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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (8.23.1986)

July 3, 2015 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
5.8
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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (8.23.1986)  

-Originally aired August 23, 1986.

-Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino.

BRITISH BULLDOGS (Tag Team Champions, with Captain Lou Albano) vs. IRON MIKE SHARPE & GLADIATOR
-Davey Boy & Iron Mike criss-cross until the Iron one crashes on a dropkick attempt. Dynamite tags in and the Bulldogs take turns working the arm while the Dream Team declares that this feud isn’t over yet. We’ve noticed.
-Gladiator tags in and takes the snap suplex. Running powerslam by Davey Boy gets the three-count, and we’ve fallen into such a routine with Dynamite doing the diving headbutt from the top rope afterward that Vince is genuinely thrown that the powerslam is what ends it.

UPDATE
-Gene Okerlund speculates on the identities of The Machines. We see some footage of The Machines wrestling in Japan, and Bobby Heenan, on “TNT,” promises that Studd & Bundy are going to rip those masks right off.

BIG JOHN STUDD & KING KONG BUNDY (with Bobby Heenan) vs. JIMMY JACKSON & TONY GAREA
-A fan at ringside has crocheted a really impressive King Kong Bundy doll.

-Studd lays a beating on Garea. Bundy tries to finish him with an elbow, but Garea gets out of the way and tags out as Bundy crashes. Superstar Billy Graham drops in with a few words from the Arizona desert. Graham proclaims that he’s big, bad, and mean. He’s coming for Big John Studd.

-Studd Irish whips Bundy into Jackson for an avalanche with some extra steam behind it, and the splash gets the five-count.

-Ken Resnick has a word with Captain Lou Albano, who walks on camera way too early to hype his men’s matches at Boston Garden. His Bulldogs are going to keep their tag team gold, George Steele will claim the Intercontinental Title, and The Machines are going to keep their masks.

ROUGEAU BROTHERS vs. LES THORNTON & MR. X
-X throws forearms at Raymond and Irish whips him, but Raymond manages to leap onto the second rope and come off with a bodypress. Thornton tags in and runs into a dropkick. Sunset flip by Jacques gets two. Victory roll attempt goes badly and X saves it by interfering the moment Jacques lands. Jacques tries the same bodypress spot that Raymond did earlier, but X anticipates it this time and ducks. Backbreaker by Thornton gets two.

-X tries to finish off Jacques with a springboard splash, the most impressive spot I’ve ever seen from Danny Davis, and Jacques raises the knees for the hot tag. Rougeaus clean house and Raymond flips Jacques from the top rope and down onto X for the win. Pretty good squash.

-Ken Resnick talks to Sheik & Volkoff, who says intelligent fans go to school and cheer for the Russian man and the Iranian man. He says hello to his Italian fans, his Arabian fans, and his Russian fans.

ROWDY RODDY PIPER vs. A.J. PETRUZZI
-This is a pretty famous squash. Piper gets a huge pop because the Flower Shop has been just that irritating, and Piper looks around, totally confused by the reception he’s getting.

-Petruzzi slaps Piper in the face to start, and Piper very calmly sticks his left arm in the back of his tights and then quite literally beats Petruzzi with one hand behind his back. He punches and stomps Petruzzi, then rams his face into the mat over and over again. Petruzzi goes to the floor and Piper follows him out, ramming him face-first into the timekeeper’s table and toppling the thing on impact. Back in, Petruzzi tries some offense. Piper totally no-sells and then connects with a HARD kneelift to the jaw. Piper finally takes the hand out of his tights for a Polish hammer, and he pins Petruzzi with a single foot across the face. Fans went nuts from bell-to-bell for this. Fun match, although I’d feel better if I had some assurance that Piper washed that hand immediately.

FLOWER SHOP
-Adrian Adonis welcomes Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Freddy Blassie, and Slick. Before any of them have said word one, Piper walks onto the set and demands mic time and demands it right now. He insults Slick for having lips that are too thick (it’s 1986, ya know) and then walks out.

TITO SANTANA & PEDRO MORALES vs. MOONDOGS
-Commentators have a weird discussion about how Slick doesn’t know who Roddy Piper is (Slick ended the last segment by asking “Who in the heck was that?”) I get that Slick is new here, but even within the confines of kayfabe and storytelling and all that, if it’s 1986 and you don’t know who Roddy Piper is, then you’re not qualified to be a manager.

-Moondogs gang up on Pedro Morales while the Honky Tonk Man, who says he’s all shook up because he’s gonna strut & stroll & rock & roll in the WWF soon. Bruno says that Honky is some character.

-Rex tries for a backdrop, but Pedro turns it into a neckbreaker and tags in Tito. Rex misses a running knee and Tito clamps on the figure four right away. Spot breaks that up and we have a pier sixer. Tito connects with a flying forearm on Rex in the midst of it, and that gets the pin.

MAGNIFICENT MURACO (with Mr. Fuji) vs. BOB BRADLEY
-Bradley clamps on a side headlock and manages to hold onto it for a good bit. Muraco escapes and tosses Bradley to the floor. Bobby Heenan announces that he has obtained permission from the WWF to personally inspect The Machines, face-to-face, during the Flower Shop next week.

-Muraco comes off the top with a knee into the chest. Muraco teases the tombstone but makes it a shoulderbreaker instead because this show is running noticeably short. He beats on Bradley a little more and teases finishing him, but pulls him up at two. Tombstone finally ends things. Vince announces that Harley Race is going to be holding some sort of ceremony next week.

-Ken Resnick talks to Randy Savage, who holds up a “Randy Savage #1” t-shirt that he snatched off a kid who walked up to him outside the gym.

5.8
The final score: review Not So Good
The 411
Piper grabbed this one by the throat and held onto it for a fantastic segment. The rest was your usual fodder.
legend

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WWF, Adam Nedeff