Lee Benaka

I have not seen most of these wrestlers before. I thought it was a fun match overall with some very nice moves throughout. The heel beat down to start had that annoying feature of the faces milling around on the apron and then repeatedly falling to the floor repeatedly when one of the heels nails each of them. Tiger Mask's botch was tough, but there was some nice mask-ripping to make up for it. The end sequence with the near falls and finally a pin from the "strong guy" was entertaining and effective. Maybe a bit lopsided in favor of the heels overall though, as has been mentioned. ***1/2

I was much more forgiving of this match than other commenters. I didn't know this was the final of a tournament to crown a first champion. If I had known that, I might have been more critical. I thought this was a fun, chaotic match with a nasty beer can and chair shot early on. Lance Russell was awesome, as has been mentioned. Dundee did a weird ref job, but I was starting to think that this was part of an angle, especially when he had to see Morton in the ring and still counted Lawler to give Bull the initial win. I was happy to see the restart, and I thought the interference set up a good follow-up tag match. The manager was garbage for sure. I think the highlight was when the match threatened to turn into an Extension Cord Match. I was almost thinking the money mark behind this promotion owned a hardware store. **1/2

I really liked AJ's speed in the early part of the match, as well as Bailey's irritating promo. It seems like they tried to work in as many ladder spots as possible and didn't sell the painful moves enough. It was too bad about AJs slip-up early on in the match. I would have preferred Jimmy Golden to Eddie Golden. Eddie's post-match powerbomb added a nice bit of insult to injury. I agree that the ladder climbing was too slow and that the ladder positioning was distractingly off. The ref bump was not great. Bailey's interference worked well enough for me. Still, overall this was not one for the ages. **

I thought this was an enjoyable little match and agree with most of what has been said about the awkwardness. I think I appreciated the stiffness of Danielson's blows, suplex, and the nice guillotine more than Kendrick's continuous spots, although some of them were well-done. The interference at the end was very well-timed, and I thought Rudy Boy Gonzales took an impressive bump to the floor in the post-match melee. Around ** for me, but I'm glad I watched it.

Maybe this was the match where Dutch was being kind of pathetic talking about wrestlers going to NYC, as opposed to the Rose-Pardee match. At any rate, I am beginning to miss Frank. I found the reference to Buddy H. Roberts to be amusing when the announcer claimed that the H stood for hate, or hatred. Wha? Stan did some elaborate but mostly effective selling in the first two falls. The finisher in the first fall looked pretty devastating. The full nelson finisher in the second fall was less so, but it was pretty convincing by the time Billy Jack made it to the WWF. The finish of the third fall was cute, and I really did love Stasiak's excitement when they won the titles, and even after they won the second fall. Overall, this was a fun bout.

This match was all Buddy Rose a nice little showcase for Buddy's return to Portland after his triumphant stint on the East Coast. After the announcing almost making Buddy out to the a conquering hero, I thought the post-match was pretty exciting and powerful, with Buddy cranking up the heat by shoving the ref down a couple of times and pile-driving Pardee on a chair. The confrontation between Buddy on the top turnbuckle and Billy Jack in the ring was dramatic. I think it was smart to avoid direct physical contact between the two, like Billy Jack slamming Buddy off the turnbuckle. I thought Dutch's going on and on about people leaving Portland was a little pathetic. I kind of doubt Ed Farhat was appearing in Portland at this point in his career. There were multiple Sheiks in wrestling in the early 1980s, including a Sheik Abdullah in the Central States, and of course Adnan Al-Kaissey (sp?) in the AWA.

I thought this was a pretty entertaining match. Garretta as usual does a fine job summarizing the high points. The at-times almost delirious enthusiasm of the announcers for Hack added to the match. I thought it was a nice touch for Flair to submit to the figure four, giving Hack a pretty powerful fall if he was only going to get one fall during the match. I thought the match was kind of starting to run on fumes a bit when we got to the point when Hack missed the two dropkicks, but it wrapped up quickly after that. A very solid effort by both participants.

