WCCW International Wrestling Star Wars, Dallas, TX
Request via Ko-fi. This is for the NWA American tag team title held by the Freebirds, represented here by Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy. The ‘Birds are in the midst of their war with the Von Erichs, and Kerry has brought in Bruiser Brody. There’s a great pre-match promo where Hayes is stunned that Brody has actually showed up with Kerry, and also displays a sincere fear of Brody himself: “He’s an animal. He’s wild. … Brody might be big, but I got a brother that stands 290 lbs of walkin’, talkin’, rompin’, stompin’ graveyard destruction, baby! And he don’t back up from nobody, man! And he’ll protect me!”
So going in we know Hayes flat-out wants nothing to do with Brody. Period. But we also know, if we know Terry Gordy, that Hayes isn’t wrong: Gordy generally won’t back down from anyone, not even Bruiser Brody.
There’s about 21,000 people in Reunion Arena, the biggest crowd in World Class history to this point. Brody has flown in straight from Japan, which is sort of the case. He’d been in Japan until June 8, but he’d also stopped into Georgia to wrestle Jumbo Tsuruta on June 12, and wrestled Terry Funk for World Class in Amarillo on June 15.
This was also the show where Iceman King Parsons beat Buddy Roberts in a hair vs hair match, a famous World Class event. So before this begins, Hayes challenges Parsons to a lights out match where he’ll put his own hair on the line.
Marc Lowrance announces Gordy at 264, so a fair bit from that 290 Hayes hyped. We start with Kerry and Gordy, because obviously the big pop is saved for Brody to get his first tag. Hayes gets an early tag and even though he’s in control, he shoots a look over at Brody and you can again quickly see Brody makes him nervous, so he gets back over and tags Terry in after running Kerry into a knee.
Quick tags and the Freebirds look to cut the ring off. The first tag to Brody comes pretty quickly, though, and he’s in and just tossing people around, throwing Gordy out to the floor, and hitting Hayes with sort of a shotgun dropkick, which Mercer calls “a neat move,” and I have to agree. Brody just throwing those one-armed slams on both Freebirds.
We get a brief titan showdown with Brody and Gordy, but not much. Gordy does level Brody with a lariat, but he tags right out to Hayes.
I didn’t REALLY get to watch a lot of World Class until I was in my 20s, whenever it was first on WWE 24/7 regularly. But at its best it’s SUCH an easy territory to fall in love with and if you watch enough you can kind of start to feel like you were there. A truly unique time and place, ahead of its contemporaries in so many ways, and obviously then the real story gets very dark, very tragic — but there remains a sort of magic to the best of World Class, and almost none of it, really, is about star ratings for matches. It was truly the time and place, the fans, the booking, the Von Erichs being so beloved, the saga of the Freebirds, and a lot of other stars that came and went.
That last bit it to say that this match is about five minutes long and there’s nothing special about the action. The finish sees Brody pick up Kerry and toss him onto Hayes for the pin, and the Kerry and the Bruiser are the new American tag team champions. The crowd is wild for the good guys winning to close a big show, in part because the match prior to this, Harley Race once again barely escaped with his NWA title against a Von Erich, this time beating Kevin by DQ.
This is fun, though, as a little show closer at a big arena event. There isn’t much to it, though.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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