Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 139: The Fantastics & Dr. Death vs. The Fabulous Freebirds (1/18/87)

Apparently storyline-wise Terry Gordy is to blame for all of this. Gordy attacked the Fantastics recently, and we know he’s had a longstanding feud with Death – Dr. Death Steve Williams. This allows Hayes and Roberts of the Freebirds to slide into a feud with the Fantastics.

Early it’s the Doc and Gordy show. Doc shows fire fighting all the Freebirds, while Gordy is determined but ends up bumping a lot. I take issue with the way a big guy like Gordy bumped so much just because he could, but as fellow CHRON contributor Gene Boyer has pointed out, the difference between All Japan Gordy and Mid South Gordy is sometimes the style of the territory. True, I think it’s a weakness of Mid South in some cases that may have been one of the few layout ideas I think WWF did better.

The babyfaces all hit their big moves, but Gordy avoids trouble enough to help the heels to momentary advantages. The heels definitely stooge (as the kids are saying these days) for Dr. Death and the Fans. Buddy Roberts plays the head stooge well. Michael Hayes is then in to play clever, but then stogy. And we come full circle back to Gordy. Those were good segments.

They go to commercial and upon return we find out the Freebirds have the advantage on Bobby Fulton. It’s MNX level smooth and gets the fans all kinds of riled up. A lot of fun but nothing to write home about. Doc gets a hot tag and goes crazy being fed bumping heels. It’s Mid South, so it breaks down two seconds into the hot tag, all six men in, and they steal another RNR-MNX old tune: a finish. Accept they don’t use it as a finish. A roll up by Tommy Rogers gets ended hard by a Hayes clothesline.

It ends up going back to a Doc-Buddy Roberts legal man situation, but that goes nowhere once the Angel of Death ends up interfering again. The babyface semi-main event locker room empties and it’s a DQ finish. Decent but worthless match. Don’t watch this unless you’ve never even seen these men. 2 ½ and 4/10.

Match Discussion Here