Scott’s Blog of Doom

The SmarK 24/7 Rant for World Championship Wrestling - June 22 1985

- So continuing on, last week Magnum TA challenged Ric Flair in a 10-minute draw, plus the Andersons scuffled with Dick Slater and Buzz Sawyer because of injuries sustained by Brett Wayne Sawyer at their hands.

- Tony Schiavone starts by reading a letter from a little blind boy, who thinks that Ron Garvin got a raw deal against Black Bart and should be reinstated by the NWA. Well, to be fair, he’s BLIND, so he could hardly judge fairly, but apparently this has moved the Board of Governors enough to reinstate Garvin anyway. I think the little boy grew up to be a referee.

- Brett Wayne Sawyer & Buzz Sawyer v. Larry Clark & Randy Barber. The Sawyers, now reunited, continue to send a message to the Andersons by working over the arm of each jobber, before finishing with a Buzz powerslam into a Brett flying splash.

- Tully Blanchard & Baby Doll want to talk about Big Dust some more. He’s gutless, you know.

- Bill Watts, quite upset about the state of the world these days, rants about terrorists and dirty commie Russians who are also steroid freaks (!) holding the six-man titles and making the US look bad. So if they’ve got any guts, they’ll accept his challenge for a match with two partners for a show upcoming at the Omni.

- Magnum TA v. Paul Garner. Another quickie for TA, as he finishes under 30 seconds with the belly-to-belly.

- Dusty Rhodes comes out to reply to Tully, his crippling eye-injury already reduced to a band-aid, and adds to Watts’ patriotic fervor by adding himself to the match and throws out a word of warning for Tully: If Baby Doll gets in his face again, he’ll knock her on her big ass. Man, they were so mean to her back then. You’d never hear the WWE dare to say that kind of stuff about their precious Divas, unless it was a deliberate comedy angle like the Molly Holly stuff.

- Dick Slater comes out and adds his support to Watts in his war on steroid-fueled terrorism, and challenges Ric Flair while he’s at it.

- Jimmy Valiant v. Carl Styles. Usual squash from Jimmy here. While watching the Hall of Fame stuff with the Valiants this month on 24/7, it occurred to me that when they returned in ‘79 reinvented for the 80s, Jimmy looked like 100 times the star that Johnny did, as he was buff and sporting the Superstar Graham blond moustache. They could have had some serious money in him, as they did in Memphis before his WWF run, and I’m not sure what happened to him to make him into the clown that he became. Anyway, elbow and elbowdrop finish here.

- Ric Flair joins us to summarize his list of challengers again, and declares himself to be the embodiment of America. That’s why Flair was great — you always could keep track of his feuds because he’d come out and say “I’m wrestling this guy, this guy and this guy in a city near you”.

- Tully Blanchard v. Terry Flynn. Flynn gets a headlock on Tully, and that’s about it, as he misses a charge and then Tully toys with him for a couple of minutes before finishing with the slingshot suplex. Of note here, Tully’s knee strikes miss by 8 inches or more, which the camera catches in all their glory. His celebration is cut short by Dusty Rhodes, who storms the ring, and as promised knocks Baby Doll on her ass. Tully responds by knocking him out with a loaded elbowpad (the same one Black Bart used to beat Ron Garvin) and putting him in the figure-four.

- The Road Warriors v. David Dillinger & Joel Deaton. Oddly enough, the Warriors are AWA tag champions at this point, which is kind of weird to hear acknowledged on NWA TV. Total squash for the Warriors, of course, and Animal finishes with a powerslam off the top.

- Ivan & Nikita Koloff v. Alan Martin & Mark Cooper. The Russians are NWA World tag champs and six-man champions, and in the midst of a monster push, to say the least. Total power here, as Nikita looks like a star despite being green as grass. Still, a series of matches with Flair took care of that, as it often did. Poor Cooper just gets murdered here, as Nikita finishes with the Russian Hammer (chokehold takedown) and Russian Sickle.

- Superstar Graham, the man of hour and too sweet to be sour, joins us and shows off his 24-inch pythons. Uh oh, someone call Jerry McDevitt.

- Ric Flair & The Andersons v. Rocky King, Pez Whatley & The Italian Stallion. Whatley controls Arn with armdrags to start, and they all pinball Ole in the corner. Flair comes in and gets hiptossed into the corner. Backdrop out and it’s BONZO GONZO early on. The future Horsemen clean house and work Pez over in the corner. Over to the Stallion, and the Andersons go to work on the arm. Flair drops a knee for two. Ole uses a half-crab, with help from Flair, and the leg becomes the new target for them. Arn with a half-crab as well, and we take a break. Back with Rocky King taking the beating now from Flair, and they continue working the leg. Flair with a backbreaker for two. Whatley gets in again, the only hope of offense for his team, and it’s a Flair Flip as Pez goes after everyone. The faces clean house, but Flair hits Pez from behind with a double axehandle. They go back to working Rocky’s leg over, and finish with Arn’s gourdbuster into the figure-four.

- The Andersons try to go after color commentator Magnum TA, but Jimmy Valiant and Dick Slater back him up, with segues into Jimmy challenging Paul Jones to a dog-collar match, one of several gimmick matches they would have over the years they feuded.

- The Russians join us to let us know that they want the gutless coward Road Warriors. And soon.

- Buddy Landell v. Jason Walker. Budro, looking very energetic and svelte here, gets a hiptoss and dropkick, and works a neck vice. Rather long and dull squash, actually. Figure-four finishes.

- Black Bart yells and screams about Ron Garvin.

- Thunderbolt Patterson v. Tommy Lane. Lane would go onto minor success as part of The Rock N Roll RPMs, but not today. Patterson does nothing more than punching for the whole match, and finishes with a double-thrust to the chest. Wow, he shoved him down, what a worker.

- Back with more Dusty, as he compares Baby Doll to a cow (OUCH!) and references the gorilla incident. Damn, missed that one.

- Kevin Sullivan v. Gerald Findley. Kevin, newly crazed, promises to cripple Dick Slater before the match, because some chick with three eyes in Calcutta told him to. Geez, talk about whipped. Sullivan beats the hell out of the jobber and finishes with a rear chinlock. I prefer the double-stomp finish myself.

- Superstar Graham v. Mark Hill. Graham looks eerily like Hogan does these days. Punch, stomp, punch, stomp, and even the normally patient Center Stage fans tire of it quickly, launching into a “boring” chant before a full-nelson mercifully ends it for Graham.

- Black Bart v. Nick Busick. Busick went on to minor fame as The Big Bully in WWF, but this is just a squash. Bart was National champion at this point, although arguably his greater fame would be as part of the comedy team called the Desperados later on in WCW. Much of this is Bart working on the arm with headbutts and legdrops. The crowd, unusually fickle this week, get on this match too. Tony, talking about the Garvin-Bart title change, notes that the Board cannot change a title by viewing videotape, although they’d do just that with Starrcade 85, returning the belt to Ric Flair, so obviously the bylaws must have changed by then. Top rope legdrop finishes.

- Magnum returns to lay out more words for Flair, who is also a gutless coward. Lot of that going around this week. Flair-Magnum really had that big match feel to it, but Magnum’s career was cut short before it could really be blown off properly. And we’re out of time, fans!

The Pulse: No real main event to speak of in this show, but as always a solid build for the future with some good promos.