#108 – NWA World Championship Wrestling, November 26, 1988, “Dusty’s Eye”
We begin the road to our Thanksgiving episode with a stop at the Techwood Drive studios to review the entire November 26, 1988 episode of NWA World Championship Wrestling before we get to our review of Starrcade 1988 next episode. Now, as many of you may remember, there is a very particular reason for us to review this episode of NWA WCW Saturday Night, DUSTY’S EYE, but the fun doesn’t end there. We also get into many other great things like The Commandoes, The Cruel Connection, the tremendous Rick Steiner, The Midnight Express feud, Bam Bam Bigelow, and so much more. Please RSVP for the Thanksgiving episode by emailing Black Cat at blackcat@flairchop.com with your wrestling-themed Thanksgiving side dish! Help support the Old School Wrestling Podcast by purchasing the first two seasons of the OSWP for only $9.99 each. You can also pick up the amazing Dean Stahl “Thanksgiving at the Crockett’s” poster at flairchop.com!
Yes! This is great! I went to Starrcade 88 in Norfolk Va my first live wrestling show. I cannot wait for the next episode!
Need live show report!
would also like to add this is 3 Dusty shows in a row , “The Fall of Dusty Rhodes!”
Hey, now, it’s only two. NEXT episode will be three.
Loved the jobber talk near the end of the program.
Don’t sleep on Mike Jackson! He may have been 165 pounds, prematurely gray, and partially bald, but he was a great worker who frequently shined on TBS, even in three minute squashes.
The Mulkeys are the kings of all jobbers! No disrespect to your boy Bill Mulkey, but Randy Mulkey was clearly the Shawn Michaels/Ricky Morton of the team, setter of the gold standard for crazy jobber bumps.
Iron Mike Sharpe and SD Jones were also frequent opponents during opening matches on house shows and even on Prime Time Wrestling.
I’m also fond of George South, a jobber who was good enough that when given the chance, could wrestler just fine in a long match. Ric Flair famously went long in a TV match with South to just prove a point to Dusty Rhodes, wrestling a memorable back and forth contest just to show he could.
As you’ve probably discussed at some point in the show’s long history, a very green Big Bubba Rogers can be seen stumbling his way through TBS squash matches under his real name Ray Traylor prior to getting the gig as Cornette’s .
I love Starrcade season! Keep up the good work (meaning, keep talking about Crockett Promotions).
Comparing Randy Mulkey to Shawn Michaels and Ricky Morton just made my day.
And we know JCP and late 80s WWF is our bread and butter 🙂
Who did the best “My eye!” Dusty Rhodes or Terry Funk?
That’s like picking which of my kids I love the most (meaning, I have a preference, but I’ll never admit it)….
Hello Guys,
Loved the podcast.
Like to comment on the jobbers.
I started watching WWF wrestling back in 1992.
Got all pumped up for Challenge and Superstars on Saturday mornings.
The two guys I remember that would always lose, but always seemed to put on a great match with the superstars they wrestled were Jim Powers and Chris Walker.
I did find that Jim Powers was a decent superstar back in the 1980’s, but before he left the WWF, he was just a guy to put the stars over.
Chris Walker wrestled a little in Global Wrestling and I thought at the time always put on a great match, but could never get the win. When I was a kid I always thought that one of them would pull out a win on somebody, but never did.
Thanks guys.
Canadian Stand Up Comedian Mark Little mentions Bam Bam Bigelow’s head tattoo at 3:45 in this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4eHj-u9QhE
Being Canadian, I have 0 experience with NWA/JCP/WCW so I love hearing it. Can’t wait for the next episode!
Also if Bam Bam did a huracanrana I feel it would be named the Lunacanrana after his main squeeze Luna Vachon.
Great show, guys. Nothing makes my morning exercise/walk go by easier than some old school NWA. The discussion about the shots of children in the audience was quite hilarious.
it should have been the sheepherders vs the fantastics in the finals but the sheepherders jumped to the wwf and was replaced by simmons and gilbert the team that they had beat .
“Also if Bam Bam did a huracanrana I feel it would be named the Lunacanrana after his main squeeze Luna Vachon.”
^Brilliant.
Bam Bam’s NWA theme, while not great, was better than the theme they stuck to him in the WWF in the 90s. I *guess* it sounds menacing, but it mostly sounds like somebody sat down to record a song, got about half of the instruments recorded, then went to the grocery store before finally deciding “yeah, I guess that’ll do.”
I’ve got to give jobber shout outs to Tom Stone and Dusty/Dale Wolf.
Stone beat Jake the Snake when Jake had his vision impaired by Rick Martel’s Arrogance spray
I mention Wolf because my first confirmation that wrestling “wasn’t real” was when I saw a local newscast’s “ground breaking” story that wrestling was pre-determined and they showed clips of an Ultimate Warrior/Dusty Wolf match. The newscaster brilliantly pointed out how Wolf was clearly bending his knees to jump so Warrior could get him up for the gorilla press slam. Investigative reporting at its finest.
Loved this re-cap guys, it’s always fun to hear you talk about old TV tapings even though the PPVs and major events are more exciting. The TV tapings, though, are what made kids into wrestling fans on Saturday mornings/evenings.
The Quick 1-2-3 this week was my favorite so far, as I really pay attention to jobbers and always rooted for them as a kid (one of my top 3 marking out moments was when Barry Horowitz beat Skip of the Body Donnas to start his back-patting phase…okay I just admitted my age).
Going back to old WWF tapes in my current years, it’s really interesting to pay attention to their jobbers in particular. Not only were they used to enhance talent, but some of them actually have noticeable careers. It really shows the transition from Vince Sr.’s days, showing off guys like Tony Garea and Rene Goulet as contenders and sometimes former champions, into Vince Jr.’s era, who kept these guys on the payroll to put over his tanned, muscle-bound monsters that he cherry-picked in 1984. S.D. Jones, for example, appeared in many late-card matches as part of six-man teams with Rocky Johnson and Tony Atlas, though he was usually the guy to take the fall when it was time to put the Wild Samoans over.
Can’t wait for the big announcement and hopefully my exclusive invite to the dinner. I’ll try to look through Pinterest for a great recipe to share.
Just wanted to let you know i am a new listener and i am hooked! I just finished listening to episodes 76-108 and they were amazing! You guys are hilarious, Dre with the great impressions and Black Cat with his dry sense of humor. Hilarious! So just wanted to give you guys props and I cant wait for the new episode! Also I think my wife got me the two boxed sets for Christmas, if so i will devour those in no time. Thanks for entertaining me and God Bless!
Great show guys.
I have long thought that jobbers for NWA/WCW Saturday Night were random guys pulled off the street earlier in the day. Probably from day-labor pools of guys trying to get under-the-table manual labor jobs on a Saturday morning. And it seemingly appeared that Virgil Runnels had a taste for jobbers with no build, massive amounts of body hair, and pasty white bird chests with beer guts. 80s WCW jobbers made 80s porn stars look like GQ in contrast.
Also, I love the whole thing with Jim Ross pointing out that the young black child in the crowd must be a Ron Simmons fan. It certainly was a different time. Good thing Bobby Heenan wasn’t there. He probably would have replied, “yeah, and why’s that Ross?”. You may as well find a kid in the crowd with a yamaka on during a Barry Horowitz match and point out that he must be a fan too.
PS- had lunch at Abdullas House of Ribs and Chinese Food the other day. Lots of ghetto birds in the area.