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[1980-10-24-Houston Wrestling] Les Thornton vs Gino Hernandez


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Thornton is a guy who has a good resume of classic title matches with Dynamite Kid, Tiger Mask , and Tony Charles the Checkmate. Here he works Gino and this is worked in a whole different manner than he is used too. Gino is just a master at getting heat just riling up the crowd and being a cheating bastard.This was the best we've seen Hart on the footage. He truly came across as a threat to Les. I loved Les leg work and it played into the first fall. The 2nd fall Gino is cheating bastard stage. The 2nd fall is Gino just working over Thornton. The 3rd fall Gino is on top for a bit. Thornton makes a comeback and he's pissed. No more technical wrestling for him. He's throwing hands. Eventually though Gino gets DQ'ed. This was a blast.

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  • paul sosnowski changed the title to [1980-10-24-Houston Wrestling] Les Thornton vs Gino Hernandez
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1980-10-24
Houston
Les Thornton (c) vs Gino Hernandez
NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match
Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA
★★
Card

Les Thornton is a stocky little Brummie with a terrible haircut that looked like he plopped a bowl over his head and went to town. Presumably he has the technical chops, hailing from England and all, so Gino had to take a different strategy than beating him at his own game. Thornton got the upper hand in the first though, even if it was with an awkward small package that looked more like he muscled Gino into it rather than cradling him. 
I did appreciate Gino’s offense here, it was very piecemeal. He would almost peck at Thornton, send him to the outside and then throw a kick or a punch through the ropes, then distract the referee and give the chance for Gary Hart to get involved. The style fits his character to a tee. I guess he’s been working like this all year, but it stood out to me more here and I definitely appreciated it more. He did manage to level things with a rather brutal suplex back into the ring from the outside where he basically dropped Thornton on his head because they couldn’t get the requisite height.
The final fall was all about Thornton being riled up and going after them both, Gino tried the same trick he used to take down Mark Lewin (rubbing some substance in his eyes) but the referee was wise to it and gave Thornton the win via DQ.

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