The Name on the Marquee: NWA World Championship Wrestling (1.11.1986)

-Cold open: We watch Baby Doll taunting the Horsemen and warning Arn that he’s next, from last week.

-Originally aired January 11, 1986.

-Your hosts are Tony and The David. Speculation is rampant about Ole Anderson’s injury, that he may not be able to return to wrestling within 30 days, so the National Tag Team Titles are in jeopardy.

-Ron Garvin is here, and I’m at a point where I’m surprised when guys show up at the top of the show to cut promos and they don’t have huge bandages on their foreheads. Garvin thinks he’s the man to beat Ric Flair. He just needs one more shot.

IVAN & NIKITA KOLOFF vs ITALIAN STALLION & ROCKY KING
-Ivan has a huge bandage on his forehead.

-Mat wrestling to start. Stallion fights back and before long all four men are in the ring. Jobbers work Ivan’s arm. Boot to the gut by Ivan and he manages to tag out. Clotheslines for everyone! Rocky King tags in and gets rammed into the corner. Ivan throws him out to the floor, a “typical Russian move” according to Tony.

-Back in the ring, King gets backdropped and legdropped by Ivan. Nikita heads back inside and clubbers. Ivan blocks a tag and Nikita finishes with a sickle. King blatantly blocks it with his arm, and the commentators even point that out, so Nikita does it again to flatten out King and end the match.

-We look at a photo of the Russians destroying some Japanese wrestlers on a recent tour. Japanese wrestlers are no better than American wrestlers and only lasted about five minutes per match. REALLY funny bit follows as they complain again about how they won’t hang the Soviet flag on the set; they cut to the flags surrounding the ring and somebody has hung up a roll of toilet paper and written “RUSSIA” across it.

TULLY BLANCHARD (with JJ Dillon) vs MAC JEFFERS
-Tully slaps Jeffers and goes out to the floor before he can retaliate. Blanchard gets back in and Jeffers begins hammering him, but Tully blocks a backdrop and kicks Jeffers out to the floor. Back in, Tully stays on him with uppercuts and a rear chinlock. Jeffers makes the ropes and Tully boots him out of the ring again. JJ refuses to interfere, allowing Jeffers to regain his bearings and go back into the ring, and Tully finishes with the slingshot suplex easily.

-Tony welcomes the NEW World Television Champion, Arn Anderson. He promises that Ole will be back in the ring to hang onto the tag belts, and Arn is fixin’ to show us what a TRUE television champ looks like.

THE BARBARIAN (with Paul Jones) vs ART PRITTS
-Barbarian rams Pritts with shoulders and knees, while the commentators mock Pritts for having the crappy luck of being signed against Barbarian for his debut. Legdrop and JYD-style headbutts by Barbarian. Barbarian bites Pritts, and when the referee scolds him, Barbarian shakes his head and sticks out his tongue, as if to say “No, see, there aren’t any teeth in here.”

-Pritts gets tossed to the floor and Paul Jones gets his licks in while Tony asks us to send in Dream Match selections for Superstars on the Superstation. POSTCARDS ONLY PLEASE.

-Diving headbutt finishes.

MAGNUM T.A. (United States Champion) vs THUNDERFOOT
-Armbar by Magnum. Thunderfoot tries to bodyslam out, but Magnum holds onto the arm through the whole thing and then hiptosses him. Back to the armbar. I feel like Magnum is at a loss for what to do in the way of non-belly-related offense.

-Hammerlock slam by Magnum, which David speculates to be a message to the Andersons because they made that move famous. Back to the armbar. Thunderfoot gets free, but Magnum slams him and reapplies it. Thunderfoot rakes the eyes and drives a hundred knees into Magnum’s gut. Irish whip by Thunderfoot, but Magnum ducks the follow-through clothesline and gets the belly-to-belly suplex for three. “America’s heartthrob…he is SOME man!” gushes David.

PISTOL PEZ WHATLEY vs GEORGE SOUTH
-David is either foreshadowing or he unintentionally inspires an upcoming angle by calling Pez “possibly the best black athlete in the world.”

