Month: July 2026

The Dog Collar | From the Crow’s Nest

The Dog Collar | From the Crow’s Nest

The only thing worse than an obnoxious braggart is an obnoxious braggart who can back up their words. Buddy Rose tapped into this in the Portland territory, to great success.

Rose doesn’t look like an athlete — so much so that commentator Frank Bonnema regularly calls him the Pillsbury Doughboy of the territory. And yet Rose possessed a nimble quickness and athleticism that belie his frame. Time and time again, Rose finds himself in a seemingly impossible match, and time and time again, Rose escapes with the victory. He loses falls. He bleeds, sometimes in buckets. But he prevails. And it’s that unsinkable quality that simultaneously makes him so reviled by Portland fans of the era and, in hindsight, so valuable to watch, learn from, and enjoy.

Here’s the readily available footage we’re watching in this installment. If you want to make sure you don’t miss anything, I once again encourage subscribing to this Patreon.

5/26/79

For years now, Rose and Ed Wiskowski have been the top villainous duo in Portland. Here, they’re the self-proclaimed world tag champions, holding belts I don’t recognize in a reign I find no record of. This type of thing was common in this era, and something I could see Rose pulling if his career had extended into the Internet age. Show me an online poll where Rose would be one of the chances and I’ll show you the Vegas Playboy trying to gimmick the results for his own aggrandizement. Wiskowski is the highlight here, proclaiming himself a direct descendant of Polish royalty and insists fans in the Pacific Northwest “bow down to the prince.” Rose also brags about winning $600 at the horse track that day, which is a nice real-life detail. He’s easier to hate because of his success.

The centerpiece of this week’s footage is the match between Rose and Johnny Eagles. which, like most main events in Portland, is two out of three falls. There’s minimal footage out there of Eagles, an English wrestler dubbed here as “the Houdini of the mat” and his ability to escape holds is the focal point of this match. Eagles catches Rose unawares to win the first fall in seconds, to the delight of the mainstays in the Portland Sports Arena crowd.

The second fall showcases Eagles’ counters to holds and, if you’ve watched CHIKARA or World of Sport, most of what you see is going to be familiar. Rose plays a willing and at times hapless foil to Eagles, who remains a step ahead of the Vegas Playboy. At one point, Frank Bonnema proclaims Eagles has “more moves than a pound of Exlax.” This is meant to be a positive. Eagles has the slick counters but, here in Portland, Rose is the established ace, even though Roddy Piper still holds the heavyweight championship. It takes rule breaking and brawling, but Rose ties the match at a fall apiece, then makes quick work of Eagles in the third fall to secure the victory. Rose gives up the technical edge, but once again, the braggart backs up his words and scores a win.

And that’s when things get really interesting. Killer Tim Brooks, who’s still seeking revenge from what Rose and Wiskowski did to him back in April and made his big return last week, storms the ring with a dog collar and chain in hand and takes it right to Rose. A couple of punches with the chain wrapped around his fist draw blood from Rose, and we’re just getting started. Brooks wraps the chain around Rose’s neck and drags him from the ring all the way up to the crow’s nest, where he proceeds hammering down blows until Brooks gets what he wants — a “Dog Fight” match on next week’s show. Brooks leaves, and Rose is still selling the chain with some spectacular gags, retches, and heaves.

This brings us directly to…

6/2/79

In the span of a couple months in 1979, Portland has thrown some more match variety at fans in its television than major televised promotions do today. Consider this. In April, we saw a four-on-four elimination tag that is likely the earliest match of its type with surviving footage. Last week, we got Rose and Roddy Piper in a lumberjack match. And now, a dog collar match, a gimmick that Piper made famous a few years later with his amazing and brutal showdown with Greg Valentine at the original Starrcade.

There’s not enough substance here to call this a good match, but a bloody spectacle that is well worth watching. It starts with Rose, who’s determined to stall, run, and do whatever he can to avoid getting that collar around his neck. He threatens to leave the territory forever if this match airs on TV. Then, he tries to bail out only to have Piper block his retreat to the dressing room. Frank Bonnema, meanwhile, adds to the presentation, describing 32 sharpened spikes on both collars. Is this combined? Per collar? Either way it sounds intimidating, as would any quantity of “sharpened spikes.”

When Piper cuts off the exit, Rose backpedals right into the grasp of Brooks, who hooks the collar around him. Rose has some fantastic facial expressions — whether Brooks chokes him with the chain or whips him with it. Anything goes here, including an exchange of low blows. Brooks wraps the chain around his fist and clocks Rose, who comes up gushing blood. Brooks runs the chain around the head wound on Rose, pictured at the top of this piece, and then bites on him. Blood spreads to Rose’s stomach, his legs, and the canvas. There’s a great moment where Brooks decks Rose, and the ensuing torque on the chain tweaks Brooks’ neck injury from a couple months back.

Things break down fully (if they weren’t chaotic enough) when Wiskowski jumps into the ring with a chair. Piper comes to even the odds. Ensuing interviews in the crow’s nest set up a tag team cage match for the following Tuesday in Portland. Add it to the lengthening list of seemingly great matches in this territory that took place on the non-televised Tuesday shows.

Results show that these two teams split cage matches in the ensuing week: that Tuesday in Portland and the next night in Seattle. This is the last time Wiskowski appears in Portland for the near future, leaving Rose in search of a new running buddy… who we’ll meet in the next installment.

