411’s AWA on ESPN Classic Report 08.04.08

411’s AWA On ESPN Classic Report

AWA Championship Wrestling

Lee Marshall and Ralph Strangis are ringside and they do the rundown of the show with Ralph Strangis looking about as uncomfortable in front of a camera as I have ever seen a human being. Apparently we’re getting Col. DeBeers, Yukon John, AWA World Champ Larry Zbyszko, and the main event with The Russian Brute and Sgt. Slaughter in a taped-fist match. Ralph stares at the camera like a goof with his mouth hanging half open all the way to the commercial.

Match One: AWA World Heavyweight Championship
Tony Leone vs. Larry Zybszko (c)

This one should be fairly quick. Zbyszko’s choice of ring music, Tina Turner’s “Simply The Best”, is 100 extra bonus points for awesome. Strangis and Marshall try to push their failing hotline number as the bell rings and Zbyszko does a little stalling. Fireman’s carry takedown from Zbyszko and he badmouth’s Leone a little, telling him to get to the back before he gets embarassed. Lockup now and Zbyszko pushes Leone into the ropes, shocking me by giving up a clean break when the referee asks for it. Another lockup and they end up in the ropes again with Leone pushing Zbyszko onto his ass when Zbsyzko tries for a clean break. Yeah, he’s super-pissed now. The two schmucks on commentary start talking something about football while Leone is on the floor, celebrating his trip takedown and I kind of tune them out until Zbyszko offers a handshake and kicks Leone in the gut. Zbyszko goes to the eyes and gets a couple of big bodyslams in on Leone before he picks him up for the PILEDRIVER!!! Zbyszko gets the three-count and then bows to the crowd in the middle of the ring.

Winner: Larry Zbyszko (pinfall, piledriver)

Match Analysis: Short and to the point. They had a decent point on commentary, saying that Zbyszko was playing by the rules early and still getting booed, so he snapped a little and showed his vicious streak, ending it quickly. Didn’t mean much, but it’s always fun to see Zbyszko in action and looking crisp.

Zbyszko is at ringside with Eric Bischoff and he calls the fans at ringside fools. He asks about why they put people in front of firing squads and then goes into something about the old adage about the pen and the sword being a lie. He asks Bisch if they took Noriega with a pen and tells the front row to shut up. He says that 1990 is his world and that there’s no pen, only the sword. He says he’s the roughest, the toughest, most controversial, undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. He tells the fans that they suck and then storms off, coming back to yell at Bischoff for the way the fans treated him. It didn’t make a ton of sense, but at least he had a little bit of fire, which most of the AWA promos were seriously lacking at this time.

Match Two:
Spike Jones vs. Yukon John Nord

John does a LOT of howling on his way to the ring and as he spends a few minutes taking off his flannel shirt and wolf-skin hat, Lee Marshall talks about Nord’s past and how he’s a reformed man and trying to change his ways. Nord pushes Jones into the corner off of a lockup and starts laying in the chops before he goes to the eyes and tries an Irish whip. Jones reverses the whip into the corner and charges but EATS BEAVER and hits the floor to think things over. Jones wants Nord to calm the fuck down before he gets back into the ring and he finally does, going to the eyes and hammering Nord with some forearm shots. Nord no-sells all of them and hammers on Jones, tying him up in the ropes before he charges off of the other ropes and FEEDS HIM MORE BEAVER!!! HUGE bodyslam from Nord and he goes up to the second rope for the GUILLOTINE LEGDROP!!! 1-2-HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWL-3!!! Nord’s kicking air all the way around the ring, howling in celebration.

Winner: Yukon John Nord (pinfall, second-rope guillotine legdrop)

Match Analysis: Eh. I liked him a lot better as a Bruiser Brody rip-off personally. I think he needs to stop using that legdrop off of the second rope though. He had a lot more trouble hitting it from the second rope than he did from the top and it looked a little more dangerous in terms of hurting someone legit. Just my opinion.

