wrestling / Video Reviews
Georgia Championship Wrestling (10.3.1981) Review
Image Credit: Georgia Championship Wrestling
Loading...-Originally aired October 3, 1981.
-Your host is Gordon Solie.
-Breaking! Title changes! Title changes everywhere! Tommy Rich is the new National Heavyweight Champion, and Michael Hayes & Otis Sistrunk are the new Tag Team Champions. However, our excitement should be tempered because there’s an important announcement regarding Tommy Rich, and matchmaker George Scott will be here to explain everything.
-World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair is here. The fact that two titles changed hands this past week just goes to prove that on any given day, a title can change…but Ric Flair didn’t lose his title this week, so clearly the rules don’t apply to him.
JERRY & TED OATES vs. JOSE MEDINA & IZZY SLAPOWITZ
-Medina leapfrogs over Ted and runs into a slam by Jerry. Armbar by Ted, but Medina gets to the corner and makes the tag. Slapowitz accomplishes nothing and tags Medina back in. Jobbers manage to back Jerry into their corner and gang up on him. Jerry fights back and manages to tie up Izzy in a spinning toehold, and he gets the submission.
-We go to up to Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, where Dusty Rhodes has some thoughts about coming back to the Omni as a challenger instead of as a champion. He goes full televangelist, telling Ric Flair that he has seen both sides of the champion’s face, and his heart is full of evil. And he was a rap master before Ric Flair. Yo baby yo baby YO!
-So here’s George Scott with some videotape to explain what happened. The Masked Superstar defended the National Title against Tommy Rich in Augusta, Georgia in a steel cage match. Superstar keeps climbing the cage to try to escape from an ass-kicking, but Rich won’t let him, pulling him down over and over again and beating the hell out of him. At one point Superstar attempts to escape and makes it to the top He kicks Tommy away and Tommy crashes on the mat, and Superstar sees an opportunity and goes for a splash off the top, but Tommy rolls over, Superstar crashes, and Rich gets the three-count and wins the title.
-Superstar attacks after the bell. Rich fights back and almost rips the mask off, but then Great Mephisto, Tor Kamata, and Ray Stevens all storm into the ring for a 4-on-1 assault. Babyfaces head to the ring to rescue and it’s an amazing scene, as Mephisto blocks the door and keeps the babyfaces from entering, until they finally change strategies and scatter around the ring, climbing in from all four sides, so they finally get in and stop the attack, but the damage is done and EMTs have to come to the ring and tend to Tommy for so long that the entire cage is completely taken down and gone by the time they get Tommy out of the ring.
-We head to Tommy Rich’s house. Tommy says that getting assaulted by four men at once inside a steel cage was “PROBABLY the worst beating I’ve ever had in my life,” and man, if you can’t commit to a superlative in those circumstances, re-evaluate your life.
-And with that, George South demands that the Masked Superstar, Ray Stevens, Great Memphisto, and Tor Kamata all get out here because he has a letter from NWA President Jim Crockett. Everybody in the incident is fined, and everybody is now on six months’ probation, and any further infractions could lead to permanent removal from the National Wrestling Alliance.
-And Superstar can’t even control his temper for the first 60 seconds of that six-month probation. He shoves George South, and South is so shocked that Superstar did something that stupid that he cancels Superstar’s scheduled TV match today and tells him to pack his shit, he wrestles the house shows today and tomorrow and then he’s out of the business for the next six months!
RIC FLAIR (World Champion) vs. BOBBY GARRETT
-Garrett takes Flair down in a side headlock, Flair turns it into headscissors as Gordon Solie talks about the figure four and makes the rather surprising on-air observation that Flair does it on the wrong side!
-Snapmare by Flair, and Gordon jumps in with the completely unexpected etymology of the name; the snapmare and flying mare were invented by a wrestler named Frank Mare. Figure four by Flair gets the submission, even on the wrong leg.
-Flair warns Dusty Rhodes that he’d better BRING IT when he comes to the Omni on Sunday October 18.
TOR KAMATA & RAY STEVENS (with Great Mephisto) vs. STEVE O & BRIAN BLAIR
-And it’s a donnybrook right away because the scientific babyfaces know that they’re facing a cheater and a crazy man, so why even give them a chance? Referee manages to get some order in there, and Kamata throws a kick, “confusing Steve O with this Oriental approach to wrestling,” according to Gordon. Yes, you could tell Steve O was thinking “What is this bizarre maneuver in which he’s moving his leg quickly and causing his foot to come into contact with my body? Is there a name for it? Is there any sort of counter, I wonder?”
