The Assassin & Dynamite Kid vs. Billy Jack & Buddy Rose (2/3 Falls) (11/19/83)

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The Assassin & Dynamite Kid vs. Billy Jack & Buddy Rose (2/3 Falls) (11/19/83)

Disc 7

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First fall: ​This match is for the Northwest tag team championship. Dynamite and Assassin are the champions. This is actually the last in a series of four tag matches in four weeks which involve the Clan. Dynamite and Assassin wrestle Buddy and Curt Hennig twice, and in the other match Oliver takes Dynamite's place.

 

The fall goes back and forth, with some excellent work by both teams. The finish comes when Buddy hits an atomic drop on Dynamite and sends him outside. The trouble is, Dynamite has already tagged Assassin, and before Buddy knows what's happening, Assassin hits a flying headbutt from the top with his loaded mask (which the camera misses) and gets the three count, putting the champs up one fall to none with about ten minutes of disc time remaining.

 

As I just mentioned, the teamwork is very good here on both sides. Dynamite and Assassin aren't much of a surprise since they're the champs, but I was surprised at how well Buddy worked with Billy Jack. If you hadn't been following following Portland all along, you would never have known that Buddy and Billy Jack had been on opposite sides of the fence just a few short months ago, I especially liked Billy Jack coming in to make the save for Buddy on a few occasions; it proves that they trust each other and aren't just together because they have a common enemy.

 

Assassin shows that he can wrestle in the opening minutes in his exchanges with Buddy, and Buddy and Dynamite aren't in together much, but when they are the sparks fly just like they did in their singles matches. This isn't Buddy's highest-profile rivalry, or even his most violent, but it's the one that shows a side of Buddy that few fans know exist: the tough guy babyface, a role he's proven to be very good at so far.

 

Billy Jack shows off his strength, particularly when he press-slams Dynamite. Boy could Dynamite bump in his younger days. The bald head's going to take some getting used to, though, especially since the long hair added so much to his look as a heel.

 

Hopefully Coss will know what he's seeing if Dynamite pulls his straps down in this match; in the second Buddy-Dynamite singles match, all she could say when he saw Dynamite with his straps down was that he had appeared to lose his top!

 

​Second fall: Buddy plays FIP for most of this fall, as Dynamite and Assassin work on his arm. Eventually, though Buddy manages to drag both himself and Assassin over to his corner and tag Billy Jack, who comes in with guns blazing. The champions subdue him briefly, but eventually Billy Jack hits what looks like a gutbuster (again partially missed by the camera) off of an Irish whip and gets the three count while Buddy slams Dynamite off the top before he can interfere. We're tied at a fall apiece with just over three minutes remaining.

 

These missed moves have simply got to stop. That's two finishes in two falls for this match that we either haven't seen or only seen part of. No wonder Portland always seemed low rent, even back in the day.

 

Maybe he was taking different steroids when he was working for Vince than he was here, but Dynamite looks to be in a lot better shape here, more muscular and better proportioned. In the WWF, he looked scrawny even with his muscles, especially compared to Davey Boy, who almost literally blew up like a balloon during his time there; if you'd stuck a (non-drugged) needle in one of his muscles, I swear it would have either popped or deflated.

 

Kudos to Billy Jack for not falling victim to Assassin's obvious attempts to sucker him into the ring with a cheap shot. He's tried it at least three times so far, and Billy Jack hasn't reacted. Either he's smarter than we've given him credit for over the years or he was so strung out on God knows what that he forgot to sell.

 

For the second match in a row, Buddy cuts a promo on The Clan between the second and third falls. The parts about The Clan aren't really newsworthy, but he sells his exertion well. More importantly, he tells us that newcomer Irish Pat McGhee is a protégé of none other than Roddy Piper. I'm not sure whether that was true in real life or not, but it's a hell of a leg up in Portland regardless.

 

Third fall: ​This fall doesn't last too long, and the tape cuts out before we learn the decision. Billy Jack is whaling away on Dynamite, and Dynamite goes to the outside. Billy Jack goes to pull him back in, but Assassin grabs hold of his feet. Then the bell rings.

 

The exchange between Billy Jack and Dynamite is the highpoint of the fall, as Dynamite knocks Buddy off the apron, then proceeds to forearm the living hell out of Billy Jack in the corner. Eventually Billy Jack fights back in kind. Seeing stuff like this makes you realize just how much we missed from each of these guys in the WWF, whether Vince didn't want them to be that physical or whether the travel schedule tired them out to the point where they couldn't ​be that physical.

 

If the other three Clan tags on this disc are half as good as this one, we've got a hidden gem of a series on our hands.