Merry Christmas! Let's watch some rasslin'! Boyd and Bill greet us, with Boyd in an amazing pink suit. Boyd hypes up Dusty and Andre coming in soon and Bill joins him on commentary. Jerry Novak and Ricky Ferrera face Mike George of latter-latter-latter day AWA fame and Carlos Zapata. Based on pure appearances, this looks like jobber team vs. Jobber team. Mike George is actually pushed, so he's the star here and his partner is just a last-second replacement for JYD. Mike gets double teamed and Bill tries to avoid burying Zapata and Zapata gets slammed on the floor and George has to go it alone and dropkicks away to win.
Clips show Precious Paul doing the Persian Club challenge from the Iron Sheik. Paul is unbelievably built and just him MOVING CLUBS is getting over huge and does 50 reps before either dancing or having a seizure. Sheiky does 103, so his money is safe. Paul does it this week and says he'll do 444. Paul gets to around 50 and Sheiky attacks him. He gets the camel clutch, but Paul escapes before eating a flag shot from Ak and more kicks. Good stuff. Paul Orndorff faces Brian Blair, who looks maybe 200 pounds while Orndorff has thick chest hair and a five o' clock shadow and looks like a young, spry 45 year old.
Watts says that since the club attack wasn't a match, Grizzly may not be able to fine him. Bob Roop stares on boringly while Blair locks on a headscissor and Paul escapes after a few minutes. Paul lands some awesome back elbows that have great snap to them before backdropping him with an arm lock.PAUL LANDS A HIGH KNEE. Paul goes for a figure four, but Blair kicks him into the ropes after a big Watts speech about how any given man can win a big match. So right away, even though things seem like a mis-match, they aren't because Blair is a game competitor and anyone can truly beat anyone. Blair avoids a suplex with one of his own by hanging on! BLAIR GETS A FIGURE FOUR, but Paul reverses it and locks it in. Well, Blair could escape if he just opts to MOVE HIS RIGHT LEG and stop clenching it. The bell rings due to the time limit - but it would've been cool to have him tap to the reversal. Blair didn't submit - but the referee ended the match on his physical behalf. Perfect - Paul won with the reversal, so it's an effective hold - but Blair didn't submit.
Ted DiBiase faces Mike Boyer next. Ted without a beard or a tan is bizarre even now. Bill compares the figure four to about half a dozen things in football. Ted powerslams him and wins with the figure four - so in one show, we've seen a single move effectively get two victories not due to finish repetition, but to GET THE HOLD OVER AS DEADLY and each win happened in a different way with different context. Bob Roop teams with Bob Orton Jr. to face Frank Monte and Mike Bono. Orton humps the air for a bit before winning with a piledriver - not much to this, but they looked strong.
I love the usage of showing finishes before the break. It takes maybe five seconds, but gets finishers and angles over quickly. Ed Wiskowski faces Tom Renesto Jr. Ed is just so damn sloppy, but I like Bill putting Ed over on a loss to Ted. Ed hits a sloppy atomic drop before splashing his neck from a seated position and a pendulum backbreaker ends it. Iron Sheik faces Tom Serano next, but it never gets started as Paul brawls with Sheiky until TV time expires. MSW remains a fun, easy hour of wrestling to watch at all times. You can skip a show for eons and instantly get caught up thanks to the presentation - which is something you can't even do today.
No comments:
Post a Comment