The SmarK Rant for Mid-South Wrestling – 03.22.85

Reviews, Shows, Top Story

The SmarK Rant for Mid-South Wrestling – 03.22.85

I see Joel Watts and his Amiga Video Toaster have struck again and come up with another new opening for the show.

Taped from Shreveport, LA

Your hosts are Jim Ross & Joel Watts

Ted Dibiase feels like he’s been SCREWED out of the North American title, as he faced Terry Taylor last week in an impromptu title v. title match and lost.  But he didn’t sign a contract!  Butch Reed, in a sharp suit, comes out and tells him to stop being a little bitch.  But while he’s here, he’s throwing out a challenge to Terry Taylor as well.

Last week, after the show had gone off the air, the Dirty White Boys laid out the Rock N Roll Express (aka the Nice Clean White Boys) in a heinous attack that left all the pre-teen girls shrieking with horror.  Luckily, the Golden Terror was nearby to assist in breaking things up, because otherwise they might still be fighting today, 30 years later.  I just love that the show was presumably over, but the Golden Terror was still wearing his mask and a t-shirt over his ugly gear, just in case he was needed for such a situation.

Skandor Akbar lets us know that Kamala is gonna get all up in Terry Taylor’s area tonight and squash the shit out of him, North American champion or not.

The Barbarian v. Josh Stroud

The Barbarian, in case you’re not aware, would be of the Norwegian “Huss Huss Huss” variety, rather than the more well-known Tongan one.   Stroud has done some jobs on NWA TV around this time as well, and he’s a pretty well-built kid.  Not sure why he never got a shot anywhere.  Barbarian methodically pounds him and finishes with a full nelson at 2:00.  He continues the beating after the bell, giving the jobber a DQ win on reverse decision, but Butch Reed makes the save and gets his nice suit all ripped up!  Oh, it’s ON now!  This gives a great visual of Reed fighting him off with a torn-up suit, like he’s the Hulk or something.  The job squad runs down and breaks things up before any more clothing gets destroyed.  That’s a $5000 suit!  COME ON!  After the break, Butch Reed wants a Ghetto Street Fight to settle their beef.  Sounds fair.

Ted Dibiase & Steve Williams v. Shawn Michaels & Pvt. Terry Daniels

Oh, that’s why this random episode was featured, OK.  I love Shawn as much as anyone, but there’s SOOOOOOO many more awesome weeks of Mid-South TV that don’t feature Job Boy HBK that could get put up here as well.  Terry Daniels could safely be called the least successful of Sgt. Slaughter’s various proteges, by a wide margin.  Even Jim Nelson ended up in the WWF as Boris Zhukov!  Daniels controls Doc with some armdrags to start, but he quickly gets manhandled by the Rat Pack as they overpower him with a variety of double-teams and Doc cranks on a front facelock.  Finally he tags out to Shawn, but Shawn quickly walks into a powerslam like a geek and the figure-four finishes at 3:38.  Not the most notable squash appearance for Shawn.

Kamala v. Terry Taylor

Kamala’s funky jungle music is kind of growing on me.  Do they have cowbells in deepest darkest Uganda?  Taylor evades Kamala, but I guess he looks too much like a delicious rooster for some reason and Kamala overpowers him and pounds away.  Kamala spends the next little while choking the chicken (metaphorically speaking) and Taylor appears to need a new strategy.  Kamala continues beating on the cock (wait a second…) and gets the big splash off a missed dropkick, but Kamala wants the big splash off the top and Taylor uses the 15 minutes that it takes to roll out of the ring.  Akbar sends him into the post and Taylor is bleeding, so Kamala starts biting him. That’s how you get salmonella poisoning!  At least cook him first, you savage!  Kamala misses an avalanche and wipes out the referee in the process, but now Jake Roberts runs in to attack Taylor as well.  Taylor manages to take Jake down, and Kamala trips over the fallen Snake, allowing Taylor to get the pin at 8:07.  I was wondering how they were going to get out of that one.  Cute finish, shit match.  *

Elmination match:  The Rock N Roll Express v. The Dirty White Boys v. Tom Pritchard & Brad Armstrong v. Jake Roberts & Jack Victory

This is a TV main event in 1985!  A four-way elimination tag match!  This is four corners rules, not the more chaotic all four guys at once rules we’re used to now.  Morton rolls up young Tommy Pritchard for two right away, as Pritchard was merely an Intern of Desire at this point.  Armstrong works a headlock on Victory, but Roberts clips Armstrong and the White Boys go to work on him.  Both Len Denton and Tony Anthony are very young and thin at this point.  Relatively speaking.  Denton drops an elbow for two, but Pritchard gets a hot tag and cleans house on the White Boys before running into an elbow from the apron.  Denton puts him away with a samoan drop at 3:48 for the first elimination. We take a break after that and return with Gibson slugging it out with Denton, who runs away and tags Roberts in. So now it’s Ricky Morton with four heels to beat on him, although it’s Gibson who gets the heat from Victory & Roberts in this case.  So the heels take turns pounding on Gibson and Roberts gets a gutbuster on him before hitting the chinlock.  Anthony drops the leg for two and chokes away, and Denton gets a suplex for two.  Neckbreaker gets two.  Finally Gibson manages a desperation tag to Morton and they hit the double dropkick on Victory to eliminate him at 9:48.  So this leaves the big RNR v. White Boys showdown, but WE’RE OUT OF TIME and thus it’s a draw, I guess.  That’s a clever way to tease the blowoff without having to deliver it, actually.  This was definitely something new and unique for the time.  ***

What we DO have time for is Kerry Von Erich all oiled up and riding a horse.  So…that’s…something.  He’s here next week, but sadly we jump all the way to 1986 when next we return to Mid-South on the Network, so we’ll never know if he went flying backwards when the horse took off.  Given his lifestyle choices, I’m gonna vote “Yes”.

The Pulse

No more Shawn Michaels squashes to highlight, so the last three shows feature young Mr. Sting instead.  God I wish they’d just start adding these from the start.  Well, you take what you can get.