WWWF All-Star Wrestling Review 10-07-78

HEEEE’S BAAA-AAAACK. Crazy Luke Graham returns to the Retro Rasslin’ Review.

WWWF ALL-STAR WRESTLING 10-07-78

All-Star Wrestling is taped from the Fieldhouse in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
Taping date is September 20, 1978.  Your announcer is Vince McMahon

MATCH #1: “RUSSIAN BEAR” IVAN KOLOFF (w/LOU ALBANO) VS. SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES

Pretty sure we just saw this match a few weeks back. I’ve noticed a lot of that lately. I mean it’s a different match, but the same opponents. SD holds his own to begin the match but it doesn’t take long for the Russian Bear to take over. Koloff hooks Jones in a front facelock, SD shows his strength by picking Koloff straight up in the air and sitting him on the top rope. Jones takes to long to takes too long to capitalize and Koloff jumps off the middle rope with a knee strike to SD’s jaw.

Ivan begins to work over Jones in the corner, but Koloff misses a charge. SD fires off some right hands on Ivan and Irish whips the Bear across the ring. But Jones runs right into a Koloff knee in the corner, and Ivan comes off the middle rope with a diving knee to the chest for the win after 3:08.

Winner is Ivan Koloff

Notes: Koloff continues to have solid squash matches as he puts in a lot of effort to show aggression and realism in trying to dismantle an opponent and wanting a win. Realism is key. Koloff continues to keep his matches at no more than 3:00 and still make them entertaining.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #2: LUKE GRAHAM (w/GRAND WIZARD) VS. DAVE DARROW

Well shit, he’s back. I knew it couldn’t last forever. Referee is Al Bass, by the way. Early on there’s all sorts of video distortion issues, which will likely be the highlight of the match. Graham holds a front facelock forever. He lets go long enough to execute a lazy backdrop and then it’s right back to the facelock. Graham whips Darrow to the corner and kind of follows him in and falls into him with a thigh. LMAO. He just keeps getting worse.

Another dangerously sloppy backdrop. And a third backdrop. He’s out of moves people. Graham hooks another facelock and tries to take Darrow over, but he’s so sloppy and dangerous Luke tumbles backwards and inadvertently DDT’s Darrow into the mat. I’d imagine this has Jake’s version beat by a few years. Too bad Black Gordman was busting it out in the f’n late 60’s. Sorry people, but it’s true. Anyway, Luke drops a few short knees and covers for the win in 5:54.

What, no taped thumb this week?

Winner is Crazy Lucas

Notes: Why do Koloff matches go 3 minutes and Graham matches go 6 or 7? Yuck. If he MUST be on the program, I wish they’d cut his matches down to a couple of minutes.[spacer height=”20px”]

RINGSIDE INTERVIEW WITH THE GRAND WIZARD & LUKE GRAHAM

Vince McMahon begins by having the camera pan up from the ground to show off the Wiz’s ridiculous but awesome garb. Blue boots, multicolored patches on his pants. Wizard says his pants are called “Indian Mattress Pants”. lol. Blue coat, yellow shirt, pink polka dotted tie. Vince then says the the turban denotes the wizardry. LOL. So all you need is a turban and you’re a wizard? Awesome!

Wizard says his brain is so huge that he can’t fit in hats. He can only wear turbans for his tall head. LOL, WTF. I love it.

Graham takes over on the mike and says nothing of importance. Vince tries to ask Luke questions but Graham growls every time Vince talks. LMAO. Vince gets frustrated before finally asking the question. Vince asks Luke if he could beat his half brother Billy Graham. Luke believes he can. Luke goes a little “crazy” as the promo ends.

Well, that wasn’t good, but it was still better than anything he’s done in the ring.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #3: VICTOR RIVERA (w/FRED BLASSIE) VS. DOMINIC DENUCCI

The heel Rivera hails from Philadelphia. Not Puerto Rico, not Los Angeles where Blassie is from and Rivera just cam back from. Nope, he’s from good old Philly. Where’s the heel heat in that? DeNucci kicks things off with some quick armdrags which has Rivera flustered and Victor takes a powder to talk with Blassie. It works as Rivera takes over the match. All the great moves follow. Punches, choking, only the good stuff.

Dominic has enough and comes fighting back. DeNucci biels Rivera across the ring. Rivera is able to slow it back down and lays into DeNucci with chops and Dominic falls to the apron. Rivera gets Dominic back inside and makes a cover but DeNucci gets his foot on the rope to stop the count. This only makes Dominic hot, and you know what they say about that Italian temper? DeNucci begins to fight back.

