AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic 8.10.09

AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic

Once again, there’s no date given of this show, just 1986. It looks to be March or early April, they seem to be building up WrestleRock ‘86.

Current Champions:
AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Stan Hansen
AWA World Tag Team Champions: Curt Hennig and Scott Hall
AWA America’s Champion: Sgt Slaughter
AWA Light Heavyweight Champion: Buck Zumhofe
AWA Ladies Champion: Candi Devine

BRAD RHEINGANS vs. HAANS DeHASS
This is the usual match from Brad, he pulls out cool stuff, but his opponent can’t hope to keep up with him, so Brad dumbs things down and lets his opponent get some offense in and take sa couple of shortcuts to get Brad in trouble and then Brad finishes him off. It was cool to see Brad’s spinning neckbreaker, his weird leg grapevine, and the atomic drop/German suplex combo that Brad used was nice, but beyond that, there isn’t anything special.

Larry Nelson with Stan Hansen. Hansen is ready for that big, fat, slob, Leon White next week. Verne Gagne wants him to be more like Rick Martel or Nick Bockwinkel, but it aint gonna happen. He doesn’t have class, but he’s got guts and he’ll fight anyone!

COLONEL DeBEERS vs. ALEX KNIGHT
At least Knight’s sandbagging tactics aren’t limited to Shawn Michaels, he deadweights DeBeers’ attempt at a double arm suplex, but, sadly, DeBeers doesn’t try to kill him like Shawn did. DeBeers “wrecks” Knight (according to Verne Gagne) with knees and elbows all focusing on his midsection. DeBeers even does the Stroke nearly fifteen years before Double J started using it regularly (and Knight doesn’t go along with that move either) and DeBeers finally ends it with the front piledriver.

Larry Nelson with Colonel DeBeers. Larry says that DeBeers will be at WrestleRock ‘86, DeBeers doesn’t know what a WrestleRock is, but he’ll be there to wrestle and hear that “dreaded jungle music.” Larry says that the U.S. gives him the right to make those feelings public and he should respect that. The only thing that DeBeers respects is the republic of South Africa “Where a man is a man, and a man is a man!” OK then.

SGT SLAUGHTER vs. EARTHQUAKE FERRIS
Slaughter actually has the GI Joe logo on his tights, which is just awesome. Not much to see here, Ferris was green as grass and there wasn’t anything Sarge could do with him. Ferris kills him in rest holds, and Slaughter hits a dropkick to send him to the floor. Ferris uses his size to his advantage and hits a big splash for two. He tries for one off the second rope and can’t even balance himself. The splash misses and Sarge wins with a diving lariat off the second rope.

KING KONG BRODY vs. TIM PATTERSON
PATTERSON WINS! . . . by DQ. Brody squashes him like a bug for most of this. He plasters him with chops and elbows, and levels him with a boot to the face. Brody throws him to the floor and bodyslams him on the concrete. Brody starts ramming him back first into the post, and referee Marty Miller tries to stop him and gets pushed away for the DQ. Brody continues the assault afterwards with a piledriver.

Larry Nelson with Brody and The Sheik. The Sheik is excited for 4/20 and WrestleRock. He’s the reason Verne Gagne quit wrestling, when Sheik broke four of his ribs in Chicago. He can’t wait to see Barbarian and Brody crush Greg and Blackwell. Brody says that Sheik pays him good money, and when Sheik wants him to put someone on a stretcher, Brody puts them on the stretcher. He knows that Blackwell stole the Sheik’s money and tells Blackwell to save it because he’ll need it for the hospital bills.

MARTY JANNETTY/SHAWN MICHAELS vs. BUDDY ROSE/DOUG SOMMERS
I can see why these two almost immediately went into a title program after Buddy and Doug won the titles, they show some good chemistry together, even in a short match like this. If nothing else, Buddy Rose finally gets announced at his proper weight of 217. Buddy shows off with the pushups and the Shawn does the pushups to outdo him. Once they get wrestling it’s average tag formula stuff. The heels get control and Marty is face in peril after Doug accidentally hits Buddy, but they show their experience by brushing off the mistake and keeping focus. Buddy uses all 217 lbs to wear down Marty’s midsection, including a nice Flair knee drop. Hot tag to Shawn and the match breaks down, with Shawn pushing Doug off the top rope and then Marty hits the high cross body press for the win. This was far too short to accomplish anything, but they showed that they had it in them to bring goods if given the chance, and they were certainly given the chance later on.