by Liam Byrne
Ken Resnick is backstage and he apologises for the hectic way that the show finished the previous week with the assault on the Fabulous Ones by Heenan, Saito and Nick Bockwinkel. After promising to hear from the Fabs later in the show, Resnick brings in Wally Karbo with an apology for letting Heenan get his hands on the mic in the first place. Karbo rambles about how they dictate who gets interviewed, not the wrestlers, before talking about heavily fining Heenan and company. Stan Lane has also requested a match with Saito and Bockwinkel, with a tag team partner of his choices, which Karbo will try to make happen as well. Oddly, when Karbo leaves, Resnick actually describes the incident that took place – something that perhaps should have taken place at the start of the segment.
Baron Von Raschke is back on my screen for the first time in a while as he faces Rick Renslow in a two out of three falls match. According to Resnick, Raschke is returning from a successful tour of the Fatherland. Renslow jumps Raschke before the bell, meaning that Raschke can’t even get his gown off. However, Raschke fights back with punches of his own, sending Renslow to ringside in the process. The Baron pulls Renslow back in from the outside and slaps on a chinlock as the fans begin to chant for the claw. A side headlock follows a shoulderblock, with a hipblock takedown bringing the match to the canvas. Raschke continues to use the side headlock as a go to offensive weapon, though Renslow does muscle his way into the ropes and hits several strikes to take control with a chinlock of his own. It is short lived as Raschke hits a hiptoss and returns to his own chinlock.
A fireman’s carry takedown leads to Raschke going for a pin, but Renslow is almost tied up in the ropes so no dice. This is a battle of chinlocks as Renslow rakes the eyes and brings Raschke down to the canvas, only for Raschke to battle out with a top wristlock that forces Renslow back into the ropes. A reversed Irish whip has the Baron hitting the corner, but he gets his boot up to knock Renslow down and lands an elbowdrop for the first fall.
The second fall begins with a Raschke armbar takedown, a move that he returns to after several forearms to the chest. Renslow once again goes to the eyes and even rakes the chest of the Baron, but Raschke begins to no-sell the punches from his opponent. A big back body drop leads to multiple turnbuckle smashes that the crowd count along with, before the goose step signals that the Iron Claw is coming. An Irish whip and the aforementioned Claw are enough for the Baron to pick up the second fall. An oddly competitive match, but one that wasn’t helped by the reliance on the same moves time and again.
Resnick mentions that Harley Race and Iceman King Parsons, a wrestler that I was not aware was booked for the AWA at this time, had agreed to fight for the Missouri State Title, before bringing Blackjack Lanza in for an interview. Lanza seems to be expected to cover multiple storylines, as he mentions how Parsons will defeat Race, whilst then describing the condition of the Fabulous Ones, making it clear that Keirn will be out for several weeks. Lanza has seconds to talk about his match with Ted Oates, though he finishes the interview by challenging Ric Flair. A somewhat schizophrenic segment for Lanza.
Poor Sonny Rogers and Nacho Barrera. They are the sacrificial lambs for the Road Warriors first match on AWA television. They are king of the mountain initially after sending Rogers and Barrera to the ringside, with Hawk then nailing Rogers with a back elbow and a gorilla press slam to begin the match in earnest. A big kneelift from Animal is followed by a hiptoss that allows Rogers to tag out, only for Barrera to be hit with a slam and a legdrop for his troubles. Hawk hits a running boot to the stomach off of an Irish whip, with a slam and fistdrop continuing the onslaught. Barrera gets dumped on the top rope throat first, but he uses the impact to fall into his own corner for a tag. This seems to be primarily for Animal to show off his own gorilla press slam on the much lighter Rogers. A Hawk punch sends Rogers into the corner to tag Barrera once more and it is Barrera who gets dropped with the bearhug/clothesline combination for the three count. Complete domination, but they didn’t seem as reckless as they could be at times in Georgia.
