411’s AWA on ESPN Classic Report 05.02.08

411’s AWA On ESPN Classic Report

The end of another week of AWA shows, and I’m still waiting for the first good one to come across my screen. Not a good sign, but you never know until you see it, so let’s get started.

AWA Championship Wrestling (Originally aired on…)

Larry Nelson welcomes us to the broadcast and hypes the main event that he did at the end of yesterday’s show, with Gagne vs. Adonis in a rematch for the AWA International Television Championship. He runs down the rest of the show and then kisses the Fan of the Week’s ass. Well, six asses, since there were six of them. TO THE RING!! We’re still in the hovel that is Minot, North Dakota, which is actually close enough to my homebase of Winnipeg that I could probably spit and hit Minot. True story, I did it once to win a fifty-dollar bet. It was incredibly difficult to get that loogie past customs though. Oh yeah, wrestling!

Rod Trongard and Ray Stevens are at ringside for all the action, so let’s get right to it.

Match One:
The Nasty Boys vs. Tom Johnson and Ricky Rice

The Nasties come out to the Janet Jackson song, which doesn’t fit them at ALL, except for having the word “nasty” in it. Knobbs and Sags both jump Johnson first, in an obvious xenophobic act against the poor, innocent, Canadian man. They both hammer Jonhson down with forearms before sending him out to the floor, and Rice comes in trying to stop them but ends up suffering the same fate. Johnson is in against Knobbs now and Knobbs gets some forearms and Irish whips Johnson in for a BIG clothesline before choking him out on the mat. Knobbs slams his head into the mat and hits an uppercut before whipping him in again for a reverse elbow. Tag in to Sags and he comes off the ropes with a nice legdrop before moving to a side headlock. Sags with a huge clothesline across the top rope, and he throws Johnson through the ropes to the floor as Johnson tries a babyface comeback. Knobbs starts working Johnson over on the floor and stomps away before Sags drags him back to the apron and clotheslines him across the top rope again. Knobbs again with some beating on the outside and Johnson manages to get up to the apron, landing a couple of shoulderblocks to the gut of Sags. He tries a sunset flip over the ropes, and I say tries because he FUCKED UP! HE FUCKED UP!! HE FUCKED UP!! Sags practically does the move himself, dragging Johnson along for the ride, and Johnson gets a two-count off of it. Sags tags in to Knobbs and there’s a BIG bodyslam and another tag to Sags. Johnson rolls out of the way of an elbowdrop and it’s a HOT TAG!! DROPKICKS FOR EVERYBODY!! RICE DUCKS UNDER A CLOTHESLINE AND HITS A FLYING CROS….Oh, Sags caught him and spiked him with a backbreaker. Tag to Knobbs and he drops a double-sledge to the lower back and slams Rice before tagging Sags back in. Sags picks Rice up and slams him, heading over to forearm Johnson off the apron. Sags in the corner and Knobbs is up on top in the opposite corner, with Sags whipping Rice in and Knobbs hitting a flying clothesline for the three-count.

Winners: The Nasty Boys (pinfall, Knobbs flying clothesline)

Match Analysis: Not a bad match, and essentially an extended squash to try to build the Nasties as legitimate contenders. It did it’s job and the job squad did theirs, minus that terrible botch by Johnson. As another, more famous, IWC reviewer would say, this was perfectly acceptable wrestling. Nothing earth-shattering, but nothing offensive either.

Match Two:

