Dutch Mantell, a favorite from Memphis, comes in as a heel to take on the Gentleman, perhaps the most consistent performer from Dallas in the 1980s.

Adams frustrates the debuting Dirty Dutch in the early lock ups. Dutch offers his hand, but Adams is too smart for that. He goes to his bread and butter rest hold—the headlock. There’s a flub, a miscommunication, and Adams drops down into an armbar. That looked funny. Dutch closeline Adams over the top rope, then takes Adams apart to the boos of the crowd. Mantell taking Adams apart is impressive stuff. His control is good, though Adams is no Eric Embry at gaining huge crowd sympathy. This is solid stuff, but I don’t feel a spark from the match.

Adams has a few hope spots, Dutch relying on a sleeper to stem the tide. Slugfest leads to an Adams closeline, then a near fall. Adams gets sent to the floor. They are working hard, I’ll give them that. Adams gets his retribution by delivering a big chairshot to the Dutchman on the floor. Why isn’t that a DQ, especially because he crawls back into the ring and wins because Dutch is counted out. Adams wins in eleven minutes.

Well, they did work hard in the match, and Mantell’s control segment was solid, but there was no spark to this match. It felt like it was just there, and maybe it’s because I’ve seen a lot of charismatic Embry in this era and Adams just doesn’t do it for me the same way. I also hated the finish because Adams wasn’t DQed for the chairshot, yet that’s what led to the cheap countout victory. An underwhelming match. 2 ¾ stars and 5.5/10

Jokes aside, the goofy Freddy stuff is both embarrassing and surprisingly okay. Tommy Gilbert under the mask throws great punches and walks the line between goofy and good work. I can not believe he was a babyface though.

A lot of the focus of this drawn out match is the crowd heat on manager Ronnie Gossett, and everyone waiting for him to get in the ring to get beaten up. They milk that one forever, and they milk most of the match w/ pauses and heels stooging. A good time but I got bored because I personally don’t care about Gossett. That probably unfair, but it’s my journey/ballot through 80s Memphis, and this story didn’t quite capture me.

Ending is just everyone brawling and I unfortunately could not figure out who won or lost. 2 ¼ and 4/10.

Memphis has gotten a little low rent at this point. The studio show has a banner on the ring apron for a local car dealership. I always liked the small town feel of Memphis, but the local corporate sponsorship just has me bummed. Oh well, let’s just talk about the wrestling.

Mantell makes Jarrett look like a million bucks in the early going. He’s bumping and feeding him, powdering out and everything. Jeff Jarrett is a perfect young plucky babyface by this point, and he’s absolutely improved from just a year before.

Mantell gets the heat on him and Jarrett draws the right kind of sympathy. Dutch hits him with the best short arm clothesline I’ve seen in forever. Everything is decent, but I don’t want to make it sound like this is Mid South Coliseum material. It’s above average TV show work.

Good near falls with the story that Jarrett just won’t stay down. Dutch starts cheating because he can’t win. He’s good at showing frustration. I’m very sad that these two are 2/3 of the TNA creative team and they can actually have a very good match. What happened?

There’s a ref bump. Jarrett gets a visual pin, but then Mantell kills him for it. Jarrett starts selling the knee, but it’s a trick. Fun DQ ending where Mantell tries to use the bull whip and Jarrett ends up nailing him with a chair. Good solid stuff at under 8 minutes. 2 ¾ and 6/10.

Wrestling is performance art at its core. This takes that to another level as they perform thing match on a stage with a symphony orchestra in front of a crowd. The wrestling is decent to solid. Nothing to fancy. The fundamentals are there, as is the struggle, and these two know their stuff. A big disappointment for me was that while the setting has its limits, it also has a chance to be profound in this bizarre bubble. I mean, if the music had been worked out to fit the scripting of the match this would have had a heightened sense of drama. As it came out they probably kayfabed the conductor, and the music doesn’t match up. It’s as experimental as the match. As an artsy geek at heart, I have to give this a match better than average rating for how ballsy the experiment was. I just wish the experiment had had better results. 3 and 6.2/10.

