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This may be one of the best promos I've ever heard from any face of Foley. The idea that a seven year-old could sleep better with a piece of the barbed wire that had almost maimed him under his pillow is truly disturbing, especially to a parent. I'm only sorry I missed part of the story due to a glitch in the original tape. Isn't Harley a little old to be taking bumps on his head, especially on concrete? Why didn't they just have Mick carve him up with the barbed wire while they were at it? I appreciate the fact that Harley wants to stay involved, but enough is enough already. If Vader doesn't need a mouthpiece, then let him come out by himself from now on. Pete asked why Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal didn't make it into the Hogan era. The answer is that the days of Hogan wrestling anything approaching a gritty, realistic match were long over. He was there to perform his routine (whether face or heel), get his desired reaction, and go home without breaking too much of a sweat. The idea of him bleeding or taking the hard bumps that a lot of these matches required would have probably sent him running for his lawyers, be he Red and Yellow or Hollywood. The last time I clearly remember seeing him bleed was at Mania V against Savage, although I may have missed an isolated incident or two.

Unfirtunately, we lost the majority of Tony's promo when the original tape cut out. There was enough there to establish how angry Tony is over what happened to Ron, though, and I can't wait to see the match that came before this. Brian took a hell of a bump off of that chair shot to make things complete. Nice to see Tony come home to Tennessee! Corny was excellent as usual, but the Bodies made this interview with their gestures much like Brian did with Tammy's earlier. I can't believe that it took Jigolo Jimmy to come up with the nickname "Booze Brothers", though; I thought that Corny was going there the second he mentioned biker bars. You're slipping, Jimbo! I think a couple of Rock 'n' Roll's matches with the Dogs made Will's SMW set, and they're almost the exact same match (singular) that they had for months with Jeff and Lawler in Memphis. The only differences were that Ricky bled a little more than the Memphis guys did and that Corny had the dog whistle instead of Richard Lee. Personally, I prefer the early eighties Moondogs that held the WWF tag team title to either version we've seen, and Albano was a much better managerial fit than either Corny or Lee. (This was about the same time that Capper really started to look like a bum, as he wore sandals and cutoff jeans while managing the Dogs that did him no favors whatsoever. He'd been a slob before, but now guys like Vince and Pat Patterson started wretching the second he came into camera range.)

Everything about this was just about perfect. I don't know what I liked best: Tammy bragging about what Ron has bought her, Brian blowing off Tony as a threat, or both of them having the time of their lives in the background, laughing it up and making fun of Ron while he's having flashbacks to God knows when. Then we add Tony's promo where he swears vengeance if either one of them dares to hurt Ron, and the package is complete, with Bob's confusion as the ribbon on top. The only thing that would have made it better is a physical confrontation between Brian and Tony, but we'll be getting plenty of those soon enough. Everyone talks about Rock 'n' Roll's battles with the Bodies, Corny's epic feud with Bullet Bob, and even Tony's battles with Tracy Smothers, but this angle gets overlooked when fans talk about SMW's best angles ever. Not only does this one turn Tony face, which figured to be impossible just a few short months ago, but we see an inspired performance from Tammy at the age of nineteen or twenty, depending on when her birthday is. She's not quite experienced enough to be on Corny's level as a manager just yet, but she's a lot closer than she has any right to be for her age. What a shame that Sunny derailed the whole thing.

Am I the only one who thought that Tony would morph into Cheatum? Who the hell in the Turner organization got the bright idea to hire someone with a midget fetish, of all things? Tony was really good here. I especially liked his delivery of the line "Why don't you kids come inside and have a bite of my wife's......cookies?" That may be the funniest line in a WCW mini-movie to date. I also liked the kid poking Tony in the nose. I hope he was a nice kid in real life, because I couldn't imagine putting up with that kind of thing when the cameras were rolling and brattish behavior in real life to boot. As good as Tony was, I think Jesse would have been a little scarier, and he wouldn't have even had to wear a costume; his normal outrageous apparel would have been scary enough. He probably wanted too much money to do it, though. To Trav's point, if the WWF can say it's Thanksgiving at any time in November for the Survivor Series, surely WCW can celebrate Halloween a week early for Havoc. trick-or-treating and all. (Actually, I think it wasn't too many years after this that the WWF stopped tying Thanksgiving in with Survivor Series so they could run the card in their normal Sunday night pay-per-view slot.)

