Mid-South Wrestling (6.1.1985) Review

-Originally aired June 1, 1985.

-Your hosts are Jim Ross and Joel Watts.

KAMALA (with Skandar Akbar) vs. MIKE SIMANI
-Skandar Akbar ominously lights a cigar before the match, warning Duggan that it takes one little accident with a lighter to end his career. And then he has to re-light the cigar to make the threat again because it didn’t light the first time.

-Kamala does his Kamala stuff, and the big splash finishes.

NORTH AMERICAN TITLE: TERRY TAYLOR (Champion) vs. THE NIGHTMARE (with General Eddie Gilbert)
-Ric Flair unexpectedly waltzes into the ring and offers $10,000 to Eddie Gilbert and the Nightmare if they can take the title away from Taylor. Flair remains at ringside for the match to keep an eye on his investment.

-Nightmare starts off aggressively, but Taylor fights back with a slam and a dropkick to send him retreating. Nightmare tries a cobra clutch but does it wrong, and Taylor flips out anyway. Taylor throws more punches, but they collide on a double clothesline. Nightmare springs up immediately in a change on the formula, then drops a knee on the throat for two.

-Nightmare works the neck over. Taylor keeps fighting back, but puts his head down for the backdrop and boots him down. Nightmare keeps trying to go on for the kill, but Taylor doesn’t give up, dropkicking him and following with a back suplex with his very last ounce of strength…but it only gets two for Taylor.

-Nightmare fights back and tries to finish with an axehandle from the second rope, but Taylor meets him with a belly shot. Nightmare rakes him and goes off the second rope again, and AGAIN Taylor gives him a shot to the gut.

-Both guys are exhausted and throwing punches to just try to finish this thing. Taylor resorts to a backdrop for a decisive advantage and drops a knee. Five-arm connects, and the commentators think he should just finish there, but Taylor wants to make a point, so he applies a figure four instead. Flair distracts the referee while Gilbert slips into the ring and drags Nightmare by the arm to the ropes, which forces a break when the referee turns around.

-Taylor goes for the figure four again, but this time Gilbert distracts and Flair helps with the escape. Taylor has had enough of this shit and goes after Gilbert, beating the hell out of him while Flair passes a weapon to Nightmare. Nightmare headbutts Taylor and knocks him out cold, and Nightmare gets the three-count to capture the North American Title. Flair running in and making a big elaborate show of emotionally embracing Nightmare in front of the referee, when he’s actually just getting his weapon back, is the icing on the cake. So Flair discovers that he can be beaten by Taylor, he he ponies up $20,000 in bribe money, and now Taylor is no longer in line for a title shot, and since Nightmare is now in his good graces, Nightmare won’t want one, so Flair is in the clear with no challengers in sight. And it was a damn good match, too.

RIC FLAIR (NWA World Champion) vs. PVT. TERRY DANIELS
-Flair is just magnificently full of himself, even more so than usual, because of that screwy ending, and looks like he doesn’t have a care in the world. But pre-match, Hacksaw Jim Duggan shows up and says that it’s bullshit because there are kids who idolize Flair just because he’s the World Champion, and it cheapens wrestling and disrespects the fans who admire him when he does something like that. Flair gives a magnificent rebuttal, saying it doesn’t matter if kids look up to him because none of them are going to be talented enough to be on his level when they grow up. And the world champion doesn’t have to listen to a moral judgment from a one-eyed redneck.

-And Duggan’s not gonna take that and starts administering a beatdown on Flair while Terry Daniels helpfully guards the ring. And then Kamala strolls in and beats the hell out of Terry Daniels while Duggan’s not looking. That’s some damn fine guarding, Terry. So with Daniels out of the way, Akbar and Kamala immediately help Flair turn this into a 3-on-1 assault. Duggan gets out of the ring, and in a wild spot, a fan screams “Here, use this!” and offers her chair to Duggan, and Duggan TAKES IT FROM HER and clears the ring! Hacksaw Jim Duggan is WALKING TALL!

BRAD ARMSTRONG & BRICKHOUSE BROWN vs. VERN DEATON & THE BRUISER
-Brad and Brickhouse feel like a team that would just get thrown together because they need to flesh out the bracket for Crockett Cup, but the promotion seems pretty committed to them. Brickhouse gets three with a quick headbutt.

TV TITLE: THE SNOWMAN (Champion) vs. JIM JEFFERS
-Jim Ross sells his soul by touting the Snowman as making “the biggest impact of any new athlete in professional wrestling.” Powerslam by Snowman gets three.

DUTCH MANTELL & TOM PRICHARD vs. MARK RAGIN & FRANK LANE
-We seem to have totally dropped the “Dutch spends the entire show staring into the ring and no one knows why” angle. Either we dropped it or Dutch was legit just staring into the ring for an hour at a time and he only just now came down from the mushrooms.

-Mantell and Prichard double-team Ragin. Ragin fights back but Mantell & Prichard keep the ring cut in half. Ragin finally slips away and makes the hot tag, and Lane is actually briefly a house of fire. All four men end up in the ring, and Mantell hits the MX (Gourdbuster) in the melee to get the three-count. Mantell whips both jobbers with Shoo-baby after the bell, and Snowman is having none of that, coming to the rescue, stealing the whip, and clearing the ring. Is he?…Is he, Jim? Say it! He just cleared the ring! SAY IT! Damn it, we go to commercial. Well, Snowman was pretty clearly walking tall there, as far as I’m concerned.

-Snowman cuts a magnificent promo at the commentary table where he warns Dutch Mantell “Nobody’s picking cotton, nobody’s whipping slaves, it’s not…it ain’t…” And then he has to pause to remember a year when slavery would have been legal. “It’s not 19…” And he stops and remembers that’s not right, and eventually settles on 1827, 1828, and 1857 and three viable years.

(And yes, technically, slavery is still legal, I look forward to being well-actuallyed on that.)

NON-TITLE: TED DIBIASE & “Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS (Tag Team Champions) vs. WENDELL COOLEY & SUPERSTAR BILL DUNDEE
-But what’s this? Jake Roberts and the Barbarian hit the ring. Dundee and Cooley immediately put up their dukes, but Jake surprises everyone by saying this actually isn’t about them…Jake’s in the wrestling business to make money, and champions make money so (gasp) he’s here to pick a fight with TED AND STEVE. Ohhhhhh snap! DiBiase says to wait in line, and Barbarian calls DiBiase out immediately for trying to weasel out of defending the titles, and the crowd is just completely blindsided by the surprise face turn and they’re immediately eating this up.

-Cooley and Dundee leave the ring once they see where this is going, and the brawl is on as we close the show.

9.0

The final score: review Amazing

The 411

Another absolutely delightful use of one hour.