411’s AWA on ESPN Classic Report 05.22.08

411’s AWA On ESPN Classic Report

AWA Championship Wrestling

No AWA the other night as they got bumped for the They show a little touch of continuity by showing the Memorial Day weekend episode from 1988 and as always, Nelson and Marshall are ringside, and they’re talking about Jerry Lawler taking the title from Curt Hennig, promising that we’ll see that match tonight. They also talk about Mando Guerrero in action, The Rock n’ Roll Express will be here and they tell us that we’re going to see Greg Gagne vs. Paul Diamond for the AWA International Television Championship. Sounds like a fairly decent show actually.

Match One:
Mando Guerrero vs. Alex Knight

Mando is ALL fired up to be here and flips over the top rope into the ring. He gets a hammerlock right off the bat into an armdrag takeover and he chain wrestles his way into a single leglock. He gets kicked off but grabs the single leg again, turning it into a single-leg crab. Knight gets a standing arm-wringer and drops a couple of elbows on the shoulder before Guerrero reverses a takeover into a sunset flip that gets two. Hip toss from Guerrero and he gets a double-arm stretcher, nearly getting a pinfall out of that a couple of times. Knight kicks him in the head and gets a hip toss out of the corner before Irish whipping Guerrero into the corner. Guerrero does a headstand on the top turnbuckle into another sunset flip attempt and another two-count. Knight reverses an Irish whip into the ropes and tries a back bodydrop but Guerrero flips over him before getting a couple of flying headscissor takeovers. Guerrero snap mares him out of the corner and tries for a flying headlock takeover but that gets countered into a backbreaker. Knight gets two off of that and tries to follow up with a slam but Guerrero reverses it into a pinning combination and bridges for the three count!!

Winner: Mando Guerrero (pinfall, roll-up)

Match Analysis: Exciting opener and Mando was a joy to watch in the ring at this point. All the Guerreros were so smooth and technically sound, and this was just a perfect example of it. A really fun match to start the show and Knight didn’t look horribly out of place when it came to the wrestling and high-flying sequences, which was nice. A solid start and hopefully it just builds more and more from here.

Bill Apter is joining us now, telling us that Jerry Lawler beat Curt Hennig for the AWA Championship before introducing the man himself. Lawler says that it’s great to hear those words coming from Apter’s mouth and that it’s been fourteen years in the making. He tells Curt Hennig and everyone else, anywhere in the world that wants to challenge him, saying that it’s going to be a struggle to take it away from him. We even get to see the ending sequence of the title match again with the crowd at Mid-South Coliseum going wild after the pinfall.

During the commercial break, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the “Live Autograph” deal with Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin, where you can watch them on your computer as they sign an autograph for you and speak to you personally. It might just be me but it’s REALLY sad to see Steve Austin reduced to “So Billy, I hear it’s your birthday today?” like he’s a clown at some eight year old kid’s birthday party. Hogan I’d expect it from because he’s such a money whore, but I thought Austin had at least a shred of dignity left.

Larry Nelson is back in the AWA studios and he’s running down the AWA house show schedule before throwing it to Badd Company and DDP. DDP is jabbering away and here comes his numbah one skank! He pimps the house show circuit again and talks about them partying with Bon Jovi and Motley Crue. DDP says that the Midnight Rockers are calling him trying to sign him as their manager and he says that he’s changed his number and they can piss off. More rambling from DDP and the interview cuts right off to Larry Nelson in the ring for the next match.

Match Two:
Samoan Joe vs. Brian Knobbs

This would be floral tights Joe, not muscular Joe. Weird to see Knobbs on his own, kind of like when he had his run in the WCW Hardcore division near the end of the promotion. This was probably turned into a singles match after seeing Sags get hurt against the Rock n’ Roll Express on the last show. Knobbs attacks from behind and hammers Joe down in the corner before flinging him through the ropes to the floor. Joe tries to get back in the ring and gets mauled before Knobbs gets a BIG bodyslam and an elbowdrop for a long, long two-count. Knobbs with some shoulderblocks in the corner before he gets an Irish whip into a HARD clothesline. He rams Joe into the top turnbuckle but you know you can’t do that to a Samoan. He reverses and rams Knobbs into the buckle following that up with a pair of headbutts that stun Knobbs. Knobbs gets an Irish whip into the ropes and hits a VICIOUS flying clothesline for the 1-2-3!! Post-match, Knobbs ends up sending Joe out to the floor again. GET OUT OF MY RING, DAMMIT!!

