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​Buddy, the Wiz, and Vince (10/9/82): ​If seeing Vince doing a Portland interview is weird, seeing Ernie Roth get as much face time as Buddy is doubly so. I wonder what the reason was for this, since Ernie had never worked the Northwest that I know of, and certainly not as The Grand Wizard. Could Owen have been thinking of bringing him in for one match only? It's doubtful, since Ernie only did TV tapings and MSG by now, but it's the best possibility I can come up with. The promo's nothing we haven't heard before from Buddy, which isn't a criticism, just a fact. Actually, there is ​something just a bit different; Buddy trying to paint himself as the babyface by saying that he returns to Portland regularly while Piper doesn't. True as that may be, I'm sure the people of Portland would take Piper over Buddy in about a half a second at this time. Based on the stip of the match, I'm guessing that Piper won somehow or other. Buddy had just had his shot at Flair, and a Piper-Flair title match at the House of Action just seems like too much of a natural for Owen not to book. By the way, it's poetic justice for Buddy and Ernie to complain about Flair getting intentionally disqualified to retain the World title when everyone who's known Buddy for longer than five seconds knows that he would do the same thing if given the opportunity.

​Buddy Rose Promo with Vince McMahon (9/25/82​): ​I had to skip ahead to this one. The idea of Vince actually promoting an NWA World title match, even one in another promotion, is totally foreign to me, as is hearing the name "Ric Flair" out of his mouth before 1991. The promo itself was pretty standard; Vince didn't interject anything, and Buddy just talked about his upcoming rematch with Flair. Nice touch by Owen already promoting Buddy's October 12th bout with Piper as a potential World title match, although he most likely already knew that Buddy wasn't getting anywhere near the belt. I hope for his sake that it helped ticket sales. Just to isolate this in time, Buddy had already had his shot at Bob Backlund at MSG, and was starting to slide down the card, getting shots at Bscklund in lesser towns and working a lot with IC champ Pedro Morales, including beating him by countout in a televised match from the Spectrum, which was unquestionably the number two building in the territory at the time.

​Buddy and Matt Break Up: ​So the whole thing about leaving the Northwest was to cover for a Japan trip by Buddy? Why couldn't promotions just be honest when their guys were going to Japan for a while? Did they see Japanese promotions as any kind of competition, even though none of their fans had access to the matches in any way whatsoever and wouldn't understand ninety percent of what was happening if they did? The sequence where Buddy hands out gifts is truly hilarious. Even though I wasn't quite sure how most of the gifts fit the wrestlers in question (not having watched much Portland), just hearing Buddy go on and on was a treat. The idea of Hogan and Buddy as even a temporary team is a bit hard to wrap my mind around. I don't doubt that they teamed, but I'm sure it would be common knowledge if they'd actually won any tournaments, Sounds like we have a power struggle between Buddy and Matt on our hands. Matt really sounds full of himself here; I'm wondering who's going to end up the babyface out of all this. You know how hated Buddy is in Portland when he's the one who makes the mistake, takes the first shot from his partner, gets attacked with a chair, and is still the heel in the situation. I thought sure that this would end up with at least a short-term face turn for Buddy, but it didn't, at least not at this point. There are a lot of unanswered questions as a result of this. Frank touches on the uncertainty surrounding the tag belts, but just as important: Doesn't Buddy still have Matt's wrestling contract for another six months, according to the terms of the match from November? I can understand wanting to turn Matt face again since he was so popular, but someone has to explain how the contract I'm talking about was dissolved, since the match itself was such a big deal at the time. I liked Frank teasing the idea that any number of things could happen between these two in the coming week. I'm guessing that they still had to team, since contracts were undoubtedly signed before the incident we just saw.

​Dr. D Interview (5/29/82): ​I don't remember Dave coming off as countrified as he does here too often. He's not a hick, but he's certainly not smooth and urbane, which makes him a perfect complement to Buddy. Dave is to "baby" as Hogan is to "brother", at least in this interview. That may have been a deliberate attempt to establish his character as a bit more rough-hewn than Buddy's, but it was also distracting as all hell. I've heard Dave in the AWA and the WWF, and while he's got a noticeable accent, he's a lot more articulate than this. I liked him thanking Frank at the end of the interview, which even most of the faces don't. The back of his ring jacket spells his name "Schults", but I've also seen it spelled "Shults" and "Schultz", which is the way most people spell the name. I think I'll just call him Dave or Dr. D!

