The SmarK Rant for GCW at the Omni – 08.28.83

The SmarK Rant for GCW at the Omni – 08.28.83

Originally written 08.31.25

Not feeling the Paris show yet so let’s knock out this Omni show that the Vault posted a couple of days ago. This is two weeks after the last Omni show they posted.

Taped from Atlanta, GA. Still no announcing.

In a nice touch, they splice in the clips from World Championship Wrestling hyping up the show and running down the card, which is a GREAT touch. Now why don’t they put these shows up somewhere?

Mr. Wrestling #1 v. Chief Joe Lightfoot

OK, so from the other Omni show we did recently, we’ve established firmly that this Mr. Wrestling is likely Jesse Barr, working as a fake Mr. Wrestling. He takes Lightfoot down and works the ankle, and then takes him down again with a dragon screw and goes to a stepover toehold. Lightfoot tries to fight back with the help of the crowd going “Woo woo woo” and some chops, and he throws a one footed dropkick, but then tries a flying headscissors and gets dropped on the top rope. And the kneelift finishes for “Mr. Wrestling” at 7:57. *1/2 Interesting note: The last Omni show two weeks before this featured The Road Warriors v. Mr. Wrestling I & II, and I noted that it was Tim Woods’ second-to-last match before retirement and he faced Joe Lightfoot on this show. Well this obviously wasn’t Tim Woods, so now we know that the Road Warriors match was in fact Tim Woods’ final match before retiring.

Bob Roop v. Brett Wayne

Roop is a guy I only kind of knew from Florida, but gained a good appreciation for after watching his Mid-South run. Of course he was about to get forced into retirement by a car accident a couple of years later, but he’s still around and does a podcast these days last I heard. I’m always amazed that “Plan B” never got him blackballed or even any real heat, though. Roop tries for a takedown and Brett counters him for a good reaction, and then counters a shoulder tackle into a drop toehold for another good pop. Roop hits him with a high knee and puts him on the floor, and back in a snapmare gets two. Roop puts the boots to Wayne as Brett is busted wide open from the bump to the floor earlier, and Roop works him over in the corner. Wayne makes the comeback and slugs away, sending Roop retreating to the apron, but Bob grabs Wayne and runs him into the corner. Back in, Wayne grabs a small package and gets the pin at 6:15 for a big pop. As Lance Storm would say, he “caught him with a quick one” there. A fine match. **1/2

Precious Paul Ellering v. Bruno (David) Sammartino Jr.

Very early in the career of young David, who was going by “Bruno Sammartino Jr”. Ellering works the arm for a bit, but David takes him down in a leglock and Ellering makes the ropes. So David takes him down again and ties him up again, and Paul retreats to the corner this time. And then David takes him down a third time with the same hold, as this kid has ZERO rizz. I’m so tired of harping on it but man he would have been 100 times better off learning to work under a mask or just calling himself something different for a few years. Paul catches him with his head down and goes to work on him with simple heel stuff and drops an elbow for two. To the chinlock and David fights up, so Paul takes him down with a hairpull. David escapes and goes to the top, but Ellering slams him off and gets a backslide for two. David takes him down with a clumsy double leg and slugs away on the mat, and a vertical suplex gets two. Press slam follows and Ellering has had enough tonight and walks out at 9:35. Sammartino did not look good here. ½*

Texas Tornado: The Road Warriors v. The Brisco Brothers

The Warriors are National tag team champions and the Briscos are World tag team champions, although neither title is on the line here. The title reign of the Warriors is course notable in that they just showed up in the territory and Ole Anderson booked them as champions without ever having them win the belts in a match. The Warriors quickly go to stereo chinlocks on the Briscos, but Jerry and Jack ram the Warriors into each other and Gerry rolls up Animal for two. Jack drops a knee on Hawk, but the Warriors each choke out a Brisco on the ropes as they are looking super green and unsure of what to do out there. More choking from the Warriors, but the Briscos fight back and Jerry gets the figure-four on Hawk until Animal breaks it up. Question: Whatever happened to Scrappy McGowan and how come he never made it onto the national stage in the boom period like Tommy Young and Nick Patrick and the Hebners did? Briscos make another comeback and they each work the leg of a Warrior, but the Warriors don’t really sell anything for them. Jack takes Animal down with another figure-four, but Hawk breaks that up and tosses Jack to the floor, and the Warriors double-team Jerry for two. Jerry grabs a chair and gets some shots with that as the crowd goes “HOO! HOO!” with every shot but these fuckers STILL won’t sell anything and they just kind of hang out on the floor until they get counted out at 9:25. Kind of surprised Jack didn’t teach one of those punks a lesson here because they absolutely refused to sell ANYTHING in this match and it was pretty annoying to watch. DUD. All that being said, Ole Anderson 100% told them to go out and work that way and they were hugely over with the crowd and the match had big heat, so you kind of have to judge it that way rather than looking at it as a cranky old reviewer like me. On that scale, it was like ***. After their AWA run, the Warriors still weren’t exactly state of the art mat technicians, but they could do the basics of selling and match psychology at least.

