Portland Wrestling
1977-1979
VOLUME 7

The current Portland wrestling champions are as follows as of 4/7/79:
NWA World Champion: Harley Race (2/6/1977)
PNW Heavyweight Champion: Roddy Piper (2/17/1979)
PNW Tag Team Champions: Adrian Adonis & Ron Starr (4/3/1979)

Your host is Frank Bonnema.

• Elimination Match: Buddy Rose, Roddy Piper, Killer Brooks & Ed Wiskowski vs. Adrian Adonis, Ron Starr, George Wells & Hector Guerrero – (Portland Wrestling, 4/7/79)
  

Before we head to the ring, the “Fearsome Foursome” a.k.a. the Rose Army are asked about challenges from Stan Stasiak and Ron Starr for next week. The Polish Prince Ed Wiskowski says he’ll show that Polish commoner Stan Stasiak a thing or two. It takes them longer to decide what to do about Ron Starr, but the PNW champ Roddy Piper says he’ll take care of Starr. Boy, the crowd starts booing Piper as soon as he speaks. They don’t even know what to be mad about yet except the fact that Piper is SPEAKING. Crazy heat there. Last week we saw them with all the belts in Portland, but since then Adrian Adonis and Ron Starr have beaten Roddy Piper and Killer Brooks on the previous Tuesday. Dutch Savage was originally supposed to be a part of the babyface team, but Hector Guerrero is an interesting substitution.

Piper plays a little ditty on the bagpipes and the crowd boos him even more. He almost can’t be more hated right now without being physically harmed. Piper tries to get Guerrero to come over to the Rose Army corner to start, but he ain’t that dumb. Enough with the games, they lockup in the center of the ring. Guerrero backs Piper into the corner and hiptosses him across the ring and follows up with a flying headscissors. Piper bails out and comes back inside to try the same thing. He lands the hiptoss, but completely misses the flying headscissors. That’s just awesome. Guerrero goes for the Jay Youngblood splash off the ropes for two. Welles and Starr take turns twisting around on Piper’s arm. Adonis comes off the top rope with a flying elbow drop on the arm. More work on the arm as Adonis leads to a running hammerlock slam. Back to Starr, Piper gets close enough to Rose to make a tag. Rose runs right into a series of armdrags until he can’t take it anymore and collapses over at Wiskowski for a tag. Starr wins a slugfest and knocks Wiskowski silly into the corner. Tag to Wells, they stick to the gameplan and work the arm. Piper manages a tag and thumbs Wells in the throat behind ref Sandy Barr’s back. That brings in Adonis and Starr, but Wells seems to NO-SELL the thumb and goes back to pounding on Piper. He gets caught in the wrong corner and gets his nuts pulled into the ringpost much to the delight of all of Portland. Weak running powerslam by Starr only gets two. Piper uses the thumb again right in Starr’s throat. Tag to Brooks, he cranks on Starr’s neck. Wiskowski comes in and does the same. Now they tag in and out stomping on Starr much like the New Day does in 2016. Not that it’s a revolutionary move, but the more things change, amirite? Starr just has the hardest time trying to reach his corner. Once he gets passed Rose, he leaps to hot tag Wells. He is cleaning house and headbutting Rose. Running Splash by Wells on Rose gets 1-2-NO! Wiskowski breaks it up with a flying headbutt. Rose rolls over and pins Wells at 12:50.

The match continues 4-on-3. Adonis gets caught on the wrong side of town building to a hot tag to Guerrero. After a butt-butt and the Jay Youngblood splash, it looks like Guerrero might upset Piper when Brooks pulls Guerrero off him. The match starts to break down and during the chaos, Brooks and Piper pick up Guerrero and dump him balls first on a top turnbuckle. Brooks launches Guerrero in the air and he crashes on his stomach. Together, he and Piper deliver a double gutbuster. More pounding on the mid-section. One more double gutbuster and Guerrero is done at 19:01. Adonis and Starr complain to Sandy Barr that they can’t keep double-teaming like that, but they have until the count of FIVE, boys.

So now it’s Adonis and Starr against the entire Rose Army. Starr picks up where we left off here against Piper. He shocks Piper with a sunset flip and nearly pins him there. Tag to Brooks, he gets caught in the other corner and gets his ribs busted for a little bit of payback. Tag to Adonis, they continue to maintain control of Brooks. Adonis baits Brooks into a Spinning Toe Hold, which may or may not have been his finisher at the time. Piper immediately breaks that up. Ron Starr tags in and delivers a Russian legsweep to Brooks. He covers, but moves as Wiskowski comes flying in with a headbutt that nails Brooks! Oh boy. Starr pins Brooks at 22:50.

