NWA Weekly Programming Thread

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

An ongoing thread for the NWA television show, featuring Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff and the Midnight Express.

 

I mentioned this in the General thread, but this week's show was particularly good due to the crowd. The wrestlers seemed to turn things up a notch as a result, with heels giving jobbers ten minute matches.

 

These shows are particularly good, IMO. Every angle is laid out well and progressed most weeks. Wrestlers are showcased and presented well. I think they are about as good as jobber shows get.

[Darth Pipes 0]

This is easily my favorite show on 24/7. I started watching NWA wrestling with the first Clash of the Champions in 1988. I always enjoyed it but I missed all this classic stuff and it's great to finally watch it. Guys like Flair, Dusty, Cornette, Arn, Magnum...they really knew how to tell a story with their awesome promos.

 

I agree the most recent show was really good. Arn carried that jobber to a very good match although my favorite had to be the Midnight Express squash. Between Cornette's "worried" commentary and the Midnights embarrassing their opponents, it was an entertaining segment, one of which you don't see even now. Like I said, Cornette's gold and I have to laugh whenever he calls himself a macho man.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

This week's episode has the Midnight Express against Ray Traylor and Phil Brown. It's interesting to see the Express beat the crap out of the guy who became their bodyguard later in the year.

[Diamonddust 0]

Cornette's commentary/rants are easily the highlight of this program. He was at such an incredible form at this point.

 

 

[Darth Pipes 0]

Enjoyed this week's show. I liked how it matched up nicely with this time of year. This week's NWA showed aired on 03/22/86 and I watched it yesterday, exactly 22 years later. As a result, you have references to the NCAA tournament and St. Patrick's Day.

 

Anyway, the highlight was another Midnight Express squash. Just listening to Cornette's commentary and the Midnights embarrassing their opponents is just classic. Arn had an awesome facebuster from the second rope too.

[garfieldsnose 0]

From a wrestling standpoint, I don't see how this program is any better than what we have today. The selling and blown spots are definitely not few and far between. I love it for the historical and nostalgia value, but the wrestling is atrocious.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah I was highly amused at Dale Brown's appearance plugging LSU in the NCAA tourney. The wild part of that is LSU actually beat Kentucky that very day to make the Final 4. They would go on to lose the next week to Louisville. LSU was an 11 seed and took out UK so that my guys didn't have to play the 1 seed UK.

 

I watch this show mostly for the crazed interviews. Though to be honest, I was never a big NWA fan as a kid, but I started watching wrestling when the NWA was sliding downhill in 1988.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

From a wrestling standpoint, I don't see how this program is any better than what we have today. The selling and blown spots are definitely not few and far between. I love it for the historical and nostalgia value, but the wrestling is atrocious.

 

Joey, I do think people tend to over romanticize the old NWA stuff a bit too much (I mean, there's many reasons why Crockett didn't take over the US wrestling scene and Vince McMahon did), but you have to remember that for its time, this TV show was pretty cutting edge.

[garfieldsnose 0]

I definitely agree with that, but I guess how bad some of the wrestling on this show was just set off something. I've never had a problem with it before, but then when I see people (not necessarily here) say that it was so awesome back then compared to now, I just have to disagree.

[Darth Pipes 0]

I definitely agree with that, but I guess how bad some of the wrestling on this show was just set off something. I've never had a problem with it before, but then when I see people (not necessarily here) say that it was so awesome back then compared to now, I just have to disagree.

 

I like the wrestling although you used the armbar to death back in those days. But it's the interviews that are gold and that is where they blow away the guys of today.

[Diamonddust 0]

I definitely agree with that, but I guess how bad some of the wrestling on this show was just set off something. I've never had a problem with it before, but then when I see people (not necessarily here) say that it was so awesome back then compared to now, I just have to disagree.

 

I like the wrestling although you used the armbar to death back in those days. But it's the interviews that are gold and that is where they blow away the guys of today.

 

The interviews and hype were the big part of the program. If you wanted to see good wrestling, you were going to have to pay for a ticket to the live show. All the "studio shows" were about getting people to the local event that particular week.

[fairtoflair7 0]

Craig Sager's suit was very tame compared to what he wears today.

[fairtoflair7 0]

Also, I don't know if anyone was how bad of a wrestler Khan is. It's amazing they let him in a ring. HE didn't even know how to execute half the moves. Paul Jones had to talk to outside the ring to discuss how to throw a simple punch.

[Darth Pipes 0]

This week's edition was very good. First, you have a truly bizarre promo and apparent heel turn by Pez Whatley on Jimmy Valiant. Very strange. Valiant gives an equally weird promo with the censors at the time editing his comment that the shock of Pez's attack could only be compared to "coming home and finding your wife in bed with another man." Very strange stuff. The highlight of the show is Flair giving commentary during the Rock N Roll Express match, with hysterical comments about partying with the women. This leads to an awesome confrontation between Flair and Ricky Morton.

[cabbageboy 0]

I have to admit, I've never been much of a Cornette fan but he did a tirade over Dale Brown's appearance the previous week saying that LSU had "no shot against Denny Crum and the Louisville Cardinals in the Final 4." Of course Cornette was right and U of L won the title that year. In fact I think that game was played the very day that NWA show aired, maybe even at the exact time.

