Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

WRESTLING ON THE INTERNET NOT FROM THE NOW

RIPPA

By RIPPA
in The PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING

 Share

Recommended Posts

Mister TV

Mister TV

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Godfrey said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXbErKJ0ExI&ab_channel=LanceHarding

A collection of World of Sport matches featuring a young, skinny William "Roy" Regal, Fit Finlay, Dynamite Kid, Rollerball Rocco, Owen Hart, and Tiger "Sammy Lee" Mask

Pretty cool gimmick with the “handicap” in the Handicap Match being Marty Jones starting 1 fall down in a 2 out of 3 fall match, the reasoning being that Roy Regal is a rookie in his 2nd match ever. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cobra Commander

Cobra Commander

Posted
Posted (edited)

Watching some Florida stuff during the lunch hour-

Kevin Sullivan unintentionally has Bisexual Pride colored hair.

As for a match, Blackjack Mulligan vs Mr. Kareem Muhammed goes to the parking lot:

Edit: the parking lot brawl really looks like something that you would have seen in a garbage fed Indy in 2003, and it’s happening in a prestigious territory in the mid-80s. So let’s just say it was way ahead of the times even if it makes the parking lot outside of their arena look like Fred Sanford’s junkyard

Edited by Cobra Commander
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
clintthecrippler

clintthecrippler

Posted
Posted

This is a VERY fun night of UWF matches at the Sam Houston Coliseum, August 8th, 1986:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV8v7JrwtI9lws6q_-xpQvPoVDQ4hB7Hi

1. Gary Young vs Gustavo Mendoza / 2. Rick Steiner vs Brett Wayne Sawyer / 3. One Man Gang vs Koko B. Ware / 4. Ted Dibiase & The Missing Link vs John Tatum & Jack Victory / 5. The Fantastics vs Eddie Gilbert & Sting / 6. Hacksaw Duggan vs One Man Gang / 7. Terry Taylor, Chavo Guerrero, & Bill Watts vs. The Fabulous Freebirds / 8. 20-Man Two-Ring Battle Royal

Side note, I have been continuing my UWF 1986 watch as a continuation of having watched through all of the Mid-South on Peacock. I am now through September 1986, and it's still pretty damn fun. The car occasionally runs rough, but this late in the year it definitely does not feel like a promotion that would be sold off merely six months later, and fully shut down eight months after that. 

THE GOOD

The Fantastics - Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers are easily my MVP's of 1986 UWF at this point, and in all honesty, come off like the most over babyfaces in the entire company as well. Potentially because they're the only top babyfaces that don't disappear for a few weeks for Japan tours, they are featured nearly every week and every match that's against competitive opponents are strong contenders for the best American TV matches that year. The vaunted feud with the Sheepherders is well-regarded as it should be, but there's also an incredible title defense against John Tatum and Jack Victory, and their matches with Eddie Gilbert and Sting are also delivering big, and doing A LOT to get both Eddie and Sting over the hump both in terms of credibility and in-ring performance. 

Sting - Holy shit, Jim Hellwig leaving the company was absolutely the best thing that could have happened for Sting at this pivotal early stage of his career. Both wrestlers look terrible in their early appearances as a tag team, but when Hellwig leaves, the flower begins to bloom. Not being trapped working in a "Road Warriors"-inspired beatdown tag team, Sting already begins showing some signs of personality being pushed as a singles as a few weeks. But after linking up with Eddie Gilbert and Rick Steiner (who also similarly is becoming more fully-formed by the week) as part of Hot Stuff & Hyatt International, he really starts to show out, and you can see him getting better and better every time he is in the ring with the Fantastics. The screams and howls that we know and love get more expressive, and he starts adding the more high-flying aspect of his offense that would make him stand out as he lost the more unsightly muscle bulk. Watching him develop in 1986 was a similar feeling to watching John Nord/The Barbarian develop in 1985. 

Eddie Gilbert - after a solid year of start-stop pushes, a babyface tease, and a "manager of foreign menaces" angle that admittedly did have one hot TV angle with the Russian beatdown of Bill Watts but otherwise never really felt earnest and also dragged down by Korchenko and Taras Bulba being super low-end wrestlers, "Hot Stuff" finally shines and feels fully fleshed out being aligned with Missy Hyatt and taking Sting and Rick Steiner under his managerial guidance. The chemistry with Missy in promos is off the charts and it's no shock they ended up becoming an outside-the-ring item, the sniping week-to-week with Tatum over the Hot Stuff and Hyatt International alliance is always entertaining, and being able to brag about taking two up-and-coming stars of the future in Sting and Rick Steiner results in Eddie coming off the most confident that he has been so far on the mic as a heel. Sliding into a manager/wrestler role as well was also a massive help in boosting both his credibility and overall presence on the weekly TV.

