Ricky Steamboat vs. Jake Roberts, (8/28/86 Toronto Big Event) Options

[(Mul)Doomstone]

[aceman]

carry-by-numbers with ricky doing all he can to make jake look creditable. neat bumps of snapmare & hiptoss. once again jake’s limited moveset is clear, but is offset by strong facials

[Loss]

It's not as good of a match and I won't rank it above it, but I do think this is an easier match to get into than Savage/Steamboat at Wrestlemania III, if only because Steamboat shows far more piss and vinegar and because Roberts is a much better heel than Savage is.

[c-mac]

This was a pretty good match between two fantastic workers. Steamboat was smart with working Jake's arm but this didn't really play into the match nor did it seem to fit the "anything goes" atmosphere that surrounded it. The finish, while clever and somewhat surprising, also seemed a little too deliberate as the referee seemed to stall on the count.

[Blanket Jackson]

carry-by-numbers with ricky doing all he can to make jake look creditable. neat bumps of snapmare & hiptoss. once again jake’s limited moveset is clear, but is offset by strong facials

Carry job? No way.

I thought this was pretty fuckin' good until the flash pin ending, which sort of deflated my love for this just a little bit. I thought Jake showboating on a pin attempt was a little uncharacteristic.

I like the clash between Ricky wrestling (despite the no-DQ stip) and Jake brawling. Ricky had more fire than usual and this was one of my favourite Jake matches, actually.

[aceman]

Carry job?  No way.

I thought this was pretty fuckin' good until the flash pin ending, which sort of deflated my love for this just a little bit.  I thought Jake showboating on a pin attempt was a little uncharacteristic.

I like the clash between Ricky wrestling (despite the no-DQ stip) and Jake brawling.  Ricky had more fire than usual and this was one of my favourite Jake matches, actually.

sorry but i must disagree, jake's a smart & game worker, however ricky's energy & solid bumping stop this match from slowing down & becoming dull. of jake's matches from this period, i've found very few to be entertaining & while the psychology of his bouts can’t be questioned, they all seem slow-paced & short on action

[texanspaniard]

I really liked this match alot! I would've liked to have seen it gone longer but I was pretty entertained by it still. I thought Jake was pretty good in the match. He bumped pretty well and he did the dickish heel thing really well. I liked when he had Steamboat down and bleeding and he was all egging Steamboat on telling him to get up to his feet. Steamboat was good too. He seemed to do everything so well and brought alot of energy to this. Good stuff!

[jcl1]

I really dug this match Steamboat came off awesome as the babyface seeking retribution against the cool, vicious heel that Roberts was portraying. I had totally forgotten just how much fun these 80's style wwf brawls could be.

[Handsome Dan]

A nifty clash-of-personalities match. Jake's cold, inbred psycho schtick meshes surprisingly well with Steamboat's groovy, exotic style, both wrestling-wise and persona-wise. During the first Steamboat offense section, I got antsy and a little bored. "C'mon, man, its NO HOLDS BARRED! Quit farting around with his arm and stab him with a spork or something!" Once they got into the back-and-forth a little more, it started to work out and I saw how this was supposed to go down: Jake uses the stips to indulge his creepy, violent side, while Steamboat reamains determined to bring him down by the book. Which he then does.

Two things:
1) Holy crap, it looks like there's 20 million billion people in that stadium.

2) Who on earth was doing the color commentary? He was hilarious, whoever he was. The extemporanious speech about the male dragon meeting the (hypothetical) female dragon had me questioning my sanity.




Dan

[Shoe]

I enjoyed the match. Steamers arm work on Jake was a solid base to the match. Then Jakes work on the neck and head of Ricky was a good set up for the DDT; especially the slingshot into the ringpost. I also loved Jake's selling of the chairshot with his legs going all rubber. It felt that they were working to a 20 minute match that ended in 10 minutes with the flash pin. Fun match though.

[fidelityastro]

Man that was great UNTIL THE END. Ugh. While Ricky was getting creamed I figured it was going to be sort of a "can steamboat hold his own in a brawl with roberts" sort of thing, which would have been excellent, but then he gets the stupid flash pin. UGH. I am totally incoherent right now. This is like a premature ejaculation on your wedding night or something. OH WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN!

That said, the rest of the match was excellent. Sigh.

[babylonianfrost]

Two things:
1) Holy crap, it looks like there's 20 million billion people in that stadium. 

2) Who on earth was doing the color commentary?  He was hilarious, whoever he was.  The extemporanious speech about the male dragon meeting the (hypothetical) female dragon had me questioning my sanity.
Dan

The Luscious Johnny V on commentary if I remember my psychotically-annoying announcers properly. I'll grant you the lunacy of the commentating, but goddamn, he got on my nerves here.

[ChrisHenderson]

70/100. The ending. DAMNIT, that ending just crept up out of nowhere and I think really kinda sucked the wind from me. When it's no holds barred, I want something more than a simple technical finish. But it was a whole lot of fun while it lasted, and Roberts slingshot into the ringpost was choice. Probably not good enough to creep into my top 20, but it might get close.

[mookieghana]

I had no problem with the ending. Babyface gets the win but the heel doesn't lose any heat really because it was just outwrestled. It worked for me.

[TheFlairMark]

A decent match, but being the 3rd best Steamer match on the first disc will hurt it in comparison (with the screwy ending to the Orton match the only thing keeping this out of the basement).

[Iron Chad]

I too did not like the finish, but after watching lots and lots of 1980's WWF footage it is not an uncommon one, especially for the scientific babyface against a diabollical or cocky heel.

Match was fun and much better as a feud match than Steamboat/Savage as someone else said. WM III was a better match, technically, this was a better grudge match. Ricky actually seems pissed and vengeful at tiems, especially when he has the chair.

Ricky annoys me by coming out an doing basic scientific stuff in the beginning after Jake had bounced his head off the concrete, but from the five mintue moment on, Jake is evil (and already with a vocal group of fans) and Ricky seems mad and bands the rules to get even a bit.

Jake was really good in this as well.

Gorilla calls a gutbuster an "inverted backbreaker", which I guess is technically correct, but it's a the gut, not the back that takes the shot, so, WUH?

This needed a finishing sequence instead of just a finish to be great. This was pretty good as it was. Probably Top 20.

-Chad

[TheFlairMark]

Gorilla calls a gutbuster an "inverted backbreaker", which I guess is technically correct, but it's a the gut, not the back that takes the shot, so, WUH?

You have to realize that Gorilla was not a master of technical terminology, and technically the move is an inverted backbreaker.

He makes the exact same call on the exact same move in one of the other matches on the set (I believe it's the Brainbusters v. Stallions match).

[PsychoDriver]

Hrm... I really don't know on this one. It had its' moments but I gotta echo the "too short" comments. It seemed odd to me considering the history of the feud. Considering Steamboat did a "hospital job" for this feud, for the blowoff to end with a flash pin after ten minutes seems weird. Plus, considering it was a no DQ match, you would imagine Steamboat showing no mercy throughout going for the guy who tried to end his career but that really doesn't seem to play out.

A lot of parallels can be drawn between the Savage feud and this one and the payoff to the Savage feud was leaps and bounds better. Jake was good in this, playing the crowd, being the dickish heel. But it just fell short of my expectations of it.