Thursday, December 12, 2013

The Army (Buddy Rose/Kiwi Sheepherders) vs Roddy Piper/Sam Bass/Dutch Savage - 11/24/79 - 2/3 Falls

The Army has matching Green military jackets and Buddy has a whistle. Buddy is decked out as a Kiwi and they make a big deal about this. Immediate story is Buddy dodging Piper, so when he gets a quick hit in after some rope running with Savage the crowd pops. Heels take a powder. Good back and forth shine stuff with Williams and Bass. I like how much of a presence Buddy and Butch have on the outside; Bass really has to keep his eyes on him. Heels try a blind tag but Buddy gets nailed by Savage for his trouble and Piper tags in, causing Buddy to run again. Mini transition is great. Piper leaves Miller to hit Rose on the apron and while he gets a good pop for it, he also lets Miller take over on him. Buddy keeps trying to get cheapshots from the outside as they work on Piper but either Piper fights back or Dutch comes along. Finally Buddy comes in as piper is hurting and hits a great flying back elbow and then an equally good elbow drops, but then puts his head down and gets nailed. They cut off the hot tag with a quick heel tag. Heels are working over the injured eye and keeping Piper in their corner. They're really drawing out this face in peril, with Piper getting a lot of great comebacks. When he finally gets to Savage the place comes unglued. The faces clear house including a nearfall that Buddy breaks up after a Bass bulldog. Piper comes back in too early and is the victim of a pulled down rope and then a Sheepherder pile-driver for the first fall. Good action.

Piper has to start the second fall and gets overwhelmed but Rose hits Miller by accident. It's enough for Piper to get his head back and punch-scare Buddy back to his corner to get the tag to Savage. We get a fun heel-in-peril tease as Savage distracts the ref and they try to maul Buddy in their corner. Rose takes some damage until he can atomic drop Savage and get to his corner. It's a little back and forth with the big moment being Buddy going for another pile driver but getting back body dropped, which builds up to the hot tag. Pretty back and forth stuff here as the heels keep using teamwork to take back over on the faces, including a heat segment on Bass' back, which the fans absolutely know is the set up for The Robinson Backbreaker. Rose instead wants to be a dick and goes for a bulldog of his own on Bass but gets tossed off into the turnbuckle and then power bodyslammed for the second fall. Again, Rose is years above his time with the sort of finishing stealing set ups to finishes. 

Third fall begins with a bunch of stooging. Rose has to start the fall and he refuses to. Rose can't tag til physical contact is made and Bass taunts him to do just that. It doesn't go well for Buddy as we get some comedy heel miscommunication with Bass taunting them. This is a fun call back since Bass turned after miscommunication with Rose a year or two before. There's a fun celebratory mood from the faces here, which sort of makes sense because they just won the second fall. It's certainly not as much of a blood feud as the start of the match with Rose/Piper made it seem like it'd be, but it has the faces making the heels look like asses so it works. This ends with the Sheepherders getting pissed off and choking the hell out of Bass. We get the sort of headlock/toss off/collision that Dylan hates for the tag. Savage gets drawn right into the corner and things break down with the heels able to double team while the faces are getting pulled out which ends with the pin. 

I suppose you can say that the faces got a bit too lackadaisical at the end and they lost because of that but there wasn't quite a story throughline here. It was still fun though.

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