Ron Garvin vs. Tully Blanchard (NWA - 5/3/1986)

An absolute corker of a match. One of the biggest compliments I could give it, bearing in mind that I no longer have the patience to sit and watch most matches that go any longer than about twelve minutes, is that this never felt like it went over half an hour. A lot of that is down to the pace they cut, which was electric right from the start.

Garvin comes in with a busted hand, sustained in the first place by Tully and Arn when they wrapped it around a ring post and clobbered it with a cowboy boot. It takes away the punch, his biggest weapon, so he has to pull out everything else in his arsenal. He was relentless and gave Tully no breathing room at all. I thought his selling of the hand was pretty much perfect. It's not just how he would sell the physical pain, like when Tully would take a swipe at it or later when it was actively being worked over. All of that was great, but there were the more subtle touches as well, like when he wouldn't be able to hook the leg on a cover, or when he'd use his forearm instead to grind Tully's face into the mat, and those instances were what really drew me in. He threw one or two strikes with the hand - a couple overhand chops, no punches - and immediately regretted it, so he had to switch it up and use forearms, elbows, kicks and headbutts, pretty much anything else he could think of. The headbutts were amazing, especially the first one early on where he caught Tully going for a kick, held that leg there as Tully tried to throw punches off the standing leg, then just whomped him with a jumping headbutt. The Garvin Stomp was also a phenomenal moment and even David Crockett getting all weird on commentary couldn't detract from it. I can see why people might think Garvin's offence was a bit haphazard overall, or that there was no escalation to it, but to me it absolutely worked and he came across as a guy doing everything he could think of because he couldn't do the one thing he usually would.

Tully was incredible as well. His runs on offence were few and far between, but he was vicious when he got the chance to be and tough as a bastard working from below. I think this more than even the cage match with Magnum is the perfect representation of Tully. He's a weasel and a cheat, but when it gets right down to it that boy will scrape and claw and bite and do whatever else needs doing to keep his belt. He took an almighty shit-kicking and refused to stay down. When there was an opening he would jump on it - quite often literally - and even if he couldn't sustain those advantages you never felt like he was out of the fight. At points he would resort to just grabbing one of Garvin's legs and twisting it around the bottom rope, I guess because he happened to be close to it and it would hurt so why would you not do that? He'd leap from his knees and try to headbutt Garvin in the guts. Then JJ got involved like you knew he would and the brief run of hand work was tremendous. There was one bit where he went for a sunset flip from the apron and Garvin held onto the ropes with both hands, then eventually had to let go with the right and Tully practically yanked his trunks clean off just to drag him into the pin. It almost summed up the match: Garvin fighting uphill with one good hand, against a guy who wouldn't go away no matter what.

The finish is one of my favourite Dusty Finishes. Tommy Young gets bumped and JJ sneaks Tully a roll of quarters, but at the same time Dusty tapes up Garvin's hand for that one big shot. Both get up and throw a punch at the same time, Garvin is half a second quicker, Tully gets dropped. Coins everywhere. And of course JJ is apoplectic after Garvin gets the pin, pointing to the taped fist and the coins all over the mat. Decision reversed, Garvin dejected, Tully oblivious, a cockroach surviving yet another nuke. Just an awesome match from start to finish. I guess if I had a criticism then I'd have liked for Tully to work the hand a bit longer, but it's really a minor quibble when you consider how much of the match he spent getting smashed to bits.