New Footage Friday: ROSE! TENRYU! TAKASHI ISHIKAWA! FINLAY! FUNK!WAR GAMES!

Buddy Rose/Alexi Smirnoff vs. Tenryu Shimada/Takashi Onome Big Time Wrestling 9/2/78

MD: This was a TV match to get over the Rose/Smirnoff tag team and build to more Texas Red/Dean Ho matches where Ishikawa and Tenryu (with their modified names) were there to put up a fight but put over the heels. What's so fascinating about it to me is how naturally Tenryu worked in this setting. You could see him take a different path and be an ethnic babyface throughout a bunch of territories into the 80s. After some pretty good armwork, he comes in off a hot tag and he was like Tito Santana or Rick Martel for a couple of minutes. I know the prevailing thought is that Tenryu doesn't become Tenryu until after Choshu comes in and it's true; this was a different guy, but he was a more interesting guy than we usually see before the transformation and it was his role and his setting. You just don't have a lot of hot tags and "house afire" moments in turn of the 80s AJPW tags. Here he generic babyface stomped instead of the sharp kicks and had the generic wind-up punch. Just a different world from where he'd be ten years later, even if he did get to to the sumo palm charge and rolling cradle as well. If he was going to be this version of Tenryu, he would have done a lot better with it in the States. The heels looked good, with Smirnoff having a couple of interesting submissions, and Rose maximizing every moment, jawing to the announcers about what they'd do to their future opponents and just making everything look vicious and entertaining. You're watching this because it's a Buddy Rose match you probably haven't seen, always worth watching, but also to see a weird Americanized babyface version of Tenryu that might have been.


Terry Funk vs. Fit Finlay vs. Tiger Steel EWR 5/18/01 - GREAT

MD: We're working off of two data points, but from what we've seen lately, Finlay was pretty damn good at being in three-ways. A lot of what makes this work is the interplay between he and Funk, the way they reacted to things and were presences in the match. Funk headbutting people. Finlay broaching no foolishness. Them working together only to turn on each other. Tiger Steel is Butch Masters and he makes a really expansive canvas for getting beaten on here by two of the real experts. He had some good moments of striking down upon Funk's skull too. The use of weapons was generally fun, with my favorite bit being a big piece of wood used as a springboard for Funk as it hung all the way across the ring on the bottom rope. There's a set up for a fire extinguisher that never gets paid off but that's chaos for you. The post match promo where Funk works to get the crowd to turn on him is almost as fun as the match.

PAS: Tiger Steel kind of wrestles like a poor man's Kevin Nash, and poor man's Kevin Nash is actually a pretty great third guy in a Finlay and Terry Funk 3-Way. He is there to get pounded on by both guys, gives each of them a little break where he works the other guy and lets Funk and Finlay catch their breath. This was a pretty fierce pace for guys in their 50s, and Funk and Finlay really vamp, it is a cool contrast with Funk being one of the great maximillist wrestlers of all time and Finlay being the ultimate minimalist, it isn't a contrast at all, it works in concert. Funk is pinballing himself in the ropes wilding around flinging punches, and Finlay is dropping short sick knees and hard forearms, while Steel is there to be hit.. It really works well, and the formlessness keeps it from being an EPIC, but I enjoyed every bit of it


Team Anarchy (Slim J/Azrael/Brody Lee Chase/Jeremy Vain/Iceberg) vs. NWA Elite (Geter/Jagged Edge/Shadow Jackson/Nemesis/Shaun Tempers) NWA Anarchy 3/30/13 - EPIC

PAS: Always glad to see another Anarchy War Games match show up as the NWA Wildside youtube account has been dropping gems lately. This is a nifty bookend to the War Games matches in my book, as like 2006 Jerry Palmer has a 5 minutes in the cage stipulation, except this time as a heel, and like 2007 this is Jeff G. Bailey vs. Rev. Dan Wilson, although Rev. Dan was purely a babyface and didn't have a huge role in the match. Lots of great performances and a ton of blood, Slim J and Azrael and the Urban Assault Squad had been feuding and they are the first four in the cage and I really dug all of their interactions, including all of the ways Azrael used his partners body as a weapon throwing him into a flippy splashes. Vain was the big surprise and gets a big pop, I really liked Jagged Edge coming in with a cowbell and wrestling like a Black Bunkhouse Buck (Blackhouse Buck? Bunkhouse Black?). Geter is enormous and laid everyone out with some really punishing looking power offense. When the Match Beyond starts the face team really goes after Tempers, spraying him in the eyes and Slim J applying a sick looking STF for the tap out. Iceberg says he has too much history with Palmer to beat him up in the 5 minutes, but turns it on him and brings out Mikal Judas who lays waste to Palmer (including a sick kick to the face, which a littler birdy told me was a receipt for Palmer potatoing guys). This really had a lot to love about it, and it is the same neighborhood as the 06 ad 07 classics. 

MD: You knew you were going to get good stuff here anyway, but when it was Slim J coming down for the opening 5 minute period, that was basically cemented. He shined during the first couple of periods, wrestling evenly but gaining advantage at first, leading to the early blood from Jackson, then just getting lawn darted into the cage and bleeding himself once the Urban Assault Squad was at full strength, and finally showing off a hundred double team moves in a two minute span once Azrael made it in to even the odds. He was able to show off a full range of what you'd want from a War Games participant here, down to the big dive and nasty submission (and subsequent emotion with Palmer) at the end. There was so much local history in that ring and the weight of it made everything resonate all the more. The weapons added a bit of variety and made the blood flow even more conveniently. I liked how they handled Vain's return, as he had to clean house and get some shine but couldn't overshadow either Iceberg battling cleanup after him or the surprise for the Palmer 5 minutes. There was a real sense of attrition and advantage from the Elite having the numbers game for so long so even though he made a difference, it made sense that he got swept under even before his period was over. The post-match was a tricky balance. They needed to have Palmer get his comeuppance and take enough damage, but not take so much that the fans were elated and frothing to the point of not accepting the reconciliation; I was a little iffy as it was playing out but it worked for the crowd in the end.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY