wrestling / Video Reviews
The Enlightenment: Southwest Championship Wrestling — The Event
August 31, 2008 | Posted by
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| Southwest Championship Wrestling — The Event by J.D. Dunn Yep. Now that the WWE reviews are finished (for the most part), it’s time to go back to the NWA and territorial days. Back in the early 1980s, Texas was a hotbed of professional wrestling. It was so big, in fact, that it encompassed four successful regional promotions – The Funks ran Texas All-Star Wrestling out of Amarillo, Fritz Von Erich ran World Class Championship Wrestling out of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, Bill Watts ran Mid-South in parts of southeastern Texas, and Joe Blanchard ran Southwest Championship Wrestling out of San Antonio. Paul Boesche was sort of like the Godfather, taking a taste of each promotion whenever it suited him. SCW was started in 1978, in part, to showcase Joe’s son Tully Blanchard, who had debuted just three years earlier and was already considered a rising star. Other young stars that SCW helped produce included Al Madril, Bob Orton Jr., Dick Slater, Scott Casey, Gino Hernandez & Manny Fernandez. In 1982, SCW went national, inking a deal with the USA Network for a Sunday morning show. The show did monster ratings for the time, but Blanchard couldn’t afford to pay USA the exorbitant fees they were charging him to keep the show on the air ($7,000/episode by some estimates). Finally, a couple of events, including Tully Blanchard’s bloodbath with Manny Fernandez got the promotion booted off the air, and Vince McMahon swooped in to buy up the time. That was the beginning of the USA/WWE relationship. Sweetan was the booker and #1 babyface in the promotion at this point. He’s not an attractive man. Lawler is in town from Memphis to have a “battle of the piledrivers” since both guys used the hold. Scott Casey joins the regular commentary team to put over the piledriver. Lawler stalls for the first four or five minutes, slapping Sweetan like Bugs Bunny did with that bull and then running away. Unfortunately, he has no sombrero to hide under. They finally start with Sweetan grabbing a headlock. Lawler backs out and slaps him, then ducks into the corner for more stalling. Sweetan finally gets a punch in Lawler’s face. Jerry bails out to think things over. Lawler tries to cheat his way out of a test of strength, but Sweetan overpowers him and goes for a piledriver. Lawler desperately hooks his legs in the ropes and complains on the house mic that the piledriver is illegal where he comes from. Back in, Lawler misses the fist. Sweetan tries for the piledriver again, but Lawler rams him into the turnbuckle. Lawler finally gains the advantage and goes for the piledriver. Sweetan backdrops him over. Sweetan makes the big comeback and drops Lawler with a backdrop suplex. Lawler gets his foot on the bottom rope, so Sweetan gives him another. Lawler puts his foot on the rope after a three count and explains that the ref just missed it. Lawler catches Sweetan coming in and pins him with his feet on the ropes at 14:50. Sweetan gets pissed and piledrives Lawler to the fans delight. If you want a primer on how to draw heel heat, look no further than Lawler in this match. If you want to see a good match, look elsewhere. 1/2* Hernandez and Tully were one of the great heel teams of all time, but they don’t get a lot of press because that was before wrestling really hit it big. We’re JIP to Hernandez hitting Funk with a dropkick. The Dynamic Duo keeps Funk in their corner. Gino even hits him with the Reverse Elbow Drop, but it only gets two. Terry knocks Blanchard to the outside. The ref tries to keep Funk off Blanchard so he can get back in. Blanchard torpedoes both of them. Funk picks Tully up and slams him on top of the referee. The ref is really taking a pounding in there! Ricky Morton (who, along with partner Ken Lucas, lost the tag titles to Hernandez and Blanchard) runs down and counts the pin as Putski falls on Blanchard at 3:06 (shown). The heels lay an NC-17 beating on Morton until Ken Lucas comes down to turn the tide. Too short to amount to much. The official decision is that Putski and Funk are disqualified because Morton interfered. 3/4* For most of its existence, SCW recognized the AWA Title as it’s “world” title. Lou Thesz is your special referee. We’re JIP to Bockwinkel holding Brody in a headscissors. Brody squirms out of it and drives a knee to Bockwinkel’s chest. Brody backs him into a corner with a bearhug. Heenan distracts Brody long enough for Bockwinkel to knock him down and reapply the headscissors. Brody rolls to the ropes. Bockwinkel hauls off and starts lying into him with rights. Brody finally just gets pissed off and knocks Bockwinkel to the outside. Back in, Brody comes off the top with a big fist. A kick to the head only gets one, and Bockwinkel heads to the outside. Brody pulls him back in for a bodyslam. Heenan trips Brody from the outside, allowing Bockwinkel to recover. It doesn’t help much. Brody slams him again and delivers the flying kneedrop. ONE, TWO, THR-Heenan pastes Brody in the face to break up the count. They all brawl on the outside, and chair gets involved. Bockwinkel gets disqualified from Heenan’s interference at 9:57 (shown). Bockwinkel and Heenan head for the hills before Brody gets really angry. Word ’round the campfire is that Brody toned down his act considerably and actually wrestled out of respect for Thesz. **1/2 The Stomper is the SCW Champion, but it’s not on the line here. Stomper had a great gimmick. See, he had an inner ear condition in which he would become disoriented by loud noises — like say, a crowd cheering. So, when the Stomper would start to dominate the match, the crowd would start hooting and hollering, forcing the Stomper to cup his hands over his ears to drown out the noise. Slater is to Terry Funk what Chris Benoit was to the Dynamite Kid. Bob Sweetan is the special guest referee. We’re JIP to the Stomper… well, stomping Dick Slater. Stomper grabs an Iron Claw as Sweetan argues with Carson. Slater elbows out of it, but Stomper reapplies the hold. Slater gives him a backdrop suplex and Carson gets nervous. Stomper gets several two counts off the Claw. Slater powers up and stomps the Mongolian down in the corner. Slater is busted open pretty good. He tosses the Stomper into the cage and jumps off the top rope with a stomp (the Stomper’s big move). Stomper tries to stomp Slater’s brains in, but Slater catches his boot and lays into him with an elbow. Stomper desperately tosses Slater into the referee and takes Carson’s loaded boot. Sweetan and the Stomper get into it, so Slater takes the loaded boot and blasts Stomper with it for the win at 9:16. Stomper and Carson lock themselves in the cage and give Slater a working over until El Santo Negro scales the cage and breaks it up. Enjoyable revenge brawl that set up a rematch for Slater where he won the title. He’d leave the territory and vacate it by the end of the year. **1/2 |
The 411: Southwest did have some fine wrestling and booking, but this isn't a good example. The last two matches at least hit the "above average" mark, but it's not worth it to you to track this down unless you're a *really* big fan of old school. (Btw, if you own "Wrestling Gold, Vol 1," you already have this event, albeit out of order.) Thumbs down. |
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| Final Score: 4.0 [ Poor ] legend |
