Grappler & Abbuda Dein vs. The Southern Rockers (2/3 Falls) (1/7/89)

[goodhelmet]

Grappler & Abbuda Dein vs. The Southern Rockers (2/3 Falls) (1/7/89)

Disc 10

[garretta]

First fall: ​This may have been the best handicap match I've seen yet. Grappler and Dein injure Peterson early, so it's Doll against two for almost the entire fall, and Doll kicks out of some lead pipe-cinch pinning combinations, which shocks everyone, including Coss on commentary. The heels look great as a team, but still don't put Doll away until resorting to a Dein shot to the throat off of a blind tag. Seriously, the timing on Doll's kickouts is absolutely exquisite.

 

Coss turns in his best performance on the disc. He does a great job talking up the pandemonium surrounding Peterson's injury, and his reactions to Doll's kickouts are superb. He comes across as a tad naïve when he questions the fairness of this being a handicap match (hey, if the wrestlers want it and the ref okays it, what difference does it make whether it's fair or not?), but that's a minor nitpick.

 

It'll be interesting to see if Peterson returns for the second fall, since Portland takes a long break between falls in their multi-fall main events.

 

​Second fall: ​This one was a bit weird.

 

First of all, it's mentioned at the beginning of the fall that Piper's on his way to the arena. Everyone including Coss thinks he's coming to be Doll's partner (in the event of a third fall, I guess), but eventually Peterson comes down with the biggest sling I've seen yet. Doll eventually tags him, of course, and things go to hell for him whortly thereafter; he cleans house on both Grappler and Dein at first, but eventually Grappler throws him out of the ring and jams his bad shoulder into the post. For that, Sandy Barr disqualifies the heels not just for the fall but for the match, and awards the Rockers the belts.

 

I don't know about that finish; it cheats the fans out of action that they paid to see, since there would normally have been a third fall, but it also keeps the matchup alive for the house show circuit, since Grappler and Dein can claim that they never got their rightful chance to finish the match and retain the belts. I guess in a dying promotion like Portland, they had to latch onto every little bit of controversy they could in order to keep house show business from going down even further than it already was.

 

Third fall: ​Turns out that Sandy only disqualified the heels for the second fall after all; Coss wrongly proclaimed the Rockers as champs completely on his own. I can't imagine that Owen would order him to make a mistake like that, so he should have known better after so many years in the business.

 

We're back to a handicap match with Doll against both heels, or it looks that way until Peterson defies common sense and comes back to the ring. Of course, he's next to useless, and it's a field day on his bad shoulder.........until Piper shows up and gets into it with Grappler, then throws his drink in Dein's face. Peterson has enough strength left to roll Dein up, and this time we really do ​have new champions, who celebrate with Piper as the crowd goes nuts.

 

I guess if Piper wants to come down and be a part of things, his presence might as well mean something. That said, the story told during the first two falls would have been better served if either the Rockers had pulled the impossible upset or had bowed in defeat after gutting it out. The finish we got may have done its job in starting a Piper-Grappler feud, but it did nothing for the legitimacy of the Rockers as champions, at least for this reign

 

I didn't understand the point of the postmatch interview. As fun as it always is to watch Rod do his thing, what was the point here? Who the hell are the Russian Assassins supposed to be, and why are they being treated as a bigger deal than the Rockers? Why was this match so important for the Rockers to have, and what are the stakes supposed to be? Apparently they're so big that Rod had to intimidate Barry Owen into giving them the match.

 

I thought Rex King was Steve Doll's partner all along until I saw the matches on this disc. When did their partnership begin, and what happened to Peterson?