New Footage Friday: Spoiler, Jose Lothario, El Halcon, Mark Lewin, Baba, Robley, Kawada, Misawa, Hase, Sasaki

Spoiler/Mark Lewin vs. El Halcon/Jose Lothario Houston Wrestling 6/1/79

ER: A decent minimalist punch and kick affair that is short, but takes awhile to get rolling, and ends with a bunch of great mayhem. The low point comes fairly early as Halcon does just about the world's slowest hot tag somersault I've ever seen to get to Lothario. It was a comically slow somersault. When Ricky Morton eventually hot tag somersaults into the grave, it will be faster than this one. I'm sure Phil has seen his kid do a faster somersault at baby gymnastics. I think he may have been doing it purposely slow because someone may have been out of position...but the effect was not great. The match never ramps up to high from there, but it chugs along nicely. Spoiler and Lewin both acted afraid of hot babyface Lothario, who bleeds and punches away to loud reaction. There's a great moment where Spoiler keeps running into fists from Lothario while Lothario is on the apron. Spoiler feels like one of the great stooges, which is amusing due to his size. But he and Lewin are a fun sneaky punch tag team, and the finish is a blast as Lewin starts twisting the turnbuckle loose on the top rope, freeing it to use as a weapon, leading to the top rope going limp as more bodies flood the ring.

PAS: I was excited to see Halcon, who is a lucha legend we don't have much footage on, but this wasn't much of a showcase for him. This was really Lothario doing his awesome Lothario thing, he comes in with a pressure bandage on his head which is alway exciting to see, and he takes a big time walloping from Lewin and Spoiler. I love Lewin's overhand chops to the head, he looks like he is breaking boards in a Tae Kwon Do class, and Spoiler has really cool forearms. We get to see Lothario, sell, bleed and fire back and he is great at all of it. Finish was a lot of fun with Lewin unscrewing the top rope and trying to use the buckle bolt, but Halcon getting it from him and swinging it like a club. This never hit the levels of the all time great Lothario matches, but it was a good showcase of what he does well.

MD: In 2018, every new Houston match is a treasure. Every new Lothario match is a treasure. Look, we have context with this. This was the night Gran Markus came in to be Gino's heater. We have these matches. We have the two of them breaking up. We have some of the Americas Tag Title matches before and after this. This isn't just some random throwaway minimalist match, it's one more piece of a puzzle where NWAonDemand had already given us parts of it.

The match itself was generally good. I thought Halcon was a step slow, which only matters because he was doing things that you can't be a step slow for. Spoiler is always amazing, twenty years before his time, the mix of size and just sheer oppression off the second ropes. Lewin serves his purpose (woundwork is down his alley) and Jose is that center of gravity, bleeding and building up glorious anticipation for when his fist will hit someone's skull. I agree that this doesn't hit the peaks of certain other matches, but watch the crowd at the end. They'd disagree with us, certainly.

So thanks to Roy Lucier for posting these best of Houston Wrestling episodes. RIGHT after this match is an amazing PSA by Boesch about what to do if someone is following you on the highway. It's so great. Roy, I have no way of contacting you otherwise, so hopefully someone tosses this your way. It's nice you're uploading the NWAonDemand stuff now, but most of that is already elsewhere on youtube between a couple of accounts. Out of the 8-9 Best of Houston Wrestling shows you posted we came out with 2-3 new matches that we didn't get on the service, some older clipped footage, some promos, some commercials, some great Paul Boesch moments. All of that is way more valuable to the community than reposting the NWAonDemand matches again. If you have more of these episodes, please go back to posting them instead. Even if we come out with just a few more Houston matches we didn't have before, that's a boon. Thanks.

