Memphis Wrestling
September 8, 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.

Lance Russell is shown talking with Ron Bass. After defeating Jimmy Valiant last week in Memphis, Ron Bass gets another title shot against Superstar Bill Dundee. If Dundee thinks he’s a great wrestler, Bass says he eats sleeps and breathes wrestling. Not only is he a great wrestler, but Bass feels he’s the superior athlete. He starts to talk about Dundee’s size and seems to reconsider for one reason or another. Anyways, Bass is going to put a hurting on our southern heavyweight champ this coming Tuesday night at the Mid-South Coliseum.

After the break, we go to some MSC footage of last Monday night when the Blonde Bombers Larry Latham and Wayne Farris put the southern tag titles up against Ricky and Robert Gibson. Looks like we get most if not all of the match here, but I’m not going to do a full recap. The Gibson brothers do quite well against Latham and Ferris for 90% of the match. I’ll skip ahead to the ending where Latham gets his head ran into Danny Davis’ army helmet by mistake. As Ricky grabs a sleeperhold (WHY NOT JUST COVER HIM?) on Latham, Farris nails him from behind and Latham falls on top of him for the pinfall to retain the tag titles.

When we return, Lance speaks with the Ricky and Robert Gibson somewhere that isn’t at the studio. Ricky is feeling down today because he knows he and his brother are the uncrowned champions. He can’t believe he underestimated Sgt. Danny Davis. Of course you know this means war. The Gibson brothers won’t let the people down this Tuesday night because they want those tag team belts. Robert has a little trouble talking here as Ricky does most of the talking and really getting their point across.

• Ron Bass vs. Koko Ware
  

Bass the loud cowboy is running his mouth in the ring. Koko is sticking with that headlock like it’s the only way to beat Ron Bass. This goes on for several minutes until Bass finally breaks the hold with a back suplex and drops an elbow on poor Koko for the pinfall at 3:52.

We go back to the MSC from last Monday night with Superstar Bill Dundee doing some voiceovers with Lance Russell during the prelim to his match with Jerry Lawler. We see JIMMY HART for the first time as Lawler’s manager. Dundee calls Hart a weasel and I assume we’re about to find out why. Jimmy Hart is the one responsible for making the Jerry Lawler record a few years back that was just supposed to be for fun to sell at the arenas. Dundee questions Hart’s obsession with Jerry Lawler and questions his manhood a little bit. To get Jimmy to prove he’s a real man and belongs in the wrestling business, Dundee says he’ll put up $5000 for Jimmy Hart to wrestle and beat Pat Hutchinson. He doesn’t think Jimmy will accept the challenge because he’s not a real man and he can’t beat Hutchinson, but also thinks Jerry Lawler won’t let him accept the match. Only time will tell!

Alright, here’s Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Hart. Lawler says he’ll accept the match against Pat Hutchinson for $5000. Being the best wrestler in the world, Lawler can teach Hart all he needs to know in five minutes to beat Hutchinson. All Dundee wants to do is prove to the Memphis people he has $5000. Lawler knows Dundee so well. He knows Dundee is just trying to be a big shot, but it’s all going to backfire on him. If anybody around here is a little bit “funny”, it’s Dundee with those capes and big-eyed glasses. They will be at the Mid-South Coliseum on Tuesday night and they will take Dundee’s money. Don’t even think Jimmy Hart is afraid!

Russell flashes us back to more MSC action from last Monday for the Dundee/Lawler match. It seems Lawler has a loaded elbow pad and working over Dundee. When the ref gets wiped out by Dundee by mistake, Sonny King pops Lawler in the face from ringside. Dundee crawls on top of Lawler and ref Jerry Calhoun counts three at 24:20.

After the break, Jerry Lawler comes out to talk about Sonny King in an upcoming match where the winner gets a southern heavyweight title match. Maybe Sonny King can nail Lawler when he’s wrestling somebody else, but he can’t beat him one-on-one. He can’t do anything with the King because he is the best wrestler there has ever been. Lawler has something special for Sonny King on Tuesday night – a leather belt. He’s going to whip Sonny like the dog he is – in fact, he’s getting a KING WHIPPING.

Lance then runs down the rest of the card for Tuesday night.

We now hear from Sonny King. He only stayed out at ringside last Monday night since Jimmy Hart stayed at ringside as well. Sonny says he’ll be bringing a leather belt with him to the ring to face Lawler. When it’s over with, Lawler will be BLACK and BLUE this Tuesday night. Lance hates to see it get so personal, but there it is.

• Jerry Lawler (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Ricky Morton (w/Sonny King)
  

Lawler is VERY concerned with Sonny King being at ringside. In fact, he’s finding it really hard to lock up with Morton here. When he grab a wristlock and takes Morton down by his hair, Sonny makes sure to let the ref know about it and he makes Lawler break the hold. Morton frustrates Lawler with a headlock and takes him down nearly getting a one-count, which seems to blow Lawler’s mind. He bails out to get his head right. Back in, we get a criss-cross ending with Morton falling on top of Lawler for 1-2-NO! Morton rides Lawler on the mat and gets him all hot and bothered. More stalling by Lawler. Back in again, Lawler baits Morton into a test of strength and kicks him in the gut. There’s a suplex by Lawler and now he’s feeling pretty confident. When Morton starts waking up, Lawler drags Morton over to Jimmy Hart to get beat on. Sonny King runs over and chases Jimmy into the ring for a no-contest decision. (8:45) Lawler gets a hold of Sonny King while Hart starts whipping Morton! When Sonny gets away from Lawler, he runs Jimmy back to the locker room. Crazy! *½

Eddie Marlin joins Dave Brown to discuss the spot show cards for the week.

• The Spoilers vs. Dallas Montgomery & Pat Hutchinson
  

This is our first look at the Spoilers #1 and #2. Considering the quality of this video (and I’m not complaining!), it’s not a very good look. I have no idea who this edition of the Spoilers are under their black and white masks. It’s not Don Jardine, I know that much. Dallas doesn’t do much of note against these Spoilers to start. Hutchinson tags in and gets slammed around. Big elbow drop by one of the Spoilers is enough to put him away at 3:20.

Lance Russell and Dave Brown run through the results from this show. He mentions two matches that are cut from this version: Superstar Bill Dundee defeating Buddy Wayne in 2:46; Sonny King pinning Bub Smith in 1:16.

Since I don’t have any footage in between September 8 and October 20, we will pick up with Memphis for the October 20 show. Looks like the quality of the October 20 show looks a lot better comparatively if you sat through this show.

Until next time, so long for now!