The Name on the Marquee: Mid-South Wrestling (6.5.1982)

-Originally aired June 5, 1982.

-Your hosts are Boyd Pierce & Bill Watts.

SPOTLIGHT
-Incredibly weird segment, as Bill Watts is touting two unusual feats of strength that Paul Ellering is going to do this week, including a trick with the plastic rings from a six-pack. Precious Paul is once again here with Reeser Bowden and the kids. Paul is feeling down because the doctor just diagnosed him with Pac-Man Fever, and then he laughs at his own joke. End of segment. No feats of strength, just a joke that aged like milk. The thing is, he’s even holding the six-pack rings in his hand, but the moment he tells the joke, it abruptly cuts back to Bill Watts, who just blows off the segment completely. “Hey, that sure was great, now here’s Dick Murdoch.” I think I overvalued Ellering the first time I saw him on this show. The more I see of him in this role, the lower his ceiling seems to be.

“Captain Redneck” DICK MURDOCH vs. THE TURK
-Murdoch elbows Turk repeatedly, and Turk sells it like he’s being bonked by anvils in a cartoon. Turk has some luck with a wristlock, but Murdoch does a kip-up, which just shatters everything you thought you knew, and applies an armbar. Uppercuts by Murdoch. Turk fights back with forearms, but he telegraphs a backdrop and gets booted down. The brainbuster ends it.

TED DIBIASE vs. RANDY BASE
-Jobber Rick Ferrera has been demoted to referee, apparently. DiBiase tries a succession of holds and Base keeps making the ropes. He shoulderblocks Base in the middle of the ring and clamps on a side headlock. Powerslam ends it.

“Dr. Death” STEVE WILLIAMS vs. BILLY STARR
-Williams shoves Starr down. Starr tries a front facelock but Williams just flings him off as Watts explains the deal he made with Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer, who is allowing Doc to wrestle during the off-season on the condition that Bill Watts helps him drop 30 pounds before football time. Big slam by Williams, and a bearhug is locked on while Watts mentions that not only did he train Doc for wrestling, but once he realized they have the same shoe size, he gave Williams his own old pair of wrestling boots. Wow, Cowboy Bill is laying a LOT of groundwork for a heel turn here.

-Starr punches and chokes Williams. Williams fights back with forearms and a badass-looking hiptoss. He tackles Starr a few times, and the stampede finishes. Sudden thought about Watts “teaching” the Stampede to Starr. Obviously, if you’re actually legit training a guy for wrestling, you have to teach different moves, but within kayfabe, what does it even mean to teach somebody a powerslam? “All right, Steve, listen carefully, because I’ll only say this once. The trick is to pick the guy up first.”

-Last week, Hangman Harris demonstrated his “dry gulching temperament” by hanging Dick Murdoch. Hangman maintains that he has no actually allegiance to Skandar Akbar, for the record.

RICK “Hangman” HARRIS vs. MIKE HUDSPETH
-They slug it out for quite a while, with Harris finally giving him the upper hand and stun-gunning Hudspeth. Hangman uses an actual hangman as his finisher. GENIUS!

NORTH AMERICAN TITLE: BOB ROOP (Champion) vs. JUNKYARD DOG
-Front facelock by Roop, but JYD breaks it by just hoisting Roop onto the top rope and slamming him off. Roop fights back with a running kneelift and JYD totally no-sells and slams him. Roop comes to life and chokes the Dog out. Neckbreaker by JYD gets 1 and a half. JYD throws a forearm and gives Roop a Russian legsweep. Thump is hit out of nowhere and it looks like we’re gonna have a title change, but One Man Gang attacks and it looks like we’re getting another leg injury, but out comes Ernie Ladd to rescue him with a chair. Ernie decides his work here is done and takes off, but that leaves Roop and he assaults the Dog some more. Dog is laid out and Roop heads to the top rope, but Ted DiBiase runs in and sprawls himself on top of the Dog, so he takes the full brunt of the knee drop from Roop. JYD comes back after all that and strangles Roop until Grappler and Assassin come to the rescue.

THE GRAPPLER & THE ASSASSIN vs. COCO SAMOA & JESSE BARR
-Barr and Assassin start. Jobbers work the arm but Barr gets overwhelmed in the corner and caught in a bearhug by Grappler. He punches free, but Grappler blocks the tag and drops an elbow for one. Backdrop is countered with a boot and Jesse gets out of there. Coco whips Grappler and goes for a monkeyflip, but Assassin quickly loads his mask, headbutts Coco as he gets to the 2nd turnbuckle, and Grappler bulldogs the arm to win this one.

IRON MIKE SHARPE vs. JIM STARR
-Sharpe gets Starr on the mat and applies a side headlock while Bill Watts commends a local business for honoring the warranty on some work he did on his plane. The stream of consciousness veers into a story about his son Joel as Iron Mike Sharpe works the arm. Helpful bit of info from Cowboy Bill: The Starr jobbers are, in fact, not brothers. They keep fighting it out until TV time runs out! Wow, they’ve been pushing Sharpe pretty strongly, this is a surprise.

6.3

The final score: review Average

The 411

This episode was fine. Please make Paul Ellering stop now.