This was a Street Fight. The feud itself belong to Mid-South, but this specific show is a Paul Boesch Houston Wrestling promoted show, with co-promotion by Watts and Verne Gagne’s AWA.
So, how did we get here?
In 1982, Duggan came into the UWF as a heel, working a paid assassin style gimmick, under the employment of Skandor Akbar. Soon thereafter, he joined up with fellow heels Ted DiBiase and Matt Borne to form “The Rat Pack”, the top villainous act in Mid South at the time. Running side by side with DiBiase’s rather famous feud with JYD was Duggan feuding with newcomer Butch Reed over the rights to the Hacksaw name.
As time passed, Borne left the promotion, and the Rat Pack and its allies drifted. DiBiase, needing a new direction, took on Skandor Akbar as his manager. DiBiase wanted Duggan to join them, citing their friendship and Duggan’s past allegiance with Akbar. But a lot had changed in the world in that short period of time. The US is freshly removed from the Iranian hostage crisis, and Ayatollah Khomeini was labeled as Public Enemy #2 (after “The Russians”, see: all). Duggan, citing his patriotism and the fact that he “lost a family member in the hostage situation” (no, he didn’t. Pro wrestling, baby!), had no interest in aligning with Akbar. Akbar wanted DiBiase to attack Duggan, but he refused, citing their friendship. DiBiase made a pact with Duggan that they would remain friends and have each others backs, but they’d do business separate. And all was well.
Until it wasn’t.
Duggan, while never attacking DiBiase, made it a point to make Akbar’s life and those in his Army’s lives a living hell. Akbar pleaded with DiBiase to take his friend out, offering “many great riches”, but DiBiase continually refused, saying there was NO PRICE for him to attack his best friend.
Until there was.
Because apparently…everybody’s got a price. Nice! (Fuck you!) During a match where Duggan faced Akbar’s protege, Kendo Nagasaki, and continued to embarrass and humiliate Akbar, DiBiase finally bought in, attacking his now former friend with his main weapon: the dreaded loaded coal miner’s glove!
And thus, another Mid-South blood feud was born.
These two spent the first half of 1983 trading victories back and fourth, mostly with Duggan on the winning end, but with DiBiase and Akbar exacting their revenge at all the right moments. That brings us to July 29th, 1983 in the Sam Houston Coliseum.
What I loved about this “match”, if that’s what you want to call it, is how real it felt. No, not because of any sort of aura of it being even close to a “shoot”, but in the entire match aesthetic and layout. DiBiase and Duggan show up “as they are”, in regular street clothes and boots. No gear, no merch, nothing wrestling related. There’s no big introductions. And the minute the bell rings — one of the few wrestling moments over the next ten minutes — these two throw themselves at each other with every bit of force they have.
I’m assuming most of your reading this have seen some kind of physical, real fight in your life. There’s real anger and even hatred that gives it an almost surreal feeling. That’s what this match oozed from the very beginning. This is a fucking fight, and it sells itself as such.
I’ve oft been a critic of modern hardcore based wrestling as being too unrealistic with its weapons choices. The WWE’s incredibly lazy leaning on Singapore canes, constant contrived table spots, and the use of weapons that simply just wouldn’t be available in an actual fight. While those matches are certainly not without their charm, after 20+ years of seeing the same cookie cutter weapons spots across a very popular sub-genre of wrestling becomes boring. In this match, there’s very few weapons used. But the ones that ARE used mean something. It’s practical use of practical weapons. Whipping each other with their belts, wrapping the belt around your first to get a solid punch in with the buckle, even some light use of the chairs that doesn’t look so choreographed. Hell, one of my favorite bits is that the heel of Duggan’s cowboy boot legitimately snaps off on a spot, so DiBiase quick grabs it and uses it as a weapon to bust Duggan open. Fantastic!
Akbar played his role perfectly at ringside. Coaching on DiBiase from a distance, but staying far away from Duggan at all costs. He finally does get himself involved when Duggan is starting to really mount the offensive, and Duggan is finally able to get his hands on Akbar! He lights him up in the corner, bites him repeatedly, and even shoves the referee away so he isn’t stopped. DiBiase quick grabs a chair from earlier to stop the mauling of his manager, but:
The gif can’t convey it, but the crowd went apeshit there! Big punch from Duggan and that’s it, he gets the win.
Short and sweet. Less than ten minutes, and that’s not a bad thing. Sure, maybe these two have a 20+ minute hardcore style epic in them, I’d believe that. But this feud didn’t need that.I mentioned earlier how the layout and aesthetic of this match actually added more to the stipulation rather than detracting from it, and the same goes for the length the match went. These two HATE each other, they want to hurt the other one and get out. And that’s exactly what they accomplished. It’s not a feud ender, and it leaves the door open for rematches. It checked off every box it needed to check.
There was ONE actual wrestling move the entire match, and that was DiBiase’s standing fist drop. I’d highly recommend watching this match in order to see what two greats were capable of without needing a 1/3 of an hour, 20 different unbelievable weapons and a ton of crazy spots.
Again, as charming as those types of matches can be, when something like a street fight can be striped down to the bare minimum like this and STILL over deliver? That’s beautiful pro wrestling, baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment