Superstar Sleeze

Is this in response to me? If so, AJ had a great entrance and then did pretty much nothing. Jericho just lasted a really long time. My mom was openly mocking for just laying in the corner. AJ probably made the last impression because it was his debut. Jericho, no way. Don't see that at all. If that was selling like crazy, standards for selling have dropped to a record low. Brock ripped through everyone. He sold some fatigued but he just lifted 300 lbs men repeatedly. He crushed everything in his path. It took four HUGE men to take him down. I'll grant you taking his elimination in stride.

I reject the notion Brock is just a guy. They went out of their way to have four HUGE men. Take him out. It was incredibly frustratingandcheap but it was the necessary to eliminate Brock from the match before the match. Look how Brock was booked before. Quickly eliminating people and dominating mammoths. Have no clue, how you come out feeling that Brock is just a guy.

I can see you saying it will date badly like babyface DX or Edge & Christian. I don't think Edge & Christian have dated badly per se. I can see you say goofball humor won't last. I disagree I love it. But Men on a Fucking Mission? They were never even as close to as over as the NEW DAY!

I love gimmick. The gimmick is a bit trite, but I think it could be overcome. The problem is the booking. The zero rationale for who they attack. They attack a random person. Spout some Mumbai jumbo and feud for four months and lose. Complain about Raven all you want at least his feuds had progression and his promos motivation. The Wyatt's like most things in WWE are half baked

Love you, PARV. But no, no we won't because New Day Rocks! New Day Rocks! New Day Rocks!

I got HHH all the way tonight. But will be rooting for Brock BABY! Also just want to add Becky Lynch has been crushing it on the mic and in the ring. She pulled a fun match out of Tamina. She is the best pure babyface on the roster. She is wicked charismatic and is pretty funny. I hope she either wins tonight or at Mania.

American Heavyweight Champion Chris Adams vs Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin - WCCW 4/2/84 The women are out with their men for this straight up championship bout. Garvin likes showing off scientific abilities early on in matches. He also loves yelling "He is going down, tonight, BABY!". Garvin loves using this to set up one-upmanship later on in the match. I think it works on the level that Garvin is the challenger so he starting right into the heat. He is really good at working the arm with a variety of strong arm holds, but he allows Adams to keep the crowd involved into it with cool spots like his bridge out of the armstretcher and his general energy. So it works almost as a shine because the crowd is still able to invest in Adams who can show off his athleticism. Again, just to reiterate, Garvin really worked the arm like a champ. As expected, Adams ended up putting Garvin into double wristlock. Just when it looked Adams would go on a fast break Garvin takes a powder. Garvin yanks the hair to get out of a chinlock, but that was only to set up Adams using his speed to get back into the chinlock. Again, Garvin setting up the face to one-up him and end up back where they started. Garvin has been really strong in these matches as a ring general and a selfless heel. He does get chinlock-y in the match. Garvin misses a kneedrop and this leads to Adams kicking Garvin's knee. I really liked kicking his knee out from under him when he was running the ropes.The finish run was one would expects involves the ladies. Adams is bridging out from under a pin and Precious hooks the leg, but the ref does not count to three. Garvin takes advantage of the distraction for another pinning combination, but Sunshine yanks him off by the hair. More chaos and Adams goes for O'Connor Roll, but Precious blinds him with the spray. Garvin steals the American championship!!! SUNSHINE IS PISSED! Sunshine attacks Precious again.Good match to set up some rematches. Garvin has a strong grasp on heel psychology even if he can be kinda boring sometimes. Adams is a fun good-looking, athletic babyface. I look forward to see what he can do against someone else besides Garvin. ***

"Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin w/Precious vs "Gentleman" Chris Adams w/ Sunshine - WCCW 1/30/84 Steel Cage Match World Class was way ahead of its time. Better TV production values, entrance music, cool badass heel stable and catfights! Was there any place doing catfights before Precious & Sunshine? This is for the vacant American Heavyweight Championship. I don't know why it is vacant, but I do know why Sunshine dumped Garvin it was because he hired Precious as her valet and that of course led to problems. I should really watch those angles. This was pretty outright boring for the first half of it with all the excitement coming from the women and whether they would go at it. Otherwise, they just did Adams one upping Garvin with long leg grapevine. I did like Garvin's verbal selling and Adams mocking the Garvin strut. Once Garvin headbutted Adams in the midsection, the match at least picked up from an action standpoint with Garvin being a scummy heel and Adams selling. Finally Adams goes into the cage and is bleeding profusely. Wow! Huge bladejob! Sunshine is a really effective valet selling her anxiety well. I did not get a real feel for Precious, but Sunshine is pretty charismatic. Adams' comeback was fine, but I thought the best part of the match by far was the finish. Adams landed on his feet from a back body drop and then promptly SUPERKICKED Garvin's head off. New American Heavyweight Champion! Garvin sends Adams flying out of the ring. Sunshine is locked in the cage with Precious and Garvin. Sunshine beats the living shit out of Precious. Adams clears the ring, but Garvin absconds with the championship belt. Sunshine talks some smack, which is great! Awesome angle for a return match. Blood, women and a badass finish make this an easy recommendation, but way too much downtime to say this is anymore than just very good. ***1/2

Terry Taylor vs Chris Adams - UWF TV 5/3/87 Vero's Hero puts in one of the best performances of his career as the entire match is one long, simmering heel turn. I noticed something was up almost immediately when did not shake the Gentleman's hand. Also, Taylor did a great job early on showing how insecure he felt. He would try something and nothing would stick. While Adams was always one step ahead of Taylor, whether it was taking him over with a headlock or double wristlock or powering him down off a leapfrog sequence. We saw Taylor try to pick up the tempo, slow it down by going into ropes or the outside or counterwrestling, but at each step Adams was a head of Taylor. I thought the way Taylor sold was much more like a heel would where he looked like he was being wimp whereas a face would fight through the pain. You could really feel the insecurity in Taylor's mind and that insecurity led him to start taking shortcuts. Like a kneelift to the Gentleman when he gave him a clean break or a closed fist. The closed fist started sending off the alarm bells in JR's & TA's heads especially as the ref confronts Terry Taylor. It is clear that Taylor favorite heel was Ric Flair, who he worked with closely in 1985. There were a lot of moments in this where Taylor looked like Flair, but not moreso than late in the match by the way he begged off. As good as Taylor was at slowly ramping up his heelishness, I thought Adams wrestled as the consummate babyface. His scientific wrestling was both exciting as it was pure. I loved his hope spots being pinning combinations. This was nowhere near Flair/Steamboat, but in a lot of ways it felt like that. By Adams wrestling so pure, it really highlighted Taylor's heelishness. Taylor bumrushed him with a headbutt into the midsection and finally Adams realizes that Taylor is being a prick and he headbutted Taylor into the midsection and here comes the heavy blows like punches and clotheslines. I love how Adams is now throwing it back in Taylor's face. Adams collides with the ref on a criss cross sequence. In the previous Adams/Taylor matches they have helped each other into the ring. This time TERRY TAYLOR PILEDROVE ADAMS ON THE CONCRETE! As a nice touch, Taylor plays dead and the ref counts both men down. Of course, Taylor is able to get back up and win by the countout. At the beginning of the match, Terry Taylor was cheered and by the end he is resoundingly booed. Taylor cements his heel turn in his post-match promo. I loved the story this told of Taylor's insecurities leading to him joining the dark side. I don't know if you could do a heel turn just based on how someone's tactics changed in a match. I loved the simplicity of the times. Taylor and Adams both delivered excellent performances. ****1/2

