By Liam Byrne @tvtimelimit
In ‘Tracking the Territories 1984: Volume Three’, Liam Byrne covered Black Saturday as an Appendix due to its noteworthy status in terms of wrestling history. With the WWE Network now streaming this show as a ‘Hidden Gem’, here is a review of the show that would leave so many Georgia wrestling fans up in arms.
Black Saturday
July the 14th was a date that would go down in wresting infamy as ‘Black Saturday’, the day that Vince McMahon’s WWF would be aired in the 6.05 timeslot on Superstation WTBS instead of the usual Georgia Championship Wrestling. Without warning, fans who had been used to seeing the trials and tribulations of wrestlers such as Ronnie Garvin, Jake Roberts and the Road Warriors, all marshalled along by Gordon Solie, were ‘treated’ to an introduction from Vince McMahon that proceeded taped matches from a selection of WWF superstars instead. Unsurprisingly, the response to this change was poor.
Unbeknownst to many casual fans, McMahon bought out the Brisco brothers and Jim Barnett’s stake in Georgia Championship Wrestling, giving him the controlling stake in the promotion and effectively ending it as an entity in its own right. Seeking a way to expose his product to as many eyes as possible, McMahon seized on disruption in the Georgia booking team, mainly caused by Ole Anderson’s approach to booking the company. McMahon had no interest in the promotion itself; his desire was all about the nationally televised slot that WTBS offered him, a timeslot he had sought (and failed) to buy from Turner before picking up the stake in GCW. In its infancy, and much to the chagrin of those who ran the channel, McMahon would offer only pre-taped footage, rather than fresh new content. Though this would change with the addition of some studio squash matches in time, the project as a whole would fall flat and lead to McMahon selling the timeslot to Jim Crockett in March of 1985.
In the growth of the WWF as a national promotion, it was one of the few missteps McMahon made, though one that clearly didn’t damage the company too much in the long run. However, any territorial coverage of 1984 as a year in wrestling would be remiss without looking at the action contained in that episode of Georgia Championship Wrestling.
Georgia Championship Wrestling 14.7.84
It is Freddie Miller, not Gordon Solie, who greets the fans of Georgia Championship Wrestling to this historic episode of the programme. He introduces Vince McMahon, who runs down a show including matches with the Iron Sheik, Adrian Adonis teaming alongside Dick Murdoch, Jesse Ventura and Big John Studd. Alongside these contests, we will also get interviews that include Paul Orndorff. It doesn’t look like a show that is designed to win new fans, but it does showcase some of the bigger names the promotion were looking to push at this time.
The problem with the shows initially was the use of pre-taped footage that was already available through other outlets. This is clear from the first match, as Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch take on Nick DeCarlo and S.D. Jones in a match that was shown on Championship Wrestling on the 27th of June. Here were my thoughts:
The tag team contest with Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch is a non-title contest as they are going up against S.D. Jones and Nick DeCarlo, not exactly a team who are setting the world alight. The reactions, both positive and negative, are noticeably louder than they usually are on episodes of Championship Wrestling. It is Jones and Murdoch who begin the contest for their respective teams, with Jones outmuscling Murdoch and wisely backing off when Adonis is tagged in on the blindside. Both Adonis and Murdoch are good at stooging and bumping, with Adonis taking a slam from Jones and flying into a punch from DeCarlo, much to the delight of the crowd as Jones shimmies in the center of the ring. As Garea suggests the champions are at least keeping a fresh man in, DeCarlo gets his first legal introduction into the contest and sends both Adonis and Murdoch down to the mat with armdrag style takedowns.
It is DeCarlo who loses control for the underdogs, eating a Murdoch punch before the champions land a double elbowdrop. Jones enters the ring to break an Adonis abdominal stretch with a headbutt, whilst DeCarlo manages to crawl through Murdoch’s legs shortly afterwards to make a hot tag. An Irish whip sees the champions collide mid-ring, but Adonis takes advantage of Jones focusing on Murdoch by hitting him in the back with a knee. This time, it is Jones who manages to fight back, landing another headbutt on Adonis to allow him to tag in DeCarlo. This sets up the finish though, as a DeCarlo charge into the corner meets a Murdoch knee and the champions finish him off with the back suplex/top rope clothesline combination. A longer match that might have been expected, but Adonis and Murdoch are gold in these situations and this is very watchable.
