Random Mid-South

 Fabulous Ones vs. Los Guerreros (1/24/1986)

Long, excellent grudge match. We start of with a wild segment of the F1s trying to attack early and then stooging and getting chased a bunch including Chavo hitting a beautiful dropkick. Guerreros control some with fun 80s spots and cool suplex before F1s take over double teaming their opponent. Match went to another level as soon as Chavo gets busted open and F1s start working over his cut in gritty fashion. Lane & Keirn are a whirlwind during the heat segment always getting sneaky stomps including kicking a bloody Chavo inbetween falls. Hector gets the hot tag and runs wild for a bit before he also gets stomped building to another hot tag from Chavo who has the house absolutely on fire. All time sick finish here with Fabulous Ones going crazy on Hector with a chair including hitting him in the neck and leaving him a bloody motionless mess. I'm a huge fan of the Guerreros especially Chavo but F1s may have looked slightly better here with their excellent stooging and heel tactics and wild swinging punches etc. Match was bordering on a classic as the length and number of falls were slightly an issue but the finish is an all time gruelling moment in wrestling. BRUTAL.

Buzz Sawyer vs. Jim Duggan (12/27/85)

Sawyer looks exactly like the kind of guy to get into a chain fight, possibly in some Mad Max like scenario. This exactly how you do this kind of match, just two big brutes wailing on eachother. Chain shots looked brutal and the blood was sufficiently nasty. Lots of uncomfortable dragging around by the neck too as Boesch comments „And Sawyer looks like a guy now who has a chain around his neck...“ Duggan with an AWESOME punch combo for his big comeback, everythings there. Something like Buzz falling into a chair looks dangerous and unplanned here. Duggan doesn't even care to pin Buzz, just drags him around and beats on him. Smart finish. Chair spots in Mid South always look grizzly, it's probably a mix of the excellent psychology, camera work and sound editing coming together. Just a great old school fight.

Fabulous Ones vs. Los Guerreros (2/28/1986)

Cage match. Right off the bat F1s with the punches and biting. This is just a sprint, just everyone throwing punches and flying into the page. Chavo goes from running wild to dangling upside down from the cage seconds later. Kind of sudden finish. Fun stuff but I thought what the F1s did to Hector last month deserved a bigger payoff.

Ric Flair vs Terry Taylor - Mid-South, Houston 5/3/85

Even though this had „signature Fair carryjob“ written all over it, it built to a quite fun match that stood out on it's own. Taylor is above average here, I liked his chops and punches, good selling, perfect to slot into Flairs match. This had really good build and pace with the slow beginning with some basic wrestling exchanges then building the tension by ramping up the intensity with the long headlock, Flair resorting to throws etc. Something like Flair hitting a series of hip throw stands out as a nice bit of wrestling. Arm work was fine as was Taylor getting some payback and the parts where they wail on eachother in the corner are obviously the best. The 50/50 ending run was extremely well done too. Flair matches like this are weird as it feels like you've seen it all before but in this case it works and it's nice that they took something like the legwork and Figure 4 stuff out of the equation to mix things up.