1986 Matches

[jdw]

04/28/86 Tully Blanchard vs. Ron Garvin

Aired: 05/03/86

 

For people who liked the Garvin vs. Valentine on the DVDVR 80s WWF set, this and the 12/85 Flair vs. Garvin (from 12/28/85 World Championship Wrestling) are the True Shit.

 

The Flair-Garvin bring the "hate" and "intensity" that Garvin-Valentine can only dream of in its wildest wet dream. In fact, it's rare in his career that Flair got this intense, but he seemed inspired by Garvin's intensity. It's far more of a "fight" feel than Garvin-Valentine. Eve when Ronnie whips out the headscissor take downs, it's almost like he's dropping Ric on his head when taking him over.

 

Tully vs. Garvin is an epic, even through Ronnie basically kicks the living shit out of Tully for most of the match. Garvin is brillant in being able to kick the shit out of Tully at the same time that he's selling his broken hand. Tully sells the beating like a king, everyone once in a while probing to see if this is the time that Garvin will let him go on offense... only to find out that Garvin is channeling the spirit of Billy Robiso working to the drum within his own head and cuts him off yet again.

 

Despite the 25+ minute time, and three or more commercial breaks, the match never feels like it's dragging since the two are almost always up to something.

 

By the end of it, Hoback had it as his #2 match of 1986 behind Choshu & Yatsu vs. Jumbo & Tenryu. I liked it a great deal as well.

 

 

John

[Loss]

I haven't watched Tully/Garvin yet, but I do agree that Flair/Garvin from the 12/28/85 WCW is a great match. Garvin brought something out of Flair that no one else could. I think this was their best match together.

[jdw]

You really need to watch the 12/85 Flair-Garvin, 4/86 Garvin-Tully and Valentine-Garvin all in one general sitting and in that order. They're good contrasts.

 

 

John

[shoe]

The Tully-Garvin match was executed very well. I preferred the Windham-Tully match from 88 a little more. To me both of those matches are excellent. I was hoping the Garvin-Hennig match-ups on the DVDVR best of the WWF in the 80's set would be close to the Tully-Garvin match. Both of the Garvin-Hennig matches were solid, but nowhere near the level of the Blanchard match. Hennig is somewhat similar to Blanchard as a worker where you'd think he would get similar results with Garvin in match. Yet they didn't. I personally thought Tully was a better worker than Hennig, but here he really outworks him.

[Tim Cooke]

Rock n Roll Express/Brad Armstrong vs. Midnight Express/Big Bubba (11/08/86) [aired on AJ Classics]

 

Another 1986 NWA match with off the charts heat. Much more of a big spots/comedy match than a "let's try to kill the Express because we hate them" type of match.

 

Whenever Bubba enters, the crowd almost goes hushed because he is so big and looks like he could kill any of the opponents with ease.

 

All of the other typical MX/RnR spots are included in this match, including a new double leap frog ----> run into your team mate, which is always a great stooging spot.

 

Well worth seeing and another fine example of Dennis Condrey > Stan Lane.

[jdw]

The Tully-Garvin match was executed very well. I preferred the Windham-Tully match from 88 a little more. To me both of those matches are excellent. I was hoping the Garvin-Hennig match-ups on the DVDVR best of the WWF in the 80's set would be close to the Tully-Garvin match. Both of the Garvin-Hennig matches were solid, but nowhere near the level of the Blanchard match. Hennig is somewhat similar to Blanchard as a worker where you'd think he would get similar results with Garvin in match. Yet they didn't. I personally thought Tully was a better worker than Hennig, but here he really outworks him.

 

Oh god no... please don't tell me I have to watch a *second* Garvin vs. Hennig match...

 

*looks at DVDVR 100 list*

 

03/18/89 Mr Perfect vs Ron Garvin (Boston MA)

 

Oh shit.

 

The only entertaining thing about the first Hennig-Garvin match on the set was watching Garvin outwork Hennig. I guess I have that to look forward to in the second one.

