Friday, June 26, 2009

Road Warrior Hawk: Full Sweater, Empty Head



Happy Random Great American Bash Clip Friday, Facebuster nation!!!

Seeing as how the month of July is rapidly approaching and my motivation to engage in productive activities at the office that do not involve professional rasslin' and/or Arabian Facebuster on a sunny, 85+ degree Friday afternoon is rapidly diminishing, I thought it fitting that Arabian Facebuster spend the next few Fridays chronicling some of the matches, feuds, angles, and promos of The Great American Bash, the National Wrestling Alliance's mid-1980s summertime venture into red state America's finest memorial coliseums, farm expo centers, and cookie cutter professional sports facilities.

The 1986 Great American Bash tour -- officially 14 cities in 30+ days with a number of spot shows thrown in for good measure -- was arguably the apex of the Crockett controlled NWA as a promotion. Hopefully you all can appreciate the magnitude of such a statement...that's right, the pinnacle of what in my loudmouthed, disgruntled, blowhard opinion was the greatest rasslin' promotion of all time.

And what a tour it was. You had "Nature Boy" Ric Flair defending the prestigious NWA World Heavyweight Wrestling Championship against all comers, from Dusty Rhodes, to Ron Garvin, to Magnum T.A., to Wahoo McDaniel, to Ricky Morton, and as you will see in the clip above, to Road Warrior Hawk. You got Magnum and Nikita waging a best of seven series for the held up United States Heavyweight Title. You had the Minnesota Wrecking Crew (Ole and Arn Anderson) wreaking havoc on the likes of Dusty Rhodes and The Rock &/or Roll Express. Tully Blanchard taking on Ron Garvin in taped fist matches. The Midnight Express and Jim Cornette battling the bootylicious Baby Doll and whatever babyface tag team combination she could implore (read: have pre-Bash carnal relations with) to be her partners. The Road Warriors against the Russians. Wahoo McDaniel challenging Jim Garvin to Indian Strap Matches around the horn. Hyperbolic, sentence fragment cheerleading and mustached, complete sentenced analysis from David Crockett and Tony Schiavone, respectively. And of course who could forget Jimmy "The Boogie Woogie" Man Valiant's protracted war with Paul Jones' Army!?!?

The clip above no doubt aired in the Philadelphia market on one of the NWA's syndicated programs (World Wide or Pro) in order to build up the big Veterans Stadium card which kicked off the 1986 tour.

Enjoy the boasts, taunts, and threats of two of the finest promo men in the history of the business!

Late Update: Arn is eluding to this incident from the autumn of 1985 in his promo.

3 comments:

Pencil Neck Geek said...

They don't make 'em like they used to...

The Rev. von Fury said...

"They sure don't. They sure don't."
*shakes head sadly saide to side*

Malibu Sands said...

Rev von Fury, your comment is very much the yin to the "Nice! Nice!" yang.