peachchaos

Wahoo McDaniel vs Greg Valentine NWA Mid-Atlantic Championship - MACW (Jim Crockett Promotions) September 9, 1977 The referee will not allow Ric Flair to accompany Greg Valentine at ringside, so Flair stops by the commentators to drop this bomb: "Nobody tells me what to do and I'm gonna leave...just because I know in my mind that Valentine will have no trouble pounding this Indian into hamburger, baby! Woo!" The two men circle each other and lock up but get tied up in the ropes. Valentine smashes Wahoo with a fist but McDaniel returns with a chop. McDaniel takes Valentine down with a drop toehold but Valentine escapes and makes the ropes. Test of strength results in Wahoo taking control with a wristlock followed by a series of arm-wringers. Wahoo turns it into a hammerlock and then starts to work both arms. Great wrestling here as Waho stays on top as Valentine tries to escape but they roll into the ropes. As they're standing up, Valentine gets a knee in Wahoo's stomach and knocks the wind out of him. Valentine hits another knee and then drops a leg before grabbing a headlock. Wahoo tries to use his weight to throw Valentine off, but Hammer hangs on. Valentine lets go of the headlock to work some strikes, but Wahoo recovers and takes control, hammering Valentine and sending him out of the ring to the floor. Bob Cottle puts over the hatred and feud between both guys. Back inside and now Valentine is dropping huge right hands. Valentine hits a bionic elbow but misses and elbow drop. Wahoo rolls him up for a 1 count. Wahoo grabs a bear hug out of desperation but Valentine continues his assault. Wahoo comes back with a series of chops and drags Valentine down into a headlock. This tie Wahoo gets the knee as Valentine tries to escape. Bodyslam but now Wahoo misses an elbow. Valentine drops a hard elbow to the back of Wahoo's neck and hit a belly to back suplex. Valentine again misses the elbow drop. Both men collide running the ropes. Valentine pounds the snot out of McDaniel until the Chief retaliates with a backdrop. Wahoo hits the elbow drop for a 2 count. They struggle to their feet and now Wahoo hits a belly to back suplex. Wahoo beats Valentine senseless with a series of tomahawk chops and Valentine gets lucky with a single leg takedown. Valentine slaps on the figure four and immediately breaks Wahoo's leg! The referee calls for the bell as Wahoo writhes in pain. Flair joins his partner as Valentine is crowned new MACW Champion. Very intense wrestling here with some nasty strikes. This had all the heat deserving of a red hot title feud and the performers really made this come alive. Great feud advancing storytelling here. Every wrestling sequence organically turned into a heated brawl. They went toe-to-toe and Wahoo seemingly out-wrestled Valentine at every turn until Valentine had Wahoo so distracted with striking he was able to grab the leg and break it with one move. Amazing. ****

Jerry Lawler vs. Jackie Fargo Barbed Wire Match - Gulas Promotions July 24, 1974 We open with a view of a large crowd packed into a small dark building. This would be more appropriately titled a "Barbed Wire Fence Match", with the ring surrounded by cattle fencing and the turnbuckles also wrapped in barbed wire. The combination of the fenced ring with the compact audience in a small dimly lit arena give this match the feel of a total cock fight. How appropriate. Sam Bass is at ringside with Lawler but will be unable to interfere due to the fence. Lawler starts fast heeling it up and using the relaxed rules to immediately choke Fargo. Fargo comes right back with a choke of his own and the crowd approves. This quickly devolves into a severe slug fest, with Fargo taking control. Lawler fights back from a chin-lock and opens Fargo up with a series of sick punches and sends him into the wire. Fargo absorbs another series of punches and comes back with a KO hit of his own. He picks Lawler up for some more stiff shots and beats the snot out of Lawler until Lawler resorts to using an object in his trunks. Fargo is out but Lawler gets cocky and picks him up after a 1 count, which turns out to be a huge mistake. Lawler sends Fargo to the ropes and goes for a clothesline but Jackie ducks hits a flying knee to the stomach. Fargo hits an atomic drop and wins the match. Bass climbs in the ring as Fargo runs away with his hands in the air. The King of Wrestling has been defeated!" exclaims a voice on commentary. This was before Lance Russell and the announcer mentions a crowd of 5000 in this tiny building. I watched this maybe 3 times over the course of two days. Not sure if this is the entire match, but there's a solid 8 minutes of brutal action here. My first real look at the Fabulous One and now I see where the King learned to punch and punch hard. Just an intense slug fest and if there was more to the match, it certainly couldn't have gone on longer at this pace. A precursor to so much blood-soaked greatness to come from both Lawler and the Memphis territory. Told a compelling story with the barbed wire serving multiple purposes. The wire kept the heel manager at bay which allowed the heel wrestler to look equal with the top baby face while still climaxing in the face getting his big win to bring the feud full circle. The performances were hard hitting and both guys have an impeccable sense of timing. The finishing stretch is incredible as well. ****1/4

