[1990-01-21-WWF-Royal Rumble] Ron Garvin vs Greg Valentine

[Judy Bagwell]

awesome match one of my childhood favorites. Valentines tree falling in the woods selling is incredible

[flyonthewall2983]

On top of the pinfall attempts, it's distracting to me when the ref lays the count on someone to let go of the ropes. I would assume that in a submission match, you can't get disqualified.

[Beast]

Pinfall attempts are sooooooooo dumb and to the detriment of the match flow. Especially after the first few. No excuse for that many in a submission match, even if WWF figured their fans were dumb.

[JKWebb]

The only way this match can end is submission. This is worked super stiff. They really unload on each other. Ventura says that he's glad he's retired so he doesn't have feel shots like that anymore. Jimmy Hart has to keep reminding them it's a submission match. The first couple of pinfall attempts didn't really bother me, because they explained it well. But, to keep going for it seems kind of dumb. Not as dumb as the faces Garvin was making at Valentine during the figure four. What a goof. I agree that probably does speak to his intelligence level, This was really fun as far as in-ring action itself, it was a war, but some of the goofier aspects of the match keep me from calling it great. I still really enjoyed it.

 

#461 - placetobenation.com/countdown-top-500-matches-of-the-90s-500-451/2/

[ohtani's jacket]

#461 -- My takeaway from this is that there was a kernel of a really great Valentine vs. Garvin NWA bout in this amid all the goofy WWF bullshit and that kernel was stiff enough and hard-hitting enough to counter the missteps down the stretch like the repeated pin attempts or the face Garvin made. Most of all I love how this feud made the Hammer relevant again albeit for a short time. Valentine dropped the elbow on that phasing down. I wanna watch the rest of the matches in their series now.

[ohtani's jacket]

I went back and watched as much of this feud as I could find.

 

The TV angle with the retirement match, the referee gig and the reinstatement brought back a lot of childhood memories. I was super into the WWF in 1989 and it's interesting that when you're a kid you're into all the angles and everything that's going on in the promotion (at least I was), especially when you're living all the way over on the other side of the world and following wrestling through Superstars, the TV Guide, the WWF magazine, PPVs that were months behind, and your local tabloid newspaper. I adsorbed it all like a sponge back then. Even watching Valentine and the Colonel Jimmy Hart appear on the Brother Love show brought back fond memories of how excited I would be to see any sort of confrontation on the Brother Love show and how long you'd have to wait at times for the wrestler to come out. Some of those segments seemed to drag on forever.

Anyway, I watched quite a few of the Valentine/Garvin house show bouts:

 

MSG 12/30/88

Boston Garden 1/13/89

Philadelphia Spectrum 1/14/89

MSG 9/30/89

Maple Leaf Gardens 10/18/89

 

They're all good matches but the one to watch, and I believe it made the old DVDVR WWF set, is the September '89 Madison Square Garden bout. That's an incredible fight with some of the stiffest work ever seen in a WWF ring. Structurally, it's similar to a Flair vs. Garvin house show bout and what makes it stand out from the others is that not only is it more brutal but just when you think it's over it goes on for another beat and there's even more stiff action to enjoy. Really great bout. Check it out if you enjoyed the submission match.

[JKWebb]

Awesome, that's great info - I'll be checking that out soon.

[wrestlingchick]

A much better match than I was expecting here. Ronnie Garvin is one of the guys from this era that I just never have been able to enjoy, but this was a stiff war that I really enjoyed. I liked the added touch of the shin guard being used as a means to counter the figure four, a manoeuvre applied by both men. Obviously the submission stipulation took a bit to get used to for the guys working the match as they both went for pinfalls early on, however Jesse was able to cover for them on commentary. It made sense for Garvin to get the win here after being forced to "retire" by Valentine months prior, but did he stick around at all after this? I guess they didn't have a huge amount planned for Valentine for the next few months either, so its not like a loss really hurts him here.

 

Grade: ***

[dawho5]

I liked this a lot. The pinfall attempts take away from it for sure. But it is a hyper-intense war with both guys beating each other senseless, so maybe that explains the pins.

[Stiva]

Great match. I love the start with both guys chucking hard rights and laying bombs to try and knock each other senseless and as far as the pin falls go, I see two explanations at different times. Early on, it's the WWF doing what they always do and hammer a point home to over-explain things and later in the match, the pinfalls are, as Tony says, a way of using their wrestling knowledge to get out of holds and give themselves some space. The later portions revolving around removing the braces have a nice escalation and, in the end, the heel's hubris comes back to haunt him as he eats the brace and submits.

[Calvin]

It's a territory match on a big-4 WWF PPV, and while there's some goofy bullshit that needs to be sifted through, the match itself is a slugfest at heart dressed up as a submission match. I thought the constant pinfalls were more comical than detrimental, but I understand if people think it hurt the flow of the match. This probably is looked at more fondly if it were just a regular match without the stip.

***1/4