411's AWA on ESPN Classic Report 09.02.08

Posted by Randy Harrison on 09.03.2008

The tapings may be over, but the crappy wrestling from the AWA will just keep on rolling. It's like the bad guy in a horror movie, nothing can kill it...


411's AWA On ESPN Classic Report





AWA Championship Wrestling

Marshall and Gagne hit the open, telling us about the show and it's pretty much the same guys with Tommy Jammer, Nikita Koloff and a look back at the Team Challenge Series. Should be a treat.


Match One:
Jamie Magnum vs. Brad Rheingans

Rheingans with a big armdrag takedown right off the bell and Magnum complains about a pull of the tights. Quick go-behind from Rheingans now and Magnum hits the ropes for the break, telling an old man in the front row to shut up. Rheingans moves to a hammerlock, but lets it go when Ox Baker and Nightstalker start chasing around ringside. Rheingans puts the badmouth on them and talks a little shit before taking Magnum down with a drop toehold into a reverse leglock, letting it go to head back over to talk to Ox. Magnum pushes Rheingans into the corner and buries a couple of shoulderblocks into the midsection, whipping Rheingans across to the other corner. Rheingans moves and Magnum misses a charge, with Rheingans following it up with a turnbuckle smash into a gut-wrench suplex. Right over into a cover and Rheingans gets a two-count, moving to a wristlock into a kimura attempt, grabbing a rolling takedown into a straight armbar. Rheingans rows the boat a little with the armbar until Magnum gets to his feet and rakes his boot across Rheingans' eyes. Big slam from Magnum and he whips Rheingans into the ropes, but it's ROLLING CRADLE TIME!! 1-2-3 and it's all over.

Winner: Brad Rheingans (pinfall, rolling cradle)

Match Analysis: Honestly, it's like Rheingans and Gagne fell into the same trap to where they have the same match night in and night out, just with different jobbers. Stick a Rheingans match from six months before or six years before in here and it would have looked almost exactly the same.


Match Two:
Todd Becker and Red Tyler vs. The Texas Hangmen

We've seen Red Tyler in there with The Hangmen in the past, and uh....it didn't end well. Tyler and Psycho hit a lockup and Psycho just hammers him in the corner with forearms, raking his nails across Tyler's back. Killer gets a shot in from the apron and Tyler makes a blind tag to Becker, getting a sunset flip off the ropes with Becker helping out. Psycho just works over Becker in his corner, distracting the referee and allowing Killer to choke Becker out with the noose. Tag to Killer and there's a hard shot to the short ribs, followed by a nice swinging neckbreaker. Killer with a tag to Psycho and he drops Becker with a powerslam before Psycho comes in for some clubbering. He distracts the referee and Killer chokes Becker across the top rope. Tag to Killer and Psycho whips Becker in for a boot to the gut before Killer comes in for a DDT!! Tag back to Psycho and they hit their surfboard into a seated bulldog double-team move and Tyler comes in to try to save Becker, leading to both Hangmen in the ring behind the referee's back. HANGMAN'S ELBOW OFF THE TOP!! There's the pin and there's the three-count!! CROWD SHOT FROM 1986!!!

Winners: The Texas Hangmen (pinfall, Hangman's elbow)

Match Analysis: Always fun to watch the Hangmen kill two jobbers and they did it with some style this time out. For whatever reason, both Hangmen got REALLY huge towards the end of the run, and not steroid huge, so it was good to see this match from a little earlier on. They moved a little better and didn't seem as saggy and bloated as they were right at the very end. Maybe it's just me, but something I noticed.


Match Three:
The Anihilator vs. Nikita Koloff

Marshall says that he thinks that Anihilator made a mistake signing up for this match and he hammers on Koloff, attacking him from behind with shoulders to the gut and a turnbuckle smash. Koloff blocks an Irish whip attempt and works over Anihilator in the corner before whipping him into the ropes for a reverse elbow. HUGE bodyslam from Koloff and there's a kick to the gut into another Irish whip and a FLYING SHOULDERTACKLE!! Irish whip and Koloff HITS THE RUSSIAN SICKLE!! That was quick and painful for Anihilator.

Winner: Nikita Koloff (pinfall, Russian sickle)

Match Analysis: Russian shouldertackle, Russian Sickle, Russian squash. Next!!


