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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (1.18.1986)

September 24, 2014 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (1.18.1986)  

-Originally aired January 18, 1985.

-Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino. Vince & Bruno discuss an emerging rumor that there may be a relationship between George “The Animal” Steele and Elizabeth.

JUNKYARD DOG, KING TONGA, & RICKY “The Dragon” STEAMBOAT vs. BARRY O, MR. X, & JOE MIRTO
-JYD & O start, but before long, it’s Tonga and Steamboat switching off on O. Steamboat gets trapped in the jobber corner and take turns beating on him. Tonga & JYD take turns arguing with the referee about it, giving them an opening to triple-team him. Steamboat is getting MURDERED by these jobbers and the crowd seems genuinely concerned that Steamboat’s about to lose this one. Amazing.

-X outwrestles Steamboat, and when Steamboat starts to make a comeback, X crushes the crowd by catching him with a drop toehold, and Steamboat just keeps taking a beating. He finally gets a second wind and chops anything that moves. Faces get completely fed up with all the triple-teaming and decide to pay it back, with Tonga attacking Mirto on the apron with a thrust kick that knocks the wind out of him, and then JYD knocks Mirto right out with a headbutt for the three-count. Good match!

UPDATE
-Lord Alfred Hayes marvels at George Steele, who was “the scourge of the WWF” until Captain Lou Albano took him under his wing. He notes that Albano hasn’t always been completely successful at taming Steele’s beastly ways, but last week, Steele showed an unexpected and rather touching change of behavior when he gently nuzzled Elizabeth before a match on Saturday Night’s Main Event.

-We go to footage of a recent weightlifting competition in which Ted Arcidi lifted 705 pounds. Problem: They’re trying to push this guy as a heel even though the powerlifting crowd is cheering like nuts for him and Arcidi is playing to them.

TED ARCIDI vs. JOE WILLIAMS
-Bruno marvels that he set a world record in 1960 with 565 pounds and cannot believe that 25 years later, somebody managed to top it by 140 pounds.

-Williams tries shoulderblocks and tackles, but it’s like running into a brick wall over and over again. Arcidi calmly press slams him. Williams throws punches that “couldn’t crack an egg” according to Bruno, and Arcidi just laughs in Williams’ face, clamps on a side headlock, and then just walks Williams around the ring while holding onto it. Powerslam gets three.

-Gene Okerlund says that we had a capacity crowd last week in Boston and Piper storms on the set and blurts out “Who cares!” He complains about the awful news that he’s wrestling Bruno in a steel cage match. Bruno is a good name for a dog, and dogs belong in cages; Roddy is a horrible name for a dog, so he shouldn’t be in a cage. How can he fight somebody so ugly that he won’t lose anything if his face gets rammed into a cage. Piper says that a cage match is just too dangerous. The cage is 15 feet high and the apron is four feet high, which means that if he falls off the top, it’s a 23-foot drop. Gene’s facial expressions are tremendous after Piper says that, because he can’t figure out if Piper is genuinely wrong, if he meant to be wrong as a goof, if he wants Gene to correct him for a goof, and you can see absolutely genuine puzzlement on Gene’s face while he thinks about it.

-We go back to Saturday Night’s Main Event and watch the Peace Match between Corporal Kirchner & Nikolai Volkoff.

-Gene Okerlund says that promoters have signed a return match between Intercontinental Champion Tito Santana and Randy Savage. Savage walks out with a big green sack and says it’s all the money he’s being paid for his next match. Elizabeth predicts that Savage will win the Intercontinental Title at the next Boston Garden event. Somebody give that woman a cigar.

-Vote for the Slammy Awards.

ADORABLE ADRIAN ADONIS (with Jimmy Hart) vs. JIM POWERS
-It’s Adonis’ coming-out party, so to speak; his first match with the gay gimmick. He walks out wearing heavy make-up, and you’re expecting me to say he’s also wearing a dress, but no, he’s actually wearing party streamers and bows, so he looks more like a birthday present with shitty metabolism than a gay guy. This look seriously seems like it was designed by a homophobic person who’s never actually seen gay people, like something out of a Jack Chick comic.

-Powers armdrags Adonis, who is still wearing his New York Yankees logo boots, so they’re really, really gradually easing into the new gimmick, although Adonis has decorated the boots with puffy green balls. DDT by Adonis, and he pins Powers by clutching his taint and rolling him over to hook his leg.

PIPER’S PIT
-Hercules has upgraded to the full-blown Hercules contest. He complains that the WWF promoters are only letting him wrestle little boys and bums, and he wants a match with Tito Santana or Hulk Hogan soon.

BRETT “Hit Man” HART (with Jimmy Hart) vs. DON DRIGGERS
-Brett’s first singles appearance in almost a year. Vince puts him wayyyyy over, saying “The single most underrated wrestler in the WWF might be the man in the ring right now.” Wow.

-Brett does the five moves of starting the match off on the right foot, then tosses Driggers to the floor and bodyslams him on the concrete. He rams him into “the steel fans,” according to Bruno. I know what he meant but the mental picture there is delightful.

-Bruno puts over Stu Hart as a great, tough man with a mean streak and Vince says that the mean streak and the training are very apparent, because his son is even more aggressive. Brett finishes with a second-rope elbow. Not the kind he usually did; he swings his leg on the way down and gets a nice mid-air curve from it.
-Vote for the Slammy Awards! Vince mentions that Bruno cast both of his votes for Arnold Skaaland.

CORPORAL KIRCHNER & DANNY SPIVEY vs. RON SHAW & RICK HUNTER
-In the pre-Titantron days, a fan in the cheap seats would NEVER be able to tell the difference between Hulk Hogan and Danny Spivey, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out if this was intentional. I want to say it’s a coincidence because Hulk wasn’t wearing the yellow tights exclusively yet, but it’s all you can think of whenever you see a camera shot where Spivey’s back is turned. Although, to be fair, when Spivey’s facing the camera, Barry Windham is all you can think about.

-Spivey & Kirchner take turns working Shaw’s arm. Shaw tries to bodyslam out, but Spivey holds his arm the entire time so Shaw flips himself over on impact. Hunter (working heel, which is odd for him; I guess he accidentally left the Gladiator mask at the hotel) takes a pounding before Spivey finishes with the bulldog. Bruno suspects that the bulldog is an effective finisher because when your head is hit with high impact, something happens to your brain.

-Gene Okerlund talks to Bruno Sammartino, sporting a badass taupe-colored Members Only jacket, says that he doesn’t have any publicly acceptable words to discuss Roddy Piper. He’s ready for the steel cage match and says that Piper will bleed

The 411: Good week for historical footnotes!
 
Final Score:  6.6   [ Average ]  legend

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Adam Nedeff

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