WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. vs. The Viet Cong Express (Hiroshi Hase & Fumihiro Niikura) (6/29/86)

 

Hase & Niikura look like child versions of Kuniaki Kobayashi here. Short match but fine for what it was.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Crusher (Rip Morgan) & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Al Perez & Sweet Brown Sugar (6/29/86)

 

Interesting teams here. Sugar looks very good early on with his springs for legs but when Perez comes in the heels take over. Sugar gets the hot tag and runs wild throwing some great dropkicks but misses one off the middle rope and gets pinned.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Zambuie Express (Mr. Elijah Akeem & Mr. Kareem Muhammad) vs. Superstar Billy Graham & Mighty Igor (6/29/86)

 

SBG & Igor make for quite the team. This is nothing but a brawl and not a good one at that.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. Dan Greer & "Bulldog" Don Kent (6/29/86)

 

RPM's are the faces here and are good in the role even if their opponents are not good at all.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Invaders vs. The Assassins (6/29/86)

 

These Assassins are jobbers.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr vs. El Monarca & Super Medico (Jose Estrada) (6/29/86)

 

Chicky looks really sleazy here with his wet hair look. This was the best of the first round matches as it had a solid structure and both teams worked it well. Basic southern style with the faces shining early then getting controlled before Ron hits a vertical DDT which looked cool to win.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Crusher & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. (6/29/86)

 

The heels jump early but the Juniors come back fighting hard sending the heels to the floor. This becomes a good back and forth match with some fired up babyfaces and Embry being fun bouncing around and selling before juicing which is our first sight of blood in this tournament. The faces batter Embry working over the cut but Embry gets over on them as he rolls under a reverse cross body block by Miguel and gets the pin. This was the best match so far but still not enough for a nomination. Maybe with a better stretch run but nope.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. The Zambuie Express (Mr. Elijah Akeem & Mr. Kareem Muhammad) (6/29/86)

 

The Zambuies jump the RPM's at the bell and they beat the shit out of Tommy Lane for quite a while which got the fans in a frenzy and they went apeshit once he made the hot tag to Davis which kicked off the 4-way brawl. Lane would hit a missile dropkick on Davis' back as Kareem held him up for a slam for the win and the coliseum fucking went insane for that finish as the place was shaking. Fun finish run but the rest of the match was basically a squash.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Invaders vs. Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr (6/29/86)

 

The action is dominated by the Starr's from the start and they are very good at working over Invader III who is just as good at taking the punishment. Chicky & Ron would've been a fun heel team in quite a few territories at this time as they had a good Southern heel psychology going on especially Chicky with his chain. Invader I comes in and the crowd goes nuts as he takes the offense to Chicky but the double team would take over and Ron would hit his sweet looking vertical DDT for a 2 count but the heels thought they won with the referee telling them that it wasn't a pin as the bell rang for a time limit draw. These matches had like 10 minute time limits which sucked especially for the last matches.

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Finals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. The Crusher & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry (6/29/86)

 

Wendi Richter is at ringside with the RPM's to counter Embry's valet Sasha. There was a battle at the start but the RPM's sent the heels scurrying to the floor. Embry's head is bandaged from the earlier match but it gets ripped off and the cut gets reopened of course with the RPM's working it over. Embry gets a neutralizer in this as he kicked Davis right in the balls. Davis is now in peril and gets worked over by Crusher then Embry before he makes a comeback trying to work his way over to tag Lane. Embry would pull Davis to the floor where he crashed into Richter and Davis is back in peril again. Embry would lock on a figure-four which Davis would reverse as the crowd is going nuts but Crusher would come in to neutralize him until a double collision would give Davis the chance to make the hot tag to Lane and the 4-way brawl was on. Embry's bloodied head faces the wrath of Lane as Davis & Crusher go at it but Embry makes his own comeback and hits a piledriver on Lane for a nearfall as Lane got the ropes. Davis then sees this and makes the switch behind the ref's back and he would get Embry in an inside cradle to win the match as the coliseum erupts. The heels would jump the faces afterwards and beat the hell out of them even getting a spike piledriver on Richter. This was a very good match and the solid performance by the RPM's puts this over the top as a fairly solid nomination.

If anyone needs to view this release, I believe all of the matches are on Youtube:

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. vs. The Viet Cong Express (Hiroshi Hase & Fumihiro Niikura) (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Crusher (Rip Morgan) & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Al Perez & Sweet Brown Sugar (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Zambuie Express (Mr. Elijah Akeem & Mr. Kareem Muhammad) vs. Superstar Billy Graham & Mighty Igor (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. Dan Greer & "Bulldog" Don Kent (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: The Invaders vs. The Assassins (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Quarterfinals: Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr vs. El Monarca & Super Medico (Jose Estrada) (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Crusher & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. The Zambuie Express (Mr. Elijah Akeem & Mr. Kareem Muhammad) (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Semifinals: The Invaders vs. Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr (6/29/86)

 

WWC World Tag Titles Tournament - Finals: The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. The Crusher & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry (6/29/86)

Thanks for the direct links Boricua. My goal is to watch all of this before Thanksgiving and then I can wait on any new discs we hopefully can track down with new footage and/or random stuff on youtube I can find.

Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. vs. The Viet Cong Express For the length this was this was well worked. The problem is they were building this like it was going fifteen to twenty, but it went a little more than six. Everyone worked had and looked pretty good and this had a nice finish, but that isn't enough for a nomination.

