July 7, 1984
Your hosts are Gene Okerlund and Vince McMahon
Gene and Vince run down the show which includes Tito Santana vs. Tiger Chung Lee in a non-title bout, Salvatore Bellomo vs. “Cowboy” Bob Orton, and this week's featured bout, B. Brian Blair vs. Paul Orndorff
Tiger Chung Lee vs. Tito Santana
Tiger jumps Tito immediately after the bell. Tito reverses an Irish whip and backdrops Lee. He works the arm for a bit then takes down Tiger with a shoulderblock. He hits a dropkick then gets a scoop slam before going back to work on the arm. Tiger breaks but Tito gets a sunset flip for two then goes back to the arm. Tiger escapes and kicks Tito in the corner. He kicks him some more, targeting the ribs. Tiger picks up Tito for a suplex and drops him across the ropes. Tiger stops a comeback from Tito with a Mongolian Chop then follows with more kicks as the crowd chants for Tito. Tiger puts on the dreaded nerve hold but Tito escapes. Tiger takes him down with a shoulderblock but Tito comes back with an elbow smash in an ugly looking spot. Tito fires away then puts him away with the flying forearm, which looked really bad (5:52).
Thoughts: Match wasn’t much, they had a much better match a few months back, but it got ugly during the last minute or so. They were not on the same page at all during that point. Since Mr. Fuji basically retired from the ring, Tiger is now just a jobber.
Salvatore Bellomo vs. “Cowboy” Bob Orton
Orton takes down Bellomo, who is able to escape. They then do a lot of matwork and the crowd starts to get restless as these two are putting everyone to sleep. Bellomo dodges a monkey flip by doing a cartwheel and Orton ducks outside for a breather. He comes back in and nails Bellomo in the face with a forearm then hits him with several more. He follows a backdrop with a kneedrop then applies a chinlock. Bellomo escapes but Orton rakes his eyes then dropkicks him into the ropes as they show a replay of Orton’s backdrop. Bellomo gets kicked to the floor. Orton hits Bellomo with a snapmare as he re-enters the ring. Bellomo escapes from another chinlock and fights back. He ducks his head for a backdrop attempt but Orton hits him with a knee. Orton gets a scoop slam then hits a corner slingshot splash (Vader Bomb) for the win (6:06).
Thoughts: Boring match. The problem with the new trend here of making these matches between 5-6 minutes long is that they drag out way too long. Bellomo is terrible to begin with and no one in the world including his mother would want to see him do a mat-based match. He sucks terribly at that. Orton seemed less than motivated here.
B. Brian Blair vs. “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff
This match is joined-in-progress, which was written across the screen. The crowd is all over Orndorff with the “Paula” chants, causing him to go ballistic. Orndorff attacks Blair from behind and yells at the fans. Blair charges but eats a knee. He is able to dodge an elbow drop, then slingshots back in from the apron and gets a sunset flip for a two count. He works the arm of Orndorff as the fans are going ballistic with the “Paula” chants. Orndorff breaks out with a forearm smash and catches Blair with a drop toehold. Blair counters with a hammerlock and grounds Orndorff for a bit. Orndorff hits an elbow smash then a forearm smash. He continues his assault as the crowd picks up the “Paula” chants again. Blair leapfrogs Orndorff then hits a dropkick. He follows that with an atomic drop and knocks him down with a punch. Orndorff ducks outside and Blair follows him out and the two brawl until Orndorff picks him up and drops him throat-first onto the guardrail. Orndorff kicks him down from the apron then hits him with a back suplex when he re-enters the ring. He positions Blair for a backslide but instead picks him up by his chin and holds him up for a bit until Blair floats over. Blair then hits a suplex and the crowd is going shithouse. Both men are down and Orndorff gets up first but misses an elbow drop and Blair gets up and fires away. He hits an elbow smash from the second rope, getting two. Kneelift gets two. Blair charges but Orndorff catches him with a hotshot and gets the pin at (7:54) shown ***.
Thoughts: Great TV match. Orndorff was over like crazy as a heel. They showed dozens of fans wearing “Paula” shirts in the stands. Orndorff was so over that he even made Blair, someone who has been getting zero reaction from the crowds on TV, look like he was over as a face. The match was all action and at this point, the best TV match from Championship Wrestling this year.
WWF Update with Vince McMahon. This week’s subject is Greg Valentine, who Vince refers to as the “master of the figure-four leglock.” They show a clip of him putting the hold on Jose Luis Rivera from a TV match as Vince reads off some supposed quote from Valentine about how painful his hold is and that he gets joy from watching people scream in pain. The line he read sounded nothing like how a person would speak.
