Tracking the Territories 1984- Volume Three

by Liam Byrne

  Some pre-taped words from Jim Cornette mention how he has combed the rule books and as he didn’t hit anyone, he can’t be fined, and Bobby Eaton can’t be fined because the chairs were in the ring due to Mid-South and it wasn’t during a match. However, he states that he can pay the fine if necessary, though then requests a full hearing whilst threatening to sue everyone, including Jim Duggan for what happened to cause Cornette to wear a mask (he refuses to say exactly what it is at all times). Before we go to the first break, we head back to Watts who says that they will push back the decision two weeks to allow them to have a meeting to decide the particulars of what their next steps shall be.

  After the commercial, we have more Watts hating on Junkyard Dog as he speaks about Butch Reed being the new king of the hill in Mid-South, with many fans who have seen Dog wrestling for other promotions surely realising that he is facing weaker competition and less regularly. We then see a video of various times in which Reed called out the Dog, or attacked him, including the yellow paint on Mid-South television and the tarring and feathering in Memphis. Watts is like the proverbial dog with a bone, pardon the pun, when it comes to Junkyard in a way that I’ve not seen any other promoter react across the course of this year. It comes across a little bush league and definitely very bitter.

  This is all to build to a Butch Reed versus Brickhouse Brown match that is up next, yet Reed is the only one in the ring as he berates Brown over the microphone and tells the referee to go and get Brickhouse down here. Someone else wanders down to the ringside, with some brief words exchanged by the two men before this newcomer punches Reed across the face with a taped fist. Reed is bleeding heavily as he gets punched repeatedly in the face, before the man leaves the ring as coolly and calmly as he entered.

  Though we don’t know who he is and he leaves ringside, we come back to him standing alongside Jim Ross. It is Master G (otherwise known as George Wells), who has been travelling the world before turning down a shot in New York to come and whup Reed. G has spoken to the Dog, who is running scared, but G says he is aiming at the top dog and will work his way down, leaving Mid-South a clean slate. Another man to try and fill the Junkyard Dog’s role in the promotion.

  The next segment involves a Joel Watts music video for the Fantastics, one with ‘Gimme All Your Lovin’’ playing over the top of footage from the arenas, the studio, around the pool and in the gym. This does take us to the halfway point of the show, and there have been no matches so far, just a lot of posturing by Watts that continues as he runs down a list of the best wrestlers in the world that have all came through his territory. It’s an odd decision because it mainly demonstrates how many wrestlers you’ve lost, but it clearly helps Watts sleep at night.

  The Fantastics are up against Dale Veasey and Don Saunders in the first actual match of the evening. It is Veasey and Rogers who begin the match, though a blind tag allows the Fantastics to hit an early double dropkick. They are both working the arm, with armdrags, armbars, legdrops and elbowdrops all working the same limb. Veasey does work Rogers into the heel corner, but Saunders is smothered as soon as he gets tagged in, with Fulton going straight back to the arm as he gets brought back in.

  A drop down and dropkick allows Rogers to slap on a chinlock, whilst Fulton hits another dropkick that sends Saunders back into his own corner to tag. Veasey does actually use a drop toehold, but is instantly back on the defensive. As Watts is spending time talking about how good the team work is, the Fantastics almost collide after Rogers falls over on an Irish whip. Saunders gets tagged in once more, only to eat the second rope splash from Rogers for the three count. This went oddly long for a squash, perhaps to make up for the lack of in-ring action up until this point. I feel I should like the Fantastics more than I do, but their squashes do very little for me as they do limb work that has little bearing on the finish, whilst also only ever being a few moves away from a mistake.

