They used to show hours of studio wrasslin every weekend on Channel 17 TBS out of Atlanta and I loved it. When we finally “got cable”, I was able to view “Superstars on the Superstation” even though we lived nowhere near Georgia. I didn’t know much about Ted Turner, but I sure appreciated him for showing so much wrasslin on his super station. I still remember a two-hour broadcast beginning at 6:05 PM on Saturday evening and then another hour early on Sunday morning — about 8:05 AM. I always hated getting up early on Sundays, but when I discovered wrasslin on the tube, it was no trouble at all. The matches were mostly Squash Matches, an opportunity for the dominant males in the federation to sharpen their claws on fresh meat each week.
Today’s Match Mashup, edited by moi, features one of the agile young Faces from those TBS broadcasts: Sam Houston. He was a lanky, long-legged lad in bright-colored trunks and tall cowboy boots. He was born to be a jobber, but for some reason, they decided to promote him as a real Bad Ass, his awkward Running Bulldog treated as the most devastating maneuver since the Pile Driver. He got to dominate many bigger, stronger, older men. In this video, we see Houston rolling around with a beefy, solid jobber named Mike Nichols.
One memorable aspect of these broadcasts was the placement of a microphone under the ring. This was meant to emphasize the sound and fury of their bodies impacting the mat, which you can really notice in this video. Every hip toss, every stomp is followed by a sharp thunderclap, the percussion highlighting the pain and punishment their bodies are absorbing.
That microphone also picks up all the grunts and moans emitted by Nichols, who spends much of the match in Houston’s Armbar, loudly expressing his frustration and pain with his mouth down near the under-ring microphone. You’ll see I zoomed right in on Nichols’ expressions of anguish — it seemed more humiliating for him up close. Fans of Gut Punching scenes might enjoy the montage of fists to the belly I created starting @ 1:55 into the video. Enjoy!