To me, this feud is right up there with anything Crockett put out during arguably their best year. Even if none of the Magnum/Nikita matches were on the level of Flair/Morton from the Bash or the Tully/Garvin match from Worldwide, everything was good and at least two of their matches were sensational. Their match 7 in the best of 7 series for the US title a month earlier is pretty much perfect pro wrestling and one of the best matches anywhere in the world for 1986. This is the end of the feud, or at least what was intended to be the end of the feud for now (they obviously never got the chance to go back to it due to Magnum's retirement), and honestly might be even better.
Magnum Terry Allen was an amazing pro wrestler. Every time I watch him I say it and then I write about him and say it again. I don't even know how many times I've said he looked like the future of the SPORT or whatever around this time and I'm certainly not the first or only person who has. Charisma, crowd connection, crowd CONTROL, selling, bumping, timing, brawling, bleeding, offence, whatever else. I've watched just about every Magnum TA match we have available from 1984 to the end of his run in '86; he had all of it and there was still room to get better. Some of his exhausted selling was absolutely tremendous here, particularly in the third fall. Actually both guys' selling in the third fall was great. It wasn't an especially long match for a 2/3 falls, but it made sense they'd both be spent given they'd taken the other's finisher and lost a fall each, something they'd never needed to continue wrestling after in any other scenario.
Every move they did in this felt like it mattered, which can sound cliche but it really came across that way to me. It had a proper big fight feel and the crowd was rabid from the first second. Early on Magnum was steady and unfazed, refusing to engage as Nikita tried to goad him with little shoulder fakes. The first fall was largely Magnum in control, frustrating Nikita by allowing him to build momentum just to use it against him. There were headlocks where they jockeyed for position and Magnum would sidestep to send Nikita into the buckles, Nikita getting visibly annoyed while Magnum stayed laser-focused. Our boy David Crockett smartly points it out as well - Nikita is taller and heavier but Magnum can use that to his advantage. It looks like Nikita's taken over when he backs Magnum into the corner and picks up a piece of thrown trash, jabbing him in the eye with it. Any time a heel uses a piece of debris that's been thrown at them to their own advantage will sit well with me so obviously I loved that. But the advantage doesn't last as Magnum reverses a turnbuckle whip and hits the belly to belly. You don't need me to tell you how the crowd responded to that. Magnum's intensity and dedication to everything is pretty special. Even the way he reversed his Irish whip looked spectacular, how he got airborne and really threw his weight behind whipping a huge guy like Nikita into the turnbuckles. He puts across the struggle of his situation as well as anyone.
When we come back after commercial to the second fall Magnum is working the leg, and honestly the guy just exudes control and confidence. He goes for the figure-four but Nikita kicks him off and Magnum ends up flying outside, and Magnum is great at getting flung outside a ring and hitting hard on the concrete. This whole nonsense write-up has been about Magnum TA but I really liked how Nikita continued selling the leg for a little while afterwards, even if it stopped being a story point in the match. Credit where it's due and all that. Nikita basically ramming Magnum's head into turnbuckles and barricades was the bulk of his offence for a spell and it was pretty great. There was an amazing cut off spot with the running chokeslam type thing he'd do sometimes and the sickle to close out the fall looked positively Hansenish, legitimately the best he's ever thrown.
And then your third fall is basically a masterclass in building heat. There was a couple times where it looked like Magnum was ready for the big comeback and the crowd was ready for it, but the wrestlers clearly decided they weren't ready ENOUGH and held off on it, Magnum looking dead on his feet. Each time they did this it built more heat and the selling was honestly as good as I've seen in ages. They might've botched a backdrop at one point but even that worked just because it looked like Magnum almost stumbled into it purely on instinct, barely mustering enough to flip Nikita over. When the comeback happens I rewound it half a dozen times. It's maybe the best roaring lion Magnum TA comeback of them all - that covers a substantial amount of ground - and this crowd reaction was fucking awe-inspiring. He knew exactly how to make them respond like that as well and the place was going absolutely bonkers. It's the sort of thing that reminds you why you watch and obsess over this stupidity of a hobby.
The finish was clever, though I'd be lying if I said I didn't really want Magnum to pull it out. It's rare that I'll go into a match like this, invested the way I was, not already knowing the result. Being able to lose yourself in the moment doesn't always happen for us nerds so I was deflated when it went down the way it did. Which is really the beauty of it, isn't it? Three weeks later Magnum would crash his car and his career would be done. In an alternate universe he took the bus or waited until the rain had stopped. In that universe he became WCW's Hogan and the world we inhabit would be a better place right now. You know, probably.
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