UIC Pavilion
Chicago, IL
November 26th, 1987
NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ronnie Garvin (Since 9/25/1987)
UWF Heavyweight Champion: Dr. Death Steve Williams (Since 7/11/1987)
NWA United States Champion: Lex Luger (Since 7/11/1987)
NWA World Television Champion: Nikita Koloff (Since 8/17/1987)
UWF World Television Champion: Terry Taylor (Since 9/2/1987)
NWA World Tag Team Champions: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (Since 9/29/1987)
NWA United States Tag Team Champions: Midnight Express (Since 5/16/1987)
UWF Tag Team Champions: The Sheepherders (Since 10/16/1987)
NWA World Six Man Tag Team Champions: Dusty Rhodes & Road Warriors (Since 5/17/1986)
A little backstory. As a kid, I stopped watching WCW after Kevin Nash beat Goldberg at Starrcade 1998. A lot of magic died for me that day in regard to the true nature of professional wrestling. I was only 12, but I had known wrestling was fake since at least WrestleMania IX (thanks to Hulk Hogan and my Dad being a huge Bret Hart fan for destroying kayfabe) and in the years between those two defining moments, I had gotten a grasp, or at least a general idea, of how the business was framed just from context clues or talking to my dad. I didn’t have the IWC or even the internet to back any of it up, of course, but I digress. So seeing Nash beat Goldberg, and seeing the WAY he beat Goldberg, it was enough for me to jump ship completely over to the WWF side, after being 50/50 for as long back as I could remember.Because of that, I had missed a lot of what WCW had to offer (both the good and mind numbingly bad) in the last 2.25 years it existed. I wanted to see for myself the absolute fall from grace the company took, instead of relying on WWE propaganda, so from Fall of 2009 through Fall of 2014, I did an extensive watch/rewatch of World Championship Wrestling.
I originally just did 1997 Nitro/PPVs because it was one of my favorite years ever as a kid. As time went on, I rewatched 1998, and for the first time got to view January 1999 through March 2001. Once that wrapped, I wanted more, so I went all the way back to 1988 and watched/rewatched all the way through to Starrcade 1996. And I STILL wanted more, so I went back to 1983 (mostly MACW) and went all the way through 1987.
Except real life got in the way. The old board that I did all of these reviews on had essentially died a death, but more so, my actual career had begun and I simply did not have the time anymore. But thanks to some people seemingly being interested in those same time periods, my reviews lived on. Every now and then, I’d see a passing mention at the bottom of a Wreddit thread or on the old FAN board. And it wasn’t until recently, (like maybe a year or so ago) that someone had mentioned the reviews of Simon and I on a Wreddit thread, that I realized I NEVER finished NWA 1987. I got up to the Great American Bash, and must’ve stopped there.
Now, I’m not blind to this era. I’ve seen a ton of matches/moments from the last 5-6 months of 1987, including both Flair/Garvin title matches (the September title switch and the one on this show), but I had never seen this full show before, and it shockingly (to me, at least) won the poll on Twitter (@BQReviews) so hey, here we are.
And with that grandstanding and shameful self promotion aside, on with the show.
The production for this show is a trip. The NWA was firmly trying to compete with the WWF, so there’s a ton of lights, smoke and set pieces, including a very NFL pregame-esque desk for JR and Tony. But at the end of the day, it’s still the NWA in the 80’s, so like, they don’t have ring steps. People are stepping on a shitty folding chair to get into the ring. Plus the scaffold for the later-on scaffold match is set up through the whole show, and it’s an eyesore. And to top it all off, I don’t know if attendance was bad or people just hadn’t sat down yet, but there’s a HUUUUGE gap of empty seats in the sight of the hard cam. Gotta love it. The crowd that is there, for what it’s worth, is super hot.
