RIP Bullet

Bob Armstrong/Eddie Graham vs. Dick Murdoch/Bob Roop Florida 12/28/74

ER: This is only a 6 minute clip, but there is so much value in these 6 minutes that of course you have to see it. It's one of those tags where the ref never seems to have control, with all four combatants and Gary Hart running around potatoing each other at will. Armstrong is too much fun to watch in this, as he wiggles and glides and dances his way into and out of the ring, firing downward punches and elbows, giddily hopping and bopping into the action. All of the bumps in the match are cool and off balance, more guys spiraling away and stumbling out of punches than guys taking back bumps off strikes. Eddie Graham was a good staggerer and great at coming in with a well timed punch, and I loved seeing he and Roop grapple. All of their standing lock ups look tough as hell, constant struggle, and Roop crushes Graham with his shoulderbreaker down the stretch, which looks just as violent in 2020 as it did in 1974. Murdoch was a major standout, as while Bob is wiggling and punching his way through things, Murdoch is working everything. His belly is big but he is fast, and he runs this entire show. He's a great heel bumper here, not over stooging, but in there to be a threat while also making the babyfaces look like a threat. I loved him and Bob fighting over a brainbuster, how Murdoch's legs wobble when he's eating Armstrong's punches or getting a chair shoved into his face, how athletically he spills to the floor while not looking at all athletic. A lot of this was a battle on just who to focus on, because these guys all do interesting things when they're not even in the match.


Bob Armstrong vs. The Mongolian Stomper NWA Mid-Atlantic 9/9/75

ER: This was a ton of fun but stopped right when things were getting great, but what we got rules. It's a hot Mid-South Coliseum crowd and Lance Russell is calling the action, meaning it sounds the exact way wrestling should sound. Stomper is an absolute physical specimen. Armstrong is also as in shape as he always was, but Stomper looks like a final boss. It's based nearly entirely around the tightest side headlocks you've seen, with both men using their big arms to try and separate each other's melons from their shoulders. Stomper gets shot into the ropes, Bob leapfrogs over and flies backwards with a back elbow, with Stomper slipping to the floor to avoid the big elbowdrop. Back in, and there is a ton of super engaging Armstrong side headlock work. Armstrong has the most apropos surname ever, and Stomper is a master at being an oversized heel going through all the physical throes of being trapped in a snug headlock. When Stomper finally gets loose of it he flings Armstrong into the corner, Armstrong leaps gracefully to the middle buckle and hits an axe handle. Stomper is super generous here (no doubt building to running this match back a few times) and just stooges all over for Bullet, never managing to block a single kick, punch, or chop, and falling prey to every single leapfrog. There's a great theatrical ref bump where Armstrong runs the ropes so fast that Stomper runs him right into the ref after a dropdown, and the ref flops around fantastically after taking an Armstrong shoulderblock. If that shoulderblock is enough to send a mountain like Stomper to the mat, what would it do to a mere referee? Armstrong gets the pin after a big elbow, but Stomper grabs his belt and Gulas sets up the title match that I don't think I have access to. Armstrong knew how to make the most out of the most basic pro wrestling movements, and Stomper is the same thing, heel category. It's a special thing seeing them play off each other.


Bob Armstrong vs. The Mongolian Stomper NWA Mid-America 9/16/75

ER: This is under 5 minutes, not a full match, but it's essential. It's the final few minutes of a rowdy bloody match for Stomper's Southern Heavyweight title, and we get it before the blood starts flowing. They throw big swinging punches and constantly have to be separated before throwing at each other more. Armstrong gets busted open and Stomper doesn't go for anything other than working that cut for the rest of the match. Armstrong's face is covered and Stomper has Armstrong's blood on his legs and body. Bob is not someone who grows squeamish at the sight of his own blood, and it just inspires him to bust Stomper's head open. Not long in, and this loses all pretense of a wrestling match and it becomes a fight. It's so great, just the two of them clutching at each other's heads and refusing to break holds as they strangle each other on the apron. This was an expertly done non-finish, the kind of bloody realism that made you forget there had even been a match happening.


The Bullet/Adrian Street vs. Robert Fuller/Jimmy Golden Continental 9/1/86

ER: Not a Bullet showcase by any means, but a showcase in strange bedfellows. I don't know how much babyface Adrian Street I've seen, but a Bullet/Street babyface team is a fun idea, especially with Fuller and Golden to bump around acting confused by Street's wiles being turned on them. Street freaks everyone out, goes after the ref, goes after Golden and angers him by making him feel things, really gets under the skin of Kevin Sullivan on commentary, is constantly backing Golden up on his heels. Everybody was confounded by street, and the dichotomy was more amusing because of how much Golden and Fuller towered over him. Bullet was the guy saving Street throughout, and I liked the few moments they worked together. Bullet hitting Golden with an atomic drop, sending him flying forward into a Street kiss, sending Golden bumping wildly backwards (selling the kiss 4x as much as he sold the atomic drop) is pro wrestling. Bullet basically worked this match as Street's groomer, dragging Golden to their corner to be assaulted, and punching him in Street's direction for more kissing. Fuller and Golden finally cut Street off from Bullet, and I loved Fuller choking Street from the apron, Bullet getting a hot tag but the ref missing it, and finally Bullet going after Fuller on the floor. Tom Prichard runs out and things get gross with him forcing kisses on Miss Linda while Sullivan talks about how she's getting it finally from a real man. Luckily Steve Armstrong runs the heels off, wearing a neck brace and short white OP shorts.

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WWF 305 Live: Bradshaw! Rhyno! Undertaker! Mark Henry! Big Daddy V! Kane!

Bradshaw vs. Rhyno WWE Smackdown 12/11/03 - VERY GOOD

ER: It's pretty jarring how much faster some the house style was in 2003. Guys obviously move fast now, but an absurd amount of the time is based on missed moves and reversals and learned behavior garbage. This was worked super fast but built entirely around both guys colliding. Learned behavior wrestling is a real curse, give me 4 minutes of two big guys throwing punches and boots and taking big spills. Rhyno starts by running at Bradshaw before the bell, Bradshaw turns and sticks his boot up and Rhyno stops. No contact made, but a fun way of doing it that you rarely see. When was the last time you saw a guy try to get a cheapshot, get caught before delivering the cheapshot, and agreeably stop the cheapshot? Bradshaw hits a nice floatover suplex early, which is a neat way to hint at the finish. There was a weird delay in his floatover, that also planted a visual seed for the finish. He hit the suplex, but didn't immediately float, instead they both lied there as if he was considering rolling into another suplex...but then floated over. The delay felt odd, but I understood what he was doing after the finish.

We got plenty of big chops, Bradshaw throwing short right hands and big elbows, a nice big boot, and the whole thing was go go go while always based around collision. I loved how Bradshaw missed an elbowdrop: as quickly and close to Rhyno as possible, the kind of miss that looked like it was aiming to hit. Bradshaw was really good at working cutoffs, my favorite being when Rhyno climbed to the top and Bradshaw just grabbed his hair and headbutted him. What I was not expecting was Bradshaw to hit him with a fallaway slam off the buckles. Bradshaw headbutts Rhyno (who is already mostly to the top buckle), then climbs to the middle buckle while also lifting Rhyno, and it would have been so easy to lose his footing and drop Rhyno directly onto his face, the whole thing looked super dangerous. Now, the finish was both solid and a little too manufactured. Bradshaw hit a fantastic superplex, and then - just like that earlier vertical suplex - they both lie there. For a bit too long. I'm starting to thing "did they BOTH get stingers? That's why huge dudes shouldn't do superplexes", but then Bradshaw goes for the floatover, and Rhyno sees it coming and gets a small package win. So, yes, Bradshaw was really showing his work to the fans, making it a bit too easy to connect the cause-and-effect dots. "Ohhhhh, he waited a couple seconds to floatover with that suplex earlier, and this time his habit of waiting several seconds to floatover cost him the match." It's a neat idea to leave breadcrumbs like that in a match, and it often makes for a much better match. But it's not neat when it's something like this that looks so out of place. I'd never seen Bradshaw delay a floatover on a suplex, so when he delayed even longer on the finish floatover it looked even weirder. This wasn't a regular thing he did, it was an odd pitfall invented only for this match, and not a very good one. When you leave match psychology breadcrumbs for fans, their takeaway shouldn't be "wait why was he lying on the mat for so long after hitting a suplex?"


Undertaker/Kane vs. Big Daddy V/Mark Henry WWE Smackdown 2/1/08 - VERY GOOD

ER: This is an on paper dream pairing for 305 Live, a match they ran a few times on house shows (wish any one of those made it as a handheld), and I really wish they had given Henry/V a run as an unstoppable monster team. They paired them infrequently enough that they never completely gelled or felt like a team, and they were around so much at the same time that they really should have been given that chance. This was their highest profile tag together, and also their last time tagging together. The match itself is kind of aimless, and more than a little repetitive. It was made by Undertaker flinging himself into the corners off of big whips from giant men, and Mark Henry leaning into every single piece of offense thrown at his head. Taker and Kane hit him with four big boots over the course of the match and he's out there taking all of them with his face. Henry is the real slugger of these four, and it's wild how much that stands out here. You'll have Kane hitting these bad stomach kicks and you know it blows, but then Henry will counter with two nasty clubbering arms sounding like he's beating a rug. Henry hit a knee right to Kane's jaw that was probably the coolest thing in the match, and that's saying something because put four 300+ pounders in a ring and it is impossible for there not to be cool stuff. BDV came off a little too tentative, not so much in his offense as in how he was treating the storyline. The week prior Undertaker had debuted his triangle choke on him, and they did a cool angle where V tapped quick and then bled from his mouth. He gets backed down by Taker a couple times here and obviously I was hoping it was building to Taker getting crushed and flattened (it wasn't), but V has no problems smooshing Kane. BDV really crushes Kane with a corner clothesline, and Kane pays that back by hitting his big flying clothesline that stops a few feet short of the target. This actually could have been a really cool feud with some legs to it, easily could have seen this getting a big street fight stip on a PPV, but this was always going to be a Brothers of Destruction slaughter. Henry gets big height on the chokeslam and also bleeds from the triangle, putting this epically mammoth tag team to permanent rest.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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The Weasel Suit Matches

There were three WWF weasel suit matches that made tape, from the Spectrum, MSG, and LA Sports Arena. By memory I have only seen one, and don't remember which one it was, so I thought it would be fun to see how they match up with each other. Plus, a bonus AWA Gagne/Heenan weasel suit match, the feud that started it all.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF 6/18/88

ER: This is the kind of match that would have been so confusing to me had I seen it when it first happened. I was young and had just started watching wrestling, so I had no clue about anyone's history. I knew what I saw. In '89 my friends and I were all laughing at the idea of The Genius of all people getting a title shot at Hogan. To us, Genius wasn't even a real wrestler. We had no idea who Lanny Poffo was, just knew The Genius. In 1988 I would have never even considered that Bobby Heenan was a wrestler. I knew him as a doughy manager of bad guys. The thought of a manager even attempting to defeat the invincible Ultimate Warrior would have been the strangest sight to my child eyes. And luckily for me, Dick Graham and Rodger Kent on commentary sounded exactly like me and my friend doing commentary over WrestleMania VI while watching it on scrambled PPV. They approached this match with a child's innocence, wondering how this match even got signed, seemingly unaware that Heenan was also a wrestler.

