JerryvonKramer Posted October 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2013 Memhpis 1.6 Bill Dundee vs. Wayne Farris & Tojo Yamamoto (3/7/81) Another great interview segment and angle going into this, as Dundee's partner Rich is caught up in a "contractual situation" so can't make the match. Ruthless Jimmy Hart doesn't care and insists on Dundee taking on his team regardless, in a 2 on 1 handicap match. Rich's and Dundee's Southern Tag titles are also on the line. There's also an added layer of intrigue: the Dream Machine, also managed by Hart, comes out and asks him why he's not being put forward for this match given his years of loyal service. Jimmy laughs him off. I love this presentation. Dundee has 30 minutes to fend off Farris and Yamamoto. Intriguing setup. Farris and Yamamoto gain control after a plucky first few minutes from Dundee. Yamamoto's chops are stiff. This is a tremendous way to get over the idea of Dundee as a world class wrestler. His comebacks and punches are great. And the story of the heels losing in 1 on 1 situations but constantly having the advantage of being to tag out is expertly told. Farris reminds me a tiny bit of Michael Hayes at this point in his career. First 15 minutes of this just flew by. Yamamoto is pretty effective as the wily veteran here. Despite the advantage, the heels pick up the pin cheaply to win the titles. To add insult to injury, Jimmy Hart gets some cheap shots in on Dundee post match, and of course Dream Machine comes out to make the save signalling his face turn. Very enjoyable stuff. ***1/2 Memphis 1.7 Bill Dundee & Tommy Rich vs. Dutch Mantell & Austin Idol (3/12/81) Mantell and Idol are CWA World tag champs here. Mantell's back is sickenly hairy. If I were a wrestler, I would refuse to work with Mantell on that basis. Yuk. Quite a long shine sequence to start during which Rich and Dundee work over Idol with headlocks, snapmares and armdrags. Spot where Idol is caught in the wrong corner and gets the ping-pong punches. Mantell comes in and eats a big dropkick from Rich. Heels bail. They've got nothing so far. Until Mantell pulls what Russell calls "a sneaky" -- pulling the ropes so that Rich falls through them. Fist drop by Idol. Rich immediately gets the atomic drop. Dundee tags in. Mantell tags in. Dundee gets the worst of it and Idol kneedrops him. Cocky pin attempt results in a nearfall for Dundee. Mantell comes in with a backbreaker. Idol drops the elbow from the top. This is our FIP sequence now, it's been a while coming. Mantell does a dog crawl-y scurrying headbutt. Heels have cut the ring in half now. 2nd rope elbow drop by Idol. Bodyslam. Goes for the "Las Vegas leglock" but Dundee kicks him off. Idol reasserts his dominance with a stiff punch. Running powerslam by Mantell. Big elbow drop. Gutwrench suplex. Dundee tries to fire back but he's cut off. Massive backdrop. Dundee manages to get a sunset flip but Idol kicks him in the face. Great FIP sequence! Idol and Rich brawl outside as Dundee manages to roll Mantell up for the win. Excellent match, best on on this set so far. ****1/2 Memphis 1.8 Bill Dundee & Dream Machine vs. Dutch Mantell & Wayne Farris (3/14/81) Jimmy Hart mentions that Wayne Farris is subbing for "The Angel" here. Is "Oil Trough" really a town in Texas? If "Truth or Consequences" is the coolest named town in the world, "Oil Trough" is a contender for the opposite of that. Mantell's back hair is disgusting. He and Dundee seem to have great chemistry. Dream Machine does dancing. Fuck's sake. Men in masks shouldn't shuck, jive or boogie. Mantell is basically the worker I've been wishing Steve Williams could be in all the 80s NWA I watched in the past year. He looks good to me. Mantell and Dream Machine lock up now. Machine is doing all the Porkchop Cash shit I hate. No one with any history of being a heel should ever dance, in my view, except perhaps Dusty Rhodes and Jimmy Valiant. Faces have a spell on top. Dundee nastily stamps on Farris's hand, ouch. Dream Machine comes in and loses control. Mantell takes over. Big elbow drop. Misses a knee but tags out to Farris. Russell's tiredness and sense of frustration with Jimmy Hart is priceless. This was good. *** I like Lance Russell's GOLD microphone. Dave Brown just has a regular one. Memphis 1.9 Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (No DQ) (3/23/81) How exciting. Never seen this one before, I've seen the empty arena match, but not this. Funk has taped hands and runs away from Lawler to start. Calhoun is wearing is extremely tight white flares again. Action goes outside early. Atomic drop otside. Russell calls it "rough house tactics". Funk misses a fistdrop which changes the momentum. Lawler hits some sweet punches. Funk does the cartoon "dazed jabs". Awesome spot know where Lawler rams Funk's head into the timekeeper's bell and you hear it ring!! Funk's eye in injured and is bleeding profusely. Lawler hits a stomp from the top rope. Jimmy Hart is ringside and runs under the ring after Lawler gestures towards him. Funk gets a headbutt in, and again. Biting now. And Lawler is cut. More biting. Funk does the spraying of the blood above his head. Awesome. Gouging the face. He is absolutely covered in blood. Disrespectful slaps now. He spits in Lawler's face. A punch. Throws him out of the ring. Big left. Another. And again. And again. Lawler staggers forward. Funk keeps laying in the lefts. Lawler stats his comeback. The strap comes down. And now he makes the comeback. Big rights. Funk goes flying. Crowd is going nuts. Flying fistdrop from the top. Jimmy Hart runs in with a chair. Funk is able to grab it and uses the edge of it to take out Lawler's leg. Several more shots into Lawler's leg with the chair now. Ref throws the chair out. Funk is attacking the leg now. He's looking to rip his tights! Spinning toehold! Spinning toehold! Of course, Lawler is coming back from the broken leg here too, so it all makes sense. Hart throws the chair in again. Funk shoves the ref down and wildly misses Lawler with the chair. Lawler get it now and sweeps Funk's leg with it. Ouch! Several nasty shots to the leg. This is fucking wild. Funk is counted out, which is a disappointing finish, but still absolutely loved this. ****1/2 Memphis 1.10 Jerry Lawler vs. Dory Funk Jr. (3/30/81) This was the typical booking pattern for the Funks at this point. Match with Terry, match with Dory, blow off with Terry. Jimmy Hart is dangling over the ring here. Not even in a cage, just dangling from like a bungee rope. Dory sits in a headlock to start. Good old Dory eh. Eventually we get a clean break. Fireman's carry takeover by Dory into an armbar. Good clean technical wrestling. European uppercut. And again. Hammerlock. Russell: "Dory Jr works almost in a detatched manner, but he will hurt ya" -- top analysis Lance. Back up to an armbar which allows Lawler to get a quick punch in. Dory takes it back to the mat with the arm bar. If this was Bob Backlund people would be all over this shit. Dory dumps Lawler out of the ring. Dory slams Lawler into the table. And again. Hardcore Dory. He grabs a chair now. Ref grabs it, so he slams him into the table again. The rough-house tactics from Dory here! Lawler gets his chain out. Dory goes after him with the European uppercut. Lawler drops the chain and Dory picks it up. Vertical suplex by Dory, and a beauty. Gets a 2 count. He didn't hook the leg Jess. Another uppercut. Gut punch. Lawler starts coming back with the right hands. Dory bails. Back in and they lock up. Trading strikes now. Dory gets the worst of it. He bails again but Lawler chases. He's getting nailed with the rights now and we get a sweet payback spot as Dory gets his face rammed into the table. Snapmare by Lawler. Dory begs off. Lawler in with the rights now. Dory is able to sneak a knee in to send Lawler crashing to the mat. The Iceman Cometh. Lawler tries to start another comeback. Another sneaky knee. The wily veteran has some tricks up his sleeve, former world champ don't ya know. Slam. Dory misses an elbow. The strap comes down. Crowd goes wild. We get a ref bump now. Hart dangling above the ring drops a chain down to Dory who lays Lawler out with it. The ref is still out. Calhoun comes over. NO!! Lawler kicks out at 2. Crowd is losing their shit. Dory chokes Lawler with the chain now. Another 2 count. Calhoun