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[1993-09-25-USWA-TV] Tommy Rich vs Jeff Jarrett (Cage)


Loss

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  • 4 months later...

Now THIS match has a clever screwjob finish. Paul Neighbors throws a chain into the cage for Rich to use. Jarrett intercepts and nails him. The pin is delayed, but Rich finally eats the fall. However, the ref was still in a daze, and in the meantime, Neighbors ran in and rolled Rich over Jarrett, so the ref thought that was the fall he counted and raised Rich's hand. I'm impressed.

 

The match is on the short side, but has some nice action.

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  • 2 years later...

Dave Brown wants to know why wrestlers complain about conspiracies when it comes to having a one on one match. What's up with the cage? The main camera used is right up again the cage but when you look the other sides of the ring you see a fence that is below the third rope. But it is not escape rules so I guess it does not matter. But then they do not even use the cage as a weapon. I thought the finish was funny because if referee raised the wrong person's hand then it proved he wasn't looking when he counted the three in the first place!

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  • 2 weeks later...

A cage match in the TV studio--there can't have been too many of these, in any territory. Paul Neighbors--and in a GREAT moment Dave Brown explains that he used to be in charge of transporting the ring, so of course he'd have a spare set--unlocks the cage door and tries to toss Rich a chain. Jarrett uses it instead for a 3-count, but Neighbors clobbers Jarrett and rolls Rich on top. A dazed Frank Morrell awards the bout to Rich. An irate Eddie Marlin holds the belt up and appoints himself the referee for the rematch! Great chaotic post-match scene. Hey WCW, here's how you book a scene of guys screaming over top of each other correctly, with all the pertinent points still coming across.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 11 months later...

I wasn't too impessed with this. It was too short, for one thing. Less than eight minutes of wrestling time for a cage match with the title on the line? That's barely even trying. If you can't book at least a twenty-minute sregment for a match like this (including pre- and postmatch) then you shouldn't bother. Have this match at the MSC, make some money with it, and you can run the exact same sequence and show it all just like it actually happened here. Most MSC clips shown these days are actually longer than this and don't have to cram a postnatch brouhaha into the mix to boot.

 

Also, the cameraman was out to lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch. We completely missed the climactic moment, the reason for the televised match in the first place: Neighbors interfering and stomping Jeff with his boot, then placing Tommy on top. That makes Eddie's reasoning for holding up the belt, the fact that he saw the inteference live on TV (emphasis mine) complete rubbish. He didn't see it, because nobody ​saw it. It may have been booked that he would see it, but it never actually happened that way.

 

To be fair, Eddie may not have known that at the time since he was running to ringside, but it must end up looking to at least some fans that Grandpa saw little Jeffy getting beat on TV and couldn't handle it, so he reversed the decision and screwed the rightful champion (Tommy) out of the belt. If they were smart, they'd run with that for a few weeks in Tommy's interviews, although to belabor the point too much may actually turn Tommy face, which is the last thing they want. Still, they need to show the footage at least once to establish a gripe for Tommy and prove that they're not trying to cover for Jeff by having a mistake, no matter how innocent it may have been, swept under the rug.

 

Dave was very good here, although I think he should have at least briefly recapped Tommy's issues with the Jarrett family. I get the feeling that Tommy may have been too close to legitimately stepping on the family's toes, and Dave was uncomfortable with that, so he simply ignored it.

 

This has been a weird angle all the way around; it could be getting huge heat by rocking the very foundations of Memphis wrestling, and Tommy appears to be the only one going for that, even though without a hook like this a Rich-Jeff feud over the territory's secondary belt simply isn't very inspiring at this point, especially not compared to the Lawler-WWF feud. Dave's undersold it, and Jeff's almost completely ​no-​sold it. Someone either needs to tell Jeff to get more fired up and defend the family honor or tell Tommy to cut out the jealousy stuff and come at Jeff wrestler to wrestler only. Alternatively, they could send Tommy after Lawler in place of another visit by Savage, which doesn't figure to do much for anyone if the last two visits are any indication.

 

Dave's idea about all title matches being in a cage sounds fun, especially for a small territory like Memphis. But without the potential for outside interference, what would be left for managers and valets to do?

 

Eddie as the guest referee for the rematch, and with a tire iron? Does anyone else have the feeling that the better man will walk out of that match the champion as long as that man is Jeff?

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