[1980-11-08-WWF-Philadelphia, PA] Wild Samoans vs Rick Martel & Tony Garea

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-11-08
WWF
The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika) (c) vs Rick Martel & Tony Garea 
WWF Tag Team Title Match
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
★★
Card

Easily Martel’s first good WWF match/performance. He’s been pretty underwhelming so far in New York, lacking the big character and run of squash match others like Sgt. Slaughter have had and seemingly got lost in the shuffle pretty fast upon arrival. This match had a very basic structure: shine -> Garea FIP -> Martel hot tag -> chaos into a finish, and the best parts were all Martel. His hot tag was excellent and he was allowed to really spread his wings in a way he hasn’t been able to recently. The fire was there, the big series of offensive moves and also being able to pick up the win with a nifty sunset flip. The Samoans weren’t great, better in concept than in reality, so this was never destined to be some hidden gem, but the title switch is definitely a capital M moment. With a member of both teams being pinned simultaneously there was ambiguity to the finish. Dick Woehrle and Gary Michael Cappetta did a fantastic job at building suspense before the subsequent explosion of joy from both Martel and Garea, but also the Philly crowd.