Rip Oliver & The Assassin vs. Brett Sawyer & Steve Pardee (2/3 falls) (9/11/82)

[goodhelmet]

Rip Oliver & The Assassin vs. Brett Sawyer & Steve Pardee (2/3 falls) (9/11/82)

Disc 5

[garretta]

First fall: ​The two teams go back and forth, with some excellent teamwork from both sides. Oliver and Assassin are too much in the end, though, as Assassin hits an elbow to the jaw and a headbutt off the ropes to get the pin on Pardee. The challengers lead one fall to none with about twenty minutes of disc time remaining.

 

Hack and Pardee seem to be a smoother team than Hack and Adams were, probably because Pardee's slightly more experienced in American-style wrestling. It's nice to see Steve as something other than Buddy's designated punching bag.

 

Speaking of the Playboy, they're really hyping his match with Flair coming up at the end of September. Don tells a nice story about Rose talking Flair down on interviews in New York, but unless you count the one Vince taped with him specifically for air in the Portland market, that's completely untrue. I harp on this because I hate lies by promoters where the promoter in question should know better and they get mo business benefit from the lie anyway. Buddy doesn't need to talk Flair down in New York; he can send in an interview or fly home for a weekend and do it live right in the Crow's Nest. Also, I'm mad as a fan that Vince was given an opportunity through Buddy's interviews to have a match like Flair-Buddy in the Garden and chose not to do it. Just thinking of Flair defending against a WWF guy like Buddy or Don Muraco or a heel Jimmy Snuka is enough to make my mouth water even thirty-four years later.

 

Nice discussion by Frank on why masked wrestler wear the hood and what an insult it is to have it ripped off of them. It was framed in such a way that fans would wish for their favorite face to rip the hood off of guys like Assassin just to humiliate them, which is exactly the point.

 

Frank and the office seem to be pleased to be on the radio and back in the Oregonian. Honestly, I'm surprised that they were kept out of the papers in a hot wrestling town like Portland for over ten years. It's not like today, where WWE comes in only once a year; they were having matches once or twice a week for all that time.

 

I guess we know why we haven't seen Sandy ref as much as usual lately; Luke Brown also fills in on the Flair-Hack title match later in the disc. Good to see that Don had the money to pay more than one official.

 

Second fall: ​Pardee's in the ring for almost the entire fall, and Oliver and Assassin target his left arm both individually and collectively with some vicious doubleteaming, making a fool out of Hack several times in the process. Finally, Assassin outs his head down looking for a backdrop, and Steve catches him in a sunset flip for the pin. We're tied at a fall apiece with about nine minutes of disc time remaining.

 

Frank's not the type to call guys out, but you can tell that he doesn't think much of Hack constantly allowing himself to be suckered into the ring by Rip and Assassin. He's got a friend in me; that spot should be done no more than twice a match at most (once a fall in a multi-fall match). It was done at least four or five times here, and Hack looked more and more like an idiot who doesn't understand tag team wrestling each time. The worst offense was when Pardee actually made it to the corner while Hack was in the ring arguing with Luke. That's just too much for my credulity. period. Not even Ricky Morton could make something like that look good. Hack Sawyer, you are officially brainless.

 

Nice rundown by Frank of all the heels currently in the territory, but I'll take Rose, Oliver, and Wiskowski any day of the week. Thankfully, Buddy will be back before too much longer (in real time, that is). Other than Miller and Gene Kiniski, I have no idea who any of these guys even are. (I had no idea that Gene was still wrestling this late.).

 

I'm pretty sure that this is the match where Oliver and Assassin win the belts, and it'll be interesting to see how they pull it off.

 

Third fall: ​After a couple of more teases (which were a couple of more too many), Hack's finally tagged in, and he's on fire until he slips off the turnbuckle while trying to monkey-flip Oliver. Rip and Assassin get him back to their corner, and Assassin comes off the top rope with a loaded headbutt that busts Hack's head wide open in one of the sickest cuts I've seen in a while. The heels work the cut over until Luke stops the match and awards the titles to Rip and Assassin on a blood stoppage. I'm used to the WWF, where blood stoppages didn't mean that the heel got the title, so this was a bit of a surprise, just like how throwing a guy over the top rope doesn't ​get their opponent disqualified.

 

I guess this is the start of Assassin's loaded mask angle. It bears repeating what a gusher Hack tapped here; talk about going above and beyond to get another man's gimmick over. Frank estimates Hack's blood loss and a pint every two minutes, and it certainly seemed that way.

 

Hack's interview afterward is a perfect interview for someone who was bleeding as badly as he was. He still made the points he needed to make about Buzz coming in and his upcoming singles bout with Assassin, but he weaved all over the Crow's Nest and lost his train of thought frequently (for example, he has Buzz traveling fifteen thousand miles at first, then five, then four). Too many guys are perfectly lucid just seconds after they've been busted open, and they're talking perfectly well while they're standing there bleeding out, which is ludicrous.

 

I couldn't believe that they ran the "Pardee goes back to the corner to tag while Hack stupidly argues with the ref" spot a second time. That's just plain inexcusable, no matter the circumstances.

[Lee Benaka]

Garretta does a great job of summarizing the fun points raised by the announcer throughout the match. As for the match itself, I was underwhelmed by the Pardee/Sawyer team, and I get the feeling that this match made the set mostly for the insane blade job in the third fall and the post-match promo. I'm sure, as a vampire wrestling fan, I have seen that promo before, but I was still fairly shocked. I agree with garretta that Sawyer did a masterful job (or perhaps had no other choice) in selling the blood loss while giving a delirious interview. Without that spectacle, I probably would have this toward the bottom of my rankings so far.