Match #1: Sting & Fabulous Freebirds vs. Hot Stuff International & Larry Zbyszko
Backstory here is that after purchasing the UWF, JCP saw Sting as a breakout star and wanted him away from Hot Stuff International. Thus, they split, and this match happens. Gilbert & Rickles team with Larry, and Sting recruits the Freebird C Team of Hayes/Garvin. A match with the actual main Freebird lineup against Sting/Gilbert/Rickles would’ve ruled. Also awesome, Gilbert is billed from “every woman’s dream”, so in response, Sting is billed from “every man’s nightmare”. Hell yeah. Anyway, I don’t like Jimmy Garvin. I’ve made no secret of this, so if you know me, you know that. I think he’s an incredibly below average wrestler with a horrible gimmick and an even worse promo who only got by because his wife was hot, he was the Freebirds bag man and Ronnie was his step dad. All of that being said, he’s not horrible here as the face in peril for the majority of the match. The heel trio does a great job of cutting the ring in half and working Jimmy over, and his selling is pretty good. But that’s where the match loses me. First let me bring up, they were telegraphing the ending from the start, because the ring announcer was giving updates on the time limit more than usual, and at weird intervals too. So it’s clear this is either going to be a buzzer beater or a draw. After Garvin getting worked over for a large portion of the match, logically you would assume Sting gets the hot tag, cleans house, gets the win, right? Well, half way right. Sting does get the hot tag, and he does clean house, but then he catches a cheap shot from Steiner and now HE’S getting worked over. So then, as weird as it is, they’re building to Hayes getting the hot tag and being the hero of the match? Wrong again! Hayes does indeed get a hot tag, but other than the initial flurry, the crowd ends up kind of rejecting it and getting quiet. The match breaks down into all six men brawling as the ring announcer yells there’s 2 minutes remaining (his 6th such update of the match) and then the heels start working over Hayes? Why? Aren’t they interested in getting the winners purse? Don’t they want revenge on Sting and friends? And let’s talk about whoever the referee for this match was, because he was BRUTALLY bad. He was very old, short and diminutive, and moved like a slug. He totally fucks up the ending, whatever it was supposed to be, because Hayes gets a sunset flip on Gilbert and has him pinned with SEVEN SECONDS remaining, the ref takes FIVE of those seconds to count to TWO, and with TWO SECONDS remaining before the time limit expires, the ref STOPS counting and sits up on his knees to lazily wave the pinfall attempt off, and THEN time expires! So fucking bad. Either Hayes was supposed to get the pin as time expired, or more likely, the count was at least supposed to line up with the time limit being counted down OUT LOUD and it wasn’t. First half of this wasn’t bad, Garvin was fine, but the last half is booked completely nonsensical and is paired with one of the worst referee performances I’ve ever seen. Crowd is deflated.
*1/4
Post match, there’s a brief scuffle the crowd wakes up for when Sting hits his corner splash but then it’s broken up. The ring announcer says that Referee Mike Figueroa has declared the match a draw. The only things I can find about Figueroa online is that someone designed a character for him on the Steam forums, he originally worked with the short lived POWERFUL WOMEN OF WRESTLING promotion in 1987, and that I must not be the only person interested in how bad he is, because a google suggestion that popped up first was asking about his age. So there you go.
Match #2: Dr. Death Steve Williams (c) vs. Barry Windham [UWF Heavyweight Championship]
This show is the end of the very poorly received UWF “invasion”, which was less of an invasion and closer to what AEW did/has done with ROH when it first purchased it. Doc was the second JCP approved UWF champ, the first being Big Bubba who had won it back in the summer but dropped it to Doc. Barry is also the WESTERN STATES HERITAGE CHAMPION here, fuck yes. Both Doc and Barry are babyfaces in this, however, Barry’s April ‘88 turn had already been getting telegraphed with occasional, small things on TV that also occur in this match. Great exchange of holds and ropes sequences to start. Doc works a headlock really well, with Barry trying to break it but Doc just holding on no matter what. They run the ropes simultaneously and on a leapfrog from Barry, he “accidentally” doesn’t duck down enough and ends up head butting Doc’s groin. Doc is pissed as Barry feigns an apology and tries to get the ref to stop from counting Doc down. While none of it is too forward, Barry immediately starts working over Doc in this subtle heel fashion to show that he ABSOLUTELY meant to hit that low blow and only stopped the ref from counting Doc out because Barry wants to actually win the belt not just the match. Doc’s fortune changes when he ducks a crossbody from Barry, and Barry takes a pseudo-Hamrick bump to the floor! Barry sells it pretty well and takes a lot of time to get back into the ring. And then…Doc sort of just gets Barry with an Oklahoma roll immediately to win? And that’s it. The crowd is DEAD. Wow that was a bad finish. Fun match up until then.
