The Name on the Marquee: Wrestling Gold Volume 1 - Busted Open

Posted by Adam Nedeff on 12.26.2009

Jim Cornette, Dave Meltzer, and a slew of stuff that doesn't deserve to just sit there collecting dust.

-So this is a weird thing to put at the START of a review, but if you've never heard of the Wrestling Gold DVDs, this is something you NEED to get. Released in 2001, it was a series of five DVDs featuring incredibly rare matches from the territorial days, and in most cases, featuring matches with guys whose paths crossed without most fans outside of the arena realizing it. And what's remarkable is that nearly nine years later, this is still a relevant and viable series to get your hands on, and most of this stuff is from archives that WWE hasn't got their hands on yet.

-Oh, and the other reason to own this. Each volume includes an alternate commentary track by Dave Meltzer & Jim Cornette, going over the history of the promotions, the guys involved in each match, and swapping stories and myths about everything and everyone.

-Your ring announcer is former “Starcade” contestant Stu Ganz. Your hosts are Dave Meltzer & Jim Cornette.

SHERRI MARTEL vs. JUDY MARTIN
-From Southwest Championship Wrestling, Martin connects with a forearm but gets taken down by a dropkick quickly. Side headlock by Sherri. Martin tries to get out with an atomic drop, but Sherri shifts her weight to turn it into a snapmare. We have a standoff and Martin takes control with a boot and a snapmare as the commentator promotes one HELL of a house show in San Antonio with every main event name of the period that you could imagine, plus Andy Kaufman.

-Backdrop by Sherri to mount a comeback. She rings Martin’s bell a few times, but tries to do it again and gets backdropped. Martin begins punching and pulling hair. Kneelift by Martin. Sherri fights back with a clothesline. She tries another one, but Martin holds onto her arm and turns it into a standing surfboard. Sherri rolls forward from that position to turn it into a victory roll for the three-count. NICE! 1 for 1. For some reason, I tend only to remember the junk about American women’s wrestling, but this was a nice reminder that these women were really talented when they were allowed to be.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Sherri was the first wrestler Jim Cornette ever managed. There was never anything between them at the time, despite the rumors that Jim himself tried to start. Jim puts Sherri over for doing anything as a manager to put guys over, even if it clearly put her in danger. More importantly, she did it without implants. They turn their focus to Judy Martin and put her over as being one of the stars during the only period when athletic women were over in the WWF.

SHAWN MICHAELS vs. KEN JOHNSON
-The referee looks uncannily like Dave, actually. This is early in Shawn’s career, about age 9 or so. They trade arm wringers and Johnson tries a headlock. Shawn elbows free and shoulderblocks Johnson. Hiptoss and a snapmare into a side headlock by Shawn. Shawn shoulderblocks Johnson again and hits a flying bodypress for two. Johnson tries some token offense but gets dropkicked. A back suplex by Johnson finally works, and he drops a series of elbows. Bodyslam and another elbow by Johnson. Kneelift and an elbow by Johnson. Backbreaker gets two. Fists are exchanged and Johnson misses a corner charge. Shawn Irish whips him and punches and punches and punches. He backflips off the top rope, then hits a series of dropkicks. Powerslam finishes for Shawn. 1 for 2. Squash match, but it was still cool to see something from early in Shawn’s career. You just can’t picture him as a guy who worked the territories.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Dave & Jim clarify that Shawn is either 19 or 20 and this is his first year in the business. Jim recalls seeing him early on as a jobber in Mid-South and everybody could see that he was going to be a gigantic star because he already worked like a veteran, and he could do really difficult maneuvers without trying or focusing on them. They briefly touch on his issues outside the ring, but for the most part, this commentary is just a glowing review of Shawn’s career and contributions to the business inside the ring. Jim & Dave agree that it’s a shame that such a good work ethic caused injuries that ended his career at such a young age. Oh yeah, definitely.

