[1988-01-15-AWA-Minot, ND] Midnight Rockers vs Adrian Adonis & Bob Orton Jr

[Superstar Sleeze]

AWA World Tag Champions Midnight Rockers vs Adrian Adonis & Bob Orton - AWA January 1988

 

The Rockers have returned to AWA, which has now become a refuge for hangers-on and older timers like Adonis, Orton, Manny Fernandez and Wahoo McDaniel. It has been picked apart by WWF and is now in total free fall. Leave it to the Rockers to have probably the last great AWA Classic. Orton and Adonis were fun Backlund opponents last time I saw them bumping and stooging for them. I am excited for them to unleash some offense on the Rockers. It is 1988 and yes Adrian Adonis is humongous, but still moves around pretty well.

 

First thing is first, Donna sucks! She was brutal on commentary. Who is she?

 

The face shine was pretty mundane and all on Orton. Orton tries to keep it entertaining by staggering and running into Adonis. They work a side headlock base. Jannetty takes both over in a cool spot. Match gets real good in the heat segment. Orton catches Michaels backbreaker tags out to Adonis hits Elbow. Michaels looks to use his speed runs into a HARD elbow to start the heat segment. Adonis elbows and back rake. Orton hits a butterfly suplex. Cheating with choking. Hard elbow smashes. ROCK N ROLL CHANTS! Orton wicked short arm clothesline to stymie Michaels. Orton and Adonis are super fun to watch. Adonis swats Michaels out of the air. Orton and Adonis are on fire and Michaels is his typically great FIP. Adonis eats knees on splash. Michaels cant make tag because of previous offense. Orton rides him down with knee. Adonis is in with no tag, asshole, and when Marty protests Adonis chokes him. Shut him up! They do a false tag and ref calls it back and tosses Micahels over top rope. More distracting Orton throws him into post and then wicked rapid fire punches. Some of the best punches ever. This is one of the Great, great heat segments of the 80s. In the ring, Adonis misses the splash into turnbuckles. Adonis is the new Blackwell! Shawn hits bodyslam and then misses splash. Adonis wicked back body drop. Orton hits the best fist drop ever! Holy shit! Watch it! Michaels reverses Irish Whip and kicks him so he crotches himself. After all that badass offense, Marty wants to show off too. Adonis does a Flair Flip and then into collides with Orton. Action spills to the outside. Orton with the best punches ever! Action overwhelms ref and it is a DCO! Double Superkick on Orton and falls outside to the ring.

 

All-time great offense in this match. Orton’s punches rule so hard. Definitely belongs in a top ten or top five punchers list. Adonis looked like a whale, but moved pretty damn well and kept right up with Orton and was taking some big bumps. Shawn ruled as a FIP and timed his hope spots well. Tack a better beginning and finish on this and this is an all-time classic. The heat segment, which is the majority of the match, secures its places as a great tag team match. ****1/4