New Footage Friday: Hogan, Bockwinkle, High Flyers, Blackwell, Hennig, Tito

The Network delivered a tidal wave of AWA this week, with a lot of new stuff, including a real gem.

High Flyers vs. Jerry Blackwell/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie AWA 12/25/81

MD: This was basic and straightforward but just so well executed. Shine/Heat/Comeback/cheating heel finish. It's JIP so we lose some of the shine. If there was double heat on this, that'd probably where it would have been. It's hard to say. You get a complete picture here though. It's striking just how much stuff Gagne has a ton of stuff. If you need someone to control a heel's arm (even one as big as Blackwell), Greg's the guy to go with. Brunzell is more fiery than you'd think working the apron. The Flyers do feel like a big deal here, but that's not surprising. They always somehow do. All of this felt iconic, pure, distilled AWA.

PAS: Really solid main event tag team match. Blackwell and Adnan are a bruiser tag team, Kasie almost seems like too much of a bad ass to work as a heel manager. Blackwell has fists like hams, and a demolishing fat guy elbow. Greg was a great in this, I loved his wild punch combos to Blackwells body to make space for the hot tag, and he had some nice looking offense, including some nasty shots to the Shiek's knee. I totally buy a sneaky Blackwell splash ending anyone, that is a fat dude right there.

ER: I love Blackwell so much. He's the fattest version of Haley Joel Osment and is a guy I'll watch in anything. It feels like we've gotten a ton of fresh Blackwell in the past couple years, from Japan handhelds to stuff like this. And it's all great, I love how he moves, you get to see awesome elbowdrops and big fat guy bumps and painful avalanches and great missed splats on splashes, and after the match he lands an absolute curb stomp of a running stomp. Guy comes off like a total killer. Greg Gagne is a guy I like that really got a bum rap for years. He's a great babyface and always brings good determination, his blow up fired up punches are great and he's a good face in peril. I now get excited when new Greg Gagne footage shows up. Brunzell is a durable guy with a fantastic dropkick who can hang with bigger guys, and Adnan does amusing older guy heel stomps and reactions and backrakes. Plus we get some great regional folksiness on commentary, my favorite being "Greg Gagne just folded like a carpenter's rule." You picture James Stewart saying something like that in "Fools' Parade" and it sounds right. This is the kind of pro wrestling I like to watch.

Tito Santana/Hulk Hogan vs. Bobby Duncum/Ken Patera AWA 12/25/82

MD: There's a lot to really enjoy here. Hogan is an absolute bully, going out of his ways to poke Patera in the eyes when he doesn't have to, all of that. The fans love it. Santana works as rudo as I've ever seen him, faking the tags and cheating left and right. Tito Santana! Hogan's a bad influence. Patera really shines in this one. There's just real star power there. Everything he does has extra oomph and energy. It's patently ridiculous that this ends not in a double DQ but in Hogan getting DQ'd because he was getting in the way of the heels cheating. It might have been to set up Patera/Duncum as contenders but it just felt like punishing the fans for no reason.

PAS: Really fun to watch the two babyface icons of my early wrestling fandom team up. Hogan and Tito have barrels of charisma and I really enjoyed all of the babyface scheming early. Tito is a really good face in peril, and Hogan is an all time hot tag. Tito breaks out a Gibson leglock and takes a great semi flip bump on Duncum's lariat. I loved we got a couple of big Heenan bumps and didn't mind the double DQ as it had the kind of Katie Bar the Door finish you got a ton of in the 80s. This was a nostalgic match, so I dug the nostalgic finish.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Mad Dog Vachon AWA 12/25/83

