Ricky Steamboat v Bob Orton Jr. (WWF, 7/20/85)
This is a real personal favourite of mine. I remember seeing it for the first time on goodhelemet's Ricky Steamboat comp way back in 2008 or some stupidity, and it's still a hoot 14 years later. Steamboat is wearing the CRISP black tights and boots combo and looks like what I imagine a crowd in Landover, Maryland would've expected a ninja to look like in 1985. His armdrags may never have been better as he just works the hell out of Orton's cast arm early on. His WWF strikes are sort of goofy compared to his regular NWA chops because he has to do the little martial arts gesticulations, but they still might be the best strikes in the company at this point and all of them landed with a smack. Orton is playing all the way to the back row with every sell and bump, which is fitting considering he's in there with Steamboat who will play to the furthest row imaginable. Maybe Orton figured since they were in Maryland he'd work this like it was a Great American Bash tour and he went full Mid-Atlantic with the mannerisms. The transition was great, as he initially hurls himself out the ring off a missed shoulder tackle and about flies over the barricade, then he steals a drink from someone at ringside and chucks it in Steamboat's face and if you've ever had a litre of Coca Cola thrown in your eyes as I have - and I would assume a number of you have - then you know how much it stings like a bastard. Orton really measures his punches to the nose and Steamboat is Steamboat selling everything. Stretch run has some nice drama, including a great nearfall off a top rope crossbody and a great skin-the-cat moment where Orton takes another big spill over the top rope. The DQ finish kind of blows but our referee looks like Conservative MP Michael Fabricant so what can we really expect but incompetence? Gorilla Monsoon was well within his rights to slander the man on commentary. "Fuck the Tories" indeed, Gorilla. I'll always love this match.
Hart Foundation v Killer Bees (WWF, 2/17/86)
I'd never seen this before. It had been talked up as one of the better WWF tags of the 80s during the GME project, and I'd say that's pretty accurate. It's really good. I don't mind the more heel-in-peril-dominant WWF tags of the era but my bread and butter is southern style, so I'll probably always gravitate more towards one that dedicates time to the babyface beatdown, and this one had a relatively short HIP segment followed by a shorter FIP spell and then a longer FIP spell. The early stuff with Neidhart being an immovable object was fun, leading to the Bees taking him over with some really swank drop toe holds. A nice slick drop toe hold is a treasure and these were great ones. Monsoon tries to be smart on commentary and thinks the gastrocnemius is a part of the quadriceps muscles and that is just flatly incorrect as the gastroc is the calf and maybe he should read a fuckin textbook before spreading such misinformation. Neidhart was clearly kicked in the vastus medialis. Silly old man. The first FIP spell is transitioned to with an awesome Bret legdrop, one where he just comes in and about crushes Blair's head - or his metatarsal as stupid Gorilla Monsoon might WRONGLY suggest - while Blair has Anvil in a toe hold. The meat of the match is Brunzell in peril and it was pretty great. The ref' isn't the quickest so of course Monsoon canes him repeatedly on commentary for being inept but all of the cut-offs and distraction spots were good in theory, and most were good in execution as well. Bret and Anvil shut down Brunzell's momentum at one point with an awesome assisted running shoulderblock in the corner and this time Monsoon correctly references the intercostal muscles so maybe he read that textbook after all, then they try it a second time and Bret about whiplashes himself to oblivion as Brunzell moves. Brunzell hitting the dropkick for the first time blows the roof off, then Blair is a blistering hot tag and rather than going right to the finish we get a bit of an extended finishing run, or at least extended relative to most tags of the era. Some huge nearfalls down the stretch, Brunzell's second dropkick is a scorcher and a Jumpin' Jim Brunzell dropkick really is one of the best dropkicks ever. I prefer Harts/Islanders as my #1 Hart Foundation match, but this was better than every Hart Foundation/British Bulldogs match I've ever seen. The fuckin gastrocnemius. I am fuming here.
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