Trying to watch all of the Crockett Cup matches on the network. Man I love 80s wrestling.
Relevant, I reviewed the ‘86 Cup for another forum
NWA/JCP Crockett Cup 1986Been wanting to do a review again for a while but show after show, it just wasn’t working out. This might not even work I might have to edit this opening paragraphh but for the time being, the Crockett Cup. NWA promotion Jim Crockett Promotions started the tournament in 1986 and JCP owner Jim Crockett named it after his father who founded and ran the promotion before passing in the ‘70s. It was a single elimination tag team tournament with a trophy and a million bucks as the prizes. It featured a who’s who of tag teams from the time. Including the Road Warriors and the Four Horsemen.
The show starts with the sixth match in the first round, which is strange but through further research eight teams got a first round bye for reasons Wikipedia doesn’t have listed.
First Round Match
The Fabulous Ones (Stan Lane and Steve Keirn) vs. The Fantastics (Tommy Rogers and Bobby Fulton)- Obviously it would be a waste of time to specify each match as a tag team match. I’m sure there’s people that would love this match as an old school display of how to work...unfortunately you’re not reading their review, you’re reading mine. I grew up on the Hardy Boys, this wasn’t for me. Like a lot of old school wrestling, it was slow and nothing seemed to really happen. I swear it felt like they traded a Standing Armbar for four minutes. There were some moments that were good (Fulton rolling off of Rogers back to prevent himself from taking a Back Body Drop for example) but overall, this match wasn’t for me, you may it enjoy if you like this style more then I do.
First Round Match
The Italian Stallion and Koko B. Ware vs. Buzz Sawyer and Rick Steiner- Stallion is probably most famous for mentoring the Hardy’s and some of their friends in their early days in the WWF. There’s more to like in this for me personally. Buzz is more of a brawler and if you’ve ever seen that video of Koko beating the crap out of that jobber that supposedly called him the n word then you know Kokos got hands and holds his own with the Mad Dog. Despite a slightly quicker pace and some spots (two of which are on twitter and I’ll share at the end of this review) it’s more of the same. Steiner and Stallion don’t do much in this match but Young Lion Steiner does pull out a patented Belly-to-Belly Slam that looked smooth as hell.
First Round Match
Jim Garvin and Black Bart w/ Precious vs. D.J. Peterson and Brett Sawyer- What a mismatch Jimmy Jam and Bart are, it’s like the Village People. It looks like Haggrid teaming with Nacho Libre. Just to show that personal preference doesn’t dictate my views of a match this was quicker paced but I still thought it was just ok. No much to talk about outside of Jimmy Jam looking like he spiked Peterson on the crown of his head with a Brainbuster and Sawyers impressive Leg Drop.
Before we start the second round matches, some matches were left off the VHS release of this show which I’m guessing is the version WWE owns and uploaded for time reasons. They were Bobby Jaggers and Mike Miller losing to Mark Youngblood and Wahoo McDaniels, Sam Houston and Nelson Royal beating the Batten Twins, Los Guerrero’s losing to the Sheepherders, Barbarian and Baron Von Raschke losing to Manny Fernández and Jimmy Valiant, and Steve Williams and Terry Taylor defeating Bill Dundee and Buddy Landel.
Quick aside, during the last match I realized the ring announcer sounded like Bruce Prichard...that’s because it was!
Anyway...
Second Round Match
Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton) vs. Sam Houston and Nelson Royal- Now this is more like it. Good action at a consistent, good pace...and it’s over in no time with a lame finish. No time for a full scale match to actually happen so there’s nothing to talk about...moving on I guess.
Second Round Match
Buzz Sawyer and Rick Steiner vs. Ronnie Garvin and Magnum T.A.- Garvin and Magnum were one of the teams that got a First Round bye. Like the last match this is more in my ballpark. The four limit the rest holds in favor of clobbering one another for a little over five minutes. Another short match but this has a better finish. It felt like a more complete match then the last. Good sprint.