This was a clever little match. Not great, but decent, and definitely worth inclusion on this set. These two are master workers for their style, and they know how to play to a Memphis crowd.

First ten minutes are pretty similar to a Dick Murdoch vs The Nightmare match from the Mid South set. Lawler wants to punch Mantell for slaps/punches off a rope break, but the ref keeps stopping him. He keeps building up for it and taking shots. Finally he hits one of those classic punches and it’s sold accordingly. Pretty fitting considering Murdoch and Lawler have two of the best punches in wrestling history.

The reason I enjoyed this more then I probably would have is Mantell makes the ref check Lawler for chains/fire twice before the match, only to pull out a chain at the end. That’s not the great part though. The great part is Lawler pulling his own chain out of Mantell, and this time the ref stops Mantell from throwing the shot and misses the Lawler rule breaking. That’s the finish as Lawler pins him after the chain shot. The only minuses are Lawler’s come back coming way to soon and out of nowhere, and the first ten minutes lent itself to a 30 minute match, but they went slow build to finish at 15 minutes. Oh well, you can’t get everything. 3 ¼ and 6.5/10.

This was one of those really well built up matches that had months of angles and development behind it. We get a few of these with every ballot. The footage is there to show the build up in the extras, and that will increase the enjoyment and therefore theoretically my score. I’m thankful for the ability to see all of this, but I’m aware these matches have an unfair advantage. Enough disclaiming. On with the background.

After Dundee beat Lawler in the Loser Leaves town match, the most Lawler you see are videos he sends in every few weeks to update the fans on what he’s doing in other territories. He wishes he could be back in Memphis. In the meantime, Dundee has his own all star faction to back him up. Buddy Landell is around to dress the team up, and Dirty Dutch Mantell is something of an enforcer type.

They run all over Memphis and the replacement babyfaces with Lawler gone, until Landell costs Mantell a match. Landell doesn’t like “the redneck” anyway, and he convinces Dundee that Mantell is “cramping our style”. They turn on the Dutchman and bloody him up.

Lawler is asked to come back from his six month exile early by promoter Eddy Marlin after Dundee roughs up announcer Lance Russell. They get Lawler on the phone and Dutch gets together with him. Dutch also gives a great promo from home with Marlin talking about his babyface turn.

Somewhere in there Dundee and Landell attack a young Jeff Jarrett, who is learning through refereeing, and then they go after Jerry Jarrett’s one good eye. How EVIL!

Finally, Dundee and Landell bring their own desk to the studio and steal the show. The Bill and Buddy Show commentate on matches and run the show ten years prior to the NOW doing it. Lawler and Mantell attack them and they have a huge pull apart brawl leading up to this match.

I love the way this match starts. They pair off Mantell going after Buddy Landell and Lawler with Dundee. Those are the issues so that makes sense. Good detail. Dundee stalls and gets frustrated, knowing what is coming. He goes after Lance Russell at ringside, then slides back in the ring and goes after Ref Calhoun. He does anything to not go after Lawler, knowing he’s out gunned. So when they settle it down to start the actual match, it’s Landell that is forced to start with Lawler.

Both Dundee and Landell stooge like crazy for Lawler and Mantell. Lawler teases the pile driver while they totally dismantle Landell. Landell cheats to get ahead. Hoping they go back to the pile driver late. It’s Memphis – they will.

