wrestling / Video Reviews

The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (12.13.1986)

March 24, 2017 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
NWA World Championship Wrestling
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The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (12.13.1986)  

-Originally aired December 13, 1986.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & David Crockett. Barry Windham & Ron Garvin are your new US Tag Team Champions. Damn, I knew Khrusher was leaving soon, but I thought he’d at least make it to 1987.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs TONY ZANE & BRODIE CHASE
-Wrestling logic: Ricky’s arm was in a cast last week, then ruthlessly attacked all through a match, and now he just needs an elbowpad for it.

-Zane misses a corner charge and gets rolled up for two. Small package by Ricky gets two more. Notorious slow learner Ricky Morton applies the armbar and AGAIN hurts himself with it because of the bad arm. Everybody tags and Gibson slams Chase. Chinlock is applied and then Ricky tags back in. Weak atomic drop because of the bad arm (Ricky looks like an idiot but at least he’s showing INCREDIBLE commitment to selling this injury) and Gibson has to tag in again.

-Gibson does a little more damage. Morton applies a lazy chinlock with his bad arm. Gibson does a bit that comes off hilarious to me, doing a sequence of moves on Chase while never taking his eyes off the camera. Double dropkick finishes.

-Rock & Roll is still here to stay, and they’re coming after the new champs.

-Jimmy Valiant proclaims himself “the new Boogie Man.” He thanks the fans for supporting him at Starrcade ’86 and proclaims that “We did it!” Yes, we got our asses kicked and left the ring a bloody mess while our wives cried. Everybody party! He promises to donate his cash prize to a children’s charity if he wins a Bunkhouse Stampede match, then kisses Tony right on the mouth.

NIKITA KOLOFF (US Champion) vs ALAN MARTIN
-Big dropkick by Nikita, and the sickle gets a fast three-count. Nikita does the Horsemen salute, and lowers the fingers one at a time to send a message.

-Dusty joins Nikita at the interview platform. He promises a lot of pain for the Four Horsemen. He says Tully Blanchard is still complaining about being cheated out of the US Title a year ago, so Tully is welcome to a match any time he wants one. Dusty promises to get funky in Philadelphia tonight.

OLE & ARN ANDERSON vs RANDY MULKEY & MIKE SIMANI
-Thank God, I know exactly which Mulkey I’m dealing with this week. Andersons double-team Randy, and Arn just drives his head into the mat repeatedly. Simani tags in and gets rammed from turnbuckle to boot. Arn works the arm, Anderson-style. Ole stomps away at him, and an elbow gets two. Randy tags back in and runs right into a spinebuster. “He’s dead!” David Crockett proclaims.

-Arm works the arn over. Ole stomps a little more, and Arn comes back in to finish up with the gourdbuster. Arn calls out Nikita during the gourdbuster attempt, so challenge accepted.

-Tully and JJ are here to remind everybody how great he is. Thing only I would notice: the NWA TV Title belt has not been updated to reflect NBC’s logo change in 1986. The title belt still has the 1978 “Proud N” design.

TV TITLE: TULLY BLANCHARD (Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs. BILL MULKEY
-Blanchard is wonderfully dickish, slapping Mulkey across the face repeatedly while running backwards from him. Chinlock is applied while JJ talks about the emerging “Mulkeymania” cult following and saying the fans are expecting that any week now, the Mulkeys will suddenly pull off some sort of huge miracle.

-Tully sends Mulkey out to the floor. Back in, he applies a chinlock as the commentators mention that Tully comes into the Bunkhouse matches armed to the teeth and has been the second-to-last man in the ring in many of the bouts. Tully plops Bill on the top rope just to bodyslam him off. Tully wants to show off a little bit by dropping an elbow, but Bill moves out of the way, and the crowd just goes crazy for Mulkey for even being able to do that. Mulkey’s too exhausted to capitalize, and Tully is so embarrassed by the goof that he immediately hits the slingshot suplex and ends it on the spot.

-We go to December 9, where Barry Windham & Ron Garvin decided on a lark to challenge the Russians to a US Tag Team Titles match, despite never wrestling together as a team before. Khrusher attempts to do some cheating with the chain, but goofs up and gets rolled up for three.

TIM HORNER vs VERNON DEATON
-Horner works the arm and hiptosse Deaton, while a box randomly pops up at the bottom of the screen to tell us that Horner is the co-founder of Smoky Mountain Wrestling. Super.

-Horner is still working the arm and finally wraps up with the natural bridge for three.

