Memphis Wrestling
September 1, 1979
Memphis, TN
WMC-5 TV Studio

The current Memphis wrestling champions are as follows:
AWA World Champion: Nick Bockwinkel (11/8/1975)
AWA Southern Heavyweight Champion: Superstar Bill Dundee (8/27/1979)
AWA Southern Tag Team Champions: Larry Latham & Wayne Farris (6/15/1979)

Your hosts are Lance Russell and Dave Brown.

• Buddy & Ken Wayne vs. Ricky Morton & Sonny King
  

It appears since we last saw Ricky Morton at the end of July that he’s getting a little bit of a push going. Although he’s been in losing efforts, he had an AWA Southern heavyweight title shot at the Mid-South Coliseum against Ron Bass the week before Bass lost the title to Bill Dundee and has been regularly competing against the Fabulous Freebirds with Steve Regal and now Sonny King. The Waynes on the other hand are still winning matches, but they are just messing around with local rookie Eddie Gilbert in opening matches in Memphis. The footage in this match isn’t so good. King and Morton take turns getting worked over here, so let’s skip ahead to the match breaking down. The Waynes are whipped into one another and Morton jumps on Ken for the pinfall at 5:52. I hope the footage gets better throughout the episode.

We go to the Mid-South Coliseum from this past Monday when Superstar Bill Dundee defeated Ron Bass for the AWA southern heavyweight title. With Jerry Lawler headlining against the AWA world champ Nick Bockwinkel, this match took place in front of the biggest crowd Memphis has had since the last time Lawler challenged Bockwinkel the previous August.

Next up, we take a look at some clips of the Bockwinkel-Lawler encounter set to several different songs by one of my all-time favorite bands the Allman Brothers. Russell points out that this match went the full hour with no winner decided. Looks like Lawler is taking a ton of punishment and the clips don’t exactly show him on offense for very much of this match. I would love to see this in full though.

Back in the studio, Jerry Lawler comes out carrying his crown and dropping one-liners on Lance. He feels he won the match and should be the AWA world champion right about now, but he was cheated out of the match by referee Tommy Marlin. Lawler suggests there’s a family conspiracy happening amongst the Marlins and the Jarretts because they don’t want Lawler to leave Memphis if he was to win the AWA world title. Without the King around, they would go right in the dumper. Nevertheless, Lawler did what nobody seems to be able to do, he beat Nick Bockwinkel. He brings up Superstar Bill Dundee who got beat by Bockwinkel just a month earlier. Of course since Bockwinkel has proven he can beat Dundee, Dundee gets a rematch. Do you think Lawler gets a rematch? Absolutely not because Jerry Jarrett doesn’t want him to be world champion. Lawler says he will get the rematch one way or another. He feels that nobody wants to see a bug-eyed sawed-off runt (Dundee). They all want to see Jerry the King Lawler. Lawler brings up the fact that Dundee won’t risk his newly won AWA southern heavyweight title by facing him.

Russell wants to play a video message sent in from Dundee. Lawler thinks the reason Dundee isn’t on the show today is because he’s here today. Just a great promo here. Over to Dundee, he’s got three points to discuss. He feels Lawler is a jabroni and tells him to beat some top challengers first (Hulk, Ron Bass, Sonny King, Jimmy Valiant, the Freebirds, etc.). When he’s beaten those guys, he’ll get a title shot. The second thing is that he wrestled Bockwinkel for thirty minutes and then got knocked out with some brass knuckles. On the other hand, Lawler *fought* Bockwinkel for an hour and never could beat him – thus making the point that Bockwinkel had to knock out Dundee in order to avoid losing. According to Dundee, it seems that Lawler never came close to winning. The third point Dundee wants to make is that they are no longer friends and he plans to hurt the man this Monday night at the Mid-South Coliseum. They are now sworn enemies and Dundee hates his guts. Ahh I LOVE IT. Now back to Lawler, he plans to *wrestle* Dundee and calls him a “leech” who has been latched onto Lawler for years. He says he will beat the “yellow coward leech” within an inch of his life and plans to EXPOSE Dundee for the scum that he is. Russell points out that if Lawler is such a great wrestler, he needs to show us he can actually wrestle in this next match.

• Jerry Lawler vs. Jerry Bryant
  

Lawler says he won’t punch or gouge today – he’s going to show us how he’s a wrestler. Well, he tries wrestling the man with basic arm holds and Bryant comes out on the winning end every time. Since wrestling isn’t working out for him, Lawler resorts back to punching and kicking. Bryant telegraphs a backdrop and gets kicked in the mush before Lawler lands an elbow drop for the three-count at 3:28.

• Tommy Gilbert vs. Bub Smith
  

I think this was actually all wrestling. No strikes here. Bub really works a side headlock on Gilbert until he’s taken over with a back suplex for the quick win at 1:59.

After Lance runs down the card for Monday night, we go to an pre-recorded interview with Jimmy Valiant. He says Memphis is the cleanest city in America and the mayor wants Handsome Jimmy to keep it that way by ridding the town of Outlaw Ron Bass. He starts talking about the mayor some more and something about the Governor of Tennessee. It’s a scary thought thinking Valiant is that close to Tennessee politics.

When we come back from the break, we hear from Ricky and Robert Gibson out in Nashville in what’s left of the Nick Gulas territory. They look forward to coming back to Memphis and facing the Blonde Bombers over the AWA southern tag titles.

• AWA Southern Tag Team Champions Larry Latham & Wayne Farris (w/Sgt. Danny Davis) vs. Eddie Gilbert & Dallas Montgomery
  

Not much TV time left here. Gilbert gets beaten up by the Bombers until he hot tags Dallas. The Bombers still want to finish this match before we run out of time though. Montgomery whips Farris into the ropes for a dropkick and misses. Farris elbow drops him and scores the pinfall at 2:26.

They really rushed these last two matches. I wonder if the Lawler promo went too long or something. Hmpfh.

Final Thoughts: You will want to see everything EVIL Jerry Lawler here. So good.

Until next time, so long for now.