Memphis Stock Picks

So for the next round of the 80's project I am hip deep in Memphis wrestling, so I figured I would do another one of these. Will has sent me (I suspect passive aggressively) almost exclusively TV, so while Kris and Shoe are nominating arena match after arena match, I am watching Rough and Ready tag after Keith Eric singles.

Stock Going Up

Robert Fuller

Consistantly the most entertaining guy in the episodic Memphis TV format. Haven't seen a ton of arena Fuller matches, but some amazing angles. The race bating of Brickhouse Brown, the CWA power struggle, where he claims Jerry Jarrett stole the promotion from his grandfather, the family feud with Ron and Jimmy Golden. Every time Robert Fuller is on my TV set I smile.

Ronnie P. Gossett

Another great Memphis manager, just hillarious with his constant fake heart attacks, and self delusion. Nothing I love more the Ronnie P. Gossett calling a Freezer Thompson squash. "LOOK AT THAT GUY LANCE RUSSELL, I HATE A FAT SLOB"

Tommy Gilbert

An ultimate Memphis utility man, we might end up with Tommy Gilbert matches under four different personas. Ace of Spades, Mr. Wrestling, Tommy Gilbert and FREDDY! Tommy Gilbert as patriarch of the Gilbert family is so great, and after seeing him as an upstanding ref disgusted with Eddies antics in UWF, it is great to watch him one year later egging Eddie on in the burning of Randy Hales, or busting open Eddie Marlin with a cowboy boot. Then in 1989, you secondary babyface was Tommy Gilbert under a cheap Halloween Freddy Kruger mask no-selling all of the heels and doing scary dances.


Stock Going Down

Lance Russell

Still one of the greatest ever, but one thing you notice when watching a ton of Memphis, is that Lance doesn't really moderate his exasperation. He is really great at being exasperated, but he seems just as pissed off when Don Bass lipsinks a country song "Come on Don, give us a break here" as he is when Randy Savage tries to pry out Lawlers eye "Come on Randy, that is enough, let's get some help out here."

Blowjob babyface teams

Man for every Rock and Roll Express, there is a Tim Ashley and Steve Constant, for every Fabulous Ones we are stuck with Steve Casey and Tom Brandi. Faboulous Ones were really succesful, so you always had at least one fake Fabs in Memphis at all times, and some of them were terrible. Probably the height of ridicolous blowjob teams was the babyface run of a permed and mustacheod Ron and Don Harris.

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The Quest for the Whitest Match in History: Day 2

Izzy, Dixie, & Angel Dust vs. Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, & Jack Evans
ROH - 5/22/2004

This was the debut of the Generation Next gimmick, four guys who would go on to be guilty of extreme whiteness at various points in their careers - Aries co-opting stuff from tapes with no rhyme or reason, Jack Evans being a wigger, Roderick Strong being Paul Hamm, and Alex Shelley doing a tape-watching gimmick in TNA that evolved into a low-budget filmmaker gimmick somehow - but don't stand out as exceptionally white here. To pick up the slack, we have Special K, which, in fairness, was a pretty multi-ethnic group, but a stable of rich kid ravers is a pretty white concept. Also, let's not forget they have Dixie, who first gained notoriety as a white guy doing Southern chickenshit heel shtick against Puerto Ricans in northeast indies.

At this point, I felt that outside of Shelley, the GenNext guys kinda struggled in singles matches, but we were a lot of fun in multi-mans like this. They had enough cool spots and were competent enough heels that they could excel in this setting, but in singles matches, they tended to fall into their various bad habits. Special K were kinda similar in that regard, as aside from Dixie and Lethal, they were guys who really benefited from the team setting, as evidenced by the fact that they broke up, and now they're all gone from the company. Well, I guess we can't blame the team's break-up for Deranged stealing Teddy Hart's car, but you get the idea. Of course, this was a team that used the team gimmick to justify bad habits - which is still probably the most clever booking move Gabe Sapolsky ever pulled off - whereas GenNext used it to hide theirs. And this is a match where those bad habits become apparent - Angel Dust working the match with an injured neck, which he sells early, but forgets about while doing Manami Toyota's rolling pin thingy, which I imagine would be pretty traumatic for a dude with an injured neck, being the most glaring example - but GenNext have a lot of fun stuff to do to keep me interested. Jack Evans uncorks the reverse hurricanrana on a listless Izzy, Strong military presses Izzy back-first into the corner, and Aries spinning elbowdrop looks a lot better when he doesn't take an hour to set it up. They'd all do better stuff later, but this was a fine intro to the gimmick.

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