Ted DiBiase & Terry Taylor vs. Michael Hayes & Buddy Roberts -UWF TV 10/12/86 Country Whipping Match Bill Watts was clearly one of those people, who have never listened to the lyrics of Born In The USA. Was it every babyface's entrance theme? I am a total sucker for matches like this and this did not disappoint at all. I loved the energy, chaos and violence of this. I thought this was another badass DIBiase performance. His stock is starting to go up in my book. I thought all four men did a great job blending crowd pleasing spots with the violence. I liked the babyfaces railroading Buddy Roberts and isolating him from Hayes. Hayes then not wanting to be tagged in was funny. I thought the straps definitely livened up the usually bland Taylor and DiBiase and the Freebirds are the perfect heels to stooge and bump for them. I loved Taylor strapping Hayes from behind. Just as we saw in World Class, Buddy Roberts was the spark plug for the Freebirds and he did through eyerakes and choking. At first it looked like Taylor play face in peril, but he roared back with his strap. It was a nasty eyegouge by Roberts that fucked up DiBiase that started the FIP. I loved DiBiase's sell of this complete with losing control of the strap. DiBiase clobbered right with Roberts and I like this electricity DiBiase is bringing. DiBiase looks like has things in hand, but back from commercial and DiBiase is getting his ass whipped. I cant believe the Freebirds are actually getting work on top after all those World Class matches with the Von Erichs. I really liked the heat segment. Roberts strapping Taylor in the face on the apron was great as was all the double teaming and choking. I think I like DiBiase better as a face, he is really good at selling. Hayes will not be purely sexy in this match, but purely sadistic. I like that quote. DOuble clothesline! He leaps and makes the tag to Taylor! Taylor was a totally fine hot tag and the finish was a bit abrupt with just a hot cross body. I really enjoyed this one was an awesome TV main event. Finish being abrupt was my only complaint. ****1/4 After the match, there is a great brawl. Taylor goes throat first into the railing and there is a great sell. DIBiase looks for his black glove in this trunks, but Hayes blindsides him and uses the BLACK GLOVE AGAINST HIM!!! Awesome, awesome ending. Definitely makes you want to tune in next week.

UWF Heavyweight Champion Terry Gordy vs Dr. Death - UWF TV 9/28/86 I liked how all three matches told different stories, This is the valiant comeback from a pre-match injury match that I am a total sucker for. Hacksaw challenges the winner, but gives Gordy the thumbs down, which riles up the Freebirds triggering a massive brawl where One Man Gang and Skandor Akbar also come down. Hayes crashes down with all his weight on the outstretched arm of Dr. Death held in place by Gordy. It seems like Doc wont be able to make it out, but he is going to fight through the pain. For the next twelve minutes, Steve WIlliams gives his best non-All Japan performance of his life. He is constantly selling his arm and coming up with a ton of new ways to hurl his body at Gordy while protecting his arm. He was headbutting him, charging him, hell he even modified his crossbody. Gordy just really does nothing for me at this point. Everything about him is so adequate except for bumping. He is incredible at bumping, but he just does not add much else. His arm work was necessary, but he never took it to the next level. I thought Dr. Death gave a stellar performance and really carried Gordy here to something special. Credit where credit is due, when it came time to bump for this comeback Gordy did shine. Finish was predictably lame with Gordy using the foreign object, but that is infinitely more tolerable than referee buffoonery in the earlier pair of matches. I liked this match a whole lot, definitely check it out for Doc's performance. ****1/4

UWF Heavyweight Champion Terry Gordy vs Dr. Death - UWF TV 9/15/86 Jim Ross informs us that Gordy has returned from the Orient and Doc from the hospital courtesy of a Freebird piledriver on the floor. This definitely has more of a feel of a revenge match. Doc takes the majority of the match especially the first 8 minutes where he just kicks Gordy's ass. I like the amateur beginning and once Doc has control of the match he really throws him around. Gordy did go after the neck at some points, but Doc would almost immediately counter. Doc was clearly supposed to be perceived as the better wrestler. Doc was not great conjuring up that belief that he really wanted to kick ass. He did kick ass, but that hatred was not quite there. Back from commercial, Gordy was in control for a hot second before Doc exploded and then hit a piledriver! But he doesnt cover?!?! Instead, he riles up the crowd. He wants another piledriver to really pay him back for that piledriver, but first he bites him. Ok, I am starting to believe in this hatred. He is really gnawing on him. PILEDRIVER~! Business has picked up! Kick out!?!?!?!?!?!? Doc hammers on the head. Gordy levels the ref with a reverse crossbody! Second ref, Oh I know the finish, Doc knocks this muthafucka out with a Oklahoma Stampede. German suplex. One ref counts each man down and there is controversy?!?!?! The first match was your fun Clash of the Titans, this was more of the revenge match. Since Watts knew Doc was going to get fucked at least he gave him most of the match. I liked the first match more because it was more competitive, but this was still fun as a hoss fight. They both had shitty finishes. ***3/4

