TWA Autumn Armageddon (9.15.90) review 

 

September 9, 1990 

 

We’re in Penn Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We’ve covered a few Tri-State shows but basically what you need to know is it was ECW before Eastern Championship Wrestling. Joel Goodhart ran the TWA and provided the people of the Tri-State area with low quality but rambunctious pro-wrestling. It suited certain people and the bloodthirsty folks of Philadelphia soon became attached to it. Here we have a bunch of stuff happening including Adrian Street, Sandman, Cactus Jack, crowning a new TWA champion, hair vs hair, Abby, Terry Funk, Jerry Lawler and a REVERSE CAGE BATTLE ROYAL.  

 

TWA drew 1,500 for this show but it’s clear they didn’t sell enough tickets to make the building look good. There are empty seats everywhere. Joel Goodhart, TWA commissioner (and owner), comes out here to open the show. Goodhart certainly has the Philly locals fired up here. He introduces ring announcer Chris Cruise, who gets booed. These fans HATE everything. The NWA commissioner gets booed. They bring out an eight-year-old to sing God Bless America and part of me is hoping she gets booed too. She doesn’t. Even Philly has limits. 

 

Cactus Jack vs. Eddie Gilbert 

Foley is on a year break from WCW, essentially quitting after Ole Anderson said he didn’t like him. Nice one Ole! He’s out on the Indies to prove his worth. Gilbert is another victim of Ole’s regime, and this feels like both guys sticking it to Ole Anderson. Gilbert is literally recycling Jerry Lawler shtick here. Eddie is in worse shape though and he blows the leapfrog on the International. Philly don’t ride him that hard for it. That will change.  

 

The pace on this, if I’m being polite, is “deliberate”. It’s really sluggish. You can hear people yelling “BORING”. Foley’s response is the Cactus Clothesline to the floor. Mick isn’t the kind of guy who can just accept a “boring” chant. He’s an “I’LL FUCKING SHOW YOU” kind of guy. The match is way better with Gilbert in charge as Foley has no real offence to speak of and he bumps like a champ. Speaking of which, he takes a bump throat first across the ropes for the pin.  

 

This was a solid match and would lead to a series between the two. A series that effectively reestablished Mick Foley as a commodity and WCW took him back in 1991 in an elevated role. We’ll call this **½. It did slow down too often and for the wrong reasons. Cactus working Gilbert’s leg in a series of holds that went nowhere. 

 

Adrian Street vs. Jimmy Valiant 

Street is 49 years old here and at the tail end of his career. Amazingly Valiant is only 48, but he’s always looked older than that. Joel Goodhart can be a bit of a mark for the old timers, despite them constantly letting him down. There are a lot of antics in this. Gyrating hips and licking lips. They haven’t actually made contact when the ring announcer tells us we’re 5:00 in, which draws chuckles. Street’s style hasn’t aged, and he works a mixture of flamboyance and European grappling. He’s still a really good act, which shows that being different works wonders. Miss Linda whacks Valiant with her purse and Street wins. I had a laugh here.  

 

TWA Championship 

DC Drake vs. Rockin’ Rebel 

DC’s manager is “Devious” Donnie Allen, but he’s also accompanied by Woman. I’m surprised WCW fumbled Nancy as badly as they did but here she is. Not to be outnumbered, Rebel has Baby Doll in his corner. Which feels like a good, old fashioned overkill number of people in true ECW style. The belt was decided in a battle royal, won by Rebel, but he immediately vacated it. I can only assume something screwy happened.  

 

Rebel sucks at wrestling but he knows this bloodthirsty Philly crowd will eat up the brawling. It’s announced, after we’ve started, that this is no DQ, no CO. Which allows them to explore the building, a DC Drake trademark. DC Drake is very much a product of TWA, whereas Rebel will continue to be “a thing” well into ECW being ECW. Only getting the boot in 1994 when they started to get good.  

