Episode 21: Mid-South Wrestling Memories: Part 1.

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"Welcome to GenX Classic Sports — the podcast that takes you back to the golden age of sports, where legends were made and memories never fade. 

In this episode, we take a nostalgic look back at Mid-South Wrestling from the 1980s — the legendary wrestling promotion that launched stars like Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and "Cowboy" Bill Watts. If you grew up watching Mid-South Wrestling every Saturday, this is the ultimate trip down memory lane. Join us as we dive into the unforgettable matches, storylines, larger-than-life characters, and why Mid-South Wrestling remains one of the most influential territories in professional wrestling history.

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Production Credits:

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Transcript

welcome sports fans to Gen X Classic Sports where we bring the nostalgia of our sportsfilled youth into the present

day grab your favorite retro jersey crack open a cold one and let's stroll down memory lane together welcome back

everybody and I just have to say we are proud to announce our first partnership with a great company Aunt Suzies Granola

auntsies granola.com if you love granola then you're going to love Aunt Suzie's

Granola aunt Suzies it's a 100% gluten-free kitchen they've expanded

their product offerings to include overnight oats and other kind of snacks my favorite flavors are salted caramel

and s'mores so try those out aunt Susie's Granola is shipped coast to coast online with subscription service

options the owner Erica has generously offered our listeners a great deal from now until July 31st listeners of our

little podcast can use the code Gen XClassic Sports all one word gen XC

Classic Sports for a 20% discount one per customer that's Gen XC Classic

Sports one word for a 20% discount through July 31st at Aunt Suzies Granola

a nuzzies granola welcome welcome to episode This is in This is going to end

up being episodes 21 and 22 most likely and tonight we're going to talk for a

few minutes about Midsouth Wrestling and where we're from you spell that R A S S

L I N apostrophe probably midsouth wrestling and I've got uh brother Casey

with me tonight and I've got a guy that goes back as far as you can go back with us from the old neighborhood i got Ken

with us from from the parts unknown Texas bad Street USA bad Street USA

texas and uh he's a big uh wrestling fan with us back in the day now before we

get started on the thing we witnessed personally if I remember correctly and y'all please correct me Saturdays went

like this cartoons till about 11 or noon right and then in some order Band stand

and wrestling came on after that am I am I kind of right about that does that sound familiar

i remember super friends coming on at 7:00 that was early one yeah which my

parents would get upset because they were wanting to sleep in and we'd jump up at 6:30 to be be ready for that get

sugared up yeah yeah and then I remember Yeah somewhere around noon or 1 the

wrestling shows i think wrestling might have came on and then Band Stand might have hit right after that dick Clark

yeah so anyway um the the three of us we

go back to the same neighborhood and we're even by Arkansas and Louisiana standards we're almost kin folks

um we grew up in the Midsouth area we actually grew up right in the middle of

the Midsouth area and so that was must see TV for us and Kim what I was telling Casey when he first got on here was that

since I went down the rabbit hole of researching this so I wouldn't miss anything everything that happened that

we remember for Midsouth it actually happened between about 1979 and about 86

that's about the entire lifespan of all this stuff that we remember it's about a

six or It really wasn't even that long it was more like 80 to 85 really

yeah it's um it's really shocking to think of how quick it was it really you

know the I know we're talking about Midsouth but you know there's the spectre of the WWF right that kind of

comes in and because Midsouth was doing so well you know Vince McMahon comes

down and starts plucking out all the Oh yeah the stars from the Midsouth and ultimately that's kind of what killed it

you know is that it it success killed it because it was doing so well right that Vince comes in and starts going "Yeah

I'll take that guy i'll take that guy." And uh yeah I was I was like you i was shocked that it it was such a quick run

because it seemed like it was longer but I guess when you're a kid you know it seems a lot longer but yeah I was

shocked at that too casey I know you were way younger than us but you do you kind of remember that time i mean God

you were six seven years old but you you do remember that oh yeah i love the the

characters and the the personalities and all of that and speaking of McMahon I

was looking at the list of people that were on episodes and he's listed as being on an episode yeah it's of

