March 1986

A match from the short lived 'Satellite Wrestling' show that aired on Screensport in the UK. Only about a dozen of these episodes aired but they're all out there and in circulation. The Screensport shows were completely different to the traditional 'World of Sport' ones and had more of an American feel to them; there were interviews, angles which would develop from show to show, backstage bits and you'd even get an added bout or two from the US airing which were supposedly nominated by a 'viewer'. Both wrestlers cut promos before the match and neither were very good (not surprisingly as they've never had any need for it in the past) with Saint being worse than Breaks. …

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House show footage from Greensboro. Ric Flair defends the NWA World Heavyweight Title

The Russians are NWA Six Man Champs, but this is a non title match. Handheld footage.

Handheld Footage. *** SPOILER*** JCP @ Greensboro, NC - Coliseum - March 1, 1986 (10,421) Jimmy Garvin pinned Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion Sam Houston in a non-title match with a knee to the back and the brainbuster after Houston became distracted by Precious on the floor

NWA World TV Champion Arn Anderson vs Ronnie Garvin - JCP World Championship Wrestling 3/1/86 Anderson, Garvin, Studio Wrestling for the TV Title with the Nature Boy on commentary sign me up. This is pro wrestling, daddy. I love the studio crowd chanting "Break it" when Garvin has AA in the arm wringer. Anderson controls with wristlocks and such. Garvin looks to chop his way out of trouble. AA puts over the danger of the Hands of Stone by taking a powder. It can be over in a snap of the fingers. Garvin has a puncher's chance. Garvin works his control segment with a lot of holds around the head. He really cranked Arn's head at one point. Anderson takes back over and w…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs Don Muraco - SNME 3/1/86 When compared to other builds to Mania, this is by far the least (Hogan/Piper/Lauper/T, the Andre turn, DiBiase buys the belt/Two Refs, MEGAPOWERS EXPLODE~!), but it is very traditional & simple. Prior to this match, King Kong Bundy squashes Steve Gatorwolf. Bobby Heenan & Bundy are hollering for Hogan. In traditional McMahon booking genius, he has Muraco beaten around the loop first and then puts the match on TV that way he has gotten all the money out of Muraco as a heel challenger. Mr. Fuji has come down with the flu and Muraco accuses the Hulkster of biological warfare so he has gone out…

NWA National Heavyweight Champion Dusty Rhodes vs Tully Blanchard - JCP WCW 3/8/86 Joined in Progress as Tony/David bring us the title switch from some house show footage with Flair on commentary. Tully vs Dusty was the big feud of the opening part of 1986. Tully is working the leg and Dusty is selling like a million bucks. This crowd is RABID for Dusty. Crockett crowds are just on fire at this time period. Dusty gets a couple hope spots but Tully snuffs them out. TULLY HITS THE SLINGSHOT SUPLEX!!!! 1-2-NO Hugh sigh of relief! Insane nearfall for the 80s. I dont know if I had ever seen Tully hit that move on a non-Jobber before. Here comes Dusty. The crowd lose…

Bret Hart vs Ricky Steamboat - Boston 3/86 I disagreed with my previous review of this match most notably that Bret was the better wrestler in this match. I think it is pretty even. Steamboat's selling and his fire on this is very good. Bret is the one constructing the framework for the match and does an admirable job. The match is missing the glue and those little details. Having recently watched Steamboat vs Orton, you can see how fun a Steamboat arm-based babyface shine can be. I would argue Bret takes the bigger, more spectacular bumps off the armdrags than Orton, but Orton fills the time just so well. Orton adds wrinkles of trying to get out of the hold and w…

Available on the Network, Vault, Old School, 1986, Boston Garden March 8, 1986

WWF Intercontinental Champion Randy Savage vs Tito Santana - Boston 3/8/86 Randy tells Gorilla before the match he is the greatest wrestler ever well that makes voting in this poll a whole lot easier. Tito is red hot. Savage tries to cool him down with some long stalling tactics. When the Macho Man does get in the ring, Tito is still revved up so Savage gets on his bicycle and rides. Tito eventually gets fed up and gives chase. It is on! Santana catches him and lays into him! YES! YES! YES! This is the Tito, I know and love. Tito throws him into the stands. Tito is gonna murder him I tells ya, murder him. Savage uses the tights to send him flying. Sneak attack and rub…

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Stan Hansen vs Sgt Slaughter - AWA 3/9/86 Bunkhouse Match If only this went on for like 5-10 more minutes, they were kicking some major league ass. Definitely one of the best 5-6 minute sprint brawls of all time. This was a rip-roaring slobberknocker. Slaughter was kicking so much ass at the beginning. I loved Hansen having his chaps on for like half the match. Slaughter was throwing and raking Hansen's face into every hard object he could find. Hansen had to use an eye gouge to get a respite and they he pulled out tape block put them on his fists and let Sarge have it. Slaughter nearly punted his head off. I really like Slaughter loadin…

Magnum TA defends the United States Title NWA US Champion Magnum TA defeated Nikita Koloff (w/ Ivan Koloff) via disqualification at the 14-minute mark when Ivan interfered after the challenger sustained the belly to belly suplex; after the bout, the Koloffs double teamed Magnum and Nikita hit the Russian Sickle before Pez Whatley and Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Champion Sam Houston made the save

