The SmarK 24/7 Rant for World Class Championship Wrestling – March 12 1983
– Hosted by Bill Mercer, although first Michael Hayes and Kevin Von Erich have a fascinating discussion here in the present about vignettes and their origins.
– Jimmy Garvin joins us to start, reversing his promise to never wrestle on TV, as long as David Von Erich puts up the Texas Heavyweight title. Kind of funny how angles echo each other on the shows from era to era on this channel, as the same basic angle played out on World Championship Wrestling three years later with Magnum TA and Nikita Koloff.
– Speaking of vignettes, we take you a video about Iceman Parsons, as he hauls blocks of ice around a warehouse and dances, which shows that he’s a hard-working babyface who likes to party. Simple and effective. That’s not to say it would work these days, but for the time it was great stuff.
– Michael Hayes v. Kerry Von Erich. The laws of math say that you can milk this Freebirds-Von Erichs stuff FOREVER. Which they did. Kerry chases Hayes around the ring to start and backdrops him, then slugs him down until he runs away. Back in, Kerry wins a lockup and pounds on the arm, but Hayes goes to the eyes and then misses an elbow. So Kerry stays on the arm, but Hayes chops out. Kerry fires back with a punch that bumps Hayes into the corner, and Kerry drops a knee for two. He pounds away on Hayes, but another kneedrop misses and Hayes is all over it. He pounds away on it with a leglock as the crowd is just insane as usual. Vince would KILL to have this crowd every week. Especially if they cheered for Cena as blindly as Kerry gets cheered here. Hayes keeps on the knee, but Kerry gets a desperate rollup for the pin at 5:20. However, the jubilation is short-lived, as the Freebirds stream in and the beatdown is on. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – do the heel beatdown if you want, but just give us a finish first instead of a cheap DQ. ** The Von Erichs save and they want the tag team match against the Freebirds RIGHT NOW!
– David & Kevin Von Erich v. Buddy Roberts & Terry Gordy. No messing around on this show, boy. Gordy starts with David, but Kevin quickly gets tagged in to throw him off. So Gordy gets counsel from Buddy, and then gets his ass kicked by Kevin anyway. Roberts comes in and Kevin rams him into David’s knee and follows with a dropkick. Over to David, who hits the high knee already and gets two, then follows with a backbreaker for two. Over to Gordy and they slug it out, but Gordy grabs a sleeper, and David quickly reverses that. Gordy saves himself by tagging out to Buddy Jack, and he clobbers David from behind for two. David comes back with a bodypress for two and it’s back to Kevin, and he goes for the claw but gets interrupted by Gordy. Gordy drops a knee on him and the Freebirds double-team in the corner, but Kevin brings David back in again. And David monkey-flips Buddy into a Kevin moonsault (!) for two. NICE! Things break down and it’s BONZO GONZO, with Kevin putting the claw on Gordy on the ropes, and the ref gets tossed aside for the DQ at 6:19. And then the crazy brawl starts up again with the Von Erichs getting the better of it this week.
– Next week: Kevin wants Terry Gordy in a no-DQ, no rules match for his American title, plus David v. Jimmy Garvin for the Texas title!
– Wow, that show just flew by, like it was only 30 minutes long or something. Oh, wait, it was. Hell of a show, even at that length. Someone needs to steal that double-team from the tag match.
