Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 88: Dick Slater vs. Butch Reed (No DQ) (12/13/85)

We know the issue. Slater is on the mic (voice like a gravel swallower) before this North American title match. I guess he still didn’t get his $50,000 bounty from Flair because he couldn’t take out Reed in their last match. Slater is willing to send manager Dark Journey to the back to prove he can beat the champ by himself. My guess is we’ll see her again.

Tommy Gilbert is the ref. Not sure where this is from but we have two new announcers. Wait, we are in Houston.

Reed is pumped from the beginning. I still have trouble getting into the character. Reed’s exaggerated punches would be at home in the WWF of the time. Slater sells sort of cartoony, especially face first for a punch. Nothing horrible, just not my style of work.

Great. More front face lock fun from Reed. They promo Jerry Lawler on a Houston card two days after Christmas. Reed beats Slater on the outside. He threw him over the top and into the steel barricade. Both would have been DQ in normal match, and they do put that over. Suplex back in and a neck breaker from the champ. Crowd quiet and nothing much to react to in terms of the flow.

Five minutes in. Slater, the heel, uses his boots to temporarily blind Reed. But before I can get into the heel heat the CLIP THE MATCH. Same place as last time: right where we start the heel heat. That had to be a few minutes if this was any good. We come back and the crowd is a bit hotter, as Reed is in control and pile drives Slater. He tries for another and Slater blocks it. Now he’s fine, going for the Figure Four. Wasn’t he just pile driven in 1985? When Reed stops him with a bunch Slater does the dead weight fall for a bump, which I really like but I’m realizing his how he “dramatically” sells everything. Unfortunately not protecting it makes it cartoonish to me.

The bump each other off a slow shoulder block, and not Reed’s diving finisher type body block. Dark Journey is outside with Slater now. She may have given him an object, but who knows. He’s back in and he just sells punches and a press slam. If she gave him anything he sucks as a bad guy. BTW, I figured about 6-8 minutes were clipped from listening to the time announcements.

Another shoulder block and the slow moving Slater gets him foot on the rope during a pin. They do a punch where Reed and Slater fall all over each other. This is amateur hour. So much worse than their other match a month before.

Okay, the do a ref bump when Reed presses Slater off after a two count. Slater just drops an elbow on Gilbert (No DQ) once he’s down. He pulls out the knux, though I’m not sure why he had to hide them or wait till the ref was down. Knux shots till the pin. Karl Fergie is in to count it (since wrestlers just pin guys without a ref to count making them look silly even in the context of wrestling). Fergie counts two but Tommy Young manages to stop him. Great, I already hate Gilbert as a ref and now they manage to screw up this contrived count with over thinking of the spot.

Clumsy confusion and I’m hoping this ends somehow with intrigue. Karl Fergie pulls Reed to the ringside floor. Gilbert is still woozy. Slater and Dark Journey in the ring irate. Fans aren’t even that hot. Grizzley Smith comes out to talk to the refs. Reed apparently left ringside off camera. Grizzley has the N.A. Title and gets on mic to say Butch Reed is still the champion. That’s it.

Fuck this match. I can’t believe this was on the set, or that I now have something to compare with the scaffold match. So below what this set has set as the standard. 1 star and 2/10.

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