The SmarK Rant for WWF Championship Wrestling – 02.18.84

The SmarK Rant for WWF Championship Wrestling – 02.18.84

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Taped from Allentown, PA

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Mean Gene

Ivan Putski v. Ron Butler

Joe McHugh announces before the match that David Von Erich has passed away, and leads a moment of silence and 10 bell salute for him. Ivan works a headlock on Butler to start and shows off his admittedly impressive abdominal development before slugging away in the corner and following with an atomic drop. Polish Hammer finishes at 2:53.

Paul Orndorff v. Rudy Diamond

Paul hits a knee and powerslam right away, but picks up Rudy and puts him down with a clothesline and drops a knee on him. And the piledriver bounces him for the pin at 0:44.

Rocky Johnson, Tony Atlas & SD Jones v. Butcher Vachon, Rene Goulet & GOLDIE ROGERS

Hot damn this is like a murderer’s row of awesome jobbers. Goldie was a Stampede mainstay and always a tremendously entertaining guy. Atlas hurls Goulet across the ring and the babyfaces all switch off with wristlocks on him, so the Butcher comes in and beats on Rocky in the corner. Over to Goldie, who quickly falls victim to a headbutt from SD, and a press slam and splash from Atlas to finish at 2:14.

Meanwhile, Mean Gene does the drop in for Los Angeles and Roddy Piper goes on a hilarious rant about facing Tony Garea because they couldn’t find any Mexicans for him to beat. Next up, Tito Santana will be facing Mr. Fuji for the Intercontinental title in an interesting matchup. Also Iron Sheik faces Hulk Hogan in a rematch for the WWF title. Freddie Blassie complains that no one could understand a word that Tito was saying, and then Sheik goes off on his own foreign language rant and finishes by spitting on America.

Greg Valentine v. Frankie Williams

Before the match, Jimmy Snuka is introduced and comes out, apparently healing from an injury, which is weird because he was just on the show like two weeks ago. This of course DISGUSTS Valentine and Lou Albano and I’m sure they’ll have to settle things soon. Valentine and Williams slug it out in the corner and Vince is already declaring this a SEE SAW BATTLE BACK AND FORTH, but Greg quickly puts him away with the figure-four at 0:40.

PIPER’S PIT! WITH SPECIAL GUEST TONY GAREA!

Piper points out that although Garea is a five time tag team champion, that means he lost the titles five times, which makes him a loser. And maybe that makes HIM the problem with the teams. Piper keeps interrupting his answer, so Garea goes for the skirt joke and storms off.

Sgt. Slaughter v. The Iron Sheik

They cannot possibly give this one away on free TV. Sarge gets a mammoth babyface reaction, complete with new patriotic music and kissing the American flag. Now that he’s in the Observer Hall of Fame, I’d also like to nominate “Sgt. Slaughter” as one of the greatest pro wrestling names in history, only topped perhaps by “Hulk Hogan” and “Randy Savage”. While Slaughter is busy paying respect to the US flag, Sheik attacks him with the loaded boot and lays him out, putting the boots to him and then taking off his belt and whipping him RIGHT IN THE FACE. And of course once Slaughter makes his comeback, Sheik retreats to the dressing room. Slaughter promises to KILL HIM and finds a little American flag from a fan that he can wave to regain his strength.

The Masked Superstar v. Rocco Verona

A fan at ringside has a sign hurtfully calling out “The Masked STUPID star”. That’s not cool. Stupid babies need the most love. Superstar takes Verona down with a facelock on the mat and then takes him to the apron and beats him down to the floor, and back in for a neckbreaker to finish at 4:00.

Meanwhile, Gene does a drop-in for East Rutherford, featuring a battle royale main event with Andre the Giant. Ever humble, Andre wonders if maybe everyone won’t just team up and throw him out right away?

B Brian Blair & Tony Garea v. Bill Dixon & Charlie Fulton

Blair and Garea as a team are like foods that you eat for a week to determine if you have a food allergy. Blair and Fulton do an awkward bridge sequence on the ropes and that goes nowhere, so it’s over to Dixon and the faces work on his arm. Blair finishes with the abdominal stretch into the rollup at 2:50. Garea and Blair as a team were not the answer to getting either one over.

And without even a “goodbye” we’re done for the week, without even getting the Eddie Gilbert match promised by Mean Gene in the cold open! Not much to this one, but the Slaughter-Sheik angle was HOT FIRE.