Mid-South Wrestling: 1980 Jan-Jun Recap

Now that we're halfway through the year, I wanted to take a look back at the first 6 months of Mid-South Wrestling in 1980.

I looked at the SPOT Ratings on a week-to-week basis for the full time wrestlers in the territory to put together a list of the top stars for the first six months. As a reminder, SPOT Rating stands for Statistical Position Over Time. SPOT is a numerical representation of a wrestlers' average position (or spot) on the cards and is expressed as a number between .00 and 1.00.

A wrestler with a SPOT Rating of .80 and above is considered a Main Eventer, between .60 and .80 is an Upper Mid-Carder, between .40 and .60 is a Mid-Carder, and .40 and below is a Preliminary Wrestler. Furthermore, there is an additional 'unofficial' category of a .90 and above; we'll call that a Top Draw.

Here are all the regulars who were Top Draws, Main Eventers, or Upper Mid-Carders at some point in the first 6 months of 1980. I used their highest weekly SPOT Rating to put together this list.

TOP DRAWS

Babyfaces: Buck Robley, Junkyard Dog, Paul Orndorff, Ted DiBiase

Heels: Ken Mantell, Michael Hayes, Mike George, Terry Gordy

MAIN EVENTERS

Babyface: Iron Mike Sharpe

Heels: Bob Sweetan, Buddy Roberts, Killer Khan, Tank Patton

UPPER MID-CARDERS

Babyfaces: Charlie Cook, King Cobra, Steven Little Bear

Heels: Bull Ramos, Ox Baker, Stan Stasiak

The following chart shows the weekly SPOT Ratings for the above wrestlers. They are sorted by average weekly SPOT Rating from highest to lowest. SPOT Ratings for babyfaces are shaded in blue, heels in orange. The higher the SPOT, the darker the shading. This allows you to see how they moved up or down the cards over time. For example, Mike George was a Top Draw at the beginning of the year, but moved down the cards as he finished up his run. Conversely, you can see Killer Khan debut low on the cards in March and gradually move up, hitting Main Eventer status in late May. It should be noted that I added some events to my database since the beginning of the year; as such, some of the weekly SPOT Ratings here don't match up with ones previously published.

	1/6	1/13	1/20	1/27	2/3	2/10	2/17	2/24	3/2	3/9	3/16	3/23	3/30	4/6	4/13	4/20	4/27	5/4	5/11	5/18	5/25	6/1	6/8	6/15	6/22	6/29
Junkyard Dog	.80	.80	.83	.85	.89	.91	.92	.94	.95	.95	.93	.92	.94	.96	.95	.92	.89	.88	.89	.88	.87	.84	.82	.79	.78
Buck Robley	.85	.87	.88	.93	.93	.96	.95	.97	.94	.94	.90	.92	.91	.91	.85	.81	.77	.78	.79	.81	.79	.77	.77	.78	.81	.85
Ken Mantell												.74	.72	.77	.77	.84	.85	.91	.92	.94	.92	.90	.89	.88	.86	.85
Terry Gordy	.81	.82	.81	.86	.88	.93	.93	.93	.91	.89	.86	.86	.87	.87	.84	.81	.77	.79	.81	.84	.84	.83	.81	.79	.78	.82
Michael Hayes	.81	.82	.80	.85	.88	.93	.94	.94	.92	.90	.84	.83	.81	.83	.81	.80	.75	.75	.73	.76	.73
Paul Orndorff					.68	.70	.70	.72	.71	.70	.70	.72	.77	.83	.87	.89	.88	.91	.92	.92	.90	.87	.87	.87	.87	.86
Iron Mike Sharpe	.83	.81	.82	.78	.80	.78	.82	.82	.83	.81	.82	.80	.82	.80
Ted DiBiase	.52	.60	.67	.74	.78	.82	.83	.82	.83	.84	.88	.91								.74	.78	.82	.86	.88	.89	.86
Bob Sweetan	.78	.78	.75	.73	.69	.70	.73	.78	.83	.83	.83	.81	.82	.82	.85
Mike George	.94	.90	.88	.81	.78	.74	.75	.72	.72	.69	.68	.63	.61	.58
Killer Khan											.34	.45	.51	.62	.68	.75	.77	.77	.77	.76	.80	.83	.87	.88	.87	.82
Stan Stasiak																.57	.61	.66	.69	.72	.70	.69	.71	.72	.73	.71
Steven Little Bear														.65	.63	.59	.56	.59	.66	.70	.72	.71	.73	.72	.73	.69
Ox Baker	.58	.60	.65	.62
Charlie Cook	.74	.70	.68	.62	.54	.39
Tank Patton	.84	.81	.77	.69	.67	.61	.59	.51	.49	.46	.50	.50	.54	.54
Bull Ramos	.33	.40	.45	.50	.51	.53	.57	.64	.71	.71	.72	.70	.73	.74	.75	.72
Buddy Roberts														.37	.39	.41	.44	.47	.56	.62	.71	.72	.75	.76	.79	.82
King Cobra	.68	.62	.55	.53	.54	.49	.48	.51	.54	.54	.51	.51	.55	.62	.64	.64	.59	.58	.60	.61	.62	.61	.63	.66	.63	.58

In addition to the above full-timers, the following wrestlers had semi-regular appearances here and are considered part-timers. This list does not include special attractions like the World champ or Andre the Giant or women/midget wrestlers.

TOP DRAWS

Babyface: Bill Watts

Heel: Ernie Ladd

MAIN EVENTERS

Babyface: Tommy Rich

Heel: Austin Idol

UPPER MID-CARDERS

Babyface: Ernie Holmes

Heel: Gino Hernandez

In addition to SPOT Ratings, the other statistic we use is called a FEUD Score. FEUD stands for Frequent Encounters Using Data and measures the "intensity" of a feud, taking into account the number of times a specific matchup happens and the breadth of when those matches occur. As a general rule of thumb, a FEUD Score of 25 and above indicates a "feud" while a Score of 40 and above indicates a "major feud". The following chart looks at the top feuds of the first six months of 1980, including all feuds with a FEUD Score of 25 or above for at least three weeks. They are sorted by the peak weekly FEUD Score, with darker shading for higher Scores.

	1/6	1/13	1/20	1/27	2/3	2/10	2/17	2/24	3/2	3/9	3/16	3/23	3/30	4/6	4/13	4/20	4/27	5/4	5/11	5/18	5/25	6/1	6/8	6/15	6/22
Ken Mantell vs Paul Orndorff														24	40	58	67	70	65	62	58	53	49	47	46
Killer Khan vs Ted DiBiase																				15	29	41	55	57	59
Buck Robley & Junkyard Dog vs Michael Hayes & Terry Gordy	23	31	35	37	46	52	56	46	32	25	23	32	30	29	22	20	18	15
Bull Ramos vs Iron Mike Sharpe							20	37	47	53	54	49	43	26
Stan Stasiak vs Steven Little Bear																				22	25	34	45	48	43
Mike George vs Ted DiBiase			15	25	31	33	36	36	36	26
Bob Sweetan vs Junkyard Dog								17	20	19	23	21	33	31	32	16