I had always thought that early 80s wrestling consisted of the territories (all under the NWA banner) and the WWF.

After watching what WWE Network has to offer (Mid-Atlantic, Mid-South, WCCW 81-83), I realize my largest misconceptions were the sheer number of territories (I thought there were far fewer) and their connection to the NWA.

I've since read that Mid-South and WCCW had no affiliation with the NWA. While WCCW was more confusing because they brought in the NWA champion to defend their belt every few months and also mention that their matches were sanctioned by the NWA, Bill Watts and Mid-South never even really mention the NWA, though they do frequently mention things happening outside their territory in the world of wrestling. In fact, Watts mentioned and showed more WWF programming than NWA.

Mid-South and WCCW seems to also have some sort of working agreement where they began sharing talent or had several performers appearing on the other program in '83.

There appeared to be two large (pun intended) exceptions to all of this, who would occasionally appear on all the programs and territories in the network in that era, including WWF. Those two traveling special features were

Andre the Giant, who eventually settled into WWF permanently post-83. Sometimes (as in Mid-Atlantic) I believe they used Andre's name just to get their big guys over without ever even showing up on tv.

Dusty Rhodes

I had always thought that Rhodes was a pure NWA guy, but he's shown up in all three territories (least frequently WCCW, which is strange because it's in Texas) and probably most frequently in Mid-South.

As Mid-Atlantic builds up to the first Starcade in November of '83, they've only announced three matches (Race/Flair, Valentine/Piper, Briscos/Steamboat & Youngblood), I'm surprised that Dusty is not on the card in a prominent spot. There was a short promo from him mentioning that he'll be there in a viewing capacity.

Bret gives Hogan-Andre five stars. I think that's a very defensible POV, certainly more than that initial negative-star nonsense from Meltzer. Tough to imagine that almost anyone in the crowd went home dissatisfied with what they got from that match.

Given that Bret is a self-serious guy who got over almost entirely on workrate, I've always found it refreshing that he's really far from being a purist who only judges things based on people who worked near his style.

As a then 9 year old who first experienced WM3 through listening and watching through the scrambled PPV cable channel, I fully support the 5 star rating.

https://youtu.be/fgdHDewjQqc?si=8o8Hh2SMiKAspW7z

Holy **** Jesse’s heel commentary for Uncle Elmer’s wedding is peak devastation.

The Bagwell Dark Side is what I assume it would look like if someone were to attempt to parody Dark Side.

Is he the first one to participate in his own bashing?

Im excited that I can watch Bret Harts first title win vs Ric Flair on the Coliseum video release, Smack Em asnd Whack Em!

Looks like the show has some other interesting matches too, Crush vs the Berserker was a cool match up, surprised Berserker jobbed out to Crush's skull crusher finisher. Berserker had just lost Mr Fuji as his manager so was on his way down the card.

Some funny chat between Gorilla and Lord Alfred around the Berserker's origin from the nordic countries. Hayes mentions that he speaks nordic but he is not sure what "Huss" means.

Interesting tidbit on John Nord after wikipediaing him during this match

After the American Wrestling Association closed in 1991, Nord joined Pacific Northwest Wrestling as "Nord the Barbarian". He formed a tag team with The Grappler called "The Breakfast Club". After winning matches, Nord and The Grappler would humiliate their opponents by pouring Cheerios and milk on them.

Another interesting fact about Mr Nord...

The words "star" and especially "legend" doing some yeoman's work there.

I know he briefly feuded with The Undertaker, but I’m not sure someone who couldn’t even pin jobbers was very far up the card.

He couldve pinned those jobbers if he wanted to, thats just not how he rolled

I've seen Starcade '83 before, but never with this much context.

I had always believed the first few Starcades were an event where all the NWA territories came together for a supercard, but this is entirely a Mid-Atlantic event, aside from a single Abdullah vs Carlos Colon match and bringing in Gordon Solie to commentate.

Wikipedia states that either Dusty Rhodes or Dory Funk Jr. booked the show, though the latter would make much more sense because at least he was more strongly associated with the territory at the time. My thoughts on Dory were that he appeared this kindly old gentlemen, almost like somebody's grandfather. He was so quiet, you never even realized he was there in interviews, where Paul Jones did all the talking until he turned face. There was really nothing heelish about him. Terry got all the charisma in that family.

I'll likely follow up with match reactions when I'm done with the entire show in the next day or two.

The second match of Starrcade '83 features Sullivan and Lewin, who were doing more of a crazy than a dark gimmick at this point, against two enhancement talent. After the match, they bloody one of the enhancement workers (Scott McGhee) until Angelo Mosca comes out to make the save and gets stabbed in the arm.

Third match is Abdullah/Colon. Blood, of course.

Next comes the backstage interview of the year. Notice how they just left the bloodied Scott McGhee sitting in a corner.

(Best quality I could find.)


Wahoo and Mark Youngblood face Orton and Slater next with Charlie Brown from Outta Town beating Kabuki for the TV title next. Nothing particularly interesting about either match.

Match of the night and the one that made Starrcade a thing is next. Piper & Valentine in a dog collar match. This feud ran the entire year of '83. However, both were already on their way out the door to WWF. So, despite Valentine being the champion, this was made a non-title match. (Valentine would drop it a few weeks later. before leaving.) Knowing they had no reason to kill themselves in this match and could have easily phoned it in before leaving makes it even better.

Steamboat and Youngblood win the tag titles from the Briscoes. Wikipedia says Steamboat temporarily retired after this match. It's also Mosca's 3rd appearance of the night, as he was the special referee.

Finally, Flair beats Race in the cage for the title. The entire night was set up for Flair.. The match itself wasn't one of Flair's greatest and the finish was an awkward cross body. They had to change the special referee here to avoid any bias. This may have been the first time I heard Flair use entrance music, but it stops as soon as he appears through the curtain, not when he gets into the ring.

Angelo Mosca makes his fourth appearance of the night, as he's the first one in the ring to pick up Flair.

Apparently, he was full of **** too.

Mid-South is doing a story where Lanny Poffo came to Mid-South to escape the bad influences from his family.

He forms a tag team with Magnum T.A., who is being "coached" at this point by Mr. Wrestling II, who is against this formation because Poffo comes from a bad family.

Bill Watts mentions that Lanny's father is Angelo Poffo and his brother is Randy Poffo, otherwise known as Randy Savage.

Were people meant to know Randy's real name at this point or was Watts taking it upon himself to break kayfabe? Randy and Angelo weren't even part of the territory.

Crusher Darsow comes into Mid-South as a heel and he's pummeling everyone for a month until he runs into the Junkyard Dog and loses his first match.

The next week, JYD is being attacked on TV when Darsow comes out to save him. He gained a lot of respect for the Dog after being beat by him.

About a month after that, he runs into Nikolai Volkov, who is being pushed as a monster heel. Darsow gets his second loss.

The next week, Volkov has a match against Dr. Death. Darsow attacks Dr. Death and helps Volkov win the match. He had so much respect for Volkov's power after beating him.

I really hope they keep this up and have him turn to be on the side of whoever beats him every time.

Oscar from Men on a Mission really got a front row seat to the ridiculous Mania 9 ending.

On the last episode of Mid-South in 1983, Jim Ross is cycling through different guest commentators in every matchup. For Hacksaw Jim Dugan v Crusher Darsow, Jerry the King Lawler is on the call. Had to be the first time these two were paired together. The King was a very different personality in that era. It was nothing like the duo they would go on to be a bit over a decade later.

Any rendition of King that isn't squealing "PUPPIES!" is an improvement from what he contributed to the duo later in life.