Paul Ellering and the Road Warriors are with Resnick next, once again building up to the AWA World Tag Team Title match. Hawk clearly sets up for his collar to break each time, as it pops off again. Ellering talks about how The Crusher and Baron Von Raschke have effectively signed over the gold when they put their names on the contract, before Hawk shows how they don’t care about anything by blasting Animal with a forearm across the back.
The footage this week from outside the studio sees Steve Regal taking on Tony Atlas. We join the match just as Atlas is shrugging off Regal’s offense in the corner, much to the delight of the fans and the frustration of Regal, who heads to ringside to clear his head. A handful of trunks allows Regal to take Atlas to the mat and he uses several kicks and the ring apron in an attempt to work the leg. Atlas kicks Regal out of a leglock twice, which allows him to get back to his feet and stalk Regal with his punches. Atlas lands a jumping headbutt and a back body drop, all as a precursor to the gorilla press slam and big splash finish. It is hard to tell how long the match had been going for before we joined it, but Regal was absolutely crushed.
We get some more Atlas interview work alongside Resnick, with Atlas talking about the only thing people in St Louis liking more than fried chicken and a beautiful woman is a good fight. Resnick tries to talk about Iceman King Parsons, but Atlas loudly questions ‘KING KONG BRODY?’ before Resnick can finish, leading to Atlas just saying how he likes Parsons, doesn’t like Brody, doesn’t like Flair and will fight Rick Martel if he has to. More bizarre gold, that’s for sure.
Woody Wilson is another jobber to feel sorry for after the Road Warriors destroying Rogers and Barrera earlier in the show; he is the opponent for King Kong Brody. Brody sends Wilson to the ringside early, kicking him several times in the head from the apron. When Wilson gets back in the ring, Brody lands a big boot as Trongard talks about Greg Gagne excusing himself from commentating on this match due to his feelings towards Brody. Strikes and kicks overwhelm Wilson before a big kneedrop leads to the easy victory.
The show finishes a Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie interview as Resnick talks about Jerry Blackwell’s desires to get the Sheik in the ring. Al-Kaissie effectively says that Blackwell will have to defeat King Kong Brody first.
Whilst the squashes by Brody, Saito and the Road Warriors were fun enough, the Raschke versus Renslow match really wasn’t and was arguably the focal point of the show in terms of length. Thus, the show suffered as a result. Not horrifically bad, just not particularly good. Oddly enough, this is also where my collection of AWA ends. Considering how much footage we have for certain other promotions at the times, this is a pretty sizeable gap that isn’t easily rectified. See the ‘Around the Horn’ section at the end of the book to see where AWA ends up going over the course of the next couple of months.
CWA Championship Wrestling 4.8.84
After some shorter episodes that have been available to me in recent weeks, it is the whole shebang for Memphis’ first show in August, though Dave Brown is absent leaving Lance Russell to call things on his own. Ric Rude and King Kong Bundy are announced as being first up, whilst we’ll also see footage of Phil Hickerson and the Spoiler taking on the Rock and Roll Express. Mr. Ito and The Animal are also in action with the main event going to The New Generation versus The Nightmares.
Jimmy Hart dubs Ric Rude and King Kong Bundy as ‘Thunder and Lightning’ as they take on Jim Jamison and Ken Raper in the opening match. Angel is conspicuous by her absence but Hart is wearing a rather fetching gi. Rude starts with punches and a press slam that dumps Raper throat first on the top rope, with Bundy continuing the beatdown with a shoulder tackle and a kneedrop. Bundy chooses to pull Raper up at two for a bodyslam before handing things back over to Rude. Rude makes the decision to chuck Raper into the face corner to make a tag to Jamison, but Jamison is also dropped quickly onto the top rope with a press slam. Rude isn’t content with doing this just once – he uses a bodyslam set up to dump Jamison throat first once m
ore. Bundy picks up Jamison as well after a big backbreaker, allowing Rude to hit what is effectively a Hart Attack off of the second rope for the win. Rude and Bundy are the big heel team so a dominant victory was to be expected.
