wrestling / Video Reviews

The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (1.18.1986)

April 19, 2016 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
NWA World Championship Wrestling
7.2
The 411 Rating
Community Grade
12345678910
Your Grade
Loading...
The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (1.18.1986)  

-Cold open: The World Wide Wrestling brawl between the Rock & Roll Express and the Midnight Express. Ricky Morton goes throat-first on the tennis racquet.

-Originally aired January 18, 1986.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & David Crockett. They agree to occasionally finding Jim Cornette’s shenanigans amusing, but what he did to Ricky Morton’s throat was going WAY too far.

RON GARVIN vs PABLO CRENSHAW
-Garvin rolls up Pablo right away for a two-count. Commentators hype “Superstars on the Superstation” again, which regrettably isn’t on the Network. Yet.

-Garvin goes super homoerotic on offense, pressing his crotch on Pablo’s neck and then just leaning forward to it while showing off the fact that he’s not using his hands. Pablo tries to trade chops with Garvin and pays for it. Backdrop by Garvin, and the hands of stone gets the win.

-Garvin says he’s got desire, and he’s got fans behind him, and those are two things that arrogant Ric Flair lacks.

IVAN KOLOFF (with Nikita Koloff) vs BENNY “U-Haul” TRAYLOR
-Oh good, David Crockett apparently got cable in the past week and discovered Chris Berman.

-Ivan tosses Traylor out to the floor and then snaps him back inside. Traylor tries to get something going with right hands, but Ivan snapmares him down and drops the elbow. Commentators announce that Khrusher Khrushschev was injured last week by the Road Warriors, which means the Six-Man Tag Team Title is in jeopardy. This could be good news for the #1 contenders, Other Six-Man Team That Has Never Been Mentioned.

-Koloff uses his shin to choke out Traylor and tosses him to the floor just because he’s extra pissed-off this week. Funny bit as he slams Traylor on the concrete; Traylor has a totally safe feet-first landing, but his feet land with such a loud THWACK that it freaks out the audience, which can’t see how he landed.

-Back in, the sickle finishes.

-Jimmy Valiant boogies his way over to Tony Schiavone. He got his wig split by Tully and JJ, and now he’s missing a few cards from his deck. He’s coming for revenge daddy!

“Boogie Woogie Man” JIMMY VALIANT vs GOLDEN TERROR
-Valiant tosses him right out to the floor and gives him a thumb to the throat. Back in, he clamps on the sleeper and finishes things right aw—oh…Golden Terror makes the ropes. That was unexpected. Valiant uses his shin to choke Terror, presumably because it looked fun when the Russians did it.

-Right hands by Valiant and he tries to take off the Terror’s mask. Terror gouges the eyes, but is now wobbling to sell his tiredness like a video game character. Terror misses a corner charge, and Valiant drops a big elbow to finish. Far too much boogie. Not nearly enough woogie for my liking.

-Ric Flair is joining us straight from the Hotel Paradise, where he had a lot of sex with women who don’t look like these ugly fans in the studio who will empty the hell out if the dog catcher shows up. He takes women to places the space shuttle ain’t found yet. Woo. He affirms that Ron Garvin doesn’t really have what it takes to win the belt. He warns Ron Garvin that when it comes to Space Mountain, it’s easier to get off than it is to get on.

-Nikita Koloff has the Sports Illustrated “Sportsman of the Year” issue and gripes that prejudiced judges caused him to lose to an American. Paul Jones shows up and offers an apology “on behalf of all Americans” for what happened to Khrusher Khrushchev. As a peace offering, he offers the Russians a substitute partner, Baron Von Rashke, for their use at any time for any match.

BARON VON RASHKE (with Paul Jones) vs TONY ZANE
-As a welcoming gift for the AWA legend, they’ve offered him a chance to bruise his initials onto the NWA’s most pathetic jobber.

-Baron armdrags Zane and sure enough, he has a fresh set of bruises on his left thigh this week. Baron puts the boots to him. Baron hammers away and applies a chinlock. He realizes that won’t leave a bruise, so he switches to a backdrop and then applies the claw to get a submission win.

-Baron heads over to the commentary table to make nice with the Russians. The Road Warriors don’t have the heart to step into the ring with three great men being guided by Herr Jones.

SAM HOUSTON (Mid-Atlantic Champion) vs ART PRITTS
-Houston armdrags Pritts all over the place until Pritts manages to clamp on an arm wringer. Houston works the arm for a little while as the sadistic “Break it!” chant goes up from the fans. Flying forearm by Houston gets two. Houston stays on the shoulder. Pritts breaks up the offense with a handful of hair and hiptosses him for two. Houston comes back and bulldogs Pritts for three.

-Here’s Dusty Rhodes. He don’t sing, dance, wear a fancy watch, or do anything but strut around the country with the world’s most beautiful woman. Dues goin’ be paid! Dusty says he and Baby Doll are gonna go now and take a bubble bath together, hopefully in William Howard Taft’s tub.

THE BARBARIAN (with Paul Jones) vs RAY TAYLOR
-Debuting this week: Ray Traylor. They’ve given him a modified last name, I guess so we don’t accidentally think he’s related to the black guy we saw earlier. Also, Ray Traylor and standard underwear-length wrestling trunks are a combination that do not go together.