Giant Baba vs. Buck Robley AJPW 3/19/82

ER: I LOVED THIS!! This is the most WCW Saturday Night match in the history of King's Road. Buck Robley showing up in Japan and facing Giant Baba on his first day in town is like Bull Pain showing up on a taping facing Lex Luger on a sunny afternoon in front of vacationing Florida families wearing No Fear shirts, Big Johnson shirts, fanny packs, elastic waist band shorts, and square frame glasses. It is an indisputably perfect 150 seconds of professional wrestling and there's literally no argument you can make against that fact. Nobody within shouting distance of Korakuen thought Buck Robley had a snowball's chance against Baba that night, but Robley comes out of this whole thing looking like a total badass who beat the shit out of Baba before losing. Baba gives up offense to Robley as if Robley were Hansen, and Robley hits I think every part of Baba's head and neck with a strike: downward strike elbow to the head, chop to the Adam's apple, elbow to the cheekbone, punch to the underside of the chin, Robley was just putting a strike clinic on Baba's long dome. Baba was the best here, I fucking love fired up Baba, love him putting some mustard on his Baba chops, raining down on Robley's head and chest, and I thought it was cool how we got a show of Baba strength with his Irish whips. Robley was good at properly bumping for Baba, not overdoing it on the chops but stooging around great for all of them. Baba's Russian leg sweep looked like an impossible tangle of limbs, and Baba executes it really fast, then really slugs Buck with that big Baba boot. I would always love when Flair would show up on Worldwide and have a competitive match with Joey Maggs, and this felt like the best version of that.

PAS: This was a hell of a sprint, Robley came out knowing he had four minutes and was going to make it count. He comes in with his awesome "Nobody Calls Me Yellow" shirt looking like a backwoods hillbilly trying to gut someone with a rusty can lid. He unloads on Baba with these big forearm smashes to the head and neck, Baba looks simultaneously powerful and fragile, Robley's shots look like they are going to smash his bones and every Baba shot propels Robley back. That big boot feels like a finish and the post match Brody run in was appropriately chaotic (Brody is at his best in chaotic run-ins, then you don't have to watch him wrestle.)

MD: Robley in the states is always sort of hit or miss for me. In Japan, there's something outlandish and out of place to him that really works. Baba doesn't get nearly enough credit for how much he gives. I don't think he gets enough credit in general. He's Andre-like in that his very touch can destroy an opponent but also incredible capable of garnering sympathy, almost from his appearance alone. He could easily swallow the entirety of the space in any match he was in like an Inoki or Verne often does, but instead he understands how to reach the hearts of his audience, even while submerged in an environment where there's a real risk/fear to selling.

He gave Robley space to shine and Robley used it to the fullest, coming at him like an ornery honey badger. I've been watching a ton of these 1982 matches, but the image of Baba hanging upside down between the ropes and Robley battering him is going to stay with me even among all the noise. I bet it stayed with that crowd for a long time too.

Genichiro Tenryu/Hiroshi Hase vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Kensuke Sasaki AJPW 1/28/01

PAS: This is from the 2001 AJPW Dome show, and was only recently available outside of clips. AJPW post Misawa and pre-Muto was basically WAR, and this was a WAR style slugfest. It was four big stars beating the bricks off of each other, Sasaki blistering chests with chops, Tenryu punching people square in the jaw and toe kicking folks in the eye, Kawada throwing thick thudding kicks to the chest and Hase hitting as hard as I have ever seen him hit. It feels a little like a super violent exhibition then a match with a ton of build and story. We never really had anyone take an extended beating or a super progression to the end, but man it is hard not to enjoy Kawada and Tenryu trying to cave each others face in, or Sasaki slapping his good buddy Hase hard directly in the ear.

MD: We all have the things we go for. While I can meet certain matches half way, this wasn't for me. There's a period in the middle where Kawada and Sasaki have an extended period of control on Hase. I'd call it a real peril or heat segment, though there wasn't really that sort of face/heel divide. Hase's comeback attempts mainly consist of attempting the same sort of strike exchanges that litter the match, but losing each one because he's increasingly hurt and beat down. I thought the way he portrayed that, with increasing desperation and pride, but also decreasing levels of success, was actually pretty excellent and easily the best part of this match. Otherwise, this was just guys beating on each other without rhyme or reason. I'm a lot happier watching that for ten minutes than twenty-five.