​Buddy and Flair (4/10/82): This was a bit strange, as the upcoming match between these two is presented as heel vs. heel, rather than Buddy taking up the cudgel against the incoming champion. Flair's at his coolest and cockiest here, complete with ponytail. This is a hell of a spot for young Curt, both in kayfabe and real life; I (and probably everyone else at the House of Action) thought Piper's name was coming out of that bag. Then again, this is a good way to push Curt into the main event scene. I think he'd just come in from his original WWF run, if I recall correctly. We know from the upcoming disc listings that Buddy's not going anywhere soon. The question is, how did they get out of his "I'll win the belt or leave" boast? I liked Flair offering Buddy a first-class airline ticket anywhere in the country. This is the kind of stuff we lost during the TBS years, when Flair (possibly at Crockett's urging, from what I've read) started trying to outshout Hogan, which was a fool's errand from the word go.

​Rose vs. Schultz (2/13/82): ​Frank was right about this; there's nothing to say. These two beat the holy living hell out of each other and everyone else who gets in their way within ten miles, period. Quite frankly, I'm surprised KPTV even allowed this much to be shown, considering how bloody it was. The fans were in shock at the brutality, as Sandy Barr got clobbered at least twice by chars and both Buddy and Dr. D took random shots at the wrestlers (at least I hope ​they were wrestlers) sent down to break it up. I remember seeing bits and pieces of this feud on a David Schultz comp I got years ago, but I don't think this clip made it. I can't wait to see if the feud plays out as well as I remember, because on paper it should be a classic.

First fall: ​This may have been the best handicap match I've seen yet. Grappler and Dein injure Peterson early, so it's Doll against two for almost the entire fall, and Doll kicks out of some lead pipe-cinch pinning combinations, which shocks everyone, including Coss on commentary. The heels look great as a team, but still don't put Doll away until resorting to a Dein shot to the throat off of a blind tag. Seriously, the timing on Doll's kickouts is absolutely exquisite. Coss turns in his best performance on the disc. He does a great job talking up the pandemonium surrounding Peterson's injury, and his reactions to Doll's kickouts are superb. He comes across as a tad naïve when he questions the fairness of this being a handicap match (hey, if the wrestlers want it and the ref okays it, what difference does it make whether it's fair or not?), but that's a minor nitpick. It'll be interesting to see if Peterson returns for the second fall, since Portland takes a long break between falls in their multi-fall main events. ​Second fall: ​This one was a bit weird. First of all, it's mentioned at the beginning of the fall that Piper's on his way to the arena. Everyone including Coss thinks he's coming to be Doll's partner (in the event of a third fall, I guess), but eventually Peterson comes down with the biggest sling I've seen yet. Doll eventually tags him, of course, and things go to hell for him whortly thereafter; he cleans house on both Grappler and Dein at first, but eventually Grappler throws him out of the ring and jams his bad shoulder into the post. For that, Sandy Barr disqualifies the heels not just for the fall but for the match, and awards the Rockers the belts. I don't know about that finish; it cheats the fans out of action that they paid to see, since there would normally have been a third fall, but it also keeps the matchup alive for the house show circuit, since Grappler and Dein can claim that they never got their rightful chance to finish the match and retain the belts. I guess in a dying promotion like Portland, they had to latch onto every little bit of controversy they could in order to keep house show business from going down even further than it already was. Third fall: ​Turns out that Sandy only disqualified the heels for the second fall after all; Coss wrongly proclaimed the Rockers as champs completely on his own. I can't imagine that Owen would order him to make a mistake like that, so he should have known better after so many years in the business. We're back to a handicap match with Doll against both heels, or it looks that way until Peterson defies common sense and comes back to the ring. Of course, he's next to useless, and it's a field day on his bad shoulder.........until Piper shows up and gets into it with Grappler, then throws his drink in Dein's face. Peterson has enough strength left to roll Dein up, and this time we really do ​have new champions, who celebrate with Piper as the crowd goes nuts. I guess if Piper wants to come down and be a part of things, his presence might as well mean something. That said, the story told during the first two falls would have been better served if either the Rockers had pulled the impossible upset or had bowed in defeat after gutting it out. The finish we got may have done its job in starting a Piper-Grappler feud, but it did nothing for the legitimacy of the Rockers as champions, at least for this reign I didn't understand the point of the postmatch interview. As fun as it always is to watch Rod do his thing, what was the point here? Who the hell are the Russian Assassins supposed to be, and why are they being treated as a bigger deal than the Rockers? Why was this match so important for the Rockers to have, and what are the stakes supposed to be? Apparently they're so big that Rod had to intimidate Barry Owen into giving them the match. I thought Rex King was Steve Doll's partner all along until I saw the matches on this disc. When did their partnership begin, and what happened to Peterson?

