Monday, October 31, 2005
more correct opinions, but concerning wrestling, so probably none of you really care
Clash of the Champions, Marcy 27, 1988, Greensboro, NC.
I received the dvd-r's of the first ten Clashes of the Champions last week. I didn't get a chance to watch any of them until the weekend, but once I had the time I knocked the first two out. The first one is definitely the better of the two, by the way. It was good to see Bob Caudle and a young Jim Ross again, and even better to get another glimpse at Tony Schiavone's long-lost mustache (Tony used to go to my parents' church in Marietta, you know). I miss the days when wrestling announcers wore tuxedos.
So the first match was a decent little affair for the NWA TV Championship between Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin (accompanied to the ring by Precious, who's sort of good looking for a 40-year-old redneck from central Florida) and, representing the Varsity Club, the champion Mike Rotunda. Rotunda, of course, had his manager, the Gamesmaster Kevin Sullivan, at his side. This had some silly "college rules" stipulation, where a one-count wins, and three five-minute periods with thirty second rest periods in-between. Nothing really noteworthy in terms of the wrestling, but since it was the first of several blasts of nosalgia, it gets a thumbs up in my book. Rotunda won, and then laid Garvin out with the help of Rick Steiner afterward. Precious saved her dude, though, by strangling Steiner (or was it Sullivan?) with a coat hanger, in the process setting up a match from the second Clash. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Next came one of the main reasons I picked this shit up: prime tag team action featuring the Midnight Express. Jim Cornette introduced the team, "every father's nightmare and every school girl's dream", as Sweet Stan Lane and Beautiful Bobby Eaton made their way down the aisle to that awesome Moroder music from the movie of the same name. Their opponents were the bland pretty-boy baby-face tandem of the Fantastics, Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers. This one was for the US Tag Team titles. Basically your typical awesome Midnight Express match from the late '80's, with them pummeling the hell out of Rogers for like fifteen minutes, until the hot tag to Fulton led to an apparent Fantastics victory. He made the mistake of taking out the ref (old Pee Wee Anderson, if I remember correctly), though, and when he came to he invalidated the second ref's three-count and disqualified the Fantastics. So the old Dusty Finish in full effect. Damn good match.
Somewhere around here was a brief interview with "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, the best thing to ever come out of Shreveport. This guy was one of my favorites when I was a kid. He looked kind of like the singer from Alabama, but with the body of a bull. Unfortunately Dr. Death couldn't talk as well as he could fight, as this little promo was pretty damn lame. He talked about wrestling in Japan, and some other crap of little consequence.
Next up, the Road Warriors and Dusty Rhodes took on the Powers of Pain and Ivan Koloff in a Texas barbed-wire match. The graphic called the match a Chicago street fight / Texas barbed-wire brawl, or something similarly tortured. Barbarian, Warlord, and old Ivan were accompanied by Paul Jones. Not much excitement here; LOD and Big Dust won pretty quickly. I forget what happened afterwards, but it's safe to assume there was some sort of beat-down.
Again, I don't remember when exactly this happened, but at some point Schiavone (or Ross, I forget who) did a quick interview with Al Perez and his manager, Gary Hart. Not the Monkey Business Gary Hart, but the Anton LaVey-looking wrestling manager guy. Anyway, Perez, wearing street clothes, mumbled some threats to Nikita Koloff that made little sense until Hart clarified.
Second to last on the card was the NWA Tag Team title match-up between the Twin Towers, Barry Windham and the former Horsemen Lex Luger, and the champions Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Anderson and Blanchard were one-half of the Four Horsemen, of course, and as such were accompanied by the Horsemen's executive director James J. Dillon. This was another good tag match, with the wily veteran Horsemen double and triple-teaming the challengers repeatedly. In the end, though, the Towers pulled out the victory, and the belts. A few weeks later Windham would turn on Luger and join the Horsemen, forming the greatest version of that legendary stable.
The main event saw Sting take on Ric Flair for the NWA World Heaveyweight Championship. This match had a 45-minute time limit, and James J. Dillion was suspended in a cage at ringside. Generally when the announcers make a big deal about the time limit, and when the time keeper announces how much is left every five minutes, you can expect a time-limit draw. Sure enough, Sting takes Flair the distance, solidifying himself as a main event draw in the process. This match is pretty legendary, but to be honest it's kind of boring. There were way too many restholds, as Sting very clearly wasn't quite at the level he'd eventually reach. As one of the first major match-ups in WCW's signature feud, though, this is worth seeking out.
Okay, wow, shit, didn't mean to do a full-on review. Just sort of started rolling, here. Wrestling-wise, this one's definitely worth watching for the tag team matches, and the historical importance of the main event. It drags in spots, but the highlights more than make up for that. Three and a half our of five.
