1994: UWF-I'll Make Love to You, Vader

Super Vader/John Tenta vs. Gary Albright/Kazuo Yamazaki  UWF-I 10/8/94

ER: Crowd was intensely hot for Albright vs. Vader, and they know exactly how to tease them, starting with a big pull apart to start and then not seeing those two actually square off until we're 2/3 through this thing. It's fun seeing Tenta on the mat, as it's a total fish out of water situation. He doesn't look like he can really do a whole lot there, but he's enormous, so it creates a ton of fun visuals. At one point he's clasping his hands around nothing, and keeping his hands together for reasons I couldn't figure out, and Albright is maneuvering around him having no clue how to move him. Albright has amazing throwing strength and there's a moment where he moves in to deadlift Tenta, which...that's just not going to happen. Vader and Tenta are fun bullying Yamazaki, and Yamazaki gets a nice backpack choke on Tenta at one point, which is how I assume this will end. After all, Vader isn't going to lose, right? This whole match was basically a nice slow burn and build to get to a Vader/Albright showdown, and my god do they pay it off. Tenta and Albright come to another stand off and Vader starts excitedly waving his arms from the apron, wanting that HOT TAG and the fans go from murmuring to chattering to yelling after seeing how excited Vader is to clash with Albright. Outside of that pull apart before the bell, they were not in the ring together until this moment, and it totally explodes.

Vader bullies him with strikes and Albright, beaten down, roars out of the corner with elbows and freaking THROWS Vader with a gorgeous belly to belly. The form on Albright's belly to belly is second to no man, but performing it on a 400 lb. man without losing any of the form is just astounding. We really need to go back and reevaluate Albright. The book for years on Albright was "Kawada carried him to a great match once" and considering I've never not loved an Albright performance I've seen, I don't think that is anywhere close to accurate. I need to find the Albright gems. And IZU. Nobody gave a shit about lumpy 90s AJ dudes. They need a modern voice. Anyway, now Yamazaki tags in and has renewed confidence against Vader, throwing big KO kicks and working an armbar, frustrating Vader so much that he pops Yamazaki in the mouth illegally, and this makes the fans want Yamazaki MORE. It's a great moment. Tenta squashes him a bit, hits a great uranage and his powerslam with the specific powerslam grip that only Tenta uses. You are picturing it now. But you know this is gonna come down to Vader/Albright, and it comes down with a brutal sudden downpour. Vader gets tossed with another gorgeous belly to belly, then Albright - being an absolute man beast - tries to drag a belly flopping Vader to his feet with a rear waistlock, just trying to deadlift drag freaking VADER back to his feet, like nobody at all can do, but Albright drags him there and bounces Vader across the ring with an amazing German suplex. Vader almost rolls through it and is back to his feet throwing bombs, but Albright throws him again and taps him with an armbar. Albright's selling on his celebration felt like an actual sports victory, very excited and emotional. The suplexes were outstanding, and he threw them with the same violent grace he would a guy half Vader's size. What a way to start this feud.

Super Vader/John Tenta vs. Gary Albright/Kazuo Yamazaki UWF-I 10/14/94

ER: This is a real treat as Vader mostly came in to work one shots every few months for UWF, so a rematch happening barely a week later feels like a big deal. This is slightly diminishing returns from the first match, as the first is longer and this loses some of the freshness of the match-ups, but this still has the electricity of the first match, especially since you know it's building to a big Vader/Albright blow off. A lot of the dynamics from the first match are repeated here: Yamazaki starts with Vader, Tenta comes in to work Albright, we build to Vader working Albright, and then this time Vader and Tenta finish off Yamazaki, escaping Albright's wrath. Yamazaki/Vader is a fun match-up with Yamazaki peppering Vader with leg kicks, and Vader is always great at showing the right amount of vulnerability with him, stumbling in the right ways and always building to a great moment where he falls into the ropes as his legs knot up. This era of Tenta is one of my favorite looks in wrestling history. He's absolutely monstrous, looking like the most menacing cross between Ricky Jay and the guy who chases Pee Wee around the Cabazon Dinosaurs. He laughs his way through Yamazaki's leg kicks and shoves him into the ropes, and is again flustered on the mat by Albright, lying one his stomach and basically refusing to move, effectively blocking a choke and refusing to budge. His presence alone is cool, and it feels big when he powerslams Albright and wrenches him into a Boston crab. Of course we get the big Vader/Albright showdown with Albright calling for Vader to tag in, and seeing Albright throw Vader with Germans is just one of the more impressive things in wrestling, Vader gets bounced hard by Albright, and Albright is great and selling the energy it took to pull off the throw, and Vader was great at selling the impact of the throws, slowly rolling over like someone who threw their back out. When it came down to striking Vader threw some awesome combos to overwhelm Albright, knocking him silly and sending him falling through the ropes to the apron, practically landing on his head. Tenta squishes Yamazaki with a powerslam and Vader polishes him off with a powerbomb that no mortal could get up from, and in just 3 long months we get to see Albright and Vader mano y mano, the two wildest bulls in UWF-I.


MINI COMPLETE AND ACCURATE VADER IN UWF-I