[1979-06-30-Portland-TV] Rip Rogers & Buddy Rose vs Ron Starr & Adrian Adonis

[dawho5]

First fall was all shine and Rogers seems like a guy who got how to shine up a babyface early on. Rose tries to act like he was the guy in the ring at the end of fall 1 but nobody is buying the act. Second fall was mostly Adonis working FIP (and doing a really good job of building sympathy) with a hot tag to Starr. Heels keep up the cheating and double teaming to get the fall. Third fall breaks down after a bit and Rogers tosses a chair into the ring that Starr ends up using. Sandy Barr becomes the center of attention with the resulting DQ and argument.

 

I have always liked the announcer for Portland wrestling, he may not know the move names, but the guy gets over what is happening with the best of them. I don't even mind when he talks about football. Rogers is definitely in over his head here but he has a ton of energy and seems to follow the lead of everybody else well. Starr is already good, but he gets more snug with his striking somewhere in the next 7 years. His selling and bumping are already really good. And he comes up with some sequences that I have not seen in matches after this one. Adonis is really energetic and plays a solid FIP. His offense is one of the highlights of the match. When you see Adonis before he got really overweight he comes off as a really great worker and a star. Buddy Rose was great in the role I feel like he was born to play, the cowardly, yet deadly heel. He'll rip you apart any way he can, but shows so much unwillingness to fight fair or do much at all when his opponent can actually hit back it's hard to not hate him (in a kayfabe sense). Really good tag and a look at 4 guys I think highly of at different stages of their career.

[Sean Reedy]

Adoniis and Starr were tremendous face foils for Buddy. Great crowd heat. Frank Bonnema deserves to be mentioned alongside Lance and Gordon (and Vince). One of those territory matches where the fans are just dying with the faces as they make each hot tag attempt. 2nd fall ends with an electric hot tag and then one of those intricate Buddy finishing stretches that tears the house down, 70s Adonis was already so tremendous, he has a great hot tag in the 3rd. I can't say enough about how good this was.

 

Bonnema at the end is great. :"The belts should stay with Adonis and Starr....NO THEY'RE NOT! SANDY BARR IS AWARDING THE BELTS TO ROGERS AND ROSE!!!: Frank was great because he was so completely chilled out 90% of the time but at the money moments he turns into 1986 JR.