[1983-07-04-CWF] Harley Race vs Barry Windham

Harley Race vs Barry Windham - CWF TV 7/4/83

Harley is the World's Heavyweight Champion at this point, but this is non-title. The beginning is the usual Harley bombfest with no rhyme or reason, tons of momentum shifts, no struggle. It just feels like an exhibition. Barry was great at selling and firing up, but Harley just refused to take advantage of this. Barry tried. I would say between this and the Bass match that by 83 you could safely call BW a great wrestler. After the first commercial break, the moves started to matter and the drama built. You got that real sense of veteran champion against young upstart. Harley bashing his head into the post and really following up his moves and actually stringing them along to build to the drama of Barry's comeback. So Barry could sell and that selling led to a hot comeback with great strikes and him busting Harley open, which is great revenge. Contrast that to the opening match where because Harley would bump and feed and then hit move there was no drama and there no feeling of Barry proving himself because there was no challenge. It does get a little move trade-y at the end, but the double juice and excitement help assuage my feelings of annoyance. Windham misses the big lariat, but gets an O'Connor Roll to score a HUGE upset!!! Really nice finish. Harley is pissed and wants to piledrive BW on the floor, but Dusty saves only to be piledriven himself. Second half is very good and overall an entertaining TV match with a cool finish. ***