wrestling / TV Reports

AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic 8.09.09

August 9, 2009 | Posted by Mike Campbell


AWA Championship Wrestling on ESPN Classic

No date given, just the year 1986 again. We’re splitting our time between Hammond, IN on 5/17 and the Showboat in Las Vegas. There’s no indication when exactly the Vegas matches are taking place, but it’s before the end of June, based on the hard selling of the late June AWA tour including Oakland on 6/28 and Denver on 6/29.

Current Champions:
AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Stan Hansen
AWA World Tag Team Champions: Buddy Rose and Doug Somers
AWA Light Heavyweight Champion: Buck Zumhofe
AWA Ladies Champion: Candi Devine

LARRY ZYBYSZKO vs. JESSE HERNANDEZ
Larry’s usual stalling to start, and then he starts killing Jesse. But instead of killing him in short order, he’ll drop with him with a vertical suplex or neckbreaker and purposely pick him up, and then start taunting Scott Le Doux, who’s watching from ringside. Larry finally finishes with two piledrivers, and invites LeDoux into the ring, LeDoux restrains himself at first, but then enters the ring. Gary DeRusha stands between him and Larry to prevent incident.

Larry Nelson with Larry Zybyszko. Larry wants to know why he was taunting LeDoux, Zybyszko says the fans just need to shut up because they’re jealous of him. He works his butt off, and doesn’t drink beer and eat chips all day. Larry wants to get to back Scott LeDoux, and Larry says that LeDoux is a coward and only had the guts to enter the ring, when there was someone else already between them.

STAN HANSEN vs. MIKE RICHARDS
We’re in Hammond for his one, everyone who thinks Richards has a prayer of winning stand up. . . not so fast Richards’ family. This is the usual Stan Hansen mauling, combined with a nice moment when Hansen misses a charge into the corner and hurts his should, and Richards tries to work over the arm. It only lasts for about a minute though. The lariat kills him dead. The real kicker is that Hansen tries to hang his horseshoe on the ring post and it falls off, and one of the fans steals it!

Larry Nelson with Stan Hansen. Hansen hates this town because it’s full of thieves. First his bull rope and now his horseshoe. But nobody will steal his belt. Not 112 lb Greg Gagne, not the pimply faced Midnight Rockers, and not Bruiser Brody.

Larry Nelson with Scott LeDoux. Scott has no problem with Larry Zybyszko, he just wants to blame his problems on him, and then call him out, only to back down when LeDoux shows up. If Larry wants to find Scott LeDoux, he won’t have to look hard. The only concerns that LeDoux has with Zybyszko are when he’s breaking the rules during a match.

COLONEL DeBEERS vs. CHRIS CURTIS
DeBeers attacks at the bell, does a lot of punching, kicking, and stomping, has several chances to win, and keeps pulling Curtis up. Not unlike what he did to Jake Milliman, that caused Scott Hall to come out, and then caused DeBeers to piledrive him on the floor. DeBeers finally ends with the front piledriver. A black guy in the crowd with a hand puppet of Bert from Sesame Street gets into it afterwards with DeBeers.

Larry Nelson with Colonel DeBeers. Larry wants to know why he attacked Hall from behind. DeBeers goes into his usual Bob Backlund rant, but the gist is that Hall started it and DeBeers ended it. He says Nick Bockwinkel has Buffalo syndrome. That’s what happens to Indians, when they wait for Buffalo to return. Bockwinkel is waiting for another title shot, but it won’t happen because DeBeers is in his way.

MARTY JANNETTY/SHAWN MICHAELS vs. BORIS ZUKHOV/SHEIK ADNAN AL KAISEE
Standard formula stuff here, the Rockers use their speed to keep Boris form getting control of things early on, Sheik tags in and stalls for a bit before he gets control of Marty and wears down the arm. It’s nothing special, aside from the sweet spot where they hammerlock him and then ram him into the post, and Jannetty goes right to the floor. The ref misses the tag to Shawn and puts him out, and then Jannetty makes the hot tag a minute later and it breaks down like you’d expect. Shawn pins Boris after a high cross body press, even though Sheik was legal.

Larry Nelson with The Sheik and Boris Zukhov. Sheik is outraged because Boris wasn’t the legal man, and he’s since retired from wrestling. He wants the Midnight Rockers to wrestle Zukhov and the Barbarian. Boris is incensed because “nobody pins a Russian!” and Larry replies, “they just did” and bids us farewell for this week.

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