[1979-05-12-Portland-TV] Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper

[Superstar Sleeze]

Buddy Rose vs Roddy Piper - Portland 5/12/79

 

Frank Bonnema is shocked that Roddy Piper is being cheered and is still acting the exact same way. Proving Piper truly was Rowdy (i.e. anti-hero) before Rowdy was cool. He does mention that pretty much that going up against Buddy Rose makes you an insta-face. They cant wait to get their hands on each other and this one is off to the races fast. As Piper yanks the Playboy out of the ring and sends him into the chair. I love when Piper has that incensed look on his face and is shaking his hair. Big knee lift from Piper. Rose winds up and starts wailing on Piper's head and Piper just absorbs. Rose claws at a wound on Piper's head he caused and finally he claws Piper open. He bites at the cut. Rose uses the chinlock to keep Piper at bay, but Piper knees out of it. Piper is swinging for the fences against Rose and hits with not one, but two swinging neckbreakers to take the first fall. Piper 1-0.

 

Rose teases leaving the match, but makes back by the fans' count of 19. Piper kicks his ass and I love how Rose is flailing while Piper just unleashes his fury on him. The Pillsbury Doughboy breaks the middle turnbuckle with his fat ass and Piper misses a dropkick because of it. Rose attacks Piper with the turnbuckle. Dutch Savage, special enforcer, pries him off, but damage is done. Rose is like a surgeon dissecting the back of Piper whipping it hard into buckles and strikes to back. On the outside he delivers a backbreaker and then back first into the post. This all to set up his Billy Robinson backbreaker, which he hits, but much like Piper he lifts up during the fall. Piper puts up some fight making you believe Rose's hubris would get the best of him, but Rose nails another Robinson backbreaker to knot this one up. Tied 1-1.

 

They brawl to begin the 3rd fall. Tomorrow is Mother's Day and Mothers get in free at Sandy Barr's Flea Market! Rose nails an atomic drop, but only gets a two. Bearhug to work on Piper's back, but Piper fires back. I like how Piper slowly gains more and more steam first with punches then bashing Rose head into mat and then full control by whipping Rose into buckles. Rose turns it into a track meet. Neither one of these guys would be consider speed demons as they put run like they got a load in their pants. I love Rose's HUGE headbutt to Piper's midsection when Piper was on apron. Sandy Bar The Flea Market there is a Pier-Six Brawl a brewin! Ed Wiskowski comes out and slams Piper's head into post knocking him out. Buddy Rose tries to take credit for a countout victory, but Dutch Savage & Sandy Barr are smarter than than and disqualify Buddy Rose. Buddy is hilarious in his post-match victory claiming victory because he got to the Crow's Nest first for the interview. I think that is just the most childish and hilarious thing in a while. Piper was at his absolute craziest for Portland and he was so happy for the Lumberjack match.

 

Great match and brawl, perfectly heated, but giving too much a way so to make you want to come out to the big show on Tuesday. Piper is a compellingly scrappy anti-hero. Buddy Rose is the perfect guy to ensure Piper is the babyface. Loved the second fall from Rose and the 3rd fall was good angle advancement. I remember LOVING lumberjack match. Cant wait! ****

[GOTNW]

Mixed feeling on this. First fall was super promosing and made it feel like they were going to have a wild bloody brawl. Rose working over Piper's cut was neat, and while Piper's comeback was cool I wish their over the top acting was reserved for it because I just grew numb to them quickly. They hit some vicious stomps and Rose's throat selling was cool. Second fall has more nice punching from Piper but irish whips as punishment spots just don't cut it for me (maybe they would if Rose was like, Great Khali sized or if this were twenty years earlier). Also Piper stops bleeding which blows. Piper's missed dropkick looked vicious but Rose's control segment that led to the finish didn't do anything for me, you'd think the middle rope giving out would give them an opportunity to do a bunch of cool stuff around that but they didn't take advantage of it. Again-taking bumps for irish whips just looks completely unnatural here. Piper's brief comeback attempt before the finish of the second fall was good but the match had already lost a lot of steam. Third fall had some nice brawling and them slamming each other's face into the mat was cool but the finish didn't do the match any favours. ***1/4

[KB8]

I needed a change of pace from all the joshi I've been watching recently, so I started going through '79 Portland. Leading up to this Piper and Rose had been teaming together along with Tim Brooks and Wiskowski (like during the awesome 8-man tag from March), then they had the big falling out and spent the last few weeks taking shots at each other. I watched all of this stuff about ten years ago and I thought they turned Piper babyface in the traditional sense, where they had a specific moment that made you go "oh, he's one of the good guys now!" But apparently as this is Portland they just had him wrestle Buddy Rose. Piper was still Piper and mere days before this he was tossing women about the place in a battle royal, stating that their place was in the home doing menial chores, but he's not Buddy Rose and if you're AGAINST Buddy Rose then you will be cheered. Even Bonnema is stunned that people are actually behind Piper and ponders, "who would've thought two, three weeks ago that people would be cheering for Roddy Piper?"

The first fall was badass. It picks up from their arena match a few days earlier that I assume wasn't taped, but Bonnema tells us it was a real barn-burner that went all over the place. Piper still has the plaster on his forehead so it doesn't take long for Rose to zero in on it. Some of the close-up camera work is gruesome as Rose just digs his knuckles into the wound and tries to peel it apart like a tangerine. At one point he has Piper in a sort of chinlock where Piper's neck is twisted and Rose is grinding away at that cut. Piper is all cross-eyed with his face contorted and turning purple, like the scene in Casino where Joe Pesci has the dude's head in a vice. There was lots of awesome limb/body part work in this match. It came in short spells as they'd transition out of it and move onto something else, but it was all focused and it made sense when they did move off whatever they'd been doing before. You get some working of THE CUT~, some neck work, some back work, and all of it came about inventively while still feeling organic. After Piper makes his comeback he jabs Rose in the throat - he's still the same Roddy Piper, after all - and starts working the neck. He clubbers the neck in really nasty ways, then we get an awesome end to the fall where he hits a big spinning neckbreaker, picks Rose up at 2 even though the fall is academic, and hits another just to put the exclamation on it. As the second fall starts he keeps up with the neck work, and I don't know if what happened next was entirely intentional but an Irish whip with some extra venom behind it results in the middle turnbuckle breaking off. Rose uses the turnbuckle bolt to choke Piper and that serves as our transition to him eventually working the back (after Roddy spills out to the floor and Rose slams him into the post). Rose was amazing during this, looking semi-crazed trying to stop anybody putting the ring back together, a man with his back truly up against the wall. Picking Piper up at 2 after the first Billy Robinson backbreaker almost leads to Piper making a comeback so I fucking love Rose immediately hitting it again and hooking the leg just to be sure. The third fall starts with Rose jumping Piper before the restart and staying on the back, and even if the finish is maybe a bit of an anticlimax it sure sets us up for the feud kicking into a higher gear. It wasn't just that the pacing, layout and execution all ruled. All those things can be great and a match can still fall flat because the wrestlers don't elevate it. These two were awesome and brought so many moments of individual brilliance to fill all the in-between stuff, to actually bring this thing to life. The selling of exhaustion, the hatred, the setups and payoffs, the way Rose went from begging for his life to immediately tasting blood in the water, the way Piper took his revenge, how they did all of it while leaving so much more on the table. A match-up made in heaven.