You are here: Home>Tape Reviews>Portland TV>Portland Wrestling-5/18/85
Where Wrestling's Regional History Lives! |
|
|
- John Baumer ---Opening video ---Don Coss opens up the show from
the crow's nest and talks about the big event this Tuesday night at the
Memorial Coliseum. ---Match #1: Buddy Rose vs. Steve
Simpson. The match takes
forever to get under way because the ringside PA mic isn't working.
Finally, Owen used a mic plugged into the T.V. cameras to make
the ring intros, although the live crowd couldn't hear them. Rose destroys Simpson, the entire time yelling, "Where's
Roddy Piper?" Piper is
Rose's opponent at the Coliseum. Despite
being the biggest heel in the business at the time in the WWF, Piper was
a full fledged babyface for his return to Portland and match with Rose.
At one point, Rose actually left the ring and walked all the way
up to the announce booth just to make a remark about Piper.
The finish sees the time limit expire just as Rose was pinning
Simpson following a DDT. ---Coss runs down the upcoming
events: Sunday in Finley, Monday in Yakima, Tuesday in Portland at the
Memorial Coliseum, Wednesday in Seattle at the Seattle Center Arena,
Thursday in Salem, Friday in Eugene, and next Saturday all kids are free
at the Sports Arena. ---Coss shills all the official
merchandise for the Don Owen 60th Anniversary Extravaganza at the
Memorial Coliseum Tuesday night. A
hat, an autographed t-shirt, and a program were available.
Coss ran down the card: NWA World champ Ric Flair vs. Billy Jack
Haynes, AWA World champ Rick Martel vs. PNW champ Mike Miller, AWA World
tag team champs the Road Warriors vs. Larry & Curt Hennig, Rowdy
Roddy Piper vs. Buddy Rose, Sgt. Slaughter vs. Kendo Nagasaki, the
battling midgets, and five matches featuring the local talent.
Coss claimed this was the first time three world titles were on
the line on the same card and it would be the biggest wrestling event
ever held. Now, that may
not be true, but this was a pretty big event.
It featured wrestlers from all three major companies, WWF, NWA,
and AWA, as well as all the local boys and sported a gigantic 11 match
card. At this point, there
were about 7,000 tickets left to be sold for the 13,000 seat arena.
The promoters were very worried the show was going to be a huge
failure. However, the show
ended up selling out and was the single biggest success in the history
of the territory. ---Match #2: Jerry Gray vs. Ricky
Vaughn. Oh boy! It's time
for the "technical" wrestling match of the week, i.e, a
babyface borefest. After he
made the ring intros, Don Owen claimed these two would be two of the
biggest stars in wrestling someday and said the technical matches were
his favorite and hoped the fans liked them too.
The fans never liked them, yet we got them almost every week.
As always, it ends in a time limit draw. ---Coss introduces a video of Billy
Jack Haynes preparing for his NWA World title match Tuesday night.
Haynes is at his home in Oregon City and shows a tape of his last
World title shot, which ended in a DQ when Rip Oliver attacked him
moments before he had the championship won with the full-nelson. Haynes
promises to win the title with the full-nelson at the Coliseum.
Haynes is shown working out to some great 80s "porn-type"
music. A clip of Haynes
beating up Rip Oliver is shown for some reason, followed by Haynes
reading a letter from the Governor while sitting on the hood of his
Porsch. That just goes to
show how big this show was, that Billy was getting letters from the
Governor wishing him luck against Flair. ---Match #3: Billy Jack Haynes vs.
Diamond Timothy Flowers. Basic
squash match for Haynes and he gets the win with the full-nelson. ---Coss shows some photos of Piper, Slaughter, and the Road Warriors before introducing a video taped interview from Ric Flair. Flair puts over what a big show it is going to be Tuesday night. Flair said Portland, Oregon dozens of times in this promo and pronounced Oregon wrong every single time. Quick lesson for everyone out there: Oregon is not pronounced "Orygone." More...
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||