WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak FINAL 2019 Catch-Up

ER: This is exciting, because it is a post that signifies the successful completion of a project. Last year we set out to review every match from Lorcan, Gallagher, and Gulak, and we did. We started halfway through 2019, and I've been going back and filling in the blanks with matches I missed, and this is the last of them. It's been one of my favorite regular projects, just because I love watching these three work. I have obviously been continuing it in 2020, but so far we haven't even seen Gallagher on TV in 2020


Oney Lorcan vs. Brian Kendrick vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Mike Kanellis 205 Live 5/21/19

ER: This was disjointed, bad, too long, poorly laid out, poorly agented, made none of the 5 looks any better than the other 4, and was home to everything I dislike about multiman wrestling. WWE is usually a fed that can throw together an interesting main event multiman, and this was a far shout from that. Two minutes into a 16 minutes match, all 5 participants were lying on the mat as if they had all been through a real war. I knew then that this was going to be awful. There were stretches of this match where (I believe) every single participant completely disappeared for 5 minutes at a time. After the first two minutes with everyone chaotically fighting for space in the ring, we went through 80% of the match worked as a series of singles matches, three men either lying out of the way tired or off camera selling, and the layout just flat out stunk. There was no rhythm to this, just a bad series of match vignettes with nobody really standing out. Kendrick probably came off the best of anyone, and the early part of the match with Kendrick locking in and fighting for the Captains Hook, then fighting his balance while fighting out of a Kanellis sub, before getting pushed off into a Lorcan uppercut, was probably the most interesting sequence here. Lorcan hits a flip dive, he and Daivari repeat a couple things from their singles match a month prior (which I might not have noticed had I not watched them the same day), Daivari takes a big thankless splat bump to the floor and gets his ear busted open, Kanellis hits a nice spinebuster and takes a freaking German suplex on the ring apron (in this match! Why??), but this whole thing felt like it added up to nothing and kept purposely resetting itself. The finish was a total mockery, as we had spent 15 minutes with many of these guys lying dead on the mat, and you can tell the second they all get the go home signal, as they all spring to their feet and start do-si-doing into each other's finishers. I hated it.

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: Gulak had been on a one month NXT sojourn feuding with Kushida, and he made the best possible return to 205 Live by saving the crowd and myself from a show opening Noam Dar match. Gulak jumps Dar in the aisle and spends the next couple minutes beating Dar around ringside, never to be seen again on 205 Live. The match itself doesn't quite catch fire, but these two are familiar opponents and are going to do plenty of things great. The pace was a little slow, which I don't mind, but I don't think the early slow pace was really needed. I still liked how we got a story about Tozawa going for his big babyface spots, and Gulak having every one of them scouted. I really loved Tozawa inching to lock on his octopus hold, with Gulak just tearing free and throwing Tozawa off him. Gulak tosses Tozawa around a few times, with a super memorable snap strength gutwrench and a bone rattling superplex that leads right to the finish. They worked some fun bits around Gulak running away from a tope, then running away from a pescado, before getting nailed with the cannonball. Tozawa's later tope is a great highspot, and Gulak plays it really well so it looks like it blindsides him, Tozawa crashing so hard into him that Gulak flies backwards over the announce table. Tozawa sent Gulak back so fast that it looked like Gulak was sucked out of an airplane. The fans got quiet at points but did stay into Tozawa, really getting behind his last big offense run and staying and responding to his fireman's carry squat lift routine. I think they have a better match in them. They've had several singles matches that all happened on 205 Live, during that couple year stretch when I wasn't watching it, so that great match might be out there as I type this.

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: These two matched up in late April, and it's notable how much cooler they look in this match than they looked just six weeks before. Daivari was wearing a black tank top then, and here he's just in black pants with a newly shaved head and stitches and a scar on his ear; Lorcan has grown in his beard and has the great black and gold gear. I like both of these guys (I mean we have a whole feature about Lorcan) but I don't think they have a good long match against each other. They don't have natural chemistry, so even when I like what both are doing it doesn't always work within the match. Lorcan's big comebacks are the best part of the match, with his great uppercuts always playing big to crowds, he also throws Daivari with a cool northern lights and then looks to rip his head off with one of his all time best blockbusters. There is something satisfying about Daivari's simple attack, as I'd much rather see someone using swinging neckbreakers and hard lariats than what makes up the offense of most main carders, but they get just too much time to tell their story. Now, what sets them apart from others - and I think this is very important - is that they had a 100% completely different match than they had six weeks prior. True, I didn't love this match or that match, but I appreciated that the main set pieces of that prior match didn't show up in any way in the return bout. That's cool, and it's an extra step they didn't really need to take. This match had cool parts to it, of course it was going to, but it felt like it should have been more. If they had stuck with the opening minute viciousness of Lorcan, where he ripped at Daivari's fresh stitches, this could have been special. They went a different way, and I like that they're still trying for that thing that will really work.

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New Footage Friday: ARKANGEL DE LA MUERTE!!! MR. NIEBLA!! TEXAS HANGMEN!! RODDY PIPER!! ADRIAN ADONIS!!

Roddy Piper/Tim Brooks vs. Adrian Adonis/Ron Starr PNW 3/31/79

MD: About ten years ago, I went back and watched all of 79-82 Portland and there are very few pro wrestling pastimes more fulfilling. This wasn't part of that collection and I think it's because it was part of the syndicated show as opposed to the live (or delayed) Saturday night one. It seems like every other match we're watching these days is "before its time," but the shine here absolutely was. Starr and Adonis basically pinballed themselves around the ring in interesting and coordinated ways to land upon Brooks' leg. Meanwhile, on the apron, Piper showed ass by bumping himself in reaction or because he tried too hard to reach for a tag. The structure was interesting here. It was absolutely heel in peril, by definition, but it didn't wear out its welcome. Part of that was because Piper never made it in, so it wasn't the babyfaces dominating both heels, which is something you never see. Right when Piper did make it in, he launched a few "karate" cheapshots and the heels took over, controlling the ring, distracting the ref, etc. They had a double clothesline behind the ref's back lead to the heel's first fall win but a dodged one led to the finish and that's the kind of callback that always works for me. So yeah, it's cliche, but this was before its time, but then a lot of things in Portland were, tag wrestling especially. If nothing else, this is worth seeing for babyface Adonis.

ER: I really love the Portland wrestling scene of the 70s and 80s, and I wish that kind of thing were sustainable today. The crowds were always really great from the footage we have, and this kind of match seems so unique to PNW. Loved Piper's extended bagpipes squawking, and it's wild to go from minutes of bagpipe practice to minutes of Tim Brooks' knee getting ripped apart. Brooks is a guy who shows up in a lot of territories and is immediately the worst guy in the territory, but I really dug the Piper/Brooks team and thought Brooks was a great addition to the match. He had this great veteran taunting rope running to before the bell, hitting the ropes too close to Adonis and Starr under the guise of warming up. Adonis and Starr had some real heavy leg work on him, both of them flying high and landing on Brook's leg. Starr even comes off the top rope onto it! Babyface Adonis is a real treat, with his feathered hair and 100 lb. lighter frame. You can see his potential for being a chubby boy, but here we get him looking like the lead singer of Grim Reaper and it rules. Piper has become one of my absolute favorite wrestlers over the past 5 years or so, someone that was hiding in plain sight for so long. His style is so great and I can't believe he wasn't recognized as a greater in-ring guy, as he's really someone with a super extended period as an excellent worker. His Portland work has such a manic energy to it, always infectious. This got a lot of time and at the end of it I wasn't left feeling that the guys had done a ton of "big" stuff, but they all knew how to nail small moments that the match just kept sustaining.

PAS: I was shocked at what a great babyface team Adonis and Starr were, for a pair of guys who rarely worked babyface and didn't seem to have a long run together, they had a bunch of smooth double teams and great shtick. I loved all of the early leg work including some great fast takedowns from both guys, and a lot of leapfroggy drops on Brooks' knee. The Russian legsweep/superfly splash combo they used to win the second fall was dope, as was all of the taunting of Piper. The in ring breakdown of heels in the match was about 80/20 in favor of Brooks, which is suboptimal. Piper is really fun getting aggravated on the apron though. Any new Piper footage is a mitzvah and this had some really nifty moments from him.

Texas Hangmen vs. Carlos Colon/TNT WWC 11/3/90

PAS: Standard southern tag match, with the added addition of a wild start and finish. I loved Puerto Rican baseball stadium brawling, and the Hangmen jump the faces in the infield and they go after each other. We even get TNT smashing a Hangman's head into home plate. The in-ring stuff was solid, including Colon getting opened up. TNT is a fun hot tag too, love his spinning kicks. Finish goes back to the dugout with El Profe running to the locker room to grab bullropes and the locker room emptying. We could have cut five or so minutes in the middle, but otherwise this was good stuff.

ER: I'm always going to love the atmosphere of a big Puerto Rico baseball stadium brawl. I'm happy with 20 minutes of punch and kick as long as you have those great visuals of rowdy people in a bleacher, people standing up from their folding chairs on the infield, you get scenes of Ferris wheels and carnival rides out past the outfield, and it's just the best wrestling vibe. The first 12 minutes of this match are just TNT and Colon beating the Hangmen pillar to post, just the Hangmen stumbling around the stadium and ring getting punched into position. TNT has a bunch of spinkick variations, a big heavy swinging leg that he uses a bunch in control and during a late match comeback, his big leaping kick, big savate kicks and superkicks, punches with dramatically long follow through, and the Hangmen served as great punching and kicking bags. Colon is a ball of energy that is impossible to root against, too easy to feed off the crowd's reactions to him. Every time he or even TNT got any kind of a strike against the Hangmen, the crowd exploded. Colon is an animated puncher, a violent take on the classic dancing babyface, someone with a good foot shuffle and leapfrog to lead to a big coconut crush headbutt, and the fans losing it for all of his movements makes it so much better. Colon gets busted open, the Hangmen (Bull Pain among them) are good kick punchers themselves, and the match gets even more electric when they roll back out to the infield. Castillo and Los Medics running in front the outfield to break up Profe's bullrope choking was a spectacular wrestling moment, we get a great pull apart with the locker room, all of it is pro wrestling eye candy.

MD: I thought this had a great atmosphere, with the stadium crowd being up for almost everything, and bookended by the wild brawling out of the ring. Right from the start, we have Colon slamming a Hangman's head into home plate which is maybe the best way to start any match in the history of wrestling. I loved how TNT and Colon worked together for merciless shine. I've seen Abby in this (very Memphis) role as the absolute extreme of a partner Colon can unite with, but TNT brought the crazy kicks and mobility while keeping all of the manic unpredictability. Meanwhile, Colon was running around with a fork, preemptively, like he was Abby. It's Puerto Rico so both transitions involved low blows, but the Hangmen's control section was good, even if they were more sound and solid than violent and brutal like the match probably warranted. TNT's hot tag was cut off and cooled down a bit since they had to wait for Colon to recover and set up the end brawling. The bullrope beatdown and post match with the faces trying to keep Colon and TNT from going after the Hangmen off the field all really worked for me. Just good PR spectacle with a solid foundation.

