probably half an hour into this. Flair works on the knee in his usual manner as Sting comes back to ringside. Sting cheers Luger on enough for him to reverse the hold and it’s broken up.

He slaps Lex to fire him up and Flair bails fast. Out to the floor and Lex no sells a whip into the barricade. There’s a gorilla press and Flair goes up, only to get slammed down. Luger clotheslines him to the floor then suplexes him back in for two. There’s the powerslam which Luger earlier said would set up the Rack. Woman distracts Luger, allowing Flair to knee Lex in the back, crushing the referee in the process.

Lex clotheslines Flair down but there’s no referee. A superplex kills Flair dead again but the Andersons run in because there’s no referee. There’s the Torture Rack and the referee is back up, but the Andersons go after Sting. Luger drops the hold when Flair is about to give up, going to save his friend. The Horsemen keep him out there long enough for the count out and a HUGE boo from the crowd. Sting’s day was coming soon though.

Rating: A. See, THIS is how you book a screwjob finish. It made perfect sense for Lex to go out there, meaning that for once he wasn’t an idiot. They had the crowd into this and when you can do that during a forty minute match, that’s usually a great sign. It was an excellent match and the ending is about as perfect as it could have been. Luger would get a rematch the next month in a cage and then it was Sting’s turn.

The Steiners come out for the save. Good thing they couldn’t be out 40 seconds earlier to let Lex get the title isn’t it?

Overall Rating: B-. Still not a classic but it was a better show than Halloween Havoc for sure. The two later tag matches weren’t anything of note and you can always find a good Express vs. Express match. Still though, this was a good show overall and there really isn’t anything all that terrible on it. I’d highly recommend the clipped version or one with a fast forward button at the ready.

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NWA World Wide
Date: January 15, 1985
Location: Memorial Auditorium, Spartanburg, South Carolina
Commentators: Tony Schiavone, David Crockett

This is another one of those shows that I’ll have some random but some regular reviews up of. The NWA had probably about 4-5 different shows at a time and this was one of the lower level ones. We’re in the mid 80s here so I’d bet on a lot of Dusty and a lot of Flair, plus a lot of squashes. The Horsemen aren’t around yet. Let’s get to it.

A plane lands and a guy in a Rolls Royce is happy to see it. That might be Tully Blanchard but I’m not sure.

Here’s the opening which has some very perky music.

Dusty Rhodes is with David Crockett and Dusty has $10,000 in bags. He’s willing to put this up against Tully Blanchard anywhere anytime. This would actually result in a ladder match.

Manny Fernandez vs. Doug Vines

Manny is one half of the tag champions and comes out to Beat It by Michael Jackson. Yeah the music license issues were a little less insane back then. Manny fires off some dropkicks and drives knees into the ribs. Total domination and the flying forearm and a top rope knee drop ends this.

Buzz Tyler says he wants to look at a clip of Black Bart ripping up a shirt. The shirt had been a gift so this was a big deal. The evil is going to come out in him and it’s coming for Bart.

Dick Slater vs. Inferno

Inferno is a masked guy in a red bodysuit. Slater throws him to the floor and the fans want the mask off. Suplex back in gets no cover. Swinging neckbreaker puts Inferno down and Slater goes for the mask. JJ Dillon and I think Terry Funk get on commentary. Yeah it’s Funk and he wants to make sure the money is ready for whatever. Dillon says it’s for a job of some sort and JJ says there’s no time frame but time is money. It’s to get rid of Dick Slater apparently. Funk comes in and Slater throws Inferno to the floor for the DQ. Match was just here to get us to the post match stuff.

The Long Riders (Black Bart/Ron Bass) come in as well and it’s a three on one beating. Funk piledrives Slater and chokes him with a belt. A bunch of guys come in but get beaten down as well. Tyler, Fernandez, Rhodes and Magnum come in and that’s enough to clear the ring.

There’s a show in Greensboro so we hear about the people that are going to be there. We get that for a few other shows too. The Long Riders come in and talk about a match in Roanoke for the tag titles against Rhodes/Fernandez. The Koloffs say Nikita is too strong for Don Kernoodle.

We go back to the airport and that was Blanchard. The person on the plane was the woman he called his perfect 10 who is debuting here. It’s the debuting Baby Doll and they kiss. This is set to music.

Assassin #1/Steve Casey vs. Jeff Sword/Ben Alexander

Assassin starts and I have no idea which jobber is which. We’ll say that’s Sword. Off to Casey and Alexander with the jobbers being in trouble early. Sword in now and he does just about as well. Casey pins him with an airplane spin and a Samoan Drop. More squashification.

The Koloffs are happy about winning some World Cup or something. Krusher Khruschev is coming. Oh he’s already here and has attacked Steamboat.

Wahoo McDaniel is ready for Flair and is going to win the world title.

Time for Billy Graham (the Kung Fu Fighter) to try the full nelson challenge. He’ll be using the hold and Starship Eagle (Dan Spivey) will have thirty seconds to break it for $1,000. Graham can’t get it on full but Spivey can’t break it anyway. No brawl or anything, the time just ends.

Wahoo says he’ll be defending the US Title everywhere. He doesn’t have much to say here.

Long Riders vs. Denny Brown/Tommy Lane

Bart vs. Brown starts us off. Bart is the Mid-Atlantic Champion, Brown is the World Junior Heavyweight Champion and the Long Riders are Mid-Atlantic Tag Champions. Man that’s a lot of gold in one match. Bart powerslams him for the pin very quickly. This might have lasted a minute.

More house show ads and Kernoodle says he’ll win the flag match. Flair says Wahoo is great but when a guy like Wahoo has to sneak up on him, that says a lot. Flair will get just as mean as Wahoo if he has to.

JJ tells Funk that he doesn’t like him. Funk says he only wrestles for JJ and Crockett on occasion. He wrestles for himself. Terry only cares about making money. He didn’t like Rhodes coming in either.

TV Title: Tully Blanchard vs. Mike Davis

This is for the title and $10,000 of Tully’s money. Kernoodle jumps in on commentary and says he’ll win the flag match. He promises a surprise and Davis works on the arm to send Tully out to the floor. Tully goes to the floor to get a breather but he comes back in and the arm works continues. Davis slams him and the place is erupting. He ducks his head though and Tully grabs a DDT style move and the slingshot suplex keeps the belt on him.

Rating: C. Better match than I was expecting here and it did exactly what it needed to do. The fans were getting into this because they wanted to see Tully lose so badly. The money thing was a nice touch as I think Tully wins ten grand every time he wins also. Anyway, this was better than I expected.

Tully introduces Baby Doll who says there’s only one man.

Overall Rating: B. I’m starting to get why the NWA was so wildly popular around this time. This was an AWESOME show with a bunch of angles, promos and matches packed into a single hour. Nothing is bad, the matches go by fast, and you get a lot of stuff done in this amount of time. I’m very impressed.

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Crockett Cup 1988
Date: April 22, 1988/April 23, 1988
Location: Greenville Memorial Auditorium, Greenville, South Carolina/Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina
Attendance: 4,400/6,300
Commentators: Jim Ross, Tony Schiavone

It’s the final one of these and this is by far the most complicated of all. As usual the tournament was scheduled to have 24 teams, but there were a bunch of messes involved in it, which I’ll get to in a minute. This is another two night tag team tournament for the sake of having a two night tag team tournament. The NWA is in trouble to the WWF at this point, but Ted Turner would be coming in for the save soon. Let’s get to it.

First off, the brackets. There are two teams with byes listed, which is the result of a lot of storyline stuff. If you’re not interested in why there are byes, skip ahead to the brackets themselves. Lex Luger and Barry Windham were world tag team champions as faces, but two days before the tournament, Windham turned heel and joined the Horsemen, giving Anderson/Blanchard the tag titles. Windham also took the spot in the Horsemen that Luger had been kicked out of, starting a huge feud. That’s one team gone.

The reigning champions of the tournament, the Super Powers (Nikita Koloff/Dusty Rhodes) were taken out because Rhodes was suspended from the company for 120 days because he hit the boss with a ball bat (also causing him to be stripped of the US Title). Since he was gone, Nikita had no partner so he was given a world title shot on this show as well. There are two teams gone.

Sting and Ronnie Garvin were scheduled to team together as one of the teams automatically in the second round. However, during another of the non-tournament matches, Garvin was injured by Kevin Sullivan so Sting was paired with Lex Luger and they would go on in the tournament. So to sum up, we’re down two teams of the original 24 to make it 22, meaning that one team is automatically going to the semi-finals after one win.

So you got all that?

Here are the brackets. As usual, the team in parentheses is the team that the winners will face in round 2.