I definitely wouldn't call this the greatest six-man ever. It had its moments- we got a lot more of Misawa-Kawada then I ever thought we would, and they were tremendous- but it didn't really advance things much. Akiyama and Ogawa were good punching bags, but no one in All-Japan will ever top Kikuchi as the best one ever. I liked that Akiyama was able to get the best of Kawada in a sequence or two; Baba must have really seen potential in him to allow a rookie like him to look so good against the other side's captain. I'm not sure if Akiyama can still be considered a rookie, especially with the company he's keeping, but if he can, he's got my vote for 1993 Rookie of the Year. I understand Kobashi getting the winning pin so he looks good for his upcoming bout against Hansen, but would it have killed Baba to let him beat Taue? As Zenjo said, him beating Ogawa, Team Kawada's designated jobber, means diddly squat in the grand scheme of things. For a moment I thought that either Misawa or Kawada would be involved in the finish somehow, but they weren't.

This was much more of a mat-based match than most lucha bouts are, and both men seemed well-versed in suvmissions. There's something inherently humiliating about quitting your mask away twice, and that's what happened to Ciclon here. Felino really looked good working over Ciclon's arm, and I agree with Pete about the nastiness of the post shots. Ciclon's dives looked nice, but he seemed a little off-balance to me because he had to account for his injured arm. I've seldom seen a babyface so reluctant to remove his mask in one of these bouts; then again, if I'd just been made to submit twice in a match where my mask was on the line, I'd be reluctant to take it off, too.

​Matt Borne and Steve Regal: Almost every heel who wears nice clothes is bound to get them stripped off of him at one point, and it was Matt's turn here. Regal doesn't even say a word beforehand; the clothes just come off. Frank showed more excitement here than he has in any other clip we've seen so far. Of course, maybe that was because he was afraid that KPTV might get in trouble for showing Matt stripped to his shorts (and pink shorts at that!) Matt's certainly embraced the trappings of heeldom with the fancy clothes and the full beard. When he said that he was dedicating himself one hundred percent to Buddy's Army, he wasn't kidding, I liked how Frank assumed that the clothes were either for a wedding or a funeral; it's as if he'd never seen Matt dressed up before.

​Live at Noon (8/26/81): ​There's nothing really new in the first part of this; the only revelation is that Don Owen supposedly pays his wrestlers if they're sidelined due to injury. Given that this is a public forum where kayfabe and good reputations are to be maintained at almost any cost, I'm not sure how true that was. If anyone knows for sure, please enlighten us. The guy hosting this is coming across like he's barely seen a match in his life. I cringed at his first question ('Do you get hurt?") and haven't stopped since. Look, if you believe it's real, of course they get hurt. If you don't, there's always the possibility of an accident. It shouldn't be breaking news one way or the other. I loved the commentary by both Matt and Buddy over the match clips we saw. The tension between them is evident, yet they show no signs of letting things degenerate into a brawl. I know that they were most likely cautioned against stuff like that, but there are certain guys who are in full belligerent promo mode any time they're in public. That doesn't seem to be the case with these two, and shows like this are better for it. I liked how Buddy and Matt explained the pay scale and why it's more important to win than lose. I also got a kick out of Buddy saying that he wanted to retire by 1984 at the age of thirty (actually, thirty-two). I don't think any name wrestler has ever walked away of his own accord at such a young age. It's much more common for guys to overstay their welcome when they're older, as we all know. Buddy's explanation of how the referee's count is supposed to work makes perfect sense. I liked Matt admitting that the team not doing the double-teaming (usually the faces, of course) would run in to make the save most of the time, thus allowing more time for potential illegal activities. In general, I liked the two segments we've just seen. The wrestlers didn't come across as patronizing or condescending; they were as honest as kayfabe allowed them to be, and almost all of them, even the heels, came across as guys you'd want to share a meal with if the opportunity presented itself. They more than made up for the seeming cluelessness of the hosts (which, again, may have been a tool they were using in order to keep their questions to the kind of basic stuff that most fans would have liked to know about).

