SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR: WAR 6/20/99

WAR 6/20/1999

Masao Orihara vs. Tomohiro Ishii

SR: Both these guys were pretty great in the late 90s, so I was pretty salty about this being clipped down just a couple minutes. Ishii was a wreckingball during this period, but Orihara easily outstiffes him trying to crack his jaw with lariats. We also get Ishii working Orihara over with chairs and whiping him out with a crazy rolling senton to the outside. Fun stuff but I wanted atleast 3/4ths of the thing.

Nihao vs. Koki Kitahara

SR: This was a CAPTURE showcase match and holy fuck after this I‘d kill to get the entire CAPTURE back catalogue. Brutal brutal match, just the most primitive grimy shootstyle you can imagine, two  guys with gloves trying to pummel each other into oblivion. Nihao takes Kitahara down and bloodies him with punches and headbutts, but the boss comes back just trying to crush his face with punches and teeth loosening kicks. There was one spinkick that would‘ve made Daisuke Ikeda wince, and also at one point Kitahara reverses a takedown into an armlock that looked to almost tear Nihaos shoulder. They showed 4 out of 6 minutes, and really would it have killed them to include those 2 minutes? Still 80 % of a sick spectacle is better than most, and those 4 minutes were some of the most insane of the year.

Ryuma Go vs. Thunder Warrior Alpha

SR: I respect Tenryu's tendency to bring in Go to squish random aliens. This was clipped to almost nothing but we got to see Go acting crazy and destroying the alien.

Genichiro Tenryu/Magnum TOKYO vs. Nobutaka Araya/Sumo Fuji

SR: The boss is involved, so we got the full match here. Didn‘t know what to expect from this, but it ends up a really entertaining match thanks to Tenryuisms. Basically Sumo Fuji acts like a big shot and annoys Tenryu some and ends up paying for it. Also really liked Araya as a scuzzy guy potatoing Magnum TOKYO. Toryumon guys also looked solid in their sections against each other, and TOKYO hit a pretty great top rope asai moonsault amongst other things. Loved Tenryu here, I think he didn‘t even take a back bump but pretty much carried the match by being a prick, as he usually does.

Osamu Tachihikari/Arashi vs. Daikokubo Benkei/Ichiro Yaguchi

SR:We get about 30 seconds of this and I am not bummed at all about that. I liked Tachihikari busting out random move like an STO and a Magistral.

Yuji Yasuraoka/Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Super Delfin/Naohiro Hoshikawa

SR: This was 4 solid pro wrestlers doings lots of solid pro wrestling, building to a pretty exciting second half. WAR reckless kicker Mochizuki ruled, I am just going to pretend he retired after WAR folded. He had some pretty great exchanges with Hoshikawa here, and I loved him flying into the scenery out of nowhere to take out people with spin kicks. Delfin & Hoshikawa worked well together and it was cool to see them acting as a crew. For some reason, juniors getting dumped on their heads or diving around the place was a lot more satisfying to watch in the 90s.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Yuji Yasuraoka

SR: I guess Mochizuki wasn‘t happy with Yasuraoka's performance in that tag, so he gets on the mic to challenge Yasuraoka to a singles. Yasuraoka then proceeds to hit his awesome dive, getting insane height, and we get a fun short explosion of them throwing bombs at each other. Wouldn‘t have minded if this went longer, but they just did a 17 minute long match before so it made sense for this to be short and intense.

Shigeo Okumura/Sambo Asako/Atsushi Onita vs. Nobutaka Araya/Genichiro Tenryu/Shoji Nakamaki

SR: Exactly what it looks like on paper: Six tubby asskickers brawling all over the place, bleeding and pasting each other with chairs and lariats. That plus the megastar charisma of Tenryu and Onita. Tenryu is such an awesome menace here, punching people in the face and chucking chairs at them. Him vs. Terry Funk would’ve been one hell of a program. Then again, Tenryu  was pretty much untouchable at this point in his career. Onita & Asako looked pretty much like regular guys at this point, which made Asako getting abused by Tenryu feel all the more violent. Okumura was in charge with bringing a slight bit of workrate to the match and he did fine, hitting a pretty stiff dropkick. Very predictable match but all too fun.

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Borga Became a Legend in My Life

Ludvig Borga vs. Scott King WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/24/93 - FUN

ER: Poor poor Scott King. He doesn't even get his name announced before his beating, as Borga shoves Mike McGuirk (holy shit, Ludvig) out of the way just as she's about to. I've seen Borga shove Finkel out of the way before, but this has to be the first time Borga has physically moved McGuirk before an ass kicking. Ross is appalled and Heenan says she just shouldn't have been in the way, and should have instead been doing the announcing from the kitchen and they work a great bit around that, with Ross ignoring Heenan as Heenan keeps apologizing and then continuing the joke ("I should have said laundry room because we all know she can't cook!"). This probably reads extremely offensive but it played more like a good Charles Nelson Reilly bit about Bret Somers than an anti-woman screed. The fact is, Ludvig Borga is the world's most aggressive Roomba, just shoving his way over anything that gets in the way of his primary directive: Murder that man standing in the corner. Borga shoves a woman, a Roomba drags a cat blanket around the house. These are the same killing machines only with different strength. 

Borga goes after King's ribs with punches, and King is really great at selling rib injuries. He has a way of clutching his left arm close to his body and holding that left arm with his right, the best visual way to put over an internal injury. Hands to stomach looks too dainty and reads more like diarrhea. Clutching an arm to your body through clenched teeth and one closed eye is the kind of thing Tenryu would do to sell a rib injury. Scott King took several punches to the body, and I love how Borga mixes the angles he throws them at. My favorite punch this match was Borga standing to King's 5 o'clock and wrapping a right hand underneath King's ribcage. The flapjack uppercut looked great, and Borga has the most effectively painful looking Torture Rack these eyes have seen. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Mike Bucci  WWF Raw 10/25/93 - GREAT

ER: This was one of the best squash matches of 1993. Most memorable squash matches are remembered for their violence. If a job guy lands on his head, it's typically part of a memorable squash match. This match was one-sided and Borga has great looking offense, but Mike Bucci didn't wind up in traction. What made this so memorable was Borga's full commitment to being a sincerely hated heel. The Narcissist and later Doink face turn really left Borga as the only vocal heel on the brand who could do strong crowd work. Borga is a heel who wrestles like he openly hates the fans he's wrestling in front of, and this match was the best he's pulled that off yet. He picks one guy in the crowd, a big mustachioed guy in the front row behind camera that we don't get to see until after the match, and he rubs this guy's face in it after every single shot he takes at the future Super Nova. It plays incredibly on camera, because Borga is walking right toward the ringside camera between every move, yelling past it at this unknown object of ire. 

Borga hits a spinebuster on Bucci, lifts and drops him with a double handed choke, hammers him with beautiful rights to the body, and in between every shot he's walking over to this guy and telling him to kiss his ass. Borga runs down everything a man from Poughkeepsie might hold dear, all while effectively pounding away at Bucci. Bucci's inexperience adds to the heel heat as he looks kind of off balance when he gets thrown into the ropes, so every time Borga wasted him it felt like he was taking advantage of a man in over his head. Borga is the biggest heat machine in WWF at this point, getting even more heat than Cornette can get for Yokozuna by shouting 20x the words Borga does. The 1993 WWF crowds were responding far louder to Ludvig Borga as a heel, than they were Lex Luger as a face. Borga was getting real modern reactions, as the hatred was clear, but he looked cool delivering his hateful beatings and some fans were naturally reacting to him throwing guys like Bucci into the air and then punching them to the mat. The face reactions were loud and competed with the louder heel reactions, but this man was drawing LOUD reactions like few. He taunts the crowd like an absolute pro. He has the same annoying smug European qualities as some of the best heels in French Catch. When you see him singling out fans while not forgetting to spread plenty of hate to the rest of the fans, while also taking the time to smugly acknowledge someone's hand-drawn Finnish flag, he comes off like one of the great heels of 1993 American wrestling. Borga was a much hotter act than given credit for at the time, and this match was the hottest the act has looked in WWF so far.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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New Footage Friday: IKEDA~! ISHIKAWA~! KANEHARA~! ITO~! REY~! RED~! SANTO~! ULTIMO~!

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Red HOG 8/21/15

MD: Given where Rey's knees were in 2015, this was pretty high end stuff. They had nice early exchanges building to some tit-for-tat mirrored work, including both guys teasing the code red and 619. Red, early on, took a great bump through the ropes but then felt the need to bump himself again after the landing, which was a little silly. What really made the match work was how, once it got going, Rey ended up working from underneath with Red using the fact he at least matched Rey's size to play cruiserweight bully. Rey would get well-layered hope spots, but Red was there each time to cut him off in clever and interesting ways. On the other hand, Red would lean into the hometown crowd a little too much or play up his Eddy tributes instead of going for victory, and give Rey another shot at that hope. There was escalation with Rey at least able to try and then finally get more offense, but Red was pretty firmly in control right up until the point where he went for the three amigos and Rey was able to sneak out a victory. Red taking so much of the match protected him (not like he really needed it) and also let Rey do what he could do best in 2015, get sympathy and help someone else shine.

ER: I really enjoyed this, had a lot of fun seeing two of my favorites, and also didn't love the match structure very much. It's tough to do a baby vs. baby match and I'm not quite sure what structure would have pleased me the most, but this one did not. That's not very helpful. I love what they did but not how they did it? Who exactly is that helping? There was some neutralizing stuff to start, and it makes sense that we would get some mirror exchanges as Red's greatest matches were mirroring the kind of things that Rey made possible. I love how Red bumped for Rey. I actually liked the extra bump into the rail that Red took (that Matt not-unfairly called "silly"), as I thought it looked great, like he recoiled off the landing and flew head first into the railing. But mainly I loved that it established Rey as the goodest good guy, as he went to the floor to actually check on Red and make sure he could continue. I would have loved to see Red go full heel on Rey, or Rey go full heel on Red (and disappoint all of those kids so excited to see Rey) but Rey being established as the evergreen babyface was handled in a smart way. 

