TWA Summer Sizzler (6.9.90) review 

 

June 9, 1990 

 

We’re in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at McGonigle Hall. I had a laugh with the last Tri State show (the Joel Goodhart promotion that preceded ECW) so we’re going again baby! 

 

Don Muraco vs. Bob Orton Jr 

We’re JIP in middle of the show with these two old-timers working in front of a bored crowd who just want to see someone bleed. Both guys are in their ‘about to work for Herb Abrams’ phase. Orton gets the pin and only about a two minutes of this aired, which was more than enough.  

 

JT Smith vs. Mr Sandman 

The first sighting of Sandman. He comes out to “California Girls” by the Beach Boys. He’s supposed to be a surfer. He’s really green but completely sober, which makes for an odd viewing experience.  

Sandman has a dull looking manager, and they collide on the apron, so the manager grabs Sandman’s feet on a suplex and holds him down. You won’t get the winner’s share of the purse that way dude! If we’re looking for positives, JT Smith looked decent here.  

 

Jerry Lawler vs. Austin Idol 

We’re literally 5:00 into the tape here. What the fuck are they doing?  

This is not for Lawler’s Memphis vanity belt, which he’s still claiming makes him the “unified world champion”. What fucking belts did you unify Jerry? You could probably claim the AWA one, seeing as he never lost it, but they’ve now ceased to be relevant. The level of workrate in this one can be demonstrated by the amount of times Lawler stops the match to cut a promo into the house mic.  

HAT GUY SIGHTING! He’s ringside again here, getting into it with Lawler. He has a baseball cap on, which is just weird. Still has a loud shirt and loud mouth though. The entire match revolves around promos and Lawler’s hidden chain. It is egregiously boring. Lawler does have a mastery over his facial expressions. Nobody does the shit eating grin that screams “I’m so fucking happy with how I just cheated” better than Lawler. Nor the immediate change of gears when a fan yells at him afterwards. 

 

Things perk up when they brawl into the bleachers and Jerry takes a bump down them! It was more Charlie Chaplin than Jackie Chan, but I popped. Idol manages to get Lawler’s chain off him, after being beaten with it surreptitiously for 15 minutes, but the ref sees him use it so it’s a DQ win for the King. This was 20:00 long and, a couple of Lawler bumps aside, they did very little. **¼  

 

I guess the appeal of Lawler is that everything he does looks good, but the downside is he basically just does punches. They continue to brawl around after the bell and Idol gets the metaphorical win by punching Jerry in the balls. This was, at times, a wild affair but far too often they did nothing at all. 

 

Russian Chain Match  

Nikita Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez 

Koloff worked for AWA last year and will do some spots for Herb later in 1990. “Ragin’ Bull” Manny Fernandez is now into his ‘Indies’ run after finishing with New Japan. The crowd, and I can’t believe I’m writing this, chant “taco breath” at him. Oh, Philadelphia. The city of brotherly racism.  

Manny works nice and snug. I’ve always appreciated how visceral his matches were. Koloff, on the other hand, looks like his heart isn’t in it. Considering his circumstances, I can’t blame him. His wife Mandy died in 1989, after a long illness. He’s about to re-marry and he’s healing as a person but the fierceness he had before is just gone.  

 

This is one of those ‘collect the turnbuckles’ gimmicks. They almost all stink. This follows a strict formula. Punch with chain. Begin to collect buckles. Get stopped. Punch with chain. The crowd DO NOT CARE. Manny tries to mix it up with a pinfall attempt but the ref is all “that’s not how it works, brrrrrother”.  

 

The cameraman moves and Manny collects two buckles and gets declared the winner. Presumably the ref got poked in the eye or something? I don’t know how this could be considered anything other than a fucking mess. The ref is like “no, that’s two not four”. Koloff gets run into the corner and the bell rings again. What is happening? The referee announces Koloff as the winner. There’s no way he collected four buckles. DUD 

 

Despite the match being 14 minutes long, the timekeeper announces 20 minutes gone by right before the finish. Maybe he nodded off, just like the ref did. 

 

Intermission

 

Joel Goodhart comes out at intermission to announce, “TWA is here to stay”. For at least a year*. Joel announces they’re going to have a TWA champion and unveils the new title belt. 

 

*TWA lasted until late 1991, when Goodhart’s money ran out. Tod Gordon’s ECW started up in early 1992.   

Joel’s heart was in the right place but there’s no way this was going to be a successful long-term thing.  

Goodhart goes on to announce that Bill Apter is ringside and PWI will recognise the TWA belt.  

