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Post by Joe Neglia on May 28, 2017 12:07:40 GMT -5
Watching a PPW from 1986 and during the Bladerunners match Joel Watts says Rock is deranged and mentally unstable cause of the steroid effect. King Cobra is going places. I wonder if Rock/Warrior had already bolted between the time that was taped and Joel's stuff was recorded for it. King Cobra's always been a bit of an enigma to me. Dude seemed to have all the tools needed to be a big success, and could get over big in the right situations, but he would "disappear" for years at a time between a few months of hot activity and completely kill any momentum he had. Had a short but good run in Continental around '82, then nothing. Then Watts for a few months around '85-86, then nothing. Then he pops back up in USWA in '89, feuds with Lawler and wins their main title, then nothing.
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Post by Joe Neglia on May 28, 2017 12:16:12 GMT -5
Okay I finished all of 1982 Mid-South. Let me say this: Mr. Olympia is a terrific wrestler. If Mr. Olympia/Jerry Stubbs had not existed, I'm not sure the Arn Anderson we know and love would have existed either. Arn's been in plenty of big tag teams (Tully, Larry Z, Eaton, etc, etc) but none were more important to his career than his team with Stubbs. The green Anderson learned a lot working as Stubbs' secondary in those years and formed him into what we know now.
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2017 12:27:36 GMT -5
Watching a PPW from 1986 and during the Bladerunners match Joel Watts says Rock is deranged and mentally unstable cause of the steroid effect. King Cobra is going places. I wonder if Rock/Warrior had already bolted between the time that was taped and Joel's stuff was recorded for it. King Cobra's always been a bit of an enigma to me. Dude seemed to have all the tools needed to be a big success, and could get over big in the right situations, but he would "disappear" for years at a time between a few months of hot activity and completely kill any momentum he had. Had a short but good run in Continental around '82, then nothing. Then Watts for a few months around '85-86, then nothing. Then he pops back up in USWA in '89, feuds with Lawler and wins their main title, then nothing. That might be the case but Ross says their gonna be the team of the 80's and they hype a video feature next week. I only knew him from his brief USWA run and like you said he feuds with Lawler and wins the title and soon after that he's pretty much done but I guess that's just what he did.On these mid south shows he's got a good look the crowds behind him but evidently it goes nowhere.
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Post by cabbageboy on May 28, 2017 18:02:02 GMT -5
King Cobra seemed okay in Mid South but I do recall one dreadful match vs. Duggan he had where he horribly missed a middle rope move and that seemed like the beginning of the end of him in MSW. He popped up in Memphis after that along with other Mid South defectors like Jesse Barr and Cocoa Samoa (Sabu). It's interesting to note how much cross pollination was going on between those two feds back then. Memphis would get something out of guys that Watts had zero use for, while Watts seriously pushed some guys that had hit the wall in Memphis (Eaton, Condrey, RNRs).
Since I was curious I kept watching these 1983 Mid South shows on You Tube since some people have this stuff. The first two months of 1983 are terrible with Olympia doing his 60 day suspension and nothing much happening. Once they finally do the tourney, it picks up. In fact I'd say overall there are less awful jobber matches and more star/star matches, Duggan begins a terrific face turn, etc.
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Post by Joe Neglia on May 28, 2017 18:29:32 GMT -5
Yeah, that's about the point where Watts really starts finding his groove in things after taking over the promotion a few years before. The storylines start getting a lot tighter, he got better about figuring how to push, started filling in his lower card with a fresh and more serviceable roster, and his focus on logic goes pretty hardcore about this time. Once we get to '84 and especially '85, things are markedly improved, becoming one of the most engaging of the territorial shows.
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Post by cabbageboy on May 28, 2017 22:21:22 GMT -5
So what was the deal with the 2nd half of 1983? I noticed the Thanksgiving time Superdome show did a ghastly 8,000 paid, which was I think the point when Watts called up Jerry Jarrett and they did the whole big trade that resulted in the Midnight Express (w/Cornette, who was a distant #2 manager in Memphis), Dundee as booker, later the RNRs. Memphis got guys like Bundy, Rude, Neidhart, etc. Seemed like some guys that were carrying the show all left later that year: Dibiase, Duggan, Olympia.
I have to comment on the Olympia heel turn in early 1983. In a previous post I noted how dejected I was at him being basically buried in late 1982 in favor of a nearly 50 year old hasbeen Mr. Wrestling II. Then of course they did the whole "loser leaves for 60 days" match where Olympia took Wrestling II's place after Kamala took out Wrestling II...and of course he ended up being screwed by Dibiase and Co. yet again and was gone (this aired on Christmas no less!). While watching those awful early 1983 episodes I noted that Olympia was in fact serving his 60 days, unlike JYD who did the whole goofy Stagger Lee gimmick. So he comes back and they do the sorta reveal that he was the guy stalking Wrestling II with the defaced masks and notes, etc. I thought that part of his turn sucked, the kind of Russo crap that people would take a steamy dump on if done today. But him joining Akbar and the promo they cut after he "won" the North American tourney was tremendous. Basically he unleashed on the fact that the company cast him aside like garbage once they acquired Mr. Wrestling II and that he was a man of honor and served his 60 days without pay and he had lost all respect for JYD for not doing the same and for donning the mask to become Stagger Lee. Olympia and Akbar ended up being 100% right here and it was one of the earliest examples of a weird shades of gray storyline where to me the heel was completely in the right and justified.