Georgia National title: Larry Zbyszko v. Mr. Wrestling II

Larry is the champion but Wrestling II has the belt. Larry tries to run away and II actually cuts off the Seven Minute Stall and hits him with the kneelift right away, sending Larry to the corner to hide. So he undoes a turnbuckle and suckers II into charging at him, and then runs him into the steel and puts him on the floor. Back in, Larry with a neckbreaker for two. Wrestling II fires up and makes a comeback, running Larry into the corner and following with a nice series of forearms and a backdrop and then runs him into that exposed corner to get revenge. Backdrop out of the corner and he drops an elbow for two. II slugs away on the ropes and beats on him with more forearms, making the shots look pretty stiff, but he collides with Larry and gets the worst of it. Larry tries a piledriver and II reverses to a backdrop, but Larry cradles him and grabs the ropes for the pin to retain at 9:23 and the crowd SHRIEKS in horror. Finally a good finish tonight. ***. And Wrestling II hits him with the kneelift and steals the belt back again afterwards to continue the feud.

Bullrope match: Wild Bill Irwin v. Tommy Rich

Loser gets ten lashes with the bullrope. They had an absolute banger on the show before this one. Here’s a shock: Irwin has Rich busted open from shots to the head only a few minutes into the match, basically punching him repeatedly until the blood flows. Rich fights back and runs Irwin into the turnbuckle and makes the comeback. So Irwin tosses him to the floor and Rich bumps into the railing, and then Bill runs him into the stairs for good measure. Back in, Rich comes back with a suplex for two. Irwin puts him down with the pump kicks, but Rich cradles for the pin at 9:55. Unfortunately this one didn’t live up to the one two weeks before, featuring Tommy bleeding in place of actual psychology and story. **. Also this is the third match on the show where someone wins with a cradle out of nowhere. So Tommy cuffs Irwin to the ropes and prepare to deliver his stipulated beating, but the Great Kabuki hits the ring and lays him out to prevent it, setting up the next feud. I mean, Rich got the win and so the fans left happy, but they absolutely didn’t deliver on the advertised stip and that kind of stuff kills territories.

Great Kabuki v. Pez Whatley

So with Kabuki already out there, Pez runs out and we flow right into this one, with Pez attacking and slugging away on the ropes, and then fighting off karate and beating on him in the corner. But then, like the saying goes, you can fight off karate forever, and Kabuki catches him with a big kick out of the corner and goes to work on him while Gary Hart and Ole Anderson have words at ringside. Kabuki goes to the nerve hold as the crowd is just going bonkers for this match. Kabuki with a spinkick into the corner, but Pez hits him with a headbutt and then takes out Gary with a headbutt as well, making the comeback until Kabuki catches him with an enzuigiri and goes back to the nerve hold. Kabuki to the top, but Pez slams him off and tries a suplex, only for Hart to trip him up and Kabuki falls on top for two. But then Ole trips up Kabuki even more blatantly and the crowd goes crazy, at which point Pez hits the running headbutt for the pin at 7:52. This was quite the deal, man, and clearly the best match of the show so far. ***1/2. I did not have that on my bingo card.

Dick Slater v. Buzz Sawyer

Our main event of the evening, in the battle of people Jon Moxley took his whole gimmick from. Interestingly, this show appears to be out of order, as the History of WWE has the Zbyszko v. Wrestling II match as happening last and not this one. Slater takes him down and works the arm, but Buzz slugs out of it, and then Slater takes him down again with a hammerlock. Slater hits him with headbutts to block a comeback and goes back to the arm again, but Buzz stomps him down in the corner. Slater does his patented rocking chair sell in the ropes and Mad Dog suplexes him back into the ring for two. We hit the chinlock and that goes on for a while, and Buzz drops a leg for two before going back to it. Slater fights out and Sawyer sends him to the floor as this drags on, the most boring battle between two drugged up brawlers you’re gonna see. Back in, Slater comes back with a powerslam, but Paul Ellering runs in and gives Buzz an international object that he uses to KO Slater and send him to the floor. That was a pretty slick spot, actually. Slater hauls him out of the ring and they brawl out there, as Buzz is busted open and so is Slater, and they slug it out in the ring. Slater hits him with a running elbow and goes to a figure-four, but Buzz makes the ropes and he’s selling the leg while Slater goes nuts and puts the boots to him. Ellering runs in again, but this time Slater gets the gimmick and knocks out Buzz, only for the ref to catch him with it and call for the DQ at 20:21. Oh lord the finishes on this show. Glad it picked up 15 minutes into it at least. ***

Boy you can really see the foundation starting to crumble here, with repetitive finishes up and down and the card and everyone bleeding for the hell of it. But hey, it’s still great nostalgia and I’d review this stuff 7 days a week and twice on Sunday if I could.