Von Erichs Celebrate (2:39)

 

This was what it was.

 

Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy vs. Kerry Von Erich & Iceman King Parsons (20:00)

 

Considering how much I'm digging the four guys involved, this was kinda disappointing.

 

Buddy Roberts vs. Iceman King Parsons

 

This is a feud I've really been enjoying, but I've been holding off on nominating any matches from it, because no one seemed to be just right. I'm getting kinda tired of waiting, so maybe I'm jumping the gun with this, but fuck it, this was way too much fun to watch. I think it's an easy nomination.

 

This, of course, is the feud that debuted the Freebird Hair Cream, which ended up on the head of Roberts at the end of a Star Wars card. Now, Roberts is wearing a cheap rug held on with amateur boxing headgear that he insists is is real hair, and that he's wearing the gear because of a head injury he sustained recently. Naturally, it is now the sworn duty of every babyface in the company to rip the wig off during their matches with Roberts and expose his bald dome - and that goes double for Parsons. Going into this match, he had already accomplished this at a show the week before in Dallas, but now they're in Fort Worth, and Parsons says the Fort Worth crowd deserves a chance to see Roberts bald head live and in person, too.

 

So this is a pretty straightforward, silly, crowd-pleasing midcard feud pitting a shuckin'-and-jivin' black babyface against a bleached-blond stooge heel. It's not something you would go into expecting to be one of the stiffest feuds you'd ever see on this side of the Pacific, but that's exactly what it's been. Iceman King Parsons isn't the best guy ever at the shuckin'-and-jivin' aspects of the shuckin'-and-jivin' black babyface role. Only seems to have one dance move, isn't the best jive-talker, etc. But Parsons will pepper his shuckin'-and-jivin' spots into a match where he mostly just lights up Buddy Roberts with brutal strikes. He throws the stiffest knife-edge chops I've seen on these discs so far, and I've already seen several high-profile Ric Flair matches. Lots of blacks of this era were booked to have hard heads, but Parsons threw headbutts that actually looked painful instead of just looking like comedy spots. Even the Butt-Butt was sudden and violent in this match. And Roberts is able to match Parsons' sudden and violent offense with equally sudden and violent bumping, plus he dishes out some mean-looking offense of his own. Roberts has this feel of a sort of "calculated sloppiness" to his work. Like, everything he does looks weird, but it still ends with his moves looking like they hurt, so it's all good. Unsurprisingly, Roberts has found his headgear useful as something he can load with imaginary foreign objects and KO enemies with. He wins the second fall that way after Parsons took the first. When we come back from the commercial break, we find Parsons has left ringside. Roberts naturally assumes he ran him off, but Parsons soon comes back with headgear of his own, which leads to Roberts freaking out, and then Michael comes down to ringside to protest, but he gets headbutted off of the apron, and Roberts decides he's not going to chance it and takes the count-out loss. Finish will probably bug some people, but everything leading up to that is too good to ignore.

 

David & Kevin Von Erich vs. Terry Gordy & Jimmy Garvin 2/3 Falls (21:06)

 

This might be the best match I've seen so far. Phenomenal hybrid of your classic Southern tag formula match and the Regal/Finlay "let's hideously beat the fuck out of each other until they have to call the match early to stop one of us from ending up in the morgue by the end of the night" style. Match is built around Kevin Von Erich being pissed off at Jimmy Garvin for screwing him out of the American Title and constantly rushing him whenever he gets the chance, and David being more than happy to help in that regard, and early on, Garvin seems to cross the line from cowardly stooge heel who wants to avoid the Von Erichs because he knows they can beat him to guy who is just sick to death of having to put up with the Von Erichs and wants them out of his life at any cost, even if it means actually getting in the ring and putting them down himself once and for all. This puts Terry Gordy in the rather unusual position of having to be the voice of reason for his team, trying to get Garvin to keep a level head so they can maintain control over this match. Of course, the Von Erichs hate Gordy too, and vice-versa, so that's easier said than done. So the story here is that when Gordy can keep his and Garvin's emotions in check, they can use the Von Erich's rage against them, allowing them to slip up and cut both guys off from their partners at different points in the match. When they can't do that, the match becomes a free-for-all mauling, one that eventually gets so wild and out-of-control that the third fall ends in a double DQ because the ref just can't keep control of it anymore. As World Class non-finishes go, this was pretty much perfect, and really hammered home the entire story of the match: these dudes hate each other, and their rage can't be controlled in a standard wrestling match. Even the announcing kind of hearkened back to Regal vs. Finlay from Uncensored '96, where Tony, Bobby, and Dusty were forced to stop verbally masturbating over Hulk Hogan for five seconds because what they were seeing was so unbelievable. Mark Lowrance has a similar reaction here. "We've got a great card coming up on Labor Day...but I can't really tell you about it right now when we've got this going on!" "Can you believe we've actually had three falls of this?" Wrestling is so hype-oriented. Anytime you can have a match that actually trumps hype, you've got something special on your hands. Million billion stars, and a slam dunk nomination.

 

Garvin & Gordy Interview

Freebirds Interview (2:04)

Jimmy Garvin Interview

 

I don't remember these too well for whatever reason. They're Freebird and Garvin promos, so they couldn't really have been bad or anything.

