JerryvonKramer

Correct.

I didn't like the Cena vs. Rollins portion of the Triple Threat, I thought it fell into finisher spam and false-finish typical WWE Main Event style boringness, which prevented that match from being truly great. With Lesnar vs. Reigns, it was properly visceral, brutality on a level I can't recall ever seeing in WWF/E and actually in wrestling period. I thought that match was really something.

Watching Steamboat in 78 really enhanced his case for me because it gives you a sense how over he was. And how exciting a talent he was. Top top babyface. We all gushed a bit on the Titans Mid-Atlantic shows.

People really overlook The Battle of Atlantic City (07/26/79)

Sustaining the illusion the wrestling is real, by maintaining that idea at all times. I think Terry Funk and Kevin Sullivan both have some great ideas about how a form of kayfabe can survive. Daniel Bryan is essentially kayfabe because there's very little gap between his onscreen persona and who he really is. We might also think about Brock. I think the fans are all still marks, any and all tweets of outrage at booking decisions is an example of why. Still being worked.

Map out the school hierarchy for wrestlers of whatever generation. Who were the jocks? Who were the cool kids? Who were the alternative types? Who were the nerds? Who were the bullied kids? Who was that one kid who had no friends at all? Who was that one guy that all the girls fancied?

Pete, when you say "Carolina guys", who else do you mean apart from Greg Valentine? Steamer coming in? I don't see Piper as a guy who was really upping the workrate. Bob Orton Jr is more of a Florida guy. Adrian Adonis and Iron Sheik were both an AWA guys. And Rick Martel was to an extent when he came back. Santana from Amarillo, then AWA (arguably a "WWF guy" through and through). Savage came in from Memphis and ICW before that. Later on, DiBiase came in from Mid-South. Seems to me that WWF's workrate crew came from all over. Unless there are other guys you have in mind.

Watching Mid-South yesterday I saw about four tag matches in a row featuring different workers where the transition from face shine to the heel heat segment was identical: heel who is getting beaten up manages to Irish whip the face towards his partner who gets in a cheap knee to the back from the apron, and there's your transition. Another one I noticed was during the face comeback proper (as opposed to hope spot), the heel has a punch blocked, then a second, then goes for a roundhouse which misses and twirls them round ready to take an atomic drop. Both DiBiase and Flair did this. It's a really typical spot. Another standard transition is the "reverse, charge" in the turnbuckle, which is a famous loudly called spot between DiBiase and Bret at the survivor series, but you see that one a ton. One guy whips the other guy into the corner and then charges them only to run into their knees. Pete has mentioned sternum bumps as a standard transition for the Hart Foundation. What are some others you've noticed?

Which brawls in particular does Dory slow things down? Not vs Sheik and Abby. They also have some great technical matches vs Baba and Jumbo which are masterpieces and probably the most underrated series of tag matches ever. The 75 one is amazing. I liked the long match vs Hansen and Gordy in 83 a lot too (5 star). I'm not saying that there aren't occassions where Dory slows things down, but in the "great brawls" it's not true. That's really been a big part of my reassessment: that Dory was great at working brawls and brought it in them. It's also not true that in the longer matches Terry was working fast and Dory was working slow, Terry could hit the mat too. I think a lot of the perception is carried by their characters: Terry fired up, emotional, ready to kill someone; Dory dispassionate and calculated (which some people read as "disinterested"). So they perceive an energy drop, even if Terry's been doing an abdominal stretch and Dory's throwing uppercuts.

All work-in-progress. Request to have this thread stickied. JCP / NWA ***** Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard (11/28/85) Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham (2/14/86) Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (2/20/89 Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (4/2/89) Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (7/23/89) ****3/4 Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich (8/15/82) Ric Flair vs. Kerry Von Erich (12/25/82) Slaughter and Kernodle vs. Steamboat and Youngblood (3/12/83) Ron Garvin vs. Ric Flair (12/28/85) Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (07/05/86) Anderson, Flair, Blanchard, Luger and Dillon vs. Nikita Koloff, Dusty Rhodes, The Road Warriors and Paul Ellering (7/4/87) Ron Garvin vs. Ric Flair (9/26/87) Lex Luger and Barry Windham vs. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard (3/27/88) Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs Lex Luger, Barry Windham & Sting (04/03/88) Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (5/7/89) Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (11/15/89) WCW ***** Sting, Brian Pillman, Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner vs. Ric Flair, Larry Zbyszko, Barry Windham & Sid Vicious (2/24/91) Sting, Barry Windham, Dustin Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat & Nikita Koloff vs. Rick Rude, Steve Austin, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton & Larry Zbyszko (5/17/92) Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude (6/20/92) ****3/4 Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger (2/25/90) Arn Anderson and Larry Zbysko vs. Ricky Steamboat and Dustin Rhodes (11/19/91) Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude (2/29/92) Arn Anderson vs. Barry Windham (6/6/92) Sting vs. Vader (12/28/92) Sting vs. Vader (2/21/93) WWF ***** Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson (5/4/81) Sgt. Slaughter vs. Iron Sheik (6/1/84) Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (3/20/94) Bret Hart vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin (3/23/97) John Cena vs. Justin Bradshaw Layfield (5/22/05) John Cena vs. Umaga (01/28/07) John Cena vs Brock Lesnar (4/29/12) Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar (3/29/15) ****3/4 Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera (5/19/80) Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine (11/23/81) Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage (3/29/87) Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker (10/20/02) Randy Orton vs. Mick Foley (4/18/04) Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose (2/21/16) Mid-South ***** Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (3/22/85) Terry Taylor vs. Ric Flair (6/1/85) Ted DiBiase vs. Ric Flair (11/6/85) ****3/4 Cowboy Bill Watts & Stagger Lee vs. The Midnight Express (4/22/84) Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (5/27/84) Terry Taylor vs. Ric Flair (6/1/85) AWA ***** Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig (11/21/86) ****3/4 Nick Bockwinkel vs. Wahoo McDaniel (8/28/83) Nick Bockwinkel vs. Rick Martel (9/20/84) King Tonga, Masked Superstar, and Sheik Adnan Kaissey vs. Crusher Blackwell and Sgt. Slaughter (4/21/85) Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs. Midnight Rockers (8/30/86) Buddy Rose & Doug Somers vs. Midnight Rockers (1/17/87) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Rick Martel (9/29/85) Stan Hansen vs. Leon White (3/13/86) Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig (12/25/86) Memphis ***** ****3/4 Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee (No DQ, Loser Leaves Town) (12/30/85) Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee (No DQ, Loser Leaves Town) (7/14/86) All Japan ***** Jack Brisco vs. Giant Baba (12/05/74) Billy Robinson vs. Giant Baba (7/24/76) Billy Robinson vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (3/5/77) Billy Robinson vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (3/23/77) Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher (12/9/78) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ric Flair (6/8/83) Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (8/31/83) Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu Yoshiaki Yatsu (1/28/86) Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu (2/5/87) Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (12/16/88) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu (6/5/89) Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen (12/6/89) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jumbo Tsuruta (09/01/90) Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi (04/20/91) Stan Hansen vs Toshiaki Kawada (02/28/93) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi (12/3/93) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (05/21/94) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (06/03/94) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue (04/15/95) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (06/09/95) Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (12/06/96) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (01/20/97) Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (07/24/98) ****3/4 Dory Funk Jr. and Terry Funk vs. Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta (03/13/75) Terry & Dory Funk Jr. vs. The Sheik & Abdullah the Butcher (7/15/79) Billy Robinson vs. Nick Bockwinkel (12/11/80) Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen (4/14/83) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Kerry Von Erich (2/3 Falls) (5/22/84) Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu (10/28/88) Jumbo Tsuruta & Kenta Kobashi vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen (7/15/89) Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen (11/29/89) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jumbo Tsuruta (06/08/90) Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Akira Taue (09/30/90) Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi (05/22/92) Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat (05/25/92) Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi & Giant Baba (11/27/92) Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (06/01/93) Stan Hansen vs Kenta Kobashi (7/29/93) Steve Williams vs Toshiaki Kawada (04/16/94) Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (11/29/96) Kenta Kobashi vs Toshiaki Kawada (06/12/98) NOAH ***** Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (6/8/00) ****4/3 New Japan ***** Billy Robinson vs. Antonio Inoki (11/12/75) 5-on-5 Gauntlet (4/19/84) The Great Muta vs. Hiroshi Hase (12/14/92) Hiroshi Hase vs. Masa Chono (8/6/93) Hirooki Goto vs. Katsuyori Shibata (1/4/17) ****3/4 Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (5/9/80) Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen (9/23/81) Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi (1/6/83) Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki vs. Shiro Koshinaka and Takayuki Iizuka (12/13/90) Shinya Hashimoto vs. Riki Choshu (8/2/96) Jushin Liger vs. Shinjiro Ohtani (2/9/97) WWC (Puerto Rico) ***** ****3/4 Stan Hansen vs. Carlos Colon (1/6/87) Lucha ***** MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83) El Dandy vs. Negro Casas (7/3/92) ****3/4 Atlantis & El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera & Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (1/27/84) El Faraon, Herodes & Mocho Cota vs. Lizmark, Ringo Mendoza & Tony Salazar (2/24/84) Negro Casas vs. Mocho Cota (9/23/94) Negro Casas vs. El Hijo del Santo (9/19/97) World of Sport ***** ****3/4 Jim Breaks vs. Johnny Saint (3/14/73) Jim Breaks vs. Johnny Saint (5/5/73) Jim Breaks vs. Vic Faulkner (7/5/77) Dragon Gate ***** ****3/4 Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Akira Tozawa (10/13/11) Indie ***** Chris Hero and Tommy End vs. Sami Callihan and Zack Sabre Jr (1/22/16) ****3/4 Low Ki vs. American Dragon (03/30/02) Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness (6/23/07) All Japan Women ***** Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki and Dynamite Kansai (AJW 11/26/92)

