This was a red hot five minutes, surrounded by an awesome angle with a payoff that they'd been building to for a while, that in turn continued building to an even bigger payoff that I'm pretty sure would come in the next few weeks. Rose and Butch Miller are both handcuffed to the post at ringside and there are a couple times where each of them try and take a swipe at Piper's feet. Piper is always great at putting across the danger of their presence, how getting too close to that corner could swing the tide. Sandy Barr gets fucking obliterated by a missed Piper cross body and when Williams brings a chair in you think Piper's walking out of there bald. But he goes and dropkicks the chair into Williams' face and Sandy counts the 3 from down on the floor! The post-match head-shaving is an amazing scene with George Wells and Dutch Savage coming out to hold Williams in place, Sandy Barr taking the clippers to his head as Williams rails against the lot of them. It wouldn't even be the only haircut delivered to the Army that year...
Roddy Piper & Rick Martel v The Sheepherders (Portland, 3/15/80) - GREAT
This was almost a bridge between the previous hair match and the potential sequel of Piper v Miller. The Sheepherders were FUMIN' about how Piper/Williams went down a couple weeks prior and I fucking loved how they both spent a chunk of the first fall trying to rip Piper's hair out his scalp with their bare hands. Miller was an animal, grabbing Piper by the hair and slamming his face into the mat. Piper might be the GOAT at selling an ear injury so it perhaps isn't shocking that he also completely rules at selling how much it must suck having someone tearing your hear out. Martel was red hot and wanted to get at the Sheepherders in the worst way, and neither Miller nor Williams wanted anything to do with it. For as vicious as they were with Piper they were equally craven when it came to dealing with Martel and at one point Williams practically chucked himself over the top rope to get away. The second fall settles into an extended babyface control segment with Piper and Martel working over Williams' arm. They pull off multiple phantom tags, Piper being the one to instigate it and clap loudly while Sandy Barr was busy dealing with an apoplectic Miller. Piper never was able to shed that questionable past of his and you knew he'd never be above taking a shortcut if one was available. I loved how Barr turned around prematurely on one attempt and made Piper get back out, so Roddy dragged Williams over to the corner, tagged Martel and stepped out as amicably as possible, turning to grin at the crowd who were a hundred million percent his. Miller rules at getting more and more irate through all of this and Martel uses that RAGE to distract him as Williams crawls over to his own corner, Miller sprinting back along the apron and leaping for the tag just as Piper yanks Williams away by the arm at the last second. The transition to Martel in peril wasn't particularly big but it did look brutal, with Williams jabbing him in the throat, then tagging in Miller who absolutely smashes him with an elbow, again to the throat. When Piper comes in off the hot tag I don't have to tell you how quickly the roof comes off, but the Sheepherders manage to stifle him in short order and hit this awesome rope-assisted splash to even up the falls. The third fall gets thrown out pretty quickly when Rose gets involved and they try to cut Piper's hair, and you wonder how someone doesn't get stabbed after Piper steals the scissors and starts throwing punches. The post-match scene at the desk with Rose trying to collar Piper into another hair match with him as the referee is very Portland, thus very great.
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