I did think they leaned too heavy on Rey getting cut off, as literally any time he went for any move down the last 10 minutes Red was right there to stop him. My least favorite match layout is "one guy takes all the offense but then immediately wins the match with two moves" and this felt like an extended - but more interesting - version of that tired Randy Savage Nitro match formula. The best parts were seeing how the two legends took each other's offense, and seeing how much Rey inspired Red's early career, and how much Red inspired Rey's late career. Both are underrated bases because they are both small enough that they don't play that role, so there was a lot of joy in seeing them take ranas and headscissors, seeing Rey try a code red ON Red, seeing Red flatten Rey with that pancake powerbomb out of the Santo roll. A match filled with joy, that also somewhat underwhelmed. That said, fans of either will find plenty here to love. 

PAS: I am somewhere in the middle of Eric and Matt here. I thought all of the countering made a ton of sense, considering Rey was such an inspiration to Red. Red is going to know all of Rey's stuff, and Red's stuff is Rey's stuff so he is going to be on the lookout as well. I was also into the big Red bump into the guardrail, fun violent stuff, and it made perfect sense that Red might have been discombobulated.  I didn't love how heavy the Eddie tributes were in the finish, both guys in the match have such rich histories, and this was such a dream match, that you didn't need to shoehorn Eddie in too. Still this was really fun to finally see, and with the Ki match and this Red match Rey had a very cool mini-run against the 2000s indy greats in 2015.

57. Daisuke Ikeda/Hiromitsu Kanehara vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Takafumi Ito GPS 9/26/18 - GREAT

PAS: THE BOYS!! I remember trying to reach out to GPS on Facebook asking them to upload this match three years ago when it happened, and it just shows up! This was worked BattlArts style, and while it didn't hit the absolute heights of the best of that style, even good BattlArts is awesome. I really liked Kanehara here. He is a UWFI guy and looked really good on the mat and threw hard kicks, and I loved how fast he threw his axe kick and how deadly that was sold. Ito looked good on the mat too, and went at Ikeda only to pay for it. We don't really get the extended Ikeda vs. Ishikawa section you really want, and they do square off a couple of times and Ikeda really bounces his fist off of Ishikawa's head, but it felt backgrounded a bit when you really want it foregrounded. Still every part of this was really well worked and any chance you get to watch these guys be these guys, you want to jump on it. 

MD: A satisfying watch even if it never entirely boiled over. I wasn't sure we were going to get much Ikeda vs Ishikawa at all, so it was good to see them scrap towards the end. The good thing here was that the other matchups were all interesting. I agree with Phil that Kanehara showed a lot. His kicks were dangerous, with the axe kick built up early so that when he hit it on Ishikawa later, you believed that it'd get his team solid advantage for a time. He also had a nice, dominant mat exchange with Ito though. Otherwise, the most memorable bits were Ikeda just crushing Ito in the corner and Ishikawa's amazing catch and duck under switch of Kanehara's leg. There were a couple of funny moments for balance and that expected familiarity between Ikeda and Ishikawa that just bleeds through whenever they're in the ring together. It ended up feeling very complete even if it never quite went over the top.

ER: Glad that GPS finally got around to checking their Facebook Messenger three years later to fulfill Phil's request. The match is a really fun violent take on an All Japan Legends match, with them getting a mixture of laughs and awe with old bits and old violence. Kanehara and Ito work nasty leg locks and Kanehara throws the kind of kicks that made 90s UWFI so fun. Ikeda is a real bully to Ito, so while he's weathering an ankle lock he's always ending things by punching or elbowing or kicking Ito in painful ways. But there's that All Japan old guys match element that makes this a different kind of violent BattlArts, so we also get great weirdo moments like Ikeda whiffing on a 619 attempt and landing on his head. That felt like the first time Ikeda has ever come off like Rusher Kimura, and it made me realize how great the potential might be for old man Ikeda/Ishikawa comedy matches. I've spent so many years wondering how those two were going to keep up their level of violence into their even older age, that I've never thought about how good they might be at adding more comedy as the violence becomes less sustainable. Ishikawa is a fun foil during their exchanges, teasing him with Inoki legsweeps and taking Ikeda's headbutts the way an old man accepts a refreshing glass of homemade lemonade from his wife of 43 years. They each take some shots, but it's Ikeda's work opposite Ito that most stood out for me. Ito knew his fate but it never slowed his attempts to tap him. Ikeda always looks like he's having a blast when he maneuvers another man into a crossface, and that's just the joy of old man shootstyle. 

Ultimo Dragon vs. El Hijo Del Santo PWR 10/5/19

PAS: This was basically a maestro exhibition and a fun version of one. Dragon is definitely slower but still solid on the mat, and even breaks out a Navarro family spinning figure four. He also takes a big top rope armdrag, which was a big bump for some oldsters. Santo appears to move no differently than he did 30 years ago, and it is always a pleasure to watch him break out old hits like the head spin headscissors and la Caballo. Unnecessary BS run in finish mars this a bit, but I imagine the audience came away feeling their money was well spent. 

MD: Pretty minimalist affair but we like those. There was one big spot in this thing and they milked it for everything it was worth. They milked everything, actually. Dragon waggled his finger in the air for fifteen seconds before trying to get a pin towards the finish. Santo can get away with that. He ate up Dragon on the mat for the first five minutes but everything was smooth. When Dragon came back with some kicks, his reverse figure four looked nice (though well-milked and barely sold). Crowd was clearly behind Santo and that let Dragon play the aggressor a bit more. The big spot was an arm drag off the top after a teased superplex and it was fine even if it took Santo forever to get up the gumption to charge up there and toss him off. No one in the crowd cared though. They were all just happy to be there and see these two (or at least see Santo).

ER: This match happened two hours away from me, on the total opposite side of the Bay Area, promoted by Pro Wrestling Revolution. They're the far and away consistently highest drawing indy in the Bay Area, and nearly every time I have been coaxed and lured into attending one of their shows over the years I have experienced one of the most unsatisfying in-ring products of my fandom. I hate Pro Wrestling Revolution, the only local lucha fed, who only insist on promoting to excess the worst parts of lucha libre. The entire promotion gravitates entirely around heel referee Sparky Ballard (here, El Sparko), an entire promotion focused entirely about preserving the tradition of a referee getting in the way any time any match begins to gain momentum. I've never seen a PWR match end without bullshit, and it's always the most unnecessary bullshit you can think up. It's an authentic lucha fed who flies in authentic lucha talent and then books lucha like someone who has the worst taste in lucha. 

But they booked El Hijo del Santo in his first singles match in over two years so I was going to drive 4+ total hours to see how Pro Wrestling Revolution could fuck up such a joyous occasion. Me and my pal Tim Livingston took an entire Saturday to see Santo, one of us being smart enough to buy a ticket in advance, the other of us deciding to buy his at the door. And when the only tickets left at the door cost $50, one of us decided to spend the entire first half of the show walking around the exterior of a large San Jose high school looking for a way to sneak into the show, before resolving himself to just wait until intermission and walk right into the building as everyone else flooded out. So I missed half the show, of a promotion who has never put on an enjoyable undercard. I found Tim, forced to endure the heel referee Revolution alone due to my ticket buying procrastination, and together we endured more heel referee lucha while waiting for Santo. Cain Velasquez was there with his family. 

The match was minimalist but enough to keep a smile on me (until the bullshit). It's a good Santo performance for a crowd who was hot to see him, but also the weakest Santo performance of any that have made tape over the past 5 years. He is still quick, especially for a man in his mid-50s, but at some points your handsprings don't land you on your ankles and you instead land on your butt and stand up. The matwork has moments but doesn't attempt to go anywhere with the moments, instead giving you some nice snapshots of moments. I like when Santo does little things like kick Dragon in the knee before picking a single leg. Dragon has some things that look good, decent back elbows and a willingness to lean into a great Santo in-ring tope, but Dragon can also take an eternity in between movement. I loved the top rope armdrag and will count myself incredibly lucky if I'm able to breezily hop to the middle rope and twist my body like Santo when I am 56. JR Kratos throws some of the most embarrassingly soft strikes on his run in, punching and stomping at him like he was made of porcelain, making an already preposterous run-in even more unsatisfying. Cheap Heat is the name of Pro Wrestling Revolution's game, and they do it as obnoxiously as possible. If they ever successfully bring in Negro Casas (two prior attempts were thwarted by a natural disaster and a broken rib courtesy of Sam Adonis) then they will trick this old foolish clown once again into enduring their dull brand of lucha. 

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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Matches from ICW-NHB Detroit 10/1

Deathmatch Circus 

Justin Kyle vs. Tank

PAS: The Kyle matches work best as violent sprints, and this had some big violent moments. At one point Kyle unloads with five big forearms to the side of the head which looked like it might pop Tank's head off, and there were some big shots with table pieces too. I think this went a bit long though and by the end got sluggish, with both guys looking a bit gassed. Finish was cool with Tank spearing Kyle through a door only to get caught in a choke, but I would have liked it more after 5 hot minutes instead of 14 warm ones.

Sadika vs. Mickie Knuckles

PAS: A battle of party aunts from different cultures, and the biggest match of Mickie's 2021 comeback run. Mickie comes out early and dominates, including crossfacing a bunch of lighttubes into Sadika's face. They brawl into the crowd, which was my favorite part of the match, Mickie is really great at that kind of reckless Coliseo Coacalco style dirt floor fighting, and Sadika is a veteran of the indy lucha wars. I really love how Mickie sells these glass shots, she has a great silent movie shocked face. Sadika has really gotten great at coming across dangerous. The ref stoppage finish is tricky in a promotion with this many insane bumps, but Sadika really does come off like she is going to go dig a hole in the woods. I liked this a lot, but feel like the rematch is really going to blow the doors off, with Mickie coming back at it.

The Pit 4 

Justin Kyle vs. Isaiah Broner

PAS: Big fan of these Kyle fist fights and Broner is a great opponent for him. Kyle clears the pit of chairs and doors to show this is going to be all knuckles. Broner has really nice body shots, and it seemed pretty clear that he was basically just digging in the ribs as hard as he could, also landing a right on the temple which splits open Kyle. Kyle hit a hard looking spin kick which looked even cooler with all of the dirt flying off his boot. Finish was a big jumping knee to the temple that slumped Broner. Really fun stuff, and Kyle in his element is one of the most fun guys in the world to watch.

