The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 04.17.82

The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 04.17.82

This is a really short episode with a Network runtime of 40 minutes, so there must be a bunch of stuff that was cut out of it.

Taped from Charlotte, NC

Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Jack Brisco, who doesn’t exactly strike me as someone ideally suited to commentary.  Roddy Piper immediately interrupts at the desk and has a few questions for Jack, like how does it feel to be wrestling someone like himself, 27 years old and in his prime?  Jack would be honored to face him because he’s here to win Piper’s Mid-Atlantic title, in fact.  Piper is skeptical that Brisco could escape his sleeper, and thinks Jack might be a little bit green with envy.  With all due respect of course.  So Jack offers to throw down right now, in the ring, to see if Piper is all talk.  Well we know the answer to THAT.  And indeed, Piper begs off and tells Brisco to “work his way up through the ranks”, leaving Jack standing there in the ring like a goof.

Jack Brisco v. Jim Dalton

Piper joins Caudle on commentary now, and Bob notes that Jack “really cut Piper’s water off” by calling his bluff.  Who has ever used that phrase in human history before?  Dalton was apparently a guy who worked a million masked gimmicks but not typically as himself, and his career was winding down at this point.  He was a Medic, a Spoiler, a Gladiator, and many other professions.  Brisco takes him down and controls him on the mat, but Dalton slugs away in the corner, so Brisco runs him into the turnbuckles and goes to work on the leg.  Piper notes that Brisco is a lefty, whereas he is ambidextrous, so he has the advantage on him.  OK then.  Dalton gives him a classic Jesse Ventura thumb to the eye to break a leglock, but he goes up and Brisco catches him coming down and goes back to the leg again.  And then Jack dedicates the figure-four to Roddy Piper and finishes him off at 4:33.  Well that’s nice of him!  Piper:  “The secret is don’t let him get the figure-four on you!”  I hope all you kids are taking notes in case you decide to get into wrestling as a profession later on.  Now, oddly, the Network’s listing for the matches has the jobber as Jeff Sword, which is weird because they don’t look anything alike and the names are totally different.

Jake Roberts joins us and he’s pretty upset about Jimmy Valiant getting blinded by green mist, because taking away a man’s eyes is crossing the line, as we take another look at Jimmy getting the beats put on him last week.

Keith Larson v. Tony Russo

This must have been whatever cut was made because it abruptly cuts from Jake’s interview to the start of this match.  Russo goes for the arm to start and blocks a headscissor attempt, taking Larson down with an armbar on the mat to control him.  But Larson gets another try at it and takes him down.  Meanwhile, Roddy Piper feels no sympathy for Jimmy Valiant, since Jimmy has been “hurting people left and right for weeks.  Don’t you think so, Bob?”  Bob:  “Um, NO.”  Touché.  Hey, I laughed at the reaction there.  Larson holds Russo on the mat with a headlock now, but Russo reverses him to a full nelson and then takes him down with a monkey flip.  Larson goes back to the headlock as they continue discussing the tag team tournament, specifically noting that Wahoo and Don Muraco won the Western finals “in Hawaii”, which is nicely non-specific for a location and it isn’t likely that this show was airing there anyway.  Russo takes over on Larson and goes to work on the leg with a leglock on the mat, while Piper sums up King Kong Mosca as “the whipped cream on your strawberry shortcake”.  I can safely say no one else in the history of civilization has described Angelo Mosca like that, but that’s why Piper is a special snowflake.  Larson makes the ropes, so Russo lays into him with forearms, but Larson hiptosses him out of the corner and takes him down with another flying headscissors, which he turns into a cradle on the mat to finish at 7:53.  I’ve actually never seen someone do that before, that’s a pretty cool finishing move.  You can tell they’re slowly bringing Larson along from job guy to slightly pushed youngster like Terry Taylor.

King Kong Mosca v. Vinnie Valentino

Mosca shrugs off the offense of the jobber and puts him in a front facelock, then takes him down and cranks on his head with a neck vice.  He no-sells all of Valentino’s punches and then puts him down with an elbow for two, which Piper is DELIGHTED to see.  “You know something else?  King Kong Mosca really likes me!”  I think someone has a crush.  Mosca mauls the poor geek some more and picks him at two again while Piper is already pitching a tag team with himself.  “Beauty and the Beast!” he notes.  Mosca slams the guy on the mat and rams his head into the mat a bunch of times, and then punches him in the face and pins him at 3:37 while Piper gushes about him and calls him a “beautiful man” while giving him a round of applause.  Piper was hilarious here.

Ivan Koloff is pretty proud of his plan to take out Jimmy Valiant, because Jimmy fell for his trap and now he’s blind in one eye!  The only thing better would be if Valiant was blind in BOTH eyes like they planned.  So Ivan still has the TV title, and Valiant is blind.

Sgt. Slaughter joins us and he’s got a new partner:  KING KONG MOSCA.  Oh man, Piper’s gonna be so jealous.

Paul Jones joins us, back when he was still a wrestler and a BABYFACE.  So he’s got tape from World Wide Wrestling, featuring Wahoo McDaniel beating a job guy, and then we take another look at a tape of Slaughter’s Privates.  Every time Jones sees that piece of film, he gets hot!  I have no idea who would listen to Jones’ boring promos and think of him as a managerial candidate.

Mike George v. Steve Sybert

George takes Sybert down with a top wristlock while Piper clarifies that he’s not stupid like Rick Steamboat and would never let himself be put in a position where Slaughter’s Privates could hurt him.  George works on Sybert with a hammerlock while Piper declares that himself and Mosca might as well be declared the winners of the Eastern portion of the tag team tournament, because who’s gonna beat them?  Solid point.  Sybert fights out of the hammerlock, but George takes him down with an armbar and then slugs away with forearms before going back to the hammerlock again.  But Caudle reminds us again that Ric Flair has a score to settle with Slaughter’s Privates, as George finishes with a shoulderbreaker at 5:20.

Slaughter’s Privates v. Terry Taylor & Tony Anthony

Taylor fights off both Privates and takes Nelson down with armdrags, but Anthony comes in and immediately gets hit with a dropkick.  Taylor gets another tag and cleans house, taking on both Privates alone, and the Privates are all over him in the corner.  But then Jake Roberts joins the match to replace the injured Anthony and tags himself in, and the match is OUTTA CONTROL at 2:14.  Someone needs to get Slaughter’s Privates under control!  And then the show just abruptly cuts to the credits and ends for the week.  Well that was weird.

Man I guess Slaughter’s Privates broke the show this week.  We all knew it would happen eventually I guess.