Episode 22: Mid-South Wrestling Memories: Part 2.

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Episode 22: Mid-South Wrestling Memories: Part 2.

Today, we're stepping back into the squared circle to finish our discussion of the glory days of Mid-South Wrestling — one of the most iconic and hard-hitting regional wrestling promotions of the 1970s and 1980s. From Bill Watts’ gritty storytelling to unforgettable names like Junkyard Dog, Ted DiBiase, ‘Hacksaw’ Jim Duggan, and Butch Reed, we're diving deep into the feuds, promos, and moments that made Mid-South Wrestling a fan favorite.

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If you love granola, then you’re going to love Aunt Susie’s Granola. Aunt Susie’s is a 100% Gluten Free Kitchen and includes overnight oats and other snacks. Aunt Susie's Granola is shipped coast to coast online with subscription service options. The owner,  Erica, has offered our listeners a great deal: from now until July 31st, listeners of our little podcast can use the code GENXCLASSICSPORTS for a 20% discount, one per customer thru July 31st.  

Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more nostalgia-packed content covering GenX retro sports, and the athletes who defined a generation. Let's roll back the years — this is GenX Classic Sports!"

Production Credits:

Intro and outro music: Mason Enis

Narrator: Haylee Wolf

Copyright @ PineStreetProductions 2025. Any illegal reproduction of this content will result in immediate legal action.

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 X Classic Sports All one word Gen XC

Classic Sports for a 20% discount One per customer That's Gen X Classic Sports

One word for a 20% discount through July 31st at Aunt Seuzies Granola AU N Tuzies

Granola Ric Flair came to town from Georgia with the NWA belt And Ric Flair

set up a was supposed to he was supposed to fight the North American champion for the for the shot at the belt down in the

Superdome and and Debiosi uh somehow Murdoch wasn't able to fight

they made up a reason for injury or something and Debbiosi wanted to step in

and ended up that Debbiosi got hurt by Murdoch and and anyway it the way they

did it the crowd turned on them and made Debiosi a hero again because they were made it look like he was not getting his

shot at the NWA belt and uh anyway I butchered that story but the fact is he

made a kind of a redemption in 85 because JYD I think was pretty much out of the building by then and they needed

a big name uh to come back to being a baby face for them Speaking of uh uh you

said them while ago the Freeirds I went down a quite a bit of research on them

and the Von Erics because you just think about Midsouth and Georgia but they had a run in Texas that was unbelievable

against the Von Erics shortly after or during the Midsouth stuff that was really crazy That's when they were

packing them into Texas Stadium I say packing I mean 20 and 30,000 people too

So the Freeirds man And then they went on to be you know they had their own theme song and you know all the

craziness that came with them But but they started out down there fighting JYD and mid or started out as the Freeirds

at least down there in Midsouth too So they went on to much bigger and better things too The Freeirds were probably

one of my favorite bad guy groups of all time Yeah

You know there's just certain bad guys that you like and you just can't help it I can't help but like Michael Hayes man

I love Michael Hayes He's too cool You know when uh back in the day when we

used to go to these parties away from Junction and stuff and then it was me and uh give him a shout out Jesse

Thurman and Brown and those guys when we didn't want to tell people our names my my alter ego was Michael Hayes and Jerry

was and Jesse was uh Terry Gordy And so that we you know if somebody asked us

what our names were I'd just go Michael Hayes you know and they never knew you know because this was you know most

people didn't know They would just be like "Okay." So I mean I I was such a fan of of Michael Hayes and the Freeirds

and just their whole the whole style and the way they did everything And and uh

you know out here the Sportatorium is where they had all that stuff you know out here and and uh actually the Von

Erics lived about 10 20 miles north of me uh is where their old estate and all

their stuff was And uh yeah they it's it's the Freeirds really kind of went

from there They never had that big run in the WWE but they were kind of like Flair If you go to people around Dallas

and Midsouth and out here they were huge I mean they were superstars in in that in their own little world Yeah Casey

