-1/24/88
-From the Nassau Colliseum in Uniondale, NY
-Hosts are Bob Caudle & Jim Ross. Tony Schiavone does the ring announcing.
-Match 1: NWA Television Championship: Nikita Koloff [c] VS Bobby Eaton (w/Jim Cornette)
-The Midnights are still U.S. tag champs at this point. Caudle calls Eaton a "high flyer". The "good luck" hugs between Eaton & Cornette draw some jeers. Lots of stalling early. Cornette's advice to Eaton: "He'll make a mistake, he's stupid". Eaton's early attempts at offense only serve to piss Nikita off. Nothing much happens until they exchange some blows on the outside. Eaton gets whipped across the apron into the ringpost, but he doesn't bump off it. Eaton works a side-headlock for a couple minutes, then makes the mistake of trying to brawl with Koloff on the outside. Koloff sends Eaton into the post, and Eaton bounces off that, into a cameraman, and down. Koloff follows that up with a hiptoss on the floor, which wakes the crowd up. Eaton manages to turn the tide, and works a hammerlock once they get back inside.
-Crowd tries to get themselves into the match with a big "Cornette Sucks" chant. Eaton lives up to his "high flyer" billing with a missile dropkick for two, but then goes back to the hammerlock. Eaton sticks with it for a long time, even as Tony starts counting down the minutes left. Koloff finally fights out, and hits the Russian Sickle as time expires. Stan Lane runs out for the two-on-one beatdown on Nikita as Cornette holds the ref back. Nothing inspiring here, and a painfully obvious finish to boot.
-Match 2: Western States Heritage Championship: Barry Windham [c] VS Larry Zbysko (w/Baby Doll)
-Windham has an injured knee going into this match, courtesy of the Four Horsemen. Baby Doll doesn't want to leave the ring to start, and a fan responds to this by yelling "TAKE IT OFF!". Windham outwrestles Zbysko early, who responds by throwing a dropkick...that misses. Windham keeps taking Larry down, pissing him off more and more. They have a brief shoving match, and Larry reacts like a little kid; "He started it!". Larry gets a leglock on Windham, whose F-bomb is bleeped out. Windham fights out and hits an enziguiri, but misses a flying elbow/senton from the top. Zbysko goes back to the leg, which pays off when Windham tries a suplex, but his leg buckles. To the outside, and Zbysko turns the tide again by sending Windham into the ringpost. Windham responds by crotching Zbysko on the same ringpost, but misses a dive and goes through the ropes. They smack heads for a double-KO spot. Larry misses a high knee in the corner.
-The ref gets bumped, and Windham goes for the cover anyway. Baby Doll counts to make Windham think he's won, and then Larry KO's Windham with Baby Doll's high-heel shoe for the pin and the title. Match was pretty slow for the most part, but at least Zbysko showed more energy and reacted more during those parts to keep it somewhat interesting. The finish makes Windham look like a complete idiot, as he stared right at the ref as he went down before the finish.
-Match 3: NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Ric Flair [c] (w/JJ Dillon) VS Road Warrior Hawk (w/Paul Ellering)
-Hawk comes out to "Iron Man", which is an awesome selection. Hawk overpowers Flair to start, then ramps things up by stomping a mudhole in him. Hawk completely dominates the first five minutes. Flair tries to fight back, but Hawk no-sells. Nothing works at all for Flair until he manages to sneak in a low-blow undetected by the referee. Flair pounds away, but lowers his head too early for a backdrop, and Hawk counters with a hangman's neckbreaker. Hawk's follow-up, a fistdrop, misses to turn the tide back to Flair.
-Flair starts working the knee, and adds another low-blow while the ref is talking to Ellering, just because he can. Flair's glee at having Hawk where he wants him is tremendous. Flair locks in the Figure 4 and uses the ropes for leverage, but Hawk manages to reverse it. Flair has to be bleeped reacting to the pain he is in now. Flair makes the mistake of going up top, and naturally gets caught, and tossed. Hawk comes out of the corner with a clothesline, but catches the ref as well on the follow-through. Hawk busts Flair open and keeps pounding away. Superplex appears to have the match won for Hawk, but the ref is still out. JJ sneaks into the ring and gingerly hits Hawk on the back with a chair, which Hawk thankfully no-sells, and goes after JJ. Flair gets a chairshot to the head...for two. Hawks no-sells an impressive delayed vertical suplex from Flair. Hawks has Flair in a world of trouble, but Flair nails Hawk again with the chair to draw the DQ and retain the title. Another fairly long match, but more enegertic than the previous two.
-JR and Caudle put the last match over as the most physical title defense Flair has ever had.
-Caudle runs down the list of the production crew members.
-Recap of the finish to Windham/Zbysko.
-Match 4: The 3rd Annual Bunkhouse Stampede Finals: Dusty Rhodes VS Tully Blanchard VS Ivan Koloff VS The Warlord VS Arn Anderson VS Lex Luger VS The Barbarian VS Road Warrior Animal
-Dusty is the U.S. Champion and winner of the previous 2 Bunkhouse Stampedes. Tully & Arn are the World Tag Team Champions, and Lex has apparently turned face, getting a positive reaction and (kind of) slapping hands with fans. This is a battle royale...inside a cage. The last man inside the cage wins the match and $500,000.00. Warlord wears a lifeguard shirt...ok. Arn and Dusty briefly work together on Ivan until Dusty turns back to work on Tully. Animal tries to push Tully over the top of the cage while Dusty almost gets Ivan out the door. Barbarian almost gets Dusty over the top, but then loses his grip, and is crotched on the top rope. The Powers of Pain work Lex over while Animal rubs Tully's face in the cage. Luger goes nuts after getting whipped with a belt, and Dusty gets a hold of it to hit anything that moves, finally waking the crowd up. The Horsemen tie Lex by his neck into the ring ropes. Animal FINALLY gets Ivan Koloff over the top and out for the first elimination. Animal kicks Warlord out the door, then gets hit from behind by (I think) Barbarian to eliminate him too. Animal is NOT happy about that.
-Lex gets Tully in the torture rack. Arn & Tully work for quite a while to get Lex out. Their long struggle ends up with all three going out at the same time, leaving Dusty and The Barbarian. Paul Jones hands Barbarian some brass knucks. He KO's Dusty, but can't put him out. Dusty knocks Barbarian over the top and out to win the check and a giant boot. I am as shocked as you are. This match, and the concept behind it are so horrible, I'm legitimately surprised that Vince Russo hasn't resurrected it somewhere.
-JR goes into schilling mode, saying that nothing is as physical as the NWA.
-Nothing worth going out of your way to see here, unless you want to check out the novelty of Hawk challenging Flair, and that main event is craptastic.
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