Appears that I randomly stopped here, Lucha d2 and d3 will be next, followed by d3s of New Japan and Memphis. Then the order will go: Mid-South, Lucha, New Japan, Memphis until I finish. Vague aim is to do an hour a day minimum over the summer. Have Will, Johnny and Kris plugged in for the first time watching. Comments in that thread. Lucha 2.1 Atlantis vs. El Satanico (1984) Like some of the stiffness in the early exchanges. The sea-saw surfboard thing was gnarly. Satanico's kicks to the gut look good. Backbreaker! And again. Nutshot for Satanico marks the transition. Big bump on the apron. Viciously goes after the mask now. Atlantis is cut open pretty bad. This is quickly turning into a brawl. Satanico is cut open now as the footage goes black and white. Two more backbreakers now from Atlantis. Awesome moment as Satanico just dumps Atlantis going for the victory roll. I liked that. Flying headbutt. And again ... misses! Submission win for Satanico. This was really good, but for some reason I wasn't all that emotionally invested in it. **** Lucha 2.2 Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (1/27/84) Mocho Cota is one cool-looking evil son of a bitch. Some matwork to start. Really fluid matwork. Armdrag by Cota. I can't really describe any of the stuff I'm seeing but it's cool and the first fall was high quality. What the fuck??!! Cota has only 3 fingers?! Huh?! God. That shoulder barge by Cota into Rocca's arm was awesome, and now a great sick-looking arm wrench thing. Cota is one nasty muthafucka. This is one of the best arm-control sequences I can remember seeing. Great, effortless, back drop. Arm drag. Really enjoying this second fall. Senton. Unusual submission hold for 1-1. Really good. Things dropped off a tiny bit in this third fall until a very high dropkick and insane fucking dive out of the ring by Cota basically right into the crowd! Man, did he fly! I love this guy. Sick submission hold now. Reverse camel clutch thing now. Actual camel clutch now. Octopus. Eat your heart out Dean Malenko, this is the real man of 1001 holds right here. Ref bump. And a cheap pin. Thought this was awesome. My number #2 for the set so far. Possibly also just overtaken Bockwinkel vs. Billy Robinson as my favourite mat-based match. Really really excellent. ****3/4 Lucha 2.3 Mocho Cota vs. Americo Rocca (2/3/84) Cota is such an awesome douchebag heel. The guy is just absolutely right up my street. The way he carries himself, the way he's just such a little fucking dick! Awesome. This matwork is not quite as great so far as the first-fall of the last match. However, the face rub and heelish laughing was fucking great. Cota has been the stand-out character for me so far watching this stuff. Nice bulldog. This is more of a bomb-throwing affair than the last match. Massive backdrop. Running belly-to-back suplex. Awesome Alabama Jam into the victory roll for a very flashy fall. I thought this wasn't going to be as good as the last match but that was awesome. Very different style of match too. There's an interesting narrative developing with Cota having hurt the BACK of his head. I can't recall too many matches built around hurting the back of the head. Interesting. Rocca's selling of that snapmare is tremendous. Neckbreaker. Rocca is great at selling. Hmmm, not sure about this draw finish. But this was still pretty great. LOVING Cota. **** Lucha 2.4 Atlantis y Lizmark vs. El Egipcio y El Faraon (2/17/84) Very sweet opening exchanges between Lizmark and Faraon to start. Lizmark just looks incredible. Faraon is one stiff, bruising heel. Love how he's sticking those forearms in. Awesome butterfly suplex. Hot first fall. This disc is shaping up to be pretty great so far. These heels are so fucking cool. Great slugfest between Faroan and Lizmark. Faraon is a total asskicker. Those kneelifts. YES! El Egipico, on the other hand, kicks like Lou Albano!! What the hell?! Pathetic feather-lite kicks. Lizmark unloads with the kicks now. El Egipico is like a chicken-shit sleazy wimp heel, Faraon is the bruiser. I get the impression that Egipico is not half the worker that Foraon is. This elmination business with the double pin is interesting. So now it's a one on one match? Knee to the balls for the instant DQ. This was a lot of fun, loved those heels, especially Faraon. Thought Lizmark looked absolutely awesome too. Atlantis as good as he's been so far too. **** Lucha 2.5 El Faraon, Herodes y Mocho Cota vs. Lizmark, Ringo Mendoza y Tony Salazar (2/24/84) Oh awesome awesome awesome. Faraon and Cota teaming up! YES! And with the Mexican Hercules! Actually he looks more like a Mexican Harley Race here. First fall seemed super quick. This is a great heel beatdown here. Herodes looks great nailing the shots in. Tony Salazar is being totally killed here. Awesome stuff. And that's a DQ? lol, ok. Amazing visual of Salazar dangling over the apron as the heels just dickingly still kick him. Oh man, I fucking love this heel team. I fucking LOVE them. Awesome knee lift by Faraon. Great little cocky sneaky dipship deadleg by Cota on Lizmark. And now they go back to bullying poor Salazar. Ha ha ha ha. This is so great. Babyfaces coming back now and the crowd is pumped. TREMENDOUS bump into the turnbuckle by Herodes. Chaos breaking out now. Bodies and blood everywhere now. Oh my good, what an awesome blatant kick to the balls by Salazar for the payback, justice is done. Ah fuck it, I had so much fun watching this. I'm probably way overrating it, but I don't care, this was great. ****3/4 What an awesome run of matches here. Cota is a new JvK hero. Faraon is just great as well.