Match Four: AWA World Heavyweight Championship
The Cobra vs. Larry Zbyszko (c)

If they keep up this pace, we could have the first twelve-match, one-hour show in wrestling history. Marshall and Gagne go on about how Zbyszko is dividing the money from the Team Challenge Series and how he's stiffing guys like Mr. Saito and Jake Milliman. Cobra offers up a handshake and Zbyszko actually takes it, shoving Cobra int the corner and hammering him with forearms to the kidneys before punching him in the gut and snap maring him over. Blatant choking from Cobra and Zbyszko rakes the eyes with his boots before yelling that "This is for Saito and for the whole world". Knees in the corner from Zbyszko and there's a HUGE vertical suplex, with him talking shit at the camera about justice. Verne tries to play it off as being about the money, when Zbsyzko clearly says Japan three or four times. He picks Cobra up and hits a spinning back kick to the gut in the corner and locks in a front facelock. Backbreaker from Zbyszko gets a two-count but he pulls Cobra up before the three. He locks Cobra up and there's THE PILEDRIVER for the three-count.

Winner: Larry Zbyszko (pinfall, piledriver)

Match Analysis: It's like the greatest hits of the AWA from 1990, with every big star working the same match they always worked against a different jobber. This one had some added intensity because of Zbyszko being pissed off about losing the belt to Mr. Saito, and it was actually fun and a little sad to hear Verne and Marshall try to cover it as being about the Team Challenge Series.


Match Five:
Tony Leone vs. Tommy Jammer

Jammer pulls out his wedgie and then grabs a side headlock on Leone, taking him over, but Leone reverses it into a pin attempt that gets two. Leone tries shooting him off into the ropes and eats a shouldertackle before Jammer goes right back to the side headlock takeover. Leone tries an atomic drop, but Jammer takes it right back over into the side headlock. Leone shoots him into the ropes again and eats another shoulderblock, into a flying bodypress for a two-count. Leone to the gut and he picks Jammer up for a big bodyslam in the corner, ramming him into the top turnbuckle. Forearms to the chest by Leone and Jammer fires back, ramming Leone into the top turnbuckle and whipping him across, hitting a back bodydrop as Leone staggers out. Pair of dropkicks from Jammer and he LOCKS ON THE ABDOMINA....he locks on the abdominal str.....Uh.... Well, he TRIES to lock on the abdominal stretch, but it's a lot like watching a monkey trying to do long division. He just turns it into a weird little cradle/backdrop thing and gets the three-count from it. Wow, that was horrible.

Winner: Tommy Jammer (pinfall, cradle backdrop)

Match Analysis: Jammer stinks. I mean, if you can't even handle an abdominal stretch, you shouldn't be in the ring. The finish he came up with was actually pretty inventive and looked better than the finish probably had any right to, but I doubt he'd have ever been able to pull it off again. Shame someone better couldn't have stolen it.


Match Six:
Tom Stone vs. Col DeBeers

This should be quick. It's going to be pretty good though, since Stone is the creme de la jobber in the entire AWA. Lockup and Stone punches DeBeers in the face, blocking a return puncha nd getting a rolling armdrag takedown into an armbar. DeBeers with a headscissors to get out of it and he tries another, but Stone moves out of the way and lets DeBeers hit the ropes. He turns it around though and starts stomping away at Stone against the ropes, choking him across the middle rope before hitting the Bossman charge. Choking Stone against the bottom turnbuckle with his boot, DeBeers stops as we see Jake Milliman out there, with his "turkey" chant, meaning I've more than likely done this match before, but I'm just not willing to dig through the archives to find it. Marshall tries to put it that Milliman is STILL taunting DeBeers about the turkey match and that he's been doing it this entire time. Stone takes over with some shots from behind as DeBeers is distracted and a HUGE kneelift that puts DeBeers onto his face. Tremendous bump from DeBeers on that one. Stone whips him into the ropes for a back bodydrop but DeBeers blocks it and drops him with THE PANCAKE PILEDRIVER!! No cover from DeBeers though as he talks MAD shit on Milliman, pointing at him before delivering ANOTHER PANCAKE PILEDRIVER!! DeBeers rolls Stone over and looks right at Milliman as he pins Stone for the 1-2-3!!