  Considering Jim Cornette has been wearing a mask for a couple of weeks, it is only now that we actually get a chance to see the footage of what went on. The match is Jim Duggan versus Hercules Hernandez, with both Duggan and Cornette’s hair on the line. With two referees injured on the night, Steve Williams was made special guest referee for this grudge match. As the match is no disqualification, we join as Cornette throws powder into Duggan’s eyes to break an abdominal stretch. We then cut to Hernandez getting sent into the ring post and a guard rail, before Duggan rams him head first into the floor, busting him wide open. Duggan hits his spear, Williams counts to two…and then drops an elbow on Duggan’s head! That is enough for Hernandez to pick up the win, with Cornette jumping into the ring with a wad of cash. Watts is outraged on commentary, but things turn as Sonny King, Magnum TA, The Fantastics, Terry Taylor and some other members of the face locker room come down to save Duggan and help him to cut Cornette’s hair. Watts is crowing over the footage as we head back to the studio, with him getting awfully excited for someone who has spent many weeks extolling the virtues of following the rules.

  It is Steve Williams and Hercules Hernandez who are up next as they take on Johnny Mantell and Steve Miller, with no Jim Cornette in the building. Hernandez starts by trading arm wringers with Mantell, but a miscommunication sees the two men collide and end up wrapped up near the ropes on a botched spot. Moments later, Mantell escapes the heel corner and takes Williams down with a drop toehold, before hitting dropkicks on both of his opponents. As soon as Miller comes in, things take a turn for the worse as Williams flattens him with a big clothesline, pulling him up at two. A Hernandez slam and a Williams back body drop leads to a football tackle and the Stampede for a comprehensive three count. Mantell is made to look strong, but otherwise, complete domination by Hernandez and Williams.

  To finish, we get a reminder that the Rock and Roll Express are due back (coming for Cornette according to Watts), with another airing of the ‘I Love Rock And Roll’ montage video.

  An episode light on wrestling, with the segments surrounding it not really enough to make up for the lack of action, especially when you compare it to a similar episode earlier in the year with the return of Stagger Lee. At least we got to see what happened to Jim Cornette – I’ll take that.

  CWA Championship Wrestling 15.9.84

  We seem to be trading announcers as it is Lance Russell on his own this week as Memphis seemingly uses the summer weeks to give the guys a bit of a break. Eddie Gilbert, Dutch Mantell, and the Dirty White Boys are due to be on the show, but the biggest potential match announced is Jerry Lawler teaming with the Rock and Roll Express to take on the Nightmares and Kurt Von Hess.

  Eddie Gilbert is out first, with a jaunty looking red hat topping off a fairly glamorous looking ensemble that befits a champion, or at least that is what Hot Stuff believes. With the feud with Tommy Rich apparently over, it is now Dutch Mantell who is the guy gunning for Gilbert. Hot Stuff goes pretty low by calling Mantell smelly, whilst saying he will wrestling the match with a clothes peg on his nose. The demand for Gilbert since he became champion has forced him to move hotels due to all the good looking girls chasing him around, but that won’t stop him from defeating Mantell in the Coliseum come Monday night. He is even nice enough to leave his hat with Russell before heading to the ring.

  Eddie Gilbert is up against Craig Carson in our opening match, with Parson sweeping low several times in an attempt to take Hot Stuff down. He does slap on an arm wringer, but is greeted with a punch in the face for his troubles. Carson fires back with one of his own and a knee, only for a kick to the stomach and an eye gouge from the champ to stop him in his tracks. Gilbert does well to hold onto an armbar as Carson tries to throw him, before a back elbow stops a charge into the corner following an Irish whip. Carson isn’t going down without a fight as he lands a couple of punches, yet ducks his head too early on a back body drop and gets a kick in the face.

  Gilbert looks like he is toying with Carson and spending too much time bending the rules, leading to another Carson punch and knee combi
nation, though this time with a dropkick to top it off. He lands a second dropkick after Gilbert rubs his face into the mat, but upon missing another attempt at a dropkick, Gilbert plants him with a DDT for the win. A fun match due to the back and forth that gave the fans a chance to get behind Carson and show their hatred towards Hot Stuff.

  A slight technical mishap in which the video didn’t appear to be ready in time leads us to a montage of Dutch Mantell in the ring, with his studio action accompanied by a suitable country song about cowboys. He then joins Russell in the studio, making a quip about the girl knocking on Gilbert’s door was finally let out in the morning. With title shots not coming around for sometimes months at a time for Mantell, he promises to make this one against Gilbert count, whilst also making it clear to Jimmy Hart that if he chose to get involved, he would be sent into the fourth row.