Clash of the Champions, Marcy 27, 1988, Greensboro, NC.
I received the dvd-r's of the first ten Clashes of the Champions last week. I didn't get a chance to watch any of them until the weekend, but once I had the time I knocked the first two out. The first one is definitely the better of the two, by the way. It was good to see Bob Caudle and a young Jim Ross again, and even better to get another glimpse at Tony Schiavone's long-lost mustache (Tony used to go to my parents' church in Marietta, you know). I miss the days when wrestling announcers wore tuxedos.
So the first match was a decent little affair for the NWA TV Championship between Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin (accompanied to the ring by Precious, who's sort of good looking for a 40-year-old redneck from central Florida) and, representing the Varsity Club, the champion Mike Rotunda. Rotunda, of course, had his manager, the Gamesmaster Kevin Sullivan, at his side. This had some silly "college rules" stipulation, where a one-count wins, and three five-minute periods with thirty second rest periods in-between. Nothing really noteworthy in terms of the wrestling, but since it was the first of several blasts of nosalgia, it gets a thumbs up in my book. Rotunda won, and then laid Garvin out with the help of Rick Steiner afterward. Precious saved her dude, though, by strangling Steiner (or was it Sullivan?) with a coat hanger, in the process setting up a match from the second Clash. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Next came one of the main reasons I picked this shit up: prime tag team action featuring the Midnight Express. Jim Cornette introduced the team, "every father's nightmare and every school girl's dream", as Sweet Stan Lane and Beautiful Bobby Eaton made their way down the aisle to that awesome Moroder music from the movie of the same name. Their opponents were the bland pretty-boy baby-face tandem of the Fantastics, Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers. This one was for the US Tag Team titles. Basically your typical awesome Midnight Express match from the late '80's, with them pummeling the hell out of Rogers for like fifteen minutes, until the hot tag to Fulton led to an apparent Fantastics victory. He made the mistake of taking out the ref (old Pee Wee Anderson, if I remember correctly), though, and when he came to he invalidated the second ref's three-count and disqualified the Fantastics. So the old Dusty Finish in full effect. Damn good match.
Somewhere around here was a brief interview with "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, the best thing to ever come out of Shreveport. This guy was one of my favorites when I was a kid. He looked kind of like the singer from Alabama, but with the body of a bull. Unfortunately Dr. Death couldn't talk as well as he could fight, as this little promo was pretty damn lame. He talked about wrestling in Japan, and some other crap of little consequence.
Next up, the Road Warriors and Dusty Rhodes took on the Powers of Pain and Ivan Koloff in a Texas barbed-wire match. The graphic called the match a Chicago street fight / Texas barbed-wire brawl, or something similarly tortured. Barbarian, Warlord, and old Ivan were accompanied by Paul Jones. Not much excitement here; LOD and Big Dust won pretty quickly. I forget what happened afterwards, but it's safe to assume there was some sort of beat-down.
Again, I don't remember when exactly this happened, but at some point Schiavone (or Ross, I forget who) did a quick interview with Al Perez and his manager, Gary Hart. Not the Monkey Business Gary Hart, but the Anton LaVey-looking wrestling manager guy. Anyway, Perez, wearing street clothes, mumbled some threats to Nikita Koloff that made little sense until Hart clarified.
Second to last on the card was the NWA Tag Team title match-up between the Twin Towers, Barry Windham and the former Horsemen Lex Luger, and the champions Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Anderson and Blanchard were one-half of the Four Horsemen, of course, and as such were accompanied by the Horsemen's executive director James J. Dillon. This was another good tag match, with the wily veteran Horsemen double and triple-teaming the challengers repeatedly. In the end, though, the Towers pulled out the victory, and the belts. A few weeks later Windham would turn on Luger and join the Horsemen, forming the greatest version of that legendary stable.
The main event saw Sting take on Ric Flair for the NWA World Heaveyweight Championship. This match had a 45-minute time limit, and James J. Dillion was suspended in a cage at ringside. Generally when the announcers make a big deal about the time limit, and when the time keeper announces how much is left every five minutes, you can expect a time-limit draw. Sure enough, Sting takes Flair the distance, solidifying himself as a main event draw in the process. This match is pretty legendary, but to be honest it's kind of boring. There were way too many restholds, as Sting very clearly wasn't quite at the level he'd eventually reach. As one of the first major match-ups in WCW's signature feud, though, this is worth seeking out.
Okay, wow, shit, didn't mean to do a full-on review. Just sort of started rolling, here. Wrestling-wise, this one's definitely worth watching for the tag team matches, and the historical importance of the main event. It drags in spots, but the highlights more than make up for that. Three and a half our of five.
