NWA On Demand

[Matt D]

I'm behind on everything this week but the Duggan stuff was a lot of fun. I would have liked a bit more of a mauling. I wonder if Pete learned a bad word from Duggan.

 

I liked the Brody match. It had issues (some stuff didn't look great, there was annoying lip service to selling the shoulder at the end). It was about as good as you could possibly expect a five minute Smirnoff/Brody match to be though. There are a thousand little and big things I wish Brody would have done differently (in crowd interaction, in energy levels, in selling, in attributing meaning to things) but the fans bought him on this night certainly.

[shoe]

The selling didn't bother me at all . I didn't think either guy took enough punishment to be selling a shoulder . It felt that it hadn't built enough to get any significant selling.

[shoe]

Tully vs Manny Fernandez and then Dick Slater

 

his paired with the Dick Slater match is one of those special Houston moments that the people there still talk about today. Manny is focusing on Tully's arm. All of Manny's work is full of vigor, and most importantly it looks like all the arm work hurts like hell. Manny is one of the great strikers of all time. In a small touch Tully positions his body so his arm is as far away from harms way is possible. Throughout the match Tully would get in some cheap shots. Eventually this leads to the flying burrito.

 

The 2nd fall is short and sweet. Manny misses the burrito and hits his neck on the ropes. He then rebounds into a nasty Tully knee. It had a real UFC feel that knee KO.

 

The 3rd fall is just a fight. Both guys bringing everything they have to the fight. The crowd is hot and when Gino comes out the heat is molten. Gino saves Tuly from getting pinned. Dick Slater is out with a 2x4 chasing Gino into the ring. As Gino runs into the ring, Tully is irishwhipped right into him and they bang heads and Manny gets the win. Slater beats on Gino with the 2x4 making him a bloody mess. Gino can't go on so Tully has to fight Slater.

 

1st Fall Slater is just taking it to Tully. Tully bumping all over the place. Slater is super agressive and full of anger. Slater takes the 1st fall. The 2nd fall Tully hits a slingshot head butt into Slater's bad arm. This was a great spot and lead to Tully just destroying the arm. Slater musters up enough fight for a comeback. Only problem Gino comes out all spirit of 76 and interferes giving Slater the match. Post match the heels lay out Slater until the cavalry arrived. This was great stuff. 4 1/2*

[Matt D]

Slater vs Tully/Gino is quickly becoming another one of those legendary feuds as we get more and more of the pieces. I think we have most of the big ones now. There are a couple more tags I'd like to see (Especially the Brody cage matches), plus the footage of when they injure Slater that led to this specific set of matches. And I guess there has to be a turn at some point since Slater was teaming with them just a week or two before he started to wrestle Gino. The high moments have been great though and this was no different. I'm with Pete on this.

 

Manny was big in Houston but a lot of that footage (both as a face and a heel) just hasn't turned up yet. It's obvious that he just got it so intrinsically though, knowing exactly when to play to the crowd and how much anticipation to put into things. He was a ham of sorts, but in a way that really connected. Tully was just a total joy in this. He walked the perfect line between total stooging and a sort of stubborn toughness. They managed to cover a lot of ground in relatively little time. The limbwork was a lot of fun. The KO knee in the second fall was awesome. All of the end match stuff was so heated and violent.

 

And even though it was half the time, Slater vs Tully was hugely economical too. Both of them were coming in hurt and that played into the time they had, keeping in mind, of course, Slater's huge advantage.

 

Great, lost feud.

[Karl]

Wondering of there is any update on the Roku App?

[Childs]

Just had the same thought. It's been "imminent" for about six months now.

[Matt D]

To be fair, 1982 Houston technology looks like this:

 

[Matt D]

TA vs Kelly Kiniski is a perfectly fine young lions opening match. It's early into Magnum's career, which is always cool to see. They work a very simple match, shine headlock, heat headscissors, come out and finish. It's a bit clumsy but the effort level is there and the exuberance makes it worth spending ten minutes on. There are moments where an exchange doesn't go quite as smoothly as it should and it works all the more for it because of the realness in them trying to grab to recover.

