New Footage Friday: Harley Race, Briscos, Fujinami, Aoyagi, Flair

Harley Race/Bill Watts vs. Brisco Brothers CWF 10/8/74

MD: Watts was a little too "Thumb-throat-y" but he was the most interesting part of this match. I haven't seen much early 70s heel Watts. I always picture him as the standing tall older babyface, or maybe the athlete one before his heel turn. Here he and Race paired off well, a couple of thick goons, though the end with Watts wanting the pin was a little weird. I liked how the momentum shifts worked here, with the Briscos getting relatively hot tags but not being able to turn the tide. The threat of the thumb was pretty great, especially towards the end when Watts kept going for it and getting countered. One thing that really shines through in this stuff is how over and revolutionary the diving headbutt off he ropes was. I think, despite what Race has said in interviews, I'd always taken it for granted until this footage dump. Anyway, it's better to get a match full of cuts where you can still get so much of the narrative and the ebb and flow than not to have the match at all.

PAS: Clipped matches like this always hurt the completist part of my brain, but it was good to see youngish Harley and Bill Watts. The Briscos are really expressive sellers, and they make every thump by the heels look devastating, the heel control section of this felt pretty violent. The diving headbut was nasty, Jerry was basically convulsing after Race hit it. Fun bit of footage, but it made me wish we had more stuff from this era more complete.

 
Harley Race vs. Jack Brisco CWF 8/12/78

MD: We get the first five minutes and the last five minutes of this and the first five. The first five were nothing at all, Harley controlling with a front facelock and barely any moving in and out of it. They were going long and it showed. If we had more if it, it probably would have built to something meaningful, but the cut hurts this badly. The last five building to the time-limit draw were stellar though, everyone drained, parched and exhausted, with Harley selling exactly the way a vulnerable champion at the end of his rope should. The fans were hanging on every moment with Brisco fiery and determined. We've seen this a thousand times, but at this point in the 70s, maybe they'd only seen it a hundred. It's a shame that we don't have more of this but at least the network has given us some glimpses of Brisco the challenger. 

 

Ric Flair vs. Harley Race Mid-Atlantic 11/14/80

MD: Every time we get to see 80 babyface Flair, it kills me we don't have more real footage. This is sputtering moments of film, but it tells a story. You can see a match chained together. Like a lot of Flair matches from this period, you see him do some things (here, namely, the double axehandle to the leg hanging over the top rope and his standing knee) that you wish he hadn't dropped later in his career. Part of me thinks that at the end of the day, Flair was a better face than he was a heel, especially the heel he ultimately became. This is just the stuff I wish we had, a super over babyface Flair working in front of the same molten crowd week in and week out.

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami NJPW 12/3/93

MD: Most of this was enjoyable but it really misses the oomph at the end. It was a lot of what you'd expect, Fujinami biting off more than he must have expected, with Aoyagi an endless whirl of kicks. I liked Fujinami's desperation as this went on, first with the barely latched dragon screw, then just chucking him out. When comes back, it's a temporary respite because Aoyagi isn't about to back down. The end was the world's most effective chinlock. Fujinami just decides to choke the hell out of him with it, which lets him put on the dragon sleeper. It fit the tone of desperation but I think I wanted something at least a little more elaborate.

PAS: This was a really fun scrap. Fujinami is such a bigger star then Aoyagi (outside of Segunda Caida of course) that is surprising to see Aoyagi take so much of the match. Aoyagi really blitzes him throwing a variety of wheel kicks, front kicks, knees and nasty body shots, really overwhelming attack which Fujinami seemed unprepared for. I liked how Fujinami fired back and showed he could stand and trade too, and the dragon sleeper was a great finish. Sort of minor Aoyagi, but had the freneticism which he was so good at bringing.

ER: This felt like a better version of the lame 90s Randy Savage match structure, where his opponent would take the entire match and when it was time to go home he would just hit a bodyslam and flying elbow. This was Aoyagi absolutely wrecking Fujinami with kicks - and some of these kicks were hard even for Aoyagi - while Fujinami absorbed and waited for Aoyagi to kick himself out, and then the dragon pounced. There were some kicks that Aoyagi threw to Fujinami's thighs and hamstrings that - had I been given the choice between those kicks or a baseball bat - would make me consider the baseball bat. I'm pretty surprised Aoyagi was as dominant as he was here. Fujinami was one of the biggest names in the fed, Aoyagi was certainly not, and Japan wasn't really the place where an undercarder could suddenly waste a main eventer. Aoyagi gives so many nasty shots, and I love how valiantly Fujinami stood with them, and loved how he slowly crumbled from them. There were moments where he sold as if he was slowly losing function of every limb that was being attacked, and it ruled. When Aoyagi starts to slow, and Fujinami's body starts screaming at him to stop rope-a-doping it into dust, Fujinami attacks quick and aims to put this thing behind him. I don't love the match structure where one guy takes 85% of a match and the other decides to just finally finish things, but it helps when the 85% is filled with Aoyagi being awesome.