SOUTHWEST TAG TEAM TITLES: THE GRAPPLERS (Champions, with Don Carson) vs. GINO HERNANDEZ & TULLY BLANCHARD
-Heels vs. heels, and the crowd is just barely leaning toward Gino & Tully. Gino starts with Grappler #1. Amateur moves spill into the ropes. Gino trips #1 and then tags Tully. #2 steps in to face him. #2 wins a fistfight quickly and Tully backs off. Full nelson by #2 and Gino comes in to try to break it, but he accidentally hits Tully. #1 comes in and connects with an elbow. He rams Tully into the turnbuckle, and an elbow gets one. Headlock by #2. #1 applies one of his own, and Tully snapmares free. Hard Irish whip by #2 blocks the comeback, but Tully is able to make the tag. Gino cleans house for a little while. It gets back down to one-on-one and #2 is able to kick him away and make a tag.

-Tully is able to tag in and ducks & dodges #2 before getting a sucker punch and a shot to the throat on him. Headlock by Tully. Gino tags in and goes to town again as we pause for a break.

-We’re back with a front facelock by Gino on #2. #1 breaks it with an elbow from the top rope. Tully tags in and #2 targets the throat, but Tully is able to roll out of harm’s way. Clothesline by #1 gets a two-count. Kneedrops and elbows, and a neckbreaker by #2 gets two. Headlock by Tully and the referee gets into an argument with Gino that allows the Grapplers to switch off. Tully is able to make the tag the second time around and Hernandez hits a high dropkick for two. Tully comes in with a backbreaker for two. Tully & Gino try some double-teaming, but Gino accidentally hits Tully again, knocking him out to the apron. Gino rams the Grappler into Tully, KOing both of them, but he rolls up the Grappler for the three-count to win the belts. Tully is pissed as hell and takes Gino out with one of the belts post-match, and the Grapplers & Don Carson wail on him after the bell. Gino makes his own comeback and clears the ring. Great booking, great match. Commentator throws it to commercial, giving me an opportunity to note that Southwest had some AWESOME theme music. 2 for 3.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: This is one of Tully & Gino’s only matches ever as faces, and Jim explains the logic: They were heels, but then the Grapplers came along and the fans’ attitude was that, yeah, Gino & Tully were bums, but at least they were hometown guys. Jim Cornette puts over Don Carson’s accomplishments in the ring, including six straight weeks of sell-out main events in one arena.

-Dave talks about how one of the Grapplers invented the concept of the catch phrase in wrestling by concluding every promo with “Beat me…if you can.” The problem was, nobody knew what a catch phrase was, so everybody at home just got pissed off because he kept saying the same thing over and over again.

-Jim & Dave talk about Southwest Championship Wrestling’s weird contribution to wrestling history. They had a weekly timeslot on USA Network and it got great ratings, but Southwest ran a few angles that USA deemed in poor taste (including one involving a bucket of pig shit) and USA took away the timeslot. Wanting great ratings like what wrestling gave them, however, they turned around and gave the timeslot to…Vince McMahon and the WWF. So if Southwest hadn’t ignored warnings from USA and behaved themselves, wrestling today would be totally different.

-Dave notes Gino Hernandez’s brief brush with mainstream fame, as he began making appearances on soap operas, but the problem was that he wouldn’t pursue any career full-time. He’d try to wrestle sometimes and try to act sometimes, and neither career ever really took off as a result. This leads unexpectedly into a tangent from Corny about David Arquette. Meltzer tries to defend him by noting again that Arquette was forced into winning the WCW Title, and Corny snaps, “Nobody put a gun to his head!”

-Dave & Jim both react with genuine surprise to Tully’s turn after the match, apparently not knowing that it was THAT match before they began recording the commentaries. Jim can’t believe you would turn on a partner right after winning the belts together, and Dave succinctly puts it, “That’s counterproductive.”

GINO HERNANDEZ vs. TULLY BLANCHARD
-Your guest referee is boxer Ernie Shavers. This is from a house show in Houston, and even though this was pegged to be a long feud, this ended up being one of their only matches. Tully stalls and goes to the floor to start, but comes back inside and throws punches to take control. Gino reverses an Irish whip and clocks him with an elbow, and Tully goes to the floor to recover. Back inside, Tully tries to hide in the ropes, but Gino unleashes on him until he falls out of the ring again. Tully demands to have his hand raised for a DQ win, but Shavers has none of that nonsense. Gino kicks him and throws him out to the floor. Dangerous Tully takes his time getting back into the ring and then begs for mercy. Gino boots him and rams him over the turnbuckle and into the post. Hard Irish whip by Gino, then another, but Tully ducks a charge and both men are out of it. Tully ties Gino’s arm into the ropes and punches & kicks him until Shavers disentangles him. Suplex by Tully and an elbow from the second rope gets two. Irish whip by Tully and Gino does one better than Flair by flipping completely onto the concrete with his sell.