Rude’s involvement in the ring gives Russell the chance to throw to footage from the Coliseum of the ‘Belt on a Pole’ match between Rude and Jerry Lawler. Lawler would win the match, but end up getting beaten down by Rude, Angel and Hart. However, Rude would miss a clothesline attempt, taking out Hart instead and allowing Lawler to dump him out of the ring also. This gives him the chance to nail Angel with a piledriver, explaining her absence in the previous match. Russell defends Lawler’s decision to hit Angel, positing that she began things by jumping on him in the first instance.
Post-commercial, it is Hart, Rude and Bundy that are out with Russell and Hart is complaining about Ron Mikolajczyk attacking him with a football helmet which has required his ribs being taped up. It is difficult to get a grip on exactly what King Kong Bundy is talking about as he mention a tournament and the Japanese, but it seems that there is a tag tournament at the Mid-South Coliseum the following Monday so I’m sure we’ll hear more about it as the show progresses. Rude doesn’t care about Monday at this point as he calls out Lawler to fight him right now as he wants revenge for Lawler’s treatment of Angel. It takes Hart and Bundy to pull Rude away from the area as he is hell-bent on getting at Lawler.
Russell does fill in the details on the tournament as it is qualifying for the $100,000 Japanese World Cup Tag Championship, an event which will be see a team head to Tokyo in January 1985. The team of Rude and Bundy will meet Tommy Rich and Jackie Fargo, making one of his annual appearances at the ripe old age of 54. Russell does talk about Fargo being a late change and how we will find out more about that later on in the show. Dutch Mantell and Bill Dundee – another wrestler making a return - face the Nightmares, Jerry Lawler and Handsome Jimmy meet Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo, the New Generation go against Mr. Ito and the Animal, and the Rock and Roll Express take on Phil Hickerson and the Spoiler to close out the first round. The brackets are shown: the winner of Hickerson/the Spoiler versus The Rock and Roll Express get a bye, as does the eventual winner of the Rude/Bundy, Rich/Fargo, Mantell/Dundee and the Nightmares quartet.
As the bracket is being shown, Lawler comes out to talk about the incident with Angel. Lawler makes it clear that he doesn’t hit women, before clarifying by saying he doesn’t hit ladies. If Angel didn’t get involved in his business all the time, there would have been no reason to do what he did. He challenges Rude to come out in a similar way to how Rude did earlier, before seguing into talking about the tag tournament. Lawler queries why certain teams have got the opportunity to gain a bye when Lawler and Valiant will have to win matches in every round, yet he does suggest that it means the fans will have a chance to see a lot of the King and the Boogie Woogie Man. When Lawler leaves, we also get a re-airing of Valiant’s montage music video that has done the rounds on both Mid-Atlantic and Memphis television.
Eddie Gilbert’s absence has been noticeable in recent weeks as Tommy Rich has gone on away from his partner to win two singles titles. Russell throws to pre-taped footage as Gilbert tries to address ‘what is wrong?’. Gilbert talks about being mad that Rich has used him by suggesting that Gilbert wear down the teams they have faced before allowing Rich to get the tag and the victory, especially as Rich has been bragging about how many matches he has won for the team. Gilbert throws to footage of the new Fabulous Ones defeating The PYT Express, with Rich getting a tag, hitting a Thesz Press and getting the pin. Gilbert then complains that Rich chose to invite Tojo Yamamoto to be his manager when fighting Mr. Ito, with footage of the finish of that match as Rich wins with a crossbody to take the International Heavyweight Title.
After winning this belt, Gilbert mentions that Rich talked about going after the tag gold, but his focus shifted to the Southern Heavyweight Title, a belt that Gilbert also wanted a shot at. We then see footage of Rich pinning Ric Rude to become a double champion. However, this was short lived as we see the end of a match between King Kong Bundy and Rich where, in his role as special guest referee, Gilbert counted Rich down and Bundy became the new Southern Heavyweight Champion. The footage cuts to the post-match where Rich tries to show Gilbert that Bundy had used a chain, but Gilbert walks off. Back to the promo, Gilbert promises that he will never be Rich’s partner again and wants the next time they meet in the ring to be on opposite sides. Considering the new Fabulous Ones tanked compared to the original version according to the various sources out there, as well as the original version coming back for dates from time to time, this should allow us to see some good heel Gilbert in the near future. It also explains the drafting in of Fargo for the tag team tournament.
