I jumped into some of these Mid-South Wrestling tapes after my recent Shreveport Municipal Auditorium deep dive. I'm oddly fascinated with Mr. Wrestling II, he's just a crabby old asshole that just happens to casually always wear a mask that looks like dirty underwear.

I skipped to the April 13th 1985 episode of Mid-South, I do love that intro music it's like some Sega music.

Bill Watts rips Vince/New York and Wrestlemania in the opening monologue, he says they are taking credit for a wrestling renaissance but wrestling has been on a roll since 1970. He says that the way they took an actor and put him in a match that's balony! I don't eat the shit so I don't know how to spell it.

Back on these Mid-South tapes from 1985 and I'm really hooked into this universe. Once you catch the vibe of a weekly wrestling show and you're just into it it's so cool.

I love how Bill Watts is like the ultimate crusader of the legitimacy of wrestling. He gives his approval of Dave Shultz slapping John Stossell.

You got motherfuckers getting lit up with a bull whip from Dutch Mantel. That's pretty hardcore. Especially once he takes the whip to The Snowman, who is a jacked black character who takes the whip from him and cuts a pretty intense promo about picking cotton and sitting on the back of the bus. I'm surprised this one made it to the Peacock without any disclaimer. 

The shows in the Superdome are so dark. It's interesting because I recently just watched the NFL Films lost treasures episode covering their Super Bowl films and they went into depth about how dark the Superdome was for Super Bowl XII in 1978 they had so much trouble getting any footage for the game because of the lighting being so bad. The Super Bowl XII film was always my least favorite of the classic Super Bowl films because the Superdome being so dark just kinda killed the whole vibe and mystique the game had(something pointed out in the Lost Treasures episode, the previous Super Bowls and the ones after XII were mostly all in daytime sun bathed Rose Bowl or LA Coliseum in Cali or palm tree laden Orange Bowl in Florida). 

Once we settled here in East Texas I always found it odd that the only TV channels we could pick up were Shreveport Louisiana. So a lot of Sundays the only games that came on were Saints games, and I hated how dark and weird the games always looked on TV in that Dome. It was something different than Oilers games in the Astrodome I can't put my thumb down on, it was just darker, bigger, more dreary, and those Saints teams being mostly dreadful from 94 to 99 only added to it I think. Maybe it was because the Astrodome was smaller and more intimate than the Superdome but it just felt more colorful and alive than the Saints games did even when the Oilers were bad, I think a Super Bowl in the Astrodome would have looked good, it definitely gave Mania X-7 a great vibe.

The mid south tapes hit pretty hard at 2AM similar to ECW but in a old reruns of 80’s tv shows kind of way.

Not sure but I feel like I missed something with Magnum and Mr. Wrestling II, that feud was picking up around the time of the tv title tournament then it felt like they both vanished. Maybe I skipped ahead too far but most of the storylines from those tapes are still going including Snowman winning that tv title tourney.

Snowman is a guy I had never seen or heard of prior to these. He’s got a really good right hand punch that looks good and good promos, plus jacked.

Interesting seeing guys like Brad Armstrong and Tommy Rodgers in the prime of their lives here, I only know these guys from being older jobbers in 1998, but these were definitely different versions. Brad Armstrong clearly just gave up on weight lifting at some point in there it seems, he’s much more jacked here.

Hacksaw Jim Dugan in those sunglasses and that bandanna might be the single most 80’s thing there ever was.

The Superdome was pitch black for some clips they showed from Muhammad Ali helping Snowman fight Dutch Mantell. I’m assuming they blacked it out so you couldn’t see all the empty seats.

Always interesting psychological study to analyze wrestling promoters that just couldn’t fight that urge to book themselves into the show in a prominent role. Watts dusts off the gear to help Duggan fight Akbar and Kamala is pretty cringe.



Dibiase and Dr. Death are a pretty boss duo, they really stand out and look really bad ass together on these tapes.

But something about these tapes the continuity feels better from show to show than the Crockett or WCCW stuff from this era. Storylines and characters just seem to have a better flow from week to week, I could never get hooked on the Crocket or WCCW weeklies like I am with these.

And I’ve made it to the debut of Lord Humongous, quite possibly the most bad ass motherfucker I have ever seen.

Man these Midsouth tapes are hitting the spot, I've made it up to October 1985. Lord Humongous vs a jobber named Tony Hawk was just glorious. They ram the guy's head into Lord Humongous' Jason Voorhees mask until he's bleeding all over the place. Then Humongous gets tagged in and lifts the dude up military press style for a pretty awesome visual. Then Humongous finished the dude with the million dollar dream hold but this was just such an amazing scene with the blood and the way he was doing the hold, pure fucking savagery, epic of the cinema.

I approve of this Midsouth Lord Humongous '85. Havent there been like a ton of promotions try to do this style character? Wasn't Batista like a Lord Humongous in Ohio Valley?

Everyone tried to lift from Mad Max, the WWE even tried this recently during Karrion Kross' first stint.

Fans hated it and Kross was let go not long after.

Sid also played him in Memphis, which shouldn't come as a shock because Lawler LOVES comic books.