Hoodfoot vs. Tank

PAS: I thought this was a little heavy on the exchanging punches, and not enough actual fighting. I also find stuff like gusset plates more gross than engaging. There were some moments I really liked, though: Hoodfoot took a big bump into the guardrail which looked great, and the finish with Tank stomping a steel chair right on Hoodfoot's head was sick, way sicker then any thumbtacks or other pokey things. Hoodfoot's best matches - like Kyle's - feel out of control, and there were too many moments of control here. 

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WWF 305 Live: Uncle Elmer! Big John Studd! Boss Man! Dusty!

Big John Studd vs. Uncle Elmer WWF MSG 8/10/85 - VERY GOOD

ER: Anyone who says the Hillbillies were not an insanely over act in WWF's main touring markets is an outright liar who has never actually watched any Hillbilly matches. Because on this night in 1985 there were 22,000 people packed into MSG and they lost their collective minds when Uncle Elmer made his comeback, and it was glorious. The whole match is a lot of clobbering and stomping, with Studd jumping Elmer the moment Elmer crossed the plane of the ring ropes. Studd clubs and stomps Elmer so much that Elmer isn't even on his feet until his actual comeback! Studd clubs him to the ground and then stomps away while Elmer rolls around in a daze, and when Studd drags Elmer to his feet (lifting him up by his overall straps), that's when Elmer starts clubbing Studd in the ears and throwing a couple great forearms to the chest, then hits a big avalanche in the corner. 

When Elmer calls for the powerslam the MSG crowd loses it, just an insanely loud crowd reaction for these Hillbillies. And just as Elmer is about to lift Studd, Heenan flies into frame and starts throwing stiff as hell shots at Elmer, and the crowd loses it all over again when Hillbilly Jim gets in the ring to punch Studd in the head as Elmer starts to choke Heenan. I immediately go to look up where the follow up Elmer/Hillbilly Jim vs. Studd/Heenan matches happened, and of course Elmer never had any kind of interaction with Studd OR Heenan after this match. WWF had this very bizarre habit during this era of using an MSG match for an angle to set up a molten hot return match, and then never cashing in on that return match in any way. This whole match was maybe 4 minutes (including the excellent post match Heenan involvement) and it is so weird to me that something this and a match this fun was sadly both angle AND blowoff. 

Big Boss Man vs. Dusty Rhodes WWF SNME 11/25/89 - FUN

ER: This was good but really should have been great. Instead it was a short match that served as more angle than match, bringing Sapphire from exuberant ringside Dust fan to Dusty's new manager and setting up a run of house show stips matches. There's a lot of Slick distraction, a lot of Boss Man and Slick yelling at Sapphire, and some fairly unnecessary arm work from Boss Man. But there are also several memorable exchanges. Every time they are throwing strikes is great, with nothing but exciting right hands from both. We got some nice flashes of young Boss Man's speed when he chased Dusty to throw him into the ringpost. Best moment of the match is a real beast of a kitchen sink that Boss Man buries in Dusty's belly. Boss Man's kitchen sink was so great that it would have made a believable finisher, and I love how Dusty bumped for it. There are a few fun big misses, like Dusty missing an elbowdrop and Boss Man missing an avalanche and winding up draped over the top ropes, but the schoolboy finish is incredibly weak. The match would have been way better if they had just brawled to a count out, and we didn't ever get another TV singles match between them. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Duranton! Williams! Cohen! Doukhan! M'Boaba! von Kramer!

 Pierre Bernaert vs. Mr. Montreal 9/7/68

MD: I liked how the announcer likened this to a beautiful body (Montreal) vs a beautiful mind (Bernaert). We only had the last 7:30 or so of this, but that's ok. These two were unquestionably good, great even, but it feels like we've seen it before, so just getting a taste was fine. There was a nice little callback spot where Montreal hit a shoulder throw the first time and when he tried it later, Bernaert came in with a knee. Bernaert was full of inside moves after ambushing on a handshake, but he was happy to pal around with Montreal after they went to a draw. Last couple of minutes of this was Bernaert just surviving a last barrage by Montreal and the bell rang during the airplane spin.

Robert Duranton vs. Eddie Williams 9/7/68

MD: Duranton definitely had the act worked out by this point. He had a great physique, could slug well, could stooge well, was technically sound if no marvel, but it was all about the valet. The last quarter of the match had the fans really just waiting for the next spot with the valet. It was too much of a good thing and akin to looking to the back and waiting for a run-in. In that regard, the match peaked in the middle when Williams finally got both Duranton and the valet tied up and got to unload on both of them, or maybe, maybe with the spot later on when he gave them a big double noggin-knocker. Otherwise, the valet was pretty brazen in his interference and the fans loved to hate him. Williams looked as good as always, with good shots, good wrestling, and good timing. We probably would have gotten a better set of matches if we had Montreal vs Duranton and Williams vs Bernaert on this one, but it's not like this wasn't hugely entertaining for the most part. There was just a little too much of it maybe.

SR: 1 fall match going a bit over 20 minutes. This had some excellent stuff in it, but it was a bit long and restholdy, and didn't seem to go anywhere special. Still Duranton threw some great punches, and was looking quite vicious making simple holds look violent and hitting some nasty stomps. Williams doesn't have much charisma but he is solid enough doing some nice wrestling and hitting good looking uppercuts. Dug the bit where he threatened to stab Durantons eyes and then just headbutted him. Durantons valet got involved as usual, I dug how he pretended to be cleaning the ring after choking Williams, then later he just got straight in the ring. Made me wonder what it takes to get DQd in a French ring. Heat was good and that's all that matters.

Georges Cohen/Gass Doukhan vs. M'Boaba Les Congolais/Karl von Kramer 9/14/68

MD: Once this got good, it got really good. Incredible heat for the second fall as Cohen kept trying to come in to help Doukhan only to make things worse for him and the heat became elation in the third fall when Cohen did get the tag and they just humiliated the heels. M'Boaba still seems pretty egregious even in the history of egregious racial gimmicks with the fans enjoying him getting tossed by his hair or having his hair tied to the ropes. In general, he looked good though, including whipping out his own up and over reversal and having mean looking headbutts and what have you. Von Kramer is one of the best technical heels we've seen but he was in there against two Israelis and was sure as hell going to bump over the top and stooge all over the place for them. His two standard takeovers, the headlock trip and his sort of headlock mare both looked great and he did them so smoothly. He also had some awesome extended exchanges where he was stuck in a wristlock. His killer move was a fireman's carry dropping his opponent throat-first onto the top rope and he used it well. It was all maybe a little too loose and fun for a guy as vile as Von Kramer wrestling two Israelis for the first fall, but the off the chart heat for the last ten minutes of this was just awesome. By the end of it, Von Kramer was threatening fisticuffs with about twenty people in the front row and if they hadn't gone so over the top celebratory for the stylists, an all out riot might have ensued. 

SR: 2/3 falls match going 30 minutes. M'Boaba and the bald headed nazi von Kramer are quite the team. Of course they are facing a pair of jews, too. Aside from the gimmicks there was some good wrestling here. M'Boaba is a servicable heel at best, but von Kramer meshes really well with his light footed technician opponents. It got a bit more heated than usual when von Kramer kept using the ropes. I still thought the match didn't really stand out in the plethora of great light weight tags we've had.

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Ongoing 2021 MOTY List: Dustin vs. Dragon

2. Dustin Rhodes vs. American Dragon Bryan Danielson AEW Dynamite 10/23

PAS: This is dream match I had never really dreamed of, two great wrestlers from vastly different eras. When I saw Danielson break out at the 2001 ECWA Super 8, Dustin was in end of the road WCW and was basically an afterthought. The fact that we got this match up 20 years later and it was of the quality it was is pretty remarkable.  We didn't get workrate Code Red Dustin here which is kind of what I was expecting, and Dustin working as the world's tallest junior against Dragon would have been fun. Instead we got something much better.

I loved the story here. Dustin was an older all-star, Jordan on the Wizards. He could still put up 40, but he needed to pick his spots. He was great at picking his spot, mustering his energy and pulling out a big spot or counter, but he could keep up with Danielson's pace throughout. Dustin matched Danielson in the opening arm drag section, but needed to take a deep breath before getting back to his feet. 

I loved how all of Dustin's big moments of offense came on counters: bieling Danielson into the ring barrier during the tope, countering the back suplex with a German, superplex off of a top rope cut off, the incredible powerslam off of a rope run, McGuiness top rope clothesline off a rana attempt, and the big clothesline to counter the busaiku knee. Dustin couldn't stand toe to toe with the younger wrestler in his prime so he needed to pick his spots and hope he could stun him.

When he hits the superplex, the impact on him ended up being more than the impact on Dragon, with Dragon getting to his feet first, not because he no sold, but because a 50 year old going back first off the top rope is going to take longer to get up than an athlete in his prime landing from higher. Dustin firing back up and yelling at Danielson to "come on motherfucker" is the way you do a meaningful strike exchange, and I thought the finish was very smart with Dragon putting on the leaping guillotine as a way to adjust for Dustin using his length to get to the ropes. A man can't really squirm if he is getting his neck cranked. 

I thought this was tremendous. Dustin is a brilliant wrestler and Danielson is willing to play into the strengths of his opponents. This run has been really giving of Danielson: working an Omega match with Omega, a Suzuki match with Suzuki, and now a killer Dustin match with Dustin. 

ER: This match was one of the best on-paper possibilities the whole time they were on the roster together, but while they were a part of several memorable tags and trios as partners, their only match as opponents was a pointless three minute 8 on 4 handicap match that the live crowd had to sit through six minutes of ring entrances to get to. Tony Khan books matches that a lot of different cross sections of wrestling fans want to see, and that's a pretty exciting thing right now. There is no real important storyline reason that Danielson has wrestled Minoru Suzuki or Dustin Rhodes other than Bryan Danielson against both of those guys sounds like a match I and plenty other want to see. Dream match booking hit a crescendo on the Indies a long time ago, so actual dream matches are few enough and far between now that they feel special when they happen. I don't know if there's a single person in 2001 who would have bet on Dustin Rhodes being a man booked for the sake of workrate in 2021, and it's a beautiful thing to see happen. 