The whole match has a really weird tone, and it's kind of cool. The commentary feels like people completely unfamiliar with the product, and Warrior behaves downright silly throughout. He charges to the ring wearing the actual weasel suit (commentary keeps trying to think of the word for "claws" while describing the suit, "Look you can even see the....nails.....talons.....on the suit.....What word am I thinking of? What do animals have instead of nails?") and whips the suit around his head Mystikal style. Warrior even does a funny little marching band leader march around the apron while wearing the suit. The match is short but very satisfying. Heenan has a bigger belly than he had before, but he is still super agile, sneak attacking Warrior with strikes that get no sold, begging off, and then leaping through the ropes to the floor using that muscle memory that old wrestlers retain. 

This is going to be a quick match, which even my child brain would have expected. I like how Warrior doesn't work this like a typical Warrior match. He's not running around doing shoulderblocks or press slams, he's really playing to the crowd and milking reactions in a smart way. He puts Heenan down with a sleeper after Heenan tries leveling off more strikes, and Heenan gets a long, glorious death as he slowly drifts off to sleep. Heenan swings and fights and goes down like a champ, really struggling to get out of it and fight off slumber before succumbing. Warrior ups the silliness by flat out WALTZING with the weasel suit!! And let me tell you, Warrior looked like a beautiful dancer. For an actual doofus, Warrior clearly took himself way too seriously most of the time, and it was cool to see him actually showing a sense of humor with the stipulation. It takes him an eternity to get the weasel suit on, but the crowd is into it, and Heenan looks straight out of Where the Wild Things Are when it's on. Hercules jumps Warrior, Heenan finally wakes up, Warrior lariats Heenan so he can do his awesome flip bump, and I am satisfied.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF MSG 6/25/88

ER: This was tremendous, the fullest and most complete version of their match. They milked their time getting to where they were going, and it was totally worth it. I love Heenan in his Andre singlet. Most people two strap it. Not many people one strap it. Lawler one straps it, but with tights. Barbaro Cavernario one straps it, but he's a caveman. Heenan and Andre are one strapping their black singlets so they can show off their white, white thighs. As it should be. The opening to this match is similar to  the Spectrum match the week before, with Warrior posing on the turnbuckles and Heenan rushing behind him to club him in the back a few times, which Warrior ignores. Heenan leaps through the ropes to the floor, and that's where this match really takes off. Heenan spends so much time running away from Warrior, with Warrior stalking him like a weird flamboyant tasseled Michael Myers. It all builds to a classic gag where Warrior drops down out of sight and hides behind a corner, naturally leading to Heenan backing his way all the way around the ring before backing into Warrior and getting choked. What makes this already even better than the prior match, is Lord Alfred Hayes (on commentary with Rodger Kent and Billy Graham) absolutely losing it at Heenan taking a beating.

But things jump up to a level I wasn't expecting, when Heenan does arguably the greatest hidden weapon routine I've ever seen. Heenan fishes a weapon out the front of his singlet, and jabs it into Warrior's throat. The ref is on him and Heenan has an absurdly quick sleight of hand to tuck the weapon so that it is perfectly poking out a couple inches out of has singlet, past his butt cheek. He then lets the ref check his legs and boots. The camera gets a great shot of the weapon poking out and Heenan taking it out the moment the ref turns. He jabs Warrior again and slips it incredibly fast into the back of his boot. Ref fooled again, Heenan jabs Warrior, and I don't see him slip it anywhere. We didn't see it, because Heenan has it hidden UNDER his left boot. It was such an incredible routine, done with actual expert quick hand skills, just a masterfully performed bit. Rodger Kent was great at running play by play over the weapons hiding, his own world class performance as it sounded like the best possible Lance Russell getting flummoxed by the weapon not being found. Heenan bites off more than he can chew and Irish whips Warrior into the ropes, and Warrior catches the hand holding the weapon as Heenan tries to tomahawk him with it. Great visual, all played the best.

And then we go into the portion of the match where Heenan is just taking painful bumps into every corner of the ring. Warrior flings him pillar to post, Heenan takes a painful shoulder to ringpost bump, takes those perfect Heenan corner bumps where he manages to hit three different parts of the ropes before he hits the mat. He gets flung upside down back first into one, flies up across the corners of another leading to Warrior elbowing him down so he can hit two more things on his way to the mat, all just totally unique movements to Heenan. Warrior locks on the sleeper, Heenan goes out like a light, and Warrior is more efficient at getting the weasel suit on this time. The highlight of this portion of the segment is Hayes cry laughing throughout, while handling the play by play portion of one man dressing another man in footie pajamas. "Warrior is so precise! Putting it on so properly! Yes, that's it Warrior, get his arm in there." It was glorious. This match is a match that any fan of pro wrestling should love and respect. There really aren't many better versions of this kind of thing.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF 7/15/88

ER: This is merely an abridged version of the MSG match, so is redundant. Same format, same material, only rushed through and therefore not as satisfying. We get some minor differences, with the best being Heenan refusing to get in the ring to start (both our prior matches started with a Heenan ambush) and Warrior grabbing Heenan from the ring by both arms and pulls him right into the ringpost. Heenan ran from Warrior, in the ring, back out the other side, rubbing his chest and stretching his rotator cuff the whole time to sell his posting. Warrior surprises him again by hiding, lifts him up in a double choke and tosses him onto the apron, then bounces his head off several turnbuckles while the fans count. 

Heenan grabs a weapon out the front of his Andre singlet (though I think it would technically be a Heenan singlet, pretty sure he was wearing this when Andre was still in trunks) and runs through the same routine in the same order as the MSG match, but it's done far more hastily, his sleight of hand isn't as clean, and he just loses the weapon instead of Warrior catching him mid swing. It's not as satisfying, but it's still a ton of fun seeing him stab Warrior in the neck a few times. Heenan takes his gnarly upside down bump after getting whipped into the buckles, gets thrown across the ropes in the corner and elbowed down, all repeats from the MSG match, only half as many bumps. The sleeper finish is academic, only he puts up even less of a fight than in the other two matches (even Alfred notes that he's never seen someone succumb to a sleeper so quickly). If the MSG match did not exist, this one would be the one to seek out. But since the MSG match does exist, this is mostly superfluous. 


Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne AWA 8/17/80

ER: This is clipped but it's cool to see the origins of this match, see how Heenan works practically the same in his mid 30s as he does doing part time work in his mid 40s. Gagne is a great babyface, and this has a ton of Heenan clobbering him with a cast. A cast would have been a nice twist to the Heenan/Warrior matches, but then we wouldn't have gotten the hidden weapon routine. I really liked the false finish of the sleeper hold, as once Gagne locked it in my brain had already been conditioned to Heenan needing to be put to sleep for the finish to work, so when Heenan managed to shake Gagne loose I actually made a WHOA sound outloud, alone. The crowd was insanely loud throughout this, as it was clearly a stipulation the fans wanted to see. I don't actually know how these matches were presented to WWF crowds, if they were actually promoted as part of house shows, if their were market specific promos for them, or if they were just thrown out there with little notice. The fans were clearly into the WWF weasel suit matches, but the fans in St. Paul were reacting to this match like it was a bloody I Quit match. Heenan bumps big, flies around for Gagne's great babyface offense, bumps shoulder first into the ringpost, does one of those great Heenan bumps where he flies into the buckles and gets his legs and arms hung up in the ropes on his way down, all of it slays. I'd love to hear the conversations between Heenan and Vince, love to know how the idea of bringing the stipulation back even came up. I imagine there are some good stories there, and I love when Vince was still willing to bring regional stipulations to his brand.

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New Footage Friday: CRUSHER TAKAHASHI!! SANTO! PANTHER! KASH! GUIDO!

El Hijo Del Santo/?/? vs. Blue Panther/Willy Cortez/?

PAS: No idea when or where this was from or who most of the guys in it are. The youtube site has a lot of Willy Cortez matches, so maybe it is run by him or his kids or something. Santo looks young and spry, so maybe sometime in the 90s? Although Santo looked young and spry when I saw him live last year, so who the fuck knows. The other luchadores in this match are pretty replacement level, but fine. Cortez and a guy in a yellow mask have a nice armdrag exchange and the third rudo had a nice tope. You are here to see Santo vs. Panther though, and they don't disappoint. I loved the early matwork, Santo refusing to give up the back and hanging onto the ride was so cool, and Panther is so smooth in between holds. I really dug the beatdown on Santo too, as it felt like it riled up the crowd, there was a point where it looked like people might rush the ring. Any chance to see legends like this must be taken, and there are some more cool looking matches on this channel for future weeks.

