wrestling / Video Reviews
USWA Championship Wrestling (3.17.1990) Review
Loading...-Hey! I’m an idiot! I wrote this review nine months ago but left it on draft status instead of submitting it to be published. Better late than never…
-Originally aired March 17, 1990.
-Your host is Michael St. John.
-We open with highlights from the Mid-South Coliseum of Jimmy Valiant battling Jerry Lawler this past Monday. Lawler goes into his tights for a weapon, but discovers that Valiant managed to pick his tights, and Valiant just hammers on Lawler with the stolen weapon and starts to put him away with the sleeper. Lawler escapes and knocks Valiant into the referee for, not quite a ref bump, but a ref nudge. Valiant checks on the referee while Lawler slips over to his corner and talks to Nate the Rat (his waiter from last week) and grabs something from him. Lawler throws a fireball at Valiant, but Valiant ducks and Lawler throws the fire in the referee’s face. Lawler freaks out and Valiant rolls him up, and another referee sprints to ringside to count three. Jimmy Valiant, in 1990, is your new Unified World Champion.
-We recap the break-up of the Stud Stable. Robert Fuller is so fired up, he’s even willing to reduce himself to wrestling in Evansville, Indiana this Wednesday night to face his ex-partner Brian Lee!
DIRTY WHITE BOY (with Ronnie P. Gossett and Dirty W. Girl) vs. BEN JORDAN
-Jordan blocks a slam and hiptosses DWB. DWB fights back while Dave Brown speculates that Dirty White Girl might be annoyed about having Gossett around, and Lawler jokes that having Gossett around makes her look good. DWB clotheslines Jordan for an easy win.
-Off to Dallas, where Terrance Garvin and Billy Joe Travis are here to issue the challenge to Buster Douglas. Let it go, Olaf.
-Back to Memphis, where Lawler is now doing commentary from a La-Z-Boy, while Dave Brown has to stay at the table. Nate the Rat shows up with pie and milk for the king, but Lawler suddenly gets fired up about something we haven’t seen on this show, as apparently Nate made a comment about Lawler’s personal life on TV, and Lawler doesn’t appreciate it. Also, he NEVER said he wanted pie or milk, so he smashes the pie and the milk in Nate’s face and tells him that he’s only supposed to do what Lawler tells him to do, not take initiative.
-Nate is so embarassed that he rips his uniform off and says he’s not gonna be a dadgum stooge no more. Lawler tells him he can’t quit because he’s fired. Nate responds with a shove. Lawler retaliates with beatdown and a chair to the face. Eddie Marlin comes out here to stop the assault, and Lawler backs off immediately when Eddie gets out there.
-Lawler’s gone when we return from commercial, and Dave Brown welcomes Chris Champion, wearing a neckbrace after the assault by Lawler last week. Lawler comes out and says that Champion is lying about the concussion he was diagnosed with because “concussion” assumes you have a brain. Also, Champion shouldn’t be at a wrestling show if he’s got an injury that precludes getting hit.
-Lawler illustrates this point by cracking Champion across the face with a right. Champion is down and Lawler goes nuts on him with a chair. He drags Champion in the ring to piledrive him on a chair, and Eddie Marlin returns one more time and tells Lawler point blank that he’s fired if he goes through with that. Lawler backs off, but refuses to actually get out of the ring. He just stays in there with Champion’s prone body, so Marlin goes in there to stare him down until some people finally get in the ring to tend to Chris Champion.
-With no stretcher readily available, everybody grabs a limb and carries Champion to the back, and with amazing precision, Lawler grabs a stool and throws it, and it hits Champion with accuracy and gusto. Awesome angle!
-Travis is in the ring with boxing gloves on, wanting a fight with somebody, anybody. Jeff Jarrett answers the challenge. Jarrett says that his background is in wrestling, not boxing, and that in fact every fan in the building could probably beat Jarrett in a boxing match…but he’s POSITIVE he’s at least better at it than Billy Joe Travis, so he heads in there to prove it. Jarrett proceeds to hand Travis his ass, although it’s a tainted victory because Jarrett is attacking him bareknuckled. Terrance Garvin attacks from behind to make it 2 on 1. Bill Dundee heads out to make it a fair fight, and the heels leave. Dundee runs back to get them, but in a wild visual, an elderly fan falls down right in the aisle, and Dundee stops in mid-chase to pick the old man up. Good timing for the heels.
SOUTHERN ROCKERS (Tag Team Champions) vs. CHRIS YOUNGBLOOD & SHEIK BRADDOCK
-Youngblood gets knocked around and tags out quickly. Braddock gets backdropped and dropkicked out to the floor, and the jobbers stall and rethink their strategy. They talk it over and decide to try NOT getting their asses kicked and seeing if that works.
-Braddock tries an Irish whip into the corner, and the Rockers do the Can-Am Connection spot where Rex King “blocks” the impact. That’s a weird exposing spot too, because the guy blocking the move isn’t affected, even though it’s basically the same as taking a Stinger splash. Youngblood literally gets kicked in the ass and his look is more abstract than racist this week, as he’s wearing latter-day Marty Janetty tights, still with facepaint, and Marc Lowrence keeps calling him “Medicine Man.”
-Back from commercial and the complexion of this match has totally changed. Steve Doll is in peril and the jobbers are working the arm. Elbow by Braddock missing. And that’s pretty much all that happens because we started this squash match with 12 minutes left in the broadcast, so the jobbers get to have the best week ever and one-armed Steve Doll is trapped. Jobbers try double-teaming tactics and hammer away…AND TV TIME RUNS OUT. Oh my god.
