Eddie Gilbert Video(s) of the Day: The Tupelo concession stand brawl and the Battle of New Orleans

This one will require a little bit more background that can be provided by Jim Cornette's awesome article from last year about the history of hardcore wrestling.  Go read it (or at least the part about the Tupelo concession stand brawls that starts with the 6th paragraph).  I'll wait.

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Ok, good.

So, as mentioned by Cornette, here's the Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton vs Atsushi Onita & Masa Fuchi (w/ Tojo Yamamoto) concession stand brawl from Tupelo Mississippi:

In the 1989 Wrestling Observer Yearbook, Jeff Bowdren did a list of the best 100 matches of the '80s with only the top 20 in any particular order.  This brawl, while not a proper match, was rated 19th.  Here's what Bowdren wrote about it:

This is remembered as the second great Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. The 1st with Lawler & Dundee vs Latham & Ferris took place in 1978. But this was a lot wilder. All four brawled in the concession stand for what seemed like 20 minutes, throwing everything, including the kitchen sink at each other. The highlights include Gilbert hitting Fuchi with a jar of mustard. The jar shattered in Fuchi s ear and blood and mustard mixed flew everywhere. The other was when the promoter jumped in to break up things and Tojo Yamamoto (who managed Fuchi & Onita) started chopping away at him. His wife, who didn t know it was all an act, jumped in and went into hysterics and tried to slug Tojo. Tojo tried to chop back but the wife wasn t selling anything, except she went nuts since she didn t know what was going on.

Fast-forward 6 years to 1987.  When Bill Watts stopped working on the UWF to handle his divorce (and set up a sale of the promotion), Gilbert became the booker.  Shortly thereafter, the UWF was sold to Jim Crockett Promotions.  While JCP booker Dusty Rhodes had a clear influence on the UWF booking, Gilbert was still in charge of most of their shows for the next 6 months before the rosters were fully merged.  On September 9, there was a TV taping at the (depressingly empty) University of New Orleans Lakefront Arena, where Gilbert decided to re-do the concession stand brawl gimmick.  A tag match with Sting & Shane Douglas against Gilbert and Terry Taylor turned into a concession stand brawl with Chris Adams replacing Douglas.

This match also made Bowdren's list, for what it's worth.  Blood, soda and beer flying around as kegs and drink trays are used as weapons, several varieties of trash cans thrown around, and a great Jim Ross call of "the fans clearing the area and scaling the high walls!" as a fan runs up the wall in front of the risers.  What else could you ask for from your pro wrestling?