Buddy Rose & Kim Sung vs. Matt Borne & Brett Sawyer (9/12/81)

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Buddy Rose & Kim Sung vs. Matt Borne & Brett Sawyer (9/12/81)

Disc 3

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First fall: ​There's not much wrestling from the heels, as Kim Song is your typical chop/nervehold Oriental. I wasn't able to get a good grasp of who he was, but he looks kind of like a smaller version of Killer Khan. He spends most of his time trying to find out the difference between judo chops (which are legal) and karate chops (which aren't). Meanwhile, Buddy gets fooled badly to end the fall, as he's got Hack in a front facelock near his and Matt's corner. Hack makes a blind tag to Matt, who comes off the top rope with a sunset flip to score the pin and give the faces a one fall to none lead approximately eleven minutes (disc time) into the match.

 

Frank brings up an interesting trivia fact between falls: Buddy's teams have now lost three consecutive falls at the House of Action. Oliver lost two straight just forty-eight hours before, which has led to him taking a temporary leave of absence from the Arny. As of this match, he and Wiskowski are the only two guys who have left the Army on good terms (that is, without turning face and trying to beat the hell out of Buddy).

 

An interesting sidelight to this match is that Regal, Matt's regular tag team partner, is facing Stan Stasiak later in the show. Stan had to have been close to retirement, because it sounds like Don's trying to get him one last shot at the NWA World title. The belt was held at this time by Dusty Rhodes, which finally answers my earlier question of whether Portland recognized Dusty's '81 reign or not. (According to Wrestlingdata, Don's plan didn't work; Dusty spent almost all of his time in Mid-Atlantic, Florida, and Georgia as champ, with a side trip or two to Central States.)

 

Matt and Hack are the more coordinated team, which makes sense when Song has supposedly never even wrestled in Portland before. The singles feud between Matt and Buddy is in full bloom here, as they'll meet in a singles match the following Tuesday.

 

Nice to see Luke Brown refereeing this match. Maybe Sandy got as many TV matches as he did because they wanted to plug his flea market as one of the places where fans could get tickets.

 

I wonder what the news about Piper was that was only preliminary. It's amazing to me that he was so popular in Portland despite only being in the business for less than ten years and in Portland for somewhere around two. After watching almost this entire set, I'll have to admit that I was wrong; I'd thought it took a while for him to become a legend, but he was to Portland what Bruno was to the Northeast almost from the time he turned face. No other wrestler's guest appearances have been hyped as much as his, including Flair, Harley, and Andre.

 

​Second fall: ​Hack's the FIP for most of this fall, and takes quite a veering. Song shows that he has some wrestling skill as well as his martial arts knowledge; he works on Hack's arm a bit, and delivers a picture-perfect double underhook suplex (referred to by Frank as a belly-to belly suplex).

 

Matt keeps trying to get in and stop the beating, but only distracts Luke. Finally he gets the hot tag, but soon things break down, and it's bonzo gonzo. Matt gets Buddy up for the airplane spin, but leaves his forehead wide open for Song to plant a headbutt on. Matt falls backwards, and Buddy lands on top of him and scores the three count which evens the match at a fall apiece with about five minutes of disc time remaining. The heels keep up their attack after the fall for a brief moment or two, but Buddy eventually calls Song off.

 

Frank uses Song's "inexperience" to teach potential new viewers about the rules concerning what happens at the start of each fall in multi-fall matches. The conceit is that Song doesn't understand why Buddy has to start each fall and make contact. For his part, Buddy makes a big deal out of only lightly touching his opponent, then tagging Song right away, although that's mostly because he doesn't want to be in the ring with either Matt or Hack.

 

Another Frankism, from the first fall: "Suplex" for a Russian legsweep. From almost any other announcer, this would sound like total ignorance. With Frank, you give him the benefit of the doubt that maybe he heard it called a suplex at some point. Why? Because he's so damn likable and draws you into the story of the match like few others in the business did even in 1981.

 

At one point, Frank says that Song delivered a karate chop "right in front of the camera". Maybe he was supposed ​to, but the camera somehow managed not to catch all of it. That's one of Portland's major problems: spotty camerawork from veterans who should know better after almost fifteen years of covering wrestling.

 

Speaking of errors, someone should tape the phone number of the Sports Arena to Frank's mirror so he can look at it while he's shaving in the morning. This is the second time on the set when he's been unsure of it.

 

Apparently Tough Tony's still wrestling, even though the last time we saw him Buddy was beating him soundly. I wonder when his last match was.

 

Third fall: ​The heels continue to beat on Matt for a while, but eventually he gets loose and tags Hack. After a few minutes, though, Hack's in big trouble and ends up down. Song then comes off the second rope with what Frank calls a judo chop to the throat, and that's enough to get the pin, as the Army takes the match two falls to one. After the match, the attack continues, as Buddy comes off the top rope on the back of Matt's neck, the better to weaken him for Tuesday's singles match. Meanwhile, Hack's flopping around and holding his throat, presumably because Song's chop hit him there. Buddy finishes the attack by hitting Matt in the head with a chair.

 

My descriptions of action are usually purposefully vague, but sometimes there just isn't enough memorable action; the only thing I make it a point to remember is the actual move that got the three count in each fall. If you're reading this, you're either watching the matches or thinking about doing so, and each match is really best left up to individual viewing. I'm writing my impressions, but you'll undoubtedly have your own.

 

I don't know of too many Orientals who also have the hard head gimmick like Song. Maybe Fuji with his banzai headbutts, but he still feels buckle shots with his head, which is the main way you can tell if a wrestler's "hard-headed" or not. Song doesn't, for the record.

 

Frank finally got the phone number straight: it's 289-4222. I know the Sports Arena's a church building now, but I wonder if Sandy's family still runs their flea market.

 

For one of the few times in televised wrestling history, a chairshot is no-sold by an announcer. It's not intentional, though; just as Matt got hit, a numbskull out of the crowd decided to challenge Buddy, forcing Frank to repeat for what must have seemed like the ten thousandth time that a ticket doesn't entitle a spectator to get physically involved in a wrestling match.

 

I've heard plenty about the rabid crowds down South, but they didn't make a habit of disturbing the TV tapings the way certain knuckleheads in Portland did. That had to have driven Don absolutely mad, not just for injury reasons but for the possibility that a well-meaning beanbrain could ruin an angle that had taken months to build correctly. Maybe a couple of weeks of empty arena tapings would have cooled down the hotheads, although Don would have had to make sure that he could have withstood the temporary financial loss.