Winner: Col. DeBeers (pinfall, pancake piledrivers)

Match Analysis: Same match you see from DeBeers a million times over. Just like everything else on this show, it's been done already and done better elsewhere. Bleah.


Lee and Verne are back in front of the green screen and they're talking about the finish of the match that saw DJ Peterson and The Trooper winning the AWA World Tag Team Championships before throwing it to highlights of the finish. From there, we head right into the main event for today's show, minus the introductions since Trooper and Peterson wouldn't have had the belts with them for the intros. Those AWA editing people are crafty I tells ya.


Match Seven:
DJ Peterson, The Trooper and Paul Diamond vs. The Destruction Crew and Tully Blanchard

Verne is hilarious, claiming that the referee must have let the Crew hold onto the belts and look at them for a second because they asked him to. That's kayfabe-a-riffic right there, and even for 1990 Verne had to think people were pretty stupid not to catch on. This one is apparently an elimination six-man tag match all of a sudden. Bloom catches Trooper and rams him into the top turnbuckle, with Trooper blocking the next one. Reverse elbows from Trooper and he pounds Bloom's head into the turnbuckle, running him all the way across the ring for a HUGE turnbuckle smash!! A pair of massive, steroid-filled clotheslines send Bloom out to the floor and Trooper heads out after him, ramming his head into the ringside table. Five of the six men are out on the floor brawling and Trooper rams Bloom into the ringpost, mounting him for punches on the concrete. Diamond and Enos are in the ring, hammering away and it looks like Bloom and Trooper have been counted out of the ring. Diamond mounts Enos in the corner for a flurry of punches and he rams Enos' head into the boot of Peterson. Tag to Peterson and they hit a HUGE double-back bodydrop and Peterson works on a side headlock. Enos pushes him into the corner and gets a quick tag to Blanchard, who works some punches and a double-team with Enos in the corner. Elbow to the head by Blanchard and he whips Peterson across into the corner, but Peterson reverses.

Blind charge by Peterson and Tully hits him with a big knee before dropping him with a reverse elbow. Irish whip into the ropes and Peterson blocks a hip toss, turning it into a backslide for a long two-count. Peterson blocks Blanchard's punches and hammers him with punches of his own, whipping him into the corner and over the top rope to the floor. Diamond punches away at Blanchard on the floor and puts Tully onto his ass, leading to Peterson suplexing him back into the ring. Peterson with a cover for a two-count, but Enos breaks it up before the three. Tag to Diamond, but Blanchard takes over on him and tags in Enos. Irish whip from Enos into the corner gets reversed by Diamond and he just punches away, snap maring Enos over into an elbowdrop. Long two-count for Diamond on that one and he tags in Peterson for a kick to the ribs. Peterson and Enos fight over a hip toss and Enos stops all the flip-flopping with a WICKED short-arm clothesline. Tag to Blanchard and he slams Peterson's face into the canvas, working him over with knees before raking Peterson's eyes across the top rope. Peterson's out to the floor and Enos picks Peterson up and slams him on the barricade. Blanchard gets Peterson thrown back into the ring and he snap mares him over, trying and elbow but missing. TAG TO DIAMOND!! MONKEY FLIP FROM DIAMOND ON BLANCHARD!! RIGHT HANDS FOR ENOS AND A DROPKICK!!

Hip toss on Enos and Diamond is all fired up. He goes for a monkey flip again and Blanchard grabs Enos to hold him in the corner, sending Diamond crashing to the mat. Enos with the cover and there's the 1-2-3, eliminating Diamond. Peterson's in and working over Enos with a side headlock, forcing Enos to shoot him off into the corner. Blind charge missed by Enos and he crawls into his corner to get some advice from Tully. Tag to Blanchard now and they've got Peterson cornered for a moment before Enos heads to the outside. Blanchard JUST WHIFFS with a big left hand and they both back off before Blanchard misses a move and ends up in the corner, getting a clawhold from Baron Von Raschke at ringside. Peterson whips Blanchard into the corner and there's the CLAWHOLD AGAIN!! Peterson dropkicks Enos to the floor and heads over to pin Blanchard, but can only get two before Enos breaks it up. Right hand from Peterson and Blanchard finally manages to tag in Enos. Enos with a single-leg takedown and he drops elbows onto Peterson's knee, dropping down onto it off of the ropes and talking some shit. Tag to Blanchard and Tully's off the second rope with an elbow to the knee. Shinbreaker from Blanchard and he clamps on the FIGURE-FOUR LEGLOCK!!! Peterson's trying to reverse it and BARON HAS THE CLAW ON BLANCHARD AGAIN!!

