Superstar Sleeze

Happy New Year my fellow PWOites! PWO 4 life, bruthas! Cuz we are just too sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet! Pro Wrestling Love has moved on from TNA/Impact Wrestling, but we would love to hear more feedback from the listeners, to the Greatest WCW/Jim Crockett Promotion Matches of All Time in conjunction with the Place to Be Nation! I welcome Justin, you know him as @JKWebb , I know him as a good brutha, we are taking his podcast virginity baby! We are going All Night Long in tribute to the Nature Boy, himself! Buckle up, baby, it is another FIVE, yes you read that right, FIVE-Part Mini-Series, this time devoted to the Greatness of WCW, daddy! In this episode, you get to know Justin & his love for WCW and then we break down #100-#76. Hope you enjoy and let us know what you think whether you agree or disagree we wanna hear it! https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-qpcpd-f46cb9 @SomethingSavage Did you listen to the final TNA episode yet? What did you think of each of our Top 5's? MORE IMPORTANTLY, what is your Top 5, brutha?

Is there a better way to ring in the New Year than to listen to two dudes who have watched way too much TNA in their lives? Here it is, the moment you all have been waiting for the Grand Finale of the Greatest TNA/Impact Wrestling Matches of All Time According to @El-P & Moi! Who will finish number one is the obvious hook for this podcast? But this also means it is over so that means you can start hootin' & hollerin', what matches did we miss? What did we rank too high? If you agree with us, shout that out too! Ain't nuthin' wrong with a little love baby, especially Pro Wrestling Love! https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-g2j6c-f4469c @SomethingSavage just calling it as I see it. Definitely more power to you & Jerome for loving it. I thought Angle was great. I just could have used more from Anderson. It would have made my Top 30 easy. It was a last five cut. Samoa Joe when he is vibing with the crowd and in that groove there is no one better. I think I mentioned but maybe I didnt but the Christian Cage BFG 2007 matches is one of my all-time favorite Samoa Joe matches. He comes off like the coolest, most badass ace asskicker of all time in that match! If Memphis continued into the 90s and early 00s as a viable money-making territory that you could raise a family on, then I think we would be talking about Jeff Jarrett as a top 100 worker of all time. He had all the tools and the know-how, but he got sucked into bad fads and ego-trip booking. It is a real shame. I could see him being a great heir to Lawler as both a babyface or heel in Memphis. @MoS Thank you for the kind words and listening! Let us know if you have comments or recommendations!

Fuckkkkk I cant believe they didnt tape that Joyce Grable & Wendi Richter title defense. Biggest discoveries of the St. Louis Wrestling footage was how good those two were. Also Early Dawn is a fucking badass name for a wrestler. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes - St. Louis 1/1/82, Sam Muchnick Retirement Show 2/3 Falls I want to say we get like 3/4ths of this so we can judge this pretty fairly. I dont see this as a lost classic, but it is still entertaining wrestling. We JIP to Dusty working Flair's arm and Flair takes the turnbuckle bump arm first. I really like when he does the Flair Flop through the ropes outside the ring. I love 80s Flair use of short strikes to the breadbasket to break his opponent's rhythm and create offense for himself. We see that when he doesnt give Dusty a clean break and uses the short knee and then lunges with the headbutt to the gut out of the corner. That is the one that lets him take over. Flair gets too chinlock-y for me. I like Flair working in and out of headlocks, but this was too stationary. Dusty does not sell this like 5 minute chinlock at all and just has all this energy. He misses the big elbow drop that he was using as a finish at least in St. Louis. Flair pounces with a Sunset Flip, cradle for the first fall. Second fall, Dusty has a terrible sleeper on Flair but I have seen worse. I like the symmetry of this fall where Dusty hits the Big Elbow and wins the fall. It bear mentioning that Gene Kiniski's performance in this compared to Starrcade 1983 is night and day. Here he is a presence and tastefully interacts with Flair. Two years later he looks like a confused old man that is just interrupting the flow of the match. As you will read about at Sam's Retirement Banquet, Gene Kiniski absolves himself of his Starrcade 1983 sins with a great promo at that. I liked the third fall the most by a country mile. Terrific wrestling. Lots of Dusty charisma early in the fall with the Bionic Elbow and the Flip Flop & Fly! Flair comes back with a toe kick right above the knee! What a dick! Great leg work by Flair, he was on fire, loved the use of the Strut. What a jackass! Great selling by Dusty. Dusty reverses the Figure-4 and then applies his own! This is just classic. In the KC title change, Dusty gave out on a suplex attempt and then Flair scrambled for the pin. Dusty is able to execute the suplex, but it is on a bodyslam his knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin. Really enjoyed the third fall would give that **** on its own, first two falls were more like *** so lets split the difference. ***1/2

Raven & Daffney vs Abyss & Taylor Wilde - TNA Slammiversary 2009 Monster's Ball This was the most surprising match in my opinion to make Jerome/El-P's list and I promised him I would watch it. I liked it! I really liked it! This was during the Dr. Stevie angle that I vaguely remember where he was trying to "treat" Abyss, but was really evil. Raven and Daffney were doing the usual Raven gimmick. Taylor Wilde feels like a weird choice for this but she works her ass off and she is the MVP of the match for me. She diving off top rope on all the heels and then diving off some really high structure through a table on Daffney. Even in between those spots, she had a ton of fire, great use of the weapons and I loved her kicks to Daffney, just swift & stiff kicks. Raven has some fun heel miscommunication at the beginning, Raven & Daffney get thrown together, Raven splashes Daffney and Abyss press slams Daffney on Raven & Dr. Stevie to the floor. Overall, long & strong babyface shine. After Wilde crazy table splash, it was up to the men. Not quite as fun as Taylor Wilde kicking ass. Stevie interferes liberally. We get some classic Raven spots. There's a funny spot where Abyss was supposed to chokeslam Raven through a trash can, but Raven's heels accidentally knock the trash can out of position. It cracked me up. Announcers cover for it that Raven had the presence of mind to knock the trash can out of the way. Taylor smashes Raven with a trash can lid when Raven was choking Abyss. Thumbtacks and Daffney takes it!!!! TAYLOR WILDE THREW HER ASS DOWN! WOW! Dr. Stevie breaks it up. Raven DDT! Abyss Black Hole Slam throwdown through the tacks! Very fun garbage brawl! ****

THIS MATCH ROCKED! Holy shit, I forgot how hard this fucking rocked! I had this #7 on my Greatest Impact/TNA Matches of All Time countdown with El-P on the Pro Wrestling Love show on the Place to be Wrestling feed, but I was wrong. This should be top 5 easy. I could even see the case for this being #1. It has a little bit of everything: violence, brutality, glorious punches, blood, big AJ bumps, Macho Pride, Bully Heel, Coming of Age Babyface, Resilience, HUGE highspots (that Superman Chain Punch, Bodyslam dump by AJ to the outside, the fucking finish). Just Badass. Match of the Decade Contender for me. ****3/4

Holy Shit! This was even better than I remembered! I knew it was a hate-filled brawl and they were just committed to teeing off on each other. Some details I missed in my original review that I want to point out here. Watch where AJ hit his dropkick. That was a Jim Brunzell murder dropkick directly to the head! Daniels was wearing blackout tape on his fingers such that it looked like he was giving he middle finger when he was holding up all four fingers. Daniels shows that from his knees, AJ stomps the hand! Loved how they used the weapons tastefully in this match. No furniture movers. No feng shui wrestling. It was a steel chair set up in the middle ring. BANG! Nasty urnage through it. Great use of the steel steps first for Daniels to draw blood and then tilted on its side for AJ to draw blood. Daniels really threw himself into that bump. Double juice. They work the cuts like a couple 80s Southern pros. Terrific. I have mixed feelings about the finish. The Styles Clash through the table from the ramp is INSANE~! WOW! What a finish! However, I thought the Kazarian interference even the Quebrada into the DDT just took the edge off the heat ever so slightly. I am borderline between ****1/2 and ****3/4 now. I really, really dug this. Highly recommended, this match will be considered timeless. Loved it!

Watched this match without reading my review. I kept noting ok if I need to bring up this highspot or this plot element, but my original review covers it all. The match totally holds up. Although it is longer than I remembered which is a pleasant surprise I am glad they got the time to flesh out a story. I co-sign everything I wrote along with the rating. It is their babyface vs babyface, clean technical marvel match with a ton of cool scouting/counter touches. They force each other to wrestle completely different match than normal. Definitely one of the greatest TNA Matches of all time! Highly recommended.