Garretta does a great job of summarizing the fun points raised by the announcer throughout the match. As for the match itself, I was underwhelmed by the Pardee/Sawyer team, and I get the feeling that this match made the set mostly for the insane blade job in the third fall and the post-match promo. I'm sure, as a vampire wrestling fan, I have seen that promo before, but I was still fairly shocked. I agree with garretta that Sawyer did a masterful job (or perhaps had no other choice) in selling the blood loss while giving a delirious interview. Without that spectacle, I probably would have this toward the bottom of my rankings so far.

The beginning of the match came across as an epic stall job on the part of Schultz and then Rose. I didn't pick up on the "no pay if you don't stay in the ring" stip at the beginning, so I guess it makes sense. But without knowing that, it is a bit exasperating. I did like seeing Buddy, when they finally ended up in the ring together, bailing after Schultz flinched. Buddy's selling of the repeated thumbs to the throat in the first fall was epic. The elderly ringside regular (didn't catch her name, but it was cute that Frank identified her) coming to Buddy's defense was the highlight of the entire match for me. That was a great demonstration of Buddy's attempt to tell a story. I loved how, when Buddy eventually turned the tables, he would suck his thumb before giving Schultz the thumb to the throat. The mirror DQs were kind of interesting, but not super-satisfying. The no-contest ending with both on the floor left things a bit flat for me, especially with the blow-off (I assume) cage match not immediately on after this match in the "official" disc line-up. (I'll look forward to seeing it on the extras.) Considering the bloody and violent lead-up to this match, I was expecting a bit more out of this. Dr. D had some progress to make on his promos also at this point in his career.

Brett Sawyer is such a funny-looking runty dude! There are several quite amusing moments in this match between Johnson and the heels, including (1) Buddy's attempt to demonstrate that he is just as acrobatic as Rocky in the opening minutes of the match, (2) Rocky's tutoring Brett on the proper way to execute an uppercut to an opponent's armpit, and (3) Rocky easily wriggling out of Buddy's headlocks, and Buddy's crashing failure to do the same when Rocky has him in a headbutt. Rocky pins Buddy to win the first fall after a series of dropkicks. Brett does hit a very nice and high dropkick himself. Rocky gets pinned for the second fall, after a double-team from Buddy and Rip. Things quickly break down in the third fall, with all four (I think) wrestlers on the floor, when in runs David Schultz again for the DDQ. Schultz posts Buddy and opens up quite a cut. The ref throws the match out and holds up the belts. Schultz does a post-match interview from the crow's nest where he demands a one-on-one match with Rose, and Don Owens reluctantly agrees. This was fun, but the run-in ending again hurt the match overall a bit for me.

The goal of this match, apparently, is for one wrestler to injure the other's knee. Hennig goes after Rose early on and dishes out a lot of punishment (including punches) to Rose's leg and knee, including that lovely spot where Hennig tries to make Rose eat his own foot. Rose does a very nice job of selling his injury throughout. Rose submits to a half-crab after getting in very little offense. Rose stays in the ring during the break and does some damage to Hennig's knee in the second fall, including hammering Hennig's leg with a chair from outside of the ring. Rose wins with a half-crab. The third fall doesn't getting going too much (other than Hennig paying Rose back by smashing his knee with a chair from outside the ring) before Dr. D comes to ringside and punches Rose as he is wrapping Hennig's knee around the ring post. Rose is counted out and loses. Hennig goes to shake Dr. D's hand, and Dr. D decks Hennig too. Because of this match's close focus on trying to injure knees, the match seemed to repeat itself a bit (someone is getting their leg slammed into the ring post again!), which made it not as compelling as other matches. The DQ ending with Dr. D was a bit anticlimactic too, but I guess it set up more matches down the line. This is pretty mid-range for me.

