The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (4.30.1988)

-JJ Dillon joyously makes the official announcement that Barry Windham is the fourth Horseman. This also makes Barry the only Horseman without a title belt right now, so the plan right now is to focus on the tournament in Houston.

-Originally aired April 30, 1988.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross, and David Crockett.

AL PEREZ (with Gary Hart) vs. GEORGE SOUTH
-Perez works the arm while JR mentions that Perez’s goals in Houston are to win the US Title, and to defeat Nikita Koloff, because it’s well-known that Perez dislikes Nikita. Okay, sure. We all knew that.

-Perez stays on the arm until South comes to life with rights, but South misses a corner charge and Perez knocks him out of the ring. Gary Hart helps him back in, and Perez finishes with the spinning toehold. Perez continues not to do anything that clues us in to him being a heel.

-Gary Hart says that Houston has a huge Latin population and he knows that Texas is coming to the US Title tournament to root for Perez. Perez cuts a promo in Spanish for the Hispanic fans in Houston. YOU ARE A HEEL.

-We look back at Barry Windham turning heel, beating up his friend and leaving with the heels to celebrate screwing his friend out of a championship. THIS dude’s a heel. This is a really impressive angle, especially considering the way stuff that they planned out in advance during this period was so awful, and yet, Barry Windham’s heel turn was such a perfect angle, and it was booked on such a whim that Jim Crockett had to go back and change all of the advertising they had already created for the month of May.

-JJ Dillon reminds us that over a year ago, Ric Flair had invited Barry Windham to become a Horseman. JJ reveals that he was secretly negotiating with Barry from pretty much the moment Lex left the Horsemen, telling Barry that Dusty would lord his father figure influence over Barry and ensure that Barry would always be walking in his shadow.

-We return with Barry Windham, who has switched from cool-guy sunglasses to evil-guy sunglasses. “Barry sucks!” chant fills the studio as Barry congratulates his new friends Arn & Tully for winning back their belts. Barry also demands a replay of the post-match incident with the Midnight Rider, and live in the studio, Barry shows off the stolen mask and says the whole Midnight Rider bullshit shows that Dusty considers himself above the rules. Arn & Tully join the promo, and Arn says that a man who calls himself “the American Dream” should understand better than anyone why Barry did what he did–to reach his full potential and succeed in his chosen path.

IVAN KOLOFF (with Paul Jones) vs. LARRY DAVIS
-Koloff flings Davis around the ring and headbutts him a few times. Koloff winds up like he’s going for the sickle, but instead he takes Davis down and chokes him out. Davjs takes the federally-mandated concrete floor bump and then screws up taking a Bossman leg drop. “Boring” chant goes up in the studio, which never happens on this show. Sickle off the second rope finishes.

-A commercial for “The Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup: The Carolina Connection” available on home video. I think I’m good.

-We go to World Wide Wrestling, where Tony Schiavone watches the finish of last week’s match, with Lex Luger joining him. Lex is sad.

SHEEPHERDERS (with Rip Morgan) vs. TOMMY ANGEL & LARRY STEPHENS
-Sheepherders are now joined by their “nephew” Rip. Angel throws dropkicks until Luke shows enough sense to dodge one. Backbreaker by Butch, and Angel heads for safety and brings Stephens into the ring. He runs into a Butch boot, and Luke drives an elbow into his chin. Battering ram and a double stomachbreaker finish this one.

SPAM SLAM!
-Beautiful Bobby clotheslines George South. Okay, out of everything in Bobby Eaton’s arsenal, you’re going with “clothesline”?

-Jim Cornette storms in, complaining that an NWA violated every law of God and wrestling. We’ll see what he’s talking about, but first: CELEBRATE! CELEBRATE! SUPERSTATION TBS! Cornette’s despondent face is a funny contrast to the peppy jingle.

-So we go to the videotape of the Midnight Express defending the US Tag Titles against the Fantastics. We’re “40 minutes into the match” (but it looks more like ten) with Bobby Fulton taking an awesome bump into a barricade. Midnights go to work on his neck. Fulton gets busted open along the way, and referee Randy Anderson is concerned about the blood, so he tells the Midnight Express to back off because he’s stopping the match. The Midnights celebrate their victory while Bobby Fulton begs the referee to keep the match going. Referee reluctantly restarts it, and Tommy Rogers promptly comes off the top rope with a missile dropkick, with Stan Lane schoolboying himself over Bobby Fulton on the fall, and Fulton basically pins him by accident to win the titles.

