New Footage Friday: UFC vs. Memphis, Blackhearts, Can-Ams
MD: We went with this because it had Vader in it so it was timely. It's not the best showcase match for him, though. There's some exciting brawling with Choshu to begin but this one is really much more about Bigelow, Steamboat, and Choshu. Vader and Hashimoto just aren't in the ring as much. I love Bigelow from this era. Vader may have been more willing to ham it up with crowd interactions than he would be later, but Bigelow takes it a step further. He does a flip bump on a Choshu clothesline. How great is that?
Steamboat really is the X-Factor here, though. He's as Steamboat-y as it gets, providing the heart of his match with his selling, allowing for a stretch of heat that you'd never get in a match like this without him, but also realizing he's in Japan and being double tough in his attempts to fight back and way, way over the top in his offensive bursts. There's this clothesline duck-jumping kick to the head-karate pose that he does against Bigelow that is the most flawless bit of pro wrestling imaginable Post-match angle goes on forever but Hamaguchi makes it worth it with his unexpected charisma. I imagine most people would be glad to watch this.
ER: I've not actually seen any Steamboat/Vader matches in WCW, but I don't think they matched up that often and I certainly didn't realize they had matched up before WCW. But I don't seek out a lot of Steamboat, so this is not something I likely would have known. I am definitely low vote on Steamboat, and didn't think he looked good here, but it worked because everyone treated him like Kikuchi in the classic AJPW six mans. He was nowhere near as good as Kikuchi here, but his light chops and almost connecting dropkicks made him the easy choice to isolate from the group. At one point Bigelow is throwing nice right hooks and has to remind himself to acknowledge Steamboat's little chops. Bigelow had a really great performance and never tried to out-monster Vader, who looked like an outright monster. Hamiguchi would tag in and work like an actual animal let out of a cage. This heel team probably only teamed up on this show, but man that is a winning trio. Bigelow was there for big man bumps (even taking this great banana peel bump onto the apron after the pinfall), Vader looked gargantuan and completely unstoppable, and I loved Hash and Riki as the guys running in to save little Ricky. Bigelow and Vader are a fun team and I loved them using their fat, like Bigelow holding onto Steamboat in the corner while Vader just squished him in a fat sandwich. We didn't get a ton of Hash, but he made his presence felt with a squarely planted DDT, and not many people are better than Choshu at tagging in and blasting folks with a hot tag lariats. I also loved Hamaguchi hugging it out with Choshu after the match. "Hey, no hard feelings, I just teamed with who they told me to" leading to Bigelow and Vader immediately calling him out on his bullshit. "We were still here dude. We saw you."
PAS: I thought this was great and mainly great because Steamboat was spectacular in it. I thought he was a great face in peril, he is an all-time great seller, and I loved how he kept fighting back during the beatdown section, he gets pounded by Bigelow or Vader, but he always fires back with a chop. I loved the section where Bigelow and Steamboat kept exchanging and each shot was faster and harder until they were just unloading on each other. That is a matchup I can't remember seeing before, and I feel like they would have had an all time singles match. The Vader vs. Hash sections were awesome, although it was more of a taste then a meal, but man is that an all time battle of badasses. The finish run was great, with every body running in a throwing big shots ending with a classic Choshu lariat.
Can Am Express vs. The Blackhearts AJPW 9/4/91
MD: This got a lot of time and was big and dumb. Kroffat is one of my favorite AJPW 90s guys because he is a hugely natural de facto heel in a place where you don't always get that. Here, though, the Can-Ams were playing de facto babyface, and they don't hold up as well. Furnas is a solid muscleman hot tag in that role, but Kroffat, even with some flashy flourishes, was playing against type.
The Blackhearts deal is that they have a great entrance in the dark, will bump big, and have so, so many ridiculous tandem double teams, none of which actually look good. The sum of it all gives them an A for effort but this was far more fun than good.