Thanks, Will. It's been a great set so far!

​Live at Noon (10/21/81): ​The guys seemed really relaxed here without breaking kayfabe. Things got slightly chippy when Buddy mentioned how he was kept out of the Pacific Northwest title tournament that Regal won, but other than that everyone seemed to be in a good mood. The problem with the interviewers on these shows is that I can never tell if they're fans who are just asking questions in a way non-fans can understand or if they're simply clueless about the business. For example, the female interviewer asked Stasiak if he thought the heart punch was fair. That's the type of question a fan may ask, but when a so-called professional asks it, it usually means that they either have never watched wrestling or have in the past and don't understand it. I liked Stasiak inflating his WWWF World title reign just a bit. Hey, unless someone was reading the mags eight years ago (1973), how would they know if he was telling the truth one way or the other? I suspect the story about Stasiak almost dying because Andre stepped on his stomach to be somewhere between a wild exaggeration and out-and-out bullshit. It was a nice way to put over both his own toughness and Andre's physical might, though. I got a laugh out of how Borne answered the fan's question about whether Buddy was the same in real life as he was on TV. Hey, if anyone ought to know, it's his own brother-in-law. I don't think Buddy liked it too much, though. Somehow, I don't think that the first time Matt heard about Buddy divorcing Toni (assuming that it was a legit divorce) was on the show. The more I think about it, the more I tend to believe that the marriage was legit and the divorce was kayfabed (at least at that time) to allow Buddy (or, more properly, Paul) a life outside the ring and put a little more juice into the Rose-Borne feud. Of course, I could be wrong. Matt kind of brushed it off when he heard, which would have bothered me if I'd been watching in real time. You just heard that your sister's being dumped and all you can worry about is whether you'll join forces with your soon-to-be ex-brother-in-law? Why didn't you punch his lights out, or at least cuss him out or yell at him? Most of the other questions were typical fan questions. I liked Matt admitting that there are some theatrics involved in wrestling without getting into the whole "real vs. fake" debate and either coming off as delusional or biting the hand that feeds him. The George Steele question was a bit weird, since as far as I know he never wrestled in Portland. The guy who asked it must have been on vacation from either Detroit or someplace on the East Coast. I liked Stasiak actually calling George out a bit, although it (presumably) never led to anything.

Borne Joins the Army (10/31/81)​: I didn't expect Borne to actually have justification for joining up with Buddy; I thought they'd still be at each other's throats even while they were on the same side. It's too bad that we didn't actually see the mistakes Regal made, and it's also too bad we don't have an answer from Regal on the set. Matt must have taken heel promo lessons from his dad, because he sounds like a natural. You'd have never known that he and Regal had been tag team partners less than a week ago, and you would also never have known that he and Buddy had spent the last six months (by Buddy's count) trying to cripple each other. The two of them look totally comfortable with each other here, and I believe Matt when he says that he's going to put a hundred and ten percent of his effort toward being a member of the Army and earning Buddy's trust. I continue to be impressed by how Buddy acts like an actual leader would while still being such a vile heel. When was the last time you ever heard of a manager who still wrestles regularly admit to learning from his men the way Buddy admitted to learning from Stasiak? He also promises to learn from Matt even as he teaches him. I don't even think Flair and the Andersons talked like that during the Horsemen's heyday. Mind you, I'm not nominating Buddy for Humanitarian of the Year, just pointing out that there are certain admirable qualities in his leadership style. I can't wait to watch the talk show clips to see how the Rose-Borne situation played itself out in the Portland mainstream media,

