New Footage Friday: Mando, Chic, Flair, Race, Youngblood, Briscos, Steamboat

Mando Guerrero vs. Golden Boy Olympic Wrestling 5/80

PAS: Roy Lucier is uploading some dying days Olympic Wrestling from LA, and this was corker of a match. Its a Mexican death match which basically is a street fight, Golden Boy is Chick Donovan working a Nature Boy gimmick. Mando jumps him at the bell and wrecks him. Throwing him around the ringside, including using the empty front row seats to run and dive off of (cool use of the seats, not good that the whole side of the front row is empty.) He grabs two straps and laces Chick with them and just rips apart his arm including chair shots and nasty crossarmbreakers. Mando is a force of nature in this match, coming at him with such intensity. Donovan rakes the eyes to take over and opens Mando up by smashing his head into the turnbuckle bolts. He works the cut and gets the pin after a thrust to the throat. Golden Boy comes off like a total badass for surviving that onslaught. Kind of an odd structure with Mando taking 85% of the match before losing, but the work in it was great.

MD: Mando is my least favorite Guerrero. I totally get why someone would like him, and I respect certain things he does. He's the most over-the-top, theatrical Guerrero. He understood how they were viewed by most audiences and most promotions and leaned into that the most. I think he ought to get credit for that with all of his tumbling and flash. It makes for something that really stands out. It just doesn't usually make for good matches.

Here, I had some hope, because some of that mentality, distilled to a straight up brawl, could create something fairly bombastic and memorable. In the first couple of moments, we start to get signs of that too. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. Mando was losing this one and fairly definitively as well. His response? He takes most of the match with holds and containment. Chic barely gets anything. I'd say that this was a context issue in as we don't know what led to a match with such severe stips, but Chic was presented as the next Gorgeous George and the fans didn't seem to care at all that he was getting early and frequent comeuppance. They sat on their hands. By the time the heat and the blood came into play, it was too late. I think these two probably had a really great brawl in them, but that's not what we got here.

TKG: Holy fuck that was great. Have we seen a lot of brawling Chic Donovan before? I’ve seen Donovan live on the indy scene as technical heel doing more Austin Idol mannerisms. But this is full on brawling Donovan and I’m not even sure if you can compare what he was doing to Austin Idol. The announcer compares him to Gorgeous George and he brings a man purse to the ring but not mincing. Donovan’s punch bitchslap/chop combo was like Tenryu if Tenryu looked like a Long Island Jewish Helen Reddy. Mando who were also kind of used to working AWA midcard technical doing carnyish spots also great in brawling showcase. Cool seeing him really attack a bodypart like an illegitimate Anderson brother in match where you expect to be going for KO. Left this wanting to see every match in their feud.

ER: This was great, loved it all. The structure was maybe a little weird, with Mando taking the first 70% entirely and Chic taking up most of the last 30% before winning, kind of a weird almost babyface comeback for Donovan, who really had taken an absolute shit kicking up to that point. Mando punches Chic around ringside, absolute dynamite right hands. Chic takes bumps into the ringpost, into empty front row seats (the crowd didn't feel small, but for whatever reason an entire front row was empty), Mando doing this great downward punch to the forehead while standing on the seats, then running across the row to do a kind of by the hair bulldog onto the seats. He even whips him hard back in the ring with TWO straps, and yanks on his arm a bunch with a big armbar spot. Donovan's comeback was suitably violent too, I agree with Phil that he looked like a total badass taking that beating and then really firing back. It's so weird because he's clearly a smug prick, but here he is getting all this fabulous babyface build and comeback. Mando gets busted open and Chic bites at the cut, and really has cool theatrical punch combos, looks like Sid Caesar doing a Buddy Landel character. This was two guys who I rarely take a look at, and this made me want to see anything they've done that's like this.

Jack/Jerry Brisco vs. Jay Youngblood/Ricky Steamboat NWA 7/9/83

MD: I got a little worried at first since out of twenty minutes of footage, the first few were taken up by the fans pelting Jack and Jerry with trash. I'm always up for that sort of heat, but I still wanted a match too. (I didn't know that the last few were full of the faces stealing the belts and the Briscos complaining about it too). I should have known better. The fifteen minutes or so we got were downright sublime.

It starts with posturing, with Ricky pointing and pointing, a Brisco swiping, a duck, and an atomic drop and it never stops all the way to the finish. I haven't gone back and revisited these matches so I'm not sure entirely how much of this was done down around the horn but it felt both fresh and organic and completely seamless with absolutely no wasted space. Everything didn't just mean something. Everything meant everything.

Steamboat was the king at this. He's already got the biggest armdrag in the world, but here everything was big: every bit of clapping on the apron, every tag, every swipe from the outside. The beatdown on Jay is great, with them targeted the theoretically damaged back with everything in short order: gnarly holds, a Billy Robinson backbreaker, this amazing suplex right onto middle the top rope, back first. The hot tag doesn't feel entirely earned, but the fans buy it and it leads to a little loop that allows Jay back into make an even better hot tag. The finishing segment is great with the faces demolishing a leg (with both these great Dibiase fistdrops onto it and the most beautiful Indian Deathlock you'll ever see) before shenanigans allow the the Briscos to take the win. Just a great match from a great series.

