-11/27/86
-From The Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, NC & The Omni in Atlanta, GA
-This is the Turner Home Entertainment video release, so I imagine it's heavily edited, besides featuring only six of the matches total.
-Hosts are Tony Schiavone & Rick Stewart (Atlanta) and Bob Caudle & Johnny Weaver (Greensboro).
-Match 1: Cage Match for the NWA Tag Team Championship: The Rock N' Roll Express [c] VS The Minnesota Wrecking Crew [Greensboro]
-Weaver mentions seeing one of the Horseman walking away with a title tonight, basically giving away the finish of the TV title match. Match is fought like a regular tag match, just inside a cage. The champions control the early going. A wide shot shows that the crowd is not lit at all, so it almost looks like they're wrestling in a giant hole. Robert misses a high knee in the corner, and naturally, the Andersons go right after it. Arn takes a silly bump after being sent into the cage. Robert busts out an enziguiri on Arn to make the tag, but Ole cuts off Ricky's offense almost right away. Match is obviously clipped as Ricky suddenly has a crimson mask. Vicious AA spinebuster looks to finish, but Robert makes the save. Ole and Ricky do the head-knocking spot a lot better than most present-day wrestlers who try it. Crowd is solidly behind the champions, breaking out into continual “Rock and Roll” chants. Crowd loses their shit when it looks like Ricky is going to make a tag. Match breaks down and as Ole tries to slam Ricky, Robert dropkicks his back, causing Ricky to fall on top for the pin to retain. Match was pretty good from what I saw, if pure formula.
-Match 2: Louisville Street Fight: Big Bubba Rogers (w/Jim Cornette) VS Ronny Garvin [Atlanta]
-Bubba looks so bad ass in his suit. Garvin keeps punching Bubba in the face, and it takes quite a few to knock Bubba off his feet. The ref counts while Garvin is on the floor, even though this is supposed to be a street fight. Garvin almost breaks his ass when Bubba tosses him to the outside and Garvin lands on the announce/time keeper's table. Cornette hands Bubba a roll of nickles, and he almost manages to KO Garvin with it. All of Cornette's instructions to Bubba are picked up on camera. Bubba no-sells some punches and goes up top, but he gets caught. Ref is bumped. Garvin hits Bubba with a piledriver, but Cornette nails Garvin with the tennis racket. Both men are out for the count, so the ref declares that since there has to be a winner, the first man to his feet will win. The ref sends Cornette flying out of the ring. Garvin gets up first, but Bubba holds on to the ref, allowing Cornette to whack Garvin on the knee with the racket, and Bubba gets to his feet to win. This was OK. Best part was definitely Cornette's antics.
-Match 3: Big Mama's Hair VS Paul Jones' Hair: Jimmy Valiant (w/Big Mama) VS Paul Jones [Greensboro]
-Manny Fernandez is forced by several babyfaces (especially Wahoo) to go into a cage is then lifted high in the air, so Manny has turned heel in between the GAB and here. Valiant dominates the match until Jones is able to pull something out of his tights and hit Valiant with it. Valiant blades off that. Jones misses a knee drop, but a second blow with the foreign object allows Jones to keep control. Valiant locks in a sleeper. Jones prepares to use the object for a third time, but Valiant smartly shoves Jones into the corner before he can. Valiant gets a hold of the object and KO's Jones for the pin. Pretty basic, but the psychology with the foreign object was sound.
-Valiant shaves Jones' head while Manny freaks out in the cage above. Manny finally gets out, attacks Valiant “from behind” (with Valiant looking right at him). Rick Rude joins the fun, and the two piledrive Valiant on a chair before heading out. Baron Von Raschke is among the babyfaces helping Valiant, so I am guessing there was some sort of double-turn. Anyone have any information on how that came about?
-Match 4: First Blood Match for the NWA Television Championship: Dusty Rhodes [c] VS Tully Blanchard (w/JJ Dillon) [Greensboro]
-Dusty has “TULLY” written on the sides of his head. JJ puts headgear on Tully, and Dusty successfully protests. JJ tries Vaseline, but Dusty wins that protest too. JJ pokes Dusty in the chest out of frustration, and Dusty lays him out with an elbow, drawing blood. Weaver mentions that Tully is the first of the Horsemen to compete tonight, confirming my suspicions about the result of this match being given away earlier by the editing changing the match order and spoiling this one. Match starts out with both men cautiously avoiding strikes before Dusty finally lands a headbut. Dusty dominates the match, but can't bust Tully open. After a ref bump, JJ tries to toss Tully his shoe, but Dusty stops that. Dusty teases nailing Tully with the shoe after a second ref bump, but tosses it away and pounds on Tully until he bleeds. JJ cleans Tully off while the ref is still out. JJ hands Tully a roll of quarters, and he nails Dusty with it to bust him open. The first thing the ref sees is Dusty bleeding, so he gives the match and the title to Tully. Dusty gets pissed and tosses the ref out of the ring before leaving. Good psychology, not a whole lot of action.
-Match 5: Scaffold Match: The Road Warriors (w/Paul Ellering) VS The Midnight Express (w/Jim Cornette & Big Bubba) [Atlanta]
-Tony builds up the match, and says that it's the first scaffold match in NWA history. Pre-match video has a good promo from Cornette, while the Road Warriors respond by tossing pumpkins off a scaffold. The Road Warriors go right up to the top, while the Midnights are understandably reluctant. The guys try hard, but there's only so much you can do in a scaffold match, and really, anything they do is just killing time before someone falls, which is the only selling point this type of match has. The two teams fuck around for a bit, mostly on the rungs holding up the scaffold, before they go to the underside of the scaffold, and the Warriors knock the Express off from there. Crowd was hot, if nothing else.
-Cornette is chased to the top of the scaffold and ends up jumping off the underside to escape, messing up his knee in the process.
-Match 6: NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Ric Flair [c] VS United States Champion Nikita Koloff [Atlanta]
-Crowd is completely pro-Nikita here. I remember reading somewhere that after Magnum's car accident, they did an angle where Nikita started fighting on the side of good in his rival's honor. Flair tries some chops early on, but Nikita won't have any of it. Flair changes gears, and tries some of his trash-talk (“Don't get on the bad side of this, or you'll get your ass kicked!”). This, not surprisingly, doesn't work either. Nikita gets some power moves in, but Flair soon takes over. Flair busts Nikita open with some punches, which only serves to piss the big Russian off. Some more back-and-forth action, and there's (*sigh*) a ref bump. Koloff gets the visual pin, but the ref is out of it. Flair attacks from behind, and gets a two count from a second referee, who also gets dropped. Nikita chokes Flair in the corner, and the first ref tries twice to pull him away, but Nikita shoves the ref down both times, drawing the DQ. As several wrestlers try to keep them apart, the original ref tells the time keeper that the official decision is a double-DQ. OK match with a weak sauce finish.
-Do you like ref bumps and fuck finishes? Do you like watching people fall from high places? Then this is for you!
-Closing video shows highlights from the whole show, including the other matches that were not included on the video release.
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