Tuesday is French Catch Day: Leduc! Mychel! Dumez! Cohen! Montoro! Tejero!

Gilbert Leduc vs. Bert Mychel 4/16/73

MD: This is a rematch to a very good match from a couple of years earlier. Mychel was a two time Olympian in Greco-Roman wrestling. We come in late, maybe ten minutes in, but by this point, everything is gritty as hell and it never, ever lets up, not even once, over the next twenty-five plus minutes. One of the first things we see is Leduc powering Mychel over with the tightest cravat you'll ever see, just torquing his head around. As the match escalates, they'd escalate to throwing forearms, just pounding each other, both in holds and on their feet, but it never felt unsportsmanlike. It never felt craven or underhanded. It felt like exactly what they needed to do to contest each other. That was the level of skill and grit and determination and power and precision. They rolled around the ring, and it was everything Leduc could do to keep Mychel in a hold. Even with the slightly deteriorated film stock, you'd see it in his face, the exhaustion and frustration. He would catch him with a fake out, would take a leg, would snatch an arm, would get him down but there was no rest, no respite, no real control. Mychel was always grabbing for a limb, locking arms around a waist, and as the match went on, kicking or smacking, doing anything he could to escape.

Meanwhile, Leduc, even deep into his 40s, was an absolute warrior, always back up on his feet to fight, always pushing forward, giving his all to escape each hold, but sometimes not how he'd prefer. He was able to get his trademark headstand spin out of an arm puller, but for the headscissors, he couldn't manage it; they were just too tight. He had to squirm his way out through splitting the legs, through doing anything else he could. Maybe that's why he did strike first once or twice, but you never held it against him. It was what he had to do; the stakes were that high, his opponent that deadly. It was just business. Towards the end, he was the first to pick up speed, to escalate things further, but a high cross body went awry and he tumbled over the top rope. He climbed back in but was felled by three consequtive fall away slams by Mychel, able to pull himself up after the first two, but not the third. You can jump into any moment of this match and watch the two of them push each other up against the limit. Even when they were striking one another back and forth, they seemed to cut the gap so that they were almost face to face. There wasn't an inch of give there and there wasn't an inch of give anywhere else in this one. An amazing thing, maybe more so considering we've been watching Leduc go at it for almost two decades now and that he was able to create an equally exceptional but very different, gaga filled match when he teamed with Corn against Henker. What a struggle.

ER: We've seen a lot of stiff, well-executed matches in the 20 years of Catch, but this might be the match with the best fight feel we've seen. I don't think we've covered a French match like this. This felt like bad blood, but bad blood between two real entertainers. It all ended in Leduc being helped to his feet, but the 25 minutes before that sportsmanship was filled with potential hamstring injuries or broken jaws. This was Gilbert Leduc working as smooth as Santo but more violent than Finlay. Leduc's headspin escape should at minimum put him some sort of respected-in-the-right-circles Breakdancing Progenitor role. There was a real missed opportunity to have a Street Stylin Jacques Tati short feature with a Frenchman in a well tailored suit breakdancing on the L Train. Leduc could have started in a Spike Jonze video in a slightly different life. 

But in this life, he's trying to break Bert Mychel's hands by snapping at them with his strong grip (see how vice grip Leduc applies a cravat and picture that grip pinching into your hamate bone. Leduc pounds Mychel's hand into the mat, knuckles going into the soft spot of the palm. Michael takes the hand breaking in stride and sees where Leduc wants to take this, and starts colliding with him on every strike. Once we built to strikes, I'm not sure there were any strikes that only made contact in one spot. They start throwing their whole body into uppercuts, throwing a shoulder into the clavicle while throwing a forearm across a length of jaw. As the striking got more intense, the matwork got more intense. Leduc had an escape where he grapevined Mychel's leg out of a hold and rolled through so hard that it made my hamstrings sore. And the more intense the matwork gets the harder the strikes keep landing. Mychel rings Leduc's bell with one of the loudest open hand slaps, and the crowd reacts in more of a DAMN! way than with pro wrestling heat. It all builds to Mychel fallaway slamming Leduc to death repeatedly, throwing him over the top rope to the apron, then throwing him more onto the ring until the ref stops the damn match. It's pretty incredible the different ways that French Catch has continued to outdo itself, and I don't think there's another Catch match like this one. 

