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Extras 1986 - 1989


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1986 EXTRAS


Billy Jack Haynes Interview (2/22/86)


Billy Jack Haynes + Rip Oliver (4/12/86)


The Clan Interview (9/27/86)



1987 EXTRAS


The Assassin Promo (6/27/87)


The Mafia Interview (12/5/87)


The Mafia Interview / American Ninja vs. Moondog Moretti (12/12/87)



1988 EXTRAS


OWWF Wrestling School Commercial (3/26/88)


OWF Commercial w/ Kevin Kelly (7/16/88)


OWF Commercial w/ Billy Jack Haynes (7/16/88)


Buddy Rose Interview (12/3/88)



1989 EXTRAS


Sandy Barr’s Flea Mart Commercial (1/7/89)


Bill Prescott $500 Offer + Roddy Piper Promo (4/8/89)


Buddy Rose’s Rose Garden (5/13/89)


Buddy Rose’s Rose Garden (5/20/89)


The Grappler Interview (5/27/89)


Billy Jack Haynes Interview (5/27/89)


Billy Jack Haynes Interview (6/3/89)


Roddy Piper Interview (6/3/89)


Buddy Rose’s Rose Garden (6/3/89)


Billy Jack’s Father + The Grappler (6/3/89)


Al Madril vs. Beetlejuice (7/8/89) (VS 188)


Rex King vs. The Grappler (7/8/89)


Al Madril’s Fiesta Garden (7/22/89)


Mat Man vs. Moondog Moretti (7/22/89)


Mat-Man Promo (7/29/89)


Al Madril’s Fiesta Garden (7/29/89)


Scotty the Body vs. Rex King (10/7/89)


The Grappler + Rip Oliver (10/7/89)



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  • 4 weeks later...

​OWWF Wrestling School Commercial (3/26/88):

 

​Billy Jack's not as marble-mouthed as you think he'd be reading prepared copy.

 

Five hundred dollars sounds like a reasonable price to learn the business. Of course, what kind of value it really is depends on what you get for your money. Considering how the OWWF flopped, I'd say that those who enrolled didn't get much.

 

Interesting to see Rheingans so far from home base. I'm guessing that he and Billy Jack met while they were both working for Vince.

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​OWF Commercial with Kevin Kelly (7/16/88):

 

​I'd forgotten what Kellly sounded like without the altered voice. From what little I saw here, he wasn't so bad a promo that Vince needed to do that. He also looks more imposing bodywise than he did as Nailz.

 

It's not a good sign for the new promotion that the first W is out of its name. I guess they couldn't afford to promote in Washington, assuming there weren't legal troubles involved that would have stopped them.

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​OWF Commercial with Billy Jack (7/16/88):

 

​A nice short promo from Billy Jack concerning his match with Kelly. Billy Jack puts over his time in the WWF while mocking Kelly's prior experience in the AWA, which really isn't fair since the AWA was dying alive while Kelly was there while the WWF had never been hotter than during Billy Jack's stint.

 

I wonder why Owen let a competitor advertise on his show, which is where I'm assuming this commercial comes from. Did he really trust Billy Jack not to potentially ruin his business, or did he know that Billy Jack didn't have the wherewithal to challenge him, and thus decided to be charitable?

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​Sandy Barr's Flea Market Commercial:

 

​I guess now we have at least one reason why Portland taped their matches on Saturday nights.

 

I wonder how long it took to get the arena ready for the matches once the flea market was over on Saturdays, then back again on Sundays. It would have been interesting if the matches had been delayed due to some sort of merchandise accident.

 

I wonder if any of the wrestlers ever helped out. Could you imagine buying, for example, a used couch from Billy Jack Haynes, or some old books from Roddy Piper?

 

Nine traffic lights and four blocks away from the nearest exit? Talk about a building seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere! Either that or the traffic lights in Portland were twenty feet apart.

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​Matman Promo:

 

​Not really much to discuss here, just a basic "say no to drugs" spiel from a guy in a Batman costume.

 

I might be losing my marbles here, but this sounds a lot like Scott Levy (Raven) minus his Jersey accent. I think he was still Scotty the Body at this time, but wrestlers have pulled double duty under masks and multiple identities before.

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​Billy Jack Haynes Interview (2/22/86):

 

​Nice to see Billy Jack's wife and dad, even though they don't say anything.

 

What's the deal with Billy Jack potentially going to Japan? Was it a loser-leave-town thing, or was he going for a championship whose holder had to defend there? Hopefully we'll find out for sure in the main set.