-In the studio, Cornette promises that Mama’s lawyers will make things right. Cornette is also frustrated because next week would have been the Express’ one-year anniversary as champions, and he already planned a big party in the studio. So Jim Crockett has agreed to review the situation, and Cornette is anticipating his men will have the belts returned by next week, but either way, Cornette and the Midnight Express will have a party next week during the show.

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs. ALAN MARTIN
-Why does Garvin suddenly not have entrance music anymore? Like, really, with your new office space and your private jet, the royalties for “Sharp Dressed Man” were the expense that was bleeding the company dry?

-Front facelock by Garvin and a series of clubbering blows to the back by Garvin. HARD chops by Garvin, who apparently took detailed notes from his brother recently, and he applies an abdominal stretch. Brainbuster ends this one.

-Gorgeous Jimmy says there are a lot of problems in the NWA, and he has a feeling things are going to get worse before they get better! Cut off his mic, he’s shooting! We go to the Prince of Darkness match during night one of the Crockett Cup. Jimmy wins on a fluke cradle and has trouble getting his hood off after the bell, so the Varsity Club attacks until Ron Garvin shows up to make the save. Kevin Sullivan pulls out his lethal golden spike and jams it right into Ron’s chest, injuring him and forcing him to sit out the rest of the tournament.

VARSITY CLUB (with Kevin Sullivan) vs. ANDREW BELLAMY & JOE CRUZ
-Varsity Club double-teams Cruz. Bellamy, still wearing his Dark Starr tights from last week, gets caught in the Varsity corner and Mike Rotunda throws hard chops of his own, like there’s a contest in the back. Rick Steiner rams Bellamy into the corner upside-down. Belly-to-belly by Steiner, and a double underhook by Rotunda finishes this one.

-Kevin Sullivan talks about watching animal fights in Singapore and congratulates Barry Windham and there’s still 110 days left until Dusty Rhodes is reinstated and Jimmy Garvin knows the truth about Patty. It was as confusing as that reads.

STING vs. STEVE ATKINSON
-Interesting note from that week’s Observer, as Atkinson was promoting indy shows in the area with a roster comprised entirely of the TBS jobbers, and he was actually drawing several hundred people. So Randy Hogan decided to get in on that action and was running his own competing shows consisting of matches with OTHER NWA jobbers. So the jobbers had a turf war going on at this point. Sting wins by the time I finish typing that.

-Sting, who won the goddamn Crockett Cup with Lex Luger as his last-minute replacement partner, and completely ignores that and discusses building a team of his friends to face the Four Horsemen, which sounds like it’s laying groundwork for an awesome War Games match, which isn’t what they did.

-The Midnight Rider is here, to a thunderous ovation. It’s so funny how even though it’s well-documented that this tanked, he’s getting a pretty good crowd response on all of these segments. Rider’s good friend Dusty knows Barry Windham better than anyone. He says Barry can go sow his wild oats if he wants to, but he’d better not do anything to make Dusty mad.

NIKITA KOLOFF vs. TRENT KNIGHT
-Knight tries to work the arm, but Nikita just belts him while the Midnight Rider strolls to ringside to watch the match. Running elbow and the sickle end this one in short order. JR acknowledges that Nikita has lost a noticeable about of weight and says Nikita has become obsessed with conditioning so he can go the limit with Ric Flair.

-Nikita Koloff also does not care for Barry Windham. Funny, as Nikita didn’t really need Midnight Rider at ringside, but Midnight showed up anyway and just hung out, and then Midnight positioned himself directly behind Nikita so he’d be on camera the entire time Nikita was talking. It actually backs up the entire point JJ was making about Dusty not wanting his friends to be more famous than him.

POWERS OF PAIN (with Paul Jones & Ivan Koloff) vs. KEITH STEINBORN & JERRY PRICE
-Warlord presses Steinborn right away. Barbarian pounds Price, and Price just keeps taking this beating until the Powers finish up with a Hart Attack.

-The Sheepherders declare Johnny Ace a traitor to New Zealand. They could explain why, but instead, they’d rather promise to rip the mask off the Midnight Rider. Goddamn it, guys.

RIP MORGAN (with The Sheepherders) vs. RYAN WAGNER
-Morgan flings Wagner across the ring and clotheslines him down. Morgan has a great look but he comes off like an indy guy mimicking a bigger star here. Knee from the second rope finishes this one.

-The commentators wonder who will be the man to step forward to rip the mask of the Midnight OH GODDAMN IT SHUT UP ABOUT THIS ALREADY.

6.2

The final score: review Average

The 411

I'm going to tell you what I think of this episode...but first, I have something to say about you, Midnight Rider!