 

The match is mostly brawling but anytime they do something in the ring it’s untidy. Rebel is so bad at the basics that a roll up looks terrible. A clothesline looks terrible. This guy is completely fucking useless. Anyway, in true ECW fashion, Baby Doll turns on Rebel and DC beats him by cheating…to raucous applause. If I’d have taken over the territory, like Tod Gordon did in 1992, the first thing I would have done was gotten rid of Rebel. He fucking sucked. -** 

 

Chris Adams & Kevin von Erich vs. Austin Idol & Al Perez 

Yes, the same week he competed in the main event of WCW Clash 12, Al Perez worked TWA. Austin Idol gets into it with a fan, pre-match, and it’s HAT GUY. Of course, it’s Hat Guy. Chris Adams gets on the microphone to tell Idol he “looks like a f*ggot”, which gets a big pop. If you think that’s bad, I have some worrying news about some of the language used in future ECW shows.  

 

This match is slightly longer than the title match, which I don’t hate, but they don’t have a lot of ideas. Kevin and Adams make a good team, but neither is as dynamic here as in World Class. I miss World Class. Adams does a lot of little things I like. Including an Irish whip where he holds onto the arm and uses it as a takedown.  

 

Idol goes back to verbally sparring with Hat Guy and Adams is picked off for heat. A word on the recording here; it’s dreadful. The picture keeps cutting out, leaving me with a freezeframe. It’s making this extremely difficult to watch. I’ve seen worse tapes, back in the day, but it’s a little sad this got uploaded to YouTube with such poor quality. Both teams brawl out to the floor for a DCO. Crowd aren’t happy about it. This was fine, for the most part. 

 

JT Smith vs. Mr Sandman 

Sandman is still going by “Mr Sandman” (“send me a dream”) and has the surfer gimmick. He’s cornered by Peaches, his actual wife. Never bring your spouse into the business kids. It’ll never end well. Being a wrestler’s wife sucks, because they’re on the road all the time, but don’t be tempted to join them. Sandman has better gear than before but he’s still playing a generic heel.  

 

An update on the VQ; the choppiness has dropped in frequency and it’s watchable again. JT Smith was a decent worker, for the most part. He could take a good bump and drew sympathy. His entire career is in ECW, so we’ll never know if he’d have cut the mustard in the big show, but I thought was alright, considering how bad people around him were. Sandman is decent here too, as he’s sober.  

 

It might shock a few people how solid Sandman is, technically, here. He does good work. I’m especially fond of his Irish whips. They don’t quite have chemistry, which is more on JT and how sloppy he gets as he gets tired. The referee (Ron Shaw) is hot at Sandman all match until Sandman throws JT into him. The referee blames JT and clotheslines him. Sandman pins and we get a quick count to finish. Shenanigans aside, this was a decent match. I can’t in good conscience give it a passing grade with that goofy fucking finish though. It makes JT look like a total scrub. 

 

Hair vs Hair 

Johnny Hotbody vs. Tony Stetson 

These two had a first blood match in March, which went to a draw after they both bladed under the ring at the same time. One thing TWA did was give blood feuds time. So, this is the longest match on the show. Unfortunately, it’s Hotbody and Stetson so this might be a chore, frankly. They’re both local guys and they both stink.  

 

The camera pans past the announce table and you can clearly see Tod Gordon there. Amazing he watched this up close and personal and thought “yeah, I would continue to book Johnny Hotbody if I was in charge”. I guess the local guys cost less. This is the second match of the night where nothing happens for five minutes. When the action does get underway there’s still a vibe of ‘nothing happening’. If that makes sense.  

 

Eventually Hotbody blades on the floor and the crowd start to get invested. They love blood in Philly. If you want a window into my process, there is a point in a match where I MAY stop paying attention. I spend a solid 60-90 seconds of this scrolling through Letterboxd Films section to see if there’s anything on Amazon I’ve not seen from the 1980s. I don’t think I missed anything. It’s just a bad match between two bad wrestlers. 

 

It has occasional moments. Like Hotbody coming off the top and being punched in the midsection, that are cribbed from better workers. Stetson ends up winning with a roll up. They can’t even deliver on the hair cut as Hotbody DDTs Stetson on a chair. They shave Stetson’s head, despite him winning and do a lousy job of it. Hotbody is as bad as a barber as he is a wrestler. He also has the worst haircut on the entire show, why not just get rid of that ugly fucking haircut mate? 

