USWA Championship Wrestling (5.5.1990) Review

-Originally aired May 5, 1990.

-Your host is Michael St. John in the USWA control center.

MATT BORNE vs. BILLY JOE TRAVIS
-We go to action from the Sportatorium last night, where Ronnie P. Gossett shocks the fans by wrapping a chain around his fist and just taking a free shot at Travis, knocking him out and allowing Borne to get the tainted victory. Travis is furious and takes some shots at Gossett until Jerry Lawler and Terry Garvin charge to the ring for a three-on-one assault on Travis. Bill Dundee heads to ringside to make the save, but that’s not enough for a house show main event, so Jeff Jarrett also comes to ringside. Great dick move by the heels, who have a chair. Travis is sprawled out on the mat, and Jeff Jarrett and Bill Dundee warn them not to do anything. So the heels back away and maintain a distance, but from that distance, Lawler just throws the chair straight onto Travis’ face.

UNIFIED TITLE: JERRY “The King” LAWLER (with Ronnie P. Gossett) vs. JEFF JARRETT
-Later that night, Lawler plants a weapon on Jeff Jarrett for the referee to find, so the referee calls for the DQ, allowing Lawler to retain the title. Gossett heads in and he and Lawler gang up on Jarrett after the match, and shit gets crazy as a fan charges the ring. Bill Dundee heads out to help out again, but now the Dirty White Boys roll into town and the faces are just getting totally mauled as Marc Lowrence laments that this is the last match on the card, which means all of the babyfaces’ friends have left the arena…but Billy Joe Travis is still in the building, and he has his guitar with him. Travis busts heads with the guitar and the fans go nuts for the face turn. AWESOME segment all the way through.

-Gossett and the Dirty Whites head out to announce that Jerry Lawler is never giving Jeff Jarrett another title shot, and Billy Joe Travis needs to start thinking about leaving town. Gosh, both of those sound so much like stipulations, I can’t help wondering what might come next. Gossett has a GREAT line, calling Jarrett “A Farrah Fawcett lookalike,” which is stunningly apt at this stage in his career. Jarrett looked like the third member of Nelson in 1990.

JIMMY JACK FUNK & CHICO TORRES vs. DIRTY WHITE BOYS (with Ronnie P. Gossett & Dirty White Girl)
-Gossett heads over to do guest commentary. Torres clotheslines Alex Porteau and gets him down on the mat for a side headlock, while Gossett refers to Dirty White Girl as an “AIDS poster child.” Marc Lowrence doesn’t even know what to do with that and the commentary for this match just stops cold for a moment.

-Torres works Anthony’s arm but Anthony gets free and side suplexes him. Porteau heads back in and forearms him for two. Anthony heads in with a neckbreaker for another two. Hot tag to Jimmy Jack and he’s a house of fire before we suddenly break for commercial.

-Back from commercial, my how the turntables have, with the Dirtywhites double-teaming JJ, and a kneelift sends him tumbling over the top and onto the concrete. Back in, the Whites continue their assault in Dirty-like fashion. Sleeper by Tony Anthony. JJ fights it and fights it, so Anthony releases and goes for a forearm, but that misses and JJ makes our second hot tag of the match. All four men brawl. but in the confusion, the referee misses a double-team maneuver for one of my least-liked finish: the “tainted” win that would have been totally legal if the referee had seen it. Good match until the end though.

-Back in the control center, Michael St. John makes a major announcement, as Eddie Marlin and the USWA Board of Governors had a meeting earlier this week, and they’ve settled on five changes in the official rules of the USWA.

#1. All matches must end by pinfall or “technical loss.” No more DQs and no more time limit draws.
#2. All outside interference now will incur a $1,000 fine for both the wrestler who interferes and the wrestler who is being helped by it.
#3. A subsequent incident of outside interference involving the same wrestler will be a $2,000 fine. A third infraction will lead to a 30-day suspension.
#4. If a wrestler intentionally strikes a referee, he will be declared “a technical loser” and title changes can now happen if a referee is hit.
#5. In the event that a match reaches time limit, the match enters “sudden death,” and at that point the match will end as soon as either wrestler leaves his feet.

-We head back to the Sportatorium, where Jeff Jarrett and Billy Joe Travis are here for Travis’ coming-out party as a face. Travis declares that he’s not a changed man. He still plans on whacking people over the head with glass bottles and guitars, but dad gummit, when somebody screws him over, he’s gonna do something about it.

SOUTHERN ROCKERS (Tag Team Champions) vs. THE REAPER & ROCKIN’ RANDY
-We’re off to Memphis for this one. Now surely the champs can find some sort of common ground with Randy given their shared pro-rockin’ agenda, but Rockers choose aggression over reason and work the arm instead. Randy goes to the eyes and tag in the Reaper. Reaper gets armdragged around, but Reaper fights back and whips King into the corner. Rex King Flair-flips from that and surprises Reaper with a bodypress off the top for a one-count. Steve Doll slips in and dropkicks him for the oddly anticlimactic three-count. The bodypress really would have been just fine as a finish.

JEFF JARRETT & BILLY JOE TRAVIS vs. BUSTER BLACKHEART & STEVE BRADDOCK
-Buster Blackheart sounds like a wrestler from some sitcom episode where, I dunno, Cody and JT somehow become wrestlers. Skandar Akbar sits in on commentary and he’s steamed about how disrespectful Travis has been toward a fine man like Ronnie Gossett. Travis tags in and takes on Blackheart’s partner, Bushwhacker Jethro, applying an armbar…and we pause for a commercial! Yes, really!

-Brickhouse Brown and a guy that I presume is his manager but he’s never identified call out Bill Dundee for a title match.

-Back from the break, Braddock is actually in control, dropping an elbow on Jarrett, but Travis breaks the pin. Jarrett finally tags out and Travis cleans house, and the Vader bomb finishes.

-A Jimmie Valiant highlight reel closes out the hour, and it says something that he’s been on a comeback tour for the past few months and all of the footage is from Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, circa 1984.

7.0

The final score: review Good

The 411

I liked this week, with Memphis TV booking finally making its way to Texas and having a storyline that steers most of the TV hour.