The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (7.12.1986)

-July 5 is missing for some reason, so on we go!

-We watch a dude skydive into a stadium to kick off the Great American Bash.

-Originally aired July 12, 1986.

-Hey, we got out of the studio this week! We’re in Raliegh, NC.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & Jim Cornette.

-Jim Crockett, who really REALLY needs a haircut, announces that we have a new bald-headed geek in the NWA, but says no more.

-This is Dorton Arena, which is a standard size arena but is surrounded by windows, so it has the look and feel of an outdoor show.

WARLORD (with Baby Doll) vs GENE LIGON
-Cornette offers Warlord an attorney if he wants to do something about the barber who gave him that haircut. Ligon tries a hold and Warlord just pries his hands apart. Warlord no-sells a dropkick and then finishes instantly with a running powerslam.

-Jim Cornette talks to Ric Flair, who’s defending his NWA belt against Dusty tonight in Florida, a state that Dusty has ruled for all these years. Dusty has a lot to think about tonight, but all Flair has to think about is which of 40,000 women in Jacksonville is getting backstage passes after the match. Flair promises that by the end of his 14 title matches, there will be no denying he’s the best of all time.

-Back from the break, and all of the Horsemen are here. Ole says there are no plans for an eight-man tag match because what four people in their right mind would be willing to wrestle this unit? Arn: “I don’t wanna blow my own horn, but TOOT…TOOT.”

IVAN KOLOFF (with Nikita) vs ROCKY KING
-Flying headscissors by Rocky early on. King wrings the arm, biting the fingers for good measure, and a bodypress gets two. Crowd pretty much declares King the winner for even getting this far. Sleeper by Rocky, but Ivan makes the ropes and flings him out to the floor. Ivan heads back in, and Rocky surprises him by slingshotting himself back in for a two-count.
-Headbutts by Rocky get two as I begin wondering why they didn’t just push this guy. He has the look, he has charisma, he has a moveset. Who did he piss off? For the moment, he’s pissed off Nikita, as Ivan tosses him to the floor and Rocky gets pounced. Back in, a knee from the second rope misses and King goes right to work on the leg. Backdrop by Rocky, but Ivan reverses an Irish whip and follows with a Bossman leg drop for the sudden three-count. King looked like a superstar here, though.

-Waylon Jennings heartily endorses this event, product, or service.

GREAT AMERICAN BASH REPORT
-There are seven cities remaining for the Great American Bash, but more importantly than that, somebody lost their hair! We go to Jimmy Valiant battling Shaska Whatley. Jimmy’s a bloody mess but applies a sleeper on Shaska Whatley. Baron runs in and breaks it with the loaded glove. Manny Fernandez runs in to block the attack. Shaska contends with him while Jimmy gets his hands on the glove, knocks out Shaska, and gets three.

-Post-match, Valiant does a really impressive job with the electric clippers, managing to shave Shaska’s head completely with amazing speed. Jimmy vows that Paul Jones is next.

-Magnum TA, with a thick red/purple line spanning almost his entire forehead, says it’s a long way before his deal with Nikita is over.

NON-TITLE: RON GARVIN vs BLACK BART (Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion)
-I’d love to take a survey to see how many of these 8,600 fans in attendance in Raleigh had any idea that Black Bart was the Mid-Atlantic Champion. Garvin tries to work the arm, but Bart reverses and throws right hands. Garvin fights back with chops and a headbutt to put Bart down for two.

-Bart bounces back, headbutting the shoulder and elbow for two. Garvin fights back with a series of headbutts and an elbow for two more. Garvin works the arm as we pause for a break.

-Back from commercial, Garvin is in the tree of woe and Bart is choking away. Bart rams his face into the mat and drops a leg, but without the full effect of a boot to the face preceding it, a legdrop is only worth two. Tully Blanchard Enterprises shows up at ringside to do some scouting. Bart keeps pounding away and Garvin is bleeding (for THIS match?!) Out of nowhere, Garvin rolls Bart up and puts the feet on the ropes to get the three-count, and Tully and JJ are just popping their monocles at Garvin just blatantly cheating to get a victory.

