Butch Reed vs Dick Murdoch (Mid-South - 9/22/1985)

Second

One of my favorite Mid-South matches. I think some of these mid south matches, to the extent that they are debated here, might get compared to some of the more well known NWA classics and I think this is one that holds up really well. This is a good, long, well orchestrated match.

I love Championship Style wrestling and this is best that doesn't include Flair or Bock. Stone cold lock. Did the October match get nominated?

Mid-South North American Champion Dick Murdoch vs Butch Reed - Mid-South 9/22/85



I would conjecture that this was to give Reed more practice in the classic NWA World Championship style as he already had one match against Flair and would have a couple more. It would establish Reed as the lead championship material babyface whereas Duggan was the brawling, blue collar babyface. Reed is able to convey not only brute strength in this match, but a great amount of technique, stamina and also some great verbal selling. On the flip side, there is always talk that Murdoch would have been NWA World Championship if it had not been his propensity for comedy and lightheartedness in his match. This series with Reed gives us an inkling of what it would have been like if Captain Redneck was The Man.What a great reign it would have been! I had watched a good amount of Murdoch before this and liked him, but this match totally sold me on him. He is an absolute torture master. Then when it comes to selling he is just so spot on. I don't know how to explain it, but it is exactly what I think you should do. It is the perfect blend of entertainment and conveying pain.



This is nominally face vs face at the beginning, but Murdoch will be playing de facto heel. They do tit for tat armdrags to establish face vs face. We get the long Reed side headlock, which is custom for Reed in his matches with Flair. Murdoch is right there with Ole & Arn for best at working the arm just incredible at making everything look painful (wristlock while stomping on head and ribs) and takes his time. Reed uses power tries for pin and then goes right back to the headlock. We get that sequence for a bit and it is very logical and very entertaining. I think it was great to have Reed creating the movement. The match is getting more and more heated with them both working hard. It crescendos to both men cocking their fists and the ref intervening to stop this classical match from getting out of hand. Perfect tease. Reed takes a powder from all the arm work and he psyches himself up, which is a really cool spot. The ref tries to cool him down. I love we get a collar and elbow tie up this late into the match. It is a nice reset without forgetting the past. He levels Murdoch with a forearm and classic Murdoch face down selling. Perfect. Murdoch elbows the top of head to get to a hammerlock bearhug with nasty punches to the ribs. Murdoch throws out classical wrestling and just starts throwing nasty strikes to Reed that causes him to slump into the ring. In a criss cross sequence, Reed finally clock Murdoch and Capn Redneck is reeling. Murdoch drags him to the outside and slams him on the concrete. They tease the countout finish. Piledriver, knee drop, Murdoch is pouring it on, but only gets two after each. The selling in this match is amazing. With each men selling this war of attrition and trying to fight through the pain. Reed was great at selling the face, being doubled over and then fighting through all that finally kicks some ass in a great comeback. Murdoch does his great job selling with his weak windmill punches. Murdoch tries to fight from his ass, awesome! Reed just starts to choke him. It is breaking loose in Tulsa! I hope it is Tulsa! They start trading punches and atomic drops and Reed's final atomic drop was a DOUBLE HOT nearfall! Dicky Murdoch rolls to the outside. Reed is exhausted and they both collapse from all this fighting! Reed applies the figure-4, hey now you cant say Flair made him do that spot!