The first interview of this show is the latest acquisition of Mr Fuji, George ‘The Animal’ Steele. Fuji is now wearing the suit and bowler hat that would become his trademark, a look that Gene Okerlund compliments. Steele comes into camera shot and stands in front of Okerlund, with the interviewer asking whether he might have a chance to communicate. Fuji allows Steele to talk, which sees us wait several moments for him to release a guttural cry to end the interview. A very cartoonish step away from what the Georgia fans would be used to.
Jesse Ventura is up next, with his opponent, Chris Curtis, already in the ring. Ventura takes his time to get into the ring, before offering some strong words towards an American Football player who is in the crowd. The bell has sounded but Ventura still has yet to remove his walk in gear. He continues to milk the time at the expense of action, but as he does engage, Curtis gets sent into the turnbuckle and thus begins a methodical beatdown. A choke and a chop have Curtis on the canvas, but Ventura misses a legdrop that allows Curtis to fire back with some punches of his own. Unfortunately for the jobber, he charges straight into a knee by Ventura, putting The Body back in control. Ventura yanks away on Curtis’ arm before targeting the back with several big forearms to the kidney. This all sets up for the inverted body vice submission finisher that gives Ventura the win. With Ventura versus Hulk Hogan a match that the WWF would try to run with later in the year, it is understandable to see Ventura highlighted here, but he isn’t exactly known for his in-ring dynamism.
Okerlund is now with B. Brian Blair to speak about how tough the competition is in the promotion, with Blair running down the various champions and a number of different wrestlers who are coming to earn their shot. Blair is apparently teaming with Spike Huber – a combination we’ve never seen – and is targeting a run at the tag belts. Speaking of someone we’ve never seen, Alexis Smirnoff is the next person for Okerlund to interview, with a Russian character unsurprisingly talking about the Olympics and the Russian boycott.
It is the Iron Sheik who is up next, as he faces Ron Hutchison. McMahon builds him up by talking about he was WWF World Heavyweight Champion until being dethroned by Hulk Hogan, though it does just beg the question: why not showcase Hogan on this episode? A fireman’s carry opens the contest for the Sheik and he follows up with a turnbuckle smash and back body drop. A gutbuster has Hutchison screaming in agony, whilst also eliciting ‘We want Slaughter’ chants from the crowd. The camel clutch is applied off the back of a beautiful back suplex and that is the contest. The Iron Sheik is a really underrated squash match worker, with this made even better as he gets on the microphone to challenge ‘that fat soldier’.
We then head to a match with Big John Studd taking on Bobo Brazil, the legend who was making sporadic appearances for the WWF after a six year absence. Both men test the ropes to begin, before the first exchange sees both men tee off with forearm strikes and elbows. An Irish whip and a back elbow has Brazil on the canvas, though Studd then goes straight to the bearhug to slow things down. Brazil manages to reverse the bearhug into one of his own, only to have it broken with an eye rake. He retaliates with one of his own before a headbutt has Studd heading to ringside in a daze. Studd returns to the ring with two big forearm blows, leading to a choke and a shoulderblock for two. Studd applies a chinlock, but after escaping the hold, Brazil collides twice into Studd with competing shoulderblocks and then staggers him with a headbutt. Another headbutt follows a kick in the corner, but Brazil misses a legdrop and gets nailed with an elbowdrop for a Studd win. Competitive, yet short enough to not outstay its welcome, though nothing to set the world alight.
In what is arguably the premier spot of the show, McMahon throws over to Gene Okerlund for the interview we had been promised with ‘Mr Wonderful’ Paul Orndorff. Orndorff doesn’t even deign the fans worthy to face them when he is talking, choosing to aim his words at Okerlund as the two men go back and forth as to what makes Orndorff wonderful. It is only when he removes his robe that we get a brief shot of his face alongside his body, a body that increases the divorce rate every time it is on show if Orndorff is to be believed.
To finish, McMahon speaks about Hulk Hogan appearing on next week’s show, before both McMahon and Miller are there to sign off on the first episode in a new era for Georgia Championship Wrestling and the 6.05 timeslot. Whilst the show wasn’t egregiously bad, it highlighted a lot of the wrestling that fans of Georgia would have hated about the WWF product. To many, WWF offered the sizzle and not the steak; that wasn’t what the fans in Georgia at this time desired.
