Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs. Roddy Piper & Rick Martel (2/3 Falls) (8/2/80)

[goodhelmet]

Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs. Roddy Piper & Rick Martel (2/3 Falls) (8/2/80)

Disc 1

[Phil Schneider]

This is for the vacant PNW tag titles and is a master class in tag wrestling. First falls opens with the heels doing some off the charts stooging, both Rose and Wiskowski are great in-ring bumpers and fly all over the ring for both babyfaces. Then the heels take over and Piper has one of the best Face-In-Peril sections I can remember seeing, frantically spinning and tumbling and leaping to try to get the tag, just awesome intense timing. There is a wrestling multiverse where Roddy Piper is the great 80’s babyface tag worker, and Ricky Morton is doing Ricky’s Rountable and smashing Snuka with a coconut. Second fall has the heel team working over Martel’s back, including using the broken bottom rope bolt to jab him in the kidneys, the rings in Portland must have been really flimsy because Rose was a maestro at improv work with a busted ring. Third fall is an awesome wild brawl with it all breaking down and the ref throwing out the match. This had all the parts you want in a great tag match. I could easily see this being a legendary feud which spanned decades like MX v. Rock and Rolls.

[garretta]

First fall: ​Piper and Martel start off hot, but Buddy and Big Ed attack Piper's previously injured side and back to gain the advantage. After several tag attempts miss by literal inches, Piper finally tags Rick, who comes in on fire against Buddy. Two dropkicks, a hip throw, and a victory roll later, Buddy goes down for the three count, and the faces lead one fall to none approximately sixteen minutes of disc time into the match.

 

The prematch promo where Buddy and Ed gloat about running the Sheeps out of the Northwest is pure gold. They were supposedly called home to New Zealand, according to Don, but that doesn't stop Buddy and Ed from bragging their fool heads off and demanding the tag belts without having to wrestle for them, since the Sheeps had been the champions before they were called home. (For their part, the Sheeps actually tried to give the titles to Piper and Martel, but that wasn't allowed either.)

 

I wish the no-DQ match between Rick and Buddy had made tape. Based on the two matches we have on this disc, it would have been a real barnburner. For that matter, I'd have loved to see a no-DQ match between Rick and Wiskowski.

 

I've never seen a team of heels receive flowers from someone in the crowd, and I definitely have never seen a member of the crowd give flowers to both a heel and a face. Even in 1980, Buddy was a man that most of the Northwest loved to hate.

 

We think of the bodyscissors as a rather elementary move, but Buddy and Big Ed used it to great effect on Piper here. Rod certainly wasn't in any danger of submitting, but if his side was already injured as Frank said it was, this hold could certainly have worn him down quite a bit. We'll see for sure if it has over the next two falls.

 

Very seldom have I seen a series of tag teases as effective as the ones in this fall. Sandy didn't need to look like an idiot or turn his back at just the right time, either; these tags were thwarted by Buddy and Big Ed themselves, which made the eventual hot tag a lor more satisfying in my eyes.

 

Whoever sells Sandy his clothes ought to get a credit on the show every week; he's got to be the most creatively attired regular referee I've ever seen.

 

​Second fall: ​Piper and Martel briefly look like they're going to get the sweep, but Rick hurts his back before they can get it, and Buddy and Ed destroy it over the rest of the fall. Rick manages to survive two over-the-shoulder backbreakers and an over-the-knee backbreaker, plus a long Wiskowski bearhug and a series of shots from Buddy using the broken bottom rope. In the end, though, he's pinned by Buddy's side backbreaker, and we have a tie match with about thirteen minutes of disc time remaining.

 

The variety of submission holds that we see in this fall is astonishing; about the only one Buddy and Ed missed was the Boston crab, and they'd have probably busted that out if they'd had the time, if only to try to humiliate Rick by making him submit to one of his own favorite finishers.

 

I agree with Phil about how flimsy the Portland rings were; we've already had part of a match wrestled with no ropes on this set. In this case, though, Buddy makes the best of an awful situation by using part of the broken rope as a weapon to attack Rick's back with. The shots he laid in looked plenty vicious, too.

 

Another Frankism: "Suplex carry" for over-the-shoulder backbreaker.

 

Now that Buddy's pinned Rick in a tag match, he ought to get the no-DQ bout for the singles title that he's asking for. We have an interview coming up after this fall; let's see how much of a sportsman Martel ​really ​is.

 

Third fall: ​This is a pretty wild one. Martel takes punishment on his back early, but manages to get over and tag Piper, who cleans house on both Buddy and Ed at first. But Ed takes him down, and in yet another move I've never seen before slingshots Piper into a backdrop from Buddy that sends him over the top rope. From there we have total chaos, with all four men outside. From what I can tell, Wiskowski actually beats the count back in, but Sandy's already decided to call the match a no-contest.

 

From there, we get a wild brawl that ends up with Sandy getting thrown down several times, Dutch getting involved and smacking Buddy, Martel using one of the belts numerous times, and Don coming within inches of getting knocked on his ass by an irate Buddy. It goes from ringside into the ring and eventually into the Crow's Nest, where Frank takes the whole thing in stride, God bless him. In the end, a guard match similar to the one we'll see between Buddy and Matt Borne in '82 is signed for the following Tuesday, in which six guards will surround the ring to make sure everyone stays inside.

 

As I said, I think Ed accidentally ended up back in the ring before he was supposed to be there; even Frank noticed it. But the melee outside the ring was so wild that you could make a case for Sandy throwing the whole thing out regardless.

 

Apparently Buddy will get his singles title match with Rick the following Saturday, although Don forgot to say whether it will be no-DQ or not.

[peachchaos]

I wish the no-DQ match between Rick and Buddy had made tape. Based on the two matches we have on this disc, it would have been a real barnburner. For that matter, I'd have loved to see a no-DQ match between Rick and Wiskowski.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geGCSwyA5Go