PAS: This was excellent, one of the best new matches we have seen from the Network. Classic tag wrestling set up, with all four guys working at a high level. The Briscos beat down on Jay was an all timer, they are both such asskickers, I have found title match Jack Brisco a bit dry, but heel tag wrestler Jack Briscoe is great. That suplex on the tope rope, looked like it might have put Youngblood in traction. Steamboat is a dynamic hot tag too, just so good at portraying hyped up energy, and the Briscoes fly around for him like champs, I love all of his goofy karate chops, totally what you thought martial arts looked like before anyone actually saw it. You don't see a ton of face tag team limbwork, but man do Steamboat and Youngblood go after the knee, the Indian deathlock by Jay is maybe the best I have ever seen, he is floating off the mat with a perfect bridge. We get a solid BS finish and an irate crowd ready to murder the Briscos. Thought this was way better then the Starcade match, and was up there with the top 80s tags.

TKG: Early 80s Race and Flair are guys you think of as having pretty big movesets but really they get eclipsed by Briscoes and Youngblood/Steamboat. These guys are just whipping out moves. All the cool stuff working over Youngblood’s back: the first back backbreaker etc. People talk about Steamboat’s moveset shrinking in WWF mostly in terms of him dropping the superplex but there is so much stuff he shelved. Also you think of Flair and Race as big bumping guys and while they have their more elaborate bumps, the heel Briscoes flying around are really slapstick amusing. I wish Roughhouse reffed this match too

ER: This was incredible. What a all time great tag match. This honestly made me rethink the standing of the Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can Ams match. This was the first time I think I've ever thought the Briscos looked more kickass than the Briscoes. Jack Brisco in this match would be one of my all time favorite wrestlers. Brisco is a hyped guy I usually don't get excited for, but here my god. What a colossal dickhead, and a dominant one; he beats Youngblood around the ring, great punches, big knees, drops two vicious kneedrops to Youngblood's chest, hits this almost press slam bodyslam, just major strength. Gerry was an absolute savage here as well, in ways I've never seen. He looks like he's going to snap Youngblood in two places when he stands way too far away on a slingshot suplex, just bending Youngblood over that top rope and muscling him over. He even saves the match and wins it in one fell swoop by diving in with a huge outstretched splash as Steamboat is pinning Jack. And that babyface team my god! Youngblood took a furious asskicking and by the 15:30 mark of this match you start noticing that Youngblood has garnered so much damn sympathy through his beating that this building is rabid. Men and women, old and young alike are just screaming there heads off for Jay and Ricky. It's beautiful pro wrestling. Steamboat has a magnificent hot tag, heavy as hell chops, big haymakers, big mannerisms, everything explosive. He's making up fistdrop variations on the fly, drops two great ones onto the screaming Gerry's inner thigh. What?? This was smoking hot, screaming loud, hard hitting, worth the ticket price professional wrestling. What a find.

Ric Flair vs. Harley Race NWA 7/9/83
PAS: New Flair matches aren't really that interesting to me at this point, but this was a new babyface Flair match, and he works pretty different as a face. These are a pair of really dynamic offensive wrestlers, and I really enjoyed watching them tee off on each other. Race has some shtick I don't love, but man does his stuff look great, he just crushes Flair with knee drops and punches. Flair breaks out some offense we don't normally see from him too, a flying forearm, some cool looking uppercuts and he actually hits his top rope elbow instead of getting punched in the stomach. Flair actually press slamming Race off the top rope is a nice bit of role reversal. We get a version of my least favorite Race spot, where he does a brainbuster on the floor, instead of a piledriver, but it is as dumb that Flair has to go back on offense so soon. This wasn't a match with a ton of substance to it, but it was a real go go offensive match which totally got the crowd into it, and any chance to see different shades of these great wrestlers in appreciated.

MD: This was a pretty standard 20 minute title match. Unfortunately, they worked the first part like it was more of a 60 minute one. Watching Flair-as-champ matches, almost always the most enjoyable part is how he works both on top and from underneath during the initial holds, the struggle, the abandon, how they work in and out with spots. Here, Flair was the face and there was very little of that. It was pretty boring and it was almost a relief when they cut to the crowd doing something interesting instead.

Thankfully, it picked up from there, mimicking some of the other Flair-Race matches we have from that summer. I liked seeing the wrinkles. There are a few matches where Race suplexes Flair on the floor, but here, instead of reversing a pile driver to recover, Flair dodges a diving headbutt. The suplex itself was super nasty because Flair's foot got caught on the rope barricade. (There was also the fake out elbow drop as Race rolls, which is a great spot in any match) The back half is heated and exciting, building to amusing sequence where they almost couldn't decide on which bs finish would actually end the match. The real star of the show was the little girl they kept cutting to who was increasingly annoyed by everything Race did. I'm glad we got this one, as it's always notable to see another pure babyface Flair performance, but the worst parts of it didn't live up to the best parts.

TKG: Camera person spends a lot of time on a girl who you expect to be picking a daisy in an anti-Goldwater commercial and she really is into this match and you get why it would work for her. I love some babyface Flair. Love the babyface Flair bumps, the offense etc. This is more Flair from above babyface Flair then you get in say 89 or so and early parts of this are Race begging off till he headbutts Flair in the dick. I’ve complained in the past about Race’s suplex on the floor spot where it demands that opponent get back in ring before 10 count and often is next guy on offense. But it’s perfect here as the missed diving headbutt to floor set up Flair’s transition to offense and Flair knows how to continue selling while transitioning. The match is reffed by Sonny Fargo who is fantastic, does a great job eating his first bump and just all his timing and interactions to set up finish really make sense and are believable. He knows Flair doesn’t want to win by DQ and is willing to let things slide for a while but…