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​Matman Promo: ​Not really much to discuss here, just a basic "say no to drugs" spiel from a guy in a Batman costume. I might be losing my marbles here, but this sounds a lot like Scott Levy (Raven) minus his Jersey accent. I think he was still Scotty the Body at this time, but wrestlers have pulled double duty under masks and multiple identities before.

​Sandy Barr's Flea Market Commercial: ​I guess now we have at least one reason why Portland taped their matches on Saturday nights. I wonder how long it took to get the arena ready for the matches once the flea market was over on Saturdays, then back again on Sundays. It would have been interesting if the matches had been delayed due to some sort of merchandise accident. I wonder if any of the wrestlers ever helped out. Could you imagine buying, for example, a used couch from Billy Jack Haynes, or some old books from Roddy Piper? Nine traffic lights and four blocks away from the nearest exit? Talk about a building seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere! Either that or the traffic lights in Portland were twenty feet apart.

I'm really ​late to the party on this one. I can't say for sure that it's the greatest Hansen performance, because he's had so many great ones in so many different promotions. I can't say that it's one of Kobashi's greatest either, because he lost after dominating the match almost from the opening bell. Even in a worked atmosphere like that of wrestling, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is a negative. What I can ​say is that I don't know how these two could possibly have a better match together. This had everything: an insane opening that made it look like Kobashi was going to steamroll Stan, Stan's incredible comeback, including that sick powerbomb on the floor, Kobashi's desperation bordering on panic as literally everything in his arsenal can't put Stan away, and then the finish. I've seen Stan hit desperation lariats for wins before, but I'd be hard pressed to find one quite as spectacular as this one was. You absolutely knew that that was it, that Kenta, for all his great work, had come up short again. Normally, wrestlers of Stan's age who take beatings like he has regularly would be slowing down by now, but he's still churning out classic after classic, even if he's giving his opponents a bit more offense than he used to. How in the hell was he so misused (for the most part) in the United States? Other than his program with Bruno in '76, almost all of his other runs fizzled out, including his stint as Verne's World champion. He may have been difficult to deal with, and his first loyalty may have been to Baba, but wasn't talent such as we see here and in other AJPW matches worth the bother? Unfortunately, we all know the answer to that. At least we have matches like this to show how great he truly was.

​OWF Commercial with Billy Jack (7/16/88): ​​A nice short promo from Billy Jack concerning his match with Kelly. Billy Jack puts over his time in the WWF while mocking Kelly's prior experience in the AWA, which really isn't fair since the AWA was dying alive while Kelly was there while the WWF had never been hotter than during Billy Jack's stint. I wonder why Owen let a competitor advertise on his show, which is where I'm assuming this commercial comes from. Did he really trust Billy Jack not to potentially ruin his business, or did he know that Billy Jack didn't have the wherewithal to challenge him, and thus decided to be charitable?

​OWF Commercial with Kevin Kelly (7/16/88): ​I'd forgotten what Kellly sounded like without the altered voice. From what little I saw here, he wasn't so bad a promo that Vince needed to do that. He also looks more imposing bodywise than he did as Nailz. It's not a good sign for the new promotion that the first W is out of its name. I guess they couldn't afford to promote in Washington, assuming there weren't legal troubles involved that would have stopped them.

​OWWF Wrestling School Commercial (3/26/88): ​Billy Jack's not as marble-mouthed as you think he'd be reading prepared copy. Five hundred dollars sounds like a reasonable price to learn the business. Of course, what kind of value it really is depends on what you get for your money. Considering how the OWWF flopped, I'd say that those who enrolled didn't get much. Interesting to see Rheingans so far from home base. I'm guessing that he and Billy Jack met while they were both working for Vince.

I can't really judge this one fairly because I've never seen Michinoku Pro before. That said, the bout kept my interest, which doesn't always happen first time I see a new promotion or style. All four guys obviously know what they're doing, and both teams exhibited fine continuity and teamwork. I enjoyed the armwringer spot (as I always do), but the rowboat spot confused me. I'm honestly not quite sure who was who, but as I said, it really didn't matter, and I'm sure I'll pick up on these guys as I watch more of the promotion. I'm already looking forward to the Sasuke-Delphin singles bout.