Nord’s turn to talk to Eric Bischoff now, and Lee Marshall calls him “Choir Boy” again. I bet that’s why Lee got stuck on Thunder in WCW. Don’t try to tell me that Bischoff wasn’t holding a grudge that entire time. “Choir boy huh? Tell me how you enjoy working Thunder and the horrible Internet show, Lee.” Apparently, DeBeers and Nord are meeting in the main event next week in a “one-armed bandit” match where each guy has one arm tied behind their back. Nord talks about how he went up into the Yukon and he found himself and that in the lumber camp they’d have the same type of matches, after reading their Bibles. Huh? Nord throws up a kick….and a stretch….HE’S FIFTY!! FIFTY YEARS OLD!!! Nord calls himself the king of the camp and says that whatever doesn’t kill him makes him stronger. He threatens DeBeers with a meeting with Big Bertha (the axe) and starts howling away. By the way, Nord is now wearing a belt made out of enough rope to make Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel jealous. I guess they never heard of leather up at the lumber camp.

Eric Bischoff welcomes us back to the program and says we’re hearing from the main event participants. First up it’s The Russian Brute, with his manager Ox Baker, and Ox does all the talking. I can’t really decide if that’s good or bad. Ox says that it took 20,000 Marines to take one guy down in Panama and that it’s only going to take one Brute to take down this Marine. Baker fires off a bunch of half-thoughts and sentence fragments like he’s trying to write a blog and then says that Slaughter is going to feel the heart punch and that Sgt. Slaughter’s going to the hospital. I don’t know if they’re filming these promos with poor lighting, or with poor equipment, but there’s red shadows following the wrestlers when they move, which looks really amateur hour. Slaughter cuts his usual promo, calling Brute scum, slime, and a maggot before saying that the taped-fist match is coming up and that all of the great boxers showed him how to tape his fist. He says that Brute is going to go down and that he’s doing it for his team, his country, his state, his county, his city, his street and that cute little old lady on the corner that bakes him cookies every month. He threatens to dismiss the Brute permanently. Bischoff reminds us of what Ox Baker said last week about Slaughter leaving the arena in an ambulance before sending us to the ring for the next match.

Match Three:
Jake Milliman and Kent Carlson vs. The Texas Hangmen

The Hangmen come out with their noose and Strangis and Marshall do their debate on which Hangman is which. Killer starts out with Milliman and they AGAIN reference the Turkey Hunt match, which just makes me want to see it even more. Milliman clumsily rolls through the legs of Killer before we get a lockup and Killer takes Milliman down with some hard shots. Milliman reverses and gets Killer with a hard right hand to the gut and comes off the ropes with a flying double forearm smash. Standing arm-wringer by Milliman and Killer goes right to the eyes to break the hold, tagging in Psycho. Psycho runs right across into a hip toss and Milliman goes back to the arm work, using a standing armbar to isolate Psycho while he tags in his partner, Carlson. Carlson hammers on the arm, but Psycho takes over immediately with more hard shots to the back, putting Carlson down on the mat. He rams Carlson into the turnbuckle and then distracts the referee to let Killer choke him with the tag rope. Strangis tries to BS and say that Psycho is wearing the armpad today and not Killer to try to further confuse everyone, but I don’t buy it because their body-types still look the same. Unconfirmed report, my ass, Ralph. Killer gets a big bodyslam and a kneedrop to the throat before he picks Carlson up for a HUGE powerslam. Tag to Psycho and he Irish whips Carlson in for a big boot to the gut. Tag to Psycho and Killer Irish whips him into the ropes, hitting Carlson in the stomach with a punch before Psycho takes him down with a HUGE DDT. Tag back to Killer and he heads over to hit Milliman with a right hand and while the referee is distracted, they hit their swank finisher with Killer coming off the top with the Hangman’s Elbow as Psycho holds Carlson in the air. We get the pinfall for the finish and we get the bizarre argument on the rules between Strangis and Marshall about how far someone can be elevated off the mat before it’s illegal to come off the top rope and whether they had him too high or not high enough and blah, blah, blah, blah. Such convoluted crap.