Home Stretch here as this is Disc 10 featuring exclusive content from San Muchnick Retirement Show on 1/1/82, Kiel Auditorium. Unfortunately we dont have much footage from the Kiel, but this is a real treat. We get highlights of Dusty winning the NWA Championship from Harley which I have seen before with the crossbody. The crowd & Dusty go apeshit. What I had never seen before is Flair's first championship victory which is weird because I am a such a Flair mark. So many people place emphasis on the Starrcade 83 win they kinda forget the first Flair title reign, which is still a dandy of a reign. It is Flair winning after Dusty's knee gives out on a suplex attempt (Flair had been working on the leg the whole match). Very muted response from Kansas City. With Flair being such a heel and Dusty being such a massive babyface in the southeast, it ruled out those promotions. So I guess Harley's home promotion in KC made about as much sense as anywhere else. Ric Flair Squash. This may be the mutha of all Ric Flair squashes. Not only does he beat the shit out of this jobber but he also talks a metric ton of shit while doing it. "If you keep the women off me, I will show you what a champion looks like", "NOW he knows he is in there with the champion". Flair cuts a promo exactly like he would in 1986 and it shows the Nature Boy had the gimmick down pat early. Dusty cuts a pretty great pre-taped promo. I love how he says Missouri. These two were meant for each other and I am glad the stars aligned and we got them full-time in Crockett together. Crusher Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Butch Reed & Spike Huber - Three bonafide legends and an always game Spike Huber make this an easy slam dunk great Wrestling At The Chase match. The Sheiks team up before they were the Sheiks and they have great chemistry. Patera is the bump man and Blackwell is the heavy. Huber, the son-in-law of Dick The Bruiser, is the stand in for the Brusier in his feud with Patera. So main crux of this match is the Patera/Huber interaction. Huber beats the shit out of Patera and Patera takes a BIG back drop. In contrast, Blackwell does not give an inch this match. Whether, it is Reed or Huber, Blackwell was on a mission to kick ass. If you like Blackwell offense, boy, do I, this is the match for you. He does not bump or feel, he mowed these dudes down. After Huber ripped through Patera, Blackwell sizes him and out of nowhere NAILS A STANDING DROPKICK! I marked out so hard! The story of the match was Blackwell would dominate and then Patera would lose control of the match. End of the match, Blackwell CRUSHES Reed with his Runaway Freight Train Splash. Patera is poised to lock on the Full Nelson when Dick The Bruiser interferes and triggers the DQ. Not competitive enough to be a great match, but Patera/Huber stuff was heated & energetic, Blackwell was an offensive juggernaut, wish we got more out of Reed. ***1/4 Dick The Bruiser tells Larry out of respect for Sam Muchnick retirement he will play by the rules and only kick ass in the ring, he will not get DQ'd and he is going to bring home the Missouri Championship for Sam and the fans! Dick The Bruiser squash he hurls the jobber out of the ring but he does not give chase. This is the New Bruiser. Atomic foot stomp wins it for The Bruiser. The dance the Bruiser does I have seen it also when he was mocking Flair with his robe on is impossible to describe and is simultaneously endearing and repulsive. It is not just Sam Muchnick's retirement night, it is Pat O'Connor's too! He defeats Sweetan with a sleeper. O'Connor was insanely over both on his rind entrance and his victory. Nice way to go out to thunderous applause! Did a little research and that's not entirely true, he did a tour of Japan after this which makes sense, you want to say farewell. He participated in a legends battle royale held by WWF in 1987 that Lou Thesz won. What is interesting is he did a job to Bobby Duncum in the AWA as his last American singles match, maybe as a way to say goodbye to Verne. Crusher Blackwell vs Ox Baker & Butch Reed in a handicap match, we get all 5 minutes of this and Blackwell is just at his absolute physical peak. His offense is great and his taunting Reed by hitting the double bicep flex is great. That Runaway Freight Train splash in the corner is terrific. He beats Baker with a Powerslam. Larry has a great quote from Blackwell, "I am not fat, I am short. If Andre was my height, you would call him fat too.". Dewey Roberston pins Baron Von Raschke with a reverse crossbody. Harley Race & Greg Valentine vs David Von Erich & Rufus R. Jones - The Jones/Von Erich Connection lives! We only get the last two minutes or so. David looked fantastic, awesome uppercut dropkick. I am a mark for the falling headbutt into the Iron Claw! Things get too rowdy and the refs get decked in the fracas leading to a no contest. Sam Muchnick's Checkerdome Retirement Ceremony includes local political & sports dignitaries, ex-announcers, but lets focus on the wrestling representatives AWA is represented by Verne & Wally Karbo. The NWA is represented by current President Bob Geigel who puts Sam over huge in his speech. Frank Tunney of Toronto is there and seems to be Sam's closest friend. Pretty telling, no representative from the WWF. Semi-surprised that Baba didnt send someone over but it is a long trek so understandable. NWA Missouri Heavyweight Champion KEN Patera vs Dick The Bruiser - What better way to ring in 2021 than to watch Dick The Bruiser from exactly 39 years ago! What the fuck? 1982 was 39 years ago thats insane! Anyways, we get very little. The Bruiser made a big deal he was not going to get disqualified in his Wrestling At The Chase promo. A steel chair is introduced by Patera but he hits the top turnbuckle and it ricochets and hits him in the head. Lame finish, but Dick The Bruiser is still wicked over. NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes - 2/3 Falls, I want to say we get like 3/4ths of this so we can judge this pretty fairly. I dont see this as a lost classic, but it is still entertaining wrestling. We JIP to Dusty working Flair's arm and Flair takes the turnbuckle bump arm first. I really like when he does the Flair Flop through the ropes outside the ring. I love 80s Flair use of short strikes to the breadbasket to break his opponent's rhythm and create offense for himself. We see that when he doesnt give Dusty a clean break and uses the short knee and then lunges with the headbutt to the gut out of the corner. That is the one that lets him take over. Flair gets too chinlock-y for me. I like Flair working in and out of headlocks, but this was too stationary. Dusty does not sell this like 5 minute chinlock at all and just has all this energy. He misses the big elbow drop that he was using as a finish at least in St. Louis. Flair pounces with a Sunset Flip, cradle for the first fall. Second fall, Dusty has a terrible sleeper on Flair but I have seen worse. I like the symmetry of this fall where Dusty hits the Big Elbow and wins the fall. It bear mentioning that Gene Kiniski's performance in this compared to Starrcade 1983 is night and day. Here he is a presence and tastefully interacts with Flair. Two years later he looks like a confused old man that is just interrupting the flow of the match. As you will read about at Sam's Retirement Banquet, Gene Kiniski absolves himself of his Starrcade 1983 sins with a great promo at that. I liked the third fall the most by a country mile. Terrific wrestling. Lots of Dusty charisma early in the fall with the Bionic Elbow and the Flip Flop & Fly! Flair comes back with a toe kick right above the knee! What a dick! Great leg work by Flair, he was on fire, loved the use of the Strut. What a jackass! Great selling by Dusty. Dusty reverses the Figure-4 and then applies his own! This is just classic. In the KC title change, Dusty gave out on a suplex attempt and then Flair scrambled for the pin. Dusty is able to execute the suplex, but it is on a bodyslam his knee gives out and Flair falls on top for the pin. Really enjoyed the third fall would give that **** on its own, first two falls were more like *** so lets split the difference. ***1/2 Sam Muchnick Retirement Banquet backstage is much more chill and fun to watch. Lots of good old-timey ribbing going on. Pat O'Connor was very sentimental and looked teary-eyed as a combination of his own retirement and what St.Louis & Sam meant to him. Then there was the show-stealer fucking Big Thunder Gene Kiniski. He made me laugh out loud twice. Joe Garagiola is the classic quick-witted funny dude that shocks you with how tough it is for him express genuine sentiment. As soon as it is time to start teasing though he starts shining. He calls Gene Kiniski what it would sound like if a brillo pad could talk. Kiniski just comes on and owns him..."Sarcasm is a very low form of wit" with a cool, intellectual tone. Gene who is massive in a high, white turtleneck sweater has his arm wrapped tightly around Joe. Then delivers this epic, "What talks and is black & blue all over...the first one to make a Polish joke!". Damn! Joe makes remark, you get one Pope (John Paul II was the first Polish Pope) and you think you run the world! LOL! This was awesome! Gene that makes a heartfelt tribute to Sam's late wife, Helen, which I think was just damn classy! Gone, but not forgotten. With that Gene Kiniski forever absolved himself of the Starrcade 1983 debacle. Epic performance. Sam came off as a really personable, affable fellow throughout this. Cool watch.