Michael Hayes on color commentary - finally, the great "Joel Watts problem" is put to rest. The Fabulous Freebirds as a whole was a nice boost to the promotion, but Michael Hayes stepping in as the regular weekly color commentator roles boosted the TV in such a powerful manner. Joel Watts is finally relegated to an off-camera production position (which to be fair, it sounds like that's where his skills shined the most with the video packages and music videos that he had produced over the last couple of years), and the team of Jim Ross and Michael Hayes feels pretty well-worn and on a good rhythm from Week One of the arrangement. Hayes is generally great as a heel commentator as well, going more for the Jesse Ventura route of "heel advocate" but acknowledging when a face is having a great performance in the ring, not spending entire undercard matches only talking about himself or the Freebirds, and not leaning too much on pretending heels aren't cheating during their matches. Just a major breath of fresh air and I'm sure as the national television push was happening, the team of Ross and Hayes came off so much better to new audiences than Ross and Joel Watts, or the few weeks where it was Bill and Joel father-and-son together.

Missy Hyatt/Dark Journey - Dark Journey returns as a face after a brief absence when Dick Slater leaves the territory, first feuding with Lady Maxine, but when the latter leaves the territory herself, the timing could not have been more perfect as Missy Hyatt has now arrived with John Tatum, and the two of them end up being perfect foils for each other. Their physical interactions are very much "catfight" spots, but when those spots occur it's also the loudest crowd pop of the show, and damn that energy is infectious when watching week-to-week. And I gotta say, this incarnation of heel Missy Hyatt in 1986 is maybe the absolute best "Missy Hyatt" she ever was on TV. She came off as a natural and so much more comfortable as a snotty "Beverly Hills" rich girl heel than she probably did any other time in her career. WCW spent so much time trying to make her a babyface/talking head/announcer that I honestly wonder if some money and/or TV ratings got pissed away by her not being a heel personality from 1989-1993. And aesthetically, I'll just say that I had to tell myself to "calm down" nearly every time she was on TV.

THE MIDDLE:

Terry Gordy as the first UWF Champion - I love Terry Gordy. On paper he is a credible choice as the first UWF Champion. But watching his reign play out on the week-to-week TV, outside of taped arena footage of a clean win over Ted Dibiase, they really don't do a helluva lot to attempt making him as credible of a "absolute TOP GUY" champion as Hogan or Flair, and his status as "UWF Champion" as the weeks go on doesn't feel like that much more of a graduation beyond the previous North American Championship. He has televised defenses against Hacksaw Duggan and Steve Williams, but the former ends with a "we're outta time" finish, and the latter ends with a disputed double-pin finish. I also think that it may have been a mistake making the first UWF Champion someone that was part of a larger group or stable. Ric Flair and Jim Crockett could get away with it because while he was definitely part of a dominant group, at the end of the day, Ric Flair was still presented as the undisputed TOP GUY. Gordy on the other hand is presented as an "equal" with Hayes in the Freebirds in a way that I think does some damage to him being the TOP GUY. I couldn't help but shake my head when one week of television saw Michael Hayes on commentary after attacking Ted Dibiase, and as "protection" Gordy and Buddy Roberts were guarding the commentary booth playing lookout duty. Gordy had his UWF Championship strapped around his waist while doing guard duty, and it just seemed super off having your now-national promotion's champion spending an entire episode on lookout duty for your heel announcer. Though I am almost at the point where that reign is about to end...

One Man Gang - I love One Man Gang. He comes in with a super-hot angle where his attack on Hacksaw Duggan arguably costs the roughneck the UWF Championship Tournament. But the follow-up from week-to-week is weird and inconsistent. Instead of straight-up murdering jobbers and midcarders sending them off on stretchers, his squash matches are kind of generic, and any competitive matches he has are also inordinately booked into the "we're outta time" slot. The last TV I've watched was 9/20/86, ostensibly heading into the home stretch of where his push towards becoming the new UWF Champion should be beginning, and he does NOT feel like someone that would be the next UWF Champion.