 

 

John

[Bix]

I recall the Boston match being better. I nominated that one, Kris nominated the Coliseum Video one.

[Resident Evil]

I remember there being a large difference between the 2 Garvin vs Henning matches with one being good and the other near -- pardon the pun -- perfection. I think it was the Coliseum match as it was just so beautifully worked and the type of match I haven't seen in a long time. The type of match I really miss. One of the best matches on the set there.

[jdw]

I recall the Boston match being better. I nominated that one, Kris nominated the Coliseum Video one.

 

You had then 40/41 with the Nashville match #40.

 

Dean and Phil had them in the same order, though Dean liked the Boston match considerably less than you two did.

 

 

John

[jdw]

I remember there being a large difference between the 2 Garvin vs Henning matches with one being good and the other near -- pardon the pun -- perfection. I think it was the Coliseum match as it was just so beautifully worked and the type of match I haven't seen in a long time. The type of match I really miss. One of the best matches on the set there.

 

Egahds... if that's a beautiful match, then Tully-Ronnie much be "a million billion stars". Hell, the December 1985 Flair-Garvin runs circles around it, and I think people know my reputation over the last 4-5 years for handing out kudos to matches involving Flair.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Back to Shoe's comment...

 

The Tully-Garvin match was executed very well. I preferred the Windham-Tully match from 88 a little more.

 

I have the Barry-Tully from Will now and need to pop it in to watch. I am sort of tempted to save it for the next KOC since it was a blast watching Tully-Garvin for the first time with Yohe and Hoback.

 

 

John

[Bix]

 

I recall the Boston match being better. I nominated that one, Kris nominated the Coliseum Video one.

 

You had then 40/41 with the Nashville match #40.

 

Dean and Phil had them in the same order, though Dean liked the Boston match considerably less than you two did.

 

 

John

 

Really?

 

That's weird...

[jdw]

Really?

 

That's weird...

 

 

Hey look, my WWF ballot, SHOCKING #1 pick - Bix

 

40.Mr. Perfect vs. Ronnie Garvin (12/12/89 Nashville, TN)

41.Mr. Perfect vs Ron Garvin (3/18/89 Boston, MA)

 

Probably time to go edit it to make sure it's in the right order.

 

 

John

[Bix]

I really don't care

 

Also I remembered having a bigger gap between them too, but whatever.

[smkelly]

What is this DVDVR 100 list all about? I looked at the link, and it's all WWF matches from the 1980's. Did you guys put them on DVD's or something?

 

If so, are they still for sale?

[anarchistxx]

DVDVR did a 100 Best Matches Of The 80's set for WWF. The idea was that loads of people would send blank DVD's in and get the sets, and then at the end a huge vote would be taken.

 

They are currently doing the same thing for 80's Other Japan.

 

Some people sell the sets, yes.

[smkelly]

Ah. I was just looking over DVDVR, at the Other Japan, and Phil said send him only 6 blank DVD's and $5.

 

That seems like a steal. Although, wouldn't cramming all of those matches on so few DVD's be bad for VQ?

 

Also, one last thing, I think I've boughten a shit load of DVD's off of you.

[Loss]

Ric Flair v Ricky Morton - NWA 07/05/86 Great American Bash Tour

 

Ric Flair has taken somewhat of a beating the past few years from the hardcores. One could argue that some of it has been deserved and some of it has not. For years, he was regarded as the Greatest Wrestler Of All Time. He was the wrestler nearly everyone in the business talked about on WWE DVD releases and in radio interviews and in newsletters as the guy they had their best matches against and had tons of respect for. He was the consummate champion. He was the greatest world champion ever in fact. He worked the most grueling schedule ever, had the most great matches ever, was the best interview ever, was the most charismatic wrestler ever ... you could basically apply any superlative to Ric Flair and his reputation among people who really followed wrestling closely and had over a period of time. Watch his classics with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, they'd say, to see wrestling at its best.