Disc 11, wanted the Sam Muchnick Retirement Show to be the last disc I watched. So we get a hodgepodge of St. Louis Wrestling Club and Larry's Outlaw Promotion Bruiser Brody & Jerry Oates vs Adrian Adonis & Nikolai Volkoff - Very odd foursome. Brody vs Volkoff was being touted as a dream match main event and the company's number one feud. Larry says Adonis claims to be the Undisputed Champion, he is the Southwest World Champion. Larry points out in 1983 that wrestling is going through a lot of changes and semi-acknowledges that NWA exists but that Adonis is worthy claimant to the throne. Very prescient of Larry as Vince Jr was coming. The match is non-descript. Adonis is the best wrestler by a country mile. Some really great bumps by him. Larry is 2002 TNA Mike Tenay insufferable in this. Who says Brody cant wrestler? No Larry seriously who says that? "Brody and Volkoff in a singles match it is going to be rough & tumble, but it could end in a Backslide because THEY CAN BOTH WRESTLE! What the fuck, bro. I think being the promoter instead of the announcer was getting to him. One of the lamest finishes I have ever seen. Melee, four men in the ring for too long so the ref calls a no contest, babyfaces whip the heels into each other, BUT THEY CAN WRESTLE! Harley Race vs Omar Atlas - I liked this more than most Harley matches. Harley showed a little more struggle and was not just a ragdoll for Atlas. I liked Atlas a lot. I bet he was not a jobber everywhere. I bet in your B-Territories he was a headliner. Very tight and good offense. Harley busts out a FLYING HEADSCISSOR! Popped me! Classic Harley going for the piledriver on the floor but backdropped out. Atlas shows Harley the chair. Harley takes over, wicked diving headdbutt and a piledriver. I liked the finish a lot, Atlas misses a reverse crossbody, full layout on the crossbody and Harley executes a beautiful Sunset Flip for the win. ***1/4 Tully Blanchard vs Al Perez - Very typically good Tully vs midcarder match. Dominic DeNucci is on commentary which is sure to pop my old compadre @Ricky Jackson. Dom is great on commentary bragging he speaks better Italian than Mickey. Perez looked great here, very explosive, great headlock. Tully worked the back fine. Perez showed great fire. Loved the weight shifting back suplex pin by Tully. *** Spike Huber vs Eric Embry - Here's St. Louis' biggest star, Spike Huber! I dont remember much of this at all. I remember Dominic DeNucci being the most entertaining thing. Pretty typical white meat Spike Huber performance. Cowboy Bob Ellis highlights from 1969 which is pretty cool. Ellis won his first match with his famous Bulldog which seems like he invented. The second match was against Bob Geigel, a famous Central States wrestler turned promoter than President but he doesnt seem like he was well respected. Ellis was a pretty big star in the 60s. It was cool to see him and Geigel. Also hilarious that in 1969 the announcer called an abdominal stretch and said "shades of Wilbur Synder" 50 years later nothing has changed. Kerry Von Erich vs Art Crews - Art is typically a jobber for heels but he roughs it up here, not giving clean breaks and going for the eyes. Longer than I expected. Kerry looked great here, awesome offense. Moving away from the Stomach Claw he was using and won instead with Discus Punch. Ric Flair Squash if you like when Ric Flair doesnt sell for shit and just beats the ever loving shit out of someone this one is for you. I always like these. He was feuding with Butch Reed at this point lots of "We Want Reed" chants. I dont think it was included on this comp but they did a great angle on Wrestling At The Chase with the two. It was an amateur riding competition. Flair was not able to escape Reed and got frustrated. Then it was Reed's turn. Reed escaped Flair with some great sitouts. Flair was pissed. Flair wants another crack and instead cracks him in the ribs in the prone position. Reed makes a furious comeback and crossbody and the ref counts 1-2-3, big pop! You could tell Flair vs Reed would draw money in STL. Bob Orton & Bobby Duncum vs Bulldog Bob Brown & Jobber - Slap me, silly, and call me Sally! This was fucking fantastic! Bulldog Bob Brown was on fire. The dude missed a true calling as a red hot old man asskicking babyface. He was tearing into Bob Orton who was bumping like a freak for him. Orton took the Slaughter bump in the corner and then crotched himself on the top rope. When Brown got the hot tag he was biting, clawing and knocking heads together. Great shit. Orton was cookin' tonight. Not only bumping like a madman, his offense was terrific. Vaderbomb and Superplex on the jobber for the win, but also pummeling Brown on the outside against the table. Way better than it had any right to be. ***1/2 Ric Flair & Crusher Blackwell vs Dory Funk Jr & Ken Patera - Dream Tag Team of Ric Flair & Crusher Blackwell! Blackwell and Patera is the main feud. Let me tell you something like Bulldog Bob Brown, Patera is better as a babyface. The crowd was SCORCHING HOT for Patera. Patera was calling him "Fatwell" and the crowd was dogging him with chants of "Fatwell's Chicken". The crux of the feud is Blackwell is wicked heavy and Patera is the World's Strongest Man so can Patera slam Blackwell. Love it! Patera was chasing Blackwell all over the place and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. This left Flair and Junior to do the heavy lifting in the ring which they were than capable of. Blackwell does the Runaway Freight Train splash on Dory. They end up working over Patera in the heat segment. Blackwell is just so damn good in this against Patera, relishing beating up his rival and doing it with pinpoint accuracy. Flair vs Dory is just great 80s workrate, hard, heavy blows and big time submission attempts. It breaks down and the ref calls the match a no contest. Flair is screaming and hollering. Hoss tells him to get back in the ring. They brawl a bit. A match that we have but does not make the set is the Flair vs Dory singles matches from TV which I think is the only Flair vs Dory match we have. I will include that as a bonus match. ***1/2 Butch Reed Squash - The jobber gets some good fishhooks and eyerakes in this match. Reed is solid. The finish is awesome. Impressive Deadlift Military Press by Reed! Bruiser Brody Squash - Max Blue deserved better. Flying Knee takes it for Brody. Those two tag team matches delivered big time to keep this disc afloat. Surprisingly great Harley squash coupled with routine Tully goodness makes this an easy recommendation. I need to see more Bob Orton, pronto!

Sorry for being a day late, but hopefully not a dollar short! A lot going in my personal life and now I can share it, my family save for me, got COVID. It is Day 10. Dad & brother has made the full recovery but Mom still has lingering effects of fatigue. That's why I have been a little out of it and not as communicative. I think this was my personal favorite episode of this current five episode run we are on. @El-P and I discuss our #10-6 and we get into over Kurt Angle and also Kayfabe/conviction of pro wrestlers. I loved talking about with Jerome. I agree, Jerome, I think we got into a better groove during the second recording session and it really culminates in this episode here. https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-kbkz4-f4466f @SomethingSavage thank you for the detailed reviewed! That's a mighty nice compliment you gave me and brutha I really appreciate it. The whole bangers thing and why I sounded so skeptical is that I took a girl to a Beyond Wrestling show, yes a real live girl, I described a match as a Banger and she looked at me like I was the biggest nerd that ever nerded. Agree with some of your points on the outcomes not mattering as part of why fans not caring about the wrestlers and moved onto action. I will raise you it is not just outcomes but the whole match does not matter. It does NOT have to be 90s All Japan, but there needs to be some inter-match storytelling. At least one plot point in the match that moves the story forward and then they build on that for the next match, but that never happens anymore. That's why it is so easy to match 21st Century matches in a vacuum but rarely does not anything but the story of the exact match you are watching, you dont really need context. Love that you love those two Austin Aries! That sprint is a BANGER~! I dont think you have to feel guilty about taking pleasure in Callihan working. The dude is a heel's heel. I admire that!

Impact Wrestling does not have Disc 9, I got a late start. So I am going to watch Disc 12, which has the famous Ric Flair vs Bruiser Brody hour draw that I have already reviewed which I am going to skip Spike Huber vs Billy Howard - Spike is the perfect plucky midcard babyface and Larry does a great job putting him over as such giving 150% all the time. Billy Howard was a pretty good heel jobber. Lots of cheating. Spike wins with a crossbody. Perfectly acceptable studio wrestling. Chavo Guerrero & Tom Prichard vs Buddy Landell & Max Blue. - This is from Larry's Outlaw promotion in 1983. Central States absorbed St. Louis after Sam's retirement and ended Wrestling at the Chase in early 1983 opting to run the city without TV but still attract big name stars to headline the Kiel. Of course, this fucked over Larry the announcer, so he ran opposition recognizing the Southwest World Champion (Adrian Adonis) as champion, using those guys (Tully Blanchard, Scott Casey etc...), his best friend Bruiser Brody, Dick Murdoch, Nikolai Volkoff and the Poffos. I did my research there is a Dick Murdoch vs Randy Savage tag match from one of Larry's house show! O how I wish we had that. This was fine, Max Blue is my favorite of the St. Louis jobbers. Chavo & Prichard steamroll him. Chavo was the most impressive wrestler in the match. Chavo nails a perfect German but tags in to let Prichard get the glory with a crossboy. Landell kicks Blue in disgust for losing, this is heel behavior I approve of! Ken Patera vs Jobber - Back to Wrestling at the Chase, best Patera squash I have seen so far! This rocked! Patera kicked the shit out of this jobber. Great armbars, bodyslam on the floor, Suplex in the ring. He was hit hard and everything looked tight. Bearhug and Full Nelson looked vicious. Larry says he was coming off a loss to Jack Brisco that's why he is pissed. Kevin Von Erich vs Ron Starr - Best match of the disc! I love me some Kevin Von Erich, I am purposefully saving Kevin vs Murdoch for the last match I watch. This is babyface vs babyface and is terrific. So much effort, so tight, so much struggle, so gritty. The takedowns, chaining and working the holds is awesome. Larry is great on commentary building up Kevin's new move the bodyscissors. Starr does a great job putting it over the two times Kevin puts on the headscissors, he scrambles to the ropes. Starr's Rolling Short Arm Scissors is awesome! I am such a mark for that move. As time is about to expire, Kevin FINALLY gets the bodyscissors but Starr makes it to the ropes. Excellent babyface vs babyface draw. ***1/2 Tully Blanchard & Donna Day vs Scott Casey & Debbie Combs - "We Want Spike" chants ring out LOUDLY not once but twice in this match. I audibly said to myself "I cant believe Spike Fucking Huber is over". Move over Brody, Spike is the Man. Besides Donna Day taking some great bumps on hair-mares and catapults, this was a nothing match. Dick Murdoch Squash - Dick Murdoch beat the shit out of the jobber in and out of the ring and a great brainbuster. Nikolai Volkoff vs Al Perez - Nikki V! What up, my commie comrade! This was fine as most Nikki V matches are. He wins with a Backbreaker. Al Perez has always been fine. Here's a challenge for my wrestling fan buffs...greatest Al Perez match? Let me know what you think it is and I will watch it. Ric Flair vs Bruiser Brody - 2/3 Falls, February 1983, my review is in the Match Discussion Archives. Pretty famous. It is a very solid match but when you are going sixty you have to be more than solid to warrant a rewatch. Kevin Von Erich and Ken Patera are the stars of the show. Flair & Brody is worth a watch if you have never seen it before.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs AWA American Heavyweight Champion Sgt. Slaughter - NWA/AWA 9/17/85 Here is a dream combination I have never thought of! We have Flair in full against pretty much everyone but forgot about Slaughter. Unfortunately this is only like 3 minutes of action and then a Boris Zuhkov run-in and then a Slaughter promo where he calls Hogan a chump for ducking him. Flair works the leg and gets a Figure-4. Slaughter gets the Cobra Clutch and thats when Boris interferes. Not surprisingly a fuck finish. The work was good. I think this match-up has potential to really be magic. It looks like they also worked St. Louis around this time, maybe without a shit finish...hope maybe one day we find a Flair vs Slaughter match complete. I thought I would at least make a thread here so people can salivate at the prospect of Flair sv Slaughter and maybe, just maybe someone knows where a full one is?!?