This was mostly Akiyama-Fuchi, with just enough Kawada and Misawa to change things up a bit. Looked at in those terms, it was quite an impressive bout. Fuchi toned down the nastiness significantly, but he's good enough that he doesn't have to cheat to be a handful. His wrestling sequences impressed me, but Akiyama was always just a shade quicker, as he should have been. I continue to be impressed with how naturally talented Akiyama has shown himself to be this year. If he's this good now, imagine how good he'll get as he continues to figure things out. Even though we got relatively little of Misawa and Kawada, together or separately, what we saw was still hot, and it figured in the ending as Misawa knocked Kawada stiff to prevent him from interfering as Akiyama hit his finishing combination to get the win. You don't see a ton of punches from natives in AJPW, so the ones that are ​seen have a significant impact, and Misawa's was just as impressive as Kawada's was during the Triple Crown match. That's not to say that I want punches to replace knees and forearms as their strikes of choice, but if they're used sparingly, they can add another dimension to what's already becoming the most physical feud in the promotion. I don't know that I'd call this one a hidden gem, particularly since the so-called "shoot" that was so heavily hyped on the commercial tape never came close to even looking like one, but it was a fine match. Add another year or so of experience for Akiyama and we're talking a classic.

I really enjoyed this one. It was more of a brawl than I expected. Scratch brawl; war might be a better word, as these two beat the living hell out of each other for almost half an hour. Kawada surprised me with how varied his attack was. I knew all about his kicks and knees, but he really tried to tear off Misawa's arm early on and almost made it. He also used the dropkick to devastating effect, more than I've ever seen him do before. You wouldn't think that a moose like Kawada could throw dropkicks well, but throw them he did. His punches were great too, most notably the first one which was totally unexpected and folded Misawa up like a deck chair. I liked Misawa trying to go knee for knee, kick for kick, and punch for punch with his challenger. If Kawada wanted a fight (which he did), Misawa felt honor bound to give him one, and that's how he prevailed: by knocking Kawada out. He could have stood to sell the arm a little more, I suppose, but part of being a champion is ignoring pain and doing what needs to be done to win, and that's what it felt like he was doing here. I'm sure there are plenty of great matches ahead for these two, maybe some better than this one. But this was a great way to spend a half hour and get back into this Yearbook. I'm looking forward to more!

​Rose-Schultz Cage Match: ​This was a pretty basic match, but these two have never been known for their chain wrestling. I liked how Frank made such a big deal out of the fact that seeing a cage match on TV was so rare. It not only put this match over as special, it encouraged those fans who liked what they saw to come down to the House of Action on Tuesdays for more action just like it. His warning about blood was just a tad late, as he acknowledged. I actually expected a bit more than we got, but a gorefest would have been nearly unairable even late at night, so they were right to err on the side of too little From the If He Wasn't the Boss, He'd Be Fired Dept.: "Dr. J" David Schultz? Did Don Owen make egregious errors like that too often as a ring announcer? On the plus side, I liked his snide comment about being "forced" into airing this match on TV. The camera shots that showed Oliver and Sawyer handcuffed were not only poorly timed, they were just plain poor. Since I paid for these discs, I can say this: I paid to watch a wrestling match, not two stationary wrists handcuffed together. Buddy wasn't the only one to do WWF TV tapings while wrestling somewhere else; in fact, that was rather common even into the early expansion era, when most of the JCP guys (Piper, Valentine, Steamboat, etc.) worked arena dates for Crockett in early '84 while simultaneously going to Allentown and Hamburg for ​Championship and All-Star ​tapings respectively. I didn't get the hubbub surrounding the finish. This was clearly stated by Frank to be a no-DQ match, so Oliver passing Buddy the brass knucks was legal, if not ethical. The only problem I have came in retrospect: since I knew Buddy would wrestle again in Portland, it became a matter of how​ he would win; the suspense was, if not eliminated, shifted a good bit, Nice four-way brawl at the finish. Was this it for Dave in Portland? I know he was in the AWA going after Hogan not too long after this. I guess at least his part of the feud with the Army was transferred to Sawyer.

