Portland Wrestling
1977-1979
VOLUME 8

The current Portland wrestling champions are as follows as of 4/21/79:
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.

We kick off volume 8 here on April 21, 1979 with a confrontation between the PNW champ Roddy Piper and Vicki Williams. Piper thinks there’s no place for women in wrestling, but naturally Vicki feels otherwise. While Roddy calls her a wench, Vicki says she’s a woman and Piper is a little boy. Well, that’s all Piper can take as he grabs her by the hair and throws her down on the Crow’s Nest telling her to leave. DAAAAANG, this would never happen on wrestling today. Piper doesn’t think she looks too tough right now. He thinks maybe Vicki just wants to be close to him, but that’s highly unlikely.

More from 4/21/79. Ed Wiskowski and Buddy Rose are talking up in the Crow’s Nest with Frank Bonnema. Wiskowski complains that Sandy Barr is the clumsiest ref he’s ever seen and DQ’s people when he’s the one in the way. Talk turns to the returning Stan Stasiak. Wiskowski claims that Stasiak lies about being Polish and that he’s actually a Yugoslavian. I don’t really understand eastern Europe enough to understand why that’s “AHH SNAP” insult, but I guess if nothing else I understand that he’s calling Stasiak a liar. Buddy Rose says he and Wiskowski plan to cripple Stan Stasiak so they can go to Madison Square Garden to be in the New York City main events. Don’t worry though, they’ll come back to Portland.

At the close of the show on 4/21/79 up in the Crow’s Nest, Ron Starr is yelling at Roddy Piper for grabbing Vicki Williams the way he did. He challenges Piper to a mixed tag match. Piper calls Vicki out for hiding behind Starr and tells her that she belongs at home in the kitchen. When Starr walks away, Piper goes to grab Vicki only for Starr to grab Piper from behind so that Vicki can slap Piper real good across the face. Piper sells it great and runs away. Since we won’t see the mixed tag match coming up, Piper brings in Judy Martin to be his partner in a losing effort.

• 2/3 Falls: Buddy Rose & Ed Wiskowski vs. Stan Stasiak & George Wells – (Portland Wrestling, 4/21/79)
  

FIRST FALL: Don’t know if the date is correct unless everyone in this match is working double duty, but we’ll go with it. Stasiak and Wells in full control as he cranks on a hammerlock working the left arms of Wiskowski and Rose clearly looking to weaken the arm to set up the Heart Punch. Everything is working great for them until the point when Wells holds Wiskowski for a Heart Punch and Rose comes up and nails him from behind. The heels work the back of Wells, but Rose can’t slam him and gets a slam in return. Hot tag to Stasiak, he’s quickly cooled off and given a knee drop followed by the FLYING HEADBUTT by Wiskowski to secure the first fall in 9:20.

SECOND FALL: We pick up where we left off with Ed Wiskowski and Stan Stasiak. Wiskowski and Rose keep Stasiak on their side of town keeping him grounded with headlocks and chinlocks. About five minutes in, Wells finally gets that hot tag only to miss a football tackle in the corner on Rose. Tag to Wiskowski, he starts working Wells over. He can’t get a pinfall though as Wells manages a headscissors on Wiskowski and tosses him aside to tag out. In comes Stasiak, but Rose jumps him from behind. Wiskowski slams him for the Flying Headbutt, but Stasiak is up and grazes him with a punch on the way down. HEART PUNCH (which is just a fist drop to the chest in this case) by Stasiak is enough to pin Wiskowski to win the second fall at 16:50 total.

THIRD FALL: No footage. If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on Rose and Wiskowski pulling out the win. **½ for what we got.

Buck Zumhofe returns to Portland after a tour down in Hawaii. He can’t believe nobody as run Buddy Rose out of town yet. Anyways, he’s glad to be back “where the best wrestlers in the world are”. Zumhofe hangs around through the spring and then heads back to the AWA where he’ll spend the next few years.

From 5/5/79. There is a $3000 battle royal this Tuesday night in Portland. Vicki Williams and Judy Martin want to be a part of it. Piper doesn’t seem to mind Judy Martin getting involved, but he’s got a problem with Vicki Williams being there. Piper says there won’t be a Sir Lancelot to save her this time. In other matters, Piper challenges Buddy Rose to a match for Tuesday night as well – if Buddy has got the guts.

And now the rebuttal from Buddy Rose. He says since Ed Wiskowski had to go back home to handle a family emergency, he doesn’t want to wrestle Roddy Piper this week. Well, Piper comes over to get him to sign a contract. When Rose refuses again, he punches Rose down. IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN, ROSE. That seems to be enough to change Buddy’s mind. He starts running down the names of the people he’s crippled and ran out of Portland and the same will happen to Piper this Tuesday night.