Peterson with a headbutt to the stomach and they're brawling at close quarters in the corner with Enos sneaking in a right hand and Blanchard headbutting Peterson down to make the tag. Enos in with some stomps and he picks Peterson up for a PILEDRIVER!! Over for the cover and Enos gets a long two-count before Peterson gets his foot on the ropes. Tag to Blanchard and he snap mares Peterson into some elbows and there's a tag to Enos. Blanchard tells Enos to get on the top and he tries to whip Peterson into the corner for a clothesline, but Peterson reverses, Enos misses everyone, rams his head into the mat and Peterson pins him for the three-count!! Blanchard and Peterson with right hands and they trade atomic drops into a roll-up from Peterson, but Blanchard reverses it and HOLDS THE TIGHTS TO GET THE PIN!!

Winners: The Destruction Crew and Tully Blanchard (pinfall, Blanchard roll-up)

Match Analysis: Fun match, and I think it's the one that I missed when I missed the first part of a show last month. It probably would have been better if it hadn't been all messed up and had random people like Christopher Love showing up at ringside or the whole "Crew holding the belts cause they miss them" thing. Still a decent little six-man to finish the show and light years ahead of the rest of the squash crap on here today.



Final Thoughts

Bad show. Just bad. All the way around bad. The only thing that saved this from getting my worst score was the fact that the six-man tag match was pretty good to close out the show.



Let's get to the comments before I get even more disgusted with this disaster.



Fun With Comments


From Teijo Kahn:
"I remember reading in the Apter mags about that 1991 card. I wonder who else was on it, and if we'll see some of that show one of these days. "

The card for the '91 show is below, and I'm pretty certain that there isn't any video footage of it, at least not that made it to television as the AWA's TV deals had all pretty much dried up by then. Don't quote me on it, but I'm pretty sure that there isn't any way to see them.


From Milliman_4_Pres:
"If I remember correctly, once the AWA quit television tapings, they put a few of these mixed date repeat match shows together and ran them in the ESPN time slot. After this had run its course, they went to a format where the whole show was like the Mat Classic segment. Greg Gagne and others (Nick Bockwinkel, Ray Stevens, etc.) would be in the control room and show old matches of AWA stars of yesterday for a whole hour. ESPN probably won't air these shows, but I remember thinking at the time that they were much more interesting than the garbage that the AWA had produced in 1990.

According to ESPN Media Zone for Sept. and Oct., it seems they will air a couple of weeks worth of 1986 shows, then replay the train-wreck that was 1988. There was no mention of 1989 matches -- I get the feeling that they either misplaced these tapes, or somehow the WWE has them in their possession. Just a guess."

If by misplaced, you mean burnt, then you're probably right. I would love seeing a Mat Classic show instead of this crap from the 1990 show.


From Robert Tivari:
"Touching on a point you made a couple of weeks ago. You are totally right about how as a kid, reading the Apter mags, you would read about these guys you normally didn't get to see (In your case, Ox Baker) and thinking that such and such was the baddest man on the planet, and when you finally got to see that wrestler you always read about, you were sorely disappointed. Thats how it was for me back then as well, and it makes me think of that especially watching these AWA shows. "

Yes. I can vividly remember seeing a picture in the Ringside section of one of the PWI magazines that had Mike Enos and Trooper in the football match with full pads on. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen and I remember how excited I was to see that match when it was announced as being on TV a couple of weeks later. Yeah, that pretty much killed wrestling magazines for me, though I did get back into them for a little bit when Apter started that new WOW magazine that was written non-kayfabe, but when that folded I moved exclusively to the internet.


From Unknown Poster:
"The TCS finale was the last original episode on ESPN. After that it was all reruns until they lost the timeslot.

