Did Vince or any of the bookers ever tell the commentators about no DQ stipulations in the WWF? Was it a running gag that the commentators would just slander the refs for letting things slide even though the matches had no disqualifications? Because I seem to remember it happening a bunch and this time Okerlund goes in on our man for not throwing the match out after Piper wellies Snuka with a chair. I was surprised to see Lou Thesz as the guest ref' here (so it's not even a ham n egger Gene is caning) as I figured he hated McMahon and never took anything to do with him or his circus of a company. I'll tell you one thing about Thesz - I wouldn't want to pick a fight with the man. I've drank in enough rough Glasgow pubs and nearly been stabbed by enough regular drinkers in those pubs to know the sort you don't want to fuck around and find out with. Piper does an amazing eyepoke in this, but not his regular one; it was less measured yet more forceful which made it look even nastier than usual. Most of what Snuka does feels like it's building towards the double leapfrog and karate thrust spot, although to be fair it's a cool spot and the people love it. I liked the Piper low blow as a cut off and then him following up with the inverted atomic drop, which isn't a low blow but still looks like something that would hurt down there. I guess there's an IMPLICATION of it being low. Prolly. Snuka's revenge chair shot feels huge and I'm being dead serious when I say Thesz's ref' bump in this makes me want to check out a bunch of NWA champ Lou Thesz. I'm also interested in checking out the Fijian strap match between Piper and Snuka. I have no clue which of those threads I'll pull on first.
Roddy Piper v Hulk Hogan (WWF Wrestling Classic, 11/7/85) - FUN
What's the best Hogan v Piper match? I feel like those two had to have had an amazing spectacle match in them but I couldn't tell you the last time I watched them in a singles match. This is a fun 7-8 minutes. Both guys have charisma, in case you weren't sure. Hogan with the white tights! When did he stop wearing those because they were always cool as a one-off. There's nothing hugely special here overall, but it's a rabid crowd and that'll never hurt. If nothing else you know you're getting energy. Hogan catching Piper coming off the middle turnbuckles and locking him in the bearhug was cool. Piper's sleeper gets a nice nearfall and I think Hogan in general is great at milking a sleeper. Piper using the chair after the ref' bump (which looked good) leads to the big revenge spot later with Hogan also applying his own sleeper and yes, I did in fact like that too. Schmozz finish because of course. There are much worse ways to kill eight minutes.
Roddy Piper v Randy Savage (WWF, 12/13/86) - GREAT
This was an absolute hoot and if you like these guys even a little then you should watch it. You could call the crowd somewhat hot. Blisteringly so, perhaps. Maybe not surprising as this is in Canada and I guess some people were hip to the fact that Piper was merely a Canadian man PORTRAYING a Scotsman and not ACTUALLY a Scotsman - though we will claim him as one of our own, or at least I will on behalf of our great nation - and I fucking love how there's one guy in the vicinity of our cameraperson (or he and our cameraperson are one and the same?) who is perhaps the biggest Piper fan ever. Piper is over like a bastard and this was mostly him playing the badass, which he's great at. Savage obviously rules as pinball, all of the bumps where he's still wearing his cape looking extra special. It's disappointing that we only have this faraway camera footage when you'd really want multiple TV angles to capture all of the facial expressions and little touches they're great at, but at the same time it's hard to complain when they're playing ALL the way to the back row like this. Savage tries to hide behind Liz at the start and Piper has none of it, reaching around and grabbing Savage by the headband, landing an absolutely fucking incredible punch flurry and then casually holding the ropes open for Liz to step out. Effortlessly cool and it's almost sickening how charismatic that guy was. Great non-finish with perfect timing, which is about all you can ask for considering there was very little chance we were getting a clean finish for the belt on a house show. Piper decking the ref' afterwards got just about the biggest pop of the whole thing too. This might be their best match together but maybe I'll watch that one from 1990 that I haven't seen. They're two of my 10 favourite wrestlers ever so naturally I want everything they did together.
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