• PNW Tag Team Champions Adrian Adonis & Ron Starr vs. Buddy Rose & Johnny Mantell – (Portland Wrestling, 5/5/79)
  

Johnny Mantell is subbing for Wiskowski while he’s out for a few weeks. Ron Starr says when he and Adonis agreed to give Buddy Rose a tag titles shot that Stan Stasiak would be the referee and not Sandy Barr. To show how strong of champions they are, Starr and Adonis agree to put the tag belts with Sandy Barr as the ref anyways. That’s when Stan Stasiak appears and tells Sandy Barr he is relieved of his duties. For whatever reason, this match is cut down to nothing. Next thing we see, Adonis and Starr are awarded the match by Stasiak and the tag champs hold up the belts as the winners. Well, then.

From 5/5/79. Did Roddy Piper just rap for about twenty seconds? There’s this battle royal coming up this Tuesday night where Don Owen will give the winner $4000. He’s looking forward to getting his hands on Buddy Rose first, but then there’s Vicki Williams who will be in the battle royal. The best thing about it is that Vicki will close to him. HA!

Buddy Rose feels Roddy Piper is scared of him since the PNW title is not on the line. Next week, Buddy wants Don Owen to FORCE Piper to give him a title shot. Ed Wiskowski is back and he’s talking funny for some reason. Nevertheless, everything is back to normal for Buddy Rose.

• 2/3 Falls: Roddy Piper vs. Buddy Rose – (Portland Wrestling, 5/12/79)
  

FIRST FALL: This is a non-title match. Dutch Savage is the special enforcer on the floor while Sandy Barr is the ref. Lots of heat for this one. Piper yanks Rose out to the floor and throws him into some ringside chairs. Inside the ring, Piper punches and kicks at Rose until he bails out and takes as much time as Dutch Savage allows. Back in, Rose goes for the cut he made on Piper’s forehead last Tuesday night while working on a chinlock and wearing down Piper. Once Piper gets free and sees his own blood, Rose has to shut him down and goes back to the chinlock. He uses his knuckles to grind on that cut. Pretty brutal stuff. Piper mounts a slow comeback and jabs Rose in the throat with his thumb. Despite the crowd cheering for Piper (which would be unheard of a month ago), he shows he’s still the same Roddy Piper. More punches from Piper. He covers Rose after a swinging neckbreaker, but gives him a second one for the three-count to secure the first fall at 9:28.

SECOND FALL: Piper makes it awful hard for Rose to get in the ring to start things. He picks up where we left off working over Buddy’s neck. While he’s whipping Rose from corner to corner, the middle turnbuckle comes loose and causes all kinds of distractions that Rose uses to capitalize. Down on the floor, he runs Piper’s back into the ringpost and gives him a backbreaker, which is now where his game plan is heading. Once Piper gets back in the ring, Rose gives him a Billy Robinson Backbreaker only to lift him off the mat at the two-count just like Piper did to him in the first fall. He gives him another Billy Robinson Backbreaker and pins Piper to win the second fall at 15:39 total.

THIRD FALL: Naturally, Rose wants to stay on the back of Piper with a bearhug. Piper punches out and gets FIRED UP. They wind up brawling on the floor where both refs Sandy Barr and Dutch Savage have to pull them apart. While Rose is down on the floor getting stomped by Piper, he appears to be grabbing hold of Barr and Savage as well. Meanwhile, Ed Wiskowski appears at ringside and runs Piper face first into the ringpost! Wiskowski exits stage left never to be seen by the refs. The damage is done, but Savage and Barr wonder how Piper is down and out. Rose tries to say he kicked Piper in the head while lying on his backside, but they don’t buy it and DQ Rose to give Piper the match. (20:25 total) While a decent encounter, this wasn’t quite the brawl I was expecting from these two. ***¼

Rose heads over to the Crow’s Nest to voice his claim that he kicked Piper in the head and to insult Piper into putting his PNW title on the line next week. As Piper goes to the Crow’s Nest, Rose hightails it to the locker room. Piper says he never needed anybody else to beat up Buddy Rose. He points out how he had to fight and scratch and crawl for everything he’s got. Piper may have a big mouth, but he can back it up. Sandy Barr interrupts Roddy and tells us that Don Owen has decided to make a no-disqualification match with six guards around the ring (lumberjack match?) for Roddy Piper and Buddy Rose for next Saturday night. Piper is pretty pumped about this. He plans to pay each one of those guards himself. Anytime Rose tries to leave the ring, there’s going to be a big fist coming at his face. Buddy Rose is in a lot of trouble, brother.

When we return to Portland, Roddy Piper will take on Buddy Rose in a no-DQ lumberjack match for the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title! Plus, KILLER BROOKS RETURNS TO PORTLAND FOR REVENGE!