 

The Valiant interview was quite good. It was more impactful due to him dropping the goofy act and talking normally. It was a rare serious promo from Valiant.

 

 

[Guest Nitro 24/7]

I have to admit, I've never been much of a Cornette fan but he did a tirade over Dale Brown's appearance the previous week saying that LSU had "no shot against Denny Crum and the Louisville Cardinals in the Final 4." Of course Cornette was right and U of L won the title that year. In fact I think that game was played the very day that NWA show aired, maybe even at the exact time.

 

The Valiant interview was quite good. It was more impactful due to him dropping the goofy act and talking normally. It was a rare serious promo from Valiant.

 

 

Yeah Valiant dropped the F Bomb lol

[Diamonddust 0]

I found it funny that the latest episode has the appearance of Wee Willie Wilkins.

[10 Pounds 0]

Have you ever seen more of a circus of freaks than Paul Jones' stable ?

 

- The manager now looks like Hitler and dresses and full army gear.

- The guy who recently turned can't speak without yelling at the top of his lungs and dresses like Mr. Peanut

- We have a goose-stepping German wearing a monocle

- We have two mutes : one who sticks his tongue out and the other looks more lobotomized than Nicholson in Cuckoo's nest.

 

Thank God we have the Horsemen, Cornette and Magnum to provide some common sense.

[Darth Pipes 0]

Have you ever seen more of a circus of freaks than Paul Jones' stable ?

 

- The manager now looks like Hitler and dresses and full army gear.

- The guy who recently turned can't speak without yelling at the top of his lungs and dresses like Mr. Peanut

- We have a goose-stepping German wearing a monocle

- We have two mutes : one who sticks his tongue out and the other looks more lobotomized than Nicholson in Cuckoo's nest.

 

Thank God we have the Horsemen, Cornette and Magnum to provide some common sense.

 

Paul Jones and his stable were just bizarre. Jones was really a buffoon as a manager and I don't get the whole Hitler thing.

[cabbageboy 0]

I actually kinda dig this Jones Army. But then I'm always a sucker for a cheesy heel faction full of jobbers and a whitemeat babyface like Jimmy V. fighting enormous odds. But yeah if you look at Jones as a manager he's really crap compared to Heenan, Hart, etc. in the WWF.

[Darth Pipes 0]

I kind of like how Jones was beating up his wrestler's opponent and the ref doesn't disqualify him.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Check out the 4/12/86 episode of NWA, if for nothing more than the Flair/Morton match late in the show. Really heated & really good, with Morton picking up the "win" after a ref bump & Robert Gibson counting the pin.

[cabbageboy 0]

Yeah that was a good match and an intriguing angle, though I wonder now what exactly the endgame of it was supposed to be. Did anyone really buy Morton as a singles challenger for the world title? Or was he just filler until they could go back to Dusty, Garvin, or elevate Magnum?

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

Yeah that was a good match and an intriguing angle, though I wonder now what exactly the endgame of it was supposed to be. Did anyone really buy Morton as a singles challenger for the world title? Or was he just filler until they could go back to Dusty, Garvin, or elevate Magnum?

They got several main events on the '86 Great American Bash tour out of it, leading to the Flair/Morton cage match seen on the Horsemen dvd.

[Diamonddust 0]

Yeah that was a good match and an intriguing angle, though I wonder now what exactly the endgame of it was supposed to be. Did anyone really buy Morton as a singles challenger for the world title? Or was he just filler until they could go back to Dusty, Garvin, or elevate Magnum?

 

As Alkeiper mentioned, Morton was accepted as a major singles challenger at that point simply due to the fact that him and Gibson were just super over with the fans, and it was another case of the big bad heels picking on baby-face Ricky Morton.

[cabbageboy 0]

I know the RNR were over, but still...even as a kid I wouldn't have bought Ricky Morton as a serious threat to the NWA title.

 

You know it's funny that Ron Garvin's brief title run has been bashed so much over the years but if you watch these old shows he certainly seemed like a legit badass who was a threat to Flair. I think he definitely earned some sort of run with the title.

[Darth Pipes 0]

Yeah, I have to admit that watching him during this time in the NWA, he seems credible to me. But then again, he won the title more than a year-and-a-half later and didn't defend it for two months. That really did a number of him.

 

The Flair/Morton match was great and I totally wasn't expecting it.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

I should note that at some point, Crockett ran a brutal angle where the Horsemen attacked Morton and rubbed his face into the concrete floor, leaving his nose broken. That added heat and made it into a personal battle rather than simply a title bout. Morton would get his revenge eventually, the blowoff was Morton and Gibson beating the Andersons in a cage for the tag titles at Starrcade.

[Darth Pipes 0]

NWA wasn't bad for this week. Both Flair and Dusty drop shoot comments about not jobbing in an arena with 70,000 people in it and Dusty warns Flair about running up money on his credit card. The highlight again is Jim Cornette's commentary and the Midnight Express squash.

[EVIL~! alkeiper 0]

This week's show has footage of the infamous Flair/Morton beatdown.

 

Jimmy Garvin keeps calling out Wahoo McDaniel. All he's asking for is a match or showdown and while he's a jerk about it, Wahoo never answers. It makes Wahoo look bad after weeks of it.