All Japan Motherload - Dory Funk Jr./Masanori Toguchi vs. Abby/Roger Kirby - AJPW 7/26/79

Dory Funk Jr./Masanori Toguchi vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Roger Kirby - AJPW 7/26/79

If anything, a lesson in not judging a book by its cover. That up above does not look like a widely appealing match on paper. Dory often works as if he's shot full of horse tranquilizers, nobody reading this knows who Toguchi is (he is the future Kim Duk), Abby - believe it or not - can be lazy sometimes, and Kirby (not Corvey as the title says) is...who is Roger Kirby? Well, he appears to be an NWA tag division lifer. Or a famous UK prostate surgeon, with an international reputation as a clinician, researcher, communicator, all towards the advancement of prostate care and treatment. Roger Kirby is probably not both of these things.

But I loved the match! It had a weird vibe, like the crowd was in on a joke that I was not, reacting strangely and doing an almost vocal wave every time Abby would step through the ropes. All through the match Abby kept teasing he was getting in the ring and the crowd would go "oooOOOOOOOOoooooo" and then he would stay on the apron and they would get quiet again. And let me tell you, if you're a Dory supporter and looking for proof of Dory being an actual stiff badass, this would be the match. Dory makes it his personal mission to attack Kirby, breaking out more offense than I've ever seen from him, and all done with an immediacy and force that can often be lacking in Dory matches. He really batters Kirby with elbows, does a variety of suplexes (with a cool butterfly suplex appearing to be a deadlift), really just takes it to this guy the whole time. Kirby is game and takes two different super high backdrops. Abby would keep coming in to save Kirby, always giving Dory a nice boot between the eyes. And there was a weird comic undercurrent running throughout where Abby would act like he was going to save Kirby, but then just avoid Kirby's tags and not really save him at all. At one point Kirby wanted to tag out and Abby just rubbed his shoulders and encouraged him to get back in there. Abby in the ring was killer, going after Dory with nasty short uppercuts and then even nastier short uppercuts with the fork. The fork uppercuts looked so awesome. Also, the match was 2/3 falls for reasons I will never know. So yeah, weird vibe, in jokes that I didn't understand, badass Dory performance, fun Abby stuff, and an enthusiastic jobber performance from Kirby (seriously the backdrops are worth the price of admission), it all leads to a match that's far more than it would appear to be.