The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 04.05.86

The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 04.05.86

Oh man KrisPLettuce has got 1983 Georgia Championship Wrestling and I’m waiting anxiously for it all to appear on the Drive. Although even if I just have early Road Warriors matches to review for the moment I’ll take what I can get.

Taped from a high school gym in South Carolina

Your hosts are Bob Caudle & Johnny Weaver

Jim Cornette is still complaining about the Midnight Express getting screwed out of the #1 seed in the Crockett Cup, especially since the Road Warriors are braindead and the Rock N Roll Express are second-best to the Midnights.

Sam Houston v. David Dellinger

Young Sam is coming off a tragic loss to Black Bart last week, as he dropped the Mid-Atlantic title and now he’s fired up and looking for a rematch. He hits a corner clothesline and takes David now with a hammerlock and then slugs away and finishes with a bulldog (complete with “Yee haw!”) at 2:22. The replay did not look good.

Joel “Nighthawk” Coltrane joins Bob and I have no idea who this guy is. But I guess we’re gonna be hearing a lot from him coming up! Well according to Cagematch he had about 10 matches and then disappeared.

Mid-Atlantic champion Black Bart v. Gene Ligon

Bart beats on him and puts him down with a back elbow before dropping him on the top rope. Weaver, meanwhile, wants to talk more about NIGHTHAWK, which is a pretty badass nickname, granted. I try to go down the rabbit hole a bit but basically no one really knows what happened to him or why he left. Well that’s disappointing. I was hoping there was an awesome story to go with his awesome name, like he hurt himself taking down a gang of drug dealing bikers and turned out to be an undercover FBI agent who was kind of a loose cannon with a big heart, and had to go into witness protection. Bart with the middle rope legdrop for the pin at 4:20.

Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson join us and gloat about how they have all the titles and Dusty has none. Oh man, don’t taunt Dusty like that, now he’ll probably book himself to win the World title from Ric Flair or something.

Bob goes over the various teams entered into the Crockett Cup and there’s some heavy hitters in there, many of which didn’t end up showing for the tournament. Don’t sleep on that team of Koko B Ware & The Italian Stallion, though!

Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin v. Rocky Kernodle

Garvin looks like such a star in these early appearances and I’m still sad that he flushed all his value down the toilet in the name of the Freebirds. The crowd actually chants for Rocky, which is certainly not something you hear these days. And Jimmy drops him on his head with the brainbuster right away and pins him, and then does some pushups. Garvin was pretty awesome.

Pistol Pez Whatley is fired up on whatever and does his usual passionate promo about nothing in particular where he just yells names of territory stars randomly until Jimmy Valiant storms in with a “Weasel Slapper” t-shirt to be the voice of reason.

The Russians continue throwing out the challenge to Magnum TA, who may have, HOW YOU SAY, taken a little more than he can bite. The detail of Nikita deliberately getting the English idiom wrong to show that he’s still learning the language is amazing in retrospect. This is a man who always understood the assignment, as the kids say.

The Barbarian & Baron Von Raschke v. The Italian Stallion & Nelson Royal

The jobbers actually manage to double-team Barbarian in the corner and work the arm, as Royal takes him down and drops knees on him. Over to the Baron, but they continue working him over as well until Barbarian cuts off the Stallion with a press slam and elbow drop. Barbarian with headbutts and he follows with a big boot. Baron with a suplex and he holds Stallion in place for Barbarian to finish with the diving headbutt at 5:30.

Dusty Rhodes discusses his problems with the Horsemen, and apparently he’s a little heavy and likes a beer now and then. But with or without the belt, Dusty is BIG BUCKS because he’s got the support of the real people through the world.

Magnum TA and his awesome new US title belt is getting tired of the Kremlin playing games with him, and now they’re demanding a Russian chain match to soften him up before the title match. But once the match happens, it’ll happen on TELEVISION so millions of people can see the US superiority over the Kremlin.

World TV champion Arn Anderson & National champion Tully Blanchard v. George South & Denny Brown

Denny Brown is still an A-list enhancement guy, so he gets some shine on the Horsemen and controls with armbars before taking Tully down with a clothesline. Tully gets a headscissors and Denny reverses it to a cradle for two and goes to a headlock while Bob is horrified at the very idea of the US title being in the hands of a RUSSIAN. Over to South, but Tully quickly runs him into Arn’s knee in the corner and then finishes him with the slingshot suplex at 3:14. The lesson: Never tag in George South.

Sam Houston & Nelson Royal join Bob to talk about the Crockett Cup. “You got the Mongolians, the guy with the mohawk, whatever his name is”. Yeah! I love that guy!

Jimmy Garvin has HOT NEWZ, as he has discovered that Magnum TA’s real name is “Eddie Vega” and that’s what he used to go by when he danced in San Francisco. Also he doesn’t even know who this “Rusty” guy that everyone talks about is.

World tag team champions The Midnight Express v. Mike Simiani & Ron Rossi

Simiani manages to get some offense on Condrey, so Dennis hits him with a knee and then hauls him over to the corner and forces the tag to Rossi. And Bobby immediately finishes with the Rocket Launcher at 1:50.

Ronnie Garvin wraps things up, and he’s still got Ric Flair’s number and he’s gonna keep calling until someone answers. Luckily for him caller ID wasn’t invented in 1986.

What a wonderful palette-cleanser every time it feels like wrestling is horrible.