Mike Reviews AWA Super Sunday

Happy Saturday Everyone! (Although really I should be posting this on a Sunday)

Today we’ll be taking a look at AWA Super Sunday. I’ve gone on record as not being a particularly big AWA fan over the years, as the booking and presentation is often the wrestling equivalent of a heavy meal followed up by a pint of cream for me. However, once in a while I’ll pay Verne and rest of the lads on the good ship AWA a visit, just to see if this will be the time I finally “get it” with this promotion.

Going into Super Sunday, Hulk Hogan was arguably the hottest act in the land and many thought that Super Sunday would be the day that he’d finally claim the AWA World Title and take this new fangled “Hulkamania” thing to previously unseen heights. The AWA did a generally excellent job hyping Super Sunday up, and it was presenting itself as a golden opportunity for the promotion to really kick on. Let’s see how they did.

You can view the card for Super Sunday by clicking the link below, and you can also read what Rock Star Gary and Scott Keith thought of the show

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=3114&page=3

Super Sunday is emanating from St. Paul, Minnesota on the 24th of April 1983

Calling the action is Ron Trongard

Sadly we don’t get the “here we go” song for this

Opening Match
Brad Rheingans Vs Rocky Tom Stone

Rheingans is an amateur wrestler who competed in the 76 and 80 Olympic Games. Stone supposedly helped with getting green wrestlers ready for television by testing their abilities. This is as AWA as a match gets, with two exceedingly generic looking white dudes doing basic wrestling in a contest that looks like it was taken out of 1963 and transplanted into 1984. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, it’s just very “on brand” for the AWA to start Super Sunday like this and that amuses me mildly. As an opener it works just fine for the audience it’s tailored to.

Rheingans controls things in the early going, looking good doing so with a dazzling array of arm bars and arm drags, whilst Stone tries to find a way back into it. Stone eventually manages to counter a Rheingans leap frog by clocking him the breadbasket (or should that be the Bradbasket?) and that gives us our heat segment, with Stone notably being quite vicious and underhanded in his offence to get across the idea that he’s the villain of the piece here. Rheingans eventually makes the comeback and gets a quick suplex to finish things off.

WINNER: BRAD RHEINGANS
RATING: **

Thoughts: A fine way to start the show, as Rheingans got a shine, Stone got to work a little bit of heat, and when it was time to take it home they just had Rheingans hit a series of moves and win. Nothing too complicated and a nice gentle way to ease in anyone who might be a first time viewer. Textbook Pro Wrestling really, and a decent way to kick Super Sunday off

Rheingans does a post-match in-ring interview with Gene Okerlund following his win, where he cuts a standard babyface promo about how happy he was to win. It sounds like there were boos from the crowd during that, but I assume it was down to Stone jawing with the crowd on the way out. Gene makes sure to hock the programmes whilst Rheingans leaves.

Match Two
Buck Zumhofe Vs Steve Regal

I’m not absolutely thrilled about reviewing a Zumhofe match as he ended up in some really awful legal issues that I’d rather not discuss here. I’ll do my best to just review the match objectively as I can. Steve Regal is not the man that would go on to be known as William Regal, but rather Darren Matthews saw the name in wrestling magazine’s from America and decided to use it in the UK, because this was before the internet and you could get away with stuff like that. We actually had a wrestler called Greg Valentine over here as well, which can still confuse me sometimes as I’ll be trawling YouTube and think “when did Greg Valentine wrestle Big Daddy?” only to then watch the match and realise that it’s UK Greg Valentine.

These two at least have a bit more flavour to them than the guys in the opener. Zumhofe is actually very effective as a flashy babyface in the early going, whilst Regal does a solid job as a cocky Heel, so the match works well for what it is, with the majority of the wrestling being well executed. Regal of course refuses to give clean breaks and whatnot due to being a nefarious bad guy, which leads to Regal working some heat on Zumhofe, with Zumhofe doing a good job of selling it all. In a nice moment, the referee sees Regal pulling some hair to assist with applying a hold at one stage, so the referee actually makes him break the hold, and it leads almost straight into Zumhofe’s comeback.

