So I’ve mostly just been watching the main product on the Raw before a PPV, then the PPV itself. I’ve been watching some NXT, even some ROH now and then, but something I’ve really found interesting is the huge library of old matches you get with your WWE Network Subscription, I think it may actually be the most valuable part of the subscription at this point.
So something I thought I’d do is make a post every so often about what classic match I’ve watched from the old Network tape library, and my brief thoughts on it. This may not interest anyone else, but I’ll get something out of it just for having an excuse to watch these classic matches semi-regularly.
By the way, a site that’s a good resource for everything on the network (because the network’s built in summaries aren’t the best) is networkplaylists.com.
So, my WWE Network Match of the Week:
The Fabulous Freebirds vs Ice King Parsons, Kerry Von Erich & Chavo Guerro Sr in a Six-Man Tag Penalty Box Match
Background: First, a penalty box match is a play on hockey. If you commit an infraction, anything that might warranty a DQ or a stern warning from the referee in a match of this type, you are instead sent to the penalty box and your team functions at a numerical disadvantage. The first infraction is one minute, the second one is two. I’m unclear on this match what happens with further infractions.
Secondly, this match comes from World Class Championship Wrestling, a Texas-centered territory that died out in the 80s. One that I mostly missed in my time back then due to living in the Mid-Atlantic (home of Mid-Atlantic/JCP Promotions) and this stuff just wasn’t shown there back then. It was ran by Fritz von Erich, and one of the participants in this match, Kerry von Erich was Fritz’s son. Kerry von Erich and the von Erichs in general had already had a bit of a feud running with the Freebirds at this time, additionally Iceman King Parsons had beaten the entire Freebirds in singles matches in the weeks leading up to this.
Venue: The Dallas Sportatorium, home of many WCCW events and a storied venue in the history of pro wrestling, held around 4500 people at capacity–and a great many WCCW shows indeed packed the Sportatorium every week.
The Match: I’m not going to type play by play out for a 25 minute match, but rather point out the stuff to look for.
The match starts with Michael Hayes and Chavo, very traditional, snug 1980s wrestling. Something I’d contrast this match to is much of the matches you might find in 1980s WWF–the simple fact is WCCW had talent that wrestled snug, realistic wrestling matches, that were expected to make sense from beginning to end. Spectacle was subdued, think Michael Hayes elaborately disrobing or flexing in the middle of the match.
The referee is intimately involved in this match, and a very important part of it. The rules matter, because in this era and this place you maintained the realism of the rules, because it gave the match structure logic and meaning. In a world like modern day WWE the rules largely don’t matter, DQs are not called even after flagrant violations unless, rarely, it meets the strictures of the story line.
Referees at this time were not blind or stupid, they didn’t miss every time the heel cheated. Instead, the heels could sometimes sneak one over on the referees–occasionally, but it’s not the case that the ref turns away from the legal men at the slightest provocation, allowing for tons of liberties to be taken. So, when that does happen, notice the crowd reaction–they’re incensed. In fact, notice the crowd in general, this is a crowd of 4500 but they’re really into this match. That’s because the Freebirds and von Erich are over. The crowd cheers or boos the activity in the ring, they aren’t chanting pop culture catch phrases or chanting the in initials of one of the ring announcers.
Another thing to note, is there is not a single moment in this match where a wrestler no-sells, on Raw Monday night I counted dozens of no sells in the abbreviated version I watched on my DVR. No selling means situations like Cena taking a big bump, then getting right back up and delivering his finisher (like he did on Monday against Sheamus.) There’s an old saying that without selling, there’s no wrestling. This match shows how selling can make a match entertaining and interesting without using 600 moves by both wrestlers–when you sell that these moves hurt and do damage, that is not necessary, and in fact this more subdued style can make such spectacles seem fake and dumb.
Even the simple wrist locks that Kerry and Hayes exchange are suggested to inflict terrible pain, also notice that if a punch is thrown, or a clothesline delivered, or most especially an elbow drop delivered they make contact in a way that makes you think they would hurt. There are a few spots you can find they don’t do this, but by and large these guys make contact with punches–they’re pulling them, but they make contact because they have to in order for it to look realistic. Contrast this with a modern match where half the punches never even touch the other guy. These guys may or may not be tougher than modern wrestlers, but the reason they can do this is they’ve been trained to–they punch to the side of the head, making sure not to punch with full impact. Then, the man being punched staggers back with every single punch, there are no “wasted punches” that seem to have no effect because someone is just flailing wildly. Instead, punches are intended to be sold, and look like they are causing damage a little closer to what you might expect from a real punch.
