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Other than reruns of Mama's Family, the occasional episode of World's Wildest Police Videos where the perpetrators in question commit crimes with no regard for human decency, or that "health secrets that the government doesn't want you to know about and if I reveal these medical breakthroughs to you government stormtroopers will come to my house in the middle of the night, brutally rape my wife and two daughters, kidnap me from my home and torture me ceaselessly in a dungeon rank with the foul stench of death until my corpse is mutilated beyond recognition...but I'm going to tell you anyways because, by God, this America and YOU have the right to know, so long as you send $79.95 to the address on the screen" infomercial hosted by what appears to be a freshly embalmed Hugh Downs, I am hard pressed to find reliably imaginative, provocative, cerebral programming through my Comcast basic-deluxe cable package.

That all changed this past Friday night/Saturday morning when, with much anticipation and perfectly chilled Kokanee in hand, I tuned into ESPN Classic to watch the grapplers of the American Wrestling Association clobber the holy hell out of each other! No upgrade to Comcast's super-basic-deluxe package for this guy. You see, it turns out that ESPN Classic is airing reruns of AWA Championship Wrestling on midnight, five days a week. Originally broadcast on ESPN in mid-March, 1986, this episode emanated from The Showboat Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas (the AWA taped TV at this facility from 1986 until I believe sometime in 1988/1989) with white boy rap guru "Killer" Ken Resnik and Greg Gagne calling the action and ring announcing duties performed by a no doubt tuned up Larry Nelson, whose beard was in dire need of a generous application of Just for Men treatment.

Despite the AWA being decidedly on the wane at this point in their history and losing the battle for national supremacy with the World Wrestling Federation and National Wrestling Alliance for a variety of reasons too detailed unpack in this post (the AWA would hit rock bottom in terms of talent, booking, reputation, and fan interest/enthusiasm in the product in 1989 after the failure/collapse of its working arrangement with World Class (Dallas) and the CWA (Memphis) territories and stay there until finally shutting 'er down in early 1991), I can say that, without hesitation, this was a far more entertaining program than anything offered up by TNA! or the WWE in recent months.

Some quick-n-dirty highlights and observations:

• In the opening bout, a 20 year old, pudgy baby-faced rookie by the name of Sean Michaels (spelled Sean Micheals by the inept AWA graphics department) defeated "Pretty Boy" Doug Summers with a top-rope flying body press/splash. This was before the formation of the Midnight Rockers, although that team would materialize within weeks of this match. If Buddy Landell was a poor man's Ric Flair in terms of look, mannerisms, and talent, then Doug Summers was more along the lines of a homeless man's Nature Boy. I'm not sure if "The Pretty Boy" had formed a tag team combination with "The Playboy" Buddy Rose at this point, but these two teams would square off at WrestleRock and have some memorable encounters. Afterwards, Michaels gives an in-ring babyface interview with Nelson putting over the competition in the AWA as the roughest and toughest in professional wrestling. Who would've thunk that he'd end up being one of Top 5 performers in the history of the business?
  
• Nord The Barbarian (later and better known as The Berzerker in the WWF) and Boris Zukhov versus 1/2 of the AWA World Tag Team Champs Curt Henning and Marty Jannetty ended either in a disqualification or countout. I have no idea why Henning didn't team up with his tag team partner Scott Hall, especially since Hall shows up at the end of the contest to stand around at ringside and do absolutely nothing but look dumbfounded. Nord is a lumbering stiff of the highest order. Lucky for him he has a couple of capable babyface opponents and a solid if unspectacular partner in Zukhov to do the heavy lifting. Henning is just phenomenal in this match and really over with the fans. His in-ring talents that I'm sure all of you remember from the early Mr. Perfect years in the WWF were pretty fully developed at this point. In hindsight, Verne should have booked him to defeat Stan Hansen for the title later that year (as opposed to what actually happened, Hansen walking out of the promotion and surrendering the title, with Verne awarding it to a deteriorating, aged Nick Bockwinkel instead of holding some kind of tournament or match between Bockwinkel and another top contender) and not waited until 1987 to give him a run with the strap.
  
• Larry Zbyszko defeated Leon "Baby Bull" White (aka Big Van Vader) by count out. White was pretty green here, but clearly showed much more potential, enthusiasm, and in-ring fluidity than Nord would ever demonstrate in his entire career...although you'd never predict that he would go on to be a mega-star in Japan and one of the bigger U.S. stars of the 1990s. To his credit, Zbyszko (a) makes White look credible by bumping like a madman during the contest...I've never seen any better selling of a turnbuckle smash than in this contest; and (b) gets the ringside crowd (comprised primarily of local hicks interspliced with a contingent of degenerate gamblers and coke fiends) in a lather during his post-match interview with Larry Nelson. Good little match before the cop-out finish.
  
• And in the main event, Stan "The Lariat" Hansen successfully defended his AWA Heavyweight Title against David Sammartino. This match didn't do much for me, lots of mat-based stalling rather than actual mat-based exchanges, jockeying, reversals, and psychology. Sammartino has got good muscle definition, but also quite a bit of baby fat. His physique is at once lumbering and absurd as he's packed 240+ pounds onto a frame that should probably support no more than 200.
  

Alright, that's enough AWA related ramblings for now. Time to clear my calendar for Friday night.

[Checks calendar]

Oh, that's right, it's already empty. Sigh.