WWWF All-Star Wrestling (4.15.1978) Review

-Originally aired April 15, 1978.

-Your host is Vince McMahon.

DINO BRAVO & DOMINIC DENUCCI (Tag Team Champions) vs. THE UNPREDICTABLE JOHNNY RODZ & JOSE ESTRADA
-Jobbers overwhelm Dino in their corner. DeNucci hot tags in and backdrops Estrada. Dino, fully recovered, tags back in and cleans house. Dino and Dominic actually gang up on Rodz to get back at the jobbers for earlier, and Vince assures us that Rodz would normally be capable of defeating any of them one-on-one. Gotta protect Johnny Rodz.

-So now DeNucci is the one who gets caught in the wrong corner and the jobbers take turns holding him down and crashing on top of him from the turnbuckles. Another hot tag to Dino Bravo, and it’s weird seeing him clean house with flying headscissors and dropkicks. Airplane spin by DeNucci gets the win. Actually pretty enjoyable back-and-forth action.

“The Iron Greek” SPIROS ARION (with Fred Blassie) vs. DENNIS JOHNSON
-Arion’s nickname here makes me wonder if anyone ever thought to ask him about his feelings on Brian Blair.

-Arion gets Johnson on the mat and holds him down for a bit before releasing and hammering him with uppercuts. Some great shtick from Fred Blassie, who riles up the crowd by winding up the cane like a baseball bat and waiting for the perfect moment to take his cheap shot, right up until the referee spots him. So Blassie wanders over to commentary and recaps an angle that we missed in the past month, as he offered Bob Backlund a blank check in exchange for signing him as a manager; Backlund jerked him around on the deal before swerving him and signing Arnold Skaaland as his manager instead. I’m sure that sounds like a great angle, but it’s babyface Backlund so it probably played out as “mumble mumble mumble great opportunity mumble mumble going to be managed by Mister Skaaland instead.” Body vice finishes soon after.

-Vince talks to Arion and Blassie after the match, and Blassie vows that he’ll manage the WWWF Champion before long, if Backlund has the guts to put his John Henry on the contract. I swear, Botchamania could do 20 full minutes of just guys saying “John Henry” instead of “John Hancock.” I’ve been watching for 32 years now and have NEVER heard anyone in wrestling say it right. From there, Blassie does a whole set on Haystacks Calhoun and Vince is trying to conceal how much he loves it.

CHIEF PETER MAIVIA & SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES vs. STAN STASIAK & BUTCHER VACHON (with The Grand Wizard)
-Well this certainly doesn’t bode well for the Super Chiefs as a tag team.

-Vachon rakes away at Maivia. Stasiak tags in and works the arm until Maivia remembers the presence of his second arm and punches free. Jones tags in and delivers punches in an extremely special manner. Vachon rights back, choking SD. Stasiak heads back in and applies a nerve hold. Vachon tries to finish but runs into a gut shot and SD tags Maivia back in. Maivia and Stasiak criss-cross and put on the brakes at the same moment, and we get a cute moment where heel & babyface both take a moment to acknowledge how smart the other one was. SD lights up his opponents with headbutts and the bell sounds for the 10 minute time limit draw. Yeah, this recap covered ten minutes’ worth of stuff. So…that should give you an idea.

HANDICAP MATCH: KEN PATERA (with Captain Lou Albano) vs. TED ADAMS & MIKE MADERO
-Captain Lou still has that stupid whistle with him, and I feel like there’s some hilarious undiscovered story about why he stopped using it, like he forgot to put it down while eating a sandwich and accidentally ingested it or something.

-Jobbers gang up on Patera while Albano vows that Patera will exact revenge on Bob Backlund for signing with Arnold Skaaland instead of accepting the Captain’s offer. He hustles back to the ring when he releases that the jobbers are actually beating the hell out of Patera and sending him out to the floor. Albano tries to intervene and ends up taking bumps for the jobbers!

-Jobbers keep putting the fight to Patera and again he ends up on the floor. Back in, Patera manages to fling one jobber out to the floor and quickly locks a full nelson on the other one to end it. Weird, abrupt match, possibly for a good reason.

STRONG KOBAYASHI (with Fred Blassie) vs. FRANK RODRIGUEZ
-…Because Vince is talking REALLY fast as the bell sounds. Kobayashi rushes right to Rodriguez and chops him again and again, and a big suplex finishes in about 30 seconds. Worth noting that Kobayashi forgot to wait for the three-count, so the referee just counts two, stares at him awkwardly, and then raises his arm.

6.0

The final score: review Average

The 411

The tag match in the middle of the show is a dead zone but the rest was fine.