 

Ricky Morton has also taken somewhat of a beating the past few years from the hardcores. One could argue that some of it has been deserved and some of it has not. For years, he was regarded as the original face in peril, perhaps the Greatest Tag Team Wrestler Of All Time. He was the wrestler nearly everyone in the business talked about as the best babyface they'd ever seen and he had tons of respect in most circles. He was talked as the guy that was the most sympathetic face ever who proved that small guys could get over in territories that only accepted big guys on top. Watch his classics with the Midnight Express, they'd say, to see tag team wrestling as its best.

 

Somewhere along the way things changed. Flair fans found Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Jumbo Tsuruta, Kenta Kobashi, Jushin Liger, Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Toshiaki Kawada, El Hijo del Santo and Mitsuharu Misawa and Flair wasn't as impressive anymore. He was overly reliant on a formula. He didn't have the range of offense of Kobashi. He didn't work his signature spots into the match as logically as Bret. He didn't age as gracefully or adapt to new opponents as well as Jumbo. Morton fans found Tommy Rogers and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. They sold extremely well too, and they had cooler looking moves. Besides, small samplings circulating showed that Ricky Morton didn't even play face in peril in most of his matches. It was a myth, and it was usually Robert Gibson taking the beating.

 

The first problem with overwhelming praise is that it can be nauseating, and it sometimes begs criticism. Flair's untouchable matches with Steamboat suddenly start getting touched on quite a bit. The Wrestle War '89 match with Steamboat was so boring and seemed detached from the storyline. It wasn't anything spectacular. And people talk about it as the Greatest Match Of All Time? People are underwhelmed, think the match is the best thing American wrestling has to offer, and start seeking out matches from Japan and Mexico that they hope will prove a little more exciting. Most of the time, they fulfill the prophecy they set for themselves. There's a depressing number of wrestlng fans on the Internet that have seen almost every Dragon Gate show ever and watch BJPW non-stop that haven't seen or cared to see so much great stuff. They haven't seen Jerry Lawler get pushed off of a staircase by Bill Dundee, or Magnum TA drive a spike in Tully Blanchard's eye. They haven't seen Terry Gordy slam Kerry Von Erich's head with a cage door, or Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan wrestling each other in tuxedos. Granted, there's far more to wrestling than the best American stuff, and I'd be hypocritical to not say otherwise, but this stuff is out there, and because of the gross overpimping of the wrong matches in many cases, it's caused people to be hesitant to go more in depth the way they would with maybe old All Japan or New Japan matches.

 

The second problem with overwhelming praise is that people tend to praise the wrong matches. The Flair/Steamboat matches are awesome, don't get me wrong, but for someone trying to find wrestling they really enjoy who's still discovering new styles, it's not the most daring recommendation one could make. There's a time for watching epics. I like epic matches. I think every wrestling fan likes epic matches. I think we would all get bored if all matches attempted to be epics. I'd argue that's a bit of a problem with some wrestling promotions today, but that's another argument for another time. There's really no reason for anyone to see Flair/Steamboat from Wrestle War '89 if they haven't seen the video set to Europe's "The Final Countdown" (yes, it's that Bryan Danielson theme song). There's really no reason for anyone to see a Ric Flair/Terry Funk match if they haven't seen Flair swing a branding iron, or Funk suffocate Flair with a plastic bag and bring out a jobber dressed like him in a cheap robe with a yellow stripe down his back. If you don't feel it and see it, these matches will be a bit hollow, which should go without saying, but based on the length of time I'm taking just to set up this review, doesn't.

