The SmarK Rant for WWWF All-Star Wrestling–03.24.79

The SmarK Rant for WWWF All Star-Wrestling – 03.24.79

Well, lookie what dropped on the Network this morning. I freely admit that this era of wrestling, and this era of WWF in particular is not especially my jam, but I’m willing to watch a few episodes and give it a go. It starts back in 1976, but there’s not a significant amount of content until 1978. So just for fun I picked this one at random and we’ll see where we go from here.

Taped from Hamburg, PA

Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino, in matching banana yellow jackets. That’s probably why it took so long to get it on here. Clearly the jackets were destroying the encoding for the Network.

Steve Travis is presented with a basket of flowers, celebrating his Rookie of the Year award. This was of course a complete lie, as he was also known as Steve Muslin and had been wrestling since 1976. Apparently he never made it past prelim guy and retired in 1984. Vince interviews him about the award, and he talks about working out and “taking bumps…uh, and bruises” in the ring. KAYFABE, brother. Anyway, he shares all the flowers with the kids at ringside. Yeah. 0 for 1.

Ted Dibiase v. Jose Estrada

Your moment of zen: Ring announcer Gary Capetta introduces the ringside attending staff, and GOOD GOLLY MISS MOLLY who should be introduced as the ringside physician but one Dr. George Zahorian? Frankly I’m shocked, like legitimately shocked, they didn’t just edit that out. Dibiase was North American champion at this point, a title that would soon be dropped and turned into the Intercontinental title once Pat Patterson won a tournament in Rio De Janeiro to unify it with the South American title. Dibiase controls with armdrags and drops a knee for two. The ropes are CRAZY loose in this ring. How are guys supposed to run the ropes properly without falling out of the ring? Dibiase with a pair of dropkicks, and he hits a back elbow and drops another elbow for the pin at 5:40. Bruno feels these elbows are “tree-mendous”, his highest honor. Who am I to argue? 1 for 2.

The Great Hossein Arab is here to rant and do the Iranian clubs. Freddie Blassie has $1000 to any American who can repeat the feats of strength. Apparently each one weighs “75 pounds”. I feel like physics would not be on the side of supporting that claim unless they were, like, lead instead of wood. Also less impressive is Hossein nearly dropping the clubs on a couple of occasions. I think Backlund actually did it better because he’s freakishly strong. 1 for 3.

The Great Hossein Arab v. Steve King

Hossein chops the jobber down and chokes away while the announcers speculate that his pointed boots must be loaded. That’s RACISM. There’s zero evidence of wrongdoing on his part. Hossein tosses the geek and hauls him back in for a gutwrench, then allegedly loads up his alleged loaded boot and runs the guy’s head into it and pins him at 2:40. I’ve seen earlier footage of Iron Sheik when he was a suplex machine and he was pretty awesome. This generic heel stuff was much less so. 1 for 4.

Greg Valentine and the Grand Wizard are here to gloat about breaking Chief Jay’s leg. What is with Greg and breaking Indian legs? Grand Wizard thinks it’s hilarious to picture Strongbow trying to do the war dance on a broken leg, but reiterates that the philosophy is “do unto others before they do unto you.” Greg argues that the figure-four shouldn’t be illegal, since it’s been “legal in wrestling for 200 years.” He’s done with Strongbow, and now he’s coming for Howdy Doody’s title.

Nikolai Volkoff v. Marc Pole

Volkoff was still transitioning out of being a Mongol at this point, and thus was introduced as being from “Mongolia” despite clearly playing a Russian now. Originally I thought the jobber’s name was “Marc Cole” and I was ready with “Walking With Memphis” jokes, but the guy put “MARC POLE” in big letters on both sides of his tights so I’m assuming that’s his actual name. Volkoff literally just throws the guy in and out of the ring and picks him up a couple of times, then finishes with the press backbreaker at 3:35. Same old Nikolai. 1 for 5.

Greg Valentine v. Frankie Williams

Valentine takes him down with a leglock as Vince is receiving medical information on Strongbow that says he might NEVER return. We should be so lucky. Valentine works on the leg for a while, then drops the elbow and finishes with a half-crab at 4:40. 1 for 6.

Jerry & Johnny Valiant v. Fred Curry & Ivan Putski

This was a really weird dynamic, as the Valiants already had Jimmy at ringside as part of a three-man team, PLUS Captain Lou as a manager. Because god knows you need a manager to talk for JIMMY VALIANT. I guess that’s just the way they did things, but talk about overkill. Anyway, I’m confused, because the Valiants would have been World tag team champions at this point (and for most of 1979, in fact) but there’s no mention here. The Valiants stall and do some cheating on Curry, but he fights back with a dropkick on Johnny, so Jerry comes in and we get some double-teaming thanks to a cheapshot from Lou Albano. Putski quickly gets the hot tag and cleans house, but he too gets caught in the heel corner and beat up, but finally he’s had ENOUGH and puts Jerry in the bearhug while Curry hits Johnny with a bodypress, and it’s a double DQ or draw or whatever at 7:30. Nothing to the match. 1 for 7.

The Pulse

So that wasn’t great. I dunno, what say you? Go back to 76 and start from the beginning? Is this something that you, the reader, are interested in following on the blog? I’m leaning towards “pass” but it’s certainly not the worst thing in the world.