​Kim Song Karate Demonstration: ​We've seen the stuff with the bricks before from almost every guy with a karate gimmick; even Ricky Steamboat did it once. The thing is, it can ​be done legitimately; I saw a Johnny Carson rerun not too long ago where he had an actual self-defense expert do the same thing. He didn't hit the guy in the head with a chair, however. Line of the segment goes to Buddy, of course: "I can hear you people out there going, 'Please don't tell me they're going to start hurting and crippling people again.' Well, I hate to tell you this, but we're going to start hurting and crippling people again." His matter-of-fact tone makes it hilarious. Anyone who wants to be a heel should watch guys like him and Nick Bockwinkel to find out how to be the scum of the earth without sounding like a raving lunatic. I didn't know ramming people's heads into chairs outside the ring was actually legal in Portland. Thanks for the bulletin, Buddy! I'd forgotten that they actually did a separate show for Seattle until Frank mentioned that they were going to have a separate karate demonstration. I hope some of the matches on this set come from that show, assuming that they have different matches from the Portland show.

​Kim Song Karate Demonstration (9/26/81)​: First of all, is this supposed to be someone we know? in one interview on this disc, Buddy refers to him as "Chung Lee". I'm trying to picture this guy with hair, but I doubt he's Tiger Chung Lee (the only Chung Lee I can think of). Whether it was legit or not, the bruise on his head (supposedly from practicing the headbutt we saw) looked nasty. Interesting that Buddy offered Borne a managerial contract, supposedly at Toni Rae's behest. I liked that he put most of his toughest opponents over, which a lot of heels don't do, especially with bitter enemies (such as Piper in Buddy's case). To put Borne in the class of guys like Piper and Andre is high praise indeed coming from the Playboy.

​Buddy Rose and Matt Borne Contract Signing: ​Actually, the first part of this is a promo featuring Buddy and Mike Masters, with Buddy complaining about how Borne's outside interference cost him the Pacific Northwest title. We finf out that new champion Steve Regal won't give Buddy a rematch, so Masters is next up. They're still pushing Masters' full nelson as a crippler, and we see the baby oil that will supposedly loosen his grip. Eight to five says that that oil finds its way into someone's eyes before too long. Masters is slightly better on the mic here, but he's not to the point where he doesn't need Buddy or someone else as his mouthpiece. I guess Regal (Mr. Electricity of AWA dame, not His Lordship of WCW fame) had red hair and freckles at this time, because he gets the patented Howdy Doody nickname, just like Bob Backlund. Buddy's speech about needing to maintain one's self respect in order to be called a man might have been inspiring if it wasn't being delivered by such a louse. That's the beauty of Buddy; eighty percent of the time, his promos are delivered in a perfectly reasonable tone, and while they're self-aggrandizing, they're not unwatchably so. It's his actions in the ring that cement his reputation as a total scumbag. This is what Ric Flair should have been (in his own way, of course), instead of the screaming, "Whoo!"-ing fool he became so famous for. At the end of the promo, Buddy calls for the contract of the triple stip match. Both he and Matt sign it, and we're on. As I mentioned above, Buddy makes his choice clear (leaving Portland), but Matt doesn't. The two of them keep trash-talking as Frank throws it to break. I think it's spoiled later in the disc which stip Matt chose to have enforced, and I'm interested to see just how loyal a member of the Army he turns out to be.

​Buddy Rose Divorce Interview (10/24/81)​: I know that quite a few marriages last less than a year, but three months, and with Buddy and Matt feuding at the time to boot? I have a sneaking suspicion that the whole marriage was part of the angle, complete with real-looking (but not real) wedding. Of course, it's just as possible that the divorce was kayfabed so the character of Playboy Buddy Rose could go back to normal (what's a playboy without beautiful women?) while the real-life Paul Perschmann could remain married in peace. I doubt we'll ever know for sure, and does it really matter? I've never heard Stasiak talk before, and he's not bad for an old-fashioned tough-guy heel. Masters comes across as a bit stiff, but he's supposed to be a muscleman, so it's not that big a deal. Using a steel bar to break a full nelson? Nice way to get over the hold. I don't know if it's original, but I've never heard of it being used before. It makes sense that Masters' grip can use such strength that his fingers lock and are unable to break the hold in time to avoid the DQ. We see something similar with the figure-four leglock, where the ref has to physically step in and break the hold because the guy using the hold is applying so much pressure that his legs can't move. Again with the soap opera comparisons? No wonder Frank was more than a little put out, especially since he's already said on camera that he's a friend of the Borne family (and that's probably true in real life as well). So the loser in the triple stip match gets to choose which one is enforced? Interesting that Buddy would choose to leave Portland, and since we already can see by the disc listings that he's not going anywhere, I'll be waiting to see which one Matt chooses and how it impacts him.

