Memphis Wrestling (January 1984) Review

-I’m getting a little bored with the Memphis episodes I have that are just snippets and not complete shows, and it turns out that for January 1984, what I have is two weeks of snippets, and then a complete episode. So I’m just going to blow through three weeks in one longer-than-average recap.

January 7, 1984
-Your hosts are Lance Russell and Dave Brown.

-We’re right off to Mid-South Coliseum for a Fabulous Ones/Moondogs brawl, and nothing is resolved. So in the studio, we get the announcement that we’re getting a rematch with NO REFEREE, and the Moondogs are out for revenge because Bill Dundee was Jimmy Hart’s best friend and Steve Keirn cost him his career in Memphis.

-Next in the Coliseum, Jerry Lawler gets another shot at Nick Bockwinkel’s AWA World Heavyweight Title. We get a screwjob finish, as Nick throws a punch, Jerry ducks, the punch connects with the referee, and Jerry gets the win…by DQ.

-Lance is in the locker room one hour later with Nick Bockwinkel. Nick cuts a great promo about what a wrestling match feels like one hour after it’s over. He concedes that he’ll probably be on a soup-only diet for the next three days, and he’s irate that Lawler got dominated by technical holds and legal forearms, and then almost won the World Title with a PUNCH. This is WRESTLING, dammit!

-That said, he knows that Jerry Lawler is going to be pissy about being screwed out of the win on a technicality, so Nick Bockwinkel is offering him a rematch…with a catch. Lawler has to pay Nick Bockwinkel $500 for every punch that Lawler throws during that match.

-In the studio, Jerry Lawler has already accepted the offer, and Lance announces that AWA President Stanley Blackburn will personally attend the match as a precaution. Jerry says he’s done the math and figured out that $10,000 buys 20 punches, and the AWA World Heavyweight Champion gets a sizable increase in income for a professional wrestler…so actually, the “penalty” is more like an investment, when you think about it. That’s a smart wrestler, to be honest.

-Oh, just…one more thing. Lawler is demanding two referees. One of the referees will be one of the regular Memphis guys, but Lawler doesn’t want to risk losing the match on the grounds that a wimpy referee can’t take a punch, so he wants a second referee who can actually handle a shot to the jaw. So the other referee will be Jerry’s good friend Austin Idol.

-Back to the locker room for words from Austin Idol, who’s going to tear off Jimmy Hart’s clothes and warm his cockles.

-Joe Le Duc isn’t coming all the way to Memphis for no reason, and he’s going to maim Austin Idol.

-Also on Monday night, Randy Savage is the new Mid-American Champion and he’ll be defending the title against Dutch Mantell. We get words from Randy Savage and Angelo Poffo, who have decorated the Mid-America belt with flowers sticking out from the top and bottom of the front plate. Savage is coked to the gills here, purple-faced and shaking as he says that Dutch Mantell challenging the Macho Man is, and I quote, “like a man climbing up an elephant’s back with rape on its mind,” and he promises that MACHO-MANIA will run wild in Memphis! The craziest part is that there’s an edit point shortly after, like they had to cut something out and left THAT in. And he wraps up by holding up the chair he was sitting in during the promo and proudly revealing that he sat down so aggressively before tape started rolling, he broke the damn chair.

Well, I’m actually okay that the episode cuts off there because there was nothing that could follow that anyway. NEXT…

January 14, 1984.

-Your hosts are Lance Dave and Russell Brown.

-And we’re milking Fabulous Ones/Moondogs for a few last drops, because NOW we’re building up to a Loser Leaves Town match, which Keirn calls “The Last Tango in Memphis.” What part of that movie is he even thinking about?

-Jimmy Hart and the Moondogs are here. Music videos with shiny cars and fancy outfits don’t win matches, and meanwhile, Jimmy Hart has raked in a fortune from signing his guys to matches against the Fabulous Ones over and over and over again, so he’s smarter than them.

-Next, here’s KEN RESNICK making his first appearance on Memphis TV, welcoming Ken Patera and Jerry Blackwell. Patera & Blackwell, the AWA World Tag Team Champs, are defending the gold against the Rock & Roll Express, and Sheik Adnan El-Kassie, promises that the champs will make 800 million people proud. Oh, they’re the ones who keep breaking Flock cameras?

-Lance Russell is live in the studio with the Rock & Roll Express. They’re promising a BIG SURPRISE on Monday, but it’s January 1984, so at this point, a big surprise just means everyone advertised on the card will show up with no one jumping ship.

-Jimmy Hart is out here with Killer Karl Krupp and Sabu. Jimmy’s wearing a Universal Studios souvenir hat because he traveled straight to Hollywood to retrieve Krupp from a movie set to take on Lawler. Also, Sabu is looking for revenge over the tuxedo that Austin Idol ruined, so Sabu is signing to wrestle Austin Idol in a tuxedo match.