Winners: The Texas Hangmen (pinfall, Hangman’s Elbow)

Match Analysis: The usual squasheriffic match from The Hangmen, and I’m interested to see if they could actually work a back-and-forth match or not. So far, all I’ve seen them do is hammer away on jobbers, but they haven’t really shown anything in terms of selling or being able to put on an entertaining match. Sweet finisher though, and to me it even makes it a little cooler that they have to cheat to hit it.

Bischoff throws it to Lee Marshall after the commercial and it’s Team Challenge Series report time. He talks about last week’s main event and says that despite it being the first win for Sarge’s Snipers in six weeks, there is still dissension in the ranks between DeBeers and Slaughter. That was utterly useless as a segment as they still haven’t changed the standings from last week’s report. I don’t even think they were trying anymore.

Match Four:
George Anderson vs. Col. DeBeers

DeBeers is making his way to the ring with “Welcome To The Jungle” blaring over the PA system. That doesn’t even make any sense. Wouldn’t he not want to be in the jungle? You know, because he hates black people? Does anyone even WORK at the AWA offices anymore that might consider stupid shit like this? DeBeers is at a give on the Hasselhoff scale this week and he grabs a side headlock right out of the gate. Anderson shoots him into the ropes but DeBeers gets a couple of shoulderblocks in before Anderson gets an armdrag takedown. DeBeers reverses it into an armbar and the crowd starts to cheer as we see Jake Milliman at ringside with a big sign that reads “The Colonel is a Turkey”. DeBeers whips Anderson into the ropes and puts him down with a knee to the gut before he turns his attention to Milliman on the outside. Milliman gets a HUGE “Turkey” chant started and Anderson almost takes advantage of it and gets a roll-up for a near fall. DeBeers takes over again, hammering Anderson to the mat and picking him up for a kick to the gut. DeBeers stomps on Anderson and whips him into the ropes for a back bodydrop. Stomp to the face from DeBeers and he whips Anderson into the ropes again for another back bodydrop. Anderson leapfrogs over him this time, but gets kicked in the stomach and bulldogged down to the mat HARD. DeBeers picks him up for the PANCAKE PILEDRIVER!!! He’s smiling as he gets the pinfall and it’s all over for Anderson!!

Winner: Col. DeBeers (pinfall, pancake piledriver)

Match Analysis: Only here to advance the DeBeers/Milliman nonsense. I honestly thought that Anderson was going to get the pin off of that roll-up, so I guess it worked in that sense. Seeing this match and the fall-out from all of it makes me REALLLLLLLY want to see that damn Turkey Hunt match, and I’m hoping they go back to round out the AWA shows by showing the 1989 shows after this.

Match Five: Team Challenge Series Match: Taped Fist Match
The Russian Brute w/Ox Baker vs. Sgt. Slaughter

The Brute is on Baron’s Blitzer team and Slaughter is, of course, on his own Sniper’s team. Marshall does more lying, saying that the fans called into the AWA fan line and “demanded” this match. I would highly doubt that. They go over the rules of the taped fist match and we see that Slaughter has one fist taped while The Brute has both fists taped. We get a lockup and Brute pushes Slaughter into the ropes, leading to Slaughter threatening a right hand, but giving up the clean break. Another lockup and another push into the ropes, with Brute throwing a right hand and Slaughter ducking out of the way of the “lethal” punch. The crowd starts a big “USA” chant and Brute does the usual Russian tactic of covering his ears. Slaughter takes over with a couple of big boots to the gut before whipping Brute into the ropes for an elbow to the stomach. Snap mare from Slaughter into a double-stomp on Brute’s gut and he stomps on Brute’s fingers for good measure. Slaughter pushes Brute into the ropes and hits him with a hard forearm across the chest and Brute fires back with some forearms, a double-axehandle and a BIG headbutt.

