Battle of the Belts I

[sek69]

September 2, 1985--Battle of the Belts in Tampa, FL at The Sundome drawing 7,600:

Hector & Chavo Guerrero b "The Crippler" Rip Oliver & The Grappler

Cocoa Samoa b "Hustler" Rip Rogers

Kendall Windham b Jack Hart (aka Barry Horrowitz) to win the Florida Title

Rick Rude (Southern Champ) b Billy Jack Haynes to retain

The Road Warriors (AWA Tag Champions) vs Harley Race & Stan Hansen was a DOUBLE COUNT OUT

Nick Bockwinkel b Frankie Lane

Ric Flair b Wahoo McDaniel to retain the NWA World title in a 2/3 Falls match in 45 minutes

 

 

First off, this show was the day Hurricane Elena made landfall in Biloxi MS. It resulted in heavy thunderstorms in the Tampa area, which resulted in occaisional power outages during the show. It also changed one of the main events, as it was supposed to be Rick Martel defending the AWA World Title vs Nick Bockwinkel, but the hurricane had other plans so they ended up having to replace Martel with Frankie Lane who was pretty much a jobber. The fans who braved the storm booed the match out of the building since they were expecting a title match, and even Nick had a "lets get this over with" look on his face while the announcers were trying to salvage something of all this.

 

 

The tag title match was not as good as it could have been since the Road Warriors didn't job at this point, and Hansen rarely jobbed in the US at this point, so it was only interesting in how they were going to get to the inevitable DQ or countout finish.

 

Also, half the guys on the card (well pretty much everyone really except Flair of course) was half assing it since they obviously wanted to get the fuck out ASAP since the storm was getting to the point where thunderclaps were rattling the building.

[pantherwagner]

Different kind of "cursed show", but what about this?

 

June 4, 1982: Fritz Von Erich Retirement Show at Texas Stadium

El Solitario b Rene Guajardo to win the NWA World Light Heavyweight title

Dead, dead

 

Andre the Giant b Bugsy McGraw by DQ

Dead, alive (I thought he was dead, but I always confuse him with Jos Leduc)

 

Andre the Giant won a "Bodyslam Battle Royal"

Dead

 

Lola Gonzales b Irma Gonzales

Very fat, very old

 

Bill Irwin b Ken Mantell

Both are alive

 

The Spoiler b Frank Dusek

Dead, Chernau/Nulty associate

 

Great Kabuki & Magic Dragon b David & Kevin von Erich to win the All-Asian Tag Team title

Alive, dead, dead, what's keeping Kevin?

 

Kerry Von Erich b Harley Race in a "NO-DQ" match

Dead, may he live a long life

 

Fritz Von Erich b King Kong Bundy in a "Falls Count Anywhere" match to win the American Heavyweight title.

Dead, not dead

 

Yes, I am "homeworking" today.

[sek69]

Yeah, but that's a World Class show, you'd expect almost everyone on the card to be dead.

 

Also Battle of the Belts had Gordon Solie and Mike Graham, and I bet Gordon was wishing he was drunk for that. It does show that Graham's "hey let's turn everything into a discussion about ME" style wasn't just invented for WWE 24/7.