The Name on the Marquee: The Great American Bash '87

Posted by Adam Nedeff on 11.19.2009

How could I forget I had THIS laying around?

-So I was going to review Starrcade ’87 to compare the dueling pay-per-views of Thanksgiving, but then while going through my DVD-R collection, I stumbled upon this. After a shout of “Holy crap, I forgot I had this!” I decided to backtrack just a bit. Starrcade ’87 will come shortly.

-For a little background, this is the third and final year that the Bash was a national tour instead of a single supercard. And in the “everything old is new again” spirit of thinking, that’s a concept that really needs to be dusted off one of these days.

WAR GAMES I: “THE BOMB”
DUSTY RHODES, NIKITA KOLOFF, ROAD WARRIORS, & PAUL ELLERING vs. RIC FLAIR, TULLY BLANCHARD, ARN ANDERSON, LEX LUGER, & J.J. DILLON
-Faces come to the ring with entrance music dubbed by something that couldn’t possibly sound more like porn. Sometimes I feel like I’m guilty of just presuming that everybody knows everything about gimmick matches and so forth, so for anyone who reads wrestling reviews because they’re new fans and they feel they have catching up to do: Two rings inside a cage. One guy from each team starts. After five minutes, a coin is flipped. Whichever team wins (always the heel side) gets a 2-on-1 advantage. From that point forward, the teams alternate sending members in every two minutes until all ten men are in the ring. Up until this point, the match cannot end for any reason. Once all ten men are inside, only a submission can end the match.

-Dusty & Arn start. Dusty knocks him right down with an elbow and Arn backs off. Dusty taunts him from the other ring and uses the roof of the cage to swing his feet right into Arn’s chest. Arn fights back with fists, and Dusty’s all for that. And it’s no-DQ, so, hell, here’s a nut shot. Arn fights back with a kneelift, but Dusty catches him with a DDT. Arn wins the race to see who bleeds first, and Dusty takes him upstairs and cheesegrates him on the roof. Arn goes after Dusty’s leg, but Dusty just keeps fighting off everything he does and rams him into the cage. Case in point, Arn beels him but misses a kneedrop. Dusty takes immediate advantage of that with a figure four. Arn’s about ready to pass out from the pain and there’s 15 seconds left, so Dusty does something smart, releasing the hold and just letting Arn lay there and writhe so he’s ready and waiting for the next man.

-Horsemen win the coin toss and Tully hauls ass in there. Arn & Tully try double-teaming, but get double-elbowed. Tully takes out his leg and Arn goes to work with punches. Even money says Dusty is bleeding by the time the next man comes in. Tully clamps on the figure four and Arn holds Dusty down for extra leverage. Tully gets bored with that and settles for stomping the leg for a while.

-Animal enters and the crowd reaction could melt your TV. Animal bearhugs Tully and rocks him back & forth into the cage. He cheesegrates Tully and Dusty takes out Arn in the other ring. He heads into the other cage and Tully is on the receiving end of dualing punches. Arn tries to sneak up on Animal, but Animal anticipates and takes him down with a hell of a clothesline. He fires him into the cage.

-Ric Flair is next. He throws chops at Animal and they’re all no-sold, so the Enforcer enforces as only he can to take Animal down. Tully traps Dusty’s leg between the two rings and stomps it while Arn & Ric work over Animal. Dusty comes to life with clotheslines for all three opponents. Animal does his team proud with another nut shot. Flair chops away at Dusty until…

-Nikita arrives. Flair & Arn are ready for him and double-team him early on. But a pair of sickles takes care of that. Nikita launches Tully into the cage and then takes his head off. Press slam by Animal on Flair. Dusty & Nikita work the leg of AA. Tully tries to fight back, but Nikita just punches him back & forth into the ropes over and over again. Flair tries a cheap shot, immediately regrets it, and runs away. Flair goes into the cage as Animal & Dusty take out Arn with a double-dropkick.