Neo Zeed the Lord Humongous gimmick started in mid 80s Memphis (of course) and rapidly spread like wildfire throughout the remaining Southern territories. Sid is the most famous wrestler to use the gimmick. Also remember reading a young Bull Buchanan played the character somewhere. None of the other Lord Humongi made it big, though Kane played a character called Doomsday in dying day USWA to prepare for his main roster run that was awfully close to a Lord Humongous. Come to think of it early Kane borrowed heavily from Lord Humongous.

Batista didn't do a Lord Humongous gimmick in OVW. He was closer to the Purple Haze from 80s Florida. Maybe this is where Bull Buchanan used the gimmick?

Bad timing on your part because just the other day I watched a match from Stampede with a wrestler wearing a hockey mask and thought it was stupid. Why is a wrestler allowed to wear a hockey mask in regular matches? Shouldn't that be against the rules?

While I'm here have you come across the infamous Mid South "Potato Video" yet? This is something I read about years ago but have never been able to find. It's a highlight video of stiff shots with Watts or JR crowing about how this is REAL RASSLIN not like that fake stuff from New York you see over on the other channel. If you do come across it remember the date and lemme know asap so I can finally see it for myself.

I had no idea Sid was Lord Humongous, I had to google the pics and yes that is fucking awesome.

I sure will keep an eye out for that video haha. I feel like I may have already missed it, I started around the time of Wrestlemania I and Bill Watts was on an anti-WWF crusade when I jumped into these tapes. I fell asleep a few nights and I think I missed a few chunks of episodes that autoplayed. I'm already up to the end of the year(or close to it).

I love the aspect of Mid-South that it's like this southern regional thing, guys from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, but the guys who are from Texas are made out to be like a next level of tough just because they are from Texas, I dig that haha.

I'm seeing a separate show on the Network, Power Pro, was this the b-show? The national show?

I also really dig that the credits for the weeklies show that this weekly Mid-South show was airing on the same regional Shreveport network that we get here where I live, I can't remember the call letters but that is really cool seeing that. This was the wrestling that they got on TV here on the antenna back in the day, I can feel the vibe.

No footage of any of the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium shows have popped up at all, not even a clip. They were running it on a regular basis and the venue was gorgeous so I find it weird that it was never on their TV. They really never show much of the Superdome cards either outside of a small clip here and there like a highlight. I guess that was like their business model was to draw fans to those shows through these weeklies filmed in the boys club, to give away those matches routinely on TV I think would have been the equivalent of WWF or WCW just giving away PPV matches on Mondays(nobody will buy the PPV if they know it will come on TV free).

I tried to get into some 1996 WCW and WWF hoping to find some inspiration for my fan fiction but surprisingly it's been these mid-south tapes that have gotten the creative juices flowing. I can't quite put my thumb down on what exactly it is but there is just something about the week to week flow of it all that works so well for me.

Also I love the hokey pokey old country guy commentator guy that did the ring announcing, I love the way he says "Al Perez and Wendell Cooley". Al Perez had a fucking sweet german suplex with the best bridge I've ever seen outside of Taz.

Nobi’s got me hyped to talk some Mid South/UWF. Going to break all the recent discussion off into its own thread when I get back to my laptop. Oh, and I finally found the Potato Video! Will share it later.

Yes this is very sweet I was just thinking about starting a devoted thread then I looked ahead and the episodes they have on Peacock stop with the first episode of January 1986, huge bummer. May have to see if I can download some, I definitely want to keep watching through the transition into UWF. I also had like 5 more posts I wanted to spam in the Match review thread last night so this was a good idea.

There is no amazing wrestling in the ring or anything, and nothing about any of the stories makes me want to do backflips or anything but there is just something about it here all the characters and the way the shows are booked, the whole vibe of the fed, altogether it works so well from week to week. I have enjoyed it a lot more than the Crockett or WCCW stuff I've seen from this era(even though those have better matches, and maybe some bigger angles).

Got to put myself over real quick before getting back to the Mid South chatter. Fear not Nobi. I'll answer a bunch of your questions after this post. Then I'll have two more nights/posting sessions of Mid South/UWF stories. Shootist that other project we discussed is on hold for a few days.

Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me. Spent a good hour or two following clues, tracking down leads in order to find the Potato Video. Narrowed it down to sometime between September 85-December 85 after scrolling through a bunch of ancient Angelfire sites. Then I combed through a bunch of Youtube videos before finally hitting the jackpot.

It's basically a cross between the old WWF "don't try this at home" disclaimers and Botchamania with a side of Bill Watts savagery. The Monday Night War was a genteel tea party compared to bitter Bill. Timestamped for your convenience...

Feb 18, 2023 3:54:54 GMT Neo Zeed said:

1. I love the aspect of Mid-South that it's like this southern regional thing, guys from Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Oklahoma, but the guys who are from Texas are made out to be like a next level of tough just because they are from Texas, I dig that haha.

2. I'm seeing a separate show on the Network, Power Pro, was this the b-show? The national show?

3. I guess that was like their business model was to draw fans to those shows through these weeklies filmed in the boys club, to give away those matches routinely on TV I think would have been the equivalent of WWF or WCW just giving away PPV matches on Mondays(nobody will buy the PPV if they know it will come on TV free).

4. Also I love the hokey pokey old country guy commentator guy that did the ring announcing, I love the way he says "Al Perez and Wendell Cooley".