Brute rams Slaughter into the turnbuckles but Slaughter feels no pain and rams Brute HARD into the buckle!! Brute goes to the eyes to stop the momentum and begins choking Slaughter across the top rope and as the referee warns him, Ox Baker chokes Slaughter across the second rope, using his mini-bat he apparently got from a Twins game that afternoon for added leverage. Brute works over Slaughter with some boots before choking him across the bottom rope. Brute gets warned again and Baker chokes Slaughter with the mini-bat again. Brute picks Slaughter up for a slam but just drops him across the top rope with a clothesline for a long two-count. Right hand to the body from Brute and he Irish whips Slaughter into the corner, following him in with a charge. They knock heads off of the charge and both men go down. Marshall and Strangis actually keep my attention for a moment, but that’s only because they’re talking about the Canada/Russia hockey Summit Series in 1972. I think they’re trying to use it to point out the skill of the Russian athletes or something.

Brute is up first and lays some boots in on Slaughter before choking him in the corner. Slaughter takes a moment to make sure his comb-over stays in place, despite being in bad shape, and Brute whips Slaughter into the opposite corner. Brute charges across with a knee but SLAUGHTER MOVES!! Brute is holding onto the knee that slammed into the top turnbuckle and Slaughter pounces, starting to kick and stomp on that damaged knee. More kicks and stomps to the knee by Slaughter and Brute comes back with a rake of the eyes into an Irish whip into the corner. HUGE back bodydrop from Brute as Slaughter comes bouncing out of the corner and there’s another Irish whip into the corner for Slaughter to take his usual stomach bump. Another Irish whip into the corner by the Brute and he just picks up Slaughter and throws him back into the corner again. Brute does a little flexing and it’s time for the HEART PUNCH according to Ox. Brute winds up and Slaughter KICKS HIM IN THE GUT!! ANOTHER KICK FROM SLAUGHTER!!

Brute goes to the eyes to break that up and they’re just choking each other in the middle of the ring. Baker gets up onto the apron and the referee is distracted as Slaughter locks on the COBRA CLUTCH!!! Slaughter lets it go and goes after Baker, grabbing him by the mustache, blocking a mini-bat shot, and THE BRUTE ATTACKS FROM BEHIND!! He holds Slaughter in place for a bat shot from Baker, but SLAUGHTER DUCKS!!! BAKER WAFFLES THE BRUTE!!! Slaughter’s down for the pin attempt!!! 1-2-3!!!! Slaughter wins!! Slaughter wins!!! The crowd is actually going wild!!

Ox Baker tries to sneak up on Sarge after the bell, but Slaughter catches him and threatens him with the taped fist!! Brute sneaks up on Slaughter now and WAFFLES HIM WITH THE BAT!! Baker holds Slaughter in place and BRUTE HITS HIM WITH THE HEART PUNCH!!! Baker’s choking Slaughter with his whip and HERE COME CAPTAIN BARON!!! Baron sends Brute scurrying just by threatening him with the Claw and Baker rolls out of the ring too. Slaughter gets back to his feet and Baron tries to apologize for the actions of The Brute and Baker.

Winner: Sgt. Slaughter (pinfall, heel miscommunication)

Match Analysis: Wow. An actual hot crowd for an AWA match in 1990. Color me shocked. The match was the absolute shits, but the heat was up for it, which was fun to see. I question why they even had the match be a taped fist match when Slaughter didn’t throw a single taped fist punch and Brute didn’t throw one until after the match was over. I guess it was a gimmick, but it seemed pointless to me to have the gimmick and then never use it. It’d be like having a TLC match today and not using any of the weapons at ringside at all during the course of the match.

