Professional wrestling is based on feuds. Rivalries between combatants are its life blood. In the current world of wrestling, almost every match has to have some kind of reason why these two men are going to tear each other limb from limb. Because the “sport” portion of “sports entertainment” has been downplayed so much in recent years, some of the reasons for the animosity are downright silly. Because the wrestlers are such larger than life, sometimes almost cartoonish characters, it is hard to really get emotionally invested in many of the story lines used these days. But that wasn't always the case.
During the explosion in popularity wrestling saw in the 1980s, it was presented very differently. Yes, there were still some pretty ridiculous angles used. But there were also some stories with real, honest emotion. The kind of feuds that kept you on the edge of your seat. Rivalries that packed fans into auditoriums to root for their hero to beat down the hated villain. Perhaps no feud better brought out the raw emotion wrestling is capable of producing in its fans than the epic war between Magnum TA and Tully Blanchard.
The fact that these two men were fighting over the coveted United States Heavyweight Championship has become almost a footnote to history. It isn't the title on the line that we remember. It is the intense hatred each man brought for the other. It seems like today, neither man is given his proper due, for very different reasons.
Tully Blanchard should be regarded as a legend in the sport. As one of the founding members of the Four Horsemen, Blanchard was, at one time, one of the elite wrestlers in the world. Besides winning several tag team championships as one half of a team with Arn Anderson, arguably one of the best tag teams of all time, Blanchard also won numerous singles titles. The most prestigious of those singles belts was the NWA United States Heavyweight title, a belt he won from Magnum TA. However, a wild life style led to a failed drug test, which cut short his wrestling career. While Ric Flair and Arn Anderson went on to lead the Four Horsemen in various incarnations throughout the rest of the 80s and 90s, Tully was almost forgotten. He has his fans to this day, but he is not held in the same regard as his former stable mates. It's a shame, because there was no better heel in the business than Tully Blanchard in the 1980s. The crowd despised him as he did any underhanded thing necessary to snatch victory from his opponents.
Magnum TA's story is an even more tragic one. Magnum was a wrestling promoter's dream. There was nothing you would want in a baby face wrestler that he did not possess. He was a tough guy with good in-ring skills. Women wanted to date him and guys wanted to have a beer with him. He was a charismatic athlete with star quality and the ability to whip a crowd into a frenzy of support. His matches were always entertaining and he kept himself in great physical shape. In fact, it was his physical condition that saved his life when fate stepped in and cut his career short. Magnum TA was being groomed to be the next NWA World Champion. He was going to be the NWA's answer to Hulk Hogan: the beloved super star who could carry the company to the next level and fill arenas to see him perform. But a rain slicked road caused Magnum to lose control of his Porsche, causing career ending injuries to a future World Champ just entering his prime. Magnum TA remains one of the biggest “what might have been” situations in all of wrestling.
Magnum TA's charismatic hero and Tully Blanchard's despised villain made natural rivals. The two fit together perfectly in their feud over the US title. Blanchard had won the belt from Magnum, with the aid of a foreign object, and Magnum was determined to get it back. But for these two heated rivals, an ordinary match wouldn't be enough. The culmination of this feud required something special. Something people would remember for years to come. The two delivered with one of the greatest wrestling matches ever, the historic “I Quit” match held at Starrcade 85.
Calling this a wrestling match is a bit of a misnomer. This was not a wrestling match. This was a war. Held within the confines of a steel cage, there was only one way to win: make your opponent submit. One of the great things about the “I Quit” stipulation is there are several different ways the match can go. Sometimes, the match is a technical showpiece, with two talented mat tacticians trading move and counter-move, each trying to apply the unbreakable submission and forcing his opponent to give up when faced with superior wrestling skill. This match was the complete opposite of that. Magnum and Tully didn't wrestle inside of that cage. They just fought. there is no other way to describe it. For fifteen brutal minutes, Tully Blanchard and Magnum TA brought out the animal in each other. There were no submission moves applied. There were no reversals, no jockeying for position. What the fans saw in that match was two men trying to just pummel each other into submission. If you were looking for catch as catch can wrestling, you came to the wrong place. If you wanted to see stiff punches, heads getting kicked in, bodies thrown against the cage, scratching, clawing, gauging and gnashing of teeth, you were in for a show.
