LAW

LAW Nov. 29 Update - Buddy Roberts Passes Away

John Pollock / November 29, 2012 - 5:20pm

**The WWE was the first to post this morning that Freebird Buddy Roberts (Dale Hey) had died at the age of 65. Roberts will most often be associated for his role alongside Terry Gordy and Michael Hayes as a member of the Fabulous Freebirds but had a tremendous run earlier in his career alongside Jerry Brown as the original Hollywood Blonds. As part of the Blondes they had a big run in Canada working for Grand Prix Wrestling out of Montreal where they were managed by Sir Oliver Humperdink. Roberts was so closely associated with Canada that when the Freebirds had their very short run in the WWF in 1984 they used his background as part of their first promo on Maple Leaf Wrestling with Billy Red Lyons.

The Freebirds were a concept that came about in the Mid South Territory where Bill Watts was very high on Terry Gordy as a big man, Hayes was the talker and Roberts was utilized as the veteran that could carry the matches and watch over these two young talents. They had big runs in Mid South and for Georgia Championship Wrestling before hitting their drawing peak in Texas for World Class Championship Wrestling and their legendary program with the Von Erich family. The angle that kicked the territory into the next gear came on Christmas Night 1982 when Ric Flair defeated Kerry Von Erich in a Steel Cage Match with the fans voting babyface Michael Hayes as the special referee and led to Hayes turning on Von Erich and smashing the door on his head (a spot that has been repeated many times over the past 30-years). Even with booker Gary Hart leaving the promotion following this show, the angle was so red hot that the territory exploded.

Roberts battled throat cancer after retiring and underwent surgery where a hole was placed in his throat and gave him an extremely raspy voice and struggled for years with his voice.







**Tonight Impact Wrestling is back to being live at 8pm EST on Spike TV with the following announced for the show tonight:
*A.J. Styles & James Storm Vs Christopher Daniels & Kazarian
*Rob Van Dam defends the X Division Title
*Gail Kim Vs Mickie James
*Wes Brisco’s Gut Check Evaluation

**A.J. Styles will be our guest on The LAW this Sunday night chatting his feud with Christopher Daniels, which comes to an end at Final Resolution next weekend. We will also chat with him about ten-years in TNA, how his body is holding up, the Claire Lynch storyline and more. Check it out Sunday night at Midnight EST on TSN 1050 Toronto and The TEAM 1410 in Vancouver as well as here on the website.

**There is no edition of Review-An-Impact tonight due to a number of scheduling issues between Wai Ting and myself but we will be back next week and will have Review-A-Raw on Monday night.

**WWE.com is introducing a new digital show entitled “The JBL Show” where JBL and Michael Cole will go to different locations each week and have guests join them. The first episode will feature John Cena and AJ on the show.

**New Japan Pro Wrestling presents the finals of their tag tournament this weekend on iPPV at ustream.tv/channel/njpw1972.

**Here is the updated line up for Ring of Honor’s Final Battle event on December 16^th at 2pm EST and airing at ROHwrestling.com from Manhattan, New York:
*Kevin Steen Vs El Generico in a Ladder War for the ROH Title
*Steve Corino & Jimmy Jacobs Vs The Briscoe Brothers Vs Caprice Coleman & Cedric Alexander for the Tag Titles
*Adam Cole Vs Matt Hardy in a non-title match
*Michael Elgin Vs Roderick Strong
*Shelton Benjamin & Charlie Haas Vs Rhett Titus & B.J. Whitmer in a Street Fight
*Jay Lethal Vs Rhino
*Jerry Lynn in his final ROH match

**Kevin Nash, Wade Barrett, Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns are being advertised to appear at the NXT tapings next Thursday at Full Sail University.

**Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis got engaged this past week. This is terrible news for our board operator Braden.  

**Dutch Mantell turns 63-years old today.

LAW MMA UPDATE

**This week’s edition of The MMA Report features TUF 16’s Mike Ricci discussing his feud with Michael Hill on the show as they will fight on tomorrow night’s episode. Also stopping by on the show is Paul “The Mauler” Lazenby to chat TUF, the state of Bellator heading into 2013 and what they have done right and what they have done wrong and lots more including a brand new segment! You can download the show at http://lawradio.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=shows&action=display&thread=2139 or on iTunes by subscribing to The MMA Report with John Pollock. The show also airs Friday nights at 11pm EST on TSN 1050 Toronto.

**Here is the updated lineup for the January 12^th Strikeforce card set for Oklahoma City after a number of fights were added over the past 24-hours:
*Nate Marquardt Vs Tarec Saffeidine for the Welterweight Title
*Daniel Cormier Vs Dion Staring
*Gegard Mousasi Vs Mike Kyle
*Jorge Masvidal Vs Pat Healy
*Josh Barnett Vs Nandor Guelmino (an Austrian heavyweight with a record of 11-3-1)
*Lorenz Larkin Vs Ronaldo Jacare Souza
*Ryan Couture Vs K.J. Noons
*Roger Gracie Vs Anthony Smith

**Chris Weidman is recovering from shoulder surgery that he had on Wednesday for a torn labrum and rotator cuff along with a separated AC joint and ligament tear. This is the injury that forced him out of his December 29^th fight at UFC 155 with Tim Boetsch. Weidman wrote on Twitter that he would be recovered fully by the end of March 2013 after an initial estimate of six-months at the earliest.

**MMA Uncensored Live returns tonight with Michael Bisping joining them as their guest at 11pm EST on Spike TV.  

*****
THE MMA REPORT – November 29^th 2012
(John Pollock welcomes TUF 16’s Mike Ricci, Paul Lazenby and translations!)
http://lawradio.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=shows&action=display&thread=2139
*****

REVIEW-A-WAI – WWE Survivor Series 2003
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review the Survivor Series featuring Bill Goldberg Vs Triple H, a Buried Alive Match and Team Austin Vs Team Bischoff)
http://data.fightnetwork.com/blog/34912.mp3
*****
REVIEW-A-RAW – November 27^th 2012
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Raw from Lafayette, Louisiana featuring CM Punk Vs Kane)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/34888.mp3
*****
THE LAW – November 25^th 2012
(The LAW welcomes The Score’s Arda Ocal in-studio for a round table chat plus Dave Meltzer and a look towards the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2013)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/34874.mp3
*****
REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – November 23^rd 2012
(John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by Nate Milton for the full show chatting the Thanksgiving edition of Impact)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/34854.mp3
*****

Contact John Pollock - john@fightnetwork.com / @LAWradio / @iamjohnpollock

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