​Piper/Haynes vs. Flair/Oliver: ​I was going to say that I felt cheated when I heard time remaining calls being given in the first fall, but as it turned out this was extremely satisfying, Not only does Billy Jack establish himself as a top contender for the World title by getting Flair to submit in the first fall, but he and Piper have the cleat visual advantage when time runs out during the second fall. Both teams got in some good teamwork in the first fall, particularly the faces when they worked over Oliver's arm. I would have liked to see the match played out in full, because although what we got from Flair and Oliver was good, there just wasn't time for enough of it. Who was commentating with Coss? It sure didn't sound like Stasiak, and even though the guy said he wreslted in British Columbia for eight years, I'm betting it wasn't Gene Kiniski either. When you're the only game in town, you really don't need to talk about your prices being lower than those on the East Coast. I guess it made the fans feel good that Owen supposedly cares about them enough not to gouge them, but given who was in the ring I could have stood for a lot more talk about the wrestlers instead. Billy Jack looks really weird without his full beard, which I guess came later. From what I've learned about him, 1983 almost had to be his first full year in the business, which makes it even more of a surprise that Flair put him over so cleanly, even in a tag match. The crowd was extra hot for this, which proves that it is ​a good idea to have the World champion on television occasionally, despite what conventional wisdom might say.

​Buddy and the Mega (7/6/85): ​Now I know where Verne got the idea for DeBeers from. Wiskowski's rant about the brush fire is one of the most daring things I've ever heard in wrestling under the circumstances. In its own way, that's like going to New York after 9/11 and calling the police and fire departments cowards for letting parts of New York burn. Quite frankly, I'm surprised that KPTV wasn't inundated by cards and letters afterward, and I'm surprised that the Mega Maharishi character was still allowed to be on TV at all. Buddy is the most unlikely religious freak I've ever known, but since everyone with two eyes knows that the Mega is his friend Wiskowski, that doesn't mean as much as it ordinarily might. At any rate, I guess they've targeted Vaughn, if the rant about him being on steroids is any indication. For my money, they're absolutely right, but of course no one admitted to such things back in the day. I'm not sure I believe that Buddy has nineteen-inch arms, since the rest of him is so flabby and he has no definition in his biceps. But he probably used his physical gifts (whatever they may have been) to better advantage than Vaughn, who seemed to vanish from the landscape once Fritz was finished with him. Again with the calls for hair matches and loser-leave-town matches so Buddy can make his mark. It's almost like Buddy's being rebooted a bit along with Wiskowski, and I don't think it's necessary at all. We'll see how things shake out in the ring as we move along.

​Billy Jack Haynes Feature: ​From the way they hyped this match, it almost seemed inevitable that Billy Jack would get the belt at least briefly. The setup was all there: he almost had Flair beaten once, only to have Oliver interfere. He then beat Oliver bloody to get him out of the way, and he's trained like a maniac to get another shot. He has the people behind him, including the governor of Oregon. Unfortunately, the so-called World title belongs almost exclusively to Jim Crockett, and he's not giving it up because Flair's Ted Turner's favorite wrestler and maybe the only one he really knows. What a shame. Seriously, this is ​the kind of hype job that usually preceded at least a brief title change. It's about as well put together a segment of its type as I've ever seen; it does its job without too much obvious sentimentality, unlike some. Maybe the letter from the governor was a bit much, but I saw Memphis stop in its tracks for Lawler when he beat Curt for the AWA belt, and this seemed like a moment on par with that one, whether the belt actually changed hands in the end or not. It seems like Billy Jack got more shots at the NWA World champion, whoever he was at a given time, than just about anyone. I would have thought that Buddy might have gotten a few more, even if it meant that guys like Harley and Flair ended up babyfaces for one night only.