Michael Hayes ended up they ended up making their own song That's how that's how bad they were dude They didn't even

play anybody else's music anymore They had their own song in video The music

Yeah the Iron Claw Watching that movie is what got me to thinking about this in the first place Uh when that movie came

out a couple years ago this was uh that's what made me think this Um

so I'm trying to think Um oh let me let me share with y'all

what I heard Uh Jim Court by Oh but oh no before I do that so the Rock and Roll Express let's talk about them for a

second So as we said Bill Watts really embraced tag teams And then to kind of

bring some fresh faces in do do you remember the Rock and Roll Express rolling into town

yeah I I remember them and and uh the Midnight Express were the big you know

that was the big rivalry Yeah Jim Cornette with his tennis racket Yes I

was gonna say Jim Cornet and his tennis racket and throwing a big fit and being like just the ultimate heel I mean such

a good heel You talking about somebody that you instantly wanted to punch in the face and Jim Cornet walking out

there with that suit and that tennis racket that just you just wanted to punch you just wanted to see somebody

punch him and yeah he was perfect heel I I read somewhere that at some point Bill

Watts decided they needed to bring young girl or teenage girls into the mix because other than Carrie von Eric

coming in twice a year or whatever he'd look around and think man where are all the girls or somebody told him this I

don't remember Oh I think he said Jerry Lawler told him that That sounds about right They would Well yeah that checks

the box But they would cons That's what I'm getting back to about the consulting with each other like he he invited Jerry

Lawler from Memphis to come down and watch a taping and told him all the storylines and everything and he said

Jerry Lawler said dude where's all the chicks because they were they were skewing towards an older audience and so

their idea ended up being let's bring in somebody young and it was the Rock and Roll Express was the result of that and

then they had to have a rival so here comes the Midnight Express and Jim Cornet and you know and so okay so Jim

Cornet did a he he has his own podcast and y'all should listen to it There's some pretty entertaining stuff on there

But you can scan the titles and when you see Midsouth hop in But let me he he pulled out his

1984 schedule book um from late summer and let me let me tell you what he read First of all he

lived in Alexandria Louisiana Even though their their studio was out of shreport he lived in

Alexandria So he said on a Friday on August 17th they wrestled in Houston

Texas The next day they w on Saturday they wrestled in Lake Charles Louisiana

Not a big deal there The next day was a Sunday and they had to drive to Hope

Arkansas to wrestle in the Watermelon Festival outside on a August day in Arkansas You

know that was nice and warm On August the 20th they had to be in

Monroe on August 21st a Tuesday Now this has been happening since Friday Here we are at Tuesday They had to go from

Runroad to Shreveport Not a big deal there On Wednesday they had to get up do

their 9:00 a.m KTBS interviews for the fights coming up you know all their

promotional stuff And then they drove 200 miles to Bowmont Texas to fight that

night Wednesday night the on Thursday they came back to Alexandria and got some sleep he said

because Friday they had to drive to New Orleans uh and fought at the Super Dome They

drove back to Alexandria that night On Saturday they drove to Little Rock Arkansas and fought again And on Sunday

they went to Oklahoma City Oklahoma They started in Houston they went to Oklahoma City uh six days later or whatever it

was That was a typical schedule he said for Midsouth wrestling That's why all those dudes came through our hometown so

much and stopped and got their drink or whatever because it was on the main thorough affair They mentioned Little

Rock a lot when they talk about Midsouth wrestling And um matter of fact they were talking about how uh every now and

then out of pure uh pure pity for them Bill Watts would send them a plane ticket to go from Louisiana to Oklahoma

on a plane because uh it was just so much driving Every now and then he'd let them fly to uh Tulsa and and do their

rounds up there and then come back fly back to Shreport or whatever because it was just so much driving because that's

