Mid-South Power Pro Wrestling (3.15.1986) Review

-Back on the horse for me!…So, again, I do freelance work in the TV business, and I write tons and tons of columns while I’m between jobs and then I don’t write while I’m working. Well, happily I was busy as hell for the past eight months so you were reading a huge stockpile while I was working, and now it’s going to be an effort to jog my memory on some of these angles that I was recapping before all this work came up.

-And, uh, having said that, if you have need for an experienced question researcher, puzzle writer, or documentary talking head, hit me up.

-Doubling back to an episode that I missed in my search for this show. This is right as the Mid-South name was being phased out, and honestly, Power Pro Wrestling would have been a perfectly good new name for the promotion.

-Originally aired March 15, 1986.

-Your host is Jim Ross, who even refers to the show just with initials, “PPW.” It sounds fine. But no, we just had to go the pissing match route and stick the name “Federation” in there.

KORSTIA KORCHENKO (with Eddie Gilbert) vs. PERRY JACKSON
-Korchenko pounds Jackson down and puts the boots to him. Forearm while Eddie Gilbert gets on the mike and riles up the fans. Backbreaker by Korchenko finishes.

ROAD WARRIORS (with Paul Ellering) vs. IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE THEY CHARGE THE RING AND GET THE WIN IN SECONDS
-From World Wide Wrestling, to get the Mid-South fans hyped about seeing Hawk & Animal in the Crockett Memorial Senior Tag Team Jim Cup Junior Tournament.

KOKO B. WARE vs. ROB RICKSTEINER
-Koko offers a handshake, Rob refuses, and Koko responds by hiptossing him, establishing a generation of WWE locker room etiquette. Koko works the arm. Ricksteiner fights out but gets hiptossed to the floor while Joel Watts tries to explain why matches are paced differently on TV and in house show matches.

-Ricksteiner uses a cheap shot to take advantage and lights Koko up with forearms and fists. Ricksteiner mocks Koko by doing the Bird dance, which instantly elevates this to six stars. That ends up pissing Koko off, and he just goes straight to the missile dropkick for the three-count to put Rob in his place.

BLADE RUNNERS (with Eddie Gilbert) vs. BRETT WAYNE SAWYER & SEAN O’REILLY
-Flash (Sting) misses a corner charge and Brett clamps on a standing side headlock and holds on for dear life, trying to wear Flash out. Flash fights him off, but gets dropkicked. It’s so weird seeing Sting do big muscular brick wall offense and selling.

-Rock (Ultimate Warrior) tags in and chokes Sawyer out. O’Reilly tags in but Rock slams him and boots him, and the slightly-improved version of the Hart Attack gets the win for the Blade Runners.

-Post-match, JR muses that the Blade Runners aren’t that polished.

LOSER GETS PAINTED YELLOW: STEVE KEIRN vs. CHAVO GUERRERO
-Chavo lights into Keirn and monkey flips him, and I’m out of step enough that I don’t remember if there was any issue between these guys that I covered.

-Chavo works the leg over. Camel clutch is locked on and Keirn fights it as we take time-out for a commercial….and we return to Chavo still just kicking the hell out of Keirn but selling something, and we’re told that it’s because “He’s feeling the effects of this battle.” So we’ve apparently edited out every bit of offense from Keirn.

-Chavo just keeps pounding away on Keirn with “a dose of Keirn’s own medicine” and again, we’ve missed pretty much anything Keirn did. Keirn finally takes a few shots in the corner, but an Irish whip gets countered and a German suplex/pinning combo gives Chavo the three-count.

-Post-match, Chavo gets so preoccupied with mixing the paint that Keirn recovers, loads his fist, and knocks out Chavo. Keirn gets into an argument with the referee and heaves him to the floor, which gives Chavo a chance to recover, so Chavo attacks Keirn, and Stan Lane hurries out as an equalizer for the 2-on-1 attack, and Chavo gets the paint dumped on him. Oddly edited match, so I feel weird offering an opinion on it.

-Jim Ross touts that as a result of what we just saw, the Guerreros will face the Fabulous Ones on the next edition of PPW.

-Because of the impending Crockett Cup tournament, JR goes into the vault and replays Jim Cornette getting his face shoved into a cake a few years ago.

5.4

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

This was actually pretty skippable, now that I've gone back to check.