-Tully comes off the apron with an elbow and then stomps Gino. Gino staggers back into the ring a little bloody and Tully tosses him out onto the timekeeper’s table. Tully goes off the apron with another elbow. Tully rams him into the table and brings him back inside. He goes for a piledriver, but Gino backdrops out and both men struggle to their feet. Gino dropkicks Tully out to the floor. Gino’s just pissed and drills Tully with the bell, avoiding disqualification somehow, and rams Tully from turnbuckle to turnbuckle. Things spill out to the table again and Gino is all over Tully with punches. He bites Tully hard enough to make him bleed and elbows him down for two. Suplex by Gino, but the backwards falling elbow misses. Tully gets into a fight with Shavers and Ernie KOs him. Gino immediately splashes him to get the three-count. 2 for 4. Pretty lame, with “Do a move…guy lays around for a while…do a move…guy lays around for a while.” You can’t get into a match when one man or the other stops every 30 seconds to show how hurt he is.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: So it’s Gino’s fault that this feud ended up being short-lived, as Gino worked two matches against Tully and then just stopped showing up. He was fired shortly after. Jim puts over Tully’s stalling as building a story and establishing that he’s the heel and Gino is the face, but I have to disagree because the crowd is already into this match and the story, and they damn well know following the last match that Tully is the heel and Gino is the face.

-Dave talks about how Southwest made a major go at expanding into a national promotion, going from its San Antonio roots for a gigantic card at the Houston Summit, where they would crown a new champion and just declare it a world title right then and there. The entire country knew about it thanks to hype on USA, but it failed when Houston promoter Paul Boesch called in a few favors and ran a house show in the same building the following night, with Bob Backlund vs. Nick Bockwinkel headlining. It worked, and the fans saved their money and waited to go to Paul Boesch’s show.

-Dave recaps the history of wrestling promotions in the state of Texas. Texas was basically one gigantic promotion for a while with Fritz Von Erich, Joe Blanchard, and Paul Boesch in charge. But then Fritz & Joe had sons who got into the business and argued about who to push, and Paul didn’t want to be caught in the middle of the argument, so Texas split into three separate promotions virtually overnight.

-Dave notices that Lou Thesz is sitting at ringside waiting for the main event. Corny notes that he could have kicked the ass of every guy in the ring including Ernie Shavers. Dave sort of disputes that, noting the quality of his farewell match against Chono, and Jim blames Chono for that.

-Corny talks about a spot where both men’s foreheads are busted open and they’re biting each other’s wounds, and they note how quickly that spot disappeared later in the 1980s due to AIDS panic. Dave mentions that, amazingly enough, nobody has ever contracted a disease from anything involving blood in wrestling, so “Bite people all you want, just don’t have unprotected sex!”

UNDISPUTED WORLD’S HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT FINALS: BOB ORTON, JR. vs. ADRIAN ADONIS
-From the same event in Houston. Lou Thesz shows off the new belt that will be awarded to the winner, as well the belt that he held as champion, and a title belt from the early 1900s that will also be awarded to the winner as a souvenir. The 75-year-old belt is just comically tiny by wrestling standards, looking more like something a complete asshole would buy from a gift shop while visiting Texas.

-Adonis wrings the arm to start. Orton reverses, but Adonis turns it into a standing wristlock. It becomes a test of strength to some extent and Adonis beels Orton across the ring. He ties Orton up with headscissors. Orton escapes and clotheslines Adonis while staying on the mat, but Adonis catches his arm and makes it a hammerlock. Orton snapmares free, but gets caught in a backslide for two. Drop toehold by Orton and he switches to an armbar. Adonis armdrags free and cradles Orton for two. I’m actually a little shocked when the ring announcer gives us the “five minutes” announcement because they got a lot crammed in there.

