[1980-12-27-Portland] Buddy Rose vs Jay Youngblood (2/3 falls)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-12-27
PNW
Buddy Rose (c) vs Jay Youngblood
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match
Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA
★★
Card

Buddy was back in “Playboy” mode, reverting to his bleached blonde look. Both guys focused their offense around using the arm. First Rose but then Youngblood to far greater effect in the second fall.
Youngblood caught Rose with an O’Connor Roll to get the first fall and then he was up against the TV time limit to seal the deal and win the belt. Youngblood was all over Rose for essentially the whole second fall and Rose had to resort to serious stalling at the death to cling on. Eventually the bell rang, and due to not securing that second fall, Youngblood was unable to win the belt, but Sandy Barr wasn’t having any of Rose’s shenanigans and he decided to hold up the belt so we’re gonna do this all over again next Saturday.
I think I would have liked more from Youngblood here. It was a pretty rudimentary performance from him. He hit the spots he needed to but he didn’t exude much character and he certainly lacked the exuberance that I’ve seen from him before. He feels like the kind of guy who has his peaks and valleys. He’s never bad but he can fade into the background at times. Rose however was really good here. He was feeling himself, after going back to blonde look and you could sense his confidence early on. Then he transitioned into some great prolonged selling and he avoided any of the big “bouncy” bumps which I feel are the weakest part of his work. Overall, due to the booking, this was never destined to be a true banger, but it definitely piqued my interest for the rematch and they avoided the iffy finish being any kind of turn off.