-Luger attacks Nikita and shockingly dominates him with no mercy. Animal tries to help but then shocks the fans more by laying into him and likewise dominating. Animal shows a bit of life and fights back with elbows. On the other side of the ring. Ric & Tully trap Nikita in a spike piledriver, then stomp a mudhole in Dusty. There’s chaos all over the ring…

-And then along comes Hawk. Clothesline for Luger, press slam for Tully, punch for Arn,and he tosses Flair into the other ring, where Animal is waiting for him. There’s just too much going on by this point for me to cover it all, but it all builds to Dusty getting tied up in the figure four by Flair as everybody else brawls.

-JJ Dillon heads in and stupidly goes after Hawk, who no-sells everything and then just beats the crap out of him AND Flair because he can. Dillon smartly goes for an injured man, attacking the bloody and battered Dusty. Dusty & Animal double-team him in return while the other team members brawl elsewhere.

-Precious Paul makes his way into the ring and attacks JJ with a spiked wristband. Atomic drop by Ellering and Flair goes after him. Dusty begins taking on the world while Ellering gets back over to JJ and grinds him with the wristband again. The forces of good manager to wipe out their opponents for the most part and everybody focuses their efforts on JJ. Doomsday device injures JJ’s arm on the landing, and he’s had enough and just calmly rolls to the edge of the cage and tells the referees he’s submitting. 1 for 1. And the match immediately cuts off there. Too bad, because I’m guessing the post-match stuff was incredible, with the celebrating and that hot crowd and whatnot.

WESTERN STATES HERITAGE TITLE: BARRY WINDHAM (Champion) vs. RICK STEINER
-We join this one in progress with a dropkick by Windham. Steiner backs him into the corner and takes control with cheapshots. Clothesline takes Windham off his feet. Steiner is happy with that and almost snaps Windham’s neck on the next clothesline. Steiner rams him into the turnbuckle and follows with a backdrop. Belly-to-belly by Steiner and he tries to finish, but he’s too close to the ropes. Steiner gets frustrated and elbows him out of the ring. He just keeps brutalizing Barry and suplexes him back in. He goes for a pin, but Barry reverses it into a cradle for a three-count. “This came out of nowhere!” Tony yells. Well, yeah. That was the problem. 1 for 2.

U.S. TITLE: NIKITA KOLOFF (Champion) vs. LEX LUGER (with J.J. Dillon)
-Nikita’s sporting a neckbreaker as a result of the spike piledriver from the War Games. They jockey for position and circle the ring as a “Nikita” chant goes up. Arm wringer by Luger and he rams Nikita into the turnbuckle, which hurts Koloff twice as much because of the snapping motion. Elbow to the neck by Luger gets two. Nikita fights back with shots to the breadbasket. Luger takes control right back with a snapmare for two. Headlock by Luger, which really shouldn’t hurt because of the big honking padded brace surrounding the neck, but that’s not how it comes across to the fans, so you can’t complain.

-Headlock goes on FOREVER before Luger works the neck with clubbing blows. And then back to the headlock. Dr. Tom Miller announces that 25 minutes have elapsed, so my hat goes off to the editing crew because I didn’t spot that clip at ALL. Seamless. Headlock is still going on, so maybe they should have been a little more discerning about what to edit. Nikita elbows free, but Luger catches him coming off the ropes with a neckbreaker. He pulls off the neckbrace and stomps Nikita’s neck mercilessly. Clothesline gets two. Luger tries a neckbreaker, but Nikita backdrops free, and then just collapses from pain & exhaustion. Luger gets right back up and clamps on a full nelson.

-Nikita falls over while in the hold, so Luger tries pinning him, but Niktia keeps kicking out. He revives and a fistfight gets started, but Luger goes to the eyes and then chokes Nikita over the middle rope. He goes back to the headlock. Nikita gets to his feet and rams him into the corner. Another slugfest ensues and Nikita wins it decisively. He makes the mistake of celebrating and Luger goes right for him with a cheap shot. Nikita bounces right back with a sickle, but he does it with so much momentum that he accidentally KOs the referee. JJ manages to toss a chair into the ring with his good arm and Luger KOs him. He puts Nikita in the torture rack, and the referee wakes up, determines that Nikita passed out from the pain, and awards the title to Luger. 2 for 3. I enjoyed the storytelling a lot on this one. I’d be interested to see the whole thing, actually.