I'm not sure if Brian was still trying to be a heel or if he was making fun of how he used to act when he was​ a heel. Regardless, he's getting closer to his dad every day as a talker, though he'll need about ten more years of experience to equal him. They didn't mention Double J yet, but you know it has to be coming soon. Does anyone else think that Brian Lawler could have made as good a roadie for Jeff as Brian Armstrong did? He seems like the type who could play an obnoxious, irritating lackey quite well. I didn't know Richard Lee and the Moondogs were still hanging around Memphis by now. You mean to say that they haven't done one thing worthy of Yearbook inclusion in over a year? What a fall from grace.

I liked both promos equally. Chris is clearly the more polished talker, but Bobby's got the earnestness (is that a word?) of the true-blue babyface working for him. He's pure (at least in a wrestling sense), but there's a grit to him that separates him from the average white meat babyface, and I'm not just saying that because he called Chris a son of a bitch twice. I loved Chris's line about the beautiful things on New Jersey's beaches, like hypodermic needles and medical waste. The funny thing is, there are probably quite a few New Jersey natives who actually believe that one of their beaches is more beautiful than a river in Tennessee, even with the needles and waste. I remember this angle from Will's SMW set, and I certainly hope that the payoff makes it. You'll see what I mean if and when we get there. I'm guessing that the WWA in question that Chris is the champion of refers to Dennis Coraluzzo's Philadelphia-based indy, not the LeBell promotion from Los Angeles or the remnants of the old Kansas City territory. I'm also guessing that Chris and Tammy hadn't hooked up professionally yet, although I seem to remember that it happened not too long after this. I know that Chris hadn't been in the business long enough to wrestle Hogan or Flair at this point, let alone beat them, but can someone tell me who in thunder JR Benson is?

We didn't get the first part of this for whatever reason. We pick up the action just as the stagehand rushes in and says that the Harrises and the Bodies are still fighting. A lot of this was tough to see due to them being outside, so it's hard to judge how good or bad the segment was. The part we saw where they almost destroyed the broadcast position was nice, and the promo from whichever Harris that was was better than I expected. Bob and Dutch did a tremendous job of putting over the chaos that was happening right in front of them, and I liked that Dutch called things straight down the middle, which almost no heel-leaning color guy does in a situation like this anymore. I don't see any matches between the two teams for a month, and apparently the one that made the set (11/20) was clipped to the end. Were the Harrises really so bad that the Bodies couldn't pull at least one solid start-to-finish match out of them?

This was the first one of these where Tammy could be called mean. Actually, Margie's exercise form wasn't too terrible for a beginner, although it wasn't good either. I didn't like Tammy nudging (it wasn't a full-fledged kick, thank God) Margie down the hill like that. That's the kind of thing that only should have happened if they were going to reveal Margie as a wrestler in disguise and set up a program between her and Tammy. Obviously that wasn't on the agenda, so Tammy throwing her hands up and walking away in disgust should have been sufficient. What's on the agenda for next week, a bodyslam on the floor? Yes, Margie deserves kudos for being such a good sport. I thought I heard once that she didn't like being kicked down the hill and cried until they reassured her (in layman's terms) that this was just a way to get heat on Tammy and nothing personal against her. (She worked in the SMW office, so it's reasonable to assume that she wasn't a complete mark, no matter what Corny may say about never smartening up the office workers.) I also thought I read or heard somewhere that Margie and Tammy were friendly, which is why they chose Margie as Tammy's guinea pig in these segments. I don't seem to remember there being too many more of these. In fact, only one made the set in November: the following week's installment on makeup. Hopefully Tammy will be back to just being chronically exasperated instead of downright hateful.

Of course Tammy wouldn't know this, but fired chicken's meant to be eaten with the hands; the breading's too tough to cut through. I agree with Loss that I'd be mad if I was expecting a fancy full-course meal and got takeout fried chicken instead, and I say that as one who ​likes ​takeout fried chicken. I would have actually liked to have seen a segment where Margie tries to cook a fancy dinner with Tammy's help, but given how legitimately middle-class (for lack of a better term) Margie supposedly was, it's probably best that we didn't get it. I'm with Tammy on another thing: cole slaw, at least the kind you get at Hardee's, looks legitimately disgusting. The moment that made this whole thing came after the segment was supposedly over, when Margie triumphantly picked up the chicken with her hands and took a great big bite while Tammy buried her head in frustration. I cracked up when I saw that, and I don't do that too often when I'm watching wrestling, even the comedy segments. Given how much Corny loves Wendy's, I'm surprised we got a segment that used Hardee's instead. They could have made the meal Margie was supposed to cook beef stroganoff or something similar if they'd wanted to use Wendy's. Line of the segment goes to Margie when Tammy asks her why she didn't cook the chicken Kiev: "I couldn't find the Kievs, so I got Hardee's instead." What do you want to bet that they didn't have to script that line?