PAS: This was great stuff, it felt like a Billy Robinson or Terry Rudge match more than any other Catch match we have seen. We have seen other matches with great mat wrestling, and other matches with big striking, but this kind of hard gritty mat wrestling was a new thing. Every bit of grappling felt incredibly painful, and the spots with Leduc pounding Mychel's hand was iconically sick shit, it looked like he was torturing an enemy agent. Loved the finish too, with the multiple big fallaway slams. This footage just keeps delivering. 

Maurice Dumez/Georges Cohen vs. Antonio Montoro/Anton Tejero 4/30/73

MD: I think we have four matches with Montoro in the collection. This is the last. He has a rep of being one of the best Spanish workers, up there with Aledo, and he's so good and so versatile in what we have of him, especially his 70s work, that you can really see it. If someone who had lived through this period and watched these matches told me that he was the best they'd seen, I'd believe it. We just don't have enough footage to make that claim ourselves. He's taller, lankier, but can keep up with everyone in rope running and quick exchanges. He's hugely imaginative, using the conjuro backbreaker, a ripcord into a spinning tombstone, complex and intricate rope-running spots. He works those spots into callbacks, winning the first fall with a leap back body press off the top and losing the second by having Cohen catch him while attempting the same move. He has just enough personality throughout it all, raising his hands to deny cheating, sneaking in shots, having his arms flail about as he's getting punched. He bases for all sorts of offense, including a really tricked out headlock takeover exchange by Dumez, and bumps all over the ring, including a mad leap backwards on a miscommunication spot where Tejero crashed into his gut to set up the finish.

Tejero, of course, given his girth, bumps like mad as well. Dumez and Cohen were more than up to the task to face them here. I wish some of the comebacks had a little more dramatic oomph to them, as the beatings were solid and the heat was good, but when they came, they came a little too easy and didn't have that perfect flash of lightning to make them possible. Still, you watch this and marvel that Dumez and Cohen could take and hit all of Tejero and Montoro's stuff and equally that Montoro and Tejero could take and feed for all of Cohen and Dumez' stuff. You can't fault a second of the action in this one.

ER: We did not have a 1973 match on our All Time MOTY List, and none of us have seen a better contender from 1973 than Leduc/Mychel, so that match is now our 1973 champion! Peep the rest of our All Time MOTY List at the link below: 

ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/23 - 5/29 (Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 5/25

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Private Party

MD: Absolute mauling with a little bit of polish for Private Party at the end before they got crushed. The polish was them throwing themselves at Mox and Kingston and a shooting star press by Quen. Amusingly, Regal, much like us, was more interested in the way Moxley turned his hips on the kickout than the beautiful top rope move and was trying to get the replay to last long enough to show it. Where Private Party shined the most was bumping all over the ring: Nasty over-rotations on power bombs and clotheslines, including when Moxley came back the other way on a poetry in motion, and Quen crashing so hard into the rail that he knocked some guy's drink out of his hand. Still, this probably would have been a little more interesting structurally a few weeks ago when they weren't doing such a hard sell for the PPV match. The act, overall, works better against young faces than young heels, as between the guest announcers sniping and the fact that no one was really rooting for Party, I don't think they got enough credit or rub for surviving the beating they took to come back at the end. 