Badd Company vs. Greg Robertson and Tim Patterson

That’s why they call me….BADD COMPANY!!! God, that entrance was awesome for the timeframe, and honestly a little shocking because Verne did something rock and roll and actually did it right. No DDP, no Diamond Dolls, and yet still it’s swank just because it’s the right music for the team. Tanaka and Patterson start things out with a lockup and Patterson gets an armdrag takeover, leading Tanaka to complain about a hairpull. Another armdrag from Patterson and more complaining from Tanaka before they lock things up again and Tanaka pushes him into the ropes for a clean bre..CHOP TO THE CHEST!! Tanaka picks him up and sends him to the floor like a sack of garbage. Diamond on the outside with a BODYSLAM ON THE FLOOR! Robertson heads over to check on his partner and it’s a great spot because as soon as he leaves, Diamond boots Patterson in the head again. Great heel instincts from Diamond there. Tanaka chops Patterson HARD and drops him to the concrete again before letting him back into the ring. Tanaka rams Patterson into the top buckle and tags in Diamond, who Irish whips Patterson in for a HARD clothesline. He follows that up with a front suplex and tags Tanaka back in, who hits Patterson with a thrust kick and chops away in the corner before hitting a headbutt as well. Tanaka with an Irish whip but he misses the charge and Patterson gets the tag in to Robertson, who looks for a suplex straight away. Blind tag from Tanaka and Diamond takes over with some punches before Irish whipping Robertson into the ropes. I don’t know what they were going for there but there were missed clotheslines and flailing arms before Robertson takes an eyerake and some right hands from Diamond. Diamond takes over and Irish whips Robertson in again for a running clothesline. Diamond tags in Tanaka and he slingshots Robertson right into a Tanaka DDT for the pinfall.

Winners: Badd Company (pinfall, slingshot/DDT double-team)

Match Analysis: Another extended squash, another bout full of acceptable wrestling. The double-team was sweet at the end though, as Tanaka and Diamond were always able to pull off some nice maneuvers in their time together as a team.

The AWA Notebook gives us the Tag Team rankings, with The Rockers on top as champions, followed by The Rock n’ Roll Express, Adonis and Orton, Badd Company, The Nasty Boys, and Wahoo and Rich.

Back from the break, Verne Gagne is with Larry Nelson and they talk about how Curt Hennig came out and bagged on the Olympic athletes, since this was an Olympic year. Verne goes on and on about the Olympics and then talks about how he went skiing and nearly killed himself. Larry Nelson: “Now, how about Verne Gagne? I understand you’ve been out on the ski slopes lately. You gonna get out there and go for the gold?” What a kiss-ass. Could you be a little more transparent, Larry? Honestly, the entire interview was all about the Olympics. I appreciate Verne’s commitment to amateur sports, but couldn’t that time have been better served to get someone over that actually works for the company? Just a thought.

Match Three:
Soldat Ustinov w/Sheik Adnan El-Kaissie vs. Alan West

This should be a real classic. One for the ages. The crowd is firmly behind West, chanting USA as we hear the shrill voice of Donna again on color commentary. The two big guys lockup and Ustinov shoves West away and yells at the crowd. Another lockup and Ustinov tries for a forearm in the corner but he misses and heads out to the floor for some guidance from Sheik Adnan. Ustinov looks for a test of strength now and West is a little reluctant to get into it as the USA chant starts again. They finally hit the test of strength and Donna starts talking about how with satellites maybe the AWA could go past the atmosphere and Larry Nelson could start receiving fan mail from Mars or Jupiter. You’re already there toots, believe me. Lunatic. Anyhow, Ustinov kicks West in the gut and takes over on the test of strength, until West stomps on Ustinov’s hands and takes him over with a hip toss. Ustinov is back out to the floor for a little more conferring with the Sheik as Donna talks about how West played middle linebacker for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers!! Finally, she says something useful!!

West hits a side headlock once Ustinov gets back into the ring and they do a couple of stand-off shoulderblocks before West ducks under and hits a dropkick, moving back to the side headlock and taking Ustinov over. Ustinov gets the reversal for a two-count but West rolls it back over, and he lets go of the headlock. Dumb move as Ustinov takes over with some shots in the corner and Sheik distracts West long enough to let Ustinov ram him into the top buckle. BIG hip toss from Ustinov gets a two-count and he goes to the eyes before taking over with some knees against the ropes. Irish whip from Ustinov and a big clothesline puts West down before they move to a reverse chinlock. Ring announcer says three minutes left and I have a sinking feeling that I’m going to end up seeing a draw. HUGE USA chant from the crowd and West powers out of the chinlock with some shots to the gut before Irish whipping Ustinov in for a dropkick.

