From the Crow’s Nest: 1978

Our journey through the Portland Wrestling territory turns the calendar from 1977 to 1978.

Unfortunately, footage from this year is pretty sparse. We’ve got two partial episodes from the first quarter of the year, one interview with Buddy Rose and Ed Wiskowski, and … that’s it. Luckily, all of that footage is available for general consumption on YouTube.

2/18/78

Another partial episode, and once again, the dastardly duo of Rose and Wiskowski take center stage. Jesse Ventura is the hero du jour going against the duo. Most of these Saturday night episodes of TV serve as a vehicle to promote the upcoming Tuesday card happening in Portland, and that’s the case again here. Wins come by pin, submission, or both feet hitting the floor. The hook this time? Ventura is going to take on Rose, and has put up $5,000 against $1,000 for Rose to make the match happen. And Wiskowski is going to be the special referee. I’m not sure how this is fair for Ventura, but …

Our existing footage includes the main event of the episode, with Rose and Wiskowski defending their tag titles against Skip Young and Jerry Oates. It’s been about two and a half months since our last available episode, and there are notable physical changes for the two villains; Rose has leaned up and Wiskowski. Oates, meanwhile, comes out in a drabby sweatshirt that makes him look like a middle school gym teacher.

This marks the last footage of Young in Portland for the next while, and it’s his best yet. I maintain he would have been a great fit in modern wrestling. There’s a great exchange with Rose where they trade slams, then leap frogs, ending with a gorgeous dropkick but Young. Rose looks sharp in this match as well, and he’s back to taking those cartoonish slipping-on-a-banana-peel bumps on his punches.

One quality that stands out in Portland matches, and Rose matches in particular, is that he makes opponents pay for repeating the same move or tactic on him multiple times. There’s a fine instance of that here. Oates spends nearly the entire first fall working in or around a headlock, usually on Rose. On Oates’ third attempt to catch Rose in a headlock takeover, the Playboy blocks it and counters with a back suplex. A kneedrop straight to the face makes for a believable end to the fall, and puts the rulebreakers up 1-0.

In between falls, Frank Bonnema interviews Ventura from the crow’s nest. This is pretty standard fare but it feels like a treasured hysterical artifact, where we get a look at Ventura as a fan favorite in a territory.

In Portland, the wrestlers involved in the previous fall automatically start the next one, and that doesn’t play out well for Oates. Rose quickly seizes the upper hand and Oates spends the majority of the fall getting roughed up by the champs. There’s a fantastic moment in this fall, after Skip tags in, when he hits Rose with a jumping headbutt. Rose instinctively goes to keep over, but Young grabs him to prevent the collapse so he can exact more punishment. Oates ends up back in, avoids a flying knee drop from Wiskowski and then ensnares him in a spinning toe hold to get the submission. The crowd loves it, and Wiskowski sells the toehold like he’s having his lower body fed into a wood chipper. Verily, the Wrestling Gods are appeased …

Time for the third fall. Skip hits a swanky bit of offense when, while standing, he leaps and puts both knees in Rose’s head at once. There’s a move available to bring back for any current wrestlers reading this, who also have the hops to do it. You can feel the war of attrition in this fall. The challengers focus on Wiskowski’s knee, vulnerable after the submission in the second fall. The champions target Skip’s shoulder after he misses on a corner shoulder tackle and collides with the turnbuckles. The fans chant “We want Skip!” with gusto but the combined assault on Young’s arm is too much and referee Sandy Barr stops the match for injury, as Young becomes the latest arm injury casualty at the hands of Rose.

This was a very good match, and one of the better in-ring offerings yet in this journey through the Portland footage.

2/25/78

Next, we get another crow’s nest interview from the following week, with Rose and Wiskowski. The villains are reveling in recent results. Rose got the win over Ventura in that singles match and crows about the result. Later, Rose and Wiskowski come back to the broadcast position, gloating about Skip Young and his dislocated shoulder at their hands. These two are really the engine that propels the territory at this point. Other wrestlers cycle in and out to try and stop them, and ultimately, everyone has come up short to this point. At the same time, Rose and Wiskowski stumble and bumble and, in Rose’s case, bleed to make the protagonists look strong. The three-fall format for TV main events also helps, as the two rulebreakers can eat a pin or submit to drop an individual fall, but without losing the overall match, maintaining their status in the hierarchy while also providing hope that this time, their challengers definitely have what it takes to dethrone them.

3/4/78

Another week of Portland TV and another Tuesday card to hype, this time headlined by Rose and Wiskowski defending the tag titles against Jimmy Snuka and Ventura. There’s a tandem where I really would like to see some footage of that duo in action. Oh well. Ed Wiskowski is still gloating about he and Rose taking out Skip Young. This and the two interview segments from the week before are all fine but they are also rather similar. They’ve had better promos previously on other episodes.

It’s not the main event of this episode, but the other surviving footage puts Rose against Snuka. You had me at hello. This is very much a TV match, in that they’re saving much of the actual fight between them for the crowd at the non-televised event on Tuesday in Portland. The match itself is pretty forgettable, but if you’re a current wrestler, watching what Rose does is highly recommended because he puts on a master class in how to stall and work a crowd. Rose is interacting directly with many of the old timers in the front row, a lot of whom were season ticket holders at these Portland TV tapings. Rose eventually asks the ringside fans to be quiet, so naturally they go louder.

This crowd work lasts about three minutes before Roae finally engages Snuka in the ring, nearly gets caught in a flash in, and then bails out and goes back into a stall. Delicious.

Snuka is still on an ascent at this point and I find it hard to accurately describe how explosive his movements are unless you can watch the matches for yourself. He hits a gorgeous armdrag on Rose, transitions into a hold, and then lifts Rose up off the mat while still having him in the hold and slams him down to the mat. Once the initial gaga subsided, everything was 95% Snuka until Rose cut him off as he ascended to the top rope and slams him off the corner. Any control Rose has is short lived. He tries to come off the top as well and gets caught by Snuka, In the rally, Snuka delivers a jumping headbutt that Rose sells with a wild leaping bump that both makes no sense and is highly entertaining. It’s a peak example of how suspension of disbelief can be a vital component to full enjoyment of this weird, wacky medium.

One factor that makes Rose so effective as a headlining villain is that he has the skills to back up his boasts. He scouts and anticipates repeat attacks, and he has a maddening level of ring awareness. Exhibit A: Snuka delivers a pretty awkward-looking piledriver, but Rose gets a foot in the ropes on the pin attempt. Exhibit B: Snuka applies his full nelson, which submitted Rose back in December, and he immediately scrambles to the ropes, then does so again on a second attempt by Snuka on the hold, barely reaching the bottom rope with his foot.

Time expires in a draw result that let a bit telegraphed, and each man’s partner comes out for a staredown. Rose and Wiskowski against Snuka and Ventura feels like the fever dream of a wrestling game simulator. Frank Bonnema gleefully proclaims “we’re going behind the barn!” as they face off. Not sure what that means, but I like it.

Unfortunately, this is all the footage available in 1978. Rose and Wiskowski drop the tag titles to Ventura and Oates a few weeks later. Rose loses a stretcher match to Ventura and cycles in and out of Portland for the rest of the year. What time he does spend back in Portland later in 1978 is often under a hood, as either The Masked Marvel or The Avenger. Wiskowski remains more of a constant for Don Owen. He loses the territory’s singles title to Oates in May, wins it back, then loses it to Jonathan Boyd in August. Boyd remains the champ as we roll into 1979, when a certain Rowdy Scot is already well-established in the territory.

Check out the full index of entries in the From the Crow’s Nest series.