Forming in 1979 when famed wrestling promoter “Cowboy” Bill Watts put the three together Michael “P.S.” Hayes, Buddy “Jack Roberts” and Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy were something of a never before seen circumstance: In a time before the insurgence of the six man tag as an almost regular occurrence they were a three man team in a division of two’s.
In their early years, they would wrestle in the NWA territory of Georgia Championship wrestling going on to become the first ever NWA National Tag Team Champions defeating Stan Frazier and Robert Fuller in a tournament final. But, upon journeying to Dallas and Fritz Von Erich’s World Class Championship Wrestling they would soon become embroiled in the rivalry that would make them famous.
Christmas Night 1982, Kerry Von Erich wrestled the NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair inside the Steel Cage as Hayes, a family friend of the Von Erich’s, attempted to aid in the Modern Day Warrior’s championship aspirations. But honor would come between the two with Gordy costing Von Erich the match and the world championship by slamming his head with the cage and thus began a year’s long battle between two rival families: the Von Erich’s vs. the Freebirds.
Amongst their noteworthy run with WCCW, the Freebirds would continue to cement their name across the United States competing in Georgia Championship Wrestling, World Championship Wrestling, the American Wrestling Association, the Universal Wrestling Federation and the World Wrestling Federation.
Michael Hayes’ mike skills and charisma made him a natural leader to the renegades of WCCW becoming notorious and, at the same time, beloved for his coordinated attacks on the Von Erich brothers making him the man you loved to hate. Terry Gordy was the muscle: with intensity and power at his side he was the enforcer of the Freebirds, the brute who you would be foolish to trifle with.
Buddy Roberts, the smallest but yet the most cunning, used his speed and technical wrestling to ground his opponents and trick them using his team mates to his advantage. Combined together, these three supremely talented men formed a legendary team.
But let us not forget Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin. While not a part of the trio upon their original formation, he would begin his career in 1968 at the age of 16 wrestling across the Florida and Mid-South Territories before also joining WCCW in 1983. Garvin was famous for his partnerships with Sunshine, his real life cousin, and later Precious, his real life wife, and he too would become embroiled in a feud with the Von Erich’s most famously the late David Von Erich.
He and Hayes would team up in WCW under the Freebird banner becoming the WCW United States Tag Team Champions twice. The Freebirds last competed together in 1994 in the Global Wrestling Federation in 1994 with Hayes, Gordy and Garvin competing with Roberts’s last match having taken place the previous year on the Kerry Von Erich Memorial Show.
Hayes would go on to join the WWE as an on screen personality before become a backstage agent and producer, Garvin would become an Airline Transport Pilot while Roberts and Gordy have unfortunately passed away since then. With tag team titles across six different promotions to their name and an unmatched legacy of innovation all four members of the Fabulous Freebirds will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2016
So, what is the Fabulous Freebirds legacy?
The Freebirds have reached that point of a legacy where their accomplishments and acknowledgement go without saying to such a degree that you merely need mention their name and some people will just know what it is in reference of. What one thing did the Freebirds contribute to wrestling that persists to this day? Not one thing… many things.
They were heels at a time when the alignment of wrestling were very black and white, one side or the other. They were the renegade’s threatening the values and morality of the beloved Von Erich family on their own territory. One family vs another family in such a simple storyline with investment from an audience that it was able to go strong for a long time, the rotating roster of the Von Erich’s helped in that aspect as tragic of a reason as it ended up becoming.
The six man tags of WCCW became the big attraction; it facilitated a popularization of the six man tags on a wider scale. The Freebirds instituted their own rule for tag match dynamics in the Freebird Rule: When a tag championship team is made of more than two the Freebird Rule allow any two members of that union to participate in a championship match. Demolition, the Wolfpac, Triple XxX and the New Day among other teams has gone on to use that rule.
But to me, one of the biggest contributions that the Freebirds helped usher in was the showmanship of professional wrestling. In the 1980’s the world of professional wrestling was facing an insurgence of change as Vince McMahon began his takeover of the North American wrestling scene with the Rock ‘n Wrestling Connection. Among the many reasons that McMahon was able to conquer and consume the many territories into the conglomerate was through integration: He took the aspects and influences from as many minds as he could to form an almost universally appealing roster and product. Through WCCW, the promotion for which the Freebirds were most renowned for, it was production.
You may have heard Badstreet USA, and not just because it’s just a good song in general, and the Freebirds helped popularise the usage of entrance music and presentation in combination, sometimes above, the actual in ring aspect of wrestling. Nowadays we have music that has a definite stamp of individuality to the wrestler that helped pave way for breath taking entrances, fireworks, and videos in combination with costumes and bright colours that has turned simply walking into the ring into an event in of itself. The Freebirds may not be the first and only people in WCCW to have done this but they are probably the most famous.
The Freebirds have the elements of one of the best unions in wrestling history: four men who have similarities but have elements of their own that allows them to not only stand out and be proficient at them but be exceptional at it. Look to each of them individually, be it Hayes’ charisma, Gordy’s ability, Roberts approach and Garvin’s jack of all trades, and you have yourself four men that it would be worth using as an influence.
[Zak Fellows has influences, but doesn’t do things UNDER it.]
That’s one big WCCW induction taken care of.
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