January 1986

Martial Arts Rounds match. Talk about it here.

Some stuff has been written about the racial politics of this feud before that I won’t get into again, but it’s definitely evident and interesting to follow. Slater goads Reed into putting the North American title on the line, with the stipulation that if Reed wins, he gets the services of Dark Journey for 90 days. This is a terrific TV match. Slater didn’t make much of an impression with me the first time around on the Mid South set, but this match was solid. I loved Slater’s elbow cutoff when Butch put his head down for the back body drop when Slater came off the ropes. They cut a hard pace in this one. Slater ends up winning after pulling the tights, but Tommy Gilbert …

I’m used to seeing Maeda in more of an elder statesman role based on 90s watching, and Maeda-Takada tends to go long in their 1990 series. Many of the matches are great, no doubt, but seeing them do a 10-minute version of their match with Maeda more grounded in his actual heyday makes for a really nice contrast. It’s easy to see why this style got over as something new and different at the time. It’s really just a modernized version of 70s style matwork, but it feels fresh because of the dynamic personalities and the faster pace of the matwork. Not in the top handful of matches these two have had against each other, but maybe their most accessible match, and a nice additi…

HANDHELD FOOTAGE ***SPOILER*** NWA TV Championship Tournament Semi-Finals: NWA National Tag Team Champion Arn Anderson pinned Ron Garvin by blocking a backdrop into a sunset flip and grabbing the ropes for leverage at around the 17-minute mark; after the bout, Garvin had a confrontation with Tully Blanchard, who was coming out for the next match

One Night Tournament Finals for the NWA World TV Title

Nontitle Match. HANDHELD FOOTAGE

Ric Flair defends the NWA World Heavyweight Title

First Round of NWA TV Title One Night Tournament, ,

HANDHELD FOOTAGE ***SPOILER*** NWA TV Championship Tournament Semi-Finals: Wahoo McDaniel defeated Tully Blanchard via disqualification at around the 8-minute mark after referee Tommy Young spotted Blanchard hitting McDaniel with a foreign object; after the match, McDaniel cleared Blanchard from the ring

You don't want a five minute match to drag. This was boring, ok when Bart was sloppily throwing Tanaka around in the beginning but then he started doing armwork, and, let me tell you, few things in wrestling make me question spending my time watching it as much as seeing one man punch another one in the arm. I could've at least understood it as a set-up for a face comeback, but as the body of a squash match? Advances in understanding of how actual fighting works only make matches like this look even more stupid. Fast forward material here.

Interview stars out pretty boring kinda like Flair's earlier did, "woah look at me I am so rich and successful and better than that babyface guy", doing pretty much nothing to make me care about the feuds. Then Blanchard starts questioning Baby Doll and they argue and he just slaps her in the face and pulls her hair and suddenly I really care about this. Then Dusty Rhodes comes and, welp "she belongs to me now" he says as he grabs her and pulls her away. I think the morality of this feud is going to be highly questionable but that the feud itself is going to be amusing.

Solid squash match with Magnum T.A. spamming a couple of throws before scoring the pin on a belly to belly. Not as good as the recent Braun Strowman/Nia Jax squashes but certainly better than pointless five minute matches that only last so long because Vince has TV time to fill.

I looked and looked for a source for show dates/cards/results and this is the best I could find: http://wwfoldschool.com/nwa-wcw-world-wide-wrestling-1986/ so if you know better please foind me to a good source so I can use correct dates when creating future threads. Nothing match. Thunderfoot jumps Manny, throws a bunch of shitty punches, Fernandez hits a not particularly impressive Flying Forearm and wins. Moving on.

Enjoyed this way more than the 40 minute Flair "classics" where I wonder what I'm doing with my life twenty minutes in. Simple story of Flair not taking whatever goof Mack Jeffers is and easily taking care of business. Not a fan of his Kneedrop missing and it was funny to see him lose Jeffer's leg on the Figure 4 but other than that I quite enjoyed his performance here. Post match brawl was exciting, wrestlers logically interfered into it and it made me want to see next week's show. **3/4

One thing I can definitely get behind is the victor(s) taking pretty much the entire match. Nothing special here, RNR only breifly lost control of the match when Cornette showed up so they could get a comeback in. Post-match angle with Midnights attacking Morton got a nice amount of heat. Average.

