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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling 8.18.86

July 2, 2015 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
5.5
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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Prime Time Wrestling 8.18.86  

-Originally aired August 18, 1986.

-Your host is Gorilla Monsoon. Nobody knows where Bobby Heenan is.

PEDRO MORALES vs. TERRY FUNK (with Jimmy Hart)
-From Boston. Terry has been gone for almost four months, which makes this a very strange choice for broadcast.

-Funk slaps Pedro and cowers immediately. Pedro slaps him right back and Funk is so shaken that he goes to the floor to recover. Back in, Funk sends Pedro over the top rope and onto the broadcasters’ table. Terry gets beaned by a piece of garbage, sees the fan who did it, and goes right for him before Jimmy restrains him.

-Funk, regaining his focus, boxes Pedro down, lets him regain his footing, and goes right back to punching him. Funk twists his boot across Pedro’s face and keeps hammering him. Pedro flops over onto the broadcasters’ table and Funk puts the boots to him again, taking a break to slap Gorilla Monsoon’s headset off. Gorilla very calmly stares at Funk while putting his headset back on; even middle-aged and wearing a horrible-looking tuxedo, Gorilla manages to look like Funk will die at some point in the next 10 minutes.

-Funk pulls a weapon from his tights and goes to work with that for a while. As Jimmy Hart distracts the referee, Funk unties his wrist tape and strangles Pedro with it. Morales gets his hand on the tape and strangles Funk with it. Hilarious poetic justice as Jimmy Hart is now trying to make the referee turn around and look but the referee just stays there and yells at him.

-The brawl goes to the floor and Funk gets rammed into the wooden steps. The steps are hollow, so Funk actually climbs inside and hides to regain his strength. Pedro pulls him out and rams him on the stairs. Funk tries to get back in the ring but gets rammed into the turnbuckle and falls off the apron. Pedro throws punches again and again and then launches Funk over the top rope and onto the floor. Pedro decides to kill time by chasing Jimmy Hart until Jimmy crawls under the ring, and Funk crawls in after him. He finds a chair and lobs that into the ring, but the referee won’t let him use it. Funk gets back into the ring and gets rammed into the turnbuckle. He gets hung up in the ropes and grabs the megaphone while he’s there, so when Pedro pulls him back in, Funk KOs him and pins him immediately. Total one-man show by Terry, and holy shit, was it ever fun!

-Bobby Heenan shows up, looking annoyed that taping started without him. He says he got delayed by a conference call with his attorney and Jack Tunney, regarding the Machines. Tunney put Heenan on hold and never returned.

KILLER BEES vs. BARRY O & LES THORNTON
-Joined in progress from Poughkeepsie, with Thornton tying up Blair really impressively and then rolling him over for a two-count. Brunzell tags in; Thornton trips him and clamps on a front facelock. Thornton manages to back Brunzell into the corner and O pounds away as he tags in. Brunzell rolls him up for two.

-Blair tags in and connects with a forearm from the second rope. Brunzell with a lethal handclap from the apron, and it’s a miracle that O is still able to walk upright. Blair gets caught in the wrong corner and the jobbers go to work. Blair comes back with a powerslam on Thornton for two. Clothesline gets two. Brunzell’s dropkick finally does the trick. Pretty decent by squash standards.

-Ken Resnick talks to Randy Savage, who bring in a bar of soap, symbolic of the way he cleans up the WWF, and drops it in the pocket of Resnick’s tuxedo jacket. I love Savage’s approach to promos in this area. Grab any nearby object and use it as the jumping-off point for yourself.

-Nice detail: Heenan is wearing a normal suit, but when he turns around to watch the start of the match, the back has “HOST” in huge white letters.

NON-TITLE FOR SOME REASON: FABULOUS MOOLAH (Ladies Champion) vs. VELVET MCINTYRE
-From Brantford, Ontario. The matches from Brantford have a really odd-looking ring, where for some reason, they didn’t bring enough of the WWF turnbuckles, so the botton rope has the NWA-style turnbuckles.

-Toehold by Moolah and then she sticks two fingers in the crotch of Velvet’s tights for leverage. She tosses Velvet out to the floor, but Velvet drags her out and they brawl on the floor. Moolah wins that battle and slams Velvet on the floor before heading back inside. McIntyre forces herself back into the ring and connects with some dropkicks. She slingshots Moolah all over the ring, but Moolah reverses a sunset flip for three. That was unexpected.

