This was a legitimate holy grail dream match for me. When the WWE Vault started putting out old Omni shows on their youtube channel and it looked like we'd be getting more, there was a discussion on the twitter about what we'd like to see. You know that the people losing their mind for unreleased Georgia Championship Wrestling footage had already scoured cagematch for Omni cards anyway, so we all had a pretty good idea of what our ideal release would be. Terry Funk v Dusty Rhodes in a Texas death match, the Freebirds v Ole and Hansen in a cage, Race v Andre for the World Title. All great choices, all reasons to REJOICE. I'm one of those exact freaks who'd combed through the archives so there was plenty to put on a wishlist. But Piper v Sawyer in a dog collar was top of the pile with a bullet. Part of that was word of mouth, from how apparently the match was a bloody massacre that capped off an insane feud between two maniacs. Part of it was the interviews that had aired on TV, with Piper cutting a demented promo in a river somewhere with a chain around his neck talking about how he goes hunting mad dogs. And then really the biggest part is that it's Roddy Piper and Buzz Sawyer in a dog collar match. Why would that be anything other than a holy grail to me? Then they put out a tweet about this specific Omni show going live on the channel one Wednesday night, and for the first time in many moons I made a point of being home to watch it as it was airing. And look, it maybe wasn't the greatest match of all time that I hoped it would be, maybe not even the best Roddy Piper dog collar match of 1983, but that hasn't stopped me from watching it three times since then. The start is pretty similar to Piper/Valentine from Starrcade. Neither wants to budge and maybe there's some hesitancy there, or they just wanted to dare the other into making the first move. They trade some nasty pot shot blows, Sawyer with a punch, Piper whipping him in the knuckles with a length of chain. When Piper gets the early advantage he wraps the chain around Sawyer's face and grinds it across his teeth, which was pretty diabolical but also awesome for the sadists among us. Piper was out of this world incredible here. Very few wrestlers in history are as present and immersive as Hot Rod, always on, always reacting, never letting his opponent forget they're supposed to be in a fight. With all of that it's impossible to take your eyes off him. Sawyer threw a punch at one point and Piper blocked it in a way that suggested Buzz did not know that it was going to be blocked, then Roddy clonked him a chain wrapped around his fist. When Sawyer takes over he opens Piper up, then as they're brawling their way around ringside Piper stumbles past a chair and tries to throw it at Sawyer. He never even looked at Sawyer when he did it, never knew where Sawyer really was - it was pure instinct, a reaction to his environment, happenstance that there was a potential weapon on hand, and of course he tried to seize the moment. Sawyer rams Piper's head into the post and Piper fires back with a chop, one that looked purely muscle memory yet something the crowd could latch onto, never letting them go cold, always giving them hope that the comeback might be on no matter how bleak it looks otherwise. True to his name Sawyer was an animal, whipping Piper in the neck with the chain, punching the cut forehead with a chained fist, trying to hang him over the ropes with a metal noose. When it came time for Piper to draw some blood of his own Sawyer took a pair of screwball headers into the post, the second fully unprotected as Piper yanked the chain and even Ellering at ringside looked affronted. I love that they chose not to take it home after Piper's first comeback, Piper seeing red and blitzing Sawyer in a madness, slamming a pulled length of chain across his face only to get cut off with a low blow. It meant we got another few minutes and a second hole for Piper to climb out of. That second comeback was for the ages. He yanks Sawyer over the barricade and unloads with about a dozen chained punches, then pulls Sawyer into what was basically a home run hit with the chain, right across the face. This is a match made in heaven and they gave us a glorious 11 minutes of violence.
No comments:
Post a Comment