wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (8.2.1986)
Loading...-Originally aired August 2, 1986.
-Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino.
AMERICAN EXPRESS vs. ROGER KIRBY & STEVE LOMBARDI
-The Express has such an odd-looking entrance, where they come to the ring holding the flag by its edges with no flagpole.
-Rotundo works the arm of Lombardi. Rotundo does an impressive run off the ropes but then crashes and burns on a sunset flip attempt. Spivey teases finishing with the bulldog right away, but instead just holds Lombardi in place for a top rope elbow. Rotundo misses an elbow and Roger Kirby tags in and drops a knee for two. Incredibly sloppy elbow misses (and Vince even calls Kirby out for how crappy it looked) and Spivey tags back in to get control back.
-Spivey gets caught in the bad corner and the jobbers gang up on him. Spivey makes his own save, so Kirby goes to the eyes, but Spivey reverses an Irish whip, and Rotundo finishes with the airplane spin for three.
UPDATE
-Gene profiles the “most impressive success story in the WWF today,” Jake Roberts, who has dominated the competition in only five months since coming to the WWF. Jake says he does whatever he wants and he plays by his own rules and nobody else’s. He even has a Free Parking jackpot when he plays Clue, that’s how much of his own rules he plays by. A stagehand wanders around with a wriggling fish on a fishing rod, and he loses his balance as I continue wondering what the point of this running gag is.
HART FOUNDATION (with Jimmy Hart) vs. TONY GAREA & JOSE LUIS…RIVERA
-“Greaseball” chant goes up while Brett and Garea trade leapfrogs, and Tony connects with a bodypress for two. Rivera sweeps the leg, so Brett tags out and Rivera just sweeps the Anvil’s leg, too. Foundation takes advantage of some referee distraction to trip Rivera up from the floor. Jimmy comes in with a pre-recorded promo, promising that the Foundation doesn’t need flashy jackets or rock and roll entrance music to win, and they’ll be the next WWF Tag Team Champions without music or jackets. So let it be written…
-Hart Attack finishes and Jose really didn’t want to do this job for some reason, kicking his legs through the whole count and raising the shoulder just after the three.
-Ken Resnick talks to Hulk Hogan, who apologizes to everybody at Galaxy Gym for bringing George Steele in for a training session because he didn’t realize George would chew up all the dumbbells. Randy Savage and Adrian Adonis had better be ready for them.
BILLY JACK HAYNES vs. JIM HALEY
-Vince marvels that Billy Jack Haynes looks strong, but doesn’t look powerful, but yet he is.
-Billy Jack applies a chinlock and goes crazy with it, yelling “Grrrrrrrrrrr!” and shaking Haley’s head in the hold. Haley won’t give up, so Billy Jack goes to work with a hard hop and a knee. Haley gets some token offense, but runs the ropes and Billy Jack is waiting for him with a clothesline. Full nelson is locked on, and that does it.
-Ken Resnick talks to Ricky Steamboat. Steamboat says he visited a 14-year-old boy in the hospital before the last time that the WWF came to Boston Garden. Little 14-year-old Tommy got the new heart he needed, but Jake Roberts doesn’t appreciate that because he doesn’t appreciate the value of life. That’s why he’s satisfied with winning a match by count-out, but he won’t win by count-out or any other way on August 9. Wow…it’s a damn good thing you’re as good as you are in the ring, dude.
HANDSOME HARLEY RACE (with Bobby Heenan) vs. CHRIS DUFFY
-Bobby Heenan insists that The Fink introduce Harley as “the king of wrestling” and Vince hastily clarifies that Harley recently won the King of the Ring tournament in Massachusetts, but it’s strange that he wants to be called The King of Wrestling because he was victorious that one night. I think it’s so odd that they didn’t have broadcast that tournament in any way. It was a stadium show, so they’d want to show that off, and it launched a new gimmick for a guy that they were planning on pushing relatively hard during the next year. How did that not find its way onto a week of “Prime Time” or something?
-Piledriver by Race could finish, but he wants to dish out more, ramming Duffy into the turnbuckle and giving him a thumb to the throat. Race yanks the neck like he’s going to do the neckbreaker, but then just comes to a full stop in mid-motion, which looks really, REALLY painful. Cradle suplex finishes.
FLOWER SHOP
-Adrian Adonis welcomes Junkyard Dog, who shits out a word salad about Adrian Adonis’ blonde wig causing Paul Orndorff to turn heel or something. He says that birds of a feather flock together, but he won’t flock with Adrian and Jimmy. Jimmy squirts the Dog with perfume and runs off, so JYD coldcocks Adrian with a flower pot.
VINCE MCMAHON INTERVIEWS HULK HOGAN
–Vince and Hulk sit on some weightlifting benches and reflect on Hulk’s friendship with Paul Orndorff. Their daily training sessions, the time their families had Thanksgiving dinner once, the oath they took that if they went down, they’d “go down together.” We get a video montage of all the events leading up to the betrayal, but Hulk promises that the 24-inch pythons will grind up Mr. Wonderful.
KING KONG BUNDY & BIG JOHN STUDD (with Bobby Heenan) vs. RUDY RYDER & JOBBINGTON BROWN
-Jobber intros are cut off, so I had to improvise. Leaping Lanny Poffo drops in to read a poem, saying that Bobby the Brain should be called “Bobby the Butt.” Did someone just get served?
-Brown gets double-teamed and Studd Irish whips Bundy into him for the five-count.
-Classy Freddy Blassie shows up, gleefully announcing that he got his full asking price for 50% of the contracts of Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik, but he walks away without giving any details.
-Ken Resnick talks to Adrian Adonis and Randy Savage, who say they’re not worried about Hulk Hogan and “the retard who’s always eating.”
