The Final Conflict - Slaughter & Kernodle v Steamboat & Youngblood! In the cage!

Sgt Slaughter & Don Kernodle v Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (Cage Match) (Mid-Atlantic, 3/12/83)

It's been about 15 years since I last watched this and I couldn't have told you a thing about it before yesterday. I know I liked it back whenever, back when I went through the awesome Ricky Steamboat comp put together by our man goodhelmet, but that's about the extent of my recollection. "A legendary match that I liked for...many reasons, I'm sure." There you go. One of the fun things about being a stupid godforsaken wrestling nerd is going back and re-watching stuff after a decade and a half as if it's brand new again, and on the freshest of fresh re-watches this felt like one of the best US tag matches ever. 

It's interesting comparing it to other tag team cage matches of the era. Around this time you had Jerry Blackwell getting head-first launched into all four sides of the cage practically from the bell, whereas this was a much slower burn and a lengthier affair into the bargain. It didn't start out anywhere near as wild and chaotic. For about half the match it was essentially a regular tag match that just happened to be taking place inside a steel cage. It worked though, even for a rabid bloodthirsty degenerate like me, and I loved how they put across how dangerous the cage itself is. It was kind of like one of those early FMW barbed wire matches, or even something like Kudo/Toyoda, where there was a sense of danger just via proximity. There was a hesitancy to engage or lock up near the ropes, because being close to the ropes meant being close to the cage and that was where you didn't want to be. 

The early shine segment was great and I liked how Steamboat and Youngblood worked everything clean. They dominated through technique and skill, the mark of a true babyface. That was in stark contrast to later when Slaughter and Kernodle would use the cage liberally and throw pot shots with impunity, jabs to the throat, blatant chokes, eye rakes; all it missed was some biting of the forehead. Either way the work to isolate Kernodle was strong. The leaping headlock takeover is always a favourite of mine and they did it often enough here where you knew Kernodle would find a way to counter it at some point. When he did you figured he'd make the tag to Slaughter and maybe they'd be able to isolate Youngblood in turn, but in a nice twist Youngblood had already made the tag to Steamboat, and the camera shot of the latter flying into view with a top rope forearm to cut off Kernodle again was awesome. Slaughter getting irate on the apron was also fantastic and he was basically incredible in this from start to finish. At one point he gets distracted by Youngblood and runs across the apron to shit-talk him, misses Kernodle reaching for the tag, but of course as soon as he gets back to his corner Steamboat has dragged Kernodle away again and Slaughter is left fuming. I actually thought the set up to Kernodle finally tagging out was a little weak - it was pretty much just a punch - but I forgot about that the instant Slaughter came in and got chucked into the cage. He sold this by writhing around like someone had poured scalding water on his back, which again only served to highlight how much you do not want to be thrown into that steel. There was a cool moment earlier on the babyface side as well where Kernodle tried to throw Youngblood into it but Steamboat came across and blocked it; just a simple thing but clearly effective. When Slaughter tried to ram Youngblood's head into it there was an extended struggle with Jay fighting against it by putting his foot on the cage, Slaughter then trying to grate face across steel the closer it got, only for Youngblood to finally fight him off. The way they built that first half of the match was tremendous and they milked everything to perfection. 

The tables turning with Youngblood finally getting thrown into the cage was the obvious and perfect way to finally transition into the face in peril. From there on out it was less of the wrestling match it had been and steadily became the fight you knew it would. They went for the double heat segment as well, with Steamboat coming in off the hot tag, going for the flying cross body, but eating nothing but steel after Slaughter shoved Kernodle out the way at the last second, a great little reverse of Steamboat saving Youngblood from earlier. By the end everyone was bleeding but for a change it wasn't Slaughter who went wildest with the blade, it was his partner and Kernodle was a fucking mess. This is some of the best blood-loss selling you'll see. All of them were doing it but Slaughter was phenomenal, staggering all over the place, falling through the ropes, flying into the cage like he had no control over his body, everything feeling properly last ditch, life or death. Even his slow climb up the cage looked laboured and then he went and missed the fucking splash just for another bit of madness. The closing stretch felt epic and in some ways ahead of its time, because most tag matches weren't doing this with the callbacks and partner saves and big nearfalls in 1983. This was like 6/9/95 if Kobashi was bleeding buckets and Taue's finisher was a cobra clutch. The tape jumping right at the finish is annoying, but I think we get the idea of how it went down and someone letting their film reel get dusty is hardly the wrestlers' fault. Well I guess technically it is, since it was Don Kernodle who kept the tape all those years when it had been thought lost to time. So thank you, Don. Just do better next time. 

1983 was a hell of a year for good wrestling. This is up there amongst the very best of it, and in a world where Greg Valentine didn't whip Roddy Piper in the face with a chain it would probably be #1.