-Wristlock by Adonis. Orton sends him into the ropes and shoulderblocks him. He monkeyflips Adrian off the ropes and ties him up in another armbar. Adonis tries a damn hard Irish whip to get out, but Orton hangs on. He adds headscissors to the armbar, but Adrian fights through it and gets to his feet. Orton shoulderblocks him a few times but runs into an inverted atomic drop from Adrian for two. Adonis goes for a splash and hits raised knees. Orton drops an elbow for two. Adonis rolls him up for two. Orton gets pissed and punches him so hard that the giant bandage on Adonis’ forehead comes off and an old wound starts bleeding again.

-He goes for a bulldog, but Adonis rams him into the turnbuckles and chops him. Orton tries for a suplex, but Adonis is pretty damn big so it’s not happening. He tries for a superplex, but Adonis punches him off the second rope, then deliberately falls on top of him. Adrian applies Good Night Irene, but Orton gets to the ropes to break it. Orton clamps on a sleeper of his own, but Adonis sends him into the ropes. They trade cradles, and Adrian Adonis’ is the one that sticks for the three-count, and Adonis gets the fancy new belt. 3 for 5. Very old school and not for everybody, but I enjoyed it.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: This was the finals of a one-night tournament to crown the new Undisputed World Champion, and everybody who knew anything about wrestling expected Terry Funk to win (he supplied the belt himself!), but surprise, the fans wound up with these guys in the finals instead.

-Dave & Jim talk about the jaw-dropping ring skills of Adonis, who was average-looking and flabby, but could move around the ring with grace & skill and do moves that nobody else was capable of. Dave notes that if it hadn’t been for Adonis, Jesse Ventura never would have been elected, because when they were together, Jesse carried the promos, but Adonis made the actual matches great.

-Bob Orton was no slouch either. He came from a great family, became a big star in his own right, and he has a son who’s a standout in high school football and looks like he could become a big star in the next few years.

-They go back to Adonis and talk about how sad it was to watch his weight balloon after he was given the gay gimmick in the WWF, and what was truly amazing was that even after he went over 400 pounds, he was STILL an incredible worker. Adonis was killed in a car accident in 1988 during a run in eastern Canada; he had just dropped a lot of weight and he was trying to rebuild his career and mount a big comeback.

-Dave talks about how Adonis & Orton were especially busting their asses here because Lou Thesz was at ringside and had a belt from Ed “Strangler” Lewis in his hands, and you just don’t want to have a bad match with that guy watching you.

-We talk about the Undisputed World Championship again and Dave’s recollection is that Adrian Adonis ultimately became the only holder of the title, as he held it when they lost their USA timeslot and with the Von Erichs/Freebirds on fire at the same time, they just could not compete and disappeared quickly.

BRUISER BRODY vs. ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER
-We’re joined in progress on the floor, and the fans are in the way of the camera, so I have to take the commentator’s word for it that there was a chairshot and some biting. Back inside, Abdullah connects with a low blow, then headbutts the referee unconscious. We get a fistfight from that. A second referee tries to take over and gets headbutted. The brawl spills into the crowd for some ECW walking-around action. They tear and gouge at each other and Brody gets in some shots with a jagged-edged 2x4. They keep punching and punching until Abdullah just walks away. ACTION! 3 for 6.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Jim nervously notices that there’s a scaffold next to the ring, bringing chills to his spine (and knees), so these two guys plus a scaffold match later in the night would be a freakishly hardcore card for the period. Brody & the Butcher had hundreds of matches all over the world, and they got over because both guys worked stiff and they’d do absolutely anything without fear.

-Corny marvels about how the Butcher never changed. He’s looked exactly the same since 1960, he’s worked the same superviolent, vicious style since 1960, and he’s done so without any ill effects despite his massive size.