Winner: Brian Knobbs (pinfall, flying clothesline)

Match Analysis: Quick and painless. Well, unless your name is Samoan Joe. If that’s your name then it was probably a pretty painful deal. Knobbs was stiff as hell and just relied on brute power to get himself over. It worked, but it’s not exactly visually pleasing sometimes. A decent enough match and at least they kept it short.

Match Three:
Riki Ataka vs. Teijo Kahn w/Soldat Ustinov

Kahn’s got the “coke” eyes going tonight. Creepy. He nearly trips over the ropes getting into the ring but catches himself and attacks Ataka before the bell. Irish whip into the ropes and a HUGE chop from Kahn leads to another whip and a HARD powerslam. Kahn pins for a two-count but picks Ataka up before the three. Kahn hammers him and gets another pinfall but picks him up again before the three-count. Ataka is out to the floor and Ustinov rams him into the apron before Kahn fires off a hard forearm to the chest and a big headbutt. Ustinov sends Ataka back into the ring and Kahn Irish whips him in for a reverse elbow, which Kahn follows with a clothesline across the top rope. Kahn gets a thrust chop to the throat and pins him for the three-count. Ataka’s out to the floor after the match and Kahn sends him FLYING INTO A ROW OF CHAIRS!!! SINGAPORE HARDCORE!!

Winner: Teijo Kahn (pinfall, thrust chop to the throat)

Match Analysis: Yuck. Sloppy, boring and for whatever reason Kahn just doesn’t do it for me. Again, at least they kept it under a couple of minutes before I REALLY got bored.

After the break, Lee Marshall introduces us to footage of Jerry Lawler winning the AWA Championship from Curt Hennig!

Match Four: AWA World Heavyweight Championship
Jerry Lawler vs. Curt Hennig (c)

Joined in progress with Hennig holding a sleeper on Lawler in the middle of the ring. Lawler is calling to the crowd to try to get back into it and he gets up to his knees and to his feet, picking Hennig up onto his back. Lawler rams Hennig into the top turnbuckle and breaks the hold but Hennig is right back on him, chopping away and hitting Lawler with big right hands. Special referee Jackie Fargo checks the cut above Lawler’s eye and Lawler begs him not to stop it. Hennig continues to hammer away at the cut and Lawler finally fires back with a BIG right hand of his own. Catapault into the turnbuckle and Hennig goes over the buckle to the ringpost, doing his classic overselling and twitching on the canvas. Lawler crawls over and gets the pin attempt. Fargo is down to count and we get the 1-2-3!!! JERRY LAWLER IS THE NEW CHAMPION!!

Winner: Jerry Lawler (pinfall, slingshot into the ringpost)

Match Analysis: No way to know how good it was out of the two minutes at the end, but this is a match that I would LOVE to see from beginning to end sometime. The crowd was white-hot at the end since they had never seen a title change in their town before and with Lawler’s career on the line, it made it even more intense. One of the great crowd reactions to a title change that I’ve ever seen.

Bill Apter is backstage with Curt Hennig after the match and Hennig says that he has no excuses because Lawler never beat him. Hennig says that he’s always been a man and that he could be beaten any night of the week. Hennig says that it was 10,000 against 1 and that Lawler had his fans, he had his referee and Apter says that it wasn’t the crowd, it was just one man. Hennig complains about Fargo’s slow counts and Apter asks if it would have been different if Hennig’s father Larry had been the referee. OF COURSE IT WOULD HAVE!!! ALL US HENNIG’S ARE HONEST MEN!! Tremendous. He says that everyone knows that everything he’s done in his wrestling career has been on the level, which prompts Apter to do a fantastic double-take at the camera. Hennig gets MAD, saying that Lawler’s got a serious problem and Apter thanks the former champ for joining him, which gets Hennig even more pissed and he comes back saying that he’s still the champ, no matter who has the belt. Awesome interview segment right there.

