WhiteTail Wrestling

Part 2

Some more festive fun this time from 1981 with footage from three American territories. Not a lot of great matches here unfortunately with the AWA and WCCW shows disappointing overall. I did enjoy the Mid South action with some quality TV matches in particular the match between Orndorff and Blair which was well worked and furthered ongoing story lines very well and in a logical manner.

1981

AWA ran a house show from St Paul Minnesota. The matches here are clipped although most of the action seems to be shown rather than quick two or three minute clips. The first match shown from the card was the opener as a very young Curt Henning wrestled to a draw with Evan Johnson. A fun opener with some decent technical work and for a match of its time some decent enough action. Rene Goulet defeated Kenny Jay in a fairly dull match with the action only picking up slightly at the finish. Tag action as Greg Gagne and Jim Brunzell take on the heel team of Jerry Blackwell and Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie. This was decent but had a bad finish as both the referee and the babyfaces looking like idiots as the heels steal the win. Nick Bockwinkel defends the AWA Title against Billy Robinson in the main event. The work here itself was excellent which is obviously unsurprising in a match featuring these two legends of the mat, some good moments of action as well but of course they had to ruin it with the screw job finish. Robinson looks to have won the title with both commentators and the crowd thinking that Robinson had won the fall but his shoulders were down when he went for the fall. While I thought that was the case I also thought that Bockwinkel had his shoulders down also so the old double pin to keep Robinson strong while keeping the title on Bockwinkel but the referee calls the match for Bockwinkel which was bizarre so yet another heel win in underserved fashion.

Next up we head to the Mid South Territory for one of the best territory television shows. First up we have Paul Orndorff up against Brian Blair. Orndorff has been looking at ways to counter the figure four leglock that is being used by his rival Ted DiBiase and this would play into the finish. This was a really fun *** match with Blair putting on a competitive performance even locking in the figure four on Orndorff but Orndorff counters the hold and despite being close to the ropes he is trapped with seemingly no way out this leads to the referee calling for the bell to protect the leg of Blair despite no submission from the game competitor. DiBiase is up next against Mike Boyer in a match that was short although not a complete squash DiBiase locks in the figure four and Boyer soon submits. Boyer clearly does not know the counter for the figure four. Finally we have some tag team action as we get an impressive performance from Bob Roop and Bob Orton Jr against Frank Monte and Mike Bond who put in a good effort but are outclassed by the superior performers and team work of the heels. Three good fun matches show why Mid South TV was almost always worth a watch.

Finally we have Christmas Star Wars courtesy of WCCW in Texas. Jose Lothario defeats Ernie Ladd to win the Brass Knuckles Title in a slightly better than boring match. El Solitario defended the Light Heavyweight Title in a nothing match against Killer Tim Brooks. Next up we had an awful match as Fritz Von Erich took on the Great Kabuki. This was a Texas Deathmatch despite that Fritz pinned the Great Kabuki with the Iron Claw the match did not end though the referee counts to ten with neither man rising the referee decides the first man to stand in the ring is the winner. Gary Hart rolls Fritz out of the ring and wakes Kabuki with a drink. Kabuki gets half way up and then collapses with the referee still calling for the bell and awarding the match to Kabuki. The match itself was bad with claw holds and crawling pace of action. Then of course there was the bad finish I mean the crowd were kind of into it with Fritz involved but surely they deserved better than this steaming pile of shit. The Von Erich’s (Kevin, Kerry and David) take on Bill Irwin, Frank Dusek and Ten Gu in a much improved match with the action split into two rings with two men competing in each ring and the other two wrestlers in between the rings. Entertaining match with the Von Erich’s picking up the win with Kevin using the Iron Claw on Gu.