This match reminded me a lot of the 1999 Bret Hart/Chris Benoit Nitro match: A veteran known for his execution and ability to craft compelling singles matches with varieties of skillsets vs. a Dynamite Kid acolyte with a brain injury, the stiffest chops in wrestling, frequent high intensity in-ring collisions, and a sizable cult of fandom proclaiming him the best wrestler in the world.  It's amazing that Dustin is able to keep pace with Danielson, but also kind of amazing that the Danielson we've been watching for 20 years still sets that pace. There's great attention paid to who gets to their feet first after a move, with a nice match long build to Dustin getting hurt off a superplex and always threatening to be slowed down. Danielson really packs a wallop on strikes and Dustin's punches look as good as they've looked in the past 5 years, and all the big moments - like his huge rotating powerslam or a lariat out of the corner that rotates Danielson - come off like statements of still belonging. The finish is snug and decisive and looked like Danielson finally just had to drag the old guy to the mat and choke him out, a sudden but deserved victory. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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IWC Legacy Lucha Road Report 10/24/21

Made a trip to my first post-COVID wrestling show with my five year old Zach to watch some lucha. This is the most indy-brained of all of the Denver Lucha promotions. They announced Fred Yehi, Heddi Karaoui and Jake Crist who were all no-shows, but this was still fun shit.

Fuji Man vs. Johnny Crash

PAS: This was a dark match I guess (not sure if this was a recorded show, but they ran a dark match). Johnny Crash looks like a fatter Boom Boom Mancini. This was basically a short comedy squash, with Crash doing some spots around his giant belly. It amused Zach, and was a fine 4 minutes.

Red Viper vs. Big Poppa Lypto

PAS: These are two local luchadores and this was probably the best match on the show. Stiff uppercuts by Viper and punches by Lypto (who came in with a low rider bike which was dope). Nothing super fancy, but we got a couple of nice dives and some big bumps to the floor. Clearly a pair of guys who trained together, but they had everything really solidly together and worked their stuff smoothly. Very entertaining local lucha.

Hijo Del Fishman/Delta Jr. vs. Bruce Wayans/Provider

PAS: This was originally a spot for the uncanceled Crist, but instead they used a local heel tag team. Wayans had a nice spinebuster, Provider the less said the better. Fishman had a dive and threw some hard chops, but this wasn't the Fishman who hellaciously brawls his way through the lucha indies. Zach was into the Tower of Doom spot (his first Tower of Doom), and the finish was cool with Fishman hitting a big splash after Delta hit a top rope rana. It had it's moments, and some moments which weren't much.

Ninja Mack vs. Rey Leon

PAS: Ninja Mack is a guy who does a couple of things incredibly. He may be the most agile wrestler in the world and if you put him in the position to showcase that agility you will get something pretty great. Mack was working as a stooging rudo here, throwing weak chops, yelling at the crowd, getting frustrated at lucha chants. It isn't what he does and he just kind of stopped it at one point to hit a crazy flip. We still got the highspots (including a no water in the pool 680 moonsault) but as a whole it didn't connect. Still Ninja Mack is a guy totally worth seeing live, like a crazier Blitzkrieg.

Hijo de LA Park/LA Park Jr. vs. Anthony Henry/Alex Zayne

PAS: Really interesting to see Alex Zayne, another wild high flyer, also miscast as a stooging rudo, but Zayne was great at it. If Alex Zayne is the reason you bought a ticket you don't want to see him work as Dougie Gilbert, but he is a surprisingly great Dougie Gilbert. He totally bought into work Parka spots with the junior PARKS, and was a nasty cut off rudo when it was required. He did hit one awesome looking pop up rana, but the rest was all serving as a foil. Henry seemed more eager to get his shit in, and the worst parts of this match were Anthony Henry doing his stuff. I mean Christ I still have to watch a tough guy NJ elbow exchange in a goddamn LA Park Jr. local indy match?, I can never escape that shit? LA Park Jr. has a great fat tope like his dad, and he hits it twice. Zach was scared of the skeletons so he watched my phone. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfe! Aichner! Barthel! Boar!

Alexander Wolfe vs. Saxon Huxley NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 10/3/19) (Ep. #62)

ER: Wolfe is the coolest NXT UK guy who has barely been on NXT UK. He last wrestled two months ago and had one of the best matches in brand history (vs. Jordan Devlin). Now he shows back up and works a sick Fit Finlay WCW Thunder match. Huxley also hasn't been on in awhile (this was clearly a long day of tapings so they were digging deep into the roster by the time they had to fill this episode) and got the only consistent crowd reactions of his NXT UK time by happening to look like Jesus Christ. It's either going to be Vegan Brody, or Jesus, and Huxley's strappy Gladiator laced boots edged the comparison closer to the Bible than Texas. Both try to drag each other to the mat, Huxley holding Wolfe down after a headlock takeover. But Wolfe is always crafty without being cute, so he yoinks down Huxley's kneepad. When Huxley goes to fix it Wolfe kicks him in the face. Wolfe is a real asshole in control, working over Huxley's arm and knee, throwing him with a hard suplex, hitting a great enziguiri across Huxley's jaw, and the crowd was rooting for Jesus to make a comeback the whole time. It looked like Wolfe was just going to grind Huxley down, Huxley sprang onto him with a Thesz press. Wolfe is great at bumping around for Huxley's flash comeback, getting booted in the chest from the apron, but then typing Huxley into the ropes by dodging his next boot. Wolfe going for the kill is always memorable, and here he immediately bicycle kicks the stuck Huxley and tosses him with a German suplex (authentic!) and his best-in-wrestling sitout powerbomb. Put Wolfe on television more! 

Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Wild Boar/Primate NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/17/19) (Ep. #64)

ER: These teams were in a really good match on Episode 56, that was quite similar to this one. I said that match felt like the base level match these teams were capable of having, and this match felt like a better version under similar time constraints. NXT UK's sweet spot is the 7 minute match. Main Event and 205 Live also frequently utilize the 7 minute match, but the NXT UK roster hits that mark much better. This match had a real aggressive Aichner performance and a couple of nice nearfalls, easily enough to make this a nice memorable snack. Boar is really fun taking out Imperium and being beaten down by them. I loved his rolling tackle to take out Barthel at the shins, with the follow up senton while Barthel is on all fours recovering. Aichner catches a Primate tope impressively, then runs him straight into the ring steps and follows up with a running knee. They work over Boar with some stiff but simple offense, the best being a running Aichner clothesline that ran so hard into Boar that it should have separated Aichner's shoulder. The hot tag to Primate has a couple cool suplexes but he does that annoying thing where he tags in his tired partner 30 seconds after the hot tag. It's a hot tag trope I despise. Your boy just got worked over and your tagging him right back in? But these guys are smart and the match plays into that, with The Hunt going up for their diving headbutts only to see Boar get knocked off immediately by Barthel. The match went by quick but was good at adding in wrinkles. I thought that was going to be the end of the match, but we wound up with a nice Hunt nearfall when they finally do hit that headbutt, only for the pin to be broken up. Aichner is a great finisher, knows how to hit his big Saito suplex and European bomb with the confidence that it will be finishing the match. Aichner doesn't always do spectacular offense, but he runs into everything with such force that it makes a lot of other clotheslines and powerbombs look like child's play. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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New Footage Friday: 1984 WWF MSG Shows

3/25/84

B. Brian Blair vs. Charlie Fulton

MD: Pretty good second match on a card. Straightforward but well worked with Blair controlling a shine on the arm, where he kept it interesting and varied, a pretty pedestrian transition where Fulton wouldn't break clean on the corner, some solid back work that followed, and a fiery comeback with good, chippy shots from Blair. All the offense looked good, the selling worked, the crowd barely cared, and Monsoon and Patterson were entertaining on commentary talking about Tony Garea and old injuries. About as good a mid-80s MSG second match as you could hope for.

Ivan Putski vs. Iron Sheik

MD: Well, you can't say the fans didn't care about this. It didn't last long either. Sheik looked fine in there, with good clubbering in his early ambush and then quality stooging and staggering and feeding after Putski came back with his belt and the rapid headlock punches. Putski knew what he was doing, I suppose, and even hit a nice suplex reversal. The Polish Hammer looked crummy as Sheik recoiled into the corner off of it to set up the finish. Four minutes that worked but that definitely shouldn't have been any more than that.

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Tony Garea

MD: This wasn't listed in the results. Lucky us. Look, it was fine, but the only thing worth mentioning is how Sharpe got heat to start by complaining about his weight being announced as 282 when it's really 284. I like the sort of subtle image that evokes. This isn't like the Buddy Rose deal. It instead shows just how irritating Sharpe is to the crowd. Who cares if it's 282 or 284? What's the difference? Why get so worked up over that? What a pest. Of course, knowing about Sharpe's OCD, who knows?

Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine

MD: They were building to a rematch to end the next show, so this ended inconclusively, but what we got was good. Monsoon was playing up that Sheik had hurt Backlund's neck and shoulder, and Valentine eventually was able to target it, including a pretty nice short arm scissors. Backlund managed a back bridge while in it, before shifting Valentine over, which is not something I'm sure I've seen before. Of course the hold ended with the lift, before a brief comeback and a subsequent second bit of heat with the leg. There Backlund pushed Valentine off of a figure four attempt only for Valentine to run right back with an elbow drop which is an all time great cut off. It ended up on the floor with them slugging it out convincingly and set up the more decisive rematch the following month. Backlund got to interact with all the matinee kids after the match.

