Glass Hand Dissolving: The Fabulous Ones

vs The Moondogs (Memphis 4/4/1983)

This is just good old-fashioned bawling territory wrestling. From my limited exposure, the Fabs are the best babyface team when it comes time to kick ass. Morton and Gibson don't come across as fighters; Tommy Rogers does a bit, but Fulton doesn't. Stan and Steve, though, can believably throw hands with the Moondogs. With that being said, they are also willing to come out on the losing end of that sort of thing against the Moondogs, and then resort to trying to wrestle a bit, trying to win with pinning combinations. Steve Kiern really starts to take it to one of the Moondogs, just smothering him with punches, but he gets too enthralled in that violence, and gets blindsided with a giant bone, and the Moondogs get the win. Good stuff. Promising stuff. 

vs The Road Warriors (WWC 9/21/1985)

There isn't a ton to this one. It's mostly a back-and-forth match for a few minutes, until the Sheepherders show up at ringside, and the Fabs would rather fight them than wrestle the Road Warriors, so they brawl out into the crowd and get counted out. Nothing special, but again it gets across the idea that these guys are tough and can fight. That means something, at least to me. 

vs Nick Bockwinkel & Masa Saito (AWA 9/30/1984)

We've already done a post of Bockwinkel and Saito, and my thoughts on them are only solidified by this performance. They are incredibly solid; they structure matches in a fairly basic way, but in a way that works. In this match, they spend the early section cutting off the ring and working over Steve Keirn. Eventually, despite Bockwinkel and Saito's best efforts, Stan Lane gets the tag. Lane cleans house with a bunch of kicks, and tags Keirn back in. From there, Keirn gets a little bit of offense, but fairly quickly things turn again. Saito cheap-shots Keirn while he has Bockwinkel in a hold. That puts us back to the Bockwinkel and Saito bread and butter, working over a face and keeping them from tagging out. This time, the offense is turned up a notch, but it's still the same song, just played a bit harder. Things turn when Saito and Lane collide in the middle of the ring, Saito crawls to tag in Bockwinkel, and Keirn switches places with Lane without the referee noticing. Bockwinkel falls right into the trap; he goes to grab his opponent and walks straight into a pinning combination, and the Fabulous Ones sneak out the victory. Another solid match. 

vs The Guerreros (Houston 12/27/1985)

This is the first match where the Fabs are working heel. There's a lot of schtick early, a lot of interacting with the crowd. The opening part of the match doesn't do a ton to get the Guerreros over, and then we transition into heat. I think that, while some of it is still there, the babyface Fabs could kick ass, and the heel Fabs don't quite get that idea across in the same way. Some of that is on purpose, I'm sure, but I do think some of it is lost.  It doesn't make for a great heat segment in the way I would have hoped it did. When Chavo finally gets to the corner and tags in Hector, the crowd is there, but I can't help but think that it's more due to the early schtick than it was the in-ring portions. The Guerreros hit a double dropkick, and Hector goes for the cover. The referee tries to get Chavo out of the ring, but that takes his eye off of the ring. Keirn comes off the top with a blindside knee, and that's the match. I don't want to say this is disappointing, because it isn't bad, but I didn't love it.  

vs The Fantastics (JCP 4/19/1986)

Two teams emblematic of the style and the era, competing in the Crockett Cup. You would think it's a recipe for a great match. I don't think it is. The bulk of this match is just armbars, like every possible combination of guys having someone in an armbar. It's not great. The Fabs work a heat segment that's pretty good, and Fulton especially is good at fighting for a tag. When Fulton finally gets the tag, things barrel toward the finish. Rogers comes in and cleans house. He tags Fulton back in; they run a bit of distraction, and Fulton rolls up Keirn for the finish. A better heel performance than the Guerreros match, but nothing earthshattering or anything near it. 

Verdict

I think, given their reputation, this was a disappointing showing. The Fabs aren't bad; they're actually pretty good, but none of these matches really appealed to me. I think they're much better as faces, but they aren't bad as heels. I don't know, I think that they are probably the lower end of the top 80s territory teams.