Johnny Ace/John Savage
Brad Armstrong/Tim Horner
(Midnight Express)

Cruel Connection
Sheepherders
(Midnight Express)*

Ivan Koloff/Dick Murdoch
Mighty Wilbur/Jimmy Valiant
(Lex Luger/Sting)

Chris Champion/Mark Starr
Twin Devils
(Powers of Pain)

Rocky King/Nelson Royal
Tiger Conway Jr./Shaska Whatley
(Road Warriors)

Green Machine/Terminator
Italian Stallion/Kendall Windham
(Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard)

Bye/Bye
Bye/Bye
(Bye/Bye)**

Joe Cruz/Ricky Santana
Al Perez/Larry Zbyszko
(Fantastics)

Varsity Club
Ron Simmons/Steve Williams
(N/A)***

Ok so on to the asterisks.

* – Since there weren’t enough teams to have a first round, the winner of Sheepherders/Armstrong/Horner gets the match against the Midnight Express.

** – Anderson/Blanchard are in the spot where the winner of the second round match goes on to the semi-finals.

*** – For some reason the Varsity Club and Simmons/Williams are already in the second round. The winner of that faces whoever comes out of the three teams above them in the third round.

So you got all that too? Let’s have some bad tag matches!

Also remember this is the home video version, so there’s A LOT of clipping.

Crockett Cup First Round: Mighty Wilbur/Jimmy Valiant vs. Dick Murdoch/Ivan Koloff

Wilbur is a very fat hillbilly. He and Koloff start us off. There was no intro or anything like that so we’re really thrown into things quickly here. Wilbur throws them around with ease and it’s off to Valiant who dances a lot. Valiant takes over and it’s off to Murdoch. Koloff comes in and Valiant no sells a lot so it’s back to Wilbur. They’re clipping some here I think but it’s done better than usual. Murdoch hits a knee to the back of Valiant and the Sickle ends this.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Ron Simmons/Steve Williams vs. Varsity Club

Steiner/Rotunda for the Club here. Williams tries to wrestle Williams and he gets punched in the face for his efforts. Williams runs through both opponents as only he could. He was the Brock Lesnar of his day so expect some high impact dominance. After destroying Steiner for fun it’s off to Simmons who is no slouch either as far as power goes. Off to Rotunda again who is the talented member here.

Simmons keeps up the football power style but he gets caught by a cheap shot from Steiner to give the Varsity Club the advantage. A lot of Simmons getting beaten down is clipped here which is probably good due to the sake of time. Oh yeah there’s some clipping as we go from Rotunda hitting Simmons to a shot of the crowd to a big brawl. Simmons is sent to the floor and Kevin Sullivan gets a shot in on him, giving the Varsity Club the countout win.

Rating: D+. Not bad here but the clipping takes away however good it could have been. The Varsity Club reached some pretty high levels on the heel totem pole in the next year and you could see it starting with this one, as they were totally outmatched but used numbers and cheating to advance. Could have been a lot better with time and no clipping.

That’s all we see of round one but the brackets are really confusing so I’ll wait for round three before I update the brackets. Nothing of note happens in round one so you’re not missing any upsets.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Italian Stallion/Kendall Windham

The Horsemen are tag champions. Windham is Barry’s real life brother but he and Stallion are jobbers. Kendall looks like Magnum TA, almost the point where I’d believe he was copied from his look. Stallion is a big power guy. Anderson shrugs off some offense and pounds away on the arm and ribs before bringing Tully back in. I keep thinking that when they cut to a shot of the crowd that they’re clipping but it’s just an NWA thing.

Off to Windham vs. Anderson and there’s the spinebuster (has a name here) and we’re clipped to Windham fighting back. Stallion comes in and we’re clipped again to Stallion making the comeback. And never mind as he ducks his head in front of Arn and since that’s just stupid, the DDT sends the Horsemen on to the semi-finals due to a bye. Too short and clipped to be rated.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Road Warriors vs. Jive Tones

The Jive Tones are Whatley and Conway. Animal runs over Whatley and things break down quickly. Animal is all like oh please and throws them both off the corner at once. Hawk comes in and just mauls people. Animal just shrugs them off again and brings in Hawk who hits a dropkick (one footed but whatever) and a top rope clothesline ends Whatley. Total squash.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Fantastics vs. Al Perez/Larry Zbyszko

The Fantastics were US Tag Champions at this point. Perez vs. Rogers starts us off. I like the Fantastics so this should be good. Rogers tries to speed things up as is his custom but Larry slips in a knee to break that up. Larry tries a backdrop but Rogers lands on his feet (SWEET) and it’s off to Fulton. Fulton and Perez speed things up a bit and Perez is in WAY over his head here. The heels take over on Fulton and we’re told we’re ten minute in as Fulton gets the pin on Larry off a very fast small package. Again, not long enough to rate.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Sting/Lex Luger vs. Dick Murdoch/Ivan Koloff

Sting is still very new on the national stage so Luger is the veteran here, despite having been in the big time less than two years. Luger runs over Koloff and must have done so for awhile because the opening has some clipping. Off to Sting who is as over as free beer. They have Magnum TA with them also so who do you think the popular team is? Sting escapes the corner but Murdoch takes him down by the arm.

Sting gets beaten down in the heel corner and Ross says don’t bother hitting Murdoch in the face because he won’t care. He gets knocked to the floor and Murdoch adds a chair to the back of Sting. Back in and Sting fires off a quick Stinger Splash to break things up. Everything breaks down and Sting reverses a slam into a small package for two that we’ll call three.

Rating: C-. Not a horrible match here but the clipping hurt it a lot. That’s the same thing that you can say about the whole show for the most part as it’s hard to get into a match when you keep clipping things up and taking out so much from each of the matches. Also, it’s not like there was any doubt as to who wins here, but that goes for almost all tournaments.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Sheepherders vs. Midnight Express

Big brawl to start and I think they’re all heels here. I can never remember when the Express turned face but it was huge at the time. Eaton gets double teamed and goes to the floor with Luke. Everything breaks down and Eaton pops Butch with the tennis racket for the pin. This was a mess.

That’s it for the first two rounds so here are the quarterfinals.

Midnight Express
Lex Luger/Sting

Powers of Pain
Road Warriors

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard
BYE

Fantastics
Varsity Club

Jimmy Garvin vs. Kevin Sullivan

This is a Prince of Darkness Deathmatch, which means blindfold match. Clipped to them stumbling around until they get their hands on each other in the corner. Garvin keeps trying to point while the fans cheer him. Now logic would ask why he would do that if Precious is outside and he can presumably hear her. Also, if anything goes, why not rip the mask off? The idiocy of the match is that they keep stumbling around without any contact. And there’s a small package (move of the night so far) from Garvin for the pin. Horrible on all levels.

Rick Steiner and Ronnie Garvin come out for the beatdown and save. Ronnie takes a spike to the chest which would be the injury that kept him out of the tournament.

Up next is the final of the Bunkhouse Stampede, which aired on a PPV of the same name in January. The match is clipped here but I’m not watching it again so here’s the full version from the PPV.

Bunkhouse Stampede

Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Ivan Koloff, The Warlord (wearing a Lifeguard shirt for no apparent reason), Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, The Barbarian, Animal.

Dusty gets a big entrance of course with all his accomplishments listed. Did I mention he was booking at the time? Seriously, ONLY DUSTY had anything listed about him, including the match he won to qualify here, his world title reigns, his US Title reigns, and his TV Title reigns. No one else got anything but their normal entrances. This could get bad fast. All eight are in there at once. There aren’t any weapons like promised or anything.

Remember, it’s a battle royal in a cage where you have to throw them over the ropes or through the door. My goodness this is idiotic. Apparently it’s unheard of for someone to win three straight Bunkhouse Stampedes. That could be because this is THE THIRD ONE! Wow Dusty lowered some IQs. Everyone is in some screwed up street clothes of some kind and this is just idiotic.

Apparently the referee has to determine if a guy goes over the cage or through the door, since that’s overly complicated I guess. Wow shoving people OVER A CAGE looks stupid. See, when it was a regular battle royal, IT MADE SENSE. Blanchard and Anderson work together of course. Barbarian, Warlord and Koloff are in the same stable mind you so they’ll likely work together. Koloff and Dusty climb the cage due to idiocy.

I’m watching people try to throw PEOPLE over a cage. Does that sound stupid to you or is it just me? How hard would it be to throw someone that is fighting back over a cage wall? Because to me, IT SOUNDS IMPOSSIBLE. Also, there are a lot of people walking around on the top ropes which is just freaking stupid too. No one is out or anything yet.

Arn saves himself from being thrown out the door as I realize how much this sounds like a really bad comedy sketch. Koloff is bleeding. Winner gets half a millon dollars. Not sure if I said that or not but I don’t want to stop the tape long enough to go back and read it. I feel sorry for Ross and Caudle trying to make this sound interesting or intense or whatever it’s supposed to be.

