Posted July 19, 201213 yr comment_5510554 VQ - Good to Very Good 1. Brutus Beefcake vs. Rick McGraw This match was boring and slow. Beefcake was extremely uninteresting in anything he did. He worked over McGraw's back for the entire match and then his arm but it was all in slow motion and not compelling. Beefcake won with a shoulder breaker followed by a forearm to the face. Ultimately, Beefcake is really, really boring most of the time. 2. David Sammartino vs. Mr. Fuji Mr. Fuji said he has a grudge against Bruno so he's going to take it out on David in a pre-match interview. Crappy match. This was as boring as the previous match but the moves looked even worse. Fuji just had to apply two long nerve holds. Sammartino's offense was some of the most uninspired I've ever seen. Terrible, terrible performance and a boring, bad match. 3. The Brisco Brothers vs. Rene Goulet/Steve Lombardi This was kind of fun. The Brisco's gave Goulet and Lombardi old school arm drags and did neat mat work. Jack kind of did an FIP segment but it was too short. Jerry won the match when he made Lombardi submit to the figure four. The Brisco's are interviewed after the match. Jerry says if one applies basic wrestling holds they can win championships. Fair enough. Jerry sort of calls out Adonis and Murdoch. Captain Lou and Arnold Skaaland are the two Special Guest Refs in the tag title match. Albano is interviewed before the match saying he'll call the match down the middle and isn't happy Skaaland is involved. He says he's in tremendous shape and prepared to referee the match. Skaaland is interviewed and says he will call the match down the middle. He's ready to keep an eye on Albano so that he doesn't show favoritism to Adonis and Murdoch. The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff are interviewed for their tag match against Andre and Sarge later in the card. Volkoff says some shit and Sheik spits at America and Sarge and screams some crazy rhetoric. 4. Rocky Johnson vs. Moondog Spot This wasn't terrible. Rocky did some of his fun jigs and a couple of decent looking arm drags and a solid dropkick. Spot took a few great bumps after missing a knee and elbow from the top rope. Spot applied a reverse chin lock for quite awhile and that wasn't very interesting. Rocky won with a good looking sunset flip. I was bored through most of this, Spot's control segment was eh, but Rocky was fun in parts. 5. Adrian Adonis/Dick Murdoch vs. The Wild Samoans (WWF Tag Title) This was North/South at their absolute worst, taking offense and giving nothing. Just total annoying bullshit. They never really got a single move in. Then Albano and Skaaland got attacked by the wrestlers and a six pier brawl occurred resulting in a double DQ. Adonis took some ludicrous bumps but at times they felt too absurd. Yeah, I hated this. 6. Big John Studd vs. SD Jones This was better than it should have been but still not good. Studd took control early with a long reverse chin lock. Jones came back and re-opened a cut in Studd's forehead. He worked the cut over for a few minutes with some head butts and elbows. Studd fought back and tossed him out of the ring. SD came back in but was dazed and eventually lost to a big elbow drop to the throat. A bloody Studd screamed about Hogan with Heenan after the match. This sucked mostly and went too long but I liked that Jones opened a cut in Studd's forehead and worked on it. That amounts to something I suppose. 7. Andre The Giant/Sgt. Slaughter vs. The Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff Volkoff sang the Russian National Anthem before the match. For some reason I love that shit. Sarge did it again. He ruled in this match. He and Sheik went at it before the ring announcements and had a mini-brawl with Volkoff involved. The opening exchange of this was awesome with Sarge and Sheik spitting on each other in disgust. Andre was great in this too as the big guy having fun giving Sheik a scary ass splash that may have killed him and had Sarge torpedo him into both Sheik and Volkoff. Andre then gets his back worked over which started out okay but then Volkoff put him in a bear hug. That wasn't convincing at all. Sarge got a hot tag and cleaned house but eventually missed a splash in the corner and did his patented corner bump. Sheik gave him a high back body drop, bloodied him and got a good near fall off of a gord buster. Sarge was tremendous as FIP here. He finally got the tag to Andre and Andre stiffed the hell out of Sheik and Volkoff. The finish was violent as fuck with Sarge winning the match with a second rope clothesline that took Sheik's head off. The post-match ruled too with Sarge and Volkoff challenging one another to a fight and Sarge saying the Pledge of Allegiance with a couple of fans. Sarge got interviewed in the back after the match and said he was ready for a war against Volkoff. Everyone was good in this but Volkoff. However, this was a very good tag match with some great shit in it. It's getting a solid nomination from me. Final Analysis This show wasn't too good but the main event ruled. I'm really loving Sgt. Slaughter though. I think he's awesome as a FIP. I imagine the shows will start to get a little better gradually as I approach 85 and 86.
