Enjoying the Fans’ Reactions

One of my loyal readers recently called my attention to a video of “Hacksaw” Butch Reed’s classic Heel Turn from 1983. To inspire the audience’s rage, Reed turned against his own partner and best friend, the Junkyard Dog (who was much beloved in Mid-South Rasslin back then.) Here is what my reader wrote:

I share your unique enjoyment of wrestling and have quietly followed your site for years. You might have done this, but I recommend you do post about heel turns, specifically a long-ago Mid-south squash of Butch Reed on Tim Horner, immediately after Reed turned on Junkyard Dog and the fans.

Nice touches of psychology, like Horner angry at the beginning over Reed’s betrayal, and fans yelling for JYD while Reed has prolonged and devastating power punishment of youngster. 

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Watching Butch Reed tear apart pretty-boy Tim Horner?? Yup, I’m all in!

We cut for a sponsor break while watching a repeat of the brutal two-on-one assault on JYD (as if his ass-kicking continued during the commercials.) We come back to a delicious image of hunky Tim Horner stripping off his clothes and exposing his muscular physique…

Reed is so damn buff and powerful and angry — cute Tim Horner really has no chance! Just anticipating the one-sided punishment of a handsome jobber like Horner always had the effect of making me feel weak in the knees and dizzy and very, very turned on.

To accomplish Butch Reed’s Heel Turn — to ensure everyone in the audience would quickly abandon their fandom and switch to despising him — they sent in the cutest young dude on the roster to take the beating. How could we support and cheer for anybody who makes our beautiful Timmy Horner cry out in anguish??

Reed proceeds to dominate Horner with some unnecessary roughness, really manhandling the kid to show us how vicious he has become. This serves to incite the audience. They begin to chant “J. Y. D.! J. Y. D.!” to hopefully inspire their beloved Junkyard Dog to come and rescue poor Horner. But the Dog never returns.

Keeping JYD hidden in the back makes Butch Reed seem even more dangerous and intimidating. It seems JYD may be afraid of Reed after the ass-kicking he suffered earlier in the show.

Bill Watts, the promoter of the Mid-South federation, adds to Reed’s powerful mystique and the audience’s anxiety by praising the big Heel in almost homo-erotic terms:

Ohhh — Butch Reed is powerful! You can’t take away anything. He’s an athlete. He’s a GREAT athlete. He’s a hungry animal! He’s in FAN-TAS-TIC shape.

The Junkyard Dog was worshiped as a hero back in the early 1980’s, definitely by African Americans who were presented with very few heroes of color `in those days, but also by white fans because JYD was a lovable, non-threatening black male. He was sort of chubby, dopey and playful — he even wore a dog collar and leash to the ring to signal an Uncle Tom subservience.

But Butch Reed is presented as an angry, frightening and powerful threat. He wore bright yellow trunks to emphasize his bulge — drawing our attention to his sexual potency. Reed causes such angst and anger in the mostly-white audience because of his masculine power and potency. And when I can sense anger, frustration and fear in a wrestling audience, it acts like Viagra on me. My reader correctly pointed out:

I know you enjoy fans’ reactions, and Mid-south fans were the most emotionally invested in faces and heels, which heightened my enjoyment. 

Here is how my reader described Butch Reed’s sex appeal and the way he enrages the audience by punishing Tim Horner:

Heel turns were special because fans were already angry (especially in Mid-south), and the new heel would salivate at opportunity to heighten their anger.  Adding to fans’ angst, and our enjoyment, an arrogant muscular black man is humiliating a smaller white man – in Shreveport, Louisiana.

I was always big fan of Reed because he didn’t do only menace, like all heels, he was so condescending towards jobbers – complete with smug smiles and trash talk and flexing.

Reed enjoyed showing off his strength by hoisting his jobbers overhead, one hand on their throat and the other on their balls. He called this the “Gorilla Press” to reference his beastly, super-human strength.

Then he’d Body Slam the victim from on high, really crushing the dude on impact. See below…

To demonstrate how cruel and heartless he has become, to ensure every fan in the audience despises him, the Brute picks up the broken white wimp and Gorilla Slams him again… And then a THIRD TIME!

And that’s how it ends. Horner is beaten severely and made to look pathetic. Reed comes off looking powerful and dominant (and intoxicating to viewers like me.) The Junkyard Dog has been humiliated, now hiding from Reed with his tail between his legs. The audience is totally worked up over what they just saw, perhaps worried that big, angry Butch Reed might decide to rape them all. And my reader and I are left to marvel over how entertaining and stimulating rasslin was 40 years ago…