Luger and Dusty just go off as we’re supposed to believe that a guy that is built like Dusty is supposed to be in the same kind of condition as a stallion like Luger. Right. Oh yeah, and keep in mind this whole cowboy southern thing is in NEW YORK CITY. They continue to try to make this sound good and it’s just failing. Wow this was ten days before I was born and 12 before Hogan lost the world title to Andre. Holy crap that’s weird to think about.

Still no one out and we’re almost 15 minutes into this. It’s mainly just people in jeans hitting people with belts and boots. Yeah it’s riveting in case you can’t tell. Dusty’s arm is bleeding from being worked over with a belt. Make this stop please. Animal tries to shove Anderson over the top. I want to break this match.

Koloff, like an idiot, although at this time he’s one of two former world champions in there somehow, climbs over the cage to get away from Animal and gets knocked out to take us down to seven. Oh sweet mercy kill me now. So let’s just keep the camera on Koloff FOREVER as we see the EPIC DRAMA of him standing up. Animal and Warlord fight to the door and Warlord gets knocked to the door. Animal gets kicked in the head by Barbarian and it knocks both guys out in a stupid looking spot.

We have Dusty, Luger, Anderson, Blanchard and Barbarian left. Blanchard gets put in the Rack which at least hurts him. Some fan shouts about how freaking gay this is. Thanks for that. Luger takes a Gourdbuster and the Horsemen try to throw him out. Since Luger didn’t have any gourds on him though, he was fine and stays in.

Anderson, Luger and Blanchard fight by the door and they all go out after like three minutes of fighting. Arn at one point stood on the third step and choked Luger. Yeah he deserved to lose. So we have Barbarian vs. Dusty. Any bets on who wins here? Barbarian gets some brass knuckles and pops Dusty with them. Barbarian hits like three of his top rope headbutt finishers but Dusty fights back baby!

They climb to the top rope for the epic move known as the OH NO THIS MATCH MAKES NO SENSE SO LET’S CLIMB UP SO WE CAN HAVE A REASON TO GET THROWN OVER THE CAGE! Yep, Dusty wins by hitting the elbow to the head and we’re done. Earl Hebner is the referee here but would be in WWF in 12 days for the famous twin angle. Dusty gets a big bronze cowboy boot. Give me a FREAKING BREAK!

We hear about Dusty was considering retiring before this but came back “for the people.” So he was about to leave and came back for the people. So apparently by coming back for the people, he just had to come up with a PPV for himself and put himself over in it. Sure why not.

Rating: F. There was a cage match with a battle royal going on. This was a MASSIVE love letter from Dusty to Dusty. This was all about getting him even FURTHER over and making things look even stupider. Somehow Dusty was the wildcard and the favorite at the same time. He’s US Champion already but was going to retire. I give up. Just a joke of a main event and a show.

Crockett Cup Quarterfinals: Powers of Pain vs. Road Warriors

This is the only match shown from this round. Barbarian vs. Animal gets us going and Animal sends him to the floor with a powerslam. It goes to the floor and the Warriors take over again. Hawk throws the wooden steps at Barbarian and kind of hits him. Paul Jones, the Powers’ manager, freaks out about it to no avail. Hawk vs. Warlord now and Hawk takes over, hitting a middle rope punch for two.

Double teaming by the bad guys take over and Hawk gets beaten down a bit. There’s a big boot to put Hawk down for two. There’s a powerslam for the same. This is kind of winding down I think. Bearhug time which is required in a power match. Hawk kicks him low to escape a full nelson but Barbarian comes in again for a bearhug of his own. There’s some heel miscommunication though and Hawk takes Barbarian down with a clothesline. There’s a hot tag to Animal who cleans house. Animal accidentally clotheslines the referee and everything breaks down. Animal pins Barbarian, Dusty Finish, Powers of Pain win. Blow me.

Rating: D+. The match was ok and then we get a bogus finish to tick off the crowd. It was about Animal hitting the referee by mistake so the Warriors get disqualified. This wasn’t much of a match but considering the circumstances, this was better than it could have been. Either way, it was nice to see a full match.

James J. Dillon vs. Midnight Rider

This is a bullrope match and Rider is Dusty under a mask, but the idea is he’s NOT Dusty which everyone, namely Dillon, knows. You win by pinfall here. Dillon is a manager and part time wrestler and if he wins here then the Rider is unmasked. If it’s Dusty, he’s gone for a year. Why not just write it on a freaking wall then? They’re in street clothes here and Dillon is busted open pretty quickly. Rider uses Dusty’s moves and it’s kind of a wink wink situation. A top rope cowbell shot ends this squash.

Post match another huge masked man comes out after the Rider and the heels beat Dusty down. Steve Williams comes out and gets beaten down as well.

Crockett Cup Semifinals – Sting/Lex Luger vs. Powers of Pain

Sting starts us off with the Warlord and they botch a headscissors spot. Sting gets beaten down again but comes out of the corner with a spinning cross body for two. Magnum goes after Paul Jones and hits him with the riding crop because he’s a mean person. Barbarian dominates a test of strength but Sting manages a monkey flip off the ropes, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Off to Lex and the good guys are in total control here. We’re at five minutes in and I think it’s been clipped at least a little bit. Barbarian takes over with a powerslam and a BIG boot to rattle Sting’s brain a bit. Everything breaks down again and the fans really don’t care. Know how I know that? The cameraman decides to put the camera on them and show us how boring they are. Warlord picks up Luger but Sting dropkicks Luger’s back so he falls on Warlord for the pin.

Rating: C. I’ve seen worse here and the crowd (while looking bored) at least made some decent noise. At this point and coming into the semi-finals you could clearly see what was going to be the finals and probably the winner. Nothing too bad here and you could see the great teamwork from Sting and Luger that would be around for years and years to come.

Crockett Cup Semifinals – Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Fantastics

This should be awesome. Rogers vs. Blanchard to get us going and as usual the Horsemen don’t start out that well. Double teaming puts Blanchard down and the Fantastics dance a bit. Off to Arn vs. Fulton as the champions take over. Fulton is sent into the post on the floor and rolls back in to get beaten up by Blanchard a bit more. Fulton’s tights are half down.

The heels naturally cheat because they’re Horsemen and that’s what they do. Anderson comes in and pounds away even more, but it’s Fulton with a facejam and there’s the hot tag to Rodgers. The Fantastics hit double dropkicks all around and the Rocket Launcher hits Anderson but he’s illegal. Teddy counts it for two anyway and Tully makes the save. Anderson pops in with JJ’s shoe and that’s enough to pin Rodgers.

Rating: C+. Short but it’s still pretty easily the best tournament match of the night so far. The Horsemen vs. Luger/Sting is something you really can’t screw up and I don’t think they will here. Not a classic or anything like that but it’s still a pretty solid match. There was clipping but that’s the nature of the beast on this show.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Nikita Koloff

Flair runs his mouth a bit and ticks Nikita off. Great heat on the champ too. Barry Windham is here and is even more hated. Barry heads to the back after the entrances and is embraced by the Horsemen. Technical stuff to start and Nikita grabs the arm to start. We’re clipped a bit and Flair has no idea what to do to a muscle dude like Nikita. He finally gets an atomic drop out of the corner and Nikita is finally down.

Koloff fights back and works on Flair’s knee, wrapping it around the post and then slapping on the Figure Four. Out to the floor with Nikita still in control. Flair’s chops and strikes have no effect on Nikita and he’s mad. Nikita bites away in the corner and accidentally pokes the eye of the referee. Flair throws him over the top so Nikita kills him dead with a middle rope Sickle for two because Tommy Young was blind. He hits the Sickle again but he goes flying over the top rope. Back in Flair grabs a rollup for two and a backdrop for Nikita gets the same. And then Flair throws him over the top for the cheap DQ. I really hate that rule.

Rating: D+. The Nikita push was long since over due to his wife dying and him not being as roided up, but there was still enough heat here to make it watchable. That being said, the ending was really weak and hurt the match more than it was going to recover from. Not exactly the Flair vs. Windham classic from last year is it?

Crockett Cup Final: Sting/Lex Luger vs. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

The winner gets a million bucks. Tully vs. Luger to start which is fine for me. Off to Anderson quickly and it’s all Luger with him even busting out a dropkick of all things. Anderson makes a tag while on the floor which doesn’t count because it, you know, illegal. Off to Sting vs. Tully and even Magnum gets in a shot which just feels right. All sting/Luger for the first few minutes here.

Back to Lex and Anderson with some stuff clipped I think. Luger works on Anderson’s arm just like he’s an Anderson. Gee it’s like he learned something during his time in the Horsemen and is incorporating it into his offense now. What black magic is this??? Back to Sting who works on the arm again but the Splash misses in the corner. Back to the fresh Tully who throws Sting over the top for a not-DQ because Dillon had the referee. See how much a manager can help?

