Matt Borne & Curt Henning vs. The Assassin & Rip Oliver (2/3 Falls) (3/3/84)

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Matt Borne & Curt Henning vs. The Assassin & Rip Oliver (2/3 Falls) (3/3/84)

Disc 8

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First fall: ​As has been the case in most of these tag matches, the People's Army controls at the start, using the Clan's questionable tactics against them. But Oliver turns things around with a knee on Borne (which the camera misses, and he and Assassin go to work on Matt's upper arm, wrist, and hand. After several agonizing near-misses, Matt tags Curt, who cleans house on both of the champions. Assassin eventually falls victim to the Ax, and the RBA/People's Army takes a 1-0 lead with about sixteen minutes of disc time remaining.

 

I can understand needing to plug and shill for sponsors, but Coss and Stasiak cram so many plugs and what today would be called shoutouts into the first few minutes of the bout that it was overwhelming. For heaven's sake, guys, you've got over a half hour. Spread things out a bit and give your audience a chance to process what you're telling them. (As an aside, even though Stan's mellowed quite a bit, I'm still not sure if I'd buy a car from him!)

 

Matt must have just come back to Portland, because we haven't seen him in any matches since the tail end of '82. I guess the RBA now consists of four main guys, according to the Clan's prematch promo: Buddy, Curt, Matt, and Jules Strongbow. Billy Jack wasn't mentioned, and I wonder where he could be, or if he's injured.

 

Curt and Matt haven't been nearly as smooth as some of the other combinations the RBA has presented during this feud. They do the illegal switches fairly well, but they haven't showed much in the way of legal continuity. On the other hand, Oliver and Assassin remain one of the toughest teams in wrestling at this time, as evidenced by their precision work on Matt's wrist and hand. They did their job so well that Matt needed medical attention between the first and second falls.

 

Wiskowski as part of the Clan was inevitable; Big Ed just doesn't seem to be the type of guy who people would accept as a babyface. He doesn't have Buddy's charisma, and he's not a strong enough in-ring worker to make up for it. He is ​the best interview currently in the clan, with that cheesy, smarmy grin and his oily tone of voice. I liked how he bragged that Buddy was back in the dressing room hanging on every word he said, just like he did when they were partners. I can't wait to see the two of them go at it in the six-mans coming up on this disc.

 

I guess Jules and Miller are headed for a strap match after what we saw earlier, which is perfectly logical. I wonder why the Clan didn't take Miller in to make the sides even up.

 

Just a reminder: We'll see Hack and Piper as guest members of the RBA in the six-mans coming up later in Disc 8.

 

​Second fall: ​Curt and Matt try their best for the sweep, getting several nearfalls on Oliver early on through vastly improved teamwork, including a spectacular sunset flip off the top from Matt But Rip gains the advantage for the Clan by jamming his taped thumb into Curt's midsection, and that's the body part that they work on for the rest of the fall, particularly with a long bearhug from Assassin. Curt fights his way out and has Assassin going, but he misses the Ax, and Assassin rebounds off the ropes and plants his loaded hood in Curt's chest, which knocks the wind out of him for the last time. Assassin covers and gets three, and we have a tie match with about four minutes of disc time remaining.

 

The cameras again miss the turning point of the fall, Oliver using his thumb on Curt's midsection. I'm not sure if they could have helped it or not, but it's happened more often on this set than any other, and really drives home just how small-time Portland was in spite of its great in-ring action.

 

Coss makes a great point that I've never thought of about how winning the first fall of a two-out-of-three match takes more out of the person or team who won it than the person or team who lost it. If ever you need a kayfabe explanation as to why so few multi-fall matches end in sweeps, that one is perfect.

 

The Clan deserves extra credit for not making a team with two foreign object gimmicks see repetitive. Most promoters would understandably be reluctant to team a guy with a loaded thumb and a guy with a loaded hood, but Don did it, and Oliver and Assassin make it work beautifully. Sandy also plays his part brilliantly; he knows damn well that these two cheat like it's going out of style, but he can never prove it in order to give himself a reason to disqualify them, hence his understandable frustration.

 

I wish we'd actually gotten Rose/Piper-Oliver/Assassin, but I don't think that match ever came off. Ditto Andre's handicap match with Oliver and Assassin, which wouldn't exactly have been a cakewalk for the Giant, as tough as these two are. Did Andre actually appear in Portland in '84? I know that Vince was limiting his non-WWF appearances in North America pretty strictly by this time.

 

I thought Coss and Stasiak did a great job of explaining why ticket prices would be a little higher when guys like Hack, Piper, and Andre were in town. I wonder if anyone actually stayed home because they couldn't afford tickets.

 

Third fall: ​Curt makes an early hot tag to Matt, who comes in on fire. Matt eventually puts the Boston crab on Oliver, and Curt cuts off an interfering Assassin, Just when it looks like the RBA will take the belts, Big Ed comes in and waffles Matt in the back of the head for the automatic DQ. Matt and Curt win the match two falls to one, but Oliver and Assassin remain the champions. A brief brawl follows to set up the six-man series, which will be the next three matches on the disc.

 

And so ends perhaps the most underrated series of tag tam matches I've come across yet. Regardless of which combination was used, the RBA and the Clan put on a show every time they got in the ring together, and it's amazing that we didn't get more title changes than we did, because either side could have taken any of the bouts. (I think we saw two title changes on the set.) The heat was off the charts, and the wrestling and teamwork were superb. I'll remember these matches for a long time, and I'm looking forward to the six-mans, which have been something else in their own way so far.