-Ric Flair is here to tell Nikita that Dusty makes fun of him behind his back.

-Jim Cornette comes limping out and says you can’t get rid of him no matter what you try to do. He’s been thinking about the Road Warriors. The time for thinking is over. The time for doing is coming.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Jim Cornette) vs. GEORGE SOUTH & ROCKY KING
-Corny doesn’t budge from the commentary table because his leg hurts too much. Jobbers outsmart Bobby Eaton, tagging behind his back so he runs into a hiptoss from George South. Dennis Condrey tags in and suplexes Rocky King, and we pause for a break.

-Back from commercial, King gets tossed out to the floor and tossed back in. Eaton slams him into position and comes off the top rope with a knee. Impressive spot by Condrey, applying an abdominal stretch on Rocky and walking across the ring while keeping the hold locked on. South makes the tag and runs into a backbreaker from Condrey, and the decapitator finishes.

ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs. CLEMENT FIELDS & KENT GLOVER
-Glover is the lucky one who gets tossed to the floor immediately. Fields just gets murdered by clotheslines from both Road Warriors and pinned in seconds.

-Road Warriors are on their way to Philadelphia and Chicago for more scaffold matches and bunkhouse stampedes.

-Paul Jones and his new tag team champions issue challenges to the Rock & Roll Express, to Dusty & Nikita, to anybody else who wants the belts. “Nikita Banana” is actually a pretty good line.

BARRY WINDHAM vs LARRY STEVENS
-Armdrag and a hiptoss to start by Windham. Lariat gets a quick win.

RAVISHING & RAGING (World Tag Team Champions, with Paul Jones) vs RANDY BARBER & PAT O’BRIEN
-WWE Network had their choice of any stock music available for dubbing over Ravishing & Raging’s original theme music, and they’ve apparently selected “Oral Sex on Cinemax.”

-Rude starts with a forearm on Barber. Manny snapmares him to the corner and tags in doughy, gray-bearded Pat O’Brien. The NWA just had the most pitiful-looking jobbers on their rolodex for these TV tapings.

-Double elbows by the champion. Barber tags back in and gets taken down by a clothesline from Rude. O’Brien tries his luck one more time and gets tossed out to the floor. Champs beat on him some more, and apparently, “matches that go on too long” is just going to be their thing. Rude rubs O’Brien’s face into the mat, then drives him into Manny’s knee.

-Back suplex by Rude on O’Brien. O’Brien is bleeding hardway from something and the ring is suddenly just a mess. Manny connects with the flying burrito and winds up with a huge splotch of blood on his chest from it as the match ends. I absolutely cannot figure out what caused it, but holy crap, it made for an intense scene at the end.

-Gorgeous Jimmy and Precious are here. Jimmy’s been hunting all over the WTBS studios for the Armstrongs and can’t find them anywhere. If somebody attacked your dad with a trash can, wouldn’t you be here to defend the family honor?

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs. ART PRITTS
-Jimmy works the arm and rams Pritts into the turnbuckle. They slug it out and Garvin clamps on a front facelock. Brainbuster gets the win.

-The Andersons want a piece of Garvin & Windham.

JIMMY VALIANT vs BILL TABB
-Valiant hiptosses Tabb around and gives him a thumb to the throat. He tosses Tabb outside and rams him into the pose, repeatedly making the point that he’s “the NEW Boogie Woogie Man” without any discernable difference in any part of his being. Elbow gets the three-count.

-Rock & Roll Express says that sooner or later, they’re getting a rematch with Ravishing & Raging, and the new champs should remember, you can’t tune a fish.

BARBARIAN vs ROBERT BURROUGHS
-Barbarian gives the jobber a high knee and a big boot. Burroughs must be really, REALLY new at this, because you can see Barbarian talking him through this match quite a bit. Series of headbutts by Barbarian. He sends Burroughs outside and slams him on the floor. Back in, running powerslam and the diving headbutt finish.

-The Horsemen are here. They’ll slap and spit on whoever they like, because they make more money than most doctors.

4.2
The final score: review Poor
The 411
Oh man...without any major angles or a feature bout, this show just WENT ON AND ON AND ON. It felt more like a meat parade than an actual wrestling show. You couldn't even get excited for anything like Windham's debut or the title change because they were treated as just blips on a two-hour long radar, and yes, I realize that doesn't make sense. But...the show just wasn't giving you a chance to breathe, and there was nothing important going on to justify the two-hour rush.
legend