MD: To me, this is a definite find. We have some brilliant flashes of Santo and Panther working each other over the years, most especially outside of CMLL/AAA (Japan, UK, Monterrey), but here we have three great exchanges in a match that was otherwise pretty good. They're the third pairing in the primera and the matwork they do here is different than anything I've ever seen out of the pairing. It's much more amateur style, a lot of them riding one another or jockeying for position, building to lucha flourishes and throws and ending with an effective leap up to a 'rana. It was something you don't usually see in lucha, especially from guys as stylized as Panther and Santo. The second exchange was super-high end rope running, with Santo unleashing super athletic twists to his headscissors that weren't part of his usual repertoire, including a pretty amazing one out of a mare position. Then, in the segunda into the tercera, Panther just bullied him about. He served as the anchor for the rudos, the center of gravity that everyone came to as he held his opponents for shots and directed traffic. There was a sequence where he kept placing Santo's head over the top rope from one side of the ring to the other so that his partners could lay in kicks and clothesline his neck from the outside. In the tercera, it devolved into some really effective mask pulling, building to Santo drawing some rudo miscommunication and having a big comeback. I thought the finish was slightly unfocused as it veered off of the Panther vs Santo match-up at the very end but ultimately this showed us something new from a pairing for which one might have assumed we've seen everything there was to see.


Kid Kash vs. Little Guido HRT 3/12/13

MD: Kash had to come out there and get the heat for Sabu not showing up. He pinned it on Canadian border control and heeled on the crowd for it before calling out Fonzie to second him since he had nothing else to do. He followed that up with a bit of stalling and picking fights with the crowd to start. That let Guido be a bit more of a face, though this was definitely a 2013 post-modern smarmy crowd. They were more or less into his comebacks and even clapped along while he was in a hold (though with terrible, out of practice, rhythm). This went about ten if you include the stalling and was a prelim match to set up a triple threat for some sort of belt later on. The early feeling out process was really good as they went at it on the mat. Once they got going, Kash was a solid bully with harsh cutoffs even as Guido kept making organic opportunities for himself. I don't think they quite built to a moment of definitive comeback but everything was crisp and believable, including the miscommunication that led to the finish. Two skilled journeymen working what was unmistakably an indy match, but working it hard and entertaining and looking good in the process.

ER: This was on one of those odd shows where some Canadian fed flies in 9 or 10 old ECW guys to draw 300 people to an cultural community center, but instead of the workers attempting to badly recreate ECW atmosphere and ring carnage, they just work like good pro wrestlers. Now, Kash's stalling mic work was straight out of ECW, as I can't personally remember the last time I've heard someone call people "retarded" this many times in one minute. But he draws heat (though you see, this crowd is very smart, so they are in on the joke and there are dozens upon dozens of them that cannot wait to show off their own comedy chops), and stalls well. The scrambling matwork was aggressive and looked good, and both threw armdrags that looked like they were trying to dislocate shoulders. Their offense wasn't about big highspots, just crisp execution of some of their known tricks, with Guido's Sicilian Slice looking especially good, and Kash is expert at jumping into moves like that. This is the kind of match that stands out at the end of the night when you're driving home, solely because of execution, and you need guys like this on a show that also has Gary Wolfe.

Crusher Takahashi vs Shota 7/21/13

MD: I was (and to be honest still am) completely unfamiliar with these two, but this is the most watchable thing you'll come across this week. Takahashi is a big Japanese journeyman who has a penchant to do tortuous things that you wouldn't expect a guy his size to do, all with an extra bit of oomph due to his mass. When he bridges back in the deathlock, or even stretches the leg over, the whole ring shakes. He has this methodological matter-of-fact way of moving but then explodes around the ring, like with the rolling toehold that set up the finish. Shota, on the other time, is spry and fiery, but also the most consistently over the top seller I've ever seen. At least in this match. He's constantly making noise, constantly wagging a limb or walking something off. It makes me wonder how much of the oomph was Takahashi landing stuff and how much of it was Shota selling during and after the fact. Which is actually how the best wrestling is supposed to work. Given his opponent and the size differential, it never feels like too much selling. He's still staggering around in his comeback but that sets up the finish. Honestly, he came off as a more vulnerable Randy Savage. Like a plucky babyface underdog Randy Savage, as his entirety of his offense were punches (including in the corner), a double axe handle off the top, a neckbreaker, and the misguided top rope elbow drop which tweaked his hurt leg and let Takahashi recover. I almost don't want to see more of him because I can see how the act might get old, but in this one twelve minute match, it was great.

SR: Crusher Takahashi, baby. He's a worker who has basically been doing a southern wrestling tribute working Japanese scum indies since the 90s. I've kind of enjoyed him then as a decent enough guy who could throw a nice punch, but at some point he turned into a genuinely good worker, and this was his showcase match. I am likely to enjoy any fat aging wrestler who throws a great punch (which Takahashi does here), and he did some really great southern scientific type matwork here, which he makes look great. That kind of western style matwork doesn't get much praise as US guys just kind of stopped doing cool matwork at some point in the early 80s, but he was working those toe holds like he was about to dislocate his opponents knee. He also had this really great bridging indian deathlock, and his punch/knee combo in the corner looked like it loosened a few teeth. I didn't get much from Shota during the opening portions here, but I actually liked how he punched his way back to offense, and his selling off the leg as he kept slowly destroying himself was really cool. Really good little match which made me want to go back and check out the rest of Takahashi's maestro back catalogue.

PAS: There is a guy working like Bobby Jaggers in Puro indies? Why isn't this guy headlining New Japan? Loved this, such an anachronistic match for the 2010, all heavy elbow drops and Indian deathlocks. Takahashi has a hard right hand, some punishing looking Alabama mat work and sells well for Shota. Shota was kind of working this like Brett Wayne Sawyer, selling big, hitting some basic highflying moves and losing to a figure four when he can't keep his shoulders off the mat. What a weird wonderful little match.

ER: This is the kind of Japanese wrestler that people need to be recommending to me. I hadn't heard of either of these guys, but Shota is dressed like a pre PG-13 Jamie Dundee and Crusher has hairier thighs than Dutch Mantell, so we get a little bit of Memphis in a small Japanese club. I understand Matt's hesitation to see another Crusher match, worried that the act might get old, but I think the thing that gives this style legs (super hairy legs) is that neither guy plays this for a gag. THAT would make the returns diminishing, but I see nothing in their movements that show they are working this style for any other reason than southern style is the best. Shota as undercard Randy Savage is an accurate descriptor. Mid 90s Savage formula saw him eat a beating for the first 80% of a match then just come back with a quick bodyslam and flying elbow. Shota eats the beating in the first half, makes the comeback, but still loses. Crusher works him over with great matwork, the kind that feels like Ricky Morton working holds rather than the more perfunctory New Japan matwork, working hard Indian deathlocks and floating over to control the arm. There's no wink. This isn't a Japanese Tik Tok teen doing phonetic Bill Engvall routines, this is a hairy Japanese man with a belly working punches and joint based matwork. Shota's left hands are better than his right hands, though I liked the grinding glancing elbows he threw with his right, while Crusher has several great worked punches. Crusher had a nice headlock punch and a straight right hand, and Shota's best punches might have been whenever he threw a couple body shots to comeback. This bridging deathlock finish looked really painful, and I liked how it was set up by a Shota elbowdrop that actually hit (but also caused him to land on his worked over knee). We definitely need to dig deeper into Crusher's catalogue. It would be foolish of us not to.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 8/27/20

What Worked

-Gauntlet matches are always kind of hard to write about, just because sometimes I love individual matches within a gauntlet, but you really have to talk about them as an entire segment. Overall, I think this match worked. It feels light to have only 4 teams in a gauntlet, and I have no idea how the order of entrants was chosen. Dustin/QT vs. the Bucks was solid, and any show that opens with Dustin (and, honestly, QT) is a good one. They work well together as a team, and I like QT as the Clear Weak Link in any match he's in. Dustin bumps generously for the Bucks (Dustin taking a huge hiptoss bump looked like me taking a hip toss from a 5 year old) and gets to show off as the fastest guy in the match, but also the strongest guy in the match (love that whipping powerslam). The double superkick after QT missed his silly handspring to nothing was timed really great. Bucks vs. Best Friends was better than anticipated, and it played as an extended run of Bucks offense (which is better than an extended run of Chuck Taylor offense). Trent eating a nice superkick and German suplex 1-2 on the apron looked good. The Hangman Page interference finish was weird and I don't want to have to follow these guys on social media or watch their different web shows to see why good buddies might be cranky with each other, but it came off stupid. FTR have underdelivered in AEW so far, and JR's commentary during their matches is unbearable. He always acts like he's saying something profound when he says "you know these guys remind me of an old school tag team" as if that hasn't been their one gimmick for the past 5 years. "You know, Kenny Omega always reminds me of some weeb geek who tugs it to anime." Yeah, no shit. But Cash hits a great snap vertical suplex on the floor to take out Trent, and Dax takes out Chuck's knee, so I am totally fine with this.

-Lance Archer would still be WAY more interesting if he was just limited to backstage assaults on nameless ring boys, but Sean Maluta really made the most of his squash debut and got big height on his bumps. Loved how Maluta flew on suplexes, and the height he got on the chokeslam put this up here.

-I don't know who did it, but I loved the GASP on commentary when MJF brought up Jon Moxley's hairline.

-8 man tag was fine, with the negatives talked about down below. Sonny Kiss looked really good, and as I pointed out after his less than stellar performance against Cody (which JR naturally deems AMAZING), he is a guy who really excels in frantic multiman tags. His stuff with Fenix was really electric (Fenix's rope work that lead to him getting knocked off, hanging his knee over the rope, looked real close to an injury), and I love the way Kiss darted around Butcher and Blade. The scouted  Matrix feint into a powerslam was a cool spot from Blade. Janela had a nice performance too, another guy who is improved just be being in a trios or 8 man. I liked the comedy gag he worked during picture in picture, taking leg kicks from Pentagon, no selling them, before collapsing in pain. He took a couple gnarly bumps, and his big bumps feel like a bigger part of the whole in a match like this (compared to his singles matches which have too many big bumps). Good match, would have rather seen Kingston wrestle than any of them.

