New Footage Friday: TEMPERS! PRIMO! CANDIDO! HASH! TAYLOR!!

Shinya Hashimoto/Col. Brody/Wojtek Polanski vs. Franz Schuhmann/Dave Taylor/"Herkules" Greg Boyd  CWA 7/8/89

MD: This was a lot of fun. It felt looser than a normal tag, like how falls come more easily in a Survivor Series match. I've been veering away a bit from Col. Brody in all of the new footage we've gotten and maybe that's been a mistake. He was pretty engaging and dynamic here. This was a relatively unique setting for Taylor and he was more of an energetic babyface than I'm used to, but he played the role well. I loved the hair-pull/mustache-pull spot at the start especially because I thought the latter would come out of the headlock but they delayed it for just an extra moment. Hashimoto was cartoony in the best way. It's a shame we only had a little bit of him vs Taylor but, for the setting, it was just what you'd expect. The shift in wrestling norms because of how much they were trying to fit into a short period of time was a little jarring, but I'd certainly like to see a few more of these.

PAS: Really fun heel team here, Polanski is a guy I hadn't seen before, but was a big mustachoed bruiser with good clubbing forearms, Brody had good shtick too, and Hashimoto is an all time great. He is hamming it up a bit, but we do get an awesome spin kick to the gut and some big chops. Taylor as a big time babyface tag wrestler was nifty, he was a super versatile wrestler who could do a lot of different things. I loved his double monkey flip, an awesome Tommy Rogerish spot. It felt like they packed a lot in 10 minutes, and could have used some time to stretch out, but I really enjoyed it.

ER: This didn't do much for me. All the quick easy pins made it feel like a joyless version of an All Japan battle royal, where if someone fell onto their back they were automatically pinned. In this match it didn't matter what put them on the mat, if anything at all caused them to fall on their back, they were toast. There were small pleasures to be found, sure. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hashimoto work so silly, hitting a great spinkick under Taylor's chin and then giving us some "Look at my Japanese karate" poses after, including a karate crotch chop? Dave Taylor was a fired up babyface and I really wish we could have devoted this time to a Dave Taylor singles match against any one of the heels. Taylor had an awesome moment in the turnbuckles where he tied up Brody with a body vice, Brody breaks it, and Taylor grabs a headscissors and flings Brody over the top to the floor. Brody is a guy I'd like to see more, as he plays - in size and shape - exactly like Col. DeBeers, but without the stooging bumps. He's got a great big mustache and we get a fun bit of Taylor really gripping those handlebars before being scolded by the ref. Wojtek Polanski looked like a gassed Santa and has the most Polish wrestler name possible. Sadly, we don't have much footage of him, as his helicopter crashed when the Polish pilot got hot and decided to turn the fan off.

Eddie Colon vs. Chris Candido WWC 7/03

MD: This was a really good TV match to further the feud and set up Stacy Colon being in Eddie's corner at a bigger show. Despite that and despite the fact that there was a pretty sparse looking crowd which the audio mixing muted even further, they went really big. We're talking early tope, springboard placha, suplex from the apron to the floor that Candido shouldn't have been taking, missed flipping senton off the top big. Big. Primo was 21 and had been wrestling for a couple of years but not everything looked super smooth, but he had the right idea in general. Candido was great, very giving before his cut offs and perfectly sound in weaving in the bigger 2003 spots and stooging just as much as he should against this particular opponent and not a bit more. I love how he worked in a blatant low blow just because he was wrestling in PR and that was the language down there. My favorite spot in this was probably Colon's big moment at the end where he blocked a powerslam off the ropes (which was the move that gave Candido a fairly early advantage) and hit a standing tornado DDT (which is something he got jammed on in the corner earlier) was a nice little callback/payoff. I thought Tammy was excellent here, both in being completely engaged and supportive on the floor and her reaction to finding out Colon's sister was going to be involved in the rematch, but Candido had the best line when he griped that Colon was ruining his "happy, happy home."

PAS: Candido is really the guy you want in 2003 to lead a green highflyer through a match. We get Chris in his Terry Funk pants and he isn't full Funk but does his share of bumbling and bumping. I especially liked the tailbone bump to the floor off the rana, and I imagine much of Primo's big spots would look much worse if there wasn't a consummate pro there to run interference. I think we would have been better off with a little more brawling and shtick and 20% less moves, but 2003 Primo clearly wanted to do ROH.