Another Irish whip into a reverse elbow for West and he gets two before Sheik puts Ustinov’s boot across the bottom rope. Donna says that she’d like to take the sword that Sheik carries and cut his hands off with it. They need to get her off commentary, NOW! Ustinov starts raking his nails over West’s back and then hits a double-thrust to the throat and West gets sent out through the ropes to the floor. Sheik rams West’s head into the apron while Ustinov keeps the referee busy and West makes his way back in, getting Irish whipped in, but he ducks under a clothesline and hits a cross-bodyblock for a two-count. Small package for West gets another two-count as they’re under a minute left. BIG bodyslam and legdrop from Ustinov gets a LONG two-count with thirty seconds left. Irish whip and they both clothesline each other down with ten seconds left. West gets a belly-to-belly suplex for a two-count and they fuck up the “count the pin but time expired” spot as Miller has to stop the count before the bell rings.

Winner: None (time limit draw)

Match Analysis: Two greenies, but it was a really decent match. The crowd was solidly into it, but I think that was mainly a by-product of the USA/USSR dynamic. They kept the match simple though, went a little old-school with the moves and as such, didn’t mess anything up. The ending sucked, like it does every time any promotion tries to use it, mainly because people can never get the timing right. Seriously, how hard can it be? Ring the bell between the two and the three count, who CARES what time it’s at. Do you think people in the crowd are going to be timing the matches on their Casio stopwatches? BAH!!! Good match, shitty ending.

After the break, Larry Nelson’s in the AWA studios and he runs down a bit of the touring schedule for people to come out to see the AWA LIVE! He brings out Tom Zenk and Zenk starts talking about the Olympics too. What is with these guys and the Olympics? Jumping jesus, we get it, you like the Olympics. Are they going to come out and start talking about their favorite TV shows too? Zenk turns to Curt Hennig and says that he’s come back to the AWA to win that belt from Hennig. He calls Hennig a great champion and talks about how he’s kept the belt through bending the rules and changing his attitude. Zenk threatens him and says to remember the name Tom Zenk because he’s coming after Hennig. That leads right into Baron Von Raschke and he talks about the great athletes in the AWA, getting three guys down the list and then forgetting the rest, saying that there’s too many to remember. KICK SAVE AND A BEAUTY FROM THE BARON!! Baron starts threatening Sheik and says that he’s coming after Soldat Ustinov and that is ALL THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW!!

Match Four: AWA International Television Championship
Adrian Adonis w/Bob Orton vs. Greg Gagne (c)

This one is a re-match of their first contest, which ended with an Adonis DQ and gave Gagne the championship belt. Adonis stalls to start and then charges, taking a big hip toss from Gagne and another before Gagne gets a bodyslam on him, sending Adorable Adrian out to the floor. Orton tries to console Adonis on the outside and give him a little advice. Adonis gets back into the ring and they lockup with Adonis hitting a knee to the gut and then trying for a slam, but Gagne floats over and then hits another couple of bodyslams, sending Adonis back to the floor. They’re locked up again with Gagne getting a standing arm-wringer, taking Adonis over into an armbar on the mat. Adonis up to his feet and he moves and drags Gagne out to the floor in an attempt to break the hold. Adonis tries an Irish whip and Gagne reverses it, sending Adonis headlong into Orton before getting back into the ring and dragging Adonis back into the armbar. Adonis tries an Irish whip into the corner to get free, but Gagne reverses again and hits a backdrop out of the corner.

Abdominal stretch from Gagne now in the middle of the ring and Adonis breaks it by going to the eyes, charging at the champion. Gagne ducks out of the way and hits a drop toehold, moving to a leglock on Adonis. Adonis goes to the eyes again and he limps over to Gagne in the corner, hitting a standing elbow and a shoulderblock before Gagne gets the drop toehold again into the leglock. Adonis to the eyes again and he rams Gagne’s head off of the mat before picking him up and slamming him head-first into the top turnbuckle. Irish whip into the corner and Adonis hits an AVALANCHE!! Two-count for Adonis but Gagne has his foot across the bottom rope. Adonis works over Gagne in the corner with right and left hands before Gagne comes back with some punches of his own. They trade shots and Adonis takes over with a nail rake across Gagne’s back, with Gagne ending up draped across the middle rope. Another butt splash by Adonis clotheslines Gagne across that rope and he hits a snap mare before dropping a HUGE knee across Gagne’s face, getting a LONG two-count. Another kneedrop attempt, but Gagne gets a hand up and punches Adonis in the throat.