Midsouth man so I went down this major YouTube rabbit hole and the internet in

general because you know you don't ever know what you what you remember is right versus maybe made up in your head

but I was kind of right about some stuff that at the time as a kid I wasn't really aware of but I didn't realize

that these guys were all regional and they all kind of borrowed talent from each other that's why I was telling

trying to tell myself and Ken you'll remember this too i was trying to tell myself I know I didn't dream it that

Andre the Giant fought in Midsouth i know I didn't dream Ric Flair fighting

in Midsouth but then I got to thinking how could that be possible and then I went down this rabbit hole and realized

that these guys were even though they were competitors they also had to help each other out because they were all in

the Southeast down there trying to save off Vince McMahon senior and Vince McMahon Jr so they loan guys out to each

other that's why we remember how big of a deal it was if Carrie von Eric floated through Midsouth or whatever do y'all

remember that as well because I was really questioning my sanity going there's no way Andre the Giant fought in

Shreport yeah he did and I found out how by doing all this research but do y'all kind of remember anything about that

yeah it it's it's kind of like Casey was saying it's kind of hard to you know trace where these guys

started because they were kind of you know moving around all the time yeah cuz I was trying to think of like who were

the guys that were so big you know because like you I remember all these guys coming i remember Carrie von Eric

coming i remember Ric Flair coming in for a while and they would come in and do their little you know spill and then

they would go on to another territory you know and that was kind of the gentleman's agreement that these guys

had that hey we'll loan you our guy you loan us your guy we'll kind of do it but we won't steal your guys and that's

where kind of Vince broke that code and started basically going no I'll steal your guy and I'll take him away and make

you my own that's exactly what I found out as a matter of fact so a little history in case y'all didn't catch it in

y'all's reading bill Watts was actually wrestling in what they called the tri-states area which was Oklahoma I

don't even Oklahoma and somewhere up there maybe some Arkansas and he bought the he was a performer and a booker at

some point meaning he scheduled everything and he ended up buying the triates tri-state wrestling from a dude

named Leroy Mcgherk who was a wrestler who got blinded in a car accident and ended up just being an owner and

promoter at some point he got out of the business and Watts bought him out and ended up with Oklahoma Arkansas

Louisiana and Mississippi and then a weird thing about that was he he worked

out a deal where he could also work in Houston because he didn't want to conflict with the Bon Erics in Dallas so

he had Houston plus those other states I mentioned and that became Midsouth in

like 1979 and then he moved the whole operation to Shreveport the offices the

wrestlers everybody pretty much just moved to Shreport which I found interesting and the the the telecasts

that we remember were filmed on the on the on the fairgrounds in Shreport at

the Irish McNeel Boys Club which as soon as I read that I remembered it exactly that that's exactly how they introduced

it mhm and um and yeah you hit it on the head Ken they had they had gentleman's

agreements saying "Hey if I'm lagging a little bit can I borrow Flair for a week and let him come defend the NWA belt out

of Georgia down here in in Superdome or whatever and I'll send you JYD for a

week?" And and that was how these little liddler smaller operations survived by

loaning guys out to each other and then they'd write I didn't realize that that Flair would dip into Monroe or Shreport

for a week and fight all over the country down there against ordorf or whoever dbic and then

he'd be gone and you know meanwhile JYD is doing the same thing over there so that's how it worked out and as young

kids you're like man they said Andre the Giants going to be on here next week how's that possible you know that now

you know now you know well you know they would also have the way they would do that too is they would have the you know

loser leaves town or you know the so and so you know they they would do some kind

of stipulation where this guy has to leave and you're like oh it makes sense

he's gone you know it's not oh well he was going to another place to wrestle but we we didn't know that there was no

internet there was no you just knew he was on there he got beat in a loser leaves town match and then he's gone and

