Fun impromptu studio match. It was pretty choppy at points and some things came off sort of ragged, but for a first go-around between them it set us up nicely for some awesome matches down the line. Morton works fast and takes a fair amount of the match, and while you probably expect that anyway considering it's Flair it does go a ways towards making Morton look extra legit. We even get a Flair blade job on TV, some Horsemen participation, Morton scoring a phantom pinfall to really sell the idea he has a chance in an actual title match, and a Dusty appearance at the end because that guy was way the fuck too smart not to leech some of that Morton heat. The Flair/Morton stuff in the first few months of the year has been built perfectly and this was a great way to kick it into high gear, even if the match itself wasn't amazing.
Midnight Express v Rock 'n' Roll Express (World Pro Wrestling, 4/12/86)
This was from the Charlotte, NC show that aired on Japanese TV, and I can only imagine how badly Japanese fans seeing this on a Saturday morning (or whatever) wanted Condrey and Eaton to come in and challenge Jumbo and Tenryu. Fuck yer King's Road, this is the route All Japan should've taken. Did Cornette ever do anything in Japan, actually? He was locked in a shark cage for this and I'd always heard about the MX/RnR matches with Cornette in a shark cage, but this might be the first time I've actually seen one. It ruled, obviously. Gibson ran up the score early and looked as crisp as I've ever seen him, hitting biiiiiig delayed headscissor takeovers, doing a perfect rope-assisted backflip out of a suplex, funneling Eaton into the corner to be popped by a Morton right hand. He put one of the MX on their butt and immediately ran out the ring and up the aisle to yank the chord attached to Cornette's cage, making the cage swing haphazardly in the air, and Cornette selling this like he was about to throw up was immaculate. These guys will always do at least one or two unique things per match - even if the broad strokes are part of the same tried and true formula, in the countless MX/RnR matches I've seen at this point I don't think any two have been the same (and you couldn't really have blamed them had the chosen to do that). This time it was the big transition, where Eaton (from the apron) returned that earlier favour by popping Morton in the mouth as the latter tried to continue with the headscissor takeovers. Condrey's backbreaker looked killer and then a chunk of the heat segment was made up of the Midnights trying to pull Morton's face apart. You can't really go wrong with this match-up.
Ric Flair & Tully Blanchard v Dusty Rhodes & Wahoo McDaniel (Double Strap Match) (JCP, 4/12/86)
From the same show as MX/RnRs, though I don't think this aired on TV. It was pretty similar to the same match from March, just with Flair in place of Arn. Tully was amazing again, constantly making a nuisance of himself, always being a terror, showing major ass when he needed to. I didn't think this had the same energy as the March version though, even with Flair involved. It was mostly confined to the ring and they didn't really do anything noteworthy with the strap. Even Flair getting chucked off the top was the standard fare, when the strap was right there to be used for yanking him halfway across the ring.
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