 

I'm pretty sure that the "Superfly" whom Billy Jack referenced wasn't Jimmy Snuka. I know they had quite a few Polynesian wrestlers in Portland over the years, probably because Jimmy had gotten over so well when he was there.

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​The Mafia Interview (12/5/87):

 

​This is a remix of Brutus Beefcake's gimmick (Colt even refers to himself as "The Barber") and the Freebird Hair Cream angle from years ago. Colt's a decent enough promo, but this feels tired before it starts, maybe because it feels like everyone he's targeting except for Sandy Barr and Dutch Savage (welcome back, Dutch!) is either a midcarder or should be. The only person he didn't threaten was Coss.

 

This has to be the most non-ethnic Mafia I've ever seen. Not to sound stereotypical, but if a stable's going to believably call itself the Mafia, there should be at least one Italian in it.

 

You can already tell by interviews like this that Portland's hurting severely, and although guys like Piper, Buddy, and Billy Jack will come back for cameos in the next two years, this promotion (like every other outside of the Big Two) is on borrowed time.

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​The Clan Interview:

 

​It was a nice change to hear Oliver and company at least relatively soft-spoken here. That didn't take away from their menace any, but it did ​spare our sensitive ears.

 

Oliver and Miller sound almost alike, which is a problem for fans who may be listening while doing things in another room even though Coss makes sure to identify them. I have no idea what they could have done to solve the problem, but it's worth pointing out.

 

I guess there was no pretense of Abbuda Dein actually being from the Middle East; he sounded as American as a ham sandwich here. He's a nice-looking young kid, though.

 

Everyone involved did a nice job of putting over even the dinkiest spot show as a place where something big could happen. I can think of very few, if any, times in wrestling history where a championship changed hands in a high school gym, but these guys had me believing that it could happen. Excellent work!

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​The Assassin Promo:

 

​Other than the python curling around the microphone as Assassin finished, there wasn't a whole lot to this. It's a promo for a series of matches between Assassin and Oliver, who has apparently turned on Assassin while Assassin has been home taking care of his sick mother.

 

It's interesting to note that Assassin said that he would be taking his mask off before his matches with Oliver. I wonder what the significance of that is. Is the man under the mask someone the people of Portland would recognize?

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​Prescott, Piper, and The Grappler:

 

​Prescott really seems like a fan; he knows better than to get in a screaming match with someone like Grappler, but he doesn't seem intimidated by him either. I loved his retort when Grappler told him that he didn't listen to his (Prescott's) station: "Nobody else does either!"

 

I'm kind of surprised that a station is getting involved with an angle to this extent. I'm a bit of a radio buff, and I've heard the insane reaction to various contests and giveaways, especially from rock stations. Knowing that Len Denton (Grappler) and Piper were friends and business partners outside the ring, I expect that Denton asked Rod after this show, "What the hell did we just get ourselves into?"

 

I hope we see the payoff to this, because the setup's too good for the whole thing to fade away with no resolution.

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​Buddy Rose Interview (12/3/88):

 

​First of all, Buddy's shirt cracks me up. "I Worked Hard For This Body" is right. Lifting those beer cans and potato chip containers must have been sheer torture.

 

It's nice to see that Buddy's pissed off a whole new generation. Seriously, I'd like to see him in the ring with some of the younger Portland talent like Doll and Top Gun just to see how he does. If his and Somers' series with the Rockers is any indication, those bouts should be something else.

 

I can't wait to see The Rose Garden. ​If there's anyone who can do what Piper did with the Pit ​for all those years (albeit on a much smaller scale), it's Buddy. I hope Piper decides to drop in sometime just for old times' sake!

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​The Rose Garden ​(5/13/89):

 

​I wasn't too big a fan of Owen chasing Buddy off of his own show, even though it was for the Grappler contest winner. Couldn't they have found another segment to do this, or better yet forced Buddy to be a part of it against his will?

 

That said, this was worthy of making the set just for the winner's reaction to Doll's announcement that Scott Peterson might join them on their big date. Either that was a totally out-of-the-blue surprise or she was an actress in training. Even the idea of Carl Styles forcing the Grappler to unmask later in the show didn't make her quite as happy. I hope she was allowed to bring her friend.

 

Denton was a good sport to let himself be photographed without his mask. A lot of masked heels would have objected to that, and some promotions wouldn't have allowed it, even for a contest like this.