A referee actually enforced the rules in Pro Wrestling and it led to the babyface getting back into the contest. It’s almost like this is some kind of morality play or something! Zumhofe ends up coming off the second rope with a Pump Splash and that ends up being the three count.

WINNER: BUCK ZUMHOFE
RATING: **

Thoughts: Another decent bout, where they had a Heel being snide but he was eventually foiled and the babyface took it straight home, because you don’t need to overdo things sometimes

Zumhofe uses his victory promo to hype up a match with Mike Graham down the line for the Light Heavyweight Title. I’m sure that one was a barn burner!

Match Three
Jerry The King Lawler Vs The Golden Greek John Tolos

Lawler was the big star of the Memphis territory, and they had begun working with the AWA and had started recognising the AWA Champ as the real World Champ, after previously being an NWA territory. Tolos had been a huge star in California, where he’d taken part in a brutal feud with Freddie Blassie, and eventually he’d go on to manage Curt Hennig in the WWF. Lawler had just recently been on David Letterman according to Gene, as he lets the local crowd know when it will be airing in the region. Tolos attacks Lawler at the bell and works him over, as it looks like Lawler is set to be the babyface here, although he did get some boos during his introduction.

Tolos viciously targets the left arm of Lawler, even coming off the second rope with some stomps onto the appendage. In reality you’d have a broken arm after all of that, but this is Pro Wrestling so Lawler is able to do like Tyler Swift suggests and Shake It Off (I made a popular cultural reference! Go me!) before working a headlock. You can tell that they had plans for Lawler in the AWA following this, or at very least they were going to make him look good whenever he came in, Trongard goes a bit OTT trying to put Lawler over on commentary. Lawler gets a fun spot of wrenching the headlock over and over again as if he’s doing a ten punch in the corner, and it succeeds in getting a reaction from the crowd.

Tolos attempts to fight back, but he punches Lawler over the top rope to the floor, which should really be a DQ in the AWA, but I don’t think that was supposed to be the finish, as they keep wrestling. Lawler gets back into the ring and throws some punches, including the rabid punches on the mat, which the crowd enjoys. The fist drop from the second rope follows (with Tolos doing a comical spasm sell for it) as they’re picking the pace up a bit now and start dodging one another in the corner. Tolos misses an attack off the ropes and the Piledriver follows to give Lawler the win.

WINNER: JERRY LAWLER
RATING: *1/2

Thoughts: This was a bit disjointed at points, but the crowd seemed to like it and I wouldn’t say it was terrible or anything

Match Four
NWA World Women’s Tag Team Titles
Champs: Joyce Grable and Wendi Richter Vs Judy Martin and Velvet McIntyre

Grable is not someone I’m familiar with, but she started out in the 70’s and formed a regular team with Richter. Richter would end up jumping to the WWF and becoming a big part of the first WrestleMania. Martin would tag with Leilani Kai as The Glamour Girls and win the WWF Women’s Tag Titles. Velvet McIntyre is from Ireland and famously had a wardrobe malfunction that led to her match ending abruptly at WrestleMania 2. Grable and Richter are the Heels here, which is interesting as I don’t think I’ve ever seen Richter work as a Heel before. Richter has a pretty good Heel sneer actually. I wonder what made the WWF decide that she was going to be their top babyface when she was normally a Heel prior to that?

The challengers get the shine in the early going, with the Champs taking some nice bumps for them and doing a good job of being loud and obnoxious so that the crowd enjoys seeing them get slapped around by the babyfaces. Eventually the Champs use illegal teamwork to take control of things, with McIntyre being the babyface in peril. We of course get a hair-mare at one stage, because this is a women’s match from North America during the 80’s and that was practically contractually mandated during this time period. Martin gets the hot tag and runs wild on the Champs, looking good in the process whilst the Champs bump around for her.

However, Martin also finds herself cut off and worked over in the Heel side of the ring for a bit. The Champs of course make sure to cheat whenever the opportunity presents itself, as that’s what Heels do. Martin sells everything well, although the wrestlers don’t seem to be drawing that much heat from the crowd. The crowd are kind of just watching it and don’t seem emotionally invested in the plight of the babyfaces, although they do get excited when McIntyre gets the tag and runs wild with head scissors’ (it’s 80’s AWA, that move is on par with a Twisting Moonsault to that audience).