Bischoff has Baron Von Raschke and Sgt. Slaughter with him at ringside for some comments and we start off with Slaughter, clutching his chest, wheezing for air, saying he’s never been hit so hard in his life. Bischoff brings up that Slaughter is okay and that Slaughter was able to get the win and get the points for his team. He asks Baron about the situation after the match and Baron says that The Brute and Baker lost control and that they’re out there as a team effort and that it’s important. Slaughter gets all snotty and puts his mug on Baron, saying that there was no reason for Baron to stick his guys on him after the match was over. Bischoff tries to explain that that’s not the case and Baron tries to explain that it’s not the case and then starts ragging on Slaughter’s team and DeBeers’s actions in the Beauty and the Beast match. Slaughter says that when the TCS is over, they’ll be friends again but for now, he wants nothing to do with Baron. Slaughter shoves Baron and Baron loses his shit, getting all indignant and wagging his finger at Slaughter, saying that if friendship has to go, it has to go. They get in a dick-wagging contest about which team is better and Baron RAMBLES all the way through Bischoff throwing it to a break, which ends up being the end of the show.

Final Thoughts

Like most of the AWA shows at this time, it’s not an especially bad show, just a terribly bland one. The only real response from the crowd was at the end of the main event and during the post-match melee. Everyone else just kind of went through the motions with their usual stuff, whether it was The Hangmen, Zbyszko or DeBeers. A middling show gets a middling thumbs in the middle for me. Nothing offensive, but nothing really good either. Let’s hit the HUGE batch of comments!!

Fun With Comments

From greggagnesucks:
“After looking at that AWA poster it looks like Zbyszko hasn’t taken a shit in 3 days!Doctor X & The Honky Tonk Man! Did anyone see this trainwreck? “

If anyone saw it, PLEASE send me a report on the show and don’t spare a single stomach-turning detail. The indy guys look alright, but using the actual AWA talent a good twenty years after their expiration dates looks painful to watch.

From lmao:
“a young eric bitchoff lmao i have never laughed so hard at the newbie and his bitchiness omg epic laughs “

Yeah, he was a little tough to watch in these early shows as he was still pretty stiff and wooden in front of the camera. It’s almost hard to equate the Bischoff on these shows to the WCW/WWE version of the man. It’s like watching two different people.

From Guest. :
“Best part of the show: When DeBeers was on his rant on how men were men, women were women, and blacks were apes (ok, he didn’t say it, but it would’ve ruled in a I can’t believe he said that kind of way), he said how Mimi wouldn’t have to wrestle because he’d do everything. And who starts out the match? Mimi. DeBeers was such a douche and something as small as that ought to make it into the hidden highlights, especially since they’re doing apparently older shows now as well.

And, since you didn’t mention it, they made a comment about Mimi being in Playboy. I looked it up, and while I couldn’t find any pictorial evidence, I did find that in 89 she posed for Playboy with the AWA World Title. Again, Verne Gagne: Most Progressive Booker ever, having his girls pose for Playboy (Medusa as well until her deal fell through) 15 years before Vince did. She’s also an actor and producer, as well as a stunt woman, under her real name of Mimi Lessos. “

My guess would be that Mimi didn’t pose in the buff for that one and instead probably had the AWA Women’s title covering her lady bits. As for Verne being a progressive booker, again, he had the ideas and he had the horses to go with them, he just didn’t know how to put it all together for the audience of the late 80’s and early 90’s.

From RandomGuy:
“Wait just one minute here. Someone actually submitted to a Shoulder Claw? That’s the most ineffective Clawhold around. (And for those wondering:

1. Iron/Brain Claw.
2. Stomach Claw.
3. Trapizeus/Shoulder Claw/Nerve Hold. “

To me, all clawholds are pretty useless. I would agree that the version The Trooper used was the weakest looking of them all, but again, someone submitted to the abdominal stretch on the previous show, so the shitty submission hold precedent was there.

