AWA Championship Wrestling 7/22/86

Venturing back to the 80’s with some AWA on ESPN. This should be fun … hopefully.

1. Larry Zbyszko vs. Chad "Babyface" Bardo - 3

This looks like it was filmed at a high school gym somwhere. Not sure who this Bardo character is but I’m guessing he’s probably just a local dude they found on the frozen tundra of Minnesota somewhere and offered him a ten bucks and a hot meal if he would get beat up by Zbyszko. Zbyszko takes his time picking apart Bardo with two piledrivers and taps him out with a stump puller. Pretty basic squash.

2. Curt Hennig vs. Don Fargo - 4

Don Fargo is an old outcast from the peak of the territories and looks like he’s been through the wars. He’d be more apt for an appearance in Game of Thrones instead of here taking on Curt Hennig. Not sure what’s so special about this match as Curt’s dad, Larry “The Ax” Hennig is doing guest commentary and Curt is being put over big. Loving Fargo’s selling of everything as he’s so animated and has a lot of good facials. Fargo met his doom after a brutal forearm smash and a big second-rope dropkick. Hennig looked fine but the world needs more Don Fargo.

3. Boris Zhukov vs. Tim Patterson - 2

In the next match, Boris Zhukov attacked right at the bell and just destroyed this poor sap. Zhukov used the hammerlock frequently and worked over Patterson’s shoulder pretty much the whole match. Horrible looking kneedrop ends this mercifully. Another basic squash that went a bit too long and felt really bland

4. Midnight Rockers vs. Rick Renslow & Pete Sanchez - 3

The opponents here for the Rockers are really thick dudes. Rick Renslow looks like a guy you’d find hanging out at a seedy biker bar after hours throwing back Budweisers. Wait, I’ve heard of Pete Sanchez, wasn’t he the guy that wrestled Flair in his first MSG match back in 1976? Michaels had to really work for a powerslam late in the match with Sanchez really didn’t want to go up for. The Rockers looked crisp and definitely made Sanchez & Renslow work for their nights pay.

5. Stan Hansen vs. Jerry Blackwell - 5

The backstory to this one is that Hansen was the champion at the time and this was his last defense before refusing to defend the title the next night in Denver. Blackwell just opened up on Hansen with some big punches to the face and split open Hansen within the first two minutes of the match. Blackwell just seemed content to throw punches and not much else and seemed winded within the first few minutes. Hansen dropped Blackwell with a big boot to the head after he attempted a charge to the corner. Big bearhug from Blackwell slowed this down to a stop. Ref bump followed and Hansen went crazy just killing Blackwell and two referees with a cowboy boot. I was hoping for a match where two big dudes just laid into each other and unfortunately, this was not what happened here.

6. Brad Rheingans vs. Ali Khan - 3

Rheingans, for all of his amateur credits, comes across on TV as one of the most bland and vanilla guys possible. I’ve seen milk cartons with more personality. Khan is nothing but a crazed lunatic. Some decent looking mat work from Rheingans after the first few minutes was nothing but stalling from Khan but thus far not much to really see here. Well, shit, the referee gets knocked down for no apparent reason. I’m not going to even try to figure that out. Match breaks down into chaos and apparently Khan got disqualified. What for? Not sure as it’s never explained.

Overall, an OK episode with the only real notable thing big thing being the Hansen/Blackwell match. The Hennig match was fun just because of Fargo’s invovlement but everything else was pretty bland.