Some Mid-Atlantic TV

Jake Roberts & Ricky Steamboat v The Grappler & Super Destroyer (Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, 11/18/81)

I thought this was an awesome little match. You know how these studio tags tend to go. Usually they'll be way more frantic than they'd be in an arena, less about milking the big spots and payoffs, more about working sharp and heated in the closer environment. Sometimes that'll mean the structure takes a hit because they'll only have four or five minutes to work with, but this had double that, none of the individual segments felt rushed, they built heat with a short and effective babyface workover, everything they did looked snug, etc. It was just really good stuff all the way through. Jake and Steamboat are such a fun unit and I'm not sure I've seen them pair up before. They were clearly the two young studs of the territory at this point and they worked like it. The early exchanges were great, the way everybody worked in and out of quick headlocks, lots of quick leg trips, how each team tried to make the quick tag and maintain the advantage before the other team could make their own tag. Jake's headlock on the Grappler was one of the best I've seen in ages and what made it better was how Grappler put up a struggle to get out of it. He managed to almost shift around onto his stomach and reverse it, so Jake bridged up to his feet in one motion and used his height to leverage Grappler back to the mat. It was an awesome spot, one I think I've seen Jake do before, but this felt properly organic and came off smooth as butter. He eventually takes a turn in peril and Grappler and Super D throw a bunch of tight forearms and elbows, nasty ones to the midsection, a couple right on top of the head, really cutting the ring off and working in tandem to keep him isolated. This also might be the first time Jake busted out the DDT on TV as even Caudle was taken aback by it (he referred to it as a "front bulldog of sorts"). Non-finish isn't surprising, but it leads to a nice heated brawl afterwards with Steamboat and Piper. Hard to ask for much more.


Tully Blanchard v Manny Fernandez (Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, 2/9/85)

Bring back the TV title already. Seriously, it's such an easy way to build or put heat on wrestlers without actually requiring someone to outright lose. WWE have what, ten hours of content on television every week? More than that? In this workrate world that's surely enough time to throw out a fifteen minute time limit draw. Tully is really a master - maybe THE master - of working this sort of match. He can spend the first half on the back foot in a thousand different and satisfying ways, can take over through shenanigans, kill some more time working over the babyface, then when his back is up against the wall he can run down the clock to save his belt. The first six or seven minutes of this had Manny on top with Tully trying and failing to gain a foothold. We got some nice leg work, and there was this cool little moment where Manny took a bit too long to hook in a submission, so Tully just reversed it into one of his own and made Manny fight to regain control. Usually in those situations the person in Tully's shoes would lay there waiting for Manny to finish rallying the crowd, even if plausibly they could've done something to escape in that time. I love Fit Finlay because he'd never let your rest on your laurels like that and Tully has a lot of the same qualities. He won't let you forget that it's supposed to be a contest. I don't know if anybody right now is as good as Tully, but the framework for something like this isn't that difficult to replicate. In the end your heel escapes by the skin of his teeth while still looking smart and competent, while your babyface takes it right to the wire and might've pulled it off with an extra minute or two. Or in this case, had Tully not decided to just chuck him over the top rope.