February 1986

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Stan Hansen vs Curt Hennig - AWA TV 2/1/86 Finally, it is time for some Curt Hennig in the AWA. I have seen the big match, which I am saving as a Thanksgiving treat for myself, but never seen any of the Hansen matches. Hennig is one half of the AWA tag champs. The beard helps a lot to hide his babyface youth, which I noticed when I watched the AWA way back when. He is a strong white meat babyface in this. He definitely not the overbumping Mr. Perfect. He has fine offense, but he definitely makes his money selling. Hansen has not been successful bumrushing his opponents in America. It usually backfires and leads directly to the shine, whi…

WWF World Tag Team Champions Dream Team vs British Bulldogs - Championship Wrestling 2/1/86 I FINALLY FOUND IT! The coolest finish ever! Bulldog powerslams Beefcake. Valentine comes to interfere he hoists the Hammer into a Fireman's Carry and then Dynamite jumps off Valentine onto Beefcake with a headbutt for three! Thus earning them a tag title shot at WrestleMania! WATCH THIS FINISH!

HANDHELD FOOTAGE *** SPOILER*** NWA TV Champion Arn Anderson pinned Manny Fernandez by grabbing the tights for leverage after the momentum of a crossbody by Fernandez put Anderson on top

Magnum defends the United States title

I have determined that this footage is from a matinee afternoon house show in Charlotte NC, the same day that Midnights win the belts at an evening show in Atlanta. ***Spoiler*** NWA Tag Team Champions Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson defeated Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey when Morton pinned Eaton with a sunset flip into the ring; Eaton & Condrey originally won the match and titles moments earlier when Eaton pinned Gibson after hitting Gibson with Jim Cornette's tennis racquet behind the referee's back but referee Tommy Young ordered the match to continue

HANDHELD FOOTAGE ***SPOILER***Ron Garvin fought Tully Blanchard to a 30-minute time-limit draw; Blanchard was caught in a Boston Crab for the last 15 seconds of the bout; after the contest, Garvin tried to get at JJ Dillon but Blanchard jumped him from behind and hit the slingshot suplex

HANDHELD FOOTAGE

I generally see the previous match get more praise but this is more my speed. The structure of this match is brilliant and with 20+ minutes of heated, logical and nasty tag action you can see how the next generation of AJPW mastered the art of heavyweight tag matches with this foundation. One of my favorite things about this match is how at multiple points it breaks down to grown men straight up slapping each other in the face, and not at all in the modern "test your machismo" kind of way, but in a "I fucking hate you and want to punk you" kind of way. Any time there's a submission that could be seen as a resthold the opposing team breaks it up before it can become tireso…

Interpromotional matches in Japanese pro-wrestling are the best. This part of the New Japan vs. UWF feud and Takada is here to kick butt and to me he is clearly the star of this match. He puts an absolute beating on Yamada just blasting him with slaps, kicks and hitting him with one of the nastiest tombstone piledrivers I’ve ever seen in my life. Takada is not afraid of throwing hands with Inoki either, however the main focus of this is the Yamada beatdown. Kido is perfectly fine in his invading role as well, but he more so just along for the ride.

Maybe not the perfect match but the perfect match-up, and my ideal match, hitting everything I want in a pro-wrestling match. Plenty of snug and effective matwork up front, with the little things executed so well. But the match really delivers after the restart, where you get hard kicks and bodyshots, and Fujiwara working the hell out of his signature armbar, catching Maeda from all angles and transitioning to the double wristlock when he sees the opportunity. Awesome finish too, with Fujiwara grabbing the heel hold and Maeda grabbing the choke as a counter, seeing who can hold out before Fujiwara starts drooling and finally passes out. Great match.

Hey, look... it's two ultra charismatic dudes in a hot battle! This was exactly the kind of uncooperative high-resistance technical contest I like so much. Nothing fancy, just two guys who can grapple hitting the mat hard and battling it out. Give Inoki credit where it's true, there are not a lot of aces who could believably hang with Fujiwara in a match like this, let alone come across as the dominant force. When not on the mat, Inoki would constantly increase the pace by attacking Fujiwara with great looking punches and kicks. It's almost needless to say but Fujiwara's selling and was flawless and he had a ton of great facial expressions and thus came across as the most…

This match was the final of a round-robin league to crown the very first IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. There's nothing new here, but it's a well-done match and a historic one. The opening minutes feature an all-time-great dropkick by Cobra. Check out my full review, as part of the 365 Wrestling project.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

NWA World Tag Team Champions Rock N Roll Express vs Midnight Express - Superstars on the Superstation 2/2/86 Wicked fun! I am a total mark for a big, fun shine and this is just chicken soup for my soul. I loved that MX jumped them and threw them out. You really thought you were going to be robbed of a shine sequence only to have Morton use the ropes to throw them over the top. Then they had a ton of fun spots against the MX running them into each other in a bunch of ways. Once things settle down, the fun does not end. Eaton throws a wicked right and Gibson immediately responds with a punch of his own (Eaton is selling quickly) and a headscissors. Eaton throws Morton o…

