Portland Wrestling
1980
VOLUME 13

The current Portland wrestling champions are as follows as of 11/8/1980:
NWA World Champion: Harley Race (9/9/1980)
PNW Heavyweight Champion: Buddy Rose (9/20/1980)
PNW Tag Team Champions: Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot (10/25/1980)

Your host is Frank Bonnema.

• Buzz Sawyer vs. Tiny Anderson – (Portland Wrestling, 11/8/80)
  

Good to have Buzz Sawyer come to town. He’s had quite a 1980 wrestling out in my neck of the woods in the Mid-Atlantic territory and also Knoxville. Tiny Anderson is of course anything but tiny. He’s announced at 280 pounds – and Portland *hates* him. Poor Don Owen screws up the introductions, but everybody has a laugh about it. Even Frank at first gets Tiny’s town wrong. Is Tiny Anderson from Seattle, Salt Lake City, or Saint Paul? Who really knows for sure? Sawyer works Tiny down into a hammerlock. While Tiny gets some licks in, Buzz pretty much dominates this match. Sawyer delivers a devastating knee drop to Anderson and *slams* the big guy for the FLYING SPLASH for the win in 4:41.

More from 11/8/80. Jonathan Boyd says he’s going to carry his HUGE boomerang wherever he goes from now to protect himself from the Rose Army. He will refer to Buddy as “Bloody Rose” and says that’s the way he’ll be next Tuesday night when Boyd gets Rose in the STEEL CAGE. The sound is off, but it’s still a good promo from Boyd.

• The Destroyer vs. Eric Embry – (Portland Wrestling, 11/8/80)
  

No, it’s not Dick Beyer. It’s actually the “Cuban Assassin” David Sierra working under the hood. We’ve already got our resident Cuban. Bonnema suggests that maybe the Destroyer is sticking stuff under his mask to headbutt people. Embry fights out of a headlock and catches Destroyer for a slam, but Destroyer kicks his legs and Embry collapses for two. When the Destroyer gets tired of an armbar, he throws Embry to the floor and then abuses him on the apron. Embry punches back, but Destroyer cuts him off. Jumping back elbow gets two. An atomic drop gets two as well. From a nerve hold, Destroyer moves to a headscissors on the mat. Destroyer then holds Embry up in the air by his throat. A neckbreaker hold over the shoulders doesn’t last long and Destroyer tosses Embry to the floor again. Back in, we’ve got more choking and more neck work. A suplex by Destroyer gets two as Embry puts his foot on the bottom rope. Destroyer throws Embry to the floor again and he tries to keep him out there, but eventually Embry grabs Destroyer by the foot and slams his leg on the apron. HERE COMES EMBRY~! Unfortunately, he’s cooled off quickly as he telegraphs a backdrop. Destroyer picks him up for a PILEDRIVER and walks from one corner to the opposite corner before he drops Embry to the mat. AWESOME. (11:19) Now I want to see the Destroyer join the Rose Army for eight-man tags with Youngblood, Lightfoot, Sawyer, and Borne. Hopefully this happens soon. **½

Is Jonathan Boyd a “deplorable”? According to Buddy Rose, it seems that way. Rose points out that the only way Boyd can lick him is if he was on a postage stamp. HA! Boyd’s face looks like a bag of doorknobs because he’s been beaten so bad. Rose feels Boyd is so obsessed with beating him that he’s aging himself. The other day Boyd was walking by a cemetery and two guys with shovels started chasing him. You won’t beat him, Boyd. Rip Oliver gives his two cents. If he hadn’t pulled Rose off Boyd last week, Boyd wouldn’t be able to make it to wrestle her last week. Well there ya go.

• 2/3 Falls: Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot vs. Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver – (Portland Wrestling, 11/8/80)
  

This is the first we’ve seen of Jay Youngblood in the Portland since my very first Portland recap from September 1977 in way back in October 2015. In one match, he faced Buddy Rose (surprise!) in a 2/3 falls match with Lord Jonathan Boyd as the special referee. In a second match, Rose breaks Jay’s arm to send him out of the territory. So now he’s back for REVENGE and he’s joined forced with fellow Indian (but probably not really) Joe Lightfoot. Since he left Portland in 1977, he’s won two of his five NWA world tag titles with Ricky Steamboat in the Mid-Atlantic territory.