Big K joins us now and I go ahead and fast forward through the whole thing. He does a lot of pointing and waving of his arms though, so it looks like he was animated. I’m sure it was a whole lot of movement for VERY little information, so I’m not too broken up over missing him.

Match Five: AWA International Television Championship
Paul Diamond w/Diamond Dallas Page and his Diamond Skank vs. Greg Gagne (c)

For whatever ungodly reason, they’ve changed Diamond’s music from AWESOME Bad Company, to “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Lovin’ “. Disgraceful. DDP gets on the microphone and says that it’s time for Diamond to take home another belt! Diamond shoves Gagne off of a lockup and then poses for the crowd. WHOOOOOO! YEAHHHHHHHH! That’s a direct quote too. He shoves Gagne off again and does the exact same thing again. Diamond tries it for a third time and Gagne just steps back, allowing Diamond to fall on his face. Armdrag takeovers and a BIG dropkick sends Diamond out through the ropes to the floor. Diamond’s out there calling for a timeout before he slides back into the ring and into another lockup. Gagne gets a go-behind into a hammerlock and Diamond makes the ropes to break the hold. Another armdrag takedown by Gagne and he turns it into an armbar in the middle of the ring, with Diamond trying a slam to break the hold but he can’t and Gagne keeps cranking on that armbar.

Gagne gets another variation of the takeover and then starts cranking on the arm again, stretching it out and keeping Diamond grounded. Gagne gets a HARD stomp on Diamond’s hand and breaks the hold, leading to another lockup with Diamond getting some hard forearms in the corner. An Irish whip attempt gets reversed and Gagne catches him with another DEEP armdrag takeover into the armbar again. Standing arm-wringer from Gagne and Diamond breaks it up with a knee to the gut before he picks Gagne up for a BIG bodyslam. Diamond misses the follow-up elbowdrop and Gagne is right back on the armbar. Diamond slings Gagne into the ropes and eats a shoulderblock before ducking another one and sending Gagne through the ropes to the floor. Diamond clotheslines Gagne across the top rope as he tries to get back into the ring and he follows up with a hard forearm to the chest that puts Gagne on the floor again. Gagne gets to the apron and hits a shoulderblock into a sunset flip for a two-count and Diamond just RAMS him into the top turnbuckle.

A HARD neckbreaker from Diamond and he gets a long, LONG two-count off of that before moving to a chinlock. Diamond Dolly skanks at the camera and grabs onto her pearl necklace, which I’m sure isn’t her first, as Gagne tries to break free of the chinlock. He reverses it to a top wristlock but Diamond complains about a hairpull, prompting referee Marty Miller to head over and check. When he does, Diamond grabs Gagne’s hair and gets right back to the chinlock. Gagne to his feet and he gets a BIG hip toss and they’re just trading punches in the middle of the ring with Diamond going DOWN!! GAGNE IS IN A RAGE!! TURNBUCKLE SMASH!! IRISH WHIP INTO A BACKDROP!! DROPKICK FROM GAGNE!! GAGNE SLEEPER!! DDP gets up on the apron and here comes PAT TANAKA!! SALT TO THE EYES OF GAGNE!!! DIAMOND WITH THE COVER!! 1-2….HERE COMES MARTY JANNETTY!!! JANNETTY WITH RIGHT HANDS!!! Diamond gets sent to the outside and Jannetty tries to keep Gagne from attacking him in his blindness.

Winner: Paul Diamond (disqualification, Jannetty-ference)

Match Analysis: This was a really hot match and I was actually entertained by a Greg Gagne match for maybe the second time ever. The thing of it with Gagne was that if he was in with someone who could hold their own, he could have a good match, like he has with guys like Hennig and Adonis and now with Diamond. When he was the one expected to carry the whole load though, the matches fell flat. This was a really fun match and honestly should have been the main event, and it puzzles me why it wasn’t.

Larry Nelson is in the ring and trying to talk to both men and Marty says that Gagne can’t see anything and Marty says that that’s how the world tag champs act to try to win matches. Gagne says that everyone saw what they did to the Rockers a couple weeks back and he’ll be DAMNED if they were going to do it to Greg Gagne!! He says that they haven’t heard the last of Greg Gagne or the Rockers and Marty says that they’ve got a whole lot of people on their asses. When the Rockers get their hands on Badd Company, they’ll be finished!!

