AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic 06.29.09

AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic

Our streak of shows in chronological order ends at two! At least it was longer than Gillberg’s winning streak. We’re now sometime in the second half of 1987, Curt Hennig is now AWA Champion having unseated Nick Bockwinkel in May. We’re once again at the Showboat Sports Pavilion in Vegas, so I’m starting to wonder if this is where all the AWA TV tapings were held.

We’re in the studio with Larry Nelson who promises us a great main event, so great that he won’t even tell us what it is! He also hypes that this weeks “Mat Classic” will feature a two-ring Battle Royal, and with that out of the way we’re sent to ringside with Rod Tronguard and Ray Stevens.

MITCH SNOW/ALAN WEST vs. BRIAN COSTELLO/FANKIE DeFALCO
OMG It’s Mitch Snow from the Carolinas! If you’ve read Pure Dynamite you’ll know how highly that Snow and Billington think of each other. If you haven’t then all you need to know is that they didn’t get along and Dynamite was his usual charming self. There isn’t much to see here other than Snow and West being spunky babyfaces, lots of dropkicks and armdrags. There’s a cute spot when Costello dodges West, but West just hits DeFalco and knocks him off the apron, and then Snow dropkicks Costello from behind. Snow pins DeFalco with an ugly sunset flip off the top.

DICK SLATER vs. JIM EVANS
Total squash by Slater. Just replace the spunky offense from Snow and West with Slater’s surly can of the ass-whip that he opens up and it’s the same match. It’s a hoot to hear the announcers pimping Slater as coming from the WWF and coming to the AWA because he wanted to wrestle the best. Evans dares to try to get in some moves and Slater keeps thrashing him and finally ends it with an elbow from the second rope. Not exactly a thrilling finisher, and it would have helped if Slater hadn’t already done about 20 elbows already.

Larry Nelson interviews DJ Peterson, JT Southern, and Southern’s huge hair. Peterson vents about Curt Hennig using a chair in their AWA Title match and says that the AWA stands for the American Wrestling Association and using a chair isn’t wrestling to him. Southern is upset that he made a lot of sacrifices in his quest to wear AWA Gold and Paul E. Dangerously and his phone cost them the tag titles against the Russians. If the Russians are the champions then we’re between May and October of ’87.

It’s time for the Mat Classic, which is a two-ring Battle Royal from 1974, Larry Nelson and Ray Stevens do play by play. There are battle royals in two rings and the two winners wrestle to decide the ultimate winner. It’s interesting to watch just from the time frame, but that’s about it. I only recognize a few of the guys (Bockwinkel, Vachon, Koloff, Stevens, and Graham) and Nelson and Stevens don’t even know everyone, because there are parts where they’re not sure who was eliminated. Billy Graham appears to win, but they tell us after the clip that Pepper Gomez actually won.

TOMMY RICH vs. MIKE RICHARDS
Richards works a headlock for a bit to keep the fans bored, Rich wakes them up a bit with a dropkick and some armdrags and then he goes to a standard arm bar and starts his own headlocks to bore everyone again. Rich finally ends this with a Thesz press after far too long with far too little action.

ADRIAN ADONIS vs. PETE SANCHEZ
Paul E. Dangerously tells us that Adonis is Tommy Rich’s favorite wrestler. OK then. This is another squash like the Slater match, Adonis guzzles him early and never lets up. He puts the boots to him when he’s on the mat and almost kills him with a splash and the sleeper finishes it.

Larry Nelson with Paul E. Dangerously, and this is the highlight of the show! Dangerously gloats about Adonis and the Midnight Express attackingTommy Rich and talks about them going to a party in Hollywood afterwards and doing impressions of everyone who talked to them about it. Robin Leech, Billy Crystal, a Chinese guy from NYC and one of “Adrian’s friends” (wink wink). Hilarious stuff.
I actually found the match and promo on youtube. The promo is five minutes into the video.

It’s time for the great main event that Larry Nelson wouldn’t tell us about. It’s a tournament match to crown the first AWA Television Champion, feel the excitement jack!

JERRY BLACKWELL vs. KEVIN KELLY
Well I can see why Larry didn’t wanna tell us about this beforehand. Kevin Kelly isn’t the one that Rock used to call hermie on a regular basis, he went on to fame in the WWF as Nailz. It’s not a good match by any stretch, Kelly’s talent lies in his posing and Blackwell moves well for his size, but it’s just that, for his size, not in general. They do manage to be funny though, well Blackwell does by mocking Kelly. Kelly pushes Blackwell away from a lock up and poses. Blackwell then knocks Kelly to the floor and he poses. Kelly tries to offer the handshake and get a cheap shot, but Blackwell beats him to the kick in the midsection and he poses again. They start wrestling, although it’s really just a lot of punching, and Nick Kiniski tries to interfere only for Blackwell to bring him into the ring and the ref calls for the bell. We’re not informed if he disqualified them both (since Blackwell brought him into the ring) or just Kelly.

Back to the studio with Larry Nelson who announces the fan of the week, pimps an Elvis impersonator, and then bids us farewell for the week and reminds us to tune in next week to ESPN.