And here we go. Piper thinks Wiskowski did that on purpose and explains it to Brooks that way. Brooks goes after Wiskowski while Rose jumps Piper and throws him out. Rose comes over and saves his partner in crime. He gives Brooks a Billy Robinson backbreaker while Wiskowski comes off the top right on the head with a knee drop. Wow, *that* was brutal. So since the match has been ultimately thrown out, the unofficial time for this match comes to (22:50). It’s unofficial because they take breaks in between pinfalls in Portland and I didn’t get that specific with it by cutting out the breaks. I just counted from the first bell to the last bell. Piper runs Wiskowski and Rose out of the ring and the crowd seems to be FAVORING Piper now as he calls for medical assistance. Just an amazing atmosphere and never once did this match feel dull. Great psychology and hard work shown from everybody here. ****

More from 4/7/79. Over at Bonnema, Buddy Rose and Ed Wiskowski talk about how what happened to Killer Brooks was an accident. It wasn’t until Brooks attacked Wiskowski that they decided to turn on them and try to break Killer Brooks’ neck. Rose even tells Don Owen to give Adrian Adonis and Ron Starr the match because they aren’t going back to the ring tonight. He and Wiskowski feel they can get along with anybody, but Piper and Brooks were obsessed with being captains of the team. From here on out, only Rose and Wiskowski will be working together and nobody else. Rose challenges Piper to a fight. Meanwhile, Adonis and Starr are calling Rose and Wiskowski to come back to the ring to finish the match. The bell rings and Rose and Wiskowski let the 20-count come and go because they don’t care. Big deal. They consider what they did to Piper and Brooks a victory. Starr and Adonis run them off and talk about how they will stay the champs around here.

• Buddy Rose vs. Hector Guerrero – (Portland Wrestling, 4/14/79)
  

It’s weird seeing Hector without a mustache. He takes a page out of the Buddy Rose playbook by working on the left arm with armbars and short-arm scissor holds. That eats up about the first six minutes of this match. It’s not like Buddy Rose just lies there either. He’s trying to escape for the whole six minutes and Hector just won’t let him go. Ed Wiskowski heads down to give Rose some encouragement. Back inside, Rose wants a handshake and just wants a good clean wrestling match. Guerrero shakes the left hand and twists on the injured arm some more. Rose shoots him off into the ropes for a backdrop and Guerrero flips perfectly over Rose onto his feet. Another armbar by Hector, but Rose sends Guerrero into the ropes again and drills him with a back elbow from the right arm. Rose launches Guerrero into the air a few times causing him to crash and burn on his ribs. Guerrero makes a quick comeback nearly pinning Rose with a sunset flip. He delivers the Jay Youngblood splash, but only gets two. Rose gets shot up on the top turnbuckle and Guerrero kicks him down. It looks like he’s got Rose right where he wants him, but that’s when Rose catches a crossbody block and backbreakers Guerrero. The Billy Robinson backbreaker gives Rose the win. (10:59) Afterwards, Wiskowski returns and they deliver the backbreaker/knee drop combo that took Killer Brooks out of action last week. The same happens to Hector as he gets stretchered out of the ring. While Killer Brooks will come back and get some revenge on Ed Wiskowski, Portland will never see Hector Guerrero again. **½

From 4/14/79. If you know there’s a Roddy Piper promo coming, you should take a few moments and listen. Roddy Piper has got his Superman t-shirt on here. It’s the silver Superman logo from the movie, which I would imagine was still in the theater at the time considering how popular it was. This is VINTAGE PIPER. He talks a thousand words a minute here running down Buddy Rose and Ed Wiskowski. He says Rose isn’t much of an athlete. He eats so many hamburgers, he’s got golden arches. Piper promises Wiskowski that his pal Killer Brooks is coming back for him and he ought to be scared. Talk turns to Vickie Williams who apparently wants a piece of the Piper. He says he has no problem slapping her around if she gets in his way. HA! He feels that women belong at home doing the menial chores while the men go out and make a living. Before he goes, he tells Brooks if he’s watching that he’s sending him minerals and vitamins by the bale in the mail so he can get better real soon. The smartest man in America is supposed to be the President. He got caught (referring to Nixon), but I ain’t got caught yet, jack.

More from 4/14/79. We get an interview from Adrian Adonis and Ron Starr – the PNW tag champs. Referring to the finish of last week’s eight-man match where Wiskowski headbutted Brooks, Adonis considered that simple karma. What goes around came around for those boys. As for Ron Starr, he faces Roddy Piper on this show and says no matter the outcome, he will continue to chase Piper for the PNW heavyweight title. Starr then shows us a blown up picture of Buddy Rose’s girlfriends. He calls them Sweaty Betty, Juicy Lucy, and I guess he couldn’t come up with a third name because there’s three of them. Basically, it’s a picture of three fat ugly chicks in cheerleader outfits. One of them is holding a pig. Adrian says the pig in the picture is Roddy when he was younger. Adonis makes a Green Acres reference saying Piper was too much of a pimple-faced pig to be Arnold Ziffel. WHAT? Seems like some less than attractive fat chicks in the audience would be a little embarrassed here.

We continue with 4/14/79. Buddy Rose pulls out a drawing (I think?) of Superman that was given to him by a chick who said Superman reminded her of him. Har har. Anyways, they think the Heart Punch of Stan Stasiak is illegal because Ed Wiskowski (who just wrestled Stasiak) has one of the biggest chests in wrestling and that move shouldn’t affect him so much. They plan on doing to Stasiak what has been done to Killer Brooks and Hector Guerrero next week. Wiskowski suggests they go after his hand instead. Rose says Stasiak won’t be heading back to Madison Square Garden anytime soon when they get through with him.

And that’s a wrap, folks. Until next time, so long for now!