I don't think the Nasties were in super-serious mode either, Pete. I'm not sure I liked Austin, Rude, and Knobbs being quite so dismissive of the Lethal Lottery. As we've seen before, it's possible that they'll draw a partner who decides that they'd rather have a piece of their hide, even if it costs them both a spot in Battlebowl. I thought Rude summed it up as well as could be with "Eenie-meenie-miney-moe, who's my partner? I don't know." They could have just shown that clip and saved themselves a lot of money. I liked his singles bar analogy as well. It's a shame that this concept was dumped (at least I ​think ​it was) the following year; I'd have loved to see, say, Hogan and Flair as reluctant partners. (Speaking of which, isn't it true that every single Lethal Lottery match this year had a face and a heel taking on a face and a heel? Talk about ruining an interesting concept.) Nice to see Crispy Cruiser again; even if he's only doing studio segments, it's a better gig than being the voice of some going-nowhere indy promotion in Philly, which is where I think we saw him last in the Yearbooks.

This would have meant more if I'd been given a reason to care about JT Smith. As it is, this was just another case of Terry being middle-aged and crazy. I liked it much better when he was running down Bullet Bob Armstrong in SMW. I can actually see Shane and Sherri as a good fit. Unfortunately, Heyman didn'r have enough money to pay her to stick around, and never really would. Francine turned out to be a great choice to manage Shane, but her original qualification most likely was that Heyman could get her cheaply.

There were a ton of things wrong with this. First, not allowing Tatanka any offense at all​? I can understand Borga getting the better of things, but if Vince wanted to see him in a squash, there are still plenty of jobbers who could have handled that. I'm guessing that Tatanka's future isn't going to be very bright, at least not as a face. I just don't see how he's going to recover from not getting any effective offense at all in against Borga. Second, they could have done the Yoko stuff another time, or even have Borga ​be the one to injure Tatanka instead. Why is Yoko the one and only heel who can do damage to anybody lately? Survivor Series teammate or not, there really shouldn't have been a place for him in this setup. Third, I can understand Luger having to fight off the Quebecers in the locker room, but in the aisle? And to be taken down by one of them to boot? Luger should have been using his plated forearm to be racking up lifeless bodies between the locker room and the ring, and it wouldn't have hurt for him to knock Borga out cold either once he got there. He needed to be seen as strong again, able to deal with Yoko and his team or whoever else was going to get in America's way. Needless to say, that didn't happen. (As an aside, where were the Steiners to help him, or at least be lookouts just in case Levy got spunky?) Finally, I agree with Vince: Where were the paramedics? It's absurd that medical help for Tatanka hadn't come yet by the time the disc cut out. It's almost business-exposing if you think about it, like the paramedics are saying, "It's all fake anyway. The Indian'll jump up in a minute, shake hands with the Jap and the Fin, and they'll all head out for beers. Nothin' to worry about." If they needed help to make sure no one interfered with them, the Steiners could have handled it. How strange was it to hear Lawler telling Vince not to go to Tatanka's aid? Leaving aside the fact that the commentary was post-produced at Titan Towers, what good did Lawler think Vince was going to do? The man hadn't done anything athletic since he'd lettered in croquet and polo at Harvard. Seriously, I know the King's supposed to be an obnoxious twit who knows he can say pretty much what he wants to and be protected since he's a broadcaster, but his urge to be provocative leads to utter nonsense more often than I can take. Now that his feud with Bret's almost done, I wish he'd gone back to Memphis full-time and Vince had re-signed Heenan instead, even if it had cost him a few grand out of his own pocket to get Bobby the neck operation he needed and a few more for plane tickets so Bobby could visit his daughter at college.