Jerry Lawler & Norvell Austin vs. Phil Hickerson & Dennis Condry Mid South Coliseum - Memphis, TN October 17, 1977 Cut to the middle of a face-in-peril section with an already bloodied Austin at the mercy of the gigantic Hickerson. Lawler attempts to make a save, but Condry runs interference and Hickerson gets a choke on Austin. Condry tags in but loses the advantage and tags out. Austin smartly avoids a double team as Hickerson connects with Condry instead. Austin gets a tag to Lawler, but the ref was distracted and does not allow it. Austin mistakenly sends Condry to the ropes but catches the ref instead. With the ref down and Austin on the mat, the heels attempt to double team Lawler, who brings a chain into the mix to even the odds. Lawlers wraps the chain around his fist and busts them both open. Hickerson gets in a low blow on Lawler and then drops a huge leg drop on Austin for the win. 4 minutes shown of a 23 minute bout. After the bell, Lawler and Austin fight back with vigor. Lawler takes the chain and rakes it across Hickerson's forehead. All four men spill to the outside and brawl around ringside. Hickerson gets a huge knock-out punch on Lawler, but the King fights back and slams his head into the announce table. The heels run away as Austin and Lawler hug it out and celebrate. The few minutes shown of the match are excellent, which great heel-face dynamics at play. Hickerson and Condry are clearly great heels and Austin sells the beating like death. I don't necessarily like to rate clipped matches, but with the post match brawl this is tremendous fun to watch. Just a good bloody fight with sound psychology. ****

Talk about it here.

Watched Bash at the Beach 1994 last night. Certainly has to be up there with Hogan's best. In terms of atmosphere, it's up there with the Goldberg, Warrior, and Rock matches, all of which took place in huge domes. In terms of layout, selling, and storytelling, it's up there with anything from the Hulkamania era.

HYPED

And again I'd like to stress that his brain damage was a direct result of his in-ring work, which in my mind disqualifies him from being the GWE. Add to that the fact that he murdered another performer and their son in the process and I just can't see the case for him. I'd like to think PWO is beyond conspiracy theories so I won't even touch the Colon stuff.

My apprehension here has always been, "He was a wrestler who murdered another wrestler and himself due to consequences directly related to the style of wrestling he performed". No single event or performer has single handedly crushed my enjoyment of wrestling like the Summer of 2007.

Thesz coming in ahead of Brody is enough to make my day.

SABUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

I'm still shocked both TAKA and Psicosis fell so far since 2006. I mean neither of them did anything in the past 10 years to advance their case, but still.

I do think Tanaka would have been much much better at the AJPW style than doing chairs and tables hardcore. Misawa will be in the top 5. I've never seen him even take a chairshot.

I feel I watched more Stevens than a lot of people and yeah there's nothing there and it was a good couple of discs worth of stuff. Bock carried that team. I'd give anything to see the Patterson team though, anything.

I liked a lot of what Ballz did in the ring. In fact I think he was actively good in 1997 before he picked up the chair gimmick. I have a very fond memory of an episode of ECW Hardcore TV where everyone in the locker room was scared to fight him, so he enticed the Sandman into a match where the winner gets to drink a six pack. Didn't care for the Chair Swinging Freaks team, but the matches Ballz and Spike had against the Dudleys are some of the best brawls in ECW history. 6/17/99 in particular stands out. I also really liked his matches with Tanaka in 98, 99, and 00. RIP

I listened to almost the full 9 hours yesterday (at the office, driving while commuting, exercising and during my wrestling viewing) and fell asleep somewhere in the top ten. I popped for the song every time, even if Charles does not seem to be in charge of his own list at certain points. For what it's worth, I truly relate to that struggle. My list was guided by seemingly unnatural forces and I share a similar disdain for the end result. In the end, we're not going to agree with anyone's list, least of all one of our own faulty creation.

Was this the match listed as 11/25/82 on the DVDVR Memphis set?