Piper starts out the match by hanging some posters of football players. No idea what the context for that is, I went into this match totally cold. Bruno comes in and is still incredibly over. The crowd were incredibly hot for Bruno and everything that he did. He comes in and tosses Piper into all four walls of the cage and busts Piper up early. Bruno rips up the posters and shoves them down Piper's throat and trunks which I thought was kind of funny. Then you have the attempts to escape the cage and it plays off a little more naturally than usual in this match. I thought the struggles to get out the door were actually quite fun. It's fun to see Piper ragdoll and sell for …

WWF Intercontinental Champion Tito Santana vs Randy Savage - Boston 2/8/86 Macho Man is the king of gamesmanship in the ring. He exploits every rule possible and really works into a fever pitch. It begins with going to the ropes to break holds because he cant best Tito on the mat. Then it suckerpunching him and running outside the ring. He is trying to get under Tito's skin. When Tito unloads and he is fiery, Macho Man looks to get the best of him with a double axehandle and Tito catches him. Love how it takes multiple attempts at cheating before Macho Man succeeds. Savage tries to play cat and mouse again Tito overwhelms him and atomic drop. This is a great shine! Sa…

WWF World Tag Team Champions Dream Team vs British Bulldogs - Philly 2/8/86 Greg Valentine is really good at wrestling like really good. So great in the opening shine, letting Dynamite win the amateur battle, the atomic drop into Davey Boy, the bumping. Coming back in with Brutus and getting slammed into it. The work on the apron all great. Heel in peril on Brutus is solid because the Bulldogs are very proficient at working the arm. The difference between heel in peril & a shine in my estimation is that heel in peril is more methodical, requires selling and works more holds whereas a shine is uptempo, focuses more on bumping and uses highspots. Couple good fake ou…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy - Philly 2/8/86 I think the one thing Bundy has going for him over all other Hogan opponents is his devastating finish: Avalanche. It gives his matches a sense of drama that a lot of other Hogan matches. Whats Harley Race going to do bump to win the title? Is Big John Studd just gonna clubber? The Avalanche has a sense of finality to it. The matches themselves are among the more boring of the Hogan matches I have seen, but I will give Bundy that. Hogan gets a shine in this one making this better than the Boston match. The Bundy heat segment is shorter but still consists of two chinlocks and a bearhug. The n…

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Barry Windham - CWF Battle of the Belts II 2/14/86 Ric Flair coming out to Easy Lover is so iconic. Probably the most famous match out of Florida since I dont believe we have much of Florida from its Golden Age. First Half: To me what makes this match special is Barry Windham's selling. Without a doubt, this is a Ric Flair Championship formula match. We see Windham outwrestle Flair early. He bests him tests of strength, amateur grappling and countering holds. Windham ends up with a nasty mat burn or bruise somehow. Flair has a weird accident running the ropes where his head snaps against the top rope. Flair tries to u…

Mid-South North American Champion Dick Slater vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts - Mid-South, Houston 2/14/86 No DQ In the angle leading to this match, Slater wanted to hold all the gold in Mid-South and was angling for Roberts' TV Championship. The Snakeman was ok with that as long because he wanted the North American Championship. Dicky Slater said the match would only be title vs title if the DDT was banned. Roberts being smarter than most wrestlers says no way, but when Slater doesn't budge he calls for Dark Journey to be banned. They brawl and Dark Journey sprays something in his eyes. Roberts in his blind sat DDTS DARK JOURNEY!!! HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS AWESOME! CROWD EXPL…

This has a time limit of just a few minutes, so they go all out. This had the kind of intensity and emotional weight these retirement matches tend to have - still, some of the wrestling was as if Yokota was to scream she is retiring at the height of her game. Damn that stupid "retire at 25" rule. Yokota had some real determination to win this thing. After the match, a heated altercation between Jaguar and a younger girl (Chigusa?) ensues. Then all the lights go dark and Yokota is left to reflect on herself while "Soledao" plays. Amazing imagery. I wish they'd let Jaguar go out with a real bang but the pageantry here was magnificient regardless.

Is it time we start a dialogue on Sam Houston? He'd been pushed as Dusty and Magnum's protege for about half a year by this point, they clearly had plans for him as he'd recently won the Mid-Atlantic title on TV...and then about a year later he was up in the WWF. And apparently he spent four years there but I would not have guessed that. He sort of faded into obscurity, basically. Which may have been a crying shame because he was starting to put it together nicely, really coming along as a fiery underdog babyface, and by golly he looked like the bee's knees here. Did somebody miss the boat big time on Sam Houston? This started out with Arn fully on his own bullshit, first…

The Hart Foundation seemed to have cracked the code for having great tag matches in the WWF environment. Rather than an interminable heel in peril segment followed by face in peril, they work a more abbreviated heel in peril followed by a double-FIP heat segment with Bret invariably cutting off the first hot tag with a knee to the lower back in the ropes. Along with referee leniency allowing liberal run-ins from both sides, it gives their best matches the feel of a high-end Japanese tag rather than a high-end Southern tag. In the beginning, none of Brunzell's holds or strikes faze Neidhart, so he has to catch the big guy off guard with a drop toehold. From there, the Bees…