BRITISH BULLDOGS (Tag Team Champions) vs. IRON MIKE SHARPE & GINO CARABELLO
-From Brantford. Dream Team is looking on at ringside.

-Bulldogs clear the ring quickly and Valentine goes over to give them a pep talk before they head back into battle. Sharpe goes back in and pounds away at Dynamite with the forearm brace. Dynamite fights back with a snap suplex. Carabello tags in and runs right into a suplex by Davey Boy. Running powerslam follows and Dynamite finishes with a diving headbutt. Dream Team runs in after the bell and it’s a brawl.

FLOWER SHOP
-We go back to this past weekend and see the return of Rowdy Roddy Piper. Gorilla weirdly says that Piper has been gone for the past few months because he’s been “on a successful tour of the Middle East.”

BRUTUS BEEFCAKE (with Luscious Johnny Valiant) vs. SALVATORE BELLOMO
-We go back a full two years for this match from the Meadowlands, so long ago that the ring announcer for this one is Gary Michael Capetta. Your commentary team for this one: Gorilla Monsoon and Howard Finkel.

-Slams by Beefcake and he celebrates by blowing kisses. Beefcake’s style before he got paired up with Valentine is so odd because he has the moveset and style of a big man, doing mostly slams and forearms and taking a pause after each one as if they’re just that lethal.

-Bellomo goes to work and he’s just as slow tonight, wasting an extraordinary amount of time before taking one shot at Beefcake’s groin. Beefcake connects with a high knee to get an abrupt three-count. Not much of a match but for the record Howard Finkel was pretty decent on commentary.

-Heenan mentions that the Bellomos’ hometown was bombed in World War II, but everybody survived because on impact, the bomb slid off.

-Ken Resnick talks to the Hart Foundation, who complain that they’ve beaten the top tag teams in the WWF, including “Spivey and Retardo,” and they haven’t been given a title shot yet.

THE MOONDOGS (with Jimmy Hart?) vs. NELSON VEILLEUX & SERGE JOIDON
-Spot starts with Joidon. Joidon gets off to a good start with Leaping Lanny-style offense. Rex tags in and overpowers him, but he misses a charge and Veilleux tags in. Shoulderbreakerby Spot. Veilleux tries a bodypress, but Rex catches him and drops him. Spot tags in with “Suplex City,” according to Gorilla, but unfortunately, this particular Moondog is a male, so the next part doesn’t apply.

-Rex press slams Veilleux and Spot comes off the second rope with a kneedrop. Joidon tags in and runs right into a powerslam for two. Decapitator finally ends it.

RICKY “The Dragon” STEAMBOAT & JUNKYARD DOG vs. MAGNIFICENT MURACO & MISTER FUJI
-From months and months ago in Boston. Steamboat strangles Fuji with a belt for poetic justice and then goes out to the floor to light into Muraco with chops. Muraco goes into the ring to retreat, but JYD I waiting with rolling headbutts, alternating between Muraco & Fuji. Chop from the top by Steamboat and then Fuji & Muraco are whipped into each other. Fuji is dead.

-The match finally settles into JYD vs. Muraco and Muraco keeps taking a beating. Steamboat tags in and chops Muraco everywhere, and Muraco finally tries a nut shot to turn things around. Worth noting: Referee Danny Davis sporting a Mike Brady-style perm in 1986.

-Fuji & Muraco choke Steamboat in the corner. Fuji tags in and chops away. Steamboat reverses a suplex to give the fans some hope, but Fuji raises a knee to the gut and tags out. Gorilla gives this match his personal five-star rating, calling the action hot & heavy.

-Fuji clamps on a nerve hold, and then Muraco takes advantage of some distraction and switches to apply his own nerve hold. Hot tag to JYD and we have got action this week in the WWF. Muraco and JYD collide and both men are down. Steamboat tags back in with a chop from the top and an enziguiri. Fuji tags in and gets chopped right down, Steamboat goes backup to the top, connects with a bodypress, and the crowd absolutely loses their shit for the three—count.

5.5
The final score: review Not So Good
The 411
The opener and the closer are pretty good entertainment, the rest I can take or leave.
legend

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WWF, Adam Nedeff