wrestling
The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (9.10.1988)
Loading...-Cold open: the finish of the Russian chain match at Clash of the Champions.
-Originally aired September 10, 1988.
-Your hosts are Tony Schiavone, Jim Ross, and David Crockett. JR offers his “thoughts and prayers” to Jimmy Garvin after his leg injury last week, so I can only assume that JR is in the pocket of Big Cinder Block and won’t be enacting any legislation to prevent the next stupid Kevin Sullivan angle.
-They replay the entire Midnight Express squash match last week for literally no reason other than how awesome it was. I can’t really argue with that.
STING vs. TOMMY ANGEL
-Sting is late coming to the ring after frantically searching the garbage cans around TBS for the old National Title belt, because maybe they’ll let him win that one if he finds it.
-Sting works the arm like he wants to have an actual match, then decides “Nah” and the Stinger splash and the scorpion deathlock close this one out.
-David Crockett talks to the Stinger, who says the TBS crowd isn’t cheering him as loudly as they normally do. He suspects the fat woman from last week had something to do with it.
-Tony Schiavone welcomes Jim Crockett, who’s taking time out from his busy schedule of frantically checking the coin returns in every payphone he passes to announce that John Ayers will be the guest referee for the next Ric Flair/Lex Luger rematch. So I hear.
-And here’s Lex Luger. He’s sure that with John Ayers in the ring, the best man WILL win.
RON SIMMONS vs. BOB RIDDLE
-Armdrag and a dropkick by Simmons. Powerslam and an elbow follow. Riddle tries a bodypress and crashes, and a tackle off the second rope finishes.
-Ron Simmons reminds us not to do drugs.
FANTASTICS vs. LEE SCOTT & JERRY PRICE
-I feel like we’re kinda due to find something else for these guys to do now.
-Bobby Fulton shoulderblocks Price and Tommy Rogers comes in with a dropkick. Fulton flings Price around until he tags in Scott, who is wearing what appears to be Brutus Beefcake’s old ring gear, including the armbands. Fantastic rocket launcher finishes in short order.
-Tony and JR welcome John Ayers for his third crack at cutting a promo. Still tentative but they definitely worked with him backstage before the taping, and he’s able to cover his talking points pretty well.
-We watch Kevin Sullivan destroy Jimmy Garvin’s leg again. Live in the studio, Kevin Sullivan dares Jimmy Garvin to come to the studio next week to fight him. He insists that what he did was no worse than what Dusty did to Ron Garvin, but Dusty is everyone’s favorite so nobody cares.
-Dusty Rhodes comes out and declares himself the flagship of the NWA. He’s more of an iceberg for the NWA at this point. Dusty apologizes for making fun of the fat chick last week, but sees her sitting in the audience again and runs away in terror.
RUSSIAN ASSASSIN #1 (with Paul Jones) vs. KEITH STEINBORN
-We gotta number him now that we know there’s two of them.
-#1 just charges and attacks Steinborn right away, and Steinborn is the lucky first jobber on the concrete floor for this week’s program. #1 works the back for a bit, and the Russian guillotine gets the submission.
-Paul Jones promises that Russian Assassin #2 will be here next week. He rattles off an itemized list of every opportunity that Ivan Koloff screwed up in the past year, and David Crockett retaliates by showing the footage from Clash of the Champions so we can see that it was Jones who screwed up the end of that match.
-David Crockett welcomes JJ Dillon, who says that the Midnight Express needs to be more ready than ever if they’re going to take the belts away from Arn & Tully. Well apparently they were more ready than ever because about two hours later the Midnight Express defeated Arn & Tully in Philadelphia to win the World Tag Team Titles. Turner sent some people to conduct due diligence interviews with Crockett employees, which naturally included some wrestlers. Tully Blanchard walked into his interview and, per Jim Cornette’s account, “wound up his ax and took Dusty Rhodes’ head off with it,” which led to the Turner executives asking Jim Crockett some pretty tough questions that Crockett didn’t want to answer about the way he had been running his business. In fact, Meltzer even reported that the Turner deal took steps backwards at this point. So Tully and Arn (both of them for some reason) were punished for Tully’s interview by losing their seats on Crockett’s private jet, and both of them took that as a sign to get out of town, so they dropped the belts the next day and left the company—easy to do because, according to Tully, Crockett hadn’t signed them to a contract, which was another sticking point for them.