 

Anyway, yeah, this was a waste of 20 minutes. They had a bad match, which only existed to get the blow-off and they couldn’t even deliver that. Horribly boring shit. DUD. Stetson then challenges Hotbody to a “barbed wire match”. Oh, shit, someone has been watching FMW and got ideas. That takes place in March 1991 at TWA Winter Challenge II. Winter Challenge? In March? That’s six months away, btw.  

 

Abdullah the Butcher vs. Manny Fernandez 

This almost doesn’t get started as Cactus Jack comes out and starts brawling with Abby. The highlight of this is Mick taking his boot off and using it as a weapon. Foley bleeds all over the place and Manny eventually turns up. He also blades. Abby blades. The photogs at ringside get their jollies from shooting crimson. The crowd, who we’ve established are bloodthirsty animals, are into it. Eventually the bell rings and it’s a DCO or DDQ or something. Who cares. 

 

Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 

This is your main event. Funk has barely wrestled since leaving WCW at the end of 1989. You could probably consider this him coming out of retirement. Again. Both guys are working heel, which about sums up Philadelphia. Terry has tremendous fun bumping around like an asshole. Funk also has a hell of a match with some of the ringside furniture. They get a lot of mileage out of Funk being Irish whipped into the buckles. The sign of a truly good worker, rather than a workrate wrestler, is getting reactions from doing very little.  

 

They do very little here but both guys are over huge. Funk targets Lawler’s head and generally beats the shit out of him. Both guys are capable sellers with Funk opting for more drama and Lawler keeping it grounded with clean, clinical bumps. The referee pisses Funk off one too many times and gets dropped with a wild haymaker and a piledriver. Eddie Gilbert, who’s feuding with Lawler, comes in to replace the ref and somehow can’t get a three count. JUST COUNT FAST, MAN!  

 

Funk is declared the winner, by Eddie Gilbert, but it’s actually a DQ. Funk and Gilbert continue the assault, but Lawler is saved by Austin Idol. Keep in mind, all these people are heels. Later ECW would have far more run-in’s than this, but you can see where they’re going with it. It goes on forever. You know this is on tape? You can just cut away when Lawler and Idol are standing alone in the ring chatting right? Anyway, match was **½ territory although I appreciate both guys work.  

 

Reverse Cage Battle Royal 

I don’t know what a reverse cage battle royal is. It sounds like something Glen Joseph would come up with. One of the wrestlers in this is a young Chris Candido. Jimmy Jannetty is also in this thing. Naming yourself after Marty in 1990 made sense, I guess. He was good then. There are a LOT of guys in this thing. It takes ten minutes to do the introductions. We start on the floor, and everyone brawls around outside the cage. What is the point of all this?  

 

The camera literally pans around looking at stuff. There’s no rhyme or reason for anything. Then Larry Winters and Rockin’ Rebel climb in at the same time and Rebel gets into the cage first. So, he wins. Wow. Was this ever a fucking stupid idea. As with every match tonight they continue to brawl afterwards. Winters helpfully beating the piss out of that fucking dork Rockin’ Rebel. Various people climb into the cage and the brawling continues. I honestly don’t see the point of any of this. What’s the ending? -* and a fucking stupid waste of everyone’s time. 

 

The 411: 

TWA has been an interesting experience. It’s clearly different to what WWF or even WCW is putting on. However, their booking crutches (everyone brawls, lol) are becoming very apparent already. There are two absolute dogshit matches on this show, and they feel like Tri State matches. They feel ECW-coded. When wrestlers wrestled on this show it was actually pretty good. Cactus-Gilbert, Sandman-JT, the Dallas tag and Lawler-Funk are all watchable matches. It’s only when the locals with dumb Philly ideas come into play that the show got bad. It is different though and that alone makes it worth watching as part of this project. It’ll be interesting to see how fresh it feels when ECW kicks in this time around.