**
Crowd is audibly and loudly booing now. And the UWF title would be quietly retired and deactivated within 30 days. As far as memory serves, I don’t believe it even got the simplicity of a unification match. Additionally, according to all records, the UWF Tag Titles were retired and deactivated ON THE DAY of this show. Now I’d normally be upset there wasn’t even a unification for them either, but the champs were the Sheepherders. And nobody needed to see that, unless they were against the Fantastics, the only time they were ever good strangely.
Match #3: Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Midnight Express [Skywalkers Match / Non-Title]
MX are the US Tag Champs but by NWA bylaws, the titles can’t be defended in a match like this. Also, while scaffold matches are incredibly cool looking, they’re mostly boring and needlessly dangerous. This has a fun start as both MX members climb up and so does Gibson. Cornette pulls at Morton, Morton clobbers him so Bubba beats the fuck out of Morton. Gibson gets worked over by MX up top and needlessly gigs, so he’s bleeding from his forehead which hasn’t even been touched. Morton makes a comeback against Bubba and steals Cornette’s tennis racket, climbing up and raising hell. And then the rest of the match is exactly what you’d expect. A lot of punches, spots with the racket, dudes hanging from the rafters literally. A lot of teases that someone’s gonna fall to their death, both in and out of kayfabe. It’s largely fine just boring. Both MX members drop, and RNRX get the win.
*1/2
Post match, Bubba climbs up ready for a fight but RNRX bail. I may not like any of the booking of this (they’re two of the greatest teams ever just let them FUCKING WRESTLE), but the crowd was undoubtedly hot from start to finish. Saved the show, in terms of crowd reaction.
Backstage, that asshole Bob Caudle interviews the Freebirds in suits. What are we doing here? They say things. Then Doc comes on in an OU jersey and mostly talks about OU winning their game the week before. Zero reason any of this needed to be on PPV.
Match #4: Nikita Koloff (c) vs. Terry Taylor (c) [NWA World Television Championship / UWF World Television Championship] [Title Unification Match]
This is the only UWF belt that gets a unification match. Eddie Gilbert is at ringside with Taylor. There was a loose union of UWF guys, and weeks prior to this, Gilbert & Taylor did a belt stealing angle on Nikita’s TV belt. This match has no heat no whatsoever. Terry Taylor always has been a lifeless husk of non-emotion with slightly above average wrestling skills at best. Nikita has had the life force sucked out of him by Dusty leeching off of him the past 12 months. I could harp on this being needlessly long at almost 20 minutes, but I also kind of get it given the rest of the show. Taylor has some decent arm work, Nikita’s more worried about selling exhaustion rather than the arm however. There’s a lot of involvement from Gilbert. They do a good job of teasing and building up to the Russian Sickle. Nikita misses it at one point and laughably has to throw himself over the corner turnbuckle to hit the top of the post. Taylor continues to work him over with Gilbert running interference at every chance possible. He eventually grabs Nikita from the apron, holding him for a running knee from Taylor. But Nikita breaks free at the last second and Taylor hits Gilbert instead! Nikita uses the momentum of this to take Taylor’s head off with the Russian Sickle and get the win, unifying the two belts.
**1/2
Match #5: Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard (c) vs. The Road Warriors [NWA World Tag Team Championships]
Look, I love these four. Nothing will change that. But if you’ve seen one Road Warriors NWA/WWF match, you’ve seen them all. They show off their strength and no-selling to start, the heels are beyond scared and nervous trying to figure them out, they finally get an advantage on Animal for a long time, Hawk comes in and clears house, and the Road Warriors win. BUT — also in classic JCP fashion, during the melee, LOD through Arn & Tully over the top rope while the ref wasn’t paying attention. So another ref comes down and REVERSES the decision. Arn/Tully retain. JCP wasn’t running house show style matches on their big events when they first started doing them, so no clue why they’d revert to one this far along in the process. Maybe I would’ve liked this more 5-10 years ago, maybe others may like it more, but I’d be fine if I never, ever saw another Dusty finish in my life.
