[1981-01-16-Houston Wrestling] Billy Robinson vs Dory Funk Jr

[shoe]

I loved Billy cranking Dory with a leverage move.Billy with one of his carnie escapes. At the end he snaps Dory's leg. Billy slaps the taste out of Dory and the crowd reacts. Billy working the arm, but takes an elbow and bumps to the outside. Billy is pissed, and Dory takes a powder. A Robinson back breaker gets 2. European forearms rocks Dory. Another back breaker gets 2. Billy focusing on the back, and hooks on a surfboard. Now Billy transitions to put his knee in Dory's back. Loved Robinson trap pin attempt on Dory. Dory hits a forearm shiver. Now Dory is hitting Robinson with stiff looking European forearms. Robinson is reeling. We jump to the final 5 minutes. Dory with more nasty European Forearms. Robinson with a jumping punch. Big neck breaker gets 2. Billy eats another forearm, but counters into an adominal stretch. Robinson back breaker causes Billy's knee to give out. We end up in a draw. Their was a lot to like.At times I could see people saying it was boring. I thought Robinson looked good. Dory at times. 3*

[paul sosnowski]

Another match I can't seem to find anywhere....

[Loss]

 

[Wahoos Leg]

Unlike many matches, where the chain wrestling serves as a feeling-out process and comes across as more cooperative than competitive, everything here feels like a struggle. Robinson shows his stuff on a couple of exchanges. The first 10 minutes are largely back and forth but that changes when Dory starts unleashing his trademark forearm uppercuts. Robinson eats several of them, and sells each a little more than the last, emphasizing the steady attrition of weathering Funk’s blows. Both men quicken the pace at the “five minutes remaining” call from the ring announcer (Boyd Pierce, I think?) but with subsequent time calls at three minutes, two, and so on, it doesn’t take a mastermind to anticipate this one is going the distance. Should be expected since there was never a decisive winner in any of the singles matches between these two.

This is a good, solid match — nothing more, nothing less.

You can read my full review of this match, one of the entries in my 365 Wrestling project.

 

[tcg91]

This was a good match, even though it got sloppy at times and it's always hard to watch a legend slowing down too much. Overall, a few execution mistakes were forgivable as they had an effective stalemate for 20 minutes and managed to make time fly. Robinson was more aggressive and played the heel here, but Dory was not shy and indulged in strikes to get back to his opponent accordingly. The matwork part was solid since the beginning, but I didn't like how they switched gear as soon as the announcer updated them on the remaining time, it was so noticeable and quite disappointing considering that they are two veterans and should know better. At least, both Dory and then Robinson kept selling the leg until the end, even though the finish was a bit flat. So fun to see young Kerry von Erich as the referee!
***