Billy Jack Haynes vs. Rip Oliver (2/22/86)

[goodhelmet]

Billy Jack Haynes vs. Rip Oliver (2/22/86)

Disc 9

[garretta]

Yet another finish I wasn't a fan of.

 

Look, if this was just a normal match between these two guys, I'd have no problem with what happened; in fact, it would have been sweet to see Oliver get his after he cheated like it was going out of style all through the match. But this was (supposedly, at least) for a trip to Japan to represent Portland in a major international tournament. No one was expecting a clean match given the history between these two, but couldn't we have at least had a definitive finish? Would it have killed one of these two (probably Oliver) to do one clean job given the stakes involved? He could have gotten back his heat by jumping Billy Jack after the match and having The Clan beat him up until his friends made the save. As it was, we not only had interference from both sides, but a referee knocked so silly that he wasn't even sure who or what he was counting. That's hardly a way to put Portland's best foot forward on an international stage.

 

There wasn't a whole lot of good wrestling here, which was expected given who was involved. Billy Jack threw a good dropkick, which he didn't do often for Vince, and Oliver's "piledrop", as Coss called it, looked nasty. It was probably a botched piledriver, since Rip hit one cleanly later in the match, but it looked like it could have been a hell of a finisher on a regular basis, kind of like Jake Roberts' DDT, which was also born out of a botch.

 

We can be thankful for one small favor: The "lumberjacks" didn't interfere until the finish. If we'd had constant interference from the likes of Jaggers, Miller, and Cocoa, the whole match would have become a joke, especially considering what was on the line.

 

I loved Billy Jack dedicating the match to not only his family, but the people at the Center for the Blind. Yet another touch you don't get with national promotions, except for rare occasions on local insert promos.

 

Coss was very good here, and I take back my reservations about him calling big matches. He's still not in the top echelon of announcers (that's pretty tough to crack), but I can see why he lasted so long in Portland. Like Lance Russell and Dave Brown, he knows how to call a match in the manner which his audience expects. He's not folksy like Lance and doesn't delve much into strategy or motivations, but he keeps up with the action well and genuinely seems excited about what he's watching, which is three-quarters of the battle for any wrestling announcer. I'm guessing that his slip in later years was due to the (mostly) declining product and also having to carry a color man like Scott Levy, who in 1989 knew how to be obnoxious and not much else.