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This was part of the 1978 Real World Tag League tournament.
More than anything, it’s a continuation. A stopgap sort of a match in the feud, re-establishing all the facts, inching closer, but still denying the ultimate climax. Or at least what’ll pass for that in the 1970s.
Everything that worked about their meeting a year prior still works here.
The immortal battle between punching and stabbing, conducted by the flagbearers of both schools of thought. Sheik and Abby hide the fork and the spike a little more this time and make more of a production out of that classic heeling now that this isn’t a tournament final and they can play a little more. There’s blood, the Funks get more and more pissed off until the match hits a fever pitch. The structure and rules of a professional wrestling match are eventually too much to contain the hostility that’s built up over the match (and the one before it), and shit breaks entirely loose, before the referee is forced to admit defeat in his battle to keep this looking like a sporting affair and calls a disqualification.
Fortunately, there are those slight differences and so it’s not just a complete retread. The stalling at the beginning from The Sheik is different, and the use of a HIDDEN OBJECT (not a spike) for a shot to the throat in transition is also a new one. Instead of just cutting up Terry’s arm, they go for his face this time, and carve Dory up when he comes in. That’s an especially good addition, this idea that they know Dory can’t really fight like that long term in the way that Terry can, and becomes this easy victim. Both Funks bleed a whole lot, and the game that the villains play with hiding their different pieces of equipmunk is a fun new wrinkle too. It doesn’t make them more dangerous exactly, but it’s a weird little lizard brain trick. Even if the referee lets them get away with a lot historically, it’s like Raven always doing his stuff behind the ref’s back in ECW, just creating this innate feeling that someone’s getting away with something that they shouldn’t, even if it’s pretty much all allowed.
The finish is, of course, different as well.
Terry Funk once again comes back in at the end and whips ass in a wonderful manner. Without the taped up left though, he doesn’t have a weapon of his own. Abby holds him in a bear hug this time so Sheik can stab him in the bloody forehead as he can’t move.
Dory finally has enough and now he’s the one to come in with the equalizer and belts Abby and Sheik with ring bell shots to the face and body. Dory throws referees down and won’t stop, and this time it’s the Funks that lose on the disqualification. A great little escalation from match to match here, now with each Funk bloodied and it being Dory of all people who loses his shit and costs them the match, a most unexpected conclusion.
Returns diminish from the initial meeting, as they do in a match that opts to simply switch things around instead of really progressing them, but with this much talent, it’s just a little too hard for this to be anything but great.
HANDWERK 