1. lol Enjoy it while you can because the upcoming Dr. Death super babyface push is all about Oklahoma! Boomer Sooner! OKLAHOMA! Yeah! I like Doc and all, but they go so overboard with the OKLAHOMA~! stuff it becomes a turnoff. Barry Switzer even makes an appearance or two!   

2. Power Pro apparently was the b show. I was not aware of that. What's the main Mid South program called?

Territory wrestling tv is weird. Different markets got slightly different versions of the tv show. Sometimes it's just different promos for different markets. That I can understand. Other times the changes are more drastic. For example in Memphis they got the live 90 minute show on Saturday mornings. Then they'd ship a trimmed down 60 minute tape of the show out to the other markets in the territory. 

When I got a bunch of Mid South/UWF tapes around the turn of the century they came from the Houston feed. Houston was a weird animal. It was an independent city run by Paul Boesch rather than part of any territory. Think only St. Louis was similar here in the States. Houston was affiliated with Watts, and used mostly Watts guys for their monthly(?) shows, but they'd also bring in some World Class guys, and AWA Champ Nick Bockwinkel on occasion, neither of whom had anything to do with Mid South. So I imagine those Houston tapes I watched were a little bit different than, say, the New Orleans, Tulsa, or Shreveport shows. 

3. Yep. House Shows were still the big money maker. The local Mid South economy going through a slump in 87 was long rumored to be what caused Watts to sell, though in recent years the popular story has become Watts saw Wrestlemania III, knew he couldn't complete, and immediately went looking for a buyer. Getting back to the live event thing, even WWF was still primarily a house show business during the first few years of my fandom. A large chunk of Superstars & Challenge were devoted to local promos hyping the upcoming house shows in my area. This continued all the way into 1996!

4. lmao I know EXACTLY what you mean about Al Perez and Wendell Kewwwley. If you know, you know. That guy is Boyd Pierce and he rules. Always got a kick out of how he's this old country gentleman who dresses more flamboyantly than the 6th Doctor. New avatar time.

Feb 19, 2023 1:45:22 GMT Baker said:

Got to put myself over real quick before getting back to the Mid South chatter. Fear not Nobi. I'll answer a bunch of your questions after this post. Then I'll have two more nights/posting sessions of Mid South/UWF stories. Shootist that other project we discussed is on hold for a few days.

Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me. Spent a good hour or two following clues, tracking down leads in order to find the Potato Video. Narrowed it down to sometime between September 85-December 85 after scrolling through a bunch of ancient Angelfire sites. Then I combed through a bunch of Youtube videos before finally hitting the jackpot.

It's basically a cross between the old WWF "don't try this at home" disclaimers and Botchamania with a side of Bill Watts savagery. The Monday Night War was a genteel tea party compared to bitter Bill. Timestamped for your convenience...

Oh man that is so fucking beautiful. God I love you. Midsouth asks no quarter and gives none 

There have been quite a few moments that I'm surprised are on the Peacock. I read a while back that they cut out some of the more un-PC stuff out of the WWF Network when they put it on there so when Butch Reed told Dick Slater's girlfriend that black guys treat their women differently than white guys, they will smack a bitch, I was pretty stunned. You get the racism here mixed with violence against women for the double whammy(plus this was in an angle that pretty much implied that women's place was at home doing the dishes, not mixing it up with the wrestlers). We also had Dutch Mantell putting the bull whip on The Snowman in another scene. They certainly did not shy away from race in Mid-south storylines it was a part of the territory and it was incorporated into the show for sure, JYD being pushed as the big star had to have been pretty controversial for other promoters around the country at that time. It's interesting because living here it has crossed my mind what type of storylines and characters would draw money in wrestling here and some of the race cards played by Mid-south kind of fit my image I had for the territory in modern times. 

Baker would have been one of the fans writing letters to the office about Lord Humongous' hockey mask. Get the pen and paper and some stamps. Jake Roberts brings it up in a promo how much bullshit it is but they play this up in mid-south a lot that the heels are able to use the fucked up legal system that we live in to do shit like this, you know nowadays you can get a lawyer to sue anybody, hell they will sue each other. So Jake gets the idea to bring his own hockey mask in a jobber squash this is beautiful. Jake The Snake in a Jason Voorhees mask against Lord Humongous yes lets do this.

Discovering Sid as Lord Humongous and seeing Baker properly use the plural form gives me so many ideas for the next few fan fic drafts. 

Feb 19, 2023 9:42:58 GMT Neo Zeed said:

Baker would have been one of the fans writing letters to the office about Lord Humongous' hockey mask. Get the pen and paper and some stamps. 

This got a legit chuckle out of me. 

Dear Mr. Watts,

Please force Lord Humongous to remove his mask before wrestling. It gives him an unfair advantage over the other wrestlers. While I have your attention, please do something about Mr. Dibiase's black glove as well. I don't understand why you employ so many cheaters. The other day I watched some of that newfangled WWF wrestling and was relieved to see none of their wrestlers wore a hockey mask or resorted to pulling out a loaded black glove when in jeopardy. Please do better. 

Yours truly,
Claude T. Baker
==============
Shame on Neo Zeed and I for discussing Lord Humongous this long without putting over the dreaded Shininomaki. Somebody needs to bring that back. 

Finally a PW name change I can get behind. Neo Zeed  inspired me to watch some real Wendell Cooley and the video I found contained so much glorious cowboy shit I felt compelled to share it...



Am I a Wendell Cooley Guy now? You betcha. Though I'll confess to thinking him bland and forgettable when I went on my Mid South/UWF binge in 00-01. Al Perez was pretty bland too, but I viewed him as the star of the team simply because of that sweet bridging German Suplex. Not many guys doing that here in the States circa 1985. 
============
*Got time tonight so I'm going to drop the first of two lengthy Mid South/UWF posts. This one will be more of a storytime while the next one will focus more on the actual product. 

You know you're old when you actually watched UWF on tv. It aired Saturday mornings here on either WBFF 45 or WNUV 54 a few hours before the WWF shows came on. I've never been able to pinpoint exactly when I started watching UWF, but I'm guessing it was a few weeks, maybe a month, after I started watching WWF. Pretty sure I discovered NWA on January 24, 1987 (three weeks after discovering WWF) so I likely discovered UWF around the same time, if not that very same day since I was now actively seeking out wrestling. Anyway, this post will be dedicated to my memories of watching UWF as a youngster and the impact it had on me as a wrestling fan.

Truth is I don't remember much about it! A few of their wrestlers always stuck with me, but I likely forgot just as many as I remembered, and only one angle stuck with me through all those years. In the end I managed to come away with four big takeaways from watching UWF as a child in 1987...

1. The Top 10 Rankings- Loved this. I became a college football fan during the 1986 season and the UWF Top 10 reminded me of the CFB Top 20 (you know you're old when the CFB rankings only went down to 20 rather than 25!). When a wrestler in the Top 10 came out I'm sure I paid extra close attention because it meant that wrestler was important. Of course, I reckon it also worked the other way where I assumed wrestlers outside the Top 10 were ham and eggers. Anyway, I was such a mark for the UWF Top 10 that my 1991 "chalkboard" wrestling figure league revolved around the concept. Their Top 10 rankings honestly stuck with me longer than like 90% of their actual wrestlers and for years I'd pop anytime I saw another promotion bring it back.

2. Dr. Death: The Badass Babyface Who Wrestled With A Broken Freaking Arm- Doc was my favorite UWF guy and it all boils down to the one UWF angle that always stuck with me. A bad guy or two broke Doc's arm. Deliberately, maliciously, and with cruel intentions they broke this poor man's arm.

Kiddie me was appalled, sickened even. I was so new to wrestling that I still believed it was real. The idea of wrestling being worked never even crossed my mind until my dad dickishly broke kayfabe by telling me wrestling was fake sometime later that year. What a punch to the gut that was. It was like finding out the truth about Santa Claus...for 5 minutes. Then I got over it and spent the next 8 years largely treating wrestling like it was real even though I knew the truth deep down.

The point of all this is I genuinely believed these bad guy wrestlers just straight up broke a poor man's arm for real on national tv. That is super messed up! I felt so bad for poor Doc. But then he came back! With a cast on arm! And started wielding his cast arm as a weapon! Hell yeah! The bad guys probably complained about it. Tough cheese! Don't break a poor man's arm if you don't want to get hit with a cast!

This broken arm angle made Doc a Baker Guy for life. Until discovering Taz a decade later in 97, I thought Dr. Death was the greatest "badass" wrestler I had ever seen. Don't think I saw a single Doc match from late 89 to late 95, but he was still a guy I'd bring up/think about during that period. Oh, and for years, all the way to 1998 iirc, I thought the Oklahoma Stampede was not a running powerslam, but that running in place-three point stance-forearm to the face he used during this period. Tbh I still think that makes for a better Oklahoma Stampede than the Powerslam. See, the jogging in place to psych himself up WAS the Stampede!

Years later I would discover those bad guy wrestlers who did the dastardly deed were Dick Murdoch and the late, great Eddie Gilbert. Doc finally won the UWF Championship a few months after they broke his arm, but I have no real time recollection of that momentous moment. 

3. All Non-WWF Promotions Work Together By Sharing Wrestlers- Bill Watts sold the UWF to NWA owner Jim Crockett in April 1987. By May 1987 Crockett and his people were in charge of UWF tv. Before long UWF tv was filled with NWA wrestlers while the UWF guys slowly trickled over to NWA tv. Kiddie me obviously had no idea who owned what or what had taken place behind the scenes. I just saw NWA wrestlers on UWF tv and vice versa so I quite naturally concluded the promotions were allies sharing wrestlers. Because of this NWA/UWF crossover I spent the next EIGHT YEARS believing all non-WWF promotions worked together by exchanging wrestlers. 

4. One Man Gang & Ted Dibiase Jump To WWF- Gang was UWF Champ for the first few months I watched the promotion but an even bigger claim to fame in my book is Gang being the first wrestler I ever saw jump from another televised promotion to my beloved WWF. He was the same in WWF as he had been in UWF- a big, mean, nasty monster heel. Ted Dibiase, on the other hand, is a completely different story...

Dibiase jumped from UWF to WWF a few months after Gang. Dibiase had been one of the top good guys in UWF- #2 or even 1a to Doc- and his bank account was never mentioned on UWF tv. Now he's suddenly a millionaire bad guy in WWF. This blew my young, underdeveloped mind. I had so many questions. SO MANY! Remember, I still thought wrestling was real! I don't remember if I came up with the idea on my own, or my dad kept kayfabe like a champ and fed me the idea, but what I came to believe is Ted Dibiase became corrupted by his newfound wealth after winning millions in the lottery. 

Mr. Wrestling 2 was so good at being the crabby old asshole, his being such a good, good guy is a little bit shocking.

The year is 2000-2001. ECW is dead or dying. I had lost interest in my local indie (MCW) and lost interest in the indie fed I had followed closest online (APW). Wasn't following the new WWF developmental feds (OVW, MCW & UPW) as closely as I had followed PPW in 98-99 either. WOW was good campy fun, but it was only a one hour show per week, had no back catalogue to catch up on, and I was under no illusion that it was actually good. WCW was an Evil Empire in decline, but still a potentially dangerous Evil Empire I could never support. I had watched nearly all the classic WWF & NWA pay per views years earlier, binged on late 80s NWA compilations, and had oodles of white box ECW super shows in my tape collection. 

So to scratch that alternative wrestling itch I looked back in time to the territories. Up to this point other things had always taken precedent over the collection of regional alphabet soup promotions from the 80s, but I was finally ready to take the plunge after binge reading about the territories on Kayfabe Memories and John McAdam's tape page, which included lengthy, detailed show descriptions with accompanying star ratings. Fwiw I ordered all my territory tapes during this period from the future podcaster. 

Anyway, Memphis was a no brainer because Lawlermania. SMW falls into a similar boat. And finally there was Mid South. After years of alternating between ignoring the sourpusses and giving them the business, I had finally started listening a little, but just a little, mind you, to those crotchety, Vince-hating old timers. They liked Memphis. They liked World Class. They loved Crockett. And they REALLY loved Mid South. To the more elderly subset of turn of the century smarkdom Bill Watts' Mid South remained the gold standard for professional wrestling. So I added a bunch of Mid South to the Memphis & SMW so I could finally see what all the fuss was about. By no means have I seen every Mid South show, but I have seen a fair amount. More than enough to pronounce judgment....

It was....alright. I was honestly not blown away. Though I did prefer it to SMW, it really fell into that same "just kind of there" category. It just didn't knock my socks off the way Memphis was doing, and Crockett had done a few years earlier. Part of the problem was I didn't have A Guy in Mid South (at least not until it became UWF in 86, but that's a story for later). Flair in Crockett & Lawler in Memphis were transcendent, one in a million type talents, while Dundee and the PROPER Midnight Express weren't far behind them. Mid South lacked that one must see wrestler for me. Plus a lot of the angles that must have seemed so transcendent 15 years earlier now came across as hokey Southern rasslin' tropes I had seen a bunch of times before. I dismissively rag on most modern wrestling for being Johnny Bootsandtights: Good Wrestler Guy vs. Joey Blacktrunks: Good Wrestler Guy in Meltzer bait swing dance competitions. Well, Mid South's bread and butter of Johnny Bootsandtrunks: Badass Southern Good Guy vs. Joey Blacktrunks: Badass Southern Bad Guy in slow brawls isn't much better. Hate to keep being That Guy, but the wide variety of CHARACTERS is why I'll always be an 87-00 WWF Guy at the end of the day no matter how much wrestling I watch. 

Enough rambling. Time to get down to business and put over the Mid South stuff that DID knock my socks off... 

-Butch & Buddy were a great double act with Reed as the no nonsense badass and Landel as his wimpy, obnoxious hype man. They had this one (dare I say it?) sports entertainment segment in a gym that is just tremendous. 

-Mr. Wrestling 2 transforming from an obnoxious babyface whose appeal will forever be lost on me* into a proto Mr. Backlund who hates Magnum TA was also tremendous. Ed knows what's up. 
*Babyface MW2 is a middle aged man in tighty whiteys** with a penchant for getting jiggy with it. I don't get it! 
**I've also seen people validly describe his trunks as a diaper.

-The Flair/Dibiase/Murdoch angle/match. Best thing Mid South ever did, though one UWF angle does come awfully close.

-Barry Darsow's transformation from a good natured Midwestern farm boy into an evil Russian sympathizer was surprisingly well done.

-Bobby Eaton. Didn't think his stock could rise any higher in my eyes, but seeing him basically bodyslam himself against immobile lumps like Watts & JYD STAGGER LEE, and bump like a pinball for their slow punches, along with Mr. Wrestling 2's knee lifts, made me appreciate Beautiful Bobby even more than I already did. What a talent. Surprisingly don't recall any great Midnight Express matches in Mid South, but Eaton definitely had some great performances.

The Bad: If I had heard Skandor Akbar cut just one more promo on "Hippy Jim Dooooogan" I'm pretty sure I'd have pulled a Tracy Smothers and committed ultra mega mass homicide. They're all the same! Year after year of Akbar cutting the same promo on Hippy Jim Dooooogan with the only change being Akbar's Monster of the Month. Brutal.

While I'm here, I still can't stand Duggan. You hear "he was great in Mid South!" Better, yeah, ok, I'll grant you that. Not hard to be better than a 0/10! But I wouldn't say great. Far from it! Dude still annoyed the hell out of me. I'll just never be a Jim Duggan guy. And his "Spear" finisher is even worse than that stupid O-Zone/Play of the Day everybody hates. Edge is Goldberg compared to Mid South Duggan's dainty little "Spear."

