The SmarK Rant for World Championship Wrestling – 09.04.82

The SmarK Rant for World Championship Wrestling – 09.04.82

Time to jump ahead a little bit. The quality and amount of Georgia on the KrisP collection varies wildly all through 80-81, so in an effort to get a bit more consistent with it, I’m jumping ahead to September of 1982, at which point the show is redubbed “World Championship Wrestling” and we start getting some really cool shit happening.

Taped from Atlanta, GA, and we’ve got the familiar TBS opening for the show now.

Your host is Gordon Solie

Paul Orndorff & Tito Santana join Gordon and start putting the new name over, but Super Destroyer butts in to show off his newly won National heavyweight title, which was the renamed Georgia title won from Orndorff in a tournament final, after Paul gave it up to get a World title shot. Super Destroyer was Scott “Hog” Irwin, and from what I can tell the idea was he was partnered with Masked Superstar around this time in order to give him the rub and transition him into the new top masked guy in the territory so Superstar could go elsewhere.

Buzz Sawyer & Matt Borne v. Dale Veasey & Tom Pritchard

The Maniac and Mad Dog double-team Veasey and destroy his arm while Tito and Paul do commentary, holding him in the corner and torturing him. Tom, meanwhile, is barely even pre-med at this point in his career, and can’t tag into the match anyway. They continue to hammerlock the arm and ram it into the turnbuckles, and then Borne powerslams Veasey while hammerlocking him. Finally Buzz misses an elbow and Med Student Tom gets a hot tag, but Buzz quickly destroys him to cut off his babyface comeback. Tom manages a dropkick and Veasey comes in again, but just walks right into a powerslam from Sawyer and then Borne comes in with the Bombs Away at 6:11.

Gordon Solie stops to talk to the people about what exactly is up with Roddy Piper lately, but Buzz and Borne interrupt and put themselves over. Ole Anderson also stops by and tells Roddy Piper that he better make up his mind and decide which side he’s on right now. After they all leave, Gordon shows some film of Piper carrying on a vendetta with Bob & Brad Armstrong. Gordon describes Roddy as “a man who issues pain like you would a traffic summons”. But Roddy is increasingly conflicted, and we see footage from last week, as Magnificent Muraco is increasingly belligerent to Gordon Solie and actually threatens to go after him, at which point Piper snaps and attacks Muraco, saving Gordon in a legendary angle.

We take a break and return with Solie thanking Piper for saving him, and then we head back to the Omni for a match between Tommy Rich and Magnificent Muraco, as Muraco is beating on Rich, but Piper calmly steps into the ring and hangs his jacket on the ring post, and then greets Don in the center of ring, knocks him cold on his ass with one punch, and then leaves.

Paul Orndorff v. Abdul Zaatar

Orndorff works the arm and backdrops him for two before going back to the armbar and then hammerlocking him on the mat. Zaatar breaks free, but Paul mule kicks him out of the corner and slugs away on him. Powerslam finishes at 3:33.

Tommy Rich and Paul Orndorff join Gordon, and Tommy is coming after Buzz Sawyer. Well that’s an understatement. Also HOLY SHIT that Omni show they’re hyping. HOOK IT TO MY VEINS.

National Heavyweight champion The Super Destroyer v. Charles White

Destroyer cranks on a facelock and chokes White out on the ropes before choking him out and then hits an awesome backbreaker into a powerslam for the pin at 2:51.

Brad Armstrong v. Mike Jackson

Brad tries a slam and Jackson rolls him into a cradle for two, and then they criss-cross and Brad gets a rolling cradle for two. They trade armbar takedowns and Jackson works on that, but Brad headlocks him. Jackson escapes that with a dropkick and they trade takedowns again until Brad ends up on top with a headlock again. Jackson pops up and counters him with armdrags and winds up on top with an armbar as Gordon points out that many people would drop a knee on Brad’s head at that point, but Mike a clean wrestler who doesn’t do that sort of thing. Brad tries another headlock and Jackson reverses him to a hammerlock on the mat and they do another nice little reversal sequence on the mat. But then Brad gets a forearm and reverses one more time into a small package, and that gets the pin at 7:20. Of course we know how much guys loved working with Mike Jackson in the 80s and this was no exception obviously.

The Iron Sheik joins us, and manager Sonny King has $5000 if anyone is willing to step up and do the Persian club challenge, but again no Americans have the guts to step up and take his money.

Tito Santana v. Chic Donovan

Tito gets a pair of takedowns on Chic and they trade wristlocks as Tito gets the FULL ARMDRAG AND TWIST and hammerlocks him on the mat. Chic is looking like a young Terra Ryzin at this point. Chic works Tito over in the corner and chokes him out on the ropes, but Tito comes back and rings the ears before hitting a kneecrusher and finishing with a bridging deathlock cradle at 4:51. That’s a cool looking finish.

Buzz Sawyer joins Gordon and he really wants Tommy Rich.

Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy join us as we’ve got a murderer’s row of top stars at this point, and they’re coming after the Samoans in order to regain their National tag team titles.

National tag team champions The Wild Samoans v. Roy Rogers & James Daniels

The jobbers manages to double-team Sika for a bit, but Afa comes in and drops Daniels on the top rope to take over. Samoan drop finishes at 1:00.

And Paul Orndorff stops by one last time to issue another challenge to Super Destroyer for the National title and we’re out.

Yo, check out the Omni show that’s coming up September 12:

Don Muraco v. Roddy Piper

Tommy Rich v. Super Destroyer

Paul Orndorff v. Harley Race

The Wild Samoans v. Terry Gordy & Tito Santana

Buzz Sawyer v. Mr. Wrestling II

Matt Borne v. Tom Prichard

Plus some kid named The Road Warrior works a squash match.

That’s the stuff where I’d lose my mind if the WWE Vault channel could find it.

Anyway this was great and I’m gonna continue on from here and might even be able to get all three (Mid South, Mid-Atlantic and Georgia) synced up pretty quick. Unfortunately KrisP currently stops at the end of 1982 but he’s got folders for 83 and 84 ready.