New Footage Friday: Rock 'n' Rolls, Hennig, Gagne Long Riders, OMX, Tully, Magnum

Rock 'n' Roll Express vs. The Long Riders Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Really fun tag with the hoss Irwin brothers picking apart Robert while we get a fun show from Ricky on the apron, leading to an absolutely scorching Ricky hot tag. I like the Irwins. I don't know if they're actually good, but they read how I want a couple of bullies to read. They got big arms and big bellies and look like farm strong Moondogs, and they don't really need to do much more than that to make things work against a team like the Rock n Rolls. Ricky and Robert seem to work up to the Irwins (I mean literally, since the Irwins are big boys) and both tighten up their strikes so the size difference doesn't seem like a big deal. I was just tickled every time we could see Ricky on the apron, firing up the hot Meadowlands crowd (and really this had to be one of the first times the Rock n Rolls ever played in Jersey), throwing big punches from the apron, all leading to that hot tag. The hot tag even has my favorite Irwin moment of the match, as Ricky hits a cool crossbody on Bill and while pinning him, Scott just strolls over and kicks Ricky in the eye. Ricky looks so small compared to the Irwins but his power cannot be denied, he comes in and works absolute rings, throws these fantastic underdog fired up babyface punches, and wins with a cool slingshot sunset flip. Not an essential match, but delivered in the ways I wanted it to.

MD: On paper, I was really excited about this one. I got a kick out of early, early 80s (Dr.) Bill Irwin in Memphis footage, which was my first exposure to him, and I've always had a soft spot for the guy. If the Long Riders had teamed in the AWA a year or two before, I feel like they'd be much better remembered. This was just a cool, unique match up. It couldn't try to overshadow the Russians vs Roadies match that every single person in the crowd was there to see, or even the sheer heat (heel control might be a better term) of Slaughter vs Markoff/Zhukov that was higher on the card too, but it was still a really fun TV style match. Bill and Gibson had a really solid early exchange, one of the best I can remember having seen Gibson having actually. Scott was a really strong presence, using his size for the cutoffs. Really, both tag teams worked so well, the Express with their constant motion and quick tags, and the Riders just tearing at the Express like dogs with an axe to grind, taking every advantage. Gibson put on a strong performance as Face-in-Peril. The hot tag was hot. Morton was doing weird back bumps on his dropkicks. The finish was clever. It's really everything you'd want from a ten minute 1985 tag match. Good stuff.

PAS: I was totally into this. Rock and Rolls are my favorite tag team ever, and their legend has really been built against some signature opponents, so it is cool to see them work a new pair. I thought the Irwins were really good here, especially Scott Irwin who really came off as a violent force of nature, he had real explosiveness for such a big dude and landed everything with a thud. Morton was an awesome hot tag, he came in like an uncaged badger and really laid it in to the Long Riders. Really made me want to see a long feud between these two teams as they really meshed well.

ER: I actually didn't know that the Rock n Rolls are Phil's favorite tag team. The more you know.

Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Like most of you, I'm a ranker. I don't know if I'm good at it, but every year I make ranked lists, favorite albums, favorite movies, favorite wrestling matches, favorite wrestlers, I like ranking. While watching a match - whether intentionally or not - I'll try to decide who I like most in a match, who's my favorite guy. It gives me a little framework for what I'm going to write about, and it's fun in a trios match as new guys capture my attention as a match goes on. And then you get something glorious like this and it is nearly impossible to pick a favorite, it's just 12 condensed minutes of the type of asskicking you watch professional wrestling to see. We get some hot as hell punch exchanges, and Magnum looked like an all time babyface superstar, like someone who was clearly going to be one of the biggest names in wrestling for the next decade. Tully knew exactly when to show ass and show his vicious side. He had a couple different very subtle weak leg moments, just absolute perfection, no stoogey Charleston wobbly knees, much more like when a fighter gets rung and you see a little buckle as they momentarily check out of our universe. He gets punched in the ropes by Magnum - short, violent, totally on point shots - and falls through the ropes onto the timekeeper's table, stands back up to the apron and gets rocked again, and uses the ropes to guide his butt down to the apron. 

Magnum's punches didn't really need much putting over in this match, but Tully did little things the entire match to make them pop even more. Both guys bleed, and we work a lot of this with minimal rope running. I think they really only used the ropes a few times, with TA springing off with a running punch, and later shooting Tully in for the belly to belly, so this felt more like a fight. Of course, both guys throwing fiery punches and elbows for 12 minutes *may* have helped with that fight feel. The pro wrestling integrated itself nicely, with Magnum hitting a gorgeous press slam and the ref wearing some Shinya Hashimoto flared pants, and there's officially just Too Much Good about this. I loved when Tully knocks Magnum to the floor a couple times (with simple, fast and hard bumps to the floor from Magnum) and when TA started crawling back in, Tully just scampered over on his knees and started firing short punches from the ring to TA on the floor. Tully was really great at scampering, really added to the pacing of his matches, and here it made him come off like a wounded yet still aggressive animal, shoving off to create space but always as a means to attack, not hide. The match wrapped up a little too neatly, which is really my only complaint, but I fully buy the belly to belly as a finish because moments before I fully bought a punch as a finish. The punches that happened all match long were great enough that I would have bought one of them merely falling over and getting pinned as the finish. Glory be to the Network.

