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.

Mid-South Wrestling 06/02/1982

Bob Orton Jr vs Ken Woodby

Woodby is pale, portly and auburn haired; a less intimidating grappler you couldn’t hope to meet. Orton controls him on the mat, working the arm to keep him grounded. Orton then hits a back breaker, a leaping second rope forearm and a piledriver in quick succession to win.

Ted DiBiase vs Ron Cheatham

Flavourless squash, as DiBiase controls Cheatham rather easily and hits powerslam and the figure four to win. Meh.

The Wild Samoans vs Junkyard Dog & Mike George

This takes two attempts to happen, as the first sees a fun angle with Ernie Ladd furious that Skandor Akbar has taken managerial control of the Samoans, his charges. He goes on the assault, beating all three men down, until an unnamed One Man Gang comes in a beats him down, hitting a (shitty) top rope splash on his legs to injure him.

Twenty minutes later, after Akbar demands the Samoans be allowed their scheduled match, we get it…and it’s a bit nothing. It’s for the tag titles, held by Dog and George, but it’s too short for much to happen. What it does do is show how useful Akbar will be for the Samoans. After a ref bump, a chair gets brought into the ring and, whilst JYD is able to use the chair to deflect an attempted fireball by Akbar, it gets left in the ring and the Samoans take advantage, hitting a Samoan Drop on George onto the chair to claim the tag belts. I hoped for a better match, but the whole deal was fun.

Bob Roop vs Frank Monte

Short, but with bits to enjoy. Liked Roop showing hid power to muscle Monte through a hip toss after it looked like they’d blown it, and I enjoyed Monte slipping out of a second attempt to hit a flying headscissors, which he then held on the mat. Good ending too, as a clubbing blow to the back of the head by Roop sends Monte into the corner and Roop hits a shoulderbreaker for the win. Good stuff.

Paul Orndorff vs Mr Olympia

Really good stuff here. They work a nice even pace, with some lovely punches thrown by both, before Orndorff takes control by rebounding from the corner with a second rope clothesline. Nice driving knees into the side of Olympia’s face. Orndorff starts getting frustrated as Olympia kicks out of some big moves, with a powerslam and driven elbows only getting two. Olympia reverses a piledriver, hits an enzuigiri and locks in a sleeper that, even though Orndorff tries his best to fight it, gets the victory. Good sprint.

Ed Wiskowski vs Brian Blair

They get the “TV time limit” death spot here, but both guys wrestle like they want to win instead of killing time. This is speed vs power, with Blair showing his skill early by reversing a Wiskowski suplex into a small package for two. From there, Wiskowski keeps hurling Blair into the ropes, first catching him with a stungun, then with two slingshots. Blair kicks out of an O’Connor roll, sending Wiskowski headfirst into the bottom turnbuckle, giving him the comeback until time runs out. Fine enough.