Dark Pegasus Video Review: Giants, Midgets, Heroes & Villains (Vol. 1)

Giants, Midgets, Heroes & Villains by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 With the WWE finally securing the footage from Bill Watts’s old Mid-South/UWF territory, I thought it would be a good time to look at the only commercial releases to come from the footage (previously owned by Watts’s ex-wife). First off, we have a nominee for the Most Inappropriate Use of Thrash Metal in a Direct-to-Video Release. You know, Jerry Reed used to do promos for them all the time. I would have much rather heard him sing about the bandit here. It’s jarring hearing faux Slipknot while watching Bob Roop. NWA Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair vs. Ted Dibiase. The Mid-South production crew misspells it “Rick.” Before the match, Dick Murdoch steps in the ring and asks Teddy to step aside because Dick has more experience and is more deserving. Dibiase rightly points out that he has had the most singles success in Mid-South history, and besides, Murdoch is yesterday’s news. Murdoch suckerpunches him and tosses Dibiase into the steel ringpost, drawing one of the sickest bladejobs in wrestling history. By the way, to say Murdoch suckerpunched Dibiase is like saying Michael Jordan used to play basketball. It was a sick straight right that seemed to land on the slab of meat that was Dibiase’s chin. To top it all off, Dibiase went headfirst into the post (as opposed to the way the Rock does it with eyes firmly planted on the post and his hand taking most of the blow). That sense of realism is what separated Mid-South from the over-the-top cartoon wrestling you saw elsewhere. Hell, even Kamala was presented somewhat reasonably. In his shoot interview, Dibiase reveals he bled way too much because he took an aspirin and a shot of brandy beforehand and bladed too deeply. Terry Taylor vs. Nicolai Volkoff. In case you didn’t know who was the good guy and who was evil, Nicolai sings the Russian national anthem before the match while Taylor brings an American flag. If you’ve ever heard stories about Bill Watts, you’ve heard that many workers were deathly afraid of him, so they worked their asses off. I don’t know how much is exaggeration, but Nicolai wrestles as hard as I’ve ever seen him. Taylor slugs him and dropkicks him over the top rope. Khruscher Khruschev runs down and demands Taylor be disqualified for sending him over the top. Nicolai attacks Taylor from behind after the distraction. Taylor gets a rollup, drawing in Khruschev for the DQ at 3:10. The Russians try to strangle Taylor with a rope (OMG!), but Hacksaw Duggan runs in with a 2×4 and beats the crap out of them. [N/R] After the match, Hacksaw admits that Darsow (Khruschev) got the better of him once, but he’s been obsessing over the loss ever since. He challenges Khruschev to a Coal Miner’s Glove match back when it meant something. Junkyard Dog vs. King Kong Bundy. Dog gets “Atomic Dog” as his entrance music. Won’t be hearin’ that on the WWE release. Outside of Duggan, Dog is probably the most infamous example of the Watts Rule of Wrestling Thermodynamics. Even though he relies on the chinlock a lot in this match, he goes flying across the ring a few times and even picks Bundy up for a bodyslam. Bundy wrestles too, applying a hammerlock. Bundy hits the body splash, but it only gets four (he used to demand a five-count). Dog finishes with the front powerslam at 4:11. Not a good match by any means, but smart and with hard work. *1/4 Jerry Reed watches Mid-South Wrestling. Told you. General Skandor Akbar says things were getting out of control with troublemakers like Jim Duggan and Terry Taylor, so he went to Haiti and recruited Kamala. He delivers a bizarrely racist promo on Brickhouse Brown, saying that he got rid of “his kind” when he drove Hacksaw Reed and Iceman Parsons out of the Mid-South. Kamala (w/Skandor Akbar) vs. The Masked Marvel. Kamala mauls the Marvel (some guy in red long johns) and finishes with the splash at :51. After the match, Akbar can’t get Kamala off the Marvel. Got its point across. 1/4* Hacksaw Duggan comes out and chases Kamala away. North American Title: Ted Dibiase vs. Paul Orndorff. This was pretty damned good. They start out hot and settle into good, old-fashioned mat wrestling. Orndorff suckers Dibiase into the turnbuckle to counter a hammerlock. Ted comes back with a kneelift and the powerslam. That sets up the figure-four. Yeah, the psychology behind that was pretty thin, but it was a great visual sequence. Orndorff reverses the hold, and Dibiase does a 0.8 Austin sell as he withstands the pain and holds out for the time-limit draw at 7:00 (so it was either TV time remaining or there was some clipping). Ernie Ladd screaming, “Why won’t Dibiase give up?!” really sold the final moments. Wall to wall action, and it was intense throughout. ***1/4 Recap of Tony Atlas & Andre the Giant versus Ted Dibiase & Matt Bourne. Atlas was