Mid-South #34 Page #2

As it turned out, I would indeed be going to the matches that night -- about 10 miles away from my anticipated battle royal.

Yes, the WWF invasion into the Mid-South territory was in full swing, and a friend of my father's had gotten tickets for a group of us. Instead of the battle royal and the grudge rematch of DiBiase and Dr Death vs. Masked Superstar and Dick Murdoch, I was in for a night of Hulk Hogan and the man I considered a traitor to Mid-South, The Junkyard Dog.

Hogan went up against Randy Savage, and the Dog faced Terry Funk, one of my favorites. Needless to say, I was at my obnoxious best as a heel fan. I stood politely when Nikolai Volkoff asked everyone to stand for the singing of the Russian National Anthem. I loudly commended Randy Savage for managing to pull the hair of the nearly-bald Hogan.

When the show was over, I was nice enough, talking with everyone else about how much fun we'd had, but I knew the truth -- the show sucked. At least Funk won. But I knew I had missed a great show to see a bad one, and I comforted myself with the thought that at least, with matches this lame, there was no way WWF was going to win this wrestling war against Mid-South's hard-hitting action. Shows what I knew.

I did finally get to see the bunkhouse battle royal, 16 years later. It was one one of those "Super Stars of Wrestling" commercial tapes that each contained two matches from the Sam Houston Coliseum, and I won the tape on Ebay.

By the time I saw the match, the Coliseum had been knocked down for about eight years, and the Mid-South had become the UWF only to bite the dust in 1987.

But for about 20 minutes, the Coliseum and Mid-South Wrestling lived again, as the battle royal raged on in my house. The match that would not be televised was now before me on the TV screen. And when Ted DiBiase and Steve "Dr Death" Williams cleared out the Fabulous Ones and were announced co-winners, I popped. Right there in the living room.

There might not be many good choices for us fans of regional wrestling today. The credibility's gone, the excitement of not knowing exactly where something is headed is not there, and there aren't any heroes to cheer (or boo, if you're a heel fan). But sometimes, through the magic of videotape, or on a website such as this one, we can relive those memories, or see the events of other areas through the eyes, ears and memories of others.

For the past year, I've regaled all eight or nine of you who read this with my kayfabe memories. They are from a time before I started reading newsletters, figuring out that nothing was quite on the level. Next month, the Mid-South column will be part of a KM-wide event in which we celebrate the contributions of one of territorial wrestling's most valued players -- the job guy.

After that, I will be moving over to write about Smoky Mountain Wrestling, while some exciting changes await readers here (and in the Houston area).

NEXT MONTH:

The preliminary workers of Mid-South

Back to Mid-South Main