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This was for Lawler and Dundee’s AWA Southern Tag Team Titles.
a.k.a. The Original Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl ’79.
So, the thing here is that, as a match, we really only have three minutes of the thing. It’s the frustration with a lot of old territory television stuff. Seeing as this was not on a TV taping itself nor one of those lucky situations where we’ve lucked into the footage being available in full through other sources, what we have is simply what we have, as CWA just aired the closing of the match itself and then the far more important and interesting post-match festivities.
It just so happens that those three minutes are awesome, and suggest that the match in full is probably genuinely great.
Dundee is the legal man for all of it, bloody and desperately fighting back. Lawler can never get in legally (an unfamiliar situation, to be sure) and is a prisoner to his hot-headed nature, arguably doing more harm than good in the end. Latham and Farris are not lighting the world on fire on offense or especially impressive, but both take some real good bumps and sell both dramatically and believably for all of the babyfaces’ punches. Dundee especially puts on a great display of sympathetic selling while also still kicking a ton of ass, the perfect complement to Lawler’s all-fire ass beating approach. It’s only three minutes, but it feels like enough to say that I know this was a great match but lack the material to prove it, and that it stands up as yet another example of how it doesn’t matter what happens in a match, so much as how it happens. This is ninety percent punching, at minimum, and not only does it all rule because of the skill on both ends of all those fists, but because they all come in different settings, circumstances, and are thrown in different ways every time. A masterclass in three minutes.
The bad guys steal the titles when one of them breaks up a Dundee pin with an elbow drop to the forehead, and they do a twin switch spot to sneak away with the pin.
It is not to say that’s not important, but that is not why we are here — you and I as writer and reader, or the contributor and I in a business exchange — nor is it why this footage has survived, closer and closer to a half century after the fact.
Following the highway robbery, Lawler and Dundee keep fighting. After some stunningly old-fashioned belt shots that also bust Jerry open, the fight moves through the building, and away, before Lance Russell directs a camera to find them down in the concession stand, throwing everything around and spraying mustard out there.
As someone who worked concessions for a few plays and basketball games in high school, it is less nightmarish than the more famous Concession Stand Brawl. As much of the area is thrown around and disturbed, but there is less spillage. Only a little mustard, but most of it seems to get on Farris and Latham, so the real heroes of this thing (arena workers) don’t have it nearly as bad as they would two years later.
However as a wrestling fan, it is perfect.
I think I prefer this to the more famous one, actually, if just by a hair. While that one is more spread out and maybe longer and higher activity and definitely sees them bring more modern weapons into it like a stick and a steel trash can, there’s a more violent feeling and simple charm to this. The fact that it is filmed almost in secret, losing the fight and then finding it again rather than the camera staying with them, helps it feel so much more genuine, making it a little more than just a really awesome wrestling angle, like the 1981 Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. It is almost entirely the protagonists whipping ass in anger over a screwy loss, and has a more guttural feeling to it. The punches — coming from Lawler and Dundee rather than Morton and Gilbert (no disrespect to Morton and Gilbert, but come on) — are better here and the weapons are endearingly simple, clunky wooden shelves and tables and a food service style kitchen stool and a broom and some small utensil Lawler jabs into the face of one of the Bombers and feel like they are not supposed to be used like this as opposed to the ones in the later match.
(INTERLUDE: As for the kitchen utensil in question?
I feel like maybe a whisk or a potato masher is the safe bet. Maybe the wide end of a cheese grater, but it looked smaller and thinner than that. If I had to hit somebody with a handheld utensil in the old catering kitchen or sparser prep area at the event space where I managed specifically, I would go with potato masher (ideally like this, but the circle ones are probably fine too, I just have never used one of those). You could whip somebody with a spoon or ice scream scoop or a ladle, but the potato masher covers more surface area and you can bring it down on somebody with an overhand motion easier because of the thick handle.
Think they would have said if it was a fork or a knife and as much joy as DO NOT THROW KNIVES having roots way back in the 1970s would bring me, Lawler doesn’t strike me as the type. Given some of his relationship preferences, he has much more in common with someone who owns a restaurant than anyone actually working in one.
Bill Dundee, on the other hand, absolutely would throw a knife, but simply did not get the chance to here.)
Lawler and Dundee eventually walk away, after Dundee has choked one Bomber out with a broom on the floor next to the ice machine, and Lawler has thoroughly beaten the other to bits with a stool, unknown utensil, and about a hundred punches to the face.
The cherry on top, for me personally, is that once Lawler and Dundee have clearly won the fight and the referee and promoter (although not in Tupelo itself) Jerry Jarrett get them to stop wailing on the new champions, Dundee opts to crawl/slide over the counter back into the arena to leave, rather than take the few extra steps to walk around. I have never been in a concession stand brawl myself, but there is something about it that feels correct for an insane man to do while all hopped up on adrenaline. Sliding or rolling or hopping over a counter is a very fun thing to do. Hopping on top of a bar counter and swinging your legs around and hopping off the other side after a closing shift is one of the perks of tending bar, and Bill Dundee very much feels like he could have been a bartender. Some skills just translate. The masculine urge to slide/roll over a concession counter is second only to the masculine urge to look at any building, either inside or outside of it, and most trees, and figure out how you would climb up or down it respectively, or something like that. After a wonderfully silly, violent, and fun sort of a thing, it is the perfect ending.
Another wonderful piece of Wrestling TV where, somewhere in the background, there is also a really good looking (and potentially great, in this case) match that happens too.
HANDWERK 