  Mantell heads straight into the ring to take on Keith Roberson, with Dutch slapping on an armlock within the first moments that forces his opponent into the ropes. Roberson whiffs on an attempted punch on a supposed clean break, with Mantell trapping the arm once again to control his man. Roberson misses a second time with a punch, something that Mantell doesn’t do after a kick to the stomach. It takes an eye rake to halt Mantell, with Roberson pouncing with several clubbing blows and a body slam, though a second rope elbowdrop finds no-one in the pool. A snap suplex and a big flying elbow is enough for the Mantell victory in a showcase before his big title match.

  Having not had a lot of Coliseum footage in recent weeks, we are treated to Jerry Lawler teaming with Randy Savage to take on King Kong Bundy and Ric Rude from the most recent Coliseum show. The focus in the early exchanges between Lawler and Rude are all about the former enemies ability to work together, with Rude getting sent by Lawler into a couple of Savage elbows whilst the Macho Man stood on the apron, as well as Savage helping Lawler bust out of the corner by whacking Bundy with an elbow also. Savage is everywhere in the early going, taking advantage of a Bundy/Rude collision to smash Rude headfirst into a ringside table, before saving his partner from a Bundy corner splash.

  Some typical Memphis stalling follows as Savage gets into the ring for the first time as Rude and then Savage show off the guns. When they do engage, it is brief, but it sees Savage send Rude into the turnbuckle and take advantage of a referee distraction to hit an axehandle to the floor. Bundy has seen enough and grabs a chair; Savage looks to retaliate with a guard bollard before things do eventually settle down. An eye rake by Rude almost allows him to hit a piledriver, but again we get Savage coming in to save the King. The heels then try and isolate Lawler in the corner, only to get a double noggin knocker for their troubles. It ends up being Rude who gets trapped in a corner (with the help of some tight pulling by Savage), with a double clothesline and an airplane spin having him in all sorts of trouble.

  Bundy and Savage square off next, spitting at each other before the Macho Man manages to take down the giant with a crossbody for two. It is Lawler who finally gets caught by the heels, with Bundy smashing him with a clothesline and a kneedrop for two. A Rude neckbreaker has Lawler down, with Savage’s temper now costing his team as the heels are able to double team Lawler whilst the referee has to deal with Savage. Rude lands a piledriver, but we then get a cut to later in the match, where Lawler kicks out of a neckbreaker, but is ran back into the corner after a desperate dive for a tag. An elbowdrop and kneedrop by Bundy isn’t enough, though does see Savage finally give up on the rules and just jump Rude.

  The ref does quickly regain order, whilst Lawler avoids a Bundy splash, drops the straps and tags to Rude. All four men are in the ring and fighting, with Savage punching the referee in the face for the disqualification. Chairs and tables are wielded at ringside as the fight continues, before all four men brawl their way up the entranceway. This is a very Memphis match in which every move is milked for all that it is worth, whilst the crowd are in the palm of the wrestlers’ hands. Weak finish, but the rest was good.

  Pre-taped words with Savage follow, as he talks about the party that ran all over Rude and Bundy, only to be stopped by a disqualification. After suggesting that Rude and Bundy might need to look for new jobs, he admits to how much he enjoyed teaming with the King, before shilling for a no-disqualification repeat of the tag main event at next week’s Coliseum show with references to spitting on the opponents and the King’s ability to trust him now. There is no-one on the mic at this time quite like Savage. Lawler joins Russell in the studio as the tape ends, beginning his segment by talking about how crazy Savage truly is. Lawler brands Rude dumb and Bundy fat, whilst insisting that the no disqualification stipulation plays into their hands.

  We cut to King Kong Bundy and Ric Rude with Russell now, with Rude retorting about how clever he is by saying how he changed the name he signed into hotels with to ‘Jerry Lawler’ in order to stop all the women who were harassing him. According to Rude, he doesn’t need the job offer from Savage as he might be the new editor of Playboy Magazine, an offer he is thinking long and hard about. Bundy’s words are more straightforward – he is the Southern Heavyweight Champion, and Lawler won’t be getting that title back anytime soon.

