July 1988

Talk about it here.

NWA US Champion Barry Windham vs Dusty Rhodes - NWA Great American Bash 88 I will say NWA has had two molten hot crowds for their big events this year with Clash I in Greensboro and GAB in Baltimore. I have seen this match twice years ago. First time, I thought this was great, but the second time I thought it was horrible. I am now in the middle. The shine of this was excellent, super hot and the crowd loved it. Windham was great at feeding, bumping and selling for Big Dust. Dusty was his usual wicked charismatic self. DDT->Crossbody was a great early fall. Then I loved the big looping punches and Bionic Elbow for JJ! Crowd popped huge. Dusty got a couple more over…

Varsity Club, Russians & Al Perez vs Garvins, Road Warriors & Dr. Death - GAB '88 Tower of Doom Damn Precious is hot! They should have just done a Wargames. Way too convoluted. No drama. Too claustrophobic for anyone to do anything. Nothing mattered until it was Jimmy vs Sullivan, which was the main crux of this feud anyway. Perez had been feuding with Nikita, but Nikita got moved to tagging with Sting. So he is kinda paired off with Dr. Death who has been completely aimless since Starrcade 1987. The Road Warriors had been feuding with the Powers of Pain who were being mentored by Ivan Koloff, but POP departed for the WWF leaving the Roadies without dance …

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Lex Luger - NWA Great American Bash '88 One of my all-time favorite series of matches is the Flair/Luger contests and this match represents the only one I have never seen before. I think it has been marred by the bullshit blood stoppage finish and thus didn't seem as must watch as some of the other classics like Starrcade 88 and Wrestlewar 90. Before the lame blood stoppage finish, I thought this was great on par or even better than Capital Combat. Luger's shine was tremendous. He looked so agile and athletic. The leapfrog and the dropkick looked great. The Press Slams were fantastic just perfect form. You can see how hard t…

NWA US Tag Team Champions Fantastics vs Midnight Express - NWA Great American Bash 88 Jim Cornette throws a ***** temper tantrum before being put in the straitjacket into the shark cage. Was this tailored? The sleeves are too long! The best he is a crackpot, he is an honest man! Pure hammy gold. Step down from the Clash I and title change, but still a damn great match. I thought the shine while there were different spots was lacking in that super funness we usually get. Normal story of MX controlling with strikes, but Fantastics use their speed to thwart them. There was the cut spot where Lane ends up back dropping Eaton by accident and then we get the booty shake…

The original JWP is painfully underexplored. This is probably it's most prolific match, and it's more interesting than a great match. You may theorize that this is Kandori, the dangerous shooter putting the pro wrestler under fire and setting the blueprints for Kandori/Hokuto... which is a good formula, but in reality it was Devil dragging a green Kandori by the nose through a long match. Kandori looks good on the mat, and not very good doing anything else. Devil is as mean as you can want a hardened veteran to be carrying this and brings the goods, downing Kandori with a huge punch, almost ripping her in half with a surfboard, dishing out clubbing blows to make up for Ka…

All-Asia Tag Team Champions Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki vs Shunji Takano & Shinichi Nakano - AJPW 7/15/88 I had never seen Takano and Nakano before. By listening to the Japanese commentary very closely, I am 99% sure the first one who is the smaller of the two. Takano is actually pretty big, by far the biggest guy in the match and kinda surprised nothing ever came of him. Excellent all-out action, workrate tag with just enough smoky Southern flavor to sink your teeth into. Kawada is boosting himself here. I think going through watching all that 90s All Japan I was taking Kawada for granted. Seeing him in this setting not against fellow GOAT-contender…

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Jerry Lawler vs Curt Hennig- AWA 7/19/88 Lawler had defeated Hennig in Memphis for the championship and this is the TV rematch on ESPN in Las Vegas. Hennig had one foot out the door at this point for WWF. Wow! What a slugfest! I don't really think of Hennig as a great puncher but goddamn his punches looked and sounded great in this one! I liked he his demeanor in this one. He was more serious and pissed. He has Madusa with him. I liked the shove at the beginning and how each missed punches early were pissed. It was Hennig who landed heavy blows to the chin of The King first but Lawler responded with this classic punches that sent …