We cut to the evening session where the rest of the action will play out. They actually have a proper camera set up though so that’s good. Tony Schiavone welcomes the crowd and introduces Jim Ross who reads off the rules. Standard stuff, one fall, twenty minute limit, in the event of a draw both teams would be eliminated, Piledriver and top rope moves are legal, tossing your opponent over the top is not, and every team only gets one save per match.
Second Round Match
Mark Youngblood and Wahoo McDaniel vs, The Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal) w/ “Precious” Paul Ellering- The crowd goes ape for the L.O.D.. It was the Road Warriors pop before it was the Austin pop after all. Pretty quick brawl, not much else to this one but it’s a fun watch. Like the last match the losers partner doesnt even try to break up the pin. Weird finish, but fun sprint.
Second Round Match
The Russians (Ivan Koloff and Nikita Koloff) vs. Manny Fernández and Jimmy Valiant- Good grief the Boogie Woogie Man is OVER. The second round continues to deliver. Some more old school tag psychological in this one but it’s another fast paced fight. Probably just under 10 minutes so not quite a sprint but they don’t waste time. Again, the crowd LOVED Fernández and Valiant so that definitely helped.
I know I’m sounding like a broken record at this point but that’s the way the show was booked. Quick matches with the wrestlers making the most of their time. Some worked and some haven’t. I’m sorry if this is boring to read but I press on...mainly cause I’m over an hour into a four show.
The next match was supposed to be Steve Williams and Terry Taylor vs. Dino Bravo and Rick Martel but Dino was unable to compete and rushed to the emergency room with appendicitis forcing his team to forfeit.
Second Round Match
New Zealand Sheepherders (Butch Miller and Luke Williams) w/ Jack Victory vs, The Rock N’ Roll Express (Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton)- The heat, good and bad, these teams get for showing nationalistic pride is nuts. I’m pretty sure most of us know this but just in case, the Sheepherders are the future Bushwhackers but there was nothing PG or child friendly about them back then. I don’t know which is which off hand so forgive me.
R N’ Rs time in Memphis shines through as they are willing to engage the New Zealanders in fisticuffs. Early on it’s pretty back and forth until the Sheepherders outsmart, isolate, and all around beat the crap out of Gibson. The ensuing hot tag to Morton makes the crowd explode. The match falls into chaos and a victory tries to run interference but Morton sees him coming. Unfortunately Morton hits him with the New Zealand flag a few times and gets caught by the ref. Blondes huh? Fun match overall.
Second Round Match
The Four Horsemen (Arm Anderson and Tully Blanchard) w/ James J. Dillion vs. The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers)- We go right into the crap with Rogers threatening Blanchard with a chair. This is the best match on here so far. There’s no much in the way of actual wrestling moves as the two teams just fight. Everything that makes the Revival great came from Arn and Tully and in the midst of this war that is still on full display. Great match with a hot crowd, if you watch nothing else from this show at least watch this. A masterclass in tag team wrestling.
Second Round Match
Giant Baba and Tiger Mask vs. Jimmy Garvin and Black Bart w/ Precious- By today’s standards Tiger Mask is incredibly tame but back then he was different from almost anyone else around in North America. Another brawl for the most with a fair amount of Tiger showing off his different move set. Baba moves more awkwardly then the rest but he does his part. Can’t rave about this one like the last one but still a good match, check it out if your looking to waste some time.
(To break up the wall of text here’s one of the gifs I mentioned earlier)
Quarter Finals
Midnight Express vs. Road Warriors- I didn’t list them but Corny and Ellering are at ringside. So these two teams are legendary and their legends for a reason but surprisingly this is pretty one sided. Things go tits up fairly often for the Midnights and even the advantage they got towards the end didn’t last long before ol’ Loverboy took a Powerslam. If your looking for two teams having a really good match this isn’t it, but if your looking for a fun display of what made the Road Warriors stars, then is right up that alley. Plus Animal pulls out two Standing Dropkicks, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do.