ER: I agree that Private Party was the wrong team to take this specific beating, even if the match benefitted from the way they physically took this beating. Private Party have gotten good enough that she should be past matches like this, but will likely always be put in matches like this because it looks fucking great when Isiah Kassidy vaults off Quen's back and gets folded all the way across the ring after connecting bad with a Moxley kneelift. I can't believe this is the first time Moxley and Kingston have teamed since September. Their vibes are so good that I have been thinking about them as a team for the entire time that they have not been teaming, bonded together in my brain because of their substance abuses and open faced honesty about them, they're just a perfect natural pairing. Moxley looks as inspired as he has in years, and Kingston played all of this with the right intensity. Quen's shooting star press looked awesome, with a flat rotation that look slightly against physics, and I loved the way Kingston ran in before the finish to lay him out with a running spinning backfist. 

AEW Rampage 5/27

Bryan Danielson vs. Matt Sydal

MD: I can't say enough good things about this one. Great build. Great big moments. Great little moments. This was one of my favorite AEW Danielson matches and seemed to pay off the promise more than when he was running through the Dark Order, for instance. Right from the beginning, there was incredible gamesmanship between the two, things like Danielson sneaking in a forearm on a Greco-Roman knucklelock or just how hard Sydal had to work for that flying mare. Once they got going, Sydal may have needed to put an extra bit of effort into his transitions, but he could; that was the point, speed and athleticism in hitting a leg lariat out of nowhere or landing on his feet to counter a snap mare. Danielson had maybe three just massive moments here: the roll forward to the Romero special, the roll through on the meteora into a crab, and then when he hit the knee at the end, but Sydal had his own with the top rope sunset flip power bomb. They gave Regal and company plenty of little things to note and plenty of big ones to pop for on commentary. About as good of a Rampage opening match as you could possibly hope for.

ER: My brain thinks of these two as "frequent competitors" and that's probably because I had burned DVDs of their one ROH singles match and their one FIP singles match from 15 years ago but can't actually comprehend that happened over 15 years ago. Sydal managed to have 400 matches in WWE and was rarely in the same ring as Danielson. So my brain just thinks of them as natural opponents from the same indy wrestling boom era, and yet they've mostly avoided each other in-ring. I feel like an idiot repeatedly saying things like "This may be my favorite Danielson performance in AEW" but I guess I'm just going to say dumb things like that. Probably the only thing I didn't care about here was Danielson hanging Sydal over the top rope like an evolved piece of Scoot Andrews offense. That might be the weirdest piece of offense to survive from year 2000 indy wrestling. It's almost shocking that there isn't You Can't Powerbomb Kidman throwback offense. 

That move felt weird to me only because every other piece of offense in the match felt *worked for*, and that was the one thing that felt *waited for*. The match starting knucklelock was an absolute struggle, both with shaking arms that allowed Danielson to sneak in an elbow across the jaw. Danielson threw European uppercuts with his entire body, making contact not only on the uppercut but throwing his full shoulder and hip into Sydal. I don't think Fit Finlay would have elbowed and uppercut Sydal as hard as Danielson did. Both broke out more spectacular versions of things they've been doing for years. Danielson's kicks looked more like Kawada stiffing up Kikuchi, Sydal's meteora looked like a guided missile and the Danielson reversal was finisher worthy. However, Danielson rolling through the Romero Special and then elbowing Sydal in the neck until the forced break felt like such a spectacular spot that it should have been saved for the finish of a huge match. That's also a part of Danielson's AEW charm, though, the fact that it instead came 4 minutes into a Friday night match with Matt Sydal. Sydal's sunset flip powerbomb reversal of a top rope back suplex was incredible, impactful enough to believably get a win and pulled off so well that it looked like an organic reversal. I swear Danielson is hitting harder every week on those downward elbows, and they always look like they earn the stoppage finish. This really made me want to look through some spindles and binders for those ROH and FIP matches. I'm not certain they'll be able to top their future selves. 

PAS: This was really great, one of the top minor key Danielson performances, not at the level of Kingston or Dustin or Moxley, but a throwback to us getting cool Danielson singles matches every week. It is fun we have gotten to see this mini Sydal vs. BCC feud for a couple of weeks now. This felt very FIPish which is ironic considering their previous match, just two wrestlers going out there and performing. We all know how perfect Danielson's execution is, but Sydal looked great too. That deep stack on the powerbomb reversal was a thing of beauty, and the Meteora looked super forceful. Love that Danielson has so many ways to take people out, and a weekly Rampage match seems like a great way to keep him relevant for his next big moment.