**1/2
Dickhead Bob Caudle is backstage with Nikita Koloff. Listen. Nikita’s Russian accent was always bad, but it is A DIFFERENT LEVEL of awful here. He sounds like a neck beard at Starrcast or something doing an Iron Sheik impression to make the other neckbeards laugh. He’s so checked out at this point it’s not even funny.
Match #6: Lex Luger (c) vs. Dusty Rhodes [NWA United States Championship] [Steel Cage Match / Title vs. “Career”]
In the pre match analysis, Magnum TA notes that if Dusty loses, he has to leave for 90 days. So even though this is advertised as Title vs. Career, it is not. Again, much like Road Warriors vs. Horsemen, you’ve seen this type of match a million times by now, even if Luger hasn’t always been on the other side of the ring. Dusty has his flashiness to start, Luger takes over with some painfully generic offense, they do ONE cage spot and Dusty’s bleeding like a water spigot. Dusty makes his super human comeback but is cut off by cheating. That’s right, cheating behind the refs back in a cage match, which makes no sense but is commonplace for some reason. JJ throws a chair up above the cage and Luger catches it, but behind the refs back Dusty kicks Luger low to make him drop it and then DDTs Luger on the chair, covering to win. What the fuck ever.
**Match #7: Ronnie Garvin (c) vs. Ric Flair [NWA World Heavyweight Championship] [Steel Cage Match]
As said, this is the one match on the show that I’ve seen before. It actually holds up remarkably well. It’s not reinventing the wheel or anything but it’s a solid piece of work. Flair getting to play fiery heel challenger was just enough of a change to help an otherwise dead in the water feud. Garvin is a solid if not good wrestler, just put in the worst spot imaginable. More on that in a bit. Flair gets to break out some DICK WORK after a low blow, and transitions that into some upper leg/knee work, per mostly usual. Garvin makes a fantastic comeback and teases the big punch a lot. This match, unlike the other matches tonight, has maybe the best ref of all time Tommy Young, actually playing such a pivotal role and being good at it. They don’t make him stupid, and they’re not working blind ref spots in a match where it’s essentially legal to cheat. The way they work around this obviously easy thing to overcome is by things like both men tripping and crushing the ref a bit in the corner. It doesn’t knock him out, just winds him, so he’s delayed. In this delay, Garvin FINALLY hits the big punch and that should be it. He has Flair dead to rights, but the extra second or two Tommy took to get in position was enough time for Flair to kick out. THAT is how to work a fucking ref bump spot in a cage match. It’s not even something that stellar, but it’s sensible. Flair is bleeding profusely with a great cut that Garvin works over with an awesome cage scraping sequence. Flair catches Garvin on a ropes sequence and does sort of a stun gun on Garvin, but instead of throat to the ropes its head to the cage, and that’s enough to help Flair get the win. Extremely weak finish aside, this was good.
***1/4
And with that, JCP gets their course correction.
Going back to my point about Ronnie Garvin. It’s obviously common knowledge that Garvin’s title run was essentially a death knell for JCP. There was already a massive downturn in business in 1987, and Garvin was sort of saddled with this albatross around his neck to take the blame. Normally, it kind of is what it is in the business, but you’re talking a seasoned vet in Garvin who spent the large majority of his career in the midcard, suddenly being boosted to the main event because of an auxiliary program Flair was having with Garvin’s step son, Jimmy, and HE’S the one being saddled with the downturn in business. Does keeping the status quo fix the NWA in 1987? Probably not. But if things are already trending downwards, why would you do something that is almost a lock to strap a rocket to the company’s trip to hell? The issue is, JCP and Dusty Rhodes killed off all credible babyface challengers for Flair at this point. Dusty had begun to receive actual fan backlash for the way he booked himself, Nikita was cooled off TREMENDOUSLY after a hot turn, they never really got behind Windham as a top babyface, Sting wasn’t ready just yet, and I don’t care what ANYBODY fucking tells you, Magnum TA was NOT ABOUT TO WIN THE NWA WORLD TITLE BEFORE HIS CAR ACCIDENT. Dusty had siphoned off A TON of Magnum’s popularity by attaching himself to Magnum at the height of his popularity and then putting them in a tag program with the Midnight Express in a real go nowhere feud. By the time that was done and Magnum moved on to the WILDLY overrated Nikita Best of 8 series (not a typo), Magnum had definitely dropped down a level or two in popularity. I’d have him ranked below probably even Ricky Morton at that point, who Dusty was experimenting with in the Summer of ‘86. And at the time of Magnum’s car accident, right after the best of 8 series? He was in an EXTREMELY cold feud with fucking Jimmy Garvin.
