Buddy Rose vs. Curt Hennig (No DQ, 2/3 Falls) (7/3/82)

[goodhelmet]

Buddy Rose vs. Curt Hennig (No DQ, 2/3 Falls) (7/3/82)

Disc 4

[Lee Benaka]

The goal of this match, apparently, is for one wrestler to injure the other's knee. Hennig goes after Rose early on and dishes out a lot of punishment (including punches) to Rose's leg and knee, including that lovely spot where Hennig tries to make Rose eat his own foot. Rose does a very nice job of selling his injury throughout. Rose submits to a half-crab after getting in very little offense. Rose stays in the ring during the break and does some damage to Hennig's knee in the second fall, including hammering Hennig's leg with a chair from outside of the ring. Rose wins with a half-crab. The third fall doesn't getting going too much (other than Hennig paying Rose back by smashing his knee with a chair from outside the ring) before Dr. D comes to ringside and punches Rose as he is wrapping Hennig's knee around the ring post. Rose is counted out and loses. Hennig goes to shake Dr. D's hand, and Dr. D decks Hennig too. Because of this match's close focus on trying to injure knees, the match seemed to repeat itself a bit (someone is getting their leg slammed into the ring post again!), which made it not as compelling as other matches. The DQ ending with Dr. D was a bit anticlimactic too, but I guess it set up more matches down the line. This is pretty mid-range for me.

[garretta]

First fall: ​Frank says right at the start that each man is out to injure the other's knee, and it sure looks like it from what we see here. After a few minutes, it's Curt who gets the advantage, and he works over Buddy's knee much like he did in the second fall the week before. Eventually he slaps on a half-crab (which is the hold Buddy used to get the submission in the previous week's first fall), and Buddy submits to give him a 1-0 lead with about fifteen minutes of disc time remaining.

 

Curt seems a lot more energetic in this match than he was in the previous one. Even when he's on the mat with Buddy, there's an energy about his work that just wasn't there the week before. Buddy's putting a lot more behind his selling too, both inside and outside the ring.

 

Interesting that it was Brutus Beefcake (Dizzy Hogan) who injured Curt's knee originally, not Buddy himself. I also didn't know that Beefcake was a member of the Army using the Dizzy Hogan name. I don't know if I can say that I'm looking forward to seeing him in the tag match he's in on this disc, but it'll certainly be something to see.

 

Even Frank's more into things in this match. I liked how he explained what exactly a no-DQ match in Portland is: you can do pretty much anything you like, but you have to do it inside the ring. Countouts are still rigidly enforced, which they often aren't in other promotions. Too many times, a promotion will advertise a no-DQ match as anything goes, which makes the refs look moronic when they try to enforce certain rules at certain times. If these promotions would have simply said something like, "Even in no-DQ matches, moves that in the referee's judgement are being used to cripple one of the wrestlers will still be strongly discouraged", I wouldn't have had a problem.

 

Frank also brings up the sheer number of people who are after Buddy, and speculates that one day soon he'll have more trouble than he can handle even with the Army's help. It's so refreshing to see a promotion where multiple feuds involving a wrestler at the same time are not only happening, but are integrated into the promotion's overall narrative. Where has that gone today?

 

According to Frank, Rocky Johnson is demanding a stretcher match with either Oliver, Schultz, or Buddy. I bring this up Dave would have been an amazing addition to the Army if Don hadn't decided to pit him and Buddy against each other. In the eyes of the faces, there was little difference between the two of them anyway.

 

Frank refers to Curt as "Curtis" several times. which I don't even remember the AWA announcers doing. It's a bit odd, but he manages to pull it off without sounding like he's condescending.

 

​Second fall: ​This fall contains some of the most uncomfortable to watch legwork I've ever seen. Watching these two punch, kick, stomp, and try to bend each other's legs in all sorts of exciting and new directions is giving me ​a bad knee. Buddy eventually takes control with some chair shots to Curt's leg, then it's his turn to apply the half-crab, and Curt submits after holding out for a few moments to tie the match at a fall apiece with just under seven minutes of disc time remaining.

 

There's really not much to break down in terms of work here; these two are trying to rip out each other's knees, plain and simple. Plenty of wrestlers are known or have been known for their leg work, but they're seldom this persistently brutal about it. The closest parallel I can think of, and this isn't in the same ballpark, is Greg Valentine and Tito Santana in the WWF circa 1984-85. Greg, of course, injured Tito's knee, and Tito responded by stealing the figure-four from Greg. But their matches were mostly slugfests; Tito in particular wasn't out to put Greg in the hospital the way Curt is with Buddy here.

 

Frank constantly reminds us even when Curt's on offense that Curt's own knee is still vulnerable, and we see that come into play when Buddy goes to the eyes to make Curt drop his leg, then attack Curt's​ bad leg. This was as a result of Curt trying to make Buddy eat his own foot, and he got a lot closer than I ever thought he would.

 

These last two matches are doing more to put the half-crab over as a dangerous submission hold than all of the Japanese heavyweight matches we've seen where it's a staple of every single wrestler's attack, both male and female. I like seeing submission holds actually being used to force submissions, not as just a slightly more painful version of a reverse chinlock or side headlock.

 

​Third fall: ​More of the same until Schultz shows up and apparently whacks Buddy in the ear with a taped fist. He can't get back in the ring before the twenty count, which gives Curt the win. Curt starts to thank Dave for saving his leg and gets Pearl Harbored and thrown out of the ring for his trouble.

 

I wasn't a big fan of the finish. At least have Buddy be counted out as a result of something that Curt ​did to him, than Dave can come down and take all the shots he wants to. It wouldn't even have been so bad if Dave was being booked as a tweener and we could get a Rose/Oliver-Schultz/Hennig tag match out of it, but that's impossible after Dave attacked Curt too. Of, course, Buddy vows vengeance on everyone in the House of Action except for Frank, Don included, so the Hennig feud isn't over quite yet, which is a small consolation.

 

I liked Buddy selling deafness in his right ear after Dave's attack. I also liked him sticking Don with the bill for his upcoming trip to the hospital, which is what you'd expect from someone like him.

 

Oliver doesn't sound like much on the mic next to Buddy, especially when Buddy's as fired up as he is here. His time to make himself heard would come soon enough, though. Right now, he's the strong, almost silent, dangerous assassin type, and that's what a blowhard like Buddy needs in a second-in-command.

 

I liked Frank saying that it won't necessarily be a wrestling match when Buddy and Dave get together. Like these last two matches were scientific classics, right? They may not have had blood, but for sheer violence against the human body or a part thereof, these were hard to beat. I only wish we had more of them on this set. And to think, in a little over a year Buddy and Curt would be a damn good babyface tag team!