Paul Orndorff vs. Tito Santana

MD: We didn't really have a good match for Orndroff when he died earlier this year, so this feels like as good a choice as any. I know there's a readily available match vs. Santana (the May MSG) that a lot of people watched at that time. This goes back to the Sharpe bit (or Albano's pre-match antics) but Orndroff really lingers on his way in, including complaining about how his robe was being carried. Trying to get heat that way is up and down the card on this show and it's something no one in wrestling even thinks about doing today. Match itself was solid. They were working towards a draw. Some production elements are just funny. Patterson got there late to announce the first match because he was stuck in traffic. No one clued Monsoon in on the finish so he was aghast that it was even a 30 minute draw let alone a 20 minute one (let alone an 18:30 draw). Everything Orndorff did looked good. They were fairly minimalist in the matwork but it all worked. Tito doesn't get enough credit for his strikes though a good chunk here was Orndorff making them look good too. Tito had a great atomic elbow off the second ropes and his big comeback move was a diving elbow into the ropes after Orndorff had tossed him back in. Both guys could be absolutely explosive when the moment called for it. Finish was the sort of BS people were used to in New York and it sets up that May match which doesn't even have a much better finish.

5/21/84

Bobo Brazil/SD Jones/Rocky Johnson vs. Samoans(Afa/Sika/Samula)

MD: Historic match to some degree as it was Brazil's last MSG appearance. He was almost 60 and it showed whenever he tried to do anything complicated, though he looked pretty good moving around in general. I swear there was one moment in there where it seemed like he wanted to do the headscissors take over/headlock takeover at the same time spot with two Samoans and it just did not work. He got to clear house at the end with headbutts before they double clotheslined SD on a leapfrog (sounds better in theory than it was in practice, like the rest of this match). Rocky was almost 40 and he looked very good in there. I get that Brazil was a sub for Atlas for this short run but I don't see why they couldn't give them the nod on this. Brazil was billed on the way in as the greatest black wrestler of all time, but it wasn't a great showing and I can see why this stayed in the vault.

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RIP Badboy Hido

One of the ultimate marrying up guys in professional wrestling, a scuzzy Juggalo garbage wrestler who somehow ended up wedded to Megumi Kudo. While not at the level of his wife, he had a cool career of his own, scraping the bottom of the Japanese indy world along with having some cool turn of the century US Indy matches. 

Badboy Hido vs. Bull Pain IWA-MS 6/1/01

PAS: This was one of the best US death matches of the 2000s, a barbed wire baseball bat match in first round of the 2001 IWA KOTDM , Pain is a masterful brawler, so good at making the little things look great, punches, spinning headbutt to the nuts, nasty stomps to the head. He also maybe the best baseball bat worker in wrestling history, he really makes it look like he is smashing someone with a baseball bat without breaking bones. Hido was right there with the brawling and bleeding, and they broke out some very cool spots using chairs and the barbedwire baseball bat. I loved Hido wrapping a chair around Bull's head and braining him with a chair shot, and the tope rope splash onto the barbedwire bat was nasty. Finish was really cool as Hido throws a chair in the air and drives it right into Bull's face with a lariat. Great creative plunder fight and a fun fist fight between two tough fuckers. 

Badboy Hido vs. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 7/7/01

PAS: Hido comes to the ring with Madman Pondo and a midget as a Juggalo heel faction. The start of this match was unexpected to say the least, as they work the first 5 minutes or so like a Jack Brisco match around a shoulder block exchanges and a knuckle lock. It of course eventually spills to the floor and gets grody, with some sick looking Necro flip bumps into chairs (including wiping out a fan). Hido is in beatdown mode for a while, and no one takes a bigger beating then Necro Butcher. The wildness keeps ramping up and Necro gets a bunch of lighttubes stuck in his shirt and smashed with a chair, and ends the match by lighting his leg on fire and landing a top rope legdrop. Hido looked great going toe to toe with big shots with Necro and is willing to be completely nuts, great little mini IWA run, I need to find his Cash Flo singles. 

Badboy Hido vs. Shadow WX BJW 4/28/02

PAS: Totally wild match which reads a bit like a shoot angle. Hido is really unprofessionally smashing refs with unpulled kendo stick shots, mauling a woman at ringside with a broken lighttube, getting into what looked like a fist fight with WX. More of a weird angle then a match, but it really delivered the rampaging on the edge violence. Felt like a Japanese version of the IWA-MS Tracey Smothers riot, which is about as a high a compliment as I can give a thing

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Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Gag!

Tommy Dreamer/Mike Awesome vs. X-Pac/Albert WWF Metal 10/27/01

ER: This was only a technical heel performance from Dreamer, because nobody was going to be booed opposite X-Pac at this point. Living through X-Pac Heat was a really weird time. I'm not sure what other situations are comparable to it. He'd been a very popular babyface for a long time, and was then a popular babyface who acted like a heel, and at a certain point people just got loudly tired of him. The Uncle Kracker theme didn't help matters. But X Factor are clearly supposed to be the faces in this match, and it's worked with them as the faces, only the crowd didn't react to it that way. In fact, Mike Awesome got the biggest cheers of the match, any time he would do damage to X-Pac. Dreamer doesn't work as an overt heel, but he has one quality in his heel work that isn't around his babyface work: he staggers and stooges amusingly into position for offense. There are a couple of instances of this here, with the best being he and Awesome missing a double clothesline on Albert. Watch how Dreamer misses versus how Awesome misses. They both whiff, and Awesome just turns around and waits for Albert to bounce back off the ropes to level them both. But Dreamer whiffs, then acts like the motion threw his whole balance off, staggering into place to fill the perfect amount of time before getting leveled by Albert. Dreamer is a real satisfying heel bumper, as he's a good bumper in general for a man his size, but it's better utilized bumping for a big babyface Albert comeback. Dreamer was good from the apron, too, loved him nailing X-Pac with a knee to slow him down for Awesome, and Awesome's top rope clothesline looks great leveling X-Pac. This was a short, tidy, but fun match, and Dreamer makes the Baldo Bomb look crushing.

One Year Immunity Battle Royal WWF Survivor Series 11/18/01

ER: Rock solid battle royal regardless of how stupid the stipulation and the Invasion was. Bradshaw was a real beast, potatoing anyone close to him from WCW or ECW (as I typed that sentence it didn't really sound that surprising) and we got a lot of big spills on eliminations. All you really want from a battle royal is some surprisingly stiff shots, a couple of guys taking death wish elimination bumps, and no lying around. This ticked those boxes, was worked quick (only flaw might have been this needing a couple more minutes to space out eliminations), and had a nice extended run once they got to the final 4 (and I loved that the final 4 was Bradshaw, Billy Gunn, Test, and Lance Storm of all people). It started with a perfect moment: Shawn Stasiak being the first to charge into action, getting backdropped to elimination as the match started. The eliminations were strong, like Bradshaw hitting big lariats to send guys out, Tazz eliminating Crash and Tommy Dreamer while Dreamer was powerbombing Crash, Bradshaw throwing out Kidman with a fallaway slam, just a bunch of guys smacking the ground hard. We also get the great battle royal joy of noticing guys who were in between gear, like Stevie Richards wearing black slacks and a black t-shirt, post Right To Censor/pre-Anything Else. Test wins this thing, but what he sadly doesn't know is that the winner of this specific battle royal gets a) immunity from being fired for one year, but also b) a death sentence within the decade. They did not tell that to Test before the battle royal, he found out after. Also, Crash's death was not related to the battle royal, only Test's was.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bollet! Weicz! Cabrera! Sanniez! Martino! Caclard!

Jack de Lasartesse vs Bernard Vignal 8/24/68

MD: Just two minutes here and a chunk is taken up talking in the crowd. A shame as Vignal probably matched up well against Lasartesse. He's doing well here until he misses a drop kick. Anyway, we don't get to see much before the bombs away and Lasartesse tying him up for shots in the corner until he shoves the ref in the most casual, irritating way possible to draw the DQ.

Andre Bollet vs Jacky Weicz 8/24/68

MD: The last six or seven minutes of this were really good. Bollet was laying it in, leading to Weicz coming back big. It all built to a perfect block of a punch and Weicz firing out of the corner and getting satisfying revenge by tying Bollet up in the corner. Bollet's a crafy one though and things ended with him getting legs up and hitting a big flip senton and slam. Unfortunately, the twenty+ minutes before that went on a bit too long. Weicz wasn't his uncle ("uncle?") who was apparently back in America at this point, but he was a capable enough stylist. Bollet's expressions while being choked were spot on, and his reactions after eating something as simple as an armdrag are all-time-great, but this just didn't have the manic energy and vileness I've come to expect out of him. It picked up now and again but for too long it was them trading holds, with Bollet using whacks and hairpulls to keep Weicz down and Weicz coming up with solid and sometimes creative counters. Either chalk this up as a perfectly fine match with some diminishing returns on a personal level or trust me that if you chipped ten minutes off of this in bits and pieces, it'd be a really great one. Still, if you're going to spend a solid 30 minutes with someone, Bollet, with his expressions, isn't at all the worst pick.

Pedro Cabrera/Albert Sanniez vs Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard 8/31/68

MD: This was more of a slugfest than the last Martino/Caclard vs Sanniez/Partner match we saw. Just a ton of great shots all around. That said, this had both less energy and less heat. The heels were excellent here but they just had too much of a tendency to knock Sanniez and Cabrera into the wrong corner, leading to all-too-easy tags and comebacks before any real heat could register. There were a lot of great individual exchanges, spots, and performances though. Caclard had a great headlock suplex and was a good base and stooge all around and we'll see him again. This is our second and last look at Martino who was just a tremendous cruiserweight bully and one of those guys we unfortunately only get two looks at like Tony Oliver. He must have bumped to the floor six times and had an interesting bodyslam variation which went up and over differently. So good action but kind of goofy structure. Caclard and Martino got heat whenever they tried to cut off the ring or especially drag someone back to their corner because you're not supposed to touch a guy before he gets up, but ultimately, they got clowned a lot, and the third fall was really all comedy where they'd get a spot or two but have it reversed in a big way on the repeated attempt and crowd-pleasing miscommunication, especially after a giant swing. Sanniez feels like an all-timer with amazing bridges and crazy handsprings and big spots and big shots and we'll see him again. Cabrera was young but hung well for the most part. The match would have been better served with them really beating on him for a while though.