AEW Special Dark 5/28

Darby Allin vs. Brandon Cutler

MD: Very short match to set up the PPV here, but I liked Cutler running around the ring only to eat Darby's explosive dive anyway. The timing on that and the staggering catch by Cutler were both excellent. I could have lived with Cutler stooging a little more and then having a comedy spot or two, but better to have the match the promotion needs than the match you just happen to want.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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2002 Big Boss Man Runs Into Bradshaw

Big Boss Man/Mr. Perfect vs. Bradshaw/Faarooq WWF Metal 3/23/02

ER: Okay well this is the match right here. This is the kind of match that makes me want a series, and  makes me mad that most of the Boss Man/Perfect team's existence happened on house shows. Everyone came off tough, a real hardscrabble match that was cooperatively stiff in the best way. Perfect really works heavyweight here, and while he takes the most bumps of anyone they aren't athletic stooge heel bumps, they're hard back bumps off a shoulderblock or powerslam. Perfect and Boss Man cut Bradshaw off from Faarooq, which wasn't the direction I thought this was going, and I liked it. Boss Man is great on the apron, doing his "gotten to" expression to the crowd the first time he's tagged in, stalking up the apron, letting them chant Boss Man Sucks. His feeding into the chant is always so good, because he shuts them up quick by going right in and always punching a guy. Those chants never continue on into the match, he makes sure to quiet them quick, and having a big punch out with Bradshaw is a really cool way to guarantee they stop.

Boss Man and Perfect hit Bradshaw with a hard double shoulderblock, and Perfect is the one that Bradshaw throws around, but not in any kind of dominant way. I dug how Perfect got up quick after taking the fallaway slam, as it actually makes sense that a rolling bump like that wouldn't be as impactful as a suplex bump, and there's a killer tangle where Perfect kind of stops short but Bradshaw snags him and turns it into a hardway suplex. I'm not sure if it was a miscommunication, but I don't think it was, and it just made the spot look way cooler. Faarooq was the big hot tag while Perfect was getting run into the ringside steps, and I like that Faarooq couldn't fully lift Boss Man. He hit a spinebuster but it wasn't clean, but still enough to put a big man down. The most intense moment of the match came right after, when it looked like Faarooq was actually going to hit the freaking DOMINATOR on BOSS MAN! He hits a powerbomb instead - which is great - but my mind was racing at how both of these men just might injure themselves doing a move that I am still stunned was allowed to be used at all. Knowing this match exists should excite you, and it delivered on its potential.

Big Boss Man vs. Bradshaw WWF Heat 4/14/02

ER: First things first, this match is 30 seconds long. Second, it's the greatest 30 second match in wrestling history. I love 4 minute Wire songs, but I also love 45 second Wire songs. I love 2 minute Minutemen songs, but I also love 30 second Minutemen songs. I would certainly love a 5 minute bruise filled good ol boy fight, but Boss Man will also put the same effort and story progression into 30 seconds. It's got everything: Stiff work, loud crowd heat with immediate Boss Man Sucks chants, 8 great punches, a sternum breaking chest bump in the corner, and one highlight reel worthy Clothesline from Hell. It's as much heat and fight and payoff as a 3 minute match. Greatest Hits Played Faster. Boss Man has phenomenal timing, and it makes spots like Bradshaw's missed elbow look that much better. Boss Man hangs into spots like that until the last possible second, Bradshaw committing all of his weight, and before long Boss Man is throwing punches like he's trying to bust Bradshaw's eyebrow. Boss Man got incredible steam on a missed corner charge while everyone in the arena let him know how enthusiastically he siphons, and he turned around just in time to be obliterated by the Clothesline. Big Boss Man: Ultimate Tik Tok Wrestler. 