I mean that's just crazy That's crazy That's a crazy amount of And he said invariably some big match would be

coming up and somebody's going to have car trouble So every town he said they had a dude they knew to call that they

had car trouble Isn't that isn't that hilarious well they you know they didn't get paid

They didn't show up So it wasn't like back in the day when they you know had some kind of contract I mean they worked

365 days a year and they had to be there For every one of these he had a dollar

amount that I didn't write down but he would go made a $100 that night Uh and then there was one I think the the Super

Dome they made 1,500 bucks That was worth the drive going to that but they'd be $300 It'd be one night they made 65

bucks a piece Well you hear some of those guys that's why they would share rides together You know they take turns

and they'd sleep in their car A lot of times they said they just pull over and sleep in the back seat or let the seat

back because they'd have money for a hotel He said they would pull their money if they had to get a room They

would pull their money get the worst flea bag they could find and they would take the mattress off throw two of them

in the floor flip a coin Whoever lost had to sleep on the two sets of box springs and the other two guys got the

mattress on the floor And by the way they were supposed to be working out five or six times a week in the middle

of all that Yeah I mean those were some big dudes you know Yeah That was the that those

guys were living the life I mean they were to to be that dedicated want to do something like that man Oh yeah There

was a guy talking about how he lived in an apartment complex in Boer City with a bunch of wrestlers And he was like you

know it was just weird You'd go to your mailbox and King Kong Bundy would uh be down there getting his mail Remember him

the bald one And then there was the oneman gang had the long hair and the Yeah And Big Boss Man Big Boss Man Big

Boss Man Um Well that's why that's why Vince was able to pluck those guys too because he was able to offer them hey

I'll pay you the money We'll fly all over the place you know and so they just

couldn't compete with that When you're when the TV revenue is like you said Sean we didn't have you know we didn't

have cable When cable came that changed everything because now that revenue you

couldn't compete with the gate I mean no matter how much you pack Little Rock Elena Monroe you can't compete with that

cable money And that's how Vince was able to basically put those guys out of business Yeah it's a real shame too

because what they were doing was just being ambitious They were just trying to go na national with it And uh Watts lost

something like half a million dollars in a matter of months when he started trying to go coast to coast And um I

think uh Jim Cornet ended up buying him out and kind of merging Midsouth with the Georgia and all that up there that

Ted Turner was doing It didn't work out for any of them because uh WWE was just

this money-making machine eventually And um all these guys ended up up there really You remember Ted Debiosi made his

run up there and JD man the million dollar man Yeah JYD was on like one of

the first Wrestlemania he was on the undercard and of course he was kind of getting older and so forth but um man

it's just it was such a regionalized thing and you know Fritz von Eric had such a chokeold on the whole Dallas

operation and and if these guys didn't help each other they knew none of them would survive and that's what's really

interesting about it that they were competitors but they had to have each other they were talking about how if if

Bill Watts could get a a Von Eric in the Superdome or whatever or if they could get Flair to come do something in Dallas

or just whoever make up a name in a location It put them over and they'd make so much money they could keep going

you know Well you know Sean you said this earlier and I had the same feeling I remember watching all these

guys you know like the Freeirds and the Von Erics and Ric Flair And then when

you get older you you hear people go "Well no the Von Erics wrestled out of Dallas and that's where the Freeirds and

they had to." And I'm like "Wait a minute I'm almost positive I saw these guys wrestle And same thing with Ric

Flair It's like I remember that And then you find out oh yeah they had their home bases where they were based out of but

then they would pop in the Midsouth And I was like you I thought I was crazy because I was like I know for a fact I

saw the Freeirds I know I saw Carrie Vaner I just know it Me too And uh but

then you'd hear "No he he wrestled out of Dallas you know and you're like well how did I see him?" Because I know But

we used to watch it on wasn't it KOE CBS was that the one that ran the KT KTBS

KTBS out of Shreport yeah KTBS out of Streetport or what yeah because we could only get so many It was one of the