last seen managing Mark Henry. Ted and Andre would later try to take over the WWF together. Bourne would go on to be Doink the Clown. Atlas and Andre are dominating pretty easily until Hacksaw runs in behind the ref’s back and spears Atlas into the back of Andre’s knee. Andre still manages to put Bourne and Dibiase in a bearhug. Kamala runs in and hits him with a 2×4 and then slams the Giant! Mr. Wrestling II and Junkyard Dog make the save. Andre is PISSED! Great character-building moment from Cowboy Bill: Watts tells us Akbar was fined for Kamala’s actions in the previous fracas, but he “somehow” was able to ensure the amount of the fine was undisclosed. I don’t think I’m alone in not caring how much he was fined, but it just seems so darned nefarious that he was able to influence the board into not disclosing the amount. It just seems unseemly. Watts also shows us his interview with Andre immediately after the match. Again, and I don’t think I can stress this enough, Andre is PISSED! He grabs Watts by the lapel and yanks him around (Watts is 300+, mind you) and demands Watts give Kamala a warning that Andre is coming for him. Hacksaw Reed vs. Rick Rood. Rood is Ravishing Rick Rude prior to a name change, gimmick, tan and credibility. He bumps pretty well here, but he just looks like a guy with a bad pornstache. Watts assures us he’s going to be huge one day. Reed is a little sloppy, but then he’s slipping in the tar and feathers from the infamous Midnight Express incident. Rood holds out pretty well before nearly getting decapitated on an ugly spot where Reed just tosses his face into the top rope. That sets up the press slam at 4:38. They teased Rood holding out for the time-limit draw and a moral victory, but Reed got the last-second pinfall. Good showing from Rood, although it *looked* sloppy at points. ** Ivan the Terrible & Little Tokyo vs. Lone Eagle & Cowboy Lang. Cowboys and Indians teaming up? Nice to see them getting along. Of course they’re teaming up against real furreners here. Ivan the Terrible is what Chris Benoit would have looked like had he been an actual midget rather than a vanilla one. Even the midgets show good workrate! It’s still a comedy match, naturally. Tokyo picks a fight with the referee and kicks him in the shin. Lang plays the face-in-peril. Tokyo and Ivan team up for the catapult-into-a-sunset-flip spot. I don’t think I haven’t seen that since the Midnight Rockers. They try it again, but it backfires, and Lone Eagle gets the pin after an awkward cover. * Montage of 1970s wrestling to prove it’s real. Lots of great candid footage here. Mid-South Tag Titles: Al Perez & Wendell Cooley vs. Kareem Muhammed & One Man Gang (w/Skandor Akbar). Perez and Cooley were a couple of JTTS who got what appeared to be a fluke victory, but their run continues here. All logic says they should get squashed here, and for much of the match they do. Then again, Boyd Pearce reveals that One Man Gang is based in Dallas at this point and he’s only on loan from Gary Hart, so that should tip the result for all but the most markish fan. Kareem, btw, is Ray Candy at a near immobile 400 pounds (He was 350 in his prime). Gang and Kareem team up to sandwich Cooley like the Natural Disasters used to do. They don’t pin him, though. Instead, Kareem holds Cooley for the 747 (second-rope splash). Perez pulls Cooley out of the way, and Kareem takes the splash instead. Cooley covers and gets the pin at 6:19. After the match, Skandor chastises Gang for the loss. He likes being able to fire people who provide services for him, after all. Gang and Kareem get into a fight and then a staredown as Gang leaves. I don’t think there was ever a blowoff. This was just to explain Gang going back to WCCW. ** King Kong Bundy vs. Art Crews. I can’t imagine this going well for Mr. Crews. Jim Ross says as much. It’s funny listening to Watts and Ross build Crews up only to say Bundy isn’t challenging himself against the best. The Atlantic City Avalanche (front powerslam) gets the pin at 2:58. Notable only for Crews going ballistic at one point and unloading with forearm shots only to be met with a blank stare from Bundy. 3/4* Ted Dibiase & Matt Bourne vs. Mike Sharpe & Mr. Olympia. Mr. Olympia was the Mississippi Heavyweight Champion. Dibiase and Bourne are the Mid-South Tag Champions. Olympia and Dibiase do a lightning fast opening sequence. Excuse me, I have to go track down everything Mr. Olympia ever did right now. Okay, I’m back. Olympia is fantastic. Sharpe tags in and doesn’t look like the total jobber he eventually became. He hammers Dibiase like the third member of Demolition. I don’t think I ever saw Sharpe get a win in the WWE, which is weird because even Barry Horowitz got a push at one point. Sharpe plays face-in-peril before Olympia comes in and cleans house. Bourne suckers Sharpe into distracting the ref, though, and then drops the (illegal) vertical splash on Olympia. Dibiase covers for the win at 