Speaking of Jackie Fargo, we also get pre-taped words with both Fargo and Tommy Rich. Fargo starts off, laying down the unwritten rule of tag team wrestling in so much as you don’t walk out on your partner. Rich randomly references the Olympics, suggesting the tag team tournament was an opportunity for them both to represent the United States, before Fargo puts it out there that he is more than ready to go so no-one better underestimate him.
Mr. Ito and the Animal storm the ring as they take on David and Randy Johnson, two men who are clearly not brothers although they share a surname. The Animal begins the contest with David and he grinds him down into the mat, tagging out to Ito who follows up with some chops and repeated stomps. Two drops see David hit the mat twice in a row, whilst an Animal legdrop has David getting pulled up at two. Ito’s kick to the throat sends David into the corner to tag to Randy, who is dressed like a hillbilly. The quick tags and offensive strikes continue with a double back elbow punctuating the general viciousness of the heels. Randy is sloppy as anything in his general ring work and bumping; one of the worst I’ve seen. Hart distracts the referee long enough to allow Ito to hit a second turnbuckle headbutt, a move that wouldn’t have caused a disqualification anyway. That is enough for a one sided win that went too long for an offense built up entirely of strikes and heel 101-isms.
Following the last match, we see a music video montage for Poffomania, which includes notable moments such as both Randy Savage and Lanny Poffo up a tree, both men doing laps of the pool and footage of Savage hitting a piledriver on Ricky Morton through a table.
Oddly enough, we follow up with what appears to be Russell throwing to a Coliseum match but it is actually a studio match that appears to have been taped earlier. The Rock and Roll Express are up against the tag champions, Phil Hickerson and the Spoiler, with Dave Brown on commentary so the match must have been from significantly before. The match is non-title and this perhaps is why Hickerson is being his usual cocksure self. However, after backing Ricky Morton into the rope and hitting a punch, a pause to taunt sees him dropped with a forearm and pinned for the three count! The Express leave the scene immediately whilst Hickerson is irate, claiming that the bell was never rung in the first place. Hickerson and the Spoiler refuse to leave, with Hickerson in particular offering up $1000 for the Rock and Roll Express to come back out and beat them again. Eddie Marlin appears, making it clear that the Express will get the $1000 direct from the heels’ paychecks just for coming out and wrestling again.
The Express do come back out but get attacked before they can get to their feet. As the brawling begins and the bell rings, Hickerson punches the Spoiler by accident and Robert Gibson grabs the three count! Two victories in a little over ten seconds has made the champions look incredibly stupid. Hickerson, in an attempt to save face, he offers up a title shot for one more match. Marlin is back out and agrees to this impromptu title match, bringing out the Express for a third time. The two teams begin where they left off, brawling in the centre of the ring. Hickerson has no interest in this third match really, using a low bridge to send Gibson over the top rope and hitting him with a chair for the disqualification. The assault on both members of the Express leaves them bloodied as the ringpost, th
e chair and a chain sees the champions brutalise their opponents. To add insult to injury, Morton and Gibson are dropped with spike piledrivers. Russell reminds Hickerson that they lost three matches in a row, but Hickerson makes it clear that he’d rather be a champion than a winner.
We have pre-taped words from Hickerson and the Spoiler in which Hickerson talks about how the fight between them and the Rock and Roll Express has only just started. Hickerson claims that they will beat the Express so bad that the young punks will go to the owners of the promotion and plead to have their victory scrubbed from the record books. The Express retort is short and sweet according to Russell and that it is, with Gibson and Morton excited that they have shown they can beat the champions and mention being made of a street fight booked further down the line – I can only assume it isn’t on the same show as the tag team tournament, though Memphis do occasionally completely stack the cards.
