No idea who Yaki Joe is, but i'm expecting some fun FIP stuff with Martel here. Martel vs Rose is immediately exciting. Very few guys we've seen are able to really go with Rose. Martel can and they do a lot of quick shine stuff including a straight up 'rana. It's amazing how great a babyface Martel was, even this early with certain things. Luke and Martel do a test of strength but Williams slowly angles him into his own corner allowing Rose to tag in and take over on Martel for a minute until Martel fires back with Buddy selling huge for everything Martel does. Martel has a pretty good atomic elbow smash and it's a shame he got rid of it. Tag in to Yaki Joe and no one eats wrenching headlocks like Buddy, though Luke, who ends up in eating them too, does a great frazzled flop afterwards. This entire shine is basically the fans counting along to wrenching headlocks, with a few heel cheaty hope spots and a huge highspot of Rose coming into interfere and eating a Martel 'rana while he holds onto Williams with the headlock. I love how the Sheepherders beg off.
Finally the heels swarm and start to work over Martel again. Martel's a dervish with his hope spots and the fans really react. A lot of times he flies too far or over positions and the heels capitalize on his over-exuberance due to superior ring positioning. Buddy's flying back elbow is really nice. They do Barr missing a tag due to heel interference in a headlock which I haven't seen much if at all in my 70s Portland watching. They draw out the hope spots until Martel flies across the ring for a great hot tag to Stasiak, who tosses Buddy into the corner pole and gets in a quasi heart punch. Joe comes in and does some pretty lame chops that Buddy sell like death and looks actively lost once before stumbling into the heel corner, getting swamped til he rolls to a hot tag to Stasiak who is frigging awesome with his crazy old man fire. They keep having him bear hug the heels until interference knocks him out from behind for the first fall.
Second fall starts with the heels getting Stasiak in their corner and pummeling with quick tags and keeping him in the corner until he fights out. Martel's pretty good cheerleading on the apron until he gets the tag. They're building up Martel to wrestle Harley in January. He trades slams with Buddy with Buddy bumping huge for him on one. At first glance Yaki Joe is not very good but he does sell the shoulder well after running limply into the corner. Heels work over the arm. The best part is Buddy holding onto a wristlock as he eats chops from Joe. It makes me want to see Wahoo vs Buddy from this era. Martel rushes in but only allows the heels to triple team. Then they do a heatless out of nowhere tag to Stasiak which could have been built up a lot better. I blame Joe here. Martel comes out of nowhere with a sunset flip from the outside to give the faces the second fall. This was all a bit rushed at the end.
Rose cheapshots Joe between falls and Stasiak chases him back which is a fun little bit of chaos to switch things up. Williams really goes over for Martel's armdrags, as does Buddy (Miller, not as much). They're doing a great job making Martel look good here. One thing I love about Buddy in tag matches is the way he always seems like a threat when he's on the outside. He'll just run from off the screen and do an attack out of nowhere. It backfires here though and the faces work over Williams, including a cool double atomic noogie to the temples by Yaki Joe. We get a FIP on Joe here, with the heels just goozling him in their corner until Rose capitalizes on a missed hope spot with endless knees to the spine and an assisted backbreaker. I love how inevitable Buddy's finishing stretch is, especially when they play with it in some of the bigger matches. Here, though, he just plows through Joe with the Robinson backbreaker and that's it. The story here is that the double backbreaker (basically a backbreaker on a Sheepherder's knee on the outside) was just that devastating.
Well, Yaki Joe sure isn't very good. Martel showed some really great flashes here. I liked him a lot more than in the singles match i saw. Being in a tag team is a great place for him to be at this point in his career.
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