[1980-12-29-WWF-MSG, NY] The Moondogs vs Rick Martel & Tony Garea

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WWF World Tag Team Champions Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs Moondogs - WWF MSG 12/29/80

 

"The Moondogs having themselves a powwow, no maybe it is a bowwow. No. No. Boo." - Vince McMahon booing his own joke.

 

I have been meaning to watch this series forever. Rick Martel & Tony Garea were the hot new babyface team that just dethroned the Lou Albano's Wild Samoans and now Lou Albano is back with a new rough 'n' tumble tag team combination, the Moondogs. They are psycho hillbillies that carry around large bones. They are right up by alley as they are totally outrageous gimmick, they are big and fat and they bump like mad. They do a little bit to establish the power game and then Rick Martel goes into Ricky Martel mode. I feel like I must have made this comparison in the past, but he reminds me so much of Eddie Guerrero in how infectious his energy is. He looks like he is having so much fun. This is my first look at Tony Garea. For a dude near retirement, he has some pep in his step too. I like how he throws a dropkick in such a way that he lands on his feet. It looks awkward as fuck but hey he doesn't take a bump. Smart! They work over a Moondogs leg. King is the bigger of the two, but still have not gotten good at telling them apart. So the other one gets up on the top rope and Martel press slams him off to a massive pop. The Moondogs were really good bumping & stooging heels. Moondog King punches Martel in the head while in a hold. Then smacks the shit out of him. Just a beautiful heat segment. So much drama in Martel trying to get the tag while almost being pinned too. Moondogs were great at choking and double teams. Martel the selling and the hope spots. There was one great left-right combination, whip into the buckles, he charges and eats the boots and the air just goes out of the building. Fabulous job in building that drama to the hot tag. Martel eventually scurries around and tags in Garea. Garea has some zip still. Back body drops for everyone. Garea gets a Moondog in an abdominal stretch. The other Moondog busts him open with the Bone. Triggers the DQ. Martel saves. Martel uses Garea as a dropkick machine to the clear the ring.

 

There is nothing extraordinary here (well Martel's selling is), but it is incredibly good execution of the tag team formula that really builds to a fever pitch with the hot tag. It definitely makes you want to seem more matches between these two teams. ***3/4

[SAMS]

1980-12-29
WWF
Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex)
WWF Tag Team Title Match
Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA
★★
Card

What early on felt like it would be a straight up squash for the champions ended up following a pretty tight match structure. The shine at the beginning went on for a while though. The Moondogs were unbeaten on TV up until this point, easily dispatching the jobber teams they’d been up against, but here the Martel and Garea tandem were making mincemeat out of them, and as is often the case, the heel team looked incredibly foolish. I’m not the greatest fan of shine segments, especially long ones, unless the face team does something really nifty, but I’ll give Martel props here as his offense hasn’t looked this crisp before.
Finally we got a switch up and the Moondogs made some headway into the match. Moondog King got in and managed a couple audible chops on Martel that drew gasps from the MSG crowd. From there they were able to isolate Martel and he did a great job of being in peril. A quick shout out to Moondog Rex though, after getting his leg worked over pretty heavily during the shine he displayed some very subtle limping after they had taken control that I really appreciated and added a certain level of verisimilitude that you don’t always see..
The Moondogs on offense were decent, nothing too flashy, which was to be expected. In fact they remind me a lot of the Sheepherders, who if they had been brought into WWF at this time would occupy the exact spot on the roster that the Moondogs did here. It wasn’t long though before Garea managed to finally get himself into the action and both he and Martel looked to put the Moondogs away. However, with Garea locking on an Abdominal Stretch, he was bonked with one of the Moondog’s bones, busted open and that was that, the referee was forced to DQ the Moondogs. 
Not the best finish, but they managed to avoid a clear defeat, drew blood on their opponent and the aftermath was a bit wild, so it didn’t feel like a complete letdown, but surely there’s a better way to navigate this kind of booking decision than the logic of, “Oh we’re about to lose, okay let’s just get blatantly disqualified instead”.