NWA (JCP) Starrcade 1986

For 1986 the NWA – getting routinely destroyed by the juggernaut that was Hulkamania – decided to change things up at Starrcade. Not by upping the ante and running four towns simultaneously (thankfully), but by putting the title on rising megastar Magnum TA, in hopes that his popularity could, though not realistically overtake, at least rival that of Hulk Hogan as a babyface champion the fans could rally behind. Unfortunately for them, Magnum suffered a career ending automobile accident a month before the supercard, leaving the main event twisting in the wind until they hastily turned USSR loyalist (and Magnum rival) Nikita Koloff face, with the angle being that he had gained so much respect for Magnum in their own wars, that he wanted to win the title for him.

In case that didn’t draw as they had hoped, the NWA hedged their bets by ramping up promotion for a scaffold gimmick match between new star team the Road Warriors and the hated Midnight Express – known as  the ‘Skywalkers Match.’ It worked, too, because as a kid – seeing a rare NWA tape on the shelf of one of the local video stores – the idea of the Skywalkers sold me on renting it, as opposed to SummerSlam ’91 for the dozenth time.

From Greensboro, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia; Your Hosts are Bob Caudle and Johnny Weaver in Greensboro, and Tony Schiavone and Rick Stewart in Atlanta.


Opening Match: Brad Armstrong v Jimmy Garvin: From Atlanta. They fight over the initial lockup - working a series of stalemates - until Armstrong gets him on the mat with an armbar. Garvin starts countering into a headlock, but Armstrong won't budge, so Garvin sweeps him into a leglock. He switches up to an anklelock (really, two entirely different parts there - but points for sticking with a general area of the body, at least), but Armstrong gets him going with a criss cross, and manages to get the armbar back on. They keep trading off on the mat (headlock to headscissors to headlock, and so on) until Garvin finally gets sick of it, and drops him with a side suplex for two. He dumps Armstrong to the floor for the countout, but Armstrong beats it in, so Garvin gives him a snapmare for two. Backbreaker gets two, and they do a double knockout. Garvin tries a slam, but he's still dizzy, and Brad topples him for two. He misses a blind charge, though, and Garvin cradles him, but Armstrong rolls it over for a reversal, getting two. Now Jimmy's pissed, and goes for a flying headbutt, but the time limit expires at 15:00. This was a mid-show bathroom break match if I've ever seen one, and I have no idea why they decided to open the show with two guys doing a time limit draw. Like most time limit draws, it picked up towards the end, but was loaded with restholds until then. Interestingly, Garvin's psychology was all over the map - going from the leg to the neck to the back - while Armstrong wrestled a very psychologically sound match, switching parts only if the momentum of the match forced him to. ½*

Hector Guerrero and Baron Von Raschke v The Barbarian and Shaska Whatley: From Greensboro. The heels try to jump Guerrero at the bell with a double-team, but the Baron clears them out, and we start proper with Hector (brother of Eddie) and Whatley. Guerrero with a quick 2^nd rope bodypress and dropkick, so Shaska tags Barbarian to slam him around. Heel miscommunication puts Barbarian on the floor, though, and Hector follows with a plancha. Back in, Barbarian with a press slam, and Whatley backdrops Guerrero into the heavens, as the heels cut the ring in half. Nice spot, as Whatley tries a criss cross, so Hector just stops running, and dives over to tag Von Raschke. He's a house of arson, and pins Whatley during a four-way brawl at 7:25. Now this should have opened the show. Nice, quick back-and-forth tag match to get everyone going, with Guerrero's performance standing out - from his highspots to his selling during the heat segment. * ¼

