Ron Garvin & Barry Windham vs. Dick Murdoch & Ivan Koloff (6:25)(5:42)(7:32) (19:39) (w/ post-interview)
- Murdoch rules. Seriously, he has Garvin and just mouths off the entire time which is entertaining in itself. Koloff and Dick take turns working the neck lock which doesn't seem that interesting (besides Murdoch's jawing) but makes sense if the goal is to setup for the brainbuster. When the heels take over on Windham, it is much more interesting with Murdoch just laying in the kicks and punches. After about ten minutes, the match picks up with Windham and Murdoch going to town on each other. Great visual of Murdoch missing a punch but the last 8 minutes or so is just back and forth MOVES with Murdoch going to the top with the driving knee, Barry crotching Ivan on the top rope and capitalizing with a leg drop to the groin and Windham hitting his big clothesline finisher. Some shenanigans as hell breaks loose, Petrov tries to interfere but as the ref is taking him out, Cornette and Eaton come out of nowhere, pop Garvin on the head with the racquet and Dick & Ivan are the champs! The post matchinterview is great and needs to be included. Definitew nomination and one of my favorite studio matches.

Dick Murdoch & Ivan Koloff Interview

(NWA TV 3/87 - 4/87 Disc 1)

This seems like a solid nomination. Both heels are on the same page and focus on Garvin's neck. They tease a couple of near tags. Murdoch 's standing front facelock looks painful. They hot tag to Windham though he gets cut off and he starts trading moves with the heels. The heels have great heel psychology. The crowd uchhants traitor at Dick. The hope spots they give Barry are great. The heel offense is perfect. Barry's FIP is pretty choice. We build to the finish to ad more heat to the MX. Man Murdoch and Koloff were a great team .

US Tag Titles: "Hands of Stone" Ronnie Garvin & Barry Windham © vs. "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff & "Capt. Redneck" Dick Murdoch (3/14/87)

I loved Ivan giving Garvin a taste of his own medicine early on just peppering him with shots. The story of the match early on is the heels isolated Garvin and just worked him over hard for a while until he finally tagged in Windham who was a house of fire until Ivan caught him in the neck and the heels then started controlling him. Murdoch was throwing some awesome punches throughout this match which I have to note. The battle would go to the floor where Windham bashed Murdoch's head into the table and Garvin started chopping Ivan before it went back to the ring where Windham got a very close nearfall on a sunset flip on Murdoch. Windham would go back to work FIP though and he was very good here selling everything the heels had for him. Garvin gets the hot tag and he cleans house KOing IVan with his right hand but Murdoch stops him from pinning them then Garvin KO's Petrov. Bobby Eaton then comes out and bashes Garvin over the head with the tennis racquet and Koloff covers to win. The new champs cut a promo afterwards. This was a helluva match and an easy nomination.