WWWF All-Star Wrestling Review 12-02-78

Goodbye, Crazy Luke… We hardly knew ye.

WWWF ALL-STAR WRESTLING 12-02-78

All-Star Wrestling is taped from the Fieldhouse in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.
Taping date is November 22, 1978.

“Living Legend” BRUNO SAMMARTINO joins Vince McMahon at the announcer’s table this week for the action. Bruno looks very alert.

As they discuss the action for today, Vince mentions that we will see WWWF Champion Bob Backlund taking on “Crazy” Luke Graham. Bruno picks Backlund to win in a “fairly easy match”. Wow, that was harsh Bruno! Even Vince looks a little surprised that Bruno basically buried Graham as a non-threat.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #1: SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES & DAVE DARROW VS. MOOSE MONROE & BARON MIKEL SCICLUNA

Referee is Tony Altimore. Darrow and the big Moose will start. They trade some blows with Moose coming out on the winning end. The Baron tags in and continues to work over poor Darrow. Monroe tags back in and he hooks a grounded chinlock. Darrow eventually reverses the situation and tags to Jones. Given how many times Jones has been the weak link of a team, It’s a scary thought when SD is the guy you need to depend on. Jones holds his own with both opponents for a bit, but he tags back to Darrow and the heels go back to work on poor Dave. Moose and Scicluna have their way with Darrow for a few minutes before he comes fighting back and ties Moose in the ropes. Jones tags in and plants Moose with a pair of headbutts, and a headbutt for the Baron as well. SD has the momentum and then stupidly tags out.

Darrow gets tagged back in. Well that was dumb. The Baron tags back in, drops Darrow, then hits a kneedrop for the win in 9:02.

Winners are The Moose and the Baron

I can’t believe I just wrote that.

Notes: Well, now SD can see how it feels when you do all the work and then your partner comes in and jobs to some cheap move. The shoe was on the other foot here. Speaking of shoes and feet, I’ve noticed Jones has been rocking two boots of different colors lately. Not sure if that’s a fashion statement or if he lost a boot. This match honestly had no business going half as long as it did. Filler all the way.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #2: “RUSSIAN BEAR” IVAN KOLOFF (w/LOU ALBANO) VS. STEVE KING

Koloff chokes the shit out of King up into the ropes. Great aggression by Koloff as he works over King. Steve fights back with some solid punches, but Koloff slows it down with a chinlock. Albano is blowing the hell out of a whistle and it’s irritating as all hell. I hated it when John Tolos did it, I REALLY hated Bill Alfonso with it, and it’s just as annoying here.

Koloff tosses King to the floor where Albano lays in some kicks. Good to see Dick Woehrle as referee here, so Tony Altimore isn’t reffing a match involving his former tag partner Albano. King fights back on Lou on the floor but Albano comes right back with more cheap shots and he whips King back into the ring for a second time.

King comes back on Koloff with an Irish whip, but he runs into a Russian knee. Koloff with a nice backbreaker and a series of running kneedrops to the spine of King. Koloff covers after a backdrop but yanks Steve up at the count of 2. Koloff with a nasty looking Gut Buster, and he pulls King up again at 2. Now a backbreaker, and for a third time Koloff yanks King up after a 2 count. Another backbreaker, and a diving kneedrop finally ends it after 4:48.

Winner is the Russian Bear

Notes: Was hoping to see Koloff use that standing Figure Four again, oh well. A really fun squash by Koloff here. Very aggressive, very deliberate, very realistic. He was bad ass. Albano seemed to get in almost as much offense as Ivan here. Entertaining squash.[spacer height=”20px”]

RINGSIDE INTERVIEW WITH DINO BRAVO

[spacer height=”20px”]They have nothing to talk about, so Vince brings up how Dino quietly goes and visits children in the hospital. Wow, that’s a far cry from participating in underground cigarette black market rings and the ramifications that followed. Bravo talks about benching 515 pounds in a competition with some Olympic hopefuls. Jokes on them, Carter’s boycotting! Vince puts over Bravo’s great handball playing. I’ll leave that one alone. McMahon also talks about Dino’s great track and field accomplishments… I can only sit here and think of the muscle-bound Bravo of the 80’s and it’s hard to see him run across the ring without blowing up, much less do track and field. As I continue to watch 1970’s Dino Bravo the man, and the athlete, I have to ask… What went wrong?[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #3: “THE BIG CAT” ERNIE LADD VS. FRANCISCO FLORES

[spacer height=”20px”]Once again, they dive into the archives to air a taped match of the Big Cat in action. If you haven’t caught on after my last two reviews, I’ll explain it one more time. Ladd wasn’t working full time in the WWWF at this point but he was coming in for the big paydays at MSG, so they were going back and using old footage to keep him as a relevant part of TV.

