[1997-05-08-IWA-MS] Ricky Morton vs Wolfie D

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Wolfie D even brought the Nation of Domination gimmick to IWA Mid South! That's dedication. Wolfie's heeling on this crowd and Ricky Morton at the beginning of this is a master's class, even if IWA Mid South looks even more low rent and sleazy than ECW because of all the swearing and profane crowd chants. (Well, I guess it was.) Morton shows that he still has a great babyface promo in him before the match as well.

 

It took a while for this match to get going, but when it did, it was pretty decent. Morton is indeed kind of a has been at this point, but he can also work just about as well as he ever did. And this is a good opponent for him. The sad part is that fans wanted something edgier, so Morton pulling out all of his old tricks to really get a crowd going just doesn't get the reaction it used to get.

 

JC Ice runs out with a chain for the finish, but Morton intercepts and hits Morton with it and pins him. PG-13 and Doug Gilbert immediately jump him after the match before being run off by Ian Rotten and a couple of other guys. Not sure if that led to a follow-up match or not, but I hope it did.

 

I like Morton's promo closing things out. It's the downside of the way wrestling changed. There just wasn't a place on a big stage for small, old-style Southern babyfaces anymore. Ian Rotten makes a point of putting over Morton working FMW and they announce a PG-13 vs Morton and Dave Tyler Morton Jericho on a future show.

[Zenjo]

This was just awful. Having a wrestler and the fans spend the whole time telling each other to F off is so far away from where pro wrestling should ever be as an entertainment medium. It's sad to see Ricky Morton in this squalor.

[Kevin Ridge]

For no reason particular I had the TV volume low when watching so wasn’t fully aware of the crowd until their “you fucked up” chant when Wolfie missed a top rope move. There isn’t a place left by now for Morton to still be able to do his thing. Random for PG-13 to be in IWA. I though it was okay overall and would be fine watching a follow up tag match.

[Robert S]

I was surprised about the VQ and sound quality of this. I did not expected this from a 97 indy show.

[soup23]

Wolfie smacktalking the fans was great and a preview of the IWA-MS crowds to come. Morton looks insanely old and maybe even worse than Eaton at this point. At least they werent winning titles but watching them I do get a bit of Freebirds in 1990 uncool vibe. I have no idea who the valet was with Morton either. The match was a lot more mundane and less spirited than I imagined. The finish was ok but overall I was expecting more.

[PeteF3]

This appears to be the start of an annoying trend of every wrestler on every indy or late-'90s TV show needing to do a pre- AND post-match monologue for everyone. At one point as Wolfie and Ricky were desperately trying to edgify themselves by throwing swear words into their act, I was practically yelling at them, "WRESTLE already." Makes me wish promos were strictly relegated to backstage segments on TV only, but I know that's a losing cause. Anyway, the match isn't bad at all but outside of Wolfie busting out a sitout power bomb it's very Memphis-by-numbers and that just isn't going to fly in 1997, not even in the WMC studio.