Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver vs Rocky Johnson & Brett Sawyer (2/3 falls) (7/10/82)

[goodhelmet]

Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver vs Rocky Johnson & Brett Sawyer (2/3 falls) (7/10/82)

Disc 5

[Lee Benaka]

Brett Sawyer is such a funny-looking runty dude! There are several quite amusing moments in this match between Johnson and the heels, including (1) Buddy's attempt to demonstrate that he is just as acrobatic as Rocky in the opening minutes of the match, (2) Rocky's tutoring Brett on the proper way to execute an uppercut to an opponent's armpit, and (3) Rocky easily wriggling out of Buddy's headlocks, and Buddy's crashing failure to do the same when Rocky has him in a headbutt. Rocky pins Buddy to win the first fall after a series of dropkicks. Brett does hit a very nice and high dropkick himself. Rocky gets pinned for the second fall, after a double-team from Buddy and Rip. Things quickly break down in the third fall, with all four (I think) wrestlers on the floor, when in runs David Schultz again for the DDQ. Schultz posts Buddy and opens up quite a cut. The ref throws the match out and holds up the belts. Schultz does a post-match interview from the crow's nest where he demands a one-on-one match with Rose, and Don Owens reluctantly agrees. This was fun, but the run-in ending again hurt the match overall a bit for me.

[garretta]

First fall: ​I've been looking forward to seeing Rocky on this set, and he doesn't disappoint here, outclassing both Buddy and Oliver in the quickness and athleticism departments, much to Buddy's chagrin in particular. He compounds the felony by scoring the pin on Buddy following a pair of dropkicks and a sunset flip. He and Hack are up one fall to none with about fifteen minutes of disc time remaining.

 

As was the case in the Adams bout, Buddy feels the need to prove his athleticism by doing cartwheels in order to avoid some of Rocky's best moves and punches. At one point Buddy turns to the camera and mouths, "Aren't I an athlete?", to which Frank gives the classic response, "Send your cards and letters to......" How delightfully droll, Mr. Bonnema!

 

I'm honestly not sure if Rocky ever sparred with Muhammad Ali, but he sure can throw his fists, and he does here, only he dies so to augment armbars on both Buddy and Oliver. I love those uppercuts he sneaks in under their armpits, and his attempts to teach Hack how to do the same are hilarious. Hack gets the hang of it as best he can after a few quick lessons, which only makes life more miserable for the Army.

 

We miss yet another memorable interaction between Buddy and a fan, as he apparently tries before the match to accost a man in a gorilla mask and steal the mask from him. That's why Don can be heard during the ring announcements yelling, "Get back in the ring!"

 

I liked Frank telling the story of Rocky's efforts to win the Northwest title, and also why he refused to challenge Hack for the belt when he (Hack) held it. Remember those bygone days when faces considered themselves too honorable to challenge their friends for titles? In this day and age, that would be a heel turn waiting to happen.

 

We get another round of Hack being too stupid to think straight, as he spends almost all of Rocky's FIP segment making things worse for him by distracting Luke Brown. It gets so bad that Frank explicitly calls him out on it, which he very seldom does to a wrestler. That must be a part of Hack's character, like it is Robert Gibson's. The problem is, as good as guys like Rocky and Chris Adams are, they're not nearly as good an FIP as Ricky Morton, so it's easy to focus on Hack's stupidity rather than the beating his partner's taking.

 

I like the little local touches that Portland puts into its broadcasts, like saying hello to the station security guard who just came back to work after spending some time in the hospital. The only other promotion that can pull this off and still sound sincere about it is (not surprisingly) Memphis. Smoky Mountain could have done it if it had been around about this time (1982), but by the mid-nineties everyone, even small-time promoters like Corny, wanted to look and sound big-time, so little things like that went by the boards.

 

​Second fall: ​Rocky's trapped in the ring for the entire fall, and Buddy and Oliver mix some doubleteams with a nervehold to keep him at bay. Twice toward the end of the fall, Rocky makes a legal tag to Hack, only for Luke Brown not to allow it because he didn't see it. Right after the second attempt, Buddy hits a double axhandle off the top while Oliver holds Rocky to score the pin and even the bout at a fall apiece with about seven minutes of disc time remaining.

 

I had no problem with the hot tag spot being used twice in rapid succession, but I hope we don't see it again in the third fall. How many times can either the wrestlers or the referee be made to look foolish in one match?

 

I liked Rocky sliding out of Buddy's headlock so easily, and the payback spot where Buddy tries the same thing and fails, only for Rocky to drop him right on his nose, was a classic. So was Oliver thumbing Rocky in the throat before Rocky could slide out of his headlock.

 

Frank puts over Buddy's appearances on WWF television, and we even get a Grand Wizard mention, which I never expected. It's kind of a shame Ernie didn't want to travel, because now that the fans knew that he managed Buddy in New York, he would have been a nice added attraction on Buddy's trips back home. I can just imagine him running down the likes of Rocky or Dave Schultz or Curt on the mic. It would have been a treat to see him interact with guys like Oliver as well.

 

In a similar vein, there's justifiable pride shown in others who were making it big elsewhere, such as Piper and Snuka. Unlike Dutch, however, Frank never sees the need to take potshots at New York or its fans in order to make Portland seem like a bigger deal. He really seems like a class guy, and Portland's going to miss him when he passes away soon.

 

​Third fall: ​We really don't get much of a fall here, as Rocky's just made the hot tag to Hack when Dave Schultz comes to ringside looking for a piece of Buddy. Pretty soon, we have Rocky putting Oliver to sleep on the floor while Dave posts Buddy and opens a gusher on his forehead. Rather than disqualify Rocky and Hack for outside interference that they clearly had no part in arranging (and thus giving the match to the Army), Luke throws the whole match out and orders the belts held up.

 

I had a problem with that decision at first, but better that than implicating two "pure" faces in the actions of a man whose motives amount to nothing more than wanting to kick Buddy's ass. If you listen to Dave's promo from the Crow's Nest, he talks like Buddy's the babyface here, which isn't strictly true. As I said in another thread, he's the "hometown bastard" at best.

 

It's interesting that Don made sure not to televise the first match between Dave and Buddy because he supposedly was afraid that it would get too violent. By the end of the feud, he was promoting a cage match between the two and televising it, and a cage match, even a watered-down one, is one of the most violent bouts in the sport.

 

We couldn't hear Buddy's answer promo because the show was going off the air, but the visual of him slowly sliding out of the ring and making his way back to the dressing room will stay with me for a long time because we seldom see Buddy looking quite that vulnerable, even if he brought it on himself.