  Jerry Jarrett is back to shill Pro Wrestling USA, which does have a line-up for the tapings that is enviable. It is just a shame that the egos of the promoters got in the way of the project, though that was always likely to be the case. This is then followed by a replay of the Dirty White Boys’ montage video that we saw last week, an effective introduction to a Dirty White Boys’ contest as they take on Ken Raper and Mark Reagan. Reagan jumps into the ring to do his breakdancing, only to dance his way straight into a Boys’ beatdown. Slams, punches and kicks are the order of the day against both Raper and Regan as it takes the referee a moment or two to get things under control, but he does eventually. DWB #2 gets caught by a Reagan dropkick as things calm down, whilst DWB #1 gets one from both Reagan and then Raper, yet a back suplex out of a side headlock turns the tide. Raper is isolated with ease as the Boys run through their repertoire of strikes and slams, before DWB #1 pulls Raper up after a legdrop instead of getting the pinfall. Quick tags allow the beatdown to continue apace, but Raper does manage to tag out after crawling through DWB #2’s legs.

  Reagan comes in with fire in an attempt to take on both of the heels, yet he is cut off fairly quickly by due to the numbers game. As the ref is distracted, DWB #1 hit a piledriver on Raper on the studio floor for good measure. The referee has lost control as DWB #2 busts Reagan open by running him into the ringpost, leading to an in-ring beatdown that targets the wound. A double Russian legsweep is enough for a better Dirty White Boys’ showing than the previous week as they ratcheted up the violence. Post-match, Reagan tries to take on both Boys once again, only to get completely obliterated until Dutch Mantell and an enhancement talent run them off. A brutal beating for Reagan.

  A rare thing in recent weeks, we get a Tommy Rich sighting in the studio. Jimmy Hart has been conspicuous by his absence this week, with it turning out that Rich got his hands on the scrawny manager at the Coliseum. However, things have turned sour for Wildfire as Hart has put a $1000 bounty on his head, though Rich knows to have eyes in the back of his head and never let his guard down. As Rich begins to tell Gilbert that he will continue to chase him (somewhat deriding Mantell’s title shot in the process), Hart makes his first appearance on the show, climbing into the ring with a USA flag wrapped around him like a cape. In the most obvious plot of all time, Hart’s attempt to goad Rich into the ring leads to the Nightmares attacking Rich, sending him flying over the top rope with a noose around his neck. Luckily for Rich, Mantell hits the ring to save his neck quite literally, before holding him back in order to offer up a challenge to the Nightmares – a chance to earn the $1000 bounty versus their Southern Tag Team Titles. Eddie Marlin is down to sanction the match and we have a title contest!

  All four men are in the ring as the bell signals the start of the contest, but it soon settles down with Mantell getting
worked over by both members of the Nightmares. A back body drop and a clothesline have Mantell in trouble, but he kicks out of a pin at two. Punches and hiptosses to both of the Nightmares then also brings Rich into the ring as it breaks down once more. Just as it looks like Mantell is going to get clobbered off of the top rope, Rich throws the Nightmare to the canvas to save his partner. As Rich attempts to get the mask off one of the Nightmares, the other is caught with a sunset flip for the three count as we have new champions! A heated sprint brawl (lasting less than three minutes) that leads to new, very popular tag champs.

  The Rock and Roll Express are now no longer up against the Nightmares in a six-man tag this evening, but they do come out for an interview with Russell. Ricky Morton calms the fears of the Memphis fans by making it clear they aren’t going anywhere, and even when they wrestle around the country they always come home to Memphis. This is to promote a mask versus loser leaves town stipulation for their next contest against the Nightmares, who are back out with Hart to complain about losing the titles. As Hart states that there was no contract signed, Eddie Marlin returns to ringside with the belts in hand, promising to give them to Rich and Mantell. Hart refuses to have his Nightmares fight against under the circumstances, so we have a different main event as Jerry Lawler and the Rock and Roll Express meet Kurt Von Hess … King Kong Bundy and Ric Rude!