Is there a more famous wrestler post-1950 that we have less footage of? I watched 10 minutes of him against Gerry Brisco in Georgia from 1973 and he was damn good. Loved the shoot-y, amateur nature at the beginning. Hodge being the visiting champ, roughhoused & cowered as a heel. Great ten minutes, loved the airplane spin finish. Danny Hodge definitely seems like a dude right up my alley. The tales of his grip strength are legendary. Rest In Peace, Danny Hodge.

Disc 8 doesnt look too exciting save for Nature Boy goodness... Gene Kiniski, Art Crews & Ricky Romero vs Gene Lewis, Roger Kirby & Max Blue - Six-Man Tag Elimination - Oh boy! A rough start for this disc of Wrestling at the Chase. Flair is World Champion and this is from 1982. His two major challengers, 54 year old Big Thunder and 53 year old Dick The Bruiser. Gene Kiniski old as fuck in this match but he actually moves around really well and is the best wrestler of the match. I liked Max Blue the most from the heels so of course he is eliminated first. Gene ends up 1-on-2, he uses heel miscommunication to his advantage to win with a kneedrop and backbreaker. Gene Kiniski cuts a classic pro wrestling promo. He is no carnival barker like the 80s pro wrestlers. He is blue collar, salt of the Earth. He tells like it is in a no-nonsense style. I liked the content a lot even if it was a little dry. He came off as really lucid and analytical. What the fuck happened at Starrcade 1983? He looked like an old man that didnt know what was going on. Kiniski is coming for Ric Flair, they are complete opposites, Dick The Bruiser is the Uncrowned Champion and if Big Thunder wins, he will give The Bruiser the first crack, he gives his kids the rub which is the reason I think he is being pushed again. Interview with Jack Brisco from 2004. Nothing earth-shattering seemed to be in kayfabe, but I liked it. Mark Romero vs Roger Kirby - Sue me, I liked this match a lot. It is so fundamental but I loved it. Romero was the 19 year old son of Ricky Romero, I am surprised the kid dint get a break somewhere. Good looking kid and good execution. He could have been molded into something. Headlock, tackle stuff. Kirby roughhouses a little and then works the hammerlock. Romero works a one arm bodyslam as a hope spot. Great use of the flying headscissors. Time limit draw as Romero has him trapped in ab stretch. *** Ted DiBiase Music Video set ONJ's Let's Get Physical...St. Louis goes Mempho baby! Ric Flair & Jerry Brown vs Dick The Bruiser & Bulldog Bob Brown - Terrific Ric Flair performance, he was such a little shit to Dick The Bruiser throughout this, taunting him constantly. Flair worked strong on top against Bulldog Bob Brown. So much energy. You can really see why he is a cut above everyone else. Just great Flair offense and character work. Before he was in there with Bulldog, he was in there with Bruiser. He stood toe to toe with Bruiser before eventually Flair Flopping for him. The Bruiser was FUCKING OVER! The only time I have heard the crowd actively chant for the wrestler was here. Chants for the 53-year old Missouri Heavyweight Champion. When you are that over no matter your age, you deserve to be in the mix. Jerry Brown was Buddy Roberts former partner in the famous, original Hollywood Blonds. Loved the finish. Flair and Brusier are going at it hard. They are building to a Kiel rematch after a controversial finish had Flair retaining. Flair goes to post the leg but DB shoves him off and Flair goes HARD into the announce table and Larry & Mickey were expecting as one of them lets out a yelp. Brawl. DB slams Flair head into the table and then PILEDRIVES Flair on the floor and busts him open! Countout win for the Bruiser & Bulldog. Bruiser celebrates with the Missouri and World Championships. I went ragging on the Bruiser vs Flair program and came out wanting to see it! That's the most effective TV match possible! ***1/4 Dewey Robertson squash I'll be honest I dont remember much of this. Kerry Von Erich & Rufus R. Jones vs Hercules & Jobber - Hercules with a shaved head and looking yoked, looks like he should be a Russian, Larry is calling him Hercules already. Kerry mocks him posing. Rufus is a ton of fun. Rufus & Kerry are my new favorite tag team. Kerry puts down the jobber with a Stomach Claw suplex. We get a look at the Flying Sheiks, Ken Patera & Crusher Blackwell, Blackwell's match is in the AWA nd he is in peak Blackwell form. Patera is kinda bland to me. He is not bad per se, but he is not great either. He is just there. Full nelson wins his match. Here's the highlight of this disc and it is good craic as the Irish would say, Ric Flair vs Art Crews. Flair is the World's Champion as this is 1982. Very Ric Flair match but with more amateur stuff and lots of good chain wrestling. He lets Crew shine, but this tight and tenacious Flair. The best part is this is a backdrop for an angle with Dick The Bruiser. The Bruiser is over like gangbusters. He steals Flair's robe and belt. Puts it on and parades himself around ringside. Flair is INCENSED! This is the best Flair, the ref and Crews try to hold him back. As The Bruiser mocks him in the ring, STOMPS ON THE ROBE and flung it into the crowd! Flair was madder than a hornet. He beats on Crews and makes him tap out to the Figure-4. He retrieves his robe and belt and cuts a great pissed off promo. Dick The Bruiser beats Hercules in a minute, he throws him on the announce table, hits him with a metal water pitcher and two Atomic Stomps win it. Bruiser cuts a pretty lame promo that Flair is a sissy and no one wants a girl as a champion, they want a man. The dude is fucking over. He talks about going to saloons, drinking beer and smoking cigars way before Stone Cold Steve Austin. I skipped Dewey Robertson/Rufus R Jones/Mike George vs Three Chumps. From a match quality perspective one of the weakest of the set, in a territory that very rarely ran angles on TV, this is the best one we have on tape. Sam Muchnick retired on January 1, 1982 and I wonder if the changing of the guard was one of the reason you all of sudden saw angles on TV and music videos of wrestlers set to Olivia Newton-John. I am all for it!

UGH Volume 7 was cut short on the Impact Wrestling Network so I missed Kerry Von Erich vs Greg Valentine. I will have track that down online. NWA Missouri Champion Ken Patera vs Dewey Robertson - This was a good glimpse into what it would have looked like if Patera had been a travelling NWA World Champion. He takes four massive bumps in this and really lets Dewey's shine. I would say he is in between a Flair and a Race. He bumps to make his opponent shine but he has a lot more personality than a Race. Dewey was fine but nothing about say missed opportunity. I thought where Patera may come up short compared to a Race or a Flair is the lack of offense. The Bearhug and Full Nelson is all well in good and I liked the focus on the back, but it was a lot of clubbering offense. The finish was a time limit draw which surprised me. Good match. *** Spike Huber vs Gil Guerrero - Huber is a good plucky, white meat babyface. He wrestles very early 80s babyface with lots of armdrags and energy. He loves the Gutwrench suplex. Airplane spin and backdrop get him the win. Harley Race vs David Von Erich - is definitely the best match I have seen watching these DVDs so far, I thought it was so good, I made a review for it. Excellent escalation. I dont really like Harley Race, but when I do is always against the Von Erich boys. Great chemistry, great finish. **** Kerry Von Erich 40 second squash with the Stomach Claw. What is Kerry's accent? I dont think I have ever heard anyone talk like that. He has never come across as the brightest bulb but he was a helluva wrestler. Bobo Brazil Squash, extrapolating based on this performance, I bet Bobo Brazil was a helluva wrestler in his prime in Detroit against The Sheik & Abdullah. He was doing double dropdowns no problem. He was moving great and hitting hard. Coco Butt gets the win. I wish we would get our hands on primetime Detroit Wrestling Footage. Instead of a great Kerry Von Erich vs Greg Valentine match, I got 12 minutes of Bulldog Bob Brown vs Baron Von Raschke. I like the Baron but this way too much Brown doing a headlock. It was tight I will give him that. Baron almost gets the Claw on. They both tumble to the outside. They both hit the ref for a Double DQ. Baron giving a contemporary interview with Larry was nice to hear about his football and legit wrestling credentials. Then how he broke in with Verne and Mad Dog. Seems like an affable fellow. Once I track down Kerry vs Valentine, this could be the best disc of the set. Without it, it is pretty weak besides the excellent Harley vs David match. Next disc appears in full as the run time is back up to 2 hours. Oh boy, nothing looks good, we may be getting to the dregs of the set. Some Flair matches those are usually at the very least entertaining.

