Legacy Review- From The Vault
WCCW David Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions
May 6, 1984 from Texas Stadium in Irving, TX
Commentary: Bill Mercer (I assume but correct me if I'm wrong)
Parade of Champions was an irregular major show held by WCCW, and it was being revived by promoter Fritz Von Erich for one very specific reason- a memorial show for his late son David. David was generally considered the best wrestler and biggest star of the many Von Erich boys, or at worst side by side with his brother Kevin. He passed away in February '84 in Tokyo during a tour there due what's widely believed but never officially confirmed to be a drug overdose. Sadly he would only be the first Von Erich to die young, a story that's grown beyond wrestling to mainstream exposure, recently thanks to the movie The Iron Claw. In his memory WCCW has set up this show, and even manged to book it in good old Hole in the Roof Stadium. As a lifelong Cowboys fan I miss that place. Due to the shock over David's death and WCCW still being in their peak years thanks to the ongoing Von Erichs/Fabulous Freebirds feud this show was a massive success, drawing over 30K in attendance. That would lead to the Memorial Parade of Champions being an annual show in the stadium for most of the rest of the promotion's existence.
No intro, we go straight to JYD walking to the ring. Texas Stadium looks
AWESOME in this format. I'd know those two play clocks across from hard
camera anywhere from years of watching the Cowboys play here. The show
is during the day too, which to me is more of a plus for the overall
look.
The Junkyard Dog def The Missing Link (w/Skandor Akbar) by DQ in 3:30- Missing Link looks like he needs a better barber. Link charges, but right into a JYD punch. Link flops onto the apron a couple of times, then grabs a chair and tosses it into the ring. JYD catches it and whacks Link with it, right in front of the ref. Another crazy flop to the floor from Link. Back in we get a lockup. Link tries a headbutt, which of course has no effect on JYD. JYD hits his own headbutts. Buckle shots that JYD also no sells. Link hits himself on the buckle! He's a few stenbolts short of a full assembly. Both guys get on their knees and JYD hits his crawling headbutts. Link "dodges" in the corner, which somehow hurts JYD despite clearly on the camera angle he didn't hit anything. Link gives him some shots and goes to the second rope. JYD dodges a splash. Akbar gets on the apron and JYD nails him. Another shot from Link from behind. He hits a horrible fistdrop thing off the second rope, and Akbar holds JYD's foot down as Link gets the pin. Link is announced as the winner, but then another ref comes in and they reverse to JYD by DQ for Akbar's interference. Aggressively not good. 1/4*
"Gentleman" Chris Adams & Sunshine def "Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin & Precious in 4:39- Mixed tag match here. Precious is Garvin's real life wife and they would later work together in Jim Crockett Promotions. Before the match Gino Herandez takes the mic and bitches about not being on the card. Adams and Sunshine tear Garvin's jacket in half after intros to rile him up. Usual mixed tag men vs men and women vs women only rules here. The guys start with some back and forth stuff. I'm guessing this was broadcast tape delay with the matches out of order because Mercer spoils the result of the main event. Adams gets a sunset flip for 2. Garvin is very determined to keep Adams from tagging out so Precious doesn't have to wrestle. Speed run and double clothesline. Superkick from Adams and he tags Sunshine in. Precious wants nothing to do with her so Sunshine pulls the rope to flip her in. After that it's.....not good. At all. Thankfully Precious gets back over and tags Garvin pretty quickly, despite Garvin still recovering. Adams runs over and suplexes him off the apron for 2. Slam/legdrop combo for 2. The old ref working this match only goes down to one knee to count. Garvin lifts Adams and hits him with a snake eyes in the heel corner. That busted Adams open and Garvin goes to work on him. Adams backdrops out of a piledriver and tags out. Garvin trips Sunshine! DONNYBROOK! Garvin holds Sunshine while Precious swings slaps in the general vicinity of her face. While the camera is on the women Adams does something and pins Garvin off camera. Great job, TV guys. And this was taped, not live! Adams and Garvin were borderline OK, the women were all kinds of awful. *
"Hacksaw" Butch Reed def Chick Donovan in 4:48- Reed, like JYD, was primarily a Mid-South wrestler at this time. Donovan, yes Chick that's not a typo, had short stints as a jobber in both WWF and WCW. Reed gives Donovan an earful and then some during the initial lockups, and won't stop trash talking the whole match. Donovan has enough and dropkicks him! Off the rope rebound Donovan drop toe holds him and grabs a headlock. Mercer says the mixed tag bout is "coming" so yeah, these matches were definitely broadcast out of order. Thanks to the WWE Vault folks for putting them back in the correct card order for this release. There's two guys barely 10 rows back on the floor that are using binoculars to look at the ring. How much of a close up do you need? I've been 10 rows back before and as long as there's no one tall in front of you or some kind of grade in the seat level you're fine. If you're thinking all of this is more interesting than what's going on in the match, you'd be extremely correct. Reed's generous and lets Donovan get a few holds in before unloading on him. Gorilla press slam from Reed. Flying tackle and it's over. Total jobber squash and not a particularly good one. 1/2*
