Wrestling Gold Vol. Two Page 2
Lewin starts bleeding, and bails to regroup, stumbling around ringside to sell the disorientation and blood loss. That uses up some time. He gets pissed and grabs the pencil, inflicting his own punishment. Really, how many decent jokes can you make about a PENCIL? I’ve got nothing to work with here. They collide and Lewin covers for two, but perennial pest Eddie Creachman saves. Lewin comes back with a sleeper, then puts it on Creachman, which is of course the cardinal error for a babyface, as he turns around and gets a fireball in the face out of nowhere and takes the countout loss at 10:28. Well, that was actually a pretty cool finish. The match itself was the exact opposite of state of the art. Art of the state? ¼*
David
& Kerry Von Erich v. Gene Yates & Killer Karl Von Krupp. It’s Von v. Von! From
Dallas, 82ish. A skinny Kerry
starts with the evil Von Krupp and controls him on the mat. That goes on for a while.
David comes in for a double-team, then Yates tries and gets his arm
worked on. Nothing much going on.
If you look close you can probably see Kerry doing drug deals on the
apron, though. “I’ll take 2
grams and…oh shit, I’m up.” David gets a pair of dropkicks and works a headlock.
He gets caught in the corner as Dave & Jim discuss the mysterious
circumstances of David’s death and less-mysterious circumstances of everyone
else in the family’s death. Krupp applies that germanic heel standby, the Iron Claw, but
David makes the ropes and Kerry comes in to feel the wrath of the Claw as well.
Jim brings up a good point here: Giving
the Von Erich kids that move as a finish nearly killed their career:
I mean, who in their right mind could ever picture Mike Von Erich
crushing a man’s skull with a clawhold? Yates
comes in and dropkicked by Kerry, and it looks about 0.6 Erik Watts.
Hot tag David, who gets a sleeper, then rolls him up for the pin at 9:47.
Bleh. ½*
-
The Fabulous Ones v. The Pretty Young Things.
From Memphis, the usual era. Koko
Ware gets cute with Keirn and gets stomped to start, but jumps him and works the
back. Fistdrop gets two. Norvell Austin comes in with a bad kneelift and tosses Keirn,
allowing Ware to get a chairshot. Back
in, the PYTs double-team Keirn. Koko
gets an elbow off the top. Austin
headbutts Keirn and drops an elbow. Piledriver
is escaped, but Koko keeps up the pounding.
False tag, and Austin collides with Keirn for the double-KO.
Ah, but those sneaky Fabs switch men and a pier-six erupts.
Austin gets tossed and the Fabs double-DDT Koko for the pin at 7:55.
Formula stuff. **
Jerry Lawler & Austin Idol v. The Road Warriors.
Again, Memphis, 84ish. The
Warriors are early in their career here, as I don’t think Hawk has even
learned to no-sell the piledriver yet. Animal
presses Lawler, as does Hawk. He
bails each time. Back in, Lawler
backs off, and Hawk misses a charge, allowing Lawler his fistdrop off the
middle. Hawk pounds him, but he
no-sells the pulls down the strap. Idol
comes in and goes low on Hawk while Animal tries a slam on Lawler. So Idol trips Animal and Lawler gets two on a dogpile.
Stereo rollups, but Paul Ellering distracts the ref.
Heel miscommunication launches a huge brawl and the ref gets tossed for
the DQ at 5:37. Interesting for
historical purposes, but not much else. *1/2
Randy Savage v. Jerry Lawler. This
is a cage match. As with many
smaller territories, I use the word “cage” in the loosest sense of the term.
Lawler hammers away in the corner, and Savage goes up to escape.
Savage spits on him, then grabs a chinlock.
Lawler comes back and sends Savage to the cage as Dave & Jim relate
fascinating stories about the war between ICW & Jerry Jarrett, which make
Crockett v. McMahon look like Brooklyn Brawler v. Red Rooster on the sheer
bitterness scale. Basically, Savage
and his family were outlaw promoters, running a company called ICW that ran
opposite of the Memphis shows and used every dirty Bischoffian trick (and then
some) in the book in order to screw over Jerry Jarrett and bring a few fans
their way. They used to give out
real names of opposition guys on air, promise Jarrett’s talent would be at
their shows, and remember this was the late 70s, before wrestlers even admitted
to newer wrestlers that the “sport” was faked.
Finally Angelo Poffo’s money ran out and the Poffos made up with
Jarrett and came to Memphis, drawing HUGE money for the feud that had been built
up for more than 5 years. This
would be the Tennessee equivalent of Bill Goldberg showing up on RAW one week
and challenging Steve Austin to a match, ya know?
Savage works the arm and cuts off the comeback via a cheapshot.
He keeps using an international object and gets two.
He nails Lawler with rights and hits the flying axehandle, then chokes
him on the bottom rope. They fight
in the space between ring and cage, and back in Savage meets said cage.
Savage is swinging at air and reeling, but recovers enough to head up to
the top of the cage. His move
misses and Lawler comes back and tries a piledriver.
The ref prevents it. Savage
pulls out the AIRPLANE SPIN (Yeah!), and both guys are dizzy.
Someone desperately needs to revive that move in the WWF.
