wrestling / Video Reviews
Memphis Wrestling (11.15.1980) Review
Image Credit: Memphis Wrestling
Loading...-Originally aired November 15, 1980.
-Your hosts are Lance Russell and Dave Brown.
KOKO WARE vs. DAVID OSWALD
-Koko has French flag tights for some reason. Lock-ups go nowhere, but Oswald runs the ropes and Keaukeau backdrops him and follows through with an armbar. Koko stays on the arm. Oswald fights back with forearms and whips Koko to the corner, and Koko springs up to the second turnbuckle and launches himself off with a dropkick for three. I’m glad that Memphis was so open to the idea of pushing anybody, because Koko had talent and deserved a shot and I just don’t see any other territory giving him one.
KEN LUCAS & RICK MORTON (Tag Team Champions) vs. JIMMY KENT & THE ANGEL
-Ken and Kent start off. Little-known fact, they were the first two wrestlers ever to feud over the rights to use the letter T. Jimmy won the blow-off.
-Morton tags in and applies a side headlock, then drives a forearm into the chest. Champs work the arm. Angel tags in and Morton goes for the kill really fast with an atomic drop, but Kent breaks the pin. Angel is mad about how close it came and gives Morton an aggressive slam. Morton tags out quickly and Lucas cleans house, and the studio audience is FEELING this match. Lucas finishes Kent with a sleeper while Morton stands guard and stops Angel from breaking it.
-Dr. Bill Irwin comes to the ring, protesting the use of the sleeper and demanding that the hold be banned because it’s a chokehold and it cuts off the respiratory system. Also, Irwin protests his upcoming match because it’s just some jabroni (and yes, he says that) and not the opponent he really wants.
-We get another example of one of my least favorite things in this promotion. Lance runs down the upcoming Louisville house show, and Tommy Rich comes in cackling and tells us we’d better stay tuned to see what happens to Ken Lucas in the next segment.
-DR. BILL IRWIN vs. MIKE MERONI
-Back from commercial, Bill is still ranting and raving about how he doesn’t want to wrestle a nobody like Meroni and demands a match with Ken Lucas. Lance protests because Lucas already wrestled but Irwin pledges that it’s only going to take him 30 seconds to beat Lucas anyway, so it doesn’t matter. So Lucas shows up and agrees to the match.
DR. BILL IRWIN vs. KEN LUCAS
-Lucas is on the offensive right away, working the arm and hammering Lucas. Irwin tries targeting the ribs and the back, and it seems to work. He knees Lucas in the gut and follows with a big stomp for two. Elbow gets a one. Lucas fights back with rights and a big knee for one.
-Irwin tries targeting the arm with strikes, and another big stomp gets two. Lucas fights back with a snapmare and a series of knees, but now fatigue is starting to set in and both men collide on a double shoulderblock. Lucas recovers and applies the sleeper on Irwin, and that looks to finish, but a big cowboy in the audience suddenly jumps into the ring, takes off his boot, and beats Lucas over the head.
-Irwin and the mysterious fan beat Lucas bloody. The jobber battalion runs in to try go put a stop to it, and the fan manages to clear the ring, so the varsity squad runs in, with Rick Morton clearing the ring with a chair while Dundee checks on Lucas.
-Lance demands that security get the crazy fan out of the building, and Dr. Bill tells them to back off because the fan is with him, and he finally makes a formal introduction to Lance–it’s his brother Scott. And Scott tells us he’s here because everybody knows that the sleeper is illegal all over the world, and CWA isn’t doing anything to stop it, so Scott is here to stop anyone from ever using a sleeper again.
-Next Tommy Rich and Jimmy Hart are here, and Tommy accuses Lance of changing all of the cards in the hat in his open challenge last week just to make him look bad. They have another hat with more cards in here, with names of different wrestlers, as they intended. This time, they make Lance inspect the hat before the drawing, and Lance verifies that all the names are different–but it’s still all jobber names in there. Also, Jimmy will draw the name instead of Lance, since they now realize that Lance can’t be trusted with such an important duty.
-So Jimmy draws the name of David McGee, and it’s David’s big chance to win the Southern Heavyweight Title this week.
SOUTHERN HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: WILDFIRE TOMMY RICH (Champion, with Jimmy Hart) vs. DAVID MCGEE
-Rich takes McGee down with a side headlock. Jimmy distracts the referee while Rich puts on a suspicious elbow pad, as he won’t even wrestle handpicked jobber opponents without cheating his ass off.
-Right hands and elbows by Rich, then he snaps McGee down and applies a chinlock. He sends McGee into the ropes, and a big elbow with an assist from the pad gets the win for the reigning champ.
-Sonny King strolls out and talks about a recent match, he and Zulu vs. The Gilberts. The Gilberts won, Sonny blamed King, and we apparently have a Zulu face turn, with Sonny now making offers for any wrestler in the Memphis territory who’s willing to wrestle a match against Zulu, because King doesn’t want to be involved out of concern that he might accidentally injure Zulu and he really tries not to injure people if he can help it.
EXPIRATION OF TIME: SUPERSTAR BILL DUNDEE & HANDSOME JIMMY VALIANT vs. BUDDY WAYNE & LARRY LATHAM
FALL ONE: Heels try to do a double-team move right away, and Valiant ducks and causes the heels to collide, and Valiant scores the winning pin in only twenty seconds. Wait a minute! If they won in only twenty seconds, that means…
FALL TWO: Hot damn! Dundee gets caught in the heel corner and worked over. Latham slams him for two. Wayne tags in and runs into a Jimmy Valiant elbow. Dundee capitalizes with a dropkick for two. Sunset flip works out, though, and Dundee gets three to take the second fall, and NOW we’re out of time.
