World Championship Wrestling (9.4.1982) Review

-I dont have the first episode of the show under its revised nomenclature, but heres week #2.

WTBS has college football on tonight, so its only a one-hour show this week.

-Originally aired September 4, 1982 -Your theme music is now Dynamics by Richard Harvey.

-Your host is Gordon Solie, now with the globe logo and the big blue curtain behind him.

-BREAKING: The Samoans are now the National Tag Team Champions, managed by Sonny King.

-BREAKING: The new National Heavyweight Champion is Super Destroyer.

-Tito Santana and Paul Orndorff are here to say a few words, but Super Destroyer interrupts and nudges Orndorff aside because it doesnt matter what he says.

He has a belt and hes the true star of the show.

Super D walks off as Orndorff throws down a challenge to him, but Tito holds Orndorff back.

Buzz Sawyer heads out next and he offers a few choice words to Orndorff too, so Orndorff challenges HIM to a fight, but Sawyer already has one scheduled right now.

BUZZ SAWYER & MATT BORNE vs.

DALE VEASEY & TOM PRICHARD -Veasey gets trapped in the heel corner and worked over while Tito and Paul both have some thoughts about how Super D won the belt, complaining it was a tainted win.

-Sawyer goes to work on the arm, and Borne does a sweet follow-up to that, double-hammerlocking Veasey and bodyslamming him on both of his own arms.

Gordon speculates that their strategy is to keep Veasey in the ring as long as they can because hes the less experienced guy.

-Sawyer misses an elbow and Veasey finally escapes for the hot tag.

Prichard cleans house as the audience goes crazy for it, but Sawyer counters a backdrop with a kick to the chest and chokes Prichard out, breaking everyones hearts.

Veasey tags in and that goes poorly, with Borne heading to the top rope and finishing with the whoopie cushion.

-And now...Gordon feels like he needs to address something that happened on last weeks episode because so many people have written letters and even stopped him on the street to ask What is it with Roddy Piper?...but Sawyer and Borne come over here to unleash some premium booger sugar all over the microphone.

Ole Anderson steps in because he heard Gordon talking about Piper.

He wants to know what side Piper is on, and he demands an apology for what Piper did last week.

-So finally, Gordon is allowed to talk on his own, and he explains that in light of last weeks incident, he decided he should review some archival film of Piper and see if he can figure something out about the man.

-We go to house show footage of Piper launching a surprise attack on Bob Armstrong.

-Next, Piper has another match at the Omni and beats the hell out of his opponent while hes talking toward the ring.

-And then another Bob Armstrong incident, this time from WTBS, as Piper leaves the commentary spot to brawl with Armstrong during a tag team match.

-And then its off to another house show clip, Piper whipping Brad Armstrong with a belt repeatedly, issuing pain as if it was a traffic summons.

-And then a brawl in an arena with Dusty Rhodes, where Piper eventually gets tired of beating on Dusty and decides to just kick the shit out of the referee.

-Gordons assessment is that Piper carries around a lot of anger and unresolved inner turmoil, and for all that...Gordon acknowledges that he owes Piper a debt of gratitude for what happened when Gordon got into a terrifying situation last week.

-We go to last weeks show.

Don Muraco storms over to the commentary table to rant and rave about how tired he is of Gordon giving all of the attention to Dusty Rhodes and Tommy Rich on commentary, never mentioning any of Muracos own accomplishments on commentary.

Oh yeah, and Gordon is always talking about Piper instead of him too! Theres a sudden shift in Pipers body language, and he tries to play peacemaker and wants Muraco to calm down, but Muraco is so mad at Gordon Solie that he decks Piper with a right to knock him out of the way so that he can get his hands on Gordon.

Muraco stalks toward Gordon, who looks afraid for his life as he backtracks away from Muraco....but Piper gets back to his feet and gets into an absolutely unhinged brawl with Muraco, rescuing Gordon and the audience loses their shit over Piper saving Gordons life like that.

The locker room empties out to break up the fight but Piper wants to brawl so badly that he knocks Ole Anderson out of the way to get his hands on Muraco again.

-Last week at the Omni, Tommy Rich battled Don Muraco, falls count anywhere.

We pick up with Rich and Muraco in the ring.

Roddy Piper walks to the ring, wearing a suit, and calmly steps inside, taking off his jacket and distracting Muraco enough for Tommy to roll him up for the three-count.

Tommy leaves the ring immediately as Muraco is left alone in there with Piper.

