WWWF: All Star Wrestling
September 30, 1978
Hamburg, PA
Hamburg Fieldhouse

Your current WWWF champions are as follows:
WWWF Heavyweight Champion: Bob Backlund (2/20/1978)
WWWF World Tag Team Champions: The Yukon Lumberjacks (6/26/1978)

Pop Culture #1s of the Time:
#1 Movie of the Week: Grease starring John Travolta & Olivia Newton-John
#1 Song of the Week: Kiss You All Over by Exile
#1 TV Show of the 78-79 Season: Laverne & Shirley starring Penny Marshall & Cindy Williams

Follow along if you have the WWE Network!

The following wrestling exhibition requires discretionary viewer participation.

Your host is Vince McMahon.

• Bob Backlund & “High Chief” Peter Maivia (w/Arnold Skaaland) vs. Jose Estrada & Moose Monroe

Vince comments that this is the first time Skaaland has managed a team. Maivia and Backlund handle Monroe fairly easily to start. Estrada gets a tag and double-teams Maivia with Moose. Man, Santino Marella really resembles Jose Estrada here. The double-teaming continues, but of course Maivia is able to break away and get a tag. Backlund goes SLAM CRAZY on the heels and slows things down with a chinlock on Monroe. The babyfaces do a switch on the chinlock, but the ref lets it slide because it’s the WWWF and who cares if the babyfaces cheat. Monroe finally powers out of the hold and takes Backlund over to the wrong side of town. Backlund gets away from Estrada and hot tags Maivia. Tag to Backlund, he rushes in and delivers the ATOMIC DROP to Estrada for the three-count. (6:04) Always strange realizing there was a time when the Running Atomic Drop was the death blow for everyone who faced Bob Backlund. *

• Cowboy Lang vs. Billy the Kid

Along with Little Tokyo, here are a pair of midgets you identify with old school midget wrestling. They play around with a headlock to start mostly with Billy the Kid in control. Billy delivers a backdrop and a double stomp before strutting around. Over to the corner, Lang fires back and does the Bobo Brazil spot with his legs. Lang slides under the ref’s legs to stay on top of Billy the Kid as he gets tied up in the ropes. Moving on. While Lang has Billy the Kid in a full nelson, Billy kicks his feet up and puts ref Dick Woehrle in a headscissors. WHY? Lang lets go of the hold and Billy goes crashing three feet or so down to the mat. Embarrassed, Billy kicks the ref in the butt. CRISS CROSS. Lang catches Billy with a dropkick and delivers some punches to the head, but swears his hands were open. He continues with a backdrop and an airplane spin, but dizzies himself as well as Billy the Kid. Lang drops Billy to the mat and collapses on top of him for the win. (7:42) Fairly solid stuff. It’s an old school midget match if you’re into that type of thing, but it’s just not my cup of tea. *½

Vince McMahon meets with Victor Rivera and Freddie Blassie before the next match. Rivera calls himself the “king” and the best wrestler in the world. Blassie runs down the whole federation and says the only guys around here that are any good are in his army. Now back to Rivera, he talks to his Puerto Rican fans about how successful he will be with Freddie Blassie against all the good guys around here. Blassie takes some time to run down the crowd. To wrap it up, Rivera says he will go all the way to the top here. I wouldn’t bet on it.

• Victor Rivera (w/Freddie Blassie) vs. Steve Cagle

Rather rough squash as the undefeated Victor Rivera smashes Cagle’s head a few times onto an exposed corner buckle. Victor finishes him off with a butterfly suplex to continue his winning ways in 2:05.

• Dino Bravo vs. Tony Russo

Check out the leapfrogs from Dino here. Looking good. He keeps Russo under control with an armbar. Russo momentarily takes over, but Bravo catches him with a dropkick and finishes him off with the AIRPLANE SPIN in 3:51.

• Larry Zbyszko, Tony Garea & Dominic DeNucci vs. Baron Mikel Scicluna, Stan Stasiak & Butcher Vachon

While DeNucci and Stasiak are wowing us with wristlocks, you can hear some fan yell at Butcher Vachon that they can’t see. Dominic is one of those tongue in cheek wrestlers who won’t really allow you to take him seriously. Anyways, the heels take turns pounding on him and grinding on a headlock. Even as DeNucci is getting pounded, he looks like he’s got a grin on his face. Weird. Larry Z gets the tag and takes control of Scicluna. Same thing happens to Vachon. In comes Garea to wow us with a wristlock. Vachon breaks away and tags Stasiak who runs right into a series of armdrags. Scicluna takes over on Garea, but Zbyszko gets a tag to whip Butcher around. He throws Vachon into the ropes for Garea to backdrop him for the win. (7:55) This was mostly a real snooze fest. ½*

That’ll do for this week. Until next time, so long for now.