wrestling / Video Reviews
The Name on the Marquee: Bunkhouse Stampede Finals (1.24.1988)
Loading...-The following event is a total shitshow.
AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR “WHO LEFT THE NWA THIS WEEK?”
-Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson did a 12-second job at the previous night’s house show and promptly walked out of the company because they were unhappy with their stagnating careers…which is fair, the loss to Arn & Tully seemed to be the start of a downward slope for them, and the aftermath (they don’t even ask for a rematch, demand a match against the Midnight Express, and then in kayfabe terms, they don’t even ask for that to be a title match, so they look like quitters and morons) killed off whatever crazy goodwill they had at the start of 1987, when the company was making $50,000 a week from Rock & Roll Express fan club memberships alone. Ricky was also apparently pissed off that the booking for the PPV match was going to be the Express winning, and the Sheepherders assaulting Ricky after the match and cutting his hair, and Ricky wasn’t having that. So, that match with the Sheepherders ain’t happening.
-Jim Crockett decides to pit the Sheepherders against another team, but the problem is, he’s kind of out of tag teams now. After the big push for Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin, Hayes left the company, so Jimmy doesn’t have a tag team partner anymore.
-Hold on, this gets complicated. The card was supposed to include Sting vs. Mike Rotundo, but Jimmy Garvin needs a tag team partner for the match that he’s been plugged into, so Sting vs. Mike Rotundo gets cancelled altogether, and Sting gets moved into that match against the Sheepherders. But now, after advertising Rock & Roll Express vs. Sheepherders, having a match pitting Sting & Garvin against the Sheepherders would have the fans in the arena and at home wondering what the hell’s happening and the NWA would have to come up with a way to spin the fact that three babyfaces just quit the company in the span of a few days. So to avoid having to explain that, Crockett makes this tag team match a dark match, which means this six-match PPV is now a four-match PPV, so stuff is going to have to get stretched.
-Oh, also, the tickets had the wrong start time on them. The event started at 6:30 Eastern, but the tickets had a 7:30 pm start time on them, which means we’re starting this event in one damn empty building.
-Originally aired January 24, 1988.
-We’re in the Nassau Bunkhouse in Long Island.
-Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Jim Ross, with Tony Schiavone serving as ring announcer.
TV TITLE: NIKITA KOLOFF (Champion) vs BEAUTIFUL BOBBY EATON (with Jim Cornette)
-This was instigated by a post-match beatdown on TBS after a Superpowers/Midnight Express match. Nikita’s 80s porn entrance music is already the front runner for highlight of the night. Wide shot shows us a realy, really dark arena, although there’s some salvation in the fact that the bulk of the fans in view of the ringside cameras showed up early/on time.
-Lock-up goes nowhere. Second lock-up goes nowhere. Nikita tries a hammerlock, but that goes nowhere. Third lock-up leads to a fistight, and Nikita shoulderblocks Eaton. Top wristlock by Eaton, but Nikita reverses and overpowers him, which Eaton attributes to hair-pulling. Nikita applies a hammerlock as Tony makes the five-minute announcement. Boot sends Nikita out to the floor and they slug it out there. Nikita whips him into the post, then backs off and lets Eaton back into the ring. This kind of stuff does not work for Nikita as a character, because he’s a nice Russian ally to America, and that sure is swell, but he’s consistently depicted as a guy who gets pissed off easily and becomes a killing machine when crossed, so seeing him back off like that and drag this match out after Eaton tried to injure him a few weeks ago just comes off weird.
-Side headlock by Eaton. Nikita breaks, but then they go back to the side headlock. Right hand sends Nikita to the floor and they brawl out there, but Nikita rams him into the post and hiptosses him onto the concrete. Back in, Eaton applies a hammerlock. Cornette is busting his ass at ringside, screaming non-stop at the referee and at the fans and manages to get a “Cornette sucks” chant going, which is good in one way, but it shows that the fans are more invested in him than the match in the ring.
-Director annoys me with random crowd shots while Eaton elbows Nikita down. Missile dropkick by Eaton gets a crowd pop and a two-count. Back to the hammerlock. Cornette taunts Nikita, telling him that he’ll submit like the bald-headed good that he is. Eaton keeps him in the hold as we get the 5-minute warning. Hammerlock is finally broken and Nikita connects with the sickle as we get the 4-minute warning. Bobby totally shakes off the sickle, which is incredibly weird, and catches Nikita in the divorce court for two. Eaton goes back to the hammerlock. Nikita elbows out. Eaton reapplies the hammerlock. One minute remaining and we’re in a damn hammerlock, in case you haven’t figured out the finish.