First match from the show I'd describe as worth watching on its own, the previous matches being so one-sided made it this one being worked a little more evenly a bigger deal. Mostly it's about these two throwing quality punches, Bass also hit a mean back elbow. Not really a fan of people other than Fritz Von Erich using the Claw as it never looks good but I won't lose sleep over that. **3/4

Nuclear heat for this because of the angle that took place earlier on the show. This match ruled. Brillinat performance by Tully, there was a lot of armwork on this show but Tully was the first one who made it look good, really cranking the arm but also working it into the match and feeding Brown a counter with it. Tully also did a great job of obstracting the referee's vision to land cheapshots and looked like an intelligent competitor-i.e. he would hit Brown in the head with an elbow when he'd attempt a Back Body Drop, Knee him whe he'd get on top of him etc. There was a sense of struggle that really made this, as there was a feel both men were constantly looking for wa…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs Terry Funk - SNME 1/4/86 It was the Best of Terry Funk in this match as he squeezed all his favorite 1985 spots in one entertaining blockbuster against the Hulkster. I thought this was the better, more refined match from their Philly outing. A lot of the same spots but better organized and they were on the same page. For instance, late in the Philly match after a clothesline, Hogan was clearly thinking elbow drop for the flex and pop. Funk wanted to sell and feed for another bump. Who's right, probably Hogan, but now they were firing on all cylinders. I loved the Funk throwing in a chair and Hogan sitting down calling him …

Randy Savage vs George "The Animal" Steele - SNME 1/4/86 So the love affair begins! Steele completed his face turn in 1985 and Mean Gene found him in the Detroit Zoo, which is silly, but funny. The Ventura/Macho Man segment where Savage throws Liz into the pool to teach her how to swim was the Macho Man at his dickish best. This whole feud really exemplified Macho Man as the jealous, jackass boyfriend. The way he cups her chin, what a fucking asshole. You want to sock him. Steele does his best Tarzan/Jane here. Some fun antics and Macho Man keeps it moving. Savage putting Elizabeth in front of him doesn't work as well because Steele wants to pet her. Steele does the t…

Thefirst fall never gets too heated. Things start off with them working one-up spots in favor of the tecnicos , frustrating the rudos. Solar II and Dandy show each other a modicum of respect in their initial interactions that the other pairings don’t. The rudos’ failings lead to some fun failed-double-team spots and then to some fun failed-triple-team spots that are all fluid and well worked. However it feels like everyone is on cruise control and the action never goes up a gear. The numbers game eventually gets to the tecnicos and this ends in two falls for the rudos.

Sometimes in a pro-wrestling match, certain things occur and you think to yourself "well, fuck, why doesn't he just do (blank)?". Whether it's escaping a sticky predicament or blocking a strike, these things may seem obvious to us, the bystander, but more often than not, instinct goes out the window in favor of "dramatic tension". Well, Fujiwara does (blank) a lot, which is why he's one of the greatest scrappy technicians of all time, and this match exemplifies that awareness. How a simple boot to the ass can be used as a counter to a single leg crab, or turning a shoulder or back to a kick, or snagging an arm off a rear waistlock to avoid a suplex and take control of the…

Skippable match that was more about putting the heat on the manager than anything either wrestler did which was illustrated perfectly by the camera zooming out so much and someone doing a promo over it in the first minute. Barbarian did hit a nice Dropkick but there was too much generic stomping/biting for me to care. Diving Headbutt continues the trend of questionable low impact finishers.

Oooops just realised my mind autocorrects Worldwide to Wildside like it sometimes does MM/DD/YY to DD/MM/YY. I wonder if the complaint about fans in the 80s were that they were too plastic and predictable, kinda like NBA fans are now. Face gets some quasi-shine early on so the crowd buys into the match and then Koloff takes over and goes over. Koloff's offence looked good (him throwing Jeffer's head into the ropes looked particularly nasty) except his finisher which looked lame. Fun if you decide to watch it but not fun enough to make yourself watch it. Almost above average?

A squash match that was fun enough, highlights were a a nice Forearm and a Clothesline, other than that it was pretty much spamming basic unmemorable sequences. Moving on.