Spinebuster puts Sting down and draws some WOOs from the crowd. Not sure I get that one. It turns into a standard tag match now and Sting grabs a Stinger Splash out of nowhere but messes up the Deathlock so Anderson is able to make the save. There’s your tag to Luger and everything breaks down. Magnum trips Anderson and the distraction is enough for Luger to roll him up for the pin and the tournament win.

Rating: C+. Just a regular tag match here for the most part but the crowd carried this a lot. Sting against the Horsemen just felt right which is why I never quite got him being part of them later, even when they were faces. The crowd wasn’t as burned out as you would expect as this was the second night of the tournament which helped A LOT.

There’s a ceremony post match.

Overall Rating: D. I’ve seen worse, but by the end of the tape (just two hours) you’re going to feel worn out. There’s just way too much tag team stuff and REALLY bad non-tournament matches to make this work at all. It’s better than the previous two but that’s not saying much. I’m really glad this one got discontinued because I can’t stand watching them.

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Crockett Cup 1987
Date: April 10, 1987/April 11, 1987
Location: Baltimore Arena, Baltimore, Maryland
Attendance: 9,300/13,000
Commentator: Tony Schiavone

Back to the Crockett Cup and the annoying tag team tournament format. This year there are still 24 teams and it’s the same format. We also have Ole Anderson vs. Big Bubba in a last man standing cage match and Flair vs. Windham for the title which should be awesome given how good Windham was in 87. Hopefully we actually have commentary here. Let’s get to it.

This is the home video so a lot of it is going to be clipped. There might be some full versions out here but I’m not going to look for it. The VAST majority of this is clipped with most of the first round not existing. Believe me, it’s nothing to see.

It’s the same format as last year, where 16 teams compete for 8 spots in the second round against 8 teams that already have spots in the second round. The team in parentheses is the team that the winner of the previous match will face.

Bob Armstrong/Brad Armstrong
Arn Anderson/Kevin Sullivan
(Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov)

MOD Squad
Wahoo McDaniel/Baron Von Raschke
(Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard)

Denny Brown/Chris Champion
Bill Mulkey/Randy Mulkey
(Giant Baba/Isao Takagi)

Steve Keirn/George South
Mike Graham/Nelson Royal
(Rock N Roll Express)

Lazer Tron/Jimmy Valiant
Teijho Khan/Shaska Whatley
(Road Warriors)

Italian Stallion/Ricky Lee Jones
Jimmy Garvin/Ronnie Garvin
(Midnight Express)

Bobby Jaggers/Rocky King
Thunderfoots
(Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude)

Barbarian/Bill Dundee
Tim Horner/Mike Rotunda
(Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff)

Thank goodness so much of this is clipped. There are only two first round matches on the tape. I know it’s not complete, but it’s not like these matches mean anything or are worth seeing.

This tape actually has a host: Tony Schiavone. He introduces the concept: 24 teams, one million dollars to the winner. He tries to say these are the best teams in the world. Take a look at those brackets Tony.

Crockett Cup First Round: Bill Dundee/Barbarian vs. Tim Horner/Mike Rotunda

This is joined in progress as Barbarian sends Rotunda into the railing. A big boot puts the very young looking Rotunda down and it’s off to a chinlock. Rotunda gets up and a double clothesline puts them both down. Barbarian misses a top rope clothesline and it’s off to Horner. He cleans house until Dundee hits him with a foreign object and Barbarian gets the pin. This was really short and about five and a half minutes were clipped.

Crockett Cup First Round: Jimmy Valiant/Lazer Tron vs. Shaska Whatley/Teijho Khan

Tron is Hector Guerrero in a mask. Clipped to him working on Khan with a dropkick and it’s off to Whatley. The ring is cleared so Tron and Valiant dance a bit. The heels collide as they look like idiots. Valiant comes in and the fun part goes away quickly. Valiant vibrates on the mat as he’s beaten down and Whatley dances some more. Back to Tron who cleans house but the other guys brawl as he’s covering Whatley. Whatley charges at Tron and Khan pulls the top rope down so his partner goes crashing, but it’s a DQ win for them as the referee thinks it was intentional. Only a minute clipped here but not enough to grade.

That’s it for round one so here are the updated brackets.

Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov
Brad Armstrong/Bob Armstrong

MOD Squad
Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard

Giant Baba/Isao Tagaki
Denny Brown/Chris Champion

BYE
Rock N Roll Express

Road Warriors
Teijho Khan/Shaska Whatley

Ronnie Garvin/Jimmy Garvin
Midnight Express

Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude
Thunderfoots

Barbarian/Bill Dundee
Dusty Rhodes/Ivan Koloff

The BYE is from a time limit draw. Why would anyone want to know that?

Crockett Cup Second Round: Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov vs. Brad Armstrong/Bob Armstrong

The Armstrongs are father and son. Petrov is an American Russian that was brought in to replace Nikita who left the team. He is however, a roided up freak so the look is good. Joined in progress again with Bob, the old man, getting beaten down. Petrov hooks a bearhug and it’s back to Ivan. He and Bob collide and it’s hot tag to Brad. A cross body gets two and things break down. Petrov uses the chain and it’s a DQ. This was about two minutes shown of four.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Jimmy Garvin/Ronnie Garvin vs. Midnight Express

Eaton/Lane here and we see the opening! The Garvins clean house early and we have a tug of war over Cornette. Cornette panicking in the corner is great stuff. Clipped to Bobby in control of Jimmy and it’s off to Stan for some karate. This is the five minute mark as Eaton hooks a chinlock.

The match isn’t much longer so I don’t get why the clipping happens. Hot tag brings in Ronnie who uses his hard fists to take over. A big right hand puts Bobby on the apron but as he tries a piledriver on the floor, Cornette pops him with the tennis racket which gets the countout. About half of it was clipped and it was like two halves of two different matches so no rating.

Ricky Morton is injured so there’s no Rock N Roll Express match tonight. That means that Baba and Tagaki are in the semi-finals (fourth round) after wrestling once. Remember that the Rock N Roll Express would have had a second round bye due to the draw in round one. Brackets coming before round three.

Ole Anderson vs. Big Bubba Rogers

This is the main event of the first night, meaning the rest of the second round isn’t going to be mentioned. Bubba is really fat here and Ole is….uh…..old. They “brawl” (read as hold each others’ hair and occasionally punch) for awhile as I think Ole is the face here. The fans chant boring. See, this is an NWA stronghold and the NWA fans could rival ECW fans for most excitable fans. For these guys to say something is boring, it has to be HORRIBLE.

Bubba slams him into the cage and this needs to end quickly. Ole is busted and you have to win this match like a last man standing match instead of by pin. Bubba chokes away and I have no idea why this match is taking place. It’s not like Tony or anyone else tells you so I guess they expect us to know. You know, because no one will ever watch a tape after a few weeks anyway right? I mean, it’s not like this preservation of a story will hold on right? Bubba misses a top rope splash and a piledriver (more like a faceplant) ends this.

Rating: F. Oh just….no. There’s nothing to say here as the match was between an old guy and a fat guy and it was somehow even worst than it sounded. This got about five minutes shown while the whole thing ran about seven. I have no idea how much worse it could be with the other two minutes on there, but my goodness it couldn’t have been that much.

Now this tape runs about two hours and we’re just over twenty minutes in. For the next thirty five minutes, we’re going to show three Magnum TA matches. As in the guy that is retired at this point and isn’t here for any particular reason. The NWA was a little nuts at times. Magnum says this is a big night for him. Why? I have no idea.

US Title: Magnum TA vs. Wahoo McDaniel

McDaniel is very old but is US Champion here. It’s in a cage and is the real push for Magnum to the solid midcard spot he held until he retired. From March of 85 if you’re curious. Tony puts over the belly to belly as being really sudden and Wahoo kicks him low. Magnum fires off that great right hand of his but gets rammed into the cage. Magnum is like BRING IT ON and takes Wahoo down for two and an eruption from the crowd. A dropkick gets two.

They chop it out and Wahoo isn’t going to lose something like that. Wahoo goes into the cage again and just collapses this time. A headbutt puts Wahoo down and David Crockett, the other commentator, is getting on my nerves. Wahoo sends him into the cage again and a chop gets two. The mat isn’t a regular mat but is a bunch of blue gym mats shoved together. You can see the lines between them.

Magnum kicks him in the chest to take him down as the momentum doesn’t last long for Wahoo at all. He does manage to get a small package for two but Magnum is back up and punching away again. Wahoo tries to escape (I guess you can win that way) and Magnum suplexes him off the top for two. Wahoo, the old school lunkhead that he is, charges off the ropes a few times into Magnum which lets Magnum snap off his belly to belly suplex finisher for the US Title.

