[1978-01-06-Houston Wrestling] Al Madril vs Killer Karl Krupp

[shoe]

When I 1st saw that this was booked for 27 minutes I thought whoever booked it to go this long needed a psyche evaluation.Then I see the other ring is being worked on. So it's possible they went long to stall for time.

 

Fall one was actually pretty solid. Though they did blow a shoulder block something fierce. I thought Madril's leg work was ok. The crowd brawling got over. Overall a solid 1st fall.

 

The 2nd fall I dug the psychology for the most part. Krupp went for the stomach claw 3 times and Madril escaped 3 times. Krupp won the fall with a knee to the stomach. I think the fall would have worked better if Krupp won it with a stomach claw since he's being set up for a match with Fritz Von Erich.

 

Fall 3 was a really long nerve hold that Krupp won with his feet on the rope. In a nice piece of booking David Von Erich gets the decision overturned. This helps with the Krupp/Fritz match. 1 1/2*

 

[Therealheel]

Its weird but Killer Karl Krupp has weirdly worked his way into my watching and has caught my eye. I guess he was very well known in Canada mostly in New Brunswick and worked up here for many years , but I find his work to be slow and boring , but his Heel work and the way people respond to him is what meets my interests and makes him appealing for me. Krupp does things very simply and effectively , his timing on heat spots are top notch and his ability to raise the heat spot into something White Hot is just remarkable. Its been a welcoming surprise for me to see a guy who does so little but yet gets such a great reaction! Wrestlers nowadays need to look at this and rethink the way they work. Its effective and simple.

[Jetlag]

This was good solid pro wrestling that the crowd was hugely into, marred by the fact that both guys are just not quite at the skill level to go this long. Al Madril is a pretty solid babyface and has nice punches, but will do something goofy once in a while. In this case outstretching his arms as if he was Christ on the cross while Krupp had him in his claw. Another moment he tried to land on his feet to counter a monkey flip, but just awkwardly landed on his ass and went back to his leg lock. There were also some pretty long dire parts. Krupp did precisely nothing of note beside being big and scary looking.