New Footage Friday: RED! BALLARD! BASHAMS! SATO! ISO! WATANABE! KONAKA PALE ONE!

Joan Ballard vs. Jean Noble 9/14/56

MD: We sat on this for half a year, but when the Chicago archive posts something, we have to watch it eventually. This has no sound but you guys have been watching empty arena matches with jump cuts for the last year so that shouldn't slow you down too much. If I have them figured out right, Noble's the heel here and she'd eventually have the Yulie Brynner bald gimmick. Honestly, I think this could have been a 20 minute attraction match in 1956 France and it would have gotten over with no one blinking an eye. That's a testament to how hard they were hitting and the sort of stuff they were doing. Noble snuck in the cheap shots when the ref was out of position and had those leg dives off the ropes on breaks that we've seen a lot out of desperate French heels. Ballard had a lot of revenge holds, most especially a rolling leg nelson, though worked as more of a nelson and less of a face-grinder. They hit hard, though it's interesting that they went down on almost every blow. No being staggered or stand up striking. Every shot led to a bump and I need to go back and look at other women's matches from this period to see if that was a conscious difference in how they were trained to work. The crowd seemed fairly reserved, though it's hard to tell without sound, but they definitely deserved some heat and adulation, whether they got it or not. 

Red/Steve Corino vs. Damaja/Doug Basham PCW 8/31/02

MD: This was the second round of the Russ Haas memorial tournament. Stryker (Teacher/Commentator Matt Striker, I think, in this case) had "suffered an injury" in the first round and Corino was a surprise partner. This was structured exactly how you'd want a ten minute tag in a middle of a one night tournament to be. The Corino surprise, though it didn't get a huge pop or anything, created almost an artificial addition to the shine, which combined with how good Red's stuff looked meant it didn't need to be so long. That meant they could lean into a double heat. Red's size made all of the heels' power moves look all the more potent, which again added value per time to the first half of the heat. At one point I almost thought this was setting up Corino refusing the tag and going heel on Red, even though there was nothing in the match itself other than how long a couple of minutes of beating on Red felt to make me feel that way. It wasn't usually the role he was cast in but Corino, once he got in, really understood the timing of working from underneath and the proto-Bashams worked well as a unit with blind tags and cut offs. The comeback was crowd-pleasing and didn't wear out its welcome before the Bashams again utilized Red's size to dramatic effect for the finish. Nice compact package here.

ER: The more Bashams I go back and watch, the more they feel like one of the best tag teams of the last 20 years. They really didn't get widespread hype during their WWF run, but watching them now while comparing them to literally any current WWF team and they feel so far ahead of the pack. Here I thought their tightness as a team shone because Corino looked pretty bad (until the final 30 seconds of the match). Basham has the great thinning tight curls mullet and beard, which gives him a cool late 80s Terry Funk vibe, and I loved his delivery of big clotheslines and his corner hip check. He's smart about when to stay out of the way (like when he saw Corino was behind on timing, so Basham did this sudden weak kneed sell so he wasn't just standing there like a goon waiting for Corino), and his timing with Damaja is strong. Red is a great guy to showcase their offense, getting wasted by clotheslines and flying high on a flapjack, and they're strong at selling Red's offense. Damaja threw an awesome right hand that seemed to wake Corino up for the finishing stretch, with he and Red both running wild, Red landing a great tope con giro, Corino throwing two really great overhand rights before being taken out, and Damaja laying Red out with an awesome Baldo bomb. Basham and Damaja had only teamed a dozen or two times at this point, and they already looked like a perfect pairing. A reevaluation of their WWF run would be a really fun project.

 
Hiroshi Watanabe/Hideya Iso vs. Yasushi Sato/Konaka Pale One Mumejuku Pro 2/5/17

SR:  Hiroshi Watanabe is a PWC guy who has been around since at least 1995, along with Sanshiro Takagi. He was a talented wrestler but way too short to ever receive a push. Thankfully, he stayed around long enough until a tiny offshoot indy arose that would give him the opportunity to shine in long matches. Mumejuku is as if a bunch of aging geeky wrestlers who all agreed that matwork and 70s style moves are way better than 2.9999s and elbow exchanges, all got together and started a promotion. This was a really stretched out match with everyone involved hitting the mat for a good 15 or so minutes. You don’t see this kind of extended pro style matwork much outside of lucha anymore and it was very refreshing. It basically felt like MUGA mixed with llaves. Watanabe was the standout by far, going from doing holds to bald head comedy to unexpected bridge ups and escapes, hitting a really nice dropkick and awesome well-timed Robinson backbreaker. He is one of the few guys who can pull that kind of throwback style of and not feel phony. Konaka Pale One is an indy guy doing a yoga gimmick meaning he does some freaky contortions, and he has a wonderful little matwork section with Watanabe. Hideya Iso is the guy who looks like a mini-Yatsu and he is solid. Yasushi Sato is apparently in his 50s, but he looks good here. The finishing run was built around Sato throwing cool suplexes and doing leg grapevine moves. There are some really intelligent spots, and Sato is actually able to make me give a shit about things like a russian leg sweep, and the constant build to his finishing hold was really cool. Whole match felt very antithetical to the current landscape which is very welcome, and I hope this channel drops more stuff like this on us. 

MD: Long, tricked out, hard worked Japanese indy tag. It more or less worked in a three act structure, the first being matwork and pairings where each guy got to bring something to the table: Konaka Pale One (despite neither acting or working like a ghost) carried a lot of this and looked great throughout, including a nice rolling arm scissors early and more elaborate things later on. Iso and Sato weren't as smooth but the former used his weight advantage well and the latter brought a lot of energy. Watanabe had a bunch of well-received comedy bits with his bald head. The second act had Konaka and Sato fed up by said comedy and while it was still worked mostly back and forth to start, they took more and more liberties and ultimately seized an advantage. The third act was Watanabe and Iso coming back with some huge bombs and then Sato returning the favor, with Konaka doing damage around the margins. It all led to a series of grinding stretch attempts turned into modified Russian leg sweeps until Sato was finally able to lock in the hold he wanted for the win. I can't tell you much more about this one except for that it was good and you should watch it.

PAS: Man Sebastian can dig them up. Never heard of any of these guys, and I am in all on all four. They open with nearly ten minutes of mat wrestling and they keep it interesting, which is a total unicorn for 21st century wrestling. The finishing run had cool moves without overkill and a sensible build to a sensible finish. Watanabe hits a great backbreaker, Sato has a Hondaish delayed German and I loved how Sato worked the whole match to set up that trapped arm abdominal stretch, including hitting trapped arm Russian leg sweeps. I don't know why all Japanese wrestling stopped being stuff like this and to find it we have to dig deep deep into the internet.