​Bobby Jaggers Interview: ​This is one of those interviews that can only be done in a local promotion. Jaggers really put over just what a loser-leave-town match means when he talked about having to pull his daughter out of school and leave a house that was just three doors down from his brother's. I also liked his emotion when he talked about his family members who lived in the area. You really get the sense that he's fighting for more than a belt in his upcoming match with Miller. Interesting that Billy Jack's father got to hold the belt off camera while Jaggers talked, considering that jealousy of Billy Jack and his success was one reason for Jaggers' heel turn several months later. I wish we had the angle where Miller presented Jaggers with the diaper. It's an obvious way to call another wrestler a crybaby, but the only time I've seen it used is in Mid-South, when Jim Cornette lost a match and had to actually wear ​a diaper. So Oliver had already been run out, huh? It had to be no more than a sixty-day stip, since he was back to engineer Jaggers' heel turn in late September.

I never knew that, Brain. Did JR say what his role would have been if Gino had been well?

​Bobby Jaggers Heel Turn: ​This was a very logical turn, particularly after Bobby explained himself. Why shouldn't ​he be mad? Billy Jack wrestling Flair in May was bad enough, but to fly in Magnum to wrestle Flair just four days before? I'd have gone after Billy Jack too. Did Owen ​really ​say that he didn't want the Road Warriors to wrestle local talent because they'd eat them up? The LOD ended up fighting Larry and Curt Hennig, which makes at least a little sense given Curt's past in the territory, but that was a totally counterproductive thing to say, and it's not like him (from what little I know of him) to put down his own people like that. I'm guessing that the reason Flair worked with Magnum in September was because JCP wouldn't have sent talent to Portland if they couldn't book the main event to their own taste. By the way, Jaggers' reference to "kicking the Russians' butts" comes from the fact that he and Steve Pardee wrestled Ivan Koloff and Khrusher Khruschev on the September card. (They lost.) Jaggers sounds a bit like Dusty at times and a bit like Michael Hayes at others, particularly with the references to growing up in "the last house on the left" in his neighborhood and "the further you went down the block, the badder everybody got". He seemed a lot more like an original on the Puerto Rico set; here, he's just another cookie-cutter blond southern heel in a promotion that has too many with at least a few of those characteristics. I'll wait to see how things shake out, but at this point I'd rather have just had Rip injure Billy Jack, since all Jaggers seems to be is a clone of his anyway Nice backhand shot Jaggers took at Buddy. Could Owen have been thinking about turning Buddy babyface again and having him resume his war with Oliver and company?

​Bobby Jaggers and Mychal Jack........er, Thompson: ​Thompson takes most of this interview, and he's positively giddy to be in the presence of the wrestlers. Most celebrities come off as basically ignorant of wrestling, or even contemptuous of it, but you can tell that his love of the sport is legit. In fact, I think he pours it on a bit too thick; there's no reason to denigrate your own sport and career in order to put the wrestlers over. Still, better that than someone who comes across as not knowing why the hell he or she ever agreed to be part of a stupid wrasslin' match. At least he was smart enough to say that he liked the day he met his girlfriend better. It's Jaggers who comes off as the ignoramus here, repeatedly referring to Mychal as "Jackson". Did they not meet before they went on camera? One slip is perfectly understandable, as big as Jackson was in the music world at the time, but three or four? It got to the point that Coss had to acknowledge and correct it, which is never good. This segment would have been much better if Thompson had come out by himself and they'd saved the Jaggers interview for later in the show. Coss goofed by not saying which match Thompson was going to be guest timekeeper for, unless they hadn't worked that out yet, which is hard to believe just three days before the card.

​Billy Jack Haynes and Ricky Vaughn: ​Boy, were the girls screaming loudly for Billy Jack. He almost seemed legitimately embarrassed by the attention, especially since this wasn't his interview time. I can see why Fritz tried Vaughn as a Von Erich; if we're being honest, he just might have had a better body than Kerry, plus he had a quick smile and the girls were nuts about him. He also had a slight southern accent that can be explained as a Texas drawl. If he hadn't run out on Fritz and had stayed a while longer in Texas, he wouldn't be the joke he is today. Not that he'd be seen on the same level as Kerry, Kevin, and David, but he wouldn't have been so easily dismissed. Billy Jack has shown more of a sense of humor here than he ever did for Vince, as witnessed by his "125-pound weakling" crack about Coss. He's still not the above-average talker that most guys had to be in order to get over in New York, but he's miles better than I ever remember him being.

​Buddy and the Mega (6/29/85): ​I've heard of the character of the Mega Maharishi, but I haven't seen him until now. I wonder if we'll see anything on this set that explains how Wiskowski became a guru, even if it was only in his own head. No matter what he calls himself, Ed pushes the envelope on the mic; his attacks on Jaggers' war record were almost DeBeers-like. As unpopular as the Vietnam War was, those who chose to serve were still proud of that service, and calling a vet a coward regardless of which war they were in is about the worst thing anyone can say to them. Buddy almost sounds like he's new to the territory, talking about how he'll do anything to get noticed, including running guys out of Portland and/or shaving their heads. I know that it's a typical heel talking point that everyone ignores them, but after Buddy's been in so many high-profile feuds and been both the most loved and hated wrestler in the Northwest for so long, it sounds ridiculous coming from him. (No, the above wasn't a typo. While Piper and Billy Jack among others may have been number one in the fans' hearts for a time, I maintain that no one has been as consistently well-liked, even while he was being booed, as Buddy. Want proof? Check out the riot that occurred after his face turn, and also how deflated the crowd was when he officially turned heel again.)

​Ric Flair Promo: ​This was the typical stuff TBS viewers heard from Flair every week around this time, but in a different territory and with a different opponent, it all sounds.........well, not quite so old. I didn't think Owen ever ran the Rose Garden, but with Flair, Sarge, the Road Warriors, and Piper on the card, if ever there was a time to try it, this was it. The Trail Blazers had actually made the NBA playoffs and gone 3-1 at home in them, including a win that clinched their first round series against the Dallas Mavericks. Note to wrestlers everywhere: If you're going to go for cheap heat against a sports team, at least say something that's partially true do you don't sound like a total idiot. I don't blame Flair for this; I blame the people in Don Owen's office who, as Portland natives, should have known exactly what the Blazers did where and informed Flair so he could find another local target, or better yet focused on Billy Jack for the whole promo.

​Mike Miller, Mr. Ebony and the Cuban Assassin: ​I'm not sure what the point of this was. I've seldom seen a guy hijack an interview featuring his own stable before, and this Cuban Assassin wasn't very good. I caught the stuff about crippling American wrestlers and putting them in the hospital, and that was about it. Miller sounds too much like Oliver for my taste. I realize he can't help his accent, but that doesn't make him any easier to listen to. Right now, there seem to be too many of the same type of heel in the territory, and no one except Buddy really stands out on that side of the fence. I hope I like Jaggers here better than I did in Puerto Rico. He wasn't bad as a worker, but I couldn't stand him on commentary with Hugo Savinovich. He was a lot like heel Lawler in that he never let a good match get in the way of his bad jokes, and he'd have made the top of my crap list if Rip Rogers hadn't been so much worse. I see that Coss is doing the interviews now. Has Stasiak left? I guess we'll see in the clips ahead.

​Sawyer vs. Assassin: ​The match here was pretty much ignored because it came in the aftermath of Oliver's attack on Stasiak. The only thing that got Coss to pay attention to what was happening in the ring was when Brett posted Assassin's leg. We eventually get the inevitable DQ finish, with Ebony and Assassin doubleteaming Brett until Dr. Tom made the save for him. Even at this young age, it's obvious that Dr. Tom is loaded with potential. He's not doing his Piper impression on the mic yet, at least not here, but he shows a lot of fire. Interesting that Coss refused to do the interview at the end of the match because the "no blood" clause in his contract had been violated. I've seen him do interviews after this, though, so maybe that was just an excuse to have Stan come back out and announce that he was suing Oliver for assault. Coss suggested that the director may have to do the interview after the match, but I guess they didn't want someone with no experience (and maybe not smart to the business) to have to come on camera and do an interview and risk making a mess out of it. Matt's extended promo on commentary makes me want to see that cage match between him and Oliver. I'm guessing that he really was​ friends with Stasiak for a long time, considering that both Stan and his dad Tony spent a long time in the Northwest. I kept waiting for Oliver to return, but after what he'd already done, it was a smart move to hold off on any more appearances from him until the following week. Nice sales job by Stan to put over the fact that he was still woozy from the attack during the interview. I wonder if he ever got back in the ring to wrestle Oliver after this, or if the rest of the faces took up his cause instead.

