UWF Power Pro Wrestling (6.8.1986) Review

-Originally aired June 8, 1986.

-Your host is Jim Ross.

-We go to the Fabulous Freebirds’ “Can’t Stop Rockin'” music video, with a great soundbite of Terry just saying “Yeah.” Not “YEAH!” like you’d have in a rock video, it’s just him saying “Yeah” at the start of a sentence and they used it for a music video.

UWF HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE TOURNAMENT, ROUND 1: BRETT WAYNE SAWYER vs. JACK VICTORY
-We go to the Sam Houston Coliseum to review some of the action from the big one-night tournament. JR and Paul Boesch are doing commentary tonight in hopes of providing a sufficient dictionary definition of “Style Clash.”

-Sawyer gets an early edge on this one, but Victory fights back with elbows and takes Sawyer down to the mat for a chinlock. Sawyer breaks with forearms but crashes on a failed dropkick. Victory applies a chinlock while JR and Paul tout a house show in Houston on Friday the 13th with the AWA Title being defended, even though the UWF is currently in the tank for the NWA, so the WWF really has sufficiently messed things up for everyone at this point.

-Sawyer comes back with dropkicks but crashes on an attempted bodypress, but Victory finishes with a gourdbuster for three to advance in the tournament.

-And now we get a house show promo for the Superdome on Friday the 13th, with Ric Flair defending the NWA Title!

MAX THE MISSING LINK (with Skandar Akbar) vs. MIKE BOND
-We’re going back to 1983, and this match is noteworthy for the unfinished business on both ends of the ring. Mike Bond is one of those guys in the wrestling business that you see on these old shows who the promoters clearly had an eye on and seemed to be on his way up the ladder in the wrestling business, and then he just suddenly wasn’t there one day. And on the other side of the ring, there’s “Max” the Missing Link, from an angle they spent months building where everybody kept commenting that the Missing Link looked familiar for some reason and people were trying to figure out why it seemed like they recognized him from somewhere else in the past…and then there was never a payoff to that.

-Bond rams Max into the turnbuckle, and Max just likes it and rams his own head into the turnbuckle. He tries a splash off the second rope, but Bond evades it. Bond reverses an Irish whip and snapmares Max. Inside cradle by Bond, but he fights out and the commentators are shocked at how damn good the jobber is doing here. Max slams him down but misses a diving headbutt. Bond throws lefts and snapmares Link for a one-count. Link takes Bond down as Jim Ross gives us the two-minute warning.

-Backdrop by Max. He goes for another one, but Bond kicks him away. He runs into a dropkick, though, and Max headbutts the lower back repeatedly to just barely get a three-count before TV time runs out. This is an area where Mid-South just continues to shine: Bond lost that clean as a sheet, but in a way that actually elevated him. He’s kind-of a star now.

ONE MAN GANG vs. WENDELL COOLEY
-From Wrestlefest ’85 at the Tulsa Fairgrounds. Since the last time we saw Gang in Mid-South, he’s gone off to WCCW and totally reinvented himself to the mohawk and skull & crossbones look. The ring is well-miked and OMG makes it completely worth the effort, complaining to the referee because the ref is only checking him for weapons and not Cooley. Referee recites the rules and Gang indignantly responds, “I KNOW the rules, idiot!”

-Gang elbows and clubs away at Cooley. Avalanche by Gang, but surprisingly instead of going for the pin, Gang goes for a second avalanche and misses. Cooley throws chops and dropkicks. Cooley goes for the bodypress and Gang “catches” him in a finish gone horribly wrong, and a splash by Gang ends it, with Cooley kicking out right after the three probably because the finish looked so bad.

UWF CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT FINALS, NO DISQUALIFICATION: HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs. TERRY GORDY (with Michael Hayes)
-So the set-up here is that Duggan had a semi-finals match with Kamala, and Kamala posted him and busted him open, so Duggan is thoroughly battered by this point, but he’s in there anyway. And the finals are no-DQ just to ensure that there will be a winner.

-One Man Gang shows up and demands the mic. He wants this match called off because he was in Dallas three hours ago and found out that the UWF was having a tournament for their new title tonight and for SOME reason he wasn’t booked for it. Gang knows he could beat Gordy or Duggan any time and demands a match against whoever gets the win here.

-Duggan says we might as well just have a brawl right now, and Paul Boesch correctly says this was an incredibly stupid thing for Duggan to do. The brawl goes out to the floor and back in the ring, as referees frantically try to break it up, and Terry Gordy is doing the smartest possible thing, just hanging out in the ring and letting them fight while he rests up from his previous matches.

-Duggan and Gang go back out to the floor and Gang manages to reopen Duggan’s wound from the semi-final. Duggan grabs a chair and just pastes it to Gang’s skull with no holding back. They finally get the brawl broken up, and Duggan was granted a five-minute rest period by the UWF and the option of not wrestling the match, but even with a head wound and a concussion, Duggan wanted that title, so he goes back out to the ring to finish this thing.

-We we fast-forward to some amount of time into the match, with Duggan having taken a beating but gradually making a comeback with a series of lefts and rights. Duggan punches him hard enough for the bandages to fly off his own head in a nice dramatic visual. Duggan spears Gordy, but he’s absolutely out of it after all this and doesn’t have the wherewithall to pin him in time. Duggan goes for another spear, but Gordy throws him through the ropes and onto the floor, and Hayes rams Duggan into the post AGAIN. And Gordy drags Duggan’s lifeless body into the ring and piledrives him to get the three-count and win the title. More of an angle than an actual match, but really good storytelling here.

TERRY TAYLOR vs. THE NIGHTMARE (with Sir Oliver Humperdink)
-From back in January. Nightmare has since left for the WWF and is there as Moondog Rex at the time that we’re seeing this match.

Taylor is a house of fire to start as Bill Watts excitedly mentions all the TV markets that are now carrying the syndicated Mid-South show, including TV stations in Atlanta, Dallas, and Memphis. Turn up the volume and you can hear Vince McMahon chuckling and counting his money as Watts excitedly makes the point that he’s not confining the company to a territory anymore.

TV TITLE: BUZZ SAWYER (Champion, with Rick Steiner) vs. TERRY TAYLOR (with Chavo Guerrero)
-So Terry is clearly expecting some trouble, and he got a second to keep an eye on Steiner.

-Taylor gets Sawyer down on the mat and applies a side headlock. Bodypress by Taylor gets two. He snapmares Sawyer back down for a side headlock. Backdrop and a dropkick send Sawyer to the floor, as he’s having a disastrous night so far. Sawyer finally gets something going, suplexing Taylor but missing a top rope splash. Slam by Taylor, but when he goes for the kill, Steiner trips him from the floor. Sawyer goes for the pin at that point, but Chavo retaliates by jerking Taylor’s ankle onto the bottom rope. The credits start rolling and we get the “We are desperately outta time!” sign-off, but PLOT TWIST, Taylor cradles Sawyer and gets the three-count, winning the title right as the show ends.

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

Another great week for the B-show.