TEXAS DEATH MATCH: “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS (with Magnum T.A.) vs. DICK MURDOCH (with Eddie Gilbert)
-This is Magnum’s emotional return to the NWA after his career-ending car accident the previous year. After all this time, he’s still wearing a cast and walking with a cane. Damn. NWA definition of a Texas Death Match: Referee administers a ten-count when a wrestler hits the mat. Match ends when he can’t beat the count getting back up.

-We join action in progress with Murdoch working the cast-covered arm of Williams with a series of kicks for 8. Murdoch snaps his arm over the apron, which gets 4. Williams starts to fight back with a series of punches. He tackles Murdoch once, tries again, and goes shoulder-first into the post. Murdoch comes off the top rope and gets a plaster cast to the face, and that’s enough for ten. Not enough to get into it. 2 for 4. Murdoch & Gilbert attack Williams post-match, but Magnum gives Williams his metal cane and Dr. Death manages to clear the ring with it.

FABULOUS FREEBIRDS vs. IVAN KOLOFF, “Ragin’ Bull” MANNY FERNANDEZ, & PAUL JONES
-Hayes stomps Fernandez and moonwalks to celebrate. Fernandez chops him, but gets caught in a Hiptoss. Hayes gives him a pair of slams, and Paul Jones does a funny bit, “attempting” to tag into the ring and just barely missing, darn the luck.

-Roberts tags in and Jones catches him on the apron with a knee, then stomps away at him. Koloff tags in and drops the leg. Backdrop by Koloff, but Roberts hangs on for a sunset flip. It gets two. Jones tags in and misses a kneedrop. Gordy tags in and clears the ring single-handedly. Donnybrook erupts and in the midst of it, Gordy pins Jones. 2 for 5. I really hope this was clipped and I didn’t catch the edit, because if that was the whole match, it’s almost a middle finger to the fans.

“LIGHTS OUT” BARBED WIRE LADDER MATCH FOR FOR $100,000: DUSTY RHODES (with Barry Windham) vs. TULLY BLANCHARD (with JJ Dillon & Dark Journey)
-No, shit, this is a match from 1987. “Lights out” just means no-DQ, basically. Both men have titles at this point but neither one is up for grabs. It’s all about the Benjamins.

-Both men fight to see who goes into the barbed wire first. Dusty gets frustrated and elbows Tully down. Tully tries to run, but he can’t find away around the wire. Surprisingly, Tully wins the battle and gets Dusty to go into the wire. Two can play at that, obviously, and Dusty cuts up Tully’s arm with the wire. Barry slides the ladder into the cage and they do the simultaneous climb. Dusty elbows him off and rams him into the ladder. DDT has Tully in a daze and Dusty starts the climb. Tully is able to knock him off and begins his assent. Tully goes to the eyes, then whips out a black glove (doing it surreptitiously, even as Tommy Young watches him and reminds him, “No rules!”) and takes out Dusty with it. JJ Dillon KOs the referee for some reason and Barry Windham comes him to help equalize things. They take care of Tully, and Barry holds JJ down while Dusty climbs the ladder and grabs the cash. 3 for 6. Good stuff and pretty ahead of what the competition was doing even five years later.

WORLD TITLE, PLUS A NIGHT WITH PRECIOUS: RIC FLAIR (Champion, with JJ Dillon) vs. GORGEOUS JIMMY GARVIN (with Precious)
-We join it in progress with a series of hard chops by Garvin for a quick two-count. He tries again and gets another two. Chinlock by Garvin and Flair gets out of it with a low blow. Flair goes up top and you’ve heard this tune before. It gets two. Figure four by Garvin out of nowhere. Commentary explains that he tried it before, so Flair’s leg is probably injured. See, this is why I’m not THAT crazy about NWA videos. They edited the hell out of everything (to a far greater extent than the WWF’s “integrity preservation”) and it’s harder to get into the match.

