Matt D

Matt Franklin had me watch Tully vs Kernodle. Very fun match. Great crowd. Great Tully performance as a vulnerable heel (TV) champ. The match is a solid example on how two wrestlers can be so committed to one theme that it works even though it's really just one theme. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32150-nwa-world-tv-champion-tully-blanchard-vs-don-kernodle-www-51185/

Vulnerable heel TV title defenses are one of those staples that I really identify with JCP/WCW. I grew up watching Steve Austin as TV champ barely survive defense after defense against a wide array of opponents. While some of them might have been more dynamic than 1985 Don Kernodle, 1985 Blanchard outpaces 1991 Austin in a huge way and was one of the very best ever as a stooging heel champ. What I loved about this match the most was its purity. It told a singular story and kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. Kernodle had Tully's number: he was a better wrestler, he was tougher, he was more resilient, he was more persistent. Tully was tougher than he looked, was underhanded, was incorrigible, was canny and constantly looking for openings. In many matches, Tully will at least try to wrestle his opponent first. Here, they jockeyed for the first touch but Tully immediately gave up on that and went for fisticuffs. He held the advantage for a small moment before Kernodle caught him off the top rope and power slammed him. A good portion of the (consistently hot, as to be expected for 1985 JCP) crowd thought it was over there and then because of how impressive a spot that was for the time, but really, it was there to definitively set the tone. They started the match with an exclamation point and they kept charging forth with it over the next ten+ minutes. It's safe to say that this was a sprint, but it was one with resonance and meaning. So much of that was on Tully's (and to a lesser degree Baby Doll's) reactions. He bumped. He stooged. He sold. He begged off. He was constantly trying to crawl out of the ring, or grab hold of the apron. He staggered about, even when he started to get a little offense (due to an eye rake or a cheap shot to the stomach or using Baby Doll as a distraction) and often times, he couldn't hold on to control of the match because of it. Meanwhile, Kernodle beat him around the ring utilizing just about every move there was to utilize in 1985. He's a more than competent bullying babyface, one that the local crowd has a big connection to. I do think it's their hatred of Tully (and the fact he's constantly on) that drives the reactions, but Don more than does his part. It's the little things too. At one point he's stepping on Tully's face and he makes sure to pump his arm in victory to portray his excitement; he's excited and therefore the crowd's excited too. The nature of a match with this much vulnerability is that the cut-offs are the babyface cutting off the heel's feeble and duplicitous attempts to get back on top. In the grand scheme of things, it's a limited formula, one that puts a ceiling on the match in comparison to matches that tell a more intricate story, but it plays 100% to the purpose of what they were doing. The TV title had just been elevated to a World TV title. Tully had just stolen it (figuratively more than literally). This is exactly the match they needed here. There are things I'd be frustrated by in other matches, like Tully getting one of his best bursts of offense off of a missed elbow drop and not something more dynamic, but here it worked to shows just how opportunistic and desperate he was. It's not like he held it for long and it made his own missed elbow drop that followed resonate more. Make sure to look at how he utilizes Baby Doll. Tully was a stickler for not letting his manager upstage him for heat. She's there, at his instruction (as he directs traffic from the ring) or due to him distracting the ref (as opposed to her telling him to distract the ref like Heenan might do), to menace Kernodle on the outside. At the end, when she interferes, the heat isn't on her but on the barely-saved Tully who immediately assaults a grounded Kernodle. Post match makes Magnum look like a chump for the sake of Dusty (and for a moment Tully) but that's where they were going in the medium term and it's not like it hurt Magnum. This was about as good as a one-dimensional match could be. Excellent performance from Tully.

I wonder if they don't see him like a Santino or Mizdow right now.

Yeah, you're easy right now. I already know what WoS match I'd want to give you if I get you on the random draw.

Had I been able to put together a ballot, I might have considered giving Malenko some credit for 15 years of being a road agent. Probably not enough to crack my top 100 though. Full disclosure: my biggest regret in not being able to vote so far is that I would have pushed Judy Martin ahead of the Jumping Bomb Angels, because Judy Martin was better than the Jumping Bomb Angels in those matches.

Gene Anderson, post-stroke, is pretty hard to watch. I wasn't expecting it.