 

This match and the Windham match from Worldwide that was on the Flair set are probably the two matches I'm most proud of WWE for releasing on DVD. It shows that there is more than Flair/Steamboat and Flair/Funk, that there were great matches and that it is worth digging a little deeper to find them. I'd go as far to say that Flair looks as good as or better than I've ever seen him here. This is a world title match that is about revenge, as opposed to being a stoic encounter between two respected legends. Ric Flair rubbed Ricky Morton's face into a concrete floor until blood was smearing all over the floor, and he broke his nose. Morton was wearing a face guard here. He came in full of piss and vinegar and tried to give Flair a dose of his own medicine. He tried to break Flair's nose and smear his face on the mat. He leveled him with some tremendous punches. He had Flair begging off. Yes, Ricky Morton came into the match so angry and possessed that he managed to scare Ric Flair. Flair begs off a lot, because he always tries to bring his opponent to his level. Sadly, sometimes instead of his opponent coming up a notch, he falls down a notch. That didn't happen with Morton. When he begged off, it felt more organic because it was believable. He wasn't working with a Sting or Luger that he had to get over before they could even really take the match anywhere, because Morton was capable of making his own way.

 

When Flair takes control of the match, we see him at probably his most brash and violent ever. He's talking trash constantly, rubbing Morton's face into the cage in front of the probably-PWI cameras, screaming "So you wanna be the world champ?" at him and ripping off his face gear and throwing it out of the cage so Morton can't even put it back on. He then starts punching him as hard as he can in the nose, and the crowd winces, because they feel Morton's pain. He convincingly beats the shit out of him for a long time without giving Morton any openings at all.

 

Morton finally has enough and tears into Flair yet again. Flair is now scared yet again, and is now getting exactly what he deserves. He's now bleeding just like Morton and he's now on the defensive. And with a flying bodypress from the top rope, Morton comes about a half a second away from winning the world title, and the fans appeared to be convinced. Again, Morton tries covering Flair, but this time, Morton ends up falling on the ref. This gives Flair a chance to crotch him on the top rope and pin him with his feet on the ropes to escape by the skin of his teeth with the world title.

 

I hope everyone watches and loves this match. And I hope it makes everyone re-think Ric Flair, Ricky Morton and American wrestling. Ric Flair was rarely about somber gatherings, clean wrestling matches and handshakes. Flair was about enraging fans who were dying to see someone take him down a notch, because he wasn't modest and always found a way to hold on to the belt, which is what allowed him to keep bragging and keep showing off. Rogers and Kikuchi are awesome, but Morton is almost in a class by himself. He's a 180 lb guy who drew money challenging for the world title. There aren't a lot of wrestlers that size who have pulled that off. Here, he shows that not only can he sell, but he can dish out a beating as well.

 

The Windham match at Battle of the Belts earlier in the year? You know the one, chances are you've at least seen it recommended even if you haven't watched it. Watch it. Definitely. But watch this first. Not only is it more accessible, but I actually think it's much better.

[Dylan Waco]

Man, I want to add to this, but I really wouldn't do it any justice. Great review

[sek69]

Wow, so much in this post is awesome it would be unfair to just simply reply with an "I agree" so I'll tackle it in sections:

 

 

Ric Flair has taken somewhat of a beating the past few years from the hardcores. One could argue that some of it has been deserved and some of it has not. For years, he was regarded as the Greatest Wrestler Of All Time. He was the wrestler nearly everyone in the business talked about on WWE DVD releases and in radio interviews and in newsletters as the guy they had their best matches against and had tons of respect for. He was the consummate champion. He was the greatest world champion ever in fact. He worked the most grueling schedule ever, had the most great matches ever, was the best interview ever, was the most charismatic wrestler ever ... you could basically apply any superlative to Ric Flair and his reputation among people who really followed wrestling closely and had over a period of time. Watch his classics with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk, they'd say, to see wrestling at its best.

 

Ricky Morton has also taken somewhat of a beating the past few years from the hardcores. One could argue that some of it has been deserved and some of it has not. For years, he was regarded as the original face in peril, perhaps the Greatest Tag Team Wrestler Of All Time. He was the wrestler nearly everyone in the business talked about as the best babyface they'd ever seen and he had tons of respect in most circles. He was talked as the guy that was the most sympathetic face ever who proved that small guys could get over in territories that only accepted big guys on top. Watch his classics with the Midnight Express, they'd say, to see tag team wrestling as its best.

 

Somewhere along the way things changed. Flair fans found Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin, Jumbo Tsuruta, Kenta Kobashi, Jushin Liger, Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Toshiaki Kawada, El Hijo del Santo and Mitsuharu Misawa and Flair wasn't as impressive anymore. He was overly reliant on a formula. He didn't have the range of offense of Kobashi. He didn't work his signature spots into the match as logically as Bret. He didn't age as gracefully or adapt to new opponents as well as Jumbo. Morton fans found Tommy Rogers and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. They sold extremely well too, and they had cooler looking moves. Besides, small samplings circulating showed that Ricky Morton didn't even play face in peril in most of his matches. It was a myth, and it was usually Robert Gibson taking the beating.

 

The first problem with overwhelming praise is that it can be nauseating, and it sometimes begs criticism. Flair's untouchable matches with Steamboat suddenly start getting touched on quite a bit. The Wrestle War '89 match with Steamboat was so boring and seemed detached from the storyline. It wasn't anything spectacular. And people talk about it as the Greatest Match Of All Time? People are underwhelmed, think the match is the best thing American wrestling has to offer, and start seeking out matches from Japan and Mexico that they hope will prove a little more exciting. Most of the time, they fulfill the prophecy they set for themselves. There's a depressing number of wrestlng fans on the Internet that have seen almost every Dragon Gate show ever and watch BJPW non-stop that haven't seen or cared to see so much great stuff. They haven't seen Jerry Lawler get pushed off of a staircase by Bill Dundee, or Magnum TA drive a spike in Tully Blanchard's eye. They haven't seen Terry Gordy slam Kerry Von Erich's head with a cage door, or Ted DiBiase and Jim Duggan wrestling each other in tuxedos. Granted, there's far more to wrestling than the best American stuff, and I'd be hypocritical to not say otherwise, but this stuff is out there, and because of the gross overpimping of the wrong matches in many cases, it's caused people to be hesitant to go more in depth the way they would with maybe old All Japan or New Japan matches.

 

As someone who's been crucified at times for suggesting Flair may be a little overrated by the hardcores, Loss pretty much said everything I ever felt about Flair. Some people consider even a hypothetical debate over Flair being "BEST EVAR" to be sacrelige. There's no doubt that he worked probably the most insane schedule of anyone in pro wrestling history, and that he made a lot of local schlubs look like superstars (at least for one night), but it's also apparent as more footage becomes available that Flair had a style that became more repetitive as time went on. Now I don't blame him, as the wear and tear of his schedule and the mental stress of all the political BS he had to deal with would make it impossible to be on a five-star level every night. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that people who weren't into the WWF cartoon stuff in the 80s would naturally flock to Ric Flair. Unless you lived in an area that got a local territory on TV, the only other wrestling you saw was the NWA and the best worker they had was Flair. I'd wager that almost all the current "hardcores" were kids in the 80s who grew up watching Saturday Night on TBS and reading PWI, so there's no doubt who'd their favorite guy would have been.

 

Again, it's not to say Flair isn't the best US worker of all time, and at least a top 5 in the world of all time, but perception plays a big part of how opinions are formed, and people have a habit of taking what they watched growing up and lionizing it into something bigger than it was. It's somewhat telling that it took him wrestling well into his 50s and having his body start to deteriorate before some people finally started to admit he's lost a step.

 

Also, I've said it before and Loss nails it here, you simply just can't get the same effect watching individual matches that you do when you watched the angles build over time. Steamboat-Savage doesn't mean shit if you didn't see him get his throat crushed and see weekly updates on his physical therapy on WWF TV. Watching the Flair-Funk I Quit match loses a lot if you don't know about the stuff like the piledriver on the table, the plastic bag, etc. That's the one thing I think people who relive past matches just aren't getting. They'll watch the Magnum-Tully match and think "well that was OK, but not as good as people say". Well no, it's not, unless you understand the hatred that went into the build.

 

The Ricky Morton stuff I chalk up to another case of Scott Keith bullshit. One of his go-to catchphrases in a tag match would be to describe the guy taking a beating as "playing Ricky Morton" which from the first time I saw it made me wonder if he ever watched a Rock n' Rolls match. I watched many a match on TBS and it was almost always Robert taking the beating and Ricky getting the hot tag. I considered the RnR's the greatest tag team of all time, if for no other reason they managed to get nuclear heat, be teenage heart throbs, and main event cards while being 180 pound rednecks with mullets and potbellies. Neither one really were all that great at promos, but they managed to work a crowd like no one else could (at the time). Everyone knows the matches with the Midnights, but they have great matches with the Andersons and the Russians for the tag titles that are just as good if not better.

 

Flair vs Morton might be the match that solidified me being a fan. The angle was great, with Flair doing the one thing guaranteed to garner the most heat: splatter the face of the #1 pretty boy in the promotion. The match lived up to the build, as the smilin' babyface Morton going crazy and trying to rip the nose off Flair's face. Loss mentions the crowd wincing, but you haven't lived until you've heard teenage girl Rock n Roll fans having heart attacks every time Flair delivers a blow to Ricky's face.

[Dylan Waco]

Actually Morton was a reasonably good promo. Just had a very good "look" and body language when delivering his stuff that made his akward voice forgiveable.

 

Other than that I basically agree, although I should say that now more than ever I am convinced that Flair and Funk are the two best ever. I should really qualify that for a lack of lucha viewing (and man what I have seen of EHDS really leads me to believe he is probably a contender), but I find Flair and Funk to be far more interesting and expressive than virtually any of their other counterparts at the top of the heap.

[Loss]

People say it all the time to a point where it's become a bit cliche, but Flair and Funk were both truly just themselves with the volume turned up a little. I think that's why both guys had such great careers and people responded to them the way they did. Even when they were way over the top, they were believable.

[Tim Evans]

This is from the Horsemen dvd right? It's a great match as Morton is incredible and Flair is Flair.

 

I've seen most of the matches you mentioned Loss, Magnum/Tully, Lawler/Dundee, Flair/Funk etc. All the matches are awesome and must sees but I still like Austin/Hart, The Los Gringos Locos formation match and LGL vs Santo/Octagon better. This could be because I'm a kid of the 90's wrestling and was raised watching this stuff. I think it all has to do with when you watched it and when you were raised. Just my opinion.

 

Great write up Loss.

[anarchistxx]

^^^

 

This is actually true, I am more entertained by The Rock v Rikishi than any Misawa match I've seen.

 

Basically because, I first watched Rock v Rikishi when me and everyone else I new was into wrestling, and didn't know anything about the internet or any of that sort of thing. I vividly remember watching it live when I was 11/12 and cheering on Rikishi while the other 3 people were going for the Rock.

 

So I still feel that emotion of supporting Rikishi when I watch that match. Misawa v Kawada, I feel...nothing.

 

I like Flair a lot though, and if I watch 30 minutes of Flair/Dusty Promos and a Flair/Dusty match it's always fucking great.

 

Even now, when I haven't watched a wrestling match for about 2 months, I love to see a good Dusty or Flair promo.

[Guest Monday Night Jericho]

Ric Flair v Ricky Morton - NWA 07/05/86 Great American Bash Tour

 

*snip*

 

This was a fantastic post, Loss. I've just started getting back into wrestling, and the Flair/Morton feud is largely responsible for that. I can't get over how great their stuff together was, they legitimately came across as two guys who really fucking hated one another. And I haven't even watched that cage match yet. However, I did watch a handheld from late April/early May which was excellent (the heat was unreal). I also have to disagree with those who say Flair wrestled Morton the same way he wrestled Luger and the likes.