Dusty Rhodes was never going to strap up Magnum TA because he knew Magnum was going to become more popular than he was. If he did do it, it would’ve been a transitional run or something like he holds it for a few weeks before dropping it back to Flair so Dusty could then fight Flair for the belt. Dusty didn’t want to create new babyfaces because he wanted all the heels to fight HIM. I would bet dollars to donuts that he would’ve turned Magnum heel at some point in 1987-1988.
What proof do I have?
He fucking turns Ron Garvin heel in the months after he lost the belt to Flair, BY HAVING HIM TURN ON DUSTY. Garvin ended up leaving the company before the program really picked up, but the proof is in the pudding.
Dusty turned to Ron Garvin because the old way of thinking that Dusty had was “at least it’s a good enough hand to throw in there with Flair”. Additionally, Garvin’s lack of overness didn’t just help Dusty’s case to eventually turn him heel and feud with them and then point out it was a success after all, but it would also cool off Flair, who Dusty had developed a vicious behind the scenes feud with at this point. In their eternal tug of war over the friendship and ear (and pockets) of Jim Crockett, Dusty would often find a way to throw Flair into situations that would cool his character off tremendously, thus making Dusty not only the top babyface, but the top act in general. And while that worked in the past a few times in Dusty’s favor, this time backfired immensely.
Flair made it work just enough to save his own credibility, and by doing so, it tarnished Dusty’s rep even more than it would’ve. Dusty loses the trust of JJ and the core of the Horsemen, he literally loses Arn, Tully and JJ to the fed. He books Nikita so badly that he retires (I’m sorry, not to be disrespectful, but I don’t believe the wife story). He starts to get somewhere with Luger but again, he can’t let Luger get more popular than him, so Luger’s killed off by the Bash while remaining in a top spot til Starrcade both because Dusty already saddled Sting with carrying him at that point so he was unavailable, and because it hurt Flair’s credibility by making him again carry a mostly (at that time) untalented, green, charisma vacuum.
It’s also because Dusty’s original plan for Starrcade 1988, which would’ve saw Rick Steiner pin Flair within 30 seconds to win the belt, was thankfully vetoed by Crockett and Flair.
Are you seeing a pattern here yet?
Not to mention, Dusty continues this trend by turning the Road Warriors (in an admittedly awesome angle) and forcing Sting to team with him at that Starrcade. And once more, I would bet dollars to donuts that at some point in 1989, Dusty would’ve tried to turn Sting heel so he could work with him. But I have no proof of that other than just a pattern of insane booking choices.
Ronnie Garvin deserved better, and so did the NWA/JCP fanbase. Within 12 months, Dusty’s helped drive business down so bad that he’s relieved of duty. Crockett is so far in the red that he’s forced to sell to Turner. And wrestling changes forever.
This entire show has made me rethink my undying loyalty to the 1980’s NWA style of wrestling. Maybe it’s because in the admittedly large gap between my initial NWA/WCW review and this specific show review, my wrestling mind’s eye expanded further beyond anything I ever imagined it could as I began watching more and more different kinds of wrestling (old and new). Maybe it’s because I simply watched so much 1980’s/90’s NWA/WCW in my life that seeing a show in one of their down points did nothing but highlight that idea of wrestling's flaws to me more than ever before. Maybe I’m just in a shitty mood tonight. I don’t know.
But I do know I’ll never put a show like this on a Twitter poll again.
