Mid-South Wrestling: Week of 10/15-10/21 1979
Our coverage of Mid-South in 1979 continues with a look at the week ending October 21st: Mike George and Mr Wrestling II face off in several stipulation & title bouts, Watts continues to bring in big names on the weekends, he also brings in a couple of (very) small names this week & more!
Here's a look at the talent roster along with their SPOT ratings for the week.
Columns: TW=This week's SPOT rating; LW=Last week's SPOT rating; ME%=Percentage of main events. Babyfaces are in blue on the left-hand side, heels in orange on the right. They are listed in descending order; wrestlers at the top were mostly in main events while wrestlers at the bottom were mostly in preliminary matches.
I have data for the following house shows this week:
Wednesday - Jackson, MS
Thursday - Greenville, MS & Lafayette, LA
Friday - Shreveport, LA
Saturday - Alexandria, LA
Notes/Analysis: Mike George and Mr Wrestling II continued to feud over the North American title held by George. The two faced one another in title bouts in Greenville and Alexandria. The match in Alexandria had an additional stipulation where the dq rule was waived (meaning if George was disqualified, he would lose the title). They also faced off in Jackson in a non-title bout with stipulations. If II lost, he would unmask. But if he won he would get a future title shot plus win $1,000 from George. Next week's Jackson card has George defending the title against II, so we can assume II won the bout this week. George also defended the title against Bill Watts in Shreveport, winning by disqualification.
Other notable bouts this week were as follows:
Jackson - Bill Watts vs King Kong Mosca and a Texas tornado bout with Charlie Cook & Hercules Ayala vs Pork Chop Cash & Junkyard Dog
Greenville - King Cobra vs Pork Chop
Lafayette - Watts & Buck Robley vs Mosca & Tank Patton and Jose Lothario vs Gino Hernandez
Shreveport - Robley vs Bob Sweetan (Robley won the bout)
Alexandria - Watts, Robley & Wahoo McDaniel vs Mosca, Sweetan & Ernie Ladd and Cook vs JYD
Wahoo & Ladd were just in for the weekend. This had been happening regularly with guys like Ladd, Wahoo and Dick Murdoch, and would continue. Watts was using his relationships with Georgia, Southwest and the other NWA offices to bring in name talent on the weekends, where he usually loaded up the lineups.
Jake Roberts returned to the house show schedule after a couple of weeks off. Jerry Oates was not listed on any of the shows this week, so I removed him from the SPOT ratings; he will return next week. Leaving the territory were Stan Lane and The Missing Link. Lane goes to Florida. He comes back for a couple of weeks about a year later. The Missing Link shows up at the end of the month for Gulas, but after a week seems to disappear. Since we don't know who he was (it's definitely not Dewey Robertson), he may have used another name after that point, but nobody seems to know who he was and what other names he may have worked under.
Midget wrestlers Butch Cassidy and Ivan the Terrible come in over the weekend for a short (no pun intended) run. While I don't include the "special attractions" in the SPOT ratings chart, their rating was a .58, putting them squarely in the middle portion of the cards, as was the norm at the time for the midgets and female wrestlers.
Frequent matches:
Mike George vs Mr Wrestling II
Charlie Cook vs Junkyard Dog
Bill Watts vs King Kong Mosca
Gino Hernandez vs Jose Lothario
Bob Sweetan vs Buck Robley
King Cobra vs Pork Chop Cash
Frequent tag team combinations:
Charlie Cook & Hercules Ayala
Bob Sweetan & Mike George
Junkyard Dog & Pork Chop Cash
King Kong Mosca & Tank Patton
Bill Watts & Buck Robley
Here's a look at the talent roster along with their SPOT ratings for the week.
I have data for the following house shows this week:
Wednesday - Jackson, MS
Thursday - Greenville, MS & Lafayette, LA
Friday - Shreveport, LA
Saturday - Alexandria, LA
Notes/Analysis: Mike George and Mr Wrestling II continued to feud over the North American title held by George. The two faced one another in title bouts in Greenville and Alexandria. The match in Alexandria had an additional stipulation where the dq rule was waived (meaning if George was disqualified, he would lose the title). They also faced off in Jackson in a non-title bout with stipulations. If II lost, he would unmask. But if he won he would get a future title shot plus win $1,000 from George. Next week's Jackson card has George defending the title against II, so we can assume II won the bout this week. George also defended the title against Bill Watts in Shreveport, winning by disqualification.
Other notable bouts this week were as follows:
Jackson - Bill Watts vs King Kong Mosca and a Texas tornado bout with Charlie Cook & Hercules Ayala vs Pork Chop Cash & Junkyard Dog
Greenville - King Cobra vs Pork Chop
Lafayette - Watts & Buck Robley vs Mosca & Tank Patton and Jose Lothario vs Gino Hernandez
Shreveport - Robley vs Bob Sweetan (Robley won the bout)
Alexandria - Watts, Robley & Wahoo McDaniel vs Mosca, Sweetan & Ernie Ladd and Cook vs JYD
Wahoo & Ladd were just in for the weekend. This had been happening regularly with guys like Ladd, Wahoo and Dick Murdoch, and would continue. Watts was using his relationships with Georgia, Southwest and the other NWA offices to bring in name talent on the weekends, where he usually loaded up the lineups.
Jake Roberts returned to the house show schedule after a couple of weeks off. Jerry Oates was not listed on any of the shows this week, so I removed him from the SPOT ratings; he will return next week. Leaving the territory were Stan Lane and The Missing Link. Lane goes to Florida. He comes back for a couple of weeks about a year later. The Missing Link shows up at the end of the month for Gulas, but after a week seems to disappear. Since we don't know who he was (it's definitely not Dewey Robertson), he may have used another name after that point, but nobody seems to know who he was and what other names he may have worked under.
Midget wrestlers Butch Cassidy and Ivan the Terrible come in over the weekend for a short (no pun intended) run. While I don't include the "special attractions" in the SPOT ratings chart, their rating was a .58, putting them squarely in the middle portion of the cards, as was the norm at the time for the midgets and female wrestlers.
Frequent matches:
Mike George vs Mr Wrestling II
Charlie Cook vs Junkyard Dog
Bill Watts vs King Kong Mosca
Gino Hernandez vs Jose Lothario
Bob Sweetan vs Buck Robley
King Cobra vs Pork Chop Cash
Frequent tag team combinations:
Charlie Cook & Hercules Ayala
Bob Sweetan & Mike George
Junkyard Dog & Pork Chop Cash
King Kong Mosca & Tank Patton
Bill Watts & Buck Robley