THE SHEEPHERDERS (with Rip Morgan) vs. EDDIE SWEAT & RICK ALLEN
-Butch elbows Allen and stomps away. Luke tags in and falls victim to some dropkicks. Sweat comes in and comes booted around. This goes on for quite a while with nothing more than punching or stomping to speak of until the battering ram, and the double stomachbreaker finishes this.
-Barry Windham reminds us that he still has a belt.
RICKY MORTON & BRAD ARMSTRONG vs. AGENT STEELE & THE MENACE
-The NWA’s all-over-the-place booking puts JR in the awkward position of having to explain why neither Morton nor Armstrong can hang onto a tag team partner.
-Armstrong hiptosses Steele and throws dropkicks. Armstrong has a bandana tied around his boot, like teaming with Ricky Morton is something he actually wants to commit to. Menace gets caught in a side headlock as JR makes the weird point that the contracts that Morton and Armstrong sign in the future really depend on the kind of money they get offered for their matches. Well, good luck with THAT, gentlemen. Russian legsweep gets the win.
-David Crockett talks to the Nature Boy. John Ayers has a Super Bowl ring, but he can’t wear a Super Bowl ring around his waist, and since wrestlers don’t wear helmets, people know who Ric Flair is when they see him.
VARSITY CLUB (with Kevin Sullivan) vs. DAVID ISLEY & LARRY STEVENS
-Hey, so here’s the TV Champion in a tag team match, and we just saw the guy who went the distance with him a few nights ago in a tag team match. So that’s leading to something, right? Right?
-Varsity Club argues over who starts the match and Rotunda puts his foot down, beating down Larry and tagging Steiner to let him have his turn. Steiner locks up with Isley, then just lets go and walks away for no reason. He powerslams Isley and starts to go for the pin, but Sullivan yells something at him and Steiner stops at one. Steiner sets up with a suplex to finish, but Sullivan orders him to tag out. Steiner makes the tag, but stays in the ring because he really didn’t want to leave, and Sullivan finally lays down the law and tells his man to get out.
-Rotunda throws a dropkick and lets Steiner tag back in. Belly-to-belly could finish, but again, Sullivan orders Steiner to tag out, and the fans are telling Steiner to stand up for himself at this point. Steiner reluctantly tags out, and Rotunda does the double underhook suplex to get the win for his team. Rotunda tells Steiner to raise his arm after the victory. Hmm…
“Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS vs. DALE VALENTINE
-So this is the weirdest match of the week. Williams cuts a promo loud enough for the commentators to hear it, and the gist is he’s going to do a succession of holds and explain each one afterward to demonstrate that he’s the best pure wrestler in the NWA. Well, after that, Valentine is very slow to get up after a single move. Williams puts him in a waistlock to set up for something, but Valentine goes completely limp and Williams loses his grip on him. Williams picks him up and is clearly having a conversation with him, and then Doc hits the Stampede and pins him right away. Williams looks really, really annoyed about something after getting the victory.
-David Crockett talks to Dr. Death, who says Oklahoma is superior to Syracuse, and to prove it, he wants a TV Title shot.
-Nikita Koloff wants a match with the Russian Assassins, and his tag team partner will be…Ricky Morton. This damn company. Oh, by the way, that match never happened because Ricky Morton quit the NWA for a second time in 1988, as if God was personally stepping in and sabotaging this match to tell Jim Crockett, “Or, you know, maybe he could find another tag team partner…”
LARRY ZBYSZKO (Western States Heritage Champion) vs. TONY SUBER
-First time in months we’ve seen Larry. Tony mentions that he’s been “quietly defending” the belt across the country.
-Larry Z shoves Suber down and gives him a right. Suber gets fired up and slams him, but misses an elbow, and Larry finishes with the neckbreaker.
-Gary Hart is here, taunting Ron Simmons for wanting opportunities but having the guts to sign a contract for real competition. Ron Simmons struts out and says he’ll sign for a dog collar match right here in the TBS studio just to shut Gary up.
AL PEREZ (with Gary Hart) vs. MIKE JUSTICE
-Perez works the arm as Kevin Sullivan storms out here to commiserate with his friend about this ridiculousness with Ron Simmons and suspects that Dusty Rhodes was behind it. Justice gets thrown to the floor and whipped with the chain by Sullivan. Airplane spin by Perez gets the win.
-Kevin Sullivan offers some parting words for Ron Simmons, saying he “sounds like a white Dusty Rhodes” when he talks.