In that case,

Ok, it's not just the music. Look, I'm watching the Oct 31, 1981 episode. Landell just beat Fulton by reversing a corner whip, hitting a back body drop, and landing a gutwrench suplex, right? The replay? It shows the two corner moves that Fulton hit as his last bits of offense (a shoulder thrust and a knee in the corner) and the very start of the whip reversal before they cut to commercial even before the back body drop. They would have been far better off with no replay at all.

Thanks, Matt. I've seen more than my share of 1985 JCP, but while I remember the Taylor TV match and the Houston TV match and the Sawyer TV match from Tully, I don't remember this one at all, so I'm looking forward to digging in. I took a quick look and saw that you had worked through at least some of the DVDVR Mid-South set back in the day. If I was going to add one and only one supplemental match from the Houston footage we picked up in the last few years, it might well be Murdoch vs Dibiase from December 29, 1985. It's a Grudge Match after the big Dibiase turn episode in November and we only ever had a clipped version before.

It's amazing how much better the Roncerverte WV local promos make the show. Hayes is awesome.

Week 3. I tried to pick up people who wanted to join since last time. The deal is the same. I did a quick check to make sure we didn't have pairings from Weeks 1 or 2 but that's not going to last forever. Even if you're behind, still try to select a match for your opponent. If you need to sit out a week at some point, let me know. We have 26 people now, which is nuts, so if I missed you, let me know. I think people have been enjoying things so far, so thanks for participating. WEEK 3 southofheavy PeteF3 dkookypunk43 Jmare007 Beast Wahoo's Leg Matt Franklin Matt D Richeyedwards concrete1992 Laz AstroBoy topropepodcast Grimmas Rah Nintendo Logic SPS SirEdgar Jetlag WingedEagle C.S. soup23 dawho5 CapitalTTruth Tim Evans Migs I'll try to have a match for my fellow Matt later on today.

It feels like we're a little lacking on results to fill in the gaps too.

I thought, at the time, what needed the most delving from Dylan, was the idea that All Japan (and I suppose certain New Japan) was actually of the "western" tradition with US/Canadian Pro Wrestling, which is a much shorter way of saying what is above. EDIT: And the corollary of that is that other traditions are often looked at through that "western" lens by those of authority (I'd add a sort of Meltzerian "workrate" but you could mention how Austin/Bret/etc. doesn't understand lucha, etc.), and thus cultural elements are is partially to hugely missed. But some of that is me.

What I see happening is that they stay within their means, make it into a big cultural event/pilgrimage, do an impressive number, fall short, make a big profit and then push it for the following year as something to top. It builds in reputation and within a few years, they get there.

Can we pause for a moment and note that in the ads for the WWE anniversary show, they are advertising Brother Love as if he was equal to basically everyone but Sgt Slaughter. There might even be something to that. What a weird world we've ended up in.

Hair match with Metallico second on the card on a Tuesday show.

That's where I'm stuck because i can't just half watch it like I've been doing.

It has a lot going for it but It feels much more botchy, production wise. Some of that may be WWE's music dubs, maybe. Maybe?

I'm totally befuddled how Jacques Goulet beat Dusty in the first round of the 81 US Title Tournament. It was absolutely hilarious when Crockett was interviewing McGee about Idol's figure four and ran out of time while McGee was trying to explain what part of the leg it affected on him because he was so short. The production value, in general, feels laughable, even relative to other territories in 81. I heard a story lately that Jake got named "The snake" by Valiant on his way in and I don't think this footage bears that out, but we're missing stuff and I don't know how long Valiant was off TV during the transition between Handsome and Boogie-Woogie. At the first bit of footage, he's got the hat with the snake on it, and he's called that by Youngblood in October when they're showing the hype video for "man from new york city" valiant, which obviously lost the song.

It feels crazy to speculate on something like Bryan right now, but the CMLL Anniversary show is generally in september too and that is a current dream of his as best as I know. Who knows.

The team of Jones and Monte is visually weird, with similar hair/mustaches. You almost think they could have packaged that, but I have no idea how. If it was 1988 WWF they could have been a heel Highway Patrol type team.

That's a great way for Rey to get resigned in May or whenever.

That’s definitely the Cena we’ll get for a match like this. I'm not convinced. The match might be good because of physical limitations.

Institutional complicity mainly, it seems.

I think this will be a good GWE style test for Cena, actually.