When it’s Kerry and Gordy, notice how the crowd goes wild from a few punches Kerry lands–this is partially because Kerry is over, but it’s also because Gordy is selling like a mother fucker, look at around 26:18 when big Terry Gordy sells that he’s been knocked on his ass from a big punch from Kerry, and even when he staggers up, he’s in agony, weak, backing into the corner hoping to get away.
Notice when Kerry tags Chavo–he drags Gordy over to the corner while he’s in a headlock, then tags Chavo in. This is tag team wrestling 101, if you have control of your opponent you move him to your corner to tag, so you don’t give him a chance to tag. A lot of times in modern tag matches this is never done, or only done sloppily, usually there’s some bullshit conceit reason as to why the other team doesn’t tag in at the same time. In WCCW they don’t make you think about that, because they lock you in a headlock and tag in without giving you a chance to tag your partner.
With Gordy vs Kerry or Gordy vs Chavo, notice that Gordy never looks weak. Gordy is built as a “bully heel”, a big bruiser that bullies weaker wrestlers. He won’t outright outshine a face like Kerry, but they still allow him to look strong, to occasionally manhandle the face–this keep him relevant and dangerous. Notice how crazy the crowd goes when Chavo shoulder tackles him down three times in a row–this is because Gordy has been build up as a big bruiser, Chavo shouldn’t be able to do that, but he is!
Note also the tightness, precision, and right across the throat nature of the elbow drop from Kerry von Erich to Buddy Roberts around 29:17. Aside from maybe Undertaker if he’s not feeling lazy, there’s legitimately not a single wrestler on the main roster that delivers a realistic elbow drop, instead they deliver elbow drops that make you think “how is that supposed to hurt.” Kerry’s elbow drop makes you think “how didn’t that crack his collar bone or injure his throat?” Note too this video is shot very close in, wrestling actually is much harder to look realistic close-in, this video is typically closer in than 95% of a match on Raw, and yet looks more realistic–that shows a huge disparity in commitment to realism.
Note the side-refs are involved, when Terry Gordy hits Kerry when he’s not the legal man and Hayes has the ref distracted, Gordy gets in the penalty box. Also note the interference was very quick and sudden, it doesn’t make the ring ref look stupid for having missed it.
Notice how over Iceman King Parsons is, for a 4500 man crowd “Go King Go” is thunderous when he’s in the ring.
One issue with a penalty box match, is it’s easy for heels like the Freebirds to get in the box, but in an era where your faces don’t typically break the rules how do you get a face in there? Well, Kerry shows you how, by kneeing Terry when he’s thrown into the corner–but in a way that makes you think it happened so quickly Kerry couldn’t think about it, or perhaps it was just inadvertent to how Kerry was standing–basically it’s not as flagrantly malicious as the Freebirds infractions, plus the Freebirds will go on to break the rules several times with their legal man unpunished which helps to keep them firmly established as the heels. Another example is Iceman being sent to the box, The Freebirds were ganging up on Chavo in the corner for a long time, finally King Parsons can’t stand it and interferes to put a stop to it–so both him and Roberts end up in the penalty box, but in a way that clearly delineates your face and your heel.
Notice at the 38m mark or so, Roberts tags out to Hayes, and as Kerry is staggering to his corner Roberts simple walks in front of Kerry–nothing flagrant, but it prevents Kerry from making it to his corner and lets Hayes work the tired man. Again, this sort of ring psychology is subtle but prevalent throughout this match, part of an overarching conceit that this is a real match being fought by six guys who actually care about winning, in an organized fashion with officials that know their job and enforce the rules. Even fans who know wrestling is fake (and even in 83 that’s a lot of fans), you can much more easily get engaged with the in ring action when it’s presented as real.
Finally note some minor things at the end, when Iceman rolls Terry Gordy up, Gordy actually kicks out–it was a common thing to kick out on 3-counts back then, but just barely fail to make the count. That’s more of a stylistic thing, that you just don’t see a lot today for whatever reason, when it’s a legit 3 count now they don’t typically try to kick out and just fail to beat it, they just don’t kick out. In the post-fight melee you get to see an expertly delivered by Gordy and taken by Kerry old school piledriver, a move banned for at least a decade in the WWE.
