Somebody Call 911! Connor is Watching NWA On Fire. 5-4-13

NWA On Fire is a nationally syndicated professional wrestling program that combines footage of “current” wrestling shows promoted by NWA affiliated promotions across the Northeast and classic matches from various promotions from across the globe. Each weekend, I take a semi-comical, critical look at the half hour version of their program. 

Let’s start off with some current events in the world of NWA On Fire. Recently, the NWA On Fire has partnered up with two other indie promotions, the New Jersey based NWA Liberty States and the Tri-State area based Pro Wrestling Syndicate. Now NWA On Fire is no stranger to teaming up with other small promotions so the news of the NWA Liberty States partnership isn’t Earth shattering. But it does seem like fairly big news that NWA On Fire is partnering with Pro Wrestling Syndicate. PWS is one of the bigger indies out there, having promoted a couple of huge shows during WrestleMania Weekend. It’s also currently, to my knowledge without a TV deal. And as much as I make fun of NWA On Fire’s low-rent production, they do have TV in New York City and Philadelphia. And as mentioned in previous columns, NWA On Fire doesn’t run shows more than once or twice every other month. Even their  announcers are subliminally burying the lackluster nature of their current product on NWA On Fire’s official website.   So it’s a natural fit. Pro Wrestling Syndicate puts on huge indies shows that won’t look embarrassing next to NWA On Fire’s classic footage and NWA On Fire has airtime. NWA On Fire hasn’t officially announced the extent of their working relationship but I can’t imagine them not airing footage from PWS shows, even if it’s just the matches featuring current or former NWA On Fire wrestlers.

Anyway, onto today’s show we go!

This is the last episode of a three week series of episodes dedicated to classic matches of yesteryear. NWA On Fire’s Facebook page was advertising last week’s episode with Tito Santana and Tony Atlas so I’m guessing the tapes they sent to the MyNetworkTV affiliate here got mixed up and they aired this week’s last week and this week’s show is what was supposed to air last week. It doesn’t really matter much since these matches are 20-25 years old anyways…

“Superfly” Jimmy Snuka Vs Kodiak Bear

We’re joined in progress here. Judging by the looks of the crowd and the referee’s mullet, this match is from sometime in the early ’90s after the end of Snuka’s WWF run. We’re in a packed high school gym somewhere outside of Philadelphia (assumption on my part but there a lot of shots of dudes with Flyers and Eagles gear on. Put two and two together!) . The Kodiak Bear is not a literal bear but a fat hairy dude.  Kodiak Bear slowly works over Snuka. There’s a dude in the front row with an Extreme Championship Wrestling sweatshirt and cap (see! Pennsylvania!)  so I’m going to say this is from ’94/’95.  Snuka slowly makes a comeback. He slams the Kodiak Bear on his flabby ass. He goes for the Superfly Splash but The Bear gets up. It doesn’t matter much because Snuka just finished him with a flying cross-body. Winner: Jimmy Snuka via pinfall. This sort of sucked.  It’s just reminiscent of every match I’ve seen where an ’80s WWF babyface shows up to an indy show in the past 15-20 years. Jimmy Snuka was just reaching the sad, old man stage of his career here. Amazing that he continues to wrestle part time twenty years after this match.

Mixed Six Man Tag Team Match: Dick The Bruiser, The Crusher, and Little Bruiser Vs The Blackjacks and Bobby Heenan

I’m not sure when or where this is from. Somewhere in the Midwest from the mid ’70s I assume.  Little Bruiser and Heenan start off and of course, Little Bruiser comically humiliates Heenan (who’s sporting quite the pedo-stache). Dick The Bruiser and Blackjack Mulligan trade some stiff blows. Da Bruiser works over Mulligan and Little Bruiser occasionally gets some shots in on the big cowboy. What a dick! The Crusher tags in and immediately gets worked over. We get a clip and cut to Dick The Bruiser making a comeback. Mulligan accidentally whacks Lanza. Bruiser pulls B0bby’s mustache and hits a back drop on him. This match is so old Bobby’s not “The Brain” yet but “Pretty Boy”. The Blackjacks and The Bruiser and Da Crusher end up brawling around ringside. Bruiser and Crusher hit a double noggin knocker on the blackjacks. Heenan does a seriously nasty bladejob. High up on the Muta Scale. Heenan accidentally dropkicks Lanza. Crusher tags in and we get another clip.  Little Bruiser hits a flying cross-body on future WWE Road Agent Blackjack Lanza and we get a pier six brawl. Little Bruiser hits a splash on Heenan and gets the three count. After the match, Heenan and The Blackjacks attack the midget and pummel him. Da Crusher and Dick The Bruiser try to make the save and a wild brawl ensues with The Blackjacks and Heenan eventually retreating. Winners: Dick The Bruiser, The Crusher, and Little Bruiser via pinfall. Workrate purists probably wouldn’t rate this highly but this was the definition of dumb fun. Managed to get the right balance of hard hitting brawl and goofy comedy match.

