AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic 07.02.09

AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic

We’re in the studio with Larry Nelson, who promises us a great show for today. The main event is Bad Company against The Midnight Rockers. Larry then takes us back to last week, with Soldat Ustinov attacking Baron Von Rashke in the studio right in front of Nelson (who puts Don West to shame for ability to freak out). Ustinov breaks a board over his head and looks like he’s about to cover him with the Soviet Flag it, but ESPN cuts to an ad for ESPN.com before he actually does it. CENSORSHIP! We go back to Ustinov bringing out the Sheik’s newest weapon against the Baron, he’s not named but I’m pretty sure it was Teijo Kahn. Ustinov breaks a board over Kahn’s head and he doesn’t flinch, Nelson’s facial expression is priceless.

We’re back at the Showboat, sometime in 1988. I’m not sure exactly when the Rockers left the AWA, but they first showed in the WWF around June I believe, and they lost the titles to Bad Company in March.

RICKY RICE vs. THE HURRICANE KID
At first this looks like a nice clean cut match, somewhat fast paced, with Rice and Kid doing the usual spunky offense, leap frogs, arm drags, etc. Then Kid gets more aggressive and takes over, he takes down Rice in a head scissors and then uses leg to keep sandwiching Rice’s head. Then he starts to choke him, and then throws him to the floor. Kid keeps up the onslaught for a bit, and then Rice comes back with a dropkick and gets the surprise pin with a high cross body press.

Larry Nelson, holding the remnants of the board, standing by with Baron Von Rashke. They show the clip again of Ustinov breaking the board over Kahn’s head. Baron isn’t impressed, he breaks the remnants over his own head! Nelson looks disturbed! Baron tells them to bring whomever they can find, because he’s got his own surprise. “One of you, two of you, three of you. The Claw is all you need to know!” I don’t care how bad the matches are likely to be, this feud rules!

Edit after this was submitted: Someone was kind enough to put both parts on youtube (without the ESPN censor) and have also given us a date for this. March 6, 1988.

WAHOO McDANIEL/GREG GAGNE vs. CURT HENNIG/BOB ORTON
Rod Tronguard with some real deep insight here. “This isn’t for the Championship of the world, but one day . . . it very well could be.” How could Rod know that WCW would be booking tag matches for the World Title ten years down the road? Then he veers off into talking about the Midnight Rockers as the tag champions, so we’re narrowed down between January and March. The match has this nice ‘Wrestling vs. Brawling” theme to it, which leads to some nice stuff. Hennig and Orton get control by going to the eyes or using fists, but Greg and Wahoo use their wrestling skills to overcome it. One of their best moments comes when Hennig puts the boots to Wahoo and then puts on a front facelock, only for Wahoo to escape and put the champion into one of his own. Greg becomes face in peril to Orton and Hennig’s brawling for a bit, and then makes his own comeback and puts Hennig in the Gagne sleeper, but Orton saves. Wahoo comes in to even the odds and the match breaks down, culminating in Orton throwing Greg over the top for the DQ. The match is over, but they’re not done yet. Orton gives McDaniel a piledriver while Greg and Curt brawl on the floor. Greg gets the better and Curt hightails it, while Greg checks on Wahoo. It seems like they’re building to a Greg/Hennig title match, it wouldn’t have to hurt to put Greg over him here.

SHEIK ADNAN AL KAISSIE vs. KEVIN COLLINS
Hey, Sheik can actually wrestle, he just chooses not to. He mostly just chokes and rakes Collin’s eyes, although he does take him to the mat and work over his leg for a bit, and then kicks him in the gut while he’s down. Sheik uses an abdominal stretch, with holding the tights, to get the win. Tronguard tells us that it’s called the Camel Clutch, but I think he’s wrong. No follow up to the Baron angle though, we just go to break.

Larry Nelson isn’t sure what the Baron’s plan is for his war with the Sheik, but he thinks he should get together with Sgt Slaughter, since he hates everything the Sheik stands for. Then we cut to a match from Atlantic City, featuring the Sarge against Mike Bore. Not much different than the previous Slaughter matches that I’ve recapped here. Bore controls early, but then runs into the Slaugher Cannon and the Cobra clutch puts him away.

SHAWN MICHAELS/MARTY JANNETTY vs. PAUL DIAMOND/PAT TANAKA
Lee Marshall tells us that this is a tag team attraction, not a title match. This isn’t given enough time to develop as well as it could have, which is one of the problems of being on TV. Bad Company tries like hell to get an illegal advantage, but it never works for them. The feeling out portion is highlighted the Rockers outwrestling Diamond at every turn, and their attempts to get an illegal advantage backfiring on them. First when the ref catches Diamond pulling the hair to get Shawn into their corner, and then when Diamond attacks Shawn from behind so they can double team, but Mary intervenes and evens the odds. It finally works when Tanaka trips Shawn from the floor to let them take over. They bait in Jannetty and then take turns dropping elbows on Michaels, and then Diamond uses his power to his advantage with a big breaker. Shawn looks to be mounting a comeback when he drops Tanaka with a couple of shoulderblocks, but Tanaka pops back up and takes him down with a body block of his own. Diamond misses a charge into the corner to allow the hot tag, and it breaks down as you’d expect. The ref goes down, Shawn rolls up Diamond and Tanaka hits him with a foreign object to give the heels the win.

Larry Nelson with the Rockers. Shawn can’t talk, but Marty all fired up. The Rockers don’t mind losing to a better team, but what Bad Company did doesn’t make them a better team. They want them back in the ring, it can be in Vegas or anywhere else! That ends this edition of AWA Championship Wrestling, tune in next week!