[1991-01-25-USWA Texas] Bill Dundee vs John Tatum

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

A brief reprise of the 1990 feud between these guys. Tessa has even been pulled out of mothballs. Tatum, fresh out of prison, is freshly groomed. This is like most of their matches the previous year, and they sort of pretend this feud is still going on even though it's long over. Weird.

[shoe]

Their normal stuff. It was a fun match.

[PeteF3]

Holy shit, it's Tessa! Tatum is back to being a CHANGED MAN. That is one empty-looking Sportatorium. Neat arm work here from both guys. Tatum levels Dundee with a great shot to the nose and a wicked superkick, but gets suckered to the apron by Tessa for a hug, allowing Dundee to get a quick roll-up for the pin. The heat and intensity had long since disintegrated but this may actually have been the best-worked match of the feud.

[soup23]

This felt like a time warp from 8 months ago. The action was fine and "changed man" Tatum was a favorite of mine, but it feels like everyone has moved past this and as a result this was heatless and by the numbers overall. I did like Tatum being outsmarted at the finish.

[Kevin Ridge]

I thought Dundee got himself another valet before realizing it was Tessa. Tatum is still hung up about her. The crowd is noticeable smaller. Tessa tricks Tatum with a hug to get Dundee the win. These feud does feel played out.

[garretta]

I think the idea was supposed to be that USWA Texas was in suspended animation, if you will. That means that the feuds that were still going on when the promotion closed in early September would be picked back up where they left off wherever humanly possible. The Dallas portion of Dundee/Tatum hadn't quite ended yet, though it was winding down, so this was a chance for a final blowoff.

 

All that said, this was sort of perfunctory. Neither man really got to do much, and Tessa (who looked as good as ever, by the way) suckering Tatum like she did here should have happened earlier in the feud. The highlight of the match for me was hearing Michael St. John on commentary. He worked alone here, and he was miles better than he is in Memphis, mixing competent play-by-play with a few interesting historical nuggets, though I'm not sure whether those nuggets were actually true or not. For instance, I never knew that Bobby Shane was an influence on Dundee. I also liked that he actually acknowledged Bill's Scottish heritage; too many people had heard a real Australian accent by this time to be fooled into thinking that Bill was really an Aussie.

 

Not a bad first effort from the returning Texas promotion. Looking forward to more.

[cactus]

Tatum stalls around to start this off, until Dundee gets his hands on him. Dundee uses a lot of WOS-inspired grappling and that took me by surprise. After being distracted by Dundee's valet, Dundee scores a roll-up for the win. Tatum sulks in the ring afterwards, giving some pantomime level facial expression to try and sell his shock and misery. There's not too much here and it didn't go overly long, but this was fine for what it was.

★★½