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The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (4.18.1987)

September 21, 2017 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
NWA World Championship Wrestling
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The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (4.18.1987)  

-Cold open: Magnum TA walks to the ring at the Crockett Cup to greet the fans in one of the most genuine, emotional scenes in wrestling history.

-Originally aired April 18, 1987.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & David Crockett. Tony announces that Dusty and Nikita collected the million bucks at the Crockett Cup.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Jim Cornette & Big Bubba) vs. ALAN MARTIN & DAVID DIAMOND
-Martin gets elbowed out of the ring and Sweet Stan gently places him right back in. Cornette rips into David Crockett because his stupid brother cheated the most deserving team out of a million dollars.

-Eaton slams David Diamond down while the commentators mention Cornette’s upcoming cage match against Ron Garvin, a match that they probably could have done at Crockett Cup and it seems absurd to draw out the wait for THAT match for THIS long.

-Alan Martin goes sailing to the concrete again. Bubba just beats on Martin in full view of Teddy Long, who takes no action at all. I always knew his integrity as a referee was questionable. Bobby drags Martin over to the commentary table so the microphones can pick up the sound of him cracking the poor jobber right in the jaw. Rocket launcher gets three.

-After the match, Cornette announces that he’s been given a generous offer to loan out Big Bubba for a little while, and you’ll learn why soon. Mama Cornette keeps trying to get the contracts for the steel cage match nullified, but somebody is secretly financing an attorney for Ron Garvin. Cornette promises the cage match will never happen.

IVAN KOLOFF & VLADIMIR PETROV vs RUSS TYLER & MIKE FORCE
-Petrov clobbers Force while the fans chant “Nikita does it better!” to taunt him, which pretty beautifully encapsulates every problem with this character. The fans know exactly what he’s supposed to be, he does nothing to break away from that expectation, and he just comes off as 99-cent store Nikita.

-Petrov does his one badass move, the front facelock where he just cracks his opponent’s entire body like a whip as he holds onto the move. Petrov mows down Russ Tyler with an elbow. A sorta-kinda-Doomsday Device gets the victory.

-Tim Horner and Ole Anderson are here. The Horsemen are looking in every direction worrying about where the swing of the baseball bat is gonna come from.

-Russians are here to complain that Dusty Rhodes played a political game to get them stripped of the US Tag Team Title. Okay, fine, they have to win the belts all over again in a tournament? The Russians say they can do that.

BRAD ARMSTRONG vs RANDY BARBER
-For any first-time viewers watching this match and wondering which wrestler is which, David helpfully clarifies, “Brad’s the hot one.”

-Armstrong works the arm, strongly I might add. Barber tries to armdrag Armstrong, but Armstrong holds onto the arm and turns the armdrag into an armbar to work the arm. Armstrong armdrags Barber and holds onto the arm to keep the armbar applied. Russian legsweep clinches it.

-Bullet Bob is here. He wants a piece of Ric Flair.

RON GARVIN vs TINY BEASON
-Garvin chops Beason while David Crockett marks out and tells Garvin to make him suffer. “PUT HIM IN THE SUGAR AND MAKE HIM SQUEEEEEEE!” Garvin obliges, putting Beason in the sugar hold and giving him a pink belly while he’s at it. Garvin actually mounts the poor jobber like a horse and slaps his ass to taunt him. Two thin layers of spandex are the only difference between this match and gay humiliation porn.

-Garvin plays with the jobber’s belly some more. Jobber can’t even get in the air for a backdrop correctly, so Garvin just says “nuts to this’ and ends it right away with hands of stone.

ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs DEXTER WESCOTT & RICK SULLIVAN
-Hawk press slams Dexter. Animal tags in with a Wattskick but he’s so cool that the fans don’t notice how shitty that looked. Flying tackle by Hawk on Sullivan. Doomsday Device finishes.

-Warriors list off all the house shows they’re booked for and who specifically is going to get murdered at each one.

LEX LUGER (with JJ Dillon) vs LARRY CLARKE
-Funny bit to start; Lex demands a camera focused on him so he can do some flexing, and the pitiful jobber does a pec flex behind his back because it’s the closest thing to muscle that he has. Clarke nearly bungles a backdrop as apparently we just need to stop everything and have a seminar for the jobbers about that move.

-Powerslam by Luger, and the torture rack finishes.