-Pez works the arm. George counters, Pez reverses and ties up South in a side headlock. Shoulderblock and a bodypress by Pez for two. Series of rights by Pez. AWESOME bit as Pez does the wild exaggerated looks to the crowd to signal he about to do a headbutt, and George just lies down on the mat instead of taking the move. George should have shared that strategy with every other heel wrestler ever.

-German suplex by Pez gets two. Pez works the arm and the sadistic fans chant “Break it!” South gets free but runs right into a flying headbutt off the ropes, and Pez gets three.

-Pez says JCP came alive in ’85, and we gonna getting down in ’86, which does not rhyme. Pez wants a piece of Ric Flair, and he’s gonna take care of business y’all!

-Dusty Rhodes says Ric Flair is livin’ proof that white people ain’t got no rhythm, daddy, except the Ame’can Dream. He wants a cage match! There are 780 wrestlers that want the World Title, daddy, but Dusty’s gonna be the one who gets it. Baby Doll happily shows off the first fan letter anyone has ever sent her, proclaiming her “World’s Most Beautiful Woman.” The fan is a 12-year-old who awesomely included a photo of himself doing his best studmuffin pose in front of the Christmas tree.

ROCK & ROLL EPRESS (World Tag Team Champions) vs RANDY MULKEY & VERNON DEATON
-Gibson and Deaton start, but Gibson makes a tag behind Deaton’s back right away, and Deaton gets blindsided by a Morton dropkick. Gibson heads back in and slams Deaton down. Wristlock by Morton, and again the crowd begs for them to break it. Damn.

-Mulkey tags in and gets pretzelized by Ricky while Ricky makes a series of mad faces to convey the mad that he’s feeling this week. Gibson drives knees into his shoulder and Morton just keeps stretching him. Double dropkick finishes off the poor bastard.

-We go to World Wide Wrestling, where Tully Blanchard attacks Jimmy Valiant, and JJ Dillon helps with a spike piledriver on the concrete! Damn, Jimmy’s dead!

-Tully is all smiles, and his cadence and talking points are weirdly close to a Ric Flair promo as he brags about the attack.

RON GARVIN vs PAUL GARNER
-Tony Schiavone sends well-wishes to “Granny,” a devoted fan who always sits in the front row for JCP events in Atlanta and Marietta and just had surgery.

-Garvin does a really impressive sugar hold, but releases and goes to work with the chops and headbutts. Hands of stone finishes. Garvin must have reservations somewhere.

-Rock & Roll Express admit that Jim Cornette & the Midnight Express banged them up, but they’re coming back for him.

-Jim Cornette comes in with no voice, saying he lost his voice from how hard he’s been laughing for the past week. Midnight Express runs in “to notify the referee that an illegal double team happened, and then the Rock & Rolls attacked us from behind.” Midnights leave Ricky & Robert laying, with an assist from the tennis racquet. Morton is bleeding from the mouth as the Midnights make their exit. Corny doesn’t give a tinker’s twiddle what the fans think of what he did.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (with Jim Cornette) vs BILL TABB & BILL MULKEY
-I guess the idea is that each team gets a turn at murdering a Mulkey here to determine the rightful champions.

-Elbow off the top by Bobby Eaton. Dennis rolls him over to Bill Tabb and forces a tag just so he can beat up a fresh man. Dennis gets him down to the mat and rubs his face in it. Suplex follows. Mulkey tags back in and Bobby punts him in the chest. Bobby finishes with a legdrop.

PRO WRESTLING ILLUSTRATED SCOUTING REPORT
-They hyped this the entire show as the “debut edition” and Bill Apter opens it up by welcoming us to “another edition.” He mentions that last week’s segment got such a positive response with guest Magnum TA that they asked Magnum to return for a second interview. Well this is already the most well-thought out triumph of planning and scheduling ever.

-Magnum says he felt throughout 1985 that he was getting all of the pieces he needed to be a World Champion, and now hopefully in 1986, he can put the pieces together.

