Review of Part 2 of WWE Legends of Mid-South Wrestling

To quote Rowdy Roddy Piper in Wrestling terms, Mid-South Wrestling was ECW before ECW was ECW. It had a hard wrestling style and Cowboy Bill Watts believed in no mats. It was a tough place to work, but all the legends worked there.

First, this DVD featured the feud between Hacksaw Butch Reed and the Junk Yard Dog. As was said in the DVD Butch was more of a wrestler and didn't have much charisma and the JYD had the charisma. The DVD featured a Ghetto Street Fight. Butch was jealous that he didn't have was the JYD had. Who could argue with him on that one.

Second, it featured some of the classic feud between the Midnight Express managed by Jim Cornette and the Rock N Roll Express. This was the greatest tag team feud at the time. There was feuds in WWF but they can't match the classic rivalry of this feud that these two teams had and this DVD featured some matches from this feud.

Then, Shawn Micheals discusses how Ted Dibiase elevated his career. Shawn was saying that he is a class act and helped put him over even if he was a jobber at that time. Shawn many years later elevated himself to one of the greatest wrestlers of this time.

Finally, on Part 2 of this DVD, Terry Talyor discusses his big match with Ric Flair at the Silverdome in Lousiana. Terry was mentioning that Ric was hung over drunk when he got there. He then told him to get him a cup of coffee and wake him up in an hour. He came to the ring and looked immaculate and took him to a 45 minute match and Ric Flair won. Terry Taylor was winded and Ric could have gone all not long. It's what made Ric one of the greats.

This was a good part of the DVD. I enjoyed the rivalries and the back story behind the events. This would have been a good promotion to watch and I wish I had watched more of it at the time, but by the time I started to watch it channel 68 on TV in my town in NJ became the Home Shopping Network. More reason why I'm exciting to see the WWE Network. As for Mid South Wrestling it was a great promotion at the time, but they couldn't compete with The WWF now WWE and the NWA or WCW. A lot changed in how wrestling was run, but we could respect what they had accomplished for wrestling.

Brief Review of Legends of Mid South Wrestling DVD Part 1

Out of many things I will do on this blog, one of them will be Wrestling DVD reviews. For this week or next week whenever I will finish the DVD set the first one will be WWE Legends of Mid South Wrestling.  I will featured a brief review on the first part today and then later the other parts.

First, I learned of the promotion that produced the who's who of professional wrestling. When somebody who is a wrestling fan thinks of old promotions they think of the then WWF, NWA, AWA, World Class Championship Wrestling, and in the later years ECW. They don't think of Mid South Wrestling. Mid South Wrestling was located near Lousiana and it's impact was great. Greater then I first realized. It housed stars such as Andre the Giant, Ted Dibiase Sr. Better known as the Million Dollar Man, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the Junk Yard Dog, The Midnight Express with Jim Cornette, Magnum TA, and with ring announcer Jim Ross.

The first major segment of the DVD featured the Junk Yard Dog. The JYD was a charismatic character who might have been more popular than Ric Flair in his area. The JYD in this promotion was over. In the DVD it was said that were chanting his name from start to the finish of the card. They had loved to see him. I only saw him when he was in the WWF now WWE and he was over then. It was a thrill to see old footage of him.

The Ted Dibiase segment was before JYD, but I will discuss briefly about him now with the Rat Pack featuring Ted Dibiase, Jim Duggan, and Matt Borne, who is better known for his role as Doink the Clown in WWE. I could misquote Jim Duggan on the DVD, but he said Ted Dibiase was the smarts, he was the brawn and Matt Borne was the jerk of the group. Borne and Duggan didn't get along and this created a split between Duggan and Dibiase. They even had a tuxedo coal miners glove match in a steel cage. You don't see those gimmick matches that much any more.

They had a Tony Atlas segment where he benched 550 pounds.

And they featured segments with Magnum TA and Mr. Wrestling II. Mr. Wrestling II was Magnum TA's manager and one day Mr. Wrestling II had turned on Magnum TA. This made him a star because it got him over with the fans. Magnum TA had that special look of a wrestling in that time that he could have been one of the great had it not been for his motorcycle accident. He got his start though at Mid South Wrestling.

All this is new stuff for me to watch. I don't remember that much of Mid South Wrestling. I was only a kid then. I only saw some of the UWF at the tale end which was MSW. It was a thrill to see old time wrestling in new light. I've been absorbed with a lot of WWF material that it is good to appreciate the old stuff. On that note this is The Wolf Review and this is Wolfman Joe.