Super Towns on the Superstation Showed JCP Was National Before It Learned How to Feel National

Barry Windham and Arn Anderson provide the cleanest wrestling structure on the program. Anderson slows Windham down with the arm and uses the ropes and ringside area to keep the younger babyface from building speed, while Windham answers with dropkicks, a suplex counter and the kind of athletic bursts that already made him look larger than the midcard. The match is not especially heated for fifteen minutes, and the television edit trims some of its connective tissue, but the finish matters. Windham slips back into the ring and catches Anderson with a sunset flip for a clean pin, then pays for it when Arn delivers the gourdbuster afterward. The result advances Windham without making Anderson look harmless, which is exactly what this kind of television special should accomplish.

Brad Armstrong and Jimmy Garvin spend most of their allotted time circling around holds without creating much urgency. Armstrong is smooth whenever the pace quickens, but Garvin's character work and Precious at ringside never turn the slow opening into meaningful tension. The match finally begins to wake up when Armstrong strings together a comeback and drives Garvin into the corner. Then Garvin simply throws him over the top rope for the disqualification. The finish is useful if the goal is to keep Garvin obnoxious and Armstrong protected, but it arrives just as the bout seems ready to become interesting. Retrospective reviews are especially harsh on this segment, and that reaction is understandable. It is not disastrous wrestling; it is television time spent without much payoff.

The Central States tag-team match is a strange but revealing inclusion. Brad and Bart Batten work fast early, using dropkicks and quick tags to make the champions regroup, while the MOD Squad settles into a conventional control segment built around distractions and tandem offense. The work is rough in spots and the identical challengers can be difficult to distinguish, but the match at least has a recognizable tag structure and a crowd that understands the comeback. The finish comes when one champion interferes from the floor during a suplex attempt, allowing his partner to fall on top for the pin. It is hardly a showcase worthy of national prime time, yet its presence supports the program's larger idea: Crockett television wanted viewers to see allied NWA territory as part of a widening map.

The Rock 'n' Roll Express have to do most of the movement here because Vladimir Petrov is still painfully limited. Robert Gibson spends the middle portion absorbing bearhugs, backbreakers and clumsy double-team offense while Ivan Koloff provides the experienced heel glue. The match improves once Ricky Morton enters and the familiar Express pace finally appears, but the comeback lasts only long enough for Petrov to grab the chain and strike Morton for the disqualification. The post-match attack gives Gibson a chance to steal the chain and clear the ring, preserving the babyfaces without asking Petrov to carry a complicated finish. There is enough old-school tag logic to keep the segment coherent, but the matchup feels more like an angle vehicle than something chosen because it belonged on a special.

Dusty Rhodes and Tully Blanchard have history, personality and J. J. Dillon at ringside, which is enough to make even a sluggish match feel like part of something larger. Tully stalls, attacks opportunistically and lets Dillon add cheap offense whenever the referee turns away. Dusty answers with elbows and eventually borrows Blanchard's slingshot suplex, but the referee is taken out before the move can matter. Arn Anderson interferes, Barry Windham arrives to counter him, and the whole match dissolves into a disqualification and post-match beating. The feud logic is easy to follow, yet the special has already used several protected finishes and this one adds another. The angle after the bell is more memorable than the wrestling before it, especially when Blanchard and Anderson leave Dusty bloodied before Windham makes the save.

Ric Flair and Nikita Koloff finally give the show a match that feels worthy of the promotion's top championship. Flair sells Nikita's strength as a serious threat, repeatedly retreating when the Russian Sickle becomes possible and using movement rather than brute force to survive. Nikita's offense is simple but convincing, and Flair's willingness to bump, bleed and make every power move look dangerous gives the challenger credibility. The match's strangest feature is its conclusion: despite being billed as no disqualification, both men are counted out after Tully Blanchard interferes on the floor. Dusty Rhodes then arrives to even the sides, and Nikita leaves holding the world title belt without actually winning it. The finish is frustrating, but the preceding action is physical, energetic and clearly above the rest of the card.

The scaffold match is more spectacle than wrestling, which is both the appeal and the limitation. Hawk, Animal, Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey spend most of the bout balancing on the narrow platform, throwing short punches and trying to knock each other toward the ring below. Cornette's tennis racket and powder add familiar Midnight Express cheating, but the structure leaves little room for the timing and movement that normally make Eaton and Condrey special. The payoff is undeniably memorable: Eaton hangs from the edge until Animal stomps his hands loose, and Condrey eventually drops as well to give the Road Warriors the victory. By early 1987 the attraction had already been toured heavily after Starrcade, so the danger is more impressive than the novelty. It works as a television image, not as a great match.