-Nikita gets to the ropes to break the hold and they trade punches. Sickle as time expires, and it’s a draw. There’s a post-match brawl and Stan Lane comes to the ring to make it a 2-on-1 attack and Nikita’s left laying. 0 for 1. This was a perfectly fine 10-minute match, but the problem is, it was a 20-minute match.
-Point to make about this show: It has no content for between matches. No promos, no video packages. Bob and Jim just vamp. And the funny part about it is the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette walk right behind them and mug at the camera for a few seconds, and nobody puts 2+2 together there and Bob & Jim just keep talking.
WESTERN STATES HERITAGE CHAMPIONSHIP: BARRY WINDHAM (Champion) vs LARRY ZBYSZKO (with Baby Doll)
-Oh fantastic, a situation where the wrestlers need to stretch and one of the participants is Larry Z. Get comfy.
-Baby Doll gets in Barry’s face and pokes him in the chest, which makes JR think Barry should “stick a finger in Baby Doll’s chest and see how she likes it!” Larry gets armdragged right away. They lock up and Windham applies a side headlock. Larry sends him into the ropes but gets shoulderblocked. Larry goes to the floor and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls.
-Back in, Larry takes out Barry’s leg and applies a hold, then lets go for no reason. Clock in the arena shows us that we’re now at the ticket-printed start time for the event for anyone who’s curious.
-Dropkick by Larry misses and Larry stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls. Larry tries a hammerlock but Windham does a sweet reversal into a fireman’s carry takedown. Larry stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls but gets atomic dropped. Larry goes out onto the floor and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls.
-Back in, Larry grabs the leg and takes Barry down. Windham breaks the attempted hold by giving Larry a noogie to the eyes. Drop toeholds are traded and Larry hangs onto his, doing something in the realm of a half-crab while in a lying position. Windham gets free and powerslams Larry for two. Windham goes to the top but misses an elbow drop. Larry applies a chinlock and makes himself comfy, then switches to a toehold.
-Windham gets free as the commentators spin a weird story about Windham and how he never makes excuses for losing, even though that’s the entire damn story they were telling about Windham after Starrcade. Windham applies a sleeper on Larry. Larry gets to the ropes and goes to the floor, but Windham follows him out and rams him into the table. He crotches Larry against the post. Back in, Larry ducks a charge and Windham does a glorious bump from it, flying through the ropes and thumping onto the concrete.
-Larry drags him back in the ring but can only get two. He goes for the neckbreaker, but Windham turns it into a backslide for two. Referee gets bumped and Windham gets the visual three-count, but Larry grabs Baby Doll’s lethal high heel shoe and clobbers Windham for it to get the three-count and the title. 1 for 2. Barry busted his ass here and made something watchable out of it.
-We fade to black and jump straight to the next match “due to original production technical difficulties.” I feel like that means someone in JCP accidentally hit the record button while watching the tape one day and WWE Network found ten minutes of an “F-Troop” rerun here.
WORLD TITLE: RIC FLAIR (Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs HAWK (with Paul Ellering)
-We’re joined in progress but still very early. Hawk shoves Flair down and applies a side headlock on him. Flair backs him into the corner and chops him, and Hawk calmly dusts off his chest and stares, which is a great reaction to that. Press slam by Hawk and Flair goes to the floor while JJ asks for a time-out.
-Back in, Hawk headbutts Flair into the corner and stomps the proverbial mudhole into him. Flair goes to the floor, Hawk suplexes him back in and applies a bearhug. Flair goes limp without going unconscious, which sort o forces Hawk to break. Flair tries more chops, but Hawk shakes off every one of them and shoulderblocks him. Flair goes to the floor and Hawk gives him chase.
-Back in, the ol’ bag tag finally stops Hawk in his tracks. Just in case, Flair also gives him a thumb to the eye. Kneedrop by Flair gets two. He sends Hawk to the floor and whips him into the barricade. Back in, Flair drops a knee for two. Backdrop is turned into a neckbreaker by Hawk. Managers tease an altercation and the referee goes to separate them, so Flair connects with ANOTHER shot to the balls and begins going to work on the leg.