At least Jesse tried to make the crew member picking up the knucks and handing them back to Flair part of the story by making him out to be a Flair fan. Quick thinking on his (Jesse's) part. Jesse calling Flair Rude was an honest mistake, although I'm surprised that he didn't catch himself right after he said it. Since he didn't, Tony certainly should have. Taylor was useless, as many others have said. The whole point of a wrestler being a guest referee is that they don't take bumps quite as easily as the regular refs. To have him be knocked down right after he gets in the ring the second time is ridiculous to say the least. "For crying out loud" is right. To be slightly fair to him, though, he took the long walk around the ring so he could check on Pee Wee, which I'm guessing is what he was booked to do in that situation. Rude must really have been hurting to have as little offense as we saw. He could barely climb the ropes at all either. That said, what was he doing lifting Fifi so easily if his back was that bad? I liked Tony drawing comparisons between this match and Starrcade '83. This is where he excels: bringing a sense of history into a sport that's ignoring it more and more as time goes on. How many WCW fans at this time even remembered pre-TBS JCP? Flair must have had one hell of a month between Havoc and Starrcade to be taken seriously as Vader's next major challenger. Here, he looks like an aging has-been who can't fairly beat an obviously injured champion who should have been ripe for the picking. I realize that they probably left the belt with Rude so he could tour Europe while Flair stayed stateside to promote Starrcade, but even at that Flair doesn't look now as if he'd give Vader much trouble at all. I agree with El-P about Fifi. She wasn't even trying to get away from Rude as he was carrying her off. We all know that Flair was coming to make the save, but Fifi wasn't supposed to "know" that in the heat of the moment. She should have been taken off of TV when ​A Flair for the Gold ​was discontinued.

Well, so much for the new champions. There was no point to giving Buff and Scorp the belts if they were going to lose them so quckly. Maybe back in the days when wrestlers worked a loop and there was only one hour of TV a week per territory a change like that would have done something, but not now. If they wanted to hotshot the belts, they should have done it on the house show circuit and promoted the changes on TV after the fact so that the fans would know that they could be missing something if they don't go the live cards in their area. With so much else going on, I missed the double noggin knocker Missy got; they showed the bump she took to the floor on replay. but not the actual move. Kudos to her for actually agreeing to get physically involved even briefly. She's come a long way from the days when she could barely throw a decent slap. I'm not sure what Jesse found funny about the whole thing; he should have been getting on Buff for abusing a female manager. Scorp's offense looked amazing. Why wasn't he pushed higher? He was more athletic than a good ninety percent of the roster at this time, and that's an extremely conservative estimate.

There wasn't enough here to get the flavor of what was going on. I agree that the mic'd ring gimmick didn't add much to the clip we saw, but maybe it was better earlier. I liked Jesse getting on the Nasties for picking Buff up. He needs to show from time to time that he doesn't blindly support the heels no matter what, and this was a perfect way and time to do that. Teddy's a much better fit with Buff and Scorp than Missy is with the Nasties, although to her credit Missy at least tries to look the part with her jeans and leather jacket, which is more than I would have expected out of her. Let's see what happens in the rematch!

I nevrer thought it would come to the point where a guy like Ricky Steamboat would be actively squashed, but that's what this match was: an extended Vader squash with a totally needless finish. Steamer never once had Vader truly on the run, so what was the purpose of Sid's inteference? Vader had already pounded the crap out of Steamer and probably carried him at least five minutes too long as it was. Even as slowly as Vader was moving by the end, I never lost the feeling that the match was safely in his pocket. It was just a question of how much TV time they had to fill. The psychology of the lumberjacks was well-established, but it didn't mean much since the match was so non-competitive. In fact, I'd have liked for guys like Arn, Dustin, and Sting to pound on Vader for a good while and soften him up so Steamer actually had a chance against him. As it was, the heel lumberjacks just added their two cents to what was already a thorough beating. Tony and Jesse were in main event mode, which considering the match in front of them was a bad thing. I could have used a few more of Jesse's witticisms and Tony's reactions to liven things up. The closest thing we got to that were a few gratuitous shots at poor hapless Fred Ottman, whom I've heard abused quite enough on this set. The Shockmaster gimmick can't have too much longer to go, can it? The crowd was apathetic for this, and I can't really blame them. Steamer only got a few isolated patches of offense, which wasn't enough to keep them interested, and the finish ought to have pissed them off good and proper, and not just in a kayfabe sense. Why even give Steamer a World title match if you're going to treat him this way? If you as a booker think he's past it, Dusty, then leave him in the TV title ranks where he can still have good matches with people closer to his own size. As for who should have taken his place, why not Cactus? You're already giving away one Havoc title match, so why not two, and do a quickie title change while you're at it like you're going to do the following week with Buff and Scorp? Was there any significance to Gary Cappetta announcing the challenger as "Ricky Steamboat, The Dragon" as opposed to Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat? Might Bischoff have been looking to trademark "The Dragon", like Vince had tried to do years earlier, or was Gary just being whimsical (I hope)? The one good thing I take away from this is that it wasn't Steamer's last World title shot; that would come against his old buddy Flair in the spring of '94. It would certainly have been a shame for Steamer's days as a World title contender to end like this, that's for sure.

