August 1984

Man, I love this matchup. Young Punk Choshu was the best. You can say what you want about Inoki, but he was great at portraying himself as an untouchable badass. You look at some of the stuff Inoki does here and it's no wonder people thought he was a genius. He also always has these crazy facial expressions. I think the first 15 minutes or so of this didn't even have a bump but still ended up mesmerizing pro wrestling. This was worked like a technical battle of megastars so that was really cool. Both guys struggled hard and every movement could possibly lead to a finish which is exactly what you want from a match with really high stakes. Choshu was aggressive and really p…

I believe this is a new match too, and I was at this show. This was pretty interesting. Chavo has so many variations on the suplex. Fantastics had a really strong shine sequence. They did a great job working the arm and the crowd lost it later on a double row, row, row the boat spot. The heat segments were really weird. Instead of a good sized one on Fulton. We got 3 short ones on Fulton. Still I liked good far outweighed the bad. 3 1/2*

Nothing to this, goes a few minutes and Lothario squashes Budrow with the supersock punch. But it is always cool seeing Jose punch a dude out. Landell sells it like a man, of course. The Guerrerros jump Jose afterwards and Buddy gets a few shots in there as retribution. Enjoying this latin pop explosion '84 feud here.

This is a card I believe I attended back in the day. This match was really good, and super heated. Ladd opens up on top and uses all his bag of tricks . From trunk pulls, hair pulling, eye gouging. So Ladd is just generating tons of heat by working smart. So when TA makes his comeback the place becomes un glued. All of this is amazing. Ladd cuts him off with a foreign object. I'm loving all of this. They build to a super heated finish. 3 1/4*

Available on the Network, Vault WCCW 1984. Episode 138, August 18, 1984

"The Battle of the Behemoths" This is one of those PWO challenges where these guys wrestled so many times that there had to be at least one of them that doesn't stink, right? The best work I've seen from Studd is on the Garbage Tapes and those are usually partial clips. This is hardly worked as the title in quotes above from the ring announcer would suggest. Instead, Studd stays outside the ring and plays chickenshit a lot only to come back in for chin locks and front face locks and not much else from Andre. They run that same basic sequence three times but it does result in a decent chop fest when Studd does finally come at Andre with blows. Studd blocks the slam by…

Worth watching as a historical document and a social study on wrestling audiences. The Philly sports crowd is infamous of course, but Backlund had his detractors in every market by this point. It's not a majority of the fanbase in any sense, but a vocal minority at times is palpable. At this stage in the game, though, with Bob long since associated with the strap and working opening spots in face-vs-face exhibitions, it just comes off as fickle behavior from spoiled fans. Bellomo keeps up around on the mat with Backlund and they do some entertaining work, almost lucha comedy stuff, with both guys trying to out-nice the other. The action is therefore very tenuous since the…

A vast improvement from their MSG match the previous month and easily one of the best Hogan title defenses so far. We know Valentine is competent enough to go but what makes this good is Hogan actually gives him quite a bit of offense and let's him cut off the first hulk-up. There's a decent amount of legwork building toward a figure four that never gets applied before the lariat/legdrop hits the mark. ***

Video Before the match, we go backstage to what feels like must be the first instance of a black limousine pulling up to a wrestling arena. If only Shiavone had somehow been on Vince's radar at this point this would feel just like Nitro. From inside the limo comes Cindy Lauper and David Wolf, followed by the Freebirds as Skynyrd starts playing to a big pop. And sure enough, we even get the Goldberg entrance as the camera follow NWO Stars and Bars and their MTV entourage all the way to the ring. Thoughtfully, the Birds are decked out in their shiny Green Bay Packers-colored robes instead of the Rebel gear they're known to sport. They get a good pop despite not being o…

aired live on PRISM Network; TNT - 8/21/84 Guest referee Freddie Blassie is your tell here. Tito is currently Intercontinental Champion and very over with the Philly crowd. Some good stuff here from the heels as Blassie actually plays it fair and prevents Sheik from using a closed fist, only to piss Sheik off in the process as he throws a hissy fit. The contrast between Tito's lightning fast rope run and crossbody segment with Blassie's slowcount is fun too. More good shine action and another slow count. Sheik's normal boot stomps during the heat segment but Tito's selling and hope spots are always top notch. Now Blassie of course works a fastcount on Sheik's offense…

