Random Great American Bash Clip Friday Continues!

Here at Arabian Facebuster, we've done our darnedest to chronicle the various dastardly exploits of the contingent of Soviet grapplers that seemingly came in droves to this country's polluted and eroded shores in the mid-1980s. From Soldat Ustinov's Pearl Harbor job on Baron Von Raschke's reflective noggin and enviousness of the Baron's army surplus store (or alternatively, northwoods country motif) chic blazer, to Korchenko's minty minty grievances with the concept of televised professional rasslin' and in turn the obligations required of him, to Ivan Koloff's penchant for bashing his cranium into a bloody pulp via his own Russian chain.

It's time to add the Ric Flair-Nikita Koloff enmity from the Summer of 1985 -- which featured an epic confrontation for the NWA World Title at the inaugural Great American Bash in Flair's hometown of Charlotte, NC -- to the list. While the embedded video does a sufficient job explaining the back story of this feud, permit me to yammer on for a bit. Flair was a bit of tweener in 1985 (I'm not sure if that's because he being challenged and attacked by a Soviet heel or because of reasons/circumstances prior to this feud) while Koloff was a powerful, athletically gifted, volatile, ruthless, ambitious, seemingly unstoppable rookie monster under the tutelage of his uncle Ivan Koloff.

Highlights of this segment, which I believe was culled from Pro Wrestling Illustrated's (PWI) heavily clipped "Ringmasters: Great American Bash" video tape (made available for both VHS and BETA systems) include:
(1) Nikita gearing up for his match by practicing his Russian Sickle on an 8'X10' glossy of Ric Flair in a dapper three piece suit!;
(2) David Crockett taking a particularly viscous looking Sickle;
(3) Flair street fighting Nikita in a pair of Dockers;
(4) Bill Apter's ignorance in equating the concept of diplomacy with two guys climbing into a rasslin' ring to beat the holy hell out of each other;
(5) Playing a Steve Albini produced/recorded demo of Fugazi's "Cassavetes" at exactly the 2 minute mark of this clip to accompany the match montage instead of the preselected/default soundtrack.

Triple H's Brush with Greatness

In a similar vein as "Nature Boy" Ric Flair's chance encounter with the penguin attired cabin fatty Casanova Larry Nelson and his bloated liver, Arabian Facebuster is proud to present Hunter Hearst Helmsley's 1995 World Wrestling Federation debut. Allow me to state the (painfully) obvious: the eventually to be rebranded The Game's physique back then was more akin to Shawn Michaels' or Randy Orton's than his current Ole Anderson juiced to gills look/Lex Luger with 33% more rasslin' talent, 65% better conditioned follicles, and 18% more motivation shtick.

And who prey tell is that pale skinned, clumsily postured, pedophile 'stached opponent full of spunk, fortitude, about 15 or so Perocets, and proud owner of a 1984 Ford Econoline conversion/rape van with a glove box replete with spermicidal lube and angel dust?

Yup, it's none other than Buck "Rock and/or Roll" Zumhoffe. Um..yes, that Buck "Rock and/or Roll" Zumhoffe.

News flash: Not unlike Rocky Mountain Thunder and anyone that dared try and impede this shoeless wunderkind's meteoric rise to the pinnacle of the venerated American Wrestling Association, these two didn't exactly mesh well together in the ring.

Yr Old Skool Tag Team of the Week

Gene and Ole Anderson, wearing the NWA (Mid Atlantic) Tag Team Titles.

BREAKING NEWS: Hot Rod Parked

TMZ reports that "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was arrested in Hollywood early this morning for DUI...or was it DWI? In either case, Hot Rod was taken into custody, booked, and presumably has already posted bail and is back out on the streets, getting ready to go on the bender of a lifetime as a way of putting this huge personal failure and harassment behind him.

It's called healthy coping skills.

Dusty Rhodes: Walrus Done Wrong

Random Great American Bash clip Friday continues, Facebuster nation (alright, Wednesday, but I'm going to be on vacation over the next few days, intensively practicing my uniting towel waving in order to build up the necessary right wrist and forearm endurance to participate this year's rendition of synchronized pointlessness and wanted to throw something up Bash related for yr consideration)!!! As members of the Facebuster Sexy Action News Team witnessed firsthand (on tape) thanks to the video cassette recorder troubleshooting prowess of one Rev. Von. Fury and through the Macanudo filled haze of the Shilo Inn-Portland Airport cigar lounge at last year's Staff Conference and Fan Conclave, "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes captured his third NWA World Heavyweight Title by defeating "Nature Boy" Ric Flair at the 1986 Great American Bash card in Greensboro, NC.