stations we could get with the antenna And I remember my my dad turning the antenna so we could watch wrestling

because it would get all fuzzy and he'd go out there and turn it and go "Okay right there right there." And we'd watch it And uh but you know you would miss

you know it's not like kids don't understand today like we didn't have streaming we didn't have YouTube If you

missed an episode you missed it Yeah it was gone And you might come back the next week and go "Why is so and so

fighting so and so last week they they were like buddies." Cuz it was episodic

You know what happened yeah Yeah Casey Casey I'm sorry Go ahead No no I was

just going to say you know you would if you missed something you or missed a couple the whole thing could change by

the time you jump back in and you would just kind of have to figure out oh oh okay this is what's going on now Well do

you remember that occasionally they would come in on Saturday morning and say okay Thursday night at the Coliseum

the belt changed hands and we're going to go show you And they would show like the last three minutes of a match to get

you kind of caught up because they knew you had no other way of knowing Yeah they did a good job of doing a re you

know that's where I think Jim Ross and those guys did a really good job because they would kind of give like these

little recaps So they kind of they had to because it's like a soap opera you

know and if you miss a couple episodes you got to get But luckily it wasn't too hard to get you know caught back up and

figure out what was going on But still we we couldn't if we missed it or if we weren't able to see it you weren't able

to record it or do anything to watch it it was just gone and you would just have to and sometimes they would show those

little this is what happened last week when so and so did something But that's all you had really is hope they'd show a

flashback or are they got to give you an update on what happened that's right What I was going to ask Casey is do you

remember me going to Dixie Dandy to the grocery store and buying wrestling magazines casey do you remember that at

all no I don't remember They used to stock They used to have wrestling magazines That's the only way you knew

what was going on And they'd have dusty roads on the front He'd just be bleeding everywhere I mean just Rick Rick Flar's

blonde hair' be full of blood That's what attracted me to it was And you know they didn't do a they didn't do a ton of

what they called juicing in Midsouth There was some but you know you you'd see a magazine cover and go "My god did

he die in that fight?" I mean Dusty Roads looked like somebody beat him to death You know is is do y'all remember

was it the one that we went to where the guy went under the mat because I have

this memory and I don't know if this was this one or if we went to another one Guy went under the mat and come out and

had they had he had wiped the blood all over his face Probably probably did you know they'd go under there and cut

themselves They'd have That was horrific to me man Just Yeah As a young kid watching that it was like "Oh wow That

Well they call what they call that kid juicing They juiced him." Yeah Make ble making him bleed That's juicing I think

You know what Katie uh what Casey made me uh remember is um from that match in

Elder the way those guys worked the crowd cuz we had really good seats We

were on the stage ring side ring side We were we were only about like three or four rows from the from the ring Right

If I remember we were really damn close to the stage Yeah of the ring cuz I

remember the way those guy I remember and this memory just came back is this guy put some kind of powder in his hand

and he kind of showed it to the crowd and I remember everybody going look out look out he's got the and he threw it in

his eye you know and everybody and you know of course the referee's always got his back turned you know he then

everybody's pointing to the referee he's like what I didn't I didn't see anything but yeah just the way

the way those guys So I I think Casey may be right because I I remember crowd

inter because it wasn't on TV Everything was focused on us the crowd cuz that's

what they were there for They weren't there for the cameras They were there to get the crowd into it I remember them

smack talking to the crowd I remember this old lady who I thought at the time

of course I was a kid who knows but I she seemed like an old white-haired lady you know sweet grandma I remember her

like flipping off one of the you know the bad guys and cussing at him And I

remember just going I mean she was so irate because you know they come out there and do their stuff like you know

toward the crowd and ham it up And do you remember us throwing popcorn at like Grappler and Super Destroy and get

getting in trouble from the security i do I do I remember that We were people around us were doing it So we reached in

start throwing there The guy comes up and gets in our face like "Quit throwing crap kid." And I understand that's dumb

