Pages

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Black History Month: S.D. Jones

Special Delivery Jones
By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger on Twitter

Of all the jobbers I watched in the 1980's, I think S.D. Jones may have been my favorite.  He only ever won a handful of matches (if even that many) when I started watching wrestling in 1983.  In fact, my first house show was a WWF event in late 1984, he was in the opener against the spoiler, and you guessed it, he got pinned.

But I liked SD.  Oh yeah, SD=Special Delivery in case you didn't know.  Anyway, I always felt bad for SD because I knew what his fate was going to be.  A few of my favorite memories of him include one in 1984 when he and Andre the Giant teamed up against Ken Patera and Big John Studd.  This was the infamous Andre haircutting incident.  I think the WWF was still on the Superstation TBS back then.  Jones got knocked out of the ring and hit the guardrail, while Studd and Patera double slammed Andre and cut his hair.  Since Jones was a jobber, there wasn't much he could do to help his fallen partner.

Then of course probably his biggest match of his WWF career came at the first Wrestlemania.  Howard Finkel, Gorilla Monsoon, and Jesse Ventura claim Jones was pinned in 9 seconds by King Kong Bundy, but the match is a bit longer than that (it's closer to 23 seconds)  No doubt the promos and ring entrances lasted longer than the match.  Poor SD.


SD Jones in toy form
But he must have had some fan appeal as he was the only true jobber the LJN made into an action figure.  And yes, I still own my SD Jones "wrestling doll".  Die hard fans will know that there are two versions of this figure, one with the red shirt and one in the Hawaiian shirt.

Sadly SD never climbed the ladder of success in the WWF, but he did an excellent job of making other wrestlers look their very best.  That's the role of a jobber after all.  I got to see him induct his friend and former tag team partner Tony Atlas into the WWE Hall of Fame back in 2006.  It's something I'm glad I got to see as Jones died in 2008.  By the way, Atlas and Jones held the USA Tag Team titles, and Jones was a three time coholder of the NWA Americas Tag Team titles.  If the WWE ever does our idea for a jobbers wing of the Hall of Fame, Jones in my opinion should be in the first class of inductees.  Rest in Peace Special Delivery.

No comments:

Post a Comment