Harley Race vs David Von Erich - St. Louis Wrestling At The Chase 8/23/81 I am no fan of Harley Race except against the Von Erich boys. There's something magical about their chemistry. I have seen terrific matches with Kerry & Kevin and now we can add David to the list. Early on in my St. Louis watch I was impressed by this matchup but I thought this was even better and this maybe the best St. Louis match we have on tape, it is definitely in my fave five. Harley Race is no longer champion having dropped the strap to Dusty Rhodes. This combined Harley's slam, bang, do it again style with lots of struggle and babyface/heel dynamics, two things the Von Erich boys excelled in. David is working the headlock to start. I enjoyed the bridge out by David when Harley tried to pry David down by the chin. I really liked how Harley was thwarted again and again. Harley nails an excellent dropkick but misses the falling headbutt. He headbutts during a rope break only to be clotheslined on a criss cross. I lap that type of shit up. Harley is really effective in using the headbutt. It does get over the desperation and that he is one tough son of a bitch for using his head for such damage. We get the barrage of piledrivers, tombstone and conventional to no avail. David press slams him off the top and nails his own piledriver at one point. I thought they used missed moves excellently in this. They even brawl on the outside really tearing up the announce table. As they close in on 5 minutes left, they really pour it on. Huge pop for the Iron Claw! Rope break plus headbutt to the breadbasket. It is funny to me that Harley loves the piledriver but the vertical suplex is his finish in St. Louis. He nails it but wants to hit the Diving Headbutt, but he belly flops. David up on the ropes and comes down with THE CLAW~! Time is running out! This could be the biggest victory of David's career! Harley pulls the ref into David for the ref bump. Harley delivers the Suplex on the floor! DAVID SELLS THIS LIKE A MILLION BUCKS! AWESOME SELL! Kerry is out and wallops Harley and checks on his brother. This was a great all-action match that escalated really nicely into a wicked hot finish run and told the story of heel veteran vs young babyface really well. ****

Disc 6 does not look like it has much meat on the bone We start off with my main man, Crusher Blackwell looking like a million bucks. Love his freight train body splash in the corner and we get a sick legdrop. He gets into a brawl with Dewey Robertson not yet the Missing Link. Robertson sends Blackwell into the post and he NO SELLS IT! There is a fight. Blackwell yanks the chair right out from the smokin' hot girl in the red sweater. He then starts to bash himself in the head with the chair. That was something else! Love Blackwell! Bob Orton vs Mark Romero was a surprisingly awesome squash. Orton's reputation has risen over the last decade as a workrate dynamo and it is rightfully shown here. Romero looks like the type of cat with the right breaks and mentor could have been somebody, but it didnt pan out. There is a clip in the middle unfortunately but what we get is rockin'. The two most memorable things by far are Orton's two escapes from the headscissors. The first Romero ends up hanging down his front and that could have easily been converted into a tombstone piledriver but it is c. 1981 so I am not sure if it was even invented yet. The second had Romero down the back and Orton executed one of the best Airplane Spins ever! Romero was a serviceable babyface but this was the Orton show. Great rope-assisted dropkick. Loved the powerslam and backbreaker. Orton is a worker I need to see more of. His best match by far is that Southwest Classic with Terry Funk. Pre-WWF Orton is definitely on my to do list, but I dont know how much we have. Romero goes back to the flying headscissors. I would be remiss to mention that Orton executed a flying headscissors early in the match to my surprise and then missed it in entertaining fashion. Romero executes the first attempt but on the second attempt Orton evades and Romero ends up eating the top turnbuckle which is a perfect set up for the Superplex! Hard to beat this competitive squash! ***1/4 Bruiser Brody vs Dory Funk Jr in All Japan - I dont know why this made the comp except that Larry is a total Brody mark. Double juice, good Dory fire and clean finish. Easy recommend. ***3/4 Kerry Von Erich & Rufus R. Jones vs JJ Dillon & Bobby Jaggers - JJ underwhelms again! Best Jaggers performance, lots of great stooging, I loved him falling into the ring and also tagging Kerry in the wrong corner and getting waffled. I enjoy Rufus' schtick and Kerry had some great highspots. Then way Kerry hit his dropkicks in a whirlwind of energy was really cool. Time limit draw. NWA Missouri Heavyweight Champion Ted DiBiase vs Chief Thundercloud - DiBiase beat Flair and is back in contention for the World Championship, but The American Dream Dusty Rhodes is coming, baby. Thundercloud gave DiBiase more fits than I expected with his chops, hair pulling, getting DiBiase off his feet more than once. DiBiase used the Fireman's Carry liberally not quite as good at as Baron Von Raschke but it is an underrated takedown and I dug it here. Flair & Patera vs Dusty & Dick The Bruiser is being advertised. I liked when Thundercloud was chopping in the corner that DiBiase used the Greco-Roman Double Underhooks and repositioned so they could open a can of whoop ass on him. DiBiase wins with the Figure-4. After like three or four discs mentioning this big angle at the Kiel with DiBiase and Race from February of 1981, it turns out we have footage of it! Race won the first fall with a Tombstone Piledriver so I guess it was around, it was not exactly like the Undertakers as Race just fell forwards. DiBiase hit a kneecrusher/Figure-4 to win the second fall. The third fall was just as Larry explained. Ref bump to outside. DiBiase over the top rope. DiBiase pins with the Bridging Back Suplex, but the top rope is a DQ so Race retains. Crowd did pop huge and it looked like DiBiase was very over! NWA World Heavyweight Champion Harley Race vs Spike Huber is exemplary of how Harley works, all action no substance. Lots of highspots and bomb-throwing, but light on character work, struggle. It is very cold, mechanical. It is very Triple H. You can see how Triple H picked up a lot more from Harley Race than he did the Nature Boy. Huber, who is Dick The Bruiser's son in-law bounces the champion around but with none of the pizzazz that Flair would have also Flair would have created obstacles for Huber to overcome. I will admit I did find the finish quite exciting. It was Harley missing a falling headbutt on the outside right into concrete that generated some nice nearfalls for Huber. They did these two weird leapfrogs spots where the collided into each other, but they looked gnarly. Race got pressed slam off the top. Harley hit a nice piledriver to win. Like I said if you like highspots galore and pure workrate you will enjoy this, but it is very Spot A->Spot B->Spot C wrestling with little connective tissue. *** A pair of Dusty Rhodes squashes. I do think these squashes put the previous match in perspective for as much I would rail against the lack of character work, psychology and struggle in the previous match, it was at least not as boring as these matches. Dusty was not quite as charismatic as usual. He had flashes moreso in the first squash than the second. He worked the leg in the first and the chinlock in the second. Some good Bionic Elbows and it was a falling elbow drop that got him the duke in each. According to the match listing I have the Volume should have extended but I am missing a Dusty promo (which are always a treasure), Harley squash, DiBiase/Huber vs Harley/JJ Dillon and highlights from Harley vs DiBiase in the Checkerdome, the last is a bummer as I feel like most of these discs have really been building to this. On to Disc 7 which looks light BUT does feature Kerry Von Erich vs Greg Valentine! I wonder if this is the match I have already seen or if it is a new one!

NWA International Heavyweight Champion Dory Funk Jr vs Bruiser Brody - AJPW 4/21/82 This was randomly on volume 6 of the St. Louis Wrestling at the Chase comp that is available on Impact Wrestling's Streaming Network. The only rationale I can come up with is that it is because Larry was a massive Brody mark. The key with all Brody matches is just check all preconceived notions of Brody as a wildman brawler at the door, he just wasnt. Once you have seen enough of Brody and dont try to force him to be something he is not, he becomes a lot better. I actually like how stingy he is with the bumps as it makes them mean more. This finished #134 on All Japan 80s set which seems criminally low as I thought this was pretty great at 15 minutes very brisk. Brody worked strong early and forced Dory to work underneath, sending Dory outside with a dropkick and then working a headlock. Brody uses a bodyslam and Larry points out Dory used the bodyslam as a set up move winning World Championship from Gene Kiniski by delivering seven bodyslams before the Spinning Toehold. Learn something new everyday. Lo and Behold, Dory hits the bodyslam on Brody. I have always loved Dory's European Uppercut and he was on fire here. They work a great knucklelock/monkey flip sequence which totally unexpected from these but I dug it. I liked how Brody chaotically spun into the turnbuckles but didnt bump. However, there was a weird moment where Dory got Brody off his feet but Brody only half-bumped. He either needed to full bump or no sell. The half bump looked awkward. Brody picks the heel up from outside the ring and now the fun begins. He brawls into the crowd throws Dory into some chairs and Dory starts bleeding. I was really surprised how low this is on the set as it is very vigorous, it is bloody and ultimately has a clean finish. Brody plays King of the Mountain. Two awesome big boots in the ending stretch. Dory plays a little Kurt Angle popping up and hurling Brody off the top rope and gets a vertical suplex (he couldnt negotiate it earlier in the match) as hope spots. Pretty big bombs down the stretch. They spill to the outside and now Dory busts open Brody. Double Juice! Dory is rockin'. Dory goes for the Back Suplex but Bordy kicks off the top rope so Dory ends up taking the brunt of it and Brody wins. I always liked that finish. Solid opening with Dory playing the fiery babyface from underneath, the ending stretch was hot with the blood, bombs and a great finish. As always I wish Brody gave us something more in the way of charisma and being more heelish. Besides not leaving his feet and opening Dory up, he wrestles very neutral. ***3/4