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​The Grappler Interview (5/27/89):

 

​when Denton took the mask off, I thought he'd have another mask underneath it. The facepaint (if that's what it was) was a brilliant dodge. After all, there's no rule in Portland against wrestlers with facepaint. I loved his unrestrained glee at hoe he fooled everyone, including Barry Owen.I thought at first that he was going to attack Barry or Coss, but I realized that that wouldn't have happened unless he was leaving, which he wasn't. I also thought that one of the wrestlers might have to physically tear the mask off of him.

 

A masked Bryan Adams? I hope we get to see it and find out why he wore one. Actually, the facepaint Denton wore in this segment looked a bit like the paint Adams later wore as Crush of Demolition.

 

Has there ever been a case of a masked man who wasn't leaving a territory refusing to unmask, and if so, how did the promotion handle it?

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​Al Madril's Fiesta Garden ​(7/22/89):

 

​I guess Owen didn't want to pay for a new set once Buddy left, as the background here clearly says "Rose Garden".

 

Madril wasn't bad, but he wasn't top-notch either. I don't know who else I'd have given the slot to, since there don't appear to be too many heels in the promotion at this time who could handle a talk show as easily as Buddy.

 

I didn't especially like the segment with Madril bullying the kid running as long as it did. Matman, whoever he may be, should have come on the scene after a few seconds at most, especially if physical contact with the kid was going to be involved.

 

Going after Piper really didn't serve a purpose, as he was back in the WWF feuding with Rick Rude by now. I get that he would show up unexpectedly from time to time whenever he was in town, but how often did they expect him to show up with the schedule he was keeping for Vince?

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​The Rose Garden ​(5/20/89):

 

​This one was weird to say the least. I'm guessing that Carl Styles was supposed to be working some sort of village idiot gimmick, judging by what he supposedly wrote in that note. Even though I know we were supposed to be hating Raven and Buddy for treating their respective valets the way they did, I couldn't help but think they had a point: Why on earth would Raven's valet think of ditching one of the most successful wrestlers in Portland, heels or not, for someone whose idea of fun is introducing them to his cow? I guess the Savage/Liz/George Steele angle was high on just about everyone's "to copy" list, in spite of the fact that it was played for nothing but laughs outside the ring and Steele was no threat at all to Savage in ​the ring.

 

So Jonathan Boyd's back, and on Buddy's side to boot. I wonder if their past history will ever be mentioned, even if it took place eight years prior .

 

I could understand someone like Raven putting his hands on a valet, but not Buddy. His character's nowhere near as good as it used to be; he's constantly screaming, he's being a bully to everyone instead of just other wrestlers, and of course his body's gone almost totally downhill. I guess it's not his fault; everyone in wrestling at this time had the volume turned up, and logical development regarding characters was a pipe dream for the most part. Still, it's sad to see considering how well-done the Playboy character was earlier in the decade.

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​Roddy Piper Interview (6/3/89):

 

​The first part of this was an update on what Piper and various other Portland wrestlers and wrestling fans had been doing for the community lately, which is all well and good. It's the second part that got my attention. Piper calling out Billy Jack for wanting to retire? What in the world was that about? I guess we'll find out elsewhere on this disc, but like Coss, I'm a bit shocked, since Billy Jack and Piper are two of the most beloved faces in Portland wrestling history, and also since Piper was headed back to New York within a month. A Billy Jack-Piper feud sounds tasty, but if Owen was serious about it, why didn't he start to lay the groundwork the first time Piper showed up at the House of Action this year (1989)?

 

I hope Darlene Hess got her liver. That's what the smaller promotions had that the Big Two could never replicate: a sense of community, of caring for their fans as the fans cared for them. Today's promotions don't even attempt stuff like this. (I'm not talking about national stuff like Make A Wish, which WWE supports wonderfully, from what I've heard. I'm talking about local grass-roots type of things that affect the fans right where they live, and where the promotions presumably hope to make money even in this day and age.)

 

The community center sounds like a nice idea too. I wonder if it was ever finished.

 

Nice fake humility from Piper with the "I'm an old has-been" bit. Not in my book, Rod, even when you had an artificial hip and could barely walk in the ring, let alone bump. How many inactive wrestlers could claim to be one of the top promos in their promotion almost twenty-five years after their last truly meaningful match, the way Rod could when he died? I'm not kidding when I say that his occasional Pits ​were the only things I watched that had anything to do with the current product, and even as he was trying desperately to make his guests look good on the stick, he still outshone them by a mile, whether he meant to or not.