The famous Duggan/Dibiase multiple stipulations match is worth a watch though. It's not my favorite Mid South match, but it is up there. It's all punches and selling, but there's a poetry to it. This has to be the only time I've ever thought of a match as poetic lol. Should probably bump this up to the "Good Stuff" category. Meh. Can't bring myself to put Duggan in a "good" category. Moving on...

The tapes I got were from the Houston feed. They'd air select house show matches on tv. The 'proper' episode of Mid South tv may not have blown me away, but it was usually an easy, breezy watch....until you got to the house show matches. These were BRUTAL. They were dimly lit, joined in progress affairs, typically still featuring 10+ minutes of headlocks and armbars before the finish, which was usually some kind of schmozz. If you were lucky, you might get some slow brawling to break up the headlock & armbar monotony. 

*That ran way long. Got one more post to make on 1986 UWF which was the peak of the territory imo. I finally had not just one guy, but two! 

Getting hyped knowing an ode to peak Eddie Gilbert is near.

Feb 22, 2023 2:50:08 GMT Kilgore said:

Getting hyped knowing an ode to peak Eddie Gilbert is near.

Love how you just know. Working on it now. 

1986 UWF: The Peak of the Territory

*Turns out I have nothing better to do tonight. Might as well get this Mid South/UWF kick out of my system now so I can move on to the project Shootist suggested.

I stopped using McAdam as my territory tape supplier after he sent me the wrong Memphis tape and never did anything to correct his mistake. A few months after that initial dive into Memphis/Mid South/SMW I came across a new tape guy named Brandon who had every single episode of UWF tv on (I believe) a 17 volume collection. Figured I'd start at the beginning and work my way up to the stuff I vaguely remembered watching as a kid in 87.

Something about these UWF tapes hit the spot in a way McAdam's Mid South tapes rarely did. Still wasn't as good as Memphis or NWA/Crockett....or WWF, ECW, and the better periods of WCW, but I did enjoy them. Maybe the move from Shreveport to Tulsa improved the vibes? Maybe Jim Ross had reached the peak of his commentary powers? (JR really was great here. His ALWAYS ON 10 commentary made bad stuff decent, decent stuff good, and good stuff great.) Maybe simply changing the name from Mid South to UWF made it feel more "big time" to this Vince disciple? Or perhaps it simply boils down to having Michael P.S. Hayes and "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert at the peak of their powers...

Hayes & Gilbert were my guys. They basically played the same character, which is weird now that I stop to think about it, but it still worked. Both were shit stirring wrestler/manager heels in the style of mid 80s Piper and they were both TREMENDOUS at it. 

Neo Zeed recently started a thread explaining his 180 on Yokozuna. Well, I'm not sure I've ever done a stronger 180 than I did on Hayes & Terry Gordy (Buddy Roberts still sucked tho) and it's all because of these tapes. I couldn't stand the Freebirds growing up. Thought they were most overrated "legends" this side of Roddy Piper. I just didn't get it. Told the story before of how seeing the ECW Arena crowd give 1996 Terry Gordy the 1987 Hulk Hogan pop was one of the biggest mind screws of my wrestling fandom. 

In storyline the Freebirds were the hottest free agents in the business so Watts signed them to a million dollar contract when Mid South transformed into UWF. 2001 me was like "LOL worst free agent signing since Bobby Bonilla. It's no wonder he went out of business a year later." Jokes on me because the Freebirds (or at least Hayes & Gordy) actually ruled.

1986 UWF was basically The Freebird Show starring motormouthed heat magnet Michael P.S. Hayes. "Purely Sexy" ("Prissy Sissy" to his enemies) was all over tv running his big mouth to start feuds with every top babyface on the roster. He also did a lot of commentary alongside JR. They were a good commentary team.

Gordy upset the final Mid South Champion Hacksaw Jim Duggan (who was forced to relinquish his old belt) in the finals of a super hyped tournament to become the first UWF Champion. Again, what started out as "LOL at UWF giving their new 'World' Championship to a tag team specialist who sucks even at being a tag team specialist." transformed into "Damn. Terry Gordy is actually really good." Dude could go. He was a near 300 pound machine in the ring with great 80s offense (his piledriver is up there with anyone while only Dynamite Kid had more snap in his suplexes) who also bumped like a man one hundred pounds lighter, while Hayes stirring the pot on his behalf kept him firmly planted on the heel side and ensured his matches would be super heated. Duggan, Dibiase, Dr. Death, Terry Taylor, and eventually fellow heel One Man Gang were the top contenders and night after night Gordy would survive this murderer's row of challengers. The Doc/Gordy series is highly recommended. Only the Flair/Dibiase match I mentioned in a previous post tops the Doc/Gordy series in Mid South/UWF history in my book.

Great as Hayes was, my man Eddie Gilbert might have been even better. He was around towards the end of the Mid South days, but this is where he really hit his stride if I have my timeline right. There's an all time great angle with Gilbert & Watts I don't want to spoil, but no less an authority than Paul Heyman himself has called it his favorite angle of all time. Oh, while we're at it, Raven has said watching UWF while he was at the University of Delaware is what made him decide to become a pro wrestler. The ECW connection continues with ROH's Gabe admitting the ROH Championship design was lifted straight from the UWF Championship.

