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Before the match, Rose is blindsided by Jonathan Boyd being named the special guest referee. Rose tries to pull the trunks of Youngblood for an early pinfall, but Boyd hilariously grabs his thumb. Beyond Rose’s wonderfully cartoonish bumping and stooging, there’s some great, athletic action between he and Youngblood here that wouldn’t look out of place in a match in 2024. There’s a delightful sequence where Rose repeatedly tries to Irish whip Youngblood, and Jay pulls his hair to keep him close. Rose tries to take a powder and immediately pays for it when Boyd’s fast count reaches eighteen. Youngblood steals the first fall with a quick pin attempt. Rose’s commitment to being the butt of the joke is so crucial to a match like this. From how he flops around the ring to slapping the mat in frustration while in a submission, everything Rose does riles up the crowd. He evens things up with a back breaker but eventually gets fed up with Boyd and attacks him, getting disqualified. This match is a great example of taking a tired trope (biased referee) and putting it to good use. I don’t know if the match would’ve worked as well if a character with less personality than Rose was in there, but the crowd ate it up, and so did I.

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Easily one of the best builds for a blow off match ever leading up to this one. While it took a while to get going, once it did, it became one of the great tag matches of its time. Slaughter bumped like a freak and even decided to come off the top of the cage, which is always legitimately insane at a time where those cages looked so rickety anyone could fall off of it. Kernodle tapped an absolute gusher and was great doing the dirty work in the match. Some fantastic spots in the match, including a favorite of mine in a cage match where Slaughter knocked Kernodle out of the way on a Steamboat cross body and Ricky ate nothing but cage. The callbacks to everything leading up to the match were awesome. The blood playing off the bloodbath that laid out Youngblood a few months earlier, the Cobra Clutch avoidance, figuring out how to avoid the Slaughter Cannon, which is now one of my favorite double team moves ever and then an all-time great finish. In talking about this with Will and Kris, I don't see how this could be anything below the Top 10 when the 80's NWA set ever gets made, and right now, I could totally talk myself into making it into my Top 5.

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NWA World Tag Team Champions Jack & Jerry Brisco vs Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood - Starrcade 1983 I just watched for the first time a TV studio bout between these two teams that I thought was tremendous. It explained how these teams were once pals, but an accidental or perhaps not so accidental injury to Steamboat's knee had ruffled some feathers. So in the TV match, Steamboat and Youngblood target one of the Brisco's knees only for them to get hot about it and when they get on offense really go after Steamboat's knee. The finish was a Brisco jumping on the knees of Steamboat when he was in a figure-4 triggering a DQ and a lot of pain. Then in the summer, it looks like the Briscos cemented their heel turn by jumping Youngblood and sending him to the hospital as Steamboat explained in a promo with Ric Flair. None of this heat or hatred comes through at all in this match. I always thought it was a very technically good match, but with no really sense of going anywhere. I was shocked to find out there was all this awesome backstory and we get a match that just feels like well-executed standard tag team fare. I thought the opening portion of the match was entertaining, but forgettable. Youngblood is a good hand. Steamboat seemed content to do a lot of movement, but not really do anything at the same time. The transition to the heat was kinda weak. It was just like "ok time to beat on Steamboat". Jack kicking Steamboat's ass was great. Steamboat really delivered in terms of selling why Jack was just awesome one offense. He had the suplexes, the nasty offense, and drama from pinning combinations. The climax of this with Steamboat powering out of the short arm scissors with all his muscles bulging was an awesome visual. That whole segment was definitely the best of the match and really salvaged things. I liked the double football tackle on Younglood to end his very short lived hot tag. Jerry beating up Youngblood was just kinda there. Steamboat and Youngblood do a couple double teams to win the match to the delight of the crowd. It was a standard tag team match wrestled by four of the best so it came off professional and well-executed. Besides the heat segment, I don't think I'll remember anything about this match and having seen this match at least three times before I never remember anything from it anyway. ***

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