RingMasters: The Great American Bash
- Video
- 1985
- 1h
YOUR RATING
The Great American Bash (1985) took place on July 6, 1985 at the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.The Great American Bash (1985) took place on July 6, 1985 at the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.The Great American Bash (1985) took place on July 6, 1985 at the American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Storyline
Featured review
Mere moments of wrestling
My review was written in December 1985 after watching the program on Vestron video cassette.
"Ringmasters" is a disappointing program documenting excerpts from promoter Jim Crockett' "Great American Bash" wrestling extravaganza held last July 1985 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Truncated format, lack of humor and paucity of anything resembling a wrestling hold makes the video cassette a bummer, inferior to what fans get as a steady diet in Crockett's broadcasts on WTBS.
BIggest problem is the editing: there is no sense of continuity or the natural punishment and comebacks of a wrestling match when it's chopped down here to a few moments of highlights. Closest to remaining intact is champ (Nature Boy) Ric Flair triumphing over Nikita Koloff -though a bit less fake-looking blood (which fully drenches Flair's platinum blond hair) would have been nice. Also, the dead-serious commentary by host Gordon Solie is absurd, stressing the "Red Menace" of Koloff with a flip, tongue-in-cheek approach would have fit.
Lack of scientific wrestling or any recognizable holds is probably\ a sign of the times, but is carried to the extreme here. One dog-collar-chain match between managers Jimmy Valiant and Paul Jones is just an excuse for the blood to flow as one man hits the other repeatedly with the steel chain that joins them by the neck. Other matches consist solely of punching, throwing, ramming and the overdone clothesline (borrowed from football) technique. It seems that with 32,000 screaming fans in attendance, the holds/reversals of traditional wrestling just aren't violent enough to satisfy.
Oddly, an elaborate steel cage match between tv champ Tully Blanchard and Dusty Rhodes is wimpy, with a superfluous referee inside the cage with the wrestlers dutifully counting Blachard out after Rhodes gives him a piledriver.
One highlight comes when these National Wrestling Association stars Ivan Koloff and Krusher Khrushchev go up against American Wrestling Alliance champs The Road Warriors. Match ends predictably with a double disqualification, but augurs well for more interleague confrontations.
"Ringmasters" is a disappointing program documenting excerpts from promoter Jim Crockett' "Great American Bash" wrestling extravaganza held last July 1985 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Truncated format, lack of humor and paucity of anything resembling a wrestling hold makes the video cassette a bummer, inferior to what fans get as a steady diet in Crockett's broadcasts on WTBS.
BIggest problem is the editing: there is no sense of continuity or the natural punishment and comebacks of a wrestling match when it's chopped down here to a few moments of highlights. Closest to remaining intact is champ (Nature Boy) Ric Flair triumphing over Nikita Koloff -though a bit less fake-looking blood (which fully drenches Flair's platinum blond hair) would have been nice. Also, the dead-serious commentary by host Gordon Solie is absurd, stressing the "Red Menace" of Koloff with a flip, tongue-in-cheek approach would have fit.
Lack of scientific wrestling or any recognizable holds is probably\ a sign of the times, but is carried to the extreme here. One dog-collar-chain match between managers Jimmy Valiant and Paul Jones is just an excuse for the blood to flow as one man hits the other repeatedly with the steel chain that joins them by the neck. Other matches consist solely of punching, throwing, ramming and the overdone clothesline (borrowed from football) technique. It seems that with 32,000 screaming fans in attendance, the holds/reversals of traditional wrestling just aren't violent enough to satisfy.
Oddly, an elaborate steel cage match between tv champ Tully Blanchard and Dusty Rhodes is wimpy, with a superfluous referee inside the cage with the wrestlers dutifully counting Blachard out after Rhodes gives him a piledriver.
One highlight comes when these National Wrestling Association stars Ivan Koloff and Krusher Khrushchev go up against American Wrestling Alliance champs The Road Warriors. Match ends predictably with a double disqualification, but augurs well for more interleague confrontations.
Details
- Runtime1 hour
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