Gilbert ran a stable called Hot Stuff International. It later merged into Hyatt & Hot Stuff International when he joined forces with his real life girlfriend or wife Missy Hyatt (more on her in a minute). Members of Gilbert's stable included young up and comers Sting & Rick Steiner. Yep, this is where both future legends got their first big break. Gilbert was also a sneaky good squasher who could be downright brutal to the poor job guys. A Gilbert squash of Jimmy Backlund (a young Jimmy Del Rey) has always stuck with me as an especially brutal one.

My gut says the Watts angle made Gilbert even more hated than Hayes. "Hot Stuff" had white hot heat after that. Eddie's father Tommy Gilbert was their head referee and even Eddie's own old man was like "Yeah, sorry about my asshole son. I didn't raise him to be like this. If it makes you feel any better I can't stand him either." Watts was good at little touches like that.

Legend has it Eddie started going off script to get Watts to fire him so he could go to WWF. Only the plan would backfire when Watts himself decided Eddie's improv was better than the original ideas. So rather than fire Gilbert, Watts offered him the role of head booker. Eddie accepted the promotion and would later say it was the only thing that could have made him stay.

Missy Hyatt was another standout performer UWF as the ditzy, yet evil, valet. She was basically 1996 Sunny a full decade earlier in 1986. There's a Houston house show from this period where the main draw was Missy Hyatt in a dunk tank. I swear this happened! They sold a show largely on the promise of fans being able to get that jezebel Missy Hyatt wet. Tremendous. The rest of her career was meh at best, but Missy ruled in UWF. Trust me on this one.

Duggan, Dr. Death, Dibiase, and the forever meh Terry Taylor were the top babyfaces roughly in that order. This is when Doc really came into his own. I honestly don't remember much about him in Mid South, but the Gordy feud was the bee's knees, and he never looked back. Bill Watts used himself as a special attraction for years who would come out of retirement every few months to fight the top heel of the moment. I have mixed feelings on Watts. He's great on commentary. Nobody was better at kayfabe b.s. The man was a straight up artist when it came to explaining weird 'only in wrestling' things. But, like most in his position, he could never stay out of the spotlight for long. Here he spends a lot of time beefing with my dudes Gilbert & Hayes.

The Sheepherders vs. Fantastics carried the tag division while One Man Gang was the resident monster heel. A Sheep/Fans brawl at the 1986 Crockett Cup got the rare 5 star treatment from Meltzer, but I've never seen that one. Chavo Guerrero was a midcard workhorse babyface who used this cool delayed overhead belly to belly suplex for a finisher. Koko B. Ware and his great dropkick were also in for a cup of coffee.

Unfortunately all good things must end and they fell off a cliff around late 86. Don't think I ever made it to 87 during this binge. I've tried getting into 1987 UWF a couple times over the past few years, but I never get very far. It just doesn't do anything for me. In fact, I think it's actively bad. 

After months of building up multiple strong contenders who could believably dethrone Gordy they ended up stripping him of the title due to a KAYFABE injury and to make matters worse awarded it to the HEEL One Man Gang. wtf? Gordy quite frankly getting screwed out of the title lead to the Birds feuding with Gang's faction Devastation Inc., turning the Birds tweener in the process. I liked them much better as pure heels. Oh, it gets worse. Gang had the same murderer's row of popular babyface challengers + Gordy. Instead of popping the crowd and paying off a storyline one year in the making by having Duggan*, Dibiase, or Doc (all would have worked) dethrone Gang to become UWF Champ, they had OMG randomly drop the strap to a DEBUTING Big Bubba Rogers soon after the Crockett buyout. Meaning these brain dead idiots went with 3 straight monster heel champions over a 14 month period. They deserved to go out of business....twice.

*Duggan left in early 87. Great for me! But bad for that audience who loved them some Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Recently heard a new theory on why UWF died- attendance allegedly plummeted when Duggan left for WWF. They survived every other defection, including JYD, who was THE guy in the early 80s, but HJD was (allegedly) the straw that finally broke the camel's back.
Fun Fact: I was in attendance for Duggan's first WWF match in Baltimore on Valentine's Day 1987

They also brought in a bunch of noobs who weren't doing it for me and pushed them to the moon right around the same time OMG was awarded the title. Bill "The Goon" Irwin & Leroy Brown come to mind. These two ham and eggers showed up as the newest members of Akbar's Devastation Inc. and won the tag titles pretty much right away. 

I'll wrap it up with three things about 1986 UWF that drove me up the wall....

-Brandon's tapes were also from the Houston feed and those house show matches could still cure insomnia.

-All the top babyfaces coming out to Born In The USA was cool at first, but got old real quick. Don't think I'm exaggerating either. Every top good guy came out to that song. You could not escape it. 