MD: Keeping in mind this match's placement on the card and the fact it was going to have time limitations, if nothing else, the only thing that would have made this one even better was if Tully had worn an eyepatch. It was a hell of a house show sprint between these two, just turned up a couple of notches considering the occasion. This is only the second full match we've ever seen between the two of them and it delivered well enough to be considered the little cousin of the first. They went all out, beat the crap out of one another, each got revenge on one another, Tully, on the outside, for what Magnum had done to him at Starrcade and then Magnum, on the outside and inside both, for what Tully did to him here. With a definitive finish, this felt like a feud ender, a final bit of punctuation (an exclamation point) at the other end of the war.

PAS: What a present this match was. We have one singles match between these two, and it is arguably a top ten match of all time, so getting another bite at the apple is amazing. It appears that these two don't know any other gear then hellfire, as they lace into each other here with wild abandon. We get two sets of wild punch exchanging, and it as good as the best Lawler vs. Mantel or Dundee punch exchanges, wild swinging and landing. Magnum looks great here, dominating Tully, but leaving openings to take shots. Both guys bleed, both fight like their life depended on it. Great, great stuff and I was thrilled to get to watch it.

Original Midnight Express vs. Midnight Rockers AWA 12/25/87

MD: The 86-7 Midnight Rockers would probably be a lot easier to swallow if more of their matches were this heavily clipped. Michaels especially had a tendency of taking too much too early for far too long. The stuff that they did was often really good: elaborate, creative, hard-working and compelling (as was the case here with some complicated set up and payoff to specific spots with Condrey and Rose stooging like champs). There was just always too much of it. They gave the fans too much of it for free bleeding well past the point where the heels should have been making them pay for their insolence (to the point where they should have been bleeding). It all becomes noise after a while. Here, due to the clipping, it doesn't wear out its welcome. Without that bloat dragging it down, the shine is good and memorable, the heat's good and memorable, the comeback is spot on and the rush to the draw is fun. It's a shame we can't judge this one for what we got instead of what probably really happened.

PAS: It seems kind of crazy to have a southern tag go to a 30 minute draw. That is a match formula which is pretty foolproof, but caps out at about 21-22 minutes. I agree with Matt that the clipping might have been a blessing, we had some fun spots in the opening face control, I loved the spot where Marty blocked Shawn getting whipped into the corner with his body, only to have it backfire when Randy Rose tried it, and OMX were champion stooges. This match went more then ten minutes before any heel offense, and even the best stooges would have trouble filling that time. I liked the heel control section, both Rose and Condrey are pretty vicious, Condrey really ripped Michaels head off with a clothesline. Still when they got to the countdown, it felt kind of rushed, and they never really built to a compelling conclusion, it just kind of ended. I loved the Star as a spot in a tag match, but it should be part of the early face control stooge section not your compelling saved by the bell near fall. Match with fun parts that never really came together.

Greg Gagne vs. Curt Hennig AWA 12/25/87

MD: There is a time and a place where this match would be special, a lost match hinted and rumored at, where this would be the great find of the week. Unfortunately, it wasn't the AWA and it's not 1987. I do sort of love the atmosphere here. Larry the Ax being supportive of his son was well and good a few years earlier when Curt was an up and coming babyface. It's endlessly superior when he's the preening, cheating champ. Proud, heel dads are the best dads. The deal with the multiple refs, with Verne being tied to the Ax, with it being Christmas, with Greg having come so close for so long... all of this felt big and special. The wrestling itself was really good too, with each guy standing tall and hammering one another, and Hennig's bumps being ridiculous but adding to the total effect instead of distracting from it, and all of the limbwork giving this the gravitas and weight a title match deserved. It's just that it's the AWA and they can never get the big things right. By 87, Verne, who had been so good at eating up opponents in his home territory, couldn't even protect himself properly. He looked like a dottering fool as Larry cheated how he liked, punching the old man for getting in his way and breaking up the sleeper just like Verne hadn't been there at all. The post match was heated enough and this should have led to a geriatric mixed tag match (it led to a non-title cage match instead), but they definitely blew the landing on this one.

PAS: I thought this was tremendous, we don't have a ton of AWA Champion Hennig, but all I have seen is stellar, so much better then the Mr. Perfect run which he is best known for. Gagne was really fun, he looks like a schlub but is a pretty dynamic offensive wrestler and a good seller. The early exchanges almost looked like Tiger Mask stuff, with really big height on all the throws and really athletic counter wrestling. I loved Gagne hitting a big headscissors and crotching himself on the ropes on the second try, great set up for Hennig's leg work. Hennig takes a big bump of his own into the ringpost setting up Gagne's arm work. I would have liked to see a little more stealth in the finish, as a straight belt shot in front of the ref is a pretty unsastifying finish to a big title match. I thought the pull apart post match was pretty electric. Greg is bleeding, Verne is slinging the strap at both Curt and Larry, and Curt is breaking away from the wrestlers pulling him apart to wildly throw shots. Really should have sold out the next month with a tag or hair match or something.