There’s a sequence where everyone misses a splash at one stage, which gets the best reaction of the match, as the fans seem to be treating this like a comedy break match between the Mexican Mini Wrestlers or something. Hey, whatever works I guess. The fans actively boo when the sequence stops, as they were enjoying it so much. Richter tries to make McIntyre submit to a Canadian Backbreaker following that, but McIntyre refuses to submit. They’ve kind of lost all of the momentum built from the second hot tag to be honest, as the match is verging into starting to drag. As I write that though; Grable gets a Powerbomb onto McIntyre for three, as Martin has to pretend she can’t get there to stop it in time as Richter misses her cue to prevent it.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: RICHTER & GRABLE
RATING: **1/4

Thoughts: This probably went on for a bit too long and the finish was a bit sloppy, but it wasn’t a bad match overall. The crowd didn’t seem that into it outside of a few spots

The Champs say they are unbeatable during their post-match interview with Gene.

Match Five
Ed Boulder Vs Wahoo McDaniel

Boulder would be better known as Brutus Beefcake, and he’d regularly get booked wherever Hogan did. McDaniel was a former footballer who got into wrestling. Vince McMahon apparently cited McDaniel as one of his favourite footballers when forming the XFL in fact. Boulder is in great physical shape here, looking muscular and lean. The two wrestlers actually shake hands before the bout starts, so I guess we’re getting a Face Vs Face battle here? Jerry Lawler jumps on commentary here for this one, which is probably the highlight of the match, as the wrestling between the two guys in the ring isn’t that exciting. Boulder actually looks fine for the most part, outside of a few moments where his timing is a bit off. Boulder’s strikes do look a little bit loose at points, especially his stomps, but McDaniel has some nice looking chops, and he eventually hits a big one before dropping an elbow for three.

WINNER: WAHOO MCDANIEL
RATING: *

Thoughts: This one didn’t do much for me

Match Six
Jesse The Body Ventura, Blackjack Lanza and Ken Patera w/ Bobby Heenan Vs Rick Martel, Groovy Greg Gagne and Jumpin’ Jim Brunzell

Ventura would end up heading to the WWF and becoming the voice of wrestling for an entire generation alongside Gorilla Monsoon. Blackjack Lanza is the father of Barry Windham and ended up becoming a Road Agent in WWE. Patera would famously get arrested for some McDonald’s related hi jinx and then have a failed babyface run in the WWF. Martel would eventually become AWA World Champion before heading to the WWF to team with Tom Zenk. Gagne is the bosses son, so he was over pushed, but he was fine as a mid card tag guy. Brunzell would eventually leave the AWA to tag with Brian Blair in the WWF. I wonder if you can notice a trend with a lot of the guys in this match?

The babyface trio shines on all of the Heels to start, with it being standard babyface stuff like arm drags etc, but the crowd is into it. The babyface team are all pretty over with the crowd, with Martel seemingly being the most popular. Well, he did end up becoming the AWA World Champ, so him getting these kinds of reactions shouldn’t really be a surprise. There’s a fun spot where Jesse tries reaching into the ring to help Lanza at one stage whilst Martel has Lanza in a hold, so Gagne and Brunzell start bouncing on the ropes in order to cause them to shake and make Ventura lose his balance. That was a really fun thing that I don’t remember seeing in recent times. Someone should steal it!

Gagne looks to have it won with a Sleeper Hold on Patera at one stage, but Ventura breaks it up and that leads to Groovy Greg getting worked over in the Heel corner for a bit. Gagne is fine at playing that sort of role, so it works well. I always feel like I come across as a bit of a Greg Gagne apologist whenever I do these AWA reviews, but honestly as a mid-card guy working tags I don’t find him that offensive. His work is okay and the crowd clearly didn’t resent him that much in that particular role, so I struggle to get too offended by it all to be honest. It’s not like he was David Flair or Erik Watts and getting pushed way past his ability level due to nepotism. Being a tag guy with Jim Brunzell was a totally reasonable way to push Greg Gagne, so I have no real beef with it. Whenever they tried pushing him higher than that though I can totally understand why people would get angered by it, as he wasn’t a Main Event/Singles Word Title level guy and shouldn’t have been used in that sort of role.

