Bunkhouse Stampede '88

Legacy Review

Bunkhouse Stampede '88

January 24, 1988 from the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY

Commentary: Jim Ross and Bob Caudle

After seeing the success of Survivor Series, this is Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA's first attempt to expand the PPV calendar past Starrcade. The Bunkhouse Stampede matches, which were battle royals with weapons and the wrestlers dressing in street clothes (my personal theory is Dusty loved to book matches that he could get away with wrestling in jeans), had been held annually starting in 1985. Each year would have a series of "preliminary" Stampedes with all the winners going on to compete in a final match. This PPV is the '88 final. And as part of Crockett's continued attempt at national expansion, after holding Starrcade '87 well outside their normal area in Chicago, this show goes straight into WWF territory, on the doorstep of New York City. To counter, WWF put a show on basic cable where they invented their own spin on the battle royale, a little thing called the Royal Rumble.

No real intro as we start right off with Nikita Koloff walking to the ring. Tony Schiavone is on ring announcing duty again tonight.

NWA World Television Championship: Nikita Koloff (c) and "Beautiful" Bobby Eaton (w/Jim Cornette) go to a 20:00 time limit draw- Random tag team challenger = everyone knows there'll be no title change here. Eaton is also half of the US tag champs. Lockup standoff to start with a surprising clean corner break. The hard cameras tonight are strangely off center. Eaton with a slap in the corner, setting Koloff off. Koloff works tiny American puny arm. Eaton kicks out, sending Koloff all the way to the floor and they brawl outside a bit. Back in, Eaton grabs a headlock. They crank it up a bit, ending with Eaton running into a bodyslam. Outside again, Eaton gets posted and takes a bump off a cameraman. Koloff hiptosses him on the concrete. Eaton sells it for about 10 seconds and gets right back in. These guys are almost working reversed roles so far. Cornette makes up for it, getting heat by yelling at everyone and everything. So not unlike today then. Eaton starts working a hammerlock, which will be a bit of a theme the second half of the match. Eaton gets a missile dropkick off the top for 2. Cornette cuts a promo on Koloff while Eaton has him in the hammerlock. At the 4 minutes left call Koloff Russian bears up and hits a .5 Sickle. It was glancing enough that Eaton is up first and goes back to the hammerlock again. This thing is really dragging down the stretch, when it should be picking up steam. With 2 minutes left Koloff gets out, but Eaton wraps the hammerlock back in again. Eaton's doing a great job of keeping Koloff down, but what's the endgame here? The plan to actually win? He's not submitting to a hammerlock. At the 1 minute call Koloff is free again. Slugfest. Koloff with the mounted punches at 30 seconds left. Koloff hits the Sickle but the bell rings for the time limit right as Koloff covers. Stan Lane comes in and the Express beat Koloff down. The first half was almost serviceable, but it got worse down the stretch, not better, with questionable layout and some very obvious time limit stalling. *

NWA/UWF Western States Heritage Championship: Larry Zbyszko (w/Baby Doll) def Barry Windham (c) in 19:16- Baby Doll gets in Windham's grill before the match. Windham hits an armdrag, Zbyszko yells at the ref, and the stalling is on. Not as bad as it could be though. It's not '90s Zbyszko or Mike Rotunda levels. Windham runs Zbyszko over with some shoulderblocks. Zbyszko starts to work Windham's bum knee that had been hurt by the Four Horsemen but Windham powers out. He goes for a hammerlock instead, but Windham fireman carrys out of it. Zbyszko: "DAMMIT!". Some frustration shoving. Zbyszko gets a drop toe hold and goes to the knee again. Winham enzuguris out of it. Windham powerslam for 2. He goes for a senton off the top rope but Zbyszko dodges it. Back to the knee. Windham powers out with a one arm Saito suplex. Another drop toe hold and back to the knee. Windham gets out, tries for a suplex and gets Zbyszko over but his knee gives out as well. Windham with a sleeper. Zbyszko gets to the ropes. They go outside again. Zbyszko takes a table shot but manages to post Windham. WIndham recovers, drags Zbyszko down, and pulls him crotch first into the post. Zbyszko tried to cover his junk up with his hand before going in. Funny. Windham whips Zbyszko and tries the flying lariat, but Zbyszko just collapses and Windham flies out side. Hard midring collision and both guys are down. A whip reversal leads to a ref bump. Baby Doll hands Zbyszko her High Heeled Shoe of Extra Pointiness +3, Zbyszko nails Windham with it, the ref recovers, and we have a new champion. This is the only title change in this belt's barely 18 month lifespan. Call me crazy, but I didn't hate this. **1/2

NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Road Warrior Hawk (w/Paul Ellering) def "Nature Boy" Ric Flair (c) (w/JJ Dillon) by DQ in 21:39- Re: tag wrestlers challenging for singles titles, see above, and multiply by 100. Due to tape issues on the Network copy this match is JIP'd in the opening minutes. This is essentially your basic Flair vs. big man formula match (or alternately put, "Flair wrestles himself" or "Flair wrestles a broomstick" for 20 minutes). Flair bounces off of Hawk on a shoulderblock attempt. Hawk no sells chops. Flair has a think then another bounce off. Hawk with a press slam. Flair: "OH GOD!". Press slam 2. Flair sells it like he just took a baseball bat to the back. Flair Flop! Hawk stomps a mudhole in the corner. Flair powders again and gets suplexed back in. Bear hug. Flair leans back to get a couple of near falls out of it. He tries to come back with chops to more Hawk no sells. An eye poke leads to a guardrail shot, which Hawk (stop me if you've heard this one already) no sells. Hawk picks the wooden stairs up and throws them in Flair's general direction. Back in Hawk chokes Flair, and Flair uses the cover to get a low blow in. Hawk finally sells something. Multiple eye gouges from Flair, and he rams Hawk into the guardrail. Flair hits a double ax handle off the top rope. Yes, off the top rope! I'm as shocked as you are. Hawk counters a backdrop into a neckbreaker. Flair dodges a diving fist and Hawk hurts his knee on the way down. Make sure your lunches are packed kids, we're off to school. Flair takes advantage of the ref jawing with Ellering to get another low blow in. Ellering and Dillon stare off. Classic Flair knee work with a bit of playing around follows. Figure four! Flair continues to play the not Tommy Young local ref like a fiddle getting rope leverage. Eventually Hawk uses his power to drag Flair back to the middle of the ring and reverses. Flair goes up top and normalcy returns as he gets thrown off. Hawk charges out of the corner with a clothesline, but his momentum was go great he takes out Flair and the ref! Flair is clotheslined over the top and out. Post jobs, and Flair is bleeding. A little. Like .4 normal Flair bleeding. Hawk hits a superplex but there's still no ref. Dillon comes in and whacks him with a chair. Hawk no sells and goes after Dillon. Flair takes advantage and whacks Hawk in the head with the chair. The ref gets back in but Hawk still kicks out at 2. Flair with the delayed suplex and Hawk no sells, all together (EVERYONE: Hawk no sells). Mounted punches. Flair Flop 2! Flair recovers, picks the chair back up and whacks Hawk with it right in front of the ref for the cheap DQ. Ugh. That's house show level stuff, not PPV. But then so was putting Hawk in this match in the first place. This is pretty much Flair's late '80s floor. ***1/4

Bob Caudle reads off the credits while the cage is being erected. All of them. Every single one. Is there a reason we couldn't have promos instead? Wait, cage? Oh yeah, this isn't just a Bunkhouse Stampede. This is a STEEL CAGE Bunkhouse Stampede. To be eliminated to you have to go over the top of the cage to the floor, or out the door to the floor. Don't even try to work out the physics of how a wrestler is supposed to get an opponent over the top of the cage in any believable kayfabe manner without the guy going over giving any help whatsoever, it's not possible. Or that they might be taking the mickey out of WWF's escape rules cage matches by doing the reverse rules. The big drama here is Dusty Rhodes has won every Stampede final to date (they say two in a row on TV but it's really three), and Dusty got in at the last moment in a final chance wild card match trying to keep the streak alive.

1988 Bunkhouse Stampede Finals: Your participants are NWA United States Heavyweight Champion Dusty Rhodes, NWA World Tag Team Champions Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard, The Warlord (wearing a lifeguard tank top for some reason), The Barbarian, Ivan Koloff, Lex Luger (who had recently turned face and left the Horsemen), and Road Warrior Animal (who won the most Stampede prelims this year).

The bell rings and we're off.....with lots of standing, meandering around and generic battle royale brawling. Wait, no one brought weapons. I was promised weapons! About all there is are the leather weightlifting belts half the guys are wearing. Dusty tries to get Tully through the door. Arn makes the save. Koloff is the first bleeder, but far from the last. Koloff, Dusty and Barbarian fight near the top. Barbarian tries to power Dusty over the top but can't. Animal chases Tully across the top rope. There's lots of heel/heel and face/face alliances going on. There can only be one winner but they're not working the "every man for himself" angle at all. Another way the Rumble succeeded where this failed. And the cameras are missing half the action, like an NJPW show in the US using the AXS camera team. About 10 minutes in Dusty wakes the crowd up by getting Tully's leather belt off and awhoopin' and awhippin' all the heels with it. There's absolutely no attempt at a story or through line or any kind of hook in here. Just brawling. Koloff gouges Dusty's arm with the buckle of the weightlifting belt and opens up several gashes. That's where Dusty's arm scars came from. Animal tries to push Arn over, and at the same time Tully is trying to drag Koloff through the door. The tag champs haven't been working together much to this point. Dusty's arm is a bloody mess. FINALLY nearly 20 damn minutes in someone finally gets eliminated when Animal pushes Koloff over the top and out. A couple of minutes later Animal pushes Warlord through the door, but goes out himself when someone we can't see kicks him out. Luger puts Tully in the Torture Rack. Barbarian is biting the cuts on Dusty's arm. Arn and Tully finally get to working together. They try to push Luger out the door, fail, reposition, and after a couple more minutes the momentum sends all three of them through the door and out like an airlock being opened. It's down to the Barbarian and Dusty. Paul Jones slips Barbarian knucks. Barbarian hits Dusty with them and gets two headbutts off the top rope. He drags Dusty to the door but Dusty fights out. There's several long shots of the crowd looking bored to death. Or "enthralled" according to JR. More like euthanized. They go up top. Dusty pushes Barbarian over to where he's straddling the cage, hits him with a Bionic Elbow, and Barbarian goes over and is eliminated. For the 478th year in a row in the comeback story of the millennium, Dusty Rhodes wins the Bunkhouse Stampede. And the crowd goes mild. Very, very mild. This lasting for 30 minutes is almost a crime against humanity. For most of the time it was teetering dangerously into the dreaded MINUS FIVE STAR territory, but the end run saved it enough to at least be spared that. DUD

Or to put it another way:

While JR and Caudle do their wrapup there's some loud chants and I'm pretty sure it's "REFUNDS!". Down the road in Stamford, Vince McMahon is smiling. Oh, and this was also Earl Hebner's last NWA show before jumping to WWF. He probably walked out of the arena and straight to Titan Tower.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: It's disasters like this that caused Crockett to have to sell to Ted Turner before the end of the year. Meanwhile, old Bunkhouse Stampede was quietly shipped to the glue factory and never heard of again.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: D