SR: 2/3 Falls contest over a little over 30 minutes. The elusive Tony Martino shows up again! His presence in this match, along with Sanniez also being there and Sanniez & Caclard later becoming a heel team themselves, it makes me wonder whether Tony Martino was their maestro. His and Caclards tendency to not outright cheat and instead proving their wrestling ability without the typical overt cheating certainly stands out. This was in the same style as the fantastic Martino/Caclard vs. Sanniez/Sullivan match from years earlier. The first fall of this had some beautiful, beautiful work. I loved the basic throws Martino whips out and  there were some awesome flexibility spots. Of course, there were some beautiful ranas and dropkicks as well. The match soon became european uppercut city though and turned into the fiery hot mix of hard hitting blows, heel roughhouse tactics and athletic babyface moves that was clearly these guys speciality. Martino is so clearly an awesome worker that it‘s hard not to be sour over his lack of tape appearances. He basically turns into a more nimble Terry Rudge with a boxing stance when he puts on those hammerlocks and starts clubbing away. Cabrera is said to be another Spaniard, and while he is cleary less interesting than Sanniez he does fine in this. He certainly ate a lot of stiff looking uppercuts which made me think a bit that he was paying young boy dues here, but who knows. Another great match that falls just slightly short of being classic due to the finishes coming a bit abrupt, but I‘m not complaining. Any chance to see these guys go to work is awesome and the fact that they probably had dozens of matches with this kind of workrate is amazing.

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No Expectations, Borga Just Drifts and Drifts

Ludvig Borga vs. Gary Jackson  WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/10/93 - FUN

ER: Effective squash with a cool opponent. Gary Jackson worked USWA for a bit as Night Train Jackson, and does great wobbly legs selling for all of Borga's awesome body blows. Borga throws several punches under the ribs and into the kidneys, and Jackson buckles his knees for every one of them. You don't really get to see a ton of personality from 2/3 of the guys doing job work, so a guy who wobbles will stand out every time over the jobbers who just lie there. There are a shocking amount of jobbers who just lie there. Take a move, lie motionless on the mat, and occasionally do one of those full body heave sells. And here's Night Train out there going spaghetti legged on vicious punches. Sometimes Borga works with it, like when he grabs a tight side headlock after a dropped-to-his-knees Jackson is still selling and at perfect head squeezing height. Borga hits a big spinebuster, drops the point of his elbow into Jackson's chest, and finishes with the torture rack after punishing this poor man's midsection. 

Ludvig Borga vs. Tony Roy WWF Superstars 10/16/93 - FUN

ER: Tony Roy never had a chance. Borga shoves him hard into the corner during the introductions and begins a punishing series of body shots (lefts and rights, but mostly rights) and a healthy number of excellent kneelifts. Borga has gotten really good at yelling at fans while dishing out a painful beating. The fans respond to him in ways they don't respond to other heels, because he's good at keeping them engaged and - while he doesn't have a deep moveset - he mixes up his offense between matches enough that he's not just going out there working the same thing in the same order (and this sets him apart from guys like Mr. Perfect or IRS). He throws Roy up with a flapjack and then uppercuts him in the stomach on his way down, and while it doesn't really read as cool as sounds, it's still a cool ass thing to put in a match. His elbowdrop looks great, and I really love how he uses the hard shots to the body to directly set up the torture rack. The fact Borga looks so unpleasant and angry through all of his squashes only makes them better. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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On the Undeniable Greatness of Ultimate Warrior vs. Andre the Giant

Andre the Giant vs. The Ultimate Warrior WWF SNME 11/25/89

This was a special match on what is a very special wrestling show for me. I watched this match as part of my 9th birthday party, my first ever sleepover party. I had 8 or 10 friends over, which is FAR too many 9/10 year olds to be staying up watching wrestling at 2 AM while adults are trying to sleep just down the hall. I assume everybody has those memories of sleepovers where dads stagger out in their underwear, eyes mostly shut, telling the kids to PLEASE keep it down. Less than half the kids at my party were wrestling fans, and a couple of them had never even seen pro wrestling before this show. We watched this show as it aired, taped it, and immediately watched it over again once it ended. I have to think that starting a show like this with a bad gums giant fighting a gassed up maniac was exactly what the kids wanted. Just imagine a room of kids, many seeing pro wrestling for the first time, hopped up on pizza and sugar, and being introduced to Andre and Bobby Heenan. It's a beautiful thing. 

This match was voted the Worst Match of 1989 in the WON, which is a completely ludicrous, indefensible result that I'm sure was decided before most of the voters had even seen the match. Because, not only is this match far from being the worst of the year, but it's not even close to being the worst match on this show. In fact, this match is easily one of Warrior's greatest performances, and one of the great Old Andre performances. In many ways I think this is the greatest late career Andre performance, using every single part of his fading skillset and maximizing his greatest skills. He takes two bumps here and they are perfect, his selling is excellent, his facials are incredible, and his teeth make him seem like a wild animal. Warrior threw himself (often literally) into every piece of offense, threw some of his best strikes, and bumped appropriately for Andre's offense. This match was perfectly crafted around each man's skills at this point in their careers. 

I love how this starts, with Andre interrupting Warrior's posing to just start choking him, with both mixing in punches until Andre throws a headbutt that knocks Warrior to the floor. Overwhelmed, Warrior responds by immediately going desperation mode and choking Andre out with his singlet strap, and Andre is awesome at flailing and rocking in the ropes, lowering his center of gravity the longer he's choked. And even though we already got two different cool choking spots, we get another as Andre grabs Warrior from the floor and chokes him with the bottom rope by forcing the rope down onto his throat. Warrior keeps trying to bring Andre down to his size with headlocks (none of which work, and Andre is awesome at resisting all of them) and I thought it was cool that Warrior approaches the match with Andre as if he delusionally thinks he is the same size as Andre, and really that's the way Warrior SHOULD approach his matches. Andre makes a bunch of great bared teeth facials as he stretches Warrior's arms and chest, then takes a nice tumbling bump to the floor off a Warrior clothesline. Warrior is obviously not a guy known for good strikes, but there's only one punch he whiffs wide here. The rest of his strikes look like he's actually trying to hit Andre as hard as he can, and it's why his clothesline looks like something that would send Andre to the floor. 

Warrior continues working as a giant by locking Andre in a bearhug, which is a bizarre and cool sight. Warrior's arms were never bigger in wrestling than they were in this match, and the visual of him trying to keep them locked around Andre as Andre's massive hands close in on Warrior's traps, before Andre breaks the bearhug with another headbutt, is strong. Andre's hands covered Warrior's entire shoulderspan, each literally looking the same size as Warrior's head. Andre locks in his own bearhug, arms wrapped around Warrior's midsection as Andre locks it in from one knee. Warrior rains down on Andre's back with some really violent windmill shots, getting great sound by smacking full arms off Andre until Andre headbutts him in the stomach to get Warrior to stop. 

My favorite part of the match is when Warrior finally escapes the bearhug, and then catches Andre with a brutal body shot as Andre approached. Warrior threw it as hard as possible and it made a loud crack, and Andre sold it majestically. Andre took the loud body shot and let out the groan of a dying wooly mammoth, holding his stomach and contorting his face the way a man who just finished eating an entire pot of chili might. Warrior throws truly excellent chops in the corner, more great echoing sound, and in the spot of the match hits a baseball bat standing lariat that drops Andre into the ropes, trapping his arms. Andre flying backwards and getting trapped in the ropes is always a great spot, and this might legitimately be the best he ever did it. He flies backwards with 100% trust in the ropes, and you have NEVER seen ropes bend this far. I have no clue how they didn't snap and send Andre on a death fall to the floor. Andre was so good at making that spot work so well every time, but this was a spectacular version of a great spot. You really buy that Andre was trapped in the ropes, the force of his full weight hitting them looked like Godzilla getting trapped in a suspension bridge. Another great spot when Warrior does a crossbody into an Andre boot while Andre is still trapped, again really putting over the size discrepancy. Heenan gets involved as the ref struggles to free Andre, with Heenan eating some potato shots before getting press slammed into a now freed Andre (with Heenan bouncing off Andre and landing on his shoulder) and earning Andre the DQ. 

I understand why people would have been close-minded to this match due to prevailing "smart" opinions of the time, but I am failing to see how Andre and Warrior could have worked a smarter, more compelling match. This was clearly an example of a group predetermining that something was going to be eye poison, and refusing to evaluate it on its own terms. It's easy to hate something if you look for reasons to hate it, but there was so much here to appreciate and love that I feel it's due for a re-evaluation. This was a tremendous later career Andre performance, and, while the scales are different, one of Warrior's best.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Cesaro vs. Mysterio

65. Rey Mysterio vs. Cesaro WWE Raw 9/16

ER: Two perfect dance partners doing cool things that most guys aren't capable of doing? Sure I'll hang out and watch that. This is all about these two being unleashed, Cesaro showing off his crazy lift strength on someone that everybody can lift, and Rey finding a couple new ways around old favorites. This was a total "cool things" spectacle, and that was clear the moment Rey rushed Cesaro only to eat an uppercut to start the match. Nice suplex, really nice elbowdrop, and then we get Rey with a huge rana to counter a powerbomb, and Cesaro flying into the post. I got giddy by the time Rey swung a 619 right into Cesaro's kidneys. I mean, sure, a suicide dive into a tornado DDT is cool, but I was rewinding so I could keep watching Cesaro sell his kidneys the way Rick Rude would sell an atomic drop, while also finding out Corey Graves doesn't know where organs are located (yeah Corey, he got him in the liver, you dummy). Who knows what we missed during commercial, as we get one of those moments where Cesaro is bounced off his head on the floor, but the next time we see them he's hitting a beast of a lariat back in the ring. I hate that. Every time Cesaro caught Rey out of midair it was exciting - that stuff was always going to look good - but while Rey gets caught and flipped into bonkers moves, he's also running full force into Cesaro boots and strikes. Rey eats boot like a man, Cesaro flips over as fast as anyone for the around the Manami Roll. I dug the 619 variations here: the one Cesaro took standing to the kidneys was great, and it lead to a cool moment of him catching the one after that, and then the more traditional one at the finish. I would be fine with these two just out there every month or so working on material.