Hey AA484 thanks for the love! I, also, prefer the written word, brutha. It is more exact. I think you can reach a broader audience with audio. Glad you dig my write-ups. I am in the Microscope section for now. Watched a couple episodes of AWA All-Star Wrestling and have been digging through St. Louis' Wrestling At The Chase so you can catch me there! Pro Wrestling Love vol. 3 is up and ready to be consumed & digested. I have a got of shit going on in my personal life right now so I am going to keep this short and sweet. If you have been enjoying listening to me and Jerome/El-P break down what we think is the very best of TNA/Impact Wrestling of all time then click the link and enjoy because it is only getting better! Have a great week everybody! Let me know if you have any comments, questions or requests! https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-a9etu-f445f6

Disc 5 lets roll... Hangman Bobby Jaggers vs Tommy Sharpe - Jaggers has the Hangman name. He wrestles very similarly to Flair, but not as energetic, not as interesting and not as loud. He lets Sharp overwhelm him at every turn. Sharpe charges and Jaggers repels him. Jaggers has some good clubbering offense, but then its chinlock city. The finish is a Hangman's Lariat, didnt look good. Baron Von Raschke vs Art Crews - In one of those St. Louis nomenclature idiosyncrasies, Baron is forced to dropped the Baron from his name. St. Louis is cool because you do get to see the AWA stars mix it up with the NWA. I would bet Baron was a great wrestler in the late 60s and throughout the 70s. I have watched a lot of him recently and you can pick up his wrestling pedigree. Great athleticism besides a botched monkey flip probably because he had never taken it before. The middle section was quite exciting with the Baron kicking ass. He let Crews have a little and then it was chinlock city by the Baron. Yawn. Baron wins with the Brain Claw! Kerry Von Erich! vs A Jobber- Kerry looking like a million bucks but still growing his hair out. Good technically sound wrestling by Kerry early and then we get the Power wrestling. Great Urnage/Oo-Soto-Gari combination. Basically think Rock Bottom combined with a Hiptoss and it looked vicious! The Iron Claw ends up in the ropes but the Brain Claw gives him the victory and it was powerful. He hoisted the jobber up with the Stomach Claw and slams him to the mat! Butch Reed & Rufus R. Jones vs The Kelly Twins - I am surprised in a more soap opera-oriented territory like a Memphis they didnt pick up the Kelly twins just to do the evil twin angle. Soaps can do the whole evil twin with camera tricks. WWF did with the Hebners once to great effect. To me the dumbest thing you can do is debut twins together. Give one a year or so as a babyface and then you pull the evil twin trick that's money. I think you could still do it, but probably not as effectively but in the 80s, huge! Kelly Twins werent half bad either. Rufus is from Boston?!? Maybe the best Boston wrestler until John Cena came along! Rufus was over with the audience and me. He is fun. Reed looked awesome in this. I need to check more Reed, great wrestler. Kellys were effective heels, but Reed was the MVP. Draw finish. Reed was cooking at the end though, dropped the leg as time expired. NWA World Champion Jack Brisco vs Giant Baba Kiel Auditorium Highlights form 8/8/75 - Jack wins the first fall with the O'Connor Roll. Jack wrestling heel in this is interesting. Baba wins the second fall with his Neckbreaker Drop Lariat. Brisco wins with a Back Suplex. We have their 1974 title switches in full and in great quality thanks to the Japanese. They are dandies! Definitely check those out if you have time. Time for a break. When we come back Ric Flair vs Pat O'Connor! Kerry Von Erich vs Ken Patera! Bruce Reed vs Hangman Bobby Jaggers - Im sad to report that Jaggers is not a lost worker of the 80s. He is a very basic heel. I liked Reed a lot of this good, strong babyface. This is a more traditional structure compared to some of the slam bang workrate tag matches I have seen. After besting Jaggers at every turn, Reed takes a tumble to the outside off a missed charge. Jaggers plays of the King of the Mountain, which was good stuff. Then it is chinlock city. Two Reed tackles and it is followed by the Jaggers kneelift. It is clear they are working for the draw. Reed doesnt get his comeback until there's less than a minute. So weird not seeing the long extended babyface finish. They both knock heads after the time limit expires. Ric Flair vs Pat O'Connor - Wooooo! Daddy, this is more like it! They are building to Flair vs DiBiase for the Missouri Championship and de facto Number 1 Contender to Harley Race. This is during the time they were really building Flair giving him wins over the former World Champions and top contenders. Flair looks great here, maybe the best he ever has. He was always jacked but he looked leaner than ever. O'Connor looks like dogshit, but he can still wrestle, brutha. Classic Flair with O'Connor getting the best of him in interesting and entertaining ways. Flair works the front facelock and it is really fun and cool because O'Connor uses a lot of suplex attempts and other ways to break Flair's grip and on the third suplex does. Flair is the master of using all the real estate afforded to him and the action goes to the outside. He wraps O'Connor's knee around the post. I love O'Connor's reaction to the Single Leg Pickup he just starts throwing right haymakers to the bandage on Flair's head reopening the wound! What great psychology. Now Flair is bleeding and the crowd is whipped into a frenzy. O'Connor with a sleeper on the outside and Flair slams him into the post, Figure-4! The ref count is on and Flair makes it in. Flair's promo is money. He is 100% The Nature Boy! The ladies only care if he wins or loses, daddy, they dont care how he does it. He runs down DiBiase and Race and says all the gold will be his. The Man! I love Naitch. My favorite match thus far, but not for long, I will say Flair vs Kerry, Reed vs Blackwell and Kerry vs Valentine top this from St. Louis. ***3/4 Kerry Von Erich & Rufus R. Jones vs JJ Dillon & Mike Kelley - Sub-5 minute match. JJ's heart was not in it, barely stooged for Rufus. Nothing match. Ken Patera vs Kerry Von Erich was great. Really enjoyed all the ways Kerry showed up Patera and how Patera sold that. Ken tried to flex early and Kerry made him paid. Then Patera thinks he got some momentum rolling and Kerry dropkicks him out of the ring. Patera has Kerry in a headlock and ends up sat down the top rope. At this point Patera comes crashing down on Kerry. I thought Kerry's selling was better than Patera's offense. It was entertaining throughout. It was a predictable draw in this star vs star match with Kerry getting an O'Connor Roll as time expired. ***1/4 Wendi Richter & Joyce Grable vs Carol Summers & Jill Fontaine was the surprise of century! My favorite match of the set so far. Grable looked fantastic in her singles match and I thought Richter was pretty good in that mixed tag. I remember remarking to myself and surprised I didnt put it in my review of the Richter tag that I wanted to see Grable vs Richter. They put turned heel and just put on a clinic. They were giving Mickey a ton of shit during the introductions. He gets out of there and compares them to Ox Baker and Bulldog Bob Brown. I popped. If you wanna see a carryjob watch this. Richter and Grable put on a clinic. They rip through the babyfaces at the start, but then it becomes competitive. There's a part where they are missing giant splashes that is great. Richter throws herself into some great bumps. The finish is a Richter backdropping one of the girls into a Grable POWERBOMB~! MADNESS! SHEER MADNESS! Loved the hell out of this! ****

