The Road Warriors, ticked off beyond belief at the embarrassment the Russians had caused them, took the opportunity to intervene and one of the Road Warriors (memory loss... sorry) military pressed Houston from THE FLOOR over the top rope into the ring onto Kruschev!!! Animal then held the American traitor's leg down, making escape from the pin impossible. Was THAT good enough? Nah... not quite! Animal took Krusher's leg and repeatedly stretched it in shapes that weren't quite normal, and were, from the screams and profanity coming from Krusher's mouth, quite painful. Kruschev would ALSO be out until Summer.

Tully Blanchard, showing a true lack of common sense, confronted Baby Doll on television about a trip she took. Baby Doll said that J.J. Dillon had given her the tickets as a present from Tully. J.J. said he had no clue what she was talking about, and Tully, in a fit of rage, slapped Baby Doll (Tully... I couldve murdered you!) knocking her to the floor. Dusty Rhodes made the save on Baby Doll, proclaiming to Tully, "SHE DON'T BELONG TO YOU NO MORE!!! SHE'S WITH ME NOW!" (Guess Tully got a look at those pictures with J.J. in women's undies and decided he liked them better than Baby Doll, huh? LOL...)

Arn Anderson won the World Television Title, which meant he could now carry the title around LEGALLY (well, at least as "legal" as a heel could.... Arn and Tully STOLE the belt from Dusty when Dusty was on crutches after Flair and The Andersons broke his ankle. Arn pranced around for weeks carrying the title belt, even though Jim Crockett had declared the title vacant. Arn's prancing came to an end when Dusty busted his head with a wooden chair and took the belt back and relinquished it to Jim Crockett, Jr. Arn's victory interview on World Wide Wrestling was a classic... "IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF JULIUS CAESAR... I CAME, I SAW, I CONQUERED!" Arn Anderson was the man of the hour!

Jim Cornette's Midnight Express defeated Ricky and Robert for the World Tag Team Titles. They would do battle with The Road Warriors, America's Team, and the Rock and Roll before a violent incident would occur that would set up some matches for the Great American Bash.

Jim Cornette... loud mouth that he was, got in the ring and started mouthing off to Dusty Rhodes. Dusty, offended, came to the ring to tell Cornette off. "THAT'S A NICE HAT, YOU GOT THERE, AMERICAN DREAM... DID IT COME WITH A BOWL OF SOUP?" Dusty was beating the crap out of Corny when Dennis and Bobby made the save. Baby Doll tried to intervene to save Dusty, but was held firmly in place by one of the Midnights while Jim Cornette rammed his tennis racket in her abdomen (There were almost TWO murders in 1986...lol). From that point on... Cornette was a marked man. And almost a dead one...

Two masked men invaded the NWA calling themselves The James Boys. They were two desperadoes who wanted The Midnight Express in the ring to defeat them for the NWA tag team titles. One match saw Frank and Jesse James take Jim Cornette from ringside with a noose around his neck. Now, at this point, it gets a little rough. One would think that The James Boys would be content to lead Cornette around by the noose and show him off to the fans, kind of symbolically saying... WE GOT HIM! No, Cornette wouldn't get off quite so easy THIS time. Frank and Jesse James took Cornette from the arena, noose around his neck, and tied him to the bumper of a car. The car was started and... well, all I can say is Thank God Dennis and Bobby were able to make the save, because SOMEBODY would've had some explaining to do, driving down the highway with a body attached to it. Jim Cornette, basically, to quote Jack Nicholson, you messed with the WRONG marine...

1986 saw the debut of one of my favorite tag teams of all time... The Kansas Jayhawks: Dutch Mantell and Bobby Jaggers were no strangers to top notch competition and they took The Midnight Express to the limit on a number of occasions. They also did battle with Ivan and Krusher for the U.S. Tag team titles, which were added to the titles of JCP in the Fall of 1986. They never did win gold, but they sure cut some awesome promos and had some great matches while they were there. I sure wanted to see The Dutchman and The Jag get revenge for the whuppin' they took at the hands of The Midnight Express, where Cornette whipped Dutch with "Shoe Baby", Mantel's own bullwhip, but they never won the belts.

It was over the Summer of 1986 that The Four Horsemen were formed. On a World Wide Wrestling telecast, Dusty Rhodes called out Ric Flair and told him to get in the ring. Flair agreed and Rhodes and Flair gave the fans a classic match, until Arn and Tully and OLE ANDERSON (who until then was still recovering from his ankle) attacked Rhodes. They formed a unit based on dominating the NWA... Arn was running down a list of wrestlers and mentioned the new upstart, The Warlord (a Baby Doll protege') and said... "WARLORD, GET YOU SOME ENCYCLOPEDIAS! YOU'RE GONNA WANNA LEARN HOW TO SPELL 'HORSEMEN!'" and the wrestling world was NEVER the same!

The Horsemen did more than win all the titles... they put the fear of God in people! The Horsemen beat down Dusty Rhodes on more than one occasion, including a time in JCP's parking lot on Briarbend Dr. (off South Blvd. in Charlotte, NC) YA BETTER MAKE IT GOOD!!! They also got Ricky and Robert, The Road Warriors (spike piledriving Hawk on the concrete floor!), Boogie eWoogie Man, Ron Garvin, anyone who crossed them... they took out. There was NEVER another Horsemen... not the NWO, not the Dangerous Alliance (even WITH Double A). There was no one would could cause excitement and create fear all in the same time! Horsemen... and everyone associated with JCP... thank you. You were the only friends I had growing up. To quote from a favorite movie of mine... "It wasn't a bad trade... when you had nothing else..."

I wouldn't have traded one minute of my memories for ANYTHING. No, it wasn't a bad trade at all...