Mr. Niebla/Oriental/Tsubasa vs. Arkangel De La Muerte/Zumbido/El Engima CMLL Japan 8/13/98

PAS: CMLL Japan was such a fun promotion, with a bunch of cool 90s luchadores just going all out for short Nitro lucha matches. Man it is easy to forget what an absolute athletic marvel young Mr. Neibla was. He was just flying all over the ring with really impressive pop and height on everything he did. Loved his feint into an over the turnbuckle tope, great vertical leap, would have loved to see what his combine numbers were. Zumbido and Arkangel were really great rudos (Zumbido shows up in shows around Denver and still fucking rules) and I always loved the way Zumbido's mullet would spin along with his dives. Enigma (who we think is a young Mazda) has some nice moments, but almost dies on a tope when his feet get caught. Good stuff, and I am looking forward to digging into more of the new stuff they are uploading.

MD: 9 minutes of all action, big dumb lucha spectacle with no real narrative but lots of bodies flying around. Of these guys, I think I'm least familiar with Enigma and I thought he comported himself well, in his opening exchange with Tsubasa and then eating all of Oriental and Tsubasa's tandem stuff. Plus he had the makings of a rolling Northern Lights Suplex sequence. Zumbido was charismatic as ever. There's not a lot you can do storywise in nine minutes though I guess I did sort of appreciate the 30 seconds of Arkangel putting Niebla in holds before a micro comeback and the dive train/finish. It's amazing what you can do with even the tiniest bit of glue.

ER: Love CMLL Japan, Phil is right that it's always sprint Nitro lucha, and it's always filled with guys who had enough fun spots to fill a Nitro lucha match. Niebla was such a king during the late 90s, super graceful height on everything and a willingness to die on dives and bumps. He jogs lightly around the ring to laughs from the crowd before slingshotting himself effortlessly over the top in a wild torpedo of a dive. Zumbido is a top 20 favorite luchador for me, a great rudo with huge bumps and spectacular highspots, whip crack strikes and tight rolling. His mullet flows in mesmerizing ways while his tassel pants are among the best in wrestling history, making every Zumbido roll through look like a crashing wave. Arkangel does rudo in Japan well, and here he's the big bumper in a match filled with them, taking a super high backdrop from Niebla, crashing on arm drags, and taking dives. We get several big dives to the floor: Tsubasa hits an Asai moonsault that flattens Enigma, we get a sloppy-but-reckless fun dive train with Enigma catching feet and faceplanting, Tsubasa almost breaking both ankles flying over Zumbido with a somersault senton, Zumbido hits a wild dive on Niebla that sends him face first into the 2nd row, Enigma mans up a mere 15 seconds after crashing on his dive and sinks a perfect catch on a big Oriental moonsault to the floor, all action that feels wholly like CMLL Japan. I love when stuff shows up there, always a must watch for me. 1998 was the first year I got into lucha so this era and these guys have major nostalgia for me, and it's always great to see how it holds up.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Ohno vs. Ligero

63. Kassius Ohno vs. Ligero NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 4/24/19)

ER: This started out like a mean Ohno squash and then built into something that felt like a big upset was imminent, with several neat twists. And honestly, had this been an Ohno squash, I would have loved it. Because a big portion of this was Ohno trying to kick Ligero's horns right off his head. Ohno was really pasting Ligero with kicks, big running front kicks, and when Ligero was on the mat Ohno would run in and boot him again in the side of the head, for good measure. Ohno felt one step ahead for much of this, every duck and dodge pulled by Ligero, there was a boot waiting for him the second he turned around. My favorite was Ohno grabbing Ligero's right arm and bending it back, and as soon as it approached the breaking point Ohno rained down on him with a kick to the ear. At one point Ligero actually got a boot up in time for a charging Ohno...who merely stopped in time to catch the boot and then violently twist his ankle. Not looking great for Ligero. But he did finally catch a charging Ohno, and went on a little tear himself, including throwing some nice kick variations and now, finally, staying one step ahead of Ohno. There were some nice reversals, nice dodges (cool sequence where Ohno misses a kick and a follow up senton), and I love seeing Ohno take code reds and big roll ups and make them look like near escapes. We got a cool reversal where Ohno caught Ligero and immediately turned into what I thought was going to be the sudden match finishing tombstone, but Ligero rolled through that as well. The finish was what really put this over the top for me, as Ligero springs off the bottom rope with a cutter, but Ohno catches him, traps him in a cravat, unties Ligero's mask a bit....and then turns it to the side!! Ligero is looking at the inside of his mask, and before he can hardly react he gets absolutely waylaid by an elbow to the back of the head. Awesome.

PAS: Ligero is one of those semi-racist fake white guy luchadores who cropped up in the early 2000s. WWE decided that El Generico wasn't going to fly in the big leagues, but NXT UK is clearly so under the radar that Ligero gets to just skate in. He isn't much in this, breaking out his competently executed Sliced Breads and Code Reds and such, but Ohno is a fucking monster. There is a spot where he reverses a dive by Ligero and kind of shucks him head first into the stairs. For the rest of the match he is trying to send Ligero into a dark quiet room for half a week. Just super nasty knees to the side of Ligero's head and kicks to the temple and stomps to the back of his head. Man you can really get away with shocking violence on these C-Shows no one watches. Ohno did a great job selling all of Ligero's so-so comebacks, and the finish really felt like a Finlay, Regal or Eddie bit of trickery which is about the best compliment I can give a finish.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/26/20

What Worked

-The Iron Man is kind of a conundrum for me. I think I enjoyed it overall and appreciate the physicality, but I also didn't buy into a lot of the lore behind Omega, and also I don't totally feel like watching the rest of the show now that I've sat through all of it. But I also liked it? What raised the floor was the hard contact throughout, from things like Omega dropping knees right across the jaw to PAC elbowing Omega right in the throat. So I can sit through some theatrics (there were theatrics) and some lopsided kickouts if they're also crushing each other on strikes in between "the big stuff". All of Omega's knees ruled, some really vicious high running knees that made me want to see Omega/Akiyama. Both guys had nasty suplexes, Omega's snap dragon whipping PAC into the mat, and PAC with maybe the spot of the match when he almost murders Omega on live TV with a brainbuster superplex. The big spots were all big, the shooting star through a table on the floor, PAC hitting a falcon arrow off the apron, all great crashes. But some of the drama didn't work for me, they established a couple odd recovery times, and I really disliked the finish and thought it felt cheap. I wouldn't have wanted a draw (and I don't think it should have been a draw anyway), but I also didn't want Omega just blitzing him into a finish.

-The trios had enough good moments to land it up here, and it was probably the most impressed I've been with Jungle Boy. He was really quick and had a lot of snap, really naturally flew into things (two nice dives that hit hard for his size) and had some pop on things that I've seen look punchless. Marko had a couple big bumps and cool stuff like breaking up a pin with a missile dropkick, Santana hit a great cannonball, Sammy felt a little underused but still contributed big bumps (just didn't get as much personality as we usually do). They had about 8 minutes to do something and that packed a lot of action into that time.

-Strong performance from Butcher and the Blade, a shame that a lot of the great cutoff section was shown in the small picture in picture. Picture in picture had all the good Butcher cutoffs, nice tracks stopping clotheslines and uncomplicated choking over ropes, nice quick tags to isolate. Blade fed into Best Friends' offense really well, really wish they could have been treated better than the finish we got. Good dive from Orange Cassidy.


What Didn't Work

-Not into a lot of Chuck Taylor in the tag, and I didn't like the entire match stopping for an Orange Cassidy routine. I don't hate Cassidy, but I've much more enjoyed the non-invasive use of him in AEW. I think he's good at ringside, I've laughed at some pre-match gags, and he's good for a spot live the dive in this match. I just don't like when a nice tag performance has to stand aside and wait for a routine to finish.

-Women's match didn't work for me as a whole. Shida is messy even if she has charisma, and Sakazaki acts a little too precious. It was fine, nothing horribly offensive, but there was enough disconnect with everything that I could never get into it.

-That main event interview was a real collar tugging few minutes, with Page coming off like a rebelling teen who just found out his parents are divorcing, and the Bucks both working off a script that needed a couple more rounds of polish. The Hangman Page: Hard Drinker stuff is really bad, and the Bucks comments about it and about him storming off came off wooden as hell. Jim Ross was probably the only actual strength of the segment, but this segment made that whole match come off way more dumb and childish than had they done no hype at all.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: La Barba! Inca Perano! Laroche! DR. ADOLF KAISER

Joachim La Barba vs Roger Laroche 3/7/57

MD: This was very good. You watch these matches and you get a sense that they were just mass producing absolute masters like Bout and Laroche off of some assembly line in 50s France. He was able to present this immense control over his body and his opponent's (obviously that's half on La Barba but the total effect was very convincing). One of my favorite bits was when he launched a spin-move feint out of nowhere to grab a leg. He had absolutely crushing blows too, including some pretty novel strikes like proto-Kawada kicks and a cravat-held kneelift. We'd seen La Barba as a mean, mugging heel before and that's exactly what he was here, getting whatever cheapshots he could and going for things like a double stomp at every opportunity, even if he mostly missed. His missed haymakers, for instance, were things of beauty. A lot of the narrative of the match, like we've seen elsewhere, was how he kept pushing the ref's buttons, taking advantage by cheating but losing it by the ref getting fed up and intervening. La Barba also brought excellent bumping, memorable facial expressions, and a tendency to go flying out of the ring in the most interesting ways, like when Laroche reversed a cross-arm puller and heaved him up and out of the ring with it. Everything came together nicely as they worked that theme into the finish with a brutal over the top bump onto a table leading to the count out. La Barba rushing back in after the bell only to get dropped was a perfect, giving crowd-pleasing ending.

SR: 2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This is a match with lots of wrestling that‘s gonna stay in your mind because of the parts where they beat the hell out of each other. Not that the wrestling was bad, Laroche looked like a classy worker, but it just wasn‘t that exceptional and as soon as Joachim kicked him in the kidney you wanted more where that came from. It‘s like you slotted Tenryu or Takashi Ishikawa into a European style grappling affair. Most of the first 10 minutes are built around Laroche evading the Mexican, with Joachim La Barba attempting some double stomps which was rather interesting. As soon as Joachim found his opening he wasn‘t letting go of the chance to beat the crap out of Laroche. He also took the chance to bump all over the place once again. It all builds to an especially big bump to the outside. Little hard to rate for me, it‘s clear that this was good shit and smokes most 2020 pro wrestling in a cakewalk, on the other hand the baseline for this French stuff is getting really high.

