wrestling / Video Reviews
Mid-South Wrestling (10.5.1985) Review
Image Credit: WWE/Peacock
Loading...-Originally aired October 5, 1985.
-Your hosts are Jim Ross & Joel Watts.
-We open the show with an Al Perez music video instead of the Wendell Cooley video we had been promised for equal time. Honestly, the way those two guys look, they could have just as easily introduced it as a Wendell Cooley video and we wouldn’t have noticed.
AL PEREZ & WILDCAT WENDELL COOLEY (Tag Team Champions) vs. KARL STILES & THE RED RAIDER
-Jim Ross toys with calling the champs “The East/West Connection” because Cooley is from Florida and Perez is from Texas. That’s…more of a South/South Connection, Jim. Raider looks like a sitcom plot where a character accidentally ends up signing for a wrestling match, wearing a red body stocking and underwear on top of it, with a white mask. Quick match, with Perez getting the German suplex and calling it a night.
JAKE “The Snake” ROBERTS vs. EL CORSARIO
-Jake needs to switch detergent brands because the red pants he’s been wearing for the past few months are now pink. So all of a sudden, Skandar Akbar is missing from Corsario’s corner, and from Mid-South altogether, and JR explains, “Yeah, because he’s afraid of the Midnight Rider, so he left.” So this was already the worst version of the “guy returns under a mask” angle ever done to that point, and it ends up having the limpest payoff possible, the heel just goes “Oh shit, he has a mask, cheese it, guys” and leaves with no actual revenge exacted or even crossing paths on TV. And Watts didn’t really ever have a punishment. He was still on commentary for his 90-day suspension, which was the job he had been doing all along. This “loser leaves town” stip ended up being the normal job equivalent of “The boss has ruled you cannot take the trash out to the dumpster at closing time for 90 days.”
-Corsario chops Jake down and clamps a nerve hold on Jake, almost Kamala-style with it. Jake makes it to the corner, but Corsario just switches over to a different nerve to hold. Jake deflects the superkick with his arm, letting it absorb the pain, then uses his good arm for the clothesline and DDTs Corsario to finish. Not much of a match, and holy shit, that’s pretty much a brick wall for Corsario’s potential here.
TED DIBIASE & “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS vs. TONY FAULK & PAT ROSE
-This is the second straight week that Ted DiBiase has been inexplicably wet from head to toe when he comes to the ring, like he said “Water” at the end of a comedy sketch before coming to the ring.
-DiBiase elbows Rose down and allows him to tag Faulk. Suplex by DiBiase. Williams comes in with a clothesline and a headbutt Rose tags back in, and DiBiase gives him a high backdrop before tagging in Williams, who whips out a new finisher: a second-rope stampede. And it works.
-Eddie Gilbert is in the ring. He’s exhausted by the way the fans are always pursuing him in the arenas and at the airports, and the way women keep tying up the phone lines at hotels trying to find out what room he’s in. So he has a special gift for all the fans of Mid-South to accommodate all the demand for him: He reveals a painting of himself that he had commissioned and tells fans to write in with a 25-words-or-less essay explaining why they want the painting. The best essay wins the painting.
-We flash back to a vignette from two years ago, showing Buzz Sawyer training for a match with Junkyard Dog by whipping cinder blocks with a chain until they break.
“Mad Dog” BUZZ SAWYER vs. BROADWAY JOE
-Sawyer attacks at the bell and powerslams Joe off the top rope for the three-count.
-We get a Dick Slater music video with a slew of clips from the Mid-Atlantic, interspersed with footage of him being chauffeured around town by the unnamed woman who might be a girlfriend, manager, valet, or something else, we aren’t sure yet at this juncture.
DICK SLATER (with the Mysterious Woman) vs. RICK DUNN
-Slater throws punches and drops an elbow. Double underhook suplex gets the win.
WHIP ON A POLE: THE FANTASTICS vs. SUPERSTAR BILL DUNDEE & DIRTY DUTCH MANTELL
-Dundee hurries up the turnbuckle right away but Tommy Rogers follows him up and they slug it out on the top rope until Rogers knocks him down to the mat. Dutch hooks the ankle to stop Rogers’ climb. Dutch tags in and gets dropkicked down, then hurries up the pole. Dutch pulls him down and crotches him on the top rope. Rogers is hung up on the ropes, so Dutch climbs his body to get to the whip, but gets knocked off. Dundee tries to climb, but Fulton knocks him off.
-Dundee and Fulton fight it out in the corner and take turns climbing. Fulton punches Dundee square in the nuts and Dundee crotches himself on the top turnbuckle before tumbling off. Mantell tags in and gives Fulton a shot to the eyes. All four men end up in the bring for a brawl. Dundee tries to get the whip once again, but Fulton slams him off. Dutch hurries over to try to get the whip and Rogers slams him off. All four men are battling it out, and with the referee trying to restore order, Eddie Gilbert runs to the ring, climbs the pole himself, and gets the whip, and gives Fulton a series of lashes until Rogers makes the save and steals the whip away. Rogers turns his attention to Mantell and whips him repeatedly until Gilbert shows back up with powder and blinds him. Heels have control of the whip again until the Fantastics get a chair as an equalizer and clear the heels from the ring, and it’s a DQ win for the Fantastics.
