Been checking out the 1981 MACW shows. Kind of amazing how little the show changed from the the fall of 1981 to the late 80s. Same format, same set other than minor changes, same set up, same booking. Main difference is Tony replacing Bob Caudle and the hard cam being at a slightly different angle. It's kind of weird. Even much of the same talent they were using 5-6-7 years later.
Some odds and ends going on in the area:
Ric Flair has just won the NWA Championship, so he's not on TV as he's touring other areas and Japan, but he has been doing a few live events from time to time.
Jake Roberts is aimlessly tagging with people, not really seeming to go for any titles or looking for a steady partner, that's just what he's booked in most often. Some of his partners have included Ricky Steamboat, Blackjack Mulligan, and Barry Windham, who was still going by Blackjack Mulligan Jr. He's just started using the DDT, but sporadically, and not even has a finisher. There was a promo aired where he said he was going off to wrestle in Canada for a while, but from what I can tell he never went back to Stampede and instead stayed in MACW for half the year before moving on to Florida.
Ricky Steamboat, in addition to teaming off and on with Jake, won the Mid Atlantic Championship from
Ivan Koloff, only to lose it to
Roddy Piper soon after. Piper would duck Steamboat and try not to give him a rematch, which led to multiple weeks of Piper trying to attack Steamboat after matches, and Steamboat bringing in bags of fan mail to matchmaker Sandy Scott in which fans begged for Steamboat to get his rematch. Piper in a suit and trash talking >>>>> Piper in a kilt and t-shirt being racist for heat. He still was trash in the ring, though, but his gear was flames.
Piper was involved in other shenanigans, though, like bringing in
Abdullah the Butcher to dice up
Wahoo McDaniel, which got all three taken off TV for a few weeks due to the blood and violence of it all. The censorship was so much better than WWF's big red X.
A lot of commotion was going on with the World Tag Team Championships, as
The Anderson Brothers were champs, but went I think 2 months without defending the titles.
Gene Anderson was all fukked up, I'm not sure what happened to him, but he was super twitchy, shaky, and would often not be able to find words. I tried looking up if he had Parkinsons or something, but a story I saw a few places was it went back to brain damage after being hit in the head with a baseball bat. Whatever it was, he clearly was not right in the head anymore, so Ole was forced to test out random partners, like Roddy Piper and
Ray Stevens, neither of which he could get along with for long. The Stevens issue got particularly testy after Ole tried the old Anderson headbutt spot and Ray got pissed about it, refused to give back the title, and made Ole fight him for it if he wanted it back.
Sgt. Slaughter is generally just a mean ol' c*nt, roughing up the jobbers more than anyone else, eventually winning the US Championship (which was still shaped like the United States). He took fellow former marine
Jim Nelson under his wing and instituted a
Master Lock Cobra Clutch Challenge where he would offer $1000 to anyone who could break the hold, but he'd always cheat or avoid attempting it on non-jobbers.
Often times, most of the stars are kind of mixing and matching in feuds anyway, so everyone is kind of at everyone in the end.
Odds and ends:
Mr. Pogo is on excursion as THE NINJA going full blown Kabuki rip off. He at some point starts being managed by Gene Anderson, which is pretty weird and doesn't fit at all. Blackjack Mulligan has some beef with
Big John Studd over Studd slapping Barry.
Billy Robinson,
Terry Taylor, and
Ox Baker have come to town.
Buddy Landell,
Tony Anthony, and
Black Bart are around as jobbers. Of course,
Jimmy fukking Valiant is around doing EXACTLY the same shyt he'd be doing at the end of the decade and it was just as terrible in 1981 as it was later on. There was a tournament for a 1982 Caddy that I'm not sure who eventually won, but all the top guys were in the tournament.