Murdoch is in the ropes and Reed is relentless and the ref is trying to get Butch to back off. Of course, this causes Reed to eat a boot. Now Reed is fighting from his back and punching the bad knee. Wow! Murdoch tries a bodyslam, but his knee is so fucked they both topple over the top rope. Double countout. Badass classical American title match. Reed shoves ref as he is trying to give Murdoch the belt. I smell rematch. He punches Murdoch and throws him into the belt. He decks ref. It gets scrappy and they finally break it up. Butch promo and this becomes a wicked brawl. I loved this match. Awesome selling, really built well to Reed's comeback and Murdoch is excellent at all facets of wrestling. ****3/4

By Christ what a match. This is a glimpse into an alternate world where Trump was the president of the NWA and not of an actual country and he decided to roll the dice on those rumours of Murdoch being a closet Klan member by giving him the big belt for six years. In a perfect world those rumours would've been nonsense and the ACTUAL NWA president gave him the big belt for six years anyway. He was tremendous in this. Don't get me wrong, Reed was amazing as well, but Murdoch was on another level and it might be the ultimate Captain Redneck experience. Following that altercation on TV a couple days before things are tetchy almost straight away. They play that up for the first twenty minutes, constantly escalating with tensions rising and threatening to boil over, always threading its way through everything they do. It was so, so good.

On a basic level it's pretty much Reed working a headlock and Murdoch working the arm, but everything they do with those holds is excellent and the little subtleties they add really set it all apart. Reed has a great headlock, really squeezes and grinds it in, leans way back like he's trying to pull Murdoch's head off, then when Murdoch tries to roll him into a pinning position Reed just shifts his weight so he's lying completely on Murdoch's head instead. Murdoch tries to trip the leg from a standing position, so Reed spreads his base and forces Murdoch to the mat. When Murdoch finally escapes into a hammerlock he sells the aftereffects of the headlock like his ears have been ground into stubs. All of his work on the arm was incredible. He was always going to be the one who wound up leaning towards that heel end of the spectrum, so he played that up by being a nasty bastard while working entirely within the rules. Loved all the joint-manipulation, where he'd have Reed's shoulder, elbow and wrist all twisted in different yet equally painful ways, often at the same time. He'd bar the arm and stomp Reed right under the armpit, drop knees across the bicep, stomp the lat, maybe even take a few liberties and add the fingers to that joint-manipulation (Reed: "He's got my fingers!"). As time goes on the work in between holds gets meaner and meaner. The armdrags at the start make way for forearm shivers and elbows, but I love how much they play up not throwing blatant fists, despite them REALLY wanting to on more than one occasion. Even Tommy Gilbert being sort of overbearing as the ref' was cool in that sense, where he'd get right in the middle and try to keep a lid on things. Of course everybody knew it was a matter of time before it went out the window. Murdoch came up bloody-mouthed way at the start after a dropkick so those little rabbit punches to the ribs were clearly payback, and I loved him being sly with it by shifting Reed out of Gilbert's line of sight each time he did it (while still working the hammerlock). Murdoch demonstrating his open-handed strike on Gilbert and Gilbert selling it like he got winded was awesome as well. That moment where Reed says fuck it and lands one on Murdoch's jaw was pretty much the perfect way to cap off that stretch of the match.

From there it just continues to escalate and builds to Murdoch slamming Reed on the concrete, then the Reed comeback leads to the big exhausted finishing run. I guess it's not as exciting as your big Flair finishing runs, at least in that there aren't as many nearfalls, but I'll take Murdoch's punch-drunk selling over the backslide and slam off the top any day. And hey, if you're REALLY missing Flair then Murdoch even puts his spin on blond champion being put in the figure-four! That made for a killer finale with Reed going after the leg and Murdoch trying to boot him in the face from his back. The legwork also directly sets up the finish and the post-match pull-apart was about four minutes of these two punching each other in the face, with the REAL payoff of someone finally decking Tommy Gilbert for sticking his nose in. Honestly, I was a wee bit worried this wouldn't hold up like I wanted it to. I can happily say it's yet another example of me being a fool because it was everything I remembered it being and more.

This was a strong unique match. It’s a long match, but I never get the sense they are killing time. A side headlock spot spot should matter, and Reed’s wrenching it in and Murdoch’s selling make sure that it does. Murdoch’s selling was great, really thoughtful. Plus it makes the exhaustion later on that much more convincing.

I loved the way they built tension throughout the match and finally brawl at the end. It must have felt good to deck that ref.