Reviews from Across the Pond – WWWF at Madison Square Garden; June 30th 1973

WWWF AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN- 30th JUNE 1973

As a palette-cleanser from the ultra-modern, high impact, hard hitting ROH action I’ve been focusing on, I thought I’d try and chronicle as much action as possible from the history of Madison Square Garden. This card, televised on HBO at the time, seemed like a good place to start. Only three matches from the show were available for review, and you can watch them all on YouTube. The other match results are adapted from the excellent thehistoryofwwe.com website, which you all absolutely have to visit if you love your wrestling history. The amount of raw information on there is staggering. Anyway, onwards!

In the opening match, the legendary Blackjack Lanza defeated the not so legendary Lee Wong by submission with a claw hold. Following up that, Toru Tanaka pinned El Olympico with a lethal chop to the throat. That match went on for ten minutes, and it’s weird to think that back then they could wrestle for that amount of time, building to a simple chop as the finish. Nowadays, a match is barely a minute old before they get handed out.

GORILLA MONSOON VS LOU ALBANO

This one came about when Albano hit Monsoon with a steel chair as Gorilla was taking on one of his managerial charges. Now, the infamous captain must step in the ring.

Albano stalls and stalls and stalls until Monsoon traps him in the corner and batters him with a pair of overhand chops. The Captain comes back with eye gouges. And lots of them. Monsoon nails some of his own, and a big back elbow. He sends Lou cascading over the top rope with blows, and the manager opts to call it quits. Obviously too short to rate, but this was a lot of fun for the two minutes it lasted.

Victor Rivera overcame Black Gordman with a small package. Rivera was very much an inspiration for Bryan Danielson.

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH- PEGGY PATTERSON & DOTTIE DOWNS VS JOYCE GRABLE & JAN SHERIDAN

I’ve never seen a women’s match from this era, so this should be interesting. All of these women have their blonde hair done in the exact same way, which is a bit jarring. Also amusing is hearing Vince McMahon Jr’s Alan Partridge commentary, and the sheer amount of wolf-whistles you can hear.

Patterson raises the ire of the crowd by repeatedly pulling the hair of Jan Sheridan. The fan favourites do some double-teaming, 1970’s style! Which constitutes tripping your opponent up. Dottie Downs tags in, and she sure is feisty. Patterson applies an illegal front-face lock! Eventually Grable rears back and smacks Peggy, but she can’t quite make the tag to Jan Sheridan. The rule-breakers choke Grable with the tag ropes, to the deafening dismay of Madison Square Garden. Downs hits a snapmare, but Joyce rolls right into her own corner and tags in Sheridan! She brings up the energy with a monkey flip, and doles out some big fore-arms. Peggy Patterson prevents her partner from being double-teamed though, and once again the wicked women are in control. Sheridan fights back with a hammerlock from which Peggy Patterson can’t quite escape. We switch to Dottie Downs and Joyce Grable, who refuses Dottie’s offer of a handshake. Both their tag partners hit the ring to pull the hair of their opponent. Grable flies off an Irish Whip with a dropkick, and that’s enough for the three count and the first fall!

The interlude is filled with lots of inter-team shouting. Grable and Sheridan opt to start the match by force, dragging their opponents into the ring and wiping the floor with them. Metaphorically. Nothing really happens for a few minutes, and then Sheridan gets a trio of snapmares on Patterson for a two count. Peggy wants to shake hands, but Jan instead opts to kick her in the breasts. Dottie Downs tags in and takes her opponent down, but not downtown. At this point, I beginning to be concerned that I may have confused Jan Sheridan with Joyce Grable at some point, being as they look and dress exactly the same. Anyhoo, Grable misses a dropkick, and Downs quickly covers for the second fall.

So it all comes down to the third and final fall. Sheridan brings Patterson in the hardway but gets isolated in the wrong part of town. Snapmare, but Sheridan fires off some kicks and gets another pair of snapmares. She flips her onto the mat and snapmares her again, before landing a Victory Roll for the flash three count and victory!

Rating- **- All these four ladies did was wander around snapmaring each other, but I was still curiously entertained. Downs and Patterson were genuinely hateable, and the crowd were into the whole match, even if it was just because it was girls in skimpy wrestling outfits, which I don’t think it was. Enjoyable.

WWWF CHAMPIONSHIP- PEDRO MORALES VS GEORGE STEELE

Steele was technically an animal at this point, but in reality was more of an angry rulebreaker.

Morales quickly gains the upper hand, whipping Steele into the turnbuckles and out to the floor. George re-enters the ring decidedly cautiously, and then takes the advantage with an unknown foreign object to the gut. Big body slam! Pedro fires back with some big right hands, triggering a tense stand-off. Morales finally ends that with a nice arm-drag. Steele scurries to the apron and steadfastly stays there. When he re-enters he cinches the champion in a headlock, and then pops him right int the face with that foreign object. Steele bounces Morales’ head into the turnbuckle thrice, but a fourth attempt is blocked and George gets a taste of his own medicine with interest. The Animal is busted wide open! Pedro continues to batter his challenger all around the ring, and eventually the referee stops the match for Steele’s own safety.

Rating- ** 1/4- Again, the action was limited, but the intensity was there in spades, and the crowd were white hot for everything. What’s also quite interesting is how short all these matches are, yet they’re all satisfying in there own way; not once have I thought “damn, this match needs another ten minutes.”

As soon as the bell rings, George has a second wind, but Pedro is able to steal his foreign object and chase him away with it.

But there were still two matches to conclude the show. Chief Jay Strongbow took nearly 15 minutes to see off Mr. Fuji, but did so with a Tomahawk Chop, and in the main event, the mammoth Haystack Calhoun crushed Moondog Mayne with a splash in just six minutes.

The 411: It's a bit difficult to give a decent summary for a show of which you've just seen three matches, and I realise that's a flaw in my MSG project. However, I will say I heartily enjoyed two out of the three bouts, and if Monsoon-Albano had been longer it probably would have made it a perfect trio. Being as all the bouts I've reviewed are, as I've mentioned, available on YouTube, I'd recommend you take a gander at the Women's Tag Match and Morales-Steele.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]