Match Six:
The Rock n’ Roll Express vs. Mike Richards and Krusher Krugnoff

Seriously, we get a squash for the main event? Why didn’t they end off with the last match? Ugh. Morton and Krugnoff start things off and Krugnoff pushes Morton into the corner before giving him a clean break. Morton gets a big armdrag takeover into an armbar and he tags in Gibson who gets a standing armbar. Standing dropkick from Gibson puts Krugnoff on his ass and Krugnoff pushes Gibson into his corner, trying for a double-team but Gibson smashes their heads together and moves to the center of the ring. Tag to Richards and they do a test of strength in the middle of the ring with Gibson breaking it into a standing arm-wringer and taggin in Morton, who takes Richards down. Tag to Gibson and they hit a double-reverse elbow on Richards before Gibson hits a stomp to the “lower abdomen”. Tag to Morton and he starts to work over the leg of Richards. Another quick tag and Gibson slings himself over the top rope into an elbowdrop onto that knee. Another tag to Morton and he comes over the top rope with a stomp onto the knee before they both get a double-hamstring pull. Morton hits the Jeff Hardy spot and tags Gibson who hits a stepover toehold and mocks Krugnoff while doing it. Elbow to the knee and Gibson tags Morton in so he can drop a knee on the knee. More leg work and tagging from the R n’ R’s and Morton ends up grabbing a reverse leglock befor tagging in Gibson again for another double-hamstring pull and they roll through to punch Krugnoff off the apron. Double-dropkick for Richards and Gibson mercifully covers him for the pinfall.

Winners: The Rock n’ Roll Express (pinfall, double-dropkick)

Match Analysis: Extended squash and we didn’t even get to see either of them sell, which was one of the most fun things about watching the R n’ R’s in action. Ah well, at least they did some solid wrestling psychology work focusing on the leg and isolating Richards to cut off the ring. It showed why they were such a good tag team, but was kind of disappointing as a main event.

Final Thoughts

A thumbs up show for me because the Diamond/Gagne match was good to great, the Hennig promo after his loss to Lawler was EPIC and we even got to see the title change on TV, which was pretty cool for the timeframe. They kept the horrible workers in short squashes and the workers like the Rock n’ Roll Express that knew what to do with the time, got the time. All in all, one of the better efforts from the AWA in quite a while. To the comments!!

Fun With Comments

From Rob:
“I think that tag team wrestling would continue to be the AWA’s strongest
division up until they folded. Because thinking back, all I really remember
from that time are teams like Badd Company, The Nasty Boys, The Destruction
Crew, DJ Peterson & The Trooper, and The Top Guns. Were there two versions
of the Top Guns? I remember a guy named Jon Paul being a member of that team at
some point.

And yes, I do remember the Team Challenge Series, but I’m trying to block that
out.”

You’re right about the tag team division being the strong point of the company until the end, though at the very end, there wasn’t ANYTHING that was good. There were indeed two versions of the Top Guns, with the original team being Jon Paul and Ricky Rice, but that duo was shelved when Paul left the company and was “injured” in kayfabe terms, leading the AWA to bring in Derrick Dukes from Pro Wrestling America to team with him. Dukes and Rice had teamed together previously in PWA so it was a natural fit to put them back together in the AWA once Paul left the company.

From The Kid:
“I believe the line that Morton rambled was something to the effect of “You
can’t find a ruby in a pile of rocks, and can’t pull a Lincoln Continental out
of a Cracker Jack box.” Spoken like a true coked-up poet. You got to love
the guy. He represents that segment of the South who love to shoot witty,
rhyming one-liners at you. Only he comes up a little short sometimes. But, one
thing is for sure, he never fails to entertain.”

Morton was probably drunk at that point so it’s understandable he’d be a little incomprehensible. Still funny to watch him say the same thing ten times though.

From G-Walla:
“I hate I missed Mando Guerrerro and the Midnight Rockers, but at least I turned
it on in time to see the Rock & Roll Express take on the Nasty Boys in the
battle for Mullet Supremacy. Not bad, not bad at all.

