wrestling / Video Reviews
Memphis Wrestling (3.12.1983 & 3.26.1983) Review
Image Credit: Memphis Wrestling
Loading...-Our journey through March 1983 is going to be a brisk one. I have about 20 minutes of March 12, 1983, followed by the full show on March 26, so we’ll just make it one big review.
-Originally aired March 12, 1983.
-Your hosts are Lance Russell & Steve O. Steve has a conspicuous plaster cast over his hand (much more conspicuous now that the picture quality on these episodes has turned a corner) and it turns out that those dastardly Sheepherders have reinjured his wrist.
-We’re off to the Mid-South Coliseum for an absolute banger of a card for this territory, and the night was eventful enough that we have to recap what happened in FOUR matches.
-First, a loser-leaves-town match pitting Jacques Rougeau against Dutch Mantell. Referee doesn’t see the chain wrapped around Jacques’ fist, and Jacques levels Dutch with a right hand, but he does it too close to the ropes, so Dutch barely manages to get a foot there and avoids the three-count. Dutch then slips into his tights and pulls out his own chain, and when he makes contact, he does it in the middle of the ring, so he gets the three-count on Jacques. Jacques is mindful enough of the subtleties of storytelling to do a flimsy attempted kickout on three to drive home the mistake he made.
-Next, Austin Idol defending the International Heavyweight Title against Jerry Lawler. Lawler puts him away in less than four minutes and actually manages to pull the strap down in that four minutes, so they kept this one moving. Lawler wins the title, and throws a handful of fire in Idol’s face after the win for some added humiliation.
-The noticeably pantsless Sheepherders are facing Steve O & Bill Dundee. As advertised, the Sheepherders break Steve O’s hand with their flag pole.
-Since Sweet Koko Brown Sugar Ware lost a loser-leaves-town match, Mid-America Champion Bobby Eaton signed to defend the Mid-America Championship against a hot newcomer named Stagger Lee. Oh yeah, you guessed it. Stagger Lee wins the belt. Bruise Brothers hit the ring for a surprise attack, and Jerry Lawler makes the save.
-And the Fabulous Ones weren’t involved in any of those! Damn this promotion is in a good place right now.
-Jim Cornette is out here with his new Southern Tag Team Champions, Jesse Barr & Adrian Street. Everybody laughed him off six months ago when he promised to become the hottest manager in the area, and he DID it. This isn’t a knock on Jimmy Hart, but when you watch these old Memphis shows in order, it gets your attention that it took a while for Jimmy Hart to become fully-formed JIMMY HART the way that you imagine him. Jim Cornette is six months into his career and he’s already 100% Jim Cornette. Adrian writes off the Fabulous Ones as wannabes, and by the way, Adrian sang his OWN entrance music and released it as a single, so the Fabulous Ones aren’t even impressive ripoffs.
-Jimmy Hart and the First Family are here. Eddie Marlin promised them that if they could take the mask off Stagger Lee, and it turned out to be Koko Ware, then Koko would have to stay out of the territory for a full year. And then Jerry Lawler had the audacity to break it up when they were trying to hold up their end of Eddie’s deal, and Eddie isn’t doing anything about it! What a load of crap! And Bobby Eaton actually gets on the mic for some promo time, which is just always weird to me for some reason. He’s fine on the mic, but letting his personality show in the ring and just silently nodding through his manager’s promos ended up being such a niche for him that it’s weird whenever he actually talks.
-Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, & Stagger Lee are here. This is a really off-week for Dundee on the mic, because he can’t stop saying “Koko Ware.” He bungles an attempted joke about an Oreo cookie and warns the First Family that Stagger Lee is about to eat their cream.
-Fabulous Ones are out here to sling some gay innuendo about Adrian Street and Jim Cornette, but there was really no way they could top what Bill Dundee said.
-And after all that and zero matches, we move onto…
-March 26, 1983.
-Your hosts are Lance Russell and Dave Brown.
-Haven’t done one of these in a while…this is the MEMPHIS version of the weekly show, which means it’s a 90-minute show, and it’s live, so no weird house show promos that tell you about angles in advance.
