Match 7: Battle Royale – NFL Players vs WWF Superstars
Okerlund gives us the rules for the Battle Royale: Over the top rope and onto the floor for elimination and introduces us to the guest officials for this match.
- Guest Timekeeper: Clare Peller (If you remember Wendy’s ‘Where’s the Beef’ campaign, she was the lady who asked where the beef was).
- Guest Referees: Dick Butkus, Ed ‘Too Tall’ Jones.
- Guest Commentator: ‘The Big Cat’ Ernie Ladd
Due to the chaos of the Battle Royale, I won’t try to keep up.
The Winner: Andre the Giant by eliminating Bret Hart.
Comments: There was a good mix of 80s wrestling and 80s football. The NFL guys did pretty good, but I think there should’ve been a more even matchup of NFL to WWF.
We’re thrown back to Vince and Susan, and they’ve been joined by a very sweaty Piper (or he’s just taken a shower). Vince confronts Piper about his conduct. Piper says that if he’d wanted a picnic, he would’ve packed a lunch. He then claims that he came to fight, but Mr. T cheated by rubbing his hair in Piper’s eye. Piper repeats his vow of retiring if T knocked him out and berates T for having Frazier come out in a kilt. Vince asks Susan for a comment and Susan says what Piper is claiming is a load of ‘blarney’. We cut to the end of the match. Piper says that dropping T on his head didn’t do much damage, that was why Duva had him go for the body. This promo becomes increasingly borderline racist, even for 1986, so we’re sent back to Chicago.
Comments: This promo was even worse than the first one, if that was possible. Piper is making the usual heel excuses for his behavior, but it comes across very badly and makes Piper look terrible.
Okerlund is interviewing a very sour looking Jimbo Covert. Covert says he got cheated because he came to Refrigerator Perry’s aid and threw out King Tonga (Haku/Meng), and it sounds like he’s accusing Refrigerator of eliminating him and that he got cheated. Guess Mean Gene should’ve emphasized ‘Every Man for himself’.
Okerlund calls Iron Sheik over and asks him about wrestling the football players. Iron Sheik cuts an incomprehensible promo and then poses.
Monsoon and Crosby discuss the Battle Royale and Monsoon hopes the NFL guys got a real education about Professional Wrestling.
Match 8: Tag Team Title Match – The Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine with Johhny Valiant) vs The British Bulldogs (with Lou Albano and Ozzy Osborne)
The Tag Team Champions are already in the ring with Johnny Valiant. Bulldogs are out next and they are accompanied by Captain Lou and Ozzie Osborne (Yeah, THAT Ozzie Osborne, pre-The Osbornes). Monsoon is a little perplexed about why Osborne is there. We are reminded again that there will be two referees to keep everything kosher and make sure BOTH managers stay out of it.
We start with Davey Boy and Valentine. This match quickly turns into a slug fest and then we get back to wrestling. Davey Boy and Valentine match move for move before Dynamite Kid is tagged in and takes it to Valentine. It doesn’t look like Dynamite kid is pulling those kicks, and Davey Boy is tagged in. After blocking and counter-blocking bodyslam attempts, Davey Boy hits a vertical suplex on Valentine and Valentine rolls outside. For whatever reason, Valentine doesn’t tag in Beefcake but gets the jump on Davey Boy before finally tagging in Beefcake.
Beefcake looks to have the advantage before being overpowered by Davey Boy and press-slammed before tagging in Dynamite. Dynamite and Davey Boy are trying to end this quickly and seem to view Beefcake as the weak link of the Dream Team, but Beefcake tags in Valentine, who hits a single ax handle on Davey Boy. Davey gets Dynamite in and he takes it to Valentine. Beefcakes comes in but the ref throws him out. Dynamite tries to hit the Sunset Flip and then a backbreaker, but the pin is broken up by Beefcake.
Valentine hits the piledriver for a two-count on Dynamite. Dynamite accidentally got a low blow on Valentine, who tries to rally by going to the top turnbuckle but gets caught and slammed. The match quickly breaks down and both teams go outside. The Bulldogs grab Valentine and toss him back into the ring, but Valentine gets the advantage but makes the mistake of doing it in the Bulldogs’ corner and Davey Boy tags in and powerslams Valentine.
Valentine starts stomping the mudhole and tags in Beefcake, who hits the double ax handle and then does a kind of powerbomb on Davey Boy. Dream Team start really working over Davey Boy. Valentine hits the shoulder breaker and goes for the pin but pulls Davey up. That turns out to be a mistake, because Davey sends him into the Bulldogs’ corner where he knocks heads with Dynamite Kid and gets Davey the three-count before Beefcake can make the save.
Captain Lou and Ozzie are holding up the belts and smiling. Crosby gets in the ring too to celebrate, along with Okerlund. Dynamite Kid is still seeing stars, so while we wait for them, Okerlund interview Captain Lou who has now managed his sixteenth Tag Title win. Captain Lou said he knew this would happen and then things get hard to understand.
The Winner: The British Bulldogs via pinfall
Okerlund interviews Ozzie who simply says ‘British Bulldogs Forever!’.
Bulldogs are still outside the ring, Dynamite doesn’t look like he knows what day it is, so we’re hearing from Cathy Lee Crosby. She asks Ozzie if he’ll come back to be in the Bulldogs’ corner, which Ozzie says he will.
Okerlund sees to the Bulldogs, Davey Boy gets in the ring, Okerlund asks Crosby if she’s ever seen anything like this before, and she says she hasn’t. Davey Boy says that they told the US fans that if they won the Tag Titles, they would stay in the US and that’s what they’re going to do. They’ve given up on getting anything out of Dynamite, so we’re going back to Monsoon.
Comments: Monsoon and Okerlund got shut down by Crosby briefly. They assumed that Crosby never watched wrestling before and wouldn’t know who Johnny Valentine was, only to be told by Crosby that while she’s never been to a live wrestling show, she grew up watching wrestling because her grandfather loved it. (Commenter: Tell ‘em, Cathy!)
This was the best match of the night so far. Both teams looked tremendous. Valentine and Beefcake were a great team and the match easily could’ve gone either way.
We’re thrown back to Vince and Susan. Susan is excited by the Tag Team match and says Hogan is definitely winning. They discuss the match with Vince saying that Bundy could go through the cage, but Hogan could prevail by going over the top of the cage and onto the floor.