PAS: I loved this, I think I am higher then Sebastian and Matt. My god La Barba, he is listed from Mexico, and if he is actually a luchador, he must have been Satanico's illegitimate father. He has the whole rudo package, sickingly violent, great stooging, huge Jerry Estrada style bumps to the floor, and even some Un Foul's. I loved all of his missed moves, he was really great at whiffing at double stomps and splashes, and those big missed uppercuts were great looking, everything looked like it was thrown full force but still had this great silent comedy feel. Laroche was really good too, great hard charging foil to La Barba's wild performance, really brought the violence, and I dug all of his early grappling too. Loved the finish with La Barba getting pressed over the top rope landing hard on a table. He gets counted out, helped to the back, but reverses course and tries to jump Laroche and takes another stooging bump, what a man. 

Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Warnia de Zarzecki 3/29/57

MD: This was an even better Kaiser showcase than the last match. In just a couple of matches, it's clear how good he was at walking a fine line between precision violence and a sort of manic desperation. You'll get a carefully set up arm-trap headbutt, a rolling short armscissors, and Kaiser going for the ears to get out of a hold all in the span of a minute or two. He hits a 1957 Full Nelson Slam too, in case anyone was wondering. The crowd was distracted early on by some police activity in the crowd but they recovered well. Zarzecki was competent in his role. He came off as younger and square-jawed, though ready to dole out revenge for Kaiser's cheapshots. He had the Andre the Giant kneecrushes too though I'm not sure how sound they are coming from a guy that's not a giant. It does hit home that we've seen a lot of variation of strikes in all of these matches though. I probably read way too much into the finish, but to me, there was real emotion to it: Kaiser finally was able to lock in his nerve hold that he had used with such verve in the previous match, but Zarzecki slammed his own head straight back into Kaiser's to break it. Distraught and furious, Kaiser yanked him into a 1957 Dragon Sleeper, cinched it up to a ridiculous degree and choked him out.

SR: JIP, but we get about 10 minutes. Mostly Zarzecki taking the Doctor to the pay window. Zarzecki wasn‘t kidding, he hit some pretty violent looking kneelifts and stomps. The Dr. is really fun at sneaking in cheapshots and his calculating behaviour is entertaining, he also busted out another cool double armlock. The finish has Warnia escaping the dreaded nerve hold with a nasty headbutt, only for Kaiser to spin him into a Dragon Sleeper in the middle of the ring. I didn‘t think they meshed quite that well and the match could‘ve picked up the pace a little, but it was a nice reminder that the Dr.s chokeholds will put anyones lights out.

PAS: I am the high voter on this match too, I thought it was fucking great. This match was full of really violent in fighting, with guys latching in holds, and then the other guy throwing short nasty shots, or stomps or headbutts. I am assuming Zarzecki is billed as Polish, and a Polish guy certainly has some incentive to want to stomp the shit out of a German doctor, and stomp the shit out him he does. Kaiser is being built up so great here, he gives his opponent a lot of stuff, but always has this aura of sadistic shocking violence looming. God that finish was incredible, Kaiser is able to grab his dreaded nerve hold, and Zarzecki breaks in by throwing the back of his head into Kaisers face, that back headbutt is a barfight move I can only ever remember seeing once in wrestling, when Chris Hero and Eddie Kingston started shooting on each other in PWG. Kaiser snaps and locks in this violent Dragon Sleeper, and they basically have to give Zarzecki CPR in the ring after. Kaiser continues to leave bodies strewn at his feet, I can't wait to watch more. 

Inca Peruano vs Comanche Indian 3/29/57

MD: I'm pretty certain that some of the people I went to grad school with could have used this match as a valid and loving case study for veiled homoeroticism in 50s French popular culture. They start with the rare-for-a-reason double grounded headscissors spot, go a bit overboard with the sitting-on-your-opponent stuff out of victory rolls and what have you, and even some of the positions Peruano gets punches in from were either ill-conceived or expertly conceived depending on what they were going for. Comache was fun, with a very unique way of stalking around his opponent that popped the announcer and that Peruano even mocked during a moment of his advantage. He really leaned deep into his hip tosses (utilizing the leg trip) which always looks so great in this footage and Peruano, who we saw as a face in the previous match, was a bullying heel with a bunch of flashy stuff, including the really cool handwalk headscissors spot. Not to go to deep onto the theme, but there was a sense of a lover's quarrel here, just that sort of animosity, from the initial stalking all the way to Peruano's post match cheapshot and it kept things interesting, at least.

SR: When you see a matchup with names like this, you expect everything. We ended up getting some really swank stuff. Lots of nifty throws, swank headscissors and smooth matwork, at one point both guys exchange fast leg trips. Comanche is a spindly guy with some eccentric mannerisms, and his physique adds to his matwork allowing for some cool escapes. Peruano continues to look like the real deal, at one point he does this transition where he hooks Comanches legs with his own legs and spins around almost like a double leg nelson, and his headscissor from the ropes – which he does slick and out of nowhere like a shootstylist – is one of my new favourite moves. He also busts out the Octopus Hold. Peruano eventually starts sneaking in inside shots and the bout gets chippy, with Peruano throwing punches to Comanches skinny body and Comanche firing back with neck chops. Comanche also has some cool looking non-standard dropkicks and a great victory roll. Once again, there were some intense pin attempts. Could‘ve built to a bigger crescendo, but what a neat match to watch in itself.

PAS: I thought this was weird and cool, although I am not sure if it totally nailed it as a match. There are a lot of nuts right in faces in this match, and that rolling double headscissors looked like porn. There was so much cool shit too though, that walk up headscissors was great as was a later spinning headscissors.  The whole thing felt pitched to a slightly different frequency, like this is what Peruvian wrestling in the 50s looked like, rather then a traditional French match. As always I loved the chippiness, although it never evolved into the pure wars that a lot of these matches get to. Lots of stuff here for wrestlers to steal, including a bunch of thing for Effy or Cassandro to take. 

La Complète et Exacte French Catch

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WWF In Your House 2: The Lumberjacks 7/23/95

ER: This is straight outta Nashville and we get this sick Hank Jr. MNF theme ripoff that is fun as hell, the whole intro feels like way more of a WCW thing. 1995 WWF felt really WCW in a lot of ways, which is part of what makes it so appealing. And then it gets even better as we cut to Lawler and Vince ringside, and they're both dressed like city slicker cowboys! Black leather vests, Vince in a bolo tie (!), Lawler with a crown over his Clint Black stetson, just the kind of vibe that Vince would never even consider doing today. 1995 Vince is a real honest to god shill with a touch of desperation, and we won't get to see that level of scraping by Vince again. It's too bad, Huckster Vince was great.


1-2-3 Kid vs. The Roadie

ER: Roadie has quickly become one of my favorite workers to watch. A guy who just a few weeks ago had me whining about why he was even in the KOTR tournament, is clearly one of the best performers on the roster. And I think this is a really great roster, no matter what kind of business they were doing. Part of the great thing about this era WWF is that they had no "house style", everyone came off totally different and there was no same-y agenting for every single match, and there was a big southern wrestling influence. And I think Roadie is so much better than Road Dogg, because as Roadie he still hadn't fallen into any kind of formula. As Roadie he is always breaking out weird offense that feels like he's trying it on a whim, no formula and overly established locked in moveset. He engages the crowd and can stooge, and knows to do a lot of his goofy heel taunt dancing when the cameras cut away to something else (here they cut backstage to JJ rehearsing for his big PPV "With My Baby Tonight" debut). These two are great opponents who wouldn't cross paths again for a few years after this, but I love what we got here. Roadie was great at going down hard for Kid's big kicks, and Kid was bumping huge for everything Roadie did. As I said, Roadie keeps on surprising me, here he broke out a cool last minute powerslam (catching a charging Kid by surprise), and another incident that was the best combination of "was that on purpose or accidental, who cares it looked great!": During a rope running exchange, Roadie leapfrogged but Kid went into a forward roll and knocked one of Roadie's legs out from under him, faceplanting him. Roadie so immediately got up selling his face from the faceplant that it had to be how things were planned, but they were both so good at making it look like a great spot that came about organically. Kid takes two HUGE bumps, getting crazy air on a flapjack and a backdrop, but the craziest bump is saved for the finish: Roadie wins the match with a piledriver of the middle turnbuckle!! Not even a tombstone style piledriver, but a Memphis style sitout piledriver, off the freaking second turnbuckle! What a nutso move to attempt, what a nutso move to start a PPV with. Kid's body folds forward in a way that makes it look like his neck snapped, great disgusting visual for the finish. And after the match, ever the professional, Roadie makes sure to test all the equipment for JJ's upcoming performance.


Men on a Mission vs. Razor Ramon/Savio Vega

ER: I love the fan with the "All Hail King Savio" sign, still not ready to accept the results of the prior month's King of the Ring. And what a great tag match this was! It was an economical 10 minutes, and filled with big bumps, hard runs into the buckles, great stooging, simple but very relevant double teams, really worked at a pace that guaranteed the crowd would be into it the whole way. Mo is a really great slime here, but also a guy who is gonna give like he gets. Razor throws his toothpick in Mo's face and Mo responds by slapping Razor with the hardest strike of the match. And like that we're off, with Savio getting whipped hard into the buckles, Mabel missing a really hard charge into the buckles, and Savio eating what felt like a half dozen different body slams from Mabel. Mabel has really Finlay-esque bodyslams, lifting Savio high and really dropping him with force. And I actually laugh when Lawler calls him "Chevy Vega". That kind of thing feels like a vintage Heenan insult. The double teams look good, Mo running Mabel into Savio, doing classic combos like the drop toehold/legdrop combo. That kind of combo is so simple, but the participants make all the difference: Mo really strangles Savio's legs and Savio wipes out with a faceplant, and Mabel times it so he's dropping that big leg a split second after Savio hits the mat. Razor even adds to the chippiness by coming in and booting Mabel right in the back of the head to break up the pin. The big bumps really kick in, with Mo missing the Mo-sault and eating a Razor back suplex off the top, and even Mabel going off the top! Mo and Savio spill super fast to the floor off a big lariat, and we finally get the showdown between Mabel and Razor. It's a cool pairing, and you KNOW Mabel goes right after those injured ribs of Razor's and splats him with a great belly to belly. I loved this tag, thought they worked the perfect pace, MOM came off like real killers, bell to bell joy.

