WWWF All-Star Wrestling Review 01-28-78

Now we’re cookin! 1978 brings us two dozen episodes! That’s TWENTY-FOUR episodes, nearly half a years worth of WWWF action. We’ll cover all 24 here on the Retro Rasslin’ Review! Let’s get to it, shall we?

WWWF ALL-STAR WRESTLING 01-28-78

All-Star Wrestling is taped from the Fieldhouse in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
Taping date is January 11, 1978.  Vince McMahon is your announcer.

Before we get to action this week we see Tony Garea and a young girl promoting the fight against Juvenile Diabetes, the #3 killer in the U.S. I hope this young lady found someone better than Garea to help fight the disease. OMG that hair. If I were booking this era, the first thing I’d do is book Garea to lose a hair vs. hair match. Cut that filthy rat’s nest off his skull. #RIPWesleyWillis

 

 

 

 

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[spacer height=”20px”]MATCH #1: KEN PATERA (w/LOU ALBANO) VS. SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES

 

 

 

 

[spacer height=”20px”]SD works a side headlock as things get going. Patera lands a high knee at one point but we wind up back in the headlock. Kenny comes back with his own headlock, which given his Strongest Man reputation he could have legitimately used as a finisher. Imagine that, submission by a headlock. And the scary part is, he could have done it. I don’t think people comprehend how insanely strong Patera was in his prime. SCARY strong. Anyway, back to reality, well fictional reality. Is that a thing? Anywho, Jones breaks free and hits a pair of tackles that Patera takes super shitty, not even bumping but sort of slowly turning to his side and falling to his knee. LAZY. SD charges for a third tackle, but Kenny uses the momentum to step aside and fling Jones over the top rope to the floor. As SD lands on the floor he slips on the ringside “padding” and falls on his ass (LOL) and is counted out after 5:46.

Following the match, the fans chant “We Want Backlund”. You don’t hear that chant often. SD has enough of Patera & Albano and goes after the two men. With Jones going after the Captain, Patera attacks from behind and leaves poor Jones laying.

Winner is Ken Patera

Notes: Patera didn’t like to do much for squash matches. He succeeded with that here. Even his bumps were lazy. SD takes a funny bump for the finish. Other than that I’ve got nothing.[spacer height=”20px”]

 

MATCH #2: BOB BACKLUND VS. BARON MIKEL SCICLUNA

 

 

 

 

[spacer height=”20px”]Ahh yes the Baron, the only Maltese wrestling character I can recollect. A typical Backlund squash match. Lots of grabbing holds and holding on to them. Bob goes into a few moves pretty slick like. He was definitely a dangerous mat wrestler no doubt. Scientific Backlund meets his match against a Baron thumb to the eye. Scicluna thinks he finally has control as he stomps Backlund down,  and slams him for good measure. But as Baron picks Bob up for a second slam, Backlund counters into a small package for the easy win after 5:03.

Winner is Bob Backlund

Notes: Baron had less offense than usual here, but that was probably for the better. Backlund was being groomed for his World Title run which would begin just a little over three weeks from this airing.[spacer height=”20px”]

 

RINGSIDE INTERVIEW WITH LARRY ZBYSZKO & TONY GAREA

Vince McMahon  is with Larry and Tony who discuss their aspirations of becoming the Tag Team Champions. Tonight they have their work cut out for them as they meet the duo of Larry Sharpe & Jack Evans who I felt were an underrated mid-card heel team. Garea talks like William Shatner, not because he’s cool but because he’s searching for words mid-sentence.

Larry says their styles compliment each other well. I guess that means Larry is the talker, and Larry is the worker, and Larry has the personality, and Larry shows the fire, and Tony is the…. WTF is Tony????

It seemed like Zbyszko & Garea were getting somewhat primed for a potential title run over Fuji & Tanaka as the duo teamed up quite a bit for the first couple of months here in 1978, but by March the decision was made to slap together Dino Bravo & Dominic DeNucci for a title run instead. Tony Garea would leave for a couple of months right around that same time making me wonder if Garea & Zbyszko were in fact the first in line for a run at this time and something caused the decision to be changed.[spacer height=”20px”]

 

MATCH #3: MIL MASCARAS VS. JOSE ESTRADA

Mascaras has a little more trouble than usual locking on some of his Lucha style holds, as Estrada fights his way to the ropes and powders out of the ring to escape harm in the early going. Jose takes over in the corner until Mil reverses an Irish whip and regains control with a backdrop. Mil moves away from his usual scientific style and goes straight for the kill, nailing Jose with three consecutive dropkicks followed by a weird looking inverted half nelson type thing to get the abrupt submission win after 4:44.