This was not your typical semi-goofy wrestling rivalry. Tully and Magnum brought the HATE in this match. For a quarter of an hour, two masters of their craft were locked inside of a cage, trying to maim each other. The crowd exploded every time Magnum delivered a right hand to the head of Tully, and they were silenced every time Blanchard beat their hero down to the mat. Emotions ran high in the arena that night, but no emotions were higher than those of the two men in the ring.
Both men were bloody, both men were battered and beaten, but neither would say “I Quit.” There was a referee in the ring, but he might as well have been in the next state. There were no rules, no pinfalls to count, no disqualifications to render, no count outs to declare. His main job was to stay out of the way as these two men beat each other senseless. In fact, there are times in the match when the referee almost gets run over by the tangle of limbs as Magnum and Tully claw and tear at each other.
This match is a perfect example of story telling in the ring and the art of ring psychology. Never once in this match do either man do anything to break the air of believability created during the tense introductions.
Magnum TA never asks for permission or approval from the crowd before hitting Blanchard with one of his big right hands. Tully never mocks the crowd when he gets the upper hand, never tries to rub it in that he is beating down their hero. Neither man ever acknowledges there is an audience at all. They might as well have been in an empty arena slugging it out. Another great piece of subtle work is the microphone used in the match. There is a live mic in the ring, used to pick up the sound of one of the men submitting. During the match, whoever has the advantage would pick up the mic and shove it in his opponents face, demanding he surrender. The sounds of exhaustion and pain would echo throughout the arena as neither man would give up the fight. Most wrestlers would immediately use the microphone as a weapon, trying to get a reaction from the crowd. But these are not most wrestlers. These are two absolute masters of their craft, both at the height of their powers, and they let the tension build for almost eight minutes of brutality before Tully Blanchard, in a fit of frustration at being unable to make Magnum give up, starts beating his adversary with the microphone.
For a match that has such legendary status as one of the most brutal in history, it is fascinating to see just how few “high spots” there actually are. Once again, I can not stress enough how talented both of these individuals were at the art of story telling. When broken down into its individual components, there actually isn't a lot done in this match outside of punching and kicking. However, every single thing that is done, is done flawlessly. There is no wasted motion. Everything is done for a reason. Each move has a specific purpose, each spot building the story being told in the cage. Blanchard and Magnum build and build, until the final moment, the infamous image of Tully trying to impale Magnum in the face with a wooden stake broken off of a chair, only to have it blocked and the tables turned. Magnum, almost spent and bloody himself, standing over Tully Blanchard, grinding the wooden spike into Tully's head as Tully screams for the match to end, for the pain to be ended at last. Magnum TA won the United States title on that night, but the belt is almost never mentioned. Nobody remembers the title. They only remember the brutality.
Today, wild, bloody brawls are common place. This match set the standard for brutality in a wrestling ring. It has influenced practically every hate filled “climax to a feud” match that has come after it. However, those who have seen this match and try to emulate it usually miss the point. All they see is the violence and they think that if they can top the violence, they can top the match. But they always fall short, because there is so much more to this match than the blood and the brawling and the screaming. All of the blood and the violence are not the story. The are a way to help tell the story, but they are not what the story is about. The story is about the emotion. it's about the competitive fire. It's about the HATE.
There have been matches with a lot more blood. Matches with a lot more “stuff” happening. But no matter how gory, how brutal, how over the top they may have been, few matches remains in my memory as being as special as this one. This is the text book example of “less is more.” Plenty of matches have more things going on, but they were done just for the sake of doing them. They didn't tell a story. They didn't lay the foundation and build to a climax. And that is why this match is remembered. It is not just entertainment, although it is entertaining. It is a match that connects with you on a gut level. It grabs you from the beginning and takes you on an emotional roller coaster. There have been longer roller coasters, with higher speeds and more twists and turns and flips. But there's rarely been one I've remembered the way I've remembered Tully Blanchard vs Magnum TA, “I Quit.”
-John V. Ferrigno
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