I have no idea when this episode of TV is from they were advertising an Oakland Battle Royale on November 12th. Based on the roster, it feels like it is 1981. AWA World Tag Team Champions High Flyers vs Jobbers - Been watching a lot of squashes and I realize my least favorite is when a technical babyface squashes. Power wrestlers are a ton of fun to watch heel or baby as they will just smoke their opponents. Classic heel with cheat like sumbitch. Technical babyfaces not much to it and they often try to make it seem more competitive by doing a lot of motion but it really isnt. Matches like this make me believe Crockett was not ahead of its time just with it. Very Crockett style match in 1981 in AWA. Tons of workrate and motion. Brunzell has such a terrific dropkick. Love the snapmare take over for the first fall. Gagne sleeper takes the second fall. Gagne has good fire. It is a shame Brunzell was not a bit taller or didnt come along a little later could've been a big player. The Hulkster is with Johnny Valiant. Hulk Hogan is clearly trying to do the Superstar Billy Graham rap and he is pretty good at it, but he still hasnt found his voice. Johnny Valiant is just one of those talkers that talks. His cadence is good, but he doesnt have the conviction or content worth listening to. They are challenging Jesse The Body to a Arm Wrestling Match. A little heel vs heel...SCANDALOUS~! Mean Gene is the best. He asks a pointed question about arm wrestling he knows how to get a point over. Dizzy Ed Hogan vs Scrap Iron George Gadawski - Brutus Beefcake has one of those faces where he looks different everytime I see him. Man, I dont know youre telling me Dizzy Boulder, Brutus Beefcak and The Disciple are the same person. i have a hard time believeing that, brutha. Dizzy Boulder is Hulk Hogan with a better hairline and less charisma. He wins with a full nelson. Lame Squash. Baron Von Raschke vs Worst Jobber Ever - Greg says the Baron was an NCAA champion when he intro's this and uses the Danny Hodge line to describe Baron that the Baron had the strongest grip in wrestling. Looked it up. Baron was an AAU champion, World Bronze and a Big 8 Champion. Baron is a good athlete I can tell. He is in there with one of the worst jobbers I have ever seen. A total load and that makes every move look like shit. I would have just Clawed him and got the fuck out. What a load. Hulk Hogan vs Two Jobbers - Hogan gets the BIG STAR treatment! You cant say the AWA was not pushing him and he looks like a million bucks. He was pretty good in this. I like 80s WWF Hogan that hams it up more. Hogan double bearhug was a really cool finish! Tito Santana vs Jobber - Not Much to report here. Tito has a nice dropkick too. God, I love that Tito/Martel vs High Flyers match from this time. Jesse The Body SMOKES Hulk Hogan in his promo. It is not even close who is the better promo at this time. Hogan would become Jesse's equal but he was always more athletic than Jesse and I think more inherently likeable. Jesse has too much smarm to him. He did get the State of Minnesota to vote him as Governor so I guess I am wrong. Adrian Adonis here also and they are talking the Battle Royale. Jesse was so good in this. HEY! Here's Andre and he's going to be in the Battle Royale. It is in Oakland and Mean Gene has the audacity to sav that it is something that area has never seen before! The last Cow Palace Battle Royale was actually this very year, 1981 and won by the Man of San Fran himself, Pat Patterson!

Didnt feel like St. Louis so decided to watch a random episode of AWA TV. I watched All Star Wrestling was this the A-Show or was it Championship Wrestling? I have seen a lot of great AWA promo with Mean Gene, but there were promos on this episode. It was 35 minutes long, usually an hour of TV is 38-42minutes run time, do people think the promos were cut or did All-Star Wrestling not show promos? Also where was this taped? Twin Cities, I presume? Spacious venue. August 2, 1981 AWA All-Star Wrestling AWA World Tag Team Champion High Flyers vs a Mexican/Puerto Rican jobbers. Heel jobbers go after Greg's eyes and try some roughhouse tactics on Brunzell in the second falls. Two straight for the champs. Brunzell looked great. Dropkick was not the finish, needed a small package. Greg looked pretty good, but I preferred Brunzell in this outing. Greg had some good leg work. Both were energetic and vigorous. Greg wins with a Jackknife pin. Crusher Jerry Blackwell vs George "Scrap Iron" Gadaski - The highlight of this show. Blackwell looked like a million bucks. If you are a Blackwell like I am, this is not a must watch, but it is a really strong squash match from him. Loved the freight train finish. Tito Santana vs Pancho - I like how he heel jobbers cheat a lot, lots of hair pulling in this. Tito has his fists cocked in typical pissed off Tito fashion but he never lets them fly to my dismay. Really cool pin by Tito that should be cribbed. He does a standing reverse toehold with a backbridge. Verne has been on commentary and you could tell he liked that one. Sheik Adnan al-Kaisse vs Jobber - Adan slapped the jobber around. I dont remember this being quite as vicious as I wanted it to be. Abdominal Stretch wins it for the Sheik, customary Wilbur Synder reference by Verne. Baron Von Raschke vs Jobber - Finishes off. Again, I noticed that Baron is still quite athletic at this point in his career. Verne calls him "supple" while that's a descriptor that I reserve for use in a different form of physical, adult entertainment, he's not wrong, but at the same time I am not sure I want to think of the Baron in that light. The Baron definitely had something, the way he moves around the ring is very graceful. Brain Claw finishes it. I will probably stick with St. Louis for the time being because I am trying to finish before the end of the month so I dont have to pay Impact another $8, but this was a fun 35 minutes. Blackwell squash was worthwhile, always nice to see Tito and the Baron is growing on me.

Disc #4 Baby! NWA Missouri Heavyweight Champion Ted DiBiase vs Big John Studd - Apparently, DiBiase is coming off the heels of a controversial match with World Champion Harley Race (more on that later) that has Larry calling DiBiase "The Uncrowned World Champion" which does bolster Parv's case for DiBiase as a top contender for the World Championship. I am a sucker for Big John Studd even though I know he is not very good. I got excited that there would be something here, but not really. The match was pretty boring. Lots of chinlocks from Studd. DiBiase is a decent white-meat babyface but I think he found his true calling as a heel in Mid-South. When you compare DiBiase to the great babyfaces of the 80s, Steamboat, Santana, Martel and Windham, he doesnt have the fire, charisma or selling chops those four had. He is solid enough here. Studd does look like a monster. Studd plays King of the Mountain and DiBiase yanks him down and posts the knee. Nice! DiBiase is looking for the Figure-4 big kickout by Studd sends DiBiase crashing through the ropes. Studd slams DiBiase into the front row seat. I think a woman put her leg on that seat so Studd couldnt do it again! Awesome! DiBiase took control and bashed Studd with the chair! It is a double DQ or countout! Boring match, strong finish. I had never heard a Studd promo. He is alright. Sounds like a pretty normal wrestling dude. Says punk a lot. He says he whupped DiBiase so he knows he can whup Harley Race and he is going to win the Missouri and World Championship. Bulldog Bob Brown & Kerry Brown vs Kelly Twins - Turns out Kerry Brown is Bulldog Bob's nephew. He is bleeding. Turns out the Kelly Twins are not jobbers. They are Irish-Canadian twins of some size that I have never heard of. Did anything come of them? Bulldog Bob gets the hot tag. Oh boy! That's what everyone was clamoring for in 1981 was the Bulldog Bob face turn. Kerry submits to the Irish Clutch, looked like a standing, inverted Figure-4. Bulldog Bob Brown vs Pat Kelly - Oh boy! The worst most boring match I have seen in quite sometime. The match is a 15 minute draw so boring that Larry has enough time to regale us with the complete story of the Race vs DiBiase match from the Kiel. It was 2 out of 3 falls, Harley took the first, Ted the second. It was a Dusty finish. You know in retrospect even though Dusty used the finish a lot he clearly cribbed it from somewhere else. Harley hurled DiBiase over the top rope but the ref had been bumped. DiBiase recovered and hit a bridging suplex to get the three count from the new ref, but the original ref called for the DQ. Lame. Brown poured it on with a couple minutes left including a dropkick and a lot of backbreakers. In his defense this old ass ref had a really slow count. Legdrop as time expires. Yeah I watched a 15 minute Bulldog Brown vs Pat Kelly draw, sympathy cards welcomed. Time for bed. Akio Sato vs Max Blue - Almost skipped this, glad I didnt as I enjoyed it a good bit. Akio Sato is Sato from the Orient Express. It seems he got pushed in the Central States territory as a babyface partner of Bob Giegel which is interesting and cool. Guys on RAW, Dynamite and Smackdown wish they could have a match this efficient and tell such a great story in 7 minutes and change. Just such nice fundamental wrestling from both. So tight. Sato keeps getting the upper hand. So Blue starts in with the dirty tactics, a shot to the kidney, no clean break. Sato keeps sticking to the holds. Blue throws in some high flying with the headscissors and Sato just keeps dogging him. Then Sato sneaks in the punch for all the bullshit Blue was doing. Side suplex wins it for Sato. Just beautiful meat & potatoes wrestling. ***1/4. They dont make em like they used to. Dick The Bruiser & Jesse Barr vs Buzz Tyler & Mike George - Let me tell you something, I didnt expect Buzz Tyler OR Mike George to look like that. I think I was getting Buzz Tyler confused with Bugsy McGraw. I never seen Buzz Tyler before. He is a tubby fellow and I was not expecting that. Mike George is another name I have seen a bunch but never seen wrestle. I was not expecting the toothless cousin of Bob Ross. This match was not much. Dick The Bruiser may have been good craic in the 60s and early 70s but he was toast at this point. The heels were as generic as they come. Jesse Barr was very, very sound fundamentally I can see why he was pushed in Florida, he had that pedigree they like. DB busted Buzz open in the nose and mouth hardway on the announce table because he didnt get his hands up in time. To add insult to injury, he claws and raked at his face after he pinned him. NWA Missouri Champion Ken Patera vs Tommy Sharpe - At least Sharpe tried to give this a shot on work on Patera's knee. Patera had MASSIVE arms. It is interesting because the rest of his body is not that big, but his arms are huge. I wouldnt say Patera is someone I really want to seek out after watching these squashes but he is definitely good. Great bodyslam and the Full Nelson is perfect for him. Larry Matysik and Mickey Garagiola reminiscing about old times was great. Loved finding out Gene Kiniski was a motormouth, chatterbox & gourmet cook. Dick The Bruiser was the salt of the Earth, tough guy that cries at his daughter's wedding. Great story about how Mickey's brother Joe a famous baseball player got some free food, but a different person didnt know who the brother was, but he knew Mickey from Wrestling At The Chase! King Kong Brody & Ken Patera vs Rocky Johnson & Pat O'Connor - 15 minute draw. This match was a bit of clusterfuck and boring at times. Brody was pretty useless. Just plain not selling in a Rocky John Full Nelson. Patera was real into chinlocks. However, at least Patera was willing to bump and sell for Rocky Johnson. I enjoy Rocky. All his movements are very exaggerated which I bet played for arena audience. Very athletic. I loved his shaking his tailfeather to power himself out of a Brody knucklelock. I love a good booty-shakin' babyface. He was a fun babyface. O'Connor had a hot tag. It is interesting he had a hot tag with 5 minutes to go so I expected 5 minutes of uptempo action. I think we have been spoiled by the long finish stretches of Flair and All Japan. They took us back down and worked more heat. The finish with a minute to go was not even that hot. Like what I have seen from Rocky, not a good showing from Brody or Patera. Brody was a weird a promo. There is almost no way his voice could match his aura. He just sounds like a big redneck. He is complaining about being in tag wrestling and Sam Muchnick. Lots of heels going after Muchnick. Weakest disc so far. Akio Sato vs Max Blue was the best match. The best part was Larry and Mickey reminiscing! The next disc should be better we have Ric Flair vs Pat O'Connor and Kerry Von Erich vs Ken Patera! Two marquee matches!

