Universal Wrestling Federation (10.31.1987) Review

-Cold open: A Steve Williams music video, highlighting Steve Williams and HIS GOOD FRIEND DUSTY RHODES on the night that Williams became UWF Champion. DUSTY RHODES.

-Originally aired October 31, 1987.

-Your hosts are Magnum TA and Missy Hyatt.

-We’ve abandoned the news studio format, with Magnum and Missy now in the arena, and the chyrons, the camera angles, the lighting, the staging…this is a Jim Crockett show with nothing distinguishing the promotion at all.

-BREAKING: The Sheepherders are the new UWF Tag Team Champions.

-Jim Ross is at ringside with the new champions, and JR is so disgusted with the way that the Sheepherders won the titles that “we won’t go into it.” Thank god, that might have accidentally been interesting.

MICHAEL P.S. HAYES & GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious) vs. THE RED DEVIL & THE ENFORCER
-Devil gets rammed from turnbuckle to turnbuckle. Dropkick and a bulldog end this with speed.

-We get a local commercial for War Games IV, a house show in Nassau Coliseum the night before Starrcade. On paper, it actually sounds like a better card than Starrcade, but then a few years ago, John McAdam did a whole podcast about how he was in attendance for the War Games IV card and how bad it ended up sucking.

STARRCADE ’87 CONTROL CENTER
-Tony Schiavone is in the control center with Jim Crockett, Arn Anderson, and Tully Blanchard. In another room that looks like the bar at a Knights of Columbus chapter, Sandy Scott is sitting with JJ Dillon and Paul Ellering, who sign the contracts for Arn & Tully to defend the World Tag Team Title against the Road Warriors. Tully says that no matter how many weights these guys lift, they each only weigh about 280, and Arn & Tully are strong enough to hoist 280 pounds together for a double gourdbuster.

RON GARVIN (NWA World Champion) vs. GARY YOUNG
-Gary is just a straight-up jobber here after a few months of breaking through and looking like he might be a star in the early months of the transition. Right hand knocks Gary cold for a quick three-count. I’m not going to go through a novel explaining that Gary Young was the next big thing, but this is why it’s sad to watch a wrestling promotion die. The surviving promotions only have so many spots, and you see all these guys who maybe could have become something more with time and seasoning, and they’re just left to slip through the cracks.

-Jim Ross interviews Paul Jones, who refuses to comment on allegations that things aren’t going well with his new charge, Mighty Wilbur, who’s too friendly and polite to do the things that Paul Jones wants him to do. We go to NWA Pro. Paul Jones orders him to be vicious and not shake hands with snot-nosed kids, and Mighty Wilbur just laughs at him and calls him a puddinghead. Paul Jones yells that Wilbur is a fruit picker. “Puddinghead” and “Fruit picker” are your stakes in this feud, folks.

IVAN KOLOFF & THE WARLORD (with Paul Jones) vs. DAVEY HASKINS & TERRY JONES
-Koloff beats on Haskins while the commentators work on getting “Puddinghead” over as a thing to chant at Paul Jones. Warlord tags in and drops a big leg. Military press into a backbreaker by Warlord. He holds Jones in a body vice and Ivan comes off the second rope with an axehandle to finish things. Warlord is such a strange case. He is a very convincing monster for somebody to slay and seems like a guy who could have/should have had a house show run against Hulk Hogan eventually, but SOMETHING was missing and he just never got over to that level.

-Weird promo where Sting is at ringside running down his opponents for Starrcade, including Eddie Gilbert. Meanwhile, Eddie is DIRECTLY BEHIND HIM getting ready for the next match, and nothing happens between them.

NWA TV TITLE: NIKITA KOLOFF (Champion) vs. EDDIE GILBERT
-Eddie stalls and stalls. They finally lock up and Nikita knocks him out to the floor with a bonk on the head. Pause for a break. Thank god, I needed a breather.

-We return to a side headlock by Nikita, and we take our sweet time with that until the crowd starts to rebel on this. There’s even a small “Eddie” chant going up. So Eddie gets free and elbows Nikita, but Nikita shakes it off and goes back to the side headlock as JR suspects that Nikita’s game plan is to work the head. That’s how little JR has to work with. We pause for ANOTHER commercial.

-We’re back from the break with Eddie choking Nikita over the rope, and JR has to hastily explain “Yeah, all this cool stuff happened during the break with a brawl on the floor” but now we have both guys staggering around to sell how tired they are. They go off the ropes and collide for the double knockout spot. Nikita recovers but misses a corner charge. Eddie puts something on his hand and takes a swing, but Nikita ducks and Eddie punches the turnbuckle. Nikita spins right around and connects with the Russian sickle, with Eddie doing the worst sell for that move of Nikita’s entire career.

-But before we have time to swell, Terry Taylor runs in and clonks Nikita with the UWF TV Title belt, but Dusty Rhodes arrives on the scene for back-up, and Terry Taylor gets laid out with a more impressive sickle.

-Dusty and Nikita holler for a minute or two, and Missy earns her paycheck by saying “We’ll be right back” afterward.

LEX LUGER (U.S. Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs. DALE LAPEYROUSE
-Powerslam by Lex, and the torture rack ends it in seconds.

-Ric Flair joins JJ and Lex at ringside. They are going all-in on War Games IV at Nassau Coliseum, as they’ve spent more time on that than on Starrcade this week.

RON SIMMONS & SHANE DOUGLAS vs. JIVE TONES
-We have two minutes to go in the hour as the Jive Tones double-team Douglas. Ron Simmons tags in and cleans house, with JR declaring that Ron Simmons could be one of the top black athletes in wrestling, weirdly, while Simmons is duking it out with Pez Whatley, who turned heel because of that phrasing.

-And they all lived happily ever after, end of show.

3.1

The final score: review Bad

The 411

So basically this is Jim Crockett's...what, R-show now?