UWF Heavyweight Champion Terry Gordy vs Dr. Death - UWF TV 6/22/86 If there is one style of wrestling I'm partial to it is this raw-bone, pure power slobberknockers pitting two stout hosses against each other. Mid-South gives you a lot of variety, but this is their bread and butter. Who better than two members of the Miracle Violence Connections butting heads. Doc throwing Gordy around was fucking impressive as all hell at the beginning. Gordy took him down with a clothesline and then whipped him so hard into the buckles that it broke the top turnbuckle. Worked or not, I don't think it was that was awesome. I thought Michael Hayes was great on commentary. Doc was great at firing up and working in hope spots only to miss the big blows like his headbutt or spear. The finish run was wicked hot with Doc finally nailing the spear by wiping out the ref. Hayes trips him up so Bill Watts slugs Hayes. Doc slams Gordy down with authority and Watts counts the pin. It is clearly a Dusty FInish, but it get a huge pop. That's really my least favorite finish so the match leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but up until the end this just pure heavyweight fun. ****

Pete, did you think the finish was a little anticlimactic? I thought that was the weakest part of the match. Mid-South North American Heavyweight Champion Dick Slater vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts - Mid-South, Houston 2/28/86 No DQ, Dark Journey in a Cage Slater had since won the championship back in the intervening weeks. Dark Journey is back, but it is neutralized by being in a cage high above the ring or at least that is the plan. I thought the body of this match was even better than their previous match, but the finish was a little lackluster so they are in a dead heat. The body sees really great dueling arm work. Jake is relentless on the arm at beginning wrapping it around the post a couple times. He is playing to the crowd and jawing with Dark Journey to keep his arm entertaining, but also he is keeping it moving. I thought he did a really nice job. Slater set himself up nicely to be cut off and brought back down by the arm. On the outside, Slater turns the tide by ramming Roberts shoulder first twice into the post. Slater works the arm beautifully. This is even better than Snake's arm work. Roberts arm gets trapped in the ropes and Slater smashes a chair into it. Dark Journey gives the thumbs up while the crowd hollers and boos. Jake sells the arm like a million bucks showing how much of an inhibition is for him as he tries to block punches or hit a kneelift. This is best selling I have seen in quite some time. Eventually, Snake goes back to what worked for him two weeks ago walloping Slater with his boot. Jake goes for the DDT, but Russian Legsweep by Slater and Dark Journey throws a chain down from her perch. They tussle over the chain, but eventually Slater comes crashing down on Jake the Snake to win the match. Now he holds all the gold! Slater and Roberts worked their asses off in the body. Jake did a great job fighting through the pain. Everything was set up for a hot finish, but Slater just came crashing down off the top without the chain. I know top rope moves were a big deal in the Mid-South, but still it was kinda lame. If he had the chain, that would have been better. Awesome limbwork watch it for that. ****1/4

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 EXPLODED! Jake pokes fun of Slater asking him where Dark Journey is at the start of this match and Slater loses it on Roberts using a shirt to choke him and attack him. Slater beats the shit of Jake in this No DQ bout. He posts him, which busts him open. Piledriver! Jake's foot is on the ropes. Slater does his Terry Funk impressions while punching and chopping The Snake. Nice Russian Legsweep and then chokes him with tape. This is a really good match thus far. Slater has looked awesome and Roberts is a pretty decent seller. Jake takes off his boot and just starts wailing on Dicky Slater with it. Awesome idea! When you are getting beaten that bad, desperate times call for desperate measures. Slater blades off this. Roberts follows up with a clothesline and is signaling for the DDT! The crowd is going wild, but Slater dumps him with a back drop. Slater comes off the top, but cant follow it up. Jakes takes off his boot again, but loses control of it. Dicky Slater goes to pick it up. Jake steps on the boot and then BANG DDT! AWESOME FUCKING FINISH! Huge pop! This match is helped immensely by how over Jake and the DDT are. It was such a great ending. I thought Slater was great working on top kicking ass. He was getting revenge for the Dark Journey DDT, but never like the babyface. Too short to be an all-time classic, but as a feel good match with a ton of heat to it this was awesome. ****1/4