This was the payoff to Dusty's nearly three year quest to take the gold off of Flair's waste that, up until that fateful July Saturday night, had come up short each time, thwarted largely due to outside interference from the Horsemen and/or Dusty's questionable decision to book screw job, ref bump heavy "Dusty finishes" in his own title matchups.

Instead of putting up a segment from that overrated contest for you to snooze through, I thought it better to skip ahead a few weeks to August, 1986. My friends, there was no post-Bash hangover to speak of for the National Wrestling Alliance; just more hot rasslin' action, molten crowds, and compelling storylines. In fact, as you are about to see, the Flair/Horsemen-Rhodes rivalry continued to escalate. Flair had a regained the title in St. Louis a few weeks before and was about to take ownership to another of Dusty's prized possessions in Charlotte...the orifices of the tuxedo clad blond bombshell Baby Doll (I betcha' thought I was going to say Dusty's Old Country Buffet frequent grazer card. Sorry to disappoint you all, but here at Arabian Facebuster we don't take cheap shots on people for their corpulence, or for that matter their baldness, incompetence, failed business ventures, addictions to drugs or alcohol, insanity, senility, loss of bowel control, or complete lack of rasslin' competence).

Joined in progress, this was originally broadcast on the NWA's syndicated Pro Wrestling program, as evident by the yellow ring apron and the broadcast tandem of Bob Caudle-Johnny Weaver.

Enjoy.

Oh, and for those inclined to sit through about two minutes of ring introductions and another sixty seconds of watching Flair bump all over the ring to put over Dusty's decidedly non-slender offensive outburst to get to the initial Baby Doll provocation, go here.

Yr Old Skool Tag Team of the Week

The Midnight Express ("Loverboy" Dennis Condrey and "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton [in a singlet!?!?]) along with their manager James E. Cornette.

BREAKING NEWS: Farewell Horse Face

It looks like the Haylie Duff of sportz entertainment is moving onto greener pastures aka a lucrative career in indentured homemaking. According to Da Meltz:

--As noted earlier today, Lilian Garcia said that she has given notice because she is engaged and will be leaving WWE when her contract expires later this year.

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.

What in the World Have We Here...Memphis Edition

What do you get when combine two beefcakes with a penchant for idling on motorcycles and old jalopies vintage hot rods, defacing an already spray paint inundated edifice, revering the Confederacy, accessorizing blue jeans with either 80s neon tops straight out of a Punky Brewester yard sale or the finest in S&M attire, interminable bicep flexing, periodic shirtlessness, and standing two feet or closer to your tag team partner at all times with the garrulous managerial stylings of one Jimmy Hart?

The Dirty White Boys, who I'm pretty sure are/were Len Denton (who spent some time in Portland and World Class under a hood as The Grappler) and Tony Anthony (who wrestled throughout the southern based territories in the 1980s and early 1990s as the Dirty White Boy).

This homoerotic Aryan supremacy oriented footage was produced by the closeted good ol' boys of the Memphis/CWA territory, circa 1983/1984. Natch.

No word on whether these guys ever got it on with The New Generation inside -- or for that matter outside -- the squared circle. Ha!

Please enjoy...on a strictly "final project for the queer studies course I am auditing at the local community college" level.

The Best of the Best

Facebuster nation, this morning in the midst of my daily beautification routine -- which includes plucking my unibrow, injecting my cheeks with collagen in the hopes of doing away with some particularly unrelenting acne craters, rinsing my teeth with bleaching gel to wipe away the previous days coffee, whiskey, tobacco, blueberry pie, and methamphetamine indulgences, and styling my chest hair to resemble that of "Dirty" Dutch Mantell's -- I realized that our hallowed virtual ground for Rocky Mountain Thunder appreciation hasn't provided our readership with any poorly stitched denim wearing, gunny sack brandishing, glaringly limited rasslin' talents rationalized and reinterpreted by Rod "Likes to Repeat the Weight and Hometown of Every Grappler Ad Nauseam" Trongard and Lee "Never Filed a WCW Monday Nitro 1-800-Collect Road Report Half-Assed or Hungover" Marshall as a quirky brand of backwoods scufflin' antics to appreciate as of late.