couple months later he pops back in and because and because for for for half of

that run we didn't even have cable no so what we didn't know was that he was just down in Florida wrestling and doing the

same thing yeah we had no idea that lose or leave town means I loaned him out for a couple of weeks we didn't know at 10

years old that was traumatic you know for JYD to lose and leave town i was going to say though uh I did find some

stuff about Bill Watts where a lot of people online there's a ton of podcasts about this if you want to go find them

but a lot of people give Bill Watts a ton of credit and saying he was tr he was truly innovative in his approach

because he had wrestled all over the country and he knew what he liked and what he didn't like and uh so I'm just

going to read you the bullet list that's very brief that I found of what he truly built the Midsouth on uh live and crazy

crowds uh characters who operated in the gray area between heel and baby faces he

liked the guys that weren't clearly one or the other he liked physical athletic

wrestling and if you'll remember uh there were no nothing but concrete floors around the ring he had come from

areas that used to pad the floor outside the ring believe it or not he didn't like that crap that wasn't physical

enough for him and then the big one I think is that he had a sort of a knack

for what they called oper uh uh episodic storytelling like a soap opera and so

that's were those were his big marks on the industry as far as

you know this is how we're going to do it and there's very few exceptions and another thing he believed in is uh those

guys kept their uh character their character uh all the time uh he told bad

guys the heels he said 'd don't sign autographs because you're you're too much of an sob to do that so don't do it

out in public and these guys are now telling these stories as they enter their 70s and 80s and it's fascinating

to hear these old dudes going man I couldn't even sign autographs for kids cuz Bill Watson fired me if he heard I

did that cuz I was supposedly too mean to do it he was he was really big into

kayf you know he was like he was like he I I think if I heard this correctly he

would even let them have the same locker rooms like the the good guys had their locker room and the bad guys had theirs

yep and I rem and I remember it was a big controversy when I think it was JYD

and Hacksaw Dugen had a cra had a wreck and they were together and at the time

they were feuding right and Bill Watts was he was ticked off he was like mad at

him cuz they decided to ride together to the next event cuz he's like "Hey you guys are feuding you can't do that." So

yeah I don't he was big into that you know i don't I don't know if y'all remember but uh there was a rumor

apparently they stopped at the now defunct Junior Food Mart in our hometown a lot and it makes sense when you

realize they were driving from Shreport to Little Rock and beyond quite a bit i remember one time some older

guys telling all the kids at Junior Food Mart that you know JYD and and I can't

remember if it was Ordorf or DBY it was like you just said it was somebody that should have been an enemy

they pulled up in like a Cadillac together or Lincoln Town Car something fancy and got out and went in used

restroom grabbed a Coke and left you know made it and people spotted them and saw them and it blew my mind cuz I'm

like "Wait a minute those guys hate each other why are they riding together you know and Bill Watts did not like that stuff he really didn't you know Bill

Watts I it when you look at it he really was you know he gave JYD his name yeah he's

the one that gave him the junkyard dog gimmick he hired him he hired him out of He hired him out of Canada from Cal

Calgary yeah and he he gave a lot of those guys their names their gimmicks

you know that they ultimately ended up going on to become hugely rich and famous in the WWF but he was the guy

that kind of put them on the path he uh he takes credit for naming Dusty Roads

too in Florida when he was a promoter down there before Yeah before he came to

Midsouth and you know I I don't know if this is true and and this is just my opinion but I think you're right uh Sean

in that he was kind of an innovator and and you know at the time the WWF was

doing the kind of superhero you know where you had the big guys who were the good guys versus the bad guys it was

black it was black and white there was no gray you know you had good guys and bad guys and you know I think he kind of

was really ahead of his time because if you look at the attitude era you know in the WWF or WWE at that time when it

started going to the kind of anti-heroes and the kind of gray areas that's really what Midsouth Wrestling was doing back

in the you know early 80s they were just kind of ahead of their time yeah casey do you remember the Cold War stuff that