The funny thing is that they showed some fan interviews before the Superdome blow off and it seemed like it was mostly some younger black kids that were big JYD fans, so they could have cared less about the various nuances of that storyline and were just there to see JYD beat the now treacherous Mr. Olympia. And of course on that card Olympia wrestled 25 mins. for the tag titles with Dibiase vs. Wrestling II and Tiger Conway, and then immediately had to go into a steel cage vs. JYD (and the cage aspect was unannounced!). This was the single oddest heel turn I've seen in the 1980s, where at every point I felt noticeably sorry for the heel and had no desire to boo him. I wonder if this was the intent and the long term plan was for Olympia to just go back babyface later that year, but he left the company?
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 1:53:20 GMT -5
Never watched or knew anything about SMW. Was bored today and decided to check it out and wow. Dirty White Boy is wild lmao. How did they get away with some of this stuff?
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Post by cabbageboy on May 29, 2017 8:27:32 GMT -5
SMW was a total redneck league, that's how. It was for those who thought the USWA was too cosmopolitan. I believe the two groups had an inter-promotional rivalry at one point, though it was kind of silly since a lot of the SMW guys had been in Memphis before anyway.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2017 9:17:22 GMT -5
I wonder if, when Vince McMahon looked at some ideas of what suits to wear during the TV shows, someone showed him vids of Boyd Pierce's outfits and Vince reacted "Nah, those are much too garish for my tastes."
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Post by thetower52 on May 30, 2017 2:51:32 GMT -5
I need me some more SMW
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Post by 2coldMack is even more baffled on May 30, 2017 14:25:03 GMT -5
For what it's worth, "Dirty White Boy" is probably the biggest "talent/look" imbalance in wrestling history. Great wrestler, amazing heel, but awful presentation in every direction.
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Post by thetower52 on Jun 1, 2017 7:22:16 GMT -5
For what it's worth, "Dirty White Boy" is probably the biggest "talent/look" imbalance in wrestling history. Great wrestler, amazing heel, but awful presentation in every direction. I have a check wirrten by Jim Cornette to dirty white boy from SMW
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2017 13:20:29 GMT -5
Watching a 83 mid south show and during a Tim Horner match Watts gave a shoutout to John Tenta when he got the fans up to date on the happenings in high school & college wrestling.
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Post by cabbageboy on Jun 11, 2017 22:32:30 GMT -5
Yeah I heard that. I'm in mid 1983 with MSW and it's starting to be clear they need a new direction. Dibiase has lost all his heat and momentum thanks to jobbing to JYD a bunch and also being hurt. Duggan is quite over and it seems logical that he would become the #1 guy in the company over an increasingly played out JYD. Dibiase's injury also basically derailed the Olympia heel turn, since they weirdly paired him with Boris Zhukov (?!) as interim tag champs and it's not over at all.
Also, I'm at the point where Butch Reed did the world's worst 10 minute heel turn interview. I know Watts had a thing for pushing black dudes and all but Reed vs. Dog is a bad idea for a feud. 1) Neither guy can really carry the other in the ring. 2) Neither guy is much on the mic. JYD's feuds in Mid South worked best when he had someone who could at least do one of those two things, whether it be Hayes with the Freebirds to draw the heat with heel antics and on the mic, or with Dibiase (who could carry it in the ring and on the mic), or Olympia who could carry things in the ring. Reed at that point could do neither of those.
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Post by Milkman Norm on Apr 4, 2018 11:17:15 GMT -5
I hope the load 84 when the Midnight Expess came in
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2018 14:48:01 GMT -5
Nice. Always looking forward to seeing the swanky suits Boyd Pierce puts on for those shows.
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Post by thetower52 on Apr 6, 2018 3:23:42 GMT -5
We aren’t ever getting more Smokey Mountain are we
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Post by Milkman Norm on Apr 6, 2018 9:55:10 GMT -5
We aren’t ever getting more Smokey Mountain are we It doesn't seem like it sadly. I hope we do, as well as Georgia, Florida and every other territory they own.
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Flo360
Hank Scorpio
There is no truth in Wrestling...only Backbumps
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Post by Flo360 on Apr 13, 2018 3:50:40 GMT -5
We aren’t ever getting more Smokey Mountain are we It doesn't seem like it sadly. I hope we do, as well as Georgia, Florida and every other territory they own. The Fact that we are still missing Florida blows my mind.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2018 23:46:42 GMT -5
It doesn't seem like it sadly. I hope we do, as well as Georgia, Florida and every other territory they own. The Fact that we are still missing Florida blows my mind. I think the problem is Mike Graham's video library that he sold to them was missing a lot of Florida to begin with.
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