-Barbarian shoves Taylor/Traylor around. He pretty much lets Traylor have a side headlock. Traylor tries a shoulderblock but gets booted right down, and Barbarian targets the throat. Traylor winds up on the floor and Jones takes some free shots at him, and we PAUSE FOR A BREAK! FOR THIS!

-Back from the break, Barbarian bodyslams Traylor and David Crockett absolutely shits himself. Diving headbutt gets the win.

-Magnum TA knows he’s a marked man as United States Champion, but he won’t duck a challenge from anybody. Not even Nikita Koloff. He promises that his belt will stay around “America’s waist.”

MAGNUM T.A. (United States Champion) vs LEE PEAK
-Bell. Belly-to-belly. Bell.

-We get a medical update from Dusty Rhodes’ doctor, who assures us that Dusty’s ankle is now fully healed. “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,” says absolutely every fan watching.

-Arn Anderson is furious about the update he just heard, and dig the continuity here…two months ago, when they gave us the detailed briefing about the special pair of boots made for Dusty after his foot injury, the doctor mentioned that one of the features of the boot was a steel toe. If Dusty’s foot is fully healed, that means he had no reason to wear that boot when he mauled Ole in Atlanta. How GREAT is that? A detail that was casually mentioned two months ago is very logically being revisited now. Anyway, Arn is demanding a cage match against Dusty. There’s a lot of cage match-demanding going on these days.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS (World Tag Team Champions) vs JERRY GARMON & LARRY CLARKE
-Gibson handles Clarke with a snapmare. Garmon tags in and gets taken down; he recovers with a top wristlock, but Gibson recovers quickly and tags out. Morton works the arm. Clarke tags in and Morton goes to work on his arm too. Bodyslams by Gibson get two. Express take turns working the arm. Morton stun-guns Clarke, and the double dropkick finishes.

-Corny is here and he ain’t happy because he keeps getting harassing letters from prepubescent teenyboppers who can’t spell and want to know why the Midnight Express wants to hurt Ricky.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Jim Cornette) vs LARRY VICKERY & BILL TABB
-Bobby snapmares Vickery; Dennis tags in and works his bicep across the top rope. Tabb tags in and gets a bunch of knees to the skull. Alabama Jam by Bobby while Cornette has a tantrum about the “Rock and roll” chants in the studio. Dennis chokes out Vickery and suplexes him. Rocket launcher finishes.

TULLY BLANCHARD (with JJ Dillon) vs GENE LIGON
-JJ distracts Ligon so Tully can sneak attack him right away. Side headlock is clamped on. Dillon walks over and vows that the issue with Jimmy Valiant WILL be settled. JJ goes on a rant about how Baby Doll is too fat to mount a yak, not that Tully cares, mind you, because Baby Doll is Dusty’s problem now.

-Ligon gets tossed out of the ring and lands HARD. I think Blanchard actually feels a little bad about it because he quickly lets Ligon backs in and lets him get some offense before tossing him back outside, with a little more care this time. Slingshot suplex finishes things.

-We look back at highlights from the Garvin/Flair match a few weeks back just because it was so damn great. Ron Garvin says he proved to the world that he can hang with the champ. Ric Flair walks out and wastes no time, headbutting Garvin, dragging him into the ring, throwing the jobber and the referee out, and then puts the $500 Italian shoes to Garvin. Flair celebrates the attack by sitting on Garvin, the way that Garvin wins his matches, and then goes over to cut his own promo. Garvin revives and goes on the offensive, dragging him back into the ring, and now it’s a fistfight. Garvin gets the edge with headbutts and then backdrops Flair into outer space, and now that Garvin has the clear advantage, Tully and Arn storm in for a 3-on-1 assault. Sam Houston tries to make the save but gets KOed by a lethal shoe. Dusty Rhodes shows up and fights off Arn & Tully while Garvin wipes out Flair with the hands of stone. Garvin gets the last word, saying he’s ready for another match.

-JJ Dillon is out with Tully and Arn. Dusty is still wearing an illegal boot and the rest of them are a bunch of dirty sneak-attackers. We get a brief glimpse at the bottom of the idea dustbin, as the Horsemen refer collectively to Dusty, Magnum, Garvin, and Sam Houston as “The Alliance” and peg them as the main threats to the Horsemen. Houston seems like he would be the Wonder Twins of that collective. Tully ends the promo by screaming “DAVID CROCKETT GOT WHAT HE DESERVED!” David apparently took an off-camera bump during the preceding brawl and got carried out of the studio.

NIKITA KOLOFF (with Uncle Ivan) vs MAC JEFFERS
-Actually, how great would it have been if they just dropped the Koloff name and called him Uncle Ivan.

-Koloff targets the neck of Jeffers while Crockett courageously returns and says it was worth it just to see what happened to the Horsemen. Backbreaker by Nikita as the “Road Warriors” chant goes up. Nikita headbutts Jeffers and gives him the sickle to finish.

-Baron Von Rashke is holding the six-man title trophy, as they seem to be officially christening him the third member of this team, which is weird because it’s like something you’d see a company do when a guy jumped ship to the WWF, but we’re still a whole year away from that.

-We close the show with a replay of Garvin knocking out the champ. Wow, apparently “Scouting Report” last week shit the bed so hard we’re not even attempting episode #2.

7.2
The final score: review Good
The 411
Great brawl capping off an incredibly fast two hours. The pacing of this show is amazing.
legend

article topics :

NWA, Adam Nedeff