Wednesday, January 5, 2011

WWF at Madison Square Garden- 06/16/84

1) Don Muraco v. Tony Garea- 4
2) George "the Animal" Steele v. Jose Luis Rivera- 1
3) Wild Samoans v. Dick Murdoch/ Adrian Adonis (2/3 Falls)- 6
4) SD Jones v. Jesse Ventura- 3
5) Tito Santana v. Greg Valentine- 7
6) Andre the Giant v. David Schultz- 3
7) Mad Dog Vachon v. Steve Lombardi- 1
8) Salvatore Bellomo v. Paul Orndorff- 2
9) Chief Jay Strongbow v. Bob Orton jr- 2
10) Sgt. Slaughter v. Iron Sheik (Boot Camp Match)- 9

I'm miserably sick while writing this so excuse it's brevity but after I saw it I realized I had ordered this disc from an old order we did nearly 2 years ago. Opener was pretty fun despite most Garea stuff I've seen has been as exciting as scotch tape. But they did some cool counters and Muraco bumped like a roided out Curt Henning. 2nd bout was Steele hiding an object from the ref for 4 minutes, you can safely skip that one. Tag bout was damn fun, Murdoch is a workhorse, playing up the Samoans head strength (feels weird writing that), the heels doing some real fine leg work, and the Samoans keeping up. The match went nearly 35 minutes and was always working towards something, both falls meant something when they ended except the final one.

I've knocked Ventura as much as the next NHO blog reviewer and rightly so, but here he looked fairly good. He had some real stink on his punches, made every submission really count and I loved his counter when Jones put his head down for a backdrop, Ventura did a full fledged elbow drop on his neck, brilliant. This bout was a war, in the truest sense of the word. I was just drawn in watching these two pummel and pound each other, the fans were so sucked in it really made you appreciate the level of heat some of the older performers could really get. Andre was having fun with Dr. D, as much fun as he would later that night....boy, we do a lot of those jokes, okay as much fun as he had before the show with the program girl and a spool of thread.

Lombardi looked as athletic as a sofa, and his jacket was Liberace-esque. Mad Dog gave him a nasty fishook in my favorite spot. Orndorff was on Piper level heel heat for this one fighting Bellomo, who would have looked just as at home in a pizza parlor making a thin crust. Orton stalled for a good portion of this and Strongbow looked real old, and you could tell because he didn't do much but a war dance, although his sell of Orton's finishing Vader-type forearm was fucking awesome.

The Main event I'd never been privy to but it would make both these men's harshest critics clean their houses free of charge for a year straight. This was a classic feud that had been built up for a long time, and this delivered in spades. A fight like no other you've seen in a wrestling ring, nasty deadly shots with the riding crop, a chair, a helmet and both men taking hellacious bump after bump for the quality of the match. The last 10 minutes was an orchestra of spewing plasma and manly actions. The way they built up to the end and the crowd reaction alone will keep this in the upper echelon "no rules" matches this promotion or any other has done. It's not just the level of violence they used, because it's been topped 1,000s of times over, but the story they weaved withtin it.

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