-Flair makes the ropes. Garvin London bridges him and tries the figure four again, but Flair stops him with a thumb. He takes control from there. Chops are exchanged until Garvin tosses Flair into the cage again and again. Again and again. Again and again. After all that, he only gets two. Series of punches as the commentators talk about how “the whole Garvin family” has been chasing the title for so long to set up what’s about to happen.

-The battle goes to the top rope and Flair goes headfirst into the top of the cage. They go back to the mat and Flair might as well be cheddar, decides Garvin. Series of punches and a backdrop by Garvin. Flair begins screaming for JJ, then goes back to dealing with Garvin. Garvin leapfrogs Flair and his knee buckles on the landing. Flair seizes the moment and goes to town on the knee as Cousin Ron arrives at ringside to check on Jimmy. Flair continues the assault as even Tommy Young begins asking him to show a little bit of mercy. Jimmy starts to show life and they trade fists and chops. Flair just keeps after his knee to maintain the advantage.

-Another series of dualing chops. Garvin wins this one and Flair tries to run away for a breather, but Garvin yanks his tights and brings him back in. Flair allows his bare ass to hang out much longer than human decency would deem acceptable, and Garvin nearly gets a three-count when Flair falls off the ropes. THAT close. He tries a suplex, but the knee buckles and Flair goes back to the figure four, using the ropes for leverage. All hell breaks loose as a batshit insane fan nearly makes it inside the cage, fighting off security and Tommy Young before some reinforcements finally manage to subdue him. Coincidentally or not, the bell starts ringing immediately, and we’re not clear on if Jimmy submitted or if he passed out from the pain, but either way, Flair is your winner. Precious runs in to check on her man and Flair tries to get started with her, but Ron Garvin takes him out with one punch. Flair’s dream date will have to wait a little longer. Really good action and drama here. 4 for 7.

TITLE FOR TITLE: ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS (World Tag Team Champions) vs. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (U.S. Tag Team Champions, with Big Bubba Rogers)
-Corny’s not there! What bizarre world have we stepped into?

-Gibson & Eaton start. Eaton slaps Gibson and pays for it with an early sunset flip for two. Gibson hiptosses him and follows with flying headscissors. Lane tags in and shoves are exchanged. Gibson just gets fed up and kicks Lane right out of the ring. Back in, Lane knocks the wind out of Gibson with a thrust kick. Gibson connects with an enziguiri that sends Lane back outside. Morton tags in and gives Lane chase around the ring. Back in, Lane still tries to elude him and gets armdragged. Gibson comes back in and meets Eaton with an armdrag on his way in. Morton returns and Morton counters a test of strength Dynamite Kid-style by climbing over Eaton. Gibson tags back in and tries another flying headscissors, but Lane takes a cheapshot while Gibson is airborne. He tags in and does some damage with a backbreaker. Eaton comes off the top with an axehandle. Gibson goes out to the floor and gets double-teamed by Lane & Bubba.

-Back inside, MX smartly keeps the tags frequent and gang up on Gibson a bit. Gibson manages to kick them away. Hot tag to Morton and it’s a brawl. R&R clean house for a two-count and a four-man brawl cuts loose. Tommy Young clears the ring, and while his back is turned, Bubba spears Ricky Morton and Eaton rolls over for a cover. Young is about to give him the count when he looks down and notices that Bubba left his hat in there, and he immediately calls for the bell, and it’s a DQ win for the Rock & Roll Express, so both teams retain their belts. Felt like a cop-out and the match seemed pretty short, but even accepting that, you have two teams here that just couldn’t do wrong with each other. Thumbs up. 5 for 8.

