I'm a Man with a Plan and a Taste for Freedom, and I got 34 Acres on the Mid-South Line

Ric Flair v Butch Reed (10/11/85)

Well, this is a match that happened. It was pretty Flair by the numbers, and I figure if you're one of the seven people who reads this thing then you've seen enough instances or read enough words on Flair by the numbers that you don't need another thousand of them today. It started out fine. Reed worked the headlock and he has a great headlock, so that was okay. Flair couldn't mount any offence so he threw some quick chops, and I thought Reed sold the initial impact of them great, showed that they stung like a bastard, but then immediately wanted to punch Flair's head off and the ref' had to talk him down (a bit too forcefully, because we're dealing with Tommy Gilbert). It had the feel of Flair trying to get under Reed's skin, maybe goad him into making a mistake. It was decent stuff. Then at some point they just kind of dropped everything else and started running through the signature Flair spots, including the bridging backslide that felt about as out of place as I've seen it. It was like they worked the first ten minutes of a 40-minute match before shifting to the last ten minutes of the 20-minute match it actually was. I love Reed to death but I'd rather watch him work a series with the Iron Sheik at this point. 

Ted DiBiase v Bob Sweetan (10/13/85)

This was pretty similar to their match from a couple days earlier, just without the taped fist stipulation. But taped fists or not, many punches were thrown. I feel like Sweetan's a guy who does a lot of stuff - or at least works in a way - that I like in theory, but watching one match of his every sixteen months or so makes it difficult for those matches to really engage me. I'm not likely to learn anything new about DiBiase at this point so I'm looking to see how Sweetan works with him, how he throws in any hope spots, how he sells for DiBiase, all that fun nerdy shit you think about when you've been reading about wrestling on the internet for like twenty years. He's GRUFF but sympathetic enough and I liked him trying to smash DiBiase's head through a table in a rage. He will also bleed, as you may very well expect from a man who looks like Bob Sweetan. This was pretty alright. 

Mid-South Project