Rating: C-. Not bad here and it’s so nice to see a full match here. Magnum was so awesome and this was the moment that launched him up the card. His real classic would be later that year (and later on the tape) against Tully in a cage. Wahoo was just old at this point but this is how you go out: you lay down for a young guy clean and give your title up to him. Perfect example of that and good to see Magnum get the title that he should have had.

US Title: Kamala vs. Magnum TA

This is from the Great American Bash 1985. Kamala recently had his foot/leg amputated so the timing is appropriate. Kamala jumps him before the bell and it’s on. Magnum fires off a cross body and hammers away on the big man. You know Kamala never did much other than get beaten up. I never remember him winning anything of note and he’s usually just around because he’s big.

Kamala wants a test of strength but Magnum is a lot smarter than that, popping him in the jaw instead. Magnum gets knocked down by a chop and kick as Kamala takes over for token reasons. A choke somehow counts as a cover and gets two. Kamala grabs Magnum’s chest in a weird claw move then splashes him twice. Magnum is on his stomach so it doesn’t count. That’s an old standard for moon belly man. Back to the claw which wastes more time. Magnum makes his comeback and gets an easy slam. Kamala walks into the belly to belly and we’re done.

Rating: D. Kamala as usual isn’t interesting. He was supposed to be this savage and all that but it just didn’t work at all. He did his thing and that thing never was all that interesting. This is the definition of a house show match and the whole idea was to set up a quick match for Magnum to look good in. This was pretty weak.

The next match is clipped on the tape but I’m copying and pasting the full one.

US Title: Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA

OH YES!!! In short, forget everything else in the history of Starrcade. THIS is the greatest match in the history of the show, period and end of story and argument. Ok, so more or less, this is the idea: culture clash. Tully is considered the wrestler’s wrestler. He’s the epitome of the rich guy that is a total jerk to everyone but no one can beat him.

Magnum is from the South, rides on a Harley, drinks beer instead of champagne and is a fighter known for two things: a great right hand, and the sickest belly to belly this side of Brock Lesnar. For months upon months these two had gone after each other but there had never been the definitive match. Everyone knew that would come on Thanksgiving night and here we are. The build for this is off the charts.

It’s also in a cage and an I Quit match. Hmm. A match between a guy considered to be the top technical man in wrestling and a pure redneck where you win by submission. Just goes to show you that even the best angles such as Hart and Austin aren’t always original. Also, this is a more violent match so there you are.

Magnum is introduced as the vastly popular Magnum TA. That’s an understatement. Hey they hit the lights so we can see! The fans pop like crazy over a single punch. They help this match a lot as they’ve watch this build for about a year or so and are drooling for the end. They slug it out to start and I’m glad there’s no commentary here as it’s not needed. And of course there goes Bob Caudle.

The people here are popping for every single thing so they can more or less do whatever they like. This is a match where it’s all brawling and that’s all it should be. Tully is bleeding from the face and the arm which is something you hardly ever see but it’s working for me. Magnum, being smart, goes for the arm. Magnum is bleeding too.

The microphone they have to say they give up into is finally brought into play and we get the famous sequence as Tully screams at him to say it but when he says no Tully blasts him with the microphone. So simple yet so effective. They do it again and Magnum is in big trouble. He dodges an elbow drop and the fans EXPLODE. You would think he just won the freaking title. Tully won’t give up either.

The mic use is what I like about this as it makes perfect sense to have that in the ring with them rather than the insane things you get in Hell in a Cell matches. With both guys on their knees they just start throwing bombs at each other. Tully is getting very frustrated and loses his cool. Hmm where have I seen this before?

Baby Doll, Tully’s manager, throws a wooden chair in and it gets broken up. Tully uses a piece to drive into the head of Magnum but it doesn’t work. Magnum gets the spike and DRIVES IT INTO TULLY’S EYE FOR THE SUBMISSION. Tully screaming in pain after it’s over makes this whole thing even better.

Rating: A+. Just an epic fight here with tons of blood and straight up violence. THIS is how you blow off a feud. Go find this match. It’s on the Essential Starrcade and shouldn’t be hard to fine online. Go watch it as it’s an absolute classic.

Magnum picks Dusty/Nikita to win. Dusty is booking this show so I’d call that a smart pick.

Here are the updated brackets:

Bob Armstrong/Brad Armstrong
Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard

Giant Baba/Isao Tagaki
BYE

Road Warriors
Midnight Express

Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude
Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff

Crockett Cup Quarterfinals: Midnight Express vs. Road Warriors

The Warriors won last year and beat Khan/Whatley to get here. Clipped to Animal avoiding a clothesline from Eaton and running over Lane with an elbow. Off to Hawk who clubs away. A middle rope clothesline by Hawk takes down Lane but it knocks him into his own corner, allowing the tag to Eaton. The Midnights cheat as much as is humanly possible and Cornette cheers them on. A tennis racket shot to Hawk slows him down even more as we hear the ten minute announcement.

Lane hits a superkick for two. By superkick I mean he kicks him in the ribs/chest but Shawn wasn’t around yet and Chris Adams was just a territory guy. Hawk gets a shot in to the ribs but that doesn’t get him anywhere. A second shot is enough to bring in Animal and a dropkick gets two for him. The Warriors take over and a shoulder puts Eaton down but the managers come in. The Warriors get disqualified and the Midnights are in the semi-finals.

Rating: C. This was one of the better tournament matches so far and was cut roughly in half. Not much to see here but these two always have some passable chemistry together with the Midnights cheating as much as they can to slow down the unstoppable Warriors. Fun match but ENOUGH WITH THE WEAK FINISHES. Rude would be out of the company by the end of the month and in WWF by the summer.

Crockett Cup Quarterfinals: Super Powers vs. Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude

Rude and Fernandez are tag champions. Clipped (duh) to Dusty hammering on Manny and trying to fire the crowd up. Manny takes over and chokes away on Dusty while Nikita comes in to try to help out. He’s in a neck brace which would cost him the US Title soon to a young guy named Luger. An elbow gets two. Off to Rude who was flamboyant even back in the day.

Rude’s top rope fist gets two. Manny comes back in and Dusty hammers away on the Raging Bull until we’re into a chinlock. Yeah Dusty needs a rest already. Raise your hand if you’re surprised. Dusty comes back with a clothesline and everything breaks down. He rolls through something like a cross body and the tag champions are out to Dusty and Nikita after winning a single match.

Rating: D-. Yeah expect Dusty and Nikita to do really well in this. Dusty had a habit of pushing himself really strong and insisting he was what the fans wanted to see. He also had a habit of booking the company into the ground and causing Crockett to go out of business, but hey, Dusty was the US Champion baby! About five minutes were clipped here if you were curious.

Crockett Cup Quarterfinals: Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard vs. Bob Armstrong/Brad Armstrong

Clipped to Brad making what looks to be a comeback on Blanchard. Tully throws him over the top which should be a DQ but the referee doesn’t see it. The Horsemen take over on Brad as he reaches for a hot tag from the nearly 50 year old man. This would be the guy who would get a tag title shot twenty years later in TNA. This has been going 15 minutes now according to Penzer. Off to Lex who beats on Brad a bit more. Brad grabs a backslide for two and an eruption at the thought of the Horsemen going down. Hot tag to Bob who cleans house. Everything breaks down and JJ helps Tully take down Bob for the pin.

Rating: B-. The full version was about 17 minutes and we saw 5. This could have been a good match too as the 30% or so that we saw here were good. Brad was pretty awesome as he was very steady in his offense. The Horsemen were going on to the finals of this thing (which isn’t a spoiler as I’ll explain in a bit) and Brad would go on to total mediocrity which is a shame.

Crockett Cup Semi-Finals: Super Powers vs. Midnight Express

We start at the five minute mark and Dusty beating up another team. Lane vs. Nikita now with the non-Russian (as in Nikita. He was born in Minnesota) working the arm until Eaton cheats to break it up. Nikita gets worked over and Cornette yells about Dusty a lot. A long chinlock eats up some time but working on Nikita’s neck makes sense. The racket is brought in again but the referee is with Dusty. A big shoulder puts Eaton down for two and everyting breaks down again. Heel miscommunication (they didn’t collide but that’s a minor detail) allows Nikita to hit the Sickle on Eaton for the pin.

Rating: D. Another weak match here in a string of them. Dusty was just bad at this point but there was no way around it, much like Dusty. There isn’t much else to say here as Nikita was in a chinlock for a long part of that match. He’s more popular than Dusty though so at least the fans were more into it.

Since the NWA didn’t think the Horsemen vs. the Japanese team was worth showing, the second semi-final isn’t included. It’s Horsemen vs. Super Powers.

NWA World Title: Barry Windham vs. Ric Flair

We’re clipped to about ten minutes in as Windham is fighting back. Flair avoids something by grabbing the ropes and the Figure Four is on. He gets caught cheating so the referee and Flair get into it a bit. A big jumping lariat puts Flair down and at least Windham has the courtesy to limp. Windham’s tights have the same lightning bolt that Don Muraco had around this time. Flair knocks him to the floor and Windham crashes into the railing.