PAS: This was a weird little artifact of a match. These two have amazing in ring chemistry, with Cesaro being one of the great bases in wrestling history and Rey being one of the most creative tecnicos. This felt like it was setting something up, and then they never had another singles match. Cesaro has such wild strength, and Rey has always been a great foil for a strong man. Lots of moments where Cesaro snatches Rey out of the air, only to get caught in a rana or armdrag. The spot where Cesaro catches the bodypress, rolls through, flips him up, only to get caught in a crucifix was so cool. It feels like it should be a legendary wrestling spot and instead felt a little wasted on a random RAW TV match. Still, this was a very cool random RAW TV match. 

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: 1976 UWA TV

UWA 5/1/76

MD: Whenever an old reel gets found and converted and we get more 70s studio wrestling, it's worth talking about. This episode has a lot going for it, since it's a pretty rare promotion, has Lou Thesz promoting and announcing, and gives us a timely look at a few wrestlers we don't have a lot of in 76. It was very much of its era, down to the stars on the ring ropes and Buzz Benson's announcing (Zam!; Zap! Right into the midsection). It was a fun package with a complete match to start, a couple of flashy squashes with big characters, and a hot angle at the end.

Tommy Seigler vs. Bruce Swayze

MD: Seigler I know best from the one 73 Dick Steinborn match we have and he was positioned as babyface here with Swayze billed from Florida, with goofy tights and working the inside moves. Thesz fingerprints are all over this as they worked it like they were hired by Thesz, paid by Thesz, and knew Thesz would be announcing their match. They worked it tight and snug, giving Thesz opportunities to talk about leverage technique, about his own evenness in matchmaking. In the first half, Swayze focused on the arm with underhanded, well-hidden cut offs. Seigler sold well, able to come back with fiery shots but too standup a wrestler to really be able to capitalize when the ref was holding him back. They were working towards a draw so when Swayze finally took over, it was with a headlock but it was still well worked as he held on through Seigler's attempt to cheat. It opened back up as the time headed towards expiration but never quite went over the top. Good TV draw that was interesting for how Thesz looked at is as much as anything else.

The Islanders (Afa and Sika) w/ Gentleman Saul Weingeroff vs. The Mighty Yankee/Troy Graham

MD: Afa and Sika felt pretty young here, Sika especially. Afa I'd call relatively young since for the most part, we always knew him in his late 30s and older. Here, he was mid-30s with almost a literal babyface. Most interesting here was the amount of wrestling they still did, but how they added in the chops and shoulder blocks and shots. The base of what they were doing was the wrestling, putting on a hold and taking a guy over, but they twisted it (a nerve hold) and added to it (the headbutt and splash) to make it seem more exotic (for 76 at least).

Dale Mann vs. Mario Leone

MD: Leone's gear was amazing. It was an orange singlet and tights, with red boots, black kneepads, and black trunks with a little orange trident/pitchfork on the back, the sort of thing that you'd picture 76 Satanico potentially wearing but only if Peña booked AAA existed in 76. Somewhat less wrestling here and more Leone comically bumping himself over the top long, long after Mann moved out of the way while Cora Combs joins in on the announcing and lets us know she'll be wrestling next week. I'm not super familiar with Mann, but he was big, with decent presence, sound fundamentals, and a bowlcut. He ended up promoting in KY a little later, but I don't think we have a lot of 70s footage of him. You definitely get the sense he could be a local attraction. Post match (and airplane spin), Leone trips over the mic cord. What a worker.

Cowboy Ray Parker (Scott Elmore)/The Spoiler ("The Angel" Frank Morrell) w/ Al Costello vs. Luis "Arriba" Martinez/Lorenzo Parente

MD: The heels take out Parente with a chair before the match. Spoiler with the mask/hat combo was quite the look. Thesz then turned it into a handicap match, which is really more of a gauntlet, the idea being that Martinez would face Parker and then Spoiler. Martinez came out with the stereotypical latin fury with Parker bumping around the ring for him. I have a ton of time for Costello's act with the boomerang: after a Spoiler distraction, he was able to whack Martinez in the leg with it, hit him over the head, AND choke him in the ropes by putting it over his head. That's a versatile weapon. Ultimately after a comeback and (another) airplane spin, the heels rushed the ring and worked over Martinez, bloodying him with Spoiler's claw, until Parente rushed back with a steel pipe and made the save. Post match, Martinez had a great bloody promo about how he wasn't an animal ("The bible says no revenge!") but how they were driving him to it.

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Eddie Kingston Don't Do Math, Eight Million in Ice

Eddie Kingston/Penta El 0M vs. The Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 7/7/21 - GREAT 

ER: I didn't like this as much as their straight tag the week before. That was a really well built classic tag with some hot moments. This was a full bullshit stunt show, with WAY bigger spots but not really any kind of satisfying build. This was a stunt show, and they hit some big stunts. It was clear there would be a ton of BS from the start, when they work Michael Nakazawa into an early superkick spot and Brandon Cutler is running around with cold spray, so there was always this weird mix of stooge comedy and violence. It's odd to have guys taking really dangerous bumps while seconds later having Cutler make dangerous bumps look silly by making funny faces through them, but the frenetic energy also added to the presentation. This was closer to a big ECW tag where tertiary people run in throughout just to take bad bumps, and the bad bumps here were bad. There are nasty small things, like Nick landing with a thwack into a chair on a drop toehold, up to bigger things like Kingston getting powerbombed onto a flat table, and then up to Matt Jackson taking a flipping piledriver off the apron through a table. I like smart dumb stuff like Nick hitting a 450 on the referee when the Bucks were falling behind, real fun dumb guy logic that buoyed this whole thing. Kingston brings thumbtacks and he takes the nastiest stuff, like getting a big handful of tacks thrown into his face, or tacks shoved into his mouth before a double superkick. The whole thing was a runaway train and part of a great show finishing fireworks display. 

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki/Lance Archer AEW Rampage 9/22 (Aired 9/24/21) - FUN

ER: A Lights Out, Anything Goes match where 75% of the combatants just hit each other with uninspired weapon shots. Eddie Kingston was the only one who was bringing any kind of passion to this fight, jumping and tearing his shirt, rushing headlong into a fight with Suzuki. Seeing the personalities of Suzuki and Kingston opposite each other is a large part of this match's thrill, so obviously I'm going to love seeing Suzuki kick Kingston through a table, but it wasn't enough. A lot of the match had such a huge disconnect, with Archer being unsurprisingly the biggest problem. Much of this Anything Goes fighting felt more like guys throwing really bad strikes while waiting for someone else to get into position for something that wasn't going to look that good. It's a series of false starts without any of their ideas building to a satisfying payoff. 

Moxley gets chokeslammed to the floor into a bunch of guys who came out to catch that chokeslam to the floor; Archer wraps his belt around Moxley's neck but when we come back from break Moxley's hands were tied and the belt was no longer around his neck. Suzuki spent a lot of time grabbing half ass submissions before letting them go, like a lightly applied single leg crab that Moxley wouldn't have even been able to defend, but it goes nowhere. Kingston's fire is the only thing that keeps this watchable, bursting back into the ring with his arm hanging limp at his side (I love when King charges into a fight brazenly wearing his injuries) and breaks a hold with an eye poke. We get a great moment where Homicide returns but then immediately fumbles around with a chair (I swear Homicide always has the absolute worst luck with inanimate objects in big moments), and Archer manages to make the finish look like, ahem, trash. When Kingston has Archer inside a trash can lid and Archer doesn't start selling kendo stick shots until the 4th one in, you know you're just dealing with a guy who has no idea how to work a match like this. Some fun moments, but a major letdown.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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Matches from EVOLVE 127 5/10/19

Josh Briggs vs. Adrian Jaoude

ER: This was fun, as it felt like a modern version of a good Sunday Night Heat Test/Steve Blackman match. It's a brisk 5 minutes, and even 2 minutes in it felt like they had done a ton. Jaoude (later Arturo Ruas) is a guy I like who might not have been good at this point, plus I don't think capoeira ever works very well in a wrestling setting. The timing of the strikes almost always makes opponents look kind of silly while waiting to be hit. But I think this might have been the match where his strikes started looking good, and there was an awesome sequence where he blocked two big Briggs strikes and countered with two of the best strikes I've seen from him. What helped is that it all looked way less sequenced than normal - even though it was - with Briggs throwing to hit instead of throwing to be blocked. That's a super important difference between modern wrestling done effectively and modern wrestling looking terrible. Jaoude was fun going after Briggs' hip, arm, hand, grabbing a choke, and Briggs had some nice quick power stuff to counter. I'm not sure I remember the last time someone got a reaction from me just grabbing for a chokeslam, but Briggs violently reaching out for that choke ruled.

Babatunde vs. Adrian Alanis

ER: Babatunde is the current Commander Azeez in WWE, getting actual ring time in Evolve. I liked Babatunde as a green Evolve giant because it's cool seeing huge guys wrestle, no matter their development level. I don't need to see him as a fake underground fighter, don't need to see him as a non-wrestling military dictator, just let me see a wrestling giant. Here he is wearing preposterous checkered tights (one leg black, one leg checkered) and he looks like the world's largest tallest ska saxophonist. Throw him together with prime pork pie hat Mr. Hughes and call them Skankin Muscle. This is only about 3 minutes, a Babatunde showcase. Alanis hits three hard rolling lariats that barely budge Babatunde, then Babatunde gets to show off his big man speed. He doesn't have a lot of stuff that looks great at this point, but it's fine because he's near 7' tall so just making connection with a guy is going to have something behind it. But I like his sloppy standing splashes and the way he catches Alanis with a choke. On commentary we learn that apparently the WWE trainers think Babatunde is the most explosive and powerful guy in developmental, so that explains why we've gotten to see him wrestle on TV twice since this show 28 months ago. 

Anthony Henry vs. Juntai

ER: This was only a couple years ago and I gotta say, Juntai is pretty far under my radar. I did not remember a Juntai wrestling on three Evolve shows in 2019, and it feels like Evolve was one of the indies I watched most. This was his only Evolve singles match and I liked it quite a bit. It was a mostly vicious Henry match with Juntai able to show a lot of cool tricks. The match had probably a couple too many tricks, but much more good than bad. Part of the problem is the layout, as Henry knocks Juntai out of the match a couple minutes in, and it's always kind of annoying when a guy is nearly taken out of a match and commentary is yelling about how the match may not even continue, but Juntai still had to get all of his cool offense in. I think you can shift the events of the match around into a much more palatable order and get to a great match, but we're still left with a cool match as is. 