Steamboat really is the X-Factor here, though. He's as Steamboat-y as it gets, providing the heart of his match with his selling, allowing for a stretch of heat that you'd never get in a match like this without him, but also realizing he's in Japan and being double tough in his attempts to fight back and way, way over the top in his offensive bursts. There's this clothesline duck-jumping kick to the head-karate pose that he does against Bigelow that is the most flawless bit of pro wrestling imaginable Post-match angle goes on forever but Hamaguchi makes it worth it with his unexpected charisma. I imagine most people would be glad to watch this.
ER: I've not actually seen any Steamboat/Vader matches in WCW, but I don't think they matched up that often and I certainly didn't realize they had matched up before WCW. But I don't seek out a lot of Steamboat, so this is not something I likely would have known. I am definitely low vote on Steamboat, and didn't think he looked good here, but it worked because everyone treated him like Kikuchi in the classic AJPW six mans. He was nowhere near as good as Kikuchi here, but his light chops and almost connecting dropkicks made him the easy choice to isolate from the group. At one point Bigelow is throwing nice right hooks and has to remind himself to acknowledge Steamboat's little chops. Bigelow had a really great performance and never tried to out-monster Vader, who looked like an outright monster. Hamiguchi would tag in and work like an actual animal let out of a cage. This heel team probably only teamed up on this show, but man that is a winning trio. Bigelow was there for big man bumps (even taking this great banana peel bump onto the apron after the pinfall), Vader looked gargantuan and completely unstoppable, and I loved Hash and Riki as the guys running in to save little Ricky. Bigelow and Vader are a fun team and I loved them using their fat, like Bigelow holding onto Steamboat in the corner while Vader just squished him in a fat sandwich. We didn't get a ton of Hash, but he made his presence felt with a squarely planted DDT, and not many people are better than Choshu at tagging in and blasting folks with a hot tag lariats. I also loved Hamaguchi hugging it out with Choshu after the match. "Hey, no hard feelings, I just teamed with who they told me to" leading to Bigelow and Vader immediately calling him out on his bullshit. "We were still here dude. We saw you."
PAS: I thought this was great and mainly great because Steamboat was spectacular in it. I thought he was a great face in peril, he is an all-time great seller, and I loved how he kept fighting back during the beatdown section, he gets pounded by Bigelow or Vader, but he always fires back with a chop. I loved the section where Bigelow and Steamboat kept exchanging and each shot was faster and harder until they were just unloading on each other. That is a matchup I can't remember seeing before, and I feel like they would have had an all time singles match. The Vader vs. Hash sections were awesome, although it was more of a taste then a meal, but man is that an all time battle of badasses. The finish run was great, with every body running in a throwing big shots ending with a classic Choshu lariat.
Can Am Express vs. The Blackhearts AJPW 9/4/91
MD: This got a lot of time and was big and dumb. Kroffat is one of my favorite AJPW 90s guys because he is a hugely natural de facto heel in a place where you don't always get that. Here, though, the Can-Ams were playing de facto babyface, and they don't hold up as well. Furnas is a solid muscleman hot tag in that role, but Kroffat, even with some flashy flourishes, was playing against type.
The Blackhearts deal is that they have a great entrance in the dark, will bump big, and have so, so many ridiculous tandem double teams, none of which actually look good. The sum of it all gives them an A for effort but this was far more fun than good.
PAS: This was an amusing big dumb heavyweight tag spotfest. It was more Eliminators then Steiners, but it was some big dudes with ideas. Some of them looked bad (the Blackhearts double bulldog was conceptually interesting, but looked dumb), some of them looked cool ( the assisted face buster by the Can-Ams was nifty) but they were all kind of thrown out there without a ton of substance. Still I enjoyed large parts of this in a turn off your brain off kind of way. I could see an ECW video montage of this match set to an Alice in Chains song being pretty cool.
