Tully Blanchard

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[KrisZ]

One of the ultimate heels of his era and a guy who you knew every time he got in the ring would deliver whether it was against Dusty Rhodes or Buzz Tyler. Tully was one of the best workers in a promotion that was filled with great workers and then when he became a tag-team wrestler with Arn Anderson they formed one of the best teams of the decade.

 

Tully also had tremendous charisma and always cut good promos which added to his aura of being a fucking piece of shit who you wanted to punch right in the face.

[JerryvonKramer]

How much pre-Crockett Tully have people seen? Is there anything out there worth seeking out?

[victory]

How much pre-Crockett Tully have people seen? Is there anything out there worth seeking out?

You have quite a bit of Southwest. That's where he teamed with Gino Hernandez, along with the famous break up of the team. It's worth seeking out the break up at least.

 

Southwest was a real blood and guts type of promotion that has some fun stuff.

[ohtani's jacket]

There's a Tully thread in the Microscope where I watched a bit of his Southwest stuff.

[JerryvonKramer]

My impression after reading over that OJ is that the Southwest stuff is alright but it's not really addind a great deal to his resume. That sound right to you?

 

I do remember reading about a great blood feud between Tully and Terry Funk but sadly it looks like it's not on tape, we have the TV before and after but those weeks are missing.

 

I did watch some Southwest tracking Dory, and do like the general feel of that promotion, complete with it's awful but also compeltely hilarious commentator.

 

The reason I bring this up is because I do think Tully is hurt by a lack of longevity. We only really have 4 peak years, so anything and everything from Southwest will help to put him higher on the list. If there isn't a great deal there, there's a natural limit on how high he can go. He'd be comparable to someone like Yatsu who is in a lot of high-end stuff in a short space of time, even though gut instinct says that Tully goes higher than Yatsu.

[shoe]

Their won't be a lot to help his case.

[JerryvonKramer]

Where will he finish for you Pete? Ballpark.

[ohtani's jacket]

Tully's Southwest stuff is worth watching if you're a fan of his, but not if you've got a bunch of other stuff on the go. You basically see the roots of his Crockett stuff and watch as he develops into ind of the great studio match workers.

[shoe]

Where will he finish for you Pete? Ballpark.

I can see him in my top 50.

[Parties]

Watching some Tully to see if he makes my list (see Glaring Omissions thread). Tully-Dusty from the June ’87 taping of Pro was one of the most self-indulgent matches I’ve ever seen. The best part of it was that I think that it’s the match that Bruce Mitchell tells a story about on an episode of Between the Sheets. All of the criticism of Dusty’s ego from this time is valid and then some. Their GAB ’85 match in the cage is more evenly worked, but still not anything that would get him on a list.

Tully vs. Terry Taylor for the US Title from an ’85 World Championship Wrestling taping is really good. Smartly worked title match for TV that felt like a battle between two athletes. Tully working a lot like Flair: heeling on the ref, selling fatigue, both guys working pin attempts well. I’d forgotten that Taylor was kind of a badass at this time. Still not sold on the Slingshot Suplex as a finisher on anyone but Big Bubba.

 

Tully-Windham from May '87: chief takeaway is how much J.J. looked like Heenan at this time. Weird that Tully was almost exclusively about selling and begging off during this time. He's a heel who barely works any offense. Tully really feels like Dusty's go-to pin cushion right now, just feeding him to every top babyface they had. Match was okay: liked the fisticuffs at the end.

Tully-Garvin from Oct ’87 “right here on The Wrestling Network” is the Garvin title defense previously discussed on I wanna say the Crockett ep of Exile. Awesome call of this from Jim Ross, though he did use the “Hands of Stone” line for Garvin like forty times. The sparring exchange with Tully doing the wobbly Funk selling and some decent chickenshit boxing was a lot of fun. For a six minute match with a DQ finish, that was good stuff.

Last, I wanted to watch Blanchard-Ultimate Warrior as it’s an interesting pairing that I’ve heard people talk about, and it felt like a good test of how Blanchard would work a) being totally outmatched, and having to carry a big goof through a match. The result is like a more extreme version of Tully-Dusty, which makes sense. Warrior sells exactly one knee-lift in the course of a seven minute match. Tully begs off for most of it. Schnoz finish builds to Survivor Series.

[Jimmy Redman]

The thing about Tully I love the most is that he manages to be a completely craven POS while not sacrificing any of his physical toughness.