spots the chain and wrestles it from Dory's hand. Lawler sneakily gets his own chain now and lays Dory out with it. He throws the ref to the side. Dory rolls Lawler up with his feet on both ropes. Calhoun spots it and stops the count. Dory now just punches the ref in the face! Russell: "Too much abuse of the referee" I had to pause it because I was laughing so much at this. The bell goes now as Dory and Lawler are still going back and forth. Lawler has a glove and is getting the better of it. Suplex by Lawler. Dory has been DQ'd, presumably for punching the ref in the fucking face! I must note though that moments before this Lawler did shove him to the side too. Jimmy Hart is let down wearing all black and a helmet. Dory bails. Wow, was this a fight! Definitely one of the better Dory matches I've ever seen. I honestly thought this was as good as the No DQ match, if not better. I can see that being a controversial viewpoint, but Dory fucking brought it here. ****1/2 Memphis 1.11 Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (Empty Arena) (4/6/81) I've seen this several times before, I am almost positive it will hold up. The pre-match stuff if, of course, legendary. Amazing performances from both Russell and Funk. "Don't you realise that there's nobody here? You JACKASS" The tirade of abuse Funk is giving Lawler is awesome. The match starts. Chairs being knocked over everywhere. Funk grabs a big number 4 sign from what Russell calls the "identification stand". Piledriver outside by Funk! Lawler is busted open. Funk is raving like a lunatic. He goes gets a wooden spike that he breaks off the ring steps. Slamming Lawler's head into the table. "ASK HIM. ASK HIM!" Funk's voice is high and shrill and manic. He still has that wooden shard. Lawler somehow kicks it so that Funk jabs it in his own eye. "My eyeeee! I can't see! Doctor! God help me, please ... My eye!" Russell: "Terry Funk: A victim of his own plotting" Awesome stuff this. As a match it's not as good as the No DQ or in my view the Dory match, but as a total package this shit is all-time great. **** "Pig! Piggggggggggg!" What's so awesome about this is that Funk shows so many different sides of his personality. He's a chickenshit, a psycho, a bully, and a crying moaning bitch all at once. It's just fantastic Memphis 1.12 Bill Dundee & Dream Machine vs. Kevin Sullivan & Wayne Farris (5/2/81) Promo from Dream Machine and Bill Dundee now. I did not enjoy Dream Machine's interview, despite his great accent. Hart comes in with a fucking RIPPED Kevin Sullivan now. And Farris. Still think that Sullivan carries his muscles awkwardly, if that's even possible. They look wrong on him. Farris has a little moustache at this point. Nothing terribly compelling about the heels working over Dundee. Sullivan relies mainly on stomps. Dundee gets a tag to Dream Machine who WILDLY misses a shoulder charge, flips upside down and then falls flat like a pancake on his face. WOW, that was unexpected. Farris in. And things get scrappy between him and Dream Machine. Dundee gets a tag. Big dropkick on Farris. Monkey flip. Farris misses a move feet first in the corner. Still he's somehow able to get back on top. Hits a suplex, and a beauty. Sullivan in. Bearhug now. Dundee starts laying in punches to try to break it. Sullivan hangs on and bearhugs him even on the mat. Double atomic drop. Flapjack by Farris. I don't know if that's the proper name, but who cares. Sits in a chinlock now. Heels have cut the ring off. Another double atomic drop. Another bearhug. I feel I've had enough of this match by this point. It's starting to drag. Big backdrop. The FIP sequence needs to think about ending. Sullivan has been actively boring in this match. Dundee starts to come back, Hart pulls the ropes down and he takes a tumble outside. Takes him a 9-count to come back in only for Sullivan to get a 3-count with an inside cradle. Awful finish and the worst match so far. *1/2 Memphis 1.13 Jerry Lawler vs. Crusher Blackwell (5/4/81) Well this is interesting after AWA. Seemingly JIP with clipping, Blackwell starts out on top mauling Lawler and hitting a big splash. Big slam outside. Jimmy Hart jaws Lawler. Awesome fistdrop by Blackwell. Big elbow drop. Lawler starts coming back with elbows and punches. We get the tree-being-felled wobbling spot. And Blackwell finally goes down. Lawler unloads with a flurry of punches on Blackwell's head. Big back suplex by Blackwell. Huge move. SHIT, Lawler now hits his own back suplex on Blackwell! Only gets a two. That was un-BE-lievable! Blackwell starts laying in the punches now. Big vertical suplex. The strap comes down. Each right that goes in snaps Blackwell's head back. I'm surprised he hasn't got whiplash! Backdrop by Lawler on Blackwell! But Lawler misses the flying fistdrop. And Blackwell missed the big splash. That's enough for the 3 count. Very good match. ***3/4 Memphis 1.14 Dutch Mantell vs. Kevin Sullivan (5/9/81) HAIRY, disgustingly hairy, Dutch Mantell taking on the disgustingly muscle-bound Kevin Sullivan. So Mantell must be a face now. As Russell explains, he just walked away from Jimmy Hart's stable. Slow start here but a little bitch slap by Sullivan riles Mantell up. Russell thinks this is part of Jimmy Hart's strategy. Atomic drop by Mantell. Headlock takeover by Sullivan. He sits in the headlock now. Eventually Mantell is able to hit a big slam and a great running knee drop / splash thing. Back to the headlock by Kevin Sullivan. Really boring. If this was Bob Backlund people would be loving it (okay, okay, I'll stop ). I am not keen on Sullivan here, he's been rubbish in these matches so far. He busts out some strikes and kicks now. Goes outside and posts Mantell. And then rams him into Lance's table. King of the Mountain now. Sullivan is reasonably aggressive in his punching. Backdrop. Arrogant cover gets 2. More punches. Chinlock now. Man, just as it was starting to get better, he sits in a chinlock. Thankfully, it doesn't last long and Sullivan goes back to his punches. Atomic drop. Mantell answers with one of his own. Five minutes left, they've only been going 10 minutes, it feels like 20. Botch-y looking finish as Sullivan steals a pin with Jimmy Hart up on the apron. This match was best when Mantell was on offense, but unfortunately, Sullivan was on top for most of it. I really don't like the 1981-version of Kevin Sullivan. ** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted October 11, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 11, 2013 Housekeeping Memphis d1 ****1/2 Jerry Lawler vs. Dory Funk Jr. (3/30/81) Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (No DQ) (3/23/81) Bill Dundee & Tommy Rich vs. Dutch Mantell & Austin Idol (3/12/81) **** Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (Empty Arena) (4/6/81) ***3/4 Jerry Lawler vs. Crusher Blackwell (5/4/81) ***1/2 Bill Dundee vs. Tommy Rich (8/23/80) Bill Dundee & Tony Boyles vs. Wayne Farris & Larry Latham (6/7/80) Bill Dundee vs. Wayne Farris & Tojo Yamamoto (3/7/81) *** Bill Dundee vs. Paul Ellering (5/24/80) Bill Dundee & Dream Machine vs. Dutch Mantell & Wayne Farris (3/14/81) **1/2 Bill Dundee vs. Larry Latham (4/19/80) ** Ricky Morton vs. Sonny King (4/26/80) Dutch Mantell vs. Kevin Sullivan (5/9/81) *1/2 Bill Dundee & Dream Machine vs. Kevin Sullivan & Wayne Farris (5/2/81) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradhindsight Posted October 13, 2013 Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 That was all on disc one? Guess I'm picking this one up sooner than later. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted October 13, 2013 Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 I am about to make a set. It wouldn't be anything to make two at the same time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted October 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2013 Mid-South 2.1 Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (No DQ) (OKC 5/27/84) This starts off fired up, with great brawling. Both men laying in stiff shots and ramping up the violence. At one point, Magnum gives Ted a straight right and it results in his signature 360 bump. These matches without commentary do in a weird sort of way give you a feeling that you're watching live. Ted starts resorting to blatant chokes using the 5-count to his advantage. He has a great sense of desperation as a heel, as if there is no level, no depths to which he will not stoop to get a result. Jim Ross comes in mid-way through and we lose the crowd audio. I'd prefer the crowd for a match like this, if I had to choose. DiBiase loads up the glove and Magnum is busted open. Goes to work on him now. Patented powerslam! He goes for a spinning toe hold by Magnum kicks him off. This triggers Magnum's big comeback and he is fired up. Punches. A dropkick. Belly-to-belly suplex gets the 3 for Magnum to retain. ****1/2 I think sound for the duration might have even bumped it up to A, but as it was I'll stick with that. Mid-South 2.2 Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (No DQ) (Tulsa 5/27/84) Was this really on the SAME NIGHT as the last match? Seems a bit much to ask these two to pull double duty like this. The Tulsa ring has a red canvas. Unusual. This has a longer shine sequence with Magnum dominating Ted for several minutes to start. Magnum looks like a million dollars here. Eventually we get a transition and Ted hits an elbow smash shortly before dumping Magnum to outside. Magnum visibly has cuts on his face from the OKC match. DiBiase lays in some great punches on Magnum's forehead. And starts gougings his eyes and raking at his cut face. Magnum has blood streaming everywhere. DiBiase HITS the elbow from the second rope and angirly taunts Magnum. He put his head down for a backdrop ... that was a cardinal mistake for a pro. DiBiase stays on top though with a couple of fistdrops. Stomp on the face. Sleeper. Magnum is a bloody mess. DiBiase has great intensity in the way he synches in this sleeper, and wrenches on Magnum's throat. Magnum is able to break it by dumping DiBiase over the top rope. He looks like he's lost a pint of blood. Ted comes back in and measures him with a sweet punch. Goes for a piledriver but it's reversed. Both men down and out now, but Ted misses a roundhouse to take an atomic drop which gives Magnum the opening to hit the belly to belly for the win. As good as the last match, but without the audio problems so. ****3/4 Mid-South 2.3 Rock N Roll Express & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Ernie Ladd (6/8/84) This match is really well laid out. After the initial shine sequence you get: 1. A fun game of cat and mouse between Ernie Ladd and Ricky Morton establishing both Ladd's superior size and strength and Morton's agility and cunning. 2. Then we get Dugan taking on both members of the Midnights to establish him as a major threat for the faces, a force of nature. 3. This all builds to a big showdown between Ladd and Duggan: the irresistable force meeting the immovable object. 4. Duggan gets the better of it, so Ladd has to resort to cheating, which shows that despite his size, he's actually no different from his scheming partners. 5. And now, after all of these things are established in the dynamics between these six men, we get a classic Ricky Morton FIP sequence. Condrey, in particular, is great during this extended beatdown. And we get the awesome double-leg drops from Ladd. Eaton does a brilliant job of winding up Duggan on the apron. 6. Finish plus great post-match beatdown. Looking back at my notes, was Robert Gibson even there? This was a very good 6-man tag. **** Mid-South 2.4 Rock N Roll Express & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Ernie Ladd (7/2/84) Ernie Ladd's "Promises Promises" robe is so cool. This was more scrappy and chaotic than the last match, which as I've mentioned was all about structure. It was also a lot shorter and more anti-climactic. Disappointing. ** Mid-South 2.5 Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (7/6/84) Regular match between these two now. Not much of a shine as Ted dominates early until Magnum gets a backdrop in and DiBiase begs off and then bails. He regains control and takes it outside. Slam out on the concrete. Slam into the post. Magnum's back is hurt. Second-rope elbow. Backdrop. 2 count. Backbreaker. 2 count. Bearhug. All of these moves have targeted the back. Good focused offensive stretch from Ted. He hits a knee from the second rope across Magnum's back for 2. Bodyslam. Camel clutch. Magnum eventually sends Ted tumbling right into the camera! He must have knocked the cameraman down there! DiBiase misses a move off the 2nd rope and takes the patented gut punch (flips over). Stays on top though but his grip on control is fading and we get a spot where both men are knocked down. Back outside and Magnum get's his head posted again. Twice. Ten minutes gone and it's been all DiBiase so far. Flash inside cradle by Magnum gets a 2 count which riles Ted. Magnum is busted open and bleeding profusely. Ted rains in the shots now on his head. Backdrop. Piledriver??? No, reversed! Eventually the TURNBUCKLE comes loose! And they start using it as a weapon. The ring is literally falling apart. Mangum comes in from an Irish Whip and DiBiase hotshots him but there's no top rope there! Ted goes for a fistdrop from the second rope but misses and Magnum is able to capitalise with a belly-to-belly for 3. This match obviously went around the horn, but these two have very good chemistry. These are some good matches on both mens' CVs. ****1/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted November 17, 2013 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2013 Mid-South 2.6 The Fantastics & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Jim Cornette (7/20/84) Cornette is wearing his white y-front outside of his black tights. You have to give it to him, he was absolutely fearless in front of those Texan crowds. Can't help but feel that the heels are out-gunned here. Eaton and Fulton to start. Paul Boesch is on commentary here for this Houston show. He explains that Cornette has been forced into signing this match. Probably a bit too much schtick in this match for my tastes. Corny, as you'd imagine, does a lot of hit and run stuff. Eventually the match settles down and Fulton is our FIP -- it took much too long for the match to get to this point though. Eaton works Fulton's arm. Lovely bodyslam. Misses a frog splash from the top. Hot tag to Duggan. Double noggin knocker. Cornette is dragged in. Ref has lost control of this one. Hercules Hernandez runs in and attacks Duggan. DQs all round. Took too long to get going and ended just as it did. ** Mid-South 2.7 The Fantastics vs. Midnight Express (OKC 8/9/84) Cornette is still in his ring gear here. It's great watching him jaw the fans as he walks down the aisle flanked by the Midnights with their theme playing in the background. Amazing! "Sharp-dressed man" is a hell of a theme tune too. This Oklahoma venue is awesomely dark and grimy looking. Bobby Eaton seems to be telling someone in the crowd to brush their teeth. Ha ha! Above the ring there's some metal covering -- what is that? A giant heater? A massive lighting rig? Weird. Rogers and Eaton start out here. Fantastics control in the early going tagging in and out. Rogers dominates Condrey with a series of shoulder barges, he backs up into the corner where Eaton and Cornette fan him. He stands back up and offers Rogers a handshake. Condrey is the best at this sort of shit. Eaton comes back in and the Fantastics work over his arm. MX can't get anything going here. Eventually Corny distracts the ref which allows Condrey to sneak in for some cheap double teaming. There's our transition. Rogers is our FIP and eats a sweet Condrey backbreaker. Eaton takes over with a series of Irish whips and elbows. Rogers has a hopespot punching Condrey in the breadbasket, but Eaton suckers Fulton into coming in distracting the ref. This allows some cool double teaming. MX have cut the ring in half now and no one does it better. Condrey is awesomly dickish winding up Fulton and I love it. Hammerlock takedown by Eaton. Condrey cuts off another hopespot with a running knee. Rogers is taking a pasting here. Russian legsweep by Condrey. Rogers gets an inside cradle on Eaton for 2. Just another hopespot as Eaton hits a big dropkick. Finally Rogers gets the hot tag to Fulton who unloads on the MX. Condrey wraps his hand in a chain of some sort but he and Eaton miss a double clotheline and the Fantastics sneak a pin on him. Great southern tag formula match -- although these two teams have better matches later. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 Mid-South 2.8 Dusty Rhodes & Jim Duggan vs. Butch Reed & Hercules Hernandez (8/19/84) What's great about this footage without commentary is that you can hear what the guys are shouting to each other. A lot of stalling from the heels to start. Reed sells like a champ for Dusty in the shine. Rhodes is looking particularly fat here. Duggan is very over with this crowd. Corny is at ringside. This is a street fight and that means everyone wears cowboy boots, jeans and a white t-shirt. Dusty is actually wearing a white short-sleeved shirt that doesn't have its buttons done up so he can show off his spectacular belly. Oh and Reed is in a pair of red Adidas tracksuit bottoms. Run DMC were big in 1984, so this marks a very rare occassion when a wrestler is actually on trend. For a brawl this took too long to take off for me, and it wasn't brutal enough for my tastes. Dusty didn't bleed like a stuffed pig. Structurally it was all over the place and then it just ended after Cornette used the powder. Not very satifying. ** Mid-South 2.9 Killer Khan vs. Chris Adams (9/9/84) I've gone on record to say I don't like Chris Adams, but I'm willng to give him another chance. Khan always reminds me of Tod Browning's Freaks. A lot of flash and fire from Adams to start. He's working with great intensity. Khan bails and does a lot of his usual schtick. As he gets back in does a series of nasty-looking stomps on Adams's head and some grizzly choking. Adams comes back on fire again before sitting into a chinlock. Inzaguri! Backdrop! Legdrop! ONE, TWO, hegothim NO! That was a hot little sequence, Adams still on top goes back to the chinlock before Khan does something cheap to get back on top. All he's got is chops, chokes and shrill shouting really but he does those things reasonably well. The ref here is rather distracting. He's in Khan's face a bit too much. Adams hits the super kick TWICE and then nails Akbar for good measure. That buys Khan enough time to get on the top rope and nail him with a flying knee drop. Didn't see that finish coming and I've seen this match before. Not bad at all and structurally sound. My only complaint is that something more interesting didn't happen when Khan was on top. *** Mid-South 2.10 Butch Reed vs. Skip Young (9/23/84) Wrestling's Most Fashionable Man 1984 is jawing the fans and his opponent to start. I don't give Young much chance here, Reed looks amazing. Couple of sloppy armdrags from Skip to start. Reed is jawing so much it seems like he wants to win this match through psychological torture alone. Young does look quite dejected in fairness, it might be working. Young applies a headlock. Reed tries to atomic drop himself out of it but it's reversed and Young hits one instead. No no no, this is not what I want to be happening here. I want to see Reed destroying Young's JTTS ass. A pretty lackluster shine sequence. Things pick up for a moment and there is a lot of motion, but Young takes it back to the headlock. He wrenches on it several times which is enough for Reed to fall back. Young thinks he's Bob Backlund here! Finally, Reed pulls out a back suplex. There's our transition. He plays king of the mountain now. Snapmare. Fistdrop. Reed shouts: "He's a fieldhand just like Junk Yard Dog! Come on Boy!" Awesome. Sits in a reverse chinlock now. He presses his knee in between Young's shoulder blades. That's my favourite variant of the reverse chinlock. Now he does something a bit unusual: keeps the chinlock on but lies flat and then uses the ropes for leverage on the chinlock and even tries to make it a pinning predicament, don't see that spot often with the chinlock. All through this Reed is shouting abuse at Young and the ref. This is the sort of thing that can make matwork interesting for me. Reed goes for his second rope splash but Young gets his knees up. He beats his chest to fire up and hits a backdrop. Second-rope missile dropkick then the goes for a crossbody but Reed catches him for a hot shot. Legdrop from the second rope. Good night Irene. That was really enjoyable and a great performance from Reed against a lesser opponent (both as a worker and in kayfabe terms). ***3/4 Mid-South 2.11 The Fantastics vs. Midnight Express (No DQ) (9/28/84) "Please return to your seats. You WILL be arrested ... You MUST CLEAR THE AISLE AND RETURN TO YOUR SEATS" Could this match start off on a better note than that? Fantastics have been dominating proceedings in the early going as you'd expect. A lot of stooging by MX. There's a masked man outside the ring who I am going to assume is Cornette post-head shave (is that angle on the extras?). A punch from him acts as the transition. And MX take over on offense mainly by working Fulton's arm. Double underhook suplex by Eaton -- the correct choice of suplex when you're working someone's arm! There's a big ref bump at the end of this match and the Fulton has Eaton pinned. The ref misses it. Allowing Corny to take Rogers out of commission and Condrey enough time to get in to help Bobby out. They hit a doomsday device and Condrey has Fulton pinned for what seems AN AGE before the ref lumbers back in to make the 3 count. I've seen so many better MX vs. Fantastics matches than this. The ref was badly out of position during the finish. The FIP sequence felt truncated. They didn't really use the "No DQ" stipulation at all beyond Rogers's use of the closed fists. Disappointing. That doesn't mean any of this was bad however, but any time these two aren't having MOTYC type matches it's a disappointment in my book. ***1/2 Mid-South 2.12 Adrian Street vs. Chris Adams (10/10/84) A rare Wales vs. England match up on American soil here. And as I type that Jim Ross says "two athletes hailing from England in this matchup". Listen up Jim Ross and all Americans everywhere, Wales is not in England ok. I'm going to start introducing all my American co-hosts and guests as being "from Canada" until this stops! Boyd Pierce calls Randy "Don't Call Me Peewee" Anderson "Peewee Anderson". Very stiff slap by Adams. Bill Watts is disgusted on commentary. He repeatedly calls Adrian Street a "sissy". In fairness a sissy is basically a wimpy man who acts like a woman, so he's not wrong. Except that there's nothing wimpy about Street which he duly points out. Street does some gnarly work on Adams's leg but Terry Taylor runs out and kisses Miss Linda. Street goes over and starts beating her up!! It was legit shocking the first time I saw it and so it is seeing it a second time. OMG! Match was a bit short and aborted, but the action was good while it lasted. **1/2 Mid-South 2.13 The Fantastics vs. Chavo & Hector Guerrero (10/12/84) Paul Boesch tells us that Hector "has a screw lose somewhere" and then describes Chavo's heel turn on Jose Lothario. Chavo and Fulton exchange snapmares. Rogers comes in to work Chavo's arm, which the Fantastics do to good effect for the next few minutes. However, something happens that I just don't understand at all: Fulton just allows Chavo to tag out. Why? Senseless. Lo and behold Hector is able to take advantage before long. He hits a vertical suplex. The Gurreros are able to isolate Rogers now. There's a spot where Chavo goes for a piledriver and Rogers reveres it into a backdrop. Rogers goes to tag and Chavo grabs his foot to prevent him doing so. What's the conclusion? Chavo is smart and Fulton is an idiot. Another suplex by Chavo. But Rogers manages to get the hot tag now. Fulton comes in guns blazing. Cool finish as Fulton has Hector pinned but the ref doesn't see it and Chavo hits a cool move from the top rope for 3. Good match, but that failure by Fulton to stop Hector tagging was idiotic. ***3/4 Mid-South 2.14 Brickhouse Brown & Master G vs. Butch Reed & Ernie Ladd (10/21/84) This match might be Exhibit A in Bill Watts's "I'm not racist" defence. How many times do you see all four contenders in a tag match being black guys? I'm struggling to think of a single other example. Anyway, Reed and Ladd are contenders for "coolest team ever" in my book. And fairplay to Ladd he's bumping around for these midcard faces. Takes a big backdrop. Master G does some flashy dropkicks and some shuckin and jivin. He's pretty over with the crowd. I'm not sure the name of the spot but it's the one where one guy holds another guys arms behind his back and stretches