-Dusty Rhodes owns up to how goddamn out of shape he is, looking like a poor man’s Adam Nedeff at this point, but he says he’s in good enough shape to be a former two-time World Champion.

TEI JHO KHAN vs MARK FLEMING
-After seeing Black Bart, Teijo Khan’s appearance is giving this show a vibe sort of like when you haven’t done laundry in a while and you’re wearing t-shirts that you forgot you owned. It’s like, oh yeah, it’s the white guy with the Asian name; I remember when I ate at that Hard Rock Café.

-Fleming works the arm of Tei Jho Khan. They should have done an angle where some babyface found an old photo of him with a normal haircut and revealed that his real name was T. Joe Conn and they could build a feud off of that.

-Khan works the back with forearms and knees for two, and he is SUCKING WIND here. Fleming fights back with a shot to the gut and wrings the arm. I’m actually concerned for referee Tommy Young here. He’s a sweaty mess and not even watching the action at one point. Fleming says “Ask him ref!” while he has an armbar applied, and he’s genuinely looking for Tommy, who is paying zero attention. Can we get some Hi-C and a peanut butter cracker to ringside for Mister Young, please?

-Fleming fights back with gut shots as this match has literal heat in the arena but absolutely no other. Without Paul Jones at ringside (for no explained reason), Tei Jho is really just a dude with a bad haircut.

-Jim Cornette takes a time-out to threaten Baby Doll and the army of tag team partners she’s lined up for bouts against Corny and the Midnight Express in the next few weeks.

-The Rock & Roll Express runs down their matches on the remaining Bash stops. Robert Gibson has a title match against Ric Flair, presumably because if he didn’t, Flair would only have 13 opponents and somebody in the NWA was superstitious.

NATIONAL TITLE: TULLY BLANCHARD (Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs WAHOO MCDANIEL
-Wahoo reverses a hiptoss and goes to work with the first of what I anticipate will be 113 chops for this match. Tully goes to the floor to stall for a bit. Back in, Wahoo throws more chops for a two-count. We pause for station identification.

-Chinlock by Wahoo. We go to a test of strength and Tully drives boots into the gut to ground Wahoo. Wahoo gets pissed and headbutts him down, then twists the test of strength into a wristlock while Cornette exclaims “The Indian can still move!” Great visual, as Tully fights back to his feet, but Wahoo is so strong that he holds into the wristlock with one hand.

-Chops by Wahoo and Tully is bleeding. I bet when Jim and David Crockett die, someone will find boxes and boxes and boxes of Band-Aid stock certificates in their attics. And Wahoo begins bleeding while I type that! Wahoo reverses a suplex to a big pop for two. Match goes to the floor and Tully just lights into him with rapid-fire rams into the barricade and the post.

-Back in, Tully applies a chinlock. Elbow misses and Wahoo mounts a comeback with an atomic drop and a chop for two. Tully crawls to the corner for morale support, and also a weapon from JJ Dillon. Tully KOs Wahoo and goes for the pin, but Ron Garvin runs in to alert the referee to the chicanery. Tully tries to pass the weapon back to JJ without the referee seeing, but JJ does an absolutely perfect performance of accidentally letting it slip through his fingers, so the referee sees the weapon on the mat and gives Wahoo the win by DQ. Tully made the fading Wahoo look like the toughest opponent he ever faced here, and it was fantastic to watch from start to finish.

-The Russians are ready for the Road Warriors and Magnum on their remaining tour stops.

SAM HOUSTON vs GEORGE SOUTH
-Houston is having the weirdest year ever, getting demoted to jobber, but now suddenly being prepped to be the top babyface in Central States when Crockett’s purchase is finalized.