I am not sure on the rules of WCCW, but many classic territories banned (kayfabe only) the piledriver as a dangerous move, so using it could get you DQ. It’s possible the reason we only see Gordy use it in the post-fight melee is because it was illegal in WCCW and it would’ve gotten him an infraction in the match, or maybe outright DQed (again, not having had access to WCCW in its prime, I do not know for sure.)
As a testament to its brutality, you have trainers looking at Kerry as the video ends, and him thrashing around in agony on the mat.
Post-Match Notes and Analysis: Largely, I do not like six man tag matches, I like traditional four man tags. In fact, it’s been a long time since I saw a good six man. Even in the classic era, I don’t think six man were as good as a typical four man match, just too much going on. But in the classic era, where you have a match like this that runs 30 minutes or so, they can work much better than they do in the modern era where they may get a 20 minutes if they’re the main event of a PPV but otherwise you’re squeezing it into 15 minutes, sometimes under 10 minutes. Even worse (and I’ve never seen a really good one of these, in any era) is the 9 man (3 3 man team tags.) In the old days some feds actually had Six Man Tag Team Championships and regular, the Freebirds held titles in both divisions at various times (as regular Tag champions they’d wrestle under the “Freebird rule” which was mentioned as recently as Raw when New Day first debuted–this rule simply states that any two of the three may defend the belts on any given night.)
All that being said, this was a solid, good six man tag. I think if I’d rated it out of 5 after watching it on tape in 1983, I’d probably rate it 3/5 or 3.5/5, with 3 being “Good.” So a good match, but not amazing, but not bad at all. Through the lens of what I see today, I’d probably rate it a solid 4. What’s interesting too is no one in this ring is what I’d consider the top tier in ring talent of this era. Kerry von Erich is usually regarded as the second best of the four von Erich wrestling brothers, albeit still very good, and is probably the best regarded in ring hand in this match. Gordy and Hayes were never amazing in ring for their time, but both had really good psychology, Gordy as the big brute and Hayes as the narcissistic heel–in fact Hayes in ring and pre-match psychology will rank up with anyone today.
For those unaware, Hayes works to this day for WWE, he went to the then WWF after leaving WCW (where he had gone after earlier stints with the Freebirds in WWF, WCCW and other territories) in the early 90s when WCW offered him an entry-rate contract and he decided to decline it. He’s been a back stage guy for over 20 years now with WWF. Gordy died of bladder cancer many years ago. Buddy Roberts died a couple years ago at 65 of pneumonia. This leaves Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin as the last of the “main” Freebirds, Hayes/Gordy/Roberts are the “main three” but Garvin so frequently worked in a team with Hayes/himself and usually Gordy as part of the Freebirds when Roberts wasn’t present that most regard him as a full Freebird, a few other guys made appearances with the team over the years as well. I’ve wondered with some of the decisions regarded the WWE Hall of Fame why the Freebirds have yet to be inducted.
Kerry von Erich died in the early 90s of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was a serious drug addict even by this point in his career. While revisionists will sometimes try to say Kerry only got into drugs after his motorcycle accident, his substance abuse problems were known even back at this point, because his short title reign as NWA World Heavyweight Champion in '84 was cut so short in part because he substance abuse problems were known and he was considered unsuited for the role long term (he also was only given the belt at all because it was at a packed stadium in Texas in a memorial card for his brother who had died.) In '86 von Erich had a horrific motorcycle accident in which he was nearly killed, and had his foot amputated. Amazingly, he continued to wrestle for years after this, and on the WWE Network if you check out the 1991 Royal Rumble you can see him wrestling as the Texas Tornado. I have tried, and failed, to discern he was working with a prosthetic foot, and he is in the match for a good chunk of time.
There are old school rumors that at an untelevised show in the late 80s after he had the prosthetic, his boot came off mid match revealing his stump, he grabbed it and rolled under the ring as quickly as he could, and reattached everything underneath before coming back out.
Final thoughts–isn’t the play by play announcer actually calling this match throughout pretty damn nice? This is how I watched wrestling as a kid, this is how I learned the names of the moves, how I learned to understand wrestling. If you’ve been raised on Maggle and JBL I’m not sure how you pick up a lot of stuff that was second nature back then, because it’s just never mentioned. Now, I understand Michael Cole has to shill for the Network and Takis Fuego from time to time, I don’t want WWE to not be a business. But there is no reason for 70% or more of the announce teams chatter to be unrelated to the actual play by play action in the ring, the literal center piece of every WWE/WWF show put on since the company was founded over 50 years ago.
