- Scott Keith

So the deal here is that the Gagne's produced a two hour sort-of retrospective on the AWA, although from the looks of things the AWA’s history mainly involved Jesse Ventura, Hulk Hogan and Mad Dog Vachon. And like the sucker I am, I ordered it, because really isn’t SOME wrestling better than no wrestling?

- Your hosts are Verne Gagne, Greg Gagne and Todd Okerlund (yes, he’s his son).

- Opening match: Jesse Ventura & Adrian Adonis v. Greg Gagne & "Jumpin" Jim Brunzell. Quick montage of Jesse’s interviews precedes the match. Can we kiss the gov’s ass ANY MORE? This is listed as being from 1982, with the East/West Connection supposedly holding the tag titles here. That makes no sense, because they lost the tag titles to the High Flyers a year previous to that and never won them back again. I think Greg was a wee bit confused in his pre-match introduction, or else they got the date wrong. We pick this up with Gagne working on Jesse’s leg and Brunzell choking him in the corner. Brunzell is of course more famous for being one half of the Killer Bees. God knows there’s probably many people reading this who don’t know him for THAT, either, and believe me, that scares me sometimes. Backbreaker gets two, and a brawl erupts, with the High Flyers applying spinning toeholds to Ventura. He dodges the dreaded DROPKICK OF DEATH, however, and Adonis (looking slim and trim) comes in and beats the hell out of Gagne. Ugly clothesline gets two. Bulldog gets nothing. Gagne reverses a second try at it and gets the hot tag to Brunzell. Dropkick gets two. Piledriver gets two, and the announcer sounded pretty worried about Brunzell pulling out the feared "skullcracker" variation of the move. I have no idea what that would be, but it sure SOUNDS painful. Sadly, my curiosity was to remain piqued but unfulfilled, as we never find out what the feared skullcracker piledriver actually entails. I’m assuming that some sort of cracking of the skull is involved. See, now, that’s just not nice – teasing people with a vicious-sounding move like that, especially from a wuss like Brunzell, and then leaving us hanging. No wonder they went out of business. Hopefully Nova will "invent" a new move and call it the skullcracker, just so I can hear Joey Styles call it. "Oh my god, it’s the SKULLCRACKER!" Whatever. I’m not bitter. Pier-six erupts and the champs(?) hit a spike piledriver on Greg for the pin. I was hoping that THAT would be the teased "skullcracker", but no, the announcer just calls it a spike piledriver. Decent enough action for a match with Gagne involved. **1/2  More...