AWA 1/15/1988 - The Midnight Rockers vs Adrian Adonis and Bob Orton Jr.

AWA 1/15/1988 - The Midnight Rockers vs Adrian Adonis and Bob Orton Jr.

This went to a double count out when both teams were fighting out of the ring. This was mostly all the heels beating up on Shawn for 15 minutes or so before the quick hot tag to Marty and then the finish. Orton had some mis-timings with Shawn, but otherwise he was very good here doing big bumps and having simple but good looking offense. Adrian was no slouch here either as even though he was very big here, he really was good at the small things like leg sweeping Michaels and standing in front of Shawn so he couldn't make a tag. Michaels' selling was really really good here and made up a lot of the highlights of the match. This was very good but probably should have been better considering the talent involved, and maybe with a true finish it would have been. You have to feel for Adrian and Bob here as less than 1-2 years earlier they were making big bucks in the WWF and now were down here despite being top level talents.

Portland Wrestling 8/31/1979 - 2/3 Falls - Playboy Buddy Rose vs Adrian Adonis

Portland Wrestling 8/31/1979 - 2/3 Falls - Playboy Buddy Rose vs Adrian Adonis

"The robe valued at $1000 bucks, they said." - Frank Bonnema

Rip Rogers, who was with Buddy, was then kicked out.

1st fall finish

Rose took the first fall with punches, a footstomp, an elbow and a boot to the gut after Adonis missed the splash as shown above.

Rose grabs the Stomach Claw

Granny ain't having none of it!

"Sandy Barr was counting on him outside the ring. I've never seen that before!"

Adrian Adonis wins the 2nd fall with a spinning toe hold.

"Inside backbreaker by Rose, but on his sore knee."

EYE NOOGIES!!!

Rip Rogers then interfered above to give Adrian Adonis the win over Buddy Rose by DQ at 2 falls to 1.

A fan apparently threw a pen at Rose and Rose may have used it on Adonis while he was poking his eye.

Overall thoughts: The DQ finished sucked as usual, but this was an absolutely great performance by both men on what was probably a throwaway nothing special match for them. Rose's selling and facials were just off the chart. You've seen the usual stooging, but this was stooging at another level. Better than Flair and even better than Arn. Rose has some of the best facials I've ever seen. They are so good that you could probably see them from the last row in the building and he reminds me of Glass Joe from Punch-Out with how over the top they are. Absolutely amazing and inspiring. Adonis had one of the best babyface performances I've seen in a long time selling like crazy and getting fired up to put on the spinning toe hold. I've never seen Adrian work face before but man was he great at it.

This was a top notch performance by both men and both of these dudes are so far above what we are getting now. I guarantee you that if these two were doing this today, they'd be headlining Wrestlemania.

The story of the match had Adrian working Rose's knee/leg and Rose working Adrian's stomach, in what I found to be pretty fresh since we never see anything like that now. Rose spent a lot of the match ducking Adrian and then getting in cheap shots to regain control, as a good heel should do. The crowd loved every second of this and even an old lady got involved, so you know this was awesome.

This was a great match and this was something every inspiring wrestler should copy.