 

Also fun is Boesch lauding the first female director they ever had on Houston wrestling.

 

The top of this show looks like a blast too, so hopefully we get it.

[Johnny Sorrow]

The Dibiase vs Murdoch match they just put up is , no shit, one of the best matches I've ever seen.

[Frankensteiner]

It's been available JIP on the Houston tapes so nice to have it in full finally.

[shoe]

Dibiase vs Murdoch

 

This is pretty epic stuff. This is coming off of the famous Ric Flair/Ted Dibiase/Dick Murdoch angle. So we get this grudge match. Dick attacks before Teddy can even get in the ring. Murdoch is beating on him and both guys are throwing bombs. Soon Murdoch moves onto the neck that put Ted on the shelf for a bit. The work on the neck is really rugged. Those turnbuckles shots looked absolutely sickening. Teddy is now bleeding and Dick is working the cut. The cut bleeds more and more as the cut is worked over. Ted fights him off and he's throwing punches. Dick is bleeding . Ted loads the glove and does a picture perfect fist drop. He misses though and hits the mat. Ted is selling the hand. Actually both guys are selling like they've been in a war. Dick goes for the brain buster but Ted slips away and nails him with the loaded glove for the win. Ted's leaving and Masked Superstar sucker punches him and roughs him up. Dick delivers a brain buster and lays out Murdoch. I never understood why we transitioned out of the singles feud into a tag feud so quickly. None the less the match is worked perfectly off the angle, and then we get a great post match angle to take the feud in another direction. 4 3/4*

[shoe]

Reed vs Slater

 

If Butch Reed wins he gets Dark Journey for 30 days. I thought the bout would be worked in a more violent fashion. Instead the match was worked with good psycholgy, but lacked something for a blood feud. Reed had a neck injury so both guys worked the match around the neck. Reed worked revenge spots on Slater's neck, and Slater targeted Reed's neck. Slater dung his knee and Reed worked the leg and went for the Figure 4. The finish was pretty bad, and beating Reed cheap twice was terrible.The match lacked a spark, and with that finish hurt the match. 2 3/4*

[shoe]

Date wrong for Madril/Krupp. Its 1/6/78. 2 ring shows are mostly in January.

Do you have a card listing for May 18th 1979?

[shoe]

Tiger Conway Jr. vs Greg Valentine

 

This was solid stuff. Gino is out and goes for the cheap heat with a promo on Tiger. Paul Boesch on commentary agrees with Gino's side of things. He also put over Valentine's feud with Bob over in NY. This match is more of a set up for the Conway/Gino dynamic. I really like Conway here. He shows a ton of fire. Throws a decent punch here. I really loved his arm work here. It looked like it hurt. Valentine's work was all solid stuff. He was a great anchor here, and his job was to make Tiger look good. He did his job well. In the 3rd fall I adored the interferance blowing up in Gino's face, and his sell of it was tremendous. 3*

[NickH]

 

Date wrong for Madril/Krupp. Its 1/6/78. 2 ring shows are mostly in January.

Do you have a card listing for May 18th 1979?

 

No, but I'll keep looking.

[Matt D]

Pretty sure there's a Brass Knucks Battle Royal main event, but I'm not 100% on that.

[Matt D]

Dibiase vs Murdoch is exactly as good as you'd expect it to be, with Murdoch generally holding an advantage and the vengeance deferred again and again as Ted just tried to punch his way back. Just a great brawl.

 

I kind of loved Conway vs Valentine though. It wasn't a great match, but it was exactly what I look for out of this service, a match from 1978 that hits all the right marks. Valentine's limbwork was varied and nasty and so solid. Conway's selling was really strong. It was structure, in two falls, pretty much exactly how I wanted it to be. They started on the mat with real struggle, Conway fought his way back only to eat a nasty table bump on the outside. Valentine pressed the advantage, held it, and then fell to a spirited comeback before things broke down with the interference in the third fall. Just pitch perfect distilled wrestling. Just what I want to be watching.