and you could hit a guy in the eye or something but hell everybody else was So we did too We threw popcorn at them and got in trouble with everybody else But

if you if you listen to those stories those wrestlers back in the day used to get like Rody Piper got stabbed Like

they would like those crowds were like you said this was Elena Arkansas in the

early 80s man That the the fact that those guys got out of there alive is just I mean this wasn't this

wasn't today I mean this stuff was dangerous Those guys were inciting a riot and then trying to get out of there

you know before they got killed I have a quote for you I did find Jim Ross on a I

think he has a podcast but he might have been a guest on one but this was Jim Ross's quote about the Midsouth crowds

He said quote "Luciana was a difficult breed of cats to deal with at a live

event." What I was thinking what I was thinking

about today is is is you talking about them not making any money and all and like it's kind of like you know why did

these guys do it because there was a lot of negative things about that but having that reaction with the fans and the

crowds and the those guys were like rock stars man that had to have been the big payoff for them the big motivation and

you I'm sure those guys just ate that up man you know who had it best don't you i heard him say this on one uh the guys

that wore masks No one knew who the heck they were out in public They were talking about landing in an airplane

somewhere and JYD and and Hacksaw and Debios He'd get off and then there'd be

this guy behind him that looked old and balding and whatever It was Mr Wrestling number two and nobody had a clue cuz he

was he looked like he was 60 when he was 40 you know and they said those guys got away with everything because nobody

bugged them They didn't know who they were That is the genius of the mask That's the genius of the mask And man I

remember that night in Elder Raa that super destroyer looked like the biggest human being I'd ever seen in my life

when they walked out And the grappler I hated him as worse worse than the Detroit bad boys Uh the grappler man

would load that boot and kick one of your heroes man They constantly were pulling stuff out

of their mask and they had like you know foreign objects in there And that's where they would turn to the crowd you

know and show that they're going to put it in there And then the crowd is just going yelling at the ref you know and

the ref's just like "What i you know it's just it was it was so when you think about it it was so brilliant I

mean the way those guys had us eating out I mean they had like you said they had us throwing popcorn out I mean we

were in we were completely bought in to that whole scenario I mean it it was art

Those guys those guys were incredible talents to like Casey was saying to come

out there and have a crowd and manipulate it like they could and and that's got to be a power trip to to know

that you can get them to hate you or you can get them to love you I mean that's got to be awesome And you know and the whole thing for Midsouth was very rough

around the edges which is what we liked about it I mean that was kind of their thing being a little bit gritty and whatnot cuz have uh Kenneth did you ever

take your kids to any uh modern WWE events in in the Dallas area no

unfortunately I kind of got out of wrestling you know in in the in the early 2000s Oh well I definitely did way

before that but you know I I kind of I kind of had a little run in the Attitude era in the Stone Cold Rock era I kind of

had some friends out here that were into it and they kind of kept me into it but when my kids were born I just kind of

got out of it and so I've never taken they never really got into it you know Well the reason I ask the reason I ask

is they came to Little Rock when Dylan was probably seven eight nine something like that And they made sure they put it

in the paper back when there was a paper that it was going to be a familyfriendly event And this was like a Monday night

Raw or something that I don't know maybe it was the Thursday event but whatever they were taping for TV and you talk about slick and overly

produced and it's a complete antithesis of what we grew up uh I can promise you

because I mean they had like a couple little undercard things happening before TV time and when they said it starts at

seven it's like those wrestlers know exactly how to end a match in 10 seconds and get out of the way I mean they were

practically sprinting off the mat to let the next group come in because as soon

as one match ended lights went dim theme music hits fire hits uh you know the

strobe lights next act comes on and they know to a tea how long they can fight to

a tea and it was so slick and I mean by the way fantastic event I don't have any

complaint It was like uh what is that guy Randy Orton was fighting and some of these guys I you know I don't know who

they are anymore but uh Midsouth seemed a so much more rough around the edges you know like I remember on the telecast

