Mid-South Wrestling 13/02/1982

Wild Samoans vs Rick Ferrera & Bill Ash

Enjoyable squash. Liked Afa holding Ash in the air by his jaw, looked really painful. Ferrera tags in, hitting a big flurry of punches, but immediately eats a Samoan Drop for the three.

Paul Orndorff vs Bryan Blair

Enjoyed this, really well worked competitive match, with Orndorff just being a bit too high in the pecking order for Blair to deal with. Orndorff is surprisingly sporting in this bout, even extending a handshake to Blair. Some decent matwork to start, loved the manoeuvring to escape a hammerlock into an armbar. Blair keeps up with Orndorff, which seems to frustrate him, as he gets annoyed when both men are tangled in the ropes. Both go over the top rope, with Blair seemingly catching his face on the bottom rope, and Orndorff hits a driving knee from the top to get the win.

Junkyard Dog vs Bob Roop

JYD is making a title defence here, and they build this up nicely by highlighting how the previous two weeks have seen title changes. Decent competitive stuff before the end sees some enjoyable hoopla. Roop has a fun spot where he rams JYD’s head into the corner from a full Nelson and he later hits a lovely jumping knee. JYD’s diving headbutt looks spot on too. They go to commercial with Roop on the floor, with his foot tangled in the bottom rope, and I liked that we came back to find the match over, but with the ending recorded. Adds a nice touch of realism. This is where the stuff’n’nonsense comes in, and it’s a lot of fun. First Orndorff comes out, accidentally hits Roop, and JYD hits the Thump on Roop. Orndorff tries to break the pin, but JYD gets up and slams Orndorff onto Roop. Next Bob Orton comes out, only for JYD to press slam him onto Orndorff on the floor. While the ref is looking at those two, JYD nails a big forearm to finally pick up the win.

Ted DiBiase & Mr Olympia vs Ed Wiskowski & Bob Orton

This is the first of the standby matches. Heels never really feel like they’re in this one, even when they get to work heat on DiBiase. Orton stooges about in the early going, swinging and missing with wild punches and flailing madly whilst held in a wristlock. Fun spot with Wiskowski slamming DiBiase to break a wristlock, but DiBiase holds on to send Wiskowski back to the mat. The heat is worked on DiBiase, it’s brief and includes a false tag, before Olympia dropkicks DiBiase onto Wiskowski during a slam attempt. We get a melee as Orton accidentally hits his partner, Olympia locks a sleeper onto Wiskowski and DiBiase picks up the pieces for the win. Enjoyed all this.

Ron Cheatham vs Frank Monte

Final standby match with a few minutes to go. Nothing much to this, though the matwork is quite decent. Liked Monte’s driving knees with a hammerlock held, and he at least tries a few quick pins as the time ticks away for a draw.