Andrew Lutzke
Hector Guerrero vs. Jose Lothario (Mexican Death match)
We see a promo from Chavo before the match. He is very humble, calling promoter Paul Boesch “Mr. Boesch”. Guerrero even presents him with some Mexican food from his mother’s kitchen.
We are joined in progress with Hector bloody and 3 falls having already occurred. Hector chucks Lothario to the floor, where he smashes Jose in the railing and then scores a fall. When Lothario gets up, Hector hits several suplexes and scores another fall. Jose is already fat and old here, so some of his bumps look less than stellar. The wrestlers collide and the ref counts them down. Both men stay down for the full 10-count. This means the first man to get back to his feet will be declared the winner. The crowd gives a big reaction to two men slowly crawling to their knees, a testament to the genuine interest they have in this feud.
Both men strike one another from their knees and fall over again. The ref takes a bump during this. With the ref down, Lothario gets to his feet. Chavo knocks him down. This allows Hector to get to his feet and steal the win after a bit more than 6-minutes were shown.
Chavo and Boesch get into it at the interview podium after the match. Boesch is hot over the flagrant cheating. Chavo calls Lothario a “half breed” as Hector stands there bleeding all over the place. This was an enjoyable fight, as I am a sucker for crowd heat, hate filled brawling and blood!
“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan vs. Hercules (Hair vs. Hair)
This is joined in progress with the men brawling on the floor. Duggan posts Hercules into the steel and then the railing. Hercules comes up bleeding. Duggan attacks the bloody wound. Duggan tosses Hercules in the ring. Hercules is smashed with a flying spear. Special ref Dr. Death counts 1…2….and attacks Duggan! Hercules snags the pin after that. A slew of babyfaces rush down to save Duggan and Jim Cornette ends up being tackled by Hacksaw. They hold Cornette on a chair as Duggan tries to shave his head with a scissors and electric razor,
The electric razor fails to work for whatever reason and the guys find a straight razor in the locker room and began to carve the hair off of Corny with that instead. No shaving cream, just tearing away at his scalp. OUCH. This goes on for several minutes without much of a dent being put in Corny’s hairline. They finally find some shaving cream, and start to use a disposable razor on him. This goes on and on and on and they barely cut any hair off. Jim finally runs away. The crowd was hot for this, but the hair cutting debacle dragged.
Magnum TA and Master G (George Wells) vs. Ernie Ladd and Butch Reed (Ghetto street fight) (11/4/1984)
The men all brawl right away. Everyone is in shirts and pants. Ladd is pretty much in dress clothes, which is funny when compared to the rest of the warriors, who look ready to go work on a ranch. The heels are disposed of and forced to regroup quickly. TA is only a few weeks away from his JCP debut here, so it’ll be interesting to see how strong he is booked. Wells is only a few weeks away from being in the WWF, but I doubt that was known by Watts given Vince McMahon’s habit of snagging talent without notice during this time frame.
The ref tries to enforce rope breaks, which seems funny in a match that is designed to be a brawl. Wells and TA deliver strikes to Reed and then Wells sends both heels to the floor with dropkicks. Wells rocks both men when the action resumes, as G is supposed to be the new black Superman with JYD gone. TA and Wells clear the ring once again.
The heels finally use some cheap shots to get TA down. Reed dumps him to the floor and Ladd utilizes his loaded thumb gimmick to hurt TA further. A shot into the railing sees TA rise to his feet with a mask of blood draining down his face. Ladd takes to whipping him with a belt, which Reed then uses to choke TA with, before cracking the belt buckle into his face.
Both heels continue to choke and batter TA before Reed lands on Magnum’s knees, giving the crowd hysterics as Wells is tagged back in. Master G takes it to both heels and the fight goes to ringside. TA gets back in to help, but he’s still hurting and quickly falls to the ground. Ladd pries TA’s cowboy boot off and cracks Wells with it, giving Reed the academic pin at the 16-minute mark. Both babyfaces are left in a heap on the canvas.
This was a hard hitting affair in which you could see Watts was protecting Wells by keeping him out of the action for much of the match and when he was in he did simple things. TA did some excellent selling on his end, showing no fear in looking weak.