 

Tully is a wrestler. He's a tough bastard, he's solid, he has skills in the ring, he can brawl with the best of them. Clearly he can fight. BUT, he's also just a total asshole. He doesn't really WANT to fight, when it comes down to it. Not really. So when the going gets tough, he uses whatever shortcut available to him to get out of it. He could stand and bang, if he wanted to do things the hard way, but he verily does not.

 

It makes him a different kind of heel than someone who seems totally unthreatening, like a Miz type. With Miz there's a certain sense of, well, he kind of HAS to cheat and be a dick because he has no toughness and it's the only way for him to survive against real men. It's a survival thing. With Tully, you get the sense he could get by just playing by the rules, because he has enough talent, BUT maybe not enough talent to be at the top on his own merits, so he has to cheat and scam his way there.

 

Kind of, in another weird comparison, how Sasha Banks deep down wants to be a babyface, but she only started winning after she turned heel, so she sticks with being an asshole because it got her to the top in a way that being a face didn't. Being a heel is easier, so she takes the low road. Same with Tully, although not in the sense that he wants to be a face, at all. He's a total prick and he's a heel for life. BUT he cheats by choice, because it's the easiest way for him to win a match, not the only way for him to win a match.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm worried about people forgetting about Tully so I'm bumping his thread.

[Luchaundead]

I'm worried about people forgetting about Tully so I'm bumping his thread.

 

He made his bed

[Timbo Slice]

A guy with Tully's highpoints will definitely be considered for my list. He works a bit better in a tag setting, but his early Crockett singles work is pretty good, too. Thinking in the 75-100 range.

[KB8]

I had Tully at 78 in 2016 and gee willikers Batman did I fuck up on that one. For context, I don't think I've watched more footage of a single wrestler over the last five years than I have of Tully Blanchard. I've watched as much as I could find of his 1985 and I'm halfway through watching his 1986, and I'm not sure there's ever been a better studio match wrestler than Tully. Of course he has the classics to his name as well, both in singles and tag environments, multi-man environments, regular match and stipulation environments, the whole lot. I hadn't watched much of the Houston stuff before the last vote either, and shockingly enough Tully was awesome at least as far back as 1981. That team with Gino was a hoot and I can honestly see a case for it being on par with the BrainBusters run. Obviously people think of Tully as a conniving little weasel, and he was, and he was amazing at being that, but I think it's way underrated how great he is at flipping the switch and turning into a rabid maniac. It's the old adage about cornering a wild animal. Tully's first instinct might be to flee, or to at least look for ways of navigating around potentially harmful altercations, but when pushed to the brink he can border on the psychotic and I don't know if there's ever been anyone better at portraying that. It's a real shame we never got much 90s Tully because that '94 match with Funk at Slamboree is an absolute treasure, so I figure he could still go at a high level, but as it is there's about 10 years of killer stuff for his case in terms of output. I love Tully and he might make my top 25 next time.  

 

TULLY BLANCHARD YOU SHOULD WATCH:

v Tiger Conway Jr. (Houston, 1/9/81)

w/Gino Hernandez v Mil Mascaras & Tito Santana (Houston, 12/18/81)

v Wahoo McDaniel (Houston, 5/14/82)

v Ricky Steamboat (JCP Starrcade, 11/22/84)

v Magnum TA (JCP Starrcade, 11/28/85)

w/Arn Anderson v Dusty Rhodes & Wahoo McDaniel (JCP, 3/29/86)

v Ron Garvin (JCP WorldWide, 5/3/86)

w/Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger & JJ Dillon v The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff & Paul Ellering (JCP Great American Bash, 7/4/87)

w/Arn Anderson v Lex Luger & Barry Windham (JCP World Championship Wrestling, 4/23/88)

w/Arn Anderson v The Rockers (WWF, 1/23/89)

[Marksman]

Been looking for a good list for Tully - thanks KB8, that's an awesome selection!

[Childs]

Tully vs. Garvin was nearly as fun a match-up as Flair vs. Garvin, because Tully could throw hands when the situation demanded it. Such a talented all-around pro wrestler. I'll probably rank Arn higher because of versatility and consistency, but I prefer Tully at his best to Arn at his best. 

[strobogo]

I would put Tully/Arn in my top 20, top 10 if I could include them as one entry.

[elliott]

Is there any existing footage of Tully from the 70s?