Nick Bockwinkel v. Boris Zhukov

 

The opening of this is all throws and escapes and working basic holds like full nelsons and knuckle locks but everything looks good and the crowd is really into it. In fact that knuckle lock went on forever but was shockingly well worked and actually pretty entertaining. They go to a headlock and again I thought it was fairly well worked as a base. Bock's corner charge did not look very good but Zhukov's follow up post shots looked pretty sick. Zhukov goes to a hammerlock and works some attacks out of it with Bock selling well and the crowd staying hot. Zhukov's headbutts looked pretty stiff. Bock does a really dope looking roll through into a side headlock and they end up back on their feet with Bock kicking Boris in the skull. Boris tries to steal a win, but ends up getting dropkicked into Adnan and rolled up.

 

Mr. Saito/Larry Zbyszko v. Greg Gagne/Nick Bockwinkel

 

We have this already.

 

Buddy Rose v. Marty Jannetty

 

We have this already.

 

Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie v. Nick Bockwinkel

 

We have this already

 

Greg Gagne v. Akio Sato

 

Interesting match. Sato works the arm early and it is not bad but not great. Gagne takes over and does some nice stuff including a cool head scissors. Sato ends up breaking out with a direct attack to the leg and does some cool stuff. They somehow end up fucking up a sleeper spot. Sato essentially hits a slingshot shoulder block on the ref. Gagne throws salt at Sato and the match gets tossed. Bizarre

 

Tom Zenk v. Paul Diamond

 

This was mainly relevant for Sato and Tanaka turning on Diamond and forming there team. Match is okay though I don't care for Zenk at all. EXTRA

 

Larry Hennig v. Adrian Adonis

 

We have this already.

 

Scott Norton/Wahoo McDaniel v. The Wrecking Crew

 

This was okay. Wahoo took a nice beating at the end but this match was basically there to get Norton over as a tough guy.

 

Wahoo McDaniel v. Manny Fernandez

 

Boy I really liked this. Phil nominated a couple of their matches but I'm not sure of the date on this one. Lots of stiff fucking shots from both guys as you would expect, but I especially liked the pacing of this as they would go to the ground to work the arm or something for a bit, come up and kill each other with shots, then settle down for a second and beat each other half to death again. Manny's diving knee looked sick as did his spinning back elbow. Once the big over the top bump came, Wahoo was bloody as fuck and I knew they were probably going to a double countout, but it was a vicious double countout, with double juice, choas, stiffness, et. I liked this a lot more than the strap match.

 

Slow motion film of a match that looked to be from the 70's.

 

Road Warriors v. Crusher/Baron Von Raschke

 

JIP. Match gets thrown out when things break down. This was nothing special.

 

Finishing stretch of Baron Von Raschke v. Scott Irwin

Mr. Saito & Larry Zbyszko vs. Nick Bockwinkel & Greg Gagne (1/27/87)

 

We start this around 14:00 in the match with Bock in a Saito sasorigatame and Bock gets worked over good here by both heels. Gagne gets the tag and he runs wild on both heels before locking in his version of the Indian Death Lock on Zbyszko. This is fun little section as Gagne just wrenches it in with Larry selling his ass off then tags Bock in and he locks on the figure-four until Saito sneaks in to make the save. Saito then gets the tag in and the faces take turns working him over for a bit and it's fun watching Bock & Gagne doing sneaky heel double team tactics behind the ref's back. Larry would sneak in to attack Greg though to give the heels the advantage back and Greg gets sent to the floor for further attack by Larry. Gagne eats a Saito Suplex when he comes back into the ring then a Zbyszko piledriver for a nearfall as Bock is having to come in to save Gagne from being pinned. Bock would get the hot tag and cleaned house before a 4-way brawl where he gets the sleeper on Larry but Saito comes off the top hitting the Mongolian Chop allowing Larry to get the win. This had some fun action but we didn't even get half of this match so I'm going no on the nomination.

 

Marty Jannetty vs. "Playboy" Buddy Rose (10/18/86)

 

Buddy is so awesome here hemming and hawwing stalling around inside and outside the ring getting the fans in a frenzy before he goes for a handshake which Marty accepts and turns right into a backdrop suplex which was great. Marty keeps up his attack on Buddy who bumps around like crazy and just everything he does during this section is so awesome. Buddy fucking hides in the corner luring Jannetty in there and of course he back kicks him right in the balls then gives the referee a "what happened" look. Buddy now goes on offense and Jannety takes some fun bumps while selling hard to try and one up Buddy and this is a really good section. Marty's comeback was well built and when he pulled the trigger it was a blast leading up to the inevitable Shawn/Somers interference for the DDQ finish. I could care less about a clean finish here as these two were so fucking great. Slam dunk nomination and Buddy Rose is awesome.

 

"Ragin Bull" Manny Fernandez vs. Chief Wahoo McDaniel (10/15/88)

 

This is JIP but not too much. This was a fuckin war but it had a really good psychology of beating ass/then working body parts/beating ass/working body parts so it wasn't a complete slugfest but a methodical war. The shots were stiff as you would hope and both men were great selling the punishment. Wahoo would juice from a vicious back elbow and then this turned into a fucking slugfest as both men just beat the fuck out of each other taking it to the floor where both men would get counted out. This fucking ruled and is a slam dunk nomination.