It’s never more obvious here that this is an old match for a variety of reasons, from the arena (Philly), to the ring announcer, to the referee (Dusty Feldbaumer), to the fact that ANTONINO ROCCA is on commentary with Vince McMahon. That would date this taping somewhere between November of 1975 and February of 1976. That’s the best window of time I can give when both of these guys were in the WWWF at the same time. Vince says Ernie likes to be referred to as “DADDY LADD” sometimes. LOL. OK. Ladd with a flying hammerlock takes Flores down to the mat, twice. LADD WITH AN IMPRESSIVE LEAPFROG… AND A DROPKICK FROM LADD!!!! Holy shit!

It only gets a 2 count??? Ladd starts working the taped thumb gimmick as he jabs it into Flores several times and he hits the big legdrop. Ladd drops the taped thumb into Flored one final time before making the cover and getting the win in 3:10.

Winner is The Big Cat

Notes: Heh, even in 1975 Ladd was keeping his matches at 3:00. I’ll say this much, Ladd still actually left his feet at this point. Impressive leapfrog and dropkick from a guy his size. It was stuff like that, and his college & NFL career, that probably led to his multiple knee surgeries. Ladd was always quite the sight in the ring, I’m just sad we didn’t get a promo.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #4: “HIGH CHIEF” PETER MAIVIA (w/FRED BLASSIE) VS. MIKE PAIDOUSIS

[spacer height=”20px”]Referee is Tony Altimore. I didn’t quite understand Paidousis getting a win last week, but now it all makes sense. By Mike grabbing a win in his first match, it makes Maivia that much better here when he pins his ass. Let’s see if Mike cooperates with Maivia better than he did with Masters last week. Paidousis blocks a punch as things begin. Uh oh… Maivia gets Paidousis into the corner and chokes him and works him over. Paidousis lays in one solid forearm that sends Maivia backwards and the High Chief leaves the ring to regroup.

Back in the ring, Maivia is right back in control and he repeatedly rams Paidousis into the exposed steel buckle that Blassie loosened pre-match. Paidousis fights back and rams Peter into the steel buckle, but Maivia’s head is so hard he no sells it and hammers down on Paidousis. Mike comes back with another stiff forearm that knocks Maivia backwards. The Chief looks at Blassie and sells the shot while laughing as if to say “can you believe this motherf**ker is stiffing me”.

Paidousis tries a comeback, but Maivia has none of it. The Chief lays in a few head butts and quickly jumps on top and grabs the win after 5:15.

To put a little more heat on, Maivia continues to beat down Paidousis after the match. Mike still tries to fight back, but Maivia drops him again. Take that, bee-otch!

Winner is The High Chief

Notes: Things went better this week with Paidousis, but there were still a few questionable moments in the match as far as his need to try and save face. Still, it was nice to see someone who knew how to handle him. It was clear Paidousis was booked to go over last week so he would look like a strong opponent this week, which in turn makes Maivia look all the more better when he got the win. It’s simple Booking 101 like that which seems nonexistent today. Not a very good match, but it was good to see Paidousis get beat this week after his crap from the last episode.[spacer height=”20px”]

MATCH #5: WWWF HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION BOB BACKLUND (w/SKAALAND) VS. “CRAZY” LUKE GRAHAM (w/THE GRAND WIZARD)

This is the big main event. It’s a rarity to see the World Champion in singles action on TV. This is non-title, which in theory means Luke Graham could win this match. If you remember back to the beginning of the show, Bruno said that Backlund would basically squash Crazy Luke here. So we shall see…

Backlund quickly proves that he is faster than Graham, and he can out wrestle Graham. Bob is so quick that Luke is still going through the motions of the previous holds while Bob has moved on to another hold LOL. Graham comes back by driving several thumbs to the throat of Backlund, but it doesn’t even seem to phase the champ for some reason.