him -- that spot is the story of the face's control segment here. They have Reed in it for several minutes. Pretty dull stuff. Finally the heels take over and Ladd gives Master G a well-deserved stiff chop to the face and one of his cool-as-fuck double leg drops. He must be about a foot taller than G. Reed comes in and delivers his patented fistdrop. Running bulldog! That gets 2. And now a payback spot: the double arm pull thing again. He puts his boot into Master G's back to really pull on the arms. Belly-to-back suplex! Multiples kneedrops now. Swinging neckbreaker! Elbow drop. This is what I'd want to see with Reed and Master G in the ring together. Ladd comes in and does another aweome legdrop. But Master G fights back and gets the hot tag! Brown's dancing looks ridiculous. But his fire is shortlived as Reed hits a fistdrop while the ref's back is turned and Ladd covers for 3. The longish shine sequence with the faces working Reed's arms was rubbish, but the heel control segment was all kinds of awesome. Butch Reed was bloody amazing in 1984. Reed and Ladd kinda worked this match like the Russians with Ladd as Ivan -- whenever Ladd was in he wouldn't go long before losing advantage. The match was designed to showcase Reed and it achieved that superbly. ***3/4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 Housekeeping Mid-South d2 rankings ****3/4 Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (No DQ) (Tulsa 5/27/84) ****1/2 Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (7/6/84) Magnum T.A. vs. Ted DiBiase (No DQ) (OKC 5/27/84) **** Rock N Roll Express & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Ernie Ladd (6/8/84) The Fantastics vs. Midnight Express (OKC 8/9/84) ***3/4 Brickhouse Brown & Master G vs. Butch Reed & Ernie Ladd (10/21/84) Butch Reed vs. Skip Young (9/23/84) The Fantastics vs. Chavo & Hector Guerrero (10/12/84) ***1/2 The Fantastics vs. Midnight Express (No DQ) (9/28/84) *** Killer Khan vs. Chris Adams (9/9/84) **1/2 Adrian Street vs. Chris Adams (10/10/84) ** Rock N Roll Express & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Ernie Ladd (7/2/84) Dusty Rhodes & Jim Duggan vs. Butch Reed & Hercules Hernandez (8/19/84) The Fantastics & Hacksaw Duggan vs. Midnight Express & Jim Cornette (7/20/84) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 1, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 1, 2014 That Chavo heel turn from Houston is a pretty cool extra. I loved it when Boesch loses his temper here. "You used the same hot substance you gave me as a gift from your father! You ought to be ashamed of yourself" "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!" "I'm taking you off the card ..." This angle was great. And, yes, now Cornette losing his hair in an infamous angles (I've heard the electric clippers weren't working properly or something). Corny has paid off Dr. Death to take out Duggan so Hercules can win the hair vs. hair match. Duggan obviously fires back though and a ton of faces hit the ring to ensure he can shave off Corny's hair without the MX or Herc interfering. He does look legit pained as all this is going on, it's obviously hurting him. Great to have this footage. Amusingly, the crowd starts chanting "Doo-gan! Doo-gan!" Now they get an actual bic razor out. Holy shit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted January 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted January 28, 2014 Trying out new short "substance only / no play-by-play" type reviews now. Time to crack on with New Japan New Japan 2.1 Chavo Guerrero vs. Kengo Kimura (9/30/80) Pretty dreary match for the first 10 mins or so, which felt both aimless and disjointed. Chavo and Kimura looked cool exchanging the high spots in the final stretch; Chavo's backbreaker is especially sweet. Finish was rubbish. **1/2 New Japan 2.2 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ron Starr (9/30/80) Ron Starr looks like he'd hang out with Bob Roob -- or at least they have the same tailor. He looked a bit lost here: wrong country, wrong decade. Neat little story of Fujinami repeatedly trying to pick up the pace and Starr slowing it down. This was almost Fujinami as Flair, making an okay wrestler look very good. That said, I think Starr might have some potential to be good in his own right in another context -- he wasn't offensive in any way and was effective on top for a long stretch of this. He had good intensity, it's just his timing seemed off: possibly hesitancy caused by communication issues? Fujinmai made this match though and it was pretty good. *** New Japan 2.3 Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (9/30/80) Here we go. Remember, I'm trying to be positive about Backlund for the next two months at least and here is a good chance for him to prove that it's simply Vince Sr and WWF booking that is at fault for all my typical criticisms. Here he is in Japan taking on Hansen. So going in, I'm certainly expecting more vulnerability from him in general. After all, it stands to reason: he's not in New York and no one in New York will see this. That was similar to the line I had to buy as justification when he dominated Race. Let's see what happens. A lot of this was "typical Bob": controlling with headlocks and armwork, cutting off Hansen's attempts at taking that control, reversing attempts at highspots, thinking more about fighting back than selling when in holds himself, killing Hansen with a piledriver, etc. etc. We're also a long way from New York here, and he's working in exactly the same way. However, Stan Hansen is a great worker and he's able to make all of this work while not making himself appear too weak despite eating 80%+ of all of the offense. Hansen is able to get enough in to make this seem like a proper fight and retain his heat, but Backlund is in a typically ungenerous mood in terms the extent to which he'd let anyone see that Hansen's offense was phasing him. It's hard to outwrestle Superman. I did say I was going to try to remain positive though ... The work itself was all very good though. Bob had some great moments elbowing Hansen in the head during a portion of struggle on the mat. The match built well and at least felt back and forth even if you count up who got what in, it was nowhere near evens. Crowd were also really into it. I think these two have probably got a better match in them though. ***3/4 New Japan 2.4 Chavo Guerrero vs. Kengo Kimura (11/3/80) This was a really enteraining match and Kimura brought it here. They ramped up the excitement levels and brought some big bombs. Finish was disappointing, but nevertheless a very enjoyable match. ***1/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted February 6, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 6, 2014 New Japan 2.5 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Steve Keirn (11/6/80) Very hard for me to get into this one. Matwork left me stone cold and that's all there was of it.The problem with Keirn's matwork in this match is that it felt like it wasn't doing much more than eating up time. Not blatant Rick-Rude-style restholds but not far off them. Fujinami's legwork was better and the German on the finish was sweet, but blah. ** New Japan 2.6 Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (4/23/81) Feel like I've heard about this match somewhere before. A lot of flash here obviously, but some of this was surprisingly sloppy. Actual botches. There's a moment when Tiger Mask misses DK's head by about a foot but DK still sells it. I do like some of DK's subtle or not so subtle heeling, but this was very very underwhelming in general. I had to go and check the date on the match again to make sure this was the right one. A little baffling as to why this was held up as a classic for so long -- even viewed in context there isn't anything that special about it. Fujinami, for example, has had better matches in this style to date. Honestly thought Tiger Mask was awful in this match. **1/2 New Japan 2.7 Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (4/23/81) Hansen gets the American National Anthem to start, nice to see the Japanese crowd showing their proper respects for it -- If only Nikolai could see this. With this particular haircut, Hansen looks vaguely like a playing card. If you want me to be specific, I'm going to say the Jack of Spades. Yes, I