Martel eventually gets the hot tag and runs wild on the Heels, with the crowd being into it. Martel ends up getting cut off as well though, with Patera working in some nice offence in particular. Martel sells everything really well, as he was a decent good guy despite being probably best known to most fans for being the arrogant Model in the WWF. Brunzell ends up getting another hot tag and it’s time for the Figure Four Leg Lock onto Lanza. However, things breakdown following that and the hold gets broken, leading to Heenan passing Patera an international object of some kind that he clocks Brunzell with for the three count.

WINNERS: THE HEENAN FAMILY
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was good fun, with the babyfaces all being popular figures with the crowd, meaning that the match had good reactions and the action was generally to a good standard. Brunzell and Martel in particular looked great in there, with Patera being the best in-ring performer for the Heel side

The babyfaces are not happy to have lost there and send the Heels packing from the ring. Gene then tries to interview the babyfaces in the ring, where the babyfaces are angry at the cheating antics of the Heels.

Co-Main Event
AWA World Title
Champ: Nick Bockwinkel w/ Bobby Heenan Vs Hulk Hogan

Bockwinkel was always in the Title picture and was both a skilled grappler and a smooth talker. Hogan had initially been positioned for a Heel run in the AWA, but the fans loved him and he became a huge babyface star during the first real phase of Hulkamania. Gene Okerlund announces that AWA President Stanley W. Blackburn will be at ringside for this one, which should set off everyone’s collective spider screw-job senses. They actually excuse the higher ticket prices for this show by saying on commentary that Nick Bockwinkel demanded a bigger fight purse for this event than usual, hence they had to jack up the prices to placate him. I have to say, that’s both pretty clever and pretty sleazy in equal measure.

Hogan gets an extended babyface shine to start, having an answer for whatever Bockwinkel throws at him. Hogan is moving pretty well here actually, as years of delivering the Leg Drop of DOOM hadn’t annihilated his hip yet, so the bout is fought at a decent pace. Bockwinkel eventually manages to catch Hogan with a rising strike to the gut (not unlike when you hold down the shoulder button as you get up in the AKI wrestling games) and then works some heat following that by using strikes and holds in order to keep the powerful challenger down on the mat. Hogan of course sells that well, as selling was always something The Hulkster excelled at.

Hogan eventually manages to catch Bock with a raised boot in the corner and starts making the comeback, with the Champ taking some nice bumps for it. This was before Hogan had got the standard “three punches, send to the rope, big boot” part of his routine down, so he just throws some punches and then gets an Axe Bomber Lariat for two. It’s not as smooth or elegant as his comeback sequence would become in the WWF later on, but it works well enough and Bockwinkel sells it all well. Bockwinkel attempts to fight back, but Hogan shrugs it off and gets a nice Running Powerslam for two, as they are giving their best effort to make this feel like an epic Title match, with Bockwinkel even dodging the Leg Drop at one stage.

Referee James Blears appears to mess up a count at one stage, that or Bock forgets to kick out, but nonetheless the match continues, with Bockwinkel applying a Sleeper. Blears ends up getting squished in the corner whilst Hogan breaks out of the hold. Bockwinkel tries the hold again, with Hogan this time shrugging Bockwinkel off over the top rope to the floor. Hogan suplexes Bockwinkel back into the ring and drops the Leg Drop of DOOM in order to seemingly win the belt. However, Stanley Blackburn saw Bockwinkel go over the top rope, even though the dazed referee missed it. Thus the result is overturned and Bockwinkel keeps the belt. I don’t think Hogan was ever intended to win the belt here as he had a tour of Japan coming up, but watching this back it did not seem like the wisest move to do the Dusty Finish here as the crowd went nuts for Hogan’s win and this could have been a huge moment for the AWA.