-The Jack Victory & John Tatum tag team. Imagine a tag team more boring than the Bashams. Yikes. I shouldn't have done that. Hope I didn't break your brains. Victory is the ultimate 80s replacement level wrestler. Completely nondescript in every way. You watch a Jack Victory match and immediately forgot you just watched a Jack Victory match. Yet Jack Victory is Ric Flair compared to his partner. This Tatum guy....my god...how to describe him? Well, Tatum is what people think Larry Zbyszko is. Yes, "Hollywood" John Tatum outstalled Larry Zbyszko! And not in a good way either. This dude stalled so much even I got tired of it. I love stalling! You guys know this! But Tatum stalled so much even I ran out of patience. Imagine how much that takes and shudder. His matches were all stalling and these stupid pouty faces. In Wrestling Hell you're strapped to a chair, Clockwork Orange style, forced to watch an endless loop of Jack Victory & John Tatum Houston house show matches. 

I believe UWF was the strongest run Eddie Gilbert had on a national platform.

^Agreed

Was curious to see out how 1986 UWF did in Meltzer's WON Awards. Keep in mind I don't take Meltz or his awards as gospel, and you shouldn't either, but they do serve as a good time capsule for where smark thought was at a given time. Here is the source I used if you want to view the whole thing...
sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/mookieghana-prowrestlingstatistics/wo_awards_history#TOC-1986

Wrestler of the Year 
3. Ted Dibiase
5. Terry Gordy

Most Outstanding Wrestler 
3. Ted Dibiase
8. Terry Gordy

Best Babyface
2. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Best Heel
1. Michael Hayes
*Shocked Eddie Gilbert didn't even crack the Top 8. 1986 was an admittedly great year for heels, but Gilbert was up there with any of them if you ask me.

Feud of the Year
6. Dibiase & Williams vs. Freebirds
8. Fantastics vs. Sheepherders

Tag Team of the Year
6. Freebirds
8. Dibiase & Williams
9. Fantastics

Most Improved aka: UWF Domination
1. Rick Steiner
2. John Tatum (yuck! if this is an improved John Tatum I shudder to think how bad he must have been prior to 86)
3. Sting
4. Jack Victory (ugh)
7. Steve Williams
9. Buddy Roberts (gross)

Best on Interviews
3. Michael Hayes
6. Hacksaw Jim Duggan (barf)

Most Charismatic
7. Michael Hayes

Best Technical Wrestler
3. Ted Dibiase
6. Chavo Guerrero

Best Brawler aka: UWF Domination Part Two
1. Terry Gordy
3. Hacksaw Jim Duggan
5. Ted Dibiase (Cracked the Top 5 in Best Technician and Best Brawler. Nice)
6. Steve Williams

Best Flying Wrestler
3. Chavo Guerrero

Most Underrated
3. Jack Victory (wut?)
5. Chavo Guerrero

Best Promotion
1. UWF

Best Television Show
1. UWF (over 3x the point total of runner up Memphis)
5. UWF Power Pro Wrestling (Nobi correctly guessed this was their b show)

Match of the Year
6. Fantastics vs. Sheepherders 4/19 

Rookie of the Year
3. Sting
4. Savannah Jack

Manager of the Year
6. Skandor Akbar (how?)

Best Television Announcer
2. Jim Ross (genuinely shocked JR didn't win this, though you can't really go wrong with their choice of Lance Russell as #1 either)

Best Wrestling Move
1. Chavo Guerrero's Backflip Flying Body Press
7. Rick Steiner's Belly To Belly Suplex

Hardest Worker
5. Terry Gordy
7. Ted Dibiase

Best Color Commentator
1. Michael Hayes (another surprise given Bobby & Jesse were at the peak of their powers. otoh there is the Observer's notorious anti-WWF bias...)

Strongest Wrestler
2. Steve Williams

Readers' Favorite Wrestler
6. Ted Dibiase
9. Terry Gordy
11. Hacksaw Jim Duggan
11. Steve Williams

Best Valet
1. Missy Hyatt
5. Dark Journey

Best Booker
2. Ken Mantell

Best Gimmick Performer
3. Missing Link (meh)
==========
*A good showing when you take into account how strong wrestling was in 1986. Sad to see Eddie Gilbert get shut out though. No idea how that happened.

The Pearl Harbor job!

Feb 22, 2023 1:31:12 GMT Baker said:

-The Flair/Dibiase/Murdoch angle/match. Best thing Mid South ever did, though one UWF angle does come awfully close.

Feb 22, 2023 4:28:18 GMT Baker said:

There's an all time great angle with Gilbert & Watts I don't want to spoil, but no less an authority than Paul Heyman himself has called it his all time favorite angle

My gut says the Watts angle made Gilbert even more hated than Hayes. 

The video Ed shared is what I was referring to in these posts. Knowing what I know now about those rabid Mid South fans a part of me is surprised Gilbert made it out of the building alive. 

Just the other day I discovered Heyman paid homage to his all time favorite angle when he had RVD bury Dreamer under the WWF flag. 

While I'm here I might as well give you guys an example of Gordy's top tier piledriver I put over earlier. Poor Hacksaw...

Was messing with an AWA rebook back in the day that devolved into just stealing the best angles of the '80s and putting them into a juggernaut AWA instead (Hulkamania is staying in AWA, brother). Needless to say, Eddie Gilbert sneak attacking Cowboy Bill Watts turned into Eddie Gilbert sneak attacking Verne Gagne. Can't have the best federation of 1986 without Hot Stuff International.

Feb 22, 2023 1:31:12 GMT Baker said:

-The Flair/Dibiase/Murdoch angle/match. Best thing Mid South ever did, though one UWF angle does come awfully close.

Which one? Taylor Adams?