Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood (2/3 falls) (1/3/81)

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Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood (2/3 falls) (1/3/81)

Disc 2

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First fall: ​I've seen plenty of matches involving the Andersons, but seldom have I seen arm work as vicious as this from both guys. Buddy spends the first ten minutes trying to break Jay's arm, then Jay makes up for lost time trying to do the same to Buddy for the last five minutes. Finally, Jay just starts pounding Buddy's arm to death with forearms, and Buddy submits in order to keep said arm attached to his body, which gives Jay a 1-0 lead.

 

Now I'm beginning to see the Buddy everyone's always raved about. Frank puts him over as a crippler who goes after arms and knees in order to put his opponents in the hospital, and as I've noted he lives up to that reputation over the first ten minutes of the fall. This makes simple holds like the hammerlock into killers, and simple spots like the do-si-do reversal into potential game-changers. Usually that spot is a way for babyfaces to gain the advantage, but having Jay miss it three times before finally hitting it builds the suspense expertly, and the crowd goes nuts when he finally hits it.

 

Then comes the submission sequence I've described above, and I can't think of anything else Jay did to Buddy's arm except drive forearm after forearm into his shoulder. (He may have posted it once, but I'm not sure.) We've all seen that spot done for a ten-count from the crowd in various forms. but this time it was a legitimate offensive strategy, and it worked like a charm as Buddy submitted in order to stay in the match. It makes me wonder if someone somewhere kept ramming his opponent's head into a turnbuckle until they passed out cold from a concussion at some point in wrestling history.

 

We're getting beaten over the head with the idea that we may not see all of this match, and since there's only about eight minutes of disc time left that's a real possibility. Frank blames the State Athletic Commission, but I'm wondering if this may have been Don's way of reminding the people that not every good match will be shown for free, and that the only way to make sure you see the top matches from start to finish is live and in person at the Sports Arena.

 

Don didn't look all that flustered seeing Buddy in the ring with his "bunny", as Frank called her; I'd bet he (Buddy) has had quite a few entrances like that during his time in Portland.

 

I laughed at Frank comparing Buddy to Conrad Dobler, an offensive lineman who was one of the dirtiest players in NFL history. He used to bite, stomp, kick, punch, and otherwise maul his opponents on the field, and through it all he was talented enough to be one of the best in the business. Come to think of it, that's actually not a bad comp for Buddy at all.

 

​Second fall: ​What's the decision here? Was Buddy disqualified for slugging Sandy? Was he counted out? Did Sandy just give Jay the belt for the hell of it? I hope it wasn't Will's decision to cut off the ending like that. It probably should have been a DQ loss for Buddy and no title for Jay.

 

How Buddy's arm wasn't legitimately broken after Jay worked on it the way we saw I'll never know. What a masterful job by both guys, and in the end I almost felt sorry for Buddy, because Jay looked bound and determined to rip his arm clean off and almost made it. Even punching Sandy didn't get Buddy out of trouble.

 

Nice cameo from Jay's dad, whose chops added insult to injury for Buddy. I wonder what he was like as a wrestler.

 

I liked how Buddy didn't forget about working on Jay's arm either. Frank added to this part of the story by mentioning Jay's injury, which was a nice touch and also helped explain why Jay wanted to injure Buddy's arm so badly.

 

I've never seen a heel kneel on a ref's throat to keep him down the way Buddy did with Sandy here. Whatever you may think of Sandy's skills as a ref, you have to admire his physical courage in taking the some of the beatings he does, which are unlike those taken by most refs elsewhere.

 

On a general note, Sandy's decision in the previous Jay-Buddy match was a first for me. Heel champions have tried to run out the clock during title defenses as long as there have been heel champions, and I've never seen them have their belts held up because of it. Either Don was extremely creative with some of his finishes or he let Sandy do whatever the hell he wanted out there as long as he (Don) got the results he wanted.

 

Can't wait to see the April rematch!