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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (4.27.1985)

April 20, 2014 | Posted by Adam Nedeff
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The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (4.27.1985)  

-Originally aired April 27, 1985.

-Your hosts are Vince McMahon on the rebound after receiving a severely bungled haircut and Bruno Sammartino.

TITO SANTANA & JUNKYARD DOG vs. CHARLIE FULTON & MR. X
-Gosh, they’re serious about this team.

-Faces take turns working the arm of Fulton while Howard Finkel steps in to announce the main event for Lowell Auditorium’s next big event: Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine will be wrestling another team in a tag team match. Woah, woah, slow down, fans, there’s enough tickets for everyone!

-Fulton applies a choke on the Dog. Fulton holds onto the choke while tagging in X, and JYD manages to punch X while still being choked. Tito is all “Wow, this guy sucks! I want a turn!” so he tags in and immediately locks on the figure four to get the submission. Post-match, Howard Finkel enters the ring with the microphone and the crowd goes SILENT and waits for the official announcement. And he announces Tito and the Dog have won and the crowd pops again. It looked exactly like Lt. Drebin calling the strike in the first Naked Gun.

UPDATE
-Lord Alfred Hayes examines the quickly-escalating fortunes of Ricky Steamboat. Alfred calls him “A young, competent wrestler to watch.”

BRUTUS BEEFCAKE (with Luscious Johnny Valiant) vs. JIM YOUNG
-Bruno concedes that as much as he can’t stand Brutus Beefcake, he’s a talented wrestler and opponents should take him seriously. Young immediately goes on the offensive with a side headlock, and Brutus turns it into a back suplex. High knee gets the three with ease.

-Gene Okerlund announces to the fans in Boston that the original main event for next month in the Garden, Hogan vs. Piper for the title, has been changed to Hogan & Snuka vs. Piper & Orton in a tag team match. Hulk Hogan says that Piper & Orton both came out of the closet to say they wanted to get their hands on Hogan & Snuka. Yes, Hulk says this.

BARRY WINDHAM & MIKE ROTUNDO vs. MOONDOG SPOT & BOB WADE
-No trace of Captain Lou this week because even as a face he has no use for you unless you can give him a title belt to brag about.

-Rotundo starts with Wade and totally outwrestles him. Spot tags in and gets bodypressed for two. It’s hard to describe this but seeing Spot in this run without his partner just looks wrong and it seems like he should have reinvented himself somehow and started a new run. It’s a gimmick I could never wrap my head around anyway. Their look doesn’t match their name and without a manager, a gimmick where you can’t cut promos just seems like suicide.

Oh, Windham does a bulldog or something. Everyone’s happy.

-Tito Santana is excited about his title shot against Greg Valentine. He promises it’s payback time for what happened at the lumberjack match.

MAGNIFICENT MURACO (with Mr. Fuji) vs. SALVATORE BELLOMO
-Fuji’s back after his unexplained absence and has actually dropped some weight after gaining about 75 pounds immediately after retiring the previous year.

-Muraco unloads on Bellomo and gets a neckbreaker. He appears to set up for the tombstone and then just drops Bellomo throat-first on the top rope, and just keeps targeting the neck. Muraco does the most lethargic Russian legsweep ever, damn near sitting down while Bellomo happens to be intertwined with him. Bellomo tries a desperation move, but Muraco catches him in mid-air and turns it into a tombstone for three.

PIPER’S PIT
-Bobby Heenan, looking extremely pissed off, says he has a major announcement to make. Paul Orndorff has fired him. He ain’t happy.

DAVID SAMMARTINO vs. STEVE LOMBARDI
-Lombardi has grown a moustache, showing that he has fully embraced his dark side. Vince McMahon says this should be quite a match-up, affirming Bruno’s stories about how rampant drug use was in the 1980s.

-Hammerlock by David leads to a clean break, which sufficiently warms up the crowd. Okay, actually, the next move David does is pretty neat, backdropping Lombardi and holding his arm on the way down so he has an armbar applied on impact. Bruno, on commentary, tells us that David’s moves don’t look very impressive to an average fan but they are assuredly quite painful. Yes, he said that.

-Lombardi manages to sneak in a near-fall, but David reverses an Irish whip, which Lombardi sells with an uncharacteristic Heenan-style bump. Powerslam finishes.

NIKOLAI VOLKOFF, IRON SHEIK, AND A SURPRISE PARTNER (with Classy Freddie Blassie) vs. RON DEE, JOSE LUIS RIVERA, & TONY GAREA
-After a bit of a dramatic pause, Finkel reveals the surprise: the returning George “The Animal” Steele.
-Sheik starts with Garea. Garea gets his token offense and then tags in Rivera, so this match might take a few minutes. Rivera gets a near-fall with a bodypress, but puts his head down for a backdrop and eats a pointy boot.

-Animal tags in and puts Dee in the flying hammerlock immediately, but drops him straight on his back before he has a chance to submit. Nikolai comes in and works the arm over, and Steele tags in to apply the flying hammerlock again, and this time it finishes.

Gene Okerlund talks to Roddy Piper and Bob Orton about their impending tag match at the Boston Garden. They’re the only guys in the WWF who are confident enough to face a team like Hulk Hogan & Jimmy Snuka. But that’s only because they’ve already humiliated both guys in the past.

The 411: Not much going on aside from George Steele's annual return. Ah, well...
 
Final Score:  4.2   [ Poor ]  legend

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Adam Nedeff

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