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Jerry Lawler & Dutch Mantell vs Bill Dundee & Buddy Landell - Memphis 3/16/86 Going into watching Memphis, this is exactly what I expected! Chaos! Violence! Energy! Hatred! I thought this match was dripping with even more hatred than either of the Loser Leaves Town matches thus far. Dundee was a lunatic in this match. Throwing chairs into the ring, shoving Lance Russell around, tossing tables. Dundee's eye is half shut going into this match maybe retribution for what happened to the King in December. Dutch had a falling out with that little Aussie Prick and has joined forces with Lawler. Lawler and Mantell are crazy in this match chasing the heels around and k…

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Stan Hansen vs Leon White - AWA 3/13/86 The first time I actually watched this match was in my dorm freshman year on ESPN Classic and for some reason, two or three dudes were watching with me. I remember describing Stan Hansen as such a sourpuss and how to watch because he will fucking hit the shit out of Vader (Leon White is Vader before he was Vader, it is just easier for me to type "Vader"). Much like the lone douche screaming "boring" they were not interested until the middle of the match and man did they all get behind Vader by the end of it. It was a pretty cool moment. I do disagree with my friends on one thing is that the whole m…

This is what you call a fun match. 1st we get Bruce Tharpe dancing with Koko prematch. Eddie Gilbert who is Bulba's manager telling the old people not to dance to that song for fear of having a heart attack. Thus Koko gets the crowd dancing again. Eddie and Koko getting into each other was grand. We get some fun stooging early from Bulba and was really good at it. This allows Koko to get on the mike and gets an Eddie is a chicken chant. This is glorious, and Eddie plays it up huge. The crowd is super hot . Koko selling inderneath and the crowd is with him 100%. When he makes his comeback the crowd is so behind him. Just a super fun bout. 2 3/4*

This was a pretty damn good match. We get some back and forth early on. Both teams trying to get the advantage. The big moment was when Ted takes a chair right on the noggin. This was wicked and busts him open something fierce. The heels just get the heat on him by working over the cut. Just wrestling 101 stuff. Ted hot tags to Doc and he's just murdering the heels. They cut him off and work him over a good bit. The crowd gets pretty hot for this. We get a pretty hot finish. Then a fun post match brawl where the faces want the mask and they get it!!!! 4*

This was some great tag wrestling, and a reminder that the Sheepherders were some heat magnets. The Sheepherders just stoked the fire for about the 1st five minutes. Chavo starts out on top. He gets cut off quickly. Then the Guerreros make a quick come back on the Sheepherders. The faces are just fantastic working over the heels legs with quick tags. This went on for a bit. The focus, and work was really good. Eventually the Sheepherders cut them off and work the faces over. The heat here was really good. I also loved the finish. 3 3/4*

Dusty Rhodes defends the NWA National Title. Aired on NWA Worldwide 3/15/86

WWF Intercontinental Champion Randy Savage vs Tito Santana - WWF, MSG 3/16/86 I have seen the title switch in Boston plenty of times and I think it is a good, but not great match. I know I have seen some of the follow up stuff, but I am little fuzzy. They had quite the series at MSG working five straight shows together with this being the kick off match. Tito was robbed of the title by some shoddy officiating and a foreign object so you know he is going to be hot as hell. Macho Man realizing this gets on his bike early. He is in full Memphis mode for this match. I loved him jumping in the ring, sprinting through the other side and arming himself with a chair against the …

Let's try that again... Well firstly it's a collective failure of the IWC that this match doesn't even had a PWO thread until now This is an incredible must-see and one-of-a-kind match. Sometimes it feels like you're watching a legit riot rather than wrestling match it's so out of control and unpredictable. Dump jumps Yukari with the microphone and just beats her over the head with it and leaves her a bloody mess, and it just keeps escalating from there. Yukari is so brave she keeps getting back in the ring to fight this monster. Dump starts running around with scissors trying to stab everyone and suddenly Devil and Chigusa are now involved trying to stop her. …

Checked this out on YouTube as it is part of a joshi playlist I've been working my way through. I think the creator may even be a poster on here...? I enjoyed the heck out of this match and highly recommend it. The Bomb Angels come out swinging with two huge crossbodies to the floor, but the Crush Gals are not afraid to work a fast-paced match either and we get some real nifty mat-wrestling once they get back in the ring. Body slams, high knees, Nagayo and Asuka applying all sorts of holds to keep the champions on the mat - its all good stuff and some of it is performed with such remarkable speed it had me wondering if I was watching the match at the wrong rate…

The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Dennis Condrey) defend the NWA World Tag Team Titles Pretty awesome abbreviated version of the classic MX/RnR formula. A few of their spots didn't come off perfectly just yet, but they were clearly starting to mess around with the difficulty sliders and find ways of getting all four involved in sequences (all five if you count Cornette; six if you count the ref'). This happened in Philly and it's cool to see how batshit wild even your non-southern crowds would go for all of this. Someone in the crowd has a sign with Cornette slander on it and Cornette immediately gets heat for throwing a tantrum. In an awesome spot I don't thin…