BOCKWINKEL RETAINS ON REVERSED DECISION
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: This was a good match, although the lame finish takes it down a bit. If Hogan wasn’t going to win the belt then I honestly think a DQ win for him would have worked better than this finish, as seeing the three count and having it ripped away from them only made the fans all the madder at the screw job. Hogan was very mobile here and gave a good account of himself, whilst Bockwinkel did his usual solid job as Heel World Champ, so the work was decent and the crowd enhanced things

Hogan beats up Bockwinkel and Heenan following that in order to try and calm the fans down a bit, but they are still furious about the finish. AWA’s business didn’t go off a cliff or anything following this, so I guess you could argue that this was good heat as opposed to bad heat as it didn’t drive fans away in the short term. Had Hogan and the AWA managed to come to some sort of agreement that could have led to Hogan actually winning the belt then this could have worked as one last bump on the road I suppose. This did kind of highlight the big difference between the AWA and the WWF at the time though, as whereas Vince McMahon got Hogan tied up, belted him ASAP and rode that momentum all the way to the bank, Verne Gagne was faffing around with finishes like this by comparison. In reality Hogan was playing his part in all of this as well though, as there were times where he didn’t want to take the belt either and the two sides could never get things nailed down, with Hogan’s Japan dates being the big sticking point.

Main Event
Adnan Al-Kassie and Jerry Blackwell Vs Mad Dog Vachon and Verne Gagne

Blackwell was doing the tried and tested gimmick of “white dude joins up with a foreign Heel and starts dressing like them for Heel heat” which was something you saw in multiple companies in the 80’s. Vachon and Gagne are former foes now united. Blackwell is basically spherical here, but he doesn’t move too badly despite it. Vachon and Gagne brutalise Blackwell to start, with Blackwell doing a good job stooging around for it all. Adnan has a cast on his right arm by the looks of things, and he uses it to clobber Vachon a few times, which the referee allows. Part of me thinks that something like that should be illegal, but I guess if he’s allowed to wrestle with it then he should be able to hit people with it as well?

Gagne ends up bringing a chair into the ring to clobber the Heels at one stage and the referee allows it, which makes me think that this is either No DQ or the rules have been relaxed. It would have been nice if they could have officially confirmed that, especially as they’ve just done a DQ in the previous match and now these guys are doing stuff that his far worse than Hogan accidentally knocking Bockwinkel over the top rope and the referee is just waving them on. Vachon eventually comes up bleeding and that leads to the Heels working him over for a bit. Gagne gets the hot tag soon after, and actually throws some dropkicks at the Heels, which was impressive considering that he was 57 at the time. That being said, he’d probably still be wrestling in one of WWE or AEW at that age today.

Adnan ends up accidentally hitting his own partner with his cast, which leaves him on his own against both babyfaces. The Faces rip the cast off of Adnan’s arm and then put a beat down him, with Gagne coming off Bret’s rope with a big stomp onto the arm of Adnan before following up with a pin for the three count. This ensures that the fans leave happy at least, so it was the right finish, and it’s not like Adnan was going to lose any ground from doing a job to a living legend like Gagne.

WINNERS: VACHON & GAGNE
RATING: **

Thoughts: The inconsistency with the rules didn’t help with this one, but the crowd seemed to like it and the action within the ring wasn’t bad. It was the right finish for the show, as the crowd needed a pick-me-up following the disappointment of the World Title match and this ensured that they left Super Sunday with a spring in their step

The babyfaces send the Heels packing following the bout and then do the victory promo in the ring with Gene Okerlund.

In Conclusion

I found Super Sunday to be an easy enough watch, although the AWA style is probably never going to be for me. As I previously mentioned; I don’t think there was ever a scenario where Hogan could have won the belt here, as he was starting a new Japanese tour at the start of May and he didn’t wrestle in the AWA again until something like July, so they weren’t going to stick the belt on him only for him to just disappear (back then World Champion’s were actually required to defend their belts on a regular basis). Ultimately the disagreements over Hulk’s Japanese bookings between Hogan and the AWA office would eventually lead to Hogan jumping to the WWF without ever having a proper AWA World Title run, so we’ll never know if he could have been the lightning rod that led AWA to global dominance. I’m guessing no because the WWF style had a mass-market appeal that the AWA was probably never going to have, but it’s fun to think about.

Recommended Show!