But thanks to the editing prowess of Youtuber browns64d, Arabian Facebuster can finally feature all of Rocky Mountain Thunder's blown spots, botched moves, and other assorted fuck ups during his two month reign of terror on the American Wrestling Association's jobber pool in one concise video package.

Enjoy.

Oh, and if you would prefer a non-Garth Brooks/nu country yet still appropriately "themed" tune to accompany all of this vintage Rocky Mountain ineptitude, mute the volume on the player above, right click here to open this clip in a new tab or window, then crank it up.

Yr Old Skool Promoter(s) of the Week

Booker extraordinaire George Scott, who cut his teeth booking for Stu Hart's Stampede Wrestling, helped transform Mid Atlantic (Jim Crockett, Sr) from a tag team based to a singles focused in the 1970s, was the matchmaking force behind the first Wrestle Mania and Saturday's Night Main Event in the Vince McMahon led World Wrestling Federation (1984-1986), and had a cup of coffee booking in the Jack Adkisson controlled World Class Championship Wrestling and Jim Crockett, Jr. controlled National Wrestling Alliance after his stint in Titanland.

Some pretty informative articles on George Scott featuring some tidbits and anecdotes on the interworkings of da business are conveniently linked for yr perusal here and here.

Killer Bee B. Brian Blair: BUZZZ-ted!!!

B. Brian Blair, everyone's favorite Killer Bee has set th' interwebs abuzz this weekend with a stinging report of his arrest! Seems all's not well back at the Blair Family Hive as his teenage kids are obviously out late perhaps flitting from flower to flower:

"According to the arrest report, Blair, shoved his son Brett in the chest at about 4am Sunday morning. When Brett tried to walk away, Blair grabbed him, punched him in the face and put him in a choke hold, the report states. He then let go of Brett, grabbed younger son Bradley by the throat and punched him, deputies said. Both sons identified their father as the person who attacked them, and Blair was taken to the Hillsborough County jail on two felony counts of child abuse.

Blair appeared in a Florida court this morning after spending last night in jail. The presiding judge in this morning's proceedings ordered Blair to be released from jail and turned over the case to the Department of Children and Families. "

Sounds like there'll soon be a swarm of reporters all over this one!

Goin' to R-A-S-S-L-I-N-!-!-!

Aw yeah...that's right, yrs truly Malibu Sands and "There's No Hulkamaniacs Here/I've Never Been Here Before/Aaah, It's Not Hot/I Know You, I Know You Too" aficionado Frogtown are once again descending upon the vaunted First Avenue mainroom for evening of live F1RST pro rasslin'! Yup, we're goin' to rasslin'!

And what a card they have assembled for the cretins, mutants, inbreds, filthy degenerates, online fantasy gamers, mom's basement dwellers, and chronic masturbators of the Twin Cities metropolitan area this evening. The lazy right eyed and as of last Saturday night former Ring of Honor Champion Jerry Lynn takes on serial Chyna poontang destroyer and caboose plower X-Pac. Flippity floopity floo on parade as Cody O'Neil battles Arik Cannon and then, win, lose, or draw, retires from squared circle competition. Also booked, Danny Havoc, who will spend 8 minutes plundering 6% Body Fat Rob James with a barrage of whimsical weaponry.

I previewed the card on da ol' Facebuster last month, so if you want to revisit some Malibu snark regarding tonight's star studded shenanigans, go here.

I'll be back this weekend or early next week with some highlights. Until then, I leave you with these introspective lyrics, set to the music of Glen Goza:

Watchin' X-Pac work free of struggle or strain, that's rasslin.

Treatin' my gullet like a Surly Furious drain, that's rasslin'.

Chantin' "show us yr birth canal"at the scantily clad valets, a truly vulgar refrain, that's rasslin'.

R-A-S-S-L-I-N that's rasslin'.

R-A-S-S-L-I-N that's rasslin'.

