For the longest time, I thought that the Dynamite Kid was underrated. Really, not making this up. In the days before the internet really started being THE INTERNET, the only discussion you’d have with wrestling fans would be at events or maybe those one or two friends you had that also followed it. To many of those folks, the mention of the British Bulldogs meant Davey Boy Smith and Davey Boy Smith only. Or maybe I guess Winston, the second of the actual dogs to accompany one of the boys to the ring.
But for me, Dynamite was always the man. An acrobat who wrestled an insane style that I loved. That recklessness would of course wind up being very, very bad for Tom Billington, the man behind that Dynamite Kid persona, but for me, as a fan, I couldn’t get enough. Which made it all the more sad that his run in the WWF was so incredibly brief. And SPEAKING OF incredibly brief…
…let’s go back to the WWF Wrestling Classic, which would be the oft-forgotten follow up to the original WrestleMania. Yes kids, the second ever WWF PPV wasn’t SummerSlam, Royal Rumble, or Survivor Series. It was rather a wrestling tournament featuring several of the company’s top stars. It was to be the beginning of something called WRESTLEVISION, which I am pretty sure was never ever mentioned by the company again. Also a fancy car that appeared to have been built 40 years before the show! Hey, is that the same car Alfred picked up Bruce Wayne in at the end of Batman Returns? It just might be!
So as the graphic shows, we got the likes of Ricky Steamboat, Don Muraco, Tito Santana, Randy Savage, and…well, one of the Moondogs (who shockingly won his match against Terry Funk!). It was actually a really fun show that had a few surprises here and there, including Davey Boy wrestling Steamboat (two fan favorites!!!) with Davey getting a GROIN injury which gave Steamboat the forfeit win. His partner would be pitted against dastardly Russian Nikolai Volkoff. And that’s what we’re here to talk about today.
So Nikolai does what he always does – sings the Soviet national anthem. Kid is like awesome, I will just climb to the top rope and hit a drop kick to start – and end – this thing quick. Which he does. The fact that the whole thing took less than ten seconds means one thing for sure – it was the best Nikolai Volkoff match I ever saw. Yet another reason Dynamite Kid is forever my hero!