CONTACTABOUTFACEBOOKTWITTERPODCAST IPHONE APPANDROID APPAMAZON APPRSS
Pro Wrestling Torch
Pro Wrestling Torch Reaches The Most Wrestling Fans Every Week: #1 in iTunes • #1 on iPhone and iPad • #1 on Android • #1 on Kindle
GOT THE PWTORCH APP YET?
iPhone & iPad
Android
Amazon Kindle
Windows Phone
PWTorch Phone App
RADICAN'S TAKE
RADICAN'S KAYFABE COMMENTARIES REVIEW SERIES: "Back to the Territories: Mid South" - Watts as a leader, expansion of territory, grueling road schedule, road stories, more

Jan 27, 2015 - 6:28:40 PM
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO BOOKMARK US & VISIT US DAILY


By Sean Radican, Torch columnist

StaffRadican_wide_6.jpg



RADICAN’S KAYFABE COMMENTARIES REVIEW SERIES
BACK TO THE TERRITORIES: MID SOUTH STARRING JIM DUGGAN
RELEASED IN 2014
BY SEAN RADICAN, TORCH COLUMNIST
kc-terr-midsouth.jpg


The latest brainchild of the folks at Kayfabe Commentaries is the Back to the Territories series hosted by Jim Cornette. Cornette is the perfect selection to host a series like this given his knowledge of wrestling history and his vast experience in wrestling during the territory days. The inaugural edition of the series features Cornette with guest Jim Duggan talking about Bill Watt’s Mid South Wrestling.

The series has a Back to the Future theme. The footage grabs you right away, as Cornette introduces Duggan and then pitches to a narrated segment about the beginnings of Mid South Wrestling featuring photos from Cornette’s collection to begin the show. It is touches like this that separate Kayfabe Commentaries from the rest of the filed. The production makes this release feel more like a production than a shoot interview with a static camera on the subjects.

One of the main strengths of this release is Duggan and Cornette talking about Watts as a strong figure behind the scenes in Mid South Wrestling. They take the viewer behind the scenes and talk about how hands on Watts was when it came to storylines and promos even though he operated with various bookers under him while operating the company. Watts operated the company like it was real and made things believable, which is something Cornette and Duggan hammer home during the early going.

Cornette and Duggan talk about how Watts was obsessive in his attention to detail, which made Mid South Wrestling a great breeding ground for talent. They point out how Watts gave the wrestlers the bullet points for their promos, but let the wrestlers be themselves and develop their verbiage by tapping into their own characters, as opposed to the way things are done in WWE now with wrestlers reciting their promos word for word as written by the creative team.

Watts started Mid South Wrestling by running in Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually the territory expanded as Watts acquired the Oklahoma and Arkansas territory in 1982. Duggan and Cornette’s in-depth discussion about the touring schedule for Mid South Wrestling is another strength of this release. Cornette runs through an entire two week timeline in which the company ran a show in every market on loop with TV tapings every Wednesday in Shreveport in addition to the shows that they ran every day during the week and twice on weekends.

One thing that comes out of this discussion is how Watts had to book each market to match what had aired on TV, as the TV aired on a loop, which meant that one market might be behind another, so they would have to stick to the point in the ongoing storylines that had aired on TV depending on where they were. Watts had a penchant for paying attention to detail, which is something that rubbed off on Cornette and Duggan as well during their time under him. The TV did big numbers in each market and Cornette talked about how it didn’t take long for a wrestler to enter the territory, get on TV, and be recognized by the public in the markets they ran.

Cornette and Duggan talk about the stars that were born in the territory like Junkyard Dog, The Fabulous Freebirds, Ted DiBiase, and Butch Reed amongst others. Although there isn’t footage from Mid South Wrestling on this release, Cornette and Duggan do a great job of painting a picture of the level of heat the heels had. Cornette tells a story about the angle where The Fabulous Freebirds blinding JYD with hair cream. They ran an angle where JYD was sitting in the crowd watching the show acting like he had really been blinded and The Freebirds isolated him in the crowd with no defense, so a man in the crowd pulled a gun on him and The Freebirds didn’t know what to do because they had to make a split-second decision between breaking kayfabe and trying to help JYD or keep the angle going to where it needed to get to in the end.

The travel stories are simply fantastic here, as Duggan and Cornette go into great detail about the exhausting schedule of touring and how difficult things could get if a car broke down or someone got into an accident. There’s also a number of good bar fight stories, many which have probably been told before, that detail just how tough the wrestlers were in Mid South under Watt’s leadership. Duggan talks about how Watts told the wrestlers if they lost a bar fight, they would be fired. Needless to say, Duggan claims nobody ever lost a bar fight. It isn’t shocking to learn that Dr. Death Steve Williams never lost a bar fight.

Cornette and Duggan discuss WWF’s national expansion and Watt’s attempt to keep pace with them by changing the name of his company to UWF to take the company national with syndicated TV. The problem was that at the time the economy got bad in the gulf coast area that was financing the expansion and Vince McMahon was taking the best talent in the company and bringing them to WWE. Duggan remarks that he could see the writing on the wall before he left for WWE with other names like JYD, Jake the Snake Roberts, and Ted DiBiase being plucked from Watts by WWF. In the end, Mid South Wrestling came around at the perfect time and did great business because “Everything was believable,” according to Duggan.

Overall score: (9.0) - This release is well-worth going out of your way to see because Cornette and Duggan take you inside Mid South Wrestling and paint a complete picture of how Bill Watts due to his forceful personality was able to take a group of strong personalities, keep them in line, and move them in the same direction. “It was a snake pit of tough guys,” said Duggan of the Mid South locker room, but everyone got along and moved in the same direction because when the company was running hot, everyone made money.

