The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (5.30.1987)

-Originally aired May 30, 1987.

-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone & David Crockett.

-Midnight Express and Jim Cornette are here. Cornette has a legal document ordering all JCP assets to be turned over to Stan Lane until a full investigation has been conducted regarding accusations of contract tampering and collusion between Jim Crockett and Ron Garvin.

MIDNGHT EXPRESS (U.S. Tag Team Champions, with Jim Cornette) vs. TOMMY ANGEL & DAVID ISLEY
-David completely laughs off the legal threat to his family’s company while the Midnights double-team Angel. Isley tags in and tries to work the arm, but Stan Lane just fights him off with a kick. Cornette heads over to taunt the jobber.

-Sweet Stan slams Angel and grinds the boots against his head. Isley tags in for his turn to get tortured, with Stan applying a front facelock and dragging Isley’s face across the mat with it. The new and freshly patented Double Goozle gets three.

-Paul Jones is with the Russians for some reason. Jones says that due to an injury to Rick Rude (cough), everyone thinks Paul Jones is finished in the NWA. The Raging Bull is still standing and the Rock & Roll Express should look over their shoulder. Congratulations to Rick Rude on a FASCINATING tenure with this company. Debut, get plugged into a tag team and get handed the gold even though you’re not really that over as a team, hang onto them until the day you quit without giving advance notice. He literally had a belt around his waist for like 98% of his tenure and nobody gave a shit about the team.

IVAN KOLOFF (with Paul Jones and Vladimir Petrov) vs. ALAN MARTIN
-Koloff attacks the jobber while Paul Jones has a conversation with Vladimir Petrov, probably getting assurance from Vladimir that he won’t also abruptly leave Jones hanging. Koloff keeps dismantling the jobber in extremely communist fashion, distributing pain evenly to all parts of the body. Match goes on for a crazy long time as Koloff apparently wasn’t tipped off that the show’s only an hour this week. Sickle from the second rope ends it.

VLADIMIR PETROV (with the two other guys I already typed) vs. BLACK MOUNTAIN
-Black Mountain is an ENORMOUS black jobber with a mask and I feel like I should recognize him. Vlad clubbers and applies his badass front facelock. Sickle finishes quite efficiently.
-Barry Windham challenges Bubba Rogers to a match for the UWF Title in the Superdome.

-Dusty cuts a crazy impassioned promo on NWA Pro about how children of the 60s know something about war. Dusty is just all over the place, calling out Tully, and then announcing the Funky Like a Monkey Tour is over, then threatening the New Breed, then announcing that his Lightnin’ Bolt tour is coming.

-Magnum TA is here promising that the Four Horsemen will NEVER be able to put Dusty out of wrestling.

NIKITA KOLOFF (U.S. Champion) vs. ART PRITTS
-Nikita’s offense is literally hammering followed by a sickle.

-Back to NWA Pro. Lex Luger calls out Nikita for a fight and Nikita’s all like ‘Sup? And it’s a brawl all over the arena floor.

-Shit, give us a DIFFERENT Flair montage! Or a montage of another dude!

NEW BREED vs JOHN & TIM HARDY
-Wow, the original Hardy Boyz! Talk about history! These Hardys are so non-imposing that the Breed has an argument about which one of them gets to beat them up first. Chris Champion gets the honors, connecting with a dropkick. Sean Royal comes in to help with a Hart Attack while the commentators warn that Jimmy Valiant and “The Tron” are looking around the corner. Oh, tell me they were trying to get “The Tron” over as a nickname.

-Crockett calls the jobbers “the Hardy Boys” as Champion does a sweet bodypress with Royal holding the opponent in position. Champion almost accidentally kills himself on a top rope axehandle to the floor and saves face by just tossing his opponent into the commentary table. Back in, a slingshot splash gets three for the New Breed.

-Ric Flair is here to warn Dusty that when he calls out one Horseman, he’s calling out all of them. I feel like Dusty of all people would be very aware of that by this point. He also warns Jimmy Garvin that he still wants that bodacious blonde with the giant ta-tas.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs LARRY STEVENS & CHANCE MCQUADE
-Bodypress by Ricky Morton. Express works the arm as we pause for commercial and we return just in time for the double dropkick to wrap it up.

ARN ANDERSON vs RANDY BARBER
-Both men are jobbing to male pattern baldness pretty badly, although Arn can still comb his with conviction. Arn goes to work on the arm. Spinebuster and the gourdbuster wrap it up.

-Tully Blanchard is here with Dark Journey. Tully promises Dark Journey she’ll be the most famous secretary since Jessica Hahn.

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs TRENT KNIGHT
-UGLY back suplex by Garvin (he just straight up drops Knight in mid-air), and the brainbuster finishes in seconds.

-JJ and Lex are here. That brawl brought out some intensity from that big soft Nikita, but Lex still thinks he can take the gold.

ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs MIKE FORCE & RIC SULLIVAN
-Sullivan gets launched out to the concrete right away. Doomsday Device finishes.

-Road Warriors hate everybody but their good friend Dusty Rhodes. Good to know. And Ric Flair, alligator shoes “don’t do diddly-do in the ring!”

RON GARVIN vs BARRY PHELPS
-Chopping and stomping. Shitty backdrop sets up and the hands of stone finish.

5.1

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

This is where the show starts to feel cluttered, as guys are starting to win UWF Title belts, and we have to give them lip service, and yet it's treated as an afterthought, with no video footage or promos. Pretty uneventful week, too.