Tonight, the WCCW American Heavyweight Championship is on the line when champion Kevin Von Erich takes on fierce rival, Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy in the main event! Who will walk away the champion? Also featured in action tonight, “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin, “Gentleman” Chris Adams, The Great Yatsu, plus more.
WCCW TV*
Date: 05/21/1983
From: Dallas, Texas
MATCHES
1. The Great Yatsu vs. Paul Vachon
2. The Mongol vs. “Gentleman” Chris Adams
3. Johnny Mantell vs. “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin
4. Kevin Von Erich vs. Terry Gordy
*BROADCAST NOTE
This playback copy has been presented in the most complete form possible, due to original production technical difficulties. Reported on Peacock as of 10/20/2025.
BREAKDOWN & REVIEW
- Marc Lowrance was covering for Bill Mercer on commentary this week. Lowrance covered the main event coming up and pitched to commercial.
- The Great Yatsu vs. Paul Vachon: The opening contest tonight was set for one fall with a ten minute time limit. Arman Hussein kept the referee at arms length when it came to patting down Yatsu during the preliminaries of the bout. Hussein stalled the opening, as he was requesting Vachon leave the ring so Yatsu could do his sumo ceremonial warm up. Over five minutes came and went before these two ever locked up… Once started, the two men traded strikes, with Vachon’s clubbing blows landing far harder than Yatsu’s chops. Yatsu whipped Vachon into the ropes and hit a quick powerslam on him to get the victory here.
- This was the shits. Literally, as little happened as possible. Yatsu was basically not planning to work a match here tonight, it seemed. Couple strikes, chops, poweslam, pin. DUD.
- Following the match, Marc Lowrance caught up with The Great Yatsu and Arman Hussein at ringside. Hussein addressed Skandor Akbar and Kamala. Hussein said if Akbar was up to it, The Great Yatsu and Arman Hussein would take on Kamala together! No problem.
- God, If that match is made, I can’t want to watch Kamala flatten these two… maybe for good!
- The Mongol vs. “Gentleman” Chris Adams: The next match was set for one fall, fifteen minutes to a finish. This is kind of a grudge match for these guys, so I hope its good. Adams seems to get more and more cheers every week. The Mongol jumped Adams before the bell and these guys went right to work on each other. Adams out-wrestled The Mongol in the beginning, applying deep hammer locks and keeping wrist control. Next week, a replay of Kevin Von Erich taking on Ric Flair from a recent show, also a big six-man tag team match, according to Marc Lowrance on commentary. Back in the ring, the hammer lock was doing a number on The Mongol. Both men collided with some shoulder blocks until the third time, when both men went down with Adams ending up down and out on the floor. The Mongol kept Adams out until he went down after Adams, only to meet two Super Kicks followed by an awesome suicide dive through the second ropes! Back in the ring, a third and forth Super Kick hit and Adams’ momentum was rolling. The Mongol was able to avoid a move, with Adams going up and over the top rope and landing on the apron. The Mongol then choked Adams under the bottom rope until the referee called for the bell due to disqualification!
- So, this one ended pretty quick. Again, Adams busting out some stuff we just haven’t seen from anybody else in World Class… I mean A SUICIDE DIVE? In 1983? Sweet Super Kicks? This could’ve doubled for a Young Bucks match! In all seriousness, these two do have good chemistry and I look forward to the eventual blow off where hopefully they are given a proper amount of time. Solid bout here, with Adams doing a lot of the heavy-lifting. For the fresh moves, good in-ring chemistry, and solid action (albeit brief), three stars!
- “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin made his way down to the ring with Sunshine. Garvin grabbed a mic and said that he knew David Von Erich was listening and Garvin laid out the challenge, any time, any match, any place, “Gorgeous” Jimmy would be happy to beat him up!
- I might sound like a broken record at this point, but again, I’m glad they are continuing this issue between Garvin and Dave. There is a whole bunch of heat there.
- Johnny Mantell vs. “Gorgeous” Jimmy Garvin: This match was set for one fall to a finish, thirty minutes for a limit. A set of dropkicks and a head scissors kep Mantell in a bad way on the mat. Marc Lowrance announced that that six-man match next week would be The Fabulous Freebirds versus Kevin, David Von Erich, and “Iceman” King Parsons. Garvin ate a few dropkicks for his trouble. Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta, and more also mentioned for the Star Wars event coming up in June! Some nice standing knee drops was doing major damage on Mantell and then we laid in a hammer lock for a bit. A nice scoop slam and arm drag for Mantell, catching Garvin off guard. Most of this match was some sort of arm submission at this point. Back on their feet, we saw a tackle, dropdown, leapfrog, and a catch-turned-backbreaker for the finish in Jimmy Garvin’s favor.
- This was a pretty slow match here for these guys. Holds galore. I did enjoy Jimmy Garvin basically trash talking his opponent the whole time, though. Nice finish, but it seems they had to redo the spot, as it was ran before but was mistimed and the two just ended up running into each other. Nothing special, star and a half.
- Kevin Von Erich vs. Terry Gordy: Our main event was set for one fall to a finish, sixty minutes, for the WCCW American Heavyweight Championship! The fans and two guys in there seemed pumped for this one! A couple of stalemates started us off here. A nice dropkick found its mark on Gordy, followed by a standing side headlock. A shoulder block and a set of arm drags wore Gordy down further, Kevin keeping most of the momentum. A tight vise-like body scissors had Gordy in real trouble as the crowd chanted for Kevin. Back at their feet, Gordy ended up in an abdominal stretch, until Gordy got the leverage and threw him away. The relentless champion was right back on Gordy and signalled for an Iron Claw. Gordy would hold the Claw off, instead getting some strikes in on Kevin in the corner. They went sleeper-for-sleeper, with each man suffering some damage late in the match here. On their feet, they traded strikes until Gordy landed a nice suplex. Kevin reversed a piledriver and again Kevin went for a Claw unsuccessfully. After getting the better of Gordy and keeping him off his feet, a turning crossbody off the top rope put Gordy down for a three count! Kevin has retained his championship successfully tonight!
- A solid match here between these guys, but I do expect we could see better on a super card between the two. Kevin controlled most of the match, with Gordy never really being able to get on a roll, which is a shame, because I think Kevin works better fighting from underneath. Thus, I give this one a strong, strong two and a half stars. The fans were hot and the match was enjoyable.
- After commercial, Kevin Von Erich joined Marc Lowrance in the commentary booth to help close our show out this week. For a few words over a quick replay of the finish to tonight’s main event, Kevin said that match was nothing! Today he was the American Heavyweight Champion, next time, he wants to be the World Heavyweight Champion!
- Kevin is fired up and looks to be in even better shape than normal I noticed here.
- Lowrance wrapped us up as Kevin Von Erich walked off set, again mentioning the tape of Kevin taking on Flair and the six-man tag team match for next week.
FINAL THOUGHTS
A solid night of action this week, minus the opening contest. Yatsu and Hussein need to go. Switching gears, I must say, I am very much looking forward to the stars of All Japan Pro Wrestling in Texas for the upcoming Summer Star Wars show next month. I expect some nice matchups for that card. In the meantime, I’m interested to see how much of next week is dedicated to the tape of Kevin Von Erich taking on Ric Flair, might just be a two-match card next week!
See you all then!