Quarter Finals
The Russians vs. Steve Williams and Terry Taylor- I don’t know what to make of this one. The action was mostly fine but the booking is weird. Nikita constantly leaves the corner and misses Ivan’s tags, while the faces spend nearly ten minutes beating up the gaining Ivan to the point that he doesn’t know which corner to go to. So one of your top heels looks like a dumb crap and the faces look like bungholes. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Ok match despite its weird booking.
Quarter Finals
The Sheepherders vs. The Fantastics- Because it’s the eighties and the Sheepherders are foreign, Bobby Fulton leads the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance and gets a huge pop for it. Then for the ensuing ten plus minutes the two teams proved to beat the crap out of each other. The match falls into absolute chaos with both teams and Jack Victory ending up with color. It’s not as bad as like Eddie Guerrero at Judgement Day ‘04 but it’s pretty nasty.
Do I to have put a spoiler warning for a tournament show? The next matches will give the result anyway right? Well just in case SPOILERS, the last match went to a time limit draw while this was thrown out as a Double DQ. The two teams are near insuperable post match and would continue to brawl. I don’t know where to put it in terms of quality tbh.
Quarter Finals
Tiger Mask and Giant Baba vs. Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin- A tale of two matches if you will. The first half isn’t bad but it’s nothing special. It’s in the second half where it picks up that this match shines. From the brief brawl to Tiger Mask showing off a little more. Even if he’s tame but today standards it’s so fun (I’ve noticed I’ve used that a lot more than good in this review, but a fun match still qualifies as good right?) to watch knowing how revolutionary he was back then. It doesn’t last long before we get a pretty sweet finish. Not great but s fun watch if your bored...like a lot of this show now that I think about it. Maybe it’s just me...
(Second gif from earlier before the final half of the show)
UWF North American Heavyweight Title Match
Dick Slater vs. Jim Duggan(c)- Earlier Schiavone said this was No DQ but J.R. didn’t mention it in his introduction of the match but the ref doesn’t DQ Slater when he jabs Hacksaw with the mic, basically I don’t
ing know if there were DQs or not. Watts decided to threaten us by putting an hour time limit on this match.
Anyway, this was an alright brawl. Hacksaw isn’t revered for his wrestling acumen so most of the mat work is handled by Slater. There’s not much of it though as the tow usually end up just throwing kicks and punches. Some interesting spots and some decent brawling make for a fine time waster.
NWA World Heavyweight Championship Match
Dusty Rhodes w/ Baby Doll vs. Ric Flair(c)- Former Texas promoter Paul Bosch introduces this match. He ones up Vince Jr. but announcing it as being for the NWA World Title
and belt. It’s two legends doing what made them legends, need I say more? From the crowd interactions to the action this is solid silver. Yeah, this is really good and a surprisingly easy watch for an almost twenty minute match but it never gets past really good. Not a slight on either man as they easily could’ve gone out there and phoned this but they went out and gave a damn good performance.
Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup Finals
Ronnie Garvin and Magnum T.A. vs. The Road Warriors w/Paul Ellering- Its come down to these two teams and the crowd is rather quiet but it’s been a long show and they don’t have the benefit we have of stopping and watching the rets another day, it was ‘86 and those
ers were in for the long haul. So quietly wise, this was definitely a match.
It wasn’t bad but it felt like the two could do better, because I’ve seen them do better over the course of this show. I imagine both teams were spent by this point (or not, it was the eighties and the coke was probably bountiful backstage) and were working with what they had left. What they had left wasn’t terrible but it was underwhelming. The Road Warriors won this after a sneaky tag and surprise Lariat from Animal to Garvin. For some reason Hawk and Magnum briefly threw hands post match.
Overall: For me personally this was a mixed bag. The ‘80s wrestling scene is hit and miss for me and so this a slow burn match. It’s all preference and in that terms there was stuff I enjoyed. To reiterate you may find something in this show that I didn’t but at four hours I don’t think it’s worth going out of your way to watch unless you’re a major history buff. [/b]