Absolutely Fabulous

Fabulous Ones, Dutch Mantell & Steve O v The Sheepherders, Adrian Street & Jesse Barr (Stipulations Match) (Memphis, 3/28/83)

I still don't actually know what the stipulations to this are. Haven't known since I first saw it over ten years ago. They don't necessarily have any bearing on how the match is worked, so it's not like DiBiase/Duggan where they're in the cage wearing tuxedos and there's a glove on a pole and whatnot. They're not gimmick stips as such. The result of the match and who takes the fall specifically determines which of the several stipulations must be upheld and of course this is Memphis so you better believe somebody is leaving town when all is said and done. As a match it was plenty chaotic. Street wasn't involved for very long, but his exotico shtick was fun as he got kicked in the butt and threw a hissy fit, then later was the recipient of a wishbone and I can't really do justice to his sell of it. You had guys coming in illegally, heels taking cheapshots, being chased out by the babyfaces, the babyfaces themselves taking cheapshots; there was always something going on beyond what the two guys in the ring were doing and Calhoun had to spend the whole time trying to keep a lid on it. The best parts were when one guy would just randomly smack someone with a chair for no apparent reason. At one point Mantell came running along the floor and smashed a Sheepherder in the head. Keirn, from outside the ring, hit someone in the back as they were standing by the ropes, and I don't know where he even got the chair from but it was a total Tenryu move. Lane getting on the mic post-match and telling Cornette to "HIT THE ROAD, JACK" prompts the tantrum to end all tantrums as Corny has to leave Memphis for like four days or something. I'm sure he was back in three.


Fabulous Ones v The Moondogs (Stretcher Match) (Memphis, 5/2/83)

Outside of Lawler/Dundee, this might be my favourite Memphis feud. I have a ton of fond memories of going through the Memphis set and a whole bunch of them revolve around the Fabulous Ones. Before the Memphis stuff I mostly knew Steve Keirn as the old balding gator hunter who was always covered in chewing tobacco. I remembered him with chew dripping down his beard and Monsoon calling him a disgusting boor and Heenan sometimes cracking jokes about him having just kissed Mike McGuirk (as an aside, Heenan's McGuirk cracks might be the best running gag in WWF history). I always liked Lane and even had time for his goofy karate, but he was the sauce to Eaton's steak and everything else in the main course. Then came Memphis and I couldn't believe how good these guys were. The Mid-South set had come out before Memphis but I was late in getting to that, so while everybody else involved in the 80s project already got to see them be awesome - albeit as heels - the Fabs jumped off the page to me as an amazing, all-time level babyface unit. Eleven years later they're still my favourite ever US tag team. The thing that separates them from a lot of babyface teams of the era is that the Fabs got to brawl like motherfuckers and have insane blood feuds with the Moondogs and the Pretty Young Things. Midnights v RnRs might be the pinnacle of US tag wrestling, but they never had anything like this. That Midnights/Fantastics match from the Clash where they were chucking each other over tables was nuts, but they never hit the same level of visceral hatred as Fabs/Moondogs. Naturally this starts out wild before the Fabs isolate Rex (I'm not entirely sure if it was him or Spot and neither is Lance because he just refers to him as "the bigger Moondog"), and I don't have any memory of them trying to double stomp his guts to mush but they surely do just that and it was surely fucking awesome. In an interesting twist on the norm it's uber-babyface Stan Lane who brings out a chain, but there's a collision between him and Rex and the chain goes flying. I loved Keirn picking it up and trying to strangle Rex from the outside, though of course that leaves the ref' distracted and he misses Spot clubbing Lane in the head with a big old dinosaur bone. The short heat segment on Lane rules and Jimmy Hart jumping around blowing his whistle like an idiot has everyone itching for him to get popped in the mouth. The hot tag to Keirn sends everything into chaos and the last couple minutes are insanity. Keirn bonks Rex with the dinosaur bone and goes full Pirata Morgan, biting him in the forehead and spitting the blood in the air, while Lane and Spot try to throttle each other on the floor. Finish is totally crazy. For a match that can only end with one team being carted out on a stretcher, you'd think any stoppage other than that would be anticlimactic. But Keirn being hanged in the ropes while the Moondogs and Jimmy Hart try to murder him felt way more disturbing than what him being beaten into unconsciousness would have. Sending Keirn away in an ambulance wasn't enough, they wanted him carted out by the coroner! The ropes really snapped back as Lane finally managed to free him as well. Just a brutal looking sequence and Lane wildly swinging a chair trying to defend his fallen comrade was an awesome visual. And hey, Keirn WAS eventually taken away on a stretcher - on the second attempt since a Moondog tipped it over the first time - so in the end they fulfilled the terms of the contract. This might not even be the wildest match of the feud.


Fabulous Ones v Bobby Eaton & Duke Myers (Hair v Titles) (Memphis, 5/16/83)

The Rock n Rolls never had anything like this, either. This was the kind of thing that, if you ran it with a slightly tweaked finish, could conceivably turn a guy babyface. Duke Myers got his brains beaten out here, bled like a stab victim and had no idea what was even going on at the end. He was a warm body that Bobby Eaton rolled onto an opponent and he'd have stayed there if not for being dragged away. The match starts out with them going Lane in peril almost right away, which was probably a smart booking decision considering how much the Fabs were going to take of the match later. Lane doesn't really make a hot tag; he basically makes his own comeback and is fully recovered by the time he tags in Keirn, but Randy Hales sells it as a big moment. I like that Lane sold the effects of his own headbutt, at least. Then the thrashing begins. After a few seconds of Keirn beating on him Myers' face is a ruin. He gets nothing from here on out. It's just a total Fabs domination and Hales says several times that he's never seen a guy busted open so bad. Even the mid-match stoppage is the kind of thing you could use to put major sympathy on someone, especially if you have Cornette and Eaton dump him for losing them the match. Myers never quit, he was just beaten half to death and the ref' stopped it. Cornette and Eaton leave in disgust and you get some more heat on them, setting up the revenge run from Myers. That's not complicated booking and we've seen something similar work a few times. But this is hair v titles and if Cornette's boys lose, he's bald. So they get the match restarted and Myers gets bludgeoned some more. The finish is one of those things where, if you started to feel even a little sympathy for Myers after the unholy shitkicking he'd received, it all evaporated when Cornette and Eaton managed to cheat their way to a win. Myers himself played little part in it, but he's associated with them, reaps the same rewards and ultimately becomes an undeserved tag champ. Unless you'd count taking that beating and walking away as something worthy of a champion. And well, you might not be wrong.