Some People Read Idea Books, And Some People Are Kings

Jerry Lawler v. Toru Tanaka CWA 5/19/79 - FUN

Really enjoyable short studio match, with the slim trim 70's Lawler. Tanaka is very much a 70s/80s Japanese heel, lots of nerve holds and judo chops, he did put on a cool submission hold where he drove the top of his head into the back of Lawlers neck. Lawler squirms in and out of the holds and unloads with really pretty rapid fire rights and lefts. Finish has Tanaka try to throw ceremonial salt, hit the ref, which leads to Gorgeous George Jr. and Mongolian Stomper run ins. Basic heel vs. face stuff and neat to see just to get a sense of the era.

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee v. Eric Embry/Tom Prichard USWA 7/27/91 - GREAT

This is a studio match, so it isn't very long, but man did I enjoy every minute of it. Embry is just a heel whirlwind. Constantly in motion, whether it is on the apron talking shit to the fans, diving into the ring with a flying headbut for a save, unloading punches and stomps to Dundee, bumping around for Lawler, making faces. Just a tremendous workrate southern heel performance. Mostly Dundee in the match, with the Texas bunch working him over. He gets a great fired up comeback, before going for a rolling tag, and rolling right into Lawler in an amusing botched spot. The match spills to the floor and they brawl around the studio a bit. Not much of a Lawler showcase, but he was good when he was in, and everyone else ruled.

Jerry Lawler v. Bret Hart 11/5/93 - GREAT

This is a cage match handheld from a WWF house show pre-Survivor Series. Lawler is one of the most logically consistent wrestlers ever. This is the first time I have seen him work an escape the cage match, and he does what makes sense. Immediately try to bail out of the door, during the whole match Lawler would take the opportunity to skip town. There wasn't huge spots here, lots of nice looking punches from both guys, and Hart unloading a piledriver, but the match was consistently exciting. Lawler works the chain and really unloads on Bret. We get interference from a masked guy (I am assuming he is one of Lawlers Knights) and the masked guy takes the biggest bump of the match flying off the side of the cage to the floor (did they bring in Foley to work house shows?) We get a Bret win and big Lawler post match beat down. Cool opportunity to see what a touring cage match between the two looks like. Good shit


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

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Wrestle With the Work Dick Togo's Like the Four Horseman, Ric Flair With The Flame He's Motherfucking Gorgeous

Sato/Shiryu/Great Sasuke/TAKA Michinoku vs. Jushin Liger/El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani/Tokimitsu Ishizawa NJPW 6/15/94 - EPIC 

PAS: A hell of match. I was a little hesitant about the NJ Juniors being able to hang in this kind of MPRO sprint, but they totally brought it. Ohtani especially was great, springboarding all over the ring and having a dickhead smirkoff with TAKA. Man alive, the MPRO team were sick athletes, just watching the speed they run the ropes, and the height they get on every move, when Sasuke somersaults through on the dropdown he just floats in the air forever. Of course our boy SATO is at his chubbiest and his fastest, he may have had the prettiest dive of the train with his double jump flip plancha. Liger is also just tailor made for this style, he captains his team so well, he is calling the plays like Jason Kidd. The finish was awesome as we get a triple flying headbutt on Shiryu, before Liger brings him to the top rope and spikes him through the mat with a brainbuster. I don't understand why this style is so bad now, why can't there be guys still doing this? 

Dick Togo vs. Chris Hero IWA-EC 4/5/06 - EPIC 

PAS: It is weird that this match even exists. Togo comes over to US for one show to work Chris Hero in a ladder match for Mad Man Pondo's West Virginia garbage fed, which is just bizarre. It is a hell of match though and the weirdness of it just adds to it. The match starts out with both guys doing some really nice matwork, don't really know the point of putting on submissions in a ladder match, but it was cool. Togo was really working hard, hitting a flip dive onto Hero and a ladder, eating a ladder shot to the mouth and taking a huge backdrop on said ladder. Hero was really good too, bleeding and taking big bumps. This was a before the young KO kid gimmick, but he was unloading with punches and elbows. Finish was pretty cool with Hero springboarding, landing on a ladder and knocking Togo off the other. Easily the best match ever with a Warpig match on the undercard 