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Roddy Piper and his Beloved Brooksie | From the Crow’s Nest

Roddy Piper and his Beloved Brooksie | From the Crow’s Nest

We’re waist deep into 1979 in our journey through the footage of Portland Wrestling, and the feud between Roddy Piper and Buddy Rose has been simmering quite nicely, a delight for the senses. We’ve got a stew goin’ baby!

We’ve seen interviews, both compelling and unhinged. Blood has been shed, via one wrestler squeezing the other’s head like a piece of fruit. And the Portland Sports Arena regulars have welcomed the Hot Rod into their hearts and minds less than a month after he got rough with a woman in the Crow’s Nest.

Welcome to the sublime chaos of Portland.

This week, we look at footage from the May 19, 1979, episode of Portland TV. The star attraction? Piper defending the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Title against Rose in a Lumberjack Match.

Here’s the video:

We open with Rose and his partner in malfeasance, Ed Wiskowski, speaking to resident commentator Frank Bonnema in the Crow’s Nest. There’s the usual array of boasts and taunting, with Wiskowski weaving a metaphor around Piper being separated from his “mother”, Killer Tim Brooks, for more than a month thanks to this dirty deed by Wiskowski and Rose back in April:

That is what sparked the entire feud between Rose and Piper, and has brought us to this match. Wiskowski refers to Brooks as “mother” and “her”, which, in the context of 2026, certainly is a choice. One can only imagine the havoc that Wiskowski would have wreaked in this era of social media if he maintained just the slighest amount of kayfabe in those mediums.

With that, it’s time for the match itself and Dutch Savage is the ring announcer for some reason. “Guards” surround the ring and stand ready if one of the combatants tries to leave the ring, to throw them back into the squared circle. Bonnema correctly calls this a Lumberjack Match, which seems appropriate thematically for a promotion in the Pacific Northwest. It’s also worth nothing, Portland has now produced a four on four elimination tag in a harbinger to the Survivor Series gimmick that arrives eight years later, and a lumberjack match, all in a span of about six weeks. This is trend setting stuff.

The match itself is… pretty good? It’s definitely not bad, or skippable. It just doesn’t match the quality and intensity of the battle between these same two on the previous episode. Wild cheers for Piper during the intros, and after being taken aback by the crowd response last week, he just seems abundantly pleased this time. Worth noting that, unlike the typical Portland TV main event, this is one fall to a finish and not best two out of three. Piper zeroes in upon the left arm of Rose, which is a common theme in many of Rose’s singles matches, whether he has the upper hand or not. A trip from the outside by Wiskowski allows Rose to take control, during which he fires Piper into the corner on an Irish whip that Roddy takes with full commitment. Frank Bonnema calls this with the appropriate amount of sizzle.

The action here doesn’t hold up to last week but the crowd energy does. Rose maintains control, through an attempted sleeper hold on Piper, and the ensuing rally and reversal into a top wristlock. Finally Piper fights his way back, by, well, fighting. A wild roundhouse and what looks like a running forearm off the ropes evens the scales, if only briefly. Momentum starts to turn and Rose attempts to flee the ring multiple times, getting tossed back in on each occasion. Piper fights back with a flurry capped by a knee lift, which evokes one of those spectacular heedless banana-peel bumps from Rose that are just so enjoyable to watch. Piper later busts out an airplane spin, which Bonnema refers to as somewhat of a retro tactic, even though this match is happening in 1979!

Ultimately, this is Portland, and in Portland we have shenanigans, and so shenanigans eventually ensue. After both wrestlers go to the floor and Piper gets rolled in first, Wiskowski is in and jumps Piper. Bonnema screams about how the referee’s back is turned even though, at one point, referee Sandy Barr turns and clearly sees the assault only to turn back because we’re live, pal, and mistakes happen. The equation changes when Brooks comes storming into the ring from the crowd wielding the chain off a dog collar. Wiskowski gets flattened, and I’m shocked he doesn’t bleed. Brooks hits a jumping legdrop in full view of the official, drags Piper on top, and a quick three count follows to end the match. Brooks continues to clean house, chucking Wiskowski and Rose out of the ring, then kneels and hugs Piper to the unabashed delight of the Portland crowd.

Piper and Brooks head to the crow’s nest, and Piper’s joy at having his “Brooksie” back in the territory is infectious. Brooks takes a turn to talk, and he’s out for revenge. He notes he showed up in jeans and boots: “I haven’t been in these boots since I got home from Vietnam.” If you’re looking for immersion, if you’re wanting to believe, I don’t think there’s a better bar to clear than “I’m coming to fight you in the boots I wore to war.” I always found Brooks’ work in World Class about as compelling as watching as paint dry, but he’s pretty compelling here.

You know, if you’ll indulge me for a second, I leave you this week with the following.

We all try to carve out some slice of happiness in this wild and crazy world. My esteemed readers, I come to you today with the hope that you find the love that exists between Roddy Piper and Killer Tim Brooks in Portland Wrestling in 1979. The type of person that will show up in his boots from war, hug you in front of a capacity crowd, and make an entire wrestling production feel like, if only for a moment, it’s found its soul.

After all, don’t we all need a “Brooksie” in our lives when the going gets tough?

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