The SmarK Rant for Mid-South Wrestling – 11.30.85
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Got a couple of weeks left in No Revenue January to wrap up Mid-South before the Royal Rumble revives the blog and I get to actually make money again.
Taped from Shreveport, LA
Your hosts are Jim Ross & Joel Watts
BREAKING NEWS: Both Dick Slater and Ric Flair have been fined another $5000, and Dick Murdoch has been suspended (just in time for an All Japan tour). We hear a phone interview from Ted Dibiase, as his prognosis has been upgraded from “dead” to “alive” and rather than his career being over, he’ll be back in like six weeks. Modern medical science is AMAZING. But he’s coming for Ric Flair when he returns!
Jake Roberts v. Rob Ricksteiner
New information from JR, as he notes that apparently this Ricksteiner kid went to the University of…Michigan, was it? Well I’m sure we’ll hear more about that later. Rob works the arm to start and Jake reverses him into a hammerlock and slugs him into the ropes as the crowd is just going crazy for Jake. Amazing how Vince managed to snatch up all these guys at their height of their popularity, thus ensuring that he only helps himself without hurting the other guy. They do a test of strength and Rob is like “I got this!” but Jake walks up the ropes to create leverage, forcing a break. That’s unique. Jake takes him down with a headlock and controls on the mat with that, but Ricksteiner drops him on his head with a suplex and hoists him into a bearhug, as you can immediately tell that they’re giving this kid every chance to get himself over against a big star. Jake finally escapes to the corner while Ricksteiner is talking to the crowd, and he hits the kneelift, but Rob puts him down with a clothesline and ties him in the ropes. Rob pounds him with shoulderblocks, but walks into a boot and Jake slips around to finish with the DDT at 6:45. A hard-fought opener where they gave Ricksteiner a ton of offense. 1 for 1.
Eddie Gilbert joins us with more on the portrait, as we’re down to the LAST WEEK of contest eligibility and he’ll be forced to finally give it away next week to one lucky lady. Jim Ross notes that Eddie has the biggest ego in wrestling. He’s met Bill Watts, right?
Eddie Gilbert & The Nightmare v. Steve Doll & Brad “Ring-O”
I don’t know who “Ring-O” is and I don’t know why his name is stylized here with the quotation marks and hyphen, but he looks a bit like Tracy Smothers. Gilbert beats on Doll with a back elbow, but Doll and Ringo double-team Eddie with arm wringers, but Eddie drops Ringo with a back suplex. Nightmare comes in with clubbing forearms and goes to a bearhug on Doll, but Gilbert misses an elbowdrop and Doll manages to tag Ringo again. Gilbert runs Ringo into Nightmare’s head and tries the Hotshot, but Ringo takes the bump like a spinebuster instead of falling onto the top rope like he was supposed to, and Gilbert quickly just cradles him for the pin at 4:20. I don’t sense we’ll see a lot of “Ring-O” after that. 1 for 2.
Dick Slater v. Perry Jackson
Slater works a headlock on the mat and stomps away on him, then goes to a neck crank. Jackson gets a bit of a comeback, but misses a dropkick and Slater finishes him with a piledriver at 3:30. 1 for 3.
Humongous v. Shawn O’Reilly
Shawn is of course from Boston and I bet my boy is wicked smart and thinks the Sox are gonna go all the way this year. Sadly he doesn’t have green tights and a shamrock on his boots, but maybe next week. O’Reilly tries slugging on him in the corner, but Humongous headbutts him with the mask and finishes with the Shininomaki. 1 for 4.
Al Perez v. Mike Scott
So Perez is wearing the black leotards and booties as a result of losing the stipulation match to Doc & Dibiase two weeks ago, although his partner left the territory and Dibiase is gone for a while, so it ended up being about as completely pointless as any stip in recent memory. Perez uses his speed to evade the bigger Scott, but Scott overpowers him until Perez hits an enzuigiri and follows with a flying forearm. German suplex out of the corner finishes at 2:30. He’s lucky that Michael Scott never got to unleash his finisher, the THREAT LEVEL MIDNIGHT. Perez probably should have just left with Cooley, he’s clearly going nowhere after dropping the tag titles and he wasn’t long for the promotion. 1 for 5.
Steve Williams v. Mark Hawk
Doc takes Hawk down and rides him on the mat, then pounds him with elbows and gets a really impressive Oklahoma Stampede to finish at 2:50. That was a BIG DUDE he just deadlifted there. 2 for 6.
The Bruise Brothers v. Broadway Joe Malcolm & Ricky Starr
Oh goodie, six weeks in a row of the Bruise Brothers. And it’s not like they ever did anything with them! They got a couple of shots at Eddie & Nightmare where they won by DQ, and then disappeared just before the switch to the UWF. I wonder if it had to do with the Sheepherders coming in and laying waste to every other team in the promotion at that point? They do a completely nonsensical promo with Boyd Pierce before the match, rambling about posters, and then take turns slugging away on Broadway Joe in their corner. Double elbow on Joe and Boyd finishes with the big splash at 2:01. 2 for 7.
NEXT WEEK: Eddie Gilbert finally gives away his damn painting, and I legitimately have no idea what the payoff is going to be so I’m kind of intrigued. This was kind of a nothing show this week after some angle-heavy weeks, and sadly there’s only a couple of episodes left in the Network collection.