 

DC Drake, Johnny Hotbody & Mondo Kleen vs. Rockin’ Rebel, Larry Winters & Tony Stetson  

You may know Mondo Kleen as WWF wrestler Damien Demento. He’s way jacked up and you can see why Vince took an interest. His in-ring is dull, and he still stands out amongst this crowd of nobodies. I can’t believe how bad Rockin’ Rebel is. Totally emotionless, boring, dreadful worker.  

 

I’m not joking when I say this match is 30 minutes long and is entirely filled with aimless multi-man brawling. The Philly crowd do enjoy a crowd brawl (and also blood) so this works for them. Rebel’s most offensively bad spot, which includes a legdrop where he holds the back of his leg up, is a running…pin. He springs off the ropes and just lies across his opponent. DEVASTATING.  

 

Hotbody has a hell of a time hitting a dive to the floor. It takes him three attempts to get up the ropes. Oh, I forgot, this is under elimination rules. Rebel is first out, THANK CHRIST, when he’s pinned on the floor after Hotbody’s eventual dive. No wonder he was so keen to get up there.  

This is “Mondo Kleen” if you’re having trouble visualising him. He certainly looks like a ‘wrestler’. The crack production crew miss Tony Stetson getting pinned out on the floor somewhere and it’s now 3 on 1 with poor Larry Winters left all alone. Given that we’re in a heel city, it would make sense for the heels to just kick his ass and win. Anyway, DC Drake miscues with a chair shot and Mondo is gone. Oh, wait, he kicked out? What the actual fuck is that?  

 

They re-do the spot with Mondo yelling “two, two” and this time Hotbody hits him with the chair. While the others argue, Winters pins Kleen on the floor. There’s ONE of him. How can you lose track of ONE person? Winters brawls into the crowd with Hotbody and pins him against the wall. Where was DC in all this? Just stood in the ring like a jamoke. DC attempts the Flair corner bump, which is doomed to failure. He looks like Ric Flair doing it…circa 2006.  

 

Drake and Winters then repeat a load of stuff they did in the “I Quit” match from the last show. The cameraman gets stuck and decides to film the match from the bleachers. Winters eventually wins with a belly to belly suplex. This wasn’t good and was way too long. The Drake-Winters singles match was much better, and I don’t get the 3 on 1 booking nonsense here.  

 

Post match some ginger loser comes out to challenge Winters, and he’s immediately rolled up for three. Jesus, how many guys did he beat here? There were three in a match, one afterwards, and he beat up two managers. Larrymania runnin’ wild in Philly.  

We get a crowd shot and the cameraman has found some ladies in the crowd. At least one of those is a goomah for the Soprano family, kid, turn your camera elsewhere.  

 

Paul Orndorff vs. Tully Blanchard 

We finally reach the main event featuring the two biggest stars available. Former WWF main eventer Orndorff and former Horsemen Blanchard. I recently watched Tully work AWA’s Superclash IV and the entire match he sat in a hammerlock. I start to get flashbacks as Orndorff’s opening gambit is going after Blanchard’s arm. Tully looks somewhat more interested, presumably because Orndorff is a better opponent than Tommy Jammer. 

 

They still spend a lot of time sat in armlocks. The crowd here is half the size of the last show and they’re far less into the action. It doesn’t help that they continually slow it down. As Blanchard goes back to another chinlock you can hear people yell “boring” and there’s idle chatter throughout the building. People are visibly LEAVING, during the main event. Orndorff wins with an inside cradle after Tully had worked his leg for a while.  

 

Tully continues his assault after the bell as people are flooding for the exits. Orndorff goes 2-0 in his TWA career, although his next match here is well into next year. We’ll see him next on UWF’s Fury Hour in October. Tully, who looks like he’s stop giving a shit about anything, won’t appear again until 1994 when WCW talk him into wrestling Terry Funk at Slamboree.  

 

The 411: 

Well, it sucks. I think that much is abundantly clear. They did clip off the rematch of Cheetah Kid vs. Tom Pritchard for some reason. That was the best match on the first show. Arguably MOTN goes to Lawler vs Idol and that was drab for long stretches. Orndorff-Blanchard main event was tedious. Koloff vs Manny was bad. It’ll be a long, tough road to Extreme Championship Wrestling. From this, you can see how little big stars cared about working the Indies though, and with good reason. Save yourself for the big leagues.  

 

NEXT: Clash #11. For TWA there’s a show in Autumn with Lawler vs Funk on top and Cactus Jack vs Eddie Gilbert in the first of their Tri-State matches.