Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Three Saturday morning cartoon characters and a masked man. It’s not a silly b-movie, it’s actually a very smartly put together tag match. JYD, Mr. Olympia, Ted Dibiase, and Jim Duggan from Mid South TV

Match #6: JYD/Mr. Olympia vs Dibiase/Duggan 8/18/82

One of these men isn’t a fondly remembered 80s WWF cartoon character of my youth. I’m looking at you, Olympia. I’m excited to see a pre-WWF Hacksaw Duggan, as this is apparently a different Duggan.
JYD/Oympia are tag champs. They are also the faces. JYD wants a shot at Dibiase’s North American title, but Dibiase won’t put it up on TV. Dibiase is the promotions lead heel right now, and it’s the same type of cerebral dominance a Flair would have had storyline-wise in NWA/WCW, or more recently HHH had at the end of the last boom.

Great early story. Duggan can’t get the better of JYD, but Dibiase won’t tag in. He just gives advice. When Dibiase finally tags in – only when Olympia is in – he’s frustrated. So Dibiase gets outmatched by Olympia and runs to tag Duggan the minute JYD is back in the ring.

It’s “DO-GAN” in Mid South, by the way.

Dibiase only in on JYD when he’s down, then tags out. “five stand-by matches, six commercial breaks required by the station” and Watts goes on to talk about matchmaker Grizzly Smith’s accommodations for matches not going all of TV time. I love this promotion! Screw writing staffs in wrestling. It’s called wrestling booking, and you really only need one guy.

They go hot and heavy with all four in the ring and it falls apart slightly. Eventually JYD gets a hot tag (heat segments in Mid South so far from these matches seem to be blink and you’ll miss them), but Duggan knocks JYD off the apron.

Abrupt as always, Dibiase tries the figure four on the non-legal man, JYD comes back in and powerslams him for the win. Good story in a match that played like a seven and a half minute RAW main event in the HHH heel era of ’03-’06. It furthers the babyface JYD’s quest for the heel Dibiase’s belt as he pins the champ clean and retains the tag belts.

Ultimately, the match story was better than the match work. It was a little sloppy but the layout of the match covered up weaknesses well. I’m sold on Dibiase in Mid South already. Not tagging in and cheating from outside is great stuff. 3 ¼ stars and 6/10.

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