From Gary:
“In the Trooper report you said the trap/nervehold was being fazed out.Well we have to thank Umaga for bringing the exciting hold back again in a huge way. “

Yeah, Umaga brought it back today, but with him it actually makes sense because it’s mainly a move that has been used by Samoan and Japanese wrestlers. I was referrring to it being phased out, even in 1990, and that The Trooper looked a little silly using it. I mean, they could have easily said it was a “crowd-control technique he had learned during Trooper school” or something, but they didn’t, they just let him flop with his shitty finish.

From Scrotum Pole:
“Slaughter’s at ringside with Eric Bischoff now and WOW, that comb-over on Slaughter is reaching Trump levels of insanity.

I always felt it was closer to Rudy Guiliani’s.

This company is trying to compete on a national level, in 1990, with Ox Fucking Baker on the payroll? Christ, it’s even worse than I remember.

“Meet me halfway, across the sky.”
I love arm wrestling, Terry Funk and 18 wheelers. “

Ox should have been nowhere near a national company at this point, or actually at any point. He only had heat from the heart punch and that only worked in the territories for the most part. Once the business went national and all of the best workers were in the two main territories, you had to be able to go to get your spot up top. Baker was WELL past being able to do anything, and even as a manager was fairly worthless because he couldn’t cut a promo to save his life. I will agree with you that Slaughter’s comb-over looked a lot closer to Guiliani’s, but it was Donald-like in the sense that it started about at his ear and swooped ALL the way over to make it look like he still had bangs. That’s a deep commitment to make to know that you’re going to wake up every morning looking like a retard until you plaster your hair back over the top of your head. I’ll just shave mine, thank you very much.

From Non Epic Fail:
“I threwup in my mouth watching this. I don’t know why I torture myself…but I cannot help myself watching the dying AWA…… “

Trainwreck wrestling at its finest.

From David Burcham:
“I always wondered why WWF or WCW didn’t try to cash in on Ox Baker’s appearance in “Escape From New York”.

Then I actually saw him work a couple of stints in Memphis and Georgia in the mid-80’s.

Totally shattered the build-up I had in my imagination of the scary-looking guy I’d only read about in those old Apter mags. “

That was the problem with the Apter mags sometimes. They’d make someone seem like a million bucks and in your eight-year-old, pixie-stick addled brain, they looked like they were the greatest wrestler in the world. Then you saw them in action and that bubble was burst and you felt incredibly cheated. I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me reading those magazines in my younger days and I say that I feel your pain.

Also from David Burcham:
“Candi Devine’s looks can be attributed to reconstructive surgery. Not the kind used to enhance features… the kind used to save a person’s face, period.

Candi was very pretty early in her career, but her face was messed up in Memphis when another wrestler named Amy Monroe (I think?) botched a monkey flip and landed head-first on Candi’s jaw. Devine almost died on the operating table!

I always looked forward to Candi when she came to Memphis. She didn’t have the typical “thick” look that almost every woman wrestler had at the time. “

That’s a shame to hear about. If that is in response to my assertion that Divine looked like a hooker, it had more to do with whatever kind of rat pelt she was wearing as a coat, her make-up, and her teased up hooker hair. Her actual facial features had little to do with it as it was more of a “total package” kind of deal. I’m glad that she made it through that though, with relatively little complications.

From piperfan01:
“Ox Baker. I dunno, I will always look at him from the same “little kid” perspective. He scared the crap out of me as a kid, him, Abdullah the Butcher, Great Kabuki. The Baron as well, but older and wiser has made me see through the great Baron a bit, what was he like as a younger guy? The Patriot/Del Wilkes never did anything for me, when he beat Bret Hart I nearly choked on my ham sandwich. Mimi was hot back in these days, and together with Madusa, and yeah to a lesser extent Richter, Divine, add Martel, they had one hell of a ladies division back then. “

The AWA actually did have a little bit of depth in their ladies division, but damned if they knew how to use it. Wilkes never did a single thing for me either, and even as The Patriot, I never bought him being on Bret Hart’s level. Imagine how much better that angle would have been had they had Kurt Angle under contract at that time. As for your childhood fears and wrestling, mine were always Abdullah and Bruiser Brody as the big two. Baron in the early heel days was quite the dastardly guy and was actually pretty feared by the fans, though as you said, it mellowed in his later years to where they loved the guy.