Back in Windham gets a sunset flip for two and a backslide gets the same. Flair bails a bit and then they slug it out at the fifteen minute mark. A suplex puts Flair down but a top rope elbow misses to put both guys down. Flair grabs a sleeper which lasts about two seconds. Windham takes over on the floor and they exchange control inside. They head to the floor again which doesn’t last long.

Back in Windham grabs a sleeper to fill in some time. Flair goes up but Windham gets up. Instead of jumping, Flair stands on the buckle and waits for Windham to slam him off. You know what Ric, you deserved that one. Now Barry hooks a Figure Four which goes nowhere. A powerslam gets two and Barry pounds away. Flair hits a cross body and they tumble to the floor. Back in a flying boot by Barry gets….the pin??? Oh wait Flair had the ropes.

Windham goes off on Flair with suplexes and power moves but he can’t keep Flair down. We’re at the 25 minute mark and Flair is reeling. The crowd is starting to really get into it here after being into it the whole match so far. Barry gets a backslide for two and rolls through a belly to back (impressive looking). He rolls Flair up but Flair keeps rolling and grabs the trunks for the pin.

Rating: A-. This had about ten minutes cut off and the rest of it could have made it better. The going to the floor time and time again hurt it and Tony wasn’t ready to call a match like this yet. These two had great match after great match and this was their usual solid match. It’s fifteen minutes of near falls and even a false finish so it’s hard to argue. Good stuff indeed.

Crockett Cup Finals: Super Powers vs. Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard

Dusty brings out Magnum to be in his corner. Gee, I wonder who will win this now. Luger isn’t a full Horseman yet but it was coming very soon. Clipped to Koloff taking Tully’s head off with a clothesline. Another clothesline puts them both on the floor where JJ steals the neck brace. Nikita is in trouble at the 10 minute mark. Lex works on the neck and it’s off to Tully.

I don’t know why they’re wasting our time like this. Everyone knows Dusty is coming in soon and will elbow everything in sight for the big “emotional” win. Nikita takes a LONG beating which eats up the majority of the match that we’re seeing here. Tully throws on a chinlock which at least works on the neck. After a front faceblock by Lex, Tully throws him over the top to draw in the fat Texan for a protest.

Nikita catches Tully coming off the top with a lariat and it’s hot tag Dusty. He fires off about 10 elbows to the head to take over and we’re rapidly running out of time. He misses a charge and Tully misses a shot to the head with JJ’s shoe. Blanchard sets to piledrive Nikita but Dusty comes off the top and OH THE HUMANITY!!! He crushes Tully with a cross body for the pin and the tournament win.

Rating: D+. We saw about 8 minutes out of 17 and this was nothing to see. The problem was that Nikita had to play hurt and while Dusty was great at a comeback and firing up a crowd, there was no reason for his team to win this. This wasn’t aired anywhere but they could easily just give it to someone else to build them up, but Dusty needed this win right?

There’s a trophy presentation to end the show.

Overall Rating: C-. With two matches like Windham vs. Flair and Magnum vs. Tully, you can’t really say it’s anything but good. Now as for the rest of it, there isn’t much at all to praise. This is only a two hour tape though so when you have about 25 minutes dedicated to that, it’s hard to complain. The tournament though…..yeah it still sucks. The Japanese team, one of the final four, isn’t even on here nor are they mentioned. What’s up with that? I mean….why did they have three Magnum matches on there? I don’t get the NWA at times, but when their matches were good, they were REALLY good.

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Crockett Cup 1986
Date: April 19, 1986
Location: Louisiana Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
Attendance: 3,500 (Afternoon), 13,000 (Evening)
Commentators: N/A

Here’s the first of a set of three rare shows I’ll get to eventually. This is a 24 team tag tournament that was held every year from 1986-1988. This year has sixteen teams in the first round and the winners of those eight matches would face eight teams that had gotten byes. As you may have guessed, some of these teams were thrown together because we needed teams to fill in the brackets. There are also two non-tournament matches. Thankfully this is the home video version so a lot of the 23 match card (see why it was split into two sessions?) is cut or clipped. Let’s get to it.

Again bear in mind that this is the home video version so a lot of the bracket is missing.

Here’s the first round. The winners will face the team in parentheses.

Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood
Bobby Jaggers/Mike Miller
(Road Warriors)

Sam Houston/Nelson Royal
Batten Twins
(Midnight Express)

Fabulous Ones
Fantastics
(Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard)

Guerreros
Sheepherders
(Rock N Roll Express)

Barbarian/Baron Von Raschke
Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant
(Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff)

Terry Taylor/Steve Williams
Bill Dundee/Buddy Landell
(Dino Bravo/Rick Martel)

Italian Stallion/Koko Ware
Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner
(Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA)

DJ Peterson/Brett Wayne
Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin
(Tiger Mask/Giant Baba)

See what I mean about thrown together teams? It’s no wonder this show is clipped.

The full title is Jim Crockett Senior Memorial Tag Team Tournament. Yeah it’s the Crockett Cup.

Crockett Cup First Round: Mark Youngblood/Wahoo McDaniel vs. Bobby Jaggers/Mike Miller

This is joined in progress with Wahoo pounding on I believe Miller. Expect to hear “joined in progress” and “clipped to” a lot in this. Off to Youngblood and it’s at this point that I realize there’s no commentary on this. Not even voiceovers. Something tells me this is going to be a lot harder to keep track of.

Youngblood gets beaten down and we’re cut to Jaggers holding him in a chinlock. Youngblood gets a shoulder block to put both guys down and it’s hot tag to Wahoo and everything breaks down. Wahoo chops Miller down and pins him with a big elbow drop (his finisher) to advance on. This was about 2 minutes of an 8 minute match. Expect a lot of stuff like that on this review.

Crockett Cup First Round: Sam Houston/Nelson Royal vs. Batten Twins

The twins are named Bart and Brad and that’s all I’ve got on them. Royal vs. let’s say Brad starts us off. And that’s enough of that so after about 8 seconds we’re off to Houston in trouble as the twins double team him. One of the twins misses a charge and hits the post but Houston can’t tag out. Jumping back elbow gets two for the one that didn’t hit the post. Lukewarm tag brings in Royal but its back to Houston quickly. At least the fans recognize him I think. The bulldog ends let’s say Bart quickly. This was about a minute out of 8 that the match ran.

Crockett Cup First Round: Jimmy Valiant/Manny Fernandez vs. Baron Von Raschke/Barbarian

We open with Jimmy dancing around like an idiot with the big beard against Baron’s evil paleness. Baron looks old and slow here in 1986. Off to Manny and we’re clipped to Barbarian hitting him in the back but missing a dropkick. Back off to Baron who can’t even throw very convincing forearms. Valiant gets a hot tag which Manny could make due to Baron being old and slow. Sleeper goes on Baron but things break down quickly. Some heel managers get involved but Manny hooks a sunset flip on Barbarian for the pin. About 2-3 minutes out of 11.

Crockett Cup First Round: Terry Taylor/Steve Williams vs. Bill Dundee/Buddy Landell

Team Mid-South here against I guess you would say Team Memphis. Joined in progress with Landell locking up with Taylor. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of these pairings so I apologize for how fast some of these matches seem. I’m just over ten minutes into the tap and we’ve seen this much. Clipped to Taylor in trouble as the fans chant for him. This is pre-Red Rooster so he’s got credibility. Dundee throws on a sleeper but Terry hooks a jawbreaker to escape. Hot tag brings in Williams who easily beats up both Tennesseeans. Oklahoma Stampede kills Landell dead at about two minutes out of twelve.

Crockett Cup First Round: Sheepherders vs. Hector Guerrero/Chavo Guerrero

The Sheepherders are the Bushwackers as CRAZY heels. Believe it or not there’s a match later on with them in it that Meltzer gave five stars, so they weren’t exactly the same team. Joined in progress with Butch pounding on Chavo but the guy with a famous brother escapes with speed moves. Off to Luke who pounds away even more but gets caught in a sunset flip for two.

Moderate tag brings in Hector and the announcer says we’re at ten minutes in. Abdominal stretch goes on but the Herders won’t quit cheating. Butch is knocked out of the ring as the flag bearer (Rip Morgan) is dropped for a BIG pop. Not that it matters as a double clothesline to Hector ends the Guerreros at just under three minutes shown of about 11. I’m sorry for the lack of ratings but at 15 minutes into the tape I’ve gotten through a two minute intro and five matches. What can I really do here?