-The Hardy/Sammy tables match ruled, and it's a real shame that it was somehow cut into by commercials. It's incredible how week after week they always manage to cut to commercials during actual big moments. I would have liked some more time in this match, felt like they ramped up to the kills pretty quickly. But at the same time I appreciated how they actually acknowledged within a match that going through a table is the only way to win, so they might as well go for that right away. It's a common stupid thing in wrestling to have a stipulation match where the participants work the first 5-10 minutes as if it were a normal match. Guys working armdrags in a first blood match, things immediately not breaking down in a no DQ match, it happens constantly. These men knew they had to put the other threw a damn table, and it was great. Sammy gets busted open, and they smartly take a couple of sick bumps through tables in ways that don't count. Sammy gets busted open (still nothing like that juice he got out of Hardy a couple weeks ago), flies through a table with a missed tope con hilo, Hardy misses an elbow through the table in painful fashion, Sammy gets stuck with a side effect on the apron, Hardy did a disgusting twist of fate while Sammy was wearing a chair around his neck, all of it looked great. This was a quick, violent, satisfyingly economical match.


What Didn't Work

-The commentary - JR in particular - always goes way over the top with comparisons, here comparing Lance Archer to Stan Hansen. JR is always the kid who cheats his way to an A+, not just staying out of sight with a B-. He always has to compare someone to the absolute best in wrestling history, and then you look up and see Archer hitting a so-so back elbow with his goober ass Burning Man braids flapping in the wind and it only makes me want to see Stan Hansen beat the shit out of him. Jericho fantasy books a 2020 Archer vs. 1976 Hansen match, and I wonder if Jericho has even seen 5 matches of 1976 Stan Hansen. What an odd year to pick for the guy.

-The balance is all off with MJF's promos. He's too smug to be stupid, but too stupid to know the right notes to hit. There's way too much school play villain and not enough believable villainy. He doesn't sound like he can think on his feet, as he never has a follow up when his opponent responds to one of his planned lines. I am genuinely curious what MJF has learned from watching Ernie Ladd tapes though, because that's not an inspiration that would have crossed my mind.

-Is Eddie Kingston the FIFTH MAN in a stable of Lucha Bros. and Butcher/Blade?? Seriously? Why sign Eddie Kingston so he can sit on the bench with a towel? He's not Jud Buechler. Plus, it's additionally stupid to have Kingston as the ringside mouthpiece, and then throw most of the match to picture in picture so we can't even hear Eddie Kingston. They constantly have wrestlers sit in on commentary, and Kingston would CRUSH commentary during these matches. It's like they signed him based on reasons that they immediately forgot. The wrestling in the 8 man was good enough, but you know what would have made it better? Eddie Kingston replacing literally anybody in the match.

-What happened here? Is Rebel/Reba supposed to be working a "not an actual wrestler, completely untrained to be in the ring" gimmick? Because she certainly convinced me. I can't remember the last time I've seen someone stumble around the ring that much, just getting in the way of absolutely everything. I can't blame Ford for much of this, even when she didn't look great, because it was always due to Rebal bumbling in where she didn't belong. Britt is a bright spot in AEW, and she could not save this.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2001: Akiyama vs. Honda VS. Santo vs. La Parka

Jun Akiyama vs. Tamon Honda NOAH 9/5/01

PAS: The Hondasance happened in 2003, but I guess we were all too distracted by 9/11 to realize how awesome he was in 2001. There was a really cool mini-tourney which built up to this match, and this was a great GHC title match. One thing that NOAH really added to the All Japan formula match was cool matwork and submissions, and that was the focus of this match. Honda was an olympic wrestler, and really well versed at escape predicaments from the ground. Akiyama attempts some stuff early and gets flummoxed. He ended up DDTing Honda on the ramp and spending the next couple of minutes yanking on his giant water head. Honda is able to take over by taking Jun's back, and when Akiyama blocked a choke, Honda yanked him up and over with his gorgeous german suplex. We go into a cool finish run with Akiyama attempting to lock in a front choke, while Honda tries for STF variations. Loved that it took three tries for Akiyama to finally drop him with the choke. I didn't love the DDT on the apron stuff, and could have used some Olympic Hells, but this was a great example of what Honda could deliver.

ER: Honda really was one of those good wrestlers who everybody ignored until that was impossible to do. Mid 90s Honda isn't great and doesn't share a lot of similarities with early 2000s Honda. He worked as an almost fast junior in '94-'96, with very little grappling, hardly any suplexes, weird lockjaw comeback faces, and way too many headbutts that ranged from so-so to kind of cool. I think people wrote him off somewhere during this run and it took us a few years to realize he'd blossomed into a deadlift suplex god. Phil is right about NOAH matches getting to stretch out a bit more with matwork, and it's probably not a coincidence that Honda really came into his own at NOAH's inception. The grappling in this was really cool, and I love how Honda knows how to utilize his freaky body, bridging into rolling clutches and using his legs to add leverage to chokes. I love all the STFs and rolling Olympic Hell variations we got in the match, with the side triangle choke being especially sick. Every sub of Honda's looked like a finish. But I also like Akiyama playing dirty and spiking Honda on his head, then working that giant dome over with a can opener and a headscissors. Akiyama can be a real dick, but this really ramps up when Akiyama starts with the exploders. "Oh, suplexes? Sure, we can do that," Honda agrees, and starts dropping Akiyama with increasingly unstoppable throws. The home stretch is filled with some great nearfalls, as Akiyama starts lands a strong jumping knee to Honda's chin that drops him hard, and the exploders start landing Honda more and more vertically, and after an extremely close kickout, Honda is put away with a sub in the middle.

Hijo del Santo vs. La Parka Review


Verdict:

PAS: This is close. The Santo match was awesome but marred with a stinko ending. I loved this but maybe wanted another moment or two at the end.

ER: I think this had selling issues that weren't an issue in the lucha bloodbath, and the finish to that lucha match doesn't bother me. Akiyama seemed like he was getting up too easily after some of Honda's nastiest stuff, and that's what drops this below that legendary bloodbath for me. Champ retains.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: L'Homme Masque! Delaporte! Al Hayes! DR. ADOLF KAISER! Lambert! Laroche!

L'Homme Masque vs. Roger Delaporte 3/6/59

MD: So far, 1959 has been the year of the masked wrestler. This is the third we've seen and not L'Homme Masque's debut, but he'd only been around for a bit, apparently, even if he was the first. They bill him from Texas, with 3 wives who had all ran away. If he ever loses, he would unmask. He was presented in the announcing, more so than than Le Bourreau (who worked for another promoter) as the opposite of L'Ange Blanc and we do have a match with them but not for another ten years! This was a match in three parts, with some amazing comedic performing from Delaporte to start. The first five or six minutes were all him ducking away from L'Homme and trying one thing after another: top wristlocks, headlocks, a bearhug. Each time he was shrugged off, or with the bearhug, put into a giant headlock causing his arms to crumble. Each time his reactions were hilarious. L'Homme didn't do much here, but he didn't have to. He, given his massive size, was a perfect prop for a stooge like Delaporte. If Delaporte even got touched, he'd sell it huge. Eventually he got caught and things were a little disappointing for this middle section. You'd hope he'd get tossed around and really it was fairly disappointing, just a grounded wristlock with Delaporte flailing about a bit. I did like the knees to the kidneys L'Homme utilized in taking him down though. The last third was far better though. L'Homme kept going to the ropes, wrenching Delaporte's arm around it, and there was nothing he or the ref could do. It was a great visual and, expanded to include a few arm-trapped beales, played up as brutal. Delaporte would get a comeback or two (and did drop the arm selling but that's 50s French wrestling for you; selling tended to be immediate), really slamming L'Homme's head into the turnbuckle. That just made him angrier though and L'Homme jammed him with the most amazing monster spot, the thing we'd been waiting for the entire match: he picked him up over his shoulder with a gutwrench and just slammed the back of his head over and over into the turnbuckle, before dropping him and locking in a sleeper (which he wouldn't break) for the win. Ultimately, he had presence, but this was Delaporte directing traffic. It's a testament to the talent in the 50s that they were able to put these masked attractions against guys like Villars, LeDuc, and Delaporte to give them real credibility and entertaining matches. I think this would have been better if L'Homme had tossed him about or clubbered him the first time he really caught him instead of just sitting in a hold, but otherwise, it definitely did the job.

SR: It's... the masked man. This was a complete squash at 18 minutes length. Poor Delaporte, although the crowd took quite the delight in his demise. He really is the Louis De Funes of wrestling. What a weird character to be Frances major heel star, although I guess it speaks to their culture. It's so strange to see him going from being a vicious bastard brutalizing faces to stooging around as he is himself brutalized by this comical giant. Did Louis De Funes ever do serious movies where he is a corrupt cop breaking fingers? This was a good 7 minutes of Delaporte bouncing off of L'Homme Masque in such a comical fashion that John Tatum looks like Lance Storm in comparison. Followed by 7 minutes of the masked man hanging on to an arm lock with the referee getting increasingly involved. And then, a 2 minute section where the masked man uncorks the repeated turnbuckle powerbombs before wringing Delaporte to sleep. The masked man certainly had a menacing physique, looking like something out of a comic book, but his control section aside from the insane repeated drops to the turnbuckle wasn't super hot. Will be interesting to see him going against the likes of L'Ange Blanc, though.

