Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 7: vs. The Mississippi Mauler Jim Harris

Week 7

Big Daddy vs. “The Mississippi Mauler” Jim Harris 3/13/82

MD: This is probably not the best use of one of my 15 matches but it’s Kamala! We’ve seen him in Germany in the start of the 80s as Big Jim Harris and against the right opponent he really did have a lot to offer. He could have had an entire career never becoming Kamala and he still would have probably done pretty well for himself. 

This is interesting because it was set up as best two-out-of-three arm wrestling with a match to follow. I had picked this, in part, due to the length of the clip (just under ten minutes), but I realize now more than half of it will be the arm wrestling. That’s okay though, because you clearly can learn something from such things. You learn a ton about a wrestler from how they participate in the side bits, be it a worked weightlifting angle or boxing or this. It’s all about how they work it. 

And here Daddy worked it just like he works everything else. He let Harris take over to start, building up that sense of vulnerability and then thudded him down to a big pop. This was two-out-of-three. It made sense that Harris would do something cheap to win in the second right? But that bit of vulnerability Daddy always showed in one way or another never got to the point of real true heat and danger. It was always safe. Always reassuring. I could make some sort of parallel that the declined empire Brits wanted just a tiny bit of terror, a little bit of that (ultimately safe and sanitized) Doctor Who “hide behind the couch” sensation and then to have their fears reassured in the most definitive way possible. But that seems a bit too much for this project. 

Still…

Well, anyway, that bit of peril that Daddy experienced in the first would be the whole of it. For the second (which Harris decided he wanted to be on the other side of the table on which was a good bit of heeling, making excuses), he pressed Harris’ hand down quickly, only for Harris to pull away and stand up at the last second, complaining on the mic for all the ills of the world and how they were Daddy’s fault.

The match itself was just a few minutes and yes, a bit of peril up front with Harris putting on a headlock. The whips would soon start, back and forth and back again, the big boom stuff that was made possible by the smaller ring (I assume it’s smaller. It may just be that Daddy’s bigger, but it’s really just a few steps from corner to corner with the way these guys moved). There was a moment of Harris missing the hand at one point which didn’t quite make things seem more organic in a way a slip like that might. The waterwheel back drop pancake looked pretty exceptional however, and Harris (selling quite well with spasms and attempts to move) couldn’t beat the count after that. The crowd, of course, was elated. 

The criticism is, as always so far, that if Daddy gave just a little more, then things would have seemed more gripping in his victory, but perhaps they would have felt less safe and even, on some level, less triumphant and monumental, less larger than life. Which again, gives things that short Goldberg or JYD feel. That is, of course, not to say that he didn’t show vulnerability at all. He just did it in a very measured, and I think given the patterns, self-conscious way. Was it because he was afraid to be more vulnerable or because it worked and appealed to his audience? That I’m not sure of, but to say that he didn’t give at all would be a mistake. Overall, this was worth including because it showed that the act could transfer into connected elements like arm-wrestling while still being incredibly consistent and undeniably effective, if, perhaps, too hesitant and conservative.

ER: Look at The Mississippi Mauler in his beautiful red and white poncho, a look so strong that I can see a world where he's a major star even without playing a godless savage. There's just something about a cool black guy wearing a poncho like he's in an Italian western. It's like the first time I saw Bounty Hunter Brian Keith making his way to the ring in a poncho, how much aura he had...before I saw him wrestle. Mauler has his sick poncho, he didn't need a cheap tactic such as letting a deathly ill girl accompany him to the ring, like Daddy. This girl's dying wish was to accompany Daddy to the ring and well...okay that's very sweet and I love that it happened. 

I love a good arm wrestling angle and Mauler is great at what makes arm wrestling angles so good: The Bullshit. My favorite is him refusing to sit in the chair closest to him, rightly suspecting there's some foul play and insisting on sitting in Daddy's seat. When he loses the first (of 3!) arm wrestling falls, that's when he demands to switch seats back. Perfect. Pulling away from a loss, kicking the table away, logging off PSN just as you're about to lose a game, that's the behavior I want to see when there's arm wrestling in a wrestling ring. Mauler gets on the mic and talks about how arm wrestling isn't what he was here to do, pro wrestling is how he plies his trade. It's so great to demand certain rules, and the second you're about to lose under those rules, gaslight the people into thinking nobody was even here to DO arm wrestling. We're here to wrestle, I don't even know what this tiny table is doing here, we're supposed to be PRO wrestling. 

I loved their deeply sunk collar and elbow tie ups. I'm not sure I've seen someone go after Daddy so directly. We've all seen the shoulderblocks and the belly bumps but a direct collar and elbow, strength to strength, is rare. This is a good one, with Mauler widening his base, forcing Daddy to widen his own, both men in a heavy lean so you can really see Daddy's big belly sagging down between his legs. Daddy shoves off each time, with Mauler pounding his chest like King Kong, leaping and stomping and hopping, as much to intimidate as to celebrate that he locked up with Daddy and is still standing tall. 

Big Daddy's Irish whips remain among the strongest looking I've seen. Mauler is huge but I can't say I've ever seen Kamala run so fast as when Daddy whips him back and forth into the buckles. And boy do we get to see him whipped into the buckles. Is it just because Kamala is so young here? We have the German footage where he's even younger, but Germany didn't really have a lot of "running" in their heavyweight ring style. It was a lot slower, a lot more walking. Mauler should be thanking the turnbuckles, because they were the only thing stopping him here. He was whipped so hard, that the ropes went slack and ringside technicians were required to hold the whole rigging into place as the Mauler kept hitting the buckles. 

And my god does Daddy's waterwheel absolutely CRUSH Mauler. I watched it back several times and it looks like Daddy lands full weight on Mauler's face, and Mauler starts sputtering and convulsing, lying there looking like Keith David after taking Roddy Piper's worst. I've more often seen Daddy roll it off to the side, but here he just flattens the Mauler's face and even with fight in him, no man was meant to stand up from that.