WWF: All Star Wrestling
May 19, 1979
Hamburg, PA
Hamburg Fieldhouse

Your current WWF champions are as follows:
WWF Heavyweight Champion: Bob Backlund (2/20/1978)
WWF North American Heavyweight Champion: Ted DiBiase (2/17/1979)
WWF World Tag Team Champions: Johnny & Jerry Valiant (3/24/1979)

Pop Culture #1s of the Time:
#1 Movie of the Week: Beyond the Poseidon Adventure starring Michael Caine & Sally Field
#1 Song of the Week: Reunited by Peaches & Herb
#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 hosts are Vince McMahon and Bruno Sammartino.

They take us over to this week’s episode of Championship Wrestling where Chief Jay Strongbow showed up and sat in the front row to watch Greg Valentine’s match against Steve King. Before the match, Valentine takes a picture of Strongbow and rips off the leg for laughs. During the bout, Valentine maintains control of King while clearly looking preoccupied with Strongbow. King almost immediately submits to the Figure-Four. When Valentine doesn’t let go of the hold just as quickly, the one-legged Strongbow gets up and he’s ready to chase Valentine away. Bruno points out what a phony Valentine is as he scurried out of here as soon as Strongbow came close to him. This is the problem I have with the WWE some times: only heels are phony cowards while only babyfaces are legit badass heroes who aren’t scared of anything.

• Johnny & Jerry Valiant (w/Captain Lou Albano & Jimmy Valiant) vs. SD Jones & Jose Estrada

Jones and Estrada mock the Valiants pre-match shenanigans. I thought Estrada was a heel. Anyways, Jerry and Johnny corner SD and beat the crap out of him. When Jones gets some room, he hiptosses and armdrags Johnny around the ring. Tag to Estrada, he and Johnny exchange waistlocks and go to the mat for a headscissors, but they both wind up back on their feet. Johnny whips SD into the Valiants corner to double-team him. Together, Johnny and Jerry deliver a double back drop. Jerry returns to stomp and choke on SD. Jones gets pulled out to the floor and slammed by Johnny. So rude. Back inside, Jones crawls underneath Jerry for a tag to Estrada. He gets slammed out of the corner by Jerry. Tag to Johnny, there’s a back elbow smash and a swinging neckbreaker for the win in 6:07.

After the break, Vince McMahon meets with the Valiant brothers and Captain Lou Albano. The Captain brags about leading eight teams to the WWF world tag belts. Vince stirs the pot asking Jimmy if he’s jealous about being the only Valiant without a title. Not really. He just goes into a typical Handsome Jimmy promo. Luscious Johnny wants some competition around here. With no competition, the Valiants might just hold the belts until the year 2000. Jimmy says with the price of gold going up, he comes up with the idea of melting down the belts and making some real money. Albano questions whether Bruno or Backlund have the guts to take on the Valiant brothers.

• Nikolai Volkoff (w/The Grand Wizard) vs. Johnny Rivera & Frank Williams

Hmm, I wonder when the Wiz picked up Volkoff. He’s definitely a Blassie guy. It takes Volkoff a bit of time before he can separate the two guys. Volkoff gets Rivera to the floor and tries to keep him there while he beats on Williams. Of course, it’s only temporary. Rivera is back in going after Volkoff. Eventually, Rivera gets punched and takes a nasty tumble to the floor, allowing Volkoff to hit his pair of backbreakers for the three-count in 6:09.

• Ted DiBiase vs. Mr. X

Mr. X has this thing where he likes to slap DiBiase across the face when he backs him into the corner. Bruno reflects back on different people who have slapped him in the past. DiBiase returns the favor on Mr. X. Hilarious selling there from Jack Evans. Somebody in the crowd keeps popping something. Almost sounds like a popped balloon. Can’t imagine that being cool in 2019. DiBiase and Mr. X play around with a headlock. Moving on, Mr. X applies a hammerlock. I thought DiBiase was going to the snapmare backflip thing you’ll see guys like Steamboat doing, but nope. He just snapmares Mr. X over and returns to the headlock. Mr. X escapes the headlock and drives DiBiase into the buckle. He whips DiBiase into the ropes for a double chop. DiBiase gets FIRED UP and turns things around on Mr. X. There’s a hiptoss and a dropkick. Back to the headlock. Mr. X pulls the hair to get free from DiBiase. He headbutts DiBiase, but telegraphs a backdrop. DiBiase comes back on Mr. X and hits a nice powerslam for the win. (7:34) I tell ya, I enjoy this Mr. X character. **

Bruno Sammartino chats up Ted DiBiase about what he thinks about the talent around here in the WWF. He puts over the talent and feels very thankful that he’s still the North American champion. Bruno wishes him nothing but the best.

• Ivan Putski vs. Joe Cagle & Marc Pole

We get another handicap match here. Cagle and Pole do the opposite of what Frankie and Johnny did earlier. They try to come at him one guy at a time, but Putski just knocks them away like they are nothing but sacks of potatoes. He throws one guy over the top rope and then the other. He slams Pole and then slams Cagle on top of Pole. To finish off the match, Putski throws Pole to the floor and gives Cagle the POLISH HAMMER to wrap it up in 3:18.

And that’s gonna do it for this week. Until next time, so long for now.