A sprint! Inoki stalls to begin with, then tries a leg trip to the outside and Choshu is fighting for dear life against that damn leg trip. Earth to wrestlers: this is how you tell your audience why your moves are important – by creating STRUGGLE. Choshu immediately blitzes Inoki and just tries to run him over basically, but Inoki takes it to the ground and dominates him there for a while, also hitting some great enzuigiris and Ali kicks. Inoki seems to have the upper hand for a few exchanges, but then Choshu clocks him with a lariat out of nowhere! Inoki is seeing stars and narrowly avoids another one, but Choshu connects another to the back of the skull and that's it. C…

Greg Valentine vs Don Muraco - WWF MLG 7/24/88 Pete aka @shoe asked me to watch this to make sure he was not crazy and @Matt D has also given this a glowing review. I agree with my two good friends this match is better than expected. One of my talking points has been Valentine could still go in 1988-89 but was stuck with Beefcake, Muraco and Steele. I wrote two Valentine vs Muraco for my blog. I liked the Primetime Wrestling match as a pleasant surprise. I didnt seem to care from MSG in July but that may have been due to Superstar Graham's inane prattling that it was Muraco's lifelong dream to rid the world of the Hammer. This match was definitely very good and was b…

WWF Tag Champs Demolition w/Mr. Fuji vs The British Bulldogs - MSG 7/88 If you told me, "Sleeze, there are going to be 3 extended heat segments in this match and you will like it" I would have said "Dont apply to work for Miss Cleo." But shockingly enough I liked this match a good deal. I would say it is one of the better Demolition matches, just falling short of Summerslam '88 match and about even with the Islanders match. This match really encapsulates what is said about Demolition forcing their opponents to work for their offense. There is a real sense of struggle and urgency in this match that you do not find in the Hart Foundation and Bulldogs matches. The begin…

Hansen hits the ring first, and while Tenryu is making his entrance, Hansen charges him and busts him open. This feels epic right out of the gate. Once the bell rings, Hansen continues the intense beatdown of Tenryu. Tenryu is bleeding like crazy, and Hansen works over the cut. Tenryu tries to bounce back, but he's not stopping the Hansen train. This was great. This feud has definitely turned into to one of my top favorites from AJ 80s. Watching the gushing Tenryu fight from underneath really brought the drama to the match for me. By the time he's getting his offense in, Hansen has thrown everything at him, and Hansen is fighting exhaustion. He finally gets in a …

Antonio Inoki vs Vader - NJPW 7/29/88 Well this fucking rules! I watched this in 2017 I believe in an airport and never got around to writing a review but I remembered all the arm work, the gory bladejob and the fact that Vader sells his arm at least until April of 1989 as this is the Achilles Heel his opponent exploit for at least the next 9 months or so. It was no shock that this was fucking awesome! Vader is at his absolute best when he is doing his wounded bear selling and just hollering in pain. This match has that in spades. Oh just for some context, the win gets a crack at Tatsumi Fujinami for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Vader tries to be all inti…

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Don Nakaya Nielsen - NJPW 7/29/88 Different Style Fight So who the fuck is Don Nakaya Nielsen? He is an American Kickboxer/karate dude. Inoki loved bringing these dudes in. The footage from New Japan World in the 70s is littered with these odd names you have never heard of who are usually foreign kickboxers/karate/martial arts dudes that Inoki beats up. I saw on New Japan World that Maeda fought him back in 86. Checking his Cagematch he never fought Inoki, but he did fight Yamada (Liger). His real claim to fame in pro wrestling at least was being tapped in the Tokyo Dome at a PWFG show by Ken Shamrock. According to the notes, I read the match bet…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Randy Savage vs Ted DiBiase - WWF Wrestlefest 7/31/88 Similar to the April MSG match, but with some more bells and whistles. Savage is really unique as a babyface champion in Vince Jr's WWF as he is only one I can think of that didn't have a real go-to comeback, finish stretch. Even Bret who mixed it up a lot had the 5 moves of Doom, Sharpshooter and barrage of cradles. Savage really did not have much. Savage is distracted by Virgil approaching Liz with his #FuckMoney allowing DiBiase to get the jump on him. Savage makes a mini comeback and sends DiBiase packing. Energetic shine but not as focused or as long as the MS…