[1991-12-27-GWF] Eddie Gilbert vs Terrence Garvin (No DQ, 2/3 falls)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Terrence Garvin looks like a different person with his hair cut. Eddie Gilbert does mic work between matches that he is running for President. Gilbert does a pretty job carrying Garvin. He is not a good wrestler and doesn't seem credible in the least, but he does try hard. This is a credit to Gilbert that he was able to actually get over pinfall attempts and make the match seem competitive in a way that people bought what they were selling. They were smart to have Garvin spend a lot of time laying around selling a knee injury, since I'm not sure there was much else he could do. Great finish, as Gilbert throws a fireball before pinning Garvin.

[Kevin Ridge]

Another two out of three falls match. Garvin gets a real quick pin to start. Fine enough TV type match. They don’t show the actual fireball as they jump to the crowd instead. Not sure how this was No DQ since it really wasn’t played up in match.

[PeteF3]

In the wake of the WWF sex scandals involving the Other Terry Garvin, Terrence has undergone a makeover into a white-meat babyface look that would soon involve a name change (to Simms) and a heavily pushed "family man" gimmick. Garvin is much improved from his flamboyant days--not great, but better and willing, with at least a few offensive wrinkles in his holster. This is a very well-laid-out match from the quickie first fall to the figure four work, plus Gilbert goes back to the boot-lace work he was doing with Jarrett. Gilbert torches Garvin with what we must assume is a fireball--damn you, ESPN. Good match and a standout performance from Gilbert.

[soup23]

2 two out of three fall matches on one show feels like extreme overkill. I also had to do a double take to ensure this was the same TERRENCE GARVIN. It is good to see Eddie working here but damn it feels like he is sort of above this stuff as a worker as he has to really work over Terrence by doing stuff like his boot lace spot and mouthing to the crowd. Terrence's facials in the deciding figure four were awful. Fireball like always in wrestling worked for me and this one played right into the finish.

[garretta]

This was kind of a mixed bag for me.

 

First of all, if I hadn't known going in that that was the same Terrence Garvin who wore me down to my last nerve in commentary back in '90, I would never have guessed it. Not just because of his look, but because for the first fall and change of the match, he was actually a credible wrestler who took the fight right to Eddie and even pinned him clean in the middle to take the first fall. Then Eddie remembered who he was and took command, but Terry proved to be just as good at selling as he was on offense, really getting across the damage that the figure-four was doing to his leg both times Eddie applied it. I hope he was successful as a face, because he certainly had the tools to be.

 

Eddie turned in a capable performance as you'd expect, but a couple of the booking decisions really hurt him here. For one, the figure four was on too long both times he applied it. The match took fifteen minutes by my count, and it seemed that Eddie had Garvin in the figure four for thirteen or fourteen of them. At least Terry was working toward a reversal during the third fall, but by then I was wondering why his leg hadn't already snapped like a twig. The crowd didn't really seem to mind, but the amount of time spent basically doing nothing in the hold aside from Eddie pulling on Terry's shoelaces for leverage (which most of the crowd probably never saw) was interminable.

 

We also had a phantom finish, as ESPN's censorship struck again. We never actually saw the fireball that Eddie threw at Terry to end the match, and if they hadn't shown the very start of the sequence on replay, I would have suspected that they (Craig and Bruce) had made it up. The real question is: Why even book a fireball finish for a televised match if you know that ESPN will never let the fireball be shown? That's either blind arrogance or inexcusable stupidity, take your choice. And before anyone talks about it looking cool for the fans in the Sportatorium, they weren't expecting that type of finish in the first place, so how disappointed would they have been if they didn't get something they never knew they wanted in the first place?

 

Eddie's work on Terry's leg was absolutely masterful from beginning to end. If I'd been booking, I'd have had Terry pass out on the figure four to lose both falls, which would really have gotten the hold over as a killer weapon in Eddie's arsenal.

 

As great as his performance in the ring was, Eddie's mic work left me shaking my head. "I'm running for President" out of nowhere, with no buildup and no followup? And what was up with how he talked to Boni (if that was her) before the bout? He looked and sounded higher than a kite. It almost had to be pretaped in the afternoon, because Eddie wasn't visibly impaired during the match. About the only thing Eddie said that made sense all night was his complaint about Garvin pulling his tights to take the first fall, ane that wasn't really needed since this match was billed as a no-disqualification bout.

 

Fifteen minutes for a two out of three fall match is just plain too short, period. Garvin getting the first fall should have been a lot bigger deal than the announcers had time to make it out to be.

 

"Gilbert Wrestling Federation". Inevitable, but still kind of cute.

 

Nice to hear Craig again. I didn't think that Bruce had left Vince entirely, so it was kind of a shock to hear him. I wonder if Brother Love would have gotten over with the Sportatorium crowd.

 

Nice line by Craig about the Redskins placekicker being one of Eddie's heroes. That reference was no accident, by the way; for those of you who are outside the country or don't follow football, the Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins hate each other with a passion. So Craig wasn't only making a rather clever football reference, he was providing Eddie with a little heat insurance.

[dawho5]

Garvin is surprisingly not shitty as a babyface. I mean, he's lacking polish and not overly good, but the tools are there which is way, way more than I'd say for him as a heel. That being said, did this need to be 2/3 falls? With a guy as limited as Garvin that's just not needed. The figure fours did go on too long and I wish it had been just a 9 minute single fall.