Mid-South Wrestling (8.11.1984) Review

-Originally aired August 11, 1984.

-Your hosts are Boyd Pierce and Bill Watts. Boyd Pierce announces that the PYTs will meet Butch Reed & Buddy Landell AGAIN this week to finish what they started before TV time expired.

-We go to Jim Ross in the ring with Tommy Rogers, Terry Taylor, and Magnum TA. In response to numerous letters asking how wrestlers train for their matches, all three men have agreed to do a training session in public, in the ring. They put on an amateur mat wrestling exhibition, with the wrestlers breaking down how collar-and-elbow lock-ups and waistlocks help with leg strength and balance…

-And then Buddy Landell and Butch Reed hit the ring to demand an invitation to the training session. Landell offers to go in first against Magnum TA. Magnum gets into the referee’s position and allows Buddy the advantage, and then Magnum just pops right out of the hold and Buddy looks like an absolute clown for how easily Magnum did that. So Buddy wants to save face and offers the referee’s position to Magnum, and Magnum completely ties him up until Buddy gets a hand on the ropes to escape, and Magnum is just totally fed up with him and hiptosses him, and Buddy literally runs and hides behind Butch, and Butch won’t get in the ring because he’s already signed a match with Magnum, so why bother.

-We revisit last week’s big angle where Jim Cornette acquired the only coal miner’s glove ever made, and we find out from Bill Watts that he made Krusher Kruschev $10,000 for it!!! Jim Cornette’s mama has money but doesn’t have financial acumen at all.

-We get a special video from Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Duggan does a super-patriotic promo about the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis and pledges that he will always hold a grudge against Skandar Akbar and Ted DiBiase for what they did. We get a Hacksaw Jim Duggan music video. My favorite part of southern wrestling in the 1980s is how owning a truck is shorthand for “babyface.” Duggan cuts a promo in front of the American flag, and Duggan officially comes out…let’s see…IN FAVOR of American flags.

-Jim Ross is in the ring with Jim Cornette, who thinks it’s bullshit that supposed impartial commentator Joel Watts is helping Jim Duggan make slick, fancy videos to make himself look like a star.

JUNKYARD DOG vs. KRUSHER KRUSCHEV
-Well, we knew this day was coming and here we are: the Junkyard Dog’s final match in Mid-South Wrestling, not that anyone knew it at the time. In fact, Jim Cornette’s account of this time is pretty funny, as JYD gave everyone a pep talk in the locker room about how Vince McMahon was getting ready to invade the territory and we all need to come together and get ready for the war and rally around Mid-South, and a week later word came down that JYD had jumped to the WWF.

-Krusher goes for a side headlock, but Dog just hoists him onto the top turnbuckle and parks him there. Bill Watts is believed that “the old JYD” is back because he’s clearly in better shape than he was a few months ago, and his bench press is back to over 500 pounds. Kind of funny that Bill is going to have to pivot to shitting all over him in the very near future.

-Krusher misses a corner charge, and the Dog lifts him up and Thumps him, clean as a sheet, decisively, and with no signs of weakness. Oh well.

THE P.Y.T.s vs. HACKSAW BUTCH REED & BUDDY LANDELL
-Everyone goes through a feeling-out process, but the heels try some ne’er-do-welling and Reed accidentally punches Landell to the floor. Norvell Austin works the arm. Landell tags in and hits a GREAT forearm on Austin, and suddenly Austin is seeing stars and Reed tags back in, which is odd because up until now the dynamic of the team has always been that Landell needs Butch to rescue him. Referee gets distracted while the heels stungun Novell, and Buddy drops an elbow and gets the pin.

MIKE JACKSON vs. TIM HORTON
-Hopefully this time around, Horton’s match lasts long enough that I can shoehorn in a hilarious coffee joke. Jackson ‘s strategy for this match should be to really cream him with a sugar hold, but instead he goes to a wristlock until Horton stirs his brains with some right hands. Jackson fights back with an enziguiri and a dropkick for three.

-And suddenly Butch Reed is back to say that Mike Jackson has been going around the locker room saying he could beat Butch Reed, and we get a once-in-a-lifetime PROMO FROM MIKE JACKSON, telling Reed that he has no class, and he doesn’t need a run-in from Sonny King to help him win a match.

SPONTANEOUS GRUDGE MATCH: HACKSAW BUTCH REED vs. MIKE JACKSON
-Reed has the advantage early on as Watts emphasizes that this is a match for pride, and they aren’t even going to be paid for this match, it’s just the two of them trying to prove something to each other.

-Jackson throws dropkicks because they work for him, and a monkey flip gets one. Jackson goes for an Irish whip, but Reed reverses and forearms him, and the gorilla press finishes.

-Steve Williams is here, and he makes a cryptic announcement about something special that’s going to happen next week.

-We get a Fantastics music video that shows their most recent visit to the gym, where Bobby Fulton lifts heavy weights wearing literally nothing but a banana hammock.

7.6

The final score: review Good

The 411

Mike Jackson cut a promo! How could I give a thumbs down to this episode?