Posted August 1, 201213 yr comment_5511683 VQ - Very Good 1. The British Bulldogs vs. The Hart Foundation This is the first meeting between these two teams ever. It was okay. There were some good parts and bad parts. The finish was terrible and left nothing to be desired which is probably the biggest problem with this match. We got double FIP in this which is a concept I like and it was done well here. The match started with Bret stooging for the Bulldogs which he was doing of good job of in this. They went through the usual HF heel stooging spots. Bret has a hammer lock in and gets tossed through the ropes and to the floor to release the hold and others. They quickly transitioned into FIP which was good. DK was the first of the Bulldogs to work underneath. I thought he did fine. There wasn't anything that blew me away here though. Bret and Anvil worked over DK and there were a few solid cut off spots to make the match a little more interesting. I just didn't find myself too invested in what was going on. The action picked up a bit after the first hot tag and Davey Boy was showing his athleticism with dropkicks and what not. Anvil Pearl Harbored him and we have our second FIP segment. Bret and Davey Boy didn't seem to be on the same page at times during this. They sort of botched a clothesline and an atomic drop. Davey Boy was far less compelling working underneath than DK was too. I'm one of the DK "revisionist" or whatever the hell you want to call it and thinks he's been wildly overrated for years but he was better than Davey Boy at FIP in this. I liked the second hot tag to DK. Dynamite really unloaded on Bret who took all of the offense full force. The match became interesting for that single face shine segment. Then, DK put Bret in an abdominal stretch and Anvil jumped him. DK tagged Davey Boy soon after and HF started working Davey Boy over. They continued on with the match and it looked like they were going into another FIP segment with Davey Boy underneath again. Davey Boy throws a comeback dropkick and the bell rings. It's a draw. The match.....just ended out of nowhere. It seemed totally out of place. Those twenty minutes felt pointless after that. If the Bulldogs had been desperately going for the win or there was some wild six pier brawl then my thoughts would be more positive but man that ending sucked. After running this down, it really feels like a run of the mill HF-Bulldogs tag with a crappy finish. Nothing too terrible, nothing too great. That's exactly what it was. 2. Tito Santana/David Sammartino vs. The Dream Team Decent tag match. As usual, Greg and Tito's exchanges ruled because they're so violent. They got into it early with a mini-brawl which was cool. Beefcake was in mostly though getting his arm worked on by David and Tito. David soon got trapped in a double team and was FIP. He was okay at it and got his back worked on. Valentine threw some nasty forearms to his lower back. Then, David started to do his stupid shit where he tries to show his toughness and tells The Hammer to bring more. I hate that shit and he's not even good at it. Tito finally got the hot tag and was great. He beat the shit out of Greg but missed a splash and hit Valentine's knees instead. Johnny V gave The Hammer a foreign object and hit a back suplex to set up the figure four but Tito got a reverse roll up for the win. Tito and David got rid of the heels after the match and celebrated. This was any average tag match with a solid heat segment, okay transitioning, and the added bonus of Tito-Valentine fights. Other than that, there's nothing much else to talk about. 3. Roddy Piper/Bob Orton Jr. vs. SD Jones/George Wells This was quick. Jones and Wells got tired of the heels stalling so they kicked ass instead of waiting. Piper and Orton stooged and bumped for like a minute. Piper and Jones were brawling when Orton jumped on Jones from the top rope and hit him with his cast arm. Piper covered Jones and the heels won the match. This was fine for what it was which was a way to put over Orton, Piper, and the cast. 4. The Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff vs. The U.S. Express Kal Rudman interviews Sheik and Volkoff. Volkoff says he'll split the money from the tag battle royal if they win with Sheik and spend it in another country because America sucks or something. Sheik then praised his country for being the home of wealth due to oil, Persian carpets and other shit. They said Piper/Orton and the other teams are dumb because they're from America and will win the battle royal. This was amusing. Volkoff and Sheik got jumped mid-Russian National Anthem which was great. The match started a few minutes after that and Sheik and Volkoff stooged and bumped for the faces. Barry looked good on offense here. I enjoyed his power slam, punches, and cool roll up on Volkoff. The faces worked over Volkoff's arm which happens to Volkoff every match. Soon enough, Barry is in peril and getting his back kind of worked on. Sheik does his spitting taunt and was pretty good on offense here. I like his gut wrench suplex. Barry fought back and collided heads with Sheik to get the hot tag to Rotundo. Rotundo had a long exchange with Volkoff that was alright then Rotundo missed a few moves and he was in peril now. After getting dropped on the bottom rope and then getting unfairly double teamed Rotundo got some help from Windham who was fed up with the cheating and we get a wild and fun brawl going. Barry and Sheik are fighting on the floor while Rotundo and Volkoff are still in