Luke hooks Backlund in a hammerlock and uses his free hand to choke the champ. Dick Woehrle wants a break after catching the choke. Backlund forces Luke down with a drop toehold, and you can tell Luke didn’t want to bump. Bob hooks a headlock, but Luke counters and locks Backlund into a Sleeper hold. The amazing wrestling skills of Backlund sees Bob counters the sleeper into a hammerlock.

Luke shows his strength when he picks Backlund up with one arm and carries him to the corner. Luke sits Backlund on the top rope, BUT BOB SLAPS GRAHAM!!! Luke goes a little CRAZY and the Wizard passes off a foreign object to Graham, but Bob takes down Luke and applies a toe hold. Graham kicks his way free and goes back to the ever popular choke hold. Graham chokes Backlund to the count of 4 REPEATEDLY. Backlund finally fights back and he floors Graham with an uppercut. Backlund tries for a dropkick, but Graham holds onto the ropes and Bob lands hard on the mat.

Graham with a shitty forearm drop, gets 2. Graham with an even shittier backbreaker, and that also gets 2. Backlund ducks a clothesline and it’s time for the super ATOMIC DDDRRRROOOOOPPPPP!!! Backlund gets the win after 7:49.

Winner is Bobby Backlund

Notes: This was fine for a TV match with the World Champion. Backlund did enough to keep the match from completely sucking, but that’s still hard with Luke getting the heat. Luke really loved the choke hold. He was a master of finding ways to use it out of nowhere. Hmmm… CHOKE OUTTA NOWHERE! Just doesn’t have the same pizzazz as RKO. This was OK for TV, still not very good. The one plus is, THIS IS THE END OF LUKE GRAHAM ON WWF TV.  Putting the Champ over on TV on the way out was commonplace back then. We saw Kobayashi do the same thing for Backlund a while back. Luke would go on to work a few house shows after this in singles and also replacing Scott Irwin who quit the territory immediately after dropping the tag title belts. But for all intents and purposes, THIS was Luke’s last televised match in the WWWF.[spacer height=”20px”]

RINGSIDE INTERVIEW WITH BOB BACKLUND

Vince steps over for a word with the champ. Backlund says a match against the Grahams is always tough. If Luke had won today he would have gotten a title shot. Luke wanted to prove he was better than his “brother” the Superstar Billy Graham. That didn’t work out so well. Backlund says the belt isn’t his belt, it’s the fans belt. Awwwww. Backlund saw Luke go into his trunks for his foreign object and he knew he had to avoid it. Bobby Backlund, the people’s champion![spacer height=”20px”]

Closing Thoughts: Well that’s it, we finish up 1978 with this episode on the Network. The Retro Rasslin’ Review will be moving on to 1979 in the near future. As far as this episode goes…

Maivia continues to get dominating wins as he comes after Bob Backlund and his title. I was a little surprised with Backlund on the same show that neither man had any words to say about the other. Backlund had the opportunity at the end of the show, but instead put over the Grahams, and himself being champion. The Backlund vs. Graham match wasn’t very good, but I always liked seeing the champion get a win against a “big name” on TV.

I continue to enjoy Koloff’s squashes, he pulled off some nice moves here again this week. He was a true work horse. The Ladd/Flores match that aired from a few years back showed a much more agile Big Cat than we’ve seen in recent weeks. Ernie was still the man, though. As for the opening tag match with Moose and Baron going over… I guess you’ve got to throw everyone a bone every now and then. The Bravo promo was basically a cut and paste of every other interview Vince has done with him this entire year. McMahon doesn’t seem to know what to talk with Dino about so he goes to the same shit every time (he benches over 500 pounds, he’s an all around good guy, and Vince’s obsession with how great a handball player Bravo was). I’ll let you form your own jokes there.

And at the end of the day, we bid adieu to Crazy Luke Graham and his final WWWF run.

1979, here we come![spacer height=”20px”]