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Found Footage Friday: BABY MISAWA~! ONITA~! SATO~! INOUE~! TENTA~! KABUKI~! JIVE TONES~! CADETES~! MISIONEROS~!

Mitsuharu Misawa/Atsushi Onita vs. Mighty Inoue/Akio Sato AJPW 12/08/82

MD: This is, I think, the earliest Misawa match on record that was identified in a handheld cache from a couple of years back and that's now online due to our new friend in Japan. We have some Goto vs early Kawada matches that we'll hopefully take a look at in the next couple of weeks too. A lot of this was putting Misawa through his paces with the basic spots you'd expect from someone in the system at his age. There was one point where he seemed a little lost on a whip and there were some things he did, like a big backflip off the top that you couldn't quite attach to the wrestler he'd someday be. In general, it was a good showing for his experience level, generally competent. Onita had that electricity that made you think that 82 Randy Savage vs 82 Atushi Onita would be the most interesting match in the world. He drew the eye with everything he did because it stood out so much to everyone around him. And it's not like Sato and Inoue were slouches. These two had as good a finishing combo as you'd see in 82, with Inoue's fireman's carry gutbuster, two flipping sentons, and Sato's wind up hook kick. 

ER: This was mostly simple juniors stuff, a lot of armdrags, some grounded headlocks, and some movements that seem destined only to ruin knees. You see Onita leaping off the top rope to the floor and landing on his feet, just to back off Inoue, and you think about how his knees were pure bone dust less than two years later. Inoue and Sato work over Misawa's knee (Sato had a really nasty grapevine kneedrop that did not prevent Misawa from backflipping off the top rope late in the match) and has a cool backbreaker. Misawa gets to show some spunk with a hard back suplex that gets paid back shortly after. I loved how the match built to a wild Inoue/Onita exchange, with Inoue hitting his high cross block and then FLYINF over the top to the floor after missing the immediate follow up, giving Onita the opening to fly into him with a great tope. The Misawa/Inoue stuff was nice and spirited, with Misawa missing a cool leaping crossbody off the top and getting his insides rearranged with a gutbuster and two fat flipping sentons. Misawa was only 20 years old here, but you could really see how high his floor was just from his young boy work. 

The Jive Tones (Pez Whatley/Tiger Conway Jr.) vs. John Tenta/Great Kabuki AJPW 9/2/89

MD: Jive Tones were generally supporting Abdullah (who was building up to his big, heavily promoted singles match with Baba) on this tour. We get them in some six mans but it's nice to see a straight tag match with them doing their thing. Tenta was winding down on his way to the WWF, having not been utilized all that much in 89. Kabuki, of course, would jump between lower card matches like this and being a second or third guy in Jumbo vs. Tenryu main event trios matches. Maybe that's why it was so enjoyable to see him goof and stooge about with Conway and Whatley here. There was a beautiful exchange where Conway escaped a headlock by dancing this way and that and Kabuki answered by mocking his little dance. The crowd was definitely into the act, popping for each bit of oscillation or jiving that Conway or Whatley pulled out. You never quite got the sense that they were going to win, between the hierarchy of it all and Tenta's sheer size, but they definitely irritated their opponents along the way. That made the post match dancing and strutting around the ring of Tenta and Kabuki all the sweeter after their victory.

ER: Matt really has a strong grasp on the kind of matches that will lure me into writing late on a Friday night. I didn't know the Jive Tones worked an All Japan tour, let alone in a featured tag match, so I was going to be here for this. You see, it's the way Conway shimmies Whatley's white jacket down his arms and shoulders, really taking his time, wiggling his partner free. He will continue wiggling his way through the match, but building to some surprising stiffness and a cool story. I would have enjoyed this if they had kept the early match vibes, like Kabuki barreling out of control doing rope running with Conway, leading to him eating an armdrag and dropkick, or how Tenta swung super low on a clothesline and then caught Whatley's high crossbody, only to go down in a heap from Conway's Thesz press. 