-Figure four applied, with Flair using the ropes for help. Hawk reverses, Flair makes the ropes, both men are hurt now. Flair goes to the top rope and gets slammed off. Hawk starts throwing Flair-like chops and clotheslines Flair with so much momentum that he also clotheslines the referee. Same referee who got bumped in the last match so I hope he’s getting hazard pay tonight. Hawk clotheslines Flair over the top rope. Flair pulls him out there and tries to brawl, but Hawk rams him into the post He rams him into another one, and Flair’s starting to bleed.
-Back in, Hawk powerslams Flair and clotheslines him. Flair rakes the eyes and goes to the top rope but Hawk meets him up there and superplexes him, but we still don’t have a referee. JJ comes in and hits Hawk with a chair. Hawk goes after him, but Flair grabs the chair and connects with it as the referee revives. Two-count for Flair, as Hawk kicks out so hard that Flair lands on top of the referee, hurting him some more.
-Hawk no-sells a suplex and starts lighting into Flair with punches. Flair grabs the chair and connects again for a DQ. That’s the best finish they could come up with for this? 2 for 3. Flair carried it but we went 21 minutes for the kind of finish you do after three minutes on TV to set up the rematch.
-Two tech guys have a conversation near a live microphone.
“I lost my headset.”
“SHIT!”
-We get the craziest moment of the entire show, as they do the credit crawl for the show as the cage is being set up, and Bob Caudle helpfully reads them for us. Who the hell thought we needed to vamp for time by reading the credits?
-We kill more time by watching the last few minutes of Windham/Zbyszko in slow motion. WHO THE HELL IS PRODUCING THIS SHOW?
BUNKHOUSE STAMPEDE FINALS
-So these are the “finals” after a series of bunkhouse battle royals at house shows throughout December, with some vague explanation of how wins and eliminations affected the guys’ rankings, and somehow, with no explanation of what any of them did to make it this far, we have these eight finalists. It was supposed to be 11 finalists, but, you know, guys quit. It happens.
-What’s completely ridiculous to me is that after weeks of my complaining about how vague the rules were, they only have eight guys instead of the 11 advertised, when, for once, the vagueness would have worked in their favor. You can’t just bullshit us about “Oh, uh, Jimmy Valiant, Bugsy McGraw, and Thunderfoot #2 unexpectedly surged in the rankings and qualified”? We just have to go with the eight guys we’re left with.
-Your participants are Dusty Rhodes, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Lex Luger, Ivan Koloff, Warlord, Barbarian, and Animal. They’re in a steel cage. Elimination occurs when a man is knocked out of the cage.
-Horsemen go after Lex, Paul Jones’ men go after Animal. Punches, chokes, boots all over the place. Of note: referee Earl Hebner is guarding the door on his last night with the company before heading off to the WWF for the angle of the year.
-Koloff, Barbarian, and Dusty climb the ropes and fight there to build suspense, which drives home how ridiculous the process of elimination is for this match, you can only be eliminated if you do something completely counterintuitive first. Case in point, Tully climbing the ropes to run away from Animal, who climbs up there to join him.
-A lot of nothing happens and guys start to bleed from it. Lex gets a burst of energy and attacks all the heels in rapid succession to wake up the crowd. Dusty starts whipping everyone with a belt. Commentators grasp for something to talk about as nothing continues to happen. Ivan Koloff accidentally climbs the cage, I guess, and Animal sends him over the top to eliminate him. Animal and Warlord brawl at the door and both of them fall out.
-Horsemen attack Luger while Dusty gets worked over by Barbarian. Arn and Tully try to throw Luger out of the cage, and Luger does something completely absurd, kicking both of them away, and then climbing through the ropes and staying right next to the open door, voluntarily putting himself in greater danger of being eliminated. Horsemen go back and keep fighting him there, and all three of them get eliminated in one massive dump, leaving Dusty and Barbarian in there.
-Fans noticeably turn on the match at this point as Paul Jones passes a weapon to Barbarian. Dusty elbows Barbarian and rams him into the cage, and then they both agree to climb up to the top rope for some reason, and two big elbows send Barbarian tumbling to the floor to give Dusty the win. 2 for 4. Just a mess, with everyone having to do things that defied logic for anything to happen. Crowd response is…mixed. Jim and Bob yammer to fill time as the crowd begins chanting “REFUND!”
