Buddy's finally done with the wig and has shorter brown hair and a 1980 mustache (Piper had taken the mask off RIGHT after Buddy declared he'd keep it off if someone could take it from him). He cut a great promo this same night going over what he and Piper had done in the last many months to set up their loser leaves town match on Tuesday. I love Don Owen's passive aggressive griping about loser leaves town matches and how they hurt his bottom line. Obviously this match is to set up the next card, so we'll see what they do with it. One of the real stories of 1980 to me is how great a babyface Piper was. Buddy has three shirts on. One is the Superman Logo, one is "Champion" and one is "Truest Champion."
Buddy rolls out and stalls to begin, jawing with the crowd. He does it again, with Barr stopping Roddy from giving chase. Crowd is chanting Bye Bye Rose. They lock up and Buddy cheapshots a turnbuckle treatment instead o a clean break. He manages a few more such assaults before locking on a chinlock in the middle of the ring. They keep working it, with Piper trying for the hair, only to get stopped by Barr. Rose moves right into a neck clench, but Roddy turns it around and punches to the midsection and thumbs to the face before unloading with a flurry finished with a running punch in the corner. He hits a double eyepoke and Buddy's sell is great, and then starts the boxing before finishing it with the sleeper. Again, they work it with Buddy trying two rams in the corner. Roddy hangs on and puts him to sleep for the first fall. This was fine but just a taste of what they've given us before. My guess is that they're giving the fans sort of an elated high since Roddy was going to lose on Tuesday.
Sandy Barr seems to have woken up Rose between falls. This means that Rose is ready for an ambush as Roddy comes back. He slams his head right into the ringpost and Piper bleeds. Buddy gives him the Goodhelmet special and attacks the wound with clubbing blows, jabs and biting. Roddy kicks out of a lazy cover and it looks like he's about to do his trademark punch drunk comeback but Buddy just keeps on him, including this great flurry from behind on the ground. After another cover. Roddy finally snaps and starts to fight back, kicking and punching over and over. He's still bleeding and groggy though, so Buddy catches him with a kick and a slam. After a cover, Buddy goes for another fall but Piper sneaks out the back and rolls him up for the pin, and in two falls, the title. Buddy, pissed off, goes for a chair attack but Piper gets it and fights back. Eventually, the faces come in to try to stop him and he just unloads on all of them too. This is a great last hurrah for Piper and is a good showcase of how over he was here but they've had plenty of better matches.
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