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​The Fiesta Garden ​(7/29/89):

 

​It seemed at first like there might be dissension between Madril and Oliver, because Rip didn't seem any too comfortable with watching Madril bully yet another kid. But once Madril ducked Beetlejuice's hot coffee and Oliver got hit with it, the old Crippler reemerged. Not that I have a problem with that, but it was a bit of an abrupt 180, although who knows what will happen when Rip realizes that the only reason he got the coffee in the face was because Madril ducked? It almost seems as though Madril is afraid of Beetlejuice and is using the coffee accident as a way to get Oliver to fight him on his (Madril's) behalf. It's interesting that Oliver stopped when it came to possibly hitting the kid with the chair, even though Madril was egging him on. Apparently there are some dastardly things that even The Crippler won't do.

 

I honestly hope we don't see Madril manhandle any more kids, no matter what the reason. I hope the kids are told beforehand that he doesn't really mean to hurt them, because kids as young as the ones he's been going after are too young to be smartened up to the wrestling business. (For the record, the two we've seen so far couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old.)

 

Yes, for those few who might still be wondering, Art Barr is Sandy's son and Jesse's brother. Gee, Sandy sure had a couple of lunatics for kids, at least as far as wrestling goes: Jimmy Jack Funk and Beeltejuice. Talk about a pair!

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​The Grappler and Rip Oliver:

 

​So they went through with Rip's face turn after all, huh? Actually, he's a bit like Buddy: the fans may have booed him, but he's been a part of their lives for so long that they can't help but respect him, and they'll cheer him if they can find a reason to. Grappler certainly qualifies, with some of the things we've seen him do.

 

It's a shame that the stretcher match didn't make the set, because these two look like they could pound the hell out of each other for hours on end, and I'd have loved to see them do just that.

 

First facepaint, then Muta/Kabuki's mist? I guess they were looking for some way to keep the Grappler character mysterious since he'd been unmasked, but they tried way too hard. Why couldn't they have just called him Len "The Grappler" Denton and had done with it?

 

Did Larry Oliver ever make it in the business? From what little we saw, he had the body for it, and Coss put over his athletic credentials, so it seems like he had a leg up if he chose to use it.

 

I'm not sure if I agree with Sandy attacking Grappler to stop him from using the mist or whatever it was supposed to be in his mouth. Don't get me wrong; someone had to do it. But whether it should have been the referee is an open question. Where were Beetlejuice and Matman when Rip needed them?

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​Billy Jack Haynes Interview (5/27/89):

 

​I wanted to see what all the fuss was about in the Piper interview I reviewed earlier, so I decided to check this out.

 

Billy Jack ​does ​seem like he's having a bit of a pity party for himself here, although he makes sure to acknowledge his failures over the past year. I'm not sure what to make of this, really; although he seems to be very heartfelt in his love for the Owen family and those associated with Portland wrestling (and why wouldn't he be?), there's a darkness about all this that I can't help but sense. All should be revealed in upcoming segments.

 

The Owens must have been very forgiving people to allow a former competitor, especially one whom they helped to get started, back into their midst in order to retire, both in a kayfabe sense and a real-life sense. I guess it helped that Billy Jack seemed legitimately remorseful, but it's still something I can't see too many promoters doing, especially since the OWF began just over a year before.

 

Billy Jack seemed reluctant to have his retirement party; could that reluctance play a role in what we see next week?

 

It was nice of Billy Jack to put Styles over as the master of the full nelson on the way out. Will he take back his praise if he decides to stay (which you know he will, at least for a while)?

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​Billy Jack Haynes Interview (6/3/89):

 

​The stuff with Billy Jack and his family was legitimately touching, especially when he gave his hat to his dad. He'd kept that hat even in his WWF days, and it was just as much of a trademark as Lawler's crown in Memphis or Bret Hart's sunglasses in the WWF during the nineties.

 

It was nice that Billy Jack honored an older lady with his robe and a younger one with his boots. What a way to show that all Portland fans cared about him, young and old alike.

 

I'm not sure about having Billy Jack's father as a co-host, but I see that there's something coming up with The Grappler, so I'll withhold judgement.

 

Coss acted like a bit of a bully in getting Raven out of the Crow's Nest, but under the circumstances I'm pretty sure that no one cared in the least.