Non Title Match: NWA World Champion “Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs (?) Rose

This is from an unidentified TV studio somewhere in the early-mid ’80s. Nick Patrick is officiating. Gordon Solie’s on commentary (This is from Florida maybe?)  and drolly goes over Flair’s kayfabe history. I don’t catch the jobber’s entrance, Solie refers to him as Rose but it isn’t Buddy or Randy. This is as much of a squash match as you get for ’80s Flair with Rose only getting in a few hope spots. Flair finishes Rose off in a few minutes with a double underhook and the Figure Four Leglock. Winner: Ric Flair via submission.

Brickhouse Brown and Eric Embry Vs Cactus Jack and Super Black Ninja (with Skandor Akbar)

Super Black Ninja is a young, bearded unmasked Great Muta. Wow. They really dug this one up out of nowhere. This week’s show doesn’t feature any in-studio segments so I had to Google who Jack’s tag team partner. I knew Jack’s partner from somewhere and then I looked closer and was like “WAITASECOND!” and marked out like crazy. Never knew Muta did anything in the US before WCW.

This is from World Class Championship Wrestling. We’re in the Dallas Sportatorium sometime in late ’88. Crowd is super hot and ready for freddy.  Cactus Jack and Brickhouse Brown start. Brown pummels Jack and Super Black Ninja tags in and gets his ass handed to him as well. Eric Embry tags in and keeps the momentum going for a while but then eventually, the heels work him over. Jack and Ninja double team Embry (who, to me, always kind of resembled a cross between a fatter Steve Corino or a slightly skinnier Balls Mahoney). Embry gets the hot tag but Iceman King Parsons and Gary Young make the run in and Parsons attacks the babyfaces with a chloroform soaked rag(!?)!  That’s something I haven’t seen since Giant Gonzalez busted it out at WrestleMania IX. Akbar’s stable handcuffs Brown and Embry to the ropes and beats them senselessly until a cavalry of babyfaces led by Chris Adams and featuring Steve Cox and a super young Jeff Jarrett make the save. It’s pandemonium at ringside and Marc Lowrence tries to get a word from Akbar but they all storm off. Result: No Contest due to heel tomfoolery. One of those matches that did exactly what it set out to do (establish Embry as the scrappy, odds overcoming babyface, Brown as a powerhouse, and Akbar’s Army as a dastardly heel stable) and had a red hot crowd. Sportatorium is up there with Madison Square Garden and the ECW Arena for best wrestling audiences. Even in the lesser, later years of WCCW, the fans always seemed ready like Freddy for whatever action was being presented.

This was a really, really fun Classics edition on NWA On Fire. Easily the best of the three and one of the most entertaining episodes of the show.  You got the sense that they were trying to pack in as much stuff as possible in this show so even if something wasn’t good, it was over in 3-4 minutes. Every segment except for the opening one was a winner. Especially the two tag team matches which were the kind of  matches that demonstrate why I love these classics episodes. Fun, unique matches that you just won’t see anywhere else, not even on WWE Classics on Demand (which I don’t get because Time Warner doesn’t carry it but that’s another rant). You got four segments with eight, surefire Hall of Famers (Snuka, Dick The Bruiser, Crusher, Heenan, Blackjacks, Ric Flair, Cactus Jack, and Great Muta) with a lot of other big names floating about. My only complaint (and it’s a pretty minor one) is over the lack of studio segments to give the back story on some of these matches. But like I said, you got the sense that they were trying to shoehorn in as much of their video library as they could in 22 minutes so I’m not going to complain too much if we got another match in favor of Ken Reedy yammering about how much of an icon Ric Flair is in the business. Two very strong thumbs up for this show. Almost makes me wish NWA On Fire was just a classic wrestling show but we got to go back to the current guys sometime.

Next Week: In addition to recapping next week’s show (which should be a return to more recent footage but who knows?), I’ll give a rundown on some of the names and faces of the current roster of NWA On Fire as they probably…possibly…potentially start the build up to their next show at the Parsippany PAL in June. Or not!

 

Photo Credit: NWA On Fire