wrestling / Video Reviews
UWF Power Pro Wrestling (3.21.1987) Review
Image Credit: UWF
Loading...-Cold open: Chris Adams is battling the One Man Gang and holding his own pretty well in there.
-Originally aired March 21, 1987. They’re taping in Dallas this week instead of taping at Cowtown, so they actually have to go to the trouble of making a new opening montage for this taping.
-Your host is Jim Ross, plugging the new official publication of the UWF, All Pro Wrestling Magazine.
ANGEL OF DEATH (with Sunshine) vs. GARY YOUNG
-Instead of a ton of visible empty seats, they’ve taken the approach in this venue of just not putting up any chairs in the sections that didn’t get sold, so we have five rows of fans and a whole lot of open concrete flooring on the hard camera side, which is a six-of-one half-dozen-of-the-other decision.
-Angel misses a corner splash. Gary Young goes for a dropkick and these guys can’t seem to agree on whether it should have connected. Sunshine distracts the referee while Angel drops Young balls-first on the top turnbuckle, and that’s enough to give Angel, quite literally, a tainted win.
TV TITLE: SAVANNAH JACK (Champion) vs. THE RED SHADOW
-Ring announcer is getting a lot of camera time this week for some reason. Red Shadow is such an odd-looking jobber, with the laces from the back of his mask just hanging untied all the way down to his spine and what looks like a pajama top under his singlet, concealing his “strong-appearing upper body,” according to JR.
-Eddie Gilbert comes to the ring to do some scouting as Shadow goes to the eyes and throat of Jack. Backdrop is countered by a sunset flip, but Shadow kicks out at two. Superkick outta nowhere, and Savannah Jack retains the title.
-Bruce Prichard is here with Terry Taylor & Chris Adams, the reigning Tag Team Champions. Chris Adams warns Iceman about taunting him with the “jailbird” stuff, because that kind of wrongheaded thinking is what got him arrested, and if Iceman isn’t careful, it’ll happen to him too. So, the threat here is that if Iceman doesn’t knock it off, Adams will entice him to commit a crime that will get him arrested. Gotta be the first time a wrestler ever threatened somebody with getting his own ass kicked in a parking lot.
-Area publisher Don Walton is excited about the impending launch of the UWF Wrestling School. It’s so weird to see Bill Watts doing every imaginable thing to grow the company right before announcing, “I’m out.”
THE VIKING (with General Akbar) vs. KEN MASSEY
-Viking is wearing his “keyboard player in a hair metal band” leopard-print gear as I try to figure out which side here was the side that didn’t get his gimmick.
-Viking hammers and hammers and hammers Massey, slamming him down. Elbowdrop in the style of a Vader bomb looks likely to finish, but Viking wants more. Hangman finishes for the three-count, and that is not a visually impressive hold unless you’re doing it for a submission.
-Bruce Prichard is in the ring with Michael Hayes, who graciously plugs the new Freebirds album and thanks the people of Dallas for their support. He puts over Angel of Death as a great prospect with a bright future in wrestling, and General Akbar is pretty well done listening to this and interrupts the proceedings. He pulls out a huge wad of money and announces that he has signed a new protege, and the money is for the Freebirds to split in exchange for a match between Angel of Death and Akbar’s new mystery man. Hayes takes the deal, and we’ll have that match after the break!
ANGEL OF DEATH (with Michael Hayes) vs. SUPER NINJA (with General Akbar)
-Angel comes to the ring stoic and emotionless. Hayes laughs, smiles, does a big exaggerated strut, and points to his head to convey his intelligence for having Angel of Death as a protege, and he plays it so over the top and so drawn out that the densest rubes in the building figure it out before anything actually happens.
-Bell sounds and Ninja simply walks out of the ring for the count-out, at which point Angel turns on the Freebirds, attacking Hayes and beating on him while Akbar hands out orders. Buddy Roberts charges to the ring to make the rescue, but the One Man Gang runs….hurries…ambles on out to the ring to even the sides, and the Freebirds are bloodied and battered at the end of the segment.
TAG TEAM TITLE: GENTLEMAN CHRIS ADAMS & TERRY TAYLOR (Champions) vs. ICEMAN KING PARSONS & EDDIE GILBERT (with Missy Hyatt)
-Iceman taunts his opponents by telling them that Taylor likes to hang out at the beach and Adams has a dad who works at a junkyard. They chase Iceman around the ring, presumably while asking, “Wait, we need you to tell us why that stuff was offensive!” but the referee manages to get everybody to their corners so the match can start.
-Adams works the arm of Gilbert. Gilbert tags in Iceman, who slams Adams down. Adams fights him off with fists and Iceman escapes with a tag. Gilbert takes a beating until he can escape for a retreat on the floor. He heads back in and walks right into a side headlock as we pause for a break.
-And now it’s the worst thing about this promotion, as they’re cutting away for an unrelated promo. Bruce Prichard, in a different suit than before, asks Akbar about how he acquired the Angel of Death because he shocked the wrestling world. Oh come on, the wrestling world was shocked that the bald, sneering guy sided with Akbar?
-Back from the break, with Taylor taking an absolute shit-kicking from Gilbert & Parsons, and we will never know how. They use referee distraction to switch off without tagging while Chris Adams frantically protests and makes this worse. And it just keeps going that way until we get fiddle music and a copyright date, and that’s end of the show. Five critical minutes and cutting it off before the hot tag is not how a match like this should ever be presented.