DeNucci grabs a headlock but Rivera sends him into the ropes. The two men collide and both men take a bump to the mat. As Dick Woehrle counts both men down he reaches the count of 8 before both men are back up. Rivera immediately dropkicks DeNucci to the floor, where Dominic is counted out after 6:27.

Winner is Victor Rivera by count out

Notes: DeNucci has honestly stepped it up in the latter part of the year. It’s still a ways off from being anything worthy of entertaining, but the fire is there and he does have some nice moves from time to time. I wish I could say the same for Rivera. Not awful, but not good either. Finish was poo poo.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #4: CRUSHER BLACKWELL (w/THE GRAND WIZARD) VS. STEVE KING & JERRY RALPH

Handicap match. Funny seeing Mempho jobber Jerry Ralph in the WWWF. Blackwell runs both men over and smashes Ralph in the corner. King comes from behind but takes a back kick from Blackwell. Wow, nice. Blackwell is just so agile for his size. King and Ralph somehow manage to knock Blackwell off his bearings and double team Crusher up against the ropes. Needless to say, that doesn’t last very long. There are video issues and it appears a very small piece of the match is edited out. Blackwell chokes both men at the same time. Kneedrop on King but Blackwell picks him up at a 2 count.

Blackwell levels King with a punch that sends Steve upside down backwards over the top to the floor. Crusher finishes Ralph off with the falling headbutt and the fist drop in 4:27.

Winners is Crusher Blackwell.

Notes: Not one of Blackwell’s better squashes. Nothing wrong with it, just a bland squash. I wish they would have done something more with Blackwell here in this run. He had all the potential and talent in the world to work a big angle or get a tag team title run.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #5: CHIEF JAY STRONGBOW, DINO BRAVO & TONY GAREA VS. THE YUKON LUMBERJACKS & SPIROS ARION

[spacer height=”20px”]They’re really loving these six man tags. Bravo and Eric will start. Power vs. power leads to a stalemate between the two until Bravo goes to wrestling. Did you read that sentence? Bravo outwrestled someone! I’m telling you, Dino was pretty bad ass in his earlier years. Go out of your way to check out his Montreal stuff if you can find it. Bravo armdrags Eric all over the ring until Eric winds up in the wrong corner and takes some hits from Dino’s partners.

Not sure a tag was made but Strongbow tags in and grabs the trapezius hold on Eric. Pierre finally gets a tag in, but Bravo catches him in a Full nelson for Strongbow to take a cheap shot. And they call themselves faces. Test of strength between Pierre and Bravo, two French Canadians. Bravo with a nice backroll up into a top wrist lock. Then Dino goes and ruins things by tagging Garea in. Pierre takes over immediately and drives Tony down in a slam. Garea crawls over and tags in the Indian Chief.

STRINGBOW WITH A SLEEPER ON PIERRE! But Arion is in right away to break that up. ARION IS IN THIS MATCH??? I ALMOST FORGOT SINCE HE HASN’T DONE A SINGLE THING IN 6 MINUTES OF ACTION!!!!

Garea hooks Pierre in an abdominal stretch, but Arion is in to break it up again. Garea falls to his corner and tags to Dino Bravo. Bravo comes in with an Airplan Spin on Pierre. Eric then comes in and nails Bravo to stop him in mid-spin. Dick Woehrle calls for the bell, disqualifying the heels because Eric broke up a hold??? Well, I guess rules are rules. Match ends in 6:21.

As soon as the bell sounds, all six men hit the ring for a fight. Bravo, Garea and the Lumberjacks battle it out while Arion and Strongbow just look at each other. Seriously they just stand there and look at each other. You can tell who the lazy guys errr veterans are.

Winners are Strongbow, Bravo & Garea by DQ

Notes: Arion did absolutely NOTHING in this match. Not that I’m shocked. Bravo, the Lumberjacks, and even Garea tried their best here so it doesn’t merit any negative comments. Nothing you need to go out of your way to watch.[spacer height=”20px”]

Closing Thoughts: We’re on a string of bad shows. This wasn’t as bad as some of the other recent episodes, but it just feels like a bunch of squash matches with no direction in sight for anyone. Hang in there though because there’s lots of changes coming over the next few months in the WWWF and they’re all for the better.