ER: Has anybody ever seen Dok Hendrix and Monterey Jack from Rescue Rangers in the same place? He hosts an interview with some of Diesel's lumberjacks, and Bam Bam kind of quiets the room by saying he's going to set Sid on fire. That interview leads us into Jeff Jarrett's first ever life performance of With My Baby Tonight, and it actually comes off much better than I was expecting? The best part was him cutting a promo before the song, as the live band plays a looping version of his theme in the background. Big Al on guitar picking lines while a lady fiddler gives us those high lonesome notes, J-E-Double F (ha ha ha) rubbing Nashville's noses right in it. After the performance, Todd Pettengill interviews fans at random for their thoughts on the performance, with a shocking amount of them admitting that Jarrett sounded quote, "pretty good".


Henry Godwinn vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

ER: This was so great. Everything on this show has been perfectly timed, knowing the exact amount of time to give to every segment. This goes 6 minutes and is an all out big boy sprint, and we're all the better for it. You don't get many matches involving men this size, that start with three straight backdrop suplexes. This is solid gold from go, with Bammer dropping Godwinn with those suplexes, then firing off a torpedo shoulderblock that sends Henry crashing fast backwards through the ropes to the floor. This was big bumping, hard hitting, heavy landing big man wrestling. Everything hit real hard: Bam Bam running chest first into the buckles, Godwinn hitting a lariat right after, Bam Bam flying fast over the top to the floor off a low bridge, Godwinn spiking himself on a DDT, Bigelow hitting a killer crossbody (like an even heavier version of the later Mike Knox running crossbody), Bigelow misses a nasty headbutt off the top (going down real top heavy), just constant crashing action. The finish was great and logical, with Godwinn missing a huge kneedrop off the top, and Bigelow getting the quick pinfall with a high hooked leg. There wasn't a single misstep in this match, even things like Godwinn choking Bam Bam over the ropes and a simple chinlock read really well, a real unheralded big man match.


Jeff Jarrett vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This is a truly special wrestling match that earns its legendary status. This was Jarrett's most tour de force performance of his career, and one of Michael's best as well. This was pure Lawler/Dundee in a WWF ring, chock full of stooging and schtick, the kind of thing that Vince wouldn't even glimpse at today, let alone allow it in a 20 minute PPV title match. The whole thing is classically laid out, filled with a ton of Jarrett stalling and stooging, really felt like the most fully unleashed version of Jarrett that we ever saw on a main brand. They worked fast avoidance spots without ever coming off like modern fast dancing matches, milked simple jabs by having JJ roll to the floor and talk trash all around ringside, rolling in just enough to restart the count whenever needed. That's the kind of heel work that is sorely lacking in WWE today. Every heel act today is based around The Evil That Men Do and simple things like running out the clock or catching your breath for too long are somehow lost. It stinks. Jarrett was really on one here, match long, an incredible performance. Every sell was great, every attention to detail looked like he was pulling off the greatest hits of Lawler/Dundee, as if he was working a PPV in Nashville, TN and was representing the great wrestling style of Tennessee. I smiled broad every time he went down fast and came up holding his mouth, and cheered when he hit one of the absolute greatest dropkicks mine eyes have ever seen, floating high almost above Michael's head and landing with great force, an almost physics breaking dropkick.

All interference from Roadie was timed really well, Roadie jumping on the apron to help with interference or to get knocked off the apron by Michaels, and we got a great spot where Jarrett gets sent over the top to crash into Roadie on the floor. If you ever wanted to see Jeff Jarrett do a fantastic tope con giro into Road Dogg, you gotta watch this match to see it. Michaels hits a huge crossbody to the floor into both of them, and the whole thing continues to unroll in the best Memphis fashion. Both men milk slow crawls after big moves, Jarrett is a master of milking nearfalls (barely shooting up his shoulder inches away from potential loss), the whole thing is perfect. This match felt like Michaels working like Jeff Jarrett while Jarrett worked like heel Michaels, and to my knowledge it's literally the only match we have of them opposite each other. I am dying to see any of their house show interactions, any of their singles matches, any of their matches tagging with each other against Diesel/Razor, and the crown jewel of them all: A 1997 WWF house show IN Memphis, with a main event of Lawler/Jarrett vs. Michaels/HHH. Give me THAT on an Unreleased blu ray and WWE will have my money day one. This was a masterful match, fully deserving of all the praise it's gotten the past 25 years.


Yokozuna/Owen Hart vs. Lex Luger/British Bulldog

ER: Another good one on a show filled with them. This was probably the weakest of the bunch, if only for an uninventive too easy ending. They are really trying hard with the whole Allied Powers team, and it comes off lame. This feels like a gimmick for guys much lower on the card. When you stick two main event guys in a tag team whose entire identity is "This one is from the US, this other guy is from the UK". Like if Bob Backlund were still a babyface in 1995 WWF then I could actually see Backlund and Barry Horowitz with Luger's gear, American flag trunks with Olympic team puffy jackets. I assume they were just trying to tank Luger's value before he went to WCW. "Look at this goof still carrying on with the red white and blue routine two years after wasting everyone's time with the Lex Express!?" Lex is obviously not ever going to win, but man why were they dragging down the Bulldog with such a desperate babyface grab. This match also leads us to an amusing moment where Owen and Bulldog are both down for the count, and the crowd starts a USA chant. I guess they were probably getting excited for a Luger tag, but a USA chant in a match with a Canadian, a Brit, a fake Japanese guy, and one actual American. But the match was good. It had a bunch of fun moments, like Owen just slapping the hell out of Luger and then running to the ropes before Luger can retaliate, or a long exchange with Owen and Bulldog showing off a bunch of flashy World of Sport wristlock escape flourishes, or a huge double backdrop suplex where Luger and Bulldog drop Yoko and they make it look like the whole arena shook (how often did Yoko ever go up for suplexes? Feels like a cool rare moment). Owen took a super high bump off a backdrop where he never rotated, the Luger/Yoko sections all banged, and really the lazy finish was the only thing keeping this match as the weakest of the night. It was one of those finishes where Luger has the long visible tag over Yoko but instead of counting the pin, Hebner decides to chide Bulldog about something for an eternity, so Owen can fly off the top with an elbowdrop on Luger. They really needed to give Hebner a better reason to be distracted, and the timing of it all took too long. The rest of this was great tag wrestling, another hit.


Lumberjack Match: Sid vs. Diesel

ER: Wow, I loved this match. What a wonderful environment for a huge big man main event. This match had an atmosphere that I don't think WWE could recreate today. This whole show played in front of a super hot Nashville crowd, and they were molten for every single second of this exquisitely laid out match. The visuals of the match was perfect with the ringside area filled with 15 faces and 15 heels, and all 30 dudes at ringside doing an incredible job of rooting for their side. Any time WWE has tried to force group interaction the past (at least) decade, it comes off exactly that: forced. This was an excellent presentation of 15 dudes who wanted nothing more than to see Diesel win, standing across the ring from 15 dudes who were willing to cheat intensely to make sure that Sid won. They did an awesome job of making sure the babyfaces only ever threw Sid back into the ring, never took cheap shots; and of course every single time Diesel spilled to the floor he got 30 different boots stamped all over his body. The layout was so simple, so logical, so perfectly executed and timed, just an absolute classic example of somehow getting 32 different wrestlers to shine at once. The establishment and loyalty of the factions was so strong that it elevated this match for me to a ridiculous degree. Bam Bam Bigelow especially was a superstar from the floor, like a man who would rather his best pal Diesel win the belt than even himself. Every time Diesel would go on a run of offense, the babyfaces would all aggressively root him on from ringside, and not a second of it came off silly or cheesy. And the heels all worked together like the Really Rottens from Scooby's Laff-a-Lympics. All of them cheated gleefully, and they integrated build for the next program seamlessly, as Mabel smashed Diesel into the ringpost with an avalanche, hit a hard bodyslam on the floor, then dropped his big leg.

The in ring action was also simple, with Diesel throwing tighter elbows and strikes as it went on, and Sid throwing his style free boots and clotheslines. Sid moves like such a stiff - his lariat being simply a big man running towards you with a straight arm - and yet his character is so remarkably effective during this era that he is just so captivating to watch. Both he and Diesel take great bumps to the floor, Sid taking two fast ones early through the ropes, and then Diesel taking an even faster, more reckless one right after. All of the action that spilled to the floor was chaotic and exciting, with Diesel eating a beating every time he went down, so finally getting frustrated enough to hit a surprise pescado onto all of them and fight back! Shawn Michaels also flew off the top with insane stage dives two different times, diving into a crowd of heels the first time and then into Sid to set up the finish. We got a fun stretch run of a few heels not accepting defeat, with IRS charging into the ring when a Sid defeat seemed immininet...and then getting launched to the floor by Diesel, with a killer over the top to the floor bump from IRS. Diesel dispatches of a couple more and hits a big boot on Sid for the 3, and the arena exploded. We get an epic closing visual of babyfaces celebrating in the ring, so excited for their friend, hoisting the still-champ up onto their shoulders. This was classic, simple, good guys vs. bad guys story formula, the exact kind of thing WWE today feels is too simple. So they overcomplicate it and make it joyless. It was also jarring how much better the wrestling action was filmed in 1995, compared to today. Wrestling direction is making modern wrestling more and more impossible and ugly to watch, and a 25 year B-show PPV blows it out of the water.


ER: What a wonderful PPV, with the weakest match being a perfectly fine nice length TV tag match, and the other ranging from very good to downright epic. This is right up there with my favorite WWF PPVs of all time, just an incredibly fun and satisfying show, top to bottom. Plus we got two excellent additions to our 305 Live project. Godwinn/Bigelow is a match that has never been hyped but was the one on paper I was most excited for, and it was a crazy bumping sprint. Sid/Diesel was such a classic delivery of good vs. evil wrestling that I'm shocked it isn't mentioned more as a wrestling fan's most treasured childhood wrestling memory. What a great show.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2/16-2/22/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Matt Riddle/Pete Dunne NXT 2/19/20

ER: This really felt like these guys' version of a spotfest lucha tag. It started with a nice Burch/Dunne mat section, Dunne stepping and kneeling on Burch's neck in a nasty deathlock, and we quickly move into a fun extended sprint of all the stuff these guys can do. Riddle and Dunne are throwing Karelin lift suplexes, Burch throws a headbutt and also punches Riddle in the mouth, both sides eat a powerbomb, both sides eat uppercuts, both sides eat knees, and it's all a lot of fun. It had a fun atmosphere for a match where the result was in no doubt whatsoever, and Lorcan/Riddle is a total dream match for me that has never been on tape. I loved all their sections together, it's really one of those super obvious match-ups that somehow hasn't used at all. I love how Lorcan flies into everything, from offense to pinfall break ups, and really my only problem with this was that Lorcan went down a little suddenly. If he had another brief comeback or held on for a couple more killer shots from Riddle, this would have jumped up much more for me. But I liked the match we got and would love to see this happen again.