This was a serviceable little match to build up a feud. Before the match, Don Owens, the human narration box, tells the crowd how bad Curt's knee is, and that he told Curt he shouldn't wrestle, etc. As the match begins, Buddy announces that he will be going after the knee, and Buddy tries some entertainingly stealthy moves to try to get at the knee in the opening couple of minutes. Curt rebuffs them and ends up going to work on Buddy's knee for quite a long time. This sequence dragged a bit for me because of its length, but it was enlivened by Curt trying to make Rose "eat" his own boot. Buddy eventually turned the tide and dominated for a while (interrupted briefly by a nice leg-punch escape by Curt) and ended up banging Curt's bum knee against the ring post to set him up for a half-crab submission. They both did nice jobs selling their knees throughout the first fall. When the second fall started, it was announced that there were only four minutes left in the match, which I guess foreshadowed the abbreviated but effective ending of the match. Buddy took advantage of Curt's knee again to start the second fall, but before long Curt had Buddy's legs wrapped around the post and wailed away on them until he was disqualified. Curt continued to abuse Buddy's legs for a bit after the DQ, and Buddy did a great job of being helpless and selling the beating. This was solid storytelling and fine work, but the match was not as hateful or intense as the previous Borne matches.

I'm not sure I would call this a Lumberjack Match. The match featured four "guards", one on each side of the ring. Each of them, according to Don Owens, didn't care much for Rose or Borne. I really like Don Owens. Buddy brought a box of "funeral" lilies to the ring, but the effect was not that dramatic as Buddy was distracted by the fact that the match would be televised, which Buddy did not want. The announcer warned of gore, and we had gore, pretty much from the get-go. Buddy used that deceivingly sharp microphone on Borne to draw first blood, and Rose was shot in the head while down on the floor at ringside a minute later. Rose took a pounding and lost the first fall. Sandy Barr again tried to "revive" the extremely bloody Rose by sitting him up and tapping his shoulders. I'm still don't know what kind of first aid that represents. The second fall began with a long look at Rose leaning in the corner, having gamely not wiped any of the blood from his face. He really looked to be a pathetic mess. Borne took it to Rose in the second fall again, which featured stereo low blows and a surprise and kind of unlikely roll-up by Rose for the second fall. Borne attacked Rose as he tried to enter the ring for the third fall, and before long a big wad of "dog chain" appeared in Rose's hand, and he nailed Borne with it for the pin. Borne didn't sell the chain blow all that extensively and popped up after Rose left the ring. After the match, Borne asked Owens for a chain match, and Owens agreed, but that's it you troublemakers! I really like Don Owens.

I forgot to mention two other great things about this match: (1) Buddy Rose's extensive mooning of the crowd early in the match, and (2) Matt Borne's severely dick-ish move of stepping onto the side of Buddy's stomach as he walked over him after winning the first fall. That looked painful.

I thought this match was just terrific. I liked Matt invading Buddy's space as Sandy Barr was doing the pre-match inspection. With all the attention paid to Buddy's hand, I thought that would come into play, but no. The highlights are covered nicely by dawho5 above, but I just loved how Buddy faced the crowd after the second fall and licked his (presumably bloody) finger, shrugged, and indicated that he was #1. I also found efforts to minister to Borne after the second fall bizarre but compelling. I guess the medical best practice to relieve massive blood loss is to rub one's shoulders and slap the back of one's neck hard. Things really got crazy in the third fall when Borne picked up the big wooden box and hit Rose with it, and then followed up with a microphone to the forehead. Exasperated Dutch Savage was perfect. I have to say that I appreciated the brevity of this match, although longer 2/3-fall matches don't really bug me when Buddy Rose is involved.

I grew up in Topeka and watched Central States wrestling on TV pretty regularly in the 1980s. You really can't judge Central States by its shows from, say, 1987, when you were treated to 10 minutes of Bob Brown v. Hustler Rip Rogers with Brenda Britton, or a Central States Title defense by Rufus R. Jones against Mr. Pogo with Porkchop Cash as his manager (see ). Bob Brown was a known quantity and better than nothing. At least you knew he would put up a good fight. He wasn't pretty, but that was OK with me. I enjoyed Central States a lot more in the earlier 1980s when JJ Dillon was leading the Rat Pack, trying to put Rufus in a rat suit, and Avalanche Buzz Tyler was running wild. The stock videos promoting a special appearance of Kamala, Brody, Flair, etc. for a big show in Kansas City were fun also. It's too bad so much Central States footage seems to be lost forever.