OJ's WWWF/WWF thread

[ohtani's jacket]

The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. The Rockers (WWF, 10/10/89)

This is the most house show match imaginable except that it's wrestled on the first ever WWF show in the UK so the British fans don't know what to expect. That makes it a more special bout than it would have been if it had been worked on the usual WWF circuit. Michaels may have gotten hammy later on, but he was a solid FIP in his early days. The action here was much better than in the Hart Foundation matches. 

[ohtani's jacket]

The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. The Rockers (WWF, 10/13/89)

The WWF's European tour continues with a stop in Paris. I thought this was more exciting than the London match as there was less stalling and the crowd was hotter. Others may argue that it was more of a sprint than the drawn out London bout, but the quick action hit the spot for me. 

[ohtani's jacket]

The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. The British Bulldogs (WWF, 8/29/88)

This was the first WWF PPV I watched both on commercial tape and on free-to-air TV. I'm fairly sure this match bored the crap out of me as a child as I was only interested in the gimmicks and the match results at the time, but watching it now, it's a well worked opener with a ton of action and pretty good use of a limited Dynamite Kid. There's a guy minding Matilda at ringside who takes you out of the match at time, especially when he tries to reposition Matilda so that it looks like she's watching the match, but for the most part it is a solid opener. The MSG configuration seems different from how it was in the late 70s-early 80s and is fairly sterile, but I still buy this as a good WWF match. Superstar is great on commentary. Monsoon says SummerSlam is a happening at least three times. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Dick Murdoch vs Afa (WWF, 10/22/84)

This was a fun match. Of course, it was Murdoch doing a bunch of entertaining shtick almost like a one man comedy act, but it got me wishing that Dick had done a bit more in the WWF so that we could call him a WWF guy. He worked New Japan a lot with the WWF guys, but if he'd just had a few runs against Backlund, or even against Hogan, I think he'd be right up there with Valentine and Slaughter. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Dream Team vs. U.S. Express (WWF, 8/24/85)

I like the Dream Team. It gave Greg something to do after the Tito feud and featured Beefcake's best work. Beefcake was one of the workers who first appealed to me as a kid watching Superstars with my uncle, so I am totally fine with him as Greg's partner. This was a decent match with a hot finish. Barry dominated the early shine and came to blows with the Hammer. Rotunda played face-in-peril during the middle period. Barry made the hot tag and looked to have things in control until Beefcake blinded him with some sort of powder. Barry's selling was awesome. The Dream Team won the titles and the crowd seemed a little shocked that there had been a title change. Barry is another case where you wonder what might have been if he'd stayed in the WWF even though we were probably better off watching him in Crockett. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Dream Team vs. British Bulldogs (WWF, 5/19/86)

There are a million Dream Team vs. Bulldogs matches. This is the first one I happened to watch. It was a brisk and entertaining match. We got to see Valentine vs. Dynamite Kid, which was exciting. In the right setting those two could have had a match where they beat the shit out of each other. Fun finish with the heels thinking they'd won the title only for the ref to screw them. 

[ohtani's jacket]

Bob Backlund & Ivan Putski vs. Jerry Valiant & Johnny Valiant (WWF, 7/21/79)

The esteemed elliott calls this one of the best WWF tag matches of all-time, but I can't quite figure out why. It seems very similar to other WWF tag matches where one partner is injured and forced to leave the ring and the partner fights on two-against-one. Putski did look pretty good. I am gonna make a wild guess that he didn't look this good very often. Huge disappointment for me that the match doesn't continue when Backlund returns from the back. 

Bob Backlund vs. Killer Khan (WWF, 4/18/81)

This match was nowhere near as bad as I imagined it would be. It's very much a Bob Backlund wrestles Killer Khan and they do some light shtick match as opposed to one of Killer Khan's wild brawls or a match from a classic Backlund feud, but really the only problem with it is that it's too damn short. I was just starting to get into it and then it was over.