New Footage Friday: Ricky Morton Week

Rock and Roll Express vs. Buddy Landell/Doug Somers ACW 6/89

PAS: Really fun short TV tag with a great heeling and stooging pink booted Buddy Landell performance. I loved how he backed Morton into the corner and gave him a contemptuous little tap on his cheek, only for Morton to pop him in the jaw which Buddy sold with a Valentine flop. We got the heels working over the Rock and Rolls only to get the hot tag, match ends weakly with Landell and Somers getting DQed for tossing Morton over the top, we never really got the full payoff although I enjoyed the journey.

MD: This is from Atlantic Coast (Nelson Royal's late 80s promotion) TV and is just a really fun eight or nine minutes. Landell's an all time stooge to start, disengaging, snapping his fingers, pinching Morton's cheek and then taking a slow, overwrought timber bump when he gets pegged for his troubles. After Gibson wipes out on the post, Somers and Landell put on a master class in ref distraction, underhanded switches, and cutting off the ring. It's only a few minutes of control but they make it feel longer and weightier in the execution, which is always what you want in a match like this. The transition to comeback made sense for a short TV match (the double-teaming backfiring as a second rope axe-handle knocks Gibson across the ring to make the tag) and the finish was the sort of thing that kept the program going and got people to head out to the local shows to see something more decisive. It was what you'd want from a sub-ten minute TV match with these four and I bet the house shows were really good.

Ricky Morton/Beau James vs. The Battering Ram/Justin St. John SSW 10/21/95

PAS: This is a Hell before Halloween match, a tornado tag with weapons in the corner. Really fun short Memphis style main event brawl. Never hear of the heels before, but they had nice punches and a willingness to be hit by a bullwhip which is pretty much what you need for these types of matches. Beau bled some, although not a full Beau James gore fest. Match had commentary but not crowd noice, which does hurt it a bit, so much of these types of matches are about building to a huge crescendo and while we could tell it was happening we couldn't actually hear it.

MD: We wanted to close out the Morton theme week with a SSW match and first gravitated to an 09 match vs Eaton but it only went a few minutes. This was a weapons in every corner match, so there was all sorts of things involved, from a staple gun to a bullwhip. The story was that Beau got taken out on the post early and Morton had to fight off both guys. Once Beau got back in they worked over the wound a bit, but after a shot from said staple gun, it devolved into a lot of back and forth weapons shots. Morton using the bullrope was especially fun and the heels stuff looked good enough, even if Battering Ram seemed to meander about now and again, though that added to the chaos as much as subtracted. If they were going to go with color and woundwork in a match like this, you'd hope for a bit more flow and having it spread around a bit. Battering Ram's mask was white and stayed white, for instance. It felt like a match of its time, an odd port into SSW, but it was an interesting relic to see mid-90s Morton in the midst of something like this.

Ricky Morton vs. Bam Bam Bigelow MEWF 10/23/97

PAS: This was not would you would expect at all. Bam Bam is the babyface defending the ECW title on a Baltimore indy, and Morton is working as a Memphis heel. Small heel against giant babyface is kind of a weird dynamic, and while Morton is fun complaining about a hair pull and bumping around, I don't really think Bam Bam had the type of charisma needed to work as an overdog babyface, he isn't Hulk Hogan getting his hands on Bobby Heenan, just too subdued. Finish was an eyeopener, Bam Bam catches a Morton bodypress and hits a disgusting looking sit out piledriver, stood Morton straight up and looked like he broke his neck. Completely separate bit of horror from the rest of the low stakes match. Interesting, but ultimately a failure. 

MD: A rare, as in I think it only happened a handful of times, look at traveling ECW Champ Bam Bam Bigelow. You'd probably want the roles to be reversed here, as Morton was a heatseeking, stalling and stooging heel, and Bigelow was the brick wall, dominant champ, but we take what we get. Morton ran into the wall well to start. Even when things turned, after Morton brought out Hamrick to help him, Bigelow never really seemed in too much danger. It's not that Morton's stuff didn't look good, as it was fine, but you didn't really get the sense he was putting a dent in Bam Bam. That wasn't to say that you couldn't imagine a world where Morton might somehow cheat to win though, so it still worked well enough, and he was scummy enough about it and Bam Bam dynamic enough in his high octane hope spots, that you were happy to see things turn around. We miss how Hamrick's taken out of the equation, but the finish, with Bam Bam catching Morton off the top and planting him with Greetings from Asbury Park worked really well. I don't know if it was the indy ring or Morton's sell or what, but Bam Bam bumping himself on the impact was just resounding. I think I'd feel better about this one if we had dozens of traveling champ Bigelow matches or another five or six face Morton vs Bam Bam ones.