the ring. Volkoff missed a running charged knee first into a turnbuckle and Rotundo rolled him up for the win. The tag belts weren't on the line so there was no title switch which pissed the fans off. This was an okay tag match but consisted of really just basic stuff and nothing too special happened. Video: "The Rock N Roll N Wrestling Connection" - EXTRA 5. Ricky Steamboat/Jimmy Snuka vs. Charlie Fulton/Moondog Spot This had heel in peril bullshit that went too long. It was followed by an FIP segment from Steamboat but this was just okay. Moondog Spot stooged and bumped early but Charlie Fulton was the victim of karate chops and arm drags for seven or eight minutes. It was fun at first then got boring and annoying. Philly fans being from Philly chanted "BORING!" and honestly I agreed with them. Fulton fucked up the transition into Steamboat going FIP. He couldn't properly execute a reverse atomic drop. That's not very good. Instead, he held onto Steamboat's leg after the botch and Spot came in and beat up Ricky with a good reverse atomic drop, body slam, and two sick knee lifts. Steamboat got back body dropped later by Fulton and Fulton locked in a long sleeper. Fulton actually applied it fairly well and Steamboat is a great FIP so it worked out okay. Steamboat was quite good during this fighting his way out of the heels corner with vicious karate chops. He made the hot tag and the crowd was actually into the match at this point. I credit that to Steamboat for working so well underneath. Snuka took care of the heels with karate chops of his own and tagged back in Steamboat. The finish to this was pretty cool as Snuka was chopping away at Spot, Steamboat came flying through the air off camera and into Fulton with a huge top rope cross body for the win. This was getting into the annoying range for the first half but evened out by being pretty solid in the second half. In the end though, this wasn't much to brag about. 6. Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff (WWF Title) Kal Rudman interviews Hulk before the match. Hulk is a cocky prick talking about being on the front of Sports Illustrated. He says Orndorff is all alone now and made a fool of himself at WrestleMania and even fired his manager Bobby Heenan. Hulk says he's going to beat Orndorff all over Philly or something. That sounded totally like a heel promo. This was another average match. Orndorff got in a few good shots after taking control very briefly. Then, Hulk came back with some punches and a big elbow to the face of Orndorff. Orndorff then took a slap in the next exchange and got pissed and left the ring to stall. Hogan takes control for a long time and Orndorff takes all of his offense great. Hulk's offense was good during this time period. Everything looks like it actually hurts. Orndorff finally got a control segment and didn't do much with it. He stomped and dropped some forearms on Hulk then suplexed him to the surprise of Dick Graham and Gorilla Monsoon which was an odd reaction. Hogan Hulked up after kicking out of a pin cover and did his thing. Orndorff took a great big boot and spun around then tried a charge but missed into a turnbuckle and hit the mat. Hulk hit his leg drop and retained the belt. After the match, Orndorff officially made his face turn and offered a handshake to Hogan. Hulk accepted and shook his hand. This was great and really well done as the crowd stood on their feet during and after the handshake. Hogan was shocked afterwards and couldn't believe what just happened. The match wasn't anything more than average but the post-match could possibly be an EXTRA. Mel Phillips announces the next Philly Spectrum card. I wasn't paying attention and I'll probably end up seeing that show anyways. 7. 20-man Tag Team $50,000 Battle Royal (Participants: The Hart Foundation, The British Bulldogs, The Dream Team, Tito Santana/David Sammartino,Roddy Piper/Bob Orton Jr.,SD Jones/George Wells, The U.S. Express, The Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff, Ricky Steamboat/Jimmy Snuka, and Charlie Fulton/Moondog Spot) This was pretty fun. The U.S Express and Sheik/Volkoff brawled before Mel Phillips could finish the announcements. They were disqualified were not getting in the ring so they were the first two teams eliminated. The Dream Team was gone after Snuka back body dropped Beefcake over the top rope. Soon everybody was flying left and right and the crowd was getting really into it. Steamboat skinned the cat and the crowd loved. HF, the Bulldogs, and others were all gone pretty quickly in a row. The last two teams were Steamboat/Snuka and Piper/Orton. Piper and Orton were about to eliminate Snuka after Steamboat was tossed through the ropes and attacked by Moondog Spot. Steamboat saved Snuka and not long afterwards Piper was back body dropped over the top rope by Snuka for the Steamboat/Snuka win. Piper stole the money after the match but Gorilla assured everyone that he'd be stopped once he got to the dressing room. That was funny. This was mostly basic brawling but had a cool start, finish and the crowd was into it for the most part. It's not the best battle royal I've seen from the company but I enjoyed it. Final Analysis Average show. Nothing jumped out of the screen at me. Everything was pretty much just okay. The important stuff was the EXTRAS which are the hilarious video that's on here and Orndorff's face turn in the post-match of the Hogan-Orndorff title match. Other than that, as I said before, this show was really just run of the mill wrestling.
