I’d like to think that in a different world, Buddy Rose and Roddy Piper remained eternal rivals. Much like Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee, I envision a reality where they stay embroiled in combat, the Chicken and Peter Griffin. Alas, Piper eventually leaves in the early 1980s for the Mid-Atlantic territory, then for the big stage of the World Wrestling Federation.
Best we enjoy this feud, and Piper, while they’re available.
On with a review of this week’s footage:
June 30, 1979
From top to bottom, this is one of the better surviving episodes of Portland TV, on par with the 1977 installment where Sam Oliver Bass makes a mid-episode turn.
We usually don’t get full episodes of Portland TV, but a recurring theme of the surviving footage from the 1970s is that it starts with an interview segment with Buddy Rose. Rose spends the summer doing these interviews in different get-ups, as you’ll see in our next installment. Here, he’s back from Hawaii: freshly tanned and especially insufferable. Decked out in a lei and a headband, Rose breaks the bad news that his partner Ed Wiskowski is out indefinitely with internal injuries sustained from a low blow (his word, not mine). Rose closes by asking for a moment of silence for Wiskowski… a great bit that gets the predicted response from the Portland Sports Arena crowd. Rose has returned from the island with a new part, Rip Rogers, and they’re challenging for the tag titles tonight! This is a good interview worth watching, especially if you’re a wrestler still trying to find your voice in spoken segments. Rose carries himself with a confidence and a swagger. He doesn’t look the part of a traditional headliner, but he presents himself as the biggest star in the territory, which, in Portland, he is. And, as the top villain in the territory for the past several years, and with the Portland TV audience consisting of many diehards who came out every single week to watch the matches, he’s learned how to manipulate the crowd.
Right to the main event: the aforementioned tag title match, which like the typical TV headliner in Portland is two out of three falls. Adrian Adonis and Ron Starr are still the tag champs, and while that sounds like the random generation of an EWR simulation, they work well as a team and the reactions show how they’ve definitively won the hearts and minds of the Portland fans. There’s a lot of comedy here. Rose is selling Rip Rogers’ greatness before the match, but in the first fall, Rip doesn’t get any offense in. Then again, neither does Rose. Rip takes some beautiful armdrags and pinballs all over the ring for his foes before submitting to an Adonis drop toe hold.
As usual, we get some content between falls, which was an elegant way for Portland to sell sponsor time given the two out of three fall format and maximize the TV time despite typically keeping a small roster in the territory. No charming antiquated commercials here, but we do get another solid interview from Roddy Piper. Interviews in this era, especially on the granular territory level, sometimes draw in current events and here Piper riffs on 41 beached whales. Solid work here, even if it ends with a line calling himself “the greatest white athlete in the world today” that is cringe-inducing by 2026 standards.
Back to the match, and poor Rip Rogers still doesn’t get any offense in as the champions try to obliterate his already vulnerable left leg. There’s a very different dynamic in the Rogers and Rose team. Rose and Wiskowski felt like equals. Rogers comes off as the lackey of the Vegas Playboy. Rip fights off another spinning toehold by Adonis by kicking him off, but it’s Rose who does the real damage by ramming Adonis’ shoulder hard into the ring post. The story of the match is that Rip is outmatched against this competition. His attempts at holds are countered or escaped with ease. His pin attempts get a one count. Instead, Buddy Rose takes on the burden. He fights off a double team by the champs single handed and directs Rip into the ring for a double clothesline on Starr to level the match.
The third fall is more of the same, with Rose doing most of the work. Commentator Frank Bonnema doing his best to sell Rip, noting he shows “he belongs in this company.” You can feel the heat in the building literally and figuratively on this summer evening in 1979 during the third fall, as the sweat and the fists fly. Things break down when Rip brings a chair into the ring, Starr intercepts it, and uses it, getting the champs disqualified. Referee Sandy Barr awards the belts to Rogers and Rose and Dutch Savage is out to protest because Rip introduced the chair into the match. I mean, actually using a chair is also against the rules.
The Take: This is a very strong TV main event that is worked at a hard, brisk pace despite its length in obvious sweltering conditions. Definitely worth watching.