-Kamata clamps on a chinlock, but here comes Tommy Rich with a cowboy boot in his hand, and he beats the hell out of Kamata and Mephisto, and they’re so surprised that Rich is in the building that they hurry away from the beating.
-It’s time for hour #2, and the Techwood Studio burns to the ground when they set off all the fireworks to start.
TERRY GORDY vs. KEN TIMBS
-It’s amazing how Gordy is introduced as “the former Freebird” because the tandem had existed for only something like two years before the break-up, and it’s treated like this legendary thing that we should be speaking of in hallowed tones for all time even in 1981.
-Chinlock by Gordy as Gordon drops a knowledge bomb: Teddy Roosevelt had a special “wrestling room” with mats set up in the White House. Knowing what we know about Teddy Roosevelt, I’m going to assume he insisted on being freshly restocked with three live bears each day to be his opponents.
-Gordy keeps going with the chinlock. Timbs charges him but can’t keep the momentum going beyond that, and Gordy piledrives him for three.
-Tommy Rich reminds us that the Masked Superstar’s suspension doesn’t kick in for another two days, so you fans in Jasper and Gainesville had better buy some tickets to see him take a beating on his way out the door!
HANDICAP MATCH: GREAT KABUKI (with Gary Hart) vs. JESSE BARR & CARLOS ZAPATA
-We’re off to WCCW for a glimpse of Kabuki, who’s on his way to Georgia real soon.
-Kicks and chops by the Kabukster. Jobbers try ganging up on him and it works until Kabuki fights back with more chops. Barr gets thrown to the concrete, leaving Zapata alone in the ring with Kabuki, and Kabuki knocks him cold with a kick for the win.
JEFF SWORD & BRIAN BLAIR vs. BRIAN ST. JOHN & IRON MIKE SHARPE
-Is anyone else getting a “guys left the territory” vibe from this week’s card?
-Blair blocks an attempted roll-up by Sharpe and drops an elbow for a one-count. Everybody tags and not much happens until the Iron one tags in to AAAAAUGGGHHH and WOOOOAAAAHHH for a bit. St. John tags in and rakes Sword’s eyes, dusts his hands, decides his work here is done, and tags Sharpe back in. Sharpe slams Sword down and St. John tags in and finishes things with a powerslam. I’m….actually kind of surprised by that outcome.
-Michael Hayes riffs on what a stupid name “Nature Boy” is before letting us know that he’s battling Terry Gordy one-on-one in the Omni on October 18.
TOR KAMATA & RAY STEVENS (with Great Mephisto) vs. DENNY BROWN & DON GILBERT
-Jobbers get clobbered and clubbered by two opponents with blubber who don’t tolerate anyone’s jibber-jabber. Stevens finishes Brown off with a stungun.
MICHAEL HAYES, OTIS SISTRUNK, & STEVE O vs. BOB RUSSELL, JERRY GREY, & DEKE RIVERS
-Gordon once again mentions that Michael Hayes has a little brother who’s a wrestler and we’ll probably be hearing from him on a national level some day. Well we didn’t, so I’ve decided my headcanon is that Michael Hayes’ brother became a pro baseball player instead, forming a legendary squad in Cleveland. And that’s the story of Willie Mays Hayes.
-Hayes (still wearing “Freebirds” embroidered on his ass like he’s Tito Santana) throws an opponent out to the apron, and you can tell that’s not what he had in mind, but the jobber didn’t want to go to the floor. And by the way, Gordon Solie also has lost track of the jobbers, because he keeps calling the moves like “he throws a forearm into…….his man, and now…”
-The man that Gordon has decided is Deke Rivers tags in and Otis Sistrunk headbutts him down. Sistrunk shoves a jobber down in weird fashion and throws the SHITTIEST clothesline I’ve ever seen, and you can tell he’s just not getting how this works. Sistrunk with another clothesline that I can only call a clothesline in the sense that it’s obviously not a bodyslam, and Hayes comes in with a piledriver to end this.
MR. WRESTLING II & GEORGE WELLS vs. A FAT GUY AND A LONGSHOREMAN
-Solie seems to settle on “Rick Link” for the name of the fat guy. The longshoreman is some guy dressed head to toe totally covered in black, and Gordon comes this close to just blurting out “Who the hell is this guy?” at the start of the match.
-II shoulderblocks Link. Wells tags in and throws a dropkick. Longshoreman tags in and gets knocked around. Link tags in and they work his arm over. Japanese armbar by II get the submission.
