Spending Quarantine in Mid-South

Ted DiBiase v Jake Roberts (7/22/85)

Man this was good. The DDT is the most over thing in the world so they spend the first few minutes teasing it, throwing in a little shithousery for good measure, and not doing a whole lot else. It ruled and everyone was crazy for all of it. Jake would apply a headlock and Ted would yank the hair a few times to take him off his feet, then Jake, never shy about stooping to questionable levels even as a babyface, would do the same and of course DiBiase lost his shit and ran to the referee complaining. Three times they tease Jake hitting the DDT, three times DiBiase slips out by the skin of his teeth. Crowd heat goes up and up each time. It ruled. After the third time Williams even dragged DiBiase out the ring to safety, so Jake followed him, chased him around ringside, DiBiase slid back in the ring, and as Jake rolled in after him DiBiase clonked him with an absolute beezer of a fist drop. Like, DiBiase has an all-time fist drop anyhow and this was an all-timer of an all-timer, from the timing to the contact on it to the camera angle to everything. DiBiase loading the glove to take over properly got insane heat, Jake tapping a gusher got insaner heat, then the little scramble to the finish got the insanest heat. I also love Jake's jawbreaker counter to the sleeper hold. That dude always had strong hips because he'd kind of slink upright in one fluid motion and just drop to his butt. Always looked great and it was an awesome spot in this.


Butch Reed v Ted DiBiase (7/25/85)

A fine ten minutes. Structurally it was pretty basic and so was what they did to fill the time, but it's these two working a ten minute studio match so that has a fairly high ceiling right off the bat. It was also impromptu, with Reed scheduled to wrestle a young, blond, impeccably permed Tom Prichard, only for DiBiase to challenge Reed on behalf of Flair as the former was the #1 contender to the latter's world title (and I guess they were doing a bounty type deal where DiBiase would try to take out Reed). So DiBiase tried to start things with a cheapshot and it felt quite hectic straight away. Reed works the headlock and DiBiase can't shake him because of those massive arms. I always liked that about Reed from around this period, how they built him as a guy with a devastating headlock that could cauliflower your ears at best and squeeze your brains out your ears at worst. It was always the foundation of those matches with Flair so it's cool that they played it up on TV with other opponents as well. Short and hot finishing run, a clean finish, an all around Nifty Wee Wrestling Match.


Mid-South Project