Memphis Wrestling
January 26, 1980
Memphis, TN
WMC-5 TV Studio

The current Memphis wrestling champions are as follows:
AWA World Champion: Nick Bockwinkel (11/8/1975)
CWA World Champion: Jerry Lawler (11/8/1979)
AWA Southern Heavyweight Champion: Jimmy Valiant (1/3/1980)
AWA Southern Tag Team Champions: held up (1/21/1980)

Your hosts are Lance Russell and Dave Brown.

Boy, that Time Magazine ad sounds like 2005, amirite? Middle eastern threats, new Hollywood faces, taxes, inflation, popes…

• Steve Regal vs. Bill Smithson
  

Mostly wrestled on the mat here with Regal controlling most of the action. Smithson come back with one backdrop, but tries a second one and Regal sunset flips him for the three-count in 5:18. The crowd looked as bored as I was.

Lance Russell takes care of a Louisville Gardens promo. Jimmy Hart’s feet will be tied together when Jerry Lawler defends his CWA world title against Superstar Bill Dundee. Jimmy Valiant stops by as well to put down Ken Lucas. He’ll be facing Lucas over the southern title. Good stuff. He makes fun of the plain name Ken Lucas.

They set up a clip of a six-man “hair versus mask” tag between the Assassins (now there are three of them) against Ken Lucas and the Gibson brothers in the Mid-South Coliseum from a few weeks back. The third Assassin is called “Coach”. Anyways, Lucas is being worked over and it’s pretty good. Lots of moments where Lucas nearly makes the tag to one of the Gibsons. Eventually, one of the Assassins misses a corner charge and Lucas finds Robert Gibson for the hot tag. Robert misses a dropkick and takes a legdrop from the Assassin for two. The match gets out of control and while Ricky is being held by one of the Assassins, he leans over and Robert leaps over the Assassin to sunset flip him for the three-count. Crowd goes NUTS. The mask gets pulled off Coach and it looks like Troy Graham is this third guy. We’ll get to know him pretty well as the Dream Machine as the 1980s roll on.

We get another report from Billy Robinson. He shows us the arm is healing by curling a 20 pound dumbbell. When he comes back, he’ll be better than ever – mentally and physically.

• Jimmy Valiant (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Robert Gibson
  

Jimmy Valiant can talk them into the building and that counts for something, but it’s over once the bell rings. Nothing he does look convincing to me that it hurts the opponent. He throws an okay looking punch. There’s a backdrop, but Gibson blocks a turnbuckle smash and returns the favor. Jimmy Hart helps out by tripping Gibson as he tries coming off the ropes. The BOOGIE WOOGIE ELBOW DROP takes care of Gibson in 4:48. Ricky Gibson comes out and tells the ref what happened, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Valiant gets on the mic and makes fun of Ricky coming out here looking to help his little brother. He gives Ricky a shot at the champ. The Gibsons get their hands on Valiant and Hart until they run them out of the building.

• Ricky Gibson vs. Bub Smith
  

Bub Smith looks like “Blow Away”-era Buddy Rose. Ricky has his way with Bub slamming him and dropping knees on him, but then Bub collapses on top of Ricky during a suplex and that looked bad. Ricky fires back anyways with a standing dropkick and slams him for a three-count at 1:39.

Another Louisville Gardens promo.

• Superstar Bill Dundee vs. Jerry Ralph
  

Dundee is returning from 11 weeks of hepatitis. He has “Macho Man” on the back of his tights. That couldn’t possibly be a shot at ICW, right? He has little trouble beating Ralph with a crucifix hold in 1:23.

We go back to the Mid-South Coliseum on 1/14/80 where Superstar Bill Dundee was the special referee for a six-man tag between Jerry Lawler, Jimmy Valiant, and Jimmy Hart against Steve Regal, Rick Morton and Big Red. While Morton is getting his butt whooped, Jimmy Hart gets tagged in and tries to slam Morton only for Morton to fall on top of Hart for the three-count. Lawler and Dundee get into a wild fight over the decision and now we have a fresh reason for them to be fighting again.

• Jerry Lawler (w/Jimmy Hart) vs. Rick Morton
  

Originally scheduled to be Paul Ellering and Rick Morton against Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Hart, but Ellering had some problem with his wrestling boots and now the match is just a singles affair. Hmm. Rick’s father is the referee in this match. Seems like a conflict of interest to me. Lawler complains of hairpulling during the early lock-ups. Dave Brown has trouble getting it out, but he means to call Lawler the “world champion of complaining”. Lawler actually does pull some hair and the crowd gets on him. He takes Morton to the mat and twists on the knee for a bit. Lawler ups his game with some punches and knocks Morton over to Jimmy so he can punish the knee some more from ringside. Lawler hits a back suplex and takes too long to cover him as he only gets a two count. Morton gets stomped on the face and *that* pisses him off. He trips up Lawler and lays in some punches. A swinging neckbreaker gets 1-2-NO! Lawler breaks up a headlock with a shinbreaker though. He goes back to the leg, but Morton fights back with a backdrop. Jimmy takes a dropkick off the apron and wipes out Lawler with a few three-point stances. Lawler avoids a dropkick though and hits Morton with an elbow drop for the win at 8:20.

Louisville Gardens promo. Russell talks with Jerry Jarrett, Ken Lucas, and Superstar Bill Dundee.

Aaaaand Lance Russell and Dave Brown close out the show.