Butch Reed vs Buzz Sawyer - Mid-South 12/31/85 Dog Collar Match Think about the roster Mid-South had at this time on the heel side you had Dick Slater, Dick Murdoch and Buzz Sawyer, which is pretty great. Then get a load of the babyface side: Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Ted DiBiase, Butch Reed and Jake Roberts. That is bonkers deep. Reed is looking for revenge on Sawyer. Sawyer wants a Dog Collar match and Reed is like you are playing right into my hand, sucka. Reed gets his No DQ match. I watched this six months ago and thought it was every bit as good as the Duggan Dog Collar match and still think so. It is just violence and hatred personified. I really like how such small mistakes can have such devastating consequences in a match like this. For instance, by missing one punch at the beginning, Sawyer gets his ass beat for the next five minutes and is bleeding like a stuck pig. Reed is great at hollering and really playing up how he much he enjoy beating Sawyer up. I loved the chain pressed against the cut. The same thing applied to Reed when he missed a fist drop now Sawyer could take over on him and really do a number on him and bust him open. It was a total war of attrition. I loved that Dog Bark Sawyer did. One of his chain whips sounded brutal on Reed's head. It was scary and crazy. Both men are exhausted and Reed bowls him over, but cant stand himself. Sawyer and rips off his Dog Collar and ties Reed to the bottom rope. Reed comes out of his funk and realizes his plight, but it is too late the Mad Dog sneak attacks. Then in one of the most brutal finishes of all time Sawyer goes to bulldog Reed, but because he is tied to the bottom rope he is yanked back violently to the ground. OUCH! 1-2-3, Buzz Sawyer wins. Slater and Sawyer look to double team Reed, but Duggan saves only to be clothesline brutally by the chain right before his North American heavyweight title match with Dicky Slater. Awesome, awesome violent spectacle. Sawyer was totally out of control and Reed was awesome as the avenging babyface. What an insane finish! Easy top 10 Mid-South match of all time. ****1/2

I didn't bring up in my review, but if they had Roberts work the neck more and Flair really sell they could have gotten this to *****. I can see why they wouldn't as it may have been to heel in peril. Maybe more hope spots around Roberts attacking the neck. Liked you said, that was one of the best pre-match angles ever. Really well done.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Jake Roberts - Mid-South 11/24/85 Jake the Snake is another substitute for Butch after he was injured by a bounty put on his head by Flair. I think it was Dicky Slater and Buzz Sawyer that collected the bounty. The beginning of the match is the perfect blend of Flair and Roberts psychology. Flair is using his jack psych out tactics mocking Roberts gangly frame, which results in a shoving match and then BANG! DDT! But one problem the bell has not sounded. Flair sells and sells then flees to the back. The ref forces him back and Roberts is over huge. Jake the Snake really gets the DDT chants going. Flair the master of the psych out actually looks a little skiddish. Jake is actually pretty energetic in this. Flair tries his normal crowding tactics before settling for a hair pull (set up by complaining about his own hair being pulled) and then a butt to the balls. Loved the double stomp follow up. Flair is really good at this heat segment until his kneedrop gets caught leading to a Jake the Snake figure-4. Jake goes after the leg, but to no avail. I really liked the Schoolboy with Flair's foot on the ropes as that got a ton of heat. The crowd was really pissed and worried that Flair might win. Jake the Snake was really into using the kneelift in this match. Flair gets a kneecrusher. Flair's sell of missing the seatdrop on the knee was fucking awesome. Jake doing a Sting-esque comeback was pretty funny at first, but then doing the whole hit me right in the kisser and then no sell was really good shit. Jake gets a big running kneelift, but whiffs on the second one, which was a wicked bump. Flair reverses an inside cradle for the win. Butch Reed in a neck brace is pissed. Flair goes for the piledriver, but reversed and runs Flair out of town. I think Flair stopped coming to Mid-South after this, but I could be wrong. So Flair/Reed was never resolved. Excellent Flair match! I loved the beginning psychology portion before they settled into a strong 15 minute match. Jake was a great babyface in this. I would have liked so more DDT teases. Flair was so on his game here with the crazy selling and offense. I would say this is probably Jake's second best match of his career after the Steamboat Boston Garden one. Gotta love Flair! ****1/2