PAS: This didn't do much for me. It just felt like another version of the same NXT million counters and reversals tag we have seen a million times. There were some cool moves in this, but they always have cool moves, and they never mean much. Riddle was a much more interesting wrestler as a rookie in EVOLVE then he is now, and I like Lorcan but didn't think he did much to distinguish himself here. Whole thing was worked at the same pace and you need to very the intensity a bit to make it mean anything.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Brian Kendrick/Ariya Daivari 205 Live 2/21/20

ER: This was one of the more surprinsgly underwhelming matches of the year. A street fight featuring two of the best wrestlers in the world, given as much time as it needed, in the main event. Lorcan and Kendrick are easily the best two guys on 205 Live now that Gulak and Gallagher aren't ever going to be on TV again, and they've matched up a criminally small amount of times for being in the same place for so long. But now they've been across from each other twice in just a few weeks, and the first match was a stinker and now the rematch was the weakest street fight in recent memory. I don't think it's because modern indy wrestling has conditioned me to expect possible death during street fights, as I don't need death for a brawl to be great. This was just dullsville for significant stretches, with perfunctory pre-bell brawling and spots laid way to far apart, and a lot of set up to get to those moments. The moments are usually impressive, but they generate reactions that seem to say "Well you finally got there, thank you." This could have been a mean, rugged no DQ match, but it seemed like everyone in the match decided it would make more sense to just act like extras from that Popeye movie. Burch filled this thing to the breaking point with goofy cartoon mannerisms and selling and facials, reaching peak "just not my night" after falling on his butt doing a kip-up, then getting booed after doing a bad Dudley Boyz "Get the tables" bit with Lorcan. It came off like someone using the Rock Bottom on a school fundraiser indy show and immediately tripping over his opponent. Kendrick's death valley driver that utilized the table looked great, just as a Daivari took a great drop toehold into a chair earlier. All the weapons that got involved were eventually used well for the big moment, but getting there felt way too silly. The home stretch made this at least land on its feet, with Kendrick and Lorcan finally really tangling up around 10 minutes in, and Lorcan hitting a big torpedo uppercut and tope con giro. But you know the match underwhelmed when one of the best moments of the match came when Lorcan and Burch tumbling to the floor, and getting immediately cheered by the cutest sounding kid, who says, "Come on guys, get up!" That kid was so earnestly cheering for these two Popeye goofballs that it just made me happy that kids love wrestling. Match still fell flat for me.

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Matches from Pizza Party Wrestling 4/3/19

ER: I somehow wound up at this show, the first show of WrestleMania weekend. You know, the Wednesday evening portion of the weekend. This show was nowhere near most actual WM happenings, at least a half hour north of where we were staying in Jersey City. We landed Wednesday evening at Newark, dropped our stuff off at the Air BnB, and immediately Uber'd our way up to Ridgefield Park. The venue was smack dab in the middle of a quiet upper class neighborhood, and the colored lighting inside was soft and warm. They had so-so pizza slices for sale for a good price, and an old American Legion member making cheap cocktails in the back corner near the pizza. It was the kind of place that I would happily go to watch wrestling every couple months, although I can safely say that I will never watch wrestling in this venue ever again (nothing personal, just what are the odds of me winding up in Ridgefield Park again). Makabe vs. Yehi was the match that made this a no brainer show to attend, and it delivered everything I wanted. I was still pretty bleary eyed from travel so don't have a fresh memory of the rest of the card, but let's rewatch to jog that memory!


Tony Deppen vs. "Tyrannosaurus Flex" Ezekiel James

ER: This was a bummer, just because there were at least a dozen people on this show who would have made a much more interesting partner for Deppen than what we wound up with. James is someone who I know nothing about. He flexed his arms, he froze up on more than a couple spots, and they weirdly worked this as if James was a giant. James is bigger than Deppen, but not demonstrably so. The best parts of this were when Deppen would just throw strikes, with the best being a hard right hand to the jaw followed up immediately by a headbutt. James couldn't catch dives in an interesting way, and he wasn't quick so it didn't leave Deppen with much to do. Deppen takes a nice bump on a DDT, James completely whiffs on his pop up uppercut that was supposed to directly set up the finish, and then they just go to the finish anyway. Super disappointing use of Deppen.

Alex Zayne vs. Robbie Eagles

ER: This had moments that hit, and then some of the absolute worst half speed dance fight wrestling I've seen. There were several moments where the missed strikes looked like the two of them going over sequences back stage, like they forgot they were in front of an audience. There was a Zayne missed legsweep that was thrown so light that it wouldn't have swept the leg of a child. There were several moments where Zayne worked like he was concussed, like a hilarious moment where Eagles was on the apron, and Zayne literally walked towards him, with Eagles already waiting in position to hit the enziguiri, and here's Zayne walking right to the spot where the kick was supposed to land. It was such a pathetic disconnect, Zayne not even bothering to make it look like he was attempting to charge in with any kind of move, just walking dully to the position he needed to be in. Eagles had some nice running knees and a couple big power moves, and was at least putting some energy into things. Nearly every single move Zayne hit fully relied on Eagles bumping to make it look good. I've seen Zayne hit a great dragon rana in the corner, here Eagles had to catch Zayne's legs around his armpits and waist and do the rest of the work. I had long checked out by the time we got to a heatless strike exchange, and at least Zayne took a reverse rana with a nice vertical pause and flattened Eagles with the match ending spiral tap. Still this was an awful match from Zayne. He worked it like he was told his father just died right before he went through the curtain.

ER: I would have written up the 4 way Street Fight, but resent that the promotion tricked me into cheering for a pedophile without letting me know he was a pedophile. Now there's video footage of me literally standing next to a pedophile, cheering for him. So long political career.

Oswald Project vs. Ezekiel James

ER: This wasn't a match by any means, but was certainly a weird and memorable moment live. Tyrannosaurus Flex and his manager some back out to remind everyone of that disappointing Tony Deppen match and challenge any newcomers to take a crack at T-Flex. So they brought in a smallish young guy from the crowd with long curly hair, who introduced himself as being raised in a petri dish on some government site as part of The Oswald Project. And then when James tried to attack him, Oswald started bending in all sorts of freaky ways, like he was suffering from that "no bones" disease that so afflicted Richard Dunn. He got hit in the back of the head and scorpioned himself, rolling through it like some bizarre horror creature. It didn't function as a match, but it made for a great unexpected weirdo surprise. I know they've used him on future shows, and I'd certainly check him out in an actual match. Really, he's the only wrestler who could replicate the crab walk scene in Exorcist.

Van Valley vs. Champagne Douglas vs. Everett Cross vs. Matt Vertigo vs. Russell K. Best vs. Zacky Strutts

ER: This wasn't a good match. It was a fairly rushed 6 man with a lot of unknowns, a lot of waiting for dives, a lot of guys not good at occupying themselves, and a lot of head drops. We had a reverse rana within the first 30 seconds or so, and a lot of lying around in wait. But let me tell you the thing I genuinely love about this match: On paper, every single person in this match sounds like someone who is being paid in "exposure" to perform on Cedric the Entertainer's "Cruisin', Schmoozin', Laffs 'n' Gaffes" Caribbean cruise. You can just picture the days' schedule of events, and then twist yourself into knots trying to decide whether to see Champagne Douglas's afternoon set at the Lido Lounge, or go see Zacky Strutts at Guy Fieri's Deckside Burger Bar. Why did they book those sets to overlap!? But it will all be worth it to see the after hours adult sets from Russell K. Best and Vicious Van Valley. Russell K. Best's clean material frankly doesn't hold up as well, but you know his after hours set will slam! I'd have much rather seen a set of Zacky Strutts' catchphrase comedy ("You know Zacky don't run away from that mess...because you KNOW...Zacky Strutts") than this match. Just a bad match filled with guys who have done regional warm up work for Kat Williams. Champagne Douglas alone sounds like a fantastic once a season Martin character. The on paper names in this match probably gave me more joy than anything else before the main event.

18. Fred Yehi vs. Daniel Makabe

ER: This was the match that got me to go to Ridgefield Park, and one of the matches that got me to fly across the country (and since Makabe vs. Arik Royal got scrapped this match had even more pressure to deliver). And after sitting down and re-watching this show nearly a year after the fact, imagine if this match HADN'T been on the card!? This was a card saving match for sure, as I don't think there was anything else I would even casually recommend going out of your way to see before this main event. And luckily, this match delivered on its on paper potential and sent me back to Jersey City a tired and satisfied wrestling fan. I knew the grappling would be great, and I loved how these two moved off each other. Makabe controlled a lot of action with quick go behinds, and a Yehi kept relying on his fantastic single legs to upend Makabe. The first single leg saw Yehi just grabbing Makabe by the heel and completely tossing him skyward, as if Makabe had been standing on a landmine. Yehi would really make Makabe pay for leaving a limb out there, like when Makabe did a quick dropdown that ended quickly after Yehi stomped his hand on the mat. Yehi had some great torture holds, loved him sitting on Makabe's butterflied legs and daring him to do anything about it. Makabe hit him with a slap, but it was a trap, Yehi seemingly knowing that Makabe wouldn't be able to do much damage at such close range, then pays him back with a harder slap. Makabe pays that back eventually with an amazing spot I've never seen, as he snaps the top rope into Yehi's face as he's getting into the ring, feeling like a use-of-ring spot that Fit Finlay would kick himself for not thinking of.

I liked how Makabe kept responding to Yehi's actions by moving the match to a more elevated direction, like how he was the first to throw a punch (and loved his hand sell afterward which set up a different run of Yehi torture) and starts working over Yehi's arm in different ways (throwing sharp knees to his elbow and tricep), and I love how great Makabe is at showing his work as he's going through holds. You really get the strong sense watching him that he's breaking things down in learnable steps, the way he forces Yehi's jaw toward the opposite arm by forcing his forearm down the length of jaw, leaving the arm wide open, the way he holds his weight against Yehi to prevent counters. Yehi pays him back later by trapping Makabe's arm in the top of the ringpost and kicking him off the apron in a real nasty moment. The submission roll throughs were all really engaging, with holds that all looked like finishers. Makabe had this ridiculously slick go behind off the ropes into a cattle mutilation that was so sudden and cool that I thought it was the finish. After Makabe's early match punch Yehi definitely worked in more strikes, big Mongolian chops, a great seated dropkick, big clubbing shots, and some big fists while trapping Makabe in the Koji Clutch. Now, the whole finishing stretch was fantastic, but those punches in the Koji were so beautiful, as they directly lead to Makabe's victory. Had Yehi just locked in the Koji Clutch, Makabe was likely done. But Yehi starts throwing punches, allowing Makabe the opening to catch and hold that fist, breaking the clutch, rolling through with the arm, and setting up the bridging pin. My god. I loved it all.

PAS: This is exactly what you wanted this match to be, two really solid hard charging grapplers, doing cool innovating painful looking shit. I loved Yehi's stuff with the ringposts, he has broken that out sometimes in ACTION and it is just about the coolest bit of signature offense in wrestling. I have no idea how Makabe didn't just tear all of the ligaments in his arm. They were able to do some very nifty different chain wrestling without it every seeming like a dance routine, which is super rare in today's wrestling. I loved the subtle mixing in of harder shots as the match went on. I am so immersed in all of this new French Catch footage I am viewing a lot of things through that lens, but this had that same feel. It started tricky and scientific and escalated into a fight and it is a real credit to the talents of both guys, that they can make both parts of the story look credible and impressive.


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New Footage Friday: FINLAY!! MUTOH! 2 COLD!! RAMBO! BORGA!!

CWA Euro Catch Festival 12/16/95

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Danny Collins

PAS: This was a pretty basic mid 90s juniors match. There were a couple of nifty flourishes by both guys,  Collins had a nifty jumping rana and I always love Scorpio's standing flip leg drop. Still I thought most of this was relatively dull, I think I would still like high end 90s juniors matches, but the average ones are really not my speed. Always happy to get more Scorp footage, but this was mostly skippable.

MD: I'm a little bit higher on this than Phil, but just a bit. Collins got good effort marks at least, and had a lot of stuff, even if his ambition was sometimes bigger than his prowess. Scorpio was a natural in front of this crowd, coming out to his Slam Jam theme, dancing to Can't Touch This between rounds, etc. He was great at mixing his fighting from underneath with his selling, garnering both sympathy and admiration, but there's nothing new there. It's always nice to see it in a different setting. There were some stuff that felt off, both in Collins' execution, but also an arm drag or two that felt like they came way too late in the match. It was fine.


Ice Train vs. Big Titan

PAS: This was pretty fun, I am surprised that Ice Train never really went anywhere. He is big, agile and hit hard. I feel like he just got caught up in the churn of WCW, with too many guys under contract. Feels like the WWF might have been able to do something with him. I would have liked to see this run back a couple of years later with Big Titan as fake Diesel.  I especially liked Train's big second rope shoulder block, and Titan had a nice stiff clothesline.

MD: On a show with a number of big guys, Titan worked kind of small here, getting off his feet a lot on offense. I've heard him complain he was frustrated having to work like Diesel in the WWF because it neutered a lot of what he liked to do. I don't think it'd always have worked, but it did make for a nice contrast with Ice Train here. Train was still very green but charismatic with a couple of big memorable spots and a good act. I think he would have really done well ten years later, towards the end of the territories where he could go into a place for a few weeks as a special attraction tag team partner and move on before the act got stale.

ER: This was fine, but served more as proof that WCW really figured out how to present Ice Train. Ice Train matches in WCW were always 4-6 minute power sprints, so you got a big powerslam, big chops, big shoulderblocks, and then got the hell out of there. Here you see what happens with 10 minutes, and it's mostly Big Titan holding cravates and chinlocks. But this was fine! Because we also got a couple of great big man vertical suplexes, a couple of Train's big flying shoulder tackles, a beast of a standing lariat from Train, big missed splash from Titan, and Titan *did* have a nice cravat. I love the cravat variation of just pressing both palms against one side of a guy's head, rather than one hand twisting the chin. Here Titan just mashed palms into the left side of Ice Train's head, really introducing Train's right ear to his shoulder. Ice Train is a real heavy lander, one of the heaviest, and it rules. Other guys are bigger, but Ice Train lands with such weight that it really makes simple things like a standing splash or legdrop look colossal. And I also just realized that while Big E has the best standing splash of modern wrestlers, Ice Train probably had the best of his era. Big E is really working a spiritual Ice Train successor gimmick and that somehow makes me like both of them more.

Kama vs. Viktor Kruger

PAS: I thought this was a fine CWA heavyweight match. I am surprised that I liked Kama more than Kruger in this match. Kruger seemed a bit off, and Kama had a nice taped up right hand, and wins with a great looking huge spinebuster. I think I am more into C- heavyweight matches, then C- juniors matches like Scorp vs. Collins.

MD: Pre-match Kama came off like more of a star than he ever had in his career with any of his characters. He rode in on the back of a motorcycle to Thunderstruck and looked jacked (gassed?) to the gills. He juts seemed larger than life. The first minute or so worked out too, with him bumping around a bit. I think the reality of his bulk caught up to him after that, however. Kruger was disappointing. For a guy who clapped so much on the way to the ring, he really didn't seem to have any idea how to engage the crowd when working out of holds, and this match needed that badly.

ER: This was a pretty dull match with a very fun first 1 and final 3 minutes. Putting the best stuff in the first and final minutes at least makes it feel like a better waste of time, and saving big moments for the end is a smart structure for guys without a ton of big moments in them. I always forget how big Kruger is, as Kama is a huge man and Kruger matched him for size, basically Mike Awesome without any actual highspots. Kama routinely has heavyweight "pulling" matches, which are a time filler kind of heavyweight match that revolves around each guy just kind of pulling the other guy into things. Every transition is some variation of "okay I'm in the corner, now I'm going to pull you into the corner and now I am out of the corner, throwing slow punches at you, and then you kinda pull me into the corner and do the same" and you end up with a couple of giants just hitting soft shots and tugging each other around the ring for 10 minutes. But I loved Kama bumping for Kruger's shoulderblocks to start, and the big stuff down the stretch plays great: Kama's big Vader bomb into knees, Kruger's fantastic full steam lariat that sends Kama over the top to the floor, and Kama's high rotation spinebuster finish.

August Smisl/Tony St. Clair vs. Cannonball Grizzly/John Hawk

MD: The more I see Grizzly in these matches, the more I like him. He's a superheavyweight heel with a couple of good power spots that engages the crowd and that can go chickenshit and work vulnerable. That's one of my sweet spots if it works as a contrast to other things going on and here it absolutely did. This hit a lot of marks. Grizzly and Hawk controlled the ring well enough with plenty of cheating. St. Clair was fiery on the outside to screw his partner by distracting the ref. For the only tag match on the show, it was lacking a hot tag in the stretch. The first face win was off of a lightning power move reversal. The second one was off of a lightning cross body. There was a hot tag in the middle but so distanced from either of the finishes that it made the whole thing feel anti-climactic. None of the wrestling was bad. It just needed to be organized differently.

Fit Finlay vs. Franz Schuhmann

MD: This was excellent. Finlay was top notch here and Schuhmann was more than game in keeping up with him. Finlay was do-no-wrong beloved here which gave this a face-vs-face star-vs-star feel despite Fit absolutely acting like Fit, wrestling a merciless style and increasingly taking what advantages he could. He had a sort of shrugging charm that won the day. This went seven rounds with round three standing out especially as Finlay just moved from one piece of brutal business to the next, each one with purpose, always keeping the crowd engaged and active. It started with a powerbomb and ended with the reversal of one, telling a mini story within a few minutes. Schuhmann was able to get his revenge in the fourth (though it wasn't quite linear), with Finlay mounting an ambush at the start of the fifth and the two of them going back and forth until the end. The finish, with Fit stopping Schuhmann's momentum by catching him off the ropes and hitting the tombstone he was only able to attempt (and was reversed on) back in the fourth, was made all the better by Finlay waving his arms in elation right before he hit it.

PAS: I loved this too, mid 90s Finlay is pretty close to wrestling perfection and Schuhmann is a great dance partner. Schuhmann has really great looking suplexes, really popping his hips and dumping Finlay on the back of his neck. Finlay was a big bumper at this point too, he just flies over the top rope, and takes all of Schuhmann's moves in painful ways, Schuhmann applies maybe the greatest drop toe hold I have ever seen with Finlay looking like he tore his MCL going down. Of course he is an all time great offensive wrestler too, and we get some of the great Finlay signature spots, knees right to the nose, hard unforgiving bodyslams and an absolutely brutal hard tombstone finish. Rounds match can always be a bit choppy, but the actual wrestling in this match was tremendous.

ER: I honestly don't think there is another wrestler better at execution, illusion of violence, or selling than Fit Finlay. I think Lawler is his best competition, but 90s Finlay especially looks like my exact vision of perfect pro wrestling. This is one of his greatest performances (think of the ground that covers), and it's even better because this also happens to be the greatest performance I've ever seen from Franz Schuhmann. Finlay has this special ability of elevating nearly every opponent to his game, not necesarily working a match around an opponent's strengths, but actually getting his opponents to work up to him. If they don't they'll get left behind by way of cruel beating; if they're game, he rewards them by making their offense look better than ever before. In this match alone Finlay rewards a great dropkick by flying impossibly fast over the top to the floor, takes a bridged German suplex so perfectly that it should be motion captured, and takes a drop toehold and manages to make it look like Jaws was biting through his leg. This match could have been a total flop, and this drop toehold would have made it infinitely memorable. Schuhmann grabbed such a perfect grapevine of that leg, and Finlay sold it in a few nasty stages: Screaming out in anguish as it's applied, buckling a knee while fighting to stay standing, going down hard and grabbing for his leg when he realized his struggle could have injured him further. What a moment. His offense was as great as expected, one of the few men who can make a nerve hold genuinely look like the best way possible to bring a man to his knees in pain, grabbing Schuhmann's trapezius and forcing him to the mat, yanking his head back by the maxilla, and dropping a 12 to 6 elbow right across Schuhmann's nose. It's a classic Finlay sequence, and yet he never makes it look like he's going through any kind of motions. The tombstone Finlay finishes this classic with is one of the greatest I've seen, Finlay joyously catching Schuhmann and dropping hard to his knees, Schuhmann held cruelly at a bent neck angle before being left to flop dead to the mat. This was magic.

Keiji Mutoh vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: I'm not even sure how I'd classify this, maybe as an "overperforming, lost, late Neidhart performance." I really liked his presence here, coming out to Alice Cooper, chumming around with Kauroff, having Mutoh pull his beard, clubbering him on a table on the outside. It got a little hold heavy in the middle (though I was happy to see the Anvilizer, his Summer 1993 WCW finishing Cobra Clutch). This was ultimately more of a Neidhart match than a Mutoh match, though he got some of his stuff in at the end, but I'm not sure it would have worked any other way. Honestly, I think we all would have been better off with Collins/Neidhart vs. Scorpio/Mutoh.

Rambo vs. Ludwig Borga 

MD: Midway through this match (at the point where Rambo outright missed a jumping back elbow), I had the conscious thought "Well, at least Eric is probably going to go out of his way to watch the Finlay match too." This wasn't good. Rambo was more giving than I've seen him in this footage, but it didn't really matter. This had the same sort of dynamic as Finlay vs. Schumann, just with more of a heavyweight "clash of the titans" feel, but couldn't at all follow it. Too much of the crowd was behind Borga and while he laid in the cheapshots and eased into the heel role in the match, he just didn't go far enough with it for what they were trying to do. He neither lost nor excited the portion of the crowd that had been cheering him, so Rambo could only get so much support. It built into a few good nearfalls towards the end but then just sort of ended in a way no one in the crowd would even remember the next day. It probably could have used more violence on the outside as well. It just needed more sharply drawn lines, really just more volume on everything that it tried to do.

ER: I was actually really into this, and perhaps all the HBK tribute acts of all shapes and sizes have just made me more excited for slower paced 90s house show heavyweight style. I thought Borga was great here, really played a brick wall bully who still bumped for bigger Rambo spots. If you looked at the overall match you could think that Borga dominated this one, but there were key moments at the ends of rounds that showed Rambo may have been a victim of bad timing. Borga was much slower getting up at the end of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the first after attempting to throw Rambo with a suplex while trapped in a headlock, and the second after eating a nice vertical suplex back into the ring. After two straight round breaks of Borga being slow to his feet, it's no surprise that he ends the next two rounds with cheap shots and warnings. You get the sense that Rambo could have beaten him had his timing and placement been a little more fortunate. But Borga's performance elevated this for me, as he works slow bruiser really well, making his strikes really resonate and allowing time for them to be sold. Big Borga hooks to the kidneys or breadbox look devastating, so I love that he doesn't make them useless with overuse, instead landing one big shot at a time, one big punch to the gut, one big downward strike elbow right to Rambo's chest, one big clubbing shot across the shoulder blades, really getting across the power of his strikes.

I liked the way Borga laid out big misses that sometimes later lead to big hits, like a big missed avalanche that gave Rambo an early opening, that we later got to see cashed in when Borga actually hits this big avalanche (getting enough height to also get tangled in the ropes, which made it look like the impact of the avalanche was really drove home); or, when he got brought back in the ring with that vertical suplex, and later walked Rambo over to the same location to give Rambo his own suplex, dropping him hard across the top rope with a front suplex. I even loved how Borga handled Rambo's awkward missed back elbow, as instead of selling it (which I imagine a missed leaping back elbow would almost always lead to both guys lying on the mat figuring out how to recover), Borga immediately drops down and grabs a nice grounded side headlock. Borga also showed tons of weakness on the floor, crashing into a table that gets shoved into the crowd, then eating an awesome ringpost shot (he and Lesnar really show that 100% of the guys who look like them, also take really great post shots), always going down for Rambo's biggest shots. The finish could have been better, as I kept expecting a Rambo final comeback, but instead they just had Rambo die a slow death. But even down the stretch I was into the attention to details from Borga, like his super low swinging missed clothesline, or the specific way he choked Rambo over the bottom rope, or how he just stepped right on Rambo's face as Rambo was trying to get back in the ring. That kind of stuff will always elevate a match for me, and Borga had plenty of that.

PAS: I am sort of in the middle on this match, don't dislike it at much as Matt, but think Eric is pretty severely overrating it. Borga is a guy who is always fun to watch and I will always be down for him bulldozing someone in the corner and unloading those beautiful hooks to the body. I am someone who always loved throwing body shots back in my boxing days, and Borga is really one of the only professional wrestlers ever to make a body shot look great. Rambo was real bad in this though, the best Borga matches have been him going to war with a fellow big hitters like Hashimoto or Vader, Rambo just had nothing on his stuff, and it was tough to watch Borga try to credibly sell for bad looking corner punches or lame bulldogs. He tried his best, but this was a one man show, and as much as I enjoy Borga he isn't pulling off both sides of a match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Kassius vs. Darby

36. Darby Allin vs. Kassius Ohno EVOLVE 117 12/15

PAS: The year of Darby Allin continues, as he has put forth one of the best singles match runs in US Indy history over the last year. This follows the classic Allin structure of taking a 1993 level Kikuchi beating while mixing in 1993 level Rey Mysterio Jr. lucha highflying. Hero is really great at basing for lucha moves, which is even more impressive as he approaches Kraneo level fatness. It is one thing to watch skinny fat Hero take Quackenbush ranas in 2002, quite another level of impressive to watch him eat Allin armdrags at Buddy Rose size in 2019. I really like how Hero used his girth in this match, he broke out a legdrop that looked like it flattened Allin's head and a senton on the apron which felt like it powdered his ribs. Allin had some fun comebacks, but the end of the match was Hero brutalizing Allin with elbows while Allin refused to lay down. Ohno is the Ricky Jay of the leg slap, one of the few guys to make that trick look great, and he really seems to be concussing Allin with every shot. Good use of the one count here, as Allin wasn't no selling, he was more like a gutter punk who wouldn't give up his lucky guitar pick no matter how many times you stabbed him.

ER: I've been on an Ohno kick lately (for the last 20 years or so), and scrolling through some recent matches I realized I had forgotten that he and Allin had crossed paths one time, about a year ago. Phil wrote this up around the time it happened and I forgot about it, but the two of them haven't matched up since so it still feels fresh to me! And while I do think we got a few too many kickouts down the stretch, this lived up to the on paper potential for me. It's hard to work a compelling 20 minute match where the offense is split 90/10, but most 90s aren't as great as Ohno, and most underdog 10s aren't as great as Allin. The first half of this felt like a Yokozuna/1-2-3 Kid match that might have popped up on Coliseum Video, Ohno just using his weight and size to brick wall Allin and then topple those bricks onto all parts of Allin's body. Ohno tossed out big sentons, a heavy legdrop, his flawless full extension kicks, elbows to the jaw, and far too many elbows to the back of the head. Ohno is super punishing and he only looks more punishing against wrestling's best ragdoll. Ohno boots Darby into the crowd, catches a dive and chucks him into the apron, yanks him around by the wrist, really lays down the kind of beating that Ohno and few others can lay down. Allin made the most of his comebacks: his early armdrags got breathtaking height on his early armdrags, makes the code red look credible with the size difference, and is always so quick to hit his low rope dive and springboard tornillo pin that it really does seem plausible that Ohno could get beaten by speed. I did think we went a couple kickouts too far, as there were a couple of shots that felt too big to kick out of, namely the elbow shot that saw Ohno King Kong Darby's airplane out of the sky. But I do like that the kickouts weren't actually leading to some big comeback, and that jumps out as a positive. Darby was only hurting himself by kicking out so much, as Ohno can be both incredulous at the kickouts and still have no problem throwing another elbow at Darby's cerebellum. And isn't elbows hitting cerebellums all we really wanted?


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 2/19/20

What Worked

PAS: I think overall the tag battle royal worked although there was almost as much I didn't like as I liked. Jack Evans may be the most underused wrestler around. At least Drew Gulak got the Cruiserweight run and Ohno gets to have matches on NXT UK that no one but me and Eric watch. I can't believe we got a super long Chuck Taylor run and Evans was the first guy out. The lack of heavyweights was really exposed too, the Lucharesu vs. Butcher showdown was the worst big guy face off in battle royal history, weak strikes and whatever the hell that clothesline thing was. I am not a Bucks guy, but I dug the finish run, and our boy Sammy gets the spot of the match (even though he wasn't in the match) absolutely dying flying right into a superkick.

PAS: Got to love Raven buying a ticket and trying to carney his way into a payday. Hustlers hustle.

PAS: I liked Nyla Rose's promo a bunch, had a very Mark Henry feel. "I cut her strings"

PAS: I thought Cobb and Moxley was a bit too New Japanish for me to truly love it, but Cobb is a great addition and will always throw out some amazing stuff, and Mox is a pretty big guy to get chucked the way Cobb will chuck you. I liked the escape finish by Moxley and the post match brawl was great, and I absolutely love how over Darby Allin is now. They turned Darby into Sting which is pretty great.

ER: Man that tag title match was maybe the best version so far of "AEW: The Match". After watching that exhausting and not very satisfying NXT TakeOver this past weekend, I was pretty burned. And these guys - many of whom I don't really like - went out there and felt like they actually purposely started things out slow, until things kept ramping up, famous video game finishers got kicked out of, and they felt like they earned their chants and really had the crowd eating out of their palms. NXT was tiring, 2.5 hours of Mauro screaming at me while the matches sprinted like the derby scene in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I would have loved to hear Gig Young call this match. I wasn't expecting restraint to start and it really got me onboard early. It was somehow the same thing as NXT, but different and done better. Not everything worked. Pentagon has a habit of leaning out of some things, and some Page offense is still silly and insulting to cowboy gimmicks, but those two also contributed. Page hit a really great moonsault to the floor to cap off a crazy sequence, and Pentagon really can die on things and has a great sense of timing. This really stepped up when Omega and Pentagon had their apron sequence, throwing big chops and playing to the fans, Pentagon hitting a great enziguiri to the face, Omega hitting a V-cutter to cut off Pentagon's catch phrase comedy (I will always cheer someone who does that), and ending with Fenix speedwalking the ropes and booting Omega right in the teeth. Fenix was on something else here, already usually one of the more breathtaking flyers, and here on a good night. His missile dropkicks hit like missiles, that ropewalk kick was spectacular, and he breaks out a tornillo so effortlessly that it makes no sense. We get a couple of too big kickouts, but we didn't get any silly pop up no sells or anything, just unlikely kickouts that still lead to the finish. It was definitely an AEW match, which has been a style that I have spent many weeks now not always enjoying, but I thought this was a standout within the style. Their connection to the crowd really felt like they were taking the match on all of the exact turns the crowd wanted them to take. Yowza Yowza Yowza.

ER: Main event cage match was really well done too. Cody is becoming pretty undeniable in the ring at this point. He's a real main event bleeder, and that's going to stand out in a big way since that's not a thing happening on America's main wrestling stage. Cody really made that cage match feel big. Wardlow has been built up to a degree by AEW having him not wrestle for his entire time there, so debuting as more than muscle in a main event cage came off big. Cody ragdolled well and made all of the big moments feel big. I thought the Arn cage door moment would come off cheesy with MJF making faces in the background, but Arn's timing is still strong and his swing into MJF's face was perfect. They really filmed the cage to make it look 20 feet tall, Made the festivities come off crazier, and Cody's match ending moonsault off the top looked wild shot from below. This capped off probably the strongest hour of AEW TV yet. Awesome showing.


What Didn't Work

PAS: I have no idea why Shanna is always in these really long TV matches that should be squashes. I was amused at Britt Baker fucking with Tony Schiavone and Ross being disgusted with Statlander's Alien bullshit. Statlander is tall and athletic I guess, but I very much don't see it.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Tony Oliver! Bert Royal! Michael Chaisne! DR. ADOLF KAISER!