-Houston armdrags and armbars South. South fights back with a slam, but misses an elbow. Houston goes back to the arm and clamps on a hammerlock. South gets to the ropes and then rakes the eyes to take control. Doesn’t work, as Houston hits a flying bulldog for two, then goes back to the armbar. South tries headscissors, but Houston flips out. South is getting nothing here, but they’re dragging the match out as the clear theme here seems to be “Look at all the stuff he knows how to do!”

-George tries another chinlock and then a nerve hold. Sam yells out “Nuts!” in anguish before hitting a bulldog OUTTA NOWHERE for three and a big pop.

WORLD TAG TEAM TITLES: MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (Champions, with Jim Cornette & Big Bubba) vs ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering)
-That’s a HELL of a match to give away for free, and anyone who’s expecting an actual finish to it is batshit loony.

-Animal leapfrogs Dennis Condrey and elbows him out to the floor to the pop of all pops. Back in, but Animal dropkicks him right back out, and Cornette has to talk Dennis into going back to the ring (“NOOOO!”) They actually tell a pretty cute story next, as the cameras catch Cornette telling Dennis that the Warriors are just big dumb weightlifters who only have their muscles and nothing else. So Dennis tries to intimidate Hawk in the ring by doing a muscleman pose, and Hawk just looks disappointed in him and does a better flex. Dennis hits a piledriver out of nowhere, but it’s Hawk, so you know how that goes, and the Express is on the floor as we take a break.

-Eaton tags in. Hawk winds up for a clothesline, but Eaton goes to the floor to avoid it. Animal is waiting for him out there though, and we get the best visual ever, as Animal press slams Eaton back in the ring along with about seven feet of camera cable that got tangled around Eaton’s foot, and while Eaton tries to untie himself, Hawk just clotheslines him back outside. That spot looked tremendous and the amazing thing is if they had tried to do the thing with the camera cable on purpose, it would have looked like shit. Sometimes in wrestling, a mistake IS a happy accident.

-Hawk is now just fighting both members of the Express since they’re giving him no challenge, and Cornette’s facial expressions are great, as he just looks totally exasperated with his team and seems like he’s resigned to losing the belts tonight.

-Tennis racquet finally turns this match around, and Dennis gouges the eyes for good measure. Midnights double-team Hawk to keep him from tagging out. Clothesline gets two and Hawk is still strong enough to press Dennis off of him when he kicks out. The tennis racquet is firmly established kryptonite though, so the moment the referee’s eyes are somewhere else, Cornette adds another shot with it. Hawk gets a lucky tag though, and Animal goes to town. Pier sixer erupts and Cornette just says “Nuts to this” and attacks with the tennis racquet in plain sight of the referee to end this thing.

-GREAT postscript to the match, though, as Ellering is furious about getting screwed out of the belts and chases Cornette out of the ring. Cornette outruns him, but Baby Doll shows up out of nowhere—and I mean out of nowhere, it sounds like the crowd didn’t even notice she was there—and punches Cornette in the back of the head. That one shot is enough to just drop Cornette cold, and Baby Doll walks off like it was nothing.

-Paul Ellering and the Road Warriors give Baby Doll props for throwing such a good punch.

-Cornette ices his head while complaining about Baby Doll having the nerve to bring a brick to the ring.

BUNKHOUSE TAG TEAM MATCH: DUSTY RHODES AND ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS (with Baby Doll) vs RIC FLAIR AND OLE & ARN ANDERSON
-We have under four minutes remaining in the broadcast so don’t get too excited. It’s pretty much a battle royal and sure enough, we close the show without seeing a finish. Hopefully they keep the tape machines rolling.

-Interesting tidbit in the credits to round out the show. David Crockett was missing this week because he had to step into the truck and direct the show himself. And it was a pretty smooth production from start to finish, so good job, David!

8.7

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

Well THAT was a hell of a show, all action and competition from start to finish, with a few angles tossed in to keep all the feuds simmering. A very worthy use of your two hours!