USWA Championship Wrestling (9.8.1990) Review

-This company’s ongoing identity crisis continues and they’ve switched theme music again.

-Your hosts are Dave Brown and Bundy the Gorilla. This is the REAL Bundy the Gorilla, not any sinister heel wrestler in disguise, thankfully.

-Eddie Marlin is here and buckle up because things went crazy in a very real way behind the scenes. Remember that wild fake shoot angle with Snowman storming in and cutting a fake shoot promo accusing everybody alive named Jerry of being a racist? Well, okay, so Snowman ends up winning the USWA Title and at the end of August, he “hurt his knee while training,” notified the company that he’d be dropping off the title belt at the office, and then vanished into thin air.

-Well, wrestling being wrestling, they kept advertising him anyway, and Snowman kept no-showing until he finally DID check in with the company and promised for real to return the belt to them, and then he disappeared again! And then he starts going on radio shows to cry “Racism!” in a very shooty-shoot and not worky-shoot way because he’s offended that Lawler’s matches are always advertised over his own, even though he’s the champion. So the promotion announces a Snowman vs. Brickhouse Brown match for one of the house shows and pledges to the fans that if Snowman misses this one, he’s stripped of the belt. And they figure Snowman will show up for this one on the logic that his opponent is another black man, so how can anyone possibly be accused of racism now? Well, Snowman no-showed THAT one, so…

-Eddie Marlin is here to make the awkward announcement that Snowman has no-showed six consecutive matches, so USWA has no champion. As a bonus, the Tag Team Titles have been held up due to some non-shooty worked craziness, so USWA doesn’t have ANY champions now.

“Prime Time” BRIAN LEE & DON HARRIS (with Downtown Bruno) vs. FREEZER THOMPSON & KEN RAPER
-The ex-champs storm the ring and attack, and Bruno is furious because a stupid corrupt referee stripped them of the belts once the USWA realized no one could beat them. Bruno accuses the referee of favoritism towards The Jeffs. DDT by Don Harris, and for a guy Freezer’s size he takes a good bump from it. Knee from the top by Brian Lee gets three.

-The ex-champs are raging until Jeff Gaylord comes out with a pipe and scares everybody off. Jeff Gaylord cuts a promo and sounds like an exact 50/50 blend of Ultimate Warrior and Brutus Beefcake.

-We go to pre-taped words from Jeff Jarrett. He makes an extended point about how he and Jeff Gaylord aren’t as experienced as a team as Downtown Bruno’s guys, but he thinks the only way that Bruno’s guys have gone as far as they’re going to go is because they have a cheating conman at ringside with them. So Jeff Jarrett reveals that Frank Morrell, the referee who got the belts vacated, is abandoning his usual neutral role and he’s going to act as cornerman in future matches to keep an eye on Downtown Bruno. Okay, even by the loose fantasy world standards of wrestling, there’s a big-ass conflict of interest here.

-The Gilberts and Sam Lowe to hype the Evansville card. Doug Gilbert is facing Kowabunga, Sam’s going to battle Eddie Marlin(!) in a Cowboy Boot match, and a $5000 challenge match between Btickhouse Brown and Eddie Gilbert.

-So FINALLY we get context on the vacated belts, as Bruno’s guys have retained the belts with the use of a chain, but the fans are SCREAMING at referee Frank Morrell about it. It looks like he’s about to reverse the decision, but Lee and Harris attack from behind and start a post-match brawl, and Frank Morrell is so pissed off that he just grabs the belts himself and leaves with them.

-More house show action, a 19-man battle royal for $5000. It’s down to Brickhouse Brown and Eddie Gilbert, two heels. And to the crowd’s shock, Brickhouse dumps Eddie without much of a struggle and wins the match. Doug Gilbert and Sam Lowe storm the ring to assist with a spike piledriver. Eddie Marlin comes to the ring and threatens them with a big fan fine, but the heels just bludgeon him, explaining that match at the house shows. With his last ounce of strength, Eddie Marlin grabs a mic and yells for Jerry Lawler to come to the ring, and Lawler not only comes to the ring, he has the strap down on his tights, so he MEANS it. Lawler clears the ring by himself.

-Gilberts and Sam Lowe trash talk everybody until Eddie Marlin moseys on down and threatens to make Sam Lowe bleed all over the ring in the Cowboy Boot Match. Also, Eddie Marlin announces that he had originally plan to fire the Gilberts from the USWA, but Lawler and Brickhouse personally called and DEMANDED a match with them, so the Gilberts still have a job as a favor. Gilberts and Marlin get into a heated dhouting match, and Marlin just gets fed up and forces them to leave.

-Audio man is unable to follow them, but a cameraman follows them out, so we get a silent melodrama acted out where Marlin and Eddie Gilbert are screaming at each other in the parking lot. Doug gets in the car while the Eddies keep arguing. Gilbert shoves Marlin on his ass, and Jerry Lawler storms out to provide some protection. Eddie Gilbert gets in the car…and the Gilberts HIT LAWLER WITH THE CAR. No cut-away, no stunt man, it is legit Jerry Lawler getting hit by the car, going flying, and landing splat on the concrete. Fans in Memphis legit called the police during the show because of this segment.

-The Dirtywhites are here to tout more potential nudity at the next run of house shows. Also, Tony Anthony and Doug Gilbert were scheduled to have a tag match this week, but with Doug out of the building now, Tony needs a partner. He runs to the locker room and rustles up jobber Keith Eric to be his partner.

JOEY MAGGS & REX KING vs. TONY ANTHONY & KEITH ERIC (with Dirty White Girl)
-Anthony starts with Maggs, slamming him down but missing an elbow. Maggs and King take turns working the arm, but Anthony catches Maggs bouncing off the ropes with a side suplex. Splash by Anthony misses as neither side can really get an edge here. Everybody tags and a brawl breaks out quickly, but Dirty White Girl jams the handle of her whip into Rex King’s torso and that’s actually enough to put him away for the best week of Keith Eric’s life. But Bill Dundee and Vicious Vicki head to ringside to tattle, so the referee reverses the call.

Dundee and Vicki have words until the Dirtywhites return and shatter a bottle over Vicki’s head, and Downtown Bruno and his boys are here too, so it’s a five-on-one attack on Bill Dundee.

KOWABUNGA vs. KEITH ERIC
-Okay, this makes sense, there had to have been some reason that Keith was in the building anyway, and indeed, he had a match scheduled. Kowabunga cuts a promo reacting to Jerry Lawler getting hit by a car, and it’s the ONE thing they could have done to make that angle more insane than it already was, then he strolls into the ring, knocks Keith Eric out, and pins him in 30 seconds.

7.7

The final score: review Good

The 411

What, do you need my permission to watch this episode? GO! Watch that crazy car angle!