Moving Lucha set stuff to here. Since I'm on d3 of that too, I can add it to the rotation. As per usual, going in totally blind, not read any ratings but do have certain guys I'm looking out for from listening to various recent podcasts. Lucha 1.1 Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Baby Face (4/13/80) Here we go then. Nice big crowd. Pretty cool stiff opening to this. I could swear the commentators are speaking Japanese. Faces in the crowd are awesome. There's one guy in a suit that looks like he's been lifted straight out of an All Japan crowd and plonked in Mexico. I like the guy with the moustache who is wearing his hat at a jaunty angle. And the cop. So far, absolutely no concerns about getting into this, it's just pro wrestling. Interesting boots on Perro. I really like the dynamic that is developing here. Hamada and Perro seem to be the ones with real issues and Baby Face works like hired muscle doing a lot of the dirty work. There is a cool mix of brawling, matwork and throws on display which I can get into. Sayama moves like a cat, and I like that. I don't really understand what is happening with the falls at this stage, but it doesn't feel like it matters too much. What happened with the finish here? Going to rewind it to see if I can figure it out. Has to be that massive kick to the balls, instant DQ. Pretty hot opener. ***3/4 Key for rough star-rating conversion, here Lucha 1.2 Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981) Andre's face looks oddly skeletal here in the pre-match interview. Oh, he's got a shiner. The camera starts zooming in and for a moment I thought it was going for a shot of "little Andre", but no they want to check out his massive hand. I am drawn to love whoever these interviewers are. Three on two handicap match here. The ref is channelling Uncle Fester. Big ass stuff from Andre to start. A lot of spots here to get over his SIZE and STRENGTH. A little gimmicky. Arm wrench by Chicana on Caras. So was Herodes the Lucha version of Hercules Herndandez? Big headbutt by Andre. Dantes in. Seres of big butt splashes by Andre. This situation where guys can seemingly come in and out without tagging is going to take some getting used to. This one has no real flow, still hasn't felt like it has got going. Dantes goes back to the arm on Caras. Andre takes over and now the faces start working Dantes's arm. Caras misses a dropkick. Herodes does some comedy punching on Andre's stomach before being thrown out of the ring. Comedy bump off Andre's ass by Chicana. Uhh ... so what happened with the finish here? He submitted to the bearhug by Caras? Random. Oh no, it continues. So that's fall number 1. 1-0 to Andre and Caras. Wasn't into this first fall. No flow. Far too disjointed. And gimmicky. So they can do regular tags too. FIP sequence now with the heels working over Caras. Chicana taunts Andre. Is that wise Sangre? Andre catches him and snaps him over his knee. Chicana holds one of his legs and the three heels hold Andre to give him some punishment. Not for long, Herodes gets tripped by Caras going for a shoulder charge. BLANTANT LOW BLOW REF! That's put Caras out of action for a while. 3 on 1 comedy stooges spot with Andre now. Andre sits on Herodes and the ref is very very slow on the count. Come on Fester! So what's that 2-0 now? Yes and the win. Andre bearhugs Chicana for good measure. Even allowing for the fact that 90% of this match was designed to get over the message of "this man is a giant", it was too all over the place for my tastes. *1/2 Lucha 1.3 Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada (2/14/82) Now hold the tape. Someone tell the ref it's vertical stripes for wrestling, he can't be much worse than Fester from the last match. He looks a hell of a lot like Lou Thesz if it's not him, but I feel like I'm seeing Thesz everywhere at the moment (see Titans 4 podcast fans). Negro controls with matwork to start. I am drawn to the dude wearing all black in the crowd sipping his coffee. He sees someone he knows across the way and gives them a "cheers" with the coffee. Awesome guy. That same Japanese fan seems to be back: he's wearing a scarf today and seems to have brought a hot date with him. Hamada finally breaks free only to fall prey to an arm wrench and a head scissors. I notice that several people in the crowd are drinking that coffee: there's a vendor at this arena making a killing somewhere. Cameraman is wearing a bright luminous yellow jacket. Fine moustache sir. Things heat up now and this has been a pretty compelling mat sequence from Negro. I say that, I spent most of the time looking at the crowd. It's enough to get him the first fall. Hamada has been out-wrestled so far. Negro goes back to the arm. Makes sense. Explosive dropkick by Hamada sends him bailing. I have to say, Negro has a great colour scheme going on with the yellow and black. Hamada takes over control now with some matwork of his own. Arm drag, Hamada eats a backdrop. Flying bodysplash from the second rope. Back suplex. That's enough for 1-1. Thought the matwork in this fall dragged. Pin felt like it came too soon. I hope the pace picks up for this third fall. Negro switches up now to focus on the leg for a bit. Double underarm suplex! Keeps it locked in and goes into a birdge. That was quite neat. Snapmare. NASTY variation on the chickenwing now. Now idea how to call what Negro is doing now but it looks painful. Couple of nearfalls now. Yet another crazy submission hold from Negro. This stuff is cool. Hamada takes a big backdrop to outside and Negro jumps out after him. Dropkick gets 2 but Hamada has hit foot on the rope. Another backdrop. Some awkwards spots now as Negro seems to fluff a buritto of some sort and then takes a strange bump to the concrete. Hamada dives out after him now. Huracanrana. Belly-to-back suplex. Still only 2. Negro comes back with a dropkick and a huracanrana of his own. Interesting bridging suplex now from Negro, risks pinning himself with that! Sunset flip from the top by Hamada gets the 3. Hmmm, I was hoping the third fall would heat up a bit more than that. I liked a lot of Negro's matwork here but he had some awkward moments in the high spots. Second fall wasn't very good. On balance ... ***1/2 Lucha 1.4 El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82) Bit of a career change for Don Corleone here. I'm saying the ref is definitely Lou Thesz now. He should know better than to wear that shirt. He's been good as a ref so far though. Love this venue and watching the nighttime fall on it. Lots of matwork early on here. Corleone controls mostly with a camel clutch and a reverse chinlock. The camera work is good here. Canek comes back with arm wrenches. Corleone seems to be going for a variation on the Texas Clover Leaf. Gets a bit argy bargy with Thesz. Canek hits a drop kick and a gutwrench suplex. Sick looking flying clothesline, elbow drop gets a 3. Canek did well do get the first fall after losing out to Corleone for most of it. Abdominal stretch by Canek now. Works the arm now with knee drops. Match meanaders a bit here. Piledriverrrr? No, something else (no idea how to call it). Unusual. Backdrop by Canek. Big Ernie Ladd legdrop get a 2. Corleone comes back with kicks and punches now. Really stiff looking right. Dropkick. Butterfly suplex! That gets 1-1. I didn't think Canek's matwork in that second fall was much cop and I can't tell if that piledriver thingy was planned or a botch. Corleone starts the third fall with a running knee. Razor's Edge? No, a very very painful looking stretch. Surfboard now. Canek starts to bridge out of it. Corleone goes back to a type of camel clutch. Leg grapevine thingy now. I am hopeless at calling matwork, I don't know the names of any moves ok. Gorilla press slam by Canek now and he starts a comeback. Big dive to the outside. Then he takes a backdrop. The outside is not concrete but wood!! Planks of wood! Corleone slams Canek from the top now and hits a splash for 2. Atomic drop. 2 count. German suplex by Canek for the finish. Hmmm, there were positives here. Corleone did some cool shit during his matwork. I thought Canek's matwork was boring. Some good bombs. Once again, the third fall didn't pick up enough for my tastes. I want a hotter finish. About the same as the last match. Good but not great. ***1/2 Lucha 1.5 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek (6/12/83) This ref didn't get the memo about the diagonal stripes. Matwork in the first fall felt like it drifted. I honestly don't think El Canek is a very compelling matworker. Too tentative for too long this first fall. Abdominal stretch by Canek. "He has it hooked in real good too" [/Monsoon] Dull, dull, dull this stuff by Canek. Fujinami hits a slam and a dropkick. Misses a second and Canek gets an elbow for 2. Two AMAZING elbows from Canek gets the 3 for the first fall. Well that was awesome but the 10 minutes before it were like watching paint dry. Second fall and early on Fujinami hits an inzuguri. High vertical suplex ("Brainbuster! brainbuster!"). Back suplex gets 3. That was short. Third fall and my expectation now is that we don't get a change up in the gears. Last two matches had no discernable change of pace for the third fall or move from matwork to strikes and throws. Let's see. Test of strength to start. Canek starts with the armwork. Butterfly suplex! Gets a weak 2. Fisherman suplex! Gets a two. He didn't bridge into the pin a la Hennig but rolled over to a lateral press. Head scissors from Canek now. I may need to retrain myself. I want to see progression from matwork to strikes to throws, but they don't work like that. He just did two suplexes which got two nearfalls went right back to the matwork. Deep abdominal stretch by Fujinami now. Reverse chinlock. I still want them to pick things up a bit in this stage in the match. Figure-four by Canek. Fujinami quickly makes the ropes. Big vertical suplex by Canek. Fujinami is still selling the leg from the figure four. He starts busting out the strikes now. Hits a one-legged dropkick. Canek blocks him to the outside. Dives after him. Just as the match gets going, it slows down again. This is a bit too stop-start. What happened there? Canek wins? Why? Fujinami must have been DQed but for what? This one meanadered too much for me. Canek's matwork is average at best although he does some cool suplexes and those elbows were awesome. Honestly a bit confused by the finish. *** Lucha 1.6 Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83) Kevin von Erich and Herodes to start. What has Halcon got written across his ass? Why is Mascara Ano called "2000"? Did he have like a futuristic gimmick? Was he a Terminator before Terminator? I guess we can only speculate. Colosetti has the best facial hair of anyone so far. He looks cool and villainous, like he'd take you out with a rapier and swoosh his cape as he leaves. Oh yes, the match ... Early exchanges do a good job of introducing everyone. Awkward exchange between Ortiz and Morgan. Colosetti's little "charge" thing cramps the style established by his cool goatee. I am getting more used to the idea that when someone leaves the ring, it's like tagging out. But it's still quite chaotic and hard for me to keep track of what is going on. First fall comes seemingly out of nowhere. I do like how heelish the heels are here, especially Colosetti. They get von Erich isolated and work him over. Snapmare by Heredos. Triple teaming. Colosetti with some kicks. Kevin wins back advantage. Where the hell are his partners? Ortiz takes on Morgan now. Neckbreaker! Bodyslam. That gets 3. Colosetti posts Kevin. And the heels heel it up to draw some heat. "Three Kings of the Mountain". Kevin posts Colosetti's leg. And now the faces have control of the ring. Ortiz and Andre 3000 get in the refs face now. Ortiz finds himself in the wrong corner but Pirata acidentally knees Colosetti on the apron. He posts his shoulder and Ortiz throws him out and dives after him. Herodes and T-1000 take over. Kevin hits a flying cross body on Colosetti for a piss-poor third fall. There's a theme with these third falls being a bit disappointing now. Some nice dynamics here. The heels all looked good and played their roles well. *** Lucha 1.7 MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83) First look at MS-1 here. Chicana is bloodied almost immediately after MS-1 suckers him before they even get into the ring. Fierce brawling now. MS-1 is really intense. He weirdly reminds me a bit of Paul Orndorff at his absolute best the way he's laying in the kicks and stomps. There's a real desperation about the way he's working. Big splash from the top by MS-1 for the first fall. Massive punch on Chicana's bloodied head. Knee to the face. He's just a bloody mess at this point. Turnbuckle. Head smash into the edge of the apron. Headbutt. A woman in the crowd smokes a cigerette. Chicana gets in his first offense for about 10 minutes and the crowd go apeshit. Big "Chicana" chant. He's still somewhat out of it and his face is a bloody mess. Second fall via count out? The moment when he starts the comeback is amazing, they built to it so well. Third fall and where can this match go from here? MS-1 swings and misses. Chicana jabs him. MS-1 is now totally covered in blood himself. Big dive to the outside from him onto Chicana. Both men look half dead by this point. Dropkick by Chicana. Big dive by him now. Back in and Chicana is hanging from the top rope just to keep himself up. MS-1 looks like he's lost a pint of blood. The ring is just a total mess. Chicana barely gets across to cover for 2. Bodyslam by MS-1. Goes for the big splash from the top again but misses. Chicana covers again. 2 count! MS-1 covers. 2 count. Half a suplex from MS-1. Misses a somersault from the top now! Big submission hold from Chicana now. He's shaking his head. Submission? Yes. Chicana is so out of it he can barely stand up. Pretty awesome match. Chicana's sell job throughout is pretty amazing. He's caught on the hop right out of the gate and never quite recovers. He's almost out of it from the start but somehow finds it from somewhere to fight on. MS-1 is just a sick, desparate man doing what it takes. This is sent over the top for me by the way it built to the moment of that comeback from Chicana. Post-match MS-1 has to suffer the humilation of losing his Terry Taylor locks. ***** Lucha 1.8 Espectro Jr., Satanico y MS-1 vs. Mocho Cota, Sangre Chicana y La Fiera (9/30/83) Anyone ever play Final Fight? This is like all of the goons from that come to life and fighting each other. No real clue what's going on in the first five minues here but it's fun as hell. Newly bald MS-1 does a good King of the Mountain thing early on. Christ! That mask is scary! Espectro Jr could give the kids nightmares. MS-1 and Espectro are like Team Evil here. Cool. They are doing a real number on Mocho Coto. Pretty soon he's busted open. And now we get a comeback. Chaos here again, stuff happening all over the place. The faces start triple teaming Satanico now. Then Espectro's in trouble. Hard to know where to look with this much stuff going on. There's a big kick to the balls. I don't know what's going on. Arghhh too much chaos. Cota rips off Espectro's mask and his hair! I honestly couldn't tell you what is happening. So the faces have won? ***1/2 Wild, but also alienating in that I have no fucking clue what I just saw. Bit too random for my tastes. If someone asked me "what was the story of that match". My answer could only be "well a bunch of shit happened". I'm not sold on the idea that that's a great thing. If this exact match happened in a US ring, I'd say exactly the same thing. I can imagine there'll be people who'll really love this, but I'm not one of them. Lucha 1.9 Sangre Chicana vs. Ringo Mendoza (10/28/83) Ringo Mendoza looks like a real thug. Much more technical style of match now from Chicana. After some early mat stuff there's a nice neckbreaker. A little later there's one that sort of misses. I've never seen someone "miss" a neckbreaker before. Still Mendoza is clearly targetting Chicana's neck here. Very "scientific" stuff this. Chicana targets the upper back and shoulder area with his holds. Mendoza is trying to bend and twist Chicana's neck. That's the story of this match pretty much from start to finish -- as stories go it's a very mildly diverting one, but little more than that. If you're going to work 3 falls, my preference is to make each fall standout in some way. Here all three were worked in the same pace and gear. No real transitions to speak of. And I like transitions. Will be lower-middle. **1/2 Lucha 1.10 Atlantis y El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) More great 80s-looking punkish thugs here. Rubio wouldn't look out of place graffiting the subway in the background of Turtles. Cool headscissors sequence to start. A lot of trips and flips and things between Gurrera and Atlantis that I won't pretend I understand. This is all very fluid. Constant motion. The armdrags are unusual. They seem "airy" in someway, not seen those before. Faces seem to be just too good for the heels here. Santo seems to hit what I can only call a reverse armdrag. Not sure I understand the physics, but I've never seen one before. The move actually defies science. El Punko Rubio has a go now and we get more floaty armdrags. Both Atlantis and Santo look really good in this match. I don't mind this variety of super-duper smooth fluid matwork, it's all rather artful. Heels have had nothing in this match so far. They can't get anything going at all. Santo seems to glide rather than jump. A very graceful worker. Heels finally get a bit off offense going and work over Atlantis. I feel Fureza allowed him to tag out far too easily though. Cut the ring off, basic strategy. Rubio starts working over Santo now. He's the power man in this match. Nastily throws Santo to the floor over the top rope. Sick sick bump!!! Shit! The heels have been properly vicious in this segment. Santo vs. Rubio now and Santo hits a nice kneelift and as Rubio charges him just trips his leg. Awesome. Have loved Santo in this match. Cool backbreaker on Fureza by Atlantis now. Rubio breaks it up. Some real highflying stuff from Santo and Atlantis now in a sequence which is a little too choregraphed for my tastes. It's enough for a countout win though. Spectacular finish. Dug the hell out of this. Strong finish to the disc. ****3/4 Housekeeping Lucha d1 ***** MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana (9/23/83) ****3/4 Atlantis y El Hijo del Santo vs. Fuerza Guerrera y Lobo Rubio (11/25/83) ***3/4 Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Baby Face (4/13/80) ***1/2 Espectro Jr., Satanico y MS-1 vs. Mocho Cota, Sangre Chicana y La Fiera (9/30/83) Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada (2/14/82) El Canek vs. Don Corleone (2/14/82) *** Kevin von Erich, Mascara Ano 2000 y Halcon Ortiz v. Coloso Colosetti, Pirata Morgan y Herodes (9/23/83) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Canek (6/12/83) **1/2 Sangre Chicana vs. Ringo Mendoza (10/28/83) *1/2 Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes y Sangre Chicana (1981)