6:03. Sharpe came off looking pretty stupid on that exchange. **1/4 JYD is about to beat the One Man Gang (with long hair) when Akbar and Boris Zurkhov jump in to attack JYD. Crusher Darsow makes the save. Darsow’s cutoffs are hard to wrap my head around. Paul Orndorff vs. Tully Blanchard. Tully was just visiting from San Antonio. This is just a straight-up wrestling match until Tully goes to the eyes and drops an elbow off the second rope. Orndorff gets pissed and fights him off. A reverse elbow puts Tully down, and Orndorff goes for the Texas Cloverleaf. Tully doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing, so Orndorff segues to the Boston Crab. Tully squirms out and locks in the figure-four. Orndorff, no stranger to the figure-four, reverses it. Bob Roop runs down and comes off the top rope with a knee to Orndorff’s back (in theory). Orndorff wins via DQ at 4:35. Looked like it could have been something before the angle. ** Skandor Akbar refuses to bring Kamala down to face Jim Duggan. Instead, he says he’ll hire every heel he can find to throw at him. Mid-South Tag Team Titles: Ted Dibiase & Steve Williams vs. Brad Armstrong & Brickhouse Brown. Armstrong is the ultra-talented yet perennially misused brother of Road Dog Jesse Jammes. He dominates Dibiase with a flurry until Ted drops him on the top rope with a hot shot. Dr. Death misses a legdrop, allowing Brickhouse (OW!) to tag in. Brown doesn’t do so well, running right into Dibiase’s knee. Dr. Death, ever the manly man, is bleeding from the eye. A donnybrook erupts, which naturally means the ref has to shove one of the babyfaces out of the ring. Death absolutely DRILLS Armstrong with a lariat, and that sets up the figure-four at 4:04. Good stuff for a squash. ** In a video interview, Jerry Reed tells Jim Ross about how he loves wrestling. Then he sets him on fire and Jim Ross screams “aaaarrrrrrgh” in voiceover. Mid-South Tag Team Titles: Hacksaw Reed & Jim Neidhart vs. Jim Duggan & Dusty Rhodes. I don’t know when Jim Ross first used “slobberknocker,” but this would have been a great candidate. Neidhart and Reed were only together a few months, but they worked really well together, and they had some great angles in those few months. Duggan plays the face-in-peril for much of the match, but Dusty gets the hot tag and flops on Neidhart. Reed makes the save, and he and Dusty brawl on the floor. Nikolai Volkoff runs down with a 100-pound bag of wheat and blasts Dusty with it for the DQ at 6:22. If that seems like an odd foreign object to use, America had loosened restrictions on selling wheat to the Soviets in the early 1970s, but after the invasion of Afghanistan (theirs, not ours), we tightened sanctions again. The heels beat down Rhodes and Duggan until JYD and Magnum T.A. make the save. ** Mid-South Tag Team Titles, Cage Match: Jim Neidhart & Butch Reed vs. Magnum T.A. & Mr. Wrestling II. Oooh. It’s this match! Too bad it’s clipped. Magnum was a rising young star who was still a little rough around the edges. Mr. Wrestling was a salty veteran who offered to train him. Think Kup and Hot Rod. Mid-South showed a few training vignettes of Wrestling II putting Magnum through the ringer, but it paid off as Magnum won the title from Reed in an impromptu match (which was later overturned because Magnum was not a qualified challenger). This is from Christmas night in 1983, which you might remember in wrestling lore as the night Terry Gordy slammed the cage door on Kerry Von Erich’s head in WCCW. Mr. Wrestling is so confident in Magnum that he’s putting his mask on the line. Carl Fergie is the special guest referee, evidently before he made the transition to full-time referee. Magnum unloads on both guys before Reed tosses his face into the cage. Wrestling II gets the hot tag and kneelifts Neidhart to the floor. He’s about to finish Reed, but Neidhart trips him from the outside. Neidhart takes another knee, but he’d blind tagged himself out. Reed hits a shoulderblock off the second rope, but he hauls II up instead of taking the pin. Neidhart demands to finish II himself, but then he picks him up instead of pinning him after a powerslam. Neidhart rips II’s mask off instead, but II is wearing a second mask to conceal his identity. Magnum gets the hot tag and hits Neidhart with the belly-to-belly suplex. II prevents Reed from breaking it up, and Magnum & Wrestling II pick up the Mid-South tag titles. The full match is ****+ and one of the great tag bouts in Mid-South history. [****1/4] Immediately after the match, Mr. Wrestling II says he knew they’d go after his mask so he wore a second one. He says he’s very proud of Magnum In the other locker room, Butch Reed is upset that Neidhart tried to go for the mask instead of pinning II. Reed lets us know that he took Neidhart under his wing and carried him to the tag titles. Now, Neidhart doesn’t know his place. All this while Neidhart is sitting right next to him, mind you. Neidhart finally