New Footage Friday: KKK, Harley, Baba, Jumbo, Wrestling 2, Roop, Dream Machine

Network and Dan Ginnety continue to deliver the goods, and now we have too much footage each week. In this very specific way (and really only in this very specific way) what a time to be alive. Tomk jumps on a couple of these as well. 

Giant Baba/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Killer Karl Kox/Harley Race AJPW 2/11/81

PAS: Dan Ginnety's 1981 TV set delivers another Killer Karl Klassic. I might even like the Race/Kox team more then the Kox/Murdoch team, even though I don't like Race as much as Murdoch. He brings a variety to the attack, more big bumping, more suplexes, plus the legit credentials of being an NWA champ. Kox was the star again though, what a nasty killer he was, everything was done with such force and viciousness. At one point he just drives a half a dozen elbows into the side of Jumbo's neck, it felt like he was trying to chop off an especially knotty piece of wood. We also get a gorgeous brainbuster to finish the first fall, and a great drunken sell of a Baba chop. I loved the finish of the second fall too, with the American's getting counted out as they stomp Baba on the floor. Finish of the third fall was unusal, with Baba tripping Race when he had Jumbo up in a suplex, with Jumbo landing on Race for the pin, that is a classic heel finish in a tag match, and I had never seen it done by faces before.

MD: Kox with Race felt very different than Kox with Murdoch, interestingly. With Murdoch he was much more of a stooge (or maybe a stooge's big brother). Everything was bigger and more sweeping. Here, everything was meaner and grittier. When he was using the object, he looked like Bulldog Bob Brown but had the aura of Abdullah at his most fearsome. Race, on the other hand, was less effective than Downtown Bruno. Every time he came in, he lost the momentum and got clowned by his opponent. This wasn't a heel title defense against a local challenger. I have no idea what he was doing. I just don't think he could stop himself. I thought this was really good whenever Kox was in though. Baba can portray sympathy after a beating so well given his almost skeletal frame. Jumbo's dropkicks were amazing. The way that they got to the finishes of the falls all had a bit more though to them than you normally get in an early 80s AJPW tag match. Good stuff even if Race couldn't get out of his own way.

ER: Karl Kox is a total superstar. He just comes into this All Japan ring and completely owns things. Harley Race worked this as a bizarre Stevie Richards, bumping all over for Jumbo and getting next to no offense, as Kox sat on the apron constantly looking for the advantage. The dynamic was incredibly fun, and kind of weird, in the best way. I love how Kox worked Baba, just bringing a constant attack, and for a guy already in his 50s Kox had such a cool and well utilized offensive arsenal. He punches and kicks Baba all over, drops elbows, throws the best back elbow in wrestling, throws downward elbows to the neck, somehow comes off the top rope with elbow strikes (which is something we've seen in his AJ matches, and he never looks comfortable up there but always hits exactly what he's trying to hit, and the fact he looks like someone who shouldn't be coming off the top only makes it that much better), grabs a tag while Race is taking a bump, and works the apron better than maybe anyone. He drops one of the finest brainbusters I've seen, and Jumbo gets in the match as we're nearly approaching mercy killing time for Baba. 

So we get a lot of Race/Jumbo, and Race is just hammier than a Hormel factory in this whole thing. He bumps a backdrop on the floor from Baba, takes two huge suplexes from Jumbo, takes a few of those Race bumps where he takes a back bump and then slowly flips his whole body over to bump again, tries a bit *too* hard to take his over the top rope bump, hits the most absurd spit take bump I've seen (the sheer amount of spit he shot out could have filled a shot glass), and is all about frantically getting Kox back into the ring. Baba was great and super aggressive here; I loved how violent he was with his big boots. I'd gotten so used to seeing old Baba have opponents getting thrown into his boot, that it's almost jaw dropping to see him running towards someone and kicking their face, throwing them exactly like prime Taue (well, Taue was throwing them like prime Baba, but you know what I mean). Jumbo is all fired up babyface in this, throwing awesome dropkicks, chucking Race with a high belly to belly, constantly punking out Race. The match has a spot I've never seen, something really cool, something I didn't see coming, where Jumbo runs up the buckles on one side of the ring to hit a headlock takeover. Then, he tries it on the other side and gets his legs grabbed out of the air by Kox from the apron, who yanks him from Race and Jumbo ends up spilling into the ropes, falling on his head. This tag is kind of weird, and completely great, and I just cannot get over what a huge deal Kox still feels like in his final year. True legend.

Dream Machine vs. Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 1/15/82

MD: Graham, while we have decent amount of footage, most of it is from one or two territories and all of a similar style. We know what he can do in southern tags and Memphis-style brawls. I'm a big proponent of taking holistic looks at wrestlers, at seeing them in a lot of different situations. This is absolutely a different situation.

The big questions here would then be: Could he hang in AJPW and could he hang with Jumbo? The answer is absolutely. Honestly, this felt more like a Hansen match than anything else. Once they got past some really fevered chain wrestling to begin, he just kept coming at Jumbo, to the point where, at times, Jumbo seemed almost visibly frustrated by it. He jumped into every bump, leaned into every shot, and traded bomb for bomb. They really ran the gamut between the chain wrestling, grinding holds, the striking, big throws, a table shot on the outside, flying knees, and Jumbo's killer suplex out of nowhere to end it. It seemed like Dream Machine brought grumpy Jumbo to the surface years early and the match was all the better for it.