-We go to Lawler’s big opportunity to win the AWA Title…again….Referee Jerry Calhoun gets bumped. Paul Morton hurries to the ring to revive Calhoun. Jimmy Hart, for some reason dressed identically to Morton, shows up to distract him. While he’s distracted, Lawler throws Bockwinkel over the top rope (uh-oh…) and when Lawler goes for the pin a few seconds later, assigned second referee Austin Idol runs in to count the pin.

-BUT…Stanley Blackburn is here and he’s demanding that the belt be held up because of these shenanigans, and this feels like “wrong type of heat” because the fans immediately start throwing garbage at Blackburn, and there’s a real “Play me off, Johnny!” feel to the abrupt ending to the footage.

-Jerry Lawler is in the studio, looking forlorn about all this confusion. But for now, he can live with just defeating Killer Karl Krupp on Monday and retaining the Southern Title.

-Back to the Coliseum, with Macho Man battling Dutch Mantell, and Macho Man goes WAY TOO FAR here, stomping on Dutch’s hat! Dutch goes crazy and rolls up Savage for the three-count, then fetches his whip to get some satisfaction. Savage runs off before anything can go down.

-So we get post-match words from Randy Savage, who is wearing: A fedora; a feathered boa; and a gold glitter polo shirt. He looks like a manager at the worst high school gym indy show you ever saw. Savage wants some revenge on Monday night!

-Dutch Mantell, gives an interview in a video editing room(?) and tells Savage to bring his Mid-America belt and his old man and his crappy used Mercedes. Dutch wants the belt, and then Savage can drive that crappy car out of Memphis.

-January 21, 1984.

-Your hosts are him, and him too.

-Off to the Mid-South Coliseum, with the Fabulous Ones in a bloody brawl with the Moondogs. Rex in particular is a gory mess, with his hair almost totally red. We have a table AND a chair in the ring, with the Moondogs firmly in control and we get a nice bit of drama here, as the four guys keep pairing off into separate brawls, and the Moondogs keep covering the Fabulous Ones for visual three-counts, but the referee keeps missing them because he’s focusing on the other brawl happening at the moment.

-Spot gets fed up and starts launching chairs, stanchions, and the bell into the ring to try to end this damn thing already, but the Fabulous Ones won’t stay down, and then in a nice visual, the moment the Fabulous Ones have control back, they clear all of the weapons right back out of the ring. They want to win this one without weapons.

-So the referee misses ANOTHER three-count because of diverted attention and Jimmy Hart blows a gasket. He grabs a bag of powder to try to end this thing himself, but Steve Keirn ducks, Rex gets blinded, and Keirn piledrives him with Spot bungling the save and allowing the Fabulous Ones to win, and the crowd erupts with joy.

-In the studio, Jimmy Hart is completely undeterred by what happened to the Moondogs, because he has a new star to introduce to all of us, “The Next Sex Symbol of Professional Wrestling,” RICK RUDE! So this would be the famous Mid-South/Memphis talent swap where Cornette said that Bill Watts “got the better of Jerry Jarrett in a business deal,” because Bill Watts got the Rock & Roll Express, the Midnight Express, Jim Cornette, and Terry Taylor; on the other end, Jerry Jarrett got Hacksaw Higgins, Jim Neidhart, Masao Ito, and green-as-goat-shit Rick Rude.

-Rick strolls out in an all-white tuxedo with tails and no shirt, accompanied by his lovely valet Angel. Rick asks Lance Russell to take one step back so they don’t have to breathe the same air. Rude is completely unimpressed with either Fabulous One, noting that “I could floss my teeth with either one of them,” but not sounding particularly like he believes it. Rick definitely has some growing to do with mic work. It’s interesting how his act here is only broadly in the neighborhood of what he became. This is definitely a prototype version of the character.

RICK RUDE (with Jimmy Hart & Angel) vs. JERRY GRAY
-He’s also billed from Beverly Hills, California at this point, and he works in tight white pants.

-Gray applies a side headlock. Rude tries to counter, but Gray turns it into a snapmare takedown and keeps the side headlock on. Rude uses the hair to force a break, and finishes with the neckbreaker, but looking more like the Honky Tonk Man’s later version than the Rude Awakening.

-We head off to Mid-South Coliseum for a glimpse of King Konga, the future Barbarian, and again, it’s a 1.0 version of the more famous persona, as he has the facepaint and the haircut, but different facepaint pattern and the hair that he has is almost afro’ed out, and he’s billed “from New York.” Press slam and a legdrop gives him the win over Stagger Lee. Lance Russell is pretty stunned that a wrestler could get a win over Terry Taylor AND Stagger Lee in consecutive weeks.

-We get words from JJ Dillon, touting the arrival of the Zambuie Express in Memphis. Dillon also gives us a backstory for King Konga. He’s fought on the streets of New York his entire life. He’s fought for food and for places to sleep. Now he just wants to fight for fame and fortune.

FABULOUS ONES vs. ZAMBUI EXPRESS
-Or is it? Eddie Marlin and Jerry Lawler comes out, and Jerry is dressed to wrestle for some reason.

