WWWF MSG (August 1, 1977)

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Mike Thanosoulos

What a wild match this was, with great heat as the crowd was in love with Strongbow. They both wanted to kill each other. Jay chased Albano, grabbed one of his shoes, and delivered some shots to the Captain who bumped like a madman, before being escorted out of ringside. Jay nailed a bunch of shots to Patera, including chops, and Patera begged off. Patera ended up with the advantage and an arm bar but Strongbow rallied and targeted Ken’s knee with several kicks. As a result, Patera got caught in the ropes.

Ken stopped his momentum and put him in the full nelson but Jay got to the ropes early. Vince was selling that even though it was only on for a short time, it may have done serious damage to Strongbow. However, Ken put on a bearhug, which was broken quick and a full nelson that was broken when Jay used momentum to fling Patera into the corner.

This was Jay’s big comeback and the crowd was wild for it. Strikes, knee lifts followed by a sleeper but Patera pushed Strongbow out of it into the ropes and they collided, sending Jay out to the floor for a count-out. Jay had until twenty to get back in and he made it to the apron by around twelve but stalled getting in, selling the collision like crazy, almost comically. Strongbow came back in for revenge and put the sleeper on again but Patera escaped and left ringside. Pretty fun match here with very few bumps.

This was a follow-up to their match on June 27th, that Graham said was the match where he heard the most heat in his career.  Wild, wild match with both guys ending up bloody. Graham tried to attack Bruno but Gorilla pulled him off allowing Bruno to get a sucker punch in and start hammering on the champ. Bruno stayed on him with boots and even a choke, which was broken up by Gorilla who picked Bruno up and away from Graham.

On commentary, Gorilla said that sometimes a ref has to get physical in order to break a hold. However, for years, I can recall him making the opposite argument about how a ref should never put his hands on a wrestler. Graham managed to pull Bruno outside and he grabbed a rope from under the ring. They got back inside the ring, Graham tried to use the rope but Gorilla stepped in and tried to take it away. Bruno then got the rope and began choking Billy with it before Gorilla finally tossed it out of the ring.

Logically, that probably was not Billy’s best thought out move considering the work Bruno already put on his knee. Bruno missed a charging should tackle in the corner and Graham grabbed the title and nailed him with it, cutting open the challenger. Gorilla kept checking the cut as Bruno made a comeback. Billy tried to leave and was chased by Gorilla. Billy took a swing at him, missed, and Gorilla picked him up and threw him back into the ring to amazing heat.

However, Gorilla did not call for the DQ as his shirt was extremely bloody. By this point, Bruno was destroying Billy but Gorilla finally called for the bell and a double DQ. Bruno came back and kept attacking Superstar. This match had a ton of heat but not quite as much as the previous June show. In comparison, this match was more wild as Bruno was ready to fight. Good match and Graham’s selling was top notch. He always gets criticized for being a “bad” worker but he could sell like a beast and make his opponent’s offense look brutal and grueling. This was the last time they would wrestle in MSG until 1978, after Superstar lost the WWWF Title.

Maivia was undefeated so far in the WWWF and these guys wrestled several times before this match, including two television matches. Maivia’s next match the following day was a count-out win against WWWF Champion Billy Graham on August 2^nd in New Bedford, MA at the Hetland Skating Arena. This started out as a power slugfest with Nikolai controlling the tempo with a couple bearhugs. Vince even thought Maivia was done for until he exploded with some hot offense and had the place going nuts. Later, Maivia nailed a back breaker on his knee and then his own bearhug resulting in Nikolai collapsing. Dick Kroll administered a ten-count but Nikolai made it up as Vince questioned why Maivia did not go after him instead of letting him get back up. Next was a series of humorous spots designed to humiliate Nikolai. Out of a greco-roman knuckle lock, Maivia stepped on his hands. He patted his ass in a submission as Nikolai was getting upset. He grabbed Maivia’s arm and tried to work on it but Maivia stuck his thumb in his ear.

The ref did the worst job any referee could ever do during this match. The story was the heels were passing around a foreign object amongst themselves and using it on the faces, Garea and Zbyszko. Occasionally, the faces would get something going but would be shot down quickly. This all occurred for about a half-hour. Some of the cheating was actually seen right in front of Jack Lotz and he never called for a DQ. In the beginning, I liked the heel work of Stasiak and Steele but it never really led anywhere until the very end. The ref kept trying to check the heels for the object but they would pass it away from Lotz before he could see it. Steele brought in a chair, and later an umbrella, that were grabbed by Garea and used on Steele.

Stasiak tried for the heart punch three times and failed every time. The heels tried to ram the heads of the faces into one another but they ended up being pushed into each other instead. Still, Steele nailed Garea immediately after the heels collided. Vince wondered how Garea was still breathing at this point. The faces were being destroyed and sweating like pigs by the end of this match. Vince also said Garea looked like he aged a bit during this match. Finally, Steele put Garea in a nerve hold that was broken and the foreign object went flying. Garea grabbed it and went to town on Steele and the faces finally got retribution. The faces were double-teaming Steele and Stasiak when the ref called for the bell and awarded the entire match to Zbyszko and Garea. This match started to drag on towards the end but it finally did lead to a conclusion after all the non-stop heel cheating. This was not an exciting match but the heel work was great.