-Together, they look at a series of clips from the TV Title tournament in Atlanta last weekend. Magnum gives Arn his props and says he will have to deal with him eventually in 1986. He admits to being reluctant to ever wrestle Tully Blanchard again, however, because he doesn’t feel good about the type of person he turned into while fighting Tully. They touch on Bobby Jaggers, who concerns Magnum because he recently went from being a fan favorite to a hated rulebreaker. Ted DiBiase is a heck of a scientific wrestler and Magnum would eagerly sign for a match with him.

-We actually take a break and come back! Good lord. They discuss Nikita Koloff and agree that he’s one of the best wrestlers in the world today, although his “seek and destroy” strategy is terrifying. Magnum says that the reason he goes in for the kill on his TV matches so quickly is because he makes a concerted effort to save his strength for matches against Nikita, for exactly that reason.

-Weirdest thing ever, as Bill says “This is the portion of the show where the fans have a chance to ask their favorite wrestler a question…so here’s Ron Garvin answering a question from a fan.” So Magnum just has to sit there quietly while we take a sharp left turn to listening to Ron Garvin talking about hunting at length. Oh my god, this segment literally went about fifteen minutes.

-Baby Doll is here. She’s not here to make dinner or make babies. The cage match is signed and she promises Ric is getting a bone broken real soon.

MID-ATLANTIC TITLE: KHRUSHER KHRUSHCHEV (Champion, with Ivan Koloff) vs SAM HOUSTON
-Clothesline staggers Houston. Khrusher goes to work on the arm, but Houston reverses. Khrusher mows him down with a shoulderblock, but Houston trips him and has him locked in a drop toehold. Khrushchev gets free, but then tries to kick Houston. Houston just holds onto the boot and reapplies the hold, and Khrusher reacts like he can’t believe how stupid that was.

-Khrushchev gets free again and goes for an atomic drop, but Houston lands on his feet, sweeps the leg, and reapplies the hold again, and now Khrusher REALLY seems exasperated by how this is going for him. Khrushchev gets free and goes for an elbow, but he misses, and Houston goes back to the toehold again, and Khrusher literally facepalms while selling. This would be a boring match if it wasn’t for the selling. Khrusher is telling a good story here.

-Back from commercial, Khrusher launches Houston into space on a press slam to take control. Nikita, with a chain around his neck, shows up for moral support, so win or lose, you know Houston is getting murdered with that thing after the bell.

-Houston dodges a corner charge and kicks the leg. Khrusher stiffens his leg as firmly as possible to avoid going down and then tosses Houston out to the floor. He press slams Houston face-first on the concrete and drags him back inside. Sickle from the top rope by Khrusher, but his leg is so hurt after all the toeholds that he needs a LITTLE extra time to go for the pin, and that’s enough for Sam to kick out.

-Road Warriors show up outside the ring and MAUL the Koloffs. Khrusher tosses Houston out of the ring, but Animal throws Sam right back into the ring. Houston lands on Koloff and gets the three-count out of nowhere, and the fans FLIP as Sam Houston wins the gold. Brawl threatens to break out, so Dusty & Magnum show up to fend them off, and the Russians retreat. THAT is the way to do this. Let Houston have his moment. He can always get murdered next week.

-Road Warriors brag about stealing Nikita’s chain, and promise that a lesson-teaching is a’coming.

TELEVISION TITLE: ARN ANDERSON vs JIM JEFFERS
-Ooooh, COULD lightning strike twice?!

-Arn works over the shoulder whil Baby Doll comes back out and says she just wants to watch. Arn gets distracted and Jeffers rolls him up for two. That would be your finish today. Arn wastes no time after that, finishing with the Gourdbuster, and hurrying over to take his belt back. Why does Dusty need a woman doing his talking? He demands Dusty come to the ring, and Dusty obliges, which Arn totally wasn’t expecting. Arn gets in the ring, puts up his dukes…and then walks away.

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

Another sensational episode from this group, as again, they had a hot angle steering the entire program and it just WORKED that way.