Gagne tries for another bodyslam but Adonis is JUST TOO FAT and Adonis ends up on top for a two-count. Back to their feet and Adonis pulls Gagne into a sleeperhold, clamping it on in the middle of the ring. Gagne moves to the corner and drops down, slamming Adonis’ head into the top buckle. Irish whip from Adonis gets reversed and he goes ass over teakettle into the corner and GAGNE’S ALL FIRED UP!! IRISH WHIP INTO THE CORNER INTO A BACKDROP! DROPKICK!!! GAGNE SLEEPER!! Adonis does the same thing Gagne did, only he sends Gagne through the ropes all the way out to the floor. Orton on the outside just PEPPERS Gagne with right hands and Adonis comes outside to try to ram Gagne into the post. Gagne ducks low and slams Adonis into the post and referee Marty Miller is calling for the bell. Adonis and Orton are halfway up the aisle to the dressing room and it looks like it’s another disqualification.

Winner: Adrian Adonis (disqualification, ringpost shot)

Match Analysis: This main event was pretty good, but that was just the talent of Adonis, shining through all of the flab and carrying Gagne. He could have had that match with himself really, and the result would have been about the same. Kind of fun to see Orton and Adonis on the same side when earlier this week I saw them facing off against each other for the Southwest Championship Wrestling version of the heavyweight championship to end a one-night, eight-man tournament.

Orton and Adonis are both celebrating because they think that they have the title won with the DQ, but the belt ends up staying with Gagne. Orton is yelling and stomping arond in the ring while Gagne throws the belt down to challenge Adonis again. Orton smartly grabs the belt and heads for higher ground, handing it to Adonis and out they go. Gagne is trying to explain to the referee what the situation was but it’s to no avail. Gagne is PISSED and heads off to the back.

Larry Nelson’s back in the AWA studios, running down the main event we just saw and mistaking Adrian Adonis for Wahoo McDaniel. He kisses the Family of the Week’s ass again and then begs for more fan mail. He finishes running down the show and says that it’s going to be Curt Hennig vs. Mr Magnificent in the main event next week!

Final Thoughts

Another meh show. Not that there was anything extremely terrible in it, it just looked amateurish and the wrestling was all kind of bland. Thumbs down for me on this one, and there’s not really a lot else to say, so let’s move on to the comments.

Fun With Comments

From Frozen:
“Am I the only one who notices (and is annoyed by) the “audience
reaction” shots that they edit into the shows from time to time? Sometimes
they use the same audience shot several times in one show. The AWA just couldn’t
get the wrestling part nor the television part right.”

I noticed it more in this past episode more than any other, and at some point in it, Rod Trongard thanks some production company from Grand Forks for handling the show, so this is one time that the AWA can not be directly at fault. Of course, it’s their fault that they were too cheap to have a prouction crew that travelled with them, but that’s another story.

From G-Walla:
“Missed two nights in a row. Didn’t sound like I missed mcuh, other than seeing
some interesting people.

Getting sleep was nice, for a change, though.”

What is this sleep you speak of? And yeah, you haven’t missed much, but the show is starting to get into the funnily bad territory on occasion so that can make up for it sometimes.

From James:
“re: Lawler vs. Samoan Joe…I guess this Joe’s gonna do anything but kill you,
huh? And about Manny…Jimmy Valiant references the ‘Nam thing in his
interviews around the time Bull turned on him in the NWA. He inexplicably
called him the “Willy-Willy” Man numerous times as well.

Frozen…as this WAS ESPN, were any of these audience reactions taken as
something “violent” was about to happen? This happened ALL THE TIME
on GWF shows.”

It could possibly be because of something too violent, but I think the cuts were just inexperienced production people that didn’t know wrestling, trying to make it into something “artistic”. As for the ‘Nam thing, it was generally accepted as the truth until later in Fernandez’s career or even after it was over, as that was when his whole web of lies came unravelled.

