Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 115: The Fantastics & Terry Taylor vs. The Sheepherders & Jack Victory (5/9/86)

Another bullshit nationalistic angle. Bobby Fulton leads the crowd in the pledge of allegiance. I know some people like nationalism in their own lives, but I don’t, and certainly makes my skin crawl in wrestling. Nationalism in wrestling tends to promote fear, phobic behavior, and separates people. It’s divisive. Not a fan, and I can’t see these wrestlers putting together a great match since I see all as average with Taylor the possible exception. Uphill battle, here we come.

A lot of stalling early, but it’s perfectly acceptable “good stalling” in that the heels are milking the USA chants. These fans brought flags, and one prominent one across from the hard cam is backwards. Congrats.

The Sheepherders were the Bushwackers of my childhood, but I’ve always been told they were a lot better pre-WWF comedy run. They are more in shape and serious as wrestlers here, but nothing blow away. I just think they were more capable of having a decent mid card feud and being in more violent matches than in the 1990s. Here they just bump around for the faces quite a bit, but not even the bumps look that fluid.

Jack Victory looks and works like a poor man’s Tommy Rich, but I like him more than Rich. Both ended up broken down and collecting a paycheck as part of comedy entourages in Paul Heyman’s ECW. I think I’m more impressed with Victory here because it seems at one time he could go to some degree.

The match layout is a familiar one, just more active because it’s three-on-three. The active part I like, but the work itself is slow, lacks passion/presence, and isn’t at the skill level of much of these disks. We go through the different match ups one by one with babyfaces always getting the advantage, including tag team moves. We get the heels regrouping two or three times. We get the cheat to ge the heel advantage and the beating on the outside to get the babyface bleeding and selling. Back in the ring what it adds up to at the halfway mark is regular stuff done average and color to add the drama.

I’m convinced this match was added to the set for two reasons: the blood is heavy and the fans are hot for the xenophobic angle. I’ll add to that that Bobby Fulton’s selling and hope spots while selling are better than any of the other performances in the match, but the blood acts like a highlighted sentence is a 400 page book. It catches your eye in an otherwise non-descript page.

Special credit in this match goes to Jim Ross, who completely gets the match meaning more as the heel heat rolls on.

Towards the end another positive was the crazy brawl that breaks out. It eventually leads to a no contest, but Fulton and Victory were intense in this period.

I can see where the atmosphere overall led to some sort of respect for the match. For it’s time this was as hardcore as you get below Brody, Abdullah, and Funk. For that, and the fact it got better and was unique, I’ve got to give it credit. But to act like this was something special to me or that it elevated hardcore would be false on my part. Better than expected. 2 ¾ and 6/10.

Match Discussion Here