This was rompin' stompin' Hacksaw Reed, out for revenge after Slater tried to cash in Ric Flair's bounty and put Reed out of professional wrestling. I kind of forgot how great a puncher Reed was. He throws a number of awesome punches in this, big haymakers, short jabs, huge winding uppercuts, an amazing fist drop, just great stuff. When I started writing this I promised I wouldn't mention Terry Funk, because I think I've mentioned Funk every time I've ever written about Dick Slater on this stupid blog, but I can't not talk about Slater doing the Terry Funk ping pong bit in the corner as Reed punches him up and down. Slater taking over by just sort of punching Reed in the neck one time was a bit of a sudden transition, but Reed was still wearing the neck brace from the previous bounty angle so I guess it makes sense. I mean I've never had a broken neck or indeed any neck injury serious enough to warrant a brace, but if I had then I suppose a large southern man punching me in the neck would be enough to halt me in my tracks with some degree of certainty. What was more jarring was how Slater moved away from targeting the neck to going for the figure-four, which itself wound up being a short detour. The home stretch is pretty damn big, though. Reed hits his awesome gorilla press slam, one where he really had to fight to get Slater up over his head, then Slater hits a gusher off a head dive into the turnbuckle bolt, and Reed even bites the cut and spits the blood skyward! Reed kicking out of the piledriver was a great call back to the earlier neck work and a massive moment in itself, then Reed reverses another piledriver into a pin for the victory. There'd been a couple ref' bumps leading up the piledriver reversal and my first thought was Dusty Finish, but I liked how both Tommy Gilbert and Karl Fergie raised Reed's hand to eliminate all doubt.
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