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The Great American Bash (7.16.1988) Review

April 25, 2020 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
Great American Bash 1988 War Games Image Credit: WCW
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The Great American Bash (7.16.1988) Review  

-This one popped up on Hidden Gems a while ago. It’s a full house show from the 1988 Bash tour. JCP is financially at the point of no return, while booker Dusty Rhodes is quickly losing touch with reality and will probably defeat Ric Flair by dropping an elbow onto a turnbuckle and pinning it during this show.

-We’re in the Greensboro Coliseum, with two rings set up. No commentary, but Tony Schiavone is doing the ring announcing.

TIM HORNER & BUGSY MCGRAW vs. LARRY ZBYSZKO & RIP MORGAN
-For anyone keeping track of Rip Morgan’s gimmick from week to week, tonight he’s physically mimicking Bruiser Brody but dressed like a Sheepherder. Morgan insists on grabbing the mike and yelling gibberish. Funny thing is Larry doesn’t realize how long he plans on keeping this up and when Larry takes away the mike too early, Morgan breaks character and says “Hold it, Larry,” then goes right into is crazy babbling idiot character.

-McGraw and Larry start off, and the reigning Western States Heritage Champion gets into trouble early, missing an elbow and getting slammed. Standing side headlock and they do the bit where Larry keeps trying to shoot him into the ropes and McGraw just holds the move.

-Horner tags in and instantly sunset flips Larry for two, and Larry tags out immediately. Morgan takes Horner to the mat for a headlock. Horner escapes and they do a nice sequence leading to a dropkick. We get the long-awaited Bugsy/Morgan confrontation, which would have been a natural pairing for a feud and they never bothered. Morgan handles McGraw well enough that Larry feels confident about tagging back in, and they double-team him. Sections of this building are just stunningly empty tonight.

-Morgan beats down McGraw and bites him. Larry misses a dropkick to give us the hot tag, but instead of being a house of fire, Horner just wrestlers a bit and bodypresses Morgan for the three-count, giving the win to Team Tim-McGraw. Skip it. 0 for 1. NO chemistry on either team. Sudden thought, they could have changed Bugsy McGraw’s last name to Anderson and done something with him as an Evad Sullivan-like embarrassment to the family.

RON GARVIN (with Gary Hart) vs. ITALIAN STALLION

-Garvin turned heel a month earlier and has some pretty solid heat going. GREAT bit to start the match, as he teases throwing the towel, then just hands it to Gary. It gets better, as Garvin fakes blowing out his ankle on a leapfrog, waits for Stallion to let his guard down, then just knocks him right out with the hands of stone to get the three-count in less than a minute. 1 for 2 because that was such a great spot. Fans are booing Garvin out of the building, so of course Dusty wanted to squash him like a grape and Garvin walked out of the company a month later over it.

“Captain Redneck” DICK MURDOCH vs. GARY ROYAL

-They have a scaffold set up around the other ring and it’s not very favorable for the hard camera at all. Side headlock by Royal, and he manages to get Murdoch on the mat. Murdoch applies his own side headlock and gives him an elbow to the mush. Referee Teddy Long reprimands him and Murdoch gets an unexpected funny line here, complaining that he thought Teddy Long only refereed matches in Atlanta. Royal throws some devastating Wattskicks at Murdoch and he must be feeling generous tonight because Murdoch actually bumps out to the floor from those pieces of crap.

-Murdoch ends up taking the fight to the floor and rams Royal into the scaffold. Back in, the brainbuster finishes. Too-long squash. Skip it. 1 for 3.

NON-TITLE: RICK STEINER (Florida Champion) vs. GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious)

-Steiner just clotheslines the hell out of Garvin as soon as the bell sounds, and they picked the perfect camera angle because you didn’t see this coming, which gives it more impact. So Garvin’s in trouble right away, but he avoids a corner charge, when suddenly Kevin Sullivan shows up and roughs up Precious to help assuage our fears that the feud would die after the pay-per-view. So Garvin rolls out of the ring to chase Sullivan off, then rolls back in and just rolls up Steiner for the three-count at the 1:25 mark. What the hell? Skip it. 1 for 4.

ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs. SHEEPHERDERS (with Rip Morgan)

-The Express’ return to Greensboro. Bunkhouse Stampede was supposed to include this match, culminating with a big angle where the ‘herders would cut Ricky’s hair, and the Express actually walked out of the company over it. They returned for the summer, only for Gibson to walk out of the company again shortly after this.

-Dueling promos before they get rolling. Sheepherders try to do their flag ceremony but Express launches a surprise attack and the brawl is on. But then the Sheepherders get dropkicked out of the ring, so the brawl is off. But then the Sheepherders get back in the ring so the brawl is on. Gibson rolls up Luke for two. Express goes in for the kill early but Butch breaks up the pin. Morgan runs in to try to provide back-up but accidentally clotheslines both Herders over the top, then gets double-dropkicked out to the floor himself.

-Herders finally get something going and Butch hammers on Ricky, but Ricky keeps throwing dropkicks because they keep working, and a double noggin-knocker clears the ring again. Gibson bodypresses Luke for a visiaul three, but a flagpole to the back of the head behind Tommy Young’s back suddenly turns the tide. Gibson gets dragged out to the floor for one more shot. Herders are just teeing off on Gibson as the crowd freaks out, because Gibson has significantly less experience with getting his ass kicked for long periods of time and his tolerance of pain is lower as a result.

-Luke chinlocks Gibson. Gibson escapes and double-bodypresses the Herders, and Greensboro loses their shit for the hot tag so hard that the entire city turns into Brownsboro. Morton takes on both of them until Butch throws him out to the concrete, and we end up with one match in the ring and one on the floor with the legal and illegal men. Morton gets rammed into the post while Gibson has a sleeper applied in the ring, but Butch hustles in there to break it. Ref’s lost control of this one, Brain.

-Double stomachbreaker by the Herders, and then Morton just LAUNCHES off the top rope right as the crowd and Tommy Young all collectively remember “Oh, yeah, he’s the legal man!” and a bodypress by Morton finishes. Classic ’80s tag team goodness, like your mom and Ricky Morton used to make. 2 for 5.

BRAD ARMSTRONG vs. AL PEREZ (with Gary Hart)

-Lots of jockeying for position to start as you can hear all of the previous match’s heat escaping from the building in the space of about two minutes. Armstrong works the arm, and strongly, I might add. Perez throws punches, but Armstrong hiptosses him and goes back to the arm. Gary Hart finally makes this interesting by suckering Brad into chasing him, then using the scaffold as a makeshift cage so Armstrong can’t get to him in a funny visual. Perez takes advantage with a sneak attack.

-Back in the ring, Alicopter gets two. Perez cinches on a chinlock, and then a different kind of chinlock. He switches to a surfboard and you can almost here individual toilet flushes from the fans who decided to take a break during this. Backslide by Armstrong gets two. Cradle gets another two. Perez throws Armstrong out to the floor (Tommy Young: “What’d you do that for?!”) and Perez heads out there (Tommy: “Don’t do that!”) Armstrong suddenly is a house of fire and slams him on the floor. They head back in and Armstrong dropkicks him over the top rope. He suplexes Perez back in, but Hart calmly swoops an arm around Armstrong’s leg, so Perez falls on top of him for a three-count. Just boring as hell, with Perez acting really unmotivated through the whole thing. Skip it. 2 for 6.

HANDICAP BUNKHOUSE MATCH: THE FANTASTICS vs. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS & JIM CORNETTE
-We start off with the worst part of this kind of match, Tony Schiavone announces that the rules are “Anything goes” and then Tommy Young tells the guys to get out to the apron and wait to be tagged. Cornette hugs Bobby for heat and the crowd is so riled up and Cornette decides to go all-in and kisses him too.

-Bobby and Bobby start off trading right hands as the fans chant “Cornette” to try to goad him into the ring. Eaton gets backdropped near the wrong corner and they pinball him until he makes the tag. It’s anything goes so they immediately go for Stan’s nuts and all hell breaks loose immediately as Cornette grabs a chair and everybody fights for it. Fulton atomic drops Eaton and drives the chair right into his forehead. Eaton tries to retreat on the apron but another chair shot sends him to the floor. And ONE more, why not.