 

The Freebirds vs. The Von Erichs (Six Man Tag) (28:53)

 

Pretty fun match. There's a crucial point near the end that's mysteriously and inexplicably edited out. I'd want to know if this match shows up anywhere else without that cut before moving on with it, because it's pretty jarring, but might be a match worthy of nomination.

 

The Von Erichs vs. Hayes, Roberts, and Garvin (Six Man Tag) (14:45)

 

Really cool to see the '89 Freebirds back when they didn't suck. Gets a nomination from me.

 

Kevin Von Erich Promo/ Michael Hayes Promo (1:19)

 

Kevin talks about the Six-Man title being even more important than the World Title to him, because he gets to share it with his brothers, which is both poignant and heartbreaking considering how that family turned out.

 

Jimmy Garvin Office Promo

 

I love this. Bill Mercer interviews Gorgeous Jimmy in his super 70's/early 80's wood-panelled office. Garvin and Sunshine are a hoot here. "It's Los Angeles again." "Tell them I'll call back." Garvin announces he'll be defending the American Title every week against top contenders determined by a computer read-out. Unsurprisingly, the Von Erichs are not listed.

 

Chris Adams Soccer Field Interview

 

Bill Mercer talks about the international appeal of soccer, which segues into him interviewing Adams about playing soccer in his youth, and then about his plans to challenge Garvin for the American Title.

Von Erichs Celebrate

 

This was full of cheese.

 

This was solid, and Parsons was great at selling the shoulder, but it just fell flat.

 

Buddy Roberts vs. Iceman King Parsons

 

We get another good bout in this feud. I wasn't awed with the bout, but feel it is a low-end nom. So I'll give it a thumbs up.

 

David & Kevin Von Erich vs. Terry Gordy & Jimmy Garvin 2/3 Falls

 

This was awesome and a slam dunk. This is a top 10-20 bout. It was a great brawl thsat had a real feel to it. Just awesome stuff.

This starts with a Von Erich celebration party over winning the Texas and Six-Man titles and this is a definite extra.

 

2 out of 3 falls: Iceman King Parsons & “Modern Day Warrior” Kerry Von Erich vs. The Fabulous Freebirds (Terry “Bamm Bamm” Gordy & Michael Hayes) (8/1/83)

 

Lots of shit talking and stalling to start the first fall then not a lot of action to follow it although there was some good heat. Basic stuff working over body parts from both sides with some good hip tosses and snap mares by the fiery babyfaces. The action would heat up with Kerry & Gordy deciding to start teeing off on each other starting the Freebirds control section. Kerry would make his comeback tagging in Iceman to clean house and it started a fun brawl that would end in a DQ when the Birds used an illegal double clothesline on Iceman as Hayes was on the apron. The second fall starts with bad blood from the end of the first fall so we definitely have more action this time as Iceman immediately gets the heat and the Birds work him over good. There was a great double head collision between Iceman & Gordy that really got the crowd going for Iceman to make the hot tag and he does to Kerry who explodes on Hayes. Kerry would then hit a sunset flip after an Iron Claw attempt on Hayes to get the quick win but the best part came after the match as Gordy chunks Iceman over the top rope and the Birds double up Kerry before Roberts comes out when they run him head first into the headgear knocking him silly. This was fun stuff but would’ve been better as a one fall match I think.

 

2 out of 3 falls: Iceman King Parsons vs. Buddy Roberts (8/8/83)

 

Roberts stooges around early on in the first fall before it turns into a headbutt in the back competition before Roberts would get the advantage by working over Iceman’s left leg that Iceman would use a great counter for by locking on a bodyscissors and pulling the rug under Buddy’s headgear sending him to the floor. The action would then go back and forth with both men pounding each other before Buddy got some nearfalls which would end up with Iceman hitting a pretty violent Butt Butt to take the fall. Buddy begs off to start the second fall as Iceman tries to rip off the headgear before peppering him with punches until Buddy would take back control using his unorthodox offense. David Manning would try to pull Iceman off of Buddy after he recovered which would allow Buddy to load up his headgear and he hit a headbutt off the middle rope to take the second fall. Iceman would go to the back before the third fall when he would return with his own headgear which would anger Roberts forcing Hayes to come down where he would eat a headbutt by Iceman that sent him to the floor. Buddy goes to check on Hayes forcing David Manning to count him out giving Iceman the win. This was lots of fun and the Iceman going to get headgear angle was great ending a pretty solid match and this moves forward as a nomination.

 

 

2 out of 3 falls” “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin & Terry “Bamm Bamm” Gordy vs. David & Kevin Von Erich (8/15/83)

 

Always great seeing Garvin doing the Freebird knuckle bump during this era and Sunshine was looking pretty good in her all leather attire. SLL did a fantastic job writing about this match hitting all the major points here and I especially loved Garvin finally deciding to go from the stooge to the ass beating heel forcing Gordy to take the Michael Hayes role as the voice of reason. This was nothing but a wild brawl with everyone just beating the hell out of each other to molten crowd heat. Slam dunk nomination indeed.

 

Then we get some good promos after the match from the Birds & Garvin and this is good stuff.

 

Next is stuff I’ve seen already.

 

Then there is a great Kevin promo about how much the Six-Man titles means to the Von Erich family followed up by a retort from Hayes and this is a definite extra.

 

This is followed up by a couple of more great promos with Jimmy Garvin in his office and Chris Adams on the soccer field and these are yet more extras.