WWF: All Star Wrestling
June 23, 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: The Muppet Movie starring Jim Henson’s The Muppets
#1 Song of the Week: Hot Stuff by Donna Summer
#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.

• Chief Jay Strongbow vs. JoJo Andrews

This is Strongbow’s first match back since Greg Valentine broke his leg back in March on Championship Wrestling. It was a whole thing, but now he’s BACK and looking for revenge. Strongbow is wearing a knee brace, but doesn’t seem to be favoring the leg. He’s still doing his dancing around the ring. Vince calls Strongbow a “race horse” at one point as he runs around the ring stomping JoJo. Andrews gets in some shots, but it’s only to set up the WAR DANCE. Here comes the weakest looking SLEEPERHOLD ever and JoJo is out at 4:41.

Bruno grabs a word from Chief Jay Strongbow. But first, Strongbow has to wake up poor JoJo. He thanks Bruno for encouraging him to come back to the ring. Strongbow says he’s had nightmares about Greg Valentine and he can’t wait to hurt him. Bruno wraps up the interview saying Strongbow looks faster and stronger than ever right now. Well, he certainly should be motivated.

• Johnny & Jerry Valiant (w/Captain Lou Albano & Jimmy Valiant) vs. Frank Rodriguez & Steve King

While Johnny and Jerry dominate Rodriguez, Bruno and Vince discuss the fancy earring Handsome Jimmy is wearing. The Valiants give King a chance and he doesn’t prove to be much competition either. Back over to the Gypsy, Jerry catches him with a stupid dropkick square on the jaw. He then holds Rodriguez in place while Johnny comes off the top with an elbow to the back for the win in 5:44.

Vince talks with the Valiants and Captain Lou Albano. He wants to know why they don’t use wrestling holds instead of brawling and cheating. Johnny V says shortcuts is where it’s at, kids. McMahon wants to talk about Handsome Jimmy’s diamond earring. Jimmy says he got the earring from Elvis Presley when he came to Madison Square Garden. All of a sudden, Jimmy and Captain Lou start defending themselves saying they never interfere in the Valiants matches. Luscious Johnny starts calling out babyfaces. Bruno must have stood up from his chair because the crowd and the Valiants pop.

• Ted DiBiase vs. Ron Lee

Gary Michael Capetta doesn’t introduce DiBiase as the North American heavyweight champ. He would lose that championship on Championship Wrestling to Pat Patterson, which I will be recapping as our SPECIAL BONUS MATCH of the week. They play around with a headlock for a while. Bruno and Vince discuss Ted’s father Mike DiBiase and how he met his untimely demise. Looks to be a time killing match as DiBiase could beat this ham-and-egger anytime. Unfortunately, DiBiase allows Lee some offense and the match goes even longer than you would expect. The Jumping Back Elbow and the jumping elbow drop ends Lee in 7:15.

• Nikolai Volkoff (w/Freddie Blassie) vs. SD Jones

They bill this as a power versus power match. Blassie gets some crap for returning after his long vacation. Volkoff overpowers Jones to start, but then SD stumbles him back with a headbutt. Volkoff knocks him down and grabs a chinlock. When Jones escapes, Volkoff takes a low shot on him and knees him down going for the kidneys. Volkoff rips at the face and covers SD’s mouth trying to take his wind away. Jones fires back with headbutts and rips at the nose. As Jones hesitates to go after Nikolai, Bruno points out SD needs to cure himself of this problem or he’s never going to be successful. Volkoff returns to his game plan, but SD comes back with headbutts. Jones misses a corner charge allowing Volkoff to hit the backbreaker for the win. (7:54) Not much of a match. Pretty boring stuff. ½*

Afterwards, Bruno meets with Freddie Blassie and Nikolai Volkoff at ringside. When Bruno asks Nikolai why he breaks all the rules, Volkoff says he does what he wants to anybody he wants.

• Tito Santana vs. Jose Estrada

Estrada holds onto an armbar to start and keeps Tito down on the mat by pulling the hair. This continues for a while, but Tito is going to get that LATIN TEMPER going pretty soon. Santana punches back and dropkicks Estrada down. There’s a slam and an elbow drop for two. He starts running the ropes and hits a FLYING JALAPENO variation before landing the CROSSBODY BLOCK for the win in 3:15.

AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR A SPECIAL BONUS MATCH~!

• WWF North American Heavyweight Championship: Ted DiBiase (c) vs. Pat Patterson (w/The Grand Wizard) – (Championship Wrestling, 6/23/79)

Patterson jumps DiBiase before he gets his jacket off and beats him down in the corner. The ref desperately tries to keep Patterson back. DiBiase gets FIRED UP and whips Patterson from one corner to the next. The jumping knee drop gets two. Boy, this crowd is much hotter than Hamburg. DiBiase delivers a hiptoss out of the corner and dropkicks Patterson to the floor in front of the Wiz. Patterson rolls back in and begs off. DiBiase grabs an arm and elbows the shoulder a few times. He bars the arm and cranks on the hold. He drops a bunch of knees on the arm while the crowd counts along with him. Awesome. Patterson escapes and hits a backdrop, but misses a splash and DiBiase takes him over with an armdrag into an armbar. Patterson breaks free again and knocks DiBiase through the ropes to send him crashing to the floor. DiBiase pulls Patterson out to the floor and slams his head on the timekeeper’s table before bringing him back inside for a BAAACK BODY DROP. As DiBiase grabs a headlock, Patterson throws him off into the referee. Patterson reaches into his tights for the taped knucks and decks DiBiase. LIGHTS OUT. He covers DiBiase and the ref wakes up enough to count the pinfall to give Patterson the North American heavyweight belt. (9:15) Not a bad little match, but nothing special. The end result achieved what it set out to do which was to put a TON of heat onto Patterson as he gets ready to face Bob Backlund for the next FOUR shows in MSG. When Patterson holds up his hand in victory, that crowd is ready to lynch him. **

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