Since WWE is about to start moving all of their classic footage to YouTube, I thought I would start a new series checking out some of the plethora of wrestling channels on SM. 

The Retro Wrestling Archive is doing EXCELLENT work on their channel. Besides a shit ton of videos ranging from AWA, Global, Smoky, all the Memphis you can stomach, and more territories, they have a shit ton of Jim Cornette’s version of OVW available. Check them out. I’m sure we’ll be watching a lot more of their stuff. 

AWA Championshp Wrestling 01/03/1987

Why not start with some AWA on ESPN? We’re in 1987, so business isn’t close to what it was, but they still have a lot of notable talent with Curt Hennig, Nick Bockwinkel, the Rockers, and more. 

Leon “Bull Power” White def. Dennis Stamp in 2:42. Holy shit, we get early Vader in shitty gear, including a tacky baseball cap he wore to the ring. White was all smiles, about as much as babyface Andre, only with significantly better teeth. Stamp, of Beyond the Mat fame, might not have known his role on the Terry Funk retirement show featured in that doc, but he knew it here – taking an ass-whipping from the future Vader. There was a moment when Leon had his brow furled like he wanted to tee off on Stamp at one point, but saved the brunt of that for WCW job guys in the future. White won with a big splash. We also have statistics on Vader’s weightlifting accomplishments, which are shown below for those interested. I’m sure they’re all legit.

Larry Nelson interviewed White after the match, who was all grins again. Nelson presented gifts from the fans, which included a FUCKING POEM and another shitty cap, only this one had horns because he’s a FUCKING BULL. White also showed a photo of himself and his son, Jake, in Europe, and revealed he became “Bull Power” because his son was now “The Baby Bull.” It was pretty cool watching White gush over his some. He also challenged Nick Bockwinkel (who was doing commentary) for the AWA title. Sadly, we never got that match. That was probably beneficial for Nick’s overall health. 

Holy shit, Larry Nelson conducted a sit-down interview with Nick Bockwinkel and Curt Hennig about their prior AWA title match, and surprisingly showed very little footage for some reason. This went on for fucking ever. Both were babyfaces, so it was very tame and wasn’t much more than an in-depth recount of their match that felt equal to a semester in college on the events. They played it like there “may” be a rematch, but Jesus, we aren’t stupid, Verne Gagne. Other than Nick’s boss ass leisure suit, this was a total miss in terms of building interest for a rematch. 

Greg Gagne & Scott Hall def. Larry Zbysko & Super Ninja by DQ in 12:30. Zbysko was in rare form here, not doing a thing in the ring but walking around and getting heat for the first several minutes. The Ninja here was actually Japanese (Shunji Takano), and they made sure to wear a mask open enough so that you could tell he wasn’t a white dude under the hood, like many Japanese masked wrestlers of the era. This was more of the slow-style match you would associate with the AWA at this time, with Gagne taking the heat. Hall was still green, and it showed when he gave Zbysko his mistimed bulldog finish. Mr. Saito ran in and threw the “Oriental powder” (according to Rod Trongard) in the eyes of Hall when Hall had Larry in a torture rack. The finish itself was lazy, and the match was too slow. *1/2 

The Vegas crowd chanted “bullshit” loudly at the finish. Zbysko was setting up a piledriver on the floor on Gagne when Bockwinkel ran over from commentary to break it up, looking like a cat burglar in his black turtleneck. Ninja and Saito set up Nick for a spike piledriver, but in a hilarious moment, Saito stumbled to the second rope, and Ninja was forced to give a straight piledriver because he couldn’t keep holding him. Job guys came out to take a beating from the heel trio until Ray FUCKING Steven cleared the ring, much to the crowd’s delight. How drunk do you think Ray got in Vegas on the reg? 

The heels came back out and were interviewed in the ring by Nelson after the match, and Larry got a ton of heat. The match wasn’t much, but the angle and promo were effective and worked live. Nick was playing like he was injured, so the failed spike piledriver couldn’t have come at a worse time, but any oiledriver could hurt someone, so it still worked. 

They came back from commercial, so Lord James Blears could blandly hype next week’s show. 

Recommendation: Thumbs Up

Watching young Vader was a hoot, and the closing angle and promo make you feel better about investing so much fucking time into watching Bockwinkel and Hennig wax poetic about their title match. 

AWA Championshp Wrestling 01/10/1987

We have Rod Trongard opening the show with Lord James Blears this week, who will be providing commentary, which is likely to bring it down. 