Kamala (w/Skandor Akbar & Friday) and The Great Kabuki (w/Gary Hart) double DQ in 7:28- I'm pretty sure this is heel vs heel. Friday is the same look character as Kim Chee will later be, but I'm sure being played by someone different. In WWF Kim Chee was the man of 1000 gimmicks Steve Lombardi. Kabuki lets off some green mist and we're off. In theory. We're standing around. Kamala gives us the "I'm hungry" stomach pat. Finally a lockup and Kamala hits the first shots and chokes Kabuki. Kabuki responds with a couple of back kicks. The action is so scintillating Mercer lets us know what the current temperature is. 90 degrees by the way, so a not untypical May day in Dallas. Kamala hooks on a bear hug. And there we stay. After Kabuki escapes they exchange some head chops. More choking from Kamala. No, it's some kind of pec nerve hold. An upper titty twister. Hart and Akbar go over and start jawing at each other in a desperate attempt to try to get some juice into this thing while Kamala continues to fondle Kabuki. Eventually Kabuki hits a couple more kicks to put Kamala down. Kamala quickly goes back on offense with more chops. Kabuki superkick. The managers all start fighting outside and inside the ring and the ref has to throw the match out. Should have been thrown out before it started. That was almost physically painful to watch. DUD
One unfortunate thing lost on this copy is I believe the debut of the Freebirds' Badstreet USA music video. Still some of the best entrance music of all time.
NWA American Tag Team Championship: Rock & Soul def The Super Destroyers (c) in 8:12- The Americas tag title was the top tag title in the WCCW territory. Rock & Soul are Buck Zumhofe, who spent most of his time in the AWA and after his wrestling career became a convicted child molester, always want to get that out up front, and Iceman King Parsons. The Super Destroyers were a masked gimmick that passed between multiple different wrestlers and even territories. At this time they're the Irwin brothers, "Wild" Bill and Scott. And, never mind. This match isn't included on the Vault copy. Oh well. Doubt we're missing anything amazing. Could have lost the last match though. But if they didn't want to put Zumhofe up on their platform I get it.
WCCW World Six Man Tag Team Championship: Fritz, Kevin & Mike Von Erich def The Fabulous Freebirds (c) in 7:37- Thanks to the Von Erich/Freebirds war this is pretty much THE top title in the whole territory, one that only the Von Erichs or Freebirds have held. In fact its creation at Christmas Star Wars in '82 was the initial catalyst to get the feud started. Fritz is coming out of retirement to take what was usually David's place on the team. We jump right into the Von Erichs attacking the Freebirds as they get in the ring. Everyone's in jeans so I assume this is some kind of street fight or "come as you are" match. The Von Erichs clear the ring while the Freebirds go nuts on the floor. Especially Gordy, who's tossing chairs all over the place. A guy that I assume is the head official gets in the ring with a mic and says there's no rules except for one, tags will be enforced. Only two guys in the ring at a time. Kevin's got a cut on his hand, probably from trying to catch one of those chairs Gordy was throwing in. The bell rings to officially start with Kevin unloading on Buddy Roberts. HARD buckle shot. The Freebirds waste no time running in and the ref already has his hands full and then some. Kevin gets Roberts into his corner and tags out to Mike. From commentary Mercer calls Fritz "the greatest wrestler we've ever seen". It's good to be the territory owner. Mike works on Roberts' leg a bit. Roberts uses that to drag Mike into his corner and tag out to Hayes. Mike dodges a splash off the second rope and tags old man Fritz. Fritz does what he can on Hayes as things threaten to break down again. Fritz takes his belt off and whips Hayes with it. Hayes grabs his sore ass and runs off. Well, I can say from experience those things are no joke. Reset with Kevin and Gordy. Gordy pounds away on him against the ropes. Fritz comes over and gives Gordy a shot from the apron. Kevin goes for the Iron Claw. Gordy blocks it and pounds Kevin on the mat. Hayes clothesline on Kevin. He takes his boot off and nails Kevin with it. Roberts hits Kevin in the head with his belt buckle. Fantastic. Kevin does a crazy flip over Roberts and tags out to Fritz. Roberts backs the hell off. Fritz doesn't care and pounds him in the corner. EVERYONE IN THE POOL again. Fritz gets the Claw on Hayes! Roberts tries to break it up and we have a double claw! Gordy is able to break it up, hitting Fritz with his boot. Mike and Fritz get control back in the ring. Kevin crossbody off the top on Roberts! He gets the pin to win the titles back for the Von Erichs! Fun chaos brawl, with the usual nuclear heat this whole feud had. Fritz's return was a one night tribute thing, Kerry would take his place in the team after this. **3/4
After the bell "the biggest Oriental I've ever seen" according to Mercer runs in and helps the Freebirds attack the Von Erichs. Honestly I'm not sure who that is. Killer Khan maybe? Kerry comes out to help too.