he took advantage of he had Russians and uh Arabs with Scandar Abar he was smart

man he He drumed up that America stuff with the Cold War going on oh yeah uh

Dick Murdoch coming into the ring with a nap army knapsack with a six-pack of beer in it and his little folding army

shovel remember that um and Dusty Road the American dream he and uh uh Ivan

Koloff was the Russian guy that was probably from Minnesota or something but he brought him in and put the trunks on

him made him act like he had the fuzzy hat when he came in the ring and you know he let Scandar Akbar assemble this

crew of foreigners and and they truly were foreigners some of them like Iron Chic for example and man they drumed up

that America patriotic cold war thing and Bill Watts he was ahead of his time

well it was the time that's why he took advantage it was like Rocky fighting Drago i mean that's what he was taking advantage of

but yeah man you want to get everybody stirred up let them run into the Hirsch Coliseum spouting go or go Russia or

whatever go into Monroe with Scandar Akbar and see how far you make it

man that poor guy probably you know he all indications are he was a pretty cool dude in real life but that that dude

probably couldn't go to the grocery store you know well you know the other thing that I thought from my memory and I kind of

looked it up and it kind of you know matched up was now maybe he wasn't the first cuz like we said all these guys

were kind of stealing from each other ideas and stuff but he was the first guy

midsouth was the first time remember how tag teams used to be kind of the jobbers

you know it was just the guys who weren't really good enough to He was kind of the first that I remember

putting like two studs together like like he put JYD and Dick Murdoch together it's like they'll be tag team

you know and then the fabulous Freeirds and all the you know he was the one that the tag team for a while in Midsouth was

kind of the biggest deal to have you know where usually it's the individual stuff but Absolutely uh that used to be

kind of training ground for guys that weren't so good or needed to learn or whatever i mean he took the the A-list

guys and had them feuding each other and all that kind of stuff and uh I I

enjoyed the tag team stuff as much as I did anything else back in the day you know yeah i I thought the tag team cuz

the one we went to in Elorado was uh and I remember I'll remember this till the

day I die was Cowboy Dick Murdoch and Junkyard Dog versus the Grappler and

Super Bill Watts it was Bill Watts oh yeah that's right bill Watts yeah Bill Watts himself bills against Grappler and

Super Destroyer destroyer yeah because one of the things I I had to look up cuz I thought it was Bill Watts and then I

looked it up and at that time uh uh Dick Murdoch and Jerk Junkyard Dog were doing

it i don't know why Bill Watts jumped in there and wrestled that uh at the time but I thought that was what it was and I

was like "Well that's weird because I remembered it being Bill Watt so I don't know if maybe Dick Murdoch had a little

too much to drink the night before and Well it's really weird so we were cleaning out mom's attic and getting all

of our toys and stuff and Casey found the poster from back then that we I had one somewhere too yeah and it says on

the poster Cowboy Bill watch so I don't know if to cut down on the traveling for

some other guys or something he stepped in and gave somebody like Dick Murdoch a break for a night or what because I'll

talk about it in a little bit but I found a podcast that Jim Cornet does and

he reads his schedule from his day planner from 1984 Midsouth and it's

shocking how much driving they used to that's why Junior Food Mart in our hometown was a stop stopping point for

him because you'll see when I read off some of this stuff but Casey since you were younger Ken Ken and I can go I

would assume he starts where I do and and in my my mind it was Ted Debiosi and JYD first but who do you remember out of

mids i know you can really remember WWE later on because it was kind of cartoonish and stuff but back to the

gritty North Louisiana stuff well who do you remember first for for you younger a

little bit younger than us uh I definitely remember the to me the big stars were JYD

uh Hacksaw he he made his living there i mean he

had been other places but he really became a star down there yeah um I

remember the Von Erics when they did show up oh man that was always a big deal that was the biggest deal in the

world to me was Carrie they made such a huge deal out of him being the national shot put champion and at 18 years old

and all this and man it was a big deal when the Bon Erics wrestled i went down

that rabbit hole one night of you told me that a lot of those old episodes are on YouTube and I Yeah you go watch them