NWA United States Tag Team Title No Disqualification Match: The Russians v The Kansas Jayhawks: From Atlanta. Ivan Koloff starts with Bobby Jaggers, but gets absolutely slaughtered in a series of double teams by Jaggers and Dutch Mantel - until managing the tag to Krusher Khruschev. He slugs away, but Jaggers dodges a backdrop, and drives him into the wrong part of town for some more double-team fun. Tag back to Ivan, and he puts the moves on Jaggers (specifically, an atomic drop, and a backelbow). The Russians cut the ring in half, but screw up a double-team clothesline, and Mantel gets the tag. The obligatory four-way brawl quickly breaks out, with Jaggers grabbing a bullwhip to liven things up, but the Russians get it away from him, and Ivan pins Mantel at 9:10 to retain. Fun, fast paced stuff here - making good use of quick tags to keep it interesting, despite lack of highspots. The Russians would lose the titles not long after this, leading to Khruschev going on to find greater fame in the WWF as Demolition Smash. ¾*

Indian Strap Match: Wahoo McDaniel v Rick Rude: From Greensboro. The 'Indian' version is the same as the 'Caribbean' version which is the same as the 'White Castle of Fear' version - all of which translate to both guys connected by a strap at the wrist, battling until one is able to drag the other to four corners. Usual tug-of-war to start, until McDaniel just uses his slack to whip at Rude. He clotheslines him with the strap to get him on the mat, and chokes away. Rude turns the tide, beating McDaniel into the corner, and the tying him up to drag to two corners. Wahoo comes back with more strap shots, and big knife edge - allowing him to pull Rude to three corners before getting kicked in the face. Hey, you drag a guy around, you get hit in the face. It ain't rocket science. Rude goes upstairs, but gets tugged off, and McDaniel drags him to three - then (remembering what I told him earlier) gets hit in the face, falling into the fourth at 9:05. Really slow, dull match here. DUD

NWA Central States Heavyweight Title Match: Sam Houston v Bill Dundee: From Atlanta. Houston uses his slight size 'disadvantage' to dodge Dundee for a bit, but gets grounded with a side-headlock. Houston starts throwing dropkicks to break things up, so Dundee goes to a chinlock to ground him again. They continue on with the 'Houston makes a quick comeback/Dundee grounds him' game for a bit, until Bill gets sick of the kid, and tosses him to the floor. Flying fistdrop gets two, and he goes back to the chinlock. Shockingly, Houston doesn't submit to it, so Dundee changes gears with a Boston crab - but the champion makes the ropes. Flying axehandle gets two, and he goes to a front-facelock, but Houston railroads him into the corner for some fists of fury. Backelbow gets two, and a bodyslam - but he misses a kneedrop, and Dundee zeroes in on it. Figure four, but Houston shoves him off - bumping the referee, and losing his boot in the process. Dundee takes advantage of the opportunity to whack him with the boot, but the referee sees it, and that's a disqualification at 10:24. This was house show stuff here. And, anyway, Bill Dundee was only really interesting when getting pistol whipped by Randy Savage. ¼*

Hair v Hair Match: Paul Jones v Jimmy Valiant: From Greensboro. Paul pal Manny Fernandez is locked in a shark cage to make sure he stays out of things - suspended above ringside, like they usually do in those ridiculous scenarios. Valiant jumps him right away, and unloads both back and chest scratches. Holy shit, why not just sign a declaration of war? Jones nails him with a pair of knux to slow him down (no shit!), and follows with a kneedrop for two. Another misses, so he goes back to the knux again, but Valiant's SUCKING UP!! Fists of Fury! Sleeper! Knux Shot! - and Jones loses his hair at 4:20. Total junk, but served its purpose, because the crowd loved this shit. DUD

Louisville Street Fight: Ron Garvin v Big Bubba Rogers: From Atlanta - which would make you logically think it would have been labeled an 'Atlanta' Street Fight (like they ran the year before, also with Garvin) - but no. Bubba was still a rookie at this point, playing the role of an enforcer for Jim Cornette, as opposed to capitalizing on his past as an actual Georgia prison guard. Vince McMahon didn't miss that opportunity, though, and that's why he made all the money off him with the 'Big Bossman' character. Garvin stuns him with a few jabs, so he bails to the floor to regroup with Jim Cornette, then heads in to push Garvin around. Garvin comes back by throwing a cup of coffee in his face, and Bubba bails again - though you can't blame the guy. Inside, Garvin chokes away, but gets squashed in the corner, and Rogers hammers away. Splash, but Garvin beats the count up, and chokes Bubba down with a rope he has stashed in his cowboy boot. Rogers tries a bearhug, but Garvin fires some super stiff headbutts to break loose, and actually manages to piledrive him. Visually, that was the equivalent of a midget piledriving Big Show. He looks to finish, but Cornette whacks him with the tennis racket, and both men can't answer the ten count at 11:00. The referee won't have that on his watch (it was a really nice Rolex, and he didn't want to fuck it up), and decides to let the match continue, with the first man to make it to his feet the winner. They both scramble, but Garvin's knee gives out, and Bubba wins at 11:50. A bunch of super stiff stuff, and a cute ending, but not a particularly good match, overall. ½*

