I've started watching the DVDVR 80s Portland set. Portland is really the one remaining US territory that I've seen very little 80s footage of, so I've been looking forward to going through all of this for a while like a proper hardcore geek, as the DVDVR 80s territory set truly is one life's great gifts (or used to be anyway). Like, I've seen 70s Portland and lots of Buddy Rose from the WWF and AWA. I've seen plenty of Piper and Martel and Hennig and even guys like Matt Borne and the Sheepherders. None of the actual wrestlers are blind spots, but I've hardly watched anything from what they did in Portland during the 80s. So I'm just running through all of it and supplementing it with anything else I can find online. If there's a Buddy Rose or Roddy Piper match that never made the DVDVR set then I'll check that as well. It's a Portland bonanza.
Really nice 15-minute TV tag. I like how Portland will throw in some structural riffs here and there, and this time they basically worked the back half as an extended finishing run. It wasn't regular southern tag formula all the way through, though the first half very much was. Either way it worked, as it usually did when Rose was involved. I'd seen this before and even wrote about it here on this very blog, almost a full decade ago just to really ram home how long I've been at this nonsense. Chris Colt looks just as spectacularly scummy in 2022 as he did in 2012 as he would have in 1980. Real Errol Childress third cousin vibe. And the patchwork tights are still absolutely incredible. I'll mention that again if I write about this for a third time in 2032.
Harley Race v Rick Martel (Portland, 1/12/80)
It's sort of hard for me to watch this and not compare Race to Rose. It's Portland, it's a heel ace against a young babyface challenger, I can't really help but draw those comparisons, even if it's probably unfair to do so. I guess my overall impression is that Race is no Rose, though this was still a fun Harley performance and not being as great as Buddy Rose shouldn't be seen as an insult. He gets a real nice whip on his armdrag bumps that I maybe forgot he had in his locker, probably because it's been a minute since I've watched any Race this close to his physical prime. His corner bump was also sensational, just super quick and he made it look like something he had no control over. That's not an easy bump to make look not cooperative so fair play to the fella. Martel was chucking him about with scoop slams and I liked Harley's "oh you bastard that hurt" expressions. His offence looked sharp as well, including an absolute corker of a high knee that Martel took right in the forehead. I liked how the booking of the first fall finish made Harley look proper world champion strong. He'd been on the back foot for most of the fall, but that run of offence at the end was enough to pull him through. He's the champion of the world - reeling off a string of bombs SHOULD swing the tide. What they also did in the first fall was tease the importance of the sleeper. Martel went for it once and Race was frantic getting to the ropes, so they played it up in the second and third falls and whenever Martel hooked it the place went ballistic. In the end you bought that maybe Martel would've walked away with the gold if that time limit had been 30 seconds further down the line.
