British Bulldogs vs. Hart Foundation (WWF - 9/23/1985)

One of my favorite tag matches of the 80s, a nice combination of classic tag structure and Stampede-style workrate. And all in spite of Neidhart being almost completely useless. His offensive repertoire consists entirely of restholds and clubbing blows, and he does nothing interesting on the apron. One spot in particular stuck out to me. While working over Dynamite, Bret cheap-shots Davey Boy off the apron, prompting the referee to restrain Davey to keep him from running in. That seemed to be designed to allow Neidhart to interfere behind the referee’s back, but he does nothing. He was also late running in to break up a Dynamite backslide pin later in the match. Thankfully, Bret is more than capable of carrying the load. With all the interfering and distracting he was doing on the apron in addition to his work as the legal man, he was practically wrestling for two. Dynamite is of course an offensive dynamo, with a vicious knee drop in the opening minutes and a brutal clothesline to Bret’s larynx off the hot tag being particular highlights. But it was his selling that really stuck out to me, both with his facials and his body language. The way he crumpled in pain after a Neidhart body blow was especially impressive. Gorilla Monsoon burying the referee for shoot incompetence by allowing the Hart Foundation to switch without tagging right before his eyes was icing on the cake.