February 1981

This was peak Memphis. Pre-match the Bounty Hunters (Dave and Jerry Novak, managed by 'Cashbox' Jimmy Kent, whom I honestly have zero recollection of) jump Rich and Dundee on their way to the ring, and Kent slabbers Dundee with a shoe and Dundee is carted away covered in blood. You probably know where this is going. Rich and Dundee are the tag champs and if the match doesn't go ahead they need to forfeit the belts, and obviously Rich says to hell with that and decides to go it alone. Rich was so awesome in this, sticking and moving, always making sure he couldn't be cornered by the Bounty Hunters, throwing quick shots (amazing punches), regrouping, throwing more quick sho…

A bit of a bait and switch as this is listed as a Terry Funk v. Wahoo McDaniel and that match is the semi-finals of an elimination tourney to wrestle Harley Race for the title. The Funk v. McDaniel section is only about three minutes as Funk jumps Wahoo at the bell, smashed his headdress (Wahoo must have bought the headdress's in bulk, for all the times they got ripped up) and threw him around the ring, before Terry got quickly rolled up. Gino runs in and they both beat on Wahoo a bit before the start of the final match. Wahoo v. Gino was a pretty great double juice brawl, with Gino really doing a grizzly blade job. Wahoo is so great a just leveling people with chops, and…

This was a really fun 10 minutes TV match, one of those that deserves to be seen, despite not setting the world on fire or anything. No-nonsense or time wasting in here, this was all about old school matwork and limb work between two very fluid workers. Young Eaton was already very reliable and good at selling, his control segment was also noteworthy, he did quite well once he started building momentum focusing on Keirn's back. Unfortunately, the finish was quite abrupt and the over the top DQ rule doesn't age that well, but I really hope to see more of them against one another ***1/4

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

This is from Reunion Arena and it's from one of WCCW's Star Wars cards. I think I had my expectations to high. This was Harley trying to make Kerry and have you believe Kerry was going to take the title. Kerry was really green here. He reminded me of a young Sting or Austin in rookie year with Adams. Stuff just didn't seem smooth. We got some ref bumps that hurt the bout. It just didn't click here at times, but Harley did an incredible job of making Kerry here. A year later Kerry seemed to have it. Their was a lot more back and forth so the structure wasn't like your typical NWA title match. 3*

Red belt title match. I think Maki Ueda is one of the color commentators that they show throughout the early parts of the match. Sato comes out in black! She's working heel! Not really going as hard as the Black Pair, but I doubt that was an accident. She's stronger than Yokota in pretty much every exchange, so Yokota has to be smart and use some of her flashier offense (was she the first one to stand up with a bridge out of a pin?) to win. This doesn't have all the wild drama of other AJW matches, but it's great on a technical level and the build-up to the finishing stretch is good. Jaguar wins by just pinning Sato, she just struggles to pin her shoulders as Sato tries t…

Hagiwara is a very weird wrestler, she's a good babyface but all her offense looks incredibly unorthodox, like it's done wrong. My favorite one was the calf slicer she gets near the end, which I'd never seen but is a cool idea. That type of energy goes pretty well with how frantic Ikeshita is though. Hagiwara is in control for a lot of the match and she looks strong, starts the match throwing a wild flurry of punches and then applies the weirdest sleeper hold after some outside brawling. There's a brief section of armwork and then Ikeshita goes out the ring and her seconds pull her arm a bunch of times, as if it was dislocated and they were popping it back in. That's the …

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Assassin is such an awesome promo. Only guy besides Gary Hart who I felt was such an evil character.