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Al Madril's Fiesta Garden ​(6/3/89):

 

​This may have been one of the wildest interview segments I've ever seen regardless of promotion. It's not often that there are two separate attacks on two different wrestlers in the same segment, but The Grappler's on a reign of terror right now that even people like Buddy and Rip Oliver would envy.

 

King looked like a real lightweight here, as it only took one shot (albeit from behind) to get him out of the way for good. I might have missed him in the crowd that helped Styles after Grappler used the mist, but I don't think so.

 

Nice touch having Grappler scream "The other eye!" when he went to use the mist on Styles. Since Styles only has one working eye, it was a signal to the fans that Grappler knew he wanted to blind Styles for good. By the way, they're really selling the mist as a killer here, which WCW really didn't do with Muta or World Class with Kabuki. In those places, it was treated more like a standard foreign object: nothing pleasant, certainly, but not a career-ender either.

 

The only other place that treated mist in quite this way that I can think of other than Japan was the WWF, when Killer Khan used it for a while in the spring and summer of 1987 on his way to Hogan. Of course, the Hulkster killed it dead in the match I saw by using his hand to block it, than smearing it in Khan's face to set up the legdrop and the pin.

 

I have a feeling about what's going to happen between Billy Jack's dad and Grappler, and I really hope they don't go there.

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​Billy Jack's Dad and The Grappler:

 

​At least they didn't have Grappler use the mist on Billy Sr. That would have been more than I (and I suspect most other fans) could have taken. As it was, I thought Grappler telling Billy Jack's brother to push his dad down the stairs was too much, even for a heel. At least he took care of Billy Jack's hat by putting it safely on his head, which means it was probably a legit gift from son to father.

 

We all knew that Billy Jack was going to come to his dad's rescue; the question is, did it lead to a match? It seems that we have two possibilities: Billy Jack-Grappler in singles or Billy Jack/Piper-Grappler/Madril in a tag match. My money's on the former, since this seems like it should be Rod's last appearance at the House of Action for quite a while.

 

Who says 1989 was too late for most heels to draw real heat? I liked hearing from Coss about the fans who tried to grab Grappler so Billy Jack could clobber him.

 

We got just enough of a fight to destroy the ​Rose Garden set, although if I'm not mistaken Owen had that set repaired rather than giving Madril one of his own like he should have, because I don't remember a different background in the later ​Fiesta Garden ​segments that we have.

 

I can't place the third guy with Grappler and Madril for the life of me. Could someone please help?

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​Billy Jack and Rip Oliver (4/12/86):

 

​That was certainly something else. I never expected Barry Owen to take a bump like that and sell it as well as he did. He's too small to be a wrestler, but he certainly understands what the business is all about.

 

Seeing Rip blast Billy Jack with that trophy makes up for not seeing his attack when he was dressed up as Santa a few months back. This was even better, because Jaggers threw in an unexpectedly good performance, both during the attack and in its aftermath.

 

I thought for the briefest of moments that either Oliver or Jaggers would flip out and go after Don during the final part of this, but that would have been too much even if Don had agreed to bump for them. I liked seeing Don stand his ground without too much help from the babyface locker room, which kept his authority intact nicely.

 

Of course, Oliver's not really gone, and I'd like to have seen how Billy Jack convinced Don to let him stay. It was probably some variation on the old "don't fine/suspend/arrest him, let me have him in the ring" bit, which theoretically should never work but always does.

 

If Billy Jack won any trophy in Japan, it was probably some sort or "rising young star" award. I've never heard of him being a champion over there, or winning one of the major tournaments.

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​Mat Man vs Moondog Moretti:

 

​This would have been pure wrestlecrap if Mat Man hadn't looked so capable. I'm trying to guess who could possibly be under the hood, given what we saw out of him, but I just can't place him at the moment. One thing's for sure: He's not the rookie that Don tried to convince us he is.

 

Coss clearly had a good time between all the bat jokes and playing Mat Man's music simply because he liked it. I've never heard an announcer crank up a guy's entrance theme for his own amusement in the middle of the match before, but who was going to stop Coss outside of Don himself?

 

Mat Man and Beetlejuice as a tag team seem a natural fit. I wonder if it ever happened. Boyd and Moretti, on the other hand, seems like a bit of a random pairing, and didn't work out so well.

 

I wonder what other unscheduled matches this program had. One or two every once in a while can be a good thing, but they shouldn't be overdone to the point where they're no longer a surprise anymore.

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