WAR GAMES II: THE EXPLOSION
DUSTY RHODES, NIKITA KOLOFF, ROAD WARRIORS, & PAUL ELLERING vs. RIC FLAIR, LEX LUGER, ARN ANDERSON, TULLY BLANCHARD, & WAR MACHINE (with Dark Journey & JJ Dillon)
-War Machine is Big Bubba Rogers under a mask, subbing for Dillon, still injured from the first war. Dusty & Arn start and Dusty dominates early on with elbows. He tosses Arn into the cage and Arn’s already bleeding. That just pisses him off, though, so he gets in a low blow and targets the leg. Dusty takes control back with a DDT. He tries to work the leg himself. Arn fights him, so Dusty just sends him into the cage again and cheese grates him. Anderson tries to escape to the other ring and make Dusty chase him, but Dusty gets a hold of him and suplexes him down. Dusty gets the figure four locked in. Audio is INCREDIBLE here, with microphones right up against the ring and catching Arn screaming in agony as he fights the hold.

-Five minutes have expired and the Horsemen win the coin toss. War Machine comes in and Dusty makes him chase him. Dusty actually manages to fight him off, but Arn and War Machine both punch the hell out of the Dream to take him down. They go to work on the leg with stomps and a splash.

-Dusty starts to rally with elbow after elbow after elbow as Hawk comes into the ring to make everything even. Hawk breaks out every move in his arsenal plus five or six that I didn’t know about in the space of thirty seconds. Dusty takes Arn out with a lariat as War Machine hammers Dusty. Double-teaming puts a stop to that and Hawk & Dusty are all over their opponents with elbows. Machine rallies and takes down both guys by himself.

-Flair comes in next and Arn & Ric double team Hawk until he wipes both of them out with a clothesline. Flair goes low and lobs Hawk into the cage. Dusty hammers Flair & War Machine while Arn takes control of Hawk. Flair bites Dusty to aggravate the wound a little bit. Hawk no-sells a piledriver and fights off War Machine with a dropkick. Hawk’s bleeding, too, now.

-Nikita Koloff arrives to make it 3 vs. 3. Koloff takes his turn at no-selling a piledriver and sickles Anderson so hard that I think he becomes attached to the mat when he lands. Sickle for Flair, but that’s not good enough, so Koloff just throws him into the cage a few times. Flair is bleeding to nobody’s surprise. Cute bit sees every face take turns doing the ten punches standing on the second rope spot.

-Tully Blanchard arrives and the Horsemen just go nuts on Dusty. Blanchard does a swinging kick from the roof of the cage and then goes back to work on Dusty’s leg. War Machine gets his shots in, but Dusty just suddenly no-sells and slams him down.

-Animal arrives for 4 vs. 4. He traps Tully in a bearhug and just swings him back & forth into the cage, opening him up. Flair tries to help with a series of chops, but Animal no-sells. Anderson sends Animal into the cage and that finally works.

-Lex Luger comes in and he’s actually a one-man wrecking crew to start. Animal fights him off with punches and takes Luger off his feet with a shoulderblock. He tosses Tully like a javelin into the next ring. Road Warriors deal with Flair & Luger in one ring and manage to fight them off.

-Paul Ellering as his sexy tank top & pink tights run in to begin the match beyond. He brings a wristband covered with spikes into the ring with him and grinds various opponents with it. Flair fights back by biting him, but Ellering sends him into the turnbuckles. Animal clotheslines War Machine down. He gets up, but Hawk takes him down next. War Machine gets up one more time and Dusty takes him down. Koloff runs over and sickles War Machine to take him down yet again. Animal grabs the spiked wristband and jams it into War Machine’s eye until he submits, and Dusty & the Gang take the win. 6 for 9. I need a cigarette. Between the two 1987 War Games, I prefer this one a little more, but this is one debate where I stand by either argument.

The end. Starrcade '87 to come, or you can go to Game Show Utopia now and read about a game show called "Starcade."

The 411: I still hate the editing in a lot of these matches, and truth be told, if you can just find the two War Games on some other compilation, you should probably just get that. Action elsewhere is a wee bit disappointing compared to the somewhat high standards of the company (some matches felt too short, some felt too heavily edited) but there's definitely action there worth seeing if you're a fan of this era. So, not a fan of this era--pass it, but look for the War Games. Fan of this era-- This is a must.

Final Score:  7.6   [ Good ]