The Midnight Express The Road Warriors Demolition Powers of Pain The Islanders The Funks Ted DiBiase and Steve Williams I'm sure there are some more.

Housekeeping Mid-South d3 ratings ***** Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (3/22/85) ****1/2 Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (3/8/85) **** Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (4/28/85) Magnum T.A. & Master G vs. Hacksaw Butch Reed & Ernie Ladd (11/4/84) ***3/4 Brad Armstrong vs. Ted DiBiase (1/16/85) ***1/2 Ted DiBiase vs. Brad Armstrong (2/10/85) The Fantastics vs. Steve Williams & Jake Roberts (4/14/85) The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express (1/21/85) *** Kevin Von Erich vs. Chris Adams (1/18/85) Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Terry Gordy vs. Ted DiBiase & Steve Williams (1/21/85) **1/2 Jose Lothario, Bill Dundee, & Brickhouse Brown vs. Buddy Landell & The Guerreros (11/16/84) Jose Lothario & The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Buddy Landell & The Guerreros (1/18/85) Terry Taylor vs. Adrian Street (12/7/84) ** The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Dirty White Boys (4/15/85) *1/2 The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express (12/2/84) DUD Hacksaw Butch Reed & The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Steve Williams, Kamala, & The One Man Gang (2/25/85)

Mid-South 3.1 Magnum T.A. & Master G vs. Hacksaw Butch Reed & Ernie Ladd (11/4/84) No commentary for this. It's a "Ghetto Street Fight", which is the same as a normal street fight only with more black guys. Master G has traded in Brickhouse Brown for Magnum TA, which is an upgrade and a half. I think Ernie Ladd is wearing a pair of chinos in the ring. Butch Reed is in a pair of black tracksuit bottoms and a blue vest, he looks cool as fuck. Master G does some annoying dancing schtick, I always hate that. Reed lays in some sweet punches, but G comes back. Reed eats a dropkick, as does Ladd. Things back up and some stalling now. I think Reed and Ladd are probably the coolest team of all time. Headlock by Reed now on Master G. Punches back and forth. Ladd tags in and Master G levels him, he does some comical selling here, Ladd even at this age prepared to bump and stooge for a lesser talent like Master G. Magnum TA in with dropkicks. He's a house of fire and is over. Ladd rolls out. This has been quite the shine sequence for the faces. Ladd comes back in now and offers his hand to Magnum to shake. Headlock by Magnum. Ladd with a sneaky tag to Reed who nails Magnum with an elbow. Reed dumps Magnum over the top rope, Ladd goes after him as Reed plays cat and mouse with Master G. Good solid fundamental heel shit from the Brothers with Attitude here. Magnum is busted open now. Ladd hits him in the head and then looks at the blood on his palm. Magnum is bleeding a good bit. Reed with a suplex back in now. Cover gets two. Reed is laughing to himself. Great heel character work from him in this match. Stomps from Reed. He takes his belt off now and he's whipping Magnum. Great visual of the belt whipping. Ladd comes in now and he's just whipping and whipping Magnum with the belt. This is some Django Unchained shit right here! Magnum is a bloody mess. Reed in and he's choking hims out with the belt. Master G tries to come in but this gives Ladd more scope to choke Magnum out. Great punch by Reed on Magnum. FISTDROP. Reed shows the camera that he has the belt wrapped around his fist. Some Ted DiBiase shenanigans right here. Another great firstdrop. Cover gets two. About 11 minutes gone. Magnum fires back with punches to the gut, but just a hope spot and Reed slams him to the mat. More belt whipping now. I'm loving this. All it's missing is Samuel L. Jackson's "Path of the Righteous Man" speech layed over the top of it. Magnum is getting the beating of his life here. Ladd in with stomps and kicks. Punch out of a headlock. Choke. Ladd is as cheap as cheap can be. I have to say, I don't care much for his style of choking, looks fake. Oh actually, I think it's a nerve hold on the shoulder. Magnum with shoulder barges, but Reed cuts him off. Snapmare. GORILLA PRESS SLAM. Frog splash from the second rope, but Magnum gets his knees up. Master G gets the hot tag and unloads on the heels like Apollo Creed. Dropkick. Action goes outside and Master G slams Reed on the railings. And again.Jabs with the left, hard right. All four men in. Ladd tries a spinning toehold, Magnum blocks it but then he sneakily takes off a cowboy boot and nails Master G coming in for an Irish Whip and Reed pins him. I really loved this, great brawl!! The heat section on Magnum with the belt whipping was awesome. I was surprised this match didn't rank higher in the final ballots. **** Mid-South 3.2 Jose Lothario, Bill Dundee, & Brickhouse Brown vs. Buddy Landell & The Guerreros (11/16/84) This was worked survivor series elimination style. I believe Joel Watts is on commentary. Lothario looks old as hell. Hector with Lothario start, Chavo sneaks in with a knee to Jose's back. Landell comes in too but Lothario levels him with a forearm. Dundee in with a couple of backdrops on Los Gurerreros. Something has been a bit disjointed about this one so far. I've said it before, but Hector looks a hell of a lot like Eddie. Landell does a comedy spot rubbing on Dundee's hair who promptly punches him out. Brickhouse comes in with an armbar which he cranks on, looked pretty sweet. Dropkick. Chavo tags in and Brickhouse gives him FOUR armdrags. Brickhouse Brown works really fast, he's been decent on all this stuff. Lothario in with an arm bar. Legwhips Hector into Chavo. There's been altother too much schitck and comedy in this one so far for my tastes. Landell is pure comedy here. Don't like this sort of work. Brickhouse with an elbow smash on Hector no. Dundee in with punches and a snapmare and we go into a commercial break. Landell is working over Dundee now. Chavo with a double foot rake on Dundee's face. Bodyslam. Hector goes to the top. Joel notes that would have been a DQ. Brickhouse in with dropkicks. All six men in. This match has been a bit of a mess so far. Hector steals a three count on Brickhouse, so that's 3 vs 2 now. Brickhouse has to leave. Dundee and Lothario do the double battering ram double noggin knocker spot with the Gurreros. What's all this schtick and comedy? Side backbreaker by Lothario, and another one and another one. But just before that his rope running looked awkward as hell. Looks someway off the pace. Those backbreakers were cool though. Landell sells an elbow smash from Dundee with the shaky leg. Way over the top. Hector comes in and goes for a piledriver on Dundee who blocks it into a headscissors. The ropes have gone slack. Landell is eliminated now but interferes to cost Dundee a three count. So now it is Chavo and Hector vs. Lothario. I sense a superman act coming on. Lefts and rights from Lothario and that swank backbreaker again. Chavo sneaks into his kneepad but the ref catches him and he gets DQ'd. So Hector vs. Lothario one vs one now. Atomic drop, cover, Chavo breaks it despite being eliminated. And Hector covers. Oh wow, that upset the narrative I thought they were going for. Wily Watts booking. This was a mixed bag. I got the sense this would have meant a lot more to the old-time hispanic fans it was clearly designed for. Lothario doesn't mean a lot to me, and so he just looked like an old man doing a Crusher / Dick the Bruiser routine, although his work was more solid than both, and his backbreakers were cool. Way way too much comedy from Landell, didn't feel like it fit the promotion or context for me. And I was also turned off by Gurreros comedy spots. All in all ... **1/2 Mid-South 3.3 The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express (12/2/84) This is a scaffold match for the tag titles, Rock n Rolls champs going in. There's a guy in a tiger costume in the crowd, which is neat considering the gorilla angle was not that far removed. I'm not really looking forward to this. The best scaffold match is that one with Ricky Starr vs Invader III that I watched recently. No commentary again for this. Super tentative to start with a lot of stalling as you'd expect. Morton has Eaton in an amateur hold. Pounds on his back. Condrey and Gibson brawl on the right hand side. This continues to be the case for some time. Mostly boring. I think scaffold matches are a "you had to be there" deal, it doesn't translate well to TV. Eventually Condrey takes the fall and the Rock n Rolls win. Ho hum. *1/2 Mid-South 3.4 Terry Taylor vs. Adrian Street (12/7/84) This is a loser leaves town match. Street has his hair in bunches. I believe the commentator here is Boyd Pierce, but it could also be Reeser Bowden. This match finished rock bottom 150 in the ballot voting and I'm interested to see why. Street prances about a bit. Works Taylor's arm. Street bails. Back in, back on the arm and pulls Taylor's hair. Elbows by Taylor but eats an eye gouge. Taylor hits a sunset flip for two. Street unloads with stomps and a snapmare and some forearms. Chinlock now. Moves into a reverse chinlock Rick Rude style now, with Linda shouting in Taylor's face. Taylor comes back with a snapmare and some kneedrops, they looked good. Street fights back though, but Taylor gets off a Tito Santana flying fist drop for a surprise pinfall out of nowhere and Street has to leave. Well, if this is the very worst Mid-South has to offer, it really can't be that bad can it. Wasn't terrible at all. But it lacked intensity or hatred for a Loser Leaves Town grudge match. **1/2 Mid-South 3.5 Brad Armstrong vs. Ted DiBiase (1/16/85) This is for the North American title and Brad Armstrong is the champ. Earlier in the year, these two feuded in GCW. No beard for Ted here. Akbar is his manager. He goes to work on Brad early denying him a shine, laying in some cool stiff fists. But Armstrong comes back with a back drop and DiBiase bails. One could call that a "delayed shine". Headlock take over by Armstrong. They are working a ferocious pace here. Some cool near falls here. Shades of Savage vs. Steamboat. Big back suplex by DiBiase cuts off Armstrong's momentum. Some nasty turnbuckle shots by DiBiase. This is what I mean by his intensity being underrated, everything he does has a certain brutality to it. Neckbreaker. Chinlock. Armstrong powers out by slamming Ted back into the turnbuckle. Armstrong with fists and we have a slugfest. Brad comes out on top. Big backdrop. I want to pause here to point out just how phenomenal DiBiase is at FEEDING. He takes the backdrop, right back up, into the Irish Whip, and the sleeper. This is the sort of core fundamental skill that is taken for granted in a ring general like Ted. It's not just bumping and selling, but feeding and timing. He's making Brad Armstrong look like a world beater here. He sells this sleeper wildly but it looks like it's Goodnight Irene here, but Ted dives to the ropes to break the hold. He slinks outside the ring. Brad goes after him, but he was playing possum!! DiBiase attacks the leg now wrapping it round the ring post. Armstrong sells the leg pretty well. Elbow on the knee, and again. Figure-four!! Armstrong in agony, and that's it, he's submitted and we have a NEW North American Champion. Clean job in a little foreshadowing of Armstrong's future career. Really solid and fun match, which demonstrates a lot of the stuff I've been saying about Ted as a worker for a long time. ***3/4 Mid-South 3.6 Kevin Von Erich vs. Chris Adams (1/18/85) Watts on commentary here, what a treat. Kevin von Erich has a great body and look, I've always thought that. Adams the heel here. Kevin has a chair, nice bit of business around this. Claw. Brawl goes outside. Back in and Kevin with a backbreaker and a neat elbow drop. Savate kick and a flash inside cradle for the pin for Adams. Quick but fun. This is such an easy promotion to watch. *** Mid-South 3.7 Jose Lothario & The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Buddy Landell & The Guerreros (1/18/85) Lothario