The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (6.4.1988)

-Cold open: We jump backward a few months and watch Paul Jones’ gang murdelize the Road Warriors during the weightlifting exhibition.

-Originally aired June 4, 1988.

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

RON GARVIN vs. RUSS TYLER
-Garvin chops and hiptosses Tyler while JR declares Garvin & Mighty Wilbur to be wrestling’s “new odd couple.” I hope they do a skit where Wilbur puts out a cigar butt in the carpet and Garvin walks out in a frilly apron and puts a sugar hold on him for it. Hands of stone, but the jober doesn’t seem to get that it’s Garvin’s finisher and keeps moving around. Garvin punishes him for it the studio audience actually unleashes a “Garvin sucks” chant. Garvin purple nurples his opponent and then does the Garvin stomp, but Tyler gets right up from the Garvin stomp! Garvin damn near rips the guy’s singlet off and just knocks him around, and after the second hands of stone, the guy finally stays down and Garvin finishes him.

-Ron Garvin is on his way to the Great American Bash!

-Clash of the Champions is this Wednesday night! Recite the card, right now!

THE FANTASTICS (US Tag Team Champions) vs. KEITH STEINBORN & DAVE SPEARMAN
-Spearman throws punches and Tommy Rogers heads in and takes control with armdrags. JR announces an actual honest to God match for Clash of the Champions, as Fantastics will defend the gold against the Sheepherders.

-Rogers monkeyflips Steinborn. Double hiptoss by the Fantastics. Spearman tags in and gets caught in an arm wringer. Commentary all throughout this is telling us what to expect at Clash of the Champions, because it amounts to “Midnight Express, Midnight Express Midnight Express, Midnight Express, SheepherdersonWednesdaynightbytheway Midnight Express, Midnight Express.” Fantastic rocket launcher finishes.

-Lex Luger figures out how to get a pop twice as big, walking out wearing TWO shirts and then taking them off one at a time. The man is a master of crowd psychology.

TV TITLE: MIKE ROTUNDA (Champion, with Kevin Sullivan & Rick Steiner) vs. TRENT KNIGHT
-Knight goes out to the concrete right away and gets suplexed back in. Rotunda applies the chinlock, with Steiner interfering in front of the referee just to be a dick. Knight ends up on the floor again, and Rotunda finishes him off with the double underhook.

-Mike Rotunda announces that he’ll be defending the TV Title at every Great American Bash event

BARRY WINDHAM (US Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs. CURTIS THOMPSON
-Windham armdrags Thompson and sends him out to the floor as the commentators lament what a great role model Dusty had been for Windham. I like that we have a guy whose dad was actually a star wrestler and the relationship is well-known, but DUSTY is the role model/father figure for Barry. Flying lariat finishes.

-JJ says that Dusty Rhodes has been the gold standard of professional wrestling for most of his career, and JJ has spent eight years searching for a star who could end Dusty’s career AND supercede his star power, and he declares Barry to be The Guy.

-Dusty Rhodes offers a rebuttal. Dusty says that from the time Barry learned to walk, he and Barry’s daddy…and I find this choice of words fascinating…”trained Barry to become United States Champion.” Not World Champion. They trained him to be 2nd best.

NIKITA KOLOFF & “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS vs. BOB RIDDLE & BOB EMORY
-Riddle comes close to low-balling Williams on an attempted leapfrog, so Williams should probably just give up trying that move for the rest of his life now. Emory comes in and gets press-slammed by the good doctor. The half of Nikita’s body that remains at this point tags in and elbows him down. He works the arm and brings Doc back in as JR talks about how the feud between Koloff and Perez is “raging” and there’s such “tremendous hatred” involved. Are they talking about some other angle with two wrestlers who happen to have the same name, because so far this feud has been Gary Hart declaring his man the better wrestler while Perez smiles and nods. Not exactly Tully/Magnum there. Oklahoma Stampede finishes one jobber or the other.

-Nikita Koloff promises he hasn’t forgotten about Al Perez. I find that very unlikely. Al Perez is like the Ann Egg of the heel side.

IVAN KOLOFF & POWERS OF PAIN vs. TONY SUBER, DARK STARR, & RICK PARADISE
-Koloff gingerly taps Paradise’s back in punch-like fashion. Warlord attacks Paradise on the floor. Barbarian beats on the jobber some more as we take a break.

-We’re back with Spearman being double-teamed in the corner. Dark Starr tags in and takes a big boot to the face. Squash crosses the “too long” barrier and just keeps pushing for a while. Koloff chokes Starr and chops him down. Hart Attack finishes….nope, actually, this thing is still going. Barbarian applies a cobra clutch and knocks Starr out with it. Commentators predict that Barbarian is strong enough that with this new bit of offense in their arsenal, the Powers of Pain may be able to decimate the Road Warriors during the Great American Bash.

-Ivan Koloff wonders where the Road Warriors are because he doesn’t see them anywhere. Spoiler alert: after this week, he’s going to start wondering where the Powers of Pain are.

KEVIN SULLIVAN & RICK STEINER (with Mike Rotundo) vs. JERRY PRICE & DAN GRUNDY
-German suplex by Steiner as the commentators hype the Tower of Doom, inspired by Sullivan’s vision of something in the Orient. Have I mentioned lately that I can’t stand the way that Sullivan pretty much goes on his own and doesn’t fit with the faction that he’s a part of and actually founded? Steiner brutalizes both opponents with clotheslines and powerslams as Sullivan orders him to do the moves over and over again. Sullivan attacks with the commentators’ podium on the floor, and giving the devil his due, the commentators have a funny argument about which one of them should conduct the post-match interview. Belly-to-belly by Steiner finishes as JR bites the bullet.

-Kevin Sullivan explains the rules of the Tower of Doom match. Watching Sullivan having to pause and think several times as he does so is not instilling me with confidence. He promises that Patty’s true self will be revealed at the end of the match.

GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs. BOBBY ROSE
-Commentators observe that Precious is being a bit standoffish at ringside, while Garvin is in a rage, aggressively attacking the jober to start and throwing him out to the floor. Nice acting by Precious, who’s acting really jittery but not tipping her hand about what she’s thinking. Jimmy finishes off Rose with the brainbuster.

-Garvin demands that Kevin Sullivan come out RIGHT NOW and let’s finish this thing! Garvin vows to break every finger of any man that puts their hands on Precious.

-The Fantastics show off the straitjacket that Jim Cornette is going to be forced to wear during an upcoming title match. To demonstrate how helpless Cornette will be, Bobby Fulton puts on he straitjacket himself, and the audience in the studio already knows where this is going and lets out a big groan as Fulton slides his arms into it. And sure enough, once he’s all tied up, the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette attack, plastering Fulton with a chair and ganging up on Tommy Rogers while Cornette dashes over to get some free right hands to Fulton’s head.

-Gary Hart cannot believe America is so brainwashed that they would cheer for a Russian.

LARRY ZBYSZKO & AL PEREZ (with Gary Hart) vs. GARY PHELPS & DAVE LAPEROUSE
-Larry and Al take turns working an arm. Teddy Long gives a slow two-count at one point, and Larry gripes about people taking their time in the ring. Now you know how it feels. Airplane spin by Perez, and they snap Phelps’ legs back and forth in a neat spot, forcing him to do a split. Al Perez finishes with the spinning toehold, and for yet another week, does nothing to distinguish himself as a heel.

STING vs. TOMMY ROYAL
-Sting rams Royal’s head into the turnbuckles ten times, with the jobber doing something ridiculous looking with his legs on impact every time. Stinger splash and the scorpion deathlock finish.

-Great American Bash is coming and Sting’s ready!

ARN ANDERSON & TULLY BLANCHARD (World Tag Team Champions, with JJ Dillon) vs. ALLEN & AUMEN
-Okay, this is their last chance to announce the main event of Clash of the Champions II. Arn & Tully take turns working the arm, and indeed Tony finally mentions they’re defending against Sting and Dusty Rhodes this Wednesday night, so we have our main event in the nick of time. DDT by Arn, and he just slaps around the jobber for fun. They announce the phone number to call for tickets to the TBS tapings, and a Google search cannot find the phone number currently in use. Is Atlanta not using phones anymore? Slingshot suplex wins this one for the Horsemen.

-Horsemen say they’re ready for a Tower of Doom, War Games, or whatever other match the NWA wants to shove them into. They emphasize that there’s NO entertainment in the NWA, which I’d call an apt review of this episode.

4.0

The final score: review Poor

The 411

The longest squash ever, the dullest heel ever, the stupidest faction ever. The hits just keep going in the opposite direction.