gets fed up and walks out. They try to go to the next interview, but Neidhart returns and gets in Reed’s face. Reed tries to walk away from him, but Neidhart clubs him from behind. And that was the end of that team. Iceman Parsons, Little Coco & Cowboy Lang vs. Jack Victory, Little Tokyo & Lord Little Brook. Jim Ross touts this as the reason Mid-South Television was the #1 wrestling program in the country. MST actually was #1, but I’m not sure how much midget wrestling contributed to that. Little Coco proves that the racist meme of the Hard-Headed Negro extends to midgets as Little Brook tries to knee him in the head and hurts his knee. Victory chases Coco around the ring, so Parsons picks Coco up and throws him into Victory for the pin at 4:03. Let us never speak of this again. DUD King Kong Bundy & Boris Zurkhov vs. Tim Horner & Bill Rathke. Zhukov (I’m going with the WWE spelling) looks like a mini-Bundy without the beard. Horner, like Brad Armstrong, is great in the ring, but he was saddled with non-descript gimmicks. Horner does well for himself, but Rathke tags in and gets squashed by Bundy at 2:00. DUD Recap of Buzz Sawyer and Dick Slater “accidentally” injuring Jim Duggan’s girlfriend. This led to a pull-apart brawl in the back between Duggan and Sawyer. Steve Williams & Rob Ricksteiner vs. Hacksaw Butch Reed & Hacksaw Jim Duggan. See above, re: slobberknockers. Reed is wearing a neckbrace. Ricksteiner is Rick Steiner, and he’s already showing signs of being awesome. For those who don’t know, Rick Steiner initially showed signs of being a dominant force in wrestling before A) he got overly bulky, and B) Scott wound up being even better. The car accident was just a kayfabe thing. Actually, there was a car accident, but Rick wasn’t involved. Instead, he actually helped some people out of a burning car and saved their lives, which would normally be the kind of thing that promoters love, but since Rick was a heel, Watts got pissed off at him for it. Rick plays the weak link here, and Duggan pins him after a spear at 3:10. * King Kong Bundy & Ted Dibiase vs. Steve Williams & Johnny Rich. Johnny Rich is the cousin of the more famous Tommy Rich and was a staple in the Southeast. He was one of the Interns in Alabama. He keeps up with Dibiase nicely, but Williams comes in and simply overpowers Dibiase. The fans are clamoring for Doc vs. Bundy, though, so Bundy tags in and gets pummeled by Doc. Doc actually picks Bundy up in the Stampede for the win at 4:42. They continue the fight well after the match and have to be pulled apart. **1/2 Lost footage from Florida. Jake the Snake is fighting the Snowman when Muhammad Ali interferes. Bob Orton Jr. & Ed Wiskowski vs. Ted Dibiase & Mr. Olympia. Ted was the North American champion, and Olympia was the Mississippi champion. Wiskowski would later go on to fame as the racist villain Col. DeBeers in the AWA. All four of these guys are good wrestlers, and the match is good as a result. The heels isolate Dibiase. Wiskowski tries a suplex, but Olympia missile dropkicks Dibiase in the back putting Dibiase on top. Wiskowski tries to break it up, but that backfires. Olympia puts Wiskowski out with the sleeper, and Dibiase covers for the win at 4:48. They packed quite a bit into that five minutes. WWE tag teams take note. **1/2 Ernie Ladd & The Wild Samoans vs. The Junkyard Dog, Dusty Rhodes & Andre the Giant. This one breaks down pretty quickly, and that’s fine by me. Most of it centers around the heels trying desperately to handle the Giant with comical results. The Samoans team up to slam him, and Ladd dives on top for two. Ladd tries to escape, but Andre drags him back. Dusty and JYD team up to slam Ladd, and Andre GOES UP… well, to the second rope… awkwardly. An Andre second-rope splash finishes at 6:38. Well *that’s* a believable finisher. This is another match that is just dense with action. None of these guys (outside of Dusty) were what you’d consider top-shelf workers, but they looked damned motivated. **1/2 I guess we’re not getting closure on that Dibiase/Murdoch/Flair angle until the next disc. Maybe it’s their tribute to episodic TV.

The 411: There's some good and some bad here. The good is that the footage looks as good as I've ever seen it. I know that's not saying much, given that the only way you could get this footage in the past was on thirteenth generation dubs of the original broadcasts from whatever syndicated Bible Belt station happened to show it (now in Monaural Sound!). The selections are actually pretty good, showing some historic Mid-South moments. The problem, though, is that there is no *context* for anything here. We go from 1985 back to 1982 then forward to 1986 and then back again with no real rhyme or reason. I know what's going on because I'm a huge Mid-South fan. If you want to take the time to review the historical context, this is not a bad pickup. Mildly recommended.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]