I'm not a big structure guy or anything like that; I just know that I like to see two guys beating the hell out of each other whenever I can, and that's what happened here. The first half was a little underwhelming with the constant no-selling of chops, then they started working holds and this picked up exponentially. By the two-thirds mark it was obvious that at least one of these two, if not both, wasn't leaving without help. As it turned out, Kenta didn't. The one major complaint I had was that the referee was slow to check on Kawada in the sleeper when Kenta had him visibly out cold at least twice. Part of the drama of the sleeper is seeing the ref check the arm and wondering if it will stay up or not, and we didn't get that here. The one time he did ​check the arm, Kawada got out of the hold with a back suplex. As I mentioned earlier, it was bit tiresome to see these two chop in each other in the chest to no avail, but whoever came up with the idea of having Kawada chop Kenta in the side of the head was a genius. It was those chops, more than the suplexes or even the stretch plum, that scrambled Kenta's brains for good. As hard as Kawada can hit at times, I wouldn't be surprised if Kenta left Budokan Hall that night with a concussion. I agree about it being weird that the stretch plum was used to set up the pin, especially since it was clear that Kenta was unconscious and was unable to submit (or not) on his own. I guess Baba thought that no one would buy Kenta as a serious competitor going forward if he was seen as a quitter, even an unwitting one. It really didn't make much of a difference either way, as things turned out. As Pete said, this match marked Kenta's official transition from plucky youngster to main event player, and he certainly showed that he was ready for that transition, even in defeat. I can't agree with Loss that this was better than a Flair-Steamboat match, though; those matches were for the NWA World title in most cases, while this one was an unofficial number-one contender's match for a company championship. If one of these two had been Triple Crown champion at this time, I could understand Loss's case a bit better, although I probably wouldn't agree with it. Still, it's my unofficial All-Japan Singles Match of the Year up to this point, and with the Tag League coming up, I doubt there's much competition remaining for that spot.

What the hell was that? Why rush a turn that could have been built over weeks or even months? There aren't too many worse fits in WCW than Boss Hogg and the Blonds, so why not exploit that? Have Austin bring Fuller into the mix over Pillman's objections, and have Fuller slowly start favoring Austin over Pillman, maybe making single matches for him instead of getting the Blonds title shots against the Nasties as Pillman assumed he would. Then, after about eight to ten weeks at the very least, you could do this exact turn note for note and it would make sense. As it is, why would Austin listen to and side with a relative Johnny-come-lately over someone who's been by his side faithfully for the last year and a half? I didn't like Fuller's promo much either, but as you can tell from the nickname I gave him, I'm no fan of the whole Col. Parker gimmick, and I don't understand how it's not panned as thoroughly as some of the other ridiculous ideas that have come out of the Big Two to this point in the nineties. Yes, Fuller does the best he can with it, but that's nowhere near enough to make it actually enjoyable. To use a WWF analogy, this is my version of Sheepherders/Bushwhackers; most people can't understand how Vince could have "ruined" Luke and Butch, and I can't understand why someone in the WCW front office who knew Fuller's work didn't clue Bischoff in as to how good he was without a cheesy gimmick like this.

The law of averages (and just plain average) is starting to catch up to WCW here. The black guy at the beginning and the end seems like he has potential, but the guy in the glasses who wants to be an announcer looks and sounds like he's stoned out of his gourd, and the fat guy's just plain pathetic. If I'd been in charge of this contest, this is about when I would have pulled the plug. Unfortunately, it seems like this is going to go on for at least a couple of weeks in November.

Yes, this was funny, but to what end? Lawler's main WWF program wasn't with Savage, it was with Bret. Even taking into account that they worked together on ​Superstars​, there was no more animosity between them than there was between any other face/heel commentator pairing in the WWF. Lawler should have worn a Bret costume, and if they weren't selling one in '93, he should have made one for himself or had one made, the worse-looking the better. On the other hand, this very costume would have been a huge hit in Memphis, where Lawler and Randy had just finished their program. I can just imagine Dave cracking up when he sees Lawler in it, not to mention the crowd at the WMC studio,

What I want to know is how they're going to explain this in Memphis. Lawler's pretty much himself in both the USWA and the WWF; he just shows his nasty side up north and his good side at home. But Jeff's never said at any time in his Memphis career that what he really wants to be is a country singer. That's not to mention calling a bona fide musical legend like Willie Nelson decrepit. The shame of it is, he showed more personality in those two minutes than he has in any given year in Memphis, where at times he still acts and talks like a green kid in front of the camera. Hearing Jeff challenge the Steiners brings to mind an obvious bout that both Vince and Papa missed somehow: Jeff and Lawler against the Steiners. For that matter, I don't think Lawler and Jeff ever crossed paths in the WWF, even though it would have been a natural pairing. Maybe the King could have been a benefactor of Double J's, or even hired him as the official court musical director. Pete compared the Double J gimmick to that of the Honky Tonk Man, but I don't see it. Jeff seems a lot more serious about the musical part of the gimmick, while everything about Honky suggested that he was a third-rate Elvis impersonator, knew it, and didn't care. Plus, Jeff on his worst day could outwrestle Honky on his best (come to think of it, did Honky ever have​ a best day?)