Why We Watch, Exhibit R

Here at Arabian Facebuster, we've been put through the sports entertainment blogosphere ringer for staking out a number of unorthodox bordering on antagonistic and antithetical opinions and assertions when it comes to this noblest of diversions. These include: (a) longing for The Animal Batista to suffer an injury that gives us a permanent sabbatical from his bulgy, veiny, kicky, punchy antics; (b) proclaiming loudly and proudly our unrequited love for Buck "Rock and/or Roll" Zumhoffe and his sparsely attended traveling rasslin' carnival featuring a gaggle of midgets and the daughter that sprung from his now sure to be calcified and atrophied loins; (c) enabling Larry Nelson's alcoholism through our incessant cheerleading of his inebriated, disheveled, and shaggy exploits; and (d) dreaming that, in the event a band of dastardly terrorists should again launch an attack inside our proud, resourceful, and woefully corpulent country, that they project their grievances, frustrations, and outrage with America's interventionist foreign policy orientation and Judeo-Christian values on TNA's Impact Zone located at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.

On the record, we stand by these proclamations wholeheartedly. And we would like to add another, far less contentious although certainly no less awesome proposition to this list: Watching the debonair "Handsome Half Breed" Gino Hernandez (along with his [original] "The Dynamic Duo" partner the epitome of chickenshit heeldom Tully Blanchard) obliterate the forehead of "The Ragin' Bull" Manny Fernandez via stiff right hands, vicious kicks, and with a few belt buckle shots thrown in for good measure. This footage comes from the Southwestern Championship Wrestling (San Antonio) territory (which was owned and promoted by Tully's dad Joe Blanchard), circa early 1980s.

In the sage words of the grizzled sounding play-by-play guy, this in fact will be one of the most horrible displays of sportsmanship that you will ever seen in yr life! But not to worry, for Gino and Tully will get their comeuppance soon enough.

Please enjoy this clip of the late, great Gino Hernandez...why we watch professional rasslin'.

Yr Old Skool Promoter of the Week

Sam Muchnick, who was the proprietor and promoter of the St. Louis territory from the late 1940s through the early 1980s.

Angry Samoan Does Drugs, Gets Fired.

WWE released everyones favorite "Samoan Bull-Dozer" this week because he is un-well and refuses to go to re-hab (ie: Season 9's The Biggest Loser Campus).

Yr Old Skool Promoter of the Week

Eddie Graham, wrestler, booker, promoter, and co-owner of the NWA aligned Championship Wrestling from Florida promotion, a hotbed of bloody mayhem and arguably the top territory during the 1970s.

Eddie passed away in 1985 via self-inflicted gunshot to the head.

¡Voy a hacer una Grande Mierda en tu bolsa de Gymnasio!

Fragile, Randy is not.

The Firing of Miiissstttaahh Kennedy...;...[sigh]...;...Kennedy!

Here at Arabian Facebuster, we didn't take kindly to the tribal back tattooed, oft injured, limited in-ring abilities, and all around foot inserted snugly in mouth outside of the protective bordering on smothering WWE bubble antics of one Mister Kennedy...[oh for fuck's sake]...Kennedy, seen here hopefully taking in his final gasp of air before meeting an untimely, premature, yet well earned demise. However, like this smug peroxide blond youngster's former employer -- the utterly predictable bordering on apathetic booking, status quo embracing World Wrestling Entertainment -- we wish Mr. Kennedy well in any and all of his future endeavors, assuming he survives the ensuring reptile attack.

But fret not, admirers of Kenneth's inimitable brand of sports entertainment mediocrity, for Mr. Kennedy is likely to land on his feet (albeit tearing his ACL in the process, hardy har har!) in the form of a lucrative contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling!, a main event babyface spot and feud with The Main Event Mafia, followed two months later with a tease of joining the very group he feuded so boringly with for all of those weeks, followed by his shockingly unshocking admission that it was all an elaborate ruse on his part to infiltrate the group's washed up, unmotivated ranks, followed by an unexpectedly expected, unpersuasively explained/justified heel turn/union with his sworn arch enemies, followed by several weeks of running roughshod through TNA's babyface ranks, followed by another momentum derailing injury and/or illicit substance related suspension, followed by a much hyped comeback interspersed with his trademark catchphrase heavy, substance light promo work, followed by pretty much a step-by-step rehash of the TNA! preferred booking scenario that I just painstakingly laid out above...but with even more whimsy.

If Nostradamus were alive today, I'm sure he'd be the first to concede that he is Arabian Facebuster's bitch when it comes to professional rasslin' related revelation and prophecy.

Yr Old Skool Promoter of the Week

Paul Boesch, who controlled rasslin' in the Houston area from the mid-1960s until his retirement from promoting in 1987.

More on Boesch and the legacy of the Houston territory can be gleamed here.