August 1977

WWWF Heavyweight Champion Superstar Billy Graham vs Bruno Sammartino- WWF MSG 8/1/77 Rare Saturday bonus review. The fiancé is making a Tiramisu for Christmas Eve tomorrow. Double bonus bitchin’ Tiramisu and a bitchin Graham/Sammartino match! Headed to Quebec on Tuesday to see the in-laws glad I could finish all the Graham title defenses in MSG. Graham vs Bruno is night and day from Graham vs Dusty. Bruno just brings out the best in Graham. This is a total departure from their formula of Graham applies a Bruno breaks the hold and applies the same hold as Graham. This is wrestled like a blood feud street fight with Gorilla Monsoon as the Special Referee. Supersta…

Eddy is a PKA dork, so he's wearing fancy pants and will be throwing some fancy kicks. Rounds are in effect. The crowd is wild on this one but I didn't enjoy it as much as they did. Eddy just doesn't really know how to do any grappling, which is the prerequisite for a good Inoki match. He doesn't know to fall down when Inoki does the leg scissors takedown and he sits the wrong way in an armbar at one point. Some good strikes are thrown, though. But even then, Eddy throws a good enzuigiri a couple times and Inoki just no sells it. The ref is very active with the clinch breaks, which fucking sucks in pro boxing and kickboxing, and it sucks even more in this, a worked fight.…

Amazing exchanges + awesome character work + lightning pace = classic **** 1/4

This is 2 out of 3 falls. This is non title. The opening Thesz press was really nice. David controls with a headlock at 1st, and then uses the arm bar to keep Race at bay. Nice gut wrench by David. Race starts to work over the the midsection with a few well placed knees. David regains control. I like David standing on Race's face. David again using the arm to control Race. Race with some nasty looking knee drops, then David counters again. David has answers to all of Race's stuff. Big corner bump by Race to the outside. A nice small package gets 2 by David. A lot of control changes. A lot of repetetivness here. Race working a safe match with a young wrestler. Nothing too …

Jerry Lawler defends the AWA Southern Title in a Car vs Lawler's Manager's Hair match. The footage below is labelled incorrectly. This is the August 22 match, not the 15th. Talk about it here

The first fall was pretty great with them trading holds, working it slow, trying to fight over the control of one another. Mil established dominance in it. The 2nd fall was even better with it being about Jumbo's desperation, his big comeback before winning the fall was awesome. The 3rd fall the shortest of 'em, it was pretty much dominated by Mascaras, but he made one mistake & that ended up costing him the match. This was great. ****

Available on the Network, Vault, Old School 1977. MSG 8/29/77 (full show) WWWF Champion Superstar Billy Graham defends against Ivan Putski

Available on the Network, Vault, Old School 1977. MSG 8/29/77 (full show) Bruno Sammartino vs Ken Patera --- Texas Death Match