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[1985-05-11-NWA-Worldwide] Tully Blanchard vs Don Kernodle


Superstar Sleeze

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NWA World TV Champion Tully Blanchard vs Don Kernodle - WWW 5/11/85

 

Tully Blanchard dealt with the dealer the previous week defeating Dusty Rhodes for the TV title, I kinda miss the days of such large egos that finishes like a ref bump, foreign object and foot on the ropes were used to protect someone like Dusty. There is just something so pro wrestling about that. Tully had spent the majority of 1984 being the number 1 heel (an argument could be made for Slater or Wahoo at times) in Mid-Atlantic as Flair would begin to appear more regularly, he would learn to slide into a solid number two heel position. The American Dream entered Crockett full time in late 84 and set up his first major program against the Brat for his TV championship. Magnum TA at this point had just wrapped up his feud with Wahoo over the United States Championship (winning that title) and they were teasing a feud with Flair. Magnum and Dusty as the top two faces had recently developed a bond that would turn into a America's Team. Finally, "The Pride of Carolinas" Don Kernodle just finished his midcard feud with the Russians and was now being shunted down the card. At this point, he was still a relatively big name in the area and the crowd was super hot for this match.

 

The basic layout was Don Kernodle totally overwhelmed Tully Blanchard throughout this match. Within the first minute, he caught Tully coming off the top into a powerslam and the first nearfall got tremendous heat. They worked this in a sprint fashion with lots of babyface offense and a ton of hot nearfalls. Given the TV title time limit stipulation, this is a perfect way to work the stip with a prick champion like Tully. They never overdo the moves. In 1985, each move, the elbow from the top, atomic drop and suplex all feel like hot nearfalls, but also something that is plausible for Tully to kick out of. Tully was on fire here stooging and bumping for Kernodle. The crowd hates Tully. He was pulling out every heel trick in this. Since this was worked with Kernodle on top for the vast majority, I thought Tully timed his heel "hope spots" for lack of a better term perfectly cutting off in a devious manner or taking advantage of a mistake, but never taking too much on top. The goal was clearly to invest in the idea that anyone could beat Tully, but that by hook or by crook he would keep the title. It was by crook as Baby Doll pushed Kernodle off the top. This got Magnum involved, but Tully recovered his heat just like that by nailing the Slingshot Suplex and bloodying Magnum. Tully is able to give an exciting match against a solid midcard talent, but retains his heat by laying out the number two babyface. This is an entertaining TV match with a hot crowd great babyface offense complemented by awesome heel stooging. ***

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  • 2 years later...

Vulnerable heel TV title defenses are one of those staples that I really identify with JCP/WCW. I grew up watching Steve Austin as TV champ barely survive defense after defense against a wide array of opponents. While some of them might have been more dynamic than 1985 Don Kernodle, 1985 Blanchard outpaces 1991 Austin in a huge way and was one of the very best ever as a stooging heel champ.

 

What I loved about this match the most was its purity. It told a singular story and kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it. Kernodle had Tully's number: he was a better wrestler, he was tougher, he was more resilient, he was more persistent. Tully was tougher than he looked, was underhanded, was incorrigible, was canny and constantly looking for openings. In many matches, Tully will at least try to wrestle his opponent first. Here, they jockeyed for the first touch but Tully immediately gave up on that and went for fisticuffs. He held the advantage for a small moment before Kernodle caught him off the top rope and power slammed him. A good portion of the (consistently hot, as to be expected for 1985 JCP) crowd thought it was over there and then because of how impressive a spot that was for the time, but really, it was there to definitively set the tone.

 

They started the match with an exclamation point and they kept charging forth with it over the next ten+ minutes. It's safe to say that this was a sprint, but it was one with resonance and meaning. So much of that was on Tully's (and to a lesser degree Baby Doll's) reactions. He bumped. He stooged. He sold. He begged off. He was constantly trying to crawl out of the ring, or grab hold of the apron. He staggered about, even when he started to get a little offense (due to an eye rake or a cheap shot to the stomach or using Baby Doll as a distraction) and often times, he couldn't hold on to control of the match because of it. Meanwhile, Kernodle beat him around the ring utilizing just about every move there was to utilize in 1985. He's a more than competent bullying babyface, one that the local crowd has a big connection to. I do think it's their hatred of Tully (and the fact he's constantly on) that drives the reactions, but Don more than does his part. It's the little things too. At one point he's stepping on Tully's face and he makes sure to pump his arm in victory to portray his excitement; he's excited and therefore the crowd's excited too.

 

The nature of a match with this much vulnerability is that the cut-offs are the babyface cutting off the heel's feeble and duplicitous attempts to get back on top. In the grand scheme of things, it's a limited formula, one that puts a ceiling on the match in comparison to matches that tell a more intricate story, but it plays 100% to the purpose of what they were doing. The TV title had just been elevated to a World TV title. Tully had just stolen it (figuratively more than literally). This is exactly the match they needed here. There are things I'd be frustrated by in other matches, like Tully getting one of his best bursts of offense off of a missed elbow drop and not something more dynamic, but here it worked to shows just how opportunistic and desperate he was. It's not like he held it for long and it made his own missed elbow drop that followed resonate more.

 

Make sure to look at how he utilizes Baby Doll. Tully was a stickler for not letting his manager upstage him for heat. She's there, at his instruction (as he directs traffic from the ring) or due to him distracting the ref (as opposed to her telling him to distract the ref like Heenan might do), to menace Kernodle on the outside. At the end, when she interferes, the heat isn't on her but on the barely-saved Tully who immediately assaults a grounded Kernodle. Post match makes Magnum look like a chump for the sake of Dusty (and for a moment Tully) but that's where they were going in the medium term and it's not like it hurt Magnum.

 

This was about as good as a one-dimensional match could be. Excellent performance from Tully.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1985-05-11-NWA-Worldwide] Tully Blanchard vs Don Kernodle

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