I was watching on YouTube yesterday you remember that backdrop that looked like they did it for homecoming or something

behind Bill Watts Yeah It was like blue with red lettering that glitter letters

that said Midsouth Wrestling Well I was watching one You know every now and then they'd have a fight at the announcers table They zoom back and literally you

can see like the water fountain on the wall at the boys club behind the side of the backdrop over there They It's like

they just went out there and stuck it on the floor and you know I mean it was it was like something you do in your

basement kind of But that's what we loved about it The production budget was probably less than our homecoming budget

It probably was So yeah I I went to um I

went to a couple of uh Monday Nitros in Monroe when I was in college down there

and uh they were really good but like you said completely different experience

So slick You had all the fireworks the flames and to their credit to their credit they do it well I mean man they

it's like clockwork And like I said what was funny to me of course the kids don't know but I'm watching going "Holy crap

they're going to end this fight like I don't know how but they're going to wrap this up in like the next 15 seconds."

And then somebody come off the top rope elbow to the head done Just like that Yeah And they Well cuz like you said

they had they had TV time limits Yeah Remember when they used to do that on they go TV you know they're out there

wrestling They're like "TV time we got to cut it off We you know we'll have to tell you what happened." They would just cut it off Keep going Yeah Keep going

dude The best was the last match of the day TV time remaining is how they would

say cuz they may have had three minutes and then they if it was anything significant they'd have to tell you the

next week what happened you know But you know at Elorado I guarantee you they they may have had some loose guidelines

but their guidelines were to go out there and make that crowd have a great time So it could have been two hours it

could have been three hours but they were going to wrestle until they felt like they given everybody a show Oh yeah

And it wasn't going to be oh you got 30 seconds to countdown till we go to commercial It was like you guys go out

there and put on a show and then when you're done end it when you got nothing left in the tank But and what I know and

what we know now is that the next day they were in Jackson Mississippi by noon and they had to do it all over again at

5:00 or something that evening You know that's crazy I mean I I just don't know how those That's probably why they were

popping pills and drinking so much because I don't know how you made it through that And and you know uh to his

credit Bill Watts did find big strong athletic dudes And man it was convincing

I don't care who you are You can you can know that the outcome is decided That's fine But when you throw a dude out of

the ring and he lands on concrete especially a guy in his 30s or 40s Yeah

there's nothing there's no way to fake that There's no way to you know they can pull punches and this and that but a

drop kick is a drop kick I have a feeling And if you get bounced off the the rope and 300 lbs hits you flatfooted

that you know and for that to happen every night I mean those dudes wrestled

340 days a year man And those mats did not look like they were No remember from

the side it was like plywood and and it looked like a tarp over plywood That's

it And the and the ropes looked like they were cables like they were steel cables with a little bit of covering on

I mean those things were not e And the turnbuckles were not comfortable either Those guys were thinking a pound I I

don't know if y'all remember when we did get cable We finally got that Georgia wrestling where Flair Roads and all them

were mostly And their ring looked like it was only about a foot off the ground It used to make me so mad I was like

first of all who cares you got thrown out of that ring go to go to Shreport and get thrown out of that ring you know

and and like they said Bill Watts had all the pads removed He didn't he didn't want dudes landed on pads He wanted them

landing on concrete So well they call it taking a bump right you know you got to

take some bumps and and those guys were definitely taking some some hard bumps and and like you said they were all

athletic I mean if if Ernie the big cat lad kicks you with that size 20 shoe

especially if you come off the ropes full speed you're gonna feel that I mean and and uh

yeah they those it was so physical It was so aggressive I saw I saw Sorry I

saw a dude say that you could tell when they got tired because they would agree to put one another in like a chokeold So

a dude would be sitting flat on his butt and a guy come up behind him and put him in a choke hole That was so they could

both catch their breath I heard this guy say and he said they'd be sitting there one of them would be whispering to the

other just give me a few more seconds and they'd be huffing and puffing then be like "All right off the rope." You

know that kind because they had to orchestrate what was going on and they said that like any sports event sometimes they'd burn too fast and

they'd be worn out so quickly because they'd be all into it and they man you have to put me in a chokeold so I can

rest kind of thing you know which cuz you know sometimes they did drag it out They'd be on the mat and you're like