Roddy Piper introduces us a clip of Captain Lou Albano and the Fabulous Moolah training for her match against Wendi Richter. This was pretty funny, actually. Albano said she was on a high protein, low carb diet as the two were then shown eating giant hotdogs. Albano also said she was drinking “unborn virgin goat’s milk” as part of this diet. They showed Moolah at the gym, with Albano throwing a glass of water on Moolah after she finishes her bench press set, causing Moolah to slap him across the chest. This ends with another tangent from Albano in which he says that Moolah is a lady and that Richter and Lauper are just broads. Albano was great here.
Plug for WWF Magazine.
Samula vs. Andre the Giant
Samula is billed as “Samoan #3” by the ring announcer but referred to by his name on commentary. Vince mentions that Andre is the only undefeated star in wrestling history as he shoves Samula into the corner with ease. He works the arm for a bit then breaks up a go-behind with ease. He headbutts Samula, who sells overdramatically and flies through the ropes as Okerlund tells us that Andre is “easily hurt by words.” Man, was Okerlund worthless on commentary. Samula comes back in and chops Andre hard against the ropes. He chokes him out but Andre chokes him before getting a kneelift. He thrusts Samula in the corner then whips him into the opposite corner. He punches Samula down then picks him up by the waist of his pants as he falls down. He does that again then puts him in a surfboard. Samula gets his feet on the top ropes but Andre drops him as the ref counts. Andre gets a chop but ducks his head and is gets knocked down by a headbutt. He hits another headbutt then heads up top. He leaps off but Andre gets his boot up then covers Samula for the win (5:54).
Thoughts: Typical Andre squash. He did give Samula a bit more offense than I would have expected. Hell, he gave him just as much, if not more than he did when he faced Davis Schultz on the last MSG show I reviewed.
Final Thoughts: Decent show. You had a really good TV match along with some great stuff from Albano . The longer matches can be a chore to sit through, especially when you factor the complete lack of talent on the face side of the roster. The Lauper stuff seems to be working though. I will be back again next week with the “Black Saturday” show and if I have time, the 7/14/84 edition of Championship Wrestling.
Wow... Albano. I mean, someone show me an unborn goat that CAN produce milk, or is not a virgin. Lol
ReplyDeleteThey had talent on top (Slaughter, Hogan, Andre, Tito) but the midcard was guys like Bellomo, Putski, Strongbow, Blair (You nailed it on your assessment of him), SD, Rocky Johnson, Garea where as the heel side was very deep. You're probably right in that it wasn't terrible but it really paled in comparison to the heel side of the roster.
ReplyDeleteThe Albano stuff here was classic. Its worth a look.
after the first new wave of talent came in January (Hogan, Schultz, Piper, Orndorff, etc.) a 2nd wave comes in July/August. Adonis already arrived with Murdoch, then you get Volkoff, Patera starts appearing on TV again, Beefcake, Kamala, The Spoiler, Ventura, The Freebirds (billed as being brought in by Lauper manager Dave Wolf), etc. Some fizzled out, but it continued the phase out of Bellomo, Putski, Strongbow, Garea (he did commmentary in place of mean gene for a bit), etc.
ReplyDeleteLong-ish story, but it represented one of the more infamous milestones in Vince's national expansion of the WWF.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Saturday_%28wrestling%29
By the end of the year, they also added JYD,The Bulldogs, Windham & Rotunda, Heenan, Hillbilly Jim, and Bret Hart. Also, Guys like Mr. Wrestling II and the Briscoes came in for brief runs. Blackjack Mulligan came and left quickly too.
ReplyDeleteThe move failed as the fans of Georgia Championship Wrestling did not care for the WWF product. The first show certainly didn't help matters any.
ReplyDeleteAt this point, I don't know that Bellomo, SD, Garea and Strongbow can be counted as mid-carders. Maybe Strongbow, but as you've pointed out before his appearances were sporadic at best. The other three were JTTS. The face side was way thin, but they did still have Snuka Andre and Slaughter near the top of the card.
ReplyDeleteI forgot about Snuka as him,Andre and Hogan were used sparingly around this time. Soon, they would elevate the Tonga Kid and that produced a great feud.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Terry Funk, he, Savage, and the Bulldogs debuted on the same show in 1985, so a talent wave is on the way.
ReplyDelete