You can purchase “Back to the Territories: Mid South” on DVD by clicking HERE or by visiting KayfabeCommentaries.com. You can also purchase this show on VOD at WWNLive.com, which is now available on Roku. For more information on other Kayfabe Commentaries titles visit KayfabeCommentaries.com.

***

Please click HERE and click “like” to join the Radican’s Wrestling Community Facebook fan page.

Email Sean at PWTorchSean@Gmail.com

Follow Sean on Twitter at Twitter.com/SeanRadican


We suggest these recent related articles...
RADICAN'S Beyond Wrestling "Greatest Rivals Round Robin" review 9/26 - incredible show of the year contender, Busick-Edwards top-flight MOTYC, more!
RADICAN'S "The Pull List" (Vol. 5) "Young Bucks Too Sweet Journey" doc review, The Flash season 1 Blu-Ray, Top Ten MOTYC for 2015
RADICAN'S ROH "All-Star Extravaganza VII" PPV BLOG 9/18: Booking issues dampen excellent in-ring action
prowrestling.net
CLICK HERE FOR EVEN MORE PW.NET HEADLINES


CLICK TO EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO MAIN LISTING

NEW! SIGN UP FOR FREE PWTORCH BREAKING NEWS EMAIL ALERTS
BECOME A PWTORCH VIP MEMBER
-FORMER MEMBERS LOGIN HERE TO RENEW
-NEW MEMBERS CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
SELECT BY ARTICLES CATEGORY
SEARCH PWTORCH.COM



CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF UPCOMING PRO WRESTLING EVENTS
MORE HEADLINES AT AFFILIATE SITES
MMATorch
LATEST HEADLINES - CLICK TO READ CLICK HERE FOR MORE MMATORCH HEADLINES



LATEST HEADLINES - CLICK TO READ CLICK HERE FOR EVEN MORE INC HEADLINES

_
LATEST FREE AUDIO SHOWS - CLICK TO LISTEN VIEW MORE PWTORCH LIVECAST EPISODES
DOWNLOAD PWTORCH LIVECAST APP
SUBSCRIBE TO PWTORCH LIVECAST IN ITUNES


ABOUT US

THE TORCH REACHES MORE COMBAT ENTERTAINMENT FANS THAN ANY OTHER SOURCE

PWTorch editor Wade Keller has covered pro wrestling full time since 1987 starting with the Pro Wrestling Torch print newsletter. PWTorch.com launched in 1999 and the PWTorch Apps launched in 2008.

He has conducted "Torch Talk" insider interviews with Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Eric Bischoff, Jesse Ventura, Lou Thesz, Jerry Lawler, Mick Foley, Jim Ross, Paul Heyman, Bruno Sammartino, Goldberg, more.

He has interviewed big-name players in person incluiding Vince McMahon (at WWE Headquarters), Dana White (in Las Vegas), Eric Bischoff (at the first Nitro at Mall of America), Brock Lesnar (after his first UFC win).

He hosted the weekly Pro Wrestling Focus radio show on KFAN in the early 1990s and hosted the Ultimate Insiders DVD series distributed in retail stories internationally in the mid-2000s including interviews filmed in Los Angeles with Vince Russo & Ed Ferrara and Matt & Jeff Hardy. He currently hosts the most listened to pro wrestling audio show in the world, (the PWTorch Livecast, top ranked in iTunes)


REACHING 1 MILLION+ UNIQUE USERS PER MONTH
500 MILLION CLICKS & LISTENS PER YEAR
MILLIONS OF PWTORCH NEWSLETTERS SOLD
PWTORCH STAFF

EDITORS:
Wade Keller, editor
(kellerwade@gmail.com)

James Caldwell, assistant editor
(pwtorch@gmail.com)

STAFF COLUMNISTS:
Bruce Mitchell (since 1990)
Pat McNeill (since 2001)
Greg Parks (since 2007)
Sean Radican (since 2003)

We also have a great team of
TV Reporters
and Specialists and Artists.

PWTORCH VIP MEMBERSHIP

PWTorch offers a VIP membership for $10 a month (or less with an annual sub). It includes nearly 25 years worth of archives from our coverage of pro wrestling dating back to PWTorch Newsletters from the late-'80s filled with insider secrets from every era that are available to VIPers in digital PDF format and Keller's radio show from the early 1990s.

Also, new exclusive top-shelf content every day including a new VIP-exclusive weekly 16 page digital magazine-style (PC and iPad compatible) PDF newsletter packed with exclusive articles and news.

The following features come with a VIP membership which tens of thousands of fans worldwide have enjoyed for many years...

-New Digital PWTorch Newsletter every week
-3 New Digital PDF Back Issues from 5, 10, 20 years ago
-Over 60 new VIP Audio Shows each week
-Ad-free access to all PWTorch.com free articles
-VIP Forum access with daily interaction with PWTorch staff and well-informed fellow wrestling fans
-Tons of archived audio and text articles
-Decades of Torch Talk insider interviews in transcript and audio formats with big name stars.


**SIGN UP FOR VIP ACCESS HERE**

CONTACTABOUTFACEBOOKTWITTERPODCASTIPHONE APPANDROID APPAMAZON APPRSS
VIP SIGN-UP
VIP LOGIN
THE TORCH: #1 IN COMBAT ENTERTAINMENT COVERAGE | © 1999-2013 TDH Communications Inc. • All rights reserved -- PRIVACY POLICY