The SmarK Rant for World Championship Wrestling – 07.13.85

The SmarK Rant for World Championship Wrestling – 07.13.85

Taped from Atlanta, GA

Your hosts are David Crockett & Tony Schiavone

Great American Bash fallout this week, as the Rock N Roll Express have now won their first tag titles from the Russians, and Dusty Rhodes beat Tully Blanchard in the long-awaited blowoff for their feud and won the TV title.

Rocky King v. Buddy Landell.

Buddy grabs a headlock to start, but really it’s useless against the power of the FRO! King tries a hiptoss, which is reversed, and Buddy goes back to the headlock again. King gets uppity, so Landell chops him down and goes back to the headlock. Landell is like electricity incarnate, man. Landell drops another elbow and tosses King, which allows JJ Dillon to get a shot in. Man, did JJ ever upgrade when he switched over to the real Nature Boy. Back in, we’re back to the headlock again, and the corkscrew elbow and figure-four finish at 4:45. I really wish they’d make some cursory attempt at psychology and at least, like, kick the guy in the leg or something before doing submission moves to finish jobbers. Even Flair, who is notoriously bad for that sort of thing, at least hits a kneecrusher to make it known that the knee is hurt before he figure-fours people. 1/2*

Dusty Rhodes, fresh off winning the TV title as well as Baby Doll’s services for 30 days, joins us for a quick word. Oh don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll get another 7 or 8 segments with him later.

Tully, beltless and alone, challenges Dusty to a rematch, and accuses him of not being able to get it done with Baby Doll in the bedroom. And you thought the 80s stuff was family friendly!

Brett & Buzz Sawyer v. George South & Randy Barber.

Brett dropkicks both guys to start and the Sawyers do the pose that the Steiners would later pay homage to (ie, steal). Uzz comes in and forearms Barber down and works the arm. Brett legdrops the arm off the top and stays on it, and eternal jobber George South comes in for some abuse, as they work on his arm too. Brett forearms him down and it’s back to Buzz for more work on the arm. Powerslam finishes at 4:48. * They’re still after the Andersons!

The Midnight Express v. Terry Flynn & Jason Walker.

Cornette greets Tony with “It’s good to see you’re back…especially after seeing your front” to win Line of the Show. Bobby’s still rocking the gauntlets this week. Good for you, man, don’t let your sexuality be defined by society! The Express seems in a bad mood this week, as they double-team Walker and Bobby elbows him down, to set up the flying elbow three-quarters of the way across the ring. Content with that, he lets Walker tag Flynn in, and Condrey starts destroying him. Powerslam gets two, but Cornette wants more. Back to Walker, and Eaton slugs him down. Condrey rides him down and stretches him on the mat, and Eaton comes in with a flying kneedrop, and then suplexes him into Condrey’s arms on the top rope, where a half powerslam, half tombstone finishes at 3:57. Always a fun squash.

Magnum TA wants to talk about Dusty Rhodes, but Arn Anderson is all “Title shot, beeyotch.” Or words to that effect.

Dick Slater v. Gerald Findley.

Slater works a headlock to start and rolls him up, but they’re in the ropes. Back to the mat, where Slater gets two and goes back to the headlock. He works the neck with a pair of legsweeps and drops an elbow, into a hiptoss. He gives him the old boot rake to the face, into a suplex, and rolls him up for the pin at 3:49. Kinda heelish this week, although Slater was knocking on Vince’s door at this point and wasn’t long for the promotion. 1/4*

As predicted, Dusty is back, and he’s got Baby Doll with him. She’s not happy about it. Geez, she does sound like a man, no wonder they gave her such a hard time.

Kevin Sullivan talks about being strapped to the Tree of Woe and has words for Dick Slater.

Black Bart v. Gene Ligon.

Bart starts headbutting the shoulder like crazy and works the arm, while Terry Taylor does commentary to set up the next feud. Suplex and he drops a knee on the shoulder and bars the arm, into a hammerlock slam. Flying legdrop finishes.

Bart comes over and takes exception to Taylor’s analysis of the match, and they exchange slaps.

Jimmy Valiant v. The Barbarian.

Valiant attacks and hiptosses him out of the corner to start, and follows with a backdrop. Barbarian bails to escape, so Valiant rams him into the post, and Jones isn’t happy. Back in, Valiant goes with choking, but Barbarian hits him with a shot to the throat and drops a leg to take over. Ad break and we return with Barbarian choking now, before catching him with a bearhug. Valiant bites his way out, but it’s right back to it. This time a thumb to the eye frees him and Valiant grabs a sleeper, but Paul Jones runs in for the DQ at 3:27. Pretty energetic, actually, while it lasted. ** The bigtime beatdown follows, and they hang Valiant by the dog collar.

Paul Jones cuts one of his weird calm-then-crazy promos about Valiant, noting that he thought he was signing a contract for one dog collar match, but was actually signing for a series of them. Well, geez, that’s his own fault, then.

Terry Taylor v. Mike Nichols.

Taylor controls on the mat as we get a fun fact for the first time in what seems like forever: Taylor was a founding member of the York Foundation. Well, actually, he wasn’t, he replaced Mike Rotundo, but I’ll take what I can get. Taylor goes from a hammerlock into a butterfly suplex. Awesome: A guy at ringside wearing a “Where’s The Beef?” muscle shirt. He’s still preoccupied with 1985! They slug it out and Taylor backdrops him to set up a sleeper, and that’s all at 2:50. Taylor, being a sickening goody-goody babyface at this point, revives him. 1/2*

Valiant is back and he’s pissed.

The Rock N Roll is in the hizzy and they’re in a much better mood, having just won the tag titles and all. Robert Gibson’s piano-key armband is the height of class.

Arn Anderson v. Adrian Bivens.

Anyone with a name that stupid deserves to be squashed. Arn stomps him down as Tony gets started on his hyperbole skills by calling the RNR title win “By far the greatest tag match I’ve ever seen.” Uh, OK, Tony. Arn controls the arm, and he finishes with the standing armbar at 1:40. See, at least with the Andersons you knew what they were shooting for, and they followed through with it all the way. *, just for good pyschology.

Arn joins us for an interview, pointing that Magnum may be good looking and the US champion and wildly successful, but…uh…well, he doesn’t really have anywhere to go with that line of thinking.

The Rock N Roll Express v. Larry Clark & Chuck Levens.

Ricky dropkicks Clark off a rollup attempt to start, and Robert adds a kneelift while Cornette is just on fire at the commentary desk, firing off crazy one-liners and telling Crockett to shut up. The Express trades off snapmares on Levens, and the double dropkick spells the end at 1:52. 1/2*

And we finish with another promo by Tully, as he is SHOCKED and APPALLED that Dusty would treat Baby Doll like he did earlier. He’s gonna teach Dusty how to treat a woman, because she’s HIS property! He’s a romantic at heart, you know.

See you next week!