Crockett Cup First Round: Fantastics vs. Fabulous Ones

Ok by sheer talent in the ring this has to be good. The Fabulous ones are Steve Keirn (Skinner and the current owner of FCW) and Stan Lane (future member of the Midnight Express). The Fantastics are Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rodgers and are probably my favorite NWA tag team. Fulton vs. Keirn to start and this goes fast. Clipped to Keirn hammering on Fulton. This lack of commentary is really pretty interesting.

A hot shot puts Fulton down but there’s no cover. Clipped to his comeback and Fulton’s tights being pulled down. Lane comes in for a superkick and we’re clipped again to both guys going down off a Russian legsweep. Hot tag to Rodgers gets a big pop as he hammers away on everyone in sight. House is cleaned and an O’Connor Roll pins Lane. WAY too clipped to have any kind of idea if it was good or not.

Crockett Cup First Round: Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner vs. Koko Ware/Italian Stallion

Ware is obvious and Stallion is a jobber to the stars. Sawyer is a bit nuts so he fits in perfectly. Ware vs. Sawyer to start off the latest clip-a-thon and I have no idea who the favorites are here. Sawyer is sent to the floor twice and wow he’s already back in. HOW FAST IS THIS GUY? Stallion comes in and works on Steiner who I didn’t recognize in regular trunks. I think he and Sawyer are the heels. Clipped to Ware in a bearhug by Steiner and it’s off to Sawyer. He misses a splash and Stallion comes in. We’re at the 15 minute mark so Sawyer hits a powerslam for the pin. Maybe two minutes shown.

Crockett Cup First Round: Brett Sawyer/Dave Peterson vs. Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin

This is the last match of the first round. Bart is a big fat cowboy and I don’t know much about their opponents. Bart hammers on Peterson and bumps around fast as Peterson isn’t that good from what I can tell. Off to Sawyer as they work on Bart’s arm a bit. Clipped to Garvin in control and then a hot tag to Sawyer. Bart drops a leg and a Garvin brainbuster ends this. The whole match was about 6 and a half minutes.

Now we’re onto the second round and most of the teams from here on are at least knows pairings. Here are the brackets.

Road Warriors
Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

Sam Houston/Nelson Royal
Midnight Express

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard
Fantastics

Sheepherders
Rock N Roll Express

Koloffs
Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant

Terry Taylor/Steve Williams
Dino Bravo/Rick Martel

Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA
Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin
Tiger Mask/Giant Baba

Crockett Cup Second Round: Midnight Express vs. Sam Houston/Nelson Royal

We start at the beginning with Houston vs. Condrey. Man Cornette is loud. Off to Eaton and the Midnights are moving in this one. This has been all Express so far. Houston gets in a knee lift and it’s off to Royal and his huge trunks. Everything breaks down quickly and Eaton hits a shot off the top to Royal for the pin. The whole thing (unclipped!!!) was under two minutes.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

Ronnie vs. Sawyer to get us going but it’s off to Magnum quickly. Magnum works on Buzz’s arm but we’re clipped to him working on Rick’s arm. Go figure. Sawyer comes back in and goes nuts on him with all kinds of pounding away. Off to a chinlock and also off to Steiner. We’re clipped to a bit later in the heel beatdown and a DDT by Sawyer for two.

Magnum grabs a small package for two as well as a backslide. He finally gets the hot tag to Ronnie who throws some punches and tags right back out. Magnum hits the belly to belly on Steiner and in 1986 that might as well have been a bullet to the head. Again, way too short. Is a full match over three minutes too much to ask?

Crockett Cup Second Round: Road Warriors vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

Animal pounds on Youngblood and it’s off to Hawk quickly. Total dominance so far. Wahoo comes in to chop Animal some but enough of the powerful veteran. Let’s get the skinny guy in again! Hawk kills him with a shoulder block and after a few punches from Youngblood, the middle rope clothesline ends this. Total squash according to the clipped version.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Jimmy Valiant

The first thing we see is Nikita in a leg lock. This is getting really boring because there’s not enough to gather anything from at all. We’re on the 12th match and I’ve watched about 35 minutes of this tape. Think about that for a minute. Wrestlemania 17 had 11 matches. Ivan gets a tag in and gets caught in the wrong corner. How was he a former world champion? Off to Valiant as Ivan’t crotch takes a beating.

Clipped to the five minute mark with Fernandez missing a dropkick to bring in Nikita again. Clipped to Manny in a bearhug as Ivan comes in again. Hot tag brings in Jimmy who cleans house and hooks a sleeper. Everything breaks down (that should be the name of this show) and Nikita gets a Sickle for the pin. WOW IT WAS OVER THREE MINUTES SHOWN!!!

Rating: D+. This was just ok as the Koloffs who were usually a good heel team came off looking like clowns here who hit one big move to win the match. I wasn’t huge on this one but a lot of that is probably due to Valiant. He had no room on a show outside of Memphis as he was just a crowd favorite rather than anyone talented in the ring. That being said, his pops were huge and I get why he’s in this. I just don’t like him.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Dino Bravo/Rick Martel vs. Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Bravo is hurt, forfeit, no match.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Rock N Roll Express vs. Sheepherders

Oh pardon me: the New Zealand Sheepherders. It’s a big brawl to start and Luke has to bail quickly. Clipped to Robert sending Luke into the buckle and bringing in Ricky who cleans house. Clipped again to Butch pounding Ricky down to the shock of no one that knows anything about 80s wrestling. We’re at the five minute mark (when I say that it means that’s what the announcer says) and we’re clipped to Robert coming back in.

Gibson misses a charge into the corner and we’re clipped into even more of a beating on him. It’s weird to see an Express match without having Morton in there getting beaten down for the majority of it. Hot tag brings in Morton and there’s a double dropkick to Butch. The Flag Bearer comes in for the attack but Morton gets caught with the flag for the DQ to send the Sheepherders to the third round.

Rating: C. Pretty fun match with all four guys being all over the place here but in a good way. This was meant to be more of a fast paced match with the Express being dragged into a brawling style where they were in over their heads. Not a great match or anything, but these teams could have had a decent match if given the time.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Tully Blanchard/Arn Anderson vs. Fantastics

We actually get an opening bell and it’s Blanchard vs. Rodgers. They slug it out and we’re clipped to Rodgers holding a headlock. Off to Arn and he doesn’t do very well either. Clipped to Arn hammering away on Fulton as he becomes the Fantastic in peril. Fulton is sent to the floor and into the barricade. Not that we need to care or anything as we’re clipped to the hot tag to Rodgers. Arn grabs the Gordbuster but Fulton makes the save. We get the dropkick into the back of your partner as he’s slammed for the pin. Another short one.

Crockett Cup Second Round: Giant Baba/Tiger Mask vs. Black Bart/Jimmy Garvin

That’s Tiger Mask II, as in Misawa. Clipped to Tiger being faster than anything anyone has seen in America ever up to this point. Tiger grabs the arm and speeds things way farther up than this audience is used to with a baseball slide. Clipped to Baba hammering on Garvin after some heel double teaming. Clipped again to the heels working on Tiger Mask. Baba comes back in and destroys them all because that’s what old giants do. A big boot gets the pin on Bart to end what appeared to be a long squash.

That takes us to the third round. Here are the quarter-final brackets.

Road Warriors
Midnight Express

Fantastics
Sheepherders

Koloffs
Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Ronnie Garvin/Magnum TA
Giant Baba/Tiger Mask

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express

We open with Animal beating on Condrey. The Midnights are in different tights than earlier. This might be in the evening session. Animal runs him over a few times and hits a dropkick to the stomach. Clipped to Condrey trying to have a pose down with Hawk for no apparent reason. Cornette gets up on the apron for some double teaming which doesn’t work at all and the Midnights hit the floor.

Hawk takes a piledriver from Condrey and actually stays down for a few seconds! Oh scratch that as he’s back up and hammering away again. Clipped to a Rocket Launcher attempt but Hawk pops up and slams Eaton. Eaton gets beaten down for awhile and it’s off to Animal. The Midnights cheat some more as Animal catches Condrey in a powerslam. The makes Cornette pull the leg and it’s a DQ to send the Warriors to the final four. We got about 5 minutes out of ten here which is the most we’ve seen so far.

Rating: C+. This was getting pretty good while it lasted and the ten minute version would have been a pretty solid match. That being said, the clipped version is still pretty good and these are teams that seemingly would have been able to have good matches if they had the time to work with, but you can say that for almost any talented team.

Crockett Cut Quarter-Finals: Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Terry Taylor/Steve Williams

Taylor and Ivan start us off with Taylor working the arm. Taylor controls early and we’re clipped to Williams coming in to work on the arm. Doc (Williams) is in yellow and red here. We get the always cool gorilla press with reps from Williams to Ivan. Clipped to Taylor working on the arm. Ivan finally figures out he’s a bad guy and goes to the eyes so he can bring in Nikita.