This match was uncomfortable to watch at times, and I mean that as a compliment. Warching two guys do this kind of work on each other's legs gets to be hard to take aftrer a while. Of course, once Stan explained the backstory, it was easy to expect the kind of match we got. The only thing we ​didn't ​get was one of these guys actually being carried out on a stretcher. This may be the best match I've ever seen out of Jules. There's not a lot of competition, though, since the only other time I've seen him was as the designated FIP for the team of himself and his "big brother" Chief Jay in the WWF. It was a revelation to watch this bout and realize that he knew more than one move (the tomahawk chop). Seriously, with three lazy workers like Jules, Chief Jay, and Fuji in the ring with him, how did Saito not go crazy during their tag matches? The second best worker in those matches may just have been Captain Lou Albano (who managed Fuji and Saito); at least he knew how to bump and blade. A sarcastic golf clap to Jules for finally getting a clue and going to work on the leg of Miller's that didn't ​have the big-as-life cast on its foot. It only took him half the match. Even Coss and Stasiak wondered how he could be dumb enough to keep working on the casted leg when every move he tried hurt him instead (though they didn't actually use the word "dumb"). God bless Stan for trying to cover for him instead of running down to the ring screaming, "THE OTHER LEG, YOU BLASTED IDIOT!" Coss's leg puns got to be a bit much, and Stan isn't the experienced broadcaster that Dutch became as yet, so he didn't know enough to try and gently stop him. I like Coss well enough when he plays it straight on play-by-play, but if he's trying to do color and isn't set up the right way, his attempts at humor can crash and burn like the ​Hindenburg​. At least we got a decision, although it seemed kind of weak that Sandy knew about the casted foot for the whole match, knew that Miller was using it, and waited until there was less than thirty seconds left to disqualify Miller for using it. Miller's postmatch attack was brutal, and I'm sorry that they chose to go to commercial in the middle of it rather than wait until he was pulled off once and for all. I thought for a second that he was going to go after Sandy's leg, but he didn't. The matches where Hack and Piper return, at least the ones that were televised, are on this very disc. If I'm not mistaken, both Hack and Rod are Buddy's partners in one of the final televised six-mans between the People's Army/RBA and the Clan, which is the match we have. Talk about hell freezing over; Buddy and Piper on the same team. I can't wait to see it!

First fall: ​This is either the fourth or fifth match I've seen with these four guys, and it's quickly become one of my favorite tag team feuds ever. The interesting thing here is that while Dynamite and Assassin are the ones in this match, it's Oliver​ and Assassin who are the Northwest tag champions. Similarly, although Curt and Buddy are representing the People's Army/RBA, it's Buddy and Brian Adias (who isn't represented on the set at all) who just lost the belts to Oliver and Assassin. Anyway, this is a typical fall for this series, which means hatred off the charts and excellent teamwork from both sides. The finish here is off the charts, as Curt shakes off a tremendous beating and makes the hot tag to Buddy. Buddy and Assassin proceed to put on a clinic, featuring moves that no one would expect out of two beefy guys who made their reputation as brawlers. They exchange dropkicks first, then sunset flips, and Buddy gets the best of the last exchange tp score the pin that puts the RBA up one fall to none with about eleven minutes of disc time remaining. I'm going to miss Dynamite, as this is his last match on the set that I haven't watched. Seeing him in this environment has really opened my eyes as to how good he was before his body broke down. He and Assassin don't get the hype that the Bulldogs do as a team, but they're every bit as crisp if not more so, as their doubleteam work on Curt in this fall amply demonstrates. Curt's another guy whom this set has given me a new appreciation of; who knew he was this gritty as a babyface? He was pretty much presented as Larry's wet-behind-the-ears kid in the AWA up until his heel turn, and he was better as a heel than as a face for Vince too. He's even a better talker here than I thought he would be: not quite on Buddy's level (who in Portland is?) but more than adequate for the situations he found himself in. This is also the last match I have to watch that features Dutch as a commentator, and he's been wonderful as usual so far. He refuses to play the whiny face announcer when he tells Coss that how the Clan won the tag belts back doesn't matter. and he makes sure to put the Clan over as worthy titleholders. I thought he was a bit short with the guy who hypothesized that Assassin loaded his mask with steel (what else would a heel load a mask with?), but that was his only misstep. I liked his and Coss's outrage over the Clan's tactics once Sandy's back was turned; it showed that while they respected them as professionals, they also recognized that those tactics were illegal and unfair. Big news at the start of the bout, as Don announces that Harley and Andre are coming in for appearances. The Giant didn't make this set, but we have Harley's upcoming title defense against Billy Jack. We also have the six-man referenced in the between-falls promo. I won't spoil the ending for those of you who have yet to see it, but let's just say that we'll have the Ripper to push around for quite a while yet. I wish Buddy had had time to talk about the coal miner's glove and elimination matches he mentioned as he was walking away. Acrobat of the Night award goes to Sandy for his backhanded count on the winning pinfall. I've seen him count with the back of his hands before, but never for a three-count. Second fall: ​Buddy plays FIP for this fall, as he takes a beating from Dynamite and Assassin both inside and outside the ring. Still, it takes shenanigans to beat him, as Assassin has to load his mask and hit a flying headbutt off the top to score the pinfall. We're even at a fall apiece with exactly four minutes of wrestling time remaining. and the smart money says we're headed for a draw. I forgot to talk about the clinic Dutch put on during the first fall when he explained the difference between a front chinlock and a front facelock. Only a ring veteran could explain the difference in a way the average fan could understand. No disrespect to Coss and Stasiak, but the announcing's going to take a major hit when Dutch leaves soon. I wonder how he and Frank would have sounded as a team. You can tell that Buddy's a true babyface now, as the announcers are plugging his softball games in much the same way as Lance and Dave do for Lawler's in Memphis. When Buddy was a heel, they would mention the Sassi Chassis occasionally, but they'd never plug actual games. Third fall: ​We actually get a decision here, as Curt and Buddy wrap up Dynamite and Assassin respectively in dual abdominal stretches. This brings Oliver in with his new friend the cowbell, which he hits both Curt and Buddy with to cause the disqualification. Your winners: the People's Army. Afterwards, Billy Jack comes in to join the fun and gets a taste of the cowbell right in the ribs before the Clan retreats. Oliver proclaims himself and his team ready for the big challenge match in a postmatch promo. This may be the first outside interference DQ that we've seen in a match on this set. That's a real surprise, considering how common that kind of finish was in other territories. It's a shame that Dynamite and Assassin didn't have time to really work over Buddy's arm, because what they started to do here looked first-rate. Heel bragging is one thing, but how can Dynamite say that the RBA "went down" when they both won the match and got the better of the postmatch brawl? Heels who claim things that never came close to happening don't get heat with me; I just dismiss them as idiots. Give me the heel who admits that he does what it takes to win and dares the faces to stop him, as Oliver does here.

