August 1986

This was taped on 7/29, broadcast on 8/2/86 NWA World Wide Wrestling

Brusier Brody vs Abdullah The Butcher - WCCW 8/4/86 It is King Kong vs Godzilla. The monster vs monster is alluring, but personally this match did not do much for me. The angle was Hart antagonizing Brody during a promo and Brody with his Adidas short shorts drags him into the ring. Brody did not have much presence on promos. Abby actually jogs pretty well down and attacks Brody. Hart chokes Brody with necktie while Abby uses his fork to stab the forehead of Brody this sets up the match. We find out that Abby will be the first to take a bump. Brody kicks Abby's head until bleeds, which does not take much. How many kicks does it take to bust Abby open could be like…

This match was a blast. I love how he no sells Takada’s high kick early on so he can tie him up in the ropes and give him a good smack. Takada’s kicks look brutal and Koshinaka’s selling is terrific, at one point dropping like a bag of flour. There’s some sloppiness to the match, especially with some of the pin attempts, but it doesn’t take too much away from it. They fire off some bigger offense, Takada with his jumping tombstone and Koshinaka with a German suplex hold. As Takada tries to submit Koshinaka, first with the arm, then the leg, tension starts to build. They start kicking at each other while Takada’s got the kneebar on and then they just explode into a maelstr…

IWGP Tag Team Champions Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura vs Akira Maeda & Osamu Kido - NJPW 8/5/86 The inaugural IWGP Tag Team Champions were crowned in the previous Tag Team League in December of 85 when Fujinami & Kimura defeated the old guard of Inoki & Sakaguchi. They were still in their first reign. Then they ran into shoot kicking Akira Maeda and his his buddy Kido. I have never seen Kido before and he was fine, nothing too special based on this viewing. This match completely hinged on Maeda. I say the same thing over and over about Maeda. If he was doing worked kickboxing, he would be an all-time great. He is boring as hell on the mat. He …

I loved this match. 6 man tag, double ring. Bill Watts walking tall. Terry Gordy at his pinnacle as a wrestler. Dibiase starts with a scathing promo that would make Parv proud. Hayes tries to retort only to get a few words out then bam Watts punches him right in the mush, and it's on. Wild brawl to start. Watts throwing bombs on Gordy and Roberts. It settles down and we get the Houston 2 ring tag. Watts and Gordy were the stars here. Everyone had their moments. Though I felt Watts and Gordy carried this. Gordy especially on both ends. Bumping and making Watts, but kicking ass when he had the chance. Taylor gets busted open, and Chavo showed fire throughout. Hayes was his …

Young with the home town pop. Gustavo beating Young early to the punch. Young turns the tide with a slam of his own. This is your get everyone to their sats match. This is pretty boring. Popcorn bout.

This was a blast. I've always been a fan of the gimmick of the OMG. Just a good old fashioned brawl worked at a sprint pace. Just too short.

We start out with Ware dancing with the fans. In the ring Koko is in full hit and run with the big man. charging and frailing about. The guys really do a great job milking this for all it's worth. Eventually it's smash time for OMG . He's using his size to beat down Ware. Ware starts a comback, only for Akbar to trip him. This gets a DQ .Shitty finish. I thought this was another fun OMG performace. Koko was good as the undersized baby face. 2 1/2*

Bang your Head is such an 80's anthem. Having Missy and Journey's angle going on adds another wrinkle here. This is a pretty fun shine with Tatum and Victory stooging. Dibiase is great as the standing tall baby face. The heels bail from the faces. Dibiase charges Tatum in the corner and that sets up the heat. Dibiase is FIP and has really carried his side. The heat segment was ok, but wasn't that interesting. Loved the Freebirds run in. Even though Dibiase wasn't the legal man on the pin. Link's hot tag was fun, but we got what we needed from him. 2 1/2*

A fight from the start. A pretty hot crowd. Settles down, then Gilbert and Fulton have a huge punch exchange. Then Sting and Fulton have one. Tommy Rogers is in and Sting eats a couple of big dropkicks. Gilbert and Rogers pair off and Rogers is working the arm. Tommy in and biting Gilbert's nose which he sells big. Sting and Eddie getting the heat. Loving how Gilbert places Sting in the ring to cheat behind the refs back. Hot tag and Tommy's running wild. It's out of control. Heels Dq'd. Postmatch we get a wild brawl. A really fun match. 3 1/4*

Love 2/3rd of the Birds being eliminated early so they can control ring 2 early on. Duggan was like a force of nature. OMG winning ring 1 is a good story. Especially the fresh blood to start the match. The barrage of eliminations was done quickly. Loved the Gordy/Buudy Roberts vs Chavo. Then Teddy comes out to even the odds. OMG vs Chavo is left. They did a good job of really building drama down the stretch.

Shown in Highlight Form, on the Network, Vault, World Championship Wrestling, 1986. August 16, 1986. Starts at 13:30 mark. Also includes footage from 8/7/86 in Kansas City

One of those old matches where they're given plenty of time to play around with their grappling, leading to some very cool tricks and twists in how the match turns out. Tito in the one match shows how great a technical worker and fiery brawler he can be. Orton does a lot of classic cheating to get ahead, but he'll also break out these absurd-looking flying headscissors that had my jaw drop at first. Don't get the wrong idea though; it's a game of chess for both men, gradually figuring out a way to win. They spend a little too long taking their sweet time in certain holds for me to think of it as a MOTYC, but I'll take great wrestling from this era when it pops up.

