I wasn't expecting much from this with really only one good guy on each team, but this kind of ruled. Gibson and Fernandez have some spots with each other which are great. Ricky Rice is the face in peril, and is nothing special in that role, but holy fuck do the heels beat the shit out of him, Fernandez is hitting short shots, jumping knees, and a super nasty back suplex, add that to a great looking clothesline on a prone Rice. Then post match you have an awesome pull apart that was nuts with cool starts and restarts.

 

AWA ESPN Classics

Gibson is a mystery partner and gets a pretty big pop as the faces clear the ring. Gibson and Manny start off and Gibson JUST gets under what would have been a massive Manny chop to get in a crossbody and take control. Faces control with arm work on the heels and it looks pretty good before Rice gets overwhelmed in the heel corner with Manny coming him in and unching him in the god damned face as hard as he could a few times. He tries to bail to the floor and they slam him on the outside with Manny following up from a big blow off the apron. There is a cool visual of Rice sprawled out on a chair but then he proceeds to take some really light looking bumps for Manny of all people. Manny hit a jumping double knee as punishment and then @#!*% killed Rice dead with a belly to back from @#!*% . It was kind of a stupid spot but Khan double thrusting Rice on accident right into the hot tag was entertaining as @#!*% just for his facial expression. All @#!*% breaks loose with Rice hitting a couple of nice dropkicks, a brawl spilling to the floor and the ref throwing the match out. The post-match brawl was sufficiently wild with old ladies running away, multiple re-starts, guys getting thrown into chairs, a @#!*% jumping dropkick on the floor from Rice, Manny @#!*% hitting a DDT on the floor, et. Really the best of this was post-match but who gives a @#!*% this ruled.

"Ragin Bull" Manny Fernandez, Teijho Khan, & Soldat Ustinov vs. Robert Gibson & The Top Guns (John Paul & Ricky Rice) (6/12/88)

 

AWA normally produces some really fun 6-man's and this one is no different as they start off brawling with the faces clearing the ring as the fans go nuts. Gibson & Manny work well together from the start and Manny dominates this match in general as he is fucking awesome on offense just taking it to Rice and it forced his teammates to step up their game as well to compete with him. Rice was pretty good here working as the FIP as he took a shitload of punishment. Gibson would get the hot tag and he ran wild before it turned into a wild 6-way brawl with Marty Miller calling for the bell pretty damn early if you ask me. The brawl after the match was insane as they went all over ringside with the fans scurrying away and the brawl kept going and going with guys just kicking ass. The match itself was the Manny Fernandez Show but the brawl puts this over the top to me as a nomination. This moves forward.

NEED DISC

I'm looking but I don't seem to have this one. I don't have the full set of AWA on ESPN discs though.

AWA on ESPN Classic 6/3/08 DVR