"What the heck are they doing?" You know get up and fight That's what it was man They done of course you know seven days

a week of doing that Makes sense right well you know that's another thing that we now know that we didn't know then And

I I don't know how they did it because I mean they they or they were out there

talking to each other constantly And the referee I didn't know this but

you know I've been listening to some of these podcasts and like the referees would help them out too because sometimes they would do something to buy

them some time or they would do a dist distraction but like those guys must have been like ventriloquist because man

I never saw those guys talk to each other I never saw them communicate If they did I thought they were talking

smack I'm fixing to rip your arm off dude You know that kind of thing I didn't But it again it goes to those

guys were just such they were so talented at what they what they were doing and because if if they aren't if

you know it if you could see that stuff then it's it's completely different if you're like oh I see them talking each

other or I see them choreographing it you know and what a guy what do they call it working if if if a guy was

working good they they said that uh I heard a guy say that he he moved to a different area to wrestle and his first

night in town they put him in a ring with another guy and he said before the match they're talking and he's like well

how are we going to call this fight apparently it's like offenses in football there's different ones and so

one of them I'm just going to make up a name one of them said well have you ever fought in Florida with roads and the guy

goes yeah I know Dusty's he goes you know how to speak Dusty's language he goes yeah he goes well let's talk Dusty tonight then and they got through the

match by calling it like they would have in Florida under Dusty Roads or whoever whatever the name and the guy said

everywhere you went that's how it was you had find the common language to be able to get in there and make it convincing And I thought that was that's

just like calling an offense It's the same thing But it's I don't know I I

knew that as kids we were so into it And and all the credit for me goes to Bill

Watts for thinking up these storyline Even if Ernie Lad and whoever was helping him credit to those guys for

coming up with these stories because it really led to all this over-the-top stuff that happens in WWE for much

bigger money nowadays Um there's a ton of names I'm sure we

didn't get to and if we have to we'll readress this somewhere down the line Well like I said it's hard because when

you go through and you try to look at all the guys so many of those guys had

little stints in Midsouth and had little pops where they would pop there but it's

hard to trace their origin story right because they they kind of were all over Yeah But but you know a lot of them

though went directly from Midsouth into the WWE And to me if you look at all the

feeder programs that that Vince stole from the Midsouth was probably the most

prolific as far as all the guys that went in there and had really successful

careers Yeah Go to Wikipedia and look up at their roster and you'll see names just by the dozens that you know ended

up being much much bigger stars I didn't even know Yeah like the super destroyer

I was talking about earlier He had a whole other identity in another wrestling promotion like in Oregon or somewhere with no mask on He was just a

super destroyer down here He was some other He was like Yukon Bill up there or whatever his name was It was something

like that So well I didn't even know like you said earlier I didn't realize

you know I was looking at some stuff in the Big Boss Man the oneman gang one man gang and then you know uh Butch Reed

Hacksaw Jim Dugen Dr Death Steve Williams I watched uh didn't even know

about him I watched a YouTube thing last night where he was like the main main event against Rick Steiner and Rick

Steiner was like a nobody you know and Steve Williams was like the the the main guy Steve Steve Williams another

football player played football Oklahoma was Bill Watts's protege Uh played college football for Oklahoma Uh he

immediately threw him out there with Debiosi I think as his partner and then he turned heel at one point I mean he he

had a wild ride too You know he died a long time ago He died in his early 40s I think You know another tragic thing of

looking up this mids south is all the the tragic you know like junkyard dog was killed in a car wreck going to see

his daughter's graduation and just so many of these guys had had early deaths

and you just you know they didn't really get to kind of see it all the way through A lot of them were in their 40s

you know and you look at guys out there now they're in their 40s 50s and but these guys were living such hard lives

