Mid-South Wrestling (7.2.1983) Review

-A local promo opens this week’s episode…they did a promo like this a few weeks back and it’s the oddest thing to me. Mid-South had a designated camera just for their TV promos. There was a hard camera set up 45 degrees northeast of the hard camera angle that you usually see on this show, and we get clips of this week’s matches from a camera angle that we never actually see on the show.

-Originally aired July 2, 1983.

-Your hosts are Boyd Pierce and Bill Watts.

NON-TITLE: MR. WRESTLING II (National Champion) vs. BOB ROOP
-Pierce dead-serious says that II beat Larry “Nabisco” in a tournament final to win his championship in Georgia. I think it’s funny that we’re treating the National Title as a huge career accomplishment after months of Watts passive-aggressively shitting all over WTBS wrestling on commentary.

-Toehold by Roop is turned into a cradle by II for a one-count. II works the arm, but Roop starts targeting the midsection. Quick recovery by II, and we get a nice rapid-fire sequence of reversals and counters before II goes back to the arm. Roop’s tights are starting to slide off as II connects with a kneelift, and Roop loses clean as a sheet for the second straight week. I feel like there’s a story here. Better match than last week’s loss to the Dog, though.

ART CREWS vs. RIP ROGERS
-Rogers is channeling Gorgeous George more and more every week. Bodypress by Crews gets one right away. Crews applies a side headlock as Watts mentions that Steve Williams is on his way back to the territory. Monkey flips by Crews, but he keeps doing them and doing them until Rogers finally clues in to his game plan here and grips the ropes to block one, causing Crews to fall backward straight on his head, knocking himself loopy, and Rogers dives on top of him for three. I’d call that one a bit of a surprise.

JOHNNY RICH vs. HACKSAW BUTCH REED
-Rich has been getting a weird push where he keeps winning matches without REALLY winning them, so let’s see where this goes.

-Reed gets some early offense, but Rich comes out with some explosive dropkicks and the crowd gets revved up from that. I really wish they had done a better job of miking the crowd in this territory.

-Reed fights back as Watts mentions that Reed has accused Junkyard Dog of getting fat & lazy lately, and Watts explains that with super-heavyweights like King Kong Bundy and Kamala coming into the limelight, Dog has decided that he needs to “beef up” to keep up with the competition. That’s a pretty telling commentary, and really, it doesn’t get much better than this for JYD as a worker. Listening to Cornette’s podcast, and Brian Last was pontificating about what happened to him, and he zeroed in on the Stagger Lee angle as the before/after point for JYD, as he was a brick shithouse before that, and once he was “reinstated,” he was merely a big bulky guy.

-Reed stomps all over Rich. Corner charge misses and Rich lights into him with punches as this crowd just 100% believes in Rich. Flying headscissors by Rich…but he keeps doing them again and again, so Reed finally blocks one and makes it a backbreaker. Come on, we just saw that. Reed assaults him with “ghetto-type tactics” like choking and another backbreaker, just like the backbreakers you usually see on 132nd Street, and the flying tackle finishes.

KING KONG BUNDY vs. JOE STARK
-Bundy hammers on Stark and rams him in the corner. Slam to the mat as the commentators mention that the team of Hacksaw Duggan and Junkyard Dog want to be known as “3D” for “Dog, Duggan, and Demolition.” Would have been a great concept for a Survivor Series team. Powerslam that we call an avalanche even though it feels fundamentally wrong gets the five-count.

TAG TEAM TITLE: TED DIBIASE & MR. OLYMPIA (Champions, with Skandar Akbar) vs. 3D
-Uh, I guess I can certainly try calling them that for one match. Faces storm the ring and ram the champs into each other immediately. Uppercut from JYD sends Olympia straight over the top rope, and Duggan heads out there and rams Olympia into the post, and suddenly Olympia is out cold and Akbar is begging for a time-out. Boris Zhurkov runs to the ring as the match has just totally stopped.

-Grizzly Smith heads to ringside to ask what’s going on. The faces attacked before the bell rang, the match hasn’t officially started, and Olympia is already in no condition to wrestle because of the surprise attack. So Akbar reasons there shouldn’t be a title match. Smith says that damn it, they committed to a title match this week, so he tells Akbar to find another guy and get this match going. Zhurkov is already out there, but Akbar runs to the locker room instead because Zhurkov has had such shit luck against Duggan and JYD in their non-title matches.

-And we just wait and wait and wait, with 3D in the ting and Grizzly Smith staying at ringside and not budging to make a point about how he’s expecting SOMEONE to get their ass down here for a title match. DiBiase finally arrives with King Kong Bundy. Nice touch here, as Bundy is soaking wet as he enters the ring because apparently Akbar had to go to the showers to find a partner for DiBiase.

-So it’s now officially DiBiase and Bundy defending the titles against 3D. Football tackles by 3D clear the ring immediately, and Akbar already tries to retreat on the grounds of “we didn’t sign up for this,” but the referee tells him somebody had better get in there, so DiBiase reluctantly enters and Duggan beats the hell out of him while Watts points out that Mid-South Wrestling gives you stars vs. stars, unlike those crappy other wrestling shows you see where the stars wrestle preliminary guys.

-Referee gets bumped and we already have a donnybrook as Butch Reed comes to ringside and knocks Duggan out cold. Reed flies off the top rope with a flying tackle, then heads out. Akbar heads in to gang up on JYD, with DiBiase loading his glove and laying in shots until Duggan hits the ring with a 2×4, and he just throws shot after shot after shot until the faces go “All right, I’ll go! I’ll go!” and they get the hell away from there.

MAGNUM T.A. vs. ARN ANDERSON
-TA dropkicks and armdrags Anderson around as Watts again clarifies that Uncle Ole made him wrestle as “Marty Lunde” until he toughened up. Side headlock by TA, but Arn sends him into the ropes and gives him a hard shot to the gut. Series of knees by Arn. TA fights back with a monkeyflip. Atomic drop gets three. Bring on the standby matches!

GEORGE WEINGROFF vs. TONY ZANE
-Weingroff goes to a side headlock and oh my god, this building absolutely EMPTIED after Magnum’s match. Atomic drop by Weingroff. And he uses Brian Blair’s finisher, applying an abdominal stretch and rolling backward to make it a pinning combo–a hold that Bill Watts dubs “the banana split.” Okie dokie!

-We get an odd random video package about the great city of Tulsa, where Mid-South Wrestling regularly has house shows on Sunday night at the fairgrounds.

8.0

The final score: review Very Good

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