First fall: ​This is another in the tag series between the RBA and the Clan. It takes place three weeks before ​Buddy and Billy Jack's non-title win over Oliver and Assassin that we saw earlier in this disc, nut it's for the Northwest tag team belts. This one belongs almost completely to the RBA. Buddy starts the fall by trying to break Oliver's arm on the steel post, and things progress merrily from there. For his part, Billy Jack spends most of the fall trying to unmask Assassin to no avail, thanks mostly to Dandy Sandy. In the end he settles for almost taking Assassin's head off with a clothesline at about the eleven-minute mark in disc time to get a three count and put his team up one fall to none. It's early enough in Buddy's turn that he's mostly focused on Oliver, almost to the exclusion of trying to wrestle a smart tag match. He would improve in this regard later on once the immediate impulse to strangle Oliver on sight subsided a bit. This leaves Billy Jack to take care of Assassin for the most part, although we see enough of him against Rip to remind us that there's still an issue there. Speaking of which, what's Sandy's problem with guys trying to unmask masked wrestlers? I can see him wanting to protect Buddy from being snatched bald back in '80, but in Assassin's case, he's publically promised $2500 to anyone who can unmask him. Why not let the wrestlers actually try and collect it? It's not like they can walk up to Assassin nice as pie and ask, "Would you mind taking your mask off, please? I need $2500 rather desperately at the moment." Who or what on earth is Gladstone's Rub-A-Dub, which is the name on the front of the Ripper's T-shirt here? It was nice of Dutch and Coss to say hi to Billy Jack's dad and put him over as such a good man. Too bad his son turned out to be (by most reports, anyway) an absolute sociopath. Dutch and Coss continue to show excellent chemistry, and Dutch in particular sounds like he's still having a blast calling the bouts. There are a lot of great exchanges between the two in this fall, but my favorite concerns Billy Jack, who both men are unapologetically over the moon about: Dutch: You wouldn't want to run into a body like that in a dark alley. Coss: Or even in a light one! Frank wasn't given to hyperbole and/or overexcitement in most cases, but I wonder if he would have broken that pattern for a hometown hero like Billy Jack had he (Frank) still been alive when Billy Jack debited. ​Second fall: ​The challengers begin the fall by working over Assassin's back, but the tide turns, and eventually Buddy becomes the FIP for all but the last minute or so of the fall. Billy Jack eventually gets the hot tag, but the good feelings don't last too long, as Assassin kicks him when he puts his head down for a backdrop, then pins him after a textbook reverse neckbreaker to even the bout at a fall apiece. The PA announces that there are eight minutes of wrestling time left just prior to the beginning of the third fall. This is from back in the first fall, but I loved how Dutch and Coss put Assassin and Oliver over as worthy champions while not endorsing their tactics. That's a difficult line for announcers to walk, and there are only a few who even try, let alone managing to be as convincing as Dutch and Coss are here. Dutch isn't normally given to hyperbole, but I had to laugh when he said that he thought Billy Jack could match strength with Andre, who was still the Eighth Winder of he World in all his glory at this point. I wouldn't have given Billy Jack a snowball's chance in the desert against Andre in a strength contest; of course, it turns out that Billy Jack was most likely stronger than Andre, at least where lifting where lifting weights was concerned. Nice job by Dutch warning kids not to try wrestling moves at home so they won't get hurt. Some promotions were still encouraging their viewers to try out the holds for themselves if they thought the wrestlers were taking it easy or not giving their all. I enjoyed the discussion of the advantage Buddy has in bring lefthanded. I didn't understand some of it, but regardless it isn't the type of insight you hear very often on wrestling programs, which is enough reason to thoroughly appreciate it. We haven't seen Assassin's loaded hood come into play yet, though it wouldn't surprise me to see it at some point in the third fall. The same goes for Billy Jack's full nelson. Buddy deserves some type of award for trying to undo Assassin's mask while laying on the canvas looking up at him. That's another spot I've never seen anything like before. Third fall: ​Just after I said that we hadn't seen Assassin's loaded hood yet, he uses it on Billy Jack to start the third fall. Interestingly enough, he targets Billy Jack's shoulder rather than his head. The champions work over Billy Jack for the first part of the fall, but he gets free and tags Buddy, who comes in ready to kill. Billy Jack comes in ready to help, but ends up costing his team when Assassin points his presence out to Sandy. Buddy then lifts him in a back suplex, only for Oliver to take his knee out with the best clip this side of the Oregon Ducks. Buddy lands full force on the back of his head, and is stunned enough that Assassin can cover him and get the three count. After the match, the Clan attacks Billy Jack and doubleteams him until Curt makes the save with a chair. Later, in the Crow's Nest, Rip's bragging about the Clan's latest win when the RBA shows up and clears them out. They vow vengeance in the following week's six-man tag, which won't be televised. Kudos to Coss for calling out the fan who threw his or her drink into the ring. Just imagine the calamity that could have caused if the match had still been going on. I understand that the faces were supposed to be disgusted by all that had gone on during the show, but they could have said a few more words about the following week's six-man match. A few isolated syllables and hand gestures do not a sellout make. I loved Dutch's protest about being in the middle of the brawl in the Crow's Nest. I also liked him reminding the (presumably) outraged audience that Buddy would have happily done what Oliver just had a mere three months before. That's called keeping events in perspective, folks, and it isn't often seen in wrestling today, where not even those in charge of writing the shows have much memory beyond the previous week.

This wasn't bad for two guys I'd never heard of. It was hard fought and closely scored, which is all I really expect out of shoot-style. The only problem was that the guy in charge of keeping the scoreboard for TV kept counting rope breaks as knockdowns, which completely confused me (and presumably the viewers watching in real time as well). Most of the holds involved the ankles and legs, so it maks sense that an anklelock would get the submission for Zouev. What was with all the Russian fighters in RINGS at this time? In addition to these two, I believe that Volk Han is Russian as well. From what I've seen, I'm assuming that shoot-style had quite a following in Russia. I wonder if that following has carried over to MMA in any great degree.