SCOTT CASEY vs. LARRY ZYBYSKO
-Joined in progress at a dual for a standing wristlock. Larry hiptosses Casey, and Casey tries quick recovery with an elbow, but misses. Headlock by Larry goes for a spell until Casey gets to his feet and turns it into a backbreaker on Larry. Casey follows with a gutwrench suplex and a kneedrop for two. Larry counters with a thrust kick and a turnbuckle shot. He tosses Casey to the broadcast table at ringside and rams his face into the table. Casey staggers inside the ring and Larry puts the boots to him. Knee to the gut by Larry, but a suplex is reversed by Casey. Both men wobble to their feet and Larry tries for a slam, but Casey lands on top for two. Double-underhook by Casey, then a neckbreaker for two. Casey faceplants Larry and locks in a sleeper. Larry collapses into the ropes to make Casey release the hold, and he immediately hooks the legs and Flair-pins him for the win. After the bell, Tully Blanchard arrives to congratulate Larry, and Eric Embry complains to the referee, and that triggers a big brawl, with Stan Hansen arriving to clear the ring. 4 for 7. Nothing special, but enjoyable.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: We’re in 1984, where all of the other promoters tried to survive against Vince McMahon by basically having an established representative of each promotion, and sending that representative around the country to do interpromotional feuds. Casey was the San Antonio representative, and Larry was the AWA representative.

-They recap Larry’s career including the Showdown at Shea, which Larry clung to and built his entire career from after that day. Dave does a stunning job of recapping the gate and attendance (both total and paid-only) for the event from memory. Jim & Dave note his other contributions to professional wrestling, #1, being the biggest complainer in locker room history, and #2, marrying Verne Gagne’s daughter. Dave takes credit for the name “Larry Zybysko-Gagne” or “Larry Z-G” becoming popular among smart fans of the 1980s.

JERRY “The King” LAWLER vs. BOB SWEETAN
-This is piledriver vs. piledriver. Jim Cornette declares Sweetan to be the ugliest man who ever lived while introducing this match. I wouldn’t go that far, but you look at the aged, misshapen, scarred face of this middle-aged man and you can immediately see why he vanished into thin air after the big boom in 1984. Sweetan is the hometown star, so Lawler gets himself over as a heel early on by telling the fans that they’re lucky to have a network television star in the arena tonight.

-Sweetan taunts Lawler by putting on his crown and polishing his boots with the cape, and Lawler steps outside of the ring to pout for a while. Lawler then gets into an argument with the referee during the weapons check. Lawler slaps Sweetan across the face then runs out of the ring and taunts him from the floor. Well, Lawler’s definitely bringing a taste of Memphis here tonight. And he just keeps stalling, slapping Sweetan and running away again. Sweettan tries to throw punches and Lawler keeps backing off and complaining to the referee.

-Lawler finally makes contact with a punch…and he CELEBRATES. And then he backs away. Lawler applies a side headlock and Sweetan gets free and punches Lawler. Lawler goes to the floor to recover. He goes back inside and hides in the ropes. They trade kicks and Lawler gets the worst of it. Sweetan tries to finish with the piledriver right away, but Lawler hooks his legs to the ropes and goes out to the floor. And he cuts another promo. I think we can safely downgrade this from Wrestling Gold to Wrestling Iron Pyrite.

-And Lawler walks back to the dressing room. Then he comes back and cuts another promo. He goes back inside and attacks the eyes of Sweetan. The referee reprimands Lawler, and Lawler responds in a funny way, showing the referee, “No, no, I was doing THIS,” and smacking the referee across the forehead several times to demonstrate. Sweetan fights back with some kicking to take the King down, then clamps on a wristlock. Oh, yeah, the best thing for these guys to do now is take a breather.

-Lawler throws a series of punches to take Sweetan off his feet. Piledriver attempt is countered with a backdrop, and Sweetan throws punches of his own. Elbow off the ropes by Sweetan gets two. Back suplex gets another two. Sweetan gives him another back suplex and it gets a three-count. Lawler puts a foot on the rope after the three-count, so the referee, thinking he’s made a mistake, restarts the match, and Lawler gets a three-count with feet on the ropes immediately. Sweetan gets pissed and piledrives him after the bell. I’ll tell you what I think of this match, but first I’m going to go into the hallway outside my apartment and walk around for a while. 4 for 8.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Jerry became a national star as a result of his incident with Andy Kaufman on “Late Night with David Letterman,” and strangely enough, he was booked by multiple promotions to work as both a heel and a face. He played heel on “Late Night,” but in the eyes of fans who watched the angle as it played out, he was a face. It’s a testament to Lawler’s talent that he got over as both. Dave notes that he was supposed to be a total joke in the WWF and get fed to Bret Hart with no trouble, but he just got over as a heel beyond anybody’s expectations and it caused the feud to stretch out over two years.

