Tully Blanchard's World Title Matches

Tully Blanchard is one of my all time favorite wrestlers.  He is also one of the the best wrestlers to have never held any version of the World's Heavyweight Championship. So I decided to check out to see how many World title matches I can find that he had.  These are all the ones that I could find searching Cagematch and reading The History of WWE.

It's interesting to me that the first two were in 1979 for the AWA World's Championship as Bockwinkel was touring Southwest Championship Wrestling Texas.  In 1984 he had several matches on house shows with Flair for the title.  He he also has numerous tag the matches teaming with Wahoo McDaniel or others against Flair and Dusty or others.  They had no singles matches on TV, but I did find some promo segments and one where Tully attacked Flair.

The two matches in 1985 seemed to be random one offs, especially since the formation of the Four Horsemen was not to long after their September 1985 match. 

August 29, 1979 

Southwest Championship Wrestling, Exhibit Hall, San Antonio, Texas

AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Nick Bockwinkel defeated Tully Blanchard

August 30, 1979 

Southwest Championship Wrestling, Memorial Coliseum, Corpus Christi, Texas

AWA World Heavyweight Champion: Nick Bockwinkel defeated Tully Blanchard

June 4, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Memorial Auditorium, Greenville, South Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

From the June 16, 1984 episode or World Wide Wrestling

July 1, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina

NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair by disqualification

Cagematch has this as Tully winning by DQ and The History of WWE JCP/WCW section has it as Ric Flair won by DQ. 

December 1, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Conway, North Carolina

Tully Blanchard defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair by disqualification

This match is listed on Cagematch, but on The History of WWE shows that on December 1st Tully wrestled Dick Slater to a draw in the main event of a card in Morganton, North Carolina

I can't find when this happened other than 1984.

December 5, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Dorton Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina

NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair by disqualification

December 8, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

December 9, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Charlotte Coliseum, Charlotte, North Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

December 9, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, County Hall, Charleston, South Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

December 12, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Dorton Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina

NO DQ Match: NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

December 15, 1984

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Dorton Arena, Hampton Roads Coliseum, Hampton, Virginia

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

May 29, 1985

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling, Dorton Arena, Raleigh, North Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA World Television Champion: Tully Blanchard

September 9, 1985

Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling Memorial Auditorium, Charleston, South Carolina

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ric Flair defeated NWA United States Champion: Tully Blanchard

October 7, 1987

UWF: Universal Wrestling Federation CSU Convocation Center, Cleveland, Ohio

NWA World Heavyweight Champion: Ronnie Garvin defeated NWA World Tag Team Champion: Tully Blanchard with JJ Dillon by disqualification

This match was Tully only televised World Championship match, up until this point.  It was also during Ronnie's short lived NWA title run.  I wrote a blog about it Ronnie Garvin: His NWA World Championship Matches

January 7, 1995

Extreme Championship Wrestling, ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ECW World Heavyweight Champion: Shane Douglas wrestled Tully Blanchard to a time limit draw

This match was a few months after the infamous incident where Shane threw down the NWA World Title.  Tully was brought in for these series of matches by Paul Heyman to give credibility to the ECW Championship and Shane Douglas as a World Champion.

February 4, 1995

Extreme Championship Wrestling, ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Double Table PPV: ECW World Heavyweight Champion: Shane Douglas pinned Tully Blanchard

March 3, 1995

Extreme Championship Wrestling, Northeastern Catholic High School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Hardcore TV: ECW World Heavyweight Champion: Shane Douglas pinned Tully Blanchard

January 29, 2005

Wrestle Reunion Double Tree Hotel, Tampa, Florida

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett pinned Tully Blanchard with JJ Dillon 

special guest referee Kevin Von Erich

What's a bit frustrating about this show is that it was recorded for release, however the person that owns the footage hasn't released it.  I messaged him about it a long time ago as this show and Wrestle Reunion 2 features Wendi Richter's last matches.

His first World title match in 1979, his last 26 years later in 2005, and while he held numerous singles and tag team championships it really is a shame that he was never the World Heavyweight Champion, even for a short time. 

Until Next Time,

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