I had earlier pointed out that the Express has the same haircut to this day,
when my brother pointed out that Brian Knobbs does, too, so it was hilarious to
find them wrestling later on in the show. Good times.”

The mullet still needs to die a horrible death in my opinion. Worst haircut of all times.

From Adam:
“They got the date on the ‘Mat Classic’ wrong, AGAIN. Bockwinkle and Stevens
beat Crusher and Bastien in January of 1971, not September of 1975. I was hard
to watch, but I’ve noticed a lot of old wrestling footage is like that; 8mm or
whatever. I’m sure the Duncum-O’Connor match tonight is going to be a pile of
shit, as O’Connor was almost 60 in 1982.”

I’m convinced at this point that they’re re-writing history on the Mat Classic segment so that people wouldn’t see how old guys like Ray Stevens and Nick Bockwinkel were and do the math into 1988. I mean yeah, it’s only three or four years difference, but I’m thinking that it has to be something like that. And look at it this way, at least the soccer saved us from having to see Duncum and O’Connor stinking up the ring.

From Frozen:
“I know that they were trying to build up Lawler’s eventual world title victory
in Memphis, but it’s strange to me that they’d say that Memphis “won the
bidding war” for the match, as if the title isn’t defended regularly. It
kind of accentuates the fact that the AWA was not running shows all that often
anymore, as opposed to the WWF, where Hogan probably defended his title four or
five times a week.

Also, a small tidbit: jobber Bill Anderson was one of the guys who trained
Sting and the Ultimate Warrior. And now you know.”

I think they were trying to make it seem like how places bidded for the Olympics or for boxing matches. They ran the same kind of thing when they did the Starrcade ’83 angle with Flair and Race, where Charlotte and Jim Crockett Promotions won the “bidding” to have the title match and show in their territory. Good old kayfabe in action.

From Rob:
“I would like to see a complete match on the match classics part of the show. I
saw Ray Stevens in his prime . He was the big draw here in the SF Bay Area. He
could make any opponent look good, even this current group of jobber. The
classics matches were so much better than the 1987 matches they are showing
now.”

I too would love to see a full Mat Classic match sometime, since I am a huge mark for old-time wrestling. It is kind of sad to see that the older matches are better than the 1988 matches sometimes, but I guess it’s an apples and oranges kind of deal.

Finally from Kayfaber:
“I thought the show was good — considering what they have to work with. The tag
division was always hot in the AWA — because they had so few singles titles,
AFAIK. (They had short-lived singles belts in the ’80s: Lightheavyweight,
Americas Champion, and Brass Knuckles Championships – that’s about it.) But
their top guys wore that strap: Bock and Stevens, Larry “The Axe”
Hennig and Harley Race, Pat O’Connor and Wilbur Snyder, Bruiser and Crusher,
and Verne himself with a half-dozen partners or so.

The Baron was over the hill, but he’s a nutcase with a bat stalking a
gawfersaken Comm-uh-nist. And he sings like a mutha!

Oh, to you and “TheKid”: Morton was quoting “Two Out of Three
Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf — wrong. The extended bridge says, “I know
you’re lookin’ for a ruby in a mountain of rocks, but there ain’t no Coup de
Ville hidin’ at the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box.” Well, hey, they were
ROCK AND ROLL!!! He references James Taylor in his first promo. (“In my
mind we’re going to Carolinas!”) Except James Taylor ain’t really rock or
roll.”

Thanks for that info. Yes, the tag division always seemed to be the strength of the AWA, except for when Bockwinkel held the AWA Championship. The talent always seemed to kind of filter into the tag division for some reason, and you didn’t even list all of the guys. The East-West Connection, The Blackjacks, The Road Warriors. The AWA was the place to go to watch tag team wrestling pretty much the entire time they were in business. Thanks for the info on the Morton reference, even though he messed it up and got it wrong, it’s still cool to know what he was attempting to say.

That does it for another AWA on ESPN Classic report everyone! Thanks for stopping in and I’ll be back tomorrow to close out the week with hopefully another great show. I mean would two in a row be too much to ask? Wait, this is the AWA in 1988 so it probably is. Ah well, see y’all tomorrow.