FIRST FALL: If Buddy Rose and Rip Oliver win, they get a PNW tag titles shot next week. Youngblood and Lightfoot keep Oliver controlled with headlocks and play around with that for a little while. At one point, Lightfoot shows us he’s light on his feet and cartwheels away from a backdrop before drilling Oliver with a nice dropkick. I know it’s a corny line, but I think it works. For Jay Youngblood working the Mid-Atlantic territory for a year and a half, it had to make his tag team game quite strong by now. Youngblood tags in and levels Oliver with a big Wahoo chop and then it’s back in the headlock. In comes Rose to help, but he gets punched out of the ring by Youngblood. Back to Lightfoot, Oliver pushes him back into his corner to tag out to Rose. Nothing is working for the Rose Army as Rose takes a monkey flip and begs off. Lightfoot tags Youngblood and Rose hurries over to tag out. In order to take control, Oliver moves Youngblood around so he can thumb in the throat with his *controversial* taped thumb without getting caught by ref Sandy Barr. Rose tags in now that Youngblood appears hurt, but Youngblood NO-SELLS his jumping back elbow. Back to Oliver, Youngblood takes him over to Lightfoot for the Double Team Chop followed by a pair of rolling sentons by Lightfoot for the three-count at 6:04.

SECOND FALL: The second fall starts a lot like the first fall with the babyfaces working headlocks. Oliver desperately tries rolling Youngblood over out of the headlock for nearfalls, but can’t keep Youngblood down. When Lightfoot comes back in, Oliver backs him into the ropes and beats him down so that the heels can get some heat. They keep Lightfoot grounded with front headlocks to set up a false tag spot and a chinlock to keep him on the mat. Lightfoot attempts a crossbody block out of the corner, but can’t quite get his footing right and screws up the move. Rose grabs hold of him and brings him over to Oliver for more abuse in the corner. Oliver nearly lets Lightfoot reach Youngblood after some heel miscommunication. Just a great heat segment here as Oliver and Rose allow Lightfoot only so much leeway and then yank him back down on the mat where they can maintain control. Eventually, Rose telegraphs a backdrop and Lightfoot makes him pay. HOT TAG TO YOUNGBLOOD! When Youngblood chops Rose and Oliver all over the place, he tags in Lightfoot in the hopes he’ll put Rose away with a dropkick but Rose moves at the last second. CRASH AND BURN. Lightfoot tries to come back one last time, but he comes off the ropes into the BILLY ROBINSON BACKBREAKER to give the heels the second fall in 19:18 total.

THIRD FALL: Rose continues to work on Lightfoot’s back. He tries landing on his feet out of a backdrop, but collapses. Oliver punishes Lightfoot some more with a bearhug. When Rose tags in, he keeps Lightfoot under his control with a front headlock. This all leads to a super hot false tag spot. While Sandy Barr backs Youngblood into his corner, Oliver and Rose drop Lightfoot’s throat onto the top rope for two. A double hotshot, if you will. Youngblood does wind up getting the tag though to punch and chop away on Rose. The big Wahoo chop gets 1-2-NO! Oliver makes the save, but then gets a dropkick once he’s tagged into the match. The Wahoo chop and the diving splash on Oliver gets 1-2-NO! As Youngblood picks up Oliver for a slam, Rose yanks Youngblood down by his hair causing Oliver to fall on top of him for the 1-2-3? (31:11 total) The crowd is not happy one bit. Rose shows ref Sandy Barr how the finish happened because he’s not buying the pinfall for some reason. Awesome match. That second fall was some great drama. Anytime you get great heels mauling great babyfaces, it’s going to get some love from me because that’s good TV. ****¼

The Destroyer loves to make his opponents suffer and wants to make Jay Youngblood or Joe Lightfoot or Jonathan Boyd in a main event match. HAVE YOU GUYS GOT THE GUTS? The challenge has been laid out by the Destroyer and I wanna see it!

Over with Frank Bonnema, Buddy Rose and Rip Oliver revel in the win they just had. Jonathan Boyd interrupts armed with his boomerang threatening Rose over what will happen in the cage match next Tuesday night. Boyd also has it set up where the Rose Army will be forced to stay in their locker room with Boyd’s friends standing guard. After Boyd leaves, Rose wonders how many times he has to beat him. HE’S THE BEST IN THE WEST. It’s that simple. Rose declares Boyd will be history this Tuesday night. Once Rose and Oliver head out, Bonnema hypes some action coming soon to Portland. There’s also the battling midgets coming at the end of November. They do put them on TV and we’ll see them in the final volume for Portland Wrestling in 1980.

Final Thoughts: Check out that 2/3 falls match if nothing else. When we return to Portland, we’ll look more into November 1980. The Destroyer gets what he asked for — a match with Jonathan Boyd. Plus, we’ll get to see Jay Youngblood and Joe Lightfoot put the PNW tag belts up against Rip Oliver and Buddy Rose! If the match on this edition was any indicator as to how good the title match will be, you won’t want to miss volume #14.