Mid-Atlantic is showing footage of several out of area tag teams who will be involved in the tournament. They show AWA footage of a currently WWF team (Adonis/Ventura) for an NWA tournament. Seemed so strange to me in this day and age.

Over on Mid-South, they had just set up a JYD/Iron Sheik feud the week before when it's announced the Sheik has been "recalled" to Iran. They keep mentioning the match between he and JYD is still signed and are turning this into an angle with his manager, but Sheik is legitimately gone from the territory it seems. Reading up on his career in the early 80s, he never seemed to stay more than a few months anywhere. Wonder why Watts is still pushing a match that's never going to happen. Did the Sheik no show them?

There are some things in Mid-South that don't age well. Baby-face card carrying KKK member Dick Murdoch. Bill Watts praising Grizzly Smith every week. Absolutely cringeworthy.

Check out who the ref is for this Macho Man vs George Steele SNME match from 1986! Mind blowing if you dont know this fact already

https://youtu.be/Jlyn2Iw7DJ8?si=8kzG57nB7_xb2J3T

Huh, nice spot. Shane McMahon being one of the ringside officials trying to deal with Elizabeth running in at WM VII (I think this is when it happened) is another strange referee sighting.

Early Feb '82, on an episode of Mid-Atlantic, Blackjack Mulligan is talking about what an honor it will be to tag with his son in the tournament and footage is shown of them in tag team action. The next week, he debuts in WWF as a heel. Bob Orton debuts in the same episode after being on the Mid-South program the previous week. No such thing as non-competes in this era. WWF appears to have turned over the entire heel side of the roster in just a few months.

https://twitter.com/allan_cheapshot/...10694814695779



What on earth is this bracket? Let's get DiBiase and Steamboat out of the way so that Jerry Sags can be in the semifinals in a heel vs. heel match?

This was not a PPV right? Yes some very weird booking there... I had no idea IRS was a KOR winner

Very few in Mid-South seem to be able to correctly pronounce Ted DiBiase's name. Watts just leaves the last "e" sound off, but Skandor Ackbar takes the cake. I don't know how he came up with Di-Byoos.

The Samoans are credited with ending Mike George's career. The same week George debuts on Mid-Atlantic. You know, the show Mid-South sometimes shows highlights of to feature certain wrestlers or events. Even if there was no internet and the ability to watch programs outside your area was limited, were people really buying this?

In March of '82, footage is shown of a Flair/Steamboat match where Slaughter and his goons attack both wrestlers, turning Flair babyface. Jake Roberts calls this simple run in the worst thing that has ever happened in wrestling history. It seems Ole Anderson has also attacked Flair at an untelevised event, causing stitches and a broken finger.

Flair has to give a babyface promo for this angle, but the same week, he plays the heel in WCCW where he's running an angle against the Von Erichs that will play out for the rest of the year. I wonder if he ever got confused where he was supposed to be babyface or heel during this era. The tv shows weren't national at this point, but the magazines were and surely had to mention his conflicting personalities.

There also seems to be just about no WWE material from 2/82 through 83 and up until Hogan wins the belt in '84. This is perplexing and unfortunate. I really wanted to see WWF transition from local to a national promotion over this time span, as well as the return of Hulk Hogan as a babyface. Nor does any of Hogan's AWA run prior to returning seem to be available, while all the great Hidden Gem stuff from pre-Peacock hasn't returned either.

Tully Blanchard is part of a team that does a quick job to JYD and some masked dude in March '82. I had thought he had more well known at this point already.

Bret won the final.

Considering the taxes Bret probably had to pay for winning a king's ransom, IRS was the real winner

WP sir, WP.

May of '82...

Wahoo McDaniel throws a mean chop. I thought he was going to cave Slaughter's chest in.

It feels like Vince is booking Mid-Atlantic when they refer to the two men Slaughter is mentoring as Sgt. Slaughter's privates all the time.

I really enjoy the enhancement talent interviews that show you why these guys never advanced past that stage. God bless Bob Caudle, who is still alive at 93 years old, for how much he tries to help these poor souls through it.

Now, you see a run in and beating nearly every segment on every show. Fascinating how big a deal it is back then. Roddy Piper whips Tommy Rich (who isn't even part of Mid-Atlantic as far as I can tell) and it's all anybody is talking about for a month.

I like how the heels and babyfaces all think they're part of a big team back then. Slaughter is talking about all the guys coming into the area and mentions that they've got one coming in on "our side" too.

Less than a year after they were enhancement talents on WWF shows, King Kong Bundy & Hacksaw Dugan have taken new names and altered their appearance, beginning successful runs that would soon lead them back to WWE around the same time in the early-mid 80s.

A debuting Steve Williams in Mid South (mid-'82) may be one of the worst things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. Watts comments that there's a new "rule" allowing him to compete as both an amateur at Oklahoma (football) and as a professional (wrestling). His first few matchers are like a deer caught in the headlights. He looks chunky and has no idea what he's doing in the ring. Dr. Death was one of those guys that always looked about a decade older than he was, but he certainly looks like a lost kid when he started out. They would never put a worker of this quality on TV now. Mongo's early in ring work was better.

Loving these old school midsouth reflections when they are posted!

Man rewatching Wrestlemania 7 and the package before the Warrior vs Macho King match was awesome.

Those run in attacks from Macho in the lead up looked so brutal. Especially the sceptre off the top rope to the throat at SNME and the jewel sceptre shot to the head at Rumble 91.

Macho was one of the GOAT workers, everything he did looked real, apart from people no selling his elbow drop which grinded my gears

That was easily and by far the best match Warrior ever had. Although, it was horrifying how not long after, everyone involved in that match, from the wrestlers to the women to the announcers and referee, slowly started passing away to the point where i think Warrior was the last one.

I think I prefer Hogan-Warrior from WM VI. Savage-Warrior has a lot to recommend it, but I don't like Warrior making to walk out of the match and I don't like Savage dropping 50 flying elbows or whatever it was. The post-match carries a lot of the good will for that match, and Warrior has nothing to do with it.

On rewatch I do like WM6 better too

At least the questioning himself to the gods fit Warriors character.

The 3 shoulder tackles then the standing over Macho 3 count really pissed me off too. That also fits his character due the brute dominance he always had in matches, it just didnt sit right to me.

I think a roll up reverse, finisher reversal or Sherri purse smack gone wrong, something that Warrior would not normally be involves in for the 3 count would have been a better finish than that, it felt disrespectful

I still have no idea how Warrior wasn't seriously hurt from that shot. It's one of the heaviest shots to the head I've ever seen.

I honestly think the elbows thing is okay if he does one and gets his pin kicked out of, then does two more and suffers another kickout. Both are believable false finishes in 1991, and while I’m generally quite loudly against finisher kickouts, I do think you could justify it in this limited circumstance. And it makes it seem very reasonable that Savage would go for the move that many times. “One didn’t work? **** you, I’ll do two.”

Going straight to a whole series of elbows with no pin attempt after the first one was an announcement to the whole audience of the kickout to come. Just seems like the silliest possible way to have Warrior survive the elbow.

100% agree, was dumb what were they thinking.

The Brisco brothers, Wahoo McDaniel, Jay Youngblood. Half the babyface roster of Mid-Atlantic in '82 is of Native American descent (or at least portrayed that way). King Kong Mosca remarks that there are too many Indians around here and he's going to start getting rid of them. There is so much from that era that does not age well.