Memphis Wrestling (5.23.1981) Review

-Originally aired May 23, 1981.

-Your hosts are Lance Russell & Dave Brown.

-Jimmy Hart is here with a mysterious black masked wrestler, but the picture quality is so bad that I can’t tell if it’s Ron Simmons or Butch Reed. It’s Jimmy’s newest charge, The Phantom.

THE PHANTOM (with Jimmy Hart) vs. KOKO WARE
-Koko takes Phantom down with a front facelock, but Koko takes him right back down once and again. Phantom slaps Koko, trying to goad him into anger, but Koko just slaps him back and backs off. Phantom tries a hammerlock next, as we’re definitely not getting a Rick Rude WCW debut here.

-Phantom snapmares Koko and applies an armbar. He goes for a slam but Koko dead-weights and cradles him. Koko just completely shows this guy up until Koko goes for a bodypress and Phantom turns it into a powerslam. It gets “three,” with Koko clearly kicking out twice. Wowwwwwww, these guys were not on the same page and it seemed to be by choice. Commentators acknowledge that this was not a really impressive debut by Phantom.

-Dutch Mantell is here and he’s annoyed that Kevin Sullivan no-showed this week’s taping because there was supposed to be a TV Title rematch this week, and Sullivan clearly isn’t any kind of a MAN. He dares Sullivan to be here next week, but if Sullivan misses TV next week, we’ll all know exactly what Kevin Sullivan is made of.

-Over to Mid-South Coliseum. Wayne Ferris & Kevin Sullivan are teaming up with Jimmy Hart to face Bill Dundee, Dream Machine, and Roy Rogers, and with combos like that, you know exactly who’s doing this job. Donnybrook erupts. Rogers knocks Jimmy Hart out with one punch, but with the referee still trying to restore order, Ferris knocks out Rogers, and Jimmy rolls over to get the win.

THE NIGHTMARES (with Jimmy Hart) vs. RICH WINTERS & TIM LEONARD
-Debuting this week are Jimmy’s new tag team, also masked. Judging from their size, I’d say these are the famous tag team known by that name, and a quick Googling determines that yes, it’s THOSE Nightmares and it’s the original form of the gimmick.

-#1 (Ken Wayne) takes down Leonard with a top wristlock. Winters tags in and they just destroy the new guy with a body vice/axehandle combo. And here to make this episode instantly great is TERRY FUNK, storming over to the commentary table and demanding to know where Jerry Lawler is. Lance explains that Lawler is in Florida and Funk, still with his eye all bandaged up, wants to know who in the sam hill he’s supposed to wrestle if Jerry Lawler doesn’t have the GUTS to show up. Lance tries to calm him down by pointing out that there’s a match in progress so we just have to wait until that’s settled before dealing with Funk’s problem.

-So Funk decides that if the match in the ring is holding things up, he’ll just go in and finish it, so he shoves the Nightmares out of the way and beats the hell out of Winters and Leonard, then throws both of them out to the concrete and demands Lawler RIGHT NOW. Nightmares head into the ring as a show of heel solidarity, but Funk isn’t having it, so he beats up the Nightmares until they get the hell out of the ring!

-Funk cuts a great crazed promo, complaining that the commentators and referees are on Lawler’s side, and if Lawler’s in Florida, then that means that America’s major airlines are on Lawler’s side, because how else would Lawler know not to come to Memphis for TV today? Funk is so torn up by anger that he doesn’t know how to harness it, so he hits himself across the face with a chair repeatedly to try to calm himself down, but when that doesn’t work, he announces that he’s not leaving the studio until Lawler shows up. YES! We don’t have to sit through an Expiration of Time match this week! Thanks, Terry!

-While Terry holds up the show, we go to footage from Mid-South Coliseum of Dory Funk, Jr. trying to avenge his brother in a match against Jerry Lawler. He grabs Jimmy Hart’s cane and breaks it across his knee to make a pair of spikes and tries to stab Lawler in the eye, but Lawler fights him off and steals the spike, and Dory gets out of the ring to grab a chair for use as a shield. Barricades get knocked over, and it’s a wild scene as Lawler & Dory brawl on the floor and security frantically rushes to hold back the fans.

EXPIRATION OF TIME: SUPERSTAR BILL DUNDEE & DREAM MACHINE vs. MASA FUCHI & MR. ONITA (with Tojo Yamomoto)
-Terry left without incident. Damn.

-FALL ONE: Fuchi and Onita work the arm of Dundee, then chop him down. Machine prevents the three-count from happening. Onita and Dundee collide and knock each other loopy at one point, leading to the hot—aahhhhh, Fuchi is able to block it. How dastardly.

-Backdrop by Fuchi gets two. Dundee clearly kicks out but Dave weirdly credits it to Dream Machine breaking the pin in a weird moment. Onita goes for another pin and THIS time Machine breaks it. Onita chops Dundee completely across the ring into the Japanese corner. Dundee just keeps taking a pounding until he finally hits an enziguiri at the ten-minute(!) mark. Dream Machine powerslams Onita, but a single kick by Fuchi knocks fresh-as-a-daisy Machine out cold, and Onita pins him. Fantastic. 500 stars.

-Yup. TV time is up.

5.8

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Bless you, Terry Funk.