The fans can instantly understand the psychology behind the move, and it
looks spectacular and gets a pop every time it’s done.
Hell, you can do it and then turn it into some kind of fallaway slam or
death valley driver if you want to get cute.
They fight out and ram each other into the cage, but Lawler pulls down
the strap. Back in, Lawler makes
the comeback, but Joe LeDuc climbs into the cage for the DQ at 13:38. Those wacky Memphis finishes.
***1/4 Huge beatdown
follows, which you just know set up another match the next week.
The Wild Samoans v. Ted Dibiase & Bob Roop.
Dibiase & Roop work on Sika’s (?) arm to start.
Hell if I can tell the difference between Afa and Sika most of the time.
Dibiase grabs a headlock, but gets caught in Samoan territory and worked
over. Dibiase fights back as Jim
& Dave relate the hilarious story of the Samoans’ first break in
wrestling, as they were ECW-ish supergeek fans who used to sit ringside every
week for Peter Maivia matches and basically threaten to start a riot if he ever
lost. They’d kick the ass of any
heel wrestlers who opposed Maivia, so finally the promoter decided to smarten
them up to the business, train them to become wrestlers, and then send them
ANYWHERE else in the country and let some other promoter deal with them.
True story. Dibiase fights
back and Afa misses a headbutt, hot tag Roop.
He powerslams Afa, but Sika nails him off the top and the Samoans take
over again. Big brawl erupts, and
Roop gets the shoulderbreaker for an apparent pin, but it’s a DQ due to
manager Ernie Ladd’s interference at 6:07.
I hestitate to use the term “This was there” anymore because it’s
become stupid and cliché for me to do so, but it was just kind of a match, ya
know? ½*
Bruno Sammartino & Dick The Bruiser v. Ernie Ladd & Baron Von
Raschke. Interesting pairings.
This is from the early 70s. Bruiser
overpowers the Baron, and gets the big stomp off the middle, but there’s no
ref to count because Ladd is being a pest.
Bruiser brings Bruno in, and he tries with Ladd.
Bruno wins a slugfest, and backdrops him for two.
Bruno nails him and sends him flying over the top.
Bruiser tosses the Baron and a big brawl erupts.
Bobby Heenan gets involved as Bruiser backdrops the Baron for the pin at
5:03. Nothing noteworthy here.
*
Tully Blanchard v. Manny Fernandez.
From SCW TV, 84ish. They
pound each other on the mat, and Manny rides him.
Tully backs off. Manny tries
a wristlock and grabs an armbar. Tully
takes him down, but Manny hangs on. Tully
begs off, and hammers away. Manny
hammers back and they both tumble over the top.
Gino Hernandez makes the non-surprise run-in and a big beatdown follows,
as Manny starts GUSHING blood. Chavo
Guerrero makes the save as it’s a DQ at 5:26.
This lead to the latino contingent winning the tag titles from the
Dynamic Duo soon after. ¾*
Rick Rude v. Jerry Lawler. Rude
pounds away on him to start, and Jim Neidhart (at ringside) adds some shots.
Suplex gets two. Neckbreaker gets two, but Lawler keeps getting his foot on
the ropes. Lawler fights back and
pulls down the strap, and Rude’s in trouble.
Ref bumped, allowing Neidhart to come in…and screw it up.
Lawler drops the fist on Rude, but Rude’s valet Angel distracts Lawler
and Rude gets the upset pin at 5:20. Early
Rude = Not good. ½*
Lawler takes a chairshot from Angel, no-sells it, and makes Paul
Heyman’s whole booking career by nailing her to a draw a monster pop.
Big ass brawl follows.
Crusher, Bruiser & Little Bruiser v. The Blackjacks & Bobby
Heenan. Little Bruiser is a midget wrestler, and if you’re any kind
of wrestling fan you can guess the finish without even reading the rest of this
rant. Bobby starts with the midget,
and gets the short end of the deal. Nyuk
nyuk. Mulligan gets worked in the
corner by Crusher. Kneelift gets
two. Bruiser works a headlock on
Lanza, but the heels choke him down. Heenan
comes in, prompting Little Bruiser to go after him. Bruiser (the big one) kicks some ass as Heenan bumps like
Shane McMahon with a superball up his ass.
Heenan lets Lanza come back in, but Bruiser and Crusher go to the eyes to
keep him offguard. Things turn into
a brawl and Lanza hammers Crusher down, but it doesn’t have much effect.
Heenan comes in and Bruiser tosses him, but walks into a trap.
Bobby still manages to get the worst of things, and bleeds all over the
place. More brawling, and all the
heels collide. The Little Bruiser
comes off the top onto Lanza for two, then does it again onto Heenan and of
course gets the pin at 11:34. No
one ever accused Bobby of having an ego problem, that’s for sure.
Fun, classic brawl. ***
The Blackjacks of course beat up the midget in the name of good taste.
The
Bottom Line: Some good stuff is
sandwiched between a lot of not-so-good stuff in this case.
Not one I’d recommend picking up on it’s own, but it fits within the
collection quite well. I’d
probably call it fourth out of the five videos, overall.
Check it out at www.wrestlinggold.com if interested.