Rip Oliver & The Assassin vs. Billy Jack Haynes & Stan Stasiak (2/3 Falls) (12/11/82)

[goodhelmet]

Rip Oliver & The Assassin vs. Billy Jack Haynes & Stan Stasiak (2/3 Falls) (12/11/82)

Disc 5

[garretta]

​First fall: ​It's interesting to see Stasiak as the face in peril; usually in matches like this teaming an old guy with a young guy, it's the young guy who takes the beating. Stan gets almost no offense in, and Oliver and Assassin use a version of what would later be known as the Hart Attack to get the pin and take a 1-0 lead with about eleven minutes in disc time remaining.

 

This is Billy Jack's first chronological appearance on the set if I remember correctly, and he looks about sixteen with no beard and those long sideburns. The plain brown trunks are taking a bit of getting used to as well.

 

What I found most interesting was Dutch's rundown of who would be coming to Portland, especially one Buddy H. Roberts. Of course, we know him as Buddy Jack​, but I can see Don making him change one of his names to avoid confusion. The thing is, we know that the Freebirds were about to be super hot in Texas, and Dutch didn't mention either Hayes or Gordy. So what was the deal supposed to be? Somehow, I don't see the Birds dominating Portland like they did Dallas, not with Buddy and Oliver ahead of them as heels. If they'd turned face, they would have had Billy Jack to contend with regularly, plus Piper's special appearances in a territory where he was a bigger added attraction than Andre. No wonder they decided to stay down in Texas, which turned out to be the move that made their careers.

 

I know Dutch owns part of the territory and it behooves him to put it over, but saying that WWF wrestlers couldn't make it in Portland is ludicrous. First of all, a lot of them already had​. Second of all, if Portland's tougher than New York, why did Buddy leave to go there? Why is MSG the mecca for wrestling all over the world, the one arena most wrestlers wanted to compete in even if they had no intention of doing the whole WWF circuit? Why brag about the attendance record Buddy set one minute, then deride the New York fans as not loyal the next? There's putting over your own territory and then there's talking through your hat, and Dutch was doing the latter loud and clear in this case.

 

​Second fall: ​Oliver and Assassin continue to work over Stasiak, targeting his lower back. After several tries, Stan finally tags in Billy Jack, who applies the full nelson off of an Irish whip and gets the submission on Assassin to even the bout at a fall apiece with about five and a half minutes of disc time remaining.

 

Billy Jack must have been extremely limited around this time, because he doesn't even punch or kick; he just goes straight for the full nelson. I'm sure he knew some of the other basics too, but did he know them well enough to use them credibly in a match? I guess we'll find out in the third fall.

 

I like the way they're building Billy Jack up as a monster no one wants to face, even top heels like Oliver. Even if he turns out to be rather green at this time (as he almost certainly will), every move he executes will seem like a big deal this way, and the fans will be behind him even more than they would normally be behind a home state boy.

 

I noticed earlier in the disc that Billy Jack's already dedicating matches to his dad. Boy, did Don get a lot of mileage out of that part of Billy Jack's story. I wonder how Papa Haynes felt about being a minor celebrity in Portland.

 

​Third fall: ​We get a real shock finish, as Oliver has just taken over on Billy Jack and has him up for a slam when Stasiak dropkicks him in the back. Billy Jack falls on top of Oliver for the deciding pin, and we have new Northwest tag team champions.

 

I'm not sure which was the bigger surprise: a team like Stan and Billy Jack winning the belts or the winning move being a Staiak dropkick. Dutch sounded like he didn't even know that Stan knew what a dropkick was, and given how Stan's wrestled for most of his career you can hardly blame him.

 

Before that, we get a growing pains spot for Billy Jack, as he's ordered to break a side headlock after Assassin claims that he pulled his (Assassin's) mask and gets Sandy to believe him. Of course, not only did Billy Jack not pull the mask, Assassin didn't even pull his own mask as Coss claimed, which makes both Coss and Sandy look foolish. There has to be a better way to pull that spot off in the future.

 

I think we can safely say that the Sheik who's coming to Portland isn't Farhat; this one apparently does magic tricks that leave Dutch flabbergasted. Farhat was many things in his career, but a magician was never one of them.

 

Line of the Night goes to Dutch: "Stasiak dropkicking is like saying that the Pope isn't Polish!" Hmmmm, I think ​I knew what he meant. The question is, did ​he?

[Lee Benaka]

Maybe this was the match where Dutch was being kind of pathetic talking about wrestlers going to NYC, as opposed to the Rose-Pardee match. At any rate, I am beginning to miss Frank. I found the reference to Buddy H. Roberts to be amusing when the announcer claimed that the H stood for hate, or hatred. Wha? Stan did some elaborate but mostly effective selling in the first two falls. The finisher in the first fall looked pretty devastating. The full nelson finisher in the second fall was less so, but it was pretty convincing by the time Billy Jack made it to the WWF. The finish of the third fall was cute, and I really did love Stasiak's excitement when they won the titles, and even after they won the second fall. Overall, this was a fun bout.