Mid-South Wrestling (5.18.1985) Review

-Originally aired May 18, 1985.

-Your hosts are Jim Ross and Joel Watts. Update: Everyone is still sad about Jim Duggan.

-We go to a new interview taped at Hacksaw Jim Duggan. His eye is still damaged, but he won’t lose the eye, and the burns are healing well. Not well enough that they’re confident he can wrestle again, though. They’ve told him point-blank to retire because he WILL lose the eye the next time he’s injured….

-That said…Duggan removes the bandage covering his eye, announces that he can see a LITTLE bit out of that eye, and he’s going to have a long talk with his family because he’s not sure he agrees with what the doctors are telling him.

-Meanwhile, last week Skandar Akbar and his men were booted out of Mid-South Wrestling as punishment for what they did, but Akbar has threatened legal action against Mid-South on the grounds of “Yeah but,” pointing out that Duggan has a record of using weapons in matches. So Akbar and his men are back.

TV TITLE TOURNAMENT FINALS: THE SNOWMAN vs. JAKE “The Snake” ROBERTS
-Winner gets the title and plus $10,000. For no particular reason, Superstar Bill Dundee is the referee.

-Snowman applies a side headlock and Jake can’t escape from it. I love this spot whenever I see it, it’s so simple but it gets the point across that the guy applying the hold is freakishly strong–Jake tries an Irish whip to get out but gets dragged across the ring because Snowman doesn’t release.

-Dutch Mantell wanders to ringside as that mysterious story continues. But the twist this week is that the Barbarian is joining him.

-Jake throws the hardest chops of his entire career and Snowman shrugs off every one of them. Jake manages to backdrop Snowman, but Snowman bounces right up with no sign of pain. Series of slams by the Snowman, and the commentators are just frantically fawning all over everything he does. You don’t just wave a wand and declare that the new guy is the new Junkyard Dog, that’s not how this works, and it blows me away that promoters with years of experience think that it just happens that way.

-Jake throws right hands at Snowman and Snowman no-sells all of them. Powerslam by the Snowman, and he just pins Jake right there, winning the TV Title in a total squash. Snowman walks off, and post-match, Jake tries to start an argument with Dundee insisting that he had a foot on the ropes Barbarian heads into the ring and attacks Dundee, and it’s 2-on-1 until Snowman returns and makes the save. JR invokes Bill Watts’ favorite cliche for a badass, “Walking tall,” to describe what Snowman is doing, so you know this is a serious push. We still have to wait for info about Snowman’s personal stance on giving quarter.

THE NIGHTMARE & GENERAL EDDIE GILBERT vs. MIKE JACKSON & MARK RAGIN
-I’m probably reading too much into this, but the jobber side seems to be a cute joke because Ragin was originally supposed to get a super-push as a Michael Jackson look-alike.

-Ragin armdrags Gilbert. Jackson comes in with a bodypress and an enziguiri. Ragin tags back in and dropkicks Gilbert as the commentators lay out that Gilbert’s whole act is that he sucks at wrestling but manages to succeed beyond what he’s capable of.

-Nightmare comes in and lays a beating on Ragin, and with Ragin sufficiently softened up, Gilbert tags back in and drops an elbow. Ragin throws a forearm to stop Gilbert from putting him away and makes the hot tag to Jackson. Jackson gets caught in a stungun, and Nightmare heads back in to finish this with a piledriver.

-Snowman is at the commentary table, where Joel presents him with a check–a REAL check–for $10,000, and we get an extended close-up of the check with the routing and account numbers plainly visible at the bottom of it, if any fans are planning to make some questionable purchases soon. Snowman thanks the fans for their support and thanks Muhammad Ali for his inspiration. Snowman cuts…well…not a BAD promo, but a generic one. No one can beat me, I want tough competition, I’ll take on all comers. Again, not bad, but not standing out from the pack.

-Boyd Pierce is in the ring along with Terry Taylor, Terry Daniels, and Steve Casey. Taylor plans on wrestling Ric Flair the next time Flair is in the territory, and he wants to do a special exhibition of the figure four leglock to explain the severity of the hold and how he plans on countering it.

-With that, Taylor lies on his back and allows Casey and Daniels to try to apply the figure four and he shows how to block it with a kick, reverse it into a cradle, or switch it to a drop toehold.

-Ted DiBiase, Steve Williams, and Thor head to the ring and say it’s bullshit that he’s demonstrating counters on guys who want to help him counter it, and by the way, Ted DiBiase has mastered the figure four better than anybody, so why isn’t he getting the title shot? DiBiase challenges Taylor to apply the figure four on Thor. AND Thor won’t even lie down first, Taylor has to take him down AND apply the hold. Taylor agrees to that challenge, and DiBiase immediately just wallops him with the loaded glove and Thor applies the figure four, since DiBiase has taught him how to do the hold.

-Taylor struggles with the hold, but manages to roll over to reverse it, and Thor emphatically submits and begs for mercy, and DiBiase & Williams just look completely disgusted by Thor’s failure and leave without him. Good segment!

TED DIBIASE & “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS (Tag Team Champions) vs. STEVE CASEY & PRIVATE TERRY DANIELS
-Casey works the arm as Jim Ross announces that Ric Flair will be here next week, so Taylor’s big opportunity should be coming soon.

-Casey stays with the arm, but a knee to the gut cuts off his offense. DiBiase tags in and Casey gets a series of near-falls before tagging in Terry Daniels. Daniels holds his own until Williams takes a cheap shot from the apron and DiBiase capitalizes with the figure four to get the submission.

-Jake Roberts is out here bitching about how Mid-South keeps trying to push him to the back, and he keeps doing everything the company tells him he has to, but the moment he advances to the finals of an entire damn tournament, they bring in a ringer! Jake declares that he’s done wrestling people, and going forward, he’s going to cripple people.

THE BARBARIAN vs. KEN GLOVER
-Jake stays at ringside and it appears that Jake and the Barbarian are going into business together. Barbarian mangles the jobber but refuses to pin him, just beating on him and beating on him and beating on him some more. He finally ends it with a full nelson.

BRICKHOUSE BROWN & BRAD ARMSTRONG vs. CHAN CHANG & LARRY CLARK
-Chang gets some early offense, but an elbow misses. Brickhouse flies in with a headbutt and gets an easy three-count.

-We finish conveniently with a Brickhouse Brown music video. But then RIGHT before we fade to black, Brickhouse and Brad stroll over to the commentary table and demand a shot at the Tag Team Titles.

6.6

The final score: review Average

The 411

Snowman just isn't the guy. On the other hand, the Taylor segment was pretty great TV. Everything balanced out nicely.