Thanks Beast, did you get a chance to listen what did you think? Yes Cactus my hope was to help people with the Greatest Match Ever project at gweproject.freeforums.net with any blind spots they might have with TNA/Impact. Yes it is definitely marred by bad booking but there’s still a treasure trove of hidden gems. I hope this helps you & others! Its Sunday! You know what that means! Marty & Jerome continue to spread the Pro Wrestling Love on the Place to Be Wrestling Podcast Feed (thanks Justin & Scott for having us). https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-sugne-f445a7 Episode 2 gets us through #20-16 of our Best TNA/Impact Wrestling Matches of All Time Jerome gives the contemporary stuff lots of love while Marty to his own surprise gives Chris Sabin a lot of love! It’s TNA so there’s plenty of AJ Styles, Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels talk too! Hope you all enjoy! Let us know what you think!

Disc 3 Begins with a Lou Thesz promo, he comes across very affable. I would like to listen to Thesz spin a yarn. He has that old school charisma that requires no yelling, just pleasant to listen to. Thesz is doing commentary while Rufus R Jones wrestles a squash. I dont think I have ever seen a Rufus match. The way he juked & jived out of the side headlock popped me. He was a shucking & jiving babyface and liked his vibe. The best part was Thesz talking about how all the old timers are so pissy about new fangled wrestling, but he doesnt feel that way. The more things change, the more they stay the same. They show five squash matches of Rocky Johnson. Another wrestler I dont think I have seen wrestle. Lots of Ali influences you can tell with the shuffle as a wrestler he takes it further with back rolls and stuff. Each squash ends with two dropkicks and then another move such as Argentine Backbreaker, Gutwrench or vertical. Larry tells us that Rocky had a NWA Championship Match against Harley Race, which I didint realize he was that big of a deal. That's pretty cool. Dick Murdoch vs Dick The Bruiser's Son In-Law Spike Huber. Huber is all piss 'n' vinegar to start. Raucous start as Murdoch takes a walk. Murdoch has been the MVP of this footage. He was great at combining the charisma and the explosive offense. He pulls Huber up only to hit the Brainbuster to make a point to his archenemy Dick The Bruiser. King Kong Brody vs Abdullah The Butcher as I learn from Larry that St. Louis did do spot shows. I didnt realize that. It was on either side of the Missouri and Illinois border. I thought they just worked the Kiel or Checkerdome and Wrestling at the Chase. I have seen at least one of their brawls from World Class not as good as that. Brody lets himself get beatup and stood upon. Brody blades very visibly on camera. Brody comeback just happens. No real fire. No big transition. They do the brawl on the outside with chairs and stuff. This was ok. The fact the lighting was so bright and it was in High School Gym made me think this was in the 90s. Judy Martin vs Winona Littleheart - Judy Martin is a badass. Good kickass performance from her. Littleheart has an American Indian gimmick does the Wardance and ends up winning with a reverse crossbody. Joyce Grable vs Judy Martin is my new dream match. Just realized I have more work to do in the morning so gotta cut it short tonight. Dick Murdoch & Baron Von Raschke vs Ted DiBiase & David Von Erich - AWESOME 20 minute time limit draw! I really need to make a review for this because this rocked. Murdoch continues to be the MVP of this set. Before there was Rick Rude there was Dicky Murdoch selling Atomic Drops. He gets strangled with the tag rope he brings in. Baron ends up putting the Claw on him! That popped me. The Figure-4 on Murdoch and Claw on Von Raschke was good craic. DiBiase/Murdoch brawled on the outside. So much Murdoch goodness. Baron was still pretty solid at this point as he was a spry 40 years old at this time compared to some of the other old-timers. The main crux of this story was the Battle of the Claws, the Von Erich Iron Claw vs the Von Raschke BRAIN Claw! Great moment where Baron has the Claw applied, David fights through the pain and applies THE CLAW WHILE IN THE CLAW~! I popped for this! Another great moment saw David applying the Claw on the Baron and Murdoch jump off the top rope into a STOMACH CLAW! Awesome! Finish was Murdoch hitting a piledriver on DiBiase but time ran out. This 20 minutes of kickass action with a great story. ***3/4 Baron Von Raschke promo about the Brain Claw vs Iron Claw it is a bunch of trash talk but it is said with conviction and that's the major difference between today and yesterday. If the wrestler's believe, you believe. That's all kayfabe is, brutha. NWA Missouri Heavyweight Champion Ken Patera squash. Our first look at Patera and given that he is Missouri Champ and Larry says he beat Kevin Von Erich (a dream match I gotta see!) means this in between April-November 1980. Patera hits a nice bodyslam. A little Flair begging off there. Swinging Full Nelson wins him the match. Patera was clearly presented as a strongman and a main event act. Killer Karl Kox & Bulldog Bob Brown vs Pat O'Connor & Tommy Yates - a nothing match, I thought Yates was a failed babyface experiment at first, but no he was a jobber and just the fall guy. Kox and Brown argue over who should pin him. Kox vs Brown, I am sure that put asses in seats in 1980. Ted DiBiase & Wendi Richter vs Bulldog Bob Brown & Vivian St. John - The women were good fun in this. Vivian is a nasty heel. She went to the double goozle more often than not but with head shaking from Wendi it was a good visual. I like how raw the women are. Bulldog Bob got socked but gets his licks in on Wendi, which is pretty edgy for 1980 including choking her with tag rope. Wendi ends giving him a lickin for the lickin he gave as The Dream would say. Bulldog Bob sold for DiBiase pretty well. Wendi won with a Schoolboy. Very ok match. Skippable. NWA Missouri Heavyweight Champion Ken Patera squash against Tommy Yates. Patera hits the delayed vertical as a shot across the bow to the World Champion Harley Race. Patera has a great bodyslam. Swinging Full Nelson. Patera's promo is solid nothing earth-shattering. He is coming for Race, he got a shot in 1977 but he is more experienced and seasoned and this time he is taking the Gold home. David Von Erich vs Bobby Jaggers - David is growing on me. He is not immediately appealing like Wild Man Kevin Von Erich or Herculean Kerry Von Erich but he is a nice solid wrestler. Reminds me of a Barry Windham or a Dustin Rhodes which is mighty high praise, but not quite at their level. Jaggers is the quintessential 80s midcarder, never a jobber, never in the main event (well maybe Central States or Southwest). David looked really good at the fundamentals and the mat wrestling. Jaggers was using the thumb jab to the throat liberally as his cutoff. Liked David throwing that back at him after two. This felt like a match they were just extending to fill time with a long chinlock from Jaggers. They were really selling David vs Baron in the Battle of the Claws. The finish is David busting open Jaggers with the Iron Claw for the win. Dick Murdoch & Baron Von Raschke vs Pat O'Connor & Kerry Brown - Another O'Connor/Jobber connection. Murdoch is fantastic in this everyone else is fine. Murdoch just ragdolls Brown. Beating him to a pulp on the outside with the announce table. Then crowning him with the chair. I loved him jumping on the back of O'Connor from the top rope illegally. They continue to sell David vs Baron, Baron defeats Brown with the Claw, BUT NO BLOOD! Seems like David's may be superior. Come to the Kiel Auditorium this week to find out! Overall Thoughts: Dick Murdoch & Baron Von Raschke vs Ted DiBiase & David Von Erich was terrific! That's really all you can ask for these old school comps is if you get one really strong, long match a disc then the disc is a success. Dick Murdoch continues to shine. David Von Erich is growing on me. Nice to see Lou Thesz and Ken Patera. Next Disc looks pretty skimpy. I would say I am most interested in Ted DiBiase vs Big John Studd as I have seen almost zero Studd before WWF.