has traded in Dundee and Brickhouse for a proper tagteam here. Chavo and Hector still hanging out with Landell -- well, they won last time, so why not? Lothario and Hector start but with Jose coming out on top. Hector does the comedy crawl over and hug his partner spot. I'm really not enjoying the schtick out of these guys. Chavo in now. All six in. Lothario kicking ass. Collision comedy spot on the Guerreros. God. Chavo has a cool beard here by the way. Gibson in there with him. Pops a sneaky punch on Hector on the apron. Chavo backs up into his corner. Two on one vs. Gibson as Landell drops down to the floor. Gibson rolls over to tag Morton in. I smell a FIP sequence coming. Landell in now and he eats a dropkick and tags out. Landell in 1984 basically worked like the Honky Tonk Man. Geurreros in and they double team Morton. Three on one stomps now. Hector the legal man with a chop. Snap suplex, the light-heavyweight's move. Snapmare. Chavo in with a bearhug. Back suplex. Nice one. Dumps Morton for some more 2 on 1 beatings. Lothario goes over with a chair to ward them off. Reverse knifeedge by Chavo. Nice kick by him now. Hector in. Bodyslam. Landell in. Harley Race kneedrop. Bodyslam. Another kneedrop, but he misses. Landell cuts off the tag. All six men in now. Chavo trips Gibson from the outside. Landell covers. Lothario with the save. Lothario with punches on Hector now. Double dropkick on Landell and that's the pin. The FIP sequence was quite cool, but ehhh I don't really like the style these matches are being worked. Too much comedy, especially from Landell. **1/2 Mid-South 3.8 The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express (1/21/85) For the titles, Rock n Rolls still champs. Very nice VQ here. Cornette gets on the mic for the intro. Both the heels and the faces are over and get good reactions. No commentary again for this. Eaton and Morton start out. Eaton controls with a headlock until Morton hits a bodyslam. Eaton backs into his corner. He's still holding his back, that's one way to get over a basic bodyslam. Gibson in against Eaton now. Eaton with some cool punches and he tags in Condrey. Gibson with a headlock. Morton tags in and takes over the headlock. Condrey tries to twist out but Morton turns it into a hammerlock and then back into the headlock. The do a spot now where Condrey ends up backdropping Eaton, which is just retarded if you ask me. Dropkick sends Eaton out over the top. Back in and the MX control Morton some now. Cornette gets in his face and shouts too. The distract the ref and are really setting to work on Morton now. Eaton hits his running bulldog. Condrey in. Chinlock. Eaton in. Front facelock. Chinlock. Condrey sneakily puts his foot on Morton's leg during this which gets him heat with the ref who spots it. Condrey in. Blatant choke. And again. Morton catches him the third time though, but Condrey cuts him off. Eaton in. Elbow smash. Bugs Gibson to distract the ref. Condrey with an elbow from the second rope. Cover gets two. Gut wrench ... slam? Wow, gnarly move from Condrey there. Like a tilt-a-whirl bodyslam. Morton tries to fight but the MX have him isolated. Suplex by Eaton, double stomp by Condrey. Finally we get the hot tag. All four men in. Ref bump. Condrey dumps Gibson. Suplex on Morton. Gibson with a frog splash gets three. Wow, that was an awkward finish. This was a pretty disappointing match all told considering what these two teams can do. The FIP sequence took too long to get interesting and just as it did, Morton tagged and we went into an awkward and rushed-looking finish. I'm developing the view that both teams were better in Crockett. ***1/2 Mid-South 3.9 Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Terry Gordy vs. Ted DiBiase & Steve Williams (1/21/85) Our first look at DiBiase and Williams tagging here (I believe). Jim Ross introduces in a red sweater with "JR" embroided into the breast. Watts is on commentary. This is under Texas Tornado rules, so all four men in at once. Peewee Anderson the ref. Still no beard for Ted. Gordy and DiBiase start out and Gordy gets the better of it. Hard to describe this with all four in. Brawling all over. Rare moment when the heels Irish whip the faces into the double collision spot. I can't recall a time I've ever seen faces on the receiving end of that move. Gordy hits a clotheline which sends Ted out of the ring. Duggan is on top over Dr Death in the ring. Gordy smashes Ted into the steel railings, and man did that look nasty! Naturally, DiBiase has the crimson mask now. Gordy grabs him by the hair. Back in the ring, Williams kicks Duggan. Goes out and rolls Gordy in too. Ted back in as well but staggering around dazed. Hits an elbow from the second rope on Gordy. But Duggan rails on Ted now with a flurry of punches. Gordy with shots on Williams. Soon DiBiase nails Gordy with the loaded glove for three. This was all a bit chaotic for me. And both Williams and Duggan looked a bit uncoordinated. Also for such a short match, it seemed to amble a bit too. *** Mid-South 3.10 Ted DiBiase vs. Brad Armstrong (2/10/85) The return match with Ted as champ this time. No commentary, red ring which makes me think it's Tulsa (see Magnum match). Identitcal early structure to last match between these two: delayed shine with Ted bailing. Backdrop and armdrag by Brad results in an armbar which he wrenches on. That's the story of the next five minutes or so until Ted hits an elbow smash. But Brad reverses into a backslide and goes back to the armbar. This is what we call "babyface control". Ted's selling through this stretch is good, but Armstrong doesn't do anything to keep this interesting. What is interesting is how, despite the similar start, they are working this differently now Ted is champ. Transition is a hot shot on the top rope. His oggense is very "rough and tumble" befitting of the Mid-South style. Punches, chokes, headslams to the mat. Swinging neckbreaker. Chinlock. Akbar distracts the ref for some blatant choking. DiBiase really wrestles like a heel. Brad starts thinking about a comeback after the ref checks his arm in the chinlock. Hits a crossbody, but Ted cuts him off. Puts his head down for a backdrop and Brad rolls him up. DiBiase seems pissed off: "ahh you son of a bitch!" he yells. Hits an elbow from the second rope. Cover gets two, and Ted argues with the ref about the speed of the count. Goes for a piledriver: reversed into a backdrop. Ted with a bodyslam, then the tradmark missed double axehandle that never hits and foreward flip bump. Armstrong making his comeback now. Backdrop. Cover gets 2. Dropkick. Bodyslam. Misses a big kneedrop. DiBiase goes over to capitalise with a figurefour but gets kicked off. Akbar on the apron. Ted loads the glove, misses with the punch, atomic drop by Brad, but then Ted nails him with a sneaky uppercut for three. Much to the crowd's chagrin. I felt this wasn't as enjoyable as the last match between these two because of the extended boring control segment from Brad. Decent performance from Ted though. ***1/2 Mid-South 3.11 The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Guerreros (2/13/85) Los Guerreros challenge for the Rock n Roll's titles. Boyd Pierce's jacket is truly hideous. JR and Joel Watts on commentary. RnRs work on Hector's leg to start. Tag to Chavo and the heels take over on offense. Savate kick. Ref tied up with Gibson. Double back drom by Rock n Rolls on both Guerreros. Amazing overhead belly-to-belly suplex by Chavo. Hector in. Bodyslam. Standing powerslam. Chavo in. Boston crab. Hector in. Another big standing powerslam. That's a cool spot for a little man to pull off. Belly-to-back suplex. Chavo in. Reverse knife edge. Weird rope running spot now where it looked like Chavo was out of position but IN FACT he was running to elbow drop the ref on the back of the head! Ha ha! Genius. Hector over the top rope with a flying bodypress. Back in the ring and a double suplex on Morton. DOUBLE surf board.While they are doing this, Gibson sneaks over and steals the cover. Wow, that was a very innovative finish. Geurrors brought the cool offense here and looked great. No comedy or anything now that Landell / Lothario aren't around. Enjoyed this one a good bit. ***3/4 Mid-South 3.12 Hacksaw Butch Reed & The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. Steve Williams, Kamala, & The One Man Gang (2/25/85) No love lost between me and Kamala. Butch Reed has his face painted and looks terrifying! He must have turned face. By my reckoning the faces are giving up over 500lbs here, minimum. No commentary, but I wish Tony Schiavone was on commentary to talk about the weight differentials and strategy. If ever a match was crying out for his analytical insight it is this one. Team HOSS bail to start. I find it hard to believe that Dr Death, OMG and Kamala would all be scared to step back in the ring with the fearsome Robert Gibson, but there we are. Morton is in the the ring and he seems to want Kamala. OMG is very upset at the crowd chanting "rock and roll" and shouts "SHUT UP" at them. This has taken a while to start here. Williams and Morton start, and Morton uses his quickness to go under Williams's leg and his agility to get some offense in. "And that's going to be the game plan of the Rock n Roll Express here, Jim, they need to rely on their SPEED and AGILITY to out smart these big men, they're not going to win if they go toe-to-toe, if it becomes a battle of STRENGTH or POWER they are real underdogs." - Tony Schiavone Team HOSS regroup. Kamala doesn't seem to understand the rules of a tag match. Friday has to tell him to stay on the apron. Reed vs. OMG now. They have their dukes up. Left jabs from Reed send OMG down. See, I think he's gone down too cheap here. Why are these fat guys stooging for these faces? Reed keeps pointing to Kamala "I want him! I want him". There must have been an angle. Williams with a headlock. Gibson in with SPEED and AGILITY to sneak attack Williams. Reed goes after Kamala. OMG with a cheapshot on Morton and now the heels have advantage. Two backdrops by Williams on Morton. Kamala in with chops and a big choke. Lame. Another chop. Lame. Tags out. Williams in with kicks and stomps. Big bearhug now. The heat sequence has sucked so far. OMG in with a bearhug now. Williams with the bearhug. This is all quite dull. Hope spot for Morton results in Kamala coming in with some more of his overhead chops. Bodyslams from OMG. He tags Kamala by slapping his shoulder, and Kamala reacts by chopping OMG in the face. God. This is shit. Gibson steals the pin on OMG. Probably my 150 for this set. Load of crap. DUD Mid-South 3.13 Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (3/8/85) No DQ, taped fist match. Still no beard on Ted. DiBiase gets on the mic to reiterate "anything goes" and then promptly suckes Duggan with some powder in the eyes. Dumps him over the top. Smashes him into the post. And again. Chair shot now. This is a mugging. Duggan is already puffing, and he's still blinded. Head into the turnbuckle. Choke and rake over the top rope. Duggan gets his first punch in but he still can't see. Ted rails on him now with three swank fistdrops. Duggan's face is a bloody mess. He looks like he could be in The Bible. Ted continues to lay in the punches. Duggan comes back but Ted cuts him off again. Turnbuckle shot. Choke over the middle rope. Duggan is a mess. Another big punch. Duggan goes down. Ted puts his headdown for the backdrop and eats the laces of Duggan's boot. He stays on top though until he goes for a suplex which Duggan reverses. Front flip bump from the missed 2nd rope double axhandle. Duggan with about 15 punches now in Ted's face. Ted gets up, Duggan knocks him down. And again. And again. Ted begs off. Feed. Bump. Feed. Bump. Stooge. Textbook. Duggan keeps laying in the punches. Cover gets two. Three point stance! Duggan seems to have it but Akbar interferes with the riding strap. Ref bump. Both men down. Crowd are wild. Williams is down to load DiBiase's glove and revive him -- actually, he gives him the