-Eddie explains that the Fabulous Ones aren’t in the building. He knows for sure that they wrestled in Kentucky last night, and with the roads the way they are in January, he suspects that they’re having a lot of trouble navigating their way here, but he wants to deliver the matches that he’s advertised, so Jerry Lawler has agreed to move up the match that he was supposed to have later in the show and wrestle right now so that the Fabs have some extra time to drive, if they need it.

SOUTHERN HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: JERRY “The King” LAWLER (Champion) vs. SABU THE WILDMAN (with Jimmy Hart)
-Jerry Lawler wanted this match on TV because Sabu got a surprise upset over him on TV weeks ago and he knows that fans keep asking about that. So he wanted this match to make a point that he’s not going to duck anyone who holds a victory over him already.

-Lawler connects with rights as Jimmy Hart keeps trying to distract him by making comments about JJ Dillon coming to the area. Sabu takes over with chops and a series of legdrops. But Gorilla Monsoon would probably have something to say about the number of times he goes to the well here as he ends up missing one and the King comes back with a flurry of punches.

-Elbow misses and Sabu bounces off the ropes to try to finish him off with something…but Jimmy Hart trips his own man from the floor, and Jerry immediately capitalizes and covers Sabu for the three to retain. The King and the studio audience are completely confused as Jimmy Hart screwed his own man to help his enemy.

-Jimmy Hart comes over to the commentary table to say that he wants Jerry Lawler to consider an offer: Jimmy Hart will pay him $10,000 to join the First Family, because Jimmy himself really, really does not trust JJ Dillon and thinks some bad stuff’s going to happen if JJ Dillon starts managing in the area. If Jerry is willing to join the First Family, he and Jimmy Hart can work together to eliminate a common enemy.

-We get an Austin Idol music video, and now Memphis is starting to figure out how music videos should work because there’s footage of Austin posing and gazing into a mirror, and it was definitely shot specifically for the video.

-The Zambuie Express are out here, and the Fabulous Ones still aren’t. Well if the champs aren’t in the building, isn’t that a forfeit? Shouldn’t the Zambuie Express be the new champs?

-Eddie Marlin comes out here to make a ruling, and everybody is shocked to hear Eddie say that…yeah, rules are rules. The Zambuie Express are the new Southern Tag Team Champions. But the Zambuie Express wants to make it clear that they don’t just want the belts handed to them with no competition. They’ll accept the belts, but they still want two geeks brought to the ring just to get a win over someone, and they flatten some jobbers in a match so uninteresting that the guy who recorded this episode skipped it.

-Ken Resnick has pretaped words with Ken Patera and Jerry Blackwell. Austin Idol may be a heartthrob, but nothing of his will be throbbing when Ken Patera gets rid of him. Ken Patera & Jerry Blackwell have knocked the Rock & Roll Express out of the area, now they’re headed back to take care of Jerry Lawler & Austin Idol.

-Jerry Lawler is live in the studio with a rebuttal, but Jimmy Hart interrupts, and he’s freaking out about JJ Dillon’s stable invading the territory. Jimmy shows Jerry a blank check and tells him to just think about it.

-Before we move on, we have to take care of a proper burial. The Rock & Roll Express goes for the AWA Tag Team Titles, with Patera & Blackwell defending. Blackwell splashes Robert behind the referee’s back and Patera gets the pin. It’s that weird deal where it’s supposed to be a “tainted” victory because it was behind the referee’s back, but Blackwell did a legal move and did it in five seconds, so it would have been totally fine if the referee had seen it. And props to Lance Russell on commentary because he basically says it was a clean victory and that the Rock & Roll Express just got off to a bad start in the match and never recovered from it.

-And still more from Mid-South Coliseum, as Randy Savage battles Dutch Mantell in a no-DQ match. Savage attacks during the entrance and Dutch is actually wearing a crimson mask before he even takes his entrance shirt off. Dutch makes a big comeback, taking the brawl to the floor, but Angelo Poffo trips Dutch from the floor and Savage DIVES on top of him for the three-count as fast as he can get it.

-So Dutch Mantell has done some soul-searching. He KNOWS he’s a better wrestler than Randy Savage, so if Dutch can’t win a rematch, he’s outta here.

-So Randy Savage is on videotape with another batshit insane promo, declaring that he’s a better wrestling commentator than Lance Russell, and Lance is damn lucky that Randy Savage is too great at wrestling to retire from it, or else Lance would be out of a job. Also, Randy emphasizes that he would be a better host for The Tonight Show than Johnny Carson.

-Eddie Marlin is out here. He STILL cannot make contact with the Fabulous Ones, therefore…the ruling about the forfeit stands and the Zambuie Express are the new champions. However, they must defend the belts against the Fabulous Ones at the next Mid-South Coliseum card, provided that the Fabulous Ones make contact with Eddie by then.

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

Macho Man AND a break from Bill Dundee for a while definitely add some life to this territory.