Winner is Mil Mascaras

 

 

 

 

[spacer height=”20px”]Notes: I can’t say that Estrada got in much offense, but he seemed to block or escape most of Mil’s early offense and then they went right into a finish that I’m not accustomed to seeing Mil use.. I’m not saying this didn’t go as planned, but it seemed to go a lot different than your typical showcase Mascaras match.

 

MATCH #4: SPIROS ARION (w/FRED BLASSIE) VS. TED ADAMS & FRANKIE WILLIAMS

 

 

 

 

[spacer height=”20px”]A handicap match for the Golden Greek. After a successful run in Jim Barnett’s Australia based World Championship Wrestling, Arion made his WWWF debut in 1974 as a babyface but would soon turn heel in 1975 to feud with the top faces in the promotion, Chief Jay Strongbow and WWWF Champion Bruno Sammartino. To say Arion had HEEL HEAT when feuding with Bruno would be an understatement. At times Arion required a half dozen or more police officers to escort and surround him for simple ringside interviews. If you get a chance to ever watch the Bruno/Arion matches from the Garden DO SO. The actual wrestling wasn’t anywhere near classic, but the tremendous crowd noise and pure hatred filled heat that the audience shouted for the entire duration of the matches is truly insane. Anyway, Arion would leave the WWWF in early 76 and not return until the tail end of 1977, which brings us to here.

Both jobbers go right after Arion, double teaming all the way. They manage to work Spiros over in the corner before Arion finally tosses Adams to the floor so he can work over Williams. Adams returns shortly thereafter and once again the job squad double team the Greek. Now it’s Arion who leaves the ring to talk things over with Blassie.

Once back in the ring Arion goes to the eyes of both of his opponents and takes over. Adams is soon flung to the floor once more. Williams is tied in the tree of woe. Adams gets his arms tied up in the ropes. Spiros removes the turnbuckle pad and drives both men’s head into the exposed buckle two times each. Arion slams Williams on top of Adams and covers them both for the win in 3:46.

Winner is Spiros Arion

Notes: Trying to live off of his heat from his initial run, Arion returns more bloated and less interested in this run. Other than a very short run in Montreal prior to his return, I’m not even sure if Arion was working during his time away in between his WWWF runs. There’s no records supporting Arion wrestling beyond 1979, so he’s on his last real run here in the world of wrestling. This wasn’t worth watching but it wasn’t offensive either. It could have been a lot worse, and I suspect as this run goes on it may get a lot worse.[spacer height=”20px”]

 

MATCH #5: LARRY ZBYSZKO & TONY GAREA VS. “PRETTY BOY” LARRY SHARPE & “DYNAMITE” JACK EVANS

 

 

 

 

[spacer height=”20px”]Evans and Garea will start this. As you might suspect, this is NOT the Jack Evans indy darling of modern day fame. Evans and Sharpe rock out matching singlets, warm up body suits, and bleach blond hair. At least they look like a team. After Tony has some initial offense, the heels go to work on his arm. Garea is prevented from making the tag several times. Good job of cutting the ring in half and preventing several near tags, but the bad part is we’re stuck watching Tony Garea, the man with one facial expression, sell the beat down. This goes on for SEVEN MINUTES before Garea simply falls back and tags to Larry Z. But the Blondes pick up on Larry where they left off on Garea. So much for a hot tag. Zbyszko gets hammered on in the corner. Larry finally reverses an Irish whip and lands a backdrop then tags back to Garea….. And Tony comes in and tries to act fired up. Garea nails Evans with a dropkick and Larry comes back in with another backdrop and executes his rolling crucifix pin for the win as referee Dick Woehrle counts the three after 8:25.

Winners are Garea & Zbyszko

Notes: Holy balls. That was a little weird. Garea starts off the match and takes the heat for a better part of 7 minutes. The hot tag to Zbyszko winds up being nothing, but leads to a quick finish. The heels got in 99% of the offense here. I did like all of the false tag spots as the heels dominated Garea and kept stopping him from tagging in Larry repeatedly, but the finish felt flat and the faces never really got to shine. It was a match.[spacer height=”20px”]

Closing Thoughts: Just like the business itself, booking and TV goes up and down. You get things really hot, and then you’ve got to cool it off a little to build it back up. This episode felt like a cooling period as nothing of much relevance was put into this show. It felt like a grooming episode for most of the talent used. You have Backlund who will become the WWWF Champion in a few short weeks, you have Patera and Arion both continuing to be built as top heels, it felt like Zbyszko and Garea were being showcased for a tag team run, and we get another look at the Mil Mascaras act. I can’t really recommend anything on this show, though I did enjoy watching Evans and Sharpe work as a heel team.