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Ted DiBiase -Mid-South 11/6/85 Perhaps my favorite angle of the 1980s and that's saying a lot, but just an awesomely executed angle from every aspect. Bill Watts is just money in putting over the guts of Ted DiBiase, the violence that had just occurred and the importance of a World Heavyweight Championship match. Jim Ross puts in one of his best performance. "I CAN'T BELIVE HE KICKED OUT!" "IF HE HAD HIM IN THE CENTER OF THE RING, I GUARANATEE YOU WE WOULD HAVE A NEW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION"! Ric Flair was without question the perfect champion for this exact angle. He has all the credibility you need, but he is so selfless that he will give to DiBiase everything he needs to go from the most reviled man in Mid-South to their top babyface at a snap of the fingers. Flair can kick ass to make you believe DiBiase is climbing a massive mountain and let himself get his ass kicked that you really believe Ted can pull off the miracle. Dick Murdoch as the crotchy, old redneck that wants DiBiase to step aside and then lashes out in anger was awesome. That first punch!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT! It sounded like a gun went off. At the end of the match, he looks crazed and calm at the same time before dropping DiBiase head first on the concrete after having done a five alarm blade job at the beginning. This is Ted DiBiase's career performance. Standing up to Murdoch, selling the attack, not backing down to Flair, giving it his all in the match. The powerslam and not being able to cover is such a dramatic moment. Fighting through everyone of Flair's offensive volleys was just pure babyface. The figure-4 attempts were riveting. When he took that tumble out on the floor and smashes his into the railing it looks devastating. It is a ***** angle, but as a match let's go ****1/2. No matter, what you do watch this angle! You owe to yourself as a wrestling fan.

Ted DiBiase vs Bob Sweetan - Mid-South 10/11/85 Taped Fist Match I may have never seen a Hillbilly Jim match, but I have seen a Bob Sweetan match. Sweetan is one of the few US wrestlers I had never heard of before coming to PWO. It seems he wrestled primarily in the smaller territories like Southwest, Central States and WWC. This was probably his biggest break. It is not surprising to see why he did not make much further. I will say casting him as a babyface does seem counterproductive so perhaps if he was a heel I would have liked him more. This match came about because DiBiase was on one of his many tours of Japan so Sweetan stepped in to defend the tag titles with Doc, but lost them to the Miracle Dream Team of Al Perez and Wendell Cooley. Hey if I was Ted I'd be pissed too so DiBiase kicked Sweetan's ass and Sweetan turned babyface. This is the big blood feud match. If I did straight up play by play of this, it would probably come off as a violent classic. It had a simple but effective layout. There was plenty of blood, chairs, metal, and hard right hands. There was a piledriver and a great finish, but I thought it came off cold and a lot of that was on Sweetan. If there was ever match to point DiBiase carrying someone this is it. He gave a really great performance both on top and then stooging and bumping for Sweetan, who was capable on offense, but no great shakes either. DiBiase kicked some ass during the heat and showed ass during the comeback. That's the way I heel should be. I thought he threw a good chair shot and plenty of great punches. Sweetan was fine at the comeback climaxing with his famous piledriver, but only getting two. When a face hits his finish and only gets two, that is a death kneel. DiBiase gets his loaded black glove and wallops Sweetan. This is a great match and a very entertaining one, but needs a better performance from Sweetan and just more hate. ****

Parv was absolutely hilarious. I had to mute my mic for most of this because I was dying laughing. Most entertaining contestant ever! Hands down! I am just glad I was a part of this all.

Greg Valentine vs Chief Jay Strongbow - WWF, MSG 7/30/79 Strap Match I thought they were on pace to have an even better match because they were really letting the fists fly in this, but the opted for the schmozz finish with Stronbow kicking the ref in the balls and the faces breaking it up this no contest. The Hammer threw a couple punches at a fan for trying to grab a chair from him, but the fan pretty much no sold the punches. Strongbow is the worst seller ever. Valentine did not want to put the strap on so he jumped Strongbow and then put the strap on. Smart man. He busts Strongbow open, but upon seeing his blood the WARDANCE~! is triggered. Strongbow makes Philly look like a walk in the park and he opens a can of whoop ass on Valentine. What I like in this match is Valentine starts to fight back and they really have some awesome exchanges. Too short and lame of a finish so not as good as Philly, but definitely a recommended watch. ***1/2

Greg Valentine vs Chief Jay Strongbow - WWF, Philly 7/21/79 This one did not disappoint as the Titan boys were correct that this is a barnburner of a revenge match. The Hammer broke the Chief's leg and he is out for vengeance. Chief does not sprint down but instead stares daggers into the eyes of Valentine, who looks really sad, but Vince tries to sell as a look of violence. Valentine tries to jump Strongbow and attack the weakened knee, but there is a metal brace on it. Strongbow repeatedly bashes Valetine's head into it. I loved that! It was a cool twist. Strongbow showed great fire and really kicked the shit out of Valentine. He busted him open with a metal mic stand. He choked him with the mic cord. He got a stool smashed him in the head and then broke off a leg and hit him with that. You really got the feeling he was pissed. Valentine tried to go back to the knee with some success, but when he tried to put on the Figure-4, Stronbow would eye gouge and chop the cut. Strongbow was relentless and Valentine was great at selling. Parv is right in that Strongbow blows at selling. He reminds me of 1998 Sting in how shitty he sells. The good thing was he was on offense for the most part. Valentine took a wicked header into the guard rail. Valentine tries to bail, but Strongbow keeps catching him and bashing him into the knee brace. In the ultimate choke, the Chief actually loses by countout when they both knock heads sending both to the outside with Valentine getting back in first. the crowd ate this up with the spoon. Great fire and blood make this a great watch, both wrestlers really brought it in this revenge match. ****1/4

NWA Mid-Atlantic Champion Wahoo McDaniel vs Greg Valentine - JCP/MACW 9/7/77 Awesome TV slugfest sprint! New Japan boys take note this is how you do strike exchanges! Short bursts of impact! Wahoo was awesome in this. Loved the early technical acumen nice drop toehold and the ab stretch into a cradle. Valentine was at using cheating to set up his bruising. The best part was definitely mini-Wahoo comebacks when he would just chop shit out of Valentine. Those chop exchanges were electric. You can see the Mid-Atlantic style was pretty much in place. Hard-hitting, stiff- action-packed, competitive. Really avante-garde for the time. Wahoo's chop to Valentine's nose was tremendous. David Crockett was going crazy with how hard they were hitting each other. This is the famous Valentine broke Wahoo's leg match. Valentine did not like Indians. Wahoo immediately taps out and is hollering in pain. Flair comes out and congratulates Valentine. Stiff, energetic and competitive, with a killer angle at the end to boot. Great stuff. ****

I cant believe you don't like the test of strength. It just represents the masculine struggle so well. It can be used to effectively in the beginning to set the tone. Establish characters and the narrative. It is a skirmish in a larger battle. It is like the Javelin throw at the beginning of a battle in Illiad. It is both a ritual, storyline piece and effective act of war. Your disdain for the beauty of the test of strength is confusing. There are so many great ones: the collar-elbow tieup, your traditional Greco-Roman Knucklelock, then my favorite the side headlock into a top wristlock battle. So many more! I should write a blog about this. You are really missing the party, Parv!