Nikita vs. Williams at the moment in what is a power wrestling fan’s dream. Both of these guys are just scary strong. Koloff tries to pose so Williams dropkicks him to the floor. Clipped to a two count for Ivan and a tag back to Williams. We hit the fifteen minute mark of a twenty minute time limit with Doc slamming Ivan off the middle rope for two. Clipped to a powerslam getting the same result.

There’s the hot tag to Taylor and in Soviet Russia, house cleans you. He beats up both Russians but Ivan catches him with a knee/boot and various other power heel offense. Taylor is sent to the outside and they almost break the railing when he goes into it. Two minutes left. Ivan stomps on Terry and it’s back off to Nikita for a bear hug. A minute to go. Doc comes in anyway but Taylor keeps kicking out at 30 seconds to go. Taylor grabs a small package (this is a family show!) and time runs out with no real urgency from anyone.

Rating: C+. This was about ten minutes shown out of twenty which is something I can live with. This wasn’t bad and was probably the best match of the night so far. What a shock: a match that gets more time than any other one on the show is also the best one. Nothing too bad here but it wasn’t a memorable match or anything.

The double elimination means whoever wins in Garvin/Magnum vs. Baba/Tiger Mask is in the finals.

The Koloffs plus Krusher Khruschev (Smash from Demolition) beat down Doc post match.

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Sheepherders vs. Fantastics

Big brawl to start and the Fantastics clear the ring. Clipped to Butch hammering on Fulton until the Fantastics dropkick everything in sight to send them to the floor. Clipped to Butch hammering on Fulton. I’ve seen this before it seems. Out to the floor for more dropkicking and it turns into a brawl. Fulton is beaten down on the floor and can barely move. Rodgers is ticked off because of it.

Clipped to Luke beating on Fulton but the flag bearer messes up, resulting in Luke going into the flag. There’s the hot tag to Rodgers and Butch is busted open. The cameraman and referee are taken out and now Fulton is busted as well. The flag bearer tries to cheat again and one more time it doesn’t work. The future Wackers get the flag stick in the ring and beat on Fulton with it but as is the case in wrestling, they get beat on with it as well. Another referee comes down to wake up the first and it’s another double DQ. That means the Road Warriors are in the finals as well.

Rating: B. Meltzer gave THIS five stars? It’s a fun brawl and WAY violent for its time, but the clipping must have killed it because this wasn’t a classic or anything resembling one. It’s good and the most fun match on the show so far, but if the full version was 15 minutes, this was the low half of it. My mind continues to be blown by his ratings at times as this is one of the matches better than Savage vs. Steamboat? Really?

Crockett Cup Quarter-Finals: Tiger Mask/Giant Baba vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

Tiger Mask vs. Garvin starts us off but we’re joined in progress again. Garvin works on the leg and it’s off to Magnum vs. Baba. Baba runs him over a bit until we’re off to Tiger again. Magnum gets a suplex and we’re clipped to him being caught in a front facelock. Sunset flip gets two for Magnum and it’s back to Baba. Garvin comes in to get smacked around a bit by the Giant and everything breaks down again. Baba’s arms are frighteningly skinny. Tiger hits a dropkick and senton on Magnum. He goes up for the cross body but jumps into a belly to belly for the pin out of nowhere.

Rating: D+. From what I could see here this wasn’t that good. They were all faces which hurt things a lot. The ending wasn’t bad but the match was still pretty dull. This sets up another all face final which isn’t going to do this show any favors. Nothing great here but that’s just the way things have been going all day tonight.

Garvin/Magnum vs. Road Warriors in the final.

UWF North American Championship: Jim Duggan vs. Dick Slater

Oh great we’re going to get this one in full. Duggan is champion and that’s the top title in the Mid-South company. Jim Ross does the introductions which isn’t something you see every day. This REALLY could have gone on earlier in the tape and it would have helped a lot. Duggan takes over with power and we’re clipped to Slater coming back in after being knocked to the floor.

Duggan throws on a headlock and this match is already boring. He hammers away with his usual array of stuff, which is to say a lot of punches. Slater punches back and we head to the floor. Duggan is thrown into the barricade which falls over under his weight. Off to a chinlock as I begin to look for some traffic to play in to cure my boredom. Slater hooks a neckbreaker and we’re clipped to him missing something off the top.

Duggan starts hammering on him again and does his stomp to appeal to the patriotism in all of the fans. How that stomp is American I’m not sure but Duggan is on a different intellectual level than I am. The referee gets bumped (meaning kneed in the back by Slater) and Slater drops a top rope elbow for two. Duggan gets tied up in the ropes, but when the referee tries to pull him off, Duggan escapes with the three point shoulder block to end it.

Rating: D-. This was horrible. Duggan was a popular guy in Mid-South and would be a huge star in WWF, but without any kind of story or anything like that, this was just boring. It’s almost all punching and when Dick Slater is the more interesting wrestler in your match, you can tell you’re in a lot of trouble.

NWA World Title: Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes

They fight over a top wristlock to start and Dusty’s manager Baby Doll is already getting on my nerves with her screaming. Now they chop it out in the corner and Dusty takes over to start as you would expect. A bunch of right hands sends Flair running and Baby Doll is a very old looking woman. Back in Flair tries a leapfrog and walks into an elbow to the head to put him down.

They fight over the arm again as we hit five minutes. There might have been a clip in there somewhere because it doesn’t seem like we’ve been at this that long. They go to the floor for a few seconds and somewhere in there Dusty got busted open. Dusty fires back by crotching Flair on the post. Now I know we have a clip as they’re slugging it out until Flair grabs a sleeper.

Dusty sends Flair into the corner to counter and we’re clipped to them on the floor and Flair blading very obviously. We don’t see what the shot was that caused it but who needs that? You can hear the referee say Ric’s cut too. Flair gets caught in the Tree of Woe which goes nowhere. Dusty gets two off a clothesline at the fifteen minute mark. We saw about 5 minutes out of ten between the 5 and 15 minute announcements.

Off to a sleeper which Dusty doesn’t crank on at all. Flair grabs the rope about 10 times but the hold isn’t broken. Isn’t touching it the same as grabbing it? Dusty hooks his awful Figure Four as there’s no crank on it at all. You see that a lot in his holds. They clip out the hold to just Flair grabbing the rope. Are you serious? Flair goes up and yeah you know the drill. Dusty tackles him into the referee so there’s no count on his small package. Flair hits Dusty in the head with Dusty’s own boot for two at the 20 minute mark. Flair goes after baby Doll so Dusty hits him with the boot and that’s a DQ.

Rating: C. The curse of the clipping strikes again because this looked like it was a pretty good match but we didn’t get to see the middle parts of it which is where most of the good stuff came from. This has really been a problem but for the love of all things good and holy, can we please see the full match in the final? It’s all that’s left.

Side bar: why is a boot considered a foreign object? He wore it into the ring and kicked Flair with it on multiple times. Why is it illegal when there isn’t a foot in it and presumably the shot would be weaker as legs are usually stronger than arms?

Crockett Cup Finals: Road Warriors vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

All faces here. The winners also get a million dollars. Animal and Magnum get things going. We get some surprisingly quick stuff until Magnum takes over with a dropkick. Animal takes him down with a top wristlock and they trade arm work on the mat. Off to Hawk who puts on a chinlock….and they clip this match too. ARE YOU SERIOUS???? The whole show is about one freaking tournament and you give us a total of ONE MATCH THAT ISN’T CLIPPED??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

A middle rope splash misses and Garvin gets a small package for two. Off to Magnum who doesn’t have as much luck with Animal who stomps away on the US Champion. Off to Animal again and it’s chinlock time. Powerslam gets two as Magnum is in trouble. Magnum grabs the belly to belly for two as Hawk saves. Hot tag to Garvin and down he goes almost immediately.

Garvin tries an abdominal stretch on Hawk but punches Hawk instead. The problem with this is he punches Hawk so hard that he breaks his hand. I’m not sure if this is kayfabe or real but it doesn’t really matter either way as Animal hits a pretty weak clothesline on Garvin and gets a quick pin for the tournament win and the million bucks.

Rating: D+. Apparently Garvin’s hand was broken coming in. Imagine that: Ronnie Garvin does something stupid like HIT A GUY IN THE HEAD WHILE HE HAS A BROKEN HAND. Garvin’s team deserves to lose after that. This match was pretty boring and the ending didn’t help things at all. Nothing to see here other than the end of a long and boring show.

The Warriors get the check to end the show.

Overall Rating: D-. OH man where do I begin with this one? The problem with this show comes down to one thing: four and a half hours. That’s the amount of ring time that this card would have had if the matches all got their full time shown. Now imagine that being put down into a two hour tape. That includes the time dedicated to the entrances, the graphics between matches, and the ending. Based on that alone, I think you know why this isn’t anything worth seeing. The other two tournaments can’t be this bad. I mean, it’s not possible. Without the clipping this would have been bad anyway.

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