I thought this would settle down pretty quickly into Tenta and Kabuki dominating, and the fun twist in the match comes when Conway gets manhandled into the wrong corner. This is clearly where he was about to take a long beating, and instead, wins a punch out with Kabuki that turns into a nice heat segment on Kabuki, even giving us a Conway butt butt off the ropes. One of Tenta's best traits as a wrestler is how good he is at looking Actually Mad in the ring. He has great body language and is good at selling, but he's so good here at looking genuinely pissed off at Whatley's antics, coming off like someone who was upset that the Jive Tones weren't treating Professional Wrestling with enough Respect. It's so cool seeing such a big dude get knocked around by Conway and Whatley, and my favorite part of the match was this excellent last second pinfall save by Conway, flying into frame with a stage dive that Charles Peterson should have captured in black and white. Kabuki barely gets the win with an inside cradle as Tenta is getting smashed into the ringpost on the floor. Negative points to the cameraman for not giving us more of Tenta and Kabuki's celebratory in-ring strutting. 

Solar/Súper Astro/Ultraman vs. Black Terry/El Signo/Negro Navarro Primer Festival De Lucha Libre Regia 3/21/10

PAS: Always cool to see a new match from Navarro and Terry when they were in their mid 50s and smack in their prime. Terry was the greatest brawler in the world in 2010, but this was more of a Navarro vs. Solar style llave exhibition, which was fun but not revelatory. Everyone kind of hit their beats here, pretty heavily matched up, so we didn't see much of Navarro or Solar doing their things with the other guys in the match. We did get a nice Super Astro tope and some flips from him, and I liked how they teased the traditional Solar vs. Navarro double pin finish, only to switch it up and have Solar win by submission. 

MD: This felt like these guys playing the classics, especially with the initial exchanges, but they're classics for a reason and even though we shouldn't have been surprised by it, because we have Solar vs Navarro even a number of years later, it's absolutely impressive on paper. It was a lot of fun seeing Super Astro use Signo's sheer size as an absolutely literal base to use to bound around the ring. Navarro and Solar had a lot of time and they used it to the fullest with one interesting tricked out hold after the next, holds that almost no one else in the world could make plausible but them. Things opened up a little on the second or third set of exchanges and that let Black Terry unleash some of the shots you'd expect out of him from this time and it gave things some variety, but they snapped back to old form shortly thereafter. Past the action itself, my favorite bit of this was the audio of someone explaining to their kid who each tecnico was based on the color of their gear. It was matter-of-fact and wholesome, spreading the love of these guys across generations.

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THEE 23 Man Shotgun Saturday Night Battle Royal!

23 Man Battle Royal WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 9/19/98 

ER: This is the kind of TV battle royal I miss, and this just might be the closest this era of WWF ever came to the kind of brilliance we saw in WCW's infamous 1995 Nasty Ned battle royal. While doesn't have quite the same charm as that 1995 masterpiece, it still has the kind of charms found in Coliseum Video battle royals and I think that's a nice measuring stick. Its biggest strength is that it boasts a truly bizarre collection of participants, a real freak show of guys who weren't on the main programs of 1998 any longer and wouldn't be in any programs whatsoever in 1999. A great battle royal is one where there are several strong potential winners, or absolutely zero plausible winners. When you're looking over the 20+ guys involved and the only two who stand out as possible winners are Bradshaw and Dan Severn, then you know you have some incredible parity in your battle royal. 

Give me a battle royal with Tiger Ali Singh in his first match in a year, Bob Holly still in his Midnight Express gear two months after the Midnight Express existed, Kaientai wearing Michinoku Pro gear and not their street gang attire, Scott Taylor without Brian Christopher, Papi Chulo in his last appearance before becoming an exclusive part of the Super Astros roster for the next 6 months, Southern Justice getting the strongest crowd reaction of anyone else during their entrance, twin Nazis, Miguel Perez and Jesus Castillo still in their Boricuas gear before their shift to Super Astros, and the Oddities. Of course, my glee over who could possibly be considered the favorite among these names was deflated a bit when the final entrant was The Rock. Obviously the Rock is going to be winning this specific battle royal, but there is still plenty of 7th generation video quality joy to gleam from this. 