THE ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs. SABU & THE ANGEL
-Suddenly and unsurprisingly, this promotion is all-in with good-looking tag teams who use entrance music, so here are Ricky & Robert entering to the sounds of “Rock and Roll All Nite.”
-Morton clears the ring all by himself and the fans are all-in with these two from the very beginning. Sabu fires some shots at Ricky’s throat, but Ricky reverses an Irish whip and follows with a hurricanrana. Robert tags in and criss-crosses into a dropkick on Sabu. Ricky tags back in to take his beating from Sabu & Angel, so even this early, they’ve got that part of the routine figured out. Ricky fires a right hand and makes the hot tag quickly–it’s a TV squash after all. Heels get whipped into each other, and a double dropkick puts Sabu away. These guys are already money.
-Jim Cornette is here with the Galaxians and they’re pissed off about something. We go to the Mid-South Coliseum, and we get some selectively-edited highlights from the Mid-South Coliseum of the Express double-teaming, using closed fists, and TOUCHING THE MASKS. And that’s the last straw for the Galaxians, who go after the Express with folding chairs.
-Back live in the studio, Cornette already hates the new tag team in town because they care about pleasing a bunch of screaming girls, and they don’t fight fairly. So now, Cornette has signed a rematch on Monday night with no DQ and no time limit. I like how they’ve taken the most generic masked tag team possible and given them some kind of hook, as they flash the Spock hand sign in unison at the end of the promo and walk off simultaneously. They even framed the promo oddly, with Lance interviewing Jim in the foreground while the Galaxians stood on a platform behind them and just kind of hovering over the whole interview.
-Dutch Mantell, Steve O, and the Fabulous Ones are here and oh my god the SCREAMS. A shot of the studio audience says a lot here because I swear, it looks like 75% girls under age 18 in the building today, with no gatekeeping shitheads in comment sections of the studio to run them off.
-Last week, they did battle in the Mid-South Coliseum with the Sheepherders, Jesse Barr, & Adrian Street. We roll the tape to see a big brawl break out just like you’d expect. There’s more going on than two cameras can really cover–I had to go back and watch a few times–and Dutch goes to the floor to beat up Jim Cornette and Miss Linda, but that leaves the guys in the ring one man down, so the Sheepherders are able to double-team Steve O and they get a tainted win that way. The brawl keeps going after the bell, and Jim Cornette comes into the ring with his hands full of powder, and he manages to blind every babyface, at which point Miss Linda steps in and whips them with belts. And the Sheepherders fetch their flags and take some shots with the poles. Carl Fergie, Bobby Fulton, and the Rock & Roll Express hit the ring for back-up to make the save. Holy crap, this has to be the fullest roster that this territory ever had.
-So back live in the studio, Dutch demands some stipulations for the rematch this Monday night. If a Sheepherder gets pinned, they have to leave town. If Adrian Street gets pinned, he and Miss Linda both have to shave their heads. And if Jesse Barr loses, Jim Cornette has to fork over some undefined amount of money. On the other hand, Dutch agrees to put up some money of his own, Steve O promises to leave town, and the Fabulous Ones agree to put their hair on the line. The Fabulous Ones are taking this challenge so seriously that they pledge to STOP DANCING, a dangerous threat to make right as the Dougie is about to emerge.
-We get some pre-recorded words from the heel side. Jonathan Boyd perfects his Tennessee accent to tell the babyfaces, “Y’all come back now!” Cornette offers to use his money to buy a gasoline card for Steve O to make sure he can drive all the way out of town, and some bottles of Head and Shoulders for the Fabulous Ones so that when their hair starts growing back, “They can do it right this time.”
-We get an Adrian Street music video, set to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” So, the stipulations for that match already seemed pretty weighted against Jesse Barr, but a music video showcasing ONLY his tag team partner seems to lock it in stone.