did just compare Stan Hansen to the Jack of Spades, but look at his hair and then look at that card. Now look at Inoki's chin and look at the biggest potato you can find. The chin still has the edge right? Yes, a lot of slow build to this one. I'm amused by the fact that Hansen keeps going back to the chin lock. That's right Stan! You've found Inoki's achilles heel, attack that chin! Sadly this one did not excite like the 5/9/80 match because Inoki was in the sort of mood when he was stubbornly only doing admonible stretches but still kicked out of a lariat and got the three count. I'm tired of this match at this point. Inoki is another guy (like a certain early 80s WWF champion) who never seems to show enough vulnerability for me -- don't think he gave Hansen enough here and I never felt like he was ever in any real danger. ** Post-match we get some sort of career highlight reel for Inoki. I booed. New Japan 2.8 George Takano vs. Stan Lane (7/24/81) Quite interesting to see the young Stan Lane here. Match is nothing to write home about but I was surprised to see him win with a Russian Leg Sweep -- a rather tame finish, no? Takano looked quite spotty to me. ** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted February 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2014 Insomnia can be a real bitch sometimes. New Japan 2.9 Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Pete Roberts & El Solitario (9/4/81) Ok, I hated Pete Roberts in his appearance on the All Japan set and I've not liked Tiger Mask on this one so this one is not promising on paper for me. El Solitario's "bandit" mask is laugh out loud ridiculous. Batman 66 levels. Fujinami is either really sweaty or covered in baby oil. Thought Tiger Mask was really botch-y and awkward yet again. The guy just isn't very smooth. The gutwrench suplex by Roberts on him looked horrible. I still don't really understand what anyone sees in Roberts: exceptionally dull worker, sub-Dory Jr levels for me -- Dory has a sweeter uppercut and better executed snapmares. I will give Roberts this though: he does the Barry Windham-style suplex-rolled-over-into-a-pin, which I've always thought is a swank move. Heels seemed like whipping boys here to me. Some decent action but very underwhelmed by Tiger Mask and still think Roberts sucks. **1/2 New Japan 2.10 Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen (9/23/81) Andre comes out with Arnold Skaaland and seems to be in dick heel mode shoving off fans trying to touch him. Japanese crowd must have been fucking psyched for this. Andre telling the Japanese fans to shut up is awesome. He's working a lot harder here than he was in New York around this time. Andre targetting the lariat arm was interesting because it suggests he fears it. Was also a great that he busted out a suplex. This is the most motivated, technically sound and brutal that I've ever seen Andre. Some fantastic little touches too: for example, grabbing hold of Hansen's arm from an elbow drop. I can't recall seeing that spot ever before. Also interesting that Hansen was kind of in the role of plucky underdog babyface here, which is an extremely untypical context for him. I marked for Andre hitting the lariat on the ref! This was all kinds of awesome. ****3/4 New Japan 2.11 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Isamu Teranishi (10/8/81) Teranishi has a classic look about him, which I like. Some very good solid work here. It's going to be hard to see anyone even coming close to Fujinami for MVP of this set if the first twenty-two months are anything to go by. I really liked Teranishi's left, left, right jab combos. COOL backbreaker too. This was stiff, great strikes, great high spots, awesome finish. Loved this one. Great match! ****1/2 New Japan 2.12 Tiger Mask & Kengo Kimura vs. Negro Navarro & El Signo (10/30/81) Already at the point where I'm actively not looking forward to matches involving Tiger Mask. However, fuck that for a moment: LOOK AT KIMURA'S HAIR! Ha ha, that's amazing. El Signo reminds me of someone. Hmmm, oh yeah, this guy: "Awwww, Irish Coffeee". This one was pretty good. The Mexicans just decked the shit out of Kimura and then Tiger Mask working sort of double heat. Their double teaming was all nasty-looking. Navarro smashing Kimura's head into the mat over and over again, for example, was just plain violent. Navarro in particular here looked like a great worker. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 8, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2014 New Japan 2.13 Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada (11/6/81) Mostly drab matwork punctuated by moments of explosive action. Tiger Mask contines to underwhelm relentlessly. I thought Hamada was mostly disappointing here too. Feel like the match meandered and never really established any sort of narrative or tone. The strikes and high spots were disconnected from the matwork. Failed to cohere. **1/2 New Japan 2.14 Tiger Mask vs. El Canek (12/8/81) I didn't think much of El Canek on the Lucha stuff, so this is not promising. That said, I thought he looked solid here with his clubbing blows and focused work on Tiger Mask's back. This was better than the last match but there's something about Tiger Mask's work that I'm really not enjoying. I was also very disappointed to see El Canek try to do a fucking abdominal stretch during the post-match brawl -- there's real anger for you! ***1/2 New Japan 2.15 Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Andre the Giant & Rene Goulet (12/10/81) Funny to see the flower girls run away from Andre. Andre was just fantastic here -- much better than he's been in WWF 1980 -- and totally carried things from his team's point of view, Goulet just happy to be along for the ride. Fujinami looked like a small boy next to Andre and sold amazingly well for him. Very entertaining match. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2014 Memphis 2.1 Bill Dundee, Steve Keirn, Rick & Robert Gibson vs. Dream Machine, Nightmare #1 & Heartbreakers (7/25/81) Very enjoyable, action-packed 8-man match here that doesn't overstay its welcome. Kerin especially stood out for the faces. I am guessing Nightmare #1 is Ken Wayne, not Danny Davis. ***3/4 Memphis 2.2 Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee vs. Masa Fuchi & Atsushi Onita (8/1/81) lol at Fuchi doing the Flair strut. The Japanese guys really work this Memphis style, stooging it up like nobody's business. I bit too much stupid comedy schtick for my tastes. Made them seem like incompetent idiots. Awesome post-match beatdown and brawl though, as is the look of moral consternation on the faces of Lance Russell and Dave Brown. Love how disappointed they are by this turn of events. **1/2 Memphis 2.3 Ricky Morton & Eddie Gilbert vs. Masa Fuchi & Atsushi Onita (Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl) (9/4/81) Mustard! The ice machine! Fucking insane spots with wooden boards! Tojo Yamamoto slapping a woman! Fuchi weilding a ... BROOMSTICK. Jesus Christ this is nuts. Maybe not as famous as some of the other concession stand brawls, but this was WILD. **** Memphis 2.4 Masa Fuchi, Atsushi Onita & Tojo Yamamoto vs. Roy Rogers, Rick & Robert Gibson (9/5/81) "Roy Rogers" is Johnny Rich, Tommy Rich's brother, fact fans. Onita and Fuchi working as a more competent unit here, they've lost the comedy spots. Tojo still looks like he knows what he's doing in there. The stand-out performer in this match, however, is Masa Fuchi who really brought the offense. Rogers was quite an effective FIP as well. Solid match. ***1/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 19, 2014 Housekeeping New Japan d2 rankings: ****3/4 Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen (9/23/81) ****1/2 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Isamu Teranishi (10/8/81) **** Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Andre the Giant & Rene Goulet (12/10/81) Tiger Mask & Kengo Kimura vs. Negro Navarro & El Signo (10/30/81) ***3/4 Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen (9/30/80) ***1/2 Chavo Guerrero vs. Kengo Kimura (11/3/80) Tiger Mask vs. El Canek (12/8/81) *** Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ron Starr (9/30/80) **1/2 Chavo Guerrero vs. Kengo Kimura (9/30/80) Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (4/23/81) Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada (11/6/81) Tiger Mask & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Pete Roberts & El Solitario (9/4/81) ** Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Steve Keirn (11/6/80) Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (4/23/81) George Takano vs. Stan Lane (7/24/81) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 22, 2014 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2014 Memphis 2.5 Stan Lane & Koko Ware vs. Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton (No DQ, 2/3 Falls) (10/81) It's just occured to me that Gilbert and Morton are like the ULTIMATE FIP ragdoll team. It's like Morton squared or something. Koko Ware looks somewhat different from his WWF incarnation here. He also breaks one of my cardinal rules: dancing. Heels don't dance! Dancing is a babyface thing. Struting like Flair or Michael Hayes is fine, but don't dance. It's neither threatening, nor villainous, and it's hardly an effective way of making the crowd hate you. Even as a wind up to opponents, it's not great psychology. What are they going to think? "Oooohhh, he's dancing!" Heels shouldn't dance, end of. I didn't really enjoy the manner in which the first fall was worked here. Mostly Stan Lane using a boring chinlock with the faces stealing a pin. With some dancing Koko thrown in. This commentator is really annoying too. Who is he? Doesn't really feel like a No DQ match if it is one (mislabelled?) Didn't really understand the pin for the second fall, didn't look like a pin to me. And Koko seemed sluggish during the heat segment. Not a good match at all so far. Third fall didn't do much for me either. I wasn't into this match. ** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBadMick Posted July 23, 2014 Report Share Posted July 23, 2014 Have you stopped on these for a while Parv? I got through the first disc and a half of Mid-South quite quickly, but the constant lack of commentary was off-putting. I don't mind house show matches here and there, but I started missing the Irish McNeills Boys Club Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted March 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2015 Memphis 2.6 Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (No DQ) (3/22/82) Some simple, methodical storytelling here. Lawler takes a chair shot to the leg early on which gives him an ongoing disadvantage. Mantell mostly works on top with punches until he takes it out with a bodyslam on the floor and four or give post shots, which gives Lawler colour. Then Mantell takes things back to the ring with a chair shot and proceeds systematically to dismantle Lawler with pretty much his entire arsenal of offense, including a suplex, slams, splashes from the second rope, and a piledriver. Lawler comes back with punches, but then Mantell cuts him off and gets a flash pin with a sunset flip for an upset win for the title. While the storytelling was logical here, and it was cool watching Mantell go through the gears in the heat segment, I thought this took too long to get going. Also, since Lawler was losing here, I wonder if this was the "right" story to tell. This will sound strange coming from the guy who ragged on Bob Backlund for working too strong as champ week in and week out, but if Mantell was going over, surely Lawler needs to come out of this a bit stronger no? I mean he had his comeback killed here. "Mantell kicks Lawler's ass, he tries to come back but loses anyway" seems an odd story to tell to me. This was good, but not great. *** Memphis 2.7 Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Loser Leaves Town) (3/27/82) Promo from Mantell now. He doesn't like Lawler one bit! Lawler is prepared to have a match on TV. Loser gets a bus ticket out of town. This is worked in a slightly more technical manner than the previous match, which makes sense. But then it starts getting more and more heated until Mantell backs up and gets on the mic and asks for a time out and says "this is stupid, let's stop". He tries to break off the feud in the middle of the match. Ha ha. This has GOT to be a swerve. He wants to team up. Hmmmm, don't do it Jerry!! Mantell sticks his hand out for Lawler to shake. They shake hands. WTF? Are yeah, there it is!! I knew it! Chair shot. Piledriver! Elbow drop! Counts three himself. Ha ha ha ha ha. That was some awesome heeling right there. Pussying out of the match and then suckering Lawler into an ambush. So dastardly. **1/2 for the match, angle is an ****1/2 Memphis 2.8 Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Barbed Wire Match) (3/29/82) Fairplay, they've built to this match well. Barbed wire is just nasty isn't it. The level of punching in this match is just off the charts. Dutch can really throw em, and Lawler's are tremendous too of course. Enjoyed this a lot, awesome slugfest and it's got a bit of the Rocky vs. Mr. T narrative, with Mantell as T punching himself out and running out of gas. This is some good shit right here. Gritty, southern wrestling at its finest.Great intensity throughout. ****1/2 Memphis 2.9 Bill Dundee vs. Sweet Brown Sugar (2/3 falls, Scaffold Match) (6/21/82) I think this is the fabled Kobo B. Ware (Sugar here) scaffold match which is actually meant to be good. Well, let's see ... Dundee looks really stacked here by the way, almost looks like Rick Martel. Okay, now I see what Will's been going on about for the past 4 years. This has a genuine sense of danger and real intensity. Dundee is a guy who impresses the hell out of me whenever I see him. The way he attacks Sugar here is verging on psychotic. I think part of it is that the platform is not as high above the ring as in the Starrcade ones I'm guessing you've all seen. It's still not anything I'd class as "great", but this is probably as good as a scaffold match can be. ***1/2 Memphis 2.10 Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Dutch Mantell & King Cobra (7/19/82) Someone will have to fill me on on how Mantell turned face, but I'm guessing it was a "respect" angle after the brutality of the barbed wire match and how much he gave there. Eaton plays a real snivelling Memphis-y heel here, all stooging, all stalling. Coming in only when on top. He almost works it as if he were Sweet Brown Sugar's manager. But when he does get in, even though he's really young here, it's still Bobby Eaton and he delivers a fucking SWEET scoop powerslam (yeah yeah, "shades of DiBiase", etc., ha ha). His punches are already great here. And he already has his range of cool offense. Nice back suplex at one point. Eaton is the definition of a "super worker". Everything he does in this match is fucking perfect. His elbow drops are poetry. Mantell is a really great FIP here too eating up all of Eaton's offense. Sweet Brown Sugar is no slouch either, and plays his role pretty well throughout. I think Koko Ware was someone who could be led by the right opponent or partner. The double teaming spots were cool as fuck here with Jimmy Hart orchestrating things from the outside. King Cobra was on the hot tag, which was the right role for him too: letting Mantell do the lion's share of the work for his team. Eventually Mantell grabs a bullrope and goes wild for a DQ, but this was a really tight 13-minute tag match. Wow, I wasn't expecting Eaton to be quite as good as that in 1982. It's like he was the finished article before he was ever in the Midnights. He will finish really high on the GWE rankings. Guaranteed top 30. His cap is probably Arn. This was really good. **** Memphis 2.11 Bill Dundee vs. Bobby Eaton (7/24/82) Jimmy Hart cuts a promo before the match complaining that the First Family aren't getting enough airtime. He wants Eaton interviewed. He has a thick thick accent and stumbles over himself a few times too, which explains why he let others talk for him so much later in his career. He's the Mid-America Champion here, which was basically like Memphis's IC title. Mantell wants a shot and Jimmy Hart tells him that he's "bottom of the list". Mantell has the bull rope and forces Hart to sit in a chair by the ring to watch the match. Memphis is very good for this studio shit. Dundee and Eaton cut a really fast pace for this one. Once again, Eaton is fucking tremendous, great at all aspects of the in-ring performance. Cool offense, great