Mid-South Wrestling (7.20.1985) Review

-Originally aired July 20, 1985.

-Your hosts are Jim Ross and Joel Watts.

-We open the show with Jim Ross’ exclusive interview with Jerry Reed, who talks about his lifelong fandom of wrestling and how much he enjoys watching Mid-South Wrestling. JR completely screws up this interview, not even THINKING to ask Jerry if he knows about any existing prints of Smokey IS the Bandit. And if we’re not going to unearth that, then what’s the point of interviewing Jerry Reed?

MIKE GRAHAM vs. TOM PRICHARD
-If Mike was still with us, I’m sure he’d have a lot to say about how the name “Mid-South Wrestling” was actually HIS idea.

-Graham works the arm but gets caught in a side headlock. Joel makes me laugh by mentioning he’s known Mike “since I was a young kid.” You’re like 11, Joel.

-Graham bounces off the ropes and runs into a superkick. Atomic drop by Prichard, but he throws a hard right hand right before he collapses to the mat so both men are dazed. Mike recovers first, and a figure four by Graham gets the submission.

-We go to “a press conference” held earlier today in a tiny studio where clearly no press is present. The Champion, Eddie Gilbert, and Oliver Humperdink are here, and Eddie doesn’t know why this is happening, because the press conference was Champion’s idea. Oliver breaks the news that, while Eddie has done a good job as manager, Champion feels that Eddie isn’t a great manager, so Eddie’s fired and Oliver is taking over Champion’s contract. Eddie is blindsided by this news, and Oliver offers him “a low-level job within the organization.” Eddie is insulted and threatens to throw a punch, but Champion steps between him and speaks for the first time ever, telling Eddie in no uncertain terms that their business relationship is done. Eddie leaves, thunderstruck.

THE CHAMPION (North American Champion, with Sir Oliver Humperdink) vs. FRANK LANE
-Humperdink insists on doing the ring intro himself for his new charge, and it seems that his first order of business is to revert the man to “The Nightmare.” See, if I was the masked man, and I won a championship, and I was renamed the Champion, I would consider a name change back to my old name to be really, really bad karma.

-Elbow and a stungun as JR has no problem going back to The Nightmare but Joel doesn’t seem totally sure what to call the guy now. And that leads to a funny bit of business as JR leans on the name really hard the next time he says it–“Good showing by THE NIGHTMARE, wouldn’t you say, Joel?”–and Joel takes the hint. And just in time, Nightmare finishes with a piledriver.

NON-TITLE: TED DIBIASE & “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS (Tag Team Champions) vs. BRICKHOUSE BROWN & MARK RAGIN
-Ugly spot early on as Brickhouse does a bodypress too close to the ropes, so he stunguns himself. Faces work over Williams, but DiBiase makes a tag behind the back and clotheslines Ragin down. Slam and a legdrop by Williams. Ragin fights back with a headbutt, but the heels are too much for him and they just dismantle him. Two-count after two-count as Ragin hangs in there. DiBiase’s backward-falling elbow misses and it’s finally hot tag to Brickhouse, but the heels are on a roll and Williams just stampedes Brickhouse for the three-count. Really weird, as Brown and Ragin were getting a bit of a push until now.

TV TITLE: DIRTY DUTCH MANTELL vs. “Captain Redneck” DICK MURDOCH
-But before anything happens, Ted DiBiase heads back to the ring and calls out Dick Murdoch for an interview he gave claiming he helped get DiBiase into West Texas State and onto the football team. There’s actually a bit of truth guiding this angle and it’s really funny. Okay, you know how West Texas State’s entire football team in the 1970s went on to become pro wrestlers? So Dick Murdoch walked around for years saying he had been on the West Texas State football team and nobody ever really thought to check on it because, yeah, he’s a pro wrestler and he’s from Texas. He was probably on that football team. And the truth was, he wasn’t. Dick just lied about going to West Texas State and playing football for his entire life and never got called out on it because the lie made enough sense that nobody questioned it.

-So anyway, DiBiase warns him never to say another word about him and back off. Murdoch accuses him of being too stupid to sign an X to his contract when the universities recruited him, and Dutch elects to head back to the locker room and just let these guys go at it. DiBiase and Dick Murdoch brawl, but when Murdoch gets the upper hand, Dutch sneaks back to the ring and tries to take advantage by attacking Murdoch. Nightmare hits the ring and attacks Murdoch too, so it’s 3 against 1 until Butch Reed comes to the rescue and helps Murdoch clear the ring. JR declares he’s standing tall, about one level down from walking tall, so it’s a good thing Reed didn’t get really mad.

HACKSAW BUTCH REED vs. MARK HAWK
-I wish this guy could have stayed in the wrestling business for 14 years so Vince Russo could book him to cut a promo where he declares that from now on, he’ll be shooting and going by his real name, Mike.

-Reed hammers away and applies a front facelock. SOUPBONES! JR speculates that Reed will be the first black world champion as Reed backdrops Hawk. Tackle gets three for Reed.

THE BOUNTY HUNTERS (with Skandar Akbar) vs. MIKE NICHOLS & WENDELL COOLEY
-“We know nothing about this new team,” but their names are David & Jerry Novak and going through photos of their career is a ride because they tripled in size Adrian Adonis-style by the time they made it to this promotion. They look like those motorcycle twins in the Guinness Book of World Records. JR notes that the Bounty Hunters have already been signed to wrestle Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Bill Watts in a tag team match. Oh, right, remember how Bill Watts came out of retirement and they haven’t done a thing with that since? I guess we’ll be revisiting it soon. Slingshot/clothesline combo finishes.

JAKE “The Snake” ROBERTS vs. BARBARIAN vs. LARRY CLARKE & RED RAIDER
-Crowd chants “Jake” and they’ve even been booked against heel jobbers this week, but Mid-South as a whole still seems just bewildered by the idea of “Babyface Jake” and doesn’t seem sure what to do with him now that he’s getting that kind of reaction.

-Barbarian slams Raider around. Clarke tags in and promptly eats the DDT for three.

-Another Fantastics music video. And again, the theme of video is that women make fun of them and keep avoiding them. This video today would 100% turn these guys heels, I don’t get making them look like doofuses.

8.1

The final score: review Very Good

The 411

Another typically great show.