it was funny just watching that and those names coming back like oh yeah and I'd forgotten i'm like oh yeah I remember that guy i remember that guy

buddy Buddy Landell or whatever his name was i saw one with him the other day and laughed he's out there on podcast left

and right so you I mean you pretty much remember the same guys we do uh another guy that wrestled in Elora that night

was Bob RP I think remember him r O O P he wore the the amateur wrestling

singlet thing you know that we used to laugh at um speaking of those guys though one of

the things that Bill Watts did that I noticed I'm not sure everybody did but he hired a lot of former football

players to be wrestlers and these were some big strong dudes and I looked a

bunch of them up that we remember the most and JYD played college football and signed in the NFL he just got hurt and

didn't he signed with the Packers I think yeah Packers paul Ordorf was like a four-year stud at the University of

Tampa in Florida he's in their sports hall of fame as a halfback and tight end

um Hacksaw Dugan I think played football uh Ted Debiosi played at West Texas

State back in the day and his mother was a wrestler and his stepfather was a wrestler ernie Lad played in the NFL and

the big the big cat Ernie L and by the way I didn't realize that Ernie Lad was

kind of the second lieutenant to to Bill Watts he had a ton to do with their booking and recruiting and promotion and

everything he had a lot to do behind the scenes as well as obviously in the ring

um he was a big big part of the operation i read where Ernie Ernie Lad

was kind of what's weird about Bill Watts is he's if you look at him later on he says some really kind of you know

things that ultimately get him fired from uh you know WCW uh Hank Aaron gets him fired because you

know he says some really insistent which is ironic because of he was the first that I know what you're fixing to say go

ahead he he was really the first guy you know and they said that Ernie Glad was really

the one that pushed him to let JYD be the champ and that he really pushed you know uh you know for black wrestlers to

really get the stage because at that time they were kind of you know secondhand you know they didn't get the the main jobs and the championships and

Correct and JYD I couldn't believe this i read where they did a I'm sure you've seen this they did this thing and they

said who was the most popular athlete was it Pistol Pete Maravic Archie Manning or JYD and it was JYD by a mile

by a mile was the most popular that was that was a poll in the state of Louisiana to to school age children

who's your favorite athlete can you believe that uh JYD I think is still uh

renowned as the first black heavyweight champion wrestler in pro wrestling and

so that's and and I don't you know I don't know what happened later on with Bill Watson Hank Aaron getting sideways

i kind of remember it but um for for him to give Ernie Lad as much responsibility as he did because Ernie Lad was kind of

the mentor to Butch Reed and JYD and some of those guys Tony Atlas that whole crew and if you think about it in the

South it's so ironic that this was the early 80s not too far from civil rights

this and that going on in the Deep South and JYD was the most popular dude by far

in Midsouth wrestling by far it wasn't even close i I remember I and this is

something that I remember hopefully you know from my you know my childhood memories is I remember I'd gone to the

concession stand but we it had been like a little you know the the match had ended before and it was getting ready

for the you know the last match was JYD cowboy Bill Watts versus a grappler that was the big main event and I was getting

my food and we were on the way back and all of a sudden you hear that

done and I mean the entire crowd just exploded i mean it exploded and I just

remember as a kid like the hair on back of my neck standing up I was just like this is something that that's a memory

that I'll take to my grave because I've never felt you know at that age that

kind of energy and just the way that crowd popped like that and that wasn't

that was everybody white black everybody that was in that kids older people and it it

everybody loved it man man they wrote they wrote so many good stories with him with the angles with him and the freeird

you know remember the Freeirds blinded him with a hair with with hair cream

and by the way by the way the Freeirds I think were Bill Watt's creation he took they were he took three random dudes and

put them together he saw the potential in a three he was the first guy that really saw the potential in a three-man

outfit and they made a special rule in Midsouth that if you were a threeman outfit it didn't matter but just two of