Piper knocks Muraco out cold with one right hand, then throws that same right hand out, and coins fly all over the thing.

PAUL ORNDORFF vs.

ABDUL ZATAR -Battle for a top wristlock as Gordon thanks all the fans in Battle Creek, Michigan, where hes been getting a lot of mail from lately.

Orndorff boots and elbows Zatar, and a powerslam for a quick and easy victory.

-We get a rundown of the next Omni card, featuring an appearance by newcomer The Road Warrior.

-We go to commercial with an insane bumper graphic with the text WILL CHARLES WHITE GO DOWN IN IGNOMONIOUS [sic] DEFEAT AT THE HANDS OF DEVIOUS SUPER D? And the picture accompanying the text is a picture of the referee raising Super Ds hand while he stands over a fallen Charles White.

So my gut says maybe.

SUPER DESTROYER (National Champion) vs.

CHARLES WHITE -Gordon addresses questions hes gotten in the mail about why wrestlers weights change so abruptly from week to week, and it has to do with the training regimens and different strategies for battling different opponents.

If youre wondering.

-Paul Orndorff joins commentary to complain that Super D is the National Champion instead of him.

Okay, you know on Breaking Bad how Walter was always pissy about getting muscled out of Gray Matter, even after the flashbacks make it clear that leaving was his own idea? Same energy.

YOU FORFEITED THE BELT.

That was your idea, Paul.

Own it.

Also, Super D wins.

I just had a feeling.

BRAD ARMSTRONG vs.

MIKE JACKSON -Tito returns to commentary to watch this promising scientific exhibition.

The action moves too fast to recap as theyre just exchanging holds and counters nonstop.

Jackson finally slows it down with an armbar, and its actually wild how different Jackson looks without the beard, he looks like a teenager when hes clean-shaven.

-Armstrong applies a side headlock while Gordon expresses his appreciation for two men who respect the rules and regulations of professional wrestling.

Jackson goes to an armbar and is pretty well dominating at this point.

Gordon gives props to Jackson for not pressing a knee against Armstrong for leverage because it shows RESPECT, and we do things by the book in this precinct.

-Jackson goes for a backdrop.

Armstrong counters with a cradle, Jackson reverses, Armstrong reverses back and gets the three-count.

Jackson protests the count, teasing some hard feelings, but then shakes Armstrongs hand and ends this one without incident.

Nice bout.

-Sonny King and the Iron Sheik are here.

There are STILL no takers for Sonny Kings challenge, so hes raising the reward to $5,000 for anyone who can beat the Sheik in club reps.

Sheik does the exercise in the ring, but the mat is actually unusually wobbly this week, so he only does a few reps before losing his balance, and he stops really early to avoid falling on his ass.

Gordon, to his credit, acknowledges that the exhibition got messed up, but Sheik tries to save face with I meant to do that energy for his promo afterward.

TITO SANTANA vs.

CHIC DONOVAN -Santana overpowers Donovan with a hammerlock.

Donovan fights to his feet and backs into the ropes.

Tito gets him back on the mat and reapplies the hammerlock, driving a knee into Donovan, with Gordon saying NOTHING critical about it.

Hypocrite.

-Donovan gets aggressive and Tito has no qualms about matching it with a big right and a turnbuckle shot, and the stepover toehold into a roll-up finishes.

-Buzz Sawyer comes out and randomly hollers again, and Im beginning to feel like they didnt actually give Sawyer mic time at these tapings, he just came out and did this when he felt like it.

-Fabulous Freebirds want a rematch, but the rumor is the Samoans dont want to face them on home turf! WILD SAMOANS (National Tag Team Champions, with Sonny King) vs.

JOHNNY RICH & JAMES DANIELS -With TV time running out, Ole demands to know where Piper is because he wants an apology for getting knocked down when he was just trying to break up the fight.

Samoan drop finishes this one in about a minute.

7.9 The final score: review Good The 411 My first favorite wrestler and one of my favorite angles involving him.

Can't complain.

legend 0 - 0.9 Torture 1 - 1.9 Extremely Horrendous 2 - 2.9 Very Bad 3 - 3.9 Bad 4 - 4.9 Poor 5 - 5.9 Not So Good 6 - 6.9 Average 7 - 7.9 Good 8 - 8.9 Very Good 9 - 9.9 Amazing 10 Virtually Perfect.

This article has been shared from the original article on 411mania, here is the link to the original article.