ER: I love the YouTube thumbnail for this, which looks like someone interrupted Candido and Sunny while they were at lunch. Watching Candido in his final couple years is a real bummer, as he seems kind of on auto pilot but then seeing him in the ring on auto pilot it was clear he had a lot left. He had all of these sequences down pat and clearly lead this from bell to bell. Eddie was really young but had a nice left hand and some fearless lean into spots, and I would have liked to see him utilize that left hand a lot more. Candido bumbling around from that left could fill an entire match, but Candido opted to fill it with a lot of offense. Candido wastes Eddie on an early powerbomb (kinda surprising he'd go to that so early in a match), drops him with a couple Germans, hits a great tope, and Eddie flies into everything. Eddie had some real big misses, including a corkscrew moonsault to nothing and running headlong into a Candido clothesline. Sunny was the one really on fire here, she had every single ringside move nailed, had a perfectly timed spot where she yanked Eddie's legs, jumped into the ring to break up a pin by rubbing the ref's face in her chest (even though it looked like the ref was just expecting her to grab his arm, funny if she opted for face to boobs as an audible), and shrieks advice to Chris. Candido splats nicely on bumps, peaking with a huge bump over the top that lands him right on his ass on the hard ground. This made me curious about what other dad bod era Candido gold might be out there, as I've really only seen him in IWA and TNA, didn't even realize he was working Puerto Rico. Stick around for the Sunny/Chris promo after the match (where that YouTube thumbnail came from) to watch them work an amusing comic heel promo.

Andrew Alexander vs. Shaun Tempers Empire Wrestling 2/10/14

MD: For the most part, this was the sort of chain match that you hope all chain matches are and only about half ever become. There was no corner touching. It was pinfall or submission. The blood came early as Alexander wasn't about to put up with Tempers' antics. The chain was teased with big whips at the start but then used immediately thereafter and used often. They had some clever spots but nothing that took you out of the idea that they were trying to hurt each other, including a chain assisted running plancha which actually made for one of the most believable dives ever, as Tempers had nowhere to go. There couldn't have possibly been a cleaner heel/face divide with both wrestlers acting appropriately, with Tempers getting advantage through a lucky reversal or distraction. Unexpectedly, I didn't love Alexander's punches. They felt pretty out of place in a match where everyone was using the chain as a weapon. Not a big thing in the grand scheme though. The finish was maybe a bit much too, with a ref bump, a couple of phantom pins, and interference that would have made more sense in context, but the chain assisted neckbreaker and Alexander's spastic selling were both picture perfect for the match.

PAS: These GA Indy feds really know how to run gimmick matches, we have reviewed some great War Games from this area and this is an old school dog collar match done right. Alexander takes it to Tempers early and opens him up, with Tempers able to get some advantages through viciousness and dastardliness. They never got too fancy, with a couple of big spots, Alexander doing this great counter of a posting attempt, and the dive Matt mentioned working great. Mostly this was just old fashioned chain assisted violence, and while I agree they probably didn't need the gaga at the finish, that neckbreaker with the chain was a killer finish. At some point I need to just do a giant deep dive into GA indy wrestling.

ER: This was great, and while watching it dawned on me how entirely absent this type of match is from the current wrestling landscape. There is a major absence of matches involving one man hitting another man with fists and choking him with a big chain. We added a great dog collar match to our 2020 MOTY List, but that was very much a blown out 2020 indy epic masquerading as a dog collar match. That match felt more like the multi stipulation Hacksaw/Sawyer match than "merely" just a dog collar match. At the other end of the spectrum we have death match wrestling making a curious head poke into mainstream acceptability, and yet nobody out there is just running a straight up dog collar match. This cuts out all the bullshit, no touching corners, just touching fist to face and wrapping that chain painfully around your opponent. Alexander really felt like a guy working a dog collar match in 1986, as he had great punches (left AND right hands), an awesome kneelift, took a gigantic fast bump over the top (even crazier when compared to Tempers much more sane bump to the apron later), and hits a bonkers no hands dive over the top as a fantastic late match highspot. There were some unnecessary shenanigans at the end, a ref bump and a ball shot and a stopped ref count when he notices Alexander came out of his collar, but the finish itself was excellent. After the ball kick from Tempers, he wraps the chain tight around Alexander's throat, and the panicked selling from Alexander was so good that it made me question just how anybody would have actually known if that chain was too tight or not. Tempers gives him a vicious Rude Awakening, snapping that chain wrapped throat over his shoulder, and Alexander does a great convulsive sell during the pin. This really captured the feeling of classic dog collar matches, the kind of match that looks even better now than when it happened.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO