Eddie Gilbert vs. Terry Funk, WWA (11/14/1992)

Commissions continue, this one from frequent contributor AndoCommando. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/thing or $10/hour for things an hour or longer, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi. 

This was a Texas Death Match.

It’s so great.

Sometimes there are pieces that require some kind of preamble or explanation before getting to the match, and then there times like these, where I think something is simply just so apparent — like, oh yeah, of course a grainy handheld video of a twenty plus minute Funk vs. Gilbert brawl rules — that there isn’t much that has to be said.

It is what it is.

The stipulation hinders them just a little bit in the way it often can, moves getting pin falls that normally wouldn’t otherwise so as to show off the gimmick, and stopping things in the way they often can. It’s not all bad so much as it is different, Gilbert and Funk know how to work within this and around this to still have the sort of match they were always going to. But it would be dishonest to say that they’re not hamstrung just a little bit by the confines of the sort of match they’re booked to have.

Funk and Gilbert are both just too phenomenal for that to matter all that much though.

Gilbert’s heel bumping and stooging walks the line perfectly between comical & exaggerated but also also feeling like he’s really getting what’s coming to him. Funk yet again finds the exact right pitch for his own theatrical bit, the classic punch-drunk selling, removing a lot of the comedic elements that can often be there for both a match where he’s the antagonist and also something more violent and serious. Both men are throwing out some serious heaters when the match fills up much of its runtime with heavy punching, and doing even better work in response to those shots. Gilbert gets the assistance of blood, and combined with his genuinely terrific selling of the leg after repeated spinning toe holds (setting up a great bit where Funk curses him out for tapping out instantly every time, inadvertently causing Terry to repeat the bit and making it worse on Eddie each time until he stopped being a coward), he might even be the better seller of the two in this match. The match itself is fairly sparse, some play with a broken panel of wood off of the steps, fighting around the building, but it’s the work they put into it that makes it work like it does.

Mostly independent of the match itself, it also feels like one of the first versions of something I really love.

Terry and Eddie aren’t the first people to have a big crazy arena brawl, of course. You have your Concession Stand Brawls, some of Funk’s own work elsewhere, and the Cactus and Gilbert matches the year before in the same area. There are dozens of matches from both, maybe hundreds in Funk’s case a little like this, and people cite this 1991/1992 Tri-State area indie brawling as the proto-ECW for a reason, plain as day every time I see one of these matches. However, this feels a little different from those to me, in small but precise ways. The simplicity of the violence and the way the gimmick is worked in a sparse but interesting way, the cumulative effect with a hurt limb thrown into all the fighting, the way they really take in every inch of the gymnasium they’re in, the absolute bullshit, the fight after the bell when Funk barely beats the count off a double down to win leading to another brawl after the match, it all feels so familiar to me in such a warm and satisfying way.

Spiritually, it feels a lot like the first IWA Mid-South match.

From me, there is no higher praise.

A fascinating historical document, that just so happens to have a really great match lumped in there too.

***1/4

 

Cactus Jack vs. Eddie Gilbert, TWA (10/11/1990)

Huge improvement on the month before. Cactus Jack is mad, and he jumps Eddie coming out from the dressing room. They fight all over the house-lit gymnasium. As someone who hasn’t explored this period of Foley’s career much, it’s a TREAT to see him work in an Stone Age US Indie environment like this. This feels like the first Mick Foley match, as that sense of chaos that was hinted at kind of envelops the entire match.

Eddie never properly gains his bearings, as Mick always forces the match outside. There’s so much going on, and it’s ALWAYS going on. Eddie can never escape. He barely gets any offense in. He keeps crawling back inside or throwing Mick inside, only to be thrown or dragged back out into Cactus’ environment. He finally pulls out a chain to choke Cactus to give him an opening to use actual professional wrestling moves, but Eddie being Eddie, he eats shit again before too long. After a ref bump, Cactus takes him back outside, and now after his plan and really his only hope fell short, he just flees. Cactus fights him out into the crowd and Eddie gets thrown out the back door and just leaves. Call it a no contest.

The sole hardcam shot hurts this somewhat by not providing an up close look at Cactus diving off the apron and crushing a garbage can when Eddie moves, or following them through the crowd and up to the bleachers, or providing close ups of Eddie’s blood covered face, but it also helps in its own way. This entire thing is dirty and gross, and I don’t know if you can maintain that sense that this is something we’re not supposed to be watching if the production is clean and organized. A spectacular piece of filth.

***

Cactus Jack vs. Eddie Gilbert, TWA (9/11/1990)

This series was ground breaking at the time, but it’s been almost thirty years. Fair to say they’ll get crazier as the long feud carries on, but this is a fairly normal brawl adjacent kind of match. This isn’t to say that it’s bad at all, but in a world influenced so much by this series of matches, the actual stuff they’re doing is real ordinary from 2019 eyes.

It still works though, and what makes this work so well is all the little things. Eddie begins by having his leg worked on when he hurts it being a real asshole, so he’s walking with a limp for the rest of the match. Eventually takes over with a combination of experience and skullduggery, but he’s constantly getting himself in trouble. Foley isn’t quite FOLEY yet, but he’s very good. Years later, he’s better than anyone ever at creating a sense that everything is about to go wrong and that things are already badly out of control. He doesn’t have that tentirely here, but you can see the signs.

It’s the first match in what becomes a famous program, so it’s not a long one. Much more like a TV match, the kind where you see that guys have something there, so they start a program. As it is here, they’re just setting the table and getting the basics points across. Who they are, and who they are against each other. Jack is a maniac, but still young and still learning, and still trying to actually wrestle. Eddie is an asshole who seems to always eat shit when he bites off more than he can chew, but he’s just crafty enough to survive here. He baits Cactus into running around a lot on his comeback, and can catch him with the Hot Shot for the win.

**3/4