MD: Just watch Bockwinkel rush in for the attack. Always a game plan. Always a purpose. Mad Dog wasn't going to do any topes in 1983, but his stuff looked nasty and credible. He'd bite your nose off if you weren't careful. Or, in this case, he'd fishhook your mouth and all but suplex you with it. Bockwinkel stooges and feeds and makes this feel like a right and proper main event for an end of the year show. This had a pretty goofy Dusty finish but the pop on Mad Dog getting the apparent win is huge. It's a testament both to the AWA crowds and to Bockwinkel that you could put almost anyone up and down the roster in there, from Brunzell to Rheinghans to the Baron to Robinson and the crowd completely believed that the title change could happen and that they might witness history.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, classic wrestling trope of over as fuck babyface taking out a sneaky heel champ. The Crusher is accompanying Vachon as a counter to Heenan, and has an unlit cigar in his mouth and another two in his pocket. Vachon tears Bockwinkle up, bumping him all over the ring, with Bockwinkle only getting brief moments of offense, when he can sneak in a cheap shot. Vachon really comes off as a vicious tough guy and Bockwinkle sells his ass off. The ending was super dumb as the ref just stops counting to DQ Bockwinkle before Heenan does anything. We do get some fun postmatch with Heenan taking a classic insane Heenan bump to the floor, but I can see why this kind of booking BS eventually doomed the fed.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig AWA 12/25/84

MD: Nick Bockwinkel vs Curt Hennig is one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history. Maybe before I'd say it was one of the greatest feuds of the 80s. Before we didn't have this match. It slots in so perfectly and it's one of those things that I don't know how we, as wrestling fans, ever lived without.

This was during the period where Martel, not Bockwinkel, was champion, where Hennig was coming into his own as a singles mid-carder and occasional contender. Remember, just two years earlier he was reffing the Christmas show. It would still be a couple of years, and the tag run where he was to make Scott Hall a star, before they'd feud in earnest. This match was full of sparks that would ignite years later.

People praise Bockwinkel for a lot of things, for his promos, for his matwork, for his bumps, for his presentation as the perfect heel champion, and I love all of those things. What I love the most, however, is that he is always absolutely in the moment. He is entirely in to every moment, not as a performer hitting spots, but as a method actor who's completely dropped into what he's doing. It's the little things. There's a moment early on after he took over with an unclean lock up off the ropes where Hennig bumps out of the corner, selling. Bockwinkel does this tiny, enthused pump of his arm. It's the smallest thing but there's not another wrestler out of a hundred that would have chosen to show that emotion in that moment and it is absolutely everything when it comes to immersion. Bockwinkel believes. You believe.

This shifts to a great King of the Mountain and subsequent revenge from a fiery Hennig after that (the transition being wholly logical and warranted as Bockwinkel decided to play to the crowd and mime having the belt once more; everything always makes sense with Nick Bockwinkel). From here it's back and forth with Bockwinkel able to bully his way to advantages and Hennig selling the damage tremendously. Ultimately, after a second sunset flip hope spot (one that Bockwinkel struggled on much more than the first), Nick goes after the leg, locking in a string of figure-fours until the Hennig, toughing it out, somehow rolls him up for the pin and the win. Post-match, Bockwinkel is behind himself and beats Hennig to a pulp, coming back in again and again with no one able to stop him. You can't watch this and not think about what would happen two years later when a frustrated Hennig would turn heel on Bockwinkel. This was great on its own it's all part of an even greater whole and it's a whole that we've got an clearer picture of today.

PAS: Getting a new Bockwinkel vs. Hennig is like getting a new Santo vs. Casas or Dundee vs. Lawler, another chance to see a legendary match up, with all time greats who are always going to give something different. It was neat to see this version of the rivalry with Bockwinkle so dominant and Hennig still a young boy. Bockwinkle is so vicious and dismissive, tossing Hennig to the floor,  and really kicking the shit out of him when Hennig tries to get back in, it is the ultimate in dismissiveness. This kid doesn't even belong in the ring with me, and I refuse to treat him like an equal. It is what makes the reversal of fortune so satisfying, with Hennig constantly knocking Bock to the floor. The figure fours looked great, and I loved how Bock snapped after Hennig gets the sneak pin. Brutal onslaught, and Bockwinkle does really come off unhinged, like he can see all of his glory slipping away and was going to hold on tight with both hands.