Posted March 18, 201114 yr comment_5467566 1. Adrian Adonis v Ricky Rice This was a real fun squash. Adonis was kind of a dick in it. He would give Rice a comeback, but wouldn't let him hit offense. So Rice would reverse an irish whip, look like he was going to get offense, but then Adonis would just hold the ropes and move out of the way of the dropkick. Rice throws Adonis into the turnbuckle, Adonis just no sells it and hits him with an elbow. Really amusing, but cruel. Make the jobber think he's getting comeback offense, and then trick him. 2. Jerry Lawler v Samoan Joe This was a real fun one. Joe takes some real nice snap bumps and Lawler works really stiff in this one. Great early stuff as Lawler punches Joe in the face and TONS of activator flies off Joe's jheri curl. Awesome. Lawler continues to work stiff and smashes into him with a great shoulderblock, stiff elbowdrop, and nasty kneedrop. Yes! Joe takes control when Lawler tries to slam Joe's head into the turnbuckle, but Joe's hard head is not affected. He then does a run of really great looking headbutts than Lawler makes look even better. Snapping back on the bump, checking his lip for blood, just awesome. Lawler eventually turns the tide, the strap comes down, Lawler throws great punches, then wins with the 2nd rope fistdrop. So much fun. LOW LEVEL NOMINATION. 3. Greg Gagne v Darryl Olsen – AWA International TV title Wow. Gagne throws a shit ton of armdrags, then wins with two sloppy dropkicks. He pins a man after a standing dropkick. In 2 minutes. 4. Bob Orton v Tom Johnson Fun squash with Orton getting TONS of heat from the crowd. They really hated him and he was hamming it up. Dropped some great forearms on the ground, too. He finished with a GREAT piledriver, one arm holding his opponent, other flexing. So rad. 5. Wahoo McDaniel/Tom Zenk v The Nasty Boys Well this was a disappointing mess. Wahoo and Zenk take 90% of this 11 minute match, but doing nothing but chinlocks and arm wringers. So fucking boring. Cameras cut away TWICE from Wahoo doing chops. WTF? Wahoo and Zenk also work as heels doing fake tags behind the refs back, and Nasties worked face with Sags trying to hot tag Knobbs and getting cut off. The announcers were really confused and spent the whole time wondering aloud who the legal man was between Zenk and Wahoo, even after they won the match. Sloppy and bland.
June 13, 201114 yr comment_5473296 Ricky Rice v. Adrian Adonis I have no clue what the fuck was going on during one of the opening exchanges where Rice goes for a double leg and they just role around cluelessly and then Adrian comes up selling his face. Literally have no clue why you would sell your FACE at that point. Adonis really has some dope offense and Eric is right about how douchey he comes off. Candi Devine v. Madusa JIP and this is really just the finishing run. Nick Kiniski gets involved and you realize there is a shitload of man on women violence in the AWA of this period. Finish of Adonis/Gagne match with Bob Orton running in, Paul Heyman taking powder to the face, et. Wahoo makes the save. Finish of Midnight Rockers v. Original Midnight Express shown. Jerry Lawler v. Samoan Joe The way Joe sells the first Lawler punch is AWESOME. Seriously one of his legs goes limp and it really puts over the power of the blow. Lawler doing a fucking people's elbow and then kneeing Joe in the face was great. Not sure why Lawler decides to go to a standing toehold, but at least it led to the cool elbow to the inside of the leg with Lawler making sure the ref knows it was a legal blow right after. Oh man Joe is awesome just looking at Lawler when he tries to ram his head into the top turnbuckle and then gets a brief flurry before quickly going down. This was fun, but honestly I don't see anyway this is even in the neighborhood of being a top 150 AWA match. I may have even liked the Nasty Boys squash from yesterday more. Greg Gagne v. Darryl Olsen Not as bad as Eric makes it sound. Gagne's cover actually made you buy the dropkick as a finish as he really wrapped Olsen up. Baron Von Raschke promo Bob Orton v. Tom Johnson God damn a lot of these AWA squashes feel like "so you wanna be a pro wrestler" stories where guys like Bob Roop would take "trainees" in and just kick the shit out of them until they gave up, cried, et. Johnson seriously throws the worst back elbow I've ever seen at one point and then forgets how to post up for a body slam AGAIN and then Bob just starts fucking with him and kicks the shit out of him. I was actually scared to see him take a piledriver finish given his inability to take any other move correctly. Greg Gagne promo. Nasty Boys v. Tom Zenk/Wahoo McDaniel Zenk almost breaks Sags arm on a mild miscommunication about ten seconds in and I have hope. The Nastys are usually really good in matches with a high degree of unprofessional behavior and that was pretty god damned unprofessional. Sadly Eric is pretty spot on about this match. Nasty Boys strength is unprofessional brawls and bomb throwing sprints. Wahoo's strength is kicking the shit out of people. Zenk has no strengths but he is much better working fast paced then trying to grind it out or whatever the fuck he was going for here. This match played to none of these guys strengths and even with some good Nasty's bumps there is nothing in this you are going to go out of your way to see.