From Steve:
“Ox still scared me but for different reasons than he did when I was a kid.

What other names did Brute wrestle under? Wikipedia had nothing on him. “

Honestly, I’m not too sure. Even OWW doesn’t have him listed anywhere, so I would assume that this AWA tenure was his only stop in the world of wrestling that made him any waves or got him any sort of notoriety.

From D.P. :
“are we going to be seeing Nikita on tv soon?how much of a leap in time has there been since the previous shows until the TCS episodes on now? “

I believe that we’ll actually be seeing Nikita coming up on some future broadcasts as he was with the company almost right up until the end. I can’t be quoted on that, but I’m expecting to see him at some point soon.

From Dave:
“Well I’ve got a few comments
First off Paul Diamond. Oh who are they trying to kid, that mullet makes him look like unfrozen caveman wrestler.

Two, all that garbage about slaughter extra pounds being muscle due to all that working out. I was thinking I was so surprised they didn’t also say the work out was growing back his hair.(Which would have been about as believable.)

The Destruction crew. Ok that must have been the thing I was thinking about their “illegal” move. (The Doomsday device.) Honestly though, they did the move kick ass. Why would you want stop them? (And then they mentioned no top rope moves onto an opponent laying flat? Who was booking, Watts? Was Verne in the back saying “Too exciting, we need more boredom”)

Oh finally Candy Devine I’ve got to agree with you on that one she looked horrible.(Not even the Baron made her look good.) Really, she should have been less mad at Mimi and more livid at the plastic surgeon who didn’t put her face back on straight after the facelift.

Anyway on the plus side all you have to do Randy is survive the 90’s matches, then there’s just 89. (Unless they start showing GWF. Come to think of it if they do then it’ll be time to see cowardly heel Eddie Gilbert which was great.) “

The only thing I’ll touch on out of this is the GWF comment. Hopefully, once the AWA run is over, we’ll actually get to see the GWF shows, as I’ve heard a ton about them, but have never been able to see an episode. Gilbert was great in that cowardly heel role and it should be a lot of fun to get to see him do that if the opportunity comes up.

Also from Dave:
“Wow, that’ll learn me to comment before reading the other comments. Candy’s face must have been really smashed up given what we saw afterwards. (Still, why the hell was she still wrestling. It was insane when Bruti did it and it doesn’t make anymore sense for her to continue wrestling.)”

I don’t know why Candi and Brutus were wrestling, other than saying that it was all that either of them knew and that was how they made their living. It takes a rare breed to become a wrestler and I would say that it was probably a situation where they were just doing what came naturally to them, even with their massive injuries. I’m sure that those who worked with them knew specifically what they could and couldn’t do and that there was no real danger of making anything worse.

Another comment from D.P. :
“I look forward to the GWF but first id like to see all of the AWA that they have. “

Agreed. I want my Turkey Hunt match, dammit.

Finally, from Doug:
“I am finally recovering from the ‘football’ match. These shows are horrible and it is clear to see why the AWA was already done. Like everyone else, I am stunned by the obviousness of the piped in crowd noise, and I actually kind of miss the crappy graphics, Soldat’s promos, Larry’s indignance, and the fan of the week already.

So the question is this, since I never saw these in the 90s…does The Team Challenge Series get even worse? “

Oh no, it gets much worse than this as the talent starts to flee the sinking promotion. It ends up being essentially Larry Zbyszko and a bunch of green nobodies as everyone else that was talented enough was already working up North for Vince or down South for Crockett. It’s going to get a LOT worse before all is said and done, I assure you.

That’s it for the biggest batch of comments in quite some time, and I thank you all for your contributions. That’s all I’ve got for today’s AWA report, see you all tomorrow!!