-Back in, Eaton crawls to his corner and tries to tag Cornette, and Cornette jumps off the apron and screams “What are you doing?!” Hint taken, Bobby tags Stan Lane. Rogers ends up hiptossing him around and when Lane retreats for a quick tag, Cornette gets the hell away from the apron again. Lane sends Rogers over the top but Rogers skins the cat and dropkicks him a few times, and again Cornette runs away. But suddenly Lane decides he’s had ENOUGH of his manager and threatens to turn face and kick Cornette’s ass all over the arena, and Greensboro is BEGGING Lane to go through with it. Lane lets Cornette live and wallops Rogers with an enziguiri that sends him out to the floor.

-With Rogers freshly sprawled out on the floor, Cornette drops a big elbow and celebrates. I love the visual of Cornette wearing the thickest elbow pads ever manufactured for his gear. They almost look like floaties. Back in the ring, Lane clotheslines Rogers down and Rogers ain’t moving, so Cornette finally tags in legally and punches Rogers repeatedly, but the punches actually seem to revive him because Cornette is such a weiner, so he gets out of Dodge and the Midnights double-team Rogers with a foreign object.

-Midnights with a GREAT combo, an atomic drop from Stan into a chokeslam/backbreaker from Bobby. Cornette tags back in and uses a bit of rope to choke Rogers out. Great spot sees Cornette wear himself out trying for a bodyslam, so Eaton runs in to help him. Rocket launcher looks to finish….but Cornette BEGS Eaton to tag him in so he can do the honors and get the three-count, and Rogers kicks out and makes the hot tag. The wrestlers brawl while Cornette goes into his tights for some powder, but he blinds Bobby Eaton, and that leaves Cornette all alone in the ring with the Fantastics. Double clothesline finishes him, and the Fantastics lash him with a belt a few times for good measure after the bell. Just perfect all the way through. 3 for 6.

TV TITLE: MIKE ROTUNDA (Champion, with Kevin Sullivan & Rick Steiner) vs. STING

-Sting dropkicks all the things to start. Noggin-knocker sends Rotunda to the floor. Rotunda makes it back in and keeps getting worked over with boots and slams. So Steiner finally manages to trip Sting from the floor and Rotunda sends him to the floor where Sullivan just unloads on him with a metal bar. So Sting is pretty much legally dead right now but Rotunda tries to be sporting about this and applies a side headlock in the ring (with Steiner grabbing an ankle for extra leverage).

-Rotunda slams Sting and heads to the top, but Sting meets him and slams him off. He tosses Rotunda into the other ring and dives across both top ropes on top of him , and rather than count them out, Tommy Young just goes with it and declares the match is happening in THIS ring now. Stinger splash and scorpion deathlock, and the title change looks imminent, but…ya know, the guy with the belt has TWO friends at ringside, so…DQ cop-out. 4 for 7, but a shitty finish.

SCAFFOLD MATCH: ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs. RUSSIAN ASSASSIN & IVAN KOLOFF (with Paul Jones)

-This was originally supposed to be The Powers of Pain, but Vince opened up his checkbook and the Powers of Pain were like, “Hmm, an entire summer of falling off a scaffold, or double our pay for squashing Boris Zhukov every night?” So they checked out of the company, which led to a hilarious one-sided pissing match where Vince went ahead and kept using the name The Powers of Pain while the NWA tried to rechristen Assassin and Koloff as “The Powers of Pain” and pretend that was their collective name all along, and that fell apart quickly.

-Koloff blinds Animal with some powder but Hawk immediately picks up the slack and pounds on both opponents. Animal fights back and Koloff does an amazing job of ALLLLLLMOST-but-not quite falling off the scaffold. More punching and kicking and it’s the worst camera shot ever, revealing that one entire wall of this arena is empty seats. Greensboro loved their wrestling but man, the moment Crockett decided to hit the big cities, they didn’t forgive it.

