[1981-08-23-St. Louis Wrestling At The Chase] Harley Race vs David Von Erich

[Superstar Sleeze]

Harley Race vs David Von Erich - St. Louis Wrestling At The Chase 8/23/81

I am no fan of Harley Race except against the Von Erich boys. There's something magical about their chemistry. I have seen terrific matches with Kerry & Kevin and now we can add David to the list. Early on in my St. Louis watch I was impressed by this matchup but I thought this was even better and this maybe the best St. Louis match we have on tape, it is definitely in my fave five. Harley Race is no longer champion having dropped the strap to Dusty Rhodes. 

This combined Harley's slam, bang, do it again style with lots of struggle and babyface/heel dynamics, two things the Von Erich boys excelled in. David is working the headlock to start. I enjoyed the bridge out by David when Harley tried to pry David down by the chin. I really liked how Harley was thwarted again and again. Harley nails an excellent dropkick but misses the falling headbutt. He headbutts during a rope break only to be clotheslined on a criss cross. I lap that type of shit up. Harley is really effective in using the headbutt. It does get over the desperation and that he is one tough son of a bitch for using his head for such damage. We get the barrage of piledrivers, tombstone and conventional to no avail. David press slams him off the top and nails his own piledriver at one point. I thought they used missed moves excellently in this. They even brawl on the outside really tearing up the announce table. As they close in on 5 minutes left, they really pour it on. Huge pop for the Iron Claw! Rope break plus headbutt to the breadbasket. It is funny to me that Harley loves the piledriver but the vertical suplex is his finish in St. Louis. He nails it but wants to hit the Diving Headbutt, but he belly flops. David up on the ropes and comes down with THE CLAW~! Time is running out! This could be the biggest victory of David's career! Harley pulls the ref into David for the ref bump.  Harley delivers the Suplex on the floor! DAVID SELLS THIS LIKE A MILLION BUCKS! AWESOME SELL! Kerry is out and wallops Harley and checks on his brother. This was a great all-action match that escalated really nicely into a wicked hot finish run and told the story of heel veteran vs young babyface really well. ****

[tcg91]

This was JIP, we got 11 minutes out of 18. That is shame, because the von Erichs in St. Louis keep being tons of fun and this looked really good. Race relied a lot on headbutts as his main point of offense, hitting David everywhere and making him bump left and right with it. It was established that Race was dominating thanks to his experience, but David was always a threat. The crowd was fully behind David's comeback and his lethal claw, as David finally managed to apply it after a few teases. Race sold the claw really well until the non-finish, as Race managed to save himself. Can't go higher as almost half of the match wasn't shown
***