The SmarK Rant for All Star Wrestling (Vancouver) – 09.24.83

The SmarK Rant for All Star Wrestling (Vancouver) – 09.24.83

I’m gonna take a shot at one of these because yeah, I think it’s gonna die a death on here, but this is the promotion that was local to me in Vancouver as a kid and so I saw a lot of it at the time. There’s also lots of names involved who people will likely recognize via Bryan Alvarez or WWF jobber duty in the Pacific Northwest or whatever.

So just for perspective, we’re back in 1983 here because that’s all KrisP has available at the moment. I know people are gonna ask about stuff like Mauro Renallo as a teenager and John Tenta and Al Tomko pushing his kids over everyone, but that’s not until WAY later, like 1988 or so. Anyway, I know there’s a certain very specific segment of the audience that this is gonna resonate with strongly, but if it’s not you, that’s OK.

Taped from Vancouver, BC and aired on BCTV! Man those were the days. For reference, the studio is roughly on par with Memphis as far as layout and level of build quality.

Your host is Ed Karl

Diamond Timothy Flowers & Precious Peter Flowers v. Mike Dupree & Big John Baker

I am not familiar with Precious Peter, who is apparently a previously unknown brother. And a quick check reveals that I am unaware of him because he essentially left the business before I even started watching, basically moving to Europe as the Mongolian Mauler a decade later but not really having any career otherwise. Diamond Timothy Flowers of course we should all know, but if not he’s a semi-famous guy in the area who was frequently top heel and trained lots of guys. Baker is a big fat guy wrestler who did nothing and doesn’t seem to exist in the business after this. Timothy takes a funny backwards bump off a shot from Baker to start, and then Peter comes in and works a headlock on Dupree, but Dupree manages to fight back and the Flowers Brothers double-team him and choke him out in their corner to cut him off. Peter takes him down with an armbar while the crowd is cheering like crazy for the skinny jobber who looks vaguely like Eugene, but hey, it was a different time. Over to Diamond Tim, but Dupree makes a comeback with a hammerlock and drops a leg for two. Dupree slugs away in the corner and Timothy gives him an impressive amount of offense before Peter cuts him off again and beats on him with forearms in the corner. Finally Big John Baker can take more and lumbers into the ring, but that allows the Flowerses to hit Dupree with a double backdrop behind the ref’s back for more simple heel stuff. Timothy puts the boots to him and works an armbar, but Dupree slips through and makes the hot tag to Baker while Timothy begs off. Baker works them over in the corner with Big Daddy-esque belly bumps, and they both collapse, falling on top of the ref, who calls for the DQ on the babyfaces at 9:20 and awards the match to the heels. OK so this was interesting to watch Diamond Timothy, because he made sure to let his “brother” have all the offense while he sold for the babyfaces, thus putting over all three other people at the same time. Of course, Timothy himself was only a couple of years in the business at that point, too.

Diamond Timothy Flowers joins Ed, and OH MY GOD he is so young here. He explains that his brother is brainless and crazy animalistic, which is why he hasn’t been around. So I’m wondering if this was the Vancouver knockoff version of Roughhouse Fargo coming through Memphis as the crazy brother of Jackie Fargo? Al Tomko kind of LOVED doing that sort of “It works somewhere else so it’ll work here” stuff. Look up “King Kong Bundy Junior” sometime if you want a laugh. So we take a look at a six-man tag from Cloverdale fairgrounds (which is like the All Star Wrestling equivalent of the Omni shows in Atlanta, except they ran flea markets on the weekends). Flowers is really funny providing commentary here, as talks about him and the Honky Tonk Man are getting the women and money on behalf of the Memphis Mafia while Randy Rich is making nickels and dimes. Rich looks suspiciously like a Temu version of Tommy Rich and Tomko wasn’t above that sort of thing as a promoter. Rich gets eliminated when Flowers pushes Rick Patterson over on a slam attempt and gets the pin. Jerry Morrow, babyface at the time, does a monkey flip and Flowers quips “Look at Morrow, doing a MONKEY flip, get it?” Well it was 1983. So we end up with Flowers against Morrow, and Flowers misses a kneedrop, allowing Morrow to go to work the legs and split the legs in the corner. “He was trying to kick me in the personals” notes Flowers here on commentary, but Morrow hits a hooking clothesline and pins Flowers to win the match. Looked like a good elimination tag from the highlights here.

Randy Rich v. Rick Patterson

So Randy Rich, who as noted looks like a skinnier rip off Tommy Rich crossed with Ric Flair, only stuck around for a couple of years and then left the business for good. However Rick Patterson actually went onto a very long and fruitful career in Japan and Puerto Rico as one of the numerous people to play Leatherface. At this point he’s a generic heel as “Pretty Boy” Patterson, teaming with Flowers and Honky Tonk Man as the Memphis Mafia, the lead heel group in the territory. Patterson misses a charge and Rich takes him down and works a headlock. Patterson yanks on the bleached blond hair to break and puts him down with a series of knees to the gut before tossing him to the floor. Back in, Rich tries a comeback and backdrops Patterson before hitting a back elbow for two. So Patterson rakes the face on the ropes and puts him down with a back elbow, but Rich headlocks him and throws a flailing dropkick for two. This young man is not particularly gifted in the same way Tommy Rich was, sadly. Rich works on a hammerlock, doing the old 60s routine where he holds it with his legs and falls backwards, but it still works here. Patterson cuts him off with a pair of bodyslams, but misses a blind charge and Rich gets a surprise bodypress for the pin at 7:25. Rich was over big as a babyface here but he was just so gangly and awkward, like a teenager still growing. Maybe he was, who knows. Not the worst match in the world, just very basic stuff.

The Spoiler v. Sir Joe Cagle

Cagle is a journeyman guy in Vancouver doing a vaguely Exotic Adrian Street flamboyant gimmick. He’s got pink boots so that makes him a heel here. So the Spoiler here is clearly not Don Jardine, unless Jardine ate Randy Rich backstage. He’s just a guy using the name as a masked guy. They trade forearms on the ropes, and Cagle bites him in the corner and hits Spoiler with a knee. But then time runs out at 4:00 and we’re done for the week.

I had a lot of fun with this in general, but again, 1983 is way out of my wheelhouse with the show so I don’t end up having a lot to share as far as personal memories with this particular era. Honky Tonk Man is around at this point so I’m willing to keep going if there’s interest. If you want to give a look, KrisP has it up on his YouTube:

https://youtu.be/SHOE6VAwNvc?list=PLB8FXHmaF-0qeEs0YFWRkK2oXYAlh5unE