There's a goodly, goodly amount of Georgia Championship Wrestling TV on youtube and I started going through it last week, beginning from 1981. It's mostly a blind spot for me beyond your Flair and Flair-adjacent stuff, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Dusty, Ole and Tony Atlas are at the top of the card to begin the year, the Freebirds are causing havoc - mainly with Robert Fuller and Ted DiBiase right now - and there's a really fun midcard with guys like Kevin Sullivan, Steve Keirn, and the JYD has just rocked up looking for the trio who blinded him in Louisiana...
What a nifty little 10 minute studio bout. This is for the TV title and there's a real sense of urgency from both, where they start out mostly clean but intense, then the closer they get to the time limit the more niggly it gets. Thornton was a hoot with his quasi-WoS offence. It looked slick and Sullivan had a hard time dealing with it, but there were times as well where he'd just drop down on something like an attempted fireman's carry into a neck crank and it looked super uncooperative and rugged. I didn't really know Sullivan could grapple like this. It wasn't spectacular or anything, but it did the trick nicely and you could buy him holding his own. It never looked like Thornton could just smother him, basically. He got fed up playing by the book soon enough as well and started throwing mean little rabbit punches. Thornton staying on track and sticking to the forearm smashes - which all ruled - was cool too. I'd be more than fine with a bunch of Thornton studio matches if he's a regular around this time.
Kevin Sullivan v Steve O (GCW, 1/17/81)
I know it's literally four episodes of TV, so not exactly a huge sample size, but Kevin Sullivan has been one of the stars of the early '81. YOUR January Georgia Championship Wrestling MVP. All of his studio matches have been good and he brings a real grittiness to everything. I love how he'll sporadically do something nasty, usually during those in-between moments where guys are moving from one move to the next. In this he threw out a one-handed back rake as Steve O was trying to get up off the mat, then he jumped on his guts with a double stomp as Steve was rolling over onto his back. They're moments that don't look planned and come across as on the fly violence. For eight minutes this was Sullivan being a nasty bastard, where Steve O could've basically been any competent babyface and it would've been decent. I now look forward to seeing Sullivan on TV each week and the feud with Steve Keirn could be really nifty.
Steve O v Bobby Eaton (GCW, 1/31/81)
So Sullivan is OUT as the TV champ, thanks in large part to that hubcap thief Steve Keirn, and Steve O is IN. The TV title matches each week are a blast. They all get ~10 minutes and everybody's allowed to stretch out, do some nice tight matwork, throw out a few of their big moves, build to a nice heated finish. It's pretty much perfect studio wrestling and I might try and hunt down some arena footage from around the same time. This was really good, of course. Eaton is a relatively unknown commodity at this point and I love Solie's commentary, how he thinks Steve O has him dead to rights a few times only for Eaton to show some mettle and hang in there. It's kind of surreal that there was a time where "gosh, I really wonder if Bobby Eaton will be able to hang with Steve O" was a thing that made sense. The first half was largely mat-based and it all looked super snug, then Eaton would throw fists and I liked that Steve O just continued going about his business clean as a whistle. Rather than popping Eaton in the mouth, despite being more than entitled to, he planted him with a big vertical soup-LAY (is Solie still the only commentator to pronounce it like that? Surely I'm forgetting someone obvious). The end might've come a bit suddenly, but at the same time it made sense that it did. Eaton used the ropes and won wholly unexpectedly, obviously the first thing he's going to do is get out of dodge quickly. It was like Fish hitting the game-winner against San Antonio with .4 seconds on the clock. Nobody's hanging about to let the refs check if it left his fingertips in time, just pack your shit and get on the bus. Sullivan's post-match promo is so awesome and I really hope we have footage of the Boston Street Fight with Keirn.
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