New Footage Friday: Andre, Heel Tito, Funk, Baron, Hara, Jericho, Bestia Salvaje

Terry Funk/Ashura Hara vs. Baron Von Raschke/Killer Karl Krupp AJPW 12/12/81

ER: This was an okay tag made up of some doppelgangers. Hara seems like he's trying to look like Funk with their matching trunks and matching curls, Baron and Krupp look like relatives, and they have an okayish match that the crowd was rabid for the whole way through. Baron is always so weird to me, as he's a legit athlete who rarely moves with any kind of athleticism, and this is cool because it's one of the very few times he ever was up against Terry. Seeing a stumbly goose stepper going up against Terry's stumbly punch drunk style brings some joy, and there's a fun haymaker blowout that ends with both of them comically flopping to the mat. There were plenty of clawholds, Krupp throws some nice knees, Krupp takes a big bump over the top to the floor (where we see a ringside area with no guardrails, which is intriguing), Terry hits a nice piledriver as the major highspot of the match, and again the fans are into it the whole time, rabidly. But I've seen tons of Funk matches against dodgy opponents that I enjoyed more than this.

MD: This never quite got to where I wanted it, but it was interesting for a few reasons. First, I love watching Funk, maybe the best seller ever, sell one of the coolest visual tools in 70s-80s wrestling in the claw. It makes me want to see a whole bunch of Funk vs Spoiler and Funk vs Mulligan matches that probably happened and we just don't have. Second, him stooging against the Baron is one of those match-ups I never realized I wanted. Funk would have fit in very well in mid-80s AWA. Third, Krupp is a guy I've always sort of written off but between the knees and the hip toss bumping, he was pretty spry here. Any new Funk performance is worth watching. Any unique Funk match-up is worth watching. I'm glad there's just more to discover.

Andre The Giant/Chavo Guerrero/Tito Santana vs. Willem Ruska/Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu NJPW 5/16/80

ER: I was drawn to this by the allure of Heel Tito - something I have never seen - but this was much more Heel By Default Tito in the background of a superstar Andre show. We got one little stretch of Tito acting as an honorary Guerrero brother helping Chavo take apart Riki's leg, but Tito really is the 5th or 6th banana of this one. Really, everybody was the 5th or 6th banana, because Andre was all kinds of bananas. Andre is fast and aggressive and takes a ton of risks, and an Andre who will run at you and throw his entire body towards you is downright horrifying. Look at the enthusiasm as he misses a big splash...but then outdoes himself by climbing up the turnbuckles from the apron, all the way up and over to the middle buckle, to miss another splash. Did he really almost slip and fall off the turnbuckles backwards to the floor!? Did he add that in the same way a tightrope walker does a couple of slips just for show? Or did a gigantic man almost plunge to the floor with no parachute? Check out Andre setting up being trapped in the ropes, and look how far into the ring he was when he threw himself backwards full speed to get caught. He is 40% of the way into the ring, takes a couple of dropkicks, and flies backward so fast that I fully expected the ropes to completely snap. Imagine the trust he must have had in that ring crew! And my god look at that Rockette kick that he flat out stuck when attacked in the ropes! He sticks that leg as high as I've seen him and it just gets buried. Our tecnicos acted like cavemen to Andre's wooly mammoth, taking cover when he stormed around the ring and jumping on him all at once the second he showed any weakness, although the Fujinami double leg takedown to start was spectacular. I loved Chavo attacking Riki's knee, the spot where he pole vaulted with his leg and seemed to float was my favorite non-Andre spot of the match. But here's Andre with his cheat code, the ability to end the match whenever he wants, deciding enough is enough, throws a lifeless Chavo into the ring from the floor, wasting Fujinami with an spine rearranging atomic drop and treating Ruska like a child's backpack. I think I only want to write about Andre the Giant.

MD: So, as you guys must know by now, a lot of the footage we've watched over the last year is because people have navigated Japanese ebay successfully. This was on a NJPW 1980 TV set and if you want to see more, go head over to PWO and find my pal PeteF3. We'll get to some of that stuff eventually (like some cool Spoiler matches and maybe the best look at Keith Hart being really good we've ever had), but not for a bit, so don't wait for us. The version I was working off of didn't transfer well, thus the four parts and audio problems, but the disc itself is better. I'm just not all that great at transferring things. You get the gist of everything here though (we miss one Chavo leap into the ring move that I wish we had) and hey, it just gives you kids a sense of what tape trading was like thirty years ago, right? This is something that everyone needs to see though.

