Some mid-80’s MSG action I just found in my DVD collection the other day. Let’s get after it!
1. Tony Atlas vs. Lanny Poffo - 3
2. 22-Man $50,000 Battle Royal w/ Junkyard Dog, Greg Valentine, King Tonga, Jimmy Hart, Billy Jack Haynes, Harley Race, Lanny Poffo, Iron Mike Sharpe, Pedro Morales, Brutus Beefcake, Tony Atlas, Moondog Spot, Davey Boy Smith, Dynamite Kid, S.D. Jones, Johnny Valiant, Sivi Afi, Moondog Rex, Tony Garea, Bobby Heenan, Big John Studd, and King Kong Bundy – 2
The opener between Atlas and Poffo was about 14 minutes of headlocks and armbars, and was about as hard hitting as getting into a fight with a Hulk Hogan wrestling buddy doll. Poffo hit some corner punches that looked to have landed but didn’t phase Atlas. The double dropkick portion looked like hell. This match I’ll bump this up a mere point just because I enjoyed Poffo’s amateur stylings. The battle royal featured one of the strangest roster of participants I’ve seen in a WWF battle royal in a long time. Morales and Valentine had a couple hard exchanges which I enjoyed. The big giants in the match like Bundy and Studd were pretty much eliminated right away. Race probably took the best bump of the match landing on the concrete while taking out the camera man.
3. Pedro Morales vs. Iron Mike Sharpe – 3
4. King Tonga & Sivi Afi vs. Big John Studd & King Kong Bundy – 4
5. Brutus Beefcake vs. Billy Jack Haynes – 2
Morales and Sharpe had a pretty fun six minute match that consisted of a lot of rather hard punching and forearms. I really dug Sharpe throughout the match with his constant vocals and craziness. On the surface, the tag match for Bundy and Studd looks like a complete squash, but in actuality it was a rather competitve match. I really enjoyed the parts with Studd and Tonga just laying into each other. Made me really excited to see a singles match between the two. The crowd went completely nuts for the big spot where Tonga slammed Studd. There wasn’t much I liked from Sivi Afi, although I did notice that somehow his nose got bloodied during the match. Finish looked liked it got messed up with the referee counting the fall even though it seemed like Bundy wasn’t trying to get a pin. Beefcake’s match sounded horrible on paper was just as bad as I though it would be. He looked so disinterested, like he’d rather be shooting up in the back than out there working with this stiff from Oregon. Haynes had better facials here than in his match with Hercules from Mania III that I just watched a while back.
6. The British Bulldogs vs. The Moondogs – 3
7. Tony Garea vs. Harley Race – 1
8. The Junkyard Dog vs. Greg Valentine – 3
I’ve said it numerous times but it bares repeating again, the Moondogs have to be some of the ugliest and scruffiest looking individuals around. When was the last time Moondog Spot went in for a shave and a haircut? Looks to me to at least have been around 1964. The Moondog control section lasted for what seemed to me to be about seven years. I’ve seen crowds in the waiting room of my dentist’s office more excited than the crowd was for this. What a strange looking sell by Spot on a collision with Davey. He sold it like his tripped over a curb. On commentary, Monsoon said the Bulldogs seemed “lethargic”. I think that statement could pretty much be applied to the whole match. Garea and Race was a complete waste of time. Watching Garea work is about as exciting as cleaning out the litter box. I’m not kidding when I say the single most athletic thing that happened during the whole two-minute match was Race’s fisherman suplex. It was about this time last year that the NHO crew and I saw Valentine work a show at a run-down skating rink where he looked especially pitiful. He, and the Dog for that matter, didn’t look much better here. I enjoyed JYD’s selling of the figure four leglock and the front powerslam he hit shortly thereafter. My cats have had more entertaining fights than this.
9. Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis vs. Bruno Sammartino & Tito Santana – Steel Cage Match – 5
This is the match I was most curious about on here, not only because it’s a cage match but because these are such odd pairings. Match was done tornado style with no tags and just made it a rambling mess. It was hard to keep track of exactly what was going on but I did see Savage take a few wild bumps into the cage and Santana get busted open. Adonis does a splash from the top of the cage for no reason? Sure, why not. Finish was great with Savage taking this wild bump and banging into his partner who then gets thrown into the cage by Bruno. I’ll be a tad generous with the score mainly because everything else on this show was pretty bad.
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