NWA: Southeastern Championship Wrestling
March 29, 1980
Knoxville, TN
WBIR-10 TV Studio

The current SECW champions are as follows:
NWA World Champion: Harley Race (11/7/1979)
NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Champion: Killer Karl Kox (3/16/1980)
NWA Southeastern Tag Team Champions: The Manchurians (3/2/1980)
NWA Southeastern TV Champion: Troy T. Tyler (3/22/1980)

Your hosts are Les Thatcher and Allen Williams.

Killer Karl Kox tells the Hazard KY people that it was a pleasure to wrestle in front of them, but he makes sure to say he’s still the champ. He says he likes wrestling these young guys because he always manages to teach them something. And that’s that.

• NWA Southeastern TV Title: Troy T. Tyler (c) vs. The Masked Sheriff (w/the Great Mephisto)
  

Dutch Mantell joins Thatcher and tries to tell everybody that Tyler and Dusty are actually brothers that Dusty won’t claim because Tyler just got out of jail. Nice. Meanwhile, Tyler and the Sheriff are playing headlock games for the first few minutes. Sheriff corners Tyler and delivers a wide open shot on the guy. He continues to punish Tyler with knee drops and general fisticuffs. Mephisto reaches in and decks Tyler for fun. Turnbuckle smashes are traded. Tyler delivers an elbow drop and a backdrop for two. He punches Sheriff down and goes for the mask. When Tyler can’t get it done, he knocks Sheriff through the ropes to the floor as Mephisto gives him something to put in his mask. A foreign object, if you will. Back inside, the Sheriff headbutts Tyler through the ropes. Tyler regroups and smashes the Sheriff’s face on the turnbuckle pad to knock him out. Now Tyler tries to untie the mask some more. He has to run the Sheriff into the turnbuckle a few times to keep him discombobulated and eventually pulls it off. Turns out it’s the ANGEL under the hood. He lost a “Loser Leaves Tennessee” match to the Masked Matador on the March 15 episode. He was a heel in Tennessee for years and years and years. Anyways, the Angel scurries out of the ring with the Great Mephisto and gets counted out to give Tyler the win here. (7:40) Not a bad little TV brawl there. *½

The Matador, Steve Travis, and Ron Slinker come by the announce table to give us an update on what’s going on with them. Bob Polk is here. Slinker’s face looks like burnt cheese after the fire ball he took last week. Matador wants to know what Polk is going to do about the Angel and the film that he was going to produce about the beating he took in the parking lot by the Manchurians. Polk says he sent the film off to Bob Geigel and he’ll have an answer for the Matador next week, but then he says the Great Mephisto has a lawyer out in Kansas City that could make things difficult. Matador says the reason he wears the mask is because Mephisto burnt him once upon a time and he won’t let it happen again. If Polk gets Mephisto suspended, Matador will get his own lawyer and make Mephisto pay for his sins. As Matador walks out, Slinker can’t afford an attorney and he’ll handle this in the streets – the Tennessee way. We now go to a promo from the Great Mephisto for his airing of grievances. Apparently, Mephisto must still be in Festivus mode. He won’t name names of the people who want him and the Manchurians out of the US, but nobody will run them out. No expenses or people will be spared because he doesn’t want to return to his homeland in shame. The organization will try to put them in all kinds of violent matches, but there is nothing that will stop them. You people may not like them, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Now back to the studio, Steve Travis looks to put some knots on the heads of the Manchurians and settle old scores. Slinker gets FIRED UP and yells that he’ll put them on the first plane back to wherever they came from. Matador confirms what Slinker said. Thatcher tells us when these guys hook it up, you can expect nothing but a barn burner.

Next up, they show us a clip from Georgia Championship Wrestling of a match including Tommy Rich and Austin Idol with the NWA world champ Harley Race watching from the sidelines. This is all to hype up Tommy Rich coming into the area to face Harley Race on April 4 at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum. AUSTIN IDOL MUST BE A BOUNTY HUNTER~! Also, there’s a great promo from Tommy talking about getting well and wanting Harley Race real bad.

Back to the studio, Les Thatcher sits with Troy T. Tyler. He loves the people of Tennessee and Kentucky and they love him. They’ve got more pretty girls in these areas than moonshine. Thatcher brings up Dutch Mantell. Tyler calls him a heathen. He could do a lot better against Mantell than he’s doing, but he can’t half see with Mantell’s whiskey breath and nicotine fingers shaking in his face. He’s excited about the TV title trophy and he’ll whoop Mantell anymore.

• Ole Anderson vs. John Irvee
  

Looks like technical issues on the part of the Hazard KY affiliate here as we don’t see much of this squash. However, Ole absolutely dominates this guy and looks as legit as possible doing it. He drops an elbow on poor Irvee and gets the win in 3:25.

We get more footage of this referee attacking Ole Anderson during his match with Killer Karl Kox. He wasn’t even the referee in this match – just a guy who jumped the rail and went after Ole. Poor Scrappy McGowan can’t do a whole lot here. Apparently, Ole is bringing Lars Anderson to town to help out with these jerks.

Thatcher introduces us to Don Diamond who will be coming to Knoxville. They show a match of him owning a guy named Rick Oliver (who we will be getting to know as Rip Oliver over on the Portland recaps) on Florida TV. He beats Oliver with a Russian legsweep. If you’re like me and you’re thinking how could that be his finish when there’s Brad Armstrong. Remember this is Knoxville Tennessee and not Dothan Alabama where Brad would soon be working. Back in the studio, Don Diamond introduces himself to us and puts over the territory. Some people feel Don Diamond is a guy who had a short career with tons of potential. He was a successful amateur wrestler and then went onto graduate from Gagne’s camp.

After the break, Les Thatcher talks with the Great Mephisto. He feels the Angel should be suspended since he was wrestling here under a mask. Thatcher suggests Mephisto knew about Angel wrestling under the mask and didn’t say anything, but Mephisto says he had no idea. Thatcher refuses to believe it. Thatcher is like Tucker Carlson here.

• The Manchurians (w/the Great Mephisto) vs. Mark Hill & Rick Stone
  

The Manchurians absolutely maul these jabronis. After STEREO JUMPING HEADBUTTS, Mark Hill goes out to a NERVE HOLD in 3:00. Ron Slinker and the Matador come out to make sure the Manchurians don’t have any time for extracurricular activities. They start to walk off, but then the Manchurians attack and we’ve got a huge brawl. Mephisto takes off his boot and clobbers both babyfaces. The Manchurians start to go for Matador’s mask, but Slinker scares them off. Wild ending to the show for sure.

The Great Mephisto speaks on behalf of the Manchurians. Since nobody in the area can beat his Manchurians, Mephisto suggests they are all making up lies about him. He claims Matador dropped some crystal in the ring and when Mephisto picked it up, it exploded in Slinker’s face. WOW, now that’s a large pill to swallow. Of course I guess it’s no dumber than believing that a fire ball literally came out of Mephisto’s hand like he’s a Street Fighter character.

That’s all the Southeastern Championship Wrestling footage from Knoxville that I have from 1980. When we pick up with SECW again for 1980, it will be down Alabama way in the fall and we’ll see guys like Bob Armstrong, The Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller, Jerry Stubbs, Jos LeDuc, and lots of masked dudes. LOTS. Until next time, so long for now.