WCWA 3rd Von Erich Memorial Parade of Champions, Irving, TX
A request! This is for World Class’ world heavyweight title, held by Rude here in their post-NWA period. The belt can change hands on a disqualification here, and they’ve got a 60-minute time limit.
Brody also did a barbed wire match with Terry Gordy on this show. A lot of people worked double duty on this show, which still did a little over 24,000 at Texas Stadium.
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Rude has Percy Pringle in his corner. Rude was named champ in February, and this is his first defense of the title. Bill Mercer calls him “a man of a million muscles,” but the early action is pretty much all Brody, just beating ass like he’d do. Pringle does loud work from ringside.
Brody’s one of my favorites to watch because he had no physical chemistry with much of anyone, at least not in the way I normally think of that as an idea. Basically he was going to do Bruiser Brody shit and it was up to the other guy to find their way to work with or around that, and also to make sure Brody didn’t wind up making them look like shit. There are legit reasons that some people, like Bobby Heenan for instance, just didn’t like or respect the way he did business.
Rude takes a slam out on the floor but regains control not long after when they get back into the ring. Rude’s throwing punches and forearms, but they don’t do much to budge Brody. They do mean that Brody isn’t on offense, but it’s a stall more than a true advantage for Rude. Brody’s throwing dropkicks and a proto-JACKHAMMER., which Mercer finds very interesting.
Pringle involves himself knocking Brody’s foot off the bottom rope, but the cover only gets two anyway. It gives Brody a direct reason to chase Percy around. The end result of the Brody/Pringle interaction is Brody throwing Rude over the top rope, which the referee sees for the DQ. They fight a bit more near the entrance to the stadium field after Rude tries to get out of Dodge. The Grappler (a friend of Rude’s) tries to get involved, and it takes several wrestlers and officials to break it up.
There’s not a whole lot to the match, really, one of those things that’s just fine to watch in the context of the show it’s on, but has little “real” value standing alone. But it’s still just fine to watch, basically. I like Brody and I like Rude, so I pretty much liked the short amount of time it takes.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 