The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 12.18.82

The SmarK Rant for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling – 12.18.82

Daryl is having a rough time of it again, so let’s head back to the Carolinas to hopefully cheer him up a bit.

Taped from Charlotte, NC

Your host is Bob Caudle

Sweet Brown Sugar joins Bob to start, with footage of a contract signing between himself and Dory Funk Jr, as Dory is continuing his $100,000 challenge stipulation. But it turns out that the time limit has been extended, and Ernie Shavers has been appointed as a special referee. This upsets Dory for some reason that you probably needed to be around in 1982 to understand, and he attacks Sugar and slams him on the concrete. Back at the studio, Sugar explains that he hasn’t been beaten like that since his daddy laid a whoopin’ on him, and Dory doesn’t look like his daddy! Well that’s an understatement.

Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle v. Mike Davis & Abe Jacobs

The match is immediately interrupted as Steamboat & Youngblood hit the ring for a wild brawl all over the studio and we go to a break with the champions running away. Back with the jobbers working on Kernodle, but Sarge comes in to save his partner, so Jacobs takes him down with an armbar. Davis and Jacobs work on the arm, and then Davis takes Kernodle down again as the champs are pretty shook by the earlier attack. They continue double-teaming the arm, but Slaughter comes in and puts the boots to Davis and then does the awesome double-team move where he puts Kernodle on his shoulders and drops a knee with the extra weight. Someone should totally steal that one. Kernodle with a running powerslam on Davis and they finish with the ATOMIC BOMB at 4:42. And then Steamboat and Youngblood attack AGAIN and everyone brawls back to the dressing room! What am I watching here, Memphis?

Cowboy Bob Orton & Jimmy Valiant v. Ricky Harris & Jim Dalton

Obviously the run of Hangman Ricky Harris in Mid-South didn’t end up being a long-term one if he’s back here. The babyfaces double-team Harris in the corner and Orton gets a back elbow and drops a knee on him to set up a piledriver to finish at 1:45.

Bob discusses things with Orton afterwards, and Jimmy’s dancing is so infectious that he just wants to get into the ring and dance! He doesn’t, obviously. They also discuss Ernie Shavers and it turns out that he’s a purveyor of pugilism. A quick check of Wikipedia shows that he was a pretty big deal in the 70s, although he never won the World title.

Oliver Humperdink introduces his newest charge, the One Man Gang.

One Man Gang v. Keith Larsen

Keith tries a slam and gets nowhere, and Gang powerslams him for the pin at 0:45.

Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood chat with Bob Caudle after Jay made his return tonight, and they cost him a lot of money and took a lot of food from his table. Hey, that was a pretty decent promo from Youngblood for once! Steamboat points out that they’re right here and calling out the champions and they’re nowhere to be found because they’re SCARED LIKE CHICKENS.

Dory Funk Jr. v. Ron Ritchie

Funk evades some takedowns and beats on Ron with forearms in the corner, and a small package gets two. Ron bridges out, but Dory hits him with more forearms and a suplex out of the corner for two. Funk gives him a clean break on the ropes, but then reverses a headlock into a backdrop suplex for two. Dory works the arm on the mat, but Ron slugs away in the corner to escape and whips Dory into the corner. Blind charge misses and Dory beats on him with more forearms and a delayed suplex that gets two. Ron comes back with a sunset flip for two and makes another comeback, but Dory drops an elbow on him for two. He works on a cradle, but Ron reverses to his own for two, so Dory hits him with more forearms on the ropes and then clips Ritchie in mid-air to block a leapfrog. And with Ron selling the knee on the mat, Funk finishes with the spinning toe-hold at 7:15. Pretty good TV match!

Dory Funk joins Bob and warns Ernie Shavers to keep his hands off during the matches if he’s gonna be refereeing. Also Dory is pretty sure that there’s a conspiracy to get him out of the area because he’s bigger than Mid-Atlantic and Ric Flair is ducking him. Then we take a break and return with another promo from Funk, which seems to be an alternate version of the first one aimed at the Florida market specifically. In this one he challenges Dusty Rhodes and Mike Graham and promises to take a trip down to Florida to get them to accept his $100,000 challenge.

Mike Rotundo v. Ken Timbs

This was supposed to be Bad Bad Leroy Brown in the final challenge by Rotundo, but he has apparently declined the match and so we get Timbs instead. Mike has been trained by Jimmy Valiant and Bob Orton and they’re on commentary for this one, pointing out Mike’s sweet new hat which shows his new attitude. Rotundo controls with a dropkick and works the arm, but then he gets aggressive and tosses Timbs to the floor, where Jimmy throws him back in and Rotundo hits a legdrop for two. Elbow misses and Timbs drops some knees on Rotundo to get his first offense, but Mike runs him into the turnbuckles. Timbs rakes the eyes, so Mike does the same thing back and then chokes him out on the ropes before hitting an atomic drop for two. Timbs fights back, but Rotundo dropkicks him and follows with a backbreaker for two. Mike with a headscissors on the mat and Valiant wants to see the airplane spin. So Mike beats on Timbs in the corner and adds a suplex for two, before finishing with the airplane spin at 7:27. “Let’s go to the bar and get some beer, brother!” notes Valiant. I’m assuming “bar” is code for the street corner and “beer” is code for cocaine.

Sgt. Slaughter & Don Kernodle join us and Bob points out that they literally ran away from their challengers earlier, but Kernodle denies everything. So Slaughter talks about how they came close to ending Youngblood’s life but they held off, and now they’ve got One Man Gang helping out to watch their backs as well. And we wrap it up there for the week.

Kind of weird how they promoted the Rotundo v. Brown match and then just switched it out like that. Anyway they do have their final blowoff on Christmas night and Rotundo beats him for the TV title there, so the story has a happy ending at least.

Next time, we wrap up 1982!