Ted Dibiase/Hacksaw Duggan/Steve Williams - All three wrestlers are still very over and Dibiase/Williams are presented in a hot manner as foils for the Freebirds, and they do keep Duggan hot as he chases One Man Gang for revenge, even if I have qualms about how OMG is booked during this time. But the tolls of having all three wrestlers also becoming more in demand from All Japan and New Japan are VERY visible in the weekly TV, with BOTH Dibiase and Williams being overseas for the entire month of July and being very conspicuous in their absence, even with the excuse of an injury angle for Dr. Death. And while I am not as down as Terry Taylor as a face in Mid-South/UWF, him being the only main event singles face that doesn't go away for a Japan payday only goes so far.

THE BAD

Bill Watts returns for one more "Last Stampede" - Watts returning in 1984 was AWESOME. I enjoyed the hell out of Watts returning to take it to Devastation Inc. and pulling "Midnight Rider" shenanigans against Akbar in 1985. The 1986 return got off to a fantastic start with the Russian beatdown angle, but after the series of JCP/UWF co-promotion shows with Dusty as his partner against the Russians, Watts hangs around aligning himself alongside Dibiase, Williams, and Terry Taylor in brawls and matches with the Freebirds, with Watts and Taylor essentially being stand-ins for Dibiase and Williams for the month they are away, and now it feels it major diminishing returns. The Freebirds came in hot, and Gordy is the UWF Champion, but now they are all feeding for Watts on beatdowns for a month straight. 

"WE'RE OUTTA TIME!" - As bad of a reputation that 1986/87 Jim Crockett TV has for pulling this stunt, 1986 UWF may honestly have been a much more egregious offender. There are literally EIGHT straight weeks of TV where the main event is "OUTTA TIME". They would do this very occasionally in Mid-South 84/85, but always show the finish the following week. In 1986 during the UWF era, they don't bother with that at all, and to add insult to injury, Jim Ross would be VERY explicit when closing the show about how "you have to come out to see UWF action live". The only time they did show how the match ended the following week during this stretch was when Terry Gordy defended the UWF Championship against Hacksaw Duggan, but even that was a bitter pill because they pulled "WE'RE OUTTA TIME" out of a fucking UWF Championship match that had been hyped for the entire show.

Kamala's departure from the UWF - Kamala returned but after only a few months back, got the big offer from Vince to come up to New York to have the run against Hogan. So what do you do if you are the UWF? You show months-old footage on the main weekly television of Duggan beating Kamala in Houston but dub over new commentary promoting that this match was "THE FINAL BATTLE"! 

Frank Dusek on commentary during the Dr. Death injury angle - They shot the Freebirds piledriving Dr. Death on the floor at an arena show, so instead of Jim Ross being apoplectic selling this angle like Steve Williams got shot to death, we're stuck with Frank Dusek doing voiceover commentary on a special report, and it is one of the worst calls I have ever heard for an injury angle. Dusek's commentary style can be best described as "good at matter-of-factly shouting what's happening no voice modulation in any direction". He steps in on color commentary on a couple of UWF episodes when Hayes has to wrestle a match or work an angle, and really adds nothing to the call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_20eFRvVnc

Overall, while the tires could use some air, this is still a mostly fun show to follow even this late into 1986. 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mister TV

Mister TV

Posted
Posted
47 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

So many weird things about this 1980 Pre WCCW Dallas episode, starting with the theme. 
 

Dont want to spoil any of them. 

That’s the same music the NFL Today on CBS used during that timeframe, but it starts up at a different point in the song. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
colonial

colonial

Posted
Posted

EWF La Sfida - FULL EVENT (June 4th 2005) (youtube.com)

Not the full event ... but three matches from a super indy show in Italy from a group called "European Wrestling Federation."

Among those featured in the matches are Spud (Drake Maverick) and Cannonball Grizzly (PN News).

Per Cagematch, said show also featured a 2/3 falls NWA title match between AJ Styles and Petey Williams.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cobra Commander

Cobra Commander

Posted
Posted (edited)

More from the Essa Rios file:

Watch as Essa Rios goes 4 minutes with Joey Abs and then Joey is way too far away for a Lita moonsault.

And..

Kaientai! The Headbangers! Stevie Richards? Viscera???

I was expecting a finish of Viscera falling on top of Stevie after the Steviekick and pinning him (that wasn’t the finish)

Edited by Cobra Commander
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...