level of intensity, great heel psychology (he always makes sure that he breaks a rule as soon as the ref's back is turned), and great selling. Dundee is right there with him. The middle rope snaps after about 10 minutes, but these are two pros who don't let that stop them at all and Dundee takes the title with a flying press. Enjoyed the hell out of this. Just two great workers having a match. After the match the First Family come in as well as some faces for a big ol' pier six brawl. Hart lays in his signature wimpy stomps too. Dundee has colour. Dutch Mantell gets his bull whip out again and I have to say the sight of him cracking it at Sweet Brown Sugar made me wince a bit (if that's too subtle for you: I'm talking about Zeb Colter whipping a black man). **** Memphis 2.12 Jerry Lawler vs. Ric Flair (8/14/82) Flair is here with the NWA title and talks to Lance Russell. Flair is so great here, he toes this line between being respectful but then burying Memphis with faint praise. "After being in big towns like Chicago ..." "I'm going to show these people what a real world champion looks like". The subtext to EVERYTHING he says and does is "I'm big time and this is a rinky dink town, I'm doing you people a favour by being here". He's totally and utterly conceited, totally full of himself, but stays on the side of being vaguely respectful. Another awesome promo from the best in the business -- and very different from his usual. Now we get Lawler on the mic. He wants a word with the champ. This is so awesome. You can tell it's totally eating up Lawler inside. He's the big fish in this pond and who is this strutting prick coming into HIS town? But none of it is stated. All left in the sub-text at the moment. Flair makes out like he's such a big shot that he scarcely knows who Lawler is. Such a bastard, lol. Flair goes on to say that he could go in there and wrestle a broom. The people pay to see him. Ooooh he's being so cheeky tonight. "Who's the little guy with the dark hair again? Oh that's right, Bill Dundee". Just fucking perfect heeling here. Got to know he's rubbing up everyone the wrong way. "Ric Flair, the legend, Ric Flair, YOUR world champion". Lawler reasons that since no one is in his calbire, he suggests that the two of them lock up instead of the scheduled matches. Lawler is doing a great line in blowing smoke up his ass in the most insincere manner possible. He's trying to appeal to Flair's ego in order to get a title shot. "You wouldn't be putting some of that country jive on me now would ya?" - Flair. I've loved every second of this confrontation so far. "The World Champion never puts the title on TV. I don't make $500,000 a year and fly around in private jets defending that title on local TV programs you understand." But then he turns round and gives him the title shot anyway. Flair reckons he's going to take Lawler to school. That was awesome. Like the wrestling equivalent of the Pacino and De Niro showdown in the cafe in Heat. And to anyone wondering "Hmmm that seems like Flair buried Lawler", he doesn't. Just before the match he goes over to Russell and says "I understand that Jerry Lawler is a big deal in this part of the country, and a big deal in professional wrestling" (putting his opponent OVER), "but I'm going to give him this one chance to walk back to the locker room before I embarrass him" (but I'm BETTER). Flair is a God to the promo. He's a fucking GOD. Match finally starts after like 20 minutes of this awesomeness ... The match is billed for only 10 minutes and it's mostly Flair on top and Lawler selling. Flair's chops are stiff as hell. Ric busts out a gutwrench suplex which is not a common move in his repetoire. I love that, when Flair just pulls out a random move you never see him do. He really beats the crap out of Lawler here. Massive standing powerslam. This is almost Flair as monster heel. Vertical suplex and figure-four as the clock runs out. Flair wants to tell everyone that he submitted. So the narrative here is that the World Champ is just that good that he can kick the crap out of Lawler? No, because Flair's hubris gets the better of him and he demands another 5 minutes. Lawler pulls down the strap and the comeback is on. Flair flip. Slam. Fistdrop from the second rope. Flair ups and leaves. Lawler wants him counted out. Flair comes back and he's irate. And he's suddenly flipped to Carolina Flair after being all subtle and soft-spoken earlier. You see all four faces right here brothers, all four faces in forty-odd minutes of tremendous wrestling TV. He pays Jimmy Hart off to put Lawler out of wrestling. Flair is the greatest wrestling personality the world has ever seen and ever will see. I LOVED how this played out. It was a bit like an issue of DC Comics or something, where Batman is suddenly facing off against a Justice-League-level foe or something. Or like Lex Luthor has come to Gotham. Something like that. For the match, ***3/4, for the whole thing *****, wrestling TV doesn't get much better. Flair was so fucking good in this. One of the best things I've seen in wrestling period. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karl Posted March 15, 2015 Report Share Posted March 15, 2015 Those moments where I consider someone other than Flair as my #1 GWE quickly evaporate when I see things like Flair v Lawler - a total package of excellence. Of course, having Lawler to work off would make life easier for anyone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoo Enthusiast Posted March 16, 2015 Report Share Posted March 16, 2015 That one post made me feel like watching all of that stuff again. The Dutch/Lawler stuff is some of my favorite, and Lance Russell is as brilliant as ever during it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted April 25, 2015 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2015 Housekeeping Memphis d2 ratings ****1/2 Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Barbed Wire Match) (3/29/82) **** Ricky Morton & Eddie Gilbert vs. Masa Fuchi & Atsushi Onita (Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl) (9/4/81) Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Dutch Mantell & King Cobra (7/19/82) Bill Dundee vs. Bobby Eaton (7/24/82) ***3/4 Bill Dundee, Steve Keirn, Rick & Robert Gibson vs. Dream Machine, Nightmare #1 & Heartbreakers (7/25/81) Jerry Lawler vs. Ric Flair (8/14/82) ***1/2 Masa Fuchi, Atsushi Onita & Tojo Yamamoto vs. Roy Rogers, Rick & Robert Gibson (9/5/81) Bill Dundee vs. Sweet Brown Sugar (2/3 falls, Scaffold Match) (6/21/82) *** Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (No DQ) (3/22/82) **1/2 Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee vs. Masa Fuchi & Atsushi Onita (8/1/81) Jerry Lawler vs. Dutch Mantell (Loser Leaves Town) (3/27/82) ** Stan Lane & Koko Ware vs. Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton (No DQ, 2/3 Falls) (10/81) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 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. **** Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JerryvonKramer Posted May 22, 2015 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 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) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man in Blak Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 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. B Someone uploaded this to Youtube but, oddly enough, everything from Armstrong slamming Dibiase into the turnbuckle to Ted escaping the sleeper is apparently cut, so you don't really get to see Armstrong's comeback or Dibiase's ability to feed, as mentioned here. (Extra motivation for seeking out the set, right? ) I think "shades of Savage vs. Steamboat" for the sequence of nearfalls early on is overselling it a bit, but the rest of what's uploaded is a decent little match that could be considerably enhanced by Armstrong's missing comeback. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted May 22, 2015 Report Share Posted May 22, 2015 I want to respond to one thing.... that Street match isn't the worst that Mid South has to offer. Obviously when putting the list together, we liked it enough to out it on the set. It's just that the voters didn't like it as much as us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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