Ricky Steamboat vs Jake Roberts - WWF Boston 8/9/86 They wrestled a totally different match this go around and one that I thought is pretty unique overall. Jake Roberts is definitely a low risk, conservative type wrestler. He does not have much in the way of flashy moves or bumps. He bides his time and measures the moment. He transformed this into a really interesting strategy of blocking Steamboat's chops at every turn. This frustrated the Dragon and stymied his uptempo game. The Snake played into the dickishness by reminding everyone how smart he is for formulating this strategy. There were times where it looked like Steamboat would be able to goad him into his game…

Wojo defends the WWA Heavyweight Title.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Midnight Express vs Rock N Roll Express - JCP Philly 8/16/86 2 Out of 3 Falls I could watch these two teams forever. The Midnight Express try as they might just cant get one over on the RNRs. They try quick tags and end up running into each other. They try hair pulling and Condrey ends up taking three atomic drops. They try double teaming in their own corner and Gibson fights his way out. I am missing some other examples, but my point is RNRs have to earn their shine. MX is the tag team version of Flair. They are always trying something, but the babyfaces are just better. Until that one moment and BAM! In this case, Morton sets his head …

NWA US Heavyweight Champion Magnum TA vs Nikita Koloff - NWA Worldwide 8/16/86 Match #6 This match was light years better than #4, in large part because Magnum really picked up the slack and was a more active babyface. I liked the shine especially the part where Nikita was looking Sickle only for Mags to nail the dropkick. Magnum worked the arm really well, against a better opponent I really could see that going somewhere. We go to a break and we dont see how Nikita got control, which is a bummer. Nikita charges the buckles with his bad shoulder, but regains control. Nikita was working a lot with chinlocks and front facelocks, but I thought Magnum's selling and const…

UWF Heavyweight Champion Terry Gordy vs Hacksaw Duggan - UWF TV 8/3/86 Watts looks to go national and has positioned Hacksaw Duggan as his lead babyface and the Fabulous Freebirds as his lead heels. I think of Duggan as a sort of Northern version of Dusty Rhodes. He is a tough everyman and more no nonsense than the Dusty. I was definitely looking forward to this hoss battle and it did not disappoint with Hayes & DiBiase (awwwwwww they made up!) sent to the back, it was mano y mano. There is a fucking MASSIVE shoulder tackle to start that sends Gordy flying through the ropes out to the floor and you just know this is going to be a straight up badass power match. Dug…

Savoldi is from the famous wrestling family. He was a big star in ICW during the great Tony Atlas heel run. Savoldi has worked all over, but never really made it big. Mustavo is over selling big tim and it's grand. Crowd is into this match. Savoldi throws a great looking drop kick. A big corner bump by Savoldi. Mustavo getting heat, and it's pretty tame. The crowd wants to hate him and he's working a chin lock. Savoldi makes a comeback. It's very baby facish in nature. Pretty much the get your popcorn and a coke match.

Gang has always been one of my favorite gimmicks. Young would later in the decade be managed by Akbar. I loved Young stomping on OMG foot to be able to reverse the wristlock. Of course OMG sold it up big. Young staying on the arm.I loved the tease of pulling the tights. They did a great engaging the crowd with it, and Tommie Gilbert's reactions to it. Loved Young going after the wrist. OMG turns the tide and tosses Young to Akbar on the outside. Great way to get heat. OMG still selling the repercussions of the wrist damage. Eye rake by OMG and he's in full bully mode. Gang misses a standing avalanche in the corner. Young lights him up with forearms and drop kicks. Young m…

This was pretty good.. The Birds were great at stooging and bumping around for the faces. Hayes was really on fire here. Eventually though Hayes is a bloody mess. The faces are all over Hayes. When they cut off Doc, Roberts was super nasty working him over. Doc gets the tag to Teddy and they cut him off and work him over. They get a hot tag to Doc, but the Birds post him and get DQ'd. The crowd was super hot for this. 3 1/2*

Talk about it here.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes - NWA Pro 8/23/86 Flair had since regained the title from Dusty since dropping it in the Cage back in July. Dusty's reign was only 14 days and served just to serve as a way to pop the crowd and give him a victory over the Horsemen. His real arch-nemesis, Tully re-injured his leg in Kansas City the night before with a chair attack. This is a rematch for the World Championship. Stream of consciousness baby: Baby Doll is still with Dream and I dont think for a long. I think this is the heel turn match. Unfortunately, Baby Doll would be shipped to the freshly purchased Central States territory with lover, Sam…

This is #7 in the best of 7. This is a legendary feud and spawned many imitations. The crowd is amped for this. The heat is insane. TA is super over and to the fans in the crowd he's Captain America. TA to me is an incredible wrestler. He has good timing, incredible fire, big time charisma, and you believe in him. The crowd went bonkers on a cross body by TA. Magnum working the arm during his shine. He's dropping the knee on the arm. Love Magnum using the hammerlock, and his shine is really focused. TA post Nikita's arm. Flying AX handle gets 2. Nikita gives TA a few knees, but TA uses his speed and gets control back. Koloff uses his size, but TA takes back control. TA mi…

Aired on NWA World Wide Wrestling 8/23/86