WhiteTail Wrestling

Part 1

1980

Not much footage here as we get just two minutes of Memphis wrestling showing the finish of the tag title match between the Gibson Brothers and The Assassins with the Gibson brothers becoming the new champions.

1981

GCW had there New Year Show at the Omni in Atlanta. Mr Wrestling II wins by DQ against the Mongolian Stomper thanks to interference from Stomper’s manager Don Carson. Less than a minute worth of footage so I can’t say much about this match. Robert Fuller and Ted DiBiase defeated The Freebirds by DQ when Michael Hayes interfered in the match. We got about three minutes of action here and the match looked like it was good. The feud between these two teams continue with The Freebirds unwilling to put their titles on the line and Fuller and DiBiase wanting a no DQ match to make the Freebirds pay. Dusty Rhodes defeats Ole Anderson in the main event. We have a couple of minutes of the match showing Dusty get the pin after Ole attacked Tony Atlas turning his back on the American Dream. After the match Ole and Alexis Smirnoff jump Dusty until Atlas makes the save. We go backstage after that to build to the tag team match between the four men back at the Omni on the 16th.

1982

New Japan Pro Wrestling open up the year with a show from a packed Korakuen Hall. The first match we see is an exhibition match between Karl Gotch and Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This was a short match but an excellent display of technical wrestling which was a joy to watch with the legendary Karl Gotch getting the pinfall victory after a perfectly executed German suplex. Riki Choshu takes on Animal Hamaguchi in a really good ***1/4 encounter with good ring work and well paced action. Not the greatest finish with both men being counted out but overall a really good match worth a watch. Tiger Mask is the new WWF Junior Heavyweight Champion after defeating Dynamite Kid in an excellent ***1/2 match. The action here was excellent mixing good ring work, striking and submission skills although these two at their best can do much better than this match. Dynamite Kid has the match won but hubris costs him the title belt as he hits Tiger with a tombstone piledriver and follows up with the diving headbutt but when he goes for the pin he lifts up Tiger hitting another Tombstone but missing the headbutt soon after Tiger wins with the flash pin. Bob Backlund defeats Tatsumi Fujinami in an excellent ***1/2 match to retain his WWF Championship. This was a really good high quality display of technical wrestling with both men displaying great skill with their mat work. Controversial finish with Fujinami reversing the pin just as the referee’s hand came down for the three. Backlund was disappointed at having the match end that way but the result stood. Antonio Inoki defeats Roland Bock by DQ in a rounds match. Some decent enough ring work and technical skills but I wasn’t really into this.

Sam Munchnick the legendary NWA Promoter had his final show on the 1st of January 1982 from the Checkerdome in St Louis. We have three minutes of footage as David Von Erich teamed with Rufus R Jones against Harley Race and Greg Valentine. The focus of the match was the rivalry between Von Erich and Race as they battled to a double DQ with both stopping referees from getting between them. Enjoyable bit of footage. Dick the Bruiser defeats Ken Patera as Patera manages to make himself look like a complete geek by hitting himself with a chair allowing The Bruiser to get the pin.

Ric Flair puts his NWA Heavyweight Championship on the line against the American Dream Dusty Rhodes. We have about 20 minutes of this match which was a three falls match that features all three of those falls. Dusty at this stage was still young enough to go and Flair was just about to enter his prime so we get a high quality match with some really good work. Would have been nice to see the full match but what we had was memorable.