All Foreign Wars I do Proclaim Live on Blood & a Mother's Pain. I'd Rather Have my Son as He Used to be Than the King of Mid-South & His Whole Navy

Rock 'n' Roll Express v Midnight Express (1/21/85)

Fuck, the beatdown on Morton is amazing here. It's not quite as good as the absolute shellacking he takes in the RnR/Duggan v MX/Ladd six-man from Houston, but Eaton and Condrey really beat the shit out of him. In a lot of ways this kind of felt like a low-key version of this match-up. The crowd heat isn't as crazy as you're used to in a Midnights/RnR match; the opening stretch has little in the way of MX stooging; the RnRs only bust out one double team; Cornette barely gets involved at all, etc. Morton's heat segment is the best part of the match, but Condrey and Eaton (and Cornette) don't really whip the crowd into a frenzy by taking a ton of cheapshots and constantly cheating. They tone it down a bit, but in some ways they come off looking more vicious than usual. Some of the subtle little bits of nastiness are really awesome, like when Eaton has Morton in a headlock near the MX corner and Condrey just stomps right on Morton's ankle from the apron. I'm convinced Condrey is one of the all time great subtle nasty bastards in wrestling history. When he starts laying into guys with kneedrops right to the ribs, that's not subtle. It always looks brutal, but that's in-your-face brutality. He can do that and do it REAL well, but shit like stomping on a guy's ankle or driving his palm into a guy's throat behind the ref's back or digging his knee into someone's adam's apple, that's the kind of subtle brutality Condrey is a master of. I didn't think any of the MX/RnR matches on this set were blow away great or anything (unless you count the six-man tags), but this DID have an awesome heat segment. Condrey is SUCH a bad motherfucker.


Hacksaw Duggan & Terry Gordy v Ted DiBiase & Steve Williams (Texas Tornado Match) (1/21/85)

This was a fun chaotic brawl, but it never did a great deal for me when I first watched it and it didn't do a great deal for me this time. Gordy drags DiBiase over to the railing and says something to a group of kids, then he grabs DiBiase's head, the kids all kick the guardrail out and Gordy rams DiBiase's head into it. THAT is fan interaction! There's a great moment towards the end where Duggan just comes flying into camera shot and tries to kill DiBiase. The Duggan/Ted interactions in this weren't nearly as molten as they usually were, but that bit was awesome. Loaded glove finish with the twist was cool as well. Really, there isn't anything I can complain about here, but the Mid-South set is so completely STACKED with great shit that even the fun chaotic brawls get lost in the shuffle.


Mid-South Project