​Matt Borne Interview (10/17/81): ​​This interview concerns one of the wildest matches I've ever heard of, if it goes the way I think it does. We've all heard of the Duggan-DiBiase steel cage tuxedo coal miner's glove match from Mid-South, but this is just as wild. The loser has one of three choices: leave Portland, have his head shaved, or turn face/heel. That would be a hard choice for any wrestler: lose your pride, your reputation, or your right to make a living. Matt's excellent here, as he compares himself to Luke Spencer from ​General Hospital​ in order to offset Buddy comparing himself to J.R. Ewing from ​Dallas. ​He takes the comparison stuff a little far, especially since a lot of fans may not have watched General Hospital ​enough to know what he's talking about. But his anger and dislike for Buddy, brother-in-law or not, come through loud and clear. Between this set and the Yearbooks, I'm becoming a huge Matt Borne fan. Tough Tony's not the talker his son is, and he's also trying to stay neutral at least a little for his daughter's sake, But I believed him when he said that he, as the head of the Borne family, would make sure that the loser would honor whichever stipulation he chose. I hope to learn more about this match from the contract signing we'll see later in the disc. I'm not sure why Buddy didn't put up something of his own right off the bat, and I'm also not sure who picks which losing stip is enforced, the winner or the loser.

​Buddy Rose and Princess Victoria: ​Wow. This promo started out as an almost comical whinefest from Buddy about having to spend time in a dunk tank for charity and ended with two acts that truly seem shocking, considering the time and place we're talking about, Buddy slapping Victoria was one thing, but Victoria retaliating with a kick in the groin took this to a whole other level. I guess they figured that they couldn't let Buddy's slap go unpunished, and it was the right move, as the crowd went nuts when Victoria connected. The only problem I had was that Victoria's voice was so high-pitched that I had trouble understanding her at times. Otherwise, this was tremendous. I wonder how she (and Buddy, for that matter) did in the battle royal. I really don't know what to make of Frank. Being an impartial interviewer is one thing, but I don't think he's shown more than a flicker of real emotion in any segment I've seen him in so far. At least Don Coss works up a little outrage over the heels and their actions. I'm not saying that Portland needs a screaming idiot in the booth, but they could use someone who sounds like they give a damn about what they're doing.

​Buddy Rose and Rocky Johnson (10/31/81): ​I have no idea what Rocky did to make Buddy as mad as he did, but that was the best beatdown during an interview this side of Piper, Snuka, and the coconut. We even get a bloody promo from Rocky afterwards. Buddy putting his hands on Don Owen even briefly seems like a huge deal, mostly because Don, unlike a lot of promoters, wasn't a worker and never wanted to be one, at least as far as I know. I wonder if he ever took a bump, either accidentally or on purpose. The "shine my shoes" bit was unnecessary, and not just for the obvious reasons. Buddy's character should be too classy to be a racist; his problem with Rocky should be that Rocky's looking to take the thing that makes him who he is (his belt), not Rocky's skin color. The promo from 11/28 is a duplicate of this one, but it's a touch longer and closes with Frank observing that Buddy must have been really mad, because he left his belt (which he'd apparently just won) laying on the concrete.

​Boyd vs. Rose Cage Match: ​​This bout seemed to be done more to set up Buddy's feud with Jay Youngblood than settle the score between Buddy and Boyd. The action was pretty basic, and Boyd really wasn't trying to end the match like you would think he would. Of course, that didn't become obvious until the fast count pinfall. At first when Boyd picked Jay up in a fireman's carry, I thought we were seeing a heel turn. Buddy has interview material for months now, and justifiably so. This was almost too obvious to be satisfying. Why wait until eight minutes in if this is your (Boyd's and Jay's) plan? Why not just screw Buddy over in a minute or two and have done with it? The answer probably is that they wanted the people to see Buddy get beat up, which they did, but in the end he still reigned supreme after laying Jay out, so the people went home sad anyway. I'd have much rather seen a completely fair match where Boyd still won, which would make Buddy a slime for attacking Jay instead of someone who took a legitimate beef just a tad too far. I was surprised that neither Wiskowski and company nor the other faces tried to stop (or join in on) Buddy's beatdown of Jay. We don't see Buddy's Army at all, and the other faces, in typical fashion, only arrive to attend to Jay once Buddy's already done his damage. It was great to hear the crowd fully into this bout, complete with a "We want blood!" chant. The matches on this disc from 1986-1989 aren't nearly this heated, and while that's not really anyone's fault (except possibly Vince's for taking most of the best talent away), it was still something special to see this promotion in its prime, at least for the decade of the eighties.