NWA Television Title First Blood Match: Dusty Rhodes v Tully Blanchard: From Greensboro. Tully misses a blind charge early - distracted by the fact that Rhodes had bashed his manager JJ Dillon with an elbowsmash so lethal, he's now a bloody mess on the outside of the ring. Dusty nearly clobbers Tully with the elbow during a tussle, but Blanchard hides in the ropes. They repeat that bit several times, until Rhodes levels him with a headbutt to daze him, and wallops him with the elbow. It fails to draw blood, however, so Dusty goes to a leglock - which isn't exactly the most effective strategy when the object is to make the other bleed. Maybe he was hoping to scrape his thighs against the mat until he scrapes him up enough, I don't know. Slugfest leads to a referee bump, so Dillon passes Tully his shoe to make the champ bleed - but he gets suplexed. Dusty unloads with the shoe, drawing blood, but the referee is still out so there's no one to stop Dusty Rhodes' match due to blood loss. See, Joe Frazier wouldn't play that shit. In the chaos, Dillon rubs a salve on Blanchard's forehead to stop the bleeding, and passes him a roll of coins to draw blood at 8:40 - as the referee wakes up. It was building a nice bit of in-ring storytelling with Tully's fear of the elbow, but it didn't go anywhere, since Rhodes hit it without drawing blood, and it didn't factor into the ending in any way. DUD

Skywalkers Match: The Road Warriors v The Midnight Express: From Atlanta. 'Skywalkers' is just fancy talk for a scaffold match - which is, as the name implies, a match taking place entirely on a scaffold above the ring. The idea is that both teams fight up there, and the first to knock the others off of the scaffold win. It sounds really neat in theory, but (as with many gimmick match types) doesn't quite live up to the hype, as the 'Skywalk' is a catwalk about four feet wide (barely enough to walk comfortably on without any support), and not conducive to wrestling spots. The Express stall forever out of fear of meeting the Warriors atop the scaffold (and rightly so - it is not at all safe), but finally get up there to slug it out. They lose that pretty quickly, so they start throwing powder in the Warriors' eyes, but they shrug off blindness, and keep hammering. Bobby Eaton teases a fall, but climbs up Animal's leg to hang on. More slugging, and Hawk teases a fall. All four finally end up hanging from the underside of the scaffold - monkey bars style - and the Warriors swing into the Midnight's to knock them violently off at 7:14. Afterwards, they chase manager Jim Cornette up there, and toss him off, too, but he botches the landing - shattering his knee. While it wasn't the first scaffold match, it was certainly the first one such high profile, and has become quite popular over the years - mostly for the novelty. I've never really been a fan of the inherently dangerous match-type, but they did as much as could be expected from four oversized pro-wrestlers fighting on a catwalk, and it certainly wasn't dull. *