On their syndicated show, they went to the "Mat Classic" format with Greg Gagne introducing matches. On this show they did an angle where Destruction Crew came into the studio and cut a promo on the "classic" wrestlers, proclaiming that they were the future of wrestling. Wahoo came in the next week to defend the honor of the old guys, and the May 91 card with the Fossils vs. Destruction Crew was announced. This was promoted on the show for a few weeks but I believe they lost their television altogether before the card happened. There is dispute over whether this counts as an "AWA" card since the organization didn't really exist by this point (filed for bankruptcy, lost their television, didn't run any sort of regular cards).

I'm not sure I agree with the idea that the booking was too pro-face in the final years...the World Singles and Tag Team titles were largely controlled by heels. If the booking deteriorated, IMO it's because the roster was too chaotic to build long-term angles, and because they were barely running house shows anyway, it didn't really matter. "

I think I would like to see the classic shows more than the 1990 ones. It wouldn't surprise me if they had ended up being better rated too. Again, The Mat Classic segments were the best parts of the mid-80's shows for me, and I really hope that EPSN Classic is able to air those at some point.


From John Doe:
"I actually enjoy these shows more than I do the current product. At least then we actually get to see
"wrestling" instead of an hour and a half of talking.



As for the May card in 1991.

The card was held at Bloomington-Kennedy High School in Bloomington, MN on May 3, 1991, and was promoted in the dying days of the "All Star Wrestling" Program on KMSP 9.

1) Greg Gagne & Wahoo McDaniel def. Mike Enos & Wayne Bloom, when Gagne pinned Enos (possibly an AWA Tag Team Title Change?)
2) Larry Cameron def. Tommy Jammer
3) Steve O def. Ricky Rice
4) Buck Zumhofe def. Johnny Love
5) The Karate Kid def. Tokyo Joe.

This was the last card Verne held before he officially folded the AWA."

What a line-up!! /sarcasm


FromDave:
"There's not much to comment on this show. To be blunt I thought DJ looked pretty off. His "flying clothsline" was just him jumping head first at his opponent.(An injury waiting to happen) Oh, and he fell down again doing the Scorpion Deathlock. (Yes, it looks bad when you can't stay standing during your finisher.)
On the second match, damn was Jammer green. I mean he doesn't even have the basic ideas down. It wasn't bad enough he had a finisher that at this point was universally considered a rest hold. To make it worse he spent a good portion of the match working up to it by attacking Stone's legs. (Someone should have explained to him that his offense would have made sense if he won via figure four, spinning toe hold, etc. But for a abdominal stretch his offense should have targeted the lower back and stomach. Basics people, basics.)
Oh well, as for the 3rd match it looked like John accidently hit him pretty hard when the Anhilator got tied up in the ropes.(Guess I'm not surprised by that, I mean he did a pretty stiff style like Bruiser Brody.) Otherwise unremarkable but not the cluster the first two squashes were.
The one thing that really got to me was the first Zbyzko/Koloff match they were showing. What the hell was that ringing? It sounded like Verne came across an after Christmas sale on jingle bells and attached them all over the ropes given the way things were ringing during the fight. (Hey, maybe he bought them cheap from WCW after they got rid of the Ding-Dongs. That's an idea so bad you think it would have been a perfect fit in the AWA.) Come to think of it that reminds me of one other thing that bugged me about the AWA. Why were the ropes always so loose? It seemed like alot of times high flying wrestlers were having problems because the ropes weren't tight at all.(They'd wobble so much that they were hard to climb.) Never understood why they did that especially since they didn't "outlaw" top rope moves until the end."

The AWA always seemed to have really loose ropes, even back to when the Midnight Rockers first started out in the company. When they started getting big and using more top rope moves, I noticed that they started to get tightened up a little, but once they left to go to Vince, it was back to the same really saggy, really loose ropes that looked rather dangerous. Touching on Jammer, I don't think he would have known pyschology if they tried, so instead they just went with how good looking he was. Going back to Peterson and his performance for a moment, he really did seem high as he was sloppy as all hell, and then kind of fell apart completely at the end of it. I've seen guys fall before doing a Scorpion Deathlock, but that looked really bad in that instance.

Yeah, uh, I got nothing for the end of this. Man, this show is really getting tough to watch when they're just cramming bad matches down my throat for the whole hour. See you tomorrow everyone!


THE COUNTDOWN...43 Days Until The Assault Begins...