-Jim notes that Lawler’s ability to do that is rooted in his ability to adapt. Most workers can only handle specific circumstances, but Lawler is able to read the crowd and adjust his act as much as he needs to get over.

-Dave & Jim discuss Sweetan’s disappearance from the wrestling scene, and it turns out that my use of “disappearance” is actually fairly literal here, as neither Jim or Dave seems to have a clue what became of the guy after 1984, although Jim jokes(?) about some rumors about where he wound up a few years later, but “we won’t go into those rumors.” Oh, but that’s the fun of it, Jim!

-Jim talks about the brilliance of Lawler’s stalling, and basically the story he’s telling is that he knows that Sweetan is better than him, so the King is trying to outsmart him and frustrate him instead to turn the tide. Hard to argue with that, but I still hate stalling. I think my issue with stalling is that it plays directly to the fans in attendance, so it works in the arena, but if you’re watching it on TV, DVD, etc., it gives you nothing to get into.

-It gets to a point where even Corny is admitting that the match feels like it’s gone on for an hour and a half and Lawler’s done nothing, but dag nabbit, the crowd is getting into it, so how can you hold that against the King? “He took three bumps in 25 minutes and the crowd is standing on their feet! Tell me he’s not the master of psychology!”

SOUTHWEST TAG TEAM TITLES: GINO HERNANDEZ & TULLY BLANCHARD (Champions) vs. IVAN PUTSKI & TERRY FUNK
-Joined in progress with Hernandez laying a beating on Funk. Blanchard tags in and adds a piledriver and an elbow for two. Hernandez hits the backwards elbow for two. Blanchard comes back in and charges right into a drop toehold from Funk that sends Blanchard stumbling through the ropes. Funk attacks him on the apron until the referee pulls him backward with force, and when Tully re-enters with a shoulderblock, the force takes out the referee. It’s a donnybrook as Ricky Morton suddenly appears to wake up the referee. Putski goes for a pin and the referee is still out, so Ricky Morton comes in and counts the pin, hoping that might stick for some reason. Hernandez & Blanchard maul Ricky Morton as if he’s Ricky Morton, and in comes Morton’s partner at this period, Ken Lucas. It turns into four against two and Hernandez & Blanchard haul ass out of there. 4 for 9. Not much to this one.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Both guys are stunned at the sight of Putski & Funk working at a tag team and both openly express a desire to see Funk do most of the work in the match. They do give Putski props for his powerlifting skills and Jim mentions seeing Ivan recently and being stunned by his physique.

-“That’s Ricky Morton!” Jim & Dave are both shocked by the sight of young Ricky. He’s only in his third year in the business, but this was actually his fourth territory or so.

CAGE MATCH: DICK SLATER vs. MONGOLIAN STOMPER (with Don Carson)
-YOUR guest referee is Bob Sweetan. Joined in progress at Stomper beating the living hell out of Slater with stomps and shots onto the cage. Claw by the Stomper, and then a headlock. Slater elbows free, but gets tossed right into the cage again. Stomper goes back to the claw. Slater gets loose with a back suplex, but he’s too beat up and Stomper recovers first. He cheese grates Slater here and there, then clamps on the claw. Slater punches free and boots the Stomper down until Sweetan forces him to stop. Sweetan tries to check the cut on Slater’s forehead, but Slater brushes him off and fires the Stomper into the cage. He does it again, and bites the Stomper to really open him up. He grinds Stomper against the cage and pushes Sweetan out of the way to get to the top rope and drop a boot across the Stomper’s chest. He lays into Stomper with punches, then follows with a snapmare. An elbow misses and Stomper starts to mount a comeback. Slater mounts one of his own with punches and stomps, and Stomper whips Slater into Sweetan. Stomper takes off his boot to use it as a weapon, but Slater gets his hands on it and KOs Stomper, and Sweetan gives a fast three-count. Stomper & Carson knock Sweetan out of the cage, lock the door, and beat the hell out of Slater after the bout. El Santo Negro puts a stop to that nonsense and helps clear the ring. 5 for 10. See, I thought they were setting up a Sweetan heel turn here, but color me surprised. Good brawl, though.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: The Stomper is Archie Gouldie, who was one of the biggest stars in the history of Stu Hart’s promotion. He had great conditioning and into his 60s, he was competitive in events like bicycle racing. Jim makes note of the protective device over Stomper’s ear and talks about his brilliant gimmick, which was that he had an inner ear disorder and he was sensitive to noise, so as a heel, if he really began dominating his opponents, the fans would respond by screaming wildly to make him dizzy.

