Mid-South Wrestling 12/12/1981

B. Brian Blair vs The Monk

Or “Bryan Blair” as he’s known as here. Nice little bit of matwork to kick off, with Blair using a nice legsweep to down the Monk, followed by a nice leverage battle to push Monk’s shoulders to the mat. The Monk uses Blair’s hair to pull him to the mat, and this seems to infuritate Blair, who ups the tempo. Nice height on a legdrop, before Blair uses an abdominal stretch to pin the Monk down for three.

King Cobra vs Tom Renesto Jr

Cobra looks to be in great shape, and his movement is certainly better than that of the chubby Renesto Jr. Cobra controls with some uninteresting armwork before winning with a headbutt. Not much to say here.

Jimmy Garvin vs Ed Wiskowski

Both guys look pretty hench here, especially the burly looking Wiskowski. As opposed to the previous bout, Garvin actually does some nice work on the arm of Wiskowski, wrenching a hammerlock and driving knees into the elbow. Wiskowski has some really nice looking blows in the corner and soon finishes Garvin off with a running knee to the face, a stungun and a gutbuster. Really good work here.

Junkyard Dog & Mike George vs Jerry Novak & Aaron Holt

Blink and you’ll miss it, as JYD and George hit a double-shoulderblock on Holt and JYD hits the Thump to win.

Iron Sheik vs Buddy Ryan

I’m not even sure Ryan gets any offence in, but he’s a pretty generic looking guy especially in comparison to a man in shape like the Sheik. Sheik just blitzes Ryan with some fun suplexes, refusing to take a pinfall win in order to hit more offence. Nice double-underhook suplex, nice belly to belly and finally a nasty looking deadlift German win the bout.

Rick Ferrara & Diamond Lil vs Tony Charles & Barbie Doll

Really odd mixed tag match, with full-sized men teaming with female midget wrestlers. Never been a big fan of matches like this, as you lose the whole tag dynamic. You can’t really do double teams, it’s harder to work heat on the face and it ends up feeling like two matches bolted together. I thought Charles looked great here, before Barbie Doll pins Lil after a sitdown splash.

Ted DiBiase vs Paul Orndorff

Real fast tempo to kick things off here, really made it stand out from the other matches. Liked the focus from both men with DiBiase working an arm to start, only for Orndorff to take advantage of DiBiase hitting his head on a turnbuckle to put in some nice kicks to the skull. Thought Orndorff looked really good in the whole match, to be honest, felt really driven. The end felt a bit off, as DiBiase (the face) locked in a figure-four on Orndorff, which was then reversed with DiBiase only just hanging on before the time limit goes to save him from submitting. It was probably supposed to make him look tough for hanging on, but it really made him look dumb for getting his own hold turned against him and only not losing because the bell saved him. Small quibble aside, the match was fun.