PAS: Delaporte certainly met his match here. I agree with Matt and Jetlag about how Masque's armbar was a bit dull, although I did appreciate the dominance. I think this would have been better served just cutting the middle part entirely, and just had the match be Delaporte's stooging and that crazy turnbuckle powerbomb combo. I am mixed about the masked invasion, I appreciate the changes in style they bring, but I just wish they were all more compelling workers.  It is a bummer we don't have any footage of Tony Oliver or Karl Gotch's masked characters, I imagine they would be more compelling

Al Hayes/Ray Hunter vs. Karl von Kramer/Dr. Adolf Kaiser 3/6/59

MD: We have about 17 minutes of this before they run out of time and I lament the loss of the other 20+ that the match would have probably contained. We have one lone Hayes/Hunter match left, but it's against the Delaporte/Bollet combo, which should be quite the show. We have one more look at Kaiser (tagging with El Strangulador Lamban) and two or three more Von Kramer matches. So no need to say goodbye to anyone now. I do, however, lament that we don't get to see more of Von Kramer and especially Kaiser against Hayes. The last times we saw Judo Al, he really ate up his opponents and the first few minutes are Kaiser and Von Kramer putting their foot down to the best of their ability to prevent that. It doesn't meant they can stop Hayes but it does make for some great, extremely high end struggle. Hayes is very interesting as he will sell, unquestionably, and he will give, but you have to cheat to get up on him. He'll drop for a cheapshot or sell an extended cheating sequence (as he does here where he limps around the ring after they work his leg over using the rope and ref distractions), but if you wrestle him straight up, he's going to not give an inch. In some ways, it's a little unfortunate he's paired with Hunter, who has such a size and reach advantage against almost everyone he wrestles that he's nigh impossible to move. You try for a hold and he'll just bonk you on the head and there's very little you can do about it. That means that Kaiser and Von Kramer are stooging and bounding across the ring and trying and failing to cheat for a lot of this. Hayes and Hunter are also a little more apt to cheat here themselves than we've seen before, which I attest to the fact they're wrestling Germans. All good but not enough; never enough.

SR: We get about 20 minutes of this. No finish, and it appears that was only the 1st fall. That is pretty bitter, as the von Kramer/Dr. Kaiser duo is about the most high end when it comes to monocle wearing fake Germans in wrestling. Here they had matching outfits, they were bumping, stooging, cheating, miscommunicating, doing some pretty fun wrestling, along with their eccentric demeanour, they had everything you want from an entertaining heel team. There was an especially funny bit where the Dr. did his spider walk only to accidentally end up running into von Kramers boot. You get the sense either of them (but especially von Kramer, god what a freaky wrestler that guy was) against Hayes in a singles would've been dynamite. "Rebel" Ray Hunter is probably the least of the faces we have seen, when everyone else is uppercutting the shit out of the bad guys, a tall guy lightly tapping people in the head with chops isn't quite doing it. Still, maybe the full thing is laying around somewhere.

PAS: Yeah this is a real tease of a match, on paper this is a total gem, but we get to see the foreplay with none of the climax. Hayes is always worth watching, he is so skilled and I loved the whole section of him trying to bridge out of a face lock while von Kramer kept punching him in the kidneys. Dr. Kaiser was a little subdued here, we got all of the stooging with none of the maniacal evil. When we are all done with what got, I think we are planning on checking back with the archive, maybe the full version of this is still in the vault.


Henri Lambert vs. Roger Laroche 4/30/59

MD: This one took me by surprise. We had seen Laroche in one of our very first matches in this project and that was primarily to get beat upon by La Barba. I think a commenter previously said that Lambert was the ref in the Mann vs Montourcy so I wasn't sure what to expect here. However, this was, yet again, one of those matches, that if we had nothing else from 50s France, would have blown our collective minds. I wouldn't say that either of these two were dynamic and memorable characters, but there was a real contrast, both in their physical attributes and how they wrestled. Lambert seemed younger, was incredibly athletic, very spirited, quite dynamic. Laroche was (as i said last time we saw him) off that unassuming French maestro assembly line. He seemed older, more reserved. At many points in the match, he stayed low and took the count in order to slow Lambert down and recover, which is not a tactic we've seen much in the footage so far. There was a real but subtle sense of him trying to absorb punishment at times to blow Lambert up so he could take over with a hold, or to draw Lambert out so that he'd get impassioned and make a mistake.

The first few minutes of this had Lambert eating Laroche up with holds, and Laroche's response was to step on the foot. The first time he did it, Lambert brushed it off. The second time, he returned the favor and followed up with a clubbering blow. Taking Lambert off his game allowed for Laroche to get an arm, headbutt the wrist, and use the knee to drive him down, leading into almost SEVEN (7) minutes of Lambert dynamically trying to escape an armbar. We've seen this, of course, with the person in control holding on through armdrags and bodyslams and hip tosses, and blocking headscissors, but this was remarkable both for the length of it and for the fluctuating desperation from Lambert. He'd sell the hand within the hold more and more, trying to keep feeling in it, but he'd also launch lightning quick combinations of hip tosses, only for Laroche to hang on and Lambert to wear himself out. It was seven minutes and it was never boring, in part due to the energy of Lambert and in part due to the sheer audacity of length.

Much of the rest of the match pitted Lambert's athleticism against Laroche's skill, with a lot of great bridges and quick bits of punishment from Lambert and reversals upon reversals. Increasingly, Lambert, in frustration, would go into blows, more emotional than underhand. Laroche on the other hand, would be the sneakier of the two, dropping down and cutting off with a grab of the leg. Lambert, an actor on the side, had a lot of stuff but could also sell very well, and as the match went on both wrestlers really portrayed the weight of what they'd been through and the sheer exhaustion they were facing. There's a long strike exchange towards the end where they're barely standing by the end of it. They were ultimately working to a draw here, though given the tenor of French matches, you can't always tell. This could have had a finish just as easily. It didn't really need one though as the draw was both escalated to and completely earned.

SR: 1 Fall match going 30 minutes. This was a stiff technical match built around armlocks and european uppercuts peppered with some athleticism. It's kind of the French house style, but after weeks of seeing masked dudes running wild on French TV, it felt like a breath of fresh air. Laroche is balding and stocky, while Lambert has a mustache and looks like someone out of a squashbuckling movie. Sometimes, you just want to watch two gentlemen forearm the shit out of each other for 30 minutes, and this delivered in spades. Laroche was a real punisher here, not an outright villain, but taking his shortcuts when they appeared and thus heating up the match. I can't emphasize enough how hard these guys were peppering each other, big kneedrops, kicking their way out of holds, hard shots to the ribs, at one point Laroche blocks an escape attempt so he eats a knee to the head for his troubles. There was a lengthy section built around Laroche keeping an armlock, twisting and throwing Lambert to the mat over and over, often making him land awkwardly on his shoulder. When Lambert gets out, he is slow to get up, clearly favouring that arm, then, when Laroche tried to go back to that same arm hold, he kneed him right in the face. The match was full of "fuck you, you are not doing that spot" which always helps keeping these matches fresh, and enough cool athleticism thrown in at the right moments to keep this from being a sheer slugfest. Still, it's all about them rolling out those forearms and uppercuts. Last couple of strikes exchanges were downright crazy.

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WWF 305 Live: SIR MO! DIESEL! MOONDOGS! BLACKJACK!

Blackjack Mulligan vs. Moondog Rex WWF 11/10/84 - FUN

ER: I like this kind of quick no nonsense mid 80s WWF brawl. They weren't going to draw blood but you know they'd throw a couple heavy hands and take a couple big thuds on bumps, then go home early. Moondog is throwing hands, which is exactly what should happen when you don the frayed denims of a Moondog. Blackjack really uses his size in an impressive overpowering way, without actually working as a Stan Hansen. He definitely never works as stiff, but his movements read big and that contributes to the visuals. I like how Moondog misses an elbow, and I like how he really starts throwing his stiffest punches when Blackjack is on the apron, making Blackjack fight to get back in the ring and really earn it. Blackjack's flying back elbow is a cool big guy finisher for the era, and I'd be into seeing a feud of these two.


Diesel vs. Sir Mo WWF Raw 8/6/95 - GREAT

ER: I was absurdly excited for this one, for multiple reasons. First, this is one of only three Mo singles matches we get during his ENTIRE three year WWF run. That's kind of incredible in retrospect. He had a match against Owen the year before, this match, and a match against Undertaker later in the year. That's weird! But I also love hierarchy booking and the booking of this match and segment was so easy that by the end of the 10 minutes I was hyped for Mabel/Diesel at Summerslam, Lawler/Michaels at next week's Raw, and potential future Mabel/Michaels and MOM vs. Michaels/Diesel matches. It's such an easy formula to have the second banana tag partner of the upcoming PPV title challenger, challenge the champ a couple weeks before the PPV. So you get Mo trying to derail and soften up Diesel before the PPV, Mabel gets to come out, Michaels gets to come out to balance things, Lawler yells at Michaels, just an uncluttered way to focus on several programs and matches at once. Today it feels like they can't even focus on the one pushed program, let alone set up matches for future weeks. Is it because they no longer trust people have the attention span to focus on more than one program? I don't know, but I loved this. Mo is such a great lower totem pole guy who will still talk trash. The opening show quickie head to head promo of his was so funny, and he made a line like Big Daddy Fool actually work where others would have crashed and burned.

The match was simple, part of a larger and more important segment, a match that would stand on its own but was far more interesting with all of the moving pieces. Early on Mo ducked through the ropes to back Diesel up, but then smacked him right in the eye the second the ref wasn't looking. Diesel laced into him with nice back elbows and even better kneelifts, Mo attacked with downward strike elbows and clubbing shots to the back. The camera catches a great angle of Mabel lurking down the aisle in the background, and his presence-as-distraction keeps giving Mo little advantages. Diesel takes a nice big tumbling bump over the top to the floor, and when Mabel creeps over that's when Michaels comes out to even things out. But that allows Mo to bum rush Diesel in the ringpost. It's all so easy but it's also possible that it comes off easy due to each guy knowing exactly when to hit their notes. Mo drops nice elbows, but misses a nasty elbow off the top, really crashing right onto his hip and elbow point. Everyone knew that Mo was eating that Jackknife eventually, and of course he does. Mo really looked like he was the one exclusively doing the lifting, my dude looking like he had to do a full midair sit-up just to not get dropped on his head. The second Mo is pinned Mabel is already in the ring hitting a lariat and dropping the big leg on Diesel, we get the awesome breakdown where Michaels gets caught by Mabel on a pescado and then crushed into the ringpost, Diesel comes off the apron with an axe handle, Lawler mocks Michaels, it all made for an awesome, super effective segment.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WWE Summerslam 8/23/20 Taking My Sweet Time Blog

I am not expecting a whole lot from this show, and those shows can sneak up and surprise me. It feels like I've been saying that about every show the last year +, and that's probably because I have not been excited by many on paper lineups they've been throwing out there. But good matches are always a possibility. Sadly, this card doesn't feature Pat McAfee, so good matches on this show aren't as likely. Also, sad to see Renee Young leaving, but obviously she is talented enough to just not be in wrestling. Her commentary with Regal during 2014 NXT is some of my favorite WWE commentary of the decade, and she was never properly utilized after that on any important program. Honestly, she stuck it out longer in WWE than made sense, and I'm sure she's going to crush wherever she winds up.


