The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (6.14.1986)

-Cold open: Rock & Roll Express battles Ric Flair & Arn Anderson in a tag team match. Double dropkicks (to the loudest screaming pops that 3,000 fans can muster) look to finish, until Ole shows up…

-Originally aired June 14, 1986.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & David Crockett!

-Jimmy Valiant is here, who says somebody took his braid, so he’s takin’ somebody’s skull. He shows off his “bald Paul Jones” picture and promises that somebody is gonna lose their hair.

ARN & OLE ANDERSON vs PABLO CRENSHAW & LEE PEEK
-Arn & Ole were the National Tag Team Champions back in January, but since consolidating Georgia and Mid-Atlantic meant that this company had too many damn belts, they just quietly forgot about that title when Ole got “injured” and now it’s gone forever.

-Ole, with the waistband of his tights at Fred Mertz level here, starts with Pablo and chokes him. Andersons hammer down on Pablo, and Arn goes to work on the arm. Lee Peek tags in and Ole goes to work on his arm too. Spinebuster by Arn, and he drives a boot hard into the chest. Arn rubs his face in the mat and lets Peek escape. He boots down Crenshaw and goes back to work on his arm & shoulder. Pablo fights back with right hands using his injured arms, and Ole very correctly no-sells every shot.

-Arn puts Crenshaw in an armbar and front facelock combo. Ole comes off the top and drives a knee straight into Crenshaw’s shoulder to take him down to the mat, and then clamps on an armbar and gets the submission. Okay, about this…months ago, somebody posted a very fair point in a comment here, remarking that the Andersons always got praise for their zeroing in on a body part for the whole match, yet their finishers never had anything to do with the body parts they were working. Here, it was 100% focused on that body part, and the fans were into it; listen to the crowd reaction at the end of this match and you’ll hear a goddamn miracle. These fans bought into an ARMBAR as a credible, lethal finisher (although honestly, the knee alone would have made that point just fine).

-Tully is with the Andersons, who have words for Dusty Rhodes. We see the footage we saw at the top of the show, continued. All Four Horsemen are in the ring attacking the Express. Dusty comes to the rescue and the Horsemen do some impressive division of labor. Tully clears Robert Gibson out of the ring, Ric Flair puts the figure four on Ricky Morton, and that leaves Arn and Ole to beat the holy hell out of Dusty, until Magnum and Manny Fernandez come to the rescue.

-Back from commercial, the Andersons are still here. Ole declares himself a Rhodes Scholar because he knows more about Dusty Rhodes than anybody else. He predicts that Dusty Rhodes will announces his retirement before 1986. Promo takes an unintentional babyface turn, as Ole pledges that once Dusty retires, for the remainder of 1986, any fan who walks up to him in a restaurant and says “Dusty Rhodes retired!” gets a free beer and a free meal.

TULLY BLANCHARD (National Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs KENT GLOVER
-Side headlock by Glover. Tully fights back and works the arm over. Glover slugs back, but Tully goes to work on his back with elbows and finishes with the slingshot suplex. Tully brings Glover back to his feet and KOs him with his own Hands of Stone to show he’s ready for Ron Garvin.

RON GARVIN vs PAUL GARNER
-Garvin chops Garner down and pretzels him. By the way, if you’re going to have Blanchard and Garvin scheduled for back-to-back squashes, why can’t you at least have them stare each other down as they cross paths or something? This feels weird.

-Garvin continues pretzeling, with one hand on his hip to show off how little effort this is taking. More chops, and the Hands of Stone finish. Garvin’s pretty damn over. I feel like there’s a time when they COULD HAVE put the NWA World Title on him, but the iron had cooled the fuck off by the time they did it.

-Bob Caudle is with Dusty Rhodes on NWA Pro Wrestling. He don’t play with a full deck, Ole Anderson, but at least he’s in the game.

THE WARLORD (with Baby Doll) vs BRODIE CHASE
-First appearance of the Warlord, and his haircut here is actually weirder than his better-known look. Full head of hair, with a dyed black “Mohawk” running down the middle. Warlord squashes him like a bug and wins with a press slam. After the match, Baby Doll warns the referee not to touch him for some reason, and then raises Warlord’s arm.

-Magnum TA still has the US Title belt because nobody can make him give it up.

BARON VON RASCHKE (with Paul Jones) vs VERNON DEATON
-Baron starts off with some of the gentlest clobbering you’ll ever see. If you’re a Beavis & Butthead fan, it literally looks like Mr. Candy throwing a punch at Mr. Buzzcut. Jimmy Valiant comes out and says this battle against Paul Jones has to come to an end some time. It’s kind of funny given that the year is 1986, that this is a feud that’s been going literally since this was a regional company, which is a preposterously long time given that one of the guys in this feud is a manager.

-Baron Von Raschke puts on the evil glove for the claw. Valiant gets up on the apron to call the referee’s attention to it, and Jones knocks Valiant into the ring so Raschke can apply the claw onto Valiant. Sam Houston and Ron Garvin make the save.

-Ric Flair is here. “The Rock” Ole Anderson is back and Dusty Rhodes isn’t even in the studio because he knows that the Horsemen are here! WOO!

-The Miss Rock & Roll Express contest continues to be the goddamn creepiest thing ever.

KHRUSHER KHRUSHCHEV & THE KOLOFFS vs GEORGE SOUTH, ITALIAN STALLION, & ROCKY KING
-Khrusher beats down South and then the Koloffs go to work on him. Ivan misses a corner charge. Nikita chokes out Rocky King and tosses him across the ring. Rocky misses a bodypress and takes a nice bump out to the floor. Miscommunication between Ivan and Rocky nearly kills Rocky, as Ivan drops him straight on his head with what was apparently supposed to be a backdrop.

-Stallion tags in and airplane spins Ivan to a nice pop. Ivan blocks a splash and fights back with a neckbreaker. King could just be selling really well on the apron, but he does NOT look good. Ivan hammers away at Stallion and drops a knee on him for two.

-Back from commercial, the Russians are finally in firm control. Sickle by Nikita and South is out cold, but Nikita locks on a cobra clutch just for the fun of it, and the referee checks the arm and stops the match.

-Baby Doll is sure she can beat Jim Cornette in a match because he’s not an athlete and barely a man. Cornette storms out with Big Bubba and words are traded until Magnum TA shows up.

SHASKA WHATLEY & THE BARBARIAN (with Paul Jones) VS MARK HAWK & PAT MYERS
-Shaska beats down Hawk and rubs his face in the mat. Barbarian headbutts Hawk and sends him tumbling out of the ring. Barbarian goes to town on Myers with boots and headbutts and tosses him out to the floor. Paul Jones gives him a shot to the throat with his riding crop. Back in, Barbarian connects with a Watts-style dropkick, but since it’s Barbarian, it looks badass anyway. Diving headbutt from across the ring by Barbarian for three.

-Paul Jones’ Army is here with threatening words for Jimmy Valiant. Baron Von Raschke warns that his body is getting harder every day. Yes, I believe that’s called rigor mortis.

-The Koloffs and Khrusher are here. We replay the Houston/Khrushchev match from a few months ago and see Khrusher blow out his knee on a top rope move. Pretty funny heel mic work from Khrusher here, as his whole promo is blaming the Road Warriors for his injury, even though the clip is specifically edited to show that his knee was screwed six ways from Sunday before the Warriors even showed their faces.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs ART PRITTS & LARRY CLARKE
-Pritts gets armdragged around. Express goes to work on the arm. Rare spot where the referee actually directly blocks a double-team move, as Gibson sets up Pritts for something, and then the referee stands in front of both of them to block whatever Morton was about to do. Pee-Wee Anderson IS the law and order of the NWA, and don’t you forget it.

-Clarke gets beaten around and tags back out. DDT on Pritts, and the double-dropkick finishes.

GREAT AMERICAN BASH REPORT
-Minor thing that bothers me: this is a month long tour. They rattle off a long batch of matches that will happen during the tour, but they don’t say what matches are taking place at which venues. I’m sure they did a bang up job with local advertising, but something about that seems so half-assed when you hear it on the national TV broadcast.

-Jim Crockett comes out to wish Magnum TA luck in the best-of-seven series. Magnum comes out and reluctantly agrees to finally surrender the belt to Crockett. Ivan Koloff comes out and gripes about what bullshit it is that they’re having a best-of-seven series when they have a number-one contender and a vacant belt. He demands the belt for Nikita, and Magnum just drills him in the skull with it and takes off.

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs TONY ZANE
-After months of me busting on how pitiful he looks, Zane actually looks like he’s been hitting the gym, looking more solid than he usually does.

-Garvin backdrops Zane and goes him early with the brainbuster.

-Garvin runs down Indians who aren’t as tough as they think they are. Wahoo is proving it by demanding a match where he gets to use a leather strap.

-Jim Cornette rebuffs the Rock & Roll Express Dream Date contest with complaints about all the ladies who are hassling Big Bubba, who’s turned into a sex symbol ever since he appeared on TV. So this would be the historic first time that Jim Cornette tried to make Bubba break up on camera, and Cornette has talked in years since about how Bubba got so deep into character that he just did not flinch, no matter what batshit insane thing Cornette said about him.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (World Tag Team Champions, with Jim Cornette & Big Bubba) vs SAM HOUSTON & DENNY BROWN
-Actual competition this week. Houston connects with a dropkick on Bobby Eaton, and then he and Denny clear the ring with more dropkicks. Hammerlock by Denny on Dennis Condrey. Cornette steps over to the commentary table to drop a single line about Baby Doll’s “big stretch pants” and then walks away, which just cracks me the hell up.

-Condrey comes to life with a slam on Denny Brown. Sam Houston tags in and the Express stun-guns him for three. Kind of surprised it was that clean and decisive.

-Tully Blanchard Enterprises is here. The taped-fist matches are ten three-minute rounds, like a boxing match, and Tully consulted one of Sugar Ray Leonard’s trainers for instruction on the proper way to tape a fist.

WAHOO MCDANIEL vs THUNDERFOOT
-Wahoo takes down Thunderfoot and works his arm. He applies a chinlock and tries to pull off Thunderfoot’s mask from that position. Big chop gets three.

-Paul Jones’ Army is back. Week by week, Shaska looks and sounds more like a Tracy Morgan character.

6.8

The final score: review Average

The 411

Horsemen made this a good week. It's interesting to me how the Horsemen idea really took off and became a thing when there were only three (I mean, the four of them were loosely connected beforehand, but they weren't a full-blown faction when Ole got injured), but with Ole back to reform the full unit, it's launching into the stratosphere.