[1980-01-04-Houston Wrestling] Jose Lothario & Kerry Von Erich & Tiger Conway Jr vs Gino Hernandez & Gran Marcus & Tim Brooks

[shoe]

I loved this match. It was for the Johnny Valentine Cup. This was the Houston 2 ring special. This was all action Gino is sporting the blond hair. Kerry already is an incredible athlete here working a really fast pace. We see Kerry with an adominal claw which is how all the brothers start with till they master the head claw. Conway jr. looking really good throughout the match. In a pretty cutting edge spot Conway Jr. with an Ohtani boot scrape. I loved all of the Lothario/Gino interactions, especially the punches. Gino was the glue to his team. Gino telling Tiger to shine his shoes was heated. Kerry duplicating the 2 ring dive that Kevin did was great just as Paul was telling the audience the story. Seeing Brooks miss a running elbow and go flying out of the ring was gold. This turned into a pretty spirited brawl. The faces win 2 falls to 1. Post match the heels turn on Marcus . Super fun 6 man tag. 3 3/4*

[Mattsdmf]

This was a ton of fun.  I really like the use of both rings that they would use in the Battle Royal later.  Gino was easily the MVP but Kerry was great as well and Lothario was great as the no nonsense vet.  Kerry’s five across both rings is possibly the spot of the match and he showed great fire throughout.  The showdown between Gino and Conway was very heated and got a big response from the crowd.  The post match breakup of the heels was great too and I would love to see a Gino vs Markus match as well.

[soup23]

Is the date on this 1/4/80 or 1/4/79? 

[paul sosnowski]

1980

[SAMS]

So for this event there were two rings placed side by side and clearly this match is the reason why. A man from each team is allowed inside each ring at a time, whilst the third acts as a floater or free man (like some sort of football/soccer training drill) and they are able to tag into either ring as they see fit. A bit of an unusual stipulation that I haven’t seen before, and to be honest I wasn’t a big fan of it. The fact that basically two matches were going on simultaneously made it hard to track what was happening, but at the same time, it also felt like wasted energy, as often one of the rings just had guys doing placeholder offense like you would see in a generic battle royal. Any kind of heat that built up was blown off once they tagged out and things kind of just “started fresh” when they tagged into the opposite ring. I think Gino did the heavy lifting for the heel team as Brooks and Markus felt like the biggest dead weights of the six men. He was definitely the most dynamic seller and could dish it out when required as well. He provided a certain verve that popped compared to everyone else. The match ended with the heel team blowing up on each other after Gino accidentally nailed Markus with a top rope knee drop. Markus took umbrage with this leading Gino and Brooks taking him out and leaving him a bloody mess. Presume this will line up some Markus v Gino/Brooks singles matches in the future. Nothing too offensive here and each guy got a few moments to shine but generally pretty forgettable.

★★

[tcg91]

Woah, I haven't seen one of these Houston two rings multi tag matches in a long time. I'm not a big fan of the stipulation, as sometimes it's hard to follow everything that is taking place, but they planned things quite wisely and you would see a bump in a ring while the other one was buying time with a rest-hold. Gino's selling was great, him and Kerry were clearly one step above the others and von Erich's dive across both rings was very creative. The finish also made sense, because Gino and Markus cheated to win the first fall against Conway, but they lose the match once they try to cheat again. A bit too messy at times, but the match was fun
***1/4