The main event had previously been released as a single match, both in the Vault and in the old WWE Network Hidden Gems. Now we have it with (nearly) the whole show. The "presented in the most complete form possible" disclaimer comes up several times during the match. I'm pretty sure there's a few minutes missing from it somewhere but I'm not sure where and I don't think it hurts too bad.
NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Kerry Von Erich def "Nature Boy" Ric Flair (c) in 18:35- This also goes back to '82, when in his first pre-Starrcade '83 reign Flair narrowly escaped with the title after multiple matches with Kerry. Their steel cage match at Christmas Star Wars '82 was the spark that really lit the fuse on the Von Erich/Freebird war when the Freebirds, thanks to Michael Hayes working as a second ref in the match, helped Flair keep the title. Kerry unsurprisingly gets swarmed during his entrance. His robe says "In Memory of David" on the back. The DQ rule for this match has been waived, so Flair can lose the title on a DQ. The bell rings and Flair, feeling the crowd energy, struts around a little to cool things off before locking up. Takedown from Flair and mat stalemate. Big "go Kerry go" chant from the crowd and the wrestlers let that soak in a bit. Another mat exchange that ends in stalemate. Speed run and Kerry hits a couple of dropkicks. Flair bails to the corner to kill the momentum. Headlock into a top wristlock fight that the obviously bigger and stronger Kerry wins. Kerry starts in on some arm work. Flair backs him into the corner and hits some shoulderblocks, then the first chops. Kerry fires up and slugs back. Press slam! Flair tries to beg off again and sneaks out all the way to the floor. Back in Kerry backs Flair into the corner again. Flair gets out with a knee to the gut or slightly lower and puts Kerry down with a chop. He tosses Kerry out to the floor. Kerry pops right back up and tries a sunset flip for 2. Kerry gets a sleeper on! Flair fights around and back suplexes out. Snap mare/kneedrop combo from Flair. Suplex for 2. Kerry fires back with a standing dropkick! Abdominal stretch fight that Kerry wins to get it on. Flair shouts "Watch the tights!" then hiptosses free. Kneedrops from Kerry. Another speed run. Kerry gets the Claw on! Flair grabs Kerry's tights to hit another possibly low knee to get free. Another snap mare and Flair goes up top. Kerry slams him off. Flair tries another beg off but Kerry wants nothing to do with it! Flair Flip! He lands back in the ring and begs off again. Flair tries for a figure four but Kerry pushes him off. Kerry gets a backslide, and that gets the pin to win the title! It really happened! It's a good thing there's already a hole in the roof, there would have been after that pop. Huge celebration in the ring from all the Von Erichs. Flair's furious he got caught like that. He tells Kerry "I'll be back" before leaving. It's a genuine great moment even if Kerry really wasn't NWA World champ material, especially for a family that had just started to experience the tragedy they would. The match was very good but not encroaching on a classic. ***1/2
Kerry would get to carry the belt for a few weeks before dropping it back to Flair at an All Japan show in Yokohama, which would kick off the longest of all of Flair's reigns at 793 days.
OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Very much a one match show, though the six man bout is also worth checking out just because there's so little Von Erich/Freebird stuff that's widely available.
OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-