Dustin Starr/Din Thomas vs. Derrick King/Matt Serra 6/15/18
PAS: This was a match in the long storied southern tradition of the sold show money mark tag match. Instead of opposing high school football coaches, we have two ex-UFC guys Thomas and Serra working with old Memphis hands Dustin Starr and Derrick King. This was part of Dana White's Looking for a Fight travel show. Starr and Thomas work heel and Dana White and Jerry Lawler are at ringside along with Starr's valet. Fun shticky match, with King and Starr having really great punches and Thomas and Serra doing some nice amateur rolling. The stuff with the UFC guys against the Memphis guys was a little awkward (Thomas looks like he might have gotten knocked silly by Starr's axehandle), but I am always going to enjoy this kind of match.
MD: Well, this was something. The best thing about this was the fact it felt so Memphis. Really, the first twenty odd minutes or so (out of 27) were pure Memphis. Calhoun was ref. Lawler switched the sides and big timed Dana. Starr is pure throwback, not the Brian Christopher we want, but probably the Brian Christopher we deserve in 2018. There was stalling, jawing, strutting, pretty good punches and over the top selling. The next best thing was Serra and Thomas sparring, with Serra throwing Thomas all over the place. And the last best? Probably Dana White's shit-eating grin as he watched Starr stooge all over the ring.
It all fell apart in the last few minutes with Serra and Dana spending the entire run-up to the hot tag just talking to each other casually as King struggled his way to the corner. That was pretty much the worst hot tag in wrestling history. There was maybe one too many bits of White getting involved with Maria post-match but ultimately this was fine. I was curious how they were going to protect the UFC guys, especially when they were in with the wrestlers and that all worked pretty well. Serra bullied Starr. Despite Serra having the cartwheel, Thomas was the one who seemed more natural for wrestling. He was having a blast, even relishing a bodyslam. And it all ended with a reminder that everyone should spend some cash on Jerry's food. It's the most Memphis thing I've seen out of Memphis in a while
Dustin Starr/Din Thomas vs. Derrick King/Matt Serra 6/15/18
PAS: This was a match in the long storied southern tradition of the sold show money mark tag match. Instead of opposing high school football coaches, we have two ex-UFC guys Thomas and Serra working with old Memphis hands Dustin Starr and Derrick King. This was part of Dana White's Looking for a Fight travel show. Starr and Thomas work heel and Dana White and Jerry Lawler are at ringside along with Starr's valet. Fun shticky match, with King and Starr having really great punches and Thomas and Serra doing some nice amateur rolling. The stuff with the UFC guys against the Memphis guys was a little awkward (Thomas looks like he might have gotten knocked silly by Starr's axehandle), but I am always going to enjoy this kind of match.
MD: Well, this was something. The best thing about this was the fact it felt so Memphis. Really, the first twenty odd minutes or so (out of 27) were pure Memphis. Calhoun was ref. Lawler switched the sides and big timed Dana. Starr is pure throwback, not the Brian Christopher we want, but probably the Brian Christopher we deserve in 2018. There was stalling, jawing, strutting, pretty good punches and over the top selling. The next best thing was Serra and Thomas sparring, with Serra throwing Thomas all over the place. And the last best? Probably Dana White's shit-eating grin as he watched Starr stooge all over the ring.
It all fell apart in the last few minutes with Serra and Dana spending the entire run-up to the hot tag just talking to each other casually as King struggled his way to the corner. That was pretty much the worst hot tag in wrestling history. There was maybe one too many bits of White getting involved with Maria post-match but ultimately this was fine. I was curious how they were going to protect the UFC guys, especially when they were in with the wrestlers and that all worked pretty well. Serra bullied Starr. Despite Serra having the cartwheel, Thomas was the one who seemed more natural for wrestling. He was having a blast, even relishing a bodyslam. And it all ended with a reminder that everyone should spend some cash on Jerry's food. It's the most Memphis thing I've seen out of Memphis in a while
Labels: Animal Hamaguchi, Bam Bam Bigelow, Blackhearts, Dan Kroffat, Derrick King, Doug Furnas, Dustin Starr, New Footage Friday, Ricky Steamboat, Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto, Vader
posted by Phil @ 10:01 PM
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