them had two of them had to wrestle to retain the belt so that kind of freed Michael hey what the hell if I have

balloons going in front of my face for that freed up uh the the ability to kind

of shuffle the lineup a little bit but yeah the so the freeirds blinded JYD uh

Ted Deiosi turned heel on him in ' 82 and that led to this whole stagger Lee

thing which I thought was the best angle ever in Midsouth and I don't even know if Casey remember you remember the

stagger Lee story Casey I don't guess so they made a big deal

early on about JYD and Ted Debiosi being best friends one of them was be or they were best men at each other's weddings

and all this and they they were both uh babyfaced good guys 12

82ish they both ended up at this I think it was in the Super Dome and by the way

when they they wrestled in the Superdome it was always 20 30,000 people which WWE wasn't doing or WWF wasn't doing that at

all no and they made this angle where the two of them would fight a friendly title bout for like the North American

Championship that that Midsouth only had you know and at the very end of the match Debiosi always wore this little

glove he he loads the glove and knocks JYD out and turns heel and then he went on a long run as the most hated dude in

Midsouth well that led to all kinds of craziness with Dick Murdoch and all this stuff

well they ended up with a a tag team match of a loser leaves town cuz Debiosi

had gone off and formed what he called the Rat Pack with uh Matt Matt Bourne

remember that name can and somebody else and it was a loser

leave town match and JYD had Mr olympia with him the guy with the silver

mask or Mr wrestling number two one of them and they lost and then Stagger Lee

shows up Casey so there was another match back in Shreorter somewhere on TV and this dude that looked JYD was

supposed to leave town for 90 days and this guy comes into the ring head to toe covered in orange and green with a mask

and he looks a lot like JYD's body and he just keeps showing up trashing

Debiosi and uh Oh Hacksaw Dugan had started it all by being dressed up like a gorilla right Ken yeah yeah he he

inter he interfered he interfered in the loser leave town match he was the third member of the rep pack it was Dugan and

Debiosi that's right he interfered in the match so JYD and Mr olympia lose jyd

has to leave town and then Stagger Lee shows up and he's just Yeah and so the

the bad guys are all complaining to Bill Watts that it's clearly JYD and this goes on this goes on for weeks i'm sure

they I'm sure they fought this from New Orleans to Tulsa and back and forth over weeks and

months well 90 days because that's how long JYD had to stay away and finally on

a Shreport television taping they unmask Stagger Lee and it's just some random

dude and uh you know you could look at it pretty close and go "Ah that ain't quite

JYD's physique but uh okay we'll buy it." you know but anyway that was the best angle ever cuz nice I mean and and

for once JYD wasn't in Texas or somewhere fighting he was actually dressed up like Staggerly interfering

with everything Debbiosi and them did for three months straight and they milked that man all over the southern

United States i'm sure that that you're in my wheelhouse now did I did I

remember that correctly because I did do the research but I'm trying not to look at notes that's pretty much how it went i think you I'm telling you I remember

the staggerly thing so well because I remember when when when you got to remember that was in ' 82 Casey 82 so

you were 6 years old deiosi and JYD had been tag team champions they'd been like

they played it up like they were the best buds and then when he betrayed him like as a kid I just could not believe

it i was like just it was it was the worst thing i was shocked i was shocked yeah they were my favorite too my

favorite too by far yeah and um and then when Stagger Lee shows up this you know

another guy we haven't mentioned that I that is Jim Ross who started out in

Midsouth and probably the greatest wrestling announcer of all time and I

remember as a kid like you said Sean I just remember going man that stagger Lee

he's he looks just like JYD he's using all his maneuvers he's doing the thump and he's doing all this stuff but Jim

