[1991-05-03-USWA Texas] Jeff Jarrett & Robert Fuller vs Steve Austin & Tom Prichard (Tennessee Street Fight)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Any wrestling match where the participants wear jeans, cowboy boots and kneepads starts off at a huge advantage for me. It's a little more tame than your usual street fight, as they are actually tagging in and out instead of following tornado rules. But what they lack in chaos they make up for in intensity and structure. This is a really strong traditional tag match with more violent tendencies with things like chokes and boot shots, and maybe it's the outfits, but the execution of everything also looks top notch. If this match is judged on the merits of traditional tag matches instead of as a comparison to other street fights, it's a great match that I think people will really like.

 

I've seen better wrestlers early on than Austin, but Austin worked so hard in every match he was in and it's endearing. Here, he looks excellent, which I think is partially because Pritchard is so good at heel tactics and Jarrett is so good at selling that he had strong foils. Robert Fuller is the master of making me care about everything he does, and I think it's because he wrestles with so much emotion. All the briefcase stuff at the end is one great crowd pleasing spot after another.

 

Probably my favorite USWA Texas match of either 1990 or 1991.

[shoe]

I watched this one a few times because I wasn't sure how I felt. My end conclusion is that I did like it a lot, and everybody looked really good in it. The lack of chaos is what bothered me at 1st, but I got over it. I still like the Lawler/Embry cage and a few others above this, but this bout is in the mix for best of USWA/TX.

[Childs]

This continued the extremely strong in-ring year for USWA. I see where Shoe is coming from: there is a little cognitive dissonance when you see them wearing the jeans and boots and they don't go completely nuts. But this was a heck of match, structured yet nasty. Jarrett and Fuller looked like one of the best teams in the world, which is not something I would have expected to say coming into this set. And the finishing stretch clicked, which hasn't been a given with all of the good USWA matches.

[PeteF3]

I think the ESPN restrictions and general unease after losing KTVT because of content issues are a salient point here, which is why this is one of the most organized streetfights of all-time. Falk's rule-enforcing and the hide-the-object stuff is really annoying in that regard, but they only keep that up for brief portions of the match and the rest is great.

[Kevin Ridge]

As far as 91, I think USWA has done a poor job of these stipulation matches since we still get hiding weapons and strict referring. But then later in match the briefcase is totally in play. As others have said as a straight up tag match it is pretty good. It's not the brawl you expect for a street fight and it took a few minutes to look past that before I could enjoy it for what it was.

[soup23]

Very good tag structured brawling match. High end USWA-TX stuff. Jarrett was amazing in this as FIP and this may be the best Austin has looked also. Even though this didn't go all over the building, the heat and stiff brawling was there within a tag structure to make the match work.

[garretta]

The tag rules didn't bother me here; in fact, they made the match easier to follow and allowed for a dynamite FIP performance from Jeff, as Austin and Prichard beat him halfway to hell, but couldn't pin him. Fuller's performance on the apron was every bit as good; you'd have expected him to go back to the bad old days and simply storm the ring every thirty seconds, but he was great here as an emotional cheerleader. The briefcase stuff at the end gave the heels at least a small bit of comeuppance, as both of them are knocked cold with it and Austin gets pinned on his way out of Dallas.

 

The big problem here was the lack of blood. If you're going to have weapons shots with boots, chains, and the like, it exposes the business for there not to be any blood involved. I don't especially want to hear about ESPN and its restrictions either; if they won't allow blood at all, then don't have matches like this on their program. But don't have Prichard nailing Jeff square in the forehead in front of God and everybody, then getting up without a mark or scratch on him. We know from the some of the Memphis footage we saw that blood was allowed at the Sportatorium, just not on ESPN, so do the match right and offer it to the Memphis loop for its syndicated show if nothing else.

 

I should know this, but was there a dedicated syndicated show for Dallas by now? If there was, this would have been a perfect bout for it, and maybe even a selling point to encourage the fans to check the show out. Technical matches on ESPN and stiffer brawls with occasional blood in syndication would seem to be a winning formula for Dallas at this point, and I'm curious to find out if Papa would have had the chance to try it out.

[dawho5]

I liked this as a tag match. Very good FIP from Jeff with Fuller milking every bit of emotion he could out of it on the apron. And the finish was all kinds of great for the fans. Loved seeing a babyface win not marred by a heel beatdown post-match as well.