[1980-12-13-WWF-Philadelphia, PA] Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika)

[SAMS]

1980-12-13
WWF
Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika)
WWF Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match
Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
★★★
Card

Maybe Martel’s best performance of the year. Certainly the best Samoans match of the year by a mile. They had shed some of the “impervious” aspects of their gimmick which allowed them to show a bit more vulnerability and avoided what was a major issue with their matches, which is that they were incredibly DRY.
The Samoans jumped the champions to start and pummelled Martel in particular. He took some brutal attacks to his back, and generally this style of offense suited the Samoans, just clubbing and headbutting Martel in the back repeatedly. The referee tried his best to establish some order but the Samoans wouldn’t relent so within the first 30 seconds they were DQd and the champions were 1-0 up in a flash.
Martel didn’t look in good shape to start the second fall but he endured long enough to get the tag to Garea. It was from here that we saw the good stuff from the champions. In terms of booking I’m sure the idea was to give them a strong win here to firmly establish them as the champs, make it clear that winning against the Samoans in the first place wasn’t a fluke, and it can’t be long now before the Samoans run in New York was up. Either way, Martel and Garea worked like a finely tuned machine, in and out, quick tags, and worked relentlessly on the leg. Martel in particular had some hellaciously kinetic elbow drops on the knee and I was wondering where on earth a Samoan leveller was going to come from. I shouldn’t have bothered as it wasn’t forthcoming and in fact it seemed like Martel actually secured the fall a few times, confusing both commentary and myself,  before an eventual Samoan collision allowed him to seal the deal. Bit of a messy finish, but a pretty fun match all round up until that point.