Dick Togo vs. Michael Nakazawa DDT 10/24/10 - SKIPPABLE 

PAS: Nakazawa is one of the culturally odd Japanese gimmicks that I do not and don't want to understand. He has facepaint, fishnets and a thong, and mostly wanders around the ring into the crowd. Most of the match is Togo chasing him and hitting him. He does get a bit of offense after kicking the rope into Togo's balls, and proceeds to hit him with a cat o nine tails. Togo does hit a nice senton, but he does that a lot, so nothing to see here. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Sustains the Humble, But Casts the Wicked To The Ground

Yoshiaki Fujiawara v. Joe Malenko PWFG 6/1/93-EPIC

PAS: This was so much fun, just a pair of true maestros pulling pushing and twisting each other until someone gives. This wasn't an exchange of holds, it was a constant battle by both men to find some advantage or defense. This was really a Malenko show, as he controlled with great takedowns, and constant attacking, with Fujiwara really focused on defense. Of course Fujiwara is the greatest defensive pro-wrestler of all time, so the defense stuff ruled.

TKG: This was a Malenko show. My favorite thing that he did was use his knee and shin as simple machine, constantly pushing it against stuff to act as a lever, inclined plane or wedge to force Fujiwara to move one body part or another, worlds most violent physics demonstration.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Daisuke Ikeda v. Ricky Fuji/Hitsakatsu Ooya FMW 5/5/95-FUN

This is for the FMW tag belts, and was on the undercard of one of the big FMW 5/5 shows. There was a bunch of stuff I enjoyed here, Fujiwara and Ikeda are both bleeding and do a good job of getting the crowd behind them. We get to see Ikeda kick some folks really hard, including a spin kick right to Fuji's face which looked like it chicleted his teeth. The finish had Fujiwara whipping out flash armbars, including catching Fuji off the top. Still lots of the match had the FMW team beating on Fujiwara and Ikeda, and there was nothing compelling about it. Lots of weak forearms and stomps, you are going to have to hit both guys way harder then that to have me buy into it.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto/Naoya Ogawa v. Tom Howard/The Predator/Steve Corino Zero-One 5/19/02-GREAT

A match which ends up on the low side of great, but had enough stuff I enjoyed to push it over the top. This is part of the big UPW/NWA v. Zero One feud which lots of times came off as a giant money mark fantasy for Fred Rubenstien and Rick Bassman. This did have heel ref shit and a post match brawl with Mr. Fred throwing powder, but for the most part it was focused in the ring. Fujiwara had some cool flash submissions and got in his ring bolt comedy spot, but the star of this match was Hashimoto. The gaijin team is pretty limited, but Hash had some excellent battle of the titans spots with all of them. I especially love his work with Howard, who is someone I am really starting to dig while watching all of this Zero One. I loved how he wasted Hashimoto with a superkick after suckering him in with his hands behind the back gimmick. Finish had some cool OH Gun combo moves including a nasty STO/German Suplex. Cool stuff.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Black Terry Restless By Day and at Night Rants and Rages At The Stars

Black Terry v. El Hijo Del Santo UWF 3/10/91-GREAT

All the work in this match was excellent, and this would be a good match to show folks why these guys are great wrestlers. All the early matwork was very cool. Santo especially back in the 90's was a crazy quick matworker, he would move into holds and counters suddenly. Terry looked very good hanging right with him. We also got some pretty Santo dives and even a rare Terry tope. However 11 minutes just isn't long enough to have a truly excellent lucha title match. They pretty much condensed a 25 minute match into 11 and I really felt the loss. This would have been an amazing first fall, but it left me wanting to see what they could do with some real time and three falls the way lucha is supposed to be.

Black Terry/Villano IV/Rey Mendoza Jr. v. Oriental/El Pantera/Solar UWE 4/23/11-GREAT

This is from a benefit show for Villano 3, and all six guys are working their asses off. We get a long opening caida with some cool relatively unique match ups. V IV and Oriental have a really cool mat exchange with some especially nice amateur reversals. It isn't the complicated stuff you see with Navarro, but hard intense simple work done well. I also really liked the flashier exchanges between Terry and Pantera, with Terry bumping really well for the headscissors, handstands and armdrags. Rey Mendoza Jr. and Solar is the most brawly of the three match ups, with Mendoza being especially nasty, landing cool shots to the ribs and belly. Second fall has the rudos work over Solar, including some very cool finger breaking by Black Terry. Oriental and Pantera finish the fall by breaking out a couple of big dives. Third fall was a little flatter then the previous two, which keeps this out of legendary territory, but this was another Black Terry Jr. Handheld gem, and quite an Easter present for all of the goyim lucha fans out there.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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