 

The Crusher (Rip Morgan) & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Al Perez & Sweet Brown Sugar I thought this was an outstanding sprint, another great performance from Embry and one of the best Al Perez performances I've ever seen. Now admittedly being the best Al Perez performance ever isn't all that impressive in and of itself, but for a match that barely went over six minutes this was awful good. This had great heat from the bell and Sweet Brown Sugar rattled off a couple of really impressive high spots early with Embry bumping around like crazy, while Crusher freaked out on the apron. Perez came in and was rattled off his spots when he decided to take this really nutty twisting bump to set up the FIP. The pacing and timing here was just great as Perez run was really strong, his bump looked great and then Embry ends up scheming his way in and hitting an awesome looking falling headbutt off the top. The control section is short but I really liked the exchanges Perez had here and he was bumping every bit as big as Embry was. I also thought the finish was great as Perez took a knee to the spine on the hot tag, Sugar starts to make another run, but then Embry swats Morgan out of the way of a second rope dropkick, and Brown has no partner to make the save. They crammed a ton of stuff in, but in an organic way. This was not out of this world great, but for a match this short, I thought it was really good, way better than it should have been if you look at these teams on paper.

 

The Zambuie Express (Mr. Elijah Akeem & Mr. Kareem Muhammad) vs. Superstar Billy Graham & Mighty Igor Man this sucked. I mean I expected it to suck, but holy shit was this bad. Put it this way - the best guy in the match was Superstar Graham (easily) and the most impressive highspot in the match was an Irish whip into a bearhug. Gotta give it to the PR crowd though. They were going nuts for this shit.

 

The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. Dan Greer & "Bulldog" Don Kent Wow, I liked this a lot too. I have no clue who Dan Greer was, but he looked very unmummylike. I know Don Kent was old as fuck, but I think he has looked pretty good on all of this PR footage, and he seemed to be right in his element here. I swear Greer has about ten rope running spots with the RPM's in this and Kent's bumping is really fun. I loved the bit where he looked to be coming in and one of the RPM's looked up and he just swept his leg through the ropes and kept his ass right there on the apron. The face in peril was short here, but well worked with some nice punches from heels and a huge back body drop bump. The face comeback was also fun with Greer taking a nutcase bump over the top and a double team finish as the crowd went bananas. Another really good sprint, this one felt like something that could have been on Nitro in 1997.

 

The Invaders vs. The Assassins This was definitely not Renesto and Hamilton, though the idea of those two reuniting in 80's Puerto Rico doesn't seem that unlikely. Really short match and a total squash, though I did love some of the exchanges in this.

 

Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr vs. El Monarca & Super Medico This got the most time of anything in the first round and from that perspective I thought this was actually kind of disappointing because they could have afforded to work this much more evenly than they did. The face shine was good - Ron took one awesome bump on the apron, and Chicky was tremendous flying all around for the faces - but unlike with the other first round matches, it could have been half as long here and been just as effective. That's not to say this was bad because it wasn't. In fact I really enjoyed the work in this and I thought the Starr's did a great job cramming a bunch of offense (mainly Ron really) into the some control segment on Medico. The hot tag was kind of underwhelming, but I did love how Monarca came in and instead of going on a run Ron - who has awesome offense - kneed him in the face and then fucking murdered him with the high angle DDT. Over all this was good stuff, I just think with a minor tweak this could have been even better.

 

The Crusher & "Flamboyant" Eric Embry vs. Huracan Castillo Jr. & Miguel Perez Jr. Another good match. They clearly tried to cram a ton of stuff into seven minutes here, which I guess could be seen as a negative, but I thought over all it was effective. One thing I liked about this was that you had a match that was basically back and fourth, but it was well disguised in that regard. You had the early ambush, the face shine, the brief heel control off of Sasha interference (and a nice blindside lariat from Crusher), and then the face comeback centered around Embry's blade job and him just trying to survive the face onslaught. I really like the Embry/Crusher team dynamic as they are very good at changing speeds and playing the parts they need to play to make the team work. Crusher is also shockingly good at working the apron. I thought the finish was slightly "off" but this was still a good match.

 

The Rock n Roll RPM's (Mike Davis & Tommy Lane) vs. The Zambuie Express I actually thought this match worked really well because it was unlike anything else in the tourney up to this point. I'm not sure how well it would look in isolation, but watching as part of the show, the fact that the heels dominate is a welcome deviation. It doesn't hurt that this has some of my favorite things in wrestling including fat guys using fat guy offense (loved the avalanche/double body squash spot), paramilitary looking manager beating a guy with a weapon and a guy wrestling with his hat on. This also had a really fun hope spot off of a Lane cross body where he ended up getting tossed off of the cover and out to the floor. I also thought the big bump before the hot tag looked good. To be honest I actually thought the finish - while solid - was the least interesting part of the match, though it got a massive pop, which really showcases the greatness of the Puerto Rican fans. Either way, this is another one I liked a lot more than Kris.

 

The Invaders vs. Chicky Starr & "Rotten" Ron Starr I've seen this before, but this was helped a ton by knowing the fact that this was a tournament draw and not some random match. It was helped even more by knowing how much of a evasive piece of shit Chicky was being in doing everything not to have to square off with Invader 1 which was really the story of the match. The dynamic of the Starr team was just really good in this as you had Ron as the bruiser/enforcer and Chicky as the cheapshot artist who was moving heaven and earth to stay away from Invader 1, tagging out every chance he could get, fleeing in terror, et. all the while pointing to his head to show his own genius while the fans threw trash at him. When he was in there with 3 he looked great too both bumping his ass of early and working offensive later in the match. This ended up getting turned on it's head some at the end with Invader getting cut down by big Ron, the flubbed - but ultimately sick looking reverse Hart Attack clothesline, and the survival of the awesome Ron Starr DDT as time expired. This was really close to being a great draw, rather than just a good one, but either way I think its' a nomination. I already commented on the last match as a nomination, but to reiterate I think it's one of the best PR matches I've seen. Honestly I thought this was a great wrestling show.