This was okay. It really wasn't worked as heatedly as it could have been for a match involving former stablemates, and Oliver didn't even mention that Miller used to be a Clan member in his prematch promo. The crowd wasn't hot for this at all. I haven't seen enough of Portland to know who was over and who wasn't in 1987, but these two sure don't seem to be. "Twisted steel and sex appeal" worked for Michael Hayes and a few others. As a stock promo line to show the audience that yes, you are indeed a heel, it's lousy. I'm not sure how to feel about the spots using the cage and the guys locked inside it. On the one hand, it's certainly innovative to see Jackson and Crews interfere regardless, which I've never seen before in a match with this stip. On the other, it kind of makes the whole stip meaningless; they interfered just as much as they would have if the cage hadn't been there at all. Next time, just bar them from the building altogether. Oliver using the cage as a weapon is different; that showed smarts, if not scruples, and got across the fact that he's crafty enough to use all means at his disposal to retain his title. The backslide finish would have worked better for a cleaner-cut face; I haven't seen or heard about Miller much, but from what I do ​know, he's not the type to use backslides to win matches. This match seemed like a good time for a retribution spot where Miller used Oliver's nefarious tactics against him to win the title. I liked the bit at the beginning where Miller tried to feed bananas to Jackson and Crews through the cage. It wasn't the most brilliant comedy spot ever devised, but it got the message (these two guys are animals and deserved to be locked up) across nicely. Sandy's one of the few refs I've seen who counts with both hands. Is that "allowed"? It would seem that doing that would make refs able to count faster, which in certain situations is the last thing the match needs.

​Buddy and Toni Interview (6/81)​: I liked the fact that everyone's congratulations seemed legit, even someone like Frank, who's undoubtedly grown tired of Buddy's antics over the years. It was nice of Buddy to invite both of Portland Wrestling's major sponsors to his reception, and they both seemed to accept heartily. They should have, considering the money that Buddy's made for them! I misspoke above; I thought it was Matt at the wedding, but instead it was Oliver. I wonder whether Tony and Matt's objections to the marriage were legit or part of a brewing angle. Hell, maybe they were both. Toni seemed well-spoken and, of course, beautiful. I'm not sure if she's better than Buddy could have hoped to do like Frank suggested, but she definitely wasn't one of Buddy's typical ladies. So the Rose-Piper feud isn't over yet, huh? Buddy seemed to indicate that when he stated that he wouldn't call either of them the better man. I wonder how Buddy would have gotten over in JCP, especially as one of Piper's top challengers for the US belt.

Buddy and Toni's Wedding Video​: Am I the only one who skipped ahead to this because I wanted to find out if any of Buddy's enemies tried to crash it? I half-expected Piper to jump up out of the crowd to object like he did at Uncle Elmer's wedding. Once it became clear that there was no angle or any other wrestling-related content to be had, I enjoyed this for what it was. I don't think it lasted, because I remember that the woman who was with Buddy at the time of his death wasn't named Toni. Outside of Matt and the bride's father, the only other wrestling-related guy who was there was (I think) Sandy Barr, of all people. At least there was a Sandy around somewhere who the camera operator referred to from time to time. I think Tony (the father) took over the camera at some point, because I distinctly remember him jokingly telling Buddy to get his hands off of his (Tony's) little girl. I liked his reply when Buddy asked when it would be all right to touch her: "About ten years!" Of course, I can't wait to see how this union affects the Portland promotion inside the ring. Will Matt join Buddy's Army, or will we see a good old-fashioned family feud? We'll find out soon enough!