Terry & Dory Funk vs Abdullah & The Sheik (AJPW - 12/9/1978)

The word that came to mind when watching this match was TURBULENCE. I am a wordsmith, you see (I am very not). I've been on many a plane in my long and stupid life and honestly, I don't particularly care for it. It might be a control thing. You know, like if that puppy goes down then we're all fucked and there's nothing I can do about it, no hand in my own fate, a literal passenger on the road to my own demise. Dramatics aside it's not that I have a crippling fear of flying, but I always feel just a little on edge when I'm up there. I'm most on edge when the turbulence hits. When it starts I just find myself waiting for that next jolt, everything else a secondary concern. The first half of this had that turbulence. It would hit and the thing would shake and then they'd peel back for a smooth thirty seconds, but I was always on edge, always ready for that next buck, a part of me wondering if it would be enough to tear the whole thing apart. The difference here of course was that I wasn't on a fuckin airplane and that anticipation was laced with a little something other than dread. Instead I wanted the thing to go up in flames and I think the crowd did too, because there was a good chance the Funks would be the ones to set it alight. Look, if you've seen one Abby and Sheik match then you've seen a hundred and I don't say that to dig them out. I like their shtick and I could watch it those hundred times and be entertained. This felt like the pinnacle of it though; not just Abby and Sheik's hide and stab routine but the foreign object bit at large. They had that crowd on absolute strings, and of course the Funks went above and beyond to sell it all, but the way it was milked by Abby and Sheik was just perfect. It also didn't hurt that this was some of the most brutal looking stabbing and fork jabbing ever. The first shot looked like it about tore out Terry's throat and with the way Terry sold it you'd have believed it. When it was Dory's turn Sheik was just spearing him right in the face with this thing, jamming it in his eye while Dory was wailing like an animal. It was maybe the most visceral selling we've ever gotten from Dory, who's not someone you really think of as a big vocal seller (not like his brother anyway). There was one moment early, before the blood started flowing, where Abby had Terry in a headlock and Terry backed him into the ropes. Abdullah slowly reached down to his boot and as soon as the crowd noticed there was palpable alarm, that turbulence hitting again, which Terry picked up on and immediately and frantically started trying to punch his way out of it. I don't even know how many objects Abdullah and Sheik had with them but it felt like they had a whole fucking arsenal, the way they'd pass a fork or some scissors between each other when the ref' went to check, how they'd magic another something to stab someone with when the previous thing was knocked from their hand or thrown away to avoid being caught. It was masterful stuff. Then Dory goes full PTSD war vet on a cuppla bastards. The knock on Dory is that he's boring and bland and not very expressive and generally speaking I would agree with those things. This was a different side of Dory, the side where he'd been pushed past his limits and wanted to literally take someone's hand home in a bag. He goes Michael Myers with this fork and tries to stab a hole through Sheik's hand, relentless in a way we've never seen from him at any other point in his career. Meanwhile Terry and Abdullah are brawling around ringside and then Abdullah gets stabbed in the face and ring boys get stabbed in the face. Dory is a man untamed, untethered, unleashed. It was the best Dory, and also the best Terry and Abby and Sheik, but maybe somehow not even the best tag match between these teams. Spectacular madness. Watch them all.