SR: We get about 5 minutes of Claude Dreyfus vs. Daniel (or Marcel) Parmentier.  Even in those 5 minutes you got a lot of character work. Parmentier was a grimacing old veteran heel and an absolute fox handing out cheapshots and faking injuries. I especially liked when he crawled underneath the referee so he could hit his opponent. Dreyfus was a younger wrestler and had some typically nifty athletic moves. Nasty finish with Dreyfus going for a rana only to get planted by a powerbomb.

MD: They packed a lot into these five minutes. The initial exchange in the footage had Dreyfus going up and over into a trip out of a lock up, Parmentier refusing to break clean after they end up in the ropes, and then Dreyfus getting revenge with three huge chops, and an insult to injury jackknife roll up in the corner with his feet perfectly dangling in the ropes. I've never seen its like. That finish was about thirty-five years before its time. Dreyfus was a little all over the place but definitely imaginative and Parmentier was a mean mug. I'd be happy to see these guys again.

Tony Oliver vs. Bert Royal 2/22/57

SR: Awesome, awesome fight. I was excited to see Bert Royal, a really neat WoS guy with all too little footage, showing up as a young lad in France 13 years before his WoS material. Tony Oliver is, I assume, another Spanish worker, and like all Spanish workers we‘ve seen so far he is really awesome. This was nasty, grinding title fight, 1 fall over 35 minutes. The wrestling equivalent to seeing Ali slugging it out with someone over 12 rounds. Great mix of wrestling and beating the shit out of each other. Oliver was the kind of worker who was all about inside shots and grinding his knuckles really hard into his opponent. Anytime he got an advantage he would dig his fist into Berts face, elbow to the stomach , bite, or hammer him in the ribs. There was a lengthy section where he was just trying to pull Royals knee apart. He also has really awesome mannerisms, like he gets so upset at the audience booing his tactics in hilarious ways, he is totally the hero of his own story. Later he takes the chance to stomp the referee, which was such an amusing psycho move. When Royal gets fed up and starts firing away with those forearms, Oliver is really awesome flopping around wobbly headed, it was amazing to watch. Royal is mostly on the receiving end of Olivers cheapshots, but he busts out some really cool fast movements here and there, he also has his awesome signature backslide submission hold and a really cool Tiger Mask spin into a victory roll. I loved how intense they worked the pin attempts, I am so mad workers nowadays have no sense for that kind of thing. Oliver also really knows how to escalate things, he is basically throwing shots the whole match, but when he drops his knee on Royals throat or stomps him in the back of the head it really feels like he crossed the line. It builds to this really intense frenzy, Royal taking bumps to the outside, Oliver getting pasted with a big palm strike (!!), both guys trading forearms on the floor, nasty use of the ring ropes, awesome finish. Post match Oliver shows some class, which I guess is a nice conclusion to his story, since we seemingly won‘t see him again. It‘s really amazing that we all got interested in French wrestling by guys doing improbable athletic shit in black and white matches, and then France keeps throwing completely different things at you that end up being really awesome.

MD: Just a lot to parse through here. It was a title match and it felt like one, with a lot of the trappings you'd expect from a long Race defense years later. Oliver was fascinating to watch. He was absolutely hyperactive, to the point where I wonder if he shouldn't have been medicated. He couldn't stand still, which played out in his work in any number of ways but the most interesting might have been his need to constantly pepper cheapshots in. It worked against him for most of the match. He couldn't just pin his opponent; he had to try to sneak three shots into the ribs or pull too much on the tights. He couldn't hang on to a submission; he had to keep trying to get some sort of extra advantage even at the cost of losing the hold. He did damage, but it was all probably counterproductive as the ref was firmly against him (and for good reason).

That middle section with the legwork, including frequent punches and grinding his knuckle into the knee, really worked for me, not the least of which because Royal sold a limb as much as anyone we've seen in this footage so far. Like a long title match, however, they transitioned out of it and into other things, but believably enough. It's almost impossible to write these up because there's just so much. For instance, Sebastian mentioned the cool backslide backbreaker submission, but it was set up by a few great dropkicks and Oliver bumping into the corner like a champ (and this was in response to Oliver utilizing some hand manipulation out of an armbar that he gave up to throw a nasty hammer, and after Oliver got out of the backbreaker by pulling the hair, Royal was right after him with rabbit punches and a shot with the ropes, and, and, and). The finish was perfect for the match, smooth as anything out of rope-running that they spent much of the match escalating towards. Forget modernity: this is the best way you'll spend thirty-five minutes watching wrestling this month.

PAS: This was a stone cold classic match. It is up there with Cesca vs. Cantanzarro and I could honestly see putting it above it on a list of all time French Catch matches. Bert Royal is in our 1971 MOTY, but this is a very different Bert Royal. We saw Tony's brother Jim earlier in the footage, and from the only two matches we get it looks like the Oliver brothers are up there with the best pair of brothers in wrestling history. I cannot overstate how much I loved Tony Oliver in this match. He was Masa Fuchi on speed, constantly driving his knuckles into parts of Royal's body in this torturous way, and then flying into big bumps and exchanges. It was so much fun to watch him lay in his cheap shots, including finding ways to plausibly stomp the referee without getting DQed. Royal was super cool too, I loved his early almost maestroish mat work, and later he lost his cool and matched Oliver blow for blow including a stomp to the back of the head which looked legitimately concussive. The final stanza was pretty wild with both guys spilling to the floor, some kinetic rope running and a deep backslide finish which was about as good of a flash pin as I can remember seeing.


Dr. Adolf Kaiser vs. Michel Chaisne  2/28/57

ON DR. ADOLF KAISER:

(from our correspondent in Paris, Alfred Lang, 1957)

„(…) French television has about half a million subscribed viewers. From experience, there are roughly 4 people watching every TV set at a time. A forum of an estimated 2 million watches both the speeches of head of government Mollet aswell as the appearances of Dr. phil Adolf Kaiser. (…) He is introduced to the French people as a German champion of Catch, and a Doctor of Philosophy. This man likely does not a speak a lick of German, he is slightly more repulsive than the musclemen who normally practise the noble sport of Catch, his face is more animal-like, and he looks like a lusty murderer in a fifth category American movie, who is brought down in the last scene by magnanimous G-man with a colt. The partner of this splendid German is usually chosen to be a good looking, sporty young man, whose pleasant task it is to get demolished by this supposed Adolf Kaiser over several rounds and finally be caught in this Germanic catcheurs gruesome stranglehold and sink to the ground, not completely soulless but unconscious, and be carried to the back in a solemn procession. The crowd completely loses it during these battles which are likely carefully choreographed beforehand. „Sale boche“ - „Beat the nazi to death“ is one of the more moderate chants. (…) Once the „Actual Report“ is over and the charming face of the host appears on the screen, 2 million people, surely a third of them children breathe a sign of relief, telling each other what a nameless swine this boche Adolf Kaiser is. The adults will listen to Monsieur Mollet excitedly talking about the French-German friendship the next day. People will be educated on the new epoch of French history in schools by well meaning teachers, but this Adolf Kaiser, German doctor of philosophy, will continue to haunt their minds until the next Friday, when 500 000 TV sets will be turned on once more to educate 2 million people on the German horror...“

SR: I have read about Dr. Adolf Kaiser, aka Hans Waldherr before. A german reporter, I think from Der Spiegel or Stern, saw him on TV in France and then wrote a rage filled article (see above) about Dr. Kaiser, who was portraying an evil German on French television, which supposedly had a toxic effect on the relations between France and Germany. I assume this was maybe the earliest appearance of Dr. Kaiser, since he gets a respectful reaction from the crowd at his introduction. I was expecting Adolf Kaiser, Doctor of Philosophy to be this outrageously evil and brutal character, but he was a fairly classy worker and he wore leopard trunks of all things. He surprised Chaisne with a nice leg trip and wrist attack, later he locks in a cool double armlock that a luchador could steal. It made me wonder how technical German and Austrian workers could get, I guess simply everyone in Europe then was some awesome wrestling genius. However, it soon became apparent where the bout was gonna go, since Kaiser was eager to show ass, bump big and throw inside shots. His animalistic body language and antics also had „evil“ written all over them. Chaisne soon started to give Kaiser the business with some nasty nasty knee scrapes and laying in the uppercuts. I almost thought it was too much too early, since Kaiser hadn‘t done anything that nasty compared to the heels we saw on French TV before, but I guess when you‘re a German named Adolf Kaiser working in France you gotta be prepared to eat some uppercuts. Wrestling wise there was some cool body scissors work and the Dr. showing he could wrestle even when he would gladly take shortcuts. Chaisne is another worker we‘ll see many times until the very 80s and he looked veritable here. He seemed to have the match in the bag until Kaiser launched him outside and rammed his head into the ringpost. Chaisne came up bloody and fell to an Indian Deathlock coupled with the dreaded nerve hold from the Dr. Afterwards Chaisne has to be carried to the back with everyone acting all concerned. Really nifty TV bout which was oozing with character all the way through.

MD: I'm glad to have the backstory on Kaiser, even though I lament the philosophy degree being worked. The crowd seemed fairly frustrated with both of these guys. We see nominal babyfaces really brutalize the heels at times in this French footage, but here it made this come off as more heel vs heel with the crowd booing both wrestlers accordingly. Kaiser leapt into his character and the match figuratively and literally, missing four or five dives. My favorite exchange in here (which sums the first two thirds up well) was Kaiser taking both of Chaisne's arms and dropping them hard onto the mat, only to scurry away hilariously on his back from the revenge armbar. It was a weird mix of comedy (with funny fingers-in-ear spots for instance), legitimately great wrestling (at one point, Kaiser did this amazing escape out of a headscissors by pressing his own feet into the ropes for a quick burst of leverage), and the two guys just being absolutely mean and uncooperative with one another (that headscissors escape was followed up by Kaiser tossing the ref into Chaisne, missing a dive, and getting kicked square in the skull for his trouble). Ultimately, that last bit won out and Kaiser's brutal posting out of nowhere gave him the match. It's good we will get to see these two again because I think I'd get a better sense of both of them against different opponents.

PAS: I thought this was really cool, we have seen better matches in this project, but something about Kaiser really connected with me. He was such a twitchy creep, like if Dennis Hopper was playing a Nazi wrestler. I loved how he would dive suddenly at the feet of his opponent, or dig his fingers into muscles. Really liked Chaisne too, he was really brutal, those knee scrapes to the face were over the top in a great way. Both guys were clearly super technically sound in addition to being violent fucks. Finish was awesome as you could tell they rarely did things like ringpost shots, and I could totally see that violent finish setting up Kaiser as a some sort of wrestling icon. The wrestlers carrying a bloody KO'ed Chaisne to the back was a pretty iconic image.

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