[1980-07-12-PNW] Rick Martel vs Ed Wiskoski

[SAMS]

1980-07-12
PNW
Rick Martel (c) vs. Ed Wiskoski
NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match
Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA
Card
★★★

Ed got to stretch his legs here with a singles title match. They worked this around Wiskoski retaining control around a front facelock hold. Martel repeatedly hit offensive moves but Wiskoski would keep that hold locked on. Eventually Martel managed a second big suplex to dislodge himself from Wiskoski’s grasp. They built to that relatively simple spot so well that it had much more impact than it should have had. Martel took control and started the beatdown on Wiskoski. His selling was still goofy, especially when he was holding his back, but I’m coming around to his bumping style, at least here it felt effective. Martel was going for the kill but got caught in a side headlock which Wiskoski reversed into a backdrop suplex setting up his diving headbutt for the first fall. I’ll repeat that his diving headbutt looks really good and feels like it’s worth being a no doubt fall ender every time.
Martel really went after the back in the second fall, which definitely carried an air of desperation as he was in a 1-0 hole. Often it can feel like a given that the face will make that comeback, but Wiskoski did such a good job here that I felt like he came across really strong and as a pretty legitimate challenger. Every time Martel lost some of that control you feared it could be the end for him but after a few near falls he pulled out a beautiful Hurricanrana into a pin to level things up.
Conspicuously Rose had been in the dressing room the entire time and hadn’t made an appearance so if we were going to have a screwy finish you would have assumed he’d turn up, but here it was all Ed. Yes, Martel wasn’t able to get the clean pin on him, but I thought as far as cheating goes, this was a really good example of how to try it. Martel was on the offensive with a series of dropkicks and Wiskoski surreptitiously dragged Sandy Barr into the line of fire on one attempt, sending him sprawling to the mat. In the confusion he was able to lay out Martel and it appeared that he would have had him for the pin. Unfortunately Barr was privy to Ed’s tactics and disqualified him for the pull. Wiskoski didn’t get away with it but it conceivably could have worked. Cheaters are gonna cheat, but at least be sneaky with it and I felt that this was justifiable.