Universal Wrestling Federation (12.26.1987) Review

-And here we are at the end of the road. The death of UWF television is actually about a month late because they stopped doing TV tapings in November and just held onto the title. So the final chapter of the company is just another episode of another company’s story.

-Cold open: Mighty Wilbur takes on Arn, Tully, and JJ. They overwhelm him until Lex Luger comes to the rescue. Mighty Wilbur’s listing on Cagematch is so odd. His career spans 72 matches, just enough time for him to get an established character, a feud, a push, and a momentum-derailing injury.

-Originally aired December 26, 1987.

-Your hosts are Missy Hyatt, Jim Ross, and Bob Caudle. It’s amazing how Missy’s entire role on these later shows is to just say “Welcome to the show, and now here are the commentators,” and that’s IT.

-Arn & Tully have something to say: Lex Luger did not quit the Four Horsemen. He got kicked out!

LARRY ZBYSZKO (with Baby Doll) vs. JOE LYNN
-Larry is feuding with Barry Windham, so naturally the commentary is about Dusty Rhodes’ big career comeback as the new U.S. Champion. They’re pretty much just looking right past Barry and teasing that Larry is going to feud with Dusty soon, and I’m sure they have a great, compelling storyline to build interest for that one.

-The Bunkhouse Stampede, Jan. 24 at the Nassau Coliseum. Buy your tickets now, bell time 7:00 pm! This is a different promo from the one that aired on the December 5 episodes! They actually made a new promo and got the bell time wrong again on the new promo! And indeed, ticket sales are so hotcake-like that this new promo is offering a special discount for groups of 40 or more! I cannot name 40 people that I personally know that I would be able to convince to come to a pay-per-view show so we can get the group rate. And just because I’m fallible and I know I’ve left some typos just sitting out there…it’s a group rate for 40 people, not 4. FORTY. And the real icing on the cake here: Any group of 40 or more that buys tickets with the group rate will also receive free tickets for a bus trip to a casino in Atlantic City.

-Larry and Baby Doll warn Dusty that he’s like Samson, because he’s not bull of the woods.

STING vs. GLADIATOR #2
-I’m not sure I ever told this but for the 10 seconds that I worked in local news, I did a story about a local wrestling show, and George South was sincerely surprised and delighted that the reporter interviewing him for the story addressed him as “Gladiator #2.”

-Sting dropkicks Gladiator out to the floor. Back in, Gladiator throws some punches, but Sting reverses an Irish whip. Splash and the deathlock wrap it up.

-Tony Schiavone talks to Lex Luger. Sometimes in life, situations fall upon us, and the bottom line is, when you get right down to it, situations happen sometimes in life, and the fact of the matter is, sometimes in life you experience a situation and it ends up happening to you. I have to be honest, if I was Jim Crockett Jr. and I heard this promo, I’d feel my shirt sticking to my back when it was over.

“Hot Stuff” EDDIE GILBERT (with Terry Taylor) vs. DENNY BROWN
-Terry has one foot out the door here, working on TV taping before heading off to redder pastures. Hot shot finishes real fast, which surprises me. Denny was one of the guys who usually got token offense.

MIGHTY WILBUR & RON GARVIN vs. CURTIS THOMPSON & BOB EMORY
-Wilbur offers a friendly handshake, and Curtis slaps it away. Curtis applies a side headlock, and Wilbur just plants him on the top rope and tags in Garvin. Garvin goes to work with the chops and the hands of stone, and Wilbur closes this one out with a big splash.

-Ric Flair is looking ahead to 1988, and it’s a shame that Lex Luger was going to be such a big star, but now he’s screwed it up by picking fights with Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Also, Road Warrior Hawk doesn’t scare the champ. Woo!

NIKITA KOLOFF (TV Champion) vs. GARY ROYAL
-Royal attacks Nikita from behind and pays for it, getting his head rammed into the turnbuckle repeatedly, and the sickle wraps it up. I think we should do some scientific study on why it takes 45 seconds to defeat a jobber in an arena, but it takes 9 minutes to defeat the same jobber in the WTBS studio.

-Missy Hyatt says that Paul Jones talks about how his men are tougher than the Road Warriors. Animal strenuously refutes this assertion. And Hawk warns Ric Flair, “the king clam head,” that he’s going down.

THE WARLORD (with Ivan Koloff & Paul Jones) vs. GEORGE SOUTH
-Wardrobe change for Mr. South!

-Big boot and choke by Warlord. Press slam and a belly-to-belly suplex by Warlord, and a bearhug gets the submission.

-Steve Williams, holding some sort of title belt, says that a lot of guys sit around drinking beer and alcohol while he worked out, and now he’s going to New York City to win the Bunkhouse Stampede. I have to assume that native New Yorkers look at Dr. Death talking about going to the Nassau Coliseum in New York City, and they feel the same way I do when I hear people talking about Disneyland being in the Los Angeles area.

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (U.S. Tag Team Champions, with Jim Cornette & Big Bubba Rogers) vs. KENDALL WINDHAM & ITALIAN STALLION
-Another glimpse of a single foot out the door, as Bubba’s gone before the Bunkhouse Stampede.

-Cornette rants about the rednecks in attendance as Kendall almost kills poor Bobby Eaton. He stands up way too late after a criss-cross spot, so there’s no way for Bobby to get in the air for a leapfrog in time, so Kendall tries to turn it into a backdrop and almost drops Bobby on his head. Bobby gets the hell out of that ring.

-Stan Lane tags in and the Midnights attempt a double-team, but Stan Lane gets slammed down. Stallion tags in and takes down Stan. Double-teaming works slightly better on Stallion, so Kendall comes back in and gets a near-fall, but he’s too close to the ropes. We pause for a commercial!

-Back from the break, the Express double-teams Kendall while Jim Cornette predicts that his men will end Dusty Rhodes’ career. Kendall keeps getting near-falls on the champions. Midnights try to wear him down with holds, and it works, with an abdominal stretch and a chinlock, but Kendall makes a hot tag to Italian Stallion, which is a pretty rare combination of words for a sentence. Stallion hammers away but misses a corner charge, and the rocket launcher wraps it up. Good bit of business for all involved.

-We close the show with the Midnight Express and Jim Cornette cutting a promo, so at least the era is coming to a close with a tag team that broke through in Mid-South. Still, the death of this wasn’t even INTERESTING. It wasn’t a botched invasion like 2001. They weren’t even that creative, they just let the UWF rot while making some use out of the company name periodically. Still, though, as somebody who started watching wrestling in 1989 and drank the WWF Kool-Aid for so long, I ended up loving this promotion for the nuance and detailed continuity in their storytelling, the pacing of the TV shows, and the hard-hitting style of the in-ring action. This company was something special.

5.6

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Feature bout brought the goods, not much elsewhere.