AWA All-Star Wrestling 4/14/1990

AWA All-Star Wrestling 4/14/1990

Greg Gagne and Ralph Strangis are your hosts

They showed clips of Mr. Satio beating Larry Z for the AWA title but Larry got his arm up at the last minute after review.

"Nick Bockwinkel has integrity and he can keep his integrity, because I've got the HOLY GRAIL. And now peace and harmony are ruling the universe of Larry Land." - Larry Z

"Atari and Saito, you can scream all you want about injustice, but that's the same injustice I felt when I flew 10,000 miles to Tokyo and was ripped off in front of your whole nation." - Larry Z

"But you know what? I got it back and I got it back from a referee who hates my guts." - Larry Z

"I AM THE UNDISPUTED HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. Nick Bockwinkel, keep your integrity, I'VE GOT THE WORLD." - Larry Z

"LONG LIVE LARRY LAND"

Good promo here by Larry Z with tons of fire.

"Larry Zbyszko's on top of the world, but I'm sure the Japanese contingent, especially Mr. Saito want Zbyszko back in Japan to defend that title." - Greg Gagne

"The Cat" Curtis Hughes vs Spike Jones
Curtis Hughes would go on to be Mr. Hughes.

"The cat, gettin' down." - Ralph Strangis

They proceed to blow the very first move

Curtis Hughes got the win with a second flying kick to the face. This was bad. They blew 3 of the 4 moves they tried and they ended it in no time. Spike also did a slow motion run into the corner that looked so bad.

They did an interview with Tom Stone and Sarge. Sarge picked him last week to be in the 3 way battle royale. The 3 captains all picked the weakest link off the other team to fight.

"I don't like the camp, I don't like the Sarge and I'm not real thrilled about being on the Sarge's team." - Tom Rocky Stone

"I'd rather be on Zbyszko's team cuz Sarge, your camp isn't so tough and neither are you."

Sarge said it didn't matter as long as they won.

Kokina Maximus vs Pete Sanchez
Kokina Maximus would go on to be Yokozuna in the WWF.

Spelling wasn't a Verne specialty

Greg said, "I don't think I'll ever wrestle again because of this big, fat, Kokina Maximus". Apparently, he did us all a favor and jumped Greg from behind and squashed his leg.

The finish

The pin | "Like Dandy Don used to say, turn out the lights, the party's over." - Greg Gagne

Kokina Maximus got the win with a Samoan Drop in no time. Kokina was put over here as a monster basically and looked good enough in his quick squash.

Kokina got the decision reversed for this

The ref then reversed the decision for Kokina attacking Pete after the bell. Pete Sanchez!!! UPSET OF THE YEAR BABY. Someone call Dick Vitale. Sanchezmania runnin' wild.

They did an interview after.

"We don't care about disqualification." - Shiek Adnan Al-Kassie

"I hope Yukon Nord, you're watching television because it's gonna happen to you."

Kassie said he would give the money in the briefcase to Kokina once he takes out Nord.

"Are we gonna get a look at that $5 million?" - Eric Bischoff | "Why? You writin' a book? Who you think you are?" - Kassie

Sergeant Slaughter vs W.T. Jones

W.T. rushes Sarge

The finish

Sarge took care of business quickly getting the win with the Cobra Clutch. W.T. Jones got a surprising amount of offense in here before being put away. I liked Sarge's lariat but W.T.'s punches were bad.

"He's the leading vote getter. I've been trying to get him on my team, but nobody wants to give him up." - Sarge on apparently the hottest star in the biz - Jake Milliman

"He's a big tough man. He hasn't had a real challenge yet, but he's going to have one next week when he takes on the Sarge." - Sarge on Kokina

Sarge then did the national anthem with the kids.

They showed Larry Z losing to Saito at the Tokyo Dome for the title months back.

"The self made spudhead of the week. Who is it? Call me now." - Larry Z on some wrestling fan line

"I want you to go out there and give it your best effort. I've got a lot of confidence and I know you can do it." - Baron |

"I believe and the team believes, you're not gonna let us down, are you?" - Larry Z

Larry said he believed in Jake.

We got more clips of Larry Z vs Saito from the Dome.

Saito with a schoolboy pin. They only showed a few minutes but the crowd was pretty hot and it looked decent.

We then got clips of Saito vs Larry from Superclash 4.

The finish

The ring announcer announced it for Saito but Bockwinkel gave it to Larry.

"Tonight, we are so disappoint about very controversial bout." - Tiger Hattori

"I like American food. I like American clothes. Also Minneapolis, I like very much." - Saito

"But tonight? Forget it. I hate American referee Nick Bockwinkel." - Saito

Saito said next time he would beat Larry. They showed the Larry Z title win interview again.

Team Challenge Series - Captain's Choice Battle Royale - Jake Milliman vs Tom Rocky Stone vs Todd Becker

Milliman gets knocked onto Larry Z, who hates him

Jake Milliman got the win in only a few minutes here after eliminating Tom Rocky Stone and Todd Becker in succession. This may have been the first ever 3 way match, though it was more of a battle royale. The story here was that Becker and Stone were teaming up against Milliman and Milliman was representing Larry's team, but Larry doesn't like Milliman and didn't want him to win. So even though Milliman pulled off the upset, Larry wasn't thrilled. The work wasn't anything special and Stone blew his elimination but it made sense and it was fine.

Next week is Seargant Slaughter vs Kokina Maximus, but sadly the next show I have is in May. Hoping WWE puts it up some day.

Overall thoughts: Again, not a bad hour of wrestling. The Larry/Saito stuff was good and the other matches were alright except for the Hughes match. I thought they did well with the various storylines here and everything here made a lot more sense than a lot of the stuff you'll see in wrestling nowadays. The AWA didn't have the greatest roster ever but at least they are trying here.