-Hawk throws punches. Russian Assassin throws punches. Koloff starts climbing DOWN toward the ring for no reason until Animal just boots him off. The scaffold here is so low that it was basically the same as a fall off the top rope. So Koloff is eliminated, but he grabs his chain and heads back up to strangle Animal. Assassin also begins the seemingly unnecessary climb DOWN the scaffold and falls about five feet by the time he’s finally knocked off. A scaffold match is a scaffold match. Screw it. 4 for 8.

WAR GAMES: DUSTY RHODES, LEX LUGER, DR. DEATH STEVE WILLIAMS, NIKITA KOLOFF, & PAUL ELLERING vs. THE FOUR HORSEMEN & J.J. DILLON
-Dusty & Arn are going to start. So right away they throw leather and Dusty overpowers Arn with elbows. Arn puts his head down for a backdrop, and Dusty DDTs him because nobody can have their own specialty move on Dusty’s watch. Arn gets a faceful of cage and he’s already a bloody mess. Arn hits Dusty hard enough to get an “Aww, shit” out of him. Dusty hangs in there and starts working the leg. Arn gets his hands on …a pair of pliers, apparently…and uses them to open Dusty up. Arn comes off the second rope but gets a punch in the face for it. Dusty applies his version of the figure four as the guys get into position for the coin toss, and Dusty is smart enough to know how that’s going to work out, so he just releases the hold so he’s ready for the next Horseman.

-So sure enough the Horsemen win the coin toss and Barry Windham runs in, and and Dusty’s ready for him. I actually do LIKE the logic there. Arn was in a compromised position, so Dusty lets go. If it’s a face, no problem. If it’s a heel, he’s ready. But soon the 2-on-1 advantage rears its ugly head and Barry applies a claw while Arn chokes Dusty out simultaneously.

-Bell sounds and Dr. Death hustles in there and takes out the Horsemen with clotheslines and tackles. Actual TACKLES, not shoulderblocks that Jim Ross called tackles. Dusty gets back to his feet and he’s a bloody, disgusting mess, but that’s the way he likes it, daddy. Barry goes into the cage next, so it’s time for him to bleed. Dusty and Barry slug it out in between the rings, which is a great thing about double-ring matches.

-Bell sounds and Tully yanks Tommy Young by his shirt away from the cage door so Ric can go in there and ram Dr. Death into the cage. So he’s bleeding and Arn adds a DDT. Flair laughs at points at Luger from inside the ring, setting up some obvious kharmic justice at some point, and of course Luger’s next and he takes out Windham first just so he has a clear shot at Flair. This is Luger at PEAK stardom as a babyface, as the fans are making enough noise to cover for the empty seats. Torture rack on Flair is broken by a shot to the Total Package’s total package by Windham and they gang up on him.

-Tully’s next and he brings a chair in with him. He unloads on Luger with it until Luger just punches him and Tully instantly gets rid of the chair for no reason, like a weapon in a video game. Everyone keeps fighting it out for a bit…

-And here comes Nikita, connecting with the right hands while the southern wrestling fans make that satisfying “Oh!” for every blow that connects. Dr. Death stampedes Tully, Barry is getting choked out, Nikita blocks a shot into the cage, and the faces have got this in control. Until Arn hits Nikita in the nuts, with Lex instantly retaliating a half-second later with a shot to Arn’s nuts.

-JJ very tentatively enters the ring and double-teams Luger with Barry Windham’s help. He heads to the next cage and chokes Nikita, but Nikita chokes back. Everyone battles it out until the bell sounds one last time…

-And Paul Ellering heads in, going right after the champ and hammering at him with a flurry of punches. Tully sneaks up from behind and takes him down. Horsemen gang up on JJ while Flair goes after Dusty’s leg, but Nikita is on that. Tully gets to Dusty next as the managers do battle, and JJ is pre-emptively celebrating until JJ crashes on an attempted dropkick. Atomic drop by Ellering, and Dusty applies the figure four to get the submission. 5 for 9.

7.0
The final score: review Good
The 411
More good than bad, and to be fair, the bad is pretty short compared to the good. Definitely make a night of this one.
legend

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Adam Nedeff