Apollo Crews vs. MVP

ER: Pre show matches deliver more often than not, and this one added to the "delivered" bucket. MVP working as an opportunist is a fun undercard thing to see, loved him shooting for a kneebar to start the match, then just blindsiding Crews while the ref separated them. His superplex was sloppy, but in a way that kind of added to it and made it feel impactful. MVP also throws his strikes with more immediacy, which is one of Crews' shortcomings. In fact the weakest part of this match was Crews seemingly holding way back on a lot of his offense. He was treating MVP like he was mid 90s Giant Baba, barely touching him with his forearm strikes, and hitting these weird weak avalanches. That was mainly a problem earlier in the match, as once he hit his nice flip dive he felt a little more normal in the ring. The match finishing dead lift blue thunder bomb ruled, and Crews needs to do more cool stuff life that.

Asuka vs. Bayley

ER: I really liked this, but felt like it lost a lot of steam in the final minute or two. They kept up a hot pace, with Asuka coming off nicely chaotic and Bayley scrambling on her heels. Asuka hits the flying hip attack to knock Bayley to the floor, and Bayley manages to take Asuka's flatliner type move off the ring steps and distracted from the fact that Asuka was splatting with a hard back bump. Bayley's scream and sell of that move was so effective in making that spot work. I liked Asuka going after Bayley's arm (even though it really didn't lead to much), and liked a couple of the spots where Bayley went after Asuka's leg. Even though Bayley's actual heel hook looked really awful, the moment where she turned an Asuka missile dropkick into the heel hook was awesome. After that there were a couple hinky moments, like Asuka waiting bent at the waist waaaay too long to take a sunset flip bomb in the corner. The finish was good and a nice call back to the beginning, and I thought the execution was great: Asuka hits the hip attack to knock Sasha off the apron, and Bayley grabs her with a small package off the ropes. Looked great. I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether Asuka should have won or lost, as I'm a fan of both acts, dig what Sasha/Bayley have been doing and have no problem with them dominating the belts.

Andrade/Angel Garza vs. Street Profits

ER: I think this might have been helped by a live audience. That sounds like an obvious statement, but I think these kinds of matches are really hurt by no crowd. The kind of match that plays like a cold tag or a fun Smackdown match depending on the crowd sounds, like a AAAA center fielder. It's mostly the Andrade show, with Garza practically playing this like a handicap match past a certain point. They worked over Ford and I love how they cut him off by catching the top con hilo and powerbombing him on the floor. That spot could have looked overly planned, but it came off smooth and then mean. They set up the Dawkins hot tag well, and I like his big man leaping back elbow. That move was used by a lot of mid 80s WWF guys, one that I associate with that era, and even though I'm sure he's not consciously doing it because of that, I still like seeing it. Andrade's fake out pump kick into the back elbow always looks great, and I love how hard Dawkins bit on dodging that kick and eating that elbow. Somebody's wrist tape even flies out when the elbow lands, and gear getting knocked off someone after a big impact move is never not awesome. The Street Profits as an act don't do a lot for me overall, and Vega's team actually needs to win occasionally but instead they always seem to go down clean as a sheet. Ah well.

Sonya Deville vs. Mandy Rose

ER: I wish this was worked under different circumstances, as it really shouldn't have taken this long to give these two some kind of PPV showcase singles match. The incident that happened to Deville is genuinely terrifying and it was pretty incredible she went out there and made the best of it. Oh god she wasn't forced to go out there and do this was she? Anyway, I wish this match was better, because they went out there and tried to do the right match. The stip got changed and the feud got cut short and it sucks that things turned out this way. They went out and had the No DQ fight they should have had, it just didn't look great. Rose is someone who has killed it in every house show match I've seen her in, and for whatever reason it does not come off on TV. Whatever crowd connection that I've witnessed firsthand several times is mostly gone on TV. She comes off flat and kind of dead eyed, and I think people think I'm lying about her house show work. It's No DQ, they try to throw a lot of strikes, and a lot of the strikes don't look good. Mandy does this weird thing where she just doesn't sell a lot of Sonya's elbows, just kind of holds still while Deville is throwing blows. They wanted to have a tough fight, and their heart was in the right place.

Even though a lot of it didn't look great, the bar has been lowered a lot this year and even just a match that at minimum aims to work within the story instead of having a "great match" is going to win me over. I liked Mandy trying to slide chairs off a table into Sonya's face, feels like a reckless spot where a camera guy can take a shot in the balls or something. Sonya is also someone who hasn't translated as well as it feels like she should. It didn't help when WWE brought in a bunch of actual MMA women right after she got on TV, but she's also dropped a lot of the MMA stuff that she actually did quite well. I'm sure she could have been told "hey don't work like all of these actual MMA women we brought in", but I also like the fact that she's someone who throws sidekicks without kickpads. Mandy threw some hard knees to make up for her weird strike selling, and there were a couple of nasty spills on hard surfaces. Again, it was the match they should have had and that counts for a lot, and I'm glad it happened. And it's honestly hard to care as much about a match like this when it's so closely related to an actual Manhunter fucking Tooth Fairy incident (incel-dent?), but there were small amounts of carny "on with the show" joy here.

Seth Rollins vs. Dominic Mysterio

ER: No matter how this match goes, Dominic took one of the best on screen beatdowns of the past 5 years, and that can't be taken away from him. The cane beating would have gotten over with a mid 90s ECW Arena crowd, and that's more cool carny wrestling bullshit to find sicko joy in. We are truly blessed getting a Pat McAfee match one night and Dominik Mysterio's debut a night later. Wrestling debuts (yeah yeah I know Pat worked a match a decade ago, it's fair to call this a debut) are always exciting for me. I love seeing how much someone "gets" and what nuanced (if any) part of wrestling they understand from match one. Now, even with that beatdown angle, I haven't been able to get into this feud at all. Rollins is so dull to me, and Dominik really isn't a great actor, in ring or out. I was more excited for the McAfee debut, and that was in a match with ADAM COLE! McAfee/Cole felt like a perfect amount of time to deliver the story they needed to. Yes, it should have ended after McAfee's punt to the chest, and we didn't need Adam Cole's home stretch acting chops, but it was laid out fantastically. This match went too long, and the smoke and mirrors weren't anywhere near as satisfying. Rey and his wife did what they could, and I dug their Louis Vuitton gear. And Dominik did really well for a first match! He hit some fairly complicated stuff, missed a real nasty splash into Rollins' knees, and looked like he belonged. If you saw him at your local indy and this was his first match in, you'd be leaving the gymnasium and at least bring him up positively on the ride home. There was a good match in here, even if this wasn't it. I'm more interested in what Dominik does next.

Sasha Banks vs. Asuka

ER: This was the match I was most excited for. Sasha is probably the wrestler who I like the most, without ever thinking to answer "Sasha Banks" when thinking about wrestler I like the most. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I *always* get excited for big Sasha singles matches. I think she has easily been the women's MVP over the past 5 years, and I think she's easily the most consistent and delivers more often in big matches than the rest of the 4 horsewomen, and she has by far the most natural charisma of the 4. This was the match I was most excited for, and it delivered. These two both took some shots, it felt like it peaked perfectly and ended right where it should have, and the way they laid into each other made it feel important. Sasha went after Asuka's leg and it backfired, as Asuka just started throwing kicks, and I love Sasha when she realize a plan isn't working. The match is tough right from go, loved Asuka yanking Sasha off the apron into a kneebar, felt like a cool dickhead babyface thing to do. Asuka hits ringpost on a kick and winds up eating a nasty powerbomb off the apron to the floor, big THUD sound. Both flew gleefully into moves that targeted their heads, Asuka taking that powerbomb and then immediately eating a head kick, Asuka later landing a DDT off the middle rope that Sasha takes on her face. Sasha is great at taking Asuka's offense, they're an awesome super complementary pairing. Sasha takes the missile dropkick better than any other heel, her bumps less athletic but more ragdoll and interesting. I love their dueling arm and leg work, the battle over the Asuka Lock and Banks Statement is a strong finishing stretch. The double callback hip attack finish was handled well, and the tap for the Asuka Lock felt nicely triumphant. Sasha Banks really deserves a lot of praise for the character work and personality she's brought to the empty arena era. And this was her strongest match of the year.

Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: Very low expectations for this one, which may be to the benefit of the match. Orton starts with a lot of smug stalling, which is the closest we get to Jacques Rougeau style buffoonish smug stalling. It's not anywhere near as good, but I like the tradition. This is a slow paced match, but it felt more natural in its pace than the other purposely slow "dramatic" matches from this weekend. This felt hard fought in its slow pace, and that makes this kind of thing work. Orton is someone I have to be in the right mindset for these days, but he can still work within that window of interest. I liked him spamming RKO attempts early after weaseling out of contact, then ramping things up to meaner stuff like two back suplexes on the unbreaking announce table. McIntyre's spinebuster to comeback looked good and the overhead belly to belly landed heavy. I liked it a bit less once we went into the longish feeling second half, where it felt like it was based entirely on attempts at Signature Offense. The stuff where Orton was just stomping on him and dropping him from a high place where stronger. Still, for a modern WWE title match epic, this felt above average. I wish we could have just had Drew pin Orton with the Claymore kick. Randy Orton is fucking 40, guys. Let a dude in his mid 30s win with his finisher. Let a 6'5 265 lb. guy win a match differently than a Terry Taylor finish.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: It's sad when a match between two heavy dudes doesn't inspire me. They keep it short and to the point, and for that I am thankful. But this should be more exciting. The chokeslam into the announce table looked hard and the spear through the barricade was a nice crash. But this felt kind of stale on arrival. This should feel bigger and be cooler, and it shouldn't be that hard. It wasn't terrible by any means. The Braun powerslams where impressive and Wyatt's tool box attack had a stupid 1999 quality to them. Both a pretty uninteresting to me at this point (think of the sadness in that. Braun is 375 and he's not an automatic What Worked for me), so who won or lost didn't interest me. Therefore, the uranage and double Sister Abigail on the exposed ring boards was a cool enough finish to make me come around a bit on it.

BUT of course this match was just a mere slow set up for the real main event, which was Roman Reigns returning after 6 months to kick the shit out of both of them. Reigns looked like an absolute superstar destroying both men, and it's cool as hell seeing him in pure destruction mode. His spears on Wyatt were among the best of his career, and the visual of him wrecking Braun with chairshots was strong. This was the best way to bring Roman back, having him Walking Tall as we fade out. Roman really saved this segment and made it immediately feel more electric. Roman had Braun's best matches and some of Bray's best as well, and it immediately felt like that.

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NXT TakeOver: XXX 8/22/20 Better Late Than Never Blog

Breezango vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde

ER: A match that had some of the typical problems of any triple threat match, meaning we got a lot of different guys lying around for far longer than they should have been. If I focused on how many guys were lying around, and the moves that caused them to stay down (often just "guy gets thrown through ropes to floor", which happened a lot) it would be a silly match. But just trying to ignore the dumb match type and there was a ton of good action. Raul Mendoza looked awesome whenever he was in, loved him slipping through the ropes to the apron to catch Fandango with an elbow, and his rope run tornillo looked insane. Wilde is a big bumper and worked that well into the match (took a big lariat on his shoulder, got dropped with a Burch/Lorcan double DDT), Burch had a decent hot tag, there were a couple of nice offense chains (dug Lorcan hitting a flying uppercut only to eat a Breeze superkick), and a decent nearfall save. I would have rather seen either team other than Breezango win, but oh well.

Finn Balor vs. Timothy Thatcher

ER: Strong match, and it was stronger the closer they were. All of the grappling was really really good, and a match focused solely on that would have been awesome. The stuff I liked less was whenever it tilted a bit more into a Balor match with move reversals and a little stand and trade. The former made up a far higher % of the match, and the latter was worked in well. But the grappling was so strong that I just wanted it to be the whole match. Thatcher went after Balor's leg, and I love how Thatcher gets a tight leveraged grip on his single leg crab, locking his elbow crook in Balor's knee pit and absorbing boots to the face just to do some more damage. I like seeing Thatcher work guys who typically don't do matwork, as it forces them out of their comfort zone and usually makes them look cooler than their normal style. Balor didn't get clowned on the mat, even while Thatcher was bending at his arm and working to lock on chokes, or stomping on inner thigh to open up the left leg to a target. And I liked how they came back to the leg when Balor missed a stomp. Thatcher smelled blood and swam in. Some of the Balor offense felt like it went away from the cooler story they were telling, and I always wish guys were better about adjusting their offense game depending on what their opponent had been working, but I still liked this alot.

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Bronson Reed vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: Not only does Dream get to talk about "getting a second chance" during the pre match video and gets the last entrance, looks like the books are closed on that one. Bronson Reed is wearing a rad Bam Bam Bigelow singlet, and I am into it. And this match was odd, as I didn't really care for the match itself, but it had some pretty spectacular crash landings. Matches with odd number participants are usually off, and a lot of the stuff based around climbing ladders here was actively dumb. There are only so many ways to climb a ladder, and we're pretty far past the point of finding clever new ways to climb ladders. The cuter they get, the lamer it gets, and almost all of the stuff revolving around guys climbing was dumb. Guys also disappeared for odd stretches of time, sometimes after a bump that should keep someone disappeared, other times not. Plus, this thing was too long. We don't need to run past 20 in these stunt shows, just makes it feel silly the longer guys go surviving these crashes. The dive train was strong, especially liked Reed's big tope and Priest's wild tope con hilo after running up a ladder. Grimes did the splits between two ladders but the payoff was kind of weak, the ladder bump crashing over the barricade was wild, and my absolute favorite thing was Bronson splashing Gargano off a ladder with Candice on his back. The rest of the Candice involvement felt way too shoehorned, too out of place and Grimes looked silly selling any kind of offense from her. But a fat man hitting a superfly splash while wearing a tiny woman as a backpack is always going to fucking rule.

Adam Cole vs. Pat McAfee

ER: I LOVE matches with non wrestlers. I always get excited for them. I watch so many damn matches with guys who are trained specifically to do professional wrestling, that it is always exciting to see what someone - especially athletes from other sports - "gets" about wrestling. Sometimes it's Jay Leno doing an arm wringer a few times, but sometimes it's fucking Floyd Mayweather! I've seen Hijo del Santo live more than once, but how cool are those people who were at one of Marcus Dupree's first indy matches? What about those people who got to see Lawler and Dundee each teaming with local Tennessee pediatricians? I love non wrestler matches. And I think this was one of the greater non wrestler performances we've seen.

Pat McAfee was a real natural, and I'm not sure what it says for NXT that he was so much better at wrestling acting than Adam Cole? The match has a weird heel vs. heel vibe to it, that kind of works for the match overall. Cole isn't the guy defending the honor of pro wrestling against an invader, and McAfee isn't the local babyface star from another walk of life playing star in another sport. They're both heels, with McAfee a deservedly cocky loudmouth, and Cole a little brat who feels like the worst guy to be a public face of pro wrestling. The heel vs. heel vibe got me into it, something more fun about two unlikeable guys hurting each other (though I was rooting for McAfee obviously, who wouldn't root for him over Cole). They're smart with smoke and mirrors, and McAfee ramps things up appropriately, showing more and more athleticism and grasp of wrestling. He hits a dropkick, has a nice grounded chinlock, and then takes things to the next level with a tope con hilo into a crowd of plants and wrestlers. McAfee keeps looking more and more like a natural, and by the time McAfee did a backflip off the top, then leaping back to the top with no hands, to superplex Cole off. It was a great superplex, too. But once they start working the match around McAfee being an actual high level punter, this goes from a great non wrestler performance to a great match.

McAfee goes to punt Cole on the apron, Cole moves, and McAfee boots the ring steps. It looked great, and I love the idea about the great distance punter injuring his foot. We get a great moment of Cole kicking out his kicking leg on a charge, playing up the hurt foot and knee that he's had a few surgeries on. McAfee punts Cole in the balls and honestly, the McAfee punting Cole right in the chest and yelping at his hurt foot was one of my favorite wrestling moments of the year. Cole is a little too Edge Acting for the finish - again, McAfee shouldn't be able to play his character than Cole - but McAfee taking the flipping piledriver is a bonkers thing for a new wrestler to be taking. I am always going to be excited for a non wrestler match, and this one was one to seek out.

PAS:  I thought McAfee was incredible in this match and Cole was awful. If you showed someone this match in a vacuum, and asked which one of these guys was an untrained amateur there is no way they would pick McAfee. Everything cool in this match was on him, the tope con hilo, the backflip into the high jump superplex, and everything around his punt of death totally ruled. Meanwhile Cole is making dramatic acting faces and did maybe the worst hockey fight in the history of wrestling, swinging his tiny little T-Rex arms into something resembling a punch. Cole has to be 5'6 with a 4'11 wingspan. I am not sure how he wipes his own ass. That dramatic teased removal of the knee pad was embarrassing. There is a reason I don't watch this community college Death of a Salesman shit anymore.

Dakota Kai vs. Io Shirai

ER: I liked a lot of this, and yet a lot of it left me hollow? Even the stuff I liked kind of felt hollow as it never felt like it had grave consequences. Example: I thought Shirai's double knees and knee strikes  looked uniformly great throughout...and yet she did SO MANY of them to Kai that she made her own offense look ineffective. If something looks like a kill shot, but is sold similarly to a hard bodyslam, by the end of the match I don't care about it. The match was filled with hard knees and double stomps, but the only thing really sold as damaging was a so so moonsault. I liked Kai's work on Shirai's arm, and really thought the struggle by Shirai to get to the ropes made it even better. Shirai was good at selling her arm, and it slowed her down an appropriate amount while not getting too in the way. Kai's strength is stringing together semi-complicated sequences and making them turn out plausible, like when she slid to the floor, spun Shirai out onto the apron, and delivered a yakuza kick. Those kinds of sequences can come off too dance-y but Kai actually makes them look as intended. I think it went too long and they went back to certain things too many times. You cut this 16 minute match down to 10, thus cutting out some of the move spamming, and I think it hits.

Karrion Kross vs. Keith Lee

ER: This didn't work for me. It felt like they were moving in slow motion right out the gate. I'll take this kind of match over the Lee/Dijakovic style of main event, but this was not a match with 20+ minutes of material, and didn't need to be. Lee is bizarre to me. He is an incredible athlete who almost always plays against his strengths. He should be doing things to maximize his size and speed, and yet ever since joining NXT he almost always just comes off as everyone's equal. He's not a good striker, and yet he always does these stand and trade sections that remove any wonder. It would be like Vader working an equal strike exchange with someone 50 lb. (or more) smaller than him, it would look odd and make Vader look far less impressive. Imagine if Lee worked more like a larger, more spry Masa Saito?? Instead he's someone who works to minimize his size, and I don't get it. I was a big fan of Kross vs. Ciampa on the last TakeOver, and that match was worked with an immediacy that made Kross look like a killer without hurting Ciampa. This match had none of that immediacy, and instead was worked like at a slogging pace. I get they are saying that Keith Lee is a big man and takes a long beating to wear him down, but I don't think this did either man any favors. Keith Lee just got slowly worn down over a too long match, and he kept striking to comeback, which paints him in the least favorable light. He needed to just slam his body into Kross on every comeback, and that just didn't happen. I did like the Kross suplexes, and the whipping Saito suplex off the top was a cool finish, but even with the title win this match felt like a step back for Kross, and Lee has felt like he's been spinning his wheels on NXT all year.