​Haynes/Oliver Weightlifting Contest: ​This might be the most legitimate-looking weightlifting contest I've ever seen in wrestling. I thought sure that Oliver would jump Billy Jack at some point like he apparently had the last time they did this, but he didn't. It also seemed more legit because they weren't trying for records, unofficial or otherwise. One of the last vestiges of my markdom was that I actually believed that Dino Bravo's try for the world bench press record at the '88 Royal Rumble was at least semi-legit. Imagine how I felt when I found out that there wasn't even four hundred pounds on the bar! Coss and Savage really played up the drama surrounding Billy Jack's bad elbow. I'm guessing that it was a legitimate injury of some kind, because it would be almost impossible for someone as new to the business as Billy Jack was then to sell it while still attempting to lift the weight. Even if it was ​just a sales job, it was a masterful one for someone so inexperienced. Who knows whether the amount on the bars was legit or not, but Oliver looked impressive regardless. He's not really known as a power guy, but he seemed really at home on the bench. I liked him giving Billy Jack one more chance at 355 after he failed the first time; of course, the idea was that he knew Billy Jack couldn't lift it due to his bad arm, but it's still something most heels don't do in a situation like this. I'd have loved to have seen the match between Buddy and Curt for the Northwest title and the battle royal money. I've never heard of a time-limit draw in a battle royal before, but you learn something new every day, I guess. I would have thought that they'd continue the match after the show went off the air and show the finish on tape the following week. Line of the Segment goes to Billy Jack when he addressed Oliver before the contest: "I'm the barbell and you're the dumbbell, just like last time." Runner-up goes to Dutch for imploring Don Owen to show the money for the contest to the camera. Was that his sneaky way of calling Owen a cheapskate?

​Rose vs. Hennig (5/14/83): ​This didn't have time to develop into much of a match, but what we saw here was passable, especially Buddy's work on Curt's previously injured knee, which I'm sure would have been a much bigger part of the match had it lasted longer. Once again, the unsung hero of this bout has to be Sandy Barr. Taking an elbow across the back from Buddy was bad enough, but to take a dropkick from Curt just a minute or so later was really going above and beyond the call, even for a former worker. I've asked this before, but was Sandy the only referee in the Portland area, especially for televised bouts? Buddy going nuts with chairs and ramming poor jobbers into posts is a side of him we don't see too often, but it fit here under the circumstances, as did his interview where he claimed that he didn't care that he got disqualified. He was clearly just happy to leave the ring after a match with Curt in one piece. I don't for a minute believe that Buddy was just two-thirty for this bout, even allowing for the normal fudging of weights. You may want to update your weight information, Don. I know it doesn't really matter to the Portland audience, but it was hard not to laugh when Coss talked about Flair setting records at MSG; he'd only been there once in his life (3/1/76) and beaten Pete Sanchez in the second or third match. The amount of questionable language these guys get away with continues to surprise me. This time, it's Billy Jack calling Buddy a faggot. That's a word you almost never hear in full on TV, even in 2016. (A few sitcoms, such as ​All in the Family, ​got away with the term "fag", but I highly doubt that the entire word would have made it past too many censors.) Nice to hear Dutch applauding Piper for his tirade against the reporter earlier in the program. I wonder if the poor guy tried to retract or at least clarify what he wrote after being publically embarrassed so thoroughly.

​Buddy and Borne (7/14/84): ​I had a long post ready that the server ate, so I'll just summarize it and move on. This wasn't a shock to me like it was to everyone else because of Buddy's past; they ​way​ oversold that part of it. Buddy was actually pretty disgusting here with making Matt lick the bottom of his shoe and such, and I hope that's not an indication of how his character will change moving forward. I expect a lot more out of him, heel or no heel. In a similar vein, I was surprised that he got away with the homosexual jokes at Matt's expense, which were pretty bold even by today's standards and sounded ten times worse in the context of 1984. Sorry if this was short, but I don't feel like recopying my longer post, especially with so much other stuff to watch.