BOBBY EATON & BRUISE BROTHER #1 (with Jimmy Hart) vs. MIKE MASHBURN & ROBERT REED
-It’s Pork Chop Cash. For some reason they’re #1 and #2 in this territory after being billed as Jake and Elwood in their first appearances. Just use their names, they aren’t jobbers in body stockings or anything.
-Cash hammers down on both opponents. Robert Reed gets double-teamed in the heel corner, looking as worn down as the time that a client asked him to design a fluffy factory. A knee off the second turnbuckle by Pork Chop gets the win.
-Back to the Mid-South Coliseum with Jerry Lawler, Stagger Lee, and Andre the Giant teaming up against the Bruise Brothers and Bobby Eaton…wait, is this correct?…according to Pro Wrestling History, this is Andre’s ONLY appearance in the Mid-South Coliseum for this group! Faces clear the ring as expected, and Andre takes off, never to return. I’m assuming he insisted on the four-piece meal at KFC and Jerry Jarrett decided he couldn’t meet Andre’s price.
-Jimmy Hart is almost in tears about the fans saying they wish that Jimmy had been in the ring when Andre was taking everyone on. He pulls out $1,000 and offers it to Stagger Lee in exchange for a match with the mask AND the Mid-America Title on the line. And Pork Chop wants revenge for injuring his partner, which is why we only have one Bruise Brother walking around right now.
-Bobby Eaton wants a shot at Jerry Lawler’s International Title. He has a win over Austin Idol, the guy that Lawler beat, so shouldn’t he get a shot at the International Title? Bobby Eaton slips in a pretty funny line tempering his own argument, as he brags about having a win over Austin Idol and then admitting that pretty much everybody in the territory does.
THE MOONDOGS (with Jimmy Hart) vs. BOBBY FULTON & DAVID JOHNSON
-Debut of the Moondogs in the territory after “a very successful run in New York,” according to Lance. No acknowledgment at all that Spot is the former Blonde Bomber and the commentators are treating him as if he’s a new guy.
-Rex stunguns Johnson and beats him down in the corner. Spot slams him and drops a knee. Fulton tags in, and the Moondogs are so dastardly they don’t care about winning. They just wallop Fulton with a bone and bust him open for the DQ. Post-match, they take Fulton to the concrete and unload on him with chair shots and bone shots.
-Back to the Mid-South Coliseum, with Terry Taylor defending the Southern Heavyweight Title against Bill Dundee, in what SHOULD be a clean, scientific match, but from the very beginning, it’s clear that Dundee is going to be a bit of a dick about this one. Weird finish sees Taylor go for a leapfrog, but Dundee doesn’t duck, so his head goes right into Taylor’s balls and he gets the three-count. You could just do that every time, right?
-Dundee cuts a resentful promo, explaining that he’s been on his own since he was a teenager. Terry Taylor, meanwhile, got a college education paid for by Mommy & Daddy, AND he dropped out to become a pro wrestler after having that handed to him.
SUPERSTAR BILL DUNDEE (Southern Heavyweight Champion) vs. PAT HUTCHINSON
-Hutchinson attacks Dundee from behind to the shock of pretty much the whole building. Dundee punches back and drops a knee for the pinfall in 18 seconds. Funny closing shot of the referee telling Hutchinson that the sneak attack was a stupid thing to do with a “Son I am disappoint” face.
-Terry Taylor was disgusted when he watched the replay and realized that Dundee didn’t even see if his “friend” was okay. Taylor vows that if the roles were reversed, he’d give a chance to recover.
-We get a Stagger Lee music video. It is so true to this territory that they not only knocked off this angle, they used the SAME character for a different guy.
EXPIRATION OF TIME: STAGGER LEE vs. COWBOY FRANKIE LAINE (with Bambi Starr)
-Laine tries to start a brawl on the floor before the bell, but Stagger doesn’t take the bait.
-FALL ONE: Backdrop by Laine. Stagger fights back with dropkicks and an armbar. Laine tries a suplex and tries to make it a pinning combo, but Stagger scissors his ankle and holds onto it, so it’s a pinning combo in the other direction and Stagger gets a flukey kind of win. Nothing special.