glove. And that's the cheap pin. This is such a cool match. From the early AMBUSH to Duggan's bloodied-up comeback. Great performance from both guys. Fantastic sprint. Only thing it was missing really was double juice. DiBiase dominated this one a bit too much, and I get why: to setup the blow off, but it takes a quarter-star off at least. ****1/2 Mid-South 3.14 Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase (3/22/85) The famous multi-stip match. And this is at least the third time I'm reviewing it. We get an intro package before the match, masterpiece of storytelling from Bill Watts. Ted's also lost the North American title to Terry Taylor here. Back and forth to start. Duggan gets his shirt stuck over his head as Ted lays in the punches. Eventually Duggan uses it to choke Ted with. Piledriver by Ted. Fistdrop. Ted goes for the glove up the pole, but Duggan yanks him down and he hurts the top of his head. Duggan rips at DiBiase's shirt. Clothesline. Slam facefirst into the cage. Duggan is bleeding profusely. Ted's shirt is stained with blood. Duggan goes up and gets the glove. DiBiase nails him with the powder and retrieves the glove. Misses! And again. Atomic drop. Shoulder barge. Both men down. Fistdrop from the top. Misses! Duggan slams the gloved hand onto the turnbuckle. Gets the glove himself now. Duggan is like an actual caveman here, hairy, full of rage, covered in blood. MASSIVE punch with the glove lays Ted out. There's payback and then there's payback. That's probably the best payback spot of all time. This is how you do a blow off. Great brawl with intensity, heat off the charts, and amazing storytelling. As with some of the other highly rated matches from Mid-South so far, Bill Watts is covertly contributing to the ratings with his simple, logical development of angles. There was half a dozen stips for this match, and every single one of them had a logical in-storyline reason for being there. This is a good match on its own, but to get the full effect you need to see the build. Not just the intro package before it, but the full Extras that Will put together. Career match for both men involved. ***** Mid-South 13.15 The Fantastics vs. Steve Williams & Jake Roberts (4/14/85) The contrast between the gay-boy pretty-boy Fantastics kissing girls and hugging kids and Dr. Death and Jake looking unimpressed in the ring is hilarious. Blowjob babyfaces vs. rough and scuzzy heels. Pro wrestling! A lot of shine for the Fantastics to start as they get the better first of Williams, then of Jake. Fast paced stuff. Mostly Fulton. Rogers in and he goes to an armbar on Doc. Been all Fantastics so far. Rogers with some cool stuff on this arm, including a leaping double footstomp. Fantastics are a more EXPLOSIVE team than Rock n Rolls, I've always thought that. Fulton with a cool roll in to take over on Williams's arm. But Jake with a cheapshot from the apron allows the heels to gain advantage. Doc with some high end stuff now, including a hot shot. I've noticed that they loved that cheapshot from the apron transition in Mid-South tag matches, at least the third time I've seen it today. Jake in with a backdrop. Doc in with a backdrop. Williams has looked good in this match, real crisp. Legdrop by him now. Front facelock. He's going to lie in this for a bit now. Jake comes in and takes over the front face lock. Well this match just lost a lot of momentum. Peaks and valleys. Take the crowd up and bring them back down. But I also wonder if the heels didn't just want a breather. Doc in with an elbow smash. Fulton has been the FIP all this time by the way. THREE backbreakers by Doc now. And he holds Fulton there over the knee on the third. Cool spot. Williams is so much more bad ass here than he would be in JCP in a couple of years. Jake in with a snapmare. Roberts is working a lot harder than he would later in WWF too. Although as I type that he goes back into the front facelock. Chinlock now. Fulton tries to punch his way out of it. Both men down. Jake cuts off the tag but eats a kneelift. Rogers gets the hot tag and his fire his great. Roll up on Doc. Jake hits the DDT! And that's three. This was a really heated match with some good fast-paced work. Some of the chinlocks and front facelocks from Doc and Jake felt a bit rest-hold-y which brought this down a bit in the middle, but the opening and finish were both hot. The Fantastics were really great, I think so every time I see them. ***1/2 Mid-South 13.16 The Rock ‘n Roll Express vs. The Dirty White Boys (4/15/85) Will really packed these matches on here, eh. Morton and Denton to start. The latter works a headlock. Morton works the arm. Gibson in. Things kind of meander for a bit but soon we get into Anthony giving Morton a bearhug. Denton in with a backbreaker. Another bearhug now. Ricky Morton seems to have spent most of 1985 in a bearhug. I think the RnRs have mostly been shown up and outshone by The Fantastics on this particular set so far. Antonhy with an abdominal stretch now. The Dirty White Boys have been very boring on offense so far. This is a very lacklustre FIP sequence. Anthony does the IRS Money Inc. spot by getting aditional leverage for the abdominal stretch. Couple of roundhouse rights from Anthony. Dumps Morton. Denton kicks him on the outside while Anthony goads Gibson. Back in and we get the swank reverse armdrag thing by Morton. That's a cool spot whatever it is called. Gibson in on fire. All four men in. Abdominal stretch by Gibson. But Denton has a belt or something and choke Gibson with it. Oh no, that's a pinfall! Dirty White Boys with a win over The Rock n Roll Express! Got to be an upset. I thought this match was actively bad. The FIP sequence was one of the most unegaging I've seen and when Gibson came in on fire and went to ... an abdominal stretch just before the finish, you've got to wonder what the hell's going through his mind. Off night for both teams. ** Mid-South 13.17 Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (4/28/85) Flair comes in to defend the NWA title against local cock-of-the-walk, I mean hero, Terry Taylor, who I believe is still North American champ at this time. Taylor controls to start with a headlock. He works an armbar now. The Jumbo comparison from Phil Schneider completely baffles me, I don't get what he's talking about in either direction. Nature Boy backs up, side headlock takeover by the champ. Snapmare. Chinlock. But Taylor reverses it into a hammerlock. Neat counter. Flair with a single-leg takedown. Taylor back over into a hammerlock. This is some Dory Funk Jr stuff right here. Camera is in real close and there's no commentary so we can hear everything Flair is shouting. He jaws the ref. Collar and elbow tieup. Flair goes for the suplex and again, blocked both times. The lock up again. Another exchange results in hammerlock by Taylor into a wristlock. He's been outwrestling the champion so far. Shoulder block, leap frog, hip toss by Taylor. Flair backs up and begs off. Bails. He's been doing a good job of breaking Taylot's momentum so far. The way Flair carries himself just as he walks by the apron is the stuff of greatness. He gets back in the ring. Definition of "the man" to beat even though he's spent the past 10 minutes getting outwrestled. Aura. Character work. Ring presence. Intangible X-factor. Arm wrench Taylor and a kneedrop on the arm. He's been sticking to his gameplan working that limb. Wristlock. Flair gets him up on his shoulders. Deposits him on the turnbuckle. Backs off. They shake hands. Interesting. Single leg take but Taylor's ground game is again to strong. The lock up again, amatuer takedown by Flair. This is some college-type stuff they are doing. Greco-Roman knucklelock. Taylor seems to be getting the better of it. Ties Ric's arm back, same one he's been working all match. Shoulder block. But finally Flair dumps Taylor. Maybe 12-4 minutes gone, it's about time we got a transition now surely. All Taylor to this point. Reverse knife edge by Flair. Knee to the face. Stomps. Choke. Reverse knife edge. Flair drags Taylor's face across the top rope, always thought that was a nasty spot. Snapmare. Kneedrop. Oh yeah, my two favourite words when reviewing matches! Kneelift. Flair dumps Taylot again. Goes after him. Flair chop. Rams him into the post. Back in the ring to strut. Snapmare over the top rope and into the ring. Cool. Punch to the face. Armbar. Flair uses the rope for leverage. Ref sees the rope wobbling and looks quizzically at Flair. Get gets down again and Flair uses a different rope. Funny little piece of business. When people use the "stuff to do" critcism, do they mean stuff like this? This is a good bit of business that keeps things interesting during an armbar. "Stuff to do" indeed. It's such an empty critique. Meaningless. Flair shoves the ref and they do the Tommy Young routine but Flair doesn't bump for this guy. Taylor gets a chinlock of some sort on, could even be a sleeper hold. It is! Flair drops to one knee. Taylor with a hamstring snap. And another. He seems to be setting Flair up for the figure four. Flair goes for a chop in the corner, but Taylor comes back. Backdrop. Flair begs off. Leg sweep. Taylor attacks the leg. He spent the first half of the match attacking the arm, but now he's changed tack to the leg. That's okay, never seen a problem with that. Boston crab by Taylor. And this is of course putting pressure on the back Flair hurt in the plane crash as JR would tell us if he was here. I don't really get the switch from the leg to the back there. That's not okay and I do have a problem with it. Some knees in the corner now by Taylor. Flair tries to apply the figurefour but is kicked off. Flair chop! Shoulder block by Taylor, but Flair gets the sleeper now which Taylor quickly shunts off by crashing into the turnbuckle. Knee to the gut by Flair. Dumps Taylor. Fair play to this young man Taylor, he's giving the champion everything he's got! Flair chop on the apron. Sunset flip by Taylor, Flair struggles but goes over. Not even a one count. Backslide by Taylor gets ... one. Big chop by Flair sends Taylor down. Flair goes to the top, but inevitably is slammed off. Knee by Taylor. Cover gets two. Flair kicks him. Whiffs a forearm. Taylor with jabs left and right now. Flair falls out of the ring. Suplex by Taylor back in. Cover gets two. You have to hook the leg with a man of Flair's calibre! Five minutes remain. This must have been a 30-minute time limit. It's been about 25 minutes. Elbow drop by Flair. Cover gets two. Kick to the gut. Kick to the leg. Taylor is down. Shinbreaker!! That's the setup for you know what ... Figurefour! No! Taylor kicks him off. And again. Flair drags him outside now. And over to the post. Smashes the leg on the post. Taylor drags himself back in the ring. Flair goes after him again and takes a tumble back outside. Taylor follows him and gets his foot stuck in the middle rope. Stomps by Flair prevent Taylor getting back in the ring. More stomps. Flair has underrated stomps. Atomic drop by Taylor. Figure-four by Flair now, finally! Taylor writhes and struggles. Crowd is excited. Flair pulls on the leg as Taylor writhes. The bell goes. Is that a time-limit draw or did he submit? This was a good match. It's like Flair will give you a base-line minimum of a **** match against any opponent. Taylor was very 70s in the way he worked this. All armwork and amauter exchanges to start, then some leg work. It may have been the narrative they were going for, or this might have genuinely been the case, but he seemed to run out of ideas towards the end which is why this rating isn't higher. It's like Taylor needed Flair to take over the match because he'd run out of stuff, which is a bit surprising because it's not like he did a whole lot beyond work some different holds and counters. Still though, a very solid effort and a great go-to example of Flair just working a solid 30-minute match against a local babyface, while making him look like a credible challenger without making himself look too weak. It's why he was the greatest. ****

