WWWF All-Star Wrestling Review 08-05-78

Victor Rivera returns, with a new attitude!

WWWF ALL-STAR WRESTLING 08-05-78

All-Star Wrestling is taped from the Fieldhouse in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
Taping date is July 19, 1978.  Your announcer is Vince McMahon

MATCH #1: “IRON GREEK” SPIROS ARION VS. FRANKIE WILLIAMS

No Fred Blassie this week with Arion. Williams is sporting a much needed haircut. Frankie tries his best to keep up with Arion as far as offense goes, but he has little luck keeping a hold applied. Arion with a nasty looking hangman’s neckbreaker but Williams somehow kicks out. Arion tries a second hangman’s neckbreaker BUT FRANKIE HOLDS ONTO THE POPES!!! HOLY BALLS! Frankie fires up…. the best he can. Frankie on the offense. Well I’ll be damned! And there it is, Arion doesn’t let that last too long. Spiros chokes Williams over the ropes. Spiros drops Frankie throat first across the top rope. Arion plants Frankie with a backbreaker and gets the pin after 5:30,

Winner is Spiros Arion

Notes: Spiros ditched the submission finisher this week for a simple backbreaker. I enjoyed the neckbreaker spots, but other than that this wasn’t anything. It wasn’t as bad as some of Arion’s squashes though.

MATCH #2: WWWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS THE YUKON LUMBERJACKS (w/LOU ALBANO) VS. JIMMY RAY & CARLOS CRUZ

The Lumberjacks double team and work over Cruz. Pierre gets to close to the wrong corner and Ray reaches in to land some shots. Ray tags in and gets Pierre on the mat. Pierre eventually escapes an armbar and tags in Eric. Man, Scott Irwin was a HOSS, by gawd. The Lumberjacks take turns applying the trapezius nerve hold. Yawn. Ray finally breaks free of Pierre and tags back to Cruz. Carlos has NO success in his endeavor.

Eric drops Cruz across the knee of Pierre. Good double team move. DOUBLE-DOUBLE AXE chop ends this in 7:30.

Winners are the Lumberjacks

Notes: Nothing bad here, a typical squash. A little longer than it needed to be. Now that they’ve been here a bit and won the titles the Lumberjacks seem to be losing a little of their aggressiveness and energy when on the offense. It kind of takes the flare out of their badass-ness.[spacer height=”20px”]

RINGSIDE INTERVIEW WITH DINO BRAVO

Vince McMahon stands by with Dino. Bravo has recently lost the WWWF tag team titles. Vince says that Dino is undefeated in singles however. Bravo is so softspoken here. Vince talks about Dino’s ability to mix up his strength and agility, he says Bravo is as agile as a cat. Boy would that change in less than 10 years. McMahon praises Dino benching over 500 pounds. Man I’d love to see that, maybe they could put that on a USA special and kill 30 minutes of time with stalling.

Bravo says he used to high jump and pole vault. He says he runs 6 or 7 miles a day and plays tennis. I’d love to see any of this. All I can do is picture Dino as a boulder of muscle in the late 80’s and incapable of doing anything that required the smallest form of athleticism.[spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #3: LUKE GRAHAM (w/THE GRAND WIZARD) VS. MIKE MILTON

Just shoot me now. Is this guy NOT on an episode? Slow, stalling, garbage. Vince says “Luke will lay all over you, if you let him”. No shit, that’s an understatement. Graham starts using his taped thumb gimmick. Wizard hides the foreign object when referee Wee Willie checks Graham for it. Luke gets it back and uses it some more. They repeat this shenanigan again. Luke drives the loaded thumb into the throat one final time before he drops a forearm or some crap and puts me out of my misery after 5:14.

Winner is Luke Graham

Notes: Graham somehow manages to get lazier and lazier. That felt longer than 5 minutes. At least it’s over. SCHLOCK.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #4: DINO BRAVO VS. BARON MIKEL SCICLUNA

Dino grabs a side headlock in the early going and works it on the Baron. When it’s Scicluna’s time to break he goes into a trapezius nerve hold on Bravo, and Baron holds it FOREVER. When Scicluna finally releases the hold the two men trade punches. Bravo wins that battle and gets a couple of 2 counts. Some confusion ensues before Bravo hits an Irish whip and a pair of dropkicks send the Baron to the floor. Referee Woehrle makes the fastest 10 count I’ve ever seen. Dick must have had some money on Bravo. Match went 7:28.

Winner is Dino Bravo by count out

Notes: I know they don’t like to give away finishes on TV, but I think Baron was far enough down the pecking order here to have done a job for Dino. It might have made up for the stagnant match. This match was not good in any way. Nice dropkicks from Dino though.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #5: VICTOR RIVERA VS. LOUIS LUGO

Victor Rivera IS BACK! We haven’t seen Victor in a WWWF ring in a couple of years. Rivera returns a heel as he beats down on poor Lugo. Louis tries to fight back with a dropkick, but Victor won’t even bump. Rivera pitches Lugo back outside the ring for a second time. Rivera follows Lugo out and beats him down on the floor. Vince ponders what has happened to Rivera to make him change his attitude so much. Victor finally lets Lugo back in the ring and a vertical suplex ends this after 3:12.

To prove he’s a heel, Rivera continues to stomp down Lugo post match and toss him out of the ring.

Winner is Victor Rivera

Notes: Cool to see Rivera in his heel return here before Blassie is exposed as the evil mastermind. The match itself was crap, but I just like the rarity of this because we see Rivera return with an attitude but we’re not exactly sure why…. yet.[spacer height=”20px”]

VINCE MCMAHON INTERVIEWS GORILLA MONSOON

[spacer height=”20px”]This appears to be a way to eat up some time. Vince wants to talk to Gorilla about Victor Rivera’s attitude change. Monsoon says it’s strange to see Victor go heel, and brings up Rivera’s recent run in California. Monsoon says Victor was beaten down badly and had his career almost ended in California, but Gorilla refuses to name the wrestlers involved. LOL.

McMahon brings up the rumor that Fred Blassie had something to do with Victor’s mood change. Gorilla has heard the rumors and says Blassie has ruined more careers than anyone, but he hopes Victor isn’t vulnerable enough to fall for Blassie’s antics. Vince mentions it happened with Spiros Arion. Monsoon is “behooved” if Rivera has indeed joined up with Blassie. Gorilla has lost a friend.[spacer height=”20px”]

Closing Thoughts: Lackluster show. It was great to finally hear from Gorilla this far into the reviews, but the matches were all sub par. Bravo’s promo went nowhere. Rivera’s return as a heel was a nice little boost to the territory with the Blassie story attached, but added nothing to the actual in-ring product.

The summer of 78 rolls on with the next issue of the Retro Rasslin’ Review…