Dundee finally in with Lawler. He gets beat inside and out. The heels once again take short cuts to control. Pretty appropriate wrestle-to-war and back scenario. Lawler then sells a table head shot and choking. Lawler bleeds. Dundee is bloody too. Dundee pulls out a chain, but Lawler ducks and Landell eats it. Everyone must bleed. Crowd going nuts as Lawler hulks up. All four in the ring fighting. Nope – Dutch takes Dundee out into the crowd and back. Seems like they don’t know how to end this. The heels bounce around a bit more. I love Dundee eating Lawler’s shots and getting tossed out of the ring a bunch. Fans boo the finish as Landell can’t continue in 12 minutes. A LOT of police at ringside to control the crowd on this night. A very good tag that mixed hardcore with good tag wrestling well. Great feud match. 3 ¾ and 7.5/10.

Match Discussion Here

Mantell takes advantage of a Gilbert miss, and Gilbert bounces around hard for the guy. Great stiff action. Hart interferes and Eddie Gilbert gets the pin with his feet on the ropes. Controversy reigns supreme. Paul Morton restarts the match. Dutch rolls a distraught Gilbert up for the quick 1-2-3 win.
He retains his International title. Gilbert DDTs him and beats him with his own belt. Had I seen the first five minutes this might have gotten even more love. 3 ¼ and 6.5/10.

Match Discussion Here

It finished like it began, with a crazy brawl that ref Calhoun struggled to contain. In between we saw some hit and miss offense, good at times, awkward at others. The Fabs were great throughout the match, even if Lane made we cringe by doing an amateurish splash from 5 feet away and the bottom rope. Overall this was middle to lower in the pack.

The Fabs were the highlight, while Street was a disappointment in selling and offense. Luke of the Bushwackers worked hard, while Jesse Barr and Steve O really didn’t factor in. Some of the lesser players brawled into the aisle while this was going on, which made the match better by “clearing out the lane” so to speak.

First half after the brawling had the Fab-led babyface team in control. A lot of work on the leg of their opponents and some decent comedy. The good thing about this period is when guybs screw up moves or look bad, the fans don’t cat call. They’re often wrapped up in suspension of disbelief, which never hinders a match.

Heels take over and do a lot of double teaming and ref distraction. It’s pretty decent, but often dull to me at this point. None of it sticks out. Steve Keirn sold fine and played his part. Finish came as everyone was in the ring. I think Lane got the pin, but I don’t remember for sure. That pretty much says it all. 2 ½ and 5/10.

Match Discussion Here

A super face team of Memphis, plus Terry Taylor, takes on the first family, plus (not that) Sabu. Sabu looks like one of the Wild Samoans.

Eaton and Brown Sugar look king-sized early working on Dundee. A lot of quick tags from the heels in and out, which to me adds points in this match’s favor. I’m a fan of fast flowing teams from the 80s tags.

Eaton throws some really hard, reckless looking body slams. I’ve never noticed that before, but I’ve also never heard him called sloppy, so I assume they just look good.

I go back and forth on whether I like these semi-out of control 8 man tags. They move well, but a lot of time it’s tough to keep up with what’s going on. I start to feel a malaise at times from them, but then someone punches up the story again and it reclaims me. This is on the positive side for the most part. Too much talent in there not to be good.

Lawler has to put the strap down quick after getting tagged in. That’s how fast we’re rolling here. Sometimes these guys just no sell blows. Lawler rolls up McGraw for the first fall win. They get it under control during commercial and the same men start out the second fall.

It’s fun to see Lawler working with Eaton in there. Sabu selling of an atomic drop was pretty damn great. Ref Callhoun is doing a pretty good job of exerting his authority in an authentic manner without being a problem to the viewer. I love him pushing Eaton’s one leg out of the ring because he wasn’t the legal man. Lawler takes a big bump off the turnbuckle when he loses control.

Sabu and Terry Taylor seem to be the weak links in there, but they aren’t horrible by any means, just less good.

Dundee and Sugar go hard at the end, which looks good, but Sugar kicks out of the finish to soon. The call it a pin anyway. I’m conflicted on whether this match won me over or if I’m a slave to my tendency to dislike studio filler matches. 3 ¼ and 6/10.

Match Discussion Here