Kim's match reviews and pop culture emporium

 The beginning of disk 11 the end of a career at least for now. Now as a match this is good but hurt by expectations at least for me. You get the two of them trading headlocks to start a bit of really good armwork by Devil. There's this sense however brief that in a longer contest the dynamic would be that devil would take the vast majority of control on the mat. In the end Jaguar wins the day with a german after pelting devil with bombs. a match hurt by the what if of the title match that could've been plus what it's runtime did to it's structure. 7/10 not bad but easily the worst of the matches between the two of them. As people who've been reading along on this journey know it took a while for babyface ace Jaguar Yokota to hit for mostly cause of the role she was in as essentially an nwa champion type. as of now she's solidly in the top half of my list

 Into 1986 we go with Gusto. It's been a while since I continued this project and watching this match now in the midst of watching mid-south from 1982 has radically changed my view of the structure. The big thing I notice in the present moment is how complete the first fall feels. What I mean by that is even within the first fall every bit of what we would consider the traditional southern tag is present in the form of babyface shine face in peril in the form of Tateno and the babyface comeback via the jba winning the fall. The second and third falls are really defined by heel control for the most part the big things being copious use of the nunchucks Tateno gets the win after being pinned in the second fall. Really good tag turned great by the revelations made in the post-match interview with the reveal that Tateno's family is in attendence. 8/10 might rate this higher as I watch more awa and expand my viewpoints on tag team structure.

thesis midway through 1982 or the start of june at least is 82 the most foundational year for the things to come in mid-south going forward? I'm leaning that way to be honest between Duggan and Williams debuting and Dibiase's journey this feels like mid-south's bronze age. Low key loving the Assassin and the grappler love a weaponized piece of gear. Rick harris felt like a random guy to get a push especially with Duggan being in the mix. One of the good things about watching territory stuff is when you're wondering who the heck a guy is cause the push in a void seems weird you can look up a guy and upon looking well holy crap black bart color me interested. Super fun year for as good as Dibiase is as a face i'm admittedly wondering how the heel turn will occur. will be back at the end of the year

This was planned to be a month-by-month overview of my thoughts on mid-south as I watch from the beginning of 1982. I was not expecting my pace of consumption to overtake my initial plan so here we are two months in and honestly most of the way through month three. I want to very consciously take note of the non-wrestler portion of the roster first. Boyd Pierce deserves more respect as the early anchor for mid-south commentary especially with the way his partners tend to rotate. Of Pierce's commentary partners maybe the least favorite of them for me is Dibiase but that's cause he has to carry the neutral respectable tone which kind of makes him a bit bland in the role. Watts and Ross are both great and Jr feels shockingly well defined in his first few episodes. Onto the in ring. For as meh as Dibiase is as a face commentator he's my favorite babyface as a total package deal. No shade on JYD at all his star power is undeniable and he's always fun just a matter of prefere...