-Dick Slater was a gifted performer and a legitimate tough guy, but his career just never really took off like everyone expected it to. This segues into a discussion of how different promotions had different styles, so you had to change your moveset depending on where you were. This leads to Jim putting over Eddie Graham & his Florida territory for having such a major emphasis on basic mat wrestling, so just about everybody who passed through there was able to adapt to any other area in the world because the basics were always the same.

-Dave notes that Dick Slater patterned just about everything he did from Terry Funk. This leads to a neat story from Corny about a promotion’s tape of a Terry Funk promo getting damaged, and Dick saving the day by cutting a promo doing a Terry Funk impression, and nobody could tell the difference.

A.W.A. WORLD TITLE: NICK BOCKWINKEL (with Bobby Heenan) vs. BRUISER BRODY
-Your guest referee is Lou Thesz, wearing a shirt that looks like an optical illusion with sleeves. We’re joined in progress at headscissors by Bockwinkel. Bockwinkel gets free and drops knees across the abdomen. Brody is so hurt from the headscissors though, that he just kinda rolls away and writhes for a while. Bockwinkel attacks from behind and gets a two-count. Brody applies a bearhug and backs Bockwinkle into the corner. They have a slugfest while Heenan argues with Thesz. Bockwinkel goes back to the headscissors. Brody goes outside and Bockwinkel attacks from inside. Brody staggers back in and Bockwinkel punches him. Brody fires back and tosses Bockwinkel to the floor. It turns into a brawl and Brody tosses Bockwinkel into a table.

-Bockwinkel goes back inside and Brody meets him in there with an axehandle. Brody kicks away for a one-count and Bockwinkel goes out for a breather. Brody hammers him on the apron and brings him inside for a slam, but Bobby Heenan hooks Brody’s leg to trip him, and Brody chases him. Bockwinkel tries to capitalize, but gets slammed again. Brody drops a knee and goes for the pin, but Heenan gouges his eyes and causes him to slip off. Brody lays a beating on Heenan and clears the ring. He chases Heenan & Bockwinkel to the dressing room, and Lou Thesz gives Brody the win. 6 for 11. Good action here.

JIM & DAVE’S COMMENTARY: Jim takes note of Thesz’s referee shirt and speculates that he experimented with drugs at some point without anybody finding out. They marvel about the fact that Brody is doing classic mat wrestling here and suspect that it had to do with the level of respect for Lou Thesz & Nick Bockwinkel. Verne Gagne is the guy associated with the AWA Title, but it had more prestige when Bockwinkel held it because he was more willing to travel.

-Corny makes note of the common bond between Brody & Thesz, which was they wouldn’t make guys look good if they felt they didn’t deserve it, so “they wrestled some of the great matches of all time, and some of the worst.”

-Corny marks out for Heenan running for his life from Brody, noting Heenan’s incredible skill for making it look like he was running faster than anybody else on earth when he was actually incredibly slow. That, and he could “take a classic ass-whoppin’.”

End of the show. Find these DVDs, buy them, and THEN visit Game Show Utopia.

The 411: Dave & Jim's commentary consistently and thoroughly makes up for any disappointing stuff among the in-ring action. This is a must-own set.

Final Score:  10.0   [ Virtually Perfect ]