-Originally aired March 27, 1982.
-Your hosts are Lance Russell & Dave Brown.
-Bill Dundee is here with his arm in a sling, and Lance says we’ll look at some tape later in the show to explain why Bill will be on the shelf for longer than they initially suspected.
-Off to the Mid-South Coliseum for highlights of Sweet Brown Sugar & Bobby Eaton vs. Steve Keirn & Robert Gibson. Keirn is the face-in-peril for a looooooooooong time, with Jimmy Hart doing some skillful referee distraction so his men can wallop Keirn with a cane repeatedly. Gibson finally tags in and avenges the ass-kicking his blonde partner was taking for practice, and Sugar panics and throws Gibson over the top rope to draw the DQ and get out of there with the Southern Tag Team Titles intact.
-We go back to Mid-South Coliseum highlights, and I’m beginning to suspect that the guy in charge of bringing the ring to the TV studio answered his phone and blurted out “THAT WAS TODAY?!” It’s Jerry Lawler defending the Southern Heavyweight Title against Dutch Mantell. The boys get carried away and brawl into the crowd, back when that was still a novel spot.
-Dutch is in the studio, and he admits to not liking Lawler. People got tired of Pittsburgh and Dallas winning every Super Bowl, and Dutch wants to do something for all the people who are tired of Jerry Lawler. He and Lawler are both scheduled for squash matches this week, and he makes a pitch to Lawler: Cancel both of their scheduled matches and wrestle each other instead for the Southern Heavyweight Title match right here on TV, AND make it loser-leaves-town.
-Lawler’s here, and Lawler’s game.
SOUTHERN HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE, LOSER LEAVES TOWN, NO DISQUALIFICATION: JERRY “The King” LAWLER (Champion) vs. DUTCH MANTELL
-It’s a FIGHT to start off, which I love. They hate each other, why would they lock up? Lawler strangles Dutch. Dutch stretches the King. They trade punches and Lawler flings Dutch across the ring. Great spot sees Dutch on the apron, and Jerry runs the length of the studio and connects with a hard right.
-Dutch gets desperate and decides to start making use of the stipulations. Back in the ring, Lawler charges again but Dutch backdrops him over the top and onto the concrete, then grabs a chair and smacks him across the back. But Lawler kicks out of everything that Dutch tries to dish out. Mantel takes him out to the floor for a piledriver, but Lawler backdrops out. Lawler keeps beating on Dutch, and Dutch finally just walks away and goes to the commentary table and declares that he can’t take anymore, and that Lawler is the toughest opponent he’s ever had.
-Dutch wants to make Lawler an offer and tells him to come over to the commentary table so they can talk it over. Dutch offers to concede the match and let Lawler have the Southern Heavyweight Title, and if Lawler won’t hold him to the Loser Leaves Town stipulation, Dutch will team up with him and help him fight the First Family. Lawler kind of accepts but points out that he himself suggested that after the SECOND time that the two of them ever wrestled. Dutch gets kind of tired of waiting for Jerry to make a decision, so finally he just Orndorffs Jerry and drills him in the skull with a chair, then drags him back in the ring and piledrives him. But since the referee thought the match was over, there’s no one to count the pin, so Dutch counts his own three-count, declares himself champion, and walks off with the Southern Heavyweight Title belt. Great angle with a twist. You knew Dutch was going to do something dastardly but they still managed to come up with a surprise, instead of the “screwjob and Lawler leaves town” booking that you’d expected.
EXPIRATION OF TIME: STAN LANE, ERIC EMBRY, STEVE KEIRN, & ROBERT GIBSON vs. LUKE GRAHAM, THE DREAM MACHINE, THE MONK, & THE ANGEL (with Jimmy Hart and J.R. Hart Jr.)
-So they’re still trying to figure out what the secondary Hart’s name is, I guess.
FALL ONE: Embry, making his territory debut, gets taken down by Dream Machine but evades a kneedrop. Everybody takes turns getting their shit in. Angel goes for a claw on Robert Gibson, but Gibson resists and resists, and Jimmy Hart just takes a cane shot out of everybody for the conveniently-timed disqualification to wrap up the show.