Dude for 40 in 1979 was a lot different than 40 now Dick Dick Dick Murdoch

looked like he was 75 out there wrestling And you remember killer Carl Cox it was the same kind of deal kind of

a redneck type And he looked like he was 75 at the time And they were some rough

looking dudes And then you have like Paul Orondorf who looked like he was carved out of marble or something You know it's crazy when you look at

Wikipedia and and you see those guys were like 30 years old and you you thought they were like 60 you know you

see they're like 32 I know It's like Yeah that was And poor Mr Wrestling number two is hanging on It look like

into his 60s or something Yeah Well because you know they didn't you know they didn't have those huge contracts I

mean they were trying to just make it you know work into and and like Casey said I think some of them they just

couldn't give up that that juice you know that crowd that reaction Yep Well

guys we put in an hour plus That's two episodes for me And there's still a

million other things we could talk about on this topic So we might have to let it ferment a while and then uh readress at

some point the way this is going because there's a lot to this Well to me like I

said I don't think you have I don't think WW WF WWE as successful as it is

if they can't pull those guys from from mids south and those guys were like ready to go Yeah You know like they were

ready to pop when they got there and just took off One thing you see over and over is Bill Watts wasn't a the nicest

guy in the world but he did he did know talent and he would run dudes off that couldn't work in the ring if if they

didn't they didn't cut it in there and they didn't have the personality They didn't stick with him So I read where

somebody said if somebody came from mid south that they knew Bill Watts had given them their blessing and and that

they were ready to to be a star somewhere else And that's what happened with so many of them you know and and

just to put a button down it like you said I mean I it it was it was such a a

short amount of time but just so extraordinary for that little brief moment that it was and when you look at

all the research like Midsouth was the most popular I mean it was the best Most people considered it the best Their

Superdome shows are the biggest matches in the country by far Well Casey was six years old and he remembers more about

this than I do He knows more about this than he did the NFL at that age So that ought to tell you something Absolutely

That's just good storytelling you know Yeah It it it burned bright and burned fast but it just you know it could last

It really it really floored me when I got to reading and found out that this all happened between 79 and about 85

Really i mean seriously Well that makes sense because that's kind of 85 is when I kind of transitioned over into WWF WWE

That's when Debiosi and Dog and all them they all went to I followed them to WWF

But to think it seems like 25 years worth of memories packed in about a good I would say their best run was 81 to 84

in that in that range That's when all the Deviosi JYD stuff was going on And it's just fascinating that that was all

done right down the road an hour from where we grew up That's what I find fascinating But think about it We didn't

have all this other stuff going on that wrestling was one of the few things that we were watching Yeah And we would go to

school and talk about it all week Yeah You know we talk about like football you know we talk about it all week like

what's going to happen this week you know and what happened last week So that for that like five to six year run

that's all we talked about every day was who were who were the who and they didn't have a season either That was year round It was all the time It was

all year Yeah Yeah Well the more you read the more interesting it becomes and

more fascinating it is I would urge both of y'all to go actually listen to these guys tell these tales on some of these

podcasts because it is fascinating When Cornet started reading about the driving I just I was like "You drove to Hope for

60 bucks from Alexandria or whatever you know." And he even said he even had some derogatory comment about the Arkansas

highways that they were traveling on and stuff And so it it's it's just fascinating It's just fascinating that

that was so entertaining and and such a hard way for those guys to actually live But man we got a lot out of it though

For sure Oh yeah Bunch of legends in that Bunch of legends man Well if y'all think of anything else to talk about on

it we can certainly do this again down the road for sure And uh I'm I'm going

to end the I'm going to end the recording right there Thank you for joining us on Gen X Classic Sports where

nostalgia meets the thrill of the game Tune in next time for more insightful discussions and memorable moments

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