wrestling / Video Reviews
Mid-South Wrestling (9.15.1984) Review
Image Credit: WWE/Peacock
Loading...-Originally aired September 15, 1984.
-Your hosts are Boyd Pierce & Bill Watts.
-We take a look back at the contract signing from last week, in which the Midnight Express heinously attacked the Fantastics with metal folding chairs, which is absolutely against the rules, and dammit, we live in a SOCIETY.
-So Bill Watts reads the official rules of Mid-South Wrestling, which read that use of a folding chair, a logging chain, or a 2×4 as a weapon is expressly prohibited during a wrestling match…AHA!
-And with that, we go to Jim Cornette, who’s gloating because his mama’s lawyers looked over the rules of Mid-South and came to these conclusions:
#1, Cornette didn’t physically do anything.
#2, MID-SOUTH put the chairs in the ring, not the wrestlers.
#3, and most importantly, the rule says weapons are banned during matches, and there was no match happening.
-Also, Cornette acknowledges the mask he’s wearing, and while he still isn’t actually saying WHAT happened, he says lawsuits are pending against Mid-South and Hacksaw Jim Duggan because Duggan committed assault, and Mid-South didn’t enforce their own rules. Watts says that the Mid-South board of directors will be holding a meeting shortly to figure this out.
-Bill Watts notes that Junkyard Dog has been seen wrestling matches on USA Network and WTBS, and as many fans have noticed, the competition he’s facing is nothing like the level of competition he had in Mid-South. The conclusion to draw from this: Junkyard Dog cracked under the pressure of tough wrestlers like Butch Reed, and it caused Dog to seek easier matches.
-And because hell hath no fury like a wrestling promoter scorned, we get a “Fuck you, JYD” montage with various clips of Reed kicking Dog’s ass, painting him yellow, and tarring & feathering him. I swear, we’re two weeks away from Boyd Pierce doing a sit-down interview with Bill Watts where Watts says that JYD will have to look himself in the meer-uh because he didn’t adhere to the time-honored tradition.
BRICKHOUSE BROWN vs. HACKSAW BUTCH REED
-Reed demands that “Outhouse” get down here and get the black slapped off of him…but instead, a tall, muscular unknown man steps into the ring, and he just waffles Reed with right hands using a plaster cast. Commentators have no idea who this man is, but whoever he is, he’s busted Reed open.
-JR demands to know who this mystery man is. He’s George Wells, but he calls himself Master G, and props to Bill Watts for not going the Vince McMahon route and just calling him Town Dump Canine and acting like he’s been in this promotion the whole time. He’s been wrestling in Japan and everyone over there talks about how great the competition is in Mid-South, so Master G turned down a $5,000 offer to wrestle on a WWF card in MSG tonight so he could come to Mid-South instead and see how tough Butch Reed really is. Oh, by the way, Master G says he talked to JYD on the phone, and he’s scared to come back and face Butch Reed, but Master G isn’t going to be run off, by god. Just a quick check of The History of WWE and Cagematch show that this would be a weird run for Wells because he was actually kind of straddling the fence here, working shows for both the WWF AND Mid-South in late 1984, but by December he’ll pick a side. Guess which one. Come on, guess.
-A Fantastics music video. Banana hammocks. Banana hammocks everywhere.
-Bill Watts rattles off a long list of stars in other territories who started in Mid-South, and he says it just goes to show that if you want your wrestling career to go anywhere, you HAVE to spend time in Mid-South.
THE FANTASTICS vs. DALE VEASY & DON SAUNDERS
-Tommy and Bobby are all bandaged up due to last week’s attack but by god, they aren’t afraid of tough competition. Fantastics work the arm on Veasy. Saunders tags in and he looks like they just handed tights and boots to a pizza delivery guy and told him “Here’s $50, just get out there.”
-Dropkick and a chinlock by Rogers. Pizza guy tags out and Veasy gets elbowed down. Splash by Rogers gets the three.
NO DQ, HAIR vs. HAIR: HACKSAW JIM DUGGAN vs. HERCULES HERNANDEZ (with Jim Cornette)
-We go a few weeks back to house show action from New Orleans to finally explain why Jim Cornette is wearing a mask lately. Watts lays out the story of the match, as two referees were working this house show, and both of them got injured in earlier matches, and by god, Mid-South delivers the matches they promised, so Grizzly Smith made Dr. Death go out there and referee this match. The intrigue here is that Doc’s a heel now but he WAS an established friend of Duggan. To clarify, this is Duggan’s hair vs. Cornette’s hair.
-Cornette throws powder at Duggan early because what’s stopping him? Brawl goes to the floor, where Duggan is bleeding, and he sends Hercules into the post and the barricades to open him up. Back in the ring, they slug it out, but Duggan hits a spear and goes for the pin. Steve Williams counts two, but then just stops and drops an elbow on Duggan, then flips Hercules on top of him and counts three. Hercules gets the win, and Cornette cheerfully pulls a massive wad of money out of his pockets and hands it to Doc.
-Doc has his money and leaves immediately, but the locker room is so aghast at this miscarriage of justice that babyfaces just pour into the ring, all of them guys that Jim Cornette has done dirty at some point. They gang up on Cornette and knock him the hell out. Duggan cuts Cornette’s hair while the rest of the babyfaces guard the ring, and Hercules Hernandez and the Midnight Express just stare helplessly because they’re outnumbered.
-So there’s some editing here to cover what went wrong here, as the electric clippers broke down at exactly the wrong time, and dammit they needed a payoff, so somebody went to the locker room and brought back shaving cream and a 25-cent Bic razor, and they just grind the cheap razor against Cornette’s head to take the hair off. So Cornette’s bald now and that’s why he’s wearing that mask everywhere.
“Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS & HERCULES HERNANDEZ vs. STEVE MILLER & JOHNNY MANTELL
-Hercules with shoulderblocks on Mantell, and stuff goes really wrong as Mantell apparently wants a hiptoss and Hercules is like “Thank you, I will not do that.”
-Williams tags in, and Mantell unleashes dropkicks before tagging Steve Miller in. Abracadabra, Doc magically kicks his ass. Herc lifts him for a slam and Miller flies like an eagle down to the mat. Stampede is rock’n Steve, baby, and it gets the win.