Crusher & Baron defend the AWA World Tag Team Titles against Hawk & Animal

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Rick Martel vs Nick Bockwinkel - AWA 8/16/84 Martel versus Bockwinkel has all the makings of a classic championship series that has been overlooked due to AWA not being a sexy territory until a resurgence of interest from the AWA DVDVR project. I have watched a couple of their matches in the past, but I can't remember which ones so I am basically starting fresh. Six matches made the AWA set, but I will be starting with the three highest ranked ones and when I have more time, I will go back and watch the other three. The first match we see is the first match to make the set since Martel has won the title from Jumbo Tsuruta and is being conte…

Ric Flair defends the NWA World Heavyweight title, from the Superdome in New Orleans Holy crap!!! Why don't people talk about this match??? Another excellent chapter in the Flair-Kerry feud. This aired on Power Pro Volume 12, 11/24/84. Based on the time calls, the match goes about 28 minutes. It is JIP and clipped by commercial breaks, but we get 13:30 of the match, plus another 3 minutes of a big extended brawl afterwards. This was pretty great. I wish it was complete.

Great match. Backlund worked well in New Japan. Some people reproach Choshu for being too focused on the sharpshooter. He's not in that match.

More of an injury angle than a real match but they draw some good heat here. A quick sprint with a lot of brawling results in a bloody Piper catching Snuka off the top and hooking his body over the ropes to seemingly break his neck. Superfly is stretchered out to keep this thing going.

Very interesting face/face match featuring guys they really weren't doing a whole lot with other than filling the underneath slots. I wonder if Vince put this together to see potential in either as guys who can have a bigger place in the card. Bellomo heels up a little more but I didn't get the feeling the crowd was anything but split in terms of the reaction.

Tiger Mask II vs La Fiera - AJPW 8/26/84 For what ever reason, I have never been interested in watching 80s Misawa, this is literally my first ever 80s Misawa match. For all intents & purposes, in my mind, his career started on 5/26/90. I am looking to start back up my All Japan watching in 1986, but I just wanted to double check I didnt miss anything from the first six years and this was the only major match I didnt see. So I came back to cross it off. La Fiera translates to Wild One or Wild Beast. He was not what I was expecting. He is an unmasked, leather-clad, chain-donning, punk luchador very hip for 1984. Sub-ten minute match, tons of fun. If you like …

Hulk Hogan & Gene Okerlund vs George Steele & Mr. Fuji WWF Minneapolis, MN August 26, 1984 Availability Best of the WWF Vol. 1 VHS WWE Hulk Still Rules DVD

This was an extended squash, but boy was this fun. A total showcase for Street. We see him plant a kiss on McCord and then just work every body part. He worked the leg, arm, manipulated joints. He used nasty knees, and elbows. He just treated McCord like he owes Street a lot of money. McCord got a flash of offense in and the crowd erupts. Street wins though with a leg grapevine pin. Fun stuff and worth watching.

I thought this was a solid match. I really loved Buddy's robe. This was a short effective match . I thought Buddy was great with his mannerisms. They kept the match basic.

This was a showcase match for Ladd. He's getting heat right off the bat by teasing he was hiding a foreign object. I love Ladd as a heel. He's a big guy who still resorts to cheating. Pretty much Ladd used his size to work over Crews. Crews though shows plenty of fire to keep the match interesting. Their is one camera shot of Ladd eating a stiff drop kick in the chest. Good showcase match.

This was interesting, and the guys worked hard. The match was super heated. I wouldn't consider this a good match though. At times the strikes were good. Then at times Hercules strikes looked terrible. We got a lot of pole spots. When it was on the mat and ringside we got a fun brawl. Though the match had drama, and post match a killer Cornette promo building to a hair match.

Man this match might have had 6 moves used between the wrestlers. This was all about the psychology and crowd heat. Right off the bat Darsow wants to shake hands and the crowd boos the shit out of that. Lothario's punches are so over he's able to tease the punch throughout. This is very similar to how Jake would tease the DDT. Right off the bat Lothario misses a huge punch. Darsow would work the arm trying to take out Lothario's upper cut. Lothario would tease the punch and Darsow would back peddle. I loved the finish how it became 2 guys trying to knock each other out with punches. I'm sure you can guess how this ended. 3 1/4*