NWA World Tag Team Title Cage Match: The Rock 'n' Roll Express v Arn Anderson and Ole Anderson: The last match from Greensboro. Robert Gibson and Ole Anderson start, and Gibson uses his speed to evade, so Ole tags Arn, and starts double-teaming. Gibson returns the favor in his home corner - pinballing Arn off of the cage - but misses a blind charge, and goes flying into the steel, knee first. The Anderson's go right to work on it - brutally cutting the ring in half with a relentless assault of the knee - until Gibson throws a fluke enzuigiri, and gets the tag to Ricky Morton. He's a house of arson, but the Anderson's stop him in his tracks with a double team, and absolutely launch him into the cage like a dart. Twice. Ole starts going to work on him now - zeroing in on the arm - and Arn takes a turn to grate his face on the mesh to draw color (between more vicious shots to the arm, of course). Arn with a 2^nd rope axehandle, but Morton nails him on the way down. Unfortunately for him, he uses the bad arm, allowing Ole to run in with a shoulderbreaker for two, and then trap him in a hammerlock variation. Arn with a spinebuster for two, and Ole dives off of the top, driving his knee into the arm - while Gibson looks on helplessly. Double knockout, and Morton gets inches from Gibson, but Ole spears him into the cage to slow him down. Gibson finally gets sick of it, and runs in - triggering a four way brawl - and the Gibson dropkicks Morton onto Ole to retain at 19:03. Well booked tag team wrestling here - filled with wicked psychology, peerless selling, and managing to avoid a lot of the cliché spots that tend to fill many tag matches. What made the match work so well was that they could spend a long time working a part, but kept the offense fresh. It wasn't just five-minute armbars and loads of stomps, it was hammerlock slams, and driving their knees into the shoulder from the top rope. Morton's arm looked like it was broken in three places and ready to fall off of his body in protest by the end of it. *** ¾

Main Event: NWA World Title Match: Ric Flair v Nikita Koloff: From Atlanta. As noted in the introduction, this was supposed to be the pinnacle moment of Magnum TA's career - main eventing the biggest show of the year, and winning the NWA Title from perennial champion Ric Flair. Flair tries to railroad him into the corner during the initial lockup, but Koloff just throws him across the ring in response. Another try, same result. Flair bails to the floor to regroup, and tries a test-of-strength coming back in (in an attempt to work a cheap shot), but Koloff crushes him. Chops, but it doesn't even faze his challenger, and he throws Flair around some more. Bearhug looks to crack Flair's spine (with the champ brilliantly selling at every turn), but Flair won't quit, so Koloff takes him to the corner for some more abuse. He misses a blind charge, however, and Flair pounces with a hanging vertical suplex - only to have Koloff pop right up and grunt at him. Flair understandably dives to the floor again, and tries begging off, but Koloff keeps coming. He finally misses a charge, tumbling over the top to the floor, and landing on his knee. Flair pounces again - posting it, and then hitting a chopblock on the way back in. Figure Four, but Koloff fights through, and rolls the hold over. Flair makes the ropes, and keeps after the challenger - but a series of chops awaken the beast. He limps after Flair like some sort of Gulag escaped madman, but Ric dodges him again, and sends him flying to the floor. Flair bashes him into the scaffold for good measure, but Koloff keeps coming (at this point running on autopilot), so Flair sends him crashing with a side suplex for two. Still can't stop Koloff, and he slams Flair halfway across the ring, and Flips him to the floor. He follows - paying the champ back with a trip into the scaffold - and inside, creams him with a diving shoulderblock, and the Russian Sickle, but the referee is down. Another runs out, but Flair's recovered, so Koloff charges with another Sickle - only to take out the second referee. Koloff chokes Flair in the corner, as the first referee comes back to life to try and pull him off - but Koloff goes nuts on him, and triggers a no contest at 19:12 - though, really, that should have been a DQ win for Flair. Koloff both accidentally and purposely took out, like, four referees. Flair was just holding on for his life. Perfect match for Koloff's Terminator routine, as Flair wasn’t afraid to sell all of his offense like his life was in danger, and (much like he would do against Vader at Starrcade seven years later) having to change game plans on the fly over and over when nothing could slow Koloff down. The ending is a bit of a copout (especially for the biggest show of the year), but they didn’t want to switch the title, and also didn’t want to job US Champion Koloff – so that’s what you get. *** ½

BUExperience: This one is mostly remembered for the Skywalkers, but really, that was just a novelty going on in the background. Unfortunately, because the main event was a thrown together rivalry, and because it didn’t actually settle anything, it has been somewhat forgotten by history – despite being a great match. The rest of the card has its moments – particularly the fantastic World Tag Title match – but where the NWA failed again (and where the WWF was excelling) was in giving the crowd a truly satisfying blowoff show. **