From James:
“And looking back at my previous comments about Kevin Kelly, it just dawned on
me: KELLY + MADUSA = VINCE HATE SQUAD.”

Yeah, that would work, though I think Madusa would have been a bit of an unwilling member of that hate squad, since she was really smart about not wanting to burn bridges and essentially had to have Eric Bischoff goad her into dumping her belt into the trash because she didn’t think it was a good idea. Bischoff sold her on a bill of goods and she did it and now she’s stuck on the black list, while Bischoff gets to make appearances on WWE DVDs, as well as the occasional appearances on WWE programming. I think she’d be a more likely candidate for a Bischoff Hate Squad personally.

From Teijo Kahn:
“I think Lawler and Bill Dundee had already had a cup of coffee with the tag
belts before this, actually.”

They did, and I actually remember that match, but what I was referring to was Lawler’s debut for his big singles run with the belt that led up to the SuperClash III match. I probably should have been a lot clearer on that, but thanks for the info TiJoe!!

From JLAJRC:
“The Cheap Seats recap was great and hope to see more in the future.

Frankly, I’m getting kinda bored with the AWA. At least the UWF show had some
hilarious comedy to keep you interested. I wonder if they’re planning on
switching to another wrestling show soon. That would explain the skipping of
the 1987 episodes.”

Randy and Jason will return from time to time, on nights when I feel up for it, or just when it’s been a shitty show and I could use the laugh. If I use them too much they’ll lose their special powers to cheer up the readers after a craptacular hour of AWA “action”. Either that or I’m fumbling for an excuse as to why I’m too lazy to do it for every episode. But thanks for the support on it anyhow, JLA. As for them switching shows, I sure as hell hope not because if I’m sitting through these mildly bad shows, I want to see the end when they were TERRIBLE shows. I’m a bit of a masochist like that.

From Mark:
“Samoan Joe? Really?”

Yep, really. Tiger-print tights and everything, so he must be from the islands. He wasn’t very good though, so luckily someone better came along to give the name a bit more gravitas.

From Teijo:
“I remember that, they beat Soldat Ustinov and Doug “Pretty Boyski”
Somervich (stand-in for Boris Zhukov who had since gone to become a Bolshevik).
My one big memory of their reign was when they did a promo on the Original MX
and Lawler said he had run-ins with Paul E. He referenced the hair cage match,
but they bleeped out Tommy Rich’s name (as he was working face at that time in
the AWA)”

Yes indeed, the problem sometimes with those shows is that in certain cases, like with this instance and with the Midnight Rockers, what was happening in Minnesota ran completely counter to what was happening in Memphis, so the opportunity for confusion was readily available.

Finally from Guest#4000:
“The AWA big problem was that they had no great heels. They had Zbyszko, but in
1988 he was in NWA/WCW. They had Curt Hennig, but by the time he was stepping
up to a top guy in the industry he left for the WWF. They had babyfaces like
Greg Gagne, Baron Von Raschke, Wahoo McDaniel, Jerry Blackwell, Jerry Lawler,
& Sgt. Slaughter. If they would have turned some of those guys, I think it
would have helped make the TV better.”

I agree that there weren’t many people that were worthwhile heels in those dying days, but really the only guy they could have turned and had it be believable would have been Lawler. Baron, Wahoo and Blackwell were all WELL past their primes and wouldn’t have been able to go in the ring, Slaughter wouldn’t have been booed at that point if his life depended on it, and Gagne had no charisma as a face, so as a heel just imagine Randy Orton early in his career. With a worse finisher. And a bigger push cause he’s the son of the boss. Gagne would have been eaten alive as a heel, so essentially the only one they could have done it with was Lawler, but they had to keep him face to lead up to the SuperClash show. If they’d paid Lawler for it, he was already showing his heelish tendencies and I think that a turn on the fans after they’d supported him through unifying the titles would have done pretty good business. Not “save the territory” business, but enough business to keep things going for another little while. Verne was seemingly just trying to hold on and wait for the next big boom cycle for wrestling, but he just couldn’t keep enough people interested in the interim to keep the business viable.

That does it for me for another week of AWA reports. Thanks for stopping in and checking them out and I’ll see you all right back here next Tuesday for another week of wrestling action!