Brickhouse Brown, Bill Dundee and Jose Lothario vs. Chavo and Hector Guerrero and Buddy Landel (Elimination rules) (11/16/1984)
Old man Lothario drops all 3 heels with punches as Joel Watts puts over his boxing past on commentary. Diminutive Dundee comes in and sends Hector flying from a punch as well. Hector does his best to “lie, cheat and steal” as he plays nice with Lothario, asking for a handshake, then dropping to his knees and begging for friendship. This allows Chavo to come in for a cheap shot.
Lothario fights his way into his partner’s corner and Dundee tags in. Dundee sends both Guerreros halfway to the moon with back body drops. Dundee then drops Landell with a shot. Brickhouse Brown sends all 3 heels flying about with arm drags before taking a moment to dance. Dundee and Lothario then run in without tagging as they mess with the heels. The Guerreros do some masterful stooging as Hector tries to do a run in but Lothario backdrops him while still clinging onto Chavo in a full nelson. Jose then slingshots the brothers into each other and they flop wildly. Hector stumbles over to Dundee and flips over the top rope after eating a punch. Landell tries to end this series of unfortunate happening by flying towards the faces, but he nails Chavo instead. A really fun sequence of moves there.
A commercial break misses the heels comeback and Brown is pinned soon after the cameras resume at around 9-minutes shown. Dundee takes the intintive with his team down a man as he starts blasting the heels with strikes. Lothario does his part by delivering back to back to back backbreakers to all 3 heels. Watts explains that Lothario was long time friends with the Guerreros until Hector squirted hot sauce in his eyes. Had it been lemon juice, this would have sold out the Superdome!
Hector and Dundee botch a piledriver attempt, but Hector saves it by falling sideways and trapping Dundee in a head scissors. This leads to another commercial break.
The ring announcer declares the 15-minute mark has passed, which indicates that only 2 minutes were missed by the commercial breaks. Dundee downs Landel with a forearm for the pin almost as soon as we get back. Landel cheap shots Dundee after that and is quickly pinned. This leaves Lothario down 2 on 1. Lothario asks the ref to step to the ring apron and challenges Hector to get it on. Chavo comes in too, because heels are cowards.
The numbers game prevents Lothario from being able to score a pin as the heels keep breaking up his covers. The crowd gets behind Jose loudly. Chavo tries to use a foreign object, but gets caught and DQ’d. The ref gets bumped and Jose is cracked with Chavo’s weapon, allowing Hector to score the pin after 19-minutes of action were shown.
Lothario had every fan in the place cheering for him, which is an impressive feat given that he no longer looked the part of someone who could stomp you if necessary. The fact that booker Bill Dundee had the guys overselling for him so dramatically was funny and sad all at once. The Guerreros put on a master class of cheating.
Rock and Roll Express vs. Bobby Eaton and Dennis Condrey (Scaffold match) (12/2/1984)
The scaffold appears to be around 18-20 feet high. The heels stall as they don’t want to die. One of the support beams is shaking wildly once the Midnights climb up and I have to assume this whole structure is one bump away from collapsing.
Robert Gibson lunges at the heels in a game of chicken, and they retreat to their side of the scaffold. Eaton is totally playing up his fear, clinging to the rails as Condrey and Gibson square off. Morton sneaks between their legs and sneak attacks Eaton. The men quickly find excuses to lay on the steel (wood?) in order not to accidentally die.
Gibson goes for a wild punch that misses as he spins fully around in a spot that would be mundane 20 feet below, but up in the skies become frightening. Eaton scoops Morton up but slams him on the steel instead of off the edge. The ladies in the audience squealed for that spot.
Gibson acts dazed and takes several falls that freak the fans out. Both members of the Rock and Roll Express turn up bloody as the heels grind and slam them into the girders. Eaton tries a piledriver, which Morton reverses. Eaton is too smart to take a flat back bump where he can’t control his landing, and manages to flop face first off the back drop. Eaton and Gibson end up hanging under the scaffold, which allows Eaton to fall from only a hair higher than he would have had he been on the top rope. Condrey is forced underneath and takes a similar fall to give Morton and Gibson the win after about 9-minutes. This was about as good as a scaffold match can be when 4 great workers are forced to take their bumping prowess down to the level of a Kevin Nash.
More to come….