Yes, there's an appeal to heel Tito, the legwork towards the end (which was really cool from all three foreigners), him eating the fall as Andre's drawn away with Hansen, the quick tags with Chavo, some of his feeding, the flying forearm that was more of a sledge, but this gets dwarfed by the amazing Andre performance. The first chunk of the match is pure Andre as Fezzik, or maybe the world's best Colossal Connection Andre performance. He gets swarmed and shrugs people off. He demands people get down off the top rope instead of jumping at him. One touch is death, but he's able to move so much better. This is heel Andre, in a tag setting, with partners he cherishes (which was always part of Heenan family Andre), but with him fully dynamic. As the match goes on, though, he's just all over the place. He misses two splashes, one off the second rope. He hits two suplexes, the biggest suplexes in history. There's a pile driver! Throughout this, the other team is bouncing off of him and trying everything they can. I love Ruska constantly badgering Andre and then running away from him as he gets furious and charges in like this was some sort of old cartoon. This is all Andre, right down to the finish where he chucks Chavo (who just ate a dive) back into the ring and lets Ruska bounce off of him from the apron, ensuring the count out by being a one-man wall. Even with the slight technical issues, there's nothing in the world I'd rather watch than stuff like this.

PAS: This was the uncut Fentanyl Andre, one of the purest examples of what makes him an all time great. He was both totally out of control and totally in control. The spot where he almost falls off the top rope (where he would kill several members of audience I imagine) only to steady himself, only to empty pool smash into the mat, fucking perfection. I also dug how much he seemed to be into his role as the monstrous Guerrero that Gory kept in the basement. There is a great spot where he is giving double fives to his partners, and Choshu comes over and dropkicks him. Andre turns around with such fury "MOTHERFUCKER I WAS DAPPING UP MY HOMIES, I AM GOING TO FUCK YOU UP." Loved the heels losing the fall because of Hansen only for Andre to clean out the faces and tie it up. Even as the show was going off the air, he was celebrating with Chavo and Tito by carrying them around the ring. What a fucking legend.

Chris Jericho/Crazy Boy/Falcon de Oro vs. Bestia Salvaje/Poison/Principe Joel Compton Lucha 3/1/96

MD: There was a lot to like here. When I come into these things (we'll say a lucha match in an alien setting, only being familiar with half the guys) I tend to look for a few things, first and foremost, the framework for how to watch a match: how are the opening pairings? Where are the momentum shifts? Are the transitions interesting? How much effort do they put into the beatdown? Do they sufficiently ramp up expectations for the comeback? How's the moment of comeback? Where do they go from there? What's the finish? Specifics like the quality of matwork or whether or not there's a central rivalry in the match or coordinated tandem offense and crowd control in the beatdown or if there's an interesting dive train or what sort of crowd or wrestler-to-wrestler interaction are in there? All of that then fits in.

This hit a lot of those marks. The opening exchanges up to the tecnico primera win were all good. Great energy from the tecnicos. This was really good use of 96 Jericho: fiery, enthusiastic, throwing himself into everything, getting triple teamed and trying to fight back, game enough in his exchanges. I was honestly amazed that Falcon de Oro was able to hit something of the stuff that he did given his body type. The transition in the segunda was great, as it played up the Jericho vs Bestia central story and had the rudos act particularly despicable. That helped ramp up pressure for the eventual comeback, which was spirited, with fun dives and a nice bit of satisfaction snatched away as Jericho couldn't get his revenge. Presumably that set up another match, though with the really fun late run in, who knows?

PAS: This was house show HH trios match which hit all of the expected beats, but had enough cool wrinkles and great performances to push it up a level. Bestia is one of the greatest all time swarming heels, kind of like a lucha Buzz Sawyer. He really pushes the pace when he is in there with Jericho, and Jericho is game and willing to go there with him. All of your So-Cal regulars looked really good too, with Falcon De Oro being a really fun Super Astro style tubby flyer. They clearly all worked with each other a bunch and their primera caida exchanges were all super crisp. Principe Joel is Bestia's brother and he was very much in the spirit of the family, working just a little stiffer then you might expect. He apparently had (or has?) a wrestling school in Colorado, and I am guessing trained a bunch of local luchadores here in Denver (Luchawiki is the best). I liked the finish with the rudos going overboard until Misterioso (maybe, not super familiar with the booking of mid 90s Compton lucha) runs in and we get a nifty post match.