The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 07.03.82
The show that fights cancer! With the power of Slaughter’s Privates!
Taped from Charlotte, NC, complete with “Production Difficulties” noted at the beginning of the episode on the Network.
Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Sir Oliver Humperdink
Roddy Piper joins us to start, and he’s apparently the Mid-Atlantic champion again, having beaten Jack Brisco to regain the title at some point in the past week. According to title histories, the title change happened on July 7, but the airdate on this show is July 3, four days before it happened. Piper throws to a video from Magnificent Muraco, who apparently is the person who helped Piper regain the title through chicanery of some sort.
King Kong Mosca v. Jay Youngblood
Mosca takes him down with an armbar, but Jay reverses to a fireman’s carry and escapes it, then controls Mosca with a headlock on the mat. Mosca beats him down to escape, but misses an elbow and Jay goes right back to the headlock again, but Mosca escapes with a backbreaker and then goes to work on the back with a bearhug. The crowd is just nonstop for Youngblood, as he fights out and chops Mosca down, but Angelo just loses it and chokes him out until the ref calls for the bell at 6:18 and Ricky Steamboat quickly makes the save, just sticking his nose in all over the territory over the past couple of weeks.
King Kong Mosca declares that “there’s too many damn Indians” around the territory lately, so he’s gonna lay out all of them with his elbows.
Greg “The Hammer” Valentine v. Brock Wood
Interestingly, they actually acknowledge that Greg is just getting back from “the New York area” where he worked main events in MSG. Usually they just pretend he was somewhere in the Orient for a few months. Valentine takes the goober down and cranks on an armbar, then beats on him with forearms and adds a slam. He gets an atomic drop and Wood doesn’t do a great job of taking that one, but Valentine tosses him and beats on him out there for a bit. Back in, Wood tries to make a comeback and Valentine just cuts him off with a pretty stiff shot and then drops the Hammer to finish at 4:23.
David Patterson & Steve Sybert chat with Bob in advance of their match with Wahoo, which I’m assuming is one of the promos in place of the local house show drop-ins.
Wahoo McDaniel & Paul Jones v. David Patterson & Steve Sybert
The heels try to double-team Wahoo to start, but he takes them both down with armdrags and brings in Jones, who trades takedowns with Sybert and takes him down with an armdrag of his own. Patterson comes in and slugs away on Jones, but Paul takes him down with a backdrop and works the arm. So Patterson rakes the face and gets a snapmare for two, and the heels double-team Jones in their corner. However, they let Wahoo come in, and he chops Sybert down right away and cranks on a headlock on the mat. Jones comes in and beats on Sybert’s back with knees, but Wahoo actually does some hair-pulling and the ref lets Sybert get away and tag Patterson back in. Wahoo’s kind of a cheater in this one. Back to Jones, who fights off both heels, and Wahoo chops Sybert from the apron, again showing poor sportsmanship, and then hits him with another chop in the ring, allowing Jones to finish with the Guardian deathlock at 5:20.
Roddy Piper joins us again, declaring himself “truly Rubik’s Cube material” in a reference so dated it might as well be 1982. Oh, yeah, I forgot. Also he compares Brisco to Donnie Osmond. Also Sgt. Slaughter stops by, reminiscing about meeting guys like Wahoo in boot camp and what they did to them. Then Greg Valentine joins us, ready for action whenever and wherever.
Roddy Piper v. Jimmy Panner
Piper takes him down with a headlock and then offers the young rookie a handshake to show some sportsmanship. So Panner takes him down with an armbar and Piper makes the ropes and then gives him a clean break. This has gotta be leading somewhere. So Piper goes to the arm and does some light hair-pulling, and then decides to just cheat and goes nuts with a face rake on the ropes before yelling at him and putting the boots to him. There it is. Piper with a slam and a kneedrop and he goes to a facelock while demanding that the ref ask him over and over, and then he just goes nuts and stomps him down again before finishing with a backdrop suplex at 4:20.
Bill White chats with Bob in advance of facing Ricky Steamboat tonight, and he’s betting on Roddy Piper to destroy Jack Brisco when they have their rematch. Also Bill thinks that Steamboat is too musclebound, so he’s going to use his speed to get around Steamboat. Well good luck with that one.
Ricky Steamboat v. Bill White
White tries to take Ricky down with armdrags, but Steamboat of course puts him in his place by firing back with his own, then jumping over White in the corner and taking him down with the armdrag again. White tries to slug out of it, so Steamboat takes him down again with another armdrag while Humperdink tells tall tales of his Ninja and taking down “1600 pound Brahma Bulls” with his martial arts. I’m gonna need video evidence of that one. White finally tosses Steamboat and gets some shots on the apron, but Steamboat comes back in with a sunset flip for two and then goes back to the armdrag. White powers out of it, so Steamboat elbows him down and then goes right back to the arm again. White sends him to the floor again and puts the boots to Steamboat, but Ricky fights back in with some chops and a backdrop suplex for two. Splash hits White’s knees and Steamboat sells dramatically off that, and then White yanks him off the ropes and drops him on his head before going to a rear chinlock. Steamboat fights out of that and runs White into the turnbuckle, into a jackknife cradle for two, but White fires up again, so Steamboat beats him down with chops and hits a double chop for two. Samoan drop gets the pin at 8:39 in a surprisingly good squash match to close the show.
Jay Youngblood, back in his best headdress, chats with Caudle about King Kong Mosca and has trouble finding the camera for some reason. Also Rick Steamboat is glad to face Muraco any time he wants to bring his “skirt-wearing girlfriend” to ringside with him. IT’S A KILT! No wonder Scotland is so bitter these days.
Love this show as always!