-JJ Dillon says that Nikita Koloff is getting soft, he has $500,000 in the bank and he’s about to quit giving a shit. Now is the time for Luger to pounce and claim that U.S. Title.

NEW BREED vs CHANCE MCQUADE & LARRY STEVENS
-BEAUTIFUL dropkick by Chris Champion as we pause for a break.

-Hour #2 is here. New Breed does a Hart Attack on Chance McQuade. Royal misses a corner charge, but he’s quick enough to dodge a dropkick. Suplex/bodypress combo from the top rope wraps things up for the New Breed.

-New Breed gets mike time for the first time. Sean Royal does a pitch perfect impression of Hawk, mocking the Road Warriors for needing to holler and scream about what they’re gonna do. All they have to do is wrestle and win their matches. New Breed calls out Jimmy Valiant, an old relic who needs to go. Chris Champion says a “flux capacitator” sent them back from the year 2002 to save professional wrestling. Well, if you’re targeting Jimmy Valiant, then mission accomplished.

OLE ANDERSON & TIM HORNER vs BILL TABB & VERNON DEATON
-Horner and Tabb take turns working the arm of Bill Tabb. Tony notes the new aggression we’re seeing from Tim Horner lately. Yeah, a hammerlock, he’s really more animal than man, Tony.

-Horner chops Deaton and goes to work on his arm. Horner does Ole’s knee from the top rope, and then finishes with the armbar to show how much he’s learned. Wow, what an education that must be. “What you do is you take the arm, and then you hold it. Any questions?”

-Nikita accepts Uncle Ivan’s challenge for a Russian chain match.

-Ric Flair is here, and his offer to Precious is still on the table, woo. Flair just goes on a roll this week, calling out every babyface alive while explaining that you COULD be cool if you had $10,000 to spend on a robe.

ARN ANDERSON vs ITALIAN STALLION
-Stallion gets the better end of a battle for a top wristlock. He gets Arn down on the mat, but Arn makes it to the ropes to make him back off. Stallion with a monkeyflip and a slam, and Arn needs a breather. Arn bounces back quickly, and the moment he gets the upper hand, he just finishes right away with the gourdbuster, which is a pretty subtle way of putting Stallion over.

-Arn Anderson calls out Barry Windham. Barry Windham became a star by beating everybody up north, and beating everybody down south, but he made it to the NWA and he’s finding that beating the Horsemen isn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

RIC FLAIR (NWA World Champion) vs BRODIE CHASE
-Flair chops Chase and wrings the arm. He tosses Chase outside and lets him writhe out there for a little bit. Backdrop (which Brody takes correctly). Flair announces to Precious, wherever she is, that Space Mountain is waiting. We go to school (with the fans saying it along with him) and the figure four gets the submission.

-A Crockett Cup highlight reel. Sure, the action was great, but the real highlight was the fan who made a Mulkeymania sign.

LAZER TRON (Jr. Heavyweight Champion) vs DARREL DALTON
-Dalton has a buzzcut and a monkey tail, making him look like every 13-year-old in the state of West Virginia in 1987. Lazer Tron gives him a shot to the gut and a double forearm to finish quickly, protecting the children from a shitty and too-long squash match.

-Jimmy Valiant is here to give Lazer Tron that much coveted Valiant rub. Lazer Tron is a brutha to him because he loves children. Okay. Great.

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs BILLY MOORE
-Bell, boot, brainbuster, bell.

-Gorgeous Jimmy ain’t afraid of the World Champion and tells Flair to put the belt up for grabs.

-Tully Blanchard is STILL the TV Champion, and he STILL has the $10,000 check.

BARBARIAN vs CLEMENT FIELDS
-Barbarian hammers Fields and slams him down. Tombstone piledriver lays Fields out, and the diving headbutt finishes.

4.8
The final score: review Poor
The 411
Booking is taking some weird turns that got way too much attention. Ole Anderson's tutelage of Tim Horner, where Horner is basically the same as always except he occasionally makes a mean face; and then the hot new tag team in the NWA, which wants to prove themselves in the tag team ranks by targeting an old guy and his randomly selected brutha-of-the-week, and the Ron Garvin/Jim Cornette saga which really should have been blown off a week ago at the latest. I mean, how much interest are you gonna drum up by Jim Cornette getting his comeuppance after the fans already saw him fall 20 feet a few months ago? Just a weird week with weird stories everywhere.
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