Sunday, August 19, 2012

The Memphis 1982 Awards

Now that I've pretty much cleared through all the Memphis I have from 1982, I figured I could do some awards to cover the best things I saw. While I really only saw about 5 and a half months out of the year, it covers the available footage.

Tag Team of the Year - Sweet Brown Sugar and Bobby Eaton. These guys were just all around awesome. Bobby Eaton grew as the year progressed as his promos got better and he got more rough in the ring. Sugar was entertaining too but didn't grow as much. Their weekly squashes were usually the best squashes on the show and I'd rather watch them above most of the Memphis guys.  The Fabs were good, but they didn't come around until later in the year. The Sheepherders also came close here and were legitimately the runner-ups.

Jobber of the Year - Speed. He had a great match with Stan Lane and he was in some decent stuff this year.

Best on Promo's - I'd love to pick Dutch Mantel for this, but I have to pick Jimmy Hart. Jimmy had the most promo time and therefore had the best stuff to choose from. I loved it when he compared The Little Rascals with the Midnight Express. He even made The Monk seem relevant. The runner-ups would be Johnathan Boyd and Dutch Mantel.

Line of the Year - "You saggy eyed knock kneed lookin' Texas egg-suckin' dog." - Dutch Mantel to Randy Rose from 2/20/1982.

Moment of the Year - Jimmy Hart's party for Kelly Shane had to be the moment of the year. The crowd lost it when Hart got cake put in his face and the whole situation was just great. Second place would have to be Jimmy Hart's "We Hate School" music video and then Steve Keirn losing it after losing to Norvell Austin.

Match of the Year - This one was a no-brainer as the Dutch Mantel vs Jerry Lawler 3/27/1982 match was clearly the best thing I saw. Nothing even came close to it. Some of that is due to the TV format and some of that is due to the awesomeness of their match.

Memphis MVP - This a tough one to choose. The top three candidates are Dutch Mantel, Jerry Lawler and Jimmy Hart. Dutch had good promo's, good matches and he was all around interesting. Lawler had some really good promo's and stayed relevant even when he was injured, but due to injuries, he kind of misses out. Jimmy Hart was probably the most important person all year round and he did just about everything you can imagine. He got embarassed, he got in the ring a little, he cut great promo's and he was the focal point of alot of angles. Therefore, I have to give the Memphis MVP Award for 1982 to Jimmy Hart.

Worst Wrestler of the Year  - We have a tie as I'll give this one to Luke Graham and The Angel. Both were terrible, had no redeemable qualities and were all around useless. The Monk had similarly bad matches but he started to develop his character a little.

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