wrestling / Video Reviews
Memphis Wrestling (4.16.1983) Review
Image Credit: Memphis Wrestling
Loading...-Originally aired April 16, 1983.
-Your hosts are Lance Russell & Dave Brown.
ROCK & ROLL EXPRESS vs. PAT HUTCHINSON & KEN JAMISON
-Robert Gibson leapfrogs Hutchinson and slams him. Morton comes in and they trade waistlock takedowns. Gibson rather heelishly knocks Jamison off the apron so Hutchinson can’t tag out, and Morton applies a chinlock to wear Hutchinson down. Jamison finally tags in to take his share of the punishment, and a dropkick by Gibson gets the win.
-Jim Cornette comes out in a yachting cap AND crested jacket, just going all the way with the spoiled rich kid look this week. He fires off some Polish jokes for the missing Steve O before turning his attention to Muffy & Sissy, who demanded a shot at the Galaxians’ masks. Cornette has agreed to the match, but only if he teams up with the Galaxians himself to make it a handicap match, AND the Express has to put their hair on the line.
-After the commercial, Cornette is STILL talking, introducing Duke Myers, who’s been stuck in opening matches because the real stars in the promotion are afraid to fight him.
HANDICAP MATCH: DUKE MYERS (with Jim Cornette) vs. TOM MALEE & DAVID JOHNSON
-The visual here is weird because they’re trying to put over Myers as a big man, hence the handicap match, but Johnson is the same height as Myers, and Myers isn’t really a physically large guy either.
-Myers hammers at Malee. Johnson tags in and Myers just beats up both opponents at once. Diving headbutt finishes for Myers.
-We go to the Mid-South Coliseum, where the Rock & Roll Express and the Galaxians appear to go to a 15-minute draw, but due to a mistake by the timekeeper, the referee decides to add five minutes. Lance and Randy Hales are both having a lot of trouble explaining how you accidentally call time and ring the bell two minutes early, but whatever. Cornette makes the most of the extra five minutes, knocking Gibson out with his shoe. Lance and Randy also have trouble explaining how a shoe doesn’t knock you out cold when it’s being worn in professional wrestling, but when a shoe is used as a handheld weapon, it does knock you out cold.
-We go to the Mid-South Coliseum again to see the rescheduled Lawler/Bockwinkel match which did, in fact, happen this time. Jim Cornette and Jimmy Hart both show up uninvited, with Cornette distracting the referee while Jimmy Hart pushes Lawler off the turnbuckles. Bockwinkel goes for the pin, but the crowd frantically screams that Jimmy is hiding under the ring, so the referee stops and checks, and when he saws Jimmy down there, he calls for the DQ. Lawler gets the win but not the title.
-Lance is just wonderfully annoyed that, because of the footage we just saw, he must now interview Jimmy Hart and Jim Cornette AT THE SAME TIME. Lance announces that a handicap match has been signed for this Monday night, pitting Jerry Lawler against Jim Cornette & Jimmy Hart. Cornette immediately turns on Hart for conning him into being a part of his scheme. Also, Cornette points out that he already made the ballsy declaration that he’d team up with the Galaxians for their match against the Rock & Roll Express, which means not only is Cornette wrestling on Monday, he’s wrestling twice. Lawler runs into the studio and chases off both managers, just to show how easy this is going to be on Monday night.
JERRY “The King” LAWLER vs. BOBBY EATON (with Jimmy Hart)
-Bobby keeps ducking and cowering in the ropes every time Lawler tries to do anything, then blindsides Lawler with a right hand. Eaton just keeps slugging away. Lawler gets so damn mad that he snapmares Eaton and does his rapid-fire flurry of punches. Eaton goes to the floor, where Jimmy Hart raises his arm and declares him the winner by DQ, even though Eaton has done nothing but throw punches for this entire match. Marvelous.
-King gets distracted by Jimmy and Eaton takes advantage, smacking Lawler with a chair. But THE STRAP COMES DOWN and Lawler suplexes Eaton, going for the kill until Jim Cornette and Duke Myers storm the ring for a surprise attack.
-We’re off to the Mid-South Coliseum again. Bobby Eaton & Giant Frazier are teaming up against Terry Taylor & Stagger Lee, with Frazier’s hair and Stagger Lee’s mask on the line. To everyone’s shock, Frazier misses an avalanche, and Stagger Lee pins him without much trouble, and Giant Frazier gets his head shaved, with Lance lamenting that Frazier had grown so much hair along the sides. Yeah, that’s kind of a lame stipulation when the guy getting the haircut is 500-pound Joe Besser.
-After the head shaving, Jimmy Hart throws powder in Stagger Lee’s eyes and Frazier goes for the mask. He successfully pulls it off, but he rushes back to the locker room with his arms over his head so we don’t REALLY get to see if he’s Koko Brown Sugar. Frazier also attacks the referee for no reason, so he’s gone for the next 30 days.
-So here’s Jimmy Hart again. He and Bobby Eaton are putting up $1500 for another crack at Stagger Lee, who has to put his mask and his Mid-America Title up for grabs in order to get the money.
DUTCH MANTELL, TERRY TAYLOR, & STAGGER LEE vs. BRUISE BROTHERS (with Jimmy Hart)
-This is all three Bruise Brothers: Jake (Dream Machine), Elwood (Pork Chop Cash), and Mad Dog Boyd (Mad Dog Boyd).
-Jake biels Stagger Lee and tags in Elwood. Elwood gets hiptossed around, but Dutch tags in and Elwood uses a handful of hair to take him down. Hair on the head, which is a failure of imagination if you’re a heel fighting Dutch Mantell.
-Terry Taylor gets worked over by the Brothers, but once Boyd tags in, the faces go right for the bad leg, freaking out Jimmy Hart as the commentators suspect that Boyd has not actually totally recovered from the injury and Jimmy put him back in there too quickly. Stagger Lee puts him in a half-crab, and Mad Dog can’t take it anymore, submitting emphatically to the hold.
-Post-match, Jimmy Hart tries to refute all accusations that he put an injured man back in the ring prematurely by demanding that Boyd stand up and walk back to the locker room on his own power, and Boyd can barely move, with Jimmy threatening to fire him if he can’t move a little better than that.
-We go to the Mid-South Coliseum again, with Bill Dundee defending the Southern title against Dutch Mantell. It’s a big crazy brawl on the floor until the referee finally gets fed up with both guys and calls it a double DQ.
-Dutch says he could never stand sharing a locker room with Bill Dundee because Bill would always mooch tobacco off him and ask for help reading fan mail because he’s illiterate. He wants a rematch on Monday night.
-Bill Dundee shows up with some spray deodorant. Dutch doesn’t wash that horrible body hair and Dundee refuses to give him a rematch unless Eddie Marlin hands down an order that Dutch has to shave his back before Monday.
MOONDOGS (with Jimmy Hart) vs. CRAIG CARSON & TOM MALEE
-Double duty for Tom Malee!
-Moondogs pound away on Malee. Moondogs just dismantle him and refuse to pin him until the Fabulous Ones show up in cute matching baby blue jogging suits, and we get a big brawl all over the studio and only a commercial break can stop this craziness.
-BACK to the Mid-South Coliseum, with a novel spot for the time. Moondogs are in the ring watching the Fabulous Ones’ entrance, with music blaring and the arena dark except for a single spotlight in the aisle…and the Fabulous Ones sneak in from the crowd and attack the Moondogs with chairs! Fabulous Ones manage to get themselves disqualified, leading to the announcement of a no-DQ match this Monday night, and they warn the Moondogs that we’re willing to match the dogs dirty tactic for dirty tactic.
