[1980-07-05-Portland] Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs The Sheepherders (2/3 falls)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[cheapshot]

I really enjoyed this match as it was an excellent example of how a heel team (Rose & Wiskowski) could get the heat on the faces (Sheepherders). This was a 2/3 falls match, the The Sheepherders winning the first fall. The story throughout was the heels attacking both Luke & Butch so they couldn't take out even when they were on offence as the partner was selling on the outside. I loved Rose in his mask with hair stitched in as a result of losing a hair vs. hair match to Roddy Piper a few months earlier. The heels won the second fall, and what was interesting they were interviewed for 5 minutes and cut a promo on the faces of Portland saying they were going to run them all out of the promotion (Piper, Sheepherders, Martel etc.) The finish was a DQ when Ed Wiskowski brought a chair in to the ring. What happened after the match was really fun as the heels continued to beat down The Sheepherders until Piper made the save, what was especially fun was that Piper couldn't protect both Luke & Butch at the same time so Rose & Wiskowski kept getting cheapshot's in. Eventually they even managed to beat on Piper resulting in huge heat from the crowd with fans trying to attack the heels. Great post match. ***1/4

[SAMS]

1980-07-05
PNW
Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskoski vs. The Sheepherders (Butch Miller & Luke Williams)
Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match
Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA
Card
★★

Looks like Rip Rogers was the unfortunate soul who got kicked out of town during a recent elimination tag match between this group, so Rose’s Army is currently just Rose & Wiskoski.
The first two falls built around Williams playing FIP and Miller constantly being away from his corner to make the hot tag. This was either because he was distracted, but mostly due to getting attacked from both inside and outside the ring. These kinds of spots can sometimes be a bit hokey and there’s no real reason for the partner to miss the tag, but here it felt far more natural and it held up the match psychology they were going for.
In the first fall Williams was finally able to get to Miller and his hot tag was pretty good. After a brief flurry of action he took Wiskowski down and got the first fall. In the second however they were able to isolate Williams and he was never able to get free with Rose eventually running interference and wiping out Miller, allowing Wiskoski to hit a brutal diving headbutt off the top for a well earned equalising fall.
In the third things could have gone either way until Wiskoski had enough and brought a chair into the action and got himself disqualified. Didn’t love the finish, if you’re happy to lose via DQ then why not get the chair at the beginning of the match? It didn’t feel like he was driven by desperation or his team was about to lose, it kind of just happened. The post match beat down on Miller however was very intense to the point that one fan even got involved with Rose, so that made up for the weak finish to some extent.
This was my first look at Wiskoski in the ring and his headbutt was great, but he fell a bit flat in other areas. His selling and bumping in particular were far too cartoony I thought but he seems composed on the mic and he and Rose are an interesting pair going forwards.