Jerry Sagonovich def. Col DeBeers by DQ in 3:08. The future Jerry Sags was wearing long, blue tights and no shirt, which ironically looked like DeBeers when he worked under his real name, Ed Wistokowski, in Mid South. DeBeers beat the shit out of him, including giving him his face-first piledriver finish twice and picking him up instead of getting the pin. Jimmy  Snuka came out to the ring slowly and with a look in his eyes like CTE was alive and well in 1987. DeBeers exited the ring, took the time to put his military hat back on, and walked to the back for the countout loss. 

Nelson interviewed DeBeers. There wasn’t a lot here, other than the Col. challenging Snuka because he knew Snuka helped Sagonovich to the back, so he wouldn’t be able to come back out at the moment. DeBeers said Snuka had “tainted blood,” which was racially tame compared to some of the other wild shit he’d sneak into promos. 

Larry Nelson was in a TV studio talking about last week’s show-closing angle and promo featuring the piledriver on Bockwinkel. As mentioned, I really liked the angle, but they aired way too much and would have been better off clipping some of this into pieces instead of almost all of both. It was quaint how Nelson had a table with “AWA” spelled out in blue blocks in front of him. 

The Rockers def. Brian Knobs & Dennis Stamp in 5:32. Knobs wore black single-strapped gear up top, looking like a destitute man’s Andre the Giant. He gave the double biceps flex in the most absurd moment of the match.

Jannetty air-balled a dropkick on Stamp during a hot sequence. Other than that, they had a strong, fast-paced enhancement match, ending with Shawn dropping an elbow from Marty’s shoulders on Knobs for the finish. Even when it came to just movement, you can see Shawn a step ahead of most wrestlers already here. 

Nelson interviewed the Rockers. It was a strong promo, but also a weird one, as Marty started talking about his dad almost dying from a heart attack, then switching to the “lard butt” tag champs of Buddy Rose and Doug Somers. Fat-shaming was a success in the 1980s. 

Buddy Wolfe def. Kevin Collins in 4:11. Kevin Collins had the most job guy name of all time, and looked the part. Wolfe was a veteran going back to 1970 who used to play football and was once married to Vivian Vachon. He kinda looked like Bobo David Schultz. This crowd greeted this match with loud “boring” chants that were richly deserved. Wolfe didn’t do much to excite them and put the crowd out of its misery with a neckbreaker. This was just horribly bland. 

Nelson interviewed Wolfe. His promo pridefully entered into “so bad, it’s good” territory, as he pointed to his head and made the following odd face to indicate how intelligent he was. This physical impression may have been counterproductive because he didn’t appear to be to bright. 

Cowboy Lang & Little Mr. T def. Lord Littlebrook & Little Tokyo in 13:26: This was from an arena show in St. Paul, and while these guys worked hard, this wasn’t much more than what you’d expect, including your usual midget match tropes from the era. There’s really zero reason for this to be on the nationally televised show that you’re using (in theory) to sell tickets to your wrestling matches, especially going thirteen fucking minutes. Yikes. The babyfaces won with an out-of-nowhere reversal of pins behind the ref’s back.

Leon White def. Boris Zhukov by DQ in 11:18: The match continued after Boris attacked White before the bell because the match hadn’t started yet, meaning you can stab your opponent before the match and get away with it, apparently. Zhukov took a shoulder charge into the corner that looked like it could have been achieved in the same manner as a mark in the crowd, even one of the drunk ones in at the Showboat. For the second week in a row, they pushed hard that White was the first American to win Otto Wanz’s European Cup tournament. Jesus, Boris was horrible. He was trying to wear down White with the shittiest leg scissors wrapped around White’s head. It was misapplied and looked like it couldn’t break an egg. Speaking of heads, you could bill every Boris match as a handicap match because of Zhukov’s giant skull. You can see the future Vader bursting out of White at times, and he did some cool shit, but you aren’t having a good match with Zhukov. Sheik Adnan Al-Kaisee ran in for the DQ when White had Boris pinned after a splash because Lord knows this needed a shit finish on top of it. White made his own comeback and eventually cleared the ring of Boris and Sheik. 

Recommendation: Thumbs Down 

It took one week to sour after last week’s show. The long ass midget match and replaying everything from the piledriver angle makes it feel like they’re just filling time. Plus, Wolfe and Boris brought the show down.