Completely not my position. I am not a guy who is high on Bret and I don't make WWF my "home promotion" by any stretch. I watched all the AWA Curt on the 80s set. But Bret wins this one for me. I didn't really agree with Dylan's assessment of babyface Hennig in the leadup to the set. I just wasn't as high on early 80s Curt as the committee was. I thought he really came into his own when he was "Cool Curt" after the amazing match with Bock. That was probably the best stretch of his career. I was a big Mr. Perfect fan as a kid, and I still like him now, but worked a bit too weak for my tastes, even for a WWF heel (who were all booked weak). I have less of a problem with the outrageous bumping style, I find it entertaining, but Perfect needed some more offense. He reminds me a bit of a fencer, all style and pinache but once you get past all the flash there's no killer blow. Bret has really good matches with Owen and Austin, but he has some more too. The Piper match is good. Daveyboy at Summerslam. I like his matches with DiBiase. He has others in his locker people will point you to. And once you look past that Bock match, what other matches has Hennig got? I remember one with Hansen people liked more than I did. He had a couple of good performances as champ, but then what? I don't really seem them even as being ballpark.

If making moves matter and "efficient" wrestling is what you're after, I'd stongly recommend the anti-workrate masterpiece that is Chief Jay Strongbow vs. Mr. Fuji from MSG (6/30/73). That is maximum output from minimum input. Every little thing in that match matters. It's a fucking travesty of a match, but everything matters.

