Billy Jack Haynes vs. Bobby Jaggers (2/3 Falls) (4/12/86)

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Billy Jack Haynes vs. Bobby Jaggers (2/3 Falls) (4/12/86)

Disc 9

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First fall: ​There's not really much to analyze here. Billy Jack dominates, mostly with a side headlock, Normally, that isn't much, but when it's someone as powerful as Billy Jack, it's a fun hold to watch being worked, because the other guy usually sells it like his head's being run over by a truck, as Jaggers does here. Jaggers only gets a few seconds on offense, which ends when Billy Jack sunset flips him from the outside and gets the three count to go up 1-0.

 

They're really hyping the 5/20 card here, which I guess was a rerun of the card from the previous year at the Rose Garden. That would explain why all the stars that Don's supposedly negotiating with come from JCP, as we're well into the era where if a promoter got Flair, they also got the rest of the JCP guys whether they liked it or not.

 

According to Graham's site, Flair ended up wrestling Rip Oliver. I wonder if we're going to see the story behind that in the rest of this match, or if Rip was a substitute because Billy Jack either was leaving or had already left for Vince. But even if that was the case, why wouldn't Jaggers have gotten the shot?

 

I like the black and white tights that Billy Jack's wearing here. In typical WWF fashion, he only wore green trunks with gold letters spelling "Oregon" and gold trunks with green letters spelling "Oregon" while he was there, and after a while only the gold with green letters, the better not to confuse the poor simple little Hulksters.

 

I wasn't aware that leadership in The Clan was disputed at this point. At one point Coss says that Jaggers wants to beat Billy Jack so Rip will name him the leader. I wonder how that ​storyline got started.

 

Something tells me this is over in two straight, as we only have about six minutes of disc time remaining.

 

​Second fall: So much for my prediction, as Jaggers blasts Billy Jack in the forehead with an elbow and knocks him silly in less than two minutes to even things up at a fall apiece. There wasn't much action in the rest of the fall, so I'm guessing that someone gave them the hurry-up before the fall started.

 

Since Oliver ended up with the match, it's possible that 1) Jaggers won and gave the shot to him as the leader of The Clan or 2) Billy Jack won and Rip took his place once he (Billy Jack) gave his notice. My money's on door number two.

 

​Third fall: ​I was right; Billy Jack puts Jaggers out with the full nelson to win the match, the title, and the shot at Flair. There's a brief postmatch beatdown from the Assassin, but no major harm was done.

 

I couldn't believe the nearfall off of Jaggers' missed clothesline, as Billy Jack nearly knocked himself out running into Jaggers' rear end. It's something that has to be seen to be believed.

 

It might have seemed a bit odd that Don booked Billy Jack to win this when he had to know that Billy Jack was talking to Vince. It probably also seemed odd to the average fan that Billy Jack would leave knowing that he had a shot at Flair coming up. Of course, said average fan had no way of knowing that he or she had just as much of a chance to win the NWA belt as Billy Jack did: absolute zero.

 

By the way, the first result that Graham has for Billy Jack in the WWF is on 6/1 in Toronto, when he beat Frank Marconi with the full nelson. Graham doesn't list this match as his debut, so I'm assuming that there are provably lost results in May involving him. although the TV taping listing for Brantford and Poughkeepsie (where guys usually made their debuts/returns) seem to be complete.