Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen v Killer Khan & Tiger Toguchi (New Japan, 11/20/81)
The West Texas Wranglers! The Waxahachie-Borger Connection! Is the 12-year tag team we would've gotten if the world was a just place. Murdoch in the waistcoat and cowboy hat pre-match! There's a kind of "two ships passing in the night" feeling with Murdoch and Hansen, considering Murdoch had just jumped to New Japan from All Japan and Hansen would jump the other way in a matter of weeks. I don't think I've ever seen them actually match up either. It probably would've been good maybe. This was mostly standard stuff from all involved, but pretty much every interaction is fun and unique. Murdoch and Toguchi had a really nice under the radar WAR-style potatofest a couple months prior and they pick up some of that here, albeit briefly. Murdoch/Khan is a hoot just for Murdoch selling Khan's chops and wild shrieking. At one point Murdoch shouts "knee, Stan!" and Hansen, from the corner, raises a knee for Murdoch to ram Khan into. A well-oiled machine. Redneck chemistry in action. Toguchi mostly got clobbered as you'd expect but when it's Hansen and Murdoch doing the clobbering you know it works. The lariat off the apron also worked. Or at least it worked for us, the gentle spectators. Toguchi may have a different view. I also have no idea if Borger is even in west Texas.
Dick Murdoch & Masked Superstar v Al Perez & Brett Sawyer (Mid-South TV, 1/25/86)
Nice heated TV tag. A couple short heat segments, a red hot studio crowd, Perez and Sawyer being the canvas for Murdoch to display his art. He had some amazing slow motion pratfalls, followed by close-ups of him checking for teeth in a mouth that's already missing several of them. Perez and Sawyer brought plenty of energy and that was about all I was asking for. Perez bumps Murdoch around with some nice headscissor takeovers, then goes for one too close to the heel corner and Superstar grabs Perez while he's up on Murdoch's shoulders and splats him off the turnbuckle. Murdoch deciding he's had enough and braining Sawyer with a chair at the end was very great. He was top 5 in the world that year. Maybe top 3.
Dick Murdoch v Nikita Koloff (World Championship Wrestling, 1/16/88)
A good old fashioned donnybrook! How do I have no memory of Cornette bringing in Murdoch as a hired gun for the Midnight Express? This was around the point where Dusty and Nikita were a team and Murdoch's main goal is to take out his old partner, but tonight he gets the chance to take a run at his old partner's new partner. Murdoch was amazing from the start here, being backed into the corner by Nikita and slinking almost to the floor like a coward as Nikita threatened to hammer him. I know some folk get irked by Murdoch acting the fool basically every time out, edging a little too far towards comedy when the situation may not call for it, but I thought he was perfect here, with his stooging, his cartoony selling on things without going full goofball, and when it was time to get vicious you better believe he got vicious. There was a bit of both early on where he was slamming Nikita into the corner, really whipping his neck back against the turnbuckles, then when Nikita reverses it and pays him in kind Murdoch's sell of the buckle shots is incredible, looking at Nikita wide-eyed for some mercy. When Murdoch takes over he works the arm, cranking a mean armbar, draping it over the apron and dropping his elbow into the bicep, straightening it out on the mat and standing on the hand so he can freely stomp the shoulder joint. It was some real scowling Ole Anderson shit, simple but unquestionably nasty. At one point he also just up and bit Nikita in the face! Nikita spends most of this on the defensive but he fires back with a few big strikes as hope spots. Of course Murdoch sells them all amazingly, getting caught with a big boot, staggering backwards holding his jaw in place, buckling over and falling face first as slowly as physics will allow, butt sticking up in the air. The last five minutes are a scramble to the finish with Murdoch trying to put Nikita away and win the TV title before time expires. Usually you'd have your babyface fighting the clock late, but this time Nikita accidentally clocks Tommy Young with a Sickle and in the aftermath Cornette whacks him with the tennis racket. So it's babyface champ trying to survive against the odds rather than babyface champ pushing for the victory. Eventually the Midnights come to ringside, then Dusty and Windham arrive to cheer on Nikita, and the last minute with Nikita hanging on for dear life, surviving piledrivers and neckbreakers and everything else Murdoch throws at him, felt like the biggest thing in the world. Really a testament to how they built everything and especially the performance of Murdoch. Maybe if he hit that brainbuster five seconds earlier he'd have gotten a 17-month reign with the belt and Turner would've won the war before it really started.
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