Memphis Wrestling
Rants

The SmarK Rant for Memphis Wrestling – 01.25.86

By Scott Keith on 20th June 2023

The SmarK Rant for Memphis Wrestling – 01.25.86

Taped from Memphis, TN

Your hosts are Dave Brown & Lance Russell. I love how they always hype up the show as a good one filled with good matches. Always a nice touch from them.

Larry Hamilton v. The Invader

Larry doesn’t ring any bells with me. Lance slips up and calls the Invader “Jim Jamison” multiple times, giving away his mysterious identity. Hamilton gets a dropkick and works the arm on the mat. According to Lance, Hamilton was a tag team partner of Pez Whatley in Florida and they act like he’s a pushed guy, but he only had a few matches and disappeared from the business for the most part. Hamilton finishes with a belly to belly at 3:00 and this was nothing.

Meanwhile, Lance hypes up the Evansville card coming up this week and he’s got some good ones on tap. Apparently Bill Dundee survived the loser leaves town match with Steve Keirn last week and he did not leave town. And this week, we’ve got the Fantastics v. Sheeperherders in yet another loser leaves town match. Apparently people leave town a lot in Memphis.

The Fantastics v. Pat Rose & Tony Falk

Falk is pretty sure that he’s studied enough film to beat the Fantastics this week and he will soon win his first match on TV. Well goal-setting is important. Rose goes for a takedown on Rogers and Tommy outwrestles him on the mat. So Rose slugs him down and goes to the top, but then he changes his mind and slugs Rogers down instead. Back to the top, but this time Rogers slams him off and Fulton comes in and works the arm. They switch off and work the arm on Rose, and then Falk comes in and they control him with the same. Falk blocks a rollup, but makes the mistake of pointing to his head to indicate intelligence, and Fulton dropkicks him and works the arm again. If ANYONE should not be pointing to his head to indicate intelligence, it’s Tony Falk. No wonder he hasn’t won a match yet. Falk slugs on Rogers in the corner, but Tommy reverses him to a monkey flip. So Pat Rose comes in and slams Rogers, following with a fistdrop for two. Falk with a neckbreaker for two and he can just smell that first TV win, but he lets Rose comes in again and he hits a delayed suplex on Fulton, so delayed they should call it the Memphis TV rights, and that gets two. Fulton fights back on Falk and makes the hot tag to Rogers and it’s BREAKING LOOSE IN TULSA. They all slug it out and Rogers goes up with a flying splash on Falk to finish at 7:55. Another quality tag team TV match that could have been a quick squash but was more fun and had the Falk storyline running as well.

Afterwards, the Fantastics join Lance to continue their ring rat dating service masquerading as a fan contest, and Buddy Landel quickly interrupts and once again derides the general quality of the women in the area, because they’re all so desperate for action. So he asks Lance for an update on the contest, and Lance reveals that there’s currently 102 entries and 100 are for the Fantastics and only 2 are for him. So Buddy assumes that last week Lance didn’t read the address correctly and demands that it be put up on the screen again, and read properly this time. The Fantastics laugh off his “sixty minute man” boasts, but the Sheepherders storm the interview and Jonathan Boyd busts Bobby Fulton’s pretty face open with a chair and asks who would want to date them now?

Meanwhile, Lance again runs down all the great action coming to Evansville, like the barbed wire match Koko’s having with Bill Dundee for the Southern title in the main event.

Buddy Landel & Dutch Mantel v. Billy Travis & David Haskins

Dutch works the arm on Travis to start, and Buddy comes in with a headlock. Over to Haskins, and Buddy beats on him with forearms, but Dutch misses a blind charge. So Budro comes in and slugs Travis down before hitting him with a hiptoss out of the corner, and Dutch elbows Travis down for two. Travis fights back, so Buddy takes him down with a chinlock on the mat and cuts a promo to the camera while he’s there. Back to Dutch, and he beats on Travis before Buddy takes him down again with another chinlock while reminding us how great he is. Dutch with a powerslam for two. Travis catches Dutch with his head down and makes the hot tag to Haskins, and he gets WALLOPED on a charge and finished by Budro with the corkscrew elbow and figure-four in 5:56. Another solid squash.

Dirty Rhodes v. Keith Eric

Dirty gets a slam and beats Eric down with a cybernetically-enhanced elbow and works the arm. Another pair of elbows finishes at 1:50. When you’re Dusty Rhodes but without the wrestling ability or charisma, there’s not much left.

Meanwhile, Rick Casey is coming for the International title in a taped fists match against Dutch Mantel in Evansville! What the heck is the International title? Man you thought AEW has a lot of midcard titles that you can’t track of, they’re got nothing on Memphis.

Meanwhile, we get a video recap of Superstar Dundee’s year, and we learn that he is indeed Bad To the Bone.

Southern heavyweight title: Superstar Bill Dundee v. Tracy Smothers

So the AWA Southern title is the main title in Memphis, but the AWA International title is beneath it in the midcard? HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? Tracy tries for a takedown and can’t get it, so Dundee takes him down and goes after the leg for a bit. Tracy with a headscissors on the mat, but Dundee escapes quickly and demands to hear how great he is for doing so. “How much mustard does it take to cover up that hot dog?” wonders Lance. Dundee bails and thinks it over before coming back in with a back elbow and a slam for two. Smothers fights up, so Bill tosses him and then necksnaps him on the ropes to keep him on the floor. Back in, Bill slugs him down for two and puts the boots to him, but Tracy fights back again and whips Dundee into the corner to send him to the floor. Back in, Dundee jaws with the front row before grabbing a headlock and smacking him with a chop. And it’s back to the floor again for more spirited debate with fans. Some guy even shakes a baby at him! Careful, those things can be dangerous. Back in the ring, Tracy makes another comeback, but Bill has had enough and pulls out the chain behind the ref’s back, knocking him out at 8:31 to retain. He should have grabbed that guy’s baby and used it as a foreign object. Fun fact: The baby grew up to be HHH. Look it up.

Keep your Monday Night Raw, this is all I need on Monday nights.