Rose and Rogers hit the crow’s nest after, where Buddy does his damnedest to put over Rip, crowing, “What a partner!” Dutch is up lobbying for a change in the decision, and Sandy Barr ultimately disqualifies both teams and holds up the titles, with a rematch booked for the following week.
July 7, 1979
Another very strong episode of wrestling TV here.
To start out we get Piper, freshly dethroned as the Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Champion by Stan Stasiak, taking on Ricky Hunter. Piper, in another moment of cringe, is wearing a “Great White Hope” T-shirt. The match barely starts before Rose is out and steals Piper’s bagpipes, which he’s played in the ring a few times in Portland up until here. Piper sells this moment great, whipping his head back and forth between the bandit Rose and his opponent in the ring. Rose retreats to the crow’s nest and threatens to bust the bagpipes over commentary. Piper storms the Crow’s Nest and Rose attacks Piper and then Barr with the busted bagpipes. A wild pull-apart features our first look in this footage journey at Matt Borne, who is among those trying to pull apart the combatants. This is a red-hot angle so of course Dutch Savage has to come out to siphon off some of that heat. Dutch makes a Coal Miner’s Glove Match between Piper and Rose for the following Tuesday, with Dutch as the referee. Rose eventually breaks free of Hunter, who’s holding him back, and clobbers Savage. Maybe he was as tired of Dutch’s coattail riding as I am.
Into the tag title rematch… records show that Adonis and Starr enter this match as the defending champs even though Frank Bonnema reminds us the titles were held up last week. Once again, Rip is outmatched, at least early, and he starts this match as he spent most of last week’s tag title match: getting totally housed by Adonis and Starr. Rogers and Starr do the bulk of the work in the first fall until Adonis is in, applies his spinning toehold, and Rip gives up quick.
There’s an abbreviated tidbit between falls, where Frank Bonnema starts to run down the weekly schedule and asks fans to grab a pencil and paper to write it down. This is just a charming antiquated moment every time it arises.
A very good promo between falls from Piper, who emphasizes this isn’t so much a battle between good and evil as it is between two villains trying to out-heel the other: “I can stoop just as low as you,” Piper says. That said, he plays directly to the audience next, asking people to call into the studio and demand the Tuesday match also put the wrestlers’ hair on the line. Piper’s footage in Portland continues to be a revelation and this is another fine example of that.
The second fall of the tag match hinges on a back-and-forth exchange between Rose and Adonis. These two have fantastic chemistry. They’re also similar: both lacking the traditional chiseled wrestling physique, having bigger frames, and possessing a common willingness to fly all around the ring, and ringside, for their opponent. There’s a real lull in this match, in both intensity and crowd heat, when Rip comes in to take over the offense on Adonis. The rule breakers level the match when Rose grabs Adonis, behind the ref’s back, as Rip leaps off the second rope with a flying knee to the head.
Rip delivers a rock-solid promo before the third fall, which begins with the heel duo totally drenched in sweat. Again, you can feel the heating the building. Many of these two-out-of-three Portland main events have a very rushed third fall, and that’s the case here; the fall has just started when there’s a call that three minutes remain. Adonis blocks a backdrop attempt by Rose with a kick that elicits another of those fantastic sprawling banana-peel bumps from the Vegas Playboy. Adonis makes the tag to Starr, and almost immediately Piper is at ringside. Starr shoves Rose into Piper, then pins him. The crowd was delighted but this felt very rushed.
The Take: Not quite as good as last week’s tag title match, but still a strong match, especially for the era.
Now we get to the post match and if you want to know how to build a match for the next show, watch this, and probably watch it again. Promoter Don Owen makes this a hair match, to which Piper kneels in front of Owen and screams “I LOVE YOU” picking up the very straitlaced Owen in a full hug. Rose vows to bring “everything I got” to the Tuesday match and tells Piper, directly, “you’re gonna have to kill me to beat me.”
Hot damn, indeed.
The only complaint is that this match between Rose and Piper, like all the Tuesday matches in Portland to this point, seemingly has been lost to the sands of time.
If time travel ever became a thing, I’m headed to Portland in the 1970s with some video equipment. That’s all I am saying.
Next Time: The Sheepherders make their debut, and these aren’t the Bushwhackers you’re expecting.