Henry was working really mean with Juntai, and the match almost needing to be stopped came when Henry double stomped Juntai in the chest while the latter was bent back over the apron. Henry followed it up with a double stomp to the chest off the apron, then hit a brutal running kick all the way from the entrance. It was a believable enough series of moves to take a guy out of a match. But I'm glad we got to see Juntai get some shine. We don't get a ton of martial arts monk gimmicks. Low Ki and Jinsei Shinzaki kind of bullseyed the vibe of that gimmick for the past 30 years ago and nobody else gave it a shot. But Juntai does it really well. He has a ton of super slick movement, hits a cool spinning heel kick with his hands clasped behind his back, pays Henry back with his own flying kick to the jaw, and finds a ton of cool ways to roll and flip into position, and has some real precise kicks. Henry dished out a stiff beating and Juntai leaned into all of it, and was a strong salesman. Things eventually veered into some trading that I didn't love, but this was a cool presentation. 

Kassius Ohno/Harlem Bravado vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff 

ER: I'm going to watch any Ohno match I've never seen before, but this tag match was inexplicably 30 minutes long and I have absolutely zero idea why. Ohno teaming with Bravado is like that one show every All Japan tour where Stan Hansen would team with the weakest gaijin on that tour on a gymnasium show, a man who everyone in the building knows is getting pinned. And because this thing is a half hour long, we get far too much Harlem Bravado, a man with almost exclusively terrible strikes teaming with a man with among the best strikes in wrestling. I suppose that makes them complementary partners? AR Fox doesn't have good strikes either, and 30 minutes allows for a TON of time for Bravado and Fox to get several sections of terrible strikes. Ohno mocking Ruff and cutting him off any time the kid made headway was what kept this match bearable, and after seeing Bravado and Fox make timing mistakes for a half hour, seeing Ohno always exactly where the match needs him to be is a marvel. Ruff getting cut off from Fox was satisfying but Fox can't deliver the payoff the hot tag needs. There were great big moments, because any single Ohno/Hero match in existence is capable of having some great big moments. I loved him hitting a tope con giro onto AR Fox and the rest of the Skulk, Ruff hitting a rolling plancha off Bravado's shoulder and right into an Ohno crane kick, or just the sheer that comes with a series of fat Ohno sentons. This could have easily been a compelling 15 minute match with Ruff separated from Fox and showing on his own, but dragging this all the way out to 30 was completely unnecessary and did favors for nobody. Sometimes you accidentally watch a 30 minute Harlem Bravado match and at the end are left only with memories of the person you were before you knew such a thing existed. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Curt Stallion

ER: Stallion really didn't work for me in this match, and I hated his lack of transitions when going on offense. The match really felt like Kingston trying to gamely fill time (and occupying time with some cool stuff), Stallion nearly being put away several times, and then merely deciding to go back on offense when it suited him. Stallion's big plus in this match was having skin that gets nice shades of red and purple in response to Kingston chopping his chest, throwing palms at his back, or slapping Stallion in the stomach. Stallion jumped Kingston the second he got into the ring, and I like how Kingston kept rolling out to compose himself whenever he was disadvantaged, knowing Stallion would take the bait and roll out, giving Kingston the advantage. Kingston's brawling looked good, but it was like he kept trying to play off an energy that Stallion kept refusing to give. For a guy who came rushing into the match, Stallion gave this whole match a pretty sleepy vibe. He wasn't putting anything into kickouts and again, kept lazily going back to offense after close kickouts, and I don't buy a lot of his signature offense against Kingston. A good wrestler should be able to switch up his moveset depending on opponent, and the foot stomp/pull opponent into suplex doesn't work as well with a larger guy like King. I liked the way Kingston would annoyingly nudge Stallion into position with his knees, loved his heavy throws and big chops, but I could not get into Stallion's approach to this match. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mantopolous! Delaporte! Plantin! Louis!

Eddy Williams vs Robert Duranton 3/23/68 

MD: We miss the first 18 or so but get the last four of this and Duranton has definitely further honed his act. He was way over the top with his mannerisms, little pats and waves to the crowd, taking a shot at Williams' nose, and some fun interactions with the ref, including positioning him around the ring and hiding behind him. He was nasty and hard hitting despite that. Williams looked as good as usual here, including a cool inner nelson chicken wing hold and some great dropkicks in the post match (one crushing the valet and the crowd hates no one more than the valet). This took a turn when the valet got in a bunch of kidney shots as Duranton was distracting the ref and Duranton was able to hone in from there only to lose his cool when Williams wouldn't stay down and get dqed on his third public warning. The post match had Williams fire back only to eat some nasty cheapshots and a huge slam.


Vasilios Mantopolous vs Roger Delaporte 3/23/68

MD: I was looking forward to this one. You get the sense that Delaporte, who was a promoter after all, relished getting to have this match against a smaller but unique and very over and skilled opponent. He only took about half of it, despite the size advantage, got to do all of his huge facial muggings as Mantopolous was taking him over and twisting him up, and got to play into all of his fun trick bait spots. Meanwhile, he still got to beat him around the ring and keep control of such a skilled wrestler with his underhanded tactics and size advantage. He got to play off the ref and even trick Mantopolous into getting a public warning by keeping the ref in the corner and moving at the last second so Mantopolous dropkicked him (and he was elated by that result). He got tied up in the ropes a couple of times and did a really great job of eating a bunch of rapid fire dropkicks as he was getting up. As the match went on and the public warnings accumulated for both wrestlers, they were more than happy to keep abusing the ref. The chaos kept building until they ended up slugging it out on the floor and the ref just had enough. Pretty satisfying meeting of sizes and styles and personalities.

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. It feels like a while since we've seen Delaporte. He's greyed out now, but other than that pretty much the same old Roger. This was a basic face/heel match between two guys who just have amazing looking everything. Mantopolous just makes all his tricks look awesome and Delaporte has really good mannerisms falling for said tricks as well as some nasty kicks and punches. Just the way Delaporte flails about hen Mantopolous puts pressure on his wrist is an artform. Like with previous Mantopoulus matches we've seen he dominated most of the match although Delaporte did get to beat the shit out of him here and there. It feels a bit like there was some clipping here or they were really bold announcing a 30 minute time when about 25 minutes in the video had passed. Regardless it was another stupidly entertaining Delaporte singles against a very game opponent.

Bob Plantin vs Francis Louis 4/6/68

MD: At some point it becomes a little hard to talk about these stylist vs stylist matches, even one like this between two smaller guys. This was the usual excellent stuff. There were moments where they messed up a hold early but they were quick to recover naturally. There was a little bit of weird ref attitude towards Plantin which may pay off later down the road but it wasn't a huge part of the match. When they turned up the juice, they could really go with quick near-falls and headscissors takeovers all over the place. There was a nice extended short arm scissors, but also leg nelsons and full nelsons and plenty of other holds. Plantin had a nice neckbreaker. The last few minutes had them really getting chippy with some nasty shots as they worked towards the draw. We've seen tons of matches like this now but I'm always happy to see another.

SR:1 fall match going 30 minutes. This was largely a clean match. They wrestle it out for 20 straight minutes without throwing a forearm. The wrestling was as silky smooth and athletic as you've come to expect from two French technicians. It might as well function as a sample for the style. Plantin drew some ire from the crowd after he cranked up the viciousness when Louis dropped him with some nasty neckbreakers. Other than that the match stayed fair. Pretty beautiful stuff really.

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Gulak is Hidin' in the Back, Loosening His Grip

Drew Gulak vs. Hideo Itami NXT 9/14/16 - GREAT

ER: This was a real hard hitting under 5 minute gem, Gulak's post CWC debut, and his only NXT appearance in the first couple years of his WWF career. It's really interesting in hindsight that they thought Gulak could go right past NXT onto the main roster, which basically gave us a ton of Gulak/Mustafa Ali and Gulak/Cedric Alexander matches and left a ton of potential cool NXT matches on the table. Itami had come back from an injury and was running through CWC guys, and this was a compact way to introduce the toughness of Gulak and the willingness of Itami to hurt someone. Gulak slaps Itami hard, and then Itami pays that back with two hellish kitchen sink knees to the gut, and hard kicks to the chest and back. Gulak's slap was hard as hell, but it probably wasn't worth it for the two knees and kicks he had to take, and especially not worth the big boot he charges into face first. If someone is willing to be stiffed, Itami is going to be able to provide that. Gulak isn't as flashy with the stiff strikes, but does a ton of cool tough guy things, like body slamming Itami into the ropes and working over his body and limbs, dropping him with a  nice back suplex. They have a snug strike exchange, and Itami kicks Gulak in the throat before giving him a G2S that lands hard under Gulak's chin. There wasn't a single part of this match that wasn't hard hitting, total gem of a compact match, like something Regal would work with one of the karate guys on Pro. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 3/14/17 - FUN

ER: Mustafa Ali is Gulak's most frequent opponent throughout his WWE run, and this was their first match (of at least a dozen). It's short but filled with cool stuff, and Gulak is great at basing for someone like Ali. Ali at this point had a lot of offense that required opponents to be in a very specific spot, and Gulak is great at being in a specific spot. I really liked how Gulak played into Ali's assisted springboard rana (with a fun bump all the way across the ring out to the floor) and then caught a nice plancha right at the waist. Too many guys catch a plancha up by the shoulders and it leads to a lot of missed catches, and the way Gulak caught it in the midsection made it look like he was taking a cannonball to the belly. Gulak grounds Ali in cool Finlayesque ways, with a bodyslam thrown with the same kind of intensity Finlay threw his, working over Ali with stomps (springing off the bottom rope), and working a great Gory Special into a backslide. I wish there had been a more interesting way for Ali to work into his comeback, and I thought his rolling cutter was really dumb. It is completely silly to require your opponent to stand there waiting that long for tumbling. But the inverted 450 is a great finisher, and they clearly have the chemistry to have bigger and better matches. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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