WCCW & NWA WWW 5/3/86

This show was devoted to one match and I fucking loved when they did this as it made the match seem like a huge fucking deal.

David & Tony talk over footage of both men in the locker room before they go to Johnny Weaver who interviews Ric Flair also in the locker room who really puts over both men and how important the match is.

Dusty is at ringside with Tony & David and he is going to join them at the announce table and David asks Dusty about the Baby Doll situation which Dusty said that revenge for Baby Doll is coming. Dusty then pulls out some tape and said that Garvin doesn't have an advantage with it.

National Heavyweight Title: Tully Blanchard © vs. "Hands of Stone" Ronnie Garvin (4/29/86)

Garvin is definitely the aggressor early on as the crowd goes nuts when he just throws Tully from pillar to post. Garvin just lays in the shots but he sells the pain from each shot on his hand so he wants to take the match to the mat to take the pressure off of his hand. Garvin also would use his jumping headbutts as a big weapon as well which one of them forced a little trickle of blood from over Tully's eye. Tully is like a ragdoll here just taking punishment from all directions but he stays alive showing his resiliency. Tully watch Ronnie with a big knee to the gut sending him to the floor and that allowed Tully to get control of the match or so I thought as Garvin came back with a cross body block off the top rope for a nearfall. Garvin is selling that hand like crazy though even to the point where he couldn't even hook the leg on a pinfall attempt. Garvin would start focusing on Tully's left leg working it over hard stretching it around the ringpost with Tully yelling loudly in pain. This is becoming a completely grueling battle and the tide would turn when Garvin would get rammed into the ringpost shoulder first then Tully would grab Dillon's shoe and banged him over the head with it. Tully then started working over Garvin's bad right hand but Garvin wouldn't say die and would find ways to stay alive as well getting offense in. Garvin breaks out the Garvin Stomp here maybe for the first time and Dusty was fucking great calling the move.....This is now in slugfest territory as both men trade big shots but both won't go down. Garvin would throw Tully into Tommy Young so Dusty went over and taped Garvin's hand while Dillon gave Tully some coins but Garvin hit him first and Tommy counted the pinfall. The building goes nuts as Dillon points to the tape on the hand and tells Young that Garvin used them so he grabbed the belt and handed it back to Tully. The announcers were trying to tell Tommy about the coins which JJ was picking up and this was quite the creative finish even though it was bullshit. The match was fucking tremendous and a slam dunk nomination.

Then we get promos from Manny, Garvin, Precious, Paul Jones, Shaska, Baron, Barbarian & Valiant for the 5/14 show in Raleigh.

We got to the locker room with Tully & Dillon who were celebrating victory