TKG:  So yeah, 1982 Dream Machine debuting John Walters innovative offense is absurd but everything about this is absurd. Pre-Choshu sprint everything was contested in heavyweight AJPW. 70s Baba is awesome as him and opponents will fight to fend off every hammerlock, arm drag and whip. At worst Jumbo in 70s, early 80s was this guy who would be really awesome spending 2 falls fighting off opponent’s atomic drop, or backbreaker or atomic drop…then would eat it pop up and do all his offense…But even there a good chunk of the style was about non-cooperativeness. This match was completely cooperative, this wasn’t Choshu sprint this was more worked like a Fujinami juniors match from same period. Like I went into this hoping that Jumbo would give Dream Machine enough that it would be like a cool Dream Machine v Dutch match…instead this was a juniors Dream Machine v Nightmare Danny Davis match. As such both of these guys have cool offense, beyond the big suplex into frontcracker monkey flip, Dream Machine’s 2nd rope knee drop was top rope knee drop looking nasty.


PAS: I really enjoyed the stylistic shifts in this match, the early armdrags in this match did feel really juniorish, but they do end this up with some big time moves. Dream Machine really had the offense of a guy who could have had a career working Puro heavyweight wrestling. The top rope knee to the throat, and brutal piledriver combo really felt like it should have beaten anyone. Hell that top rope knee to the throat should have started a long feud where Jumbo sits out two months and comes back in a neck brace. The back suplex which Jumbo ends it with was really brutal, and I have no problem with it finishing the match, although the match almost felt clipped when it wasn't, we go right from the mat wrestling section into the huge finish with out much of a middle. Still a great look at Dream and one of my favorite early Jumbo performances too.

Bonus text dialogue between Tomk and Phil

Phil: I liked Dream Machine vs. Jumbo more then you did

Tomk: I liked it a bunch but it was a juniors match. Like Fujinami vs. Keirn which is not what I was expecting at all. Did my write up come off negative? Didn't mean it to be.

Phil: John Walters can't be a compliment

Tomk: There was a front cracker into a monkey flip spot. I lost my mind at a fucking front cracker spot in 1982. Did Alex Shelly do back cracker/front cracker variations?  Is there anyone who did it who wouldn't come off as insult?

Phil: Fair Point

Tomk: Shelton Benjamin?

Phil: Cerebro Negro?

Tomk: Cerebro Negro is a good call.

Mr. Wrestling 2 vs. Bob Roop GCW 10/23/83

PAS: The Network uploaded the entire Omni show headlined by the previously released Last Battle of Atlanta, and this was clearly the on paper undercard standout. Great chance to see 2 working the Omni which was an arena he ruled for decades. This was a mask match, with Roop repping an injured fake Mr. Wrestling who was putting up his mask against Wrestling 2. This was worked more like a crowd pleasing undercard match then a huge stips match (makes sense with the huge bloody blowoff in the main event.) It certainly pleased the crowd, 2 has a ton of charisma, and is one of my favorite dancing babyfaces of all time, I really dug Roop running full speed into a 2 knee lift with 2 sitting on the second rope, and the indignation of crowd when Roop clocked 2 with fake 1's crutch. Roop was working more of a brawling stooging heel, then the wrestling machine he was in Mid-South, I love wrestling machine Roop, but he is fun as a foil too. Would have liked a bigger finish then sort of the banana peel end we got, but this was a total blast, and the idea of semi-regular Omni show uploads is mindblowing.

MD: I'm with Phil on this one. They could only go so big given the card placement and what was to come. Context, when we have it (and it's great that we have it here), is important in understanding matches. Roop is such a mean bastard. Everything he does looks nasty. Wrestling 2 has this almost magical way of hitting a shot out of nowhere. He comes off as a complete star, almost as a folk hero. Phil noted Roop doing the work of running into the kneelift on the second rope, but what stuck out to me was the timing in 2 getting his knee up at the absolute perfect second.

The transition with the crutch was one of those moments in wrestling where time just stopped as the shot rang through the crowd. It was wrestling perfection. I liked the finish, if only for the amount of effort they put into the escape from the shoulder breaker. Post match was a little underwhelming, but the fact that a rabid fan reached over the barricade and pulled off Wrestling 1's shirt that he was using to hide his face just shows how great and celebratory this crowd was.

TKG: We don’t have a lot in the way of Arena footage of either of these guys and the idea of them matching up for an apuestas was really exciting to me. I’m a big fan of the guy holds onto headlock while opponent stays mobile trying to escape a spots and the variations on it here were really cool. I especially liked the Roop gets out of side headlock by pushing II off into ropes for II to bounce off ropes into a front facelock. I liked a bunch of the body work after the crutch to body shot and crowd clearly got the desperation of II trying to escape Roop’s shoulderbreaker finisher, but I wanted five more minutes after that escape.