War Games: Abdullah the Butcher, Hercules Ayala, Grizzly Boone, Iron Sheik, & Chicky Starr vs. Bruiser Brody, Carlos Colon, The Invader, Dutch Mantell, & TNT (December 1987)

 

You have to handcuff every man on the opposing team to win here and everyone is in at the same time so it's 5 on 5. This is total insanity with all sorts of blood and violence and quite the spectacle ending up with Colon being submitted by Iron Sheik and buried under the Iranian flag which was fucking wild. This is a definite nomination.

Yeah very fun, very Puerto Rico. Sheik looked great in this match, one of his better performances of the 80s

This was a clusterfuck but largely an entertaining one. Honestly this would have been ten thousand times better as a true Wargames tag with guy coming in in 2 or 5 minute intervals. In any case I loved Chicky Starr in this but that is a reoccurring them and to be expected at this point. The goal of the gimmick is that all five guys from a team have to be chained to a cage and then the winning team gets five minutes alone with them. This leads to a lot of awkward moments and a whole lot of nothing happening after an initial wave of stuff. I thought this got pretty good as it broke down the final four and Sheik was a lot of fun as the last man standing, destroying Colon with a foreign object he'd kept in his boot and then unchaining him and locking him in the camel clutch during the five minute beatdown period. Colon was a bloody mess and this was a decisive and crushing win for the heels which is something that allows impresses me in a match like this. This isn't even close to a great match - I'm not even positive it's a good one. But it the violence and angle at the end made it worthwhile.

Dylan, yay or nay on this match?

I am not in love with this match at all, but to me this has to be on the set. This is one of the few PR matches that you see come up in conversation outside our little PR bubble here. Also the heels winning decisively and the post-match stuff feels like a huge deal

La Gran Guerra 2 took place on 12/13/87.

 

The first La Gran Guerra was the day before on 12/12/87.

War Games: Abdullah the Butcher, Hercules Ayala, Grizzly Boone, Iron Sheik, & Chicky Starr vs. Bruiser Brody, Carlos Colon, The Invader, Dutch Mantell, & TNT (December 1987) -

 

This was quite the novelty. The rules are cool and I thought this had some great moments. Overall, it was messy, disjointed, and hard to keep up with but I think that was the point. My favorite parts of the match were Chicky Starr no-selling a low blow and trying to escape but being unable to due to the cage roof, Chicky taking an insane head first bump into the cage, Chicky getting handcuffed and Invader punting him in the nuts over and over, and Colon saving Invader from a beating causing a huge pop from the crowd. The last several minutes were tremendous heat building with Colon getting handcuffed with Chicky Starr, the heels winning the match, and then having Colon getting mauled. I loved the spot with Invader giving it his best shot against Chicky. The last part of this was awesome and with total distaste when Iron Sheik covered Colon with the Iranian flag. I don't think this was a great match but it was a novelty and showed some great booking. I'll call this a SOLID nomination.