Announce Team: Tony Schiavone/ Hillbilly Jim
1) The Genius v. Koko B Ware- 3
For a midcard range guy, Koko is hugely popular with this crowd. Genius does his normal schtick with the poem then the prancing and cartwheeling, and the crowd of course follows suit and boos the shit out of him. As for the match, decent opener, Genius kept the pace slowed and worked over Koko's shoulder for most of the match with the "Birdman" getting little spurts of offense in. Pretty basic stuff. Koko sold big on a stun gun late in the match. One odd thing I noticed was at the base of Koko's neck where his nifty hair do ended (dyed yellow & blue like Frankie's feathers) there was some paint covering his neck, as if the barber went a little crazy and shaved some of the dyed hair off. Don't remember a time when the neck paint caught on as a form of fashion, but i'll do my research....
2) "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka v. Honky Tonk Man- 4
This was an odd mix of styles. Can anyone tell me what those little finger chops Snuka does are? He crinkles his hands and then like chops people? That's his basic strike that he uses? Has he always done this odd attack or I'm just blind? Anyways, Honky's offense was just as limited, down to punches, kicks and the occasional knee in the breadbasket. Hillbilly was hooting and hollering at Jimmy Hart for all his "nonsense" on the outside. Snuka sold surprisingly well to the midsection and the crowd came unglued after he went up for the superfly splash; although it was premature because he dropped a headbutt from the top instead.
3) Mr. Perfect v. Red Rooster- 4
HA! This match makes me think of the Legends Roundtable where Michael Hayes burns Foley when Foley talks about Taylor getting the call from WWE and being put into two possible gimmicks: Perfect & Rooster and Foley says he thinks Taylor would have been a good Perfect, to which Hayes replies " Yeah, but do you want to hit a single or a home run? Henning's the home run"
Anyways, onto the match- Hennig has a punch like Andrew Dice Clay in "Brainsmashers: A Love Story." Taylor is always a guy people swing off his nuts but I just don't see it. He does a nice sunset flip sequence with Henning, but come on, he's working with Henning! Beautiful pinpoint dropkick by Henning, wish our Patriot Missles from the Gulf War in '91 were that accurate. The finish came off really well and was a clean heel win with scientific move (small package) which was one of the unique properties the Mr. Perfect character had and that was he was a better wrestler than most of his opponents and rarely had to cheat.
4) Mark Young v. Barry Horowitz- 3
Not familiar with Young, he was wearing sequined Red, white & blue trunks, sort of like a poor white man's Apollo Creed. He had good instincts and pulled off some impressive arieal moves for the late 80's and Horowitz did a decent job of getting frustrated. This just suffered from lack of emotion- crowd was sort of into it and I think some of that falls on Horowitz, who could have put it over more and Young, who just seemed inexperienced. But the pace worked and the finish was surprising.
5) Ultimate Warrior v. Andre the Giant- 3
SHOOT! SHOOT! Shoot, Shoot, Shoot! I was dying for all the boys in the back to come out to the ring and surround it and chant that, like in a high school hallway when two guys started scrapping. The match, not going well to begin with as Warrior's offense was so shoddy and sloppy and Andre sold decently for him for a while but I'm thinking he got fed up. At one point, Andre was on his knees and Warrior went for a boot but Andre didn't feel like selling it so he grabbed his foot and they both fell forward with Warrior falling through the 2nd and bottom rope and Andre almost going with him. They were pawing at each other like two baby bear cubs caught in a net. Andre cracked Warrior in the jaw when they got back in and i laughed my ass off. Damn, i want to rank this higher because this would be a nice, fun treat to watch but it was so badly put together. Heenan was cursing visably on the outside.
6) Ronnie Garvin v. Greg Valentine- 6
This was the bubble gum center of the Tootsie Pop. Garvin's brick like punches and Valentine's blistering chops were sprinkeled throughout this tasty treat like a good cummin and spice is on a pumpkin mousse! Valentine was wearing a catcher's shin guard and supposedly that helped his figure four become deadlier because they teased it a lot. There were some really good near falls that helped built to the end but once they got there, they kept going. You could see both men physically ran out of gas and I could have shaved maybe 2-3 minutes out right before the end to really leave no room for error. But, overall solid performances from both men- this seemed like a hell of a feud.
7) "Rowdy" Roddy Piper v. "Ravishing" Rick Rude- 4
Piper is a great main eventer for MSG- the crowd loves him, they don't require technical masterpieces, hell, they prefer not to have them over a fan brawl with lots of crowd invovlement. Rude was in asbolutely phenomenal shape and was having foot stomping madness laying in forearms on "Hot Rod," maybe there was a Riverdance talent scout in the audience. Piper was heated and really took it to Rude, which prompted Schiavone to awkwardly blurt out, "Write this one down in your diaries!" Huh?....is that what you meant to say? I wonder if Schiavone had his sitting on his lap, and around the back of his chair was a "Macho Man" bookbag! Man, these guys worked a hell of a sequence together right after the middle stuff with all the ground work done, where it culminated in Piper hitting an Aja Kong backfist- Hells yeah, represent! This ended in DQ, i believe and was fun for what it was but these guys made no bones about their performance they knew they were on last, so they just ripped it up and had fun with it. Kudos.
I love MSG shows and this was no exception, nothing on here was too great, save for the Garvin-Valentine match, but i'm sure they've had better in their feud. Schiavone did a commendable job, even if he had to wrangle in Jim's strange redneck comments and called the matches as if they were legitimate athletic contests, which I enjoyed.
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