RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 4

Bobby Eaton vs. Bill Dundee CWA 7/24/82

ER: Exciting under 10 minute studio match for Eaton's Mid-America Heavyweight title, with Dutch Mantel as Enforcer sitting in a chair at ringside right next to Jimmy Hart. This is a hot 15 minute segment, with Hart running down Dundee as undeserving of a title shot (even laughing him off as a "midget"), leading to Dutch Mantel causing a huge scene in the studio trying to get his hands on Eaton (who had just taken the title from Dutch a couple weeks prior). Dutch and Hart sitting next to each other at ringside gives us some great atmosphere for the match, the first half of which is filled with Dundee beating Eaton to the punch on everything. Eaton misses offense and Bill is there to land a moonshot punch, throw a hiptoss, and otherwise knock Eaton onto his butt. Eaton sells majestically for Dundee, with the best bit a headlock punch that sends Eaton duck walking backwards into the corner holding his nose. Dundee misses a big splash allowing Eaton to take over, and we get some mighty fine punches, a high elbowdrop, and a great kneedrop. Dutch yanks Bobby's leg from the floor (with Eaton face planting  like the rug got yanked out from under him), then Dutch pummels Hart as Dundee steals the title from a distracted Bobby. King Cobra and others cause a big melee after Dundee's title win, leaving Superstar busted open but good. Memphis was so great at jamming a ton of memorable moments into 15 minutes while also furthering several different feuds, and you aren't going to find many better segment anchors than Eaton/Dundee. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Jerry Lawler/Sweet Brown Sugar CWA 2/6/83

ER: This is the last 6 minutes of a 16 minute match, but another example of a tremendous No Offense Lawler performance, and Eaton shows that he can use weapons with the best of them. We get one punch early as Eaton and Lawler spill to the floor, and from there it's nothing but Eaton throwing beautiful worked shots with weapons and Lawler showing that he's the best ever at bumping into inanimate objects. Lawler takes bumps into the ringpost better than any wrestler in history, and here he gets to show how devastating he can make a rope stanchion look. Eaton drags one into the ring and plants it in the middle, grabbing Lawler by the back of the neck and throwing him down throat first onto the stanchion. I remember seeing Finlay do that in his WCW match against Hak, and thinking that there aren't many guys who would be able to make that read as painfully as it would feel, but obviously Lawler is one of those guys. Eaton is a master at worked chairshots, and he has this incredible diving shot to Lawler's throat, like a big running fistdrop or elbowdrop except driving a chair into Lawler's throat. Eaton also drops Lawler with a piledriver onto that chair, with Lawler doing his perfect piledriver stomach bump. Sabu (Cocoa Samoa, not actually Sabu obviously) and Sweet Brown Sugar are mostly non-factors in the part of the match we get, as this is all about the two greatest worked strikers in wrestling history painting a little masterpiece. Eaton finishes with a wrapped chain punch to Sugar, a cool snapshot of Eaton adjusting all of his offense to include weapons, and Lawler showing how compelling he can be without throwing a single fist. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Arn Anderson/Terry Funk ECW When Worlds Collide 5/14/94

ER: I had never actually watched this match before, it just existed as one of those legendary on-paper matches I figured I would watch eventually. This was an ECW tag that would have greatly benefitted from being worked as a traditional tag. But they didn't really go full-on ECW either, the ref didn't seem to know what kind of match to call (with lots of scattered rule enforcement), and Terry's lack of selling and pacing really hurt the match overall. It's not too often where I can say that Terry Funk's participation in a match hampered a match, but even with the good he brought to this match I think the bad outweighed it. The match totally works just on the weirdness of Beautiful Bobby and Arn Anderson confidently strutting into the ECW arena and getting huge reactions from the crowd. Even those mutants are going to be excited to see Bobby in his watermelon Bubblicious colored tights. All I really wanted to see from this match was 1. Eaton in the ECW Arena, 2. Arn vs. Sabu, 3. Eaton vs. Funk (a pairing that is much more rare than it should have been). We got all of those and a ton of good interactions, it just didn't really build to anything. So, it's 20 minutes of four of your favorite wrestlers doing things that make you like them as wrestlers, and that's at minimum going to be very entertaining. 

Eaton's punches were the best thing about the match. He tagged in and immediately started throwing gorgeous right hooks to Terry's jaw. Eaton throws plenty of his perfect short punches in this match but I adore those big looping rights, with Terry recoiling in the ropes with every one. Terry takes a big bump to the floor when Sabu just literally bodyslams him from the ring through a ringside table, and later Arn takes his own big ass bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the top by Sabu. Sabu uses a lot of soft chair attacks throughout the match, crazy to think how hard wrestlers were braining each other with chairs just a couple years later when you see Sabu and Funk throwing 1997 Lance Storm chairshots in this match. Arn felt like the only person in the ring who knew how to throw an effective chairshot, which I was not expecting. There's some great stuff too, like Funk sticking Eaton with a piledriver through a piece of broken table he had laid over the bottom rope. It had all the makings of one of those Funk spots that don't get pulled off properly, but it looked vicious and Eaton really looked like a guy who had been crippled. 

Things kind of fell apart after that when Funk missed a moonsault, Sabu nailed Funk with a moonsault, and then Funk sold it by just standing up and immediately going back on offense. Funk did a lot of that. He'd crash and burn on his own move, get nailed by Sabu or Eaton, then just stand up and go on offense. He was also moving around with very little energy, nowhere near as much as his typical level of flopping around. I mean I get it, he's 50, but I don't think I'd show anyone this match as proof that the 50 year old could still go. It's great hearing the Arena get hyped for Eaton's Alabama Jam, then see Sabu pull out his moonsault variations on Arn and really crush him with a slingshot senton. The whole finishing stretch is a mess, with Eaton and Funk brawling into the crowd (most of which we can't see) leading to Funk hitting Eaton with a piledriver in the eagle's nest (which we can't really see). Public Enemy gets involved and easily run off by Arn, there's a really tepid spinning toehold exchange between Funk and Sabu, Arn ends up turning on Funk due to an errant chairshot, and Arn batters Funk's knee with a chair (again best chairshots of the match) and Sabu wins with a half crab. Throughout the match the ref had been keeping track of the legal men and doing his best to get chairs out of there, and then did none of that during the finishing stretch, which just added to the mess. This is the kind of match ECW could have turned into a killer 3 minute music video that would have made you feel like you missed the match of the year. It's not, but you'll be smiling a lot for 20 minutes.