ER: Weird show, my feelings for this one are a real rollercoaster. The show felt like a solid TakeOver show, but I really didn't like any of the matches other than the McAfee show. The pre-show match was fun but too short (considering every other match on the show got way too much time, they really could have used more balance), and Thatcher/Balor approached being a really good match but I didn't like the ways Balor took away from their own narrative. Ladder matches don't really move my needle any longer, they just happen far too frequently. The main event didn't work for me, and I was left with a former NFL punter carrying this entire show for me. And yet it felt like an overall good show? And yet it also felt like it went way way way longer than its actual run time. I'm torn on this one. But of one thing I am certain: Pat McAfee rules, and is a far more interesting performer than a large % of the NXT roster. That should be a major look in the mirror moment for the NXT brand. It likely won't be, but it should be.

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New Footage Friday: HOTSTUFF HERNANDEZ! RAGING FERNANDEZ! FUNK! WAHOO! ROCK N ROLLS! BADD CO!

Hotstuff Hernandez vs Terry Funk EWF 1/26/02

MD: I love the contrast here. Funk comes in trying to survive. Hernandez is bigger, stronger, younger. Funk's a man in his late 50s. The weapons are the equalizer. He comes right out of the gate by throwing a chair as Hernandez, young and brash, is preening. Then he follows up with one nasty shot after the next with chairs and tables, linking in his mastery of wrestling violence with a neckbreaker, and a pile driver and DDT on the chair. Hernandez has to get a foot on the rope, even so early into the match, after the pile driver, though he does manage to kick out of the DDT. Ultimately, Funk, really having no choice, leans too hard into it. The table he's used as a weapon, a lot like his own body, starts to break down and as it falls apart, he takes some collateral damage from a shot with it and Hernandez is able to come back. He doesn't go straight to weapon shots. He doesn't need to. Instead it's a clothesline and a toss into the corner. When he does go for a time, that gives Funk a chance to recover and toss another chair, taking back over. He's fighting against time, however, against youth and regeneration.

Funk throws everything he has at Hernandez, his own body, fists and head, but it takes a toll on him too. Hernandez is able to recover (and really all he has to do is throw himself at Funk to take back over), but his cockiness costs him once more as he misses a dive onto a table, something he absolutely did not need to do but very much wanted to. Funk comes back with a chair but leans into it too hard once more and eats a recoil shot. This time, however, instead of allowing to slow him down, he calls upon the very last thing he has left, the acceptance of his own mortality. Instead of pulling back, hesitating, recovering, he dives the rest of the way in, launching chairshots that bound off of Hernandez' head and onto his own, again and again and again, until both men collapse. Maybe it's the superior physical prowess and reflexes of youth or maybe it's the sad reality of an old man who'd used up all his luck decades before, but Hernandez falls upon Funk and takes the wholly Pyrrhic victory. Funk clears the ring after the match and basks in the crowd's respect for the effort they just witnessed and the memory of every effort that had come before.

ER: I'm not going to attempt to match the old horse poetry of Matt, but I loved this. If you were told there was a great Funk/Hernandez match out there, you would probably assume it was Funk/Gino, not Funk/Hotstuff. Funk is pushing 60 here and decides to take at least a dozen shots directly to the head, and this builds into one of the best matches of the last phase of Funk's career. This match was within the final 60 matches of his career (which I guess we can't officially call finished until the man is actually in the ground) and I think it ranks among the best of those 60. This was so much more of a big Funk performance than anyone could have reasonably expected in 2002, coming out throwing hard plastic chairs into the ring and starting the match proper with a chairshot exchange. Funk got his hands up on a couple of shots, but takes far more right on top of his head. Funk's offense looked strong, strong enough to believably put down a larger and younger man. His neckbreaker was tremendous, one of the more violent things in a match filled with chairshots and broken tables. He hits a nice piledriver and drops Hernandez with a DDT on a chair, and I loved that the placement of all of Funk's biggest pieces of offense were at the very beginning of the match, making it more believable that Hernandez was still fresh enough to kick out.

We get a great broken table spot in the corner off a Hernandez avalanche, Funk takes more shots to the head, and eventually Funk looks to only be standing by holding onto the ropes. Hernandez is just wailing on him with heavy chops, and I kept waiting for Funk to collapse in the ring. We get a huge moment of Hernandez missing a superfly splash through a table (with a perfect narrow escape from Funk, and the turning point where Funk just decides he's going to outcrazy Hernandez to psyche out the youngster is late career Funk brilliance. He misses a big chairshot that bounces off the top rope and recoils into his face, and it's one of the better versions of that spot out there. It's a spot that looks stupid at least 75% of the time, but with Funk it almost comes off as baked in. We're so used to seeing Funk hit by shrapnel and friendly fire that of course he's going to hit himself in the head occasionally. The finish is excellent, a bit of deranged theater that few could pull off, but naturally Funk is one of those few. He starts bashing Hernandez in the head with a chair, and then starts taking shots for himself, one for you, one to myself, over and over until it all catches up with him in an instant. Hernandez falls onto Funk like he's a vending machine that robbed Funk's quarters, pinning him under his dead weight. I loved this match.

PAS: Every Funk match we get is a total mitzvah. I don't think he has ever had a match that wasn't at a minimum worth watching. It's crazy the amount of punishment he was taking at this age, he certainly could have gone in there and played the hits, and everyone would have been happy. Instead he is taking multiple chair shots to the head, and getting speared into the ropes. The finish was a total joy, Funk chairshotting Hernandez and himself until they were both splayed out.  What a performer Funk was, and major props to Hernandez for putting him over so well.


Wahoo McDaniel vs. Manny Fernandez AWA 6/25/88

MD: This was pretty much what you expected it to be. Manny wasn't even 34 here (though he almost was) but he felt more like Wahoo who was 16 years older than him than Hennig who was just four younger. It felt like two old guys beating the crap out of each other. There was one fan who was heckling early on which got a rise out of Manny, and the match would have been more interesting if he had kept going. Also this is the only HH I've ever seen where the camera operator spent the first two minutes of the match trying to find someone else to film it. Premise was that Wahoo would get an advantage, Manny would go over the top/more vicious to get over on him and repeat, until Wahoo was fed up with it, scored a mule kick low blow, and they ended up outside for the countout. Nothing revelatory but one's going to complain about watching two great strikers beat on each other for 8 minutes. 

PAS: I loved this match up. One of my favorite things in wrestling is two fry cooks tossing spuds. Wahoo at one point just backhands Manny right in the face. This doesn't really go anywhere, but it is stiff as all get out, and Manny especially is a guy we don't have a ton of footage of and just watching him throw those backhand shots is nifty.

ER: This ruled, because it was Wahoo McDaniel vs. Manny Fernandez. I wanted to meaty dudes to welt each other up, and that's literally all the did. Some guy near the camera operator keeps trying to make fun of Manny's forehead. "Nice forehead! How's your forehead!?" As if Manny Fernandez has no idea that his gouged forehead looks like a topographical match of the Appalachians. Honestly I knew this match was getting high marks for me the moment Wahoo ran at Manny and threw one of his chops right across Manny's face. Wahoo knocks Manny straight onto his ass with a running backhand!! This is a high school gym crowd, and they got to witness a bigger backhand slap than I've seen in any Jack Hill movie. Manny drops to his butt and begs off, and this is a 5 star match. Wahoo is great and breaking Manny with knucklelocks, and Manny is great at being the guy brought to his knees by a knucklelock. And by the time this broke down into these two chopping each other as hard as humanly possible, I was in heaven. These are some of the hardest choppers in wrestling, and neither was holding back. They were throwing these chops HIGH too, aiming them no lower than the collarbones. We're talking the most painful sounding chops thrown right at the collarbones, neck, throat, and face. The guy stops recording while they're still kicking each other's ass on the floor, but this was a hearty meal of chops. Everyone needs these 10 minutes in their life.


Rock N Roll Express vs. Badd Company AWA 6/25/88

MD: Following the Wahoo vs Manny match is about half of a Lawler vs Hennig match. It's a shame we don't get more of it because Lawler had a lot of tools to work with there. The crowd's pretty goofy (more on that later) but it's intimate and full of some loudmouths. Hennig was super athletic and would bump like crazy for him. He had Madusa to play off of, etc. Just when it was starting to get good (missed fistdrop leading to Hennig limbwork) it cuts out. The tag match was good, if straightforward (short heat, single heat, quickly over after hot tag). Really, they were playing off the crowd and the homophobic loudmouths within it. That meant a lot of big bumping heel miscommunication spots early, a sense of Company really taking it out on Gibson when they took over, and Ricky never really taking things seriously which is why he launched a few low blows in the comeback just for the hell of it and to pop that one loud section of the crowd. That ultimately drew a DQ and a Dusty finish (I think that's what happened at least). It was, in a lot of ways, an expert performance of giving the crowd the sort of match they wanted, right down to Morton believably costing his team the match, and while that's important in examining all of these wrestlers across their career, what we end up with is me not wanting to go to 1988 Jersey City anytime soon (the whole thing was in front of a big banner stating pride in being JC students) and a match that probably wouldn't quite make the AWA set.

PAS: This is similar to Manny match, a pair of great teams kind of working their way through a formula match for a shitty crowd. Manny and Wahoo are going to stiff each other, and Pat Tanaka and Ricky Morton are going to pinball, and that is enough for me. I get the sense these teams have some stuff to have a really great match against each other, and I imagine it happened somewhere. This wasn't it, but it had enough professional shtick that I enjoyed it.

ER: Loud pre-match gay slurs aside (easily solved by a lowering of the volume for the match), this was a killer Pat Tanaka bumpathon. Badd Company don't really get much, as this is mostly the Rock n Rolls pinballing Tanaka around, but I'm cool with that. There are plenty of fun moments with teams this good, like Tanaka ducking away when he gets too close to Gibson on the apron only to turn around into a great Ricky clothesline (with big flipping Tanaka bump), just one instance of Tanaka treating this match like it wasn't at a Jersey City high school. I liked Badd Company's cheating, always love over the ropes chokes, and I loved Paul Diamond's ankle pick to prevent a tag. After the match Tanaka takes two of his bigger bumps, a nice backdrop (of course Tanaka had to get a backdrop bump in), and gets awesomely faceplanted on the ringside announce table. He and Ricky walked right onto the table, and Tanaka gets shoved down hard into it, belly flopping into that empty pool.

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