Mid-South promos for Houston '84 show

[Joe Neglia]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmc2EJNB6D4

These are some local promos Mid-South did for their July 20, 1984 show. Not the greatest promos ever, but interesting to watch.

In the first, we have "Nature Boy" Buddy Landell and Mr. Wrestling II. This MW2 is actually Hercules Hernandez. And man oh man, when Buddy had a bad promo oh did he have a bad promo, and this one was yeesh. Oh and casual racism from Buddy. (NOTE: Checking wrestlingdata.com and apparently Landell was replaced in his match by Krusher Kruschev (Barry Darsow), so maybe this was a case of Buddy being Buddy.

Then we get the PYTs, Koko Ware and Norvell Austin. Often forgotten, Austin was a founding member of the original Midnight Express alongside Dennis Condrey and Randy Rose.

Next up is "Doctor Death" Steve Williams. Pretty good promo, nothing outstanding.

Taylor has absolutely no life to his promo.

Then, Cornette. No matter what else, the man was always an excellent promo and here is no different. The "everything together" joke at the end was...unexpected.

After that, Duggan and the Fantastics. Well, Duggan, with the Fantastics standing there grinning mostly. Duggan is Duggan.

Butch Reed then has a pretty damn good promo. Stumbles a bit when he almost lists the upcoming stip as one he already won but recovers decently and covers it with the cage match.

JYD's okay. Ernie Ladd is f'ing awesome. Magnum starts off okay and ends really good.


Here's the Results:

-Dog Collar Match - Junkyard Dog defeated Butch Reed
-Jim Duggan, Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers defeated Bobby Eaton, Dennis Condrey and Jim Cornette by disqualification
-Magnum TA defeated Ernie Ladd by disqualification
-Héctor Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero defeated Al Madril and José Lothario
-Steve Williams vs. Terry Taylor ended without a winner as a time limit draw
-Krusher Khrushchev and Hercules Hernández defeated PYTs (Koko Ware and Norvell Austin)
-Hercules Hernández defeated Rick Montana

[BorneAgain]

What didn't help Taylor was that he seemingly had no confidence or presence when he was talking. Seriously, the guy was a one or two verbal flubs away from being the original version of Jumpin Jeff Farmer.

[chronocross]

Herc was massive around this time, damn.

Buddy could have been better than he was, unfortunately his demons got the better of him.

I think this was around the period where JYD was finishing up and getting ready to go to the WWF, great quality, wonder if we'll ever see the Houston wrestling stuff on the network.

[cjh]

Dec 19, 2019 18:45:07 GMT -5 chronocross said:

Herc was massive around this time, damn.

Buddy could have been better than he was, unfortunately his demons got the better of him.

I think this was around the period where JYD was finishing up and getting ready to go to the WWF, great quality, wonder if we'll ever see the Houston wrestling stuff on the network.

Yeah, JYD left Mid-South in August and was on WWF TV in September.

WWE Network does have some matches from Houston in the Hidden Gems section.

[XIII]

Buddy and Rooster are stumbling all over their lines. It’s pretty bad when you have to pass the mic to Hercules to get the point across. lol

PYT’s were pretty good I thought.

[timelimitdraw]

The Houston Wrestling library rights are a little convoluted, but not even remotely as bad as Memphis. After years of confusion thanks to others' ownership stakes (including Nick Bockwinkel), Paul Boesch's widow apparently owns the library but got stuck into a distribution deal (that was allegedly a horrible one) with Bruce Tharpe when he owned the NWA. Billy Corgan took over that deal.

Then Paul's nephew, who also owned a piece, has issued a few best of videos over the years. They've been so few and far between that I'm not sure if his rights are limited to reissuing old video titles or cobbling together footage from old "Best of" syndicated TV specials and shows.

Finally, Bill Watts eventually became a partner, which is why a lot of the latter Houston footage is also a part of the Mid-South/UWF library that WWE eventually bought.