[BruceTharpe]

Online now - 2 out of 3 falls - from April 16, 1982 - AWA Title - NICK BOCKWINKEL vs. DICK SLATER!

[shoe]

Online now - 2 out of 3 falls - from April 16, 1982 - AWA Title - NICK BOCKWINKEL vs. DICK SLATER!

On paper this looks to be a strong match. It doesn't fail. I thought they did a good job establishing things in the 1st fall that would carry over into the other 2 falls. We get some fun grappling early. Slater transitions into working the arm. Moves into a key lock. Getting personal with a slamming of the head into the mat. Bock starts after the leg. We see him hook on a Figure 4.I love Bock's Indian Death Lock It goes to the outside and Bock wraps the leg on the ring post. Bock stuns Slater with a whiplash on the top rope for the fall.

 

The 2nd fall Slater is looking for revenge. Here in some revenge spots Slater goes after the leg. A big elbow finishes Bock off.

 

The 3rd fall is quick. Early in the fall Slater is after the back. In a finish that is used a lot in world title matches, Bock reverses a a roll up for the win. This was an excellent match. 4*

[Matt D]

Loved it. Of course I did. I'll probably do a longer write up at some point. Slater, to me, is an interesting challenger for Bock, and a little different than what we often get. He was a few years older than Martel or Hennig when they challenged him but obviously not nearly as old as guys like Verne or Crusher. He was much more in that Martel/Hennig/Brunzell mode, though, just with a bit more grit. He had a sort of authority with those few extra years, but could still match up with Bockwinkel on the mat.

 

They spent the first third/half of the match going in and out of holds and I never tire of it. Bock is king at this, full of struggle and comeuppance with just spot on timing when it comes to when to move out to a spot and back into the holds. They varied the holds up here. I sort of marvel at this every time I see it. Bock is never lost. He's never at a loss. There's always a sense of escalation. Usually, he can't be caught the same way twice, but he always finds a way to show ass, even in the midst of a clever counter. For instance, he's ready to catch Slater off the ropes in the midsection with a shot, but ends up left open for one of his own. It's just perfect title match wrestling in that regard.

 

The heat comes with the legwork and it's short but nasty. I was wondering what they were going to do with the figure four, because it didn't make sense for Slater to lose a fall by submission. That just seemed against his character, but they handled it well with the posting and the rope draping. Then they moved into revenge spots for the second fall. The third, while short, felt warranted due to the damage they'd gone through in the match.

 

Great match up for Bock and just another notch on his belt. I've said it before, but I come into almost every one of these matches with that hint of doubt. Was I wrong? Was I lacking some evidence. Is this the match that's going to show me that Bockwinkel isn't as good as I think he is. And he just comes through every time reinforcing those elements of his work that are simply the ideal. I'm close to the point where I'm just going to stop worrying about it. This was a total joy.

 

EDIT: Came back to add that some of the pinfall exchange stuff in the first fall seemed a few years ahead of its time too.

[Frankensteiner]

The match was good but I have a hard time buying Slater as a babyface. I think it's the way he moves around with his ass sticking out and the waddling gait, or maybe it's his other mannerisims, or maybe it's because he's Dick Slater. Whatever it is though, I don't feel like cheering for him.

[Johnny Sorrow]

It's a great match but Dibiase vs Murdoch smokes it like me hitting a bong. 😎

[BruceTharpe]

Online now: BUDDY LANDELL vs. HACKSAW DUGGAN from June 4, 1982!

[BruceTharpe]

Online NOW! Rare footage of RICKY GIBSON in action against DR. DEATH STEVE WILLIAMS from December 13, 1985!

[NickH]

If anyone has noticed some matches being unavailable, they seem to be reformatting every match that was posted with the old site and matching it with the matches on the new site.