Ross would go stagger Lee used to beat JYD up in school he was like the bully

you know and and uh you know he had this whole story like you know that that that

was the angle that was and I would go okay that sounds pretty plausible you know it must be you know the case JYD's

uh childhood uh bully was Stagger Lee and he brought him in to take it yeah yeah yeah he was tough he's the one that

used to beat up JYD and made him tough like that and so staggerly you know was even tougher than JYD and and yeah he

just came in and beat the crap out of everybody for like 90 days and it was so funny cuz it's like you were kind of in

on it but you were at the same time as a kid you're just kind of going well you know this story sounds you know it

sounds believable you know sure yeah and I bought into everything else so but you know like you said the the whole genius

behind it is the wrestlers complaining about it the whole time just going "Oh that's Junkyard Dog that's not

Stagger." And then Jim Ross would come in and and interview him and he'd go "You know I'm not I'm Stagger Lee you

know I'm not you know and the great the great part though was they finally knock

him out and unmask him and it's not JYD anyway." And it's a dude that weighs about 160 pounds if I remember correctly

he didn't look anything like him he was built he was built like a marshmallow compared to Jude

oh that was that was you know if you think about it think about how that's been copied

you know like when the when the Mega Powers broke up you know Hogan and Macho Man were best buds and then all of a

sudden they broke up may you know that all started it or I mean I'm sure they've been doing it before but the

first big time I remember was Debiosi and and Junkyard Dog because they just

they were like you said they were the top tag team they were like the most popular guys and all the they were the

the the two guys that everybody wanted to be like and then to see those guys turn on each other it was just I'd never

seen anything you'd seen betrayals before you'd seen people turn on people and do stuff but never nothing like that

and I'd never seen that before and I was just like couldn't believe it yeah absolutely it was the betrayal of the

worst kind by far um who else do you remember Casey i know you remember DBSI and JYD who does the younger Tikeke

remember from then the I Dusty Roads i Dusty Road yeah he he did he did fight

there some he was one of those they'd borrow and have a they'd have about a week-long storyline for a guy coming in

from somewhere else and challenging for the North American title or or vice versa he'd bring the belt from Georgia

and somebody would challenge him for a week and they'd go all over the countryside

um making that same storyline keep going you know uh uh I'm trying to think uh I know

there's one that Casey's going to remember cuz I don't know if Casey was old enough but Sean you probably

remember being in uh elementary on the playground and having to watch your back

at all times for somebody trying to DDT you during Jake the Snakes DT run in the in

Midsouth i remember for an entire it may have been two years where you could not

go on the playground without having your head on a swivel because somebody was going to try to DD remember at school I

think they banned the DDT cuz people were doing it and people were getting hurt jake Jake the Snake had a run of

good guy and bad guy at Midsouth he turned I don't remember where he started in which he turned to but he definitely

was there long enough i think he was North American champion for a while there was all kind of craziness of

course if you've seen anything about him that was probably the most tame his personal life ever was because after

that man he was Yeah you know it took he was off of on a bender for decades after

that really he was definitely a guy that blurred the lines between good and good

guy and bad guy he was never completely one or the other he always kind of was

in that gray area and I think that's what made him last so long is you know

if you look at these guys a lot of them that burn out really quickly you know that they burn red hot but then they go

is that they're one trick ponies you know you can't Yeah you got to always reinvent yourself or you got to have

something that can sustain it and if you don't eventually people are going to get tired of you and I think that's the

genius in Bill Watts is he kept he kept those guys going from one side to the next he kept it fresh you know it was

never the same old stuff and I mean they had they played the long game on stuff like Stagger Lee and the long game on

Debbiosi being a hill debbiosi even took a break from Midsouth and went to Georgia and Japan I read and was gone

like most of a couple of years he comes back and picks up right where he left off being the most hated dude and then

there was a turn for him in 85 where he went back to the people's champion kind of uh reputation because of uh I don't

remember i've got notes over here but basically uh I think he and Dick Murdoch had it out or something over uh over a

contending for the belt from Ric Flair that's what it was all right everybody we're going to uh stop this discussion

right there at the halfway point or so and we're going to pick back up in a couple of weeks with our second half of

our discussion about Midsouth Wrestling we appreciate you listening and if you want to help us out a little bit please

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