You seem to privilege strategic reasoning over intuition Matt.

Is it just me though or has Flair developed a weird speech impediment, like a lisp or something. He never did that when he was younger.

I give this one to Bret though and can see him curbstomping this like when it was Arn vs. Sean Waltman. LOL, not one of Steven Graham's prouder moments.

I think there's enough of him in Stampede to get a measure of what he was like.

Flair's good at trash-talking or yelling out in pain during matwork sequences. I think because in his mind it is boring, he's constantly trying to do things during it to keep it entertaining through character work.

I just simply don't care what any of them are like as people, it's the work that I'm interested in. So, for example, the fact I plan don't like Bret as a person doesn't affect how I see him as a worker.

JAC, I totally agree with you and have said so a lot on this board before. I like how Flair can sometimes surprise you by going into the deep recesses of his offensive arsenal when the situation requires it. The butterfly suplex vs. Steamer. The chop block and shinbreaker vs. Luger. I think he busts out a gutwrench suplex at one point vs. either Harley or Jumbo. He has a lot of different tricks that don't always come out, so when they do it's like "whao!".

I think Flair craves external validation, it's probably why he wouldn't retire because he was addicted to the buzz he got from being validated by the crowd reaction. As Brainfollower says, you can see that as "pathetic" in a way. It means his ego is terribly fragile. I think in this way he's similar to Shakespeare's Othello, but that's a whole other thread that I'd rather not see! Ha ha.