Where else will you see Golga having one on one interactions with Mens Teioh or Papi Chulo? Bob Holly and Marc Mero were fun unexpected standouts, with Holly always going right after physically larger guys, and then punching it out with The Rock and selling really well for him. Dan Severn does an amateur throw to eliminate Jesus, gets double teamed by Togo and Teioh in another odd pairing that couldn't have happened anywhere else, bullies Singh into the corner with hard shoulders to the stomach, then takes a cool cartwheeling elimination bump after being thrown over by Bradshaw. Mero was getting a great reaction from hotdogging the entire time, the way far more people should hotdog while in a battle royal. Mero would punch someone, then raise his arms, then punch someone, then raise his arms, and before long the crowd was erupting every time he raised his arms. It's more of a playful house show call and response game than anything you see on TV, and it's cool seeing someone random like Marc Mero be a noteworthy part of someone's WWF live event experience. 

The eliminations all come at once, like they were told to all go out there for 7 minutes and whomever is left who isn't the final 5, get the fuck out of there and quick. We get a lot of great elimination bumps: Togo gets backdropped over by Funaki for some reason, Papi Chulo gets the back of his head clotheslined and winds up tumbling all the way to the entrance ramp, Miguel Perez and Scott Taylor take the kind of bumps to the floor you would expect from two bump kings, and we wind up with a fantastic final 3: The Rock, Dennis Knight, and either 8-Ball or Skull. Dennis Knight comes off like a real badass in this battle royal, and when I saw how cool he came off during the finishing stretch it made me think back to Southern Justice getting such a big reaction during their entrance. I really liked the Southern Justice look and wish they got a long run with that gimmick. Wrestling SHOULD have tag teams that look like two of Ben Gazzara's toughest goons in Road House. And walking to the ring, they DID look cool. 

Knight really puts the boots to the Rock, with the kind of energy that makes me want to do a Godwinns/Southern Justice project, a Viscera/Mideon project, and - if those go well - a Naked Mideon project. It's crazy how much of an impression a guy can make in 30 seconds, but damn did I like Southern Justice here, and seeing Knight taking it to the Rock was great. Knight and [a Nazi] punch and stomp the Rock, Rock ends up eliminating the Nazi on a missed charge, then we get to see how perfectly Dennis Knight sells the People's Elbow before the finish. This was when the Elbow was really starting to catch on big, and the crowd went nuts for it, but it's not exactly a thing that finishes a battle royal. Well, when the elbow impacts Knight's chest, he gets up and runs around like he took a shot from a defibrillator, then gets leveled by Rock over the top. Dennis Knight sold the People's Elbow the way you'd picture Chris Candido selling the People's Elbow on a house show, and I know anyone reading this is picturing how that looks right now. This was a great battle royal, the kind you will never see on WWF C shows again.

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Noam Dar! Grizzled Young Vets! Josh Morrell! The Hunt!

Noam Dar vs. Josh Morrell NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/19/20) (Ep. #80)

ER: Noam Dar wrestles like a guy who's not actually signed by NXT UK, but shows up every couple of months just to show that he's better than every single regular in NXT UK. I'm 80 episodes into NXT UK, and the Noam Dar start-stop push through the entire thing has been one of the weirder and more entertaining things of my viewing. Dar shows up for an episode every 6 weeks or so, is always kept strong, always looks great, and then disappears for a couple months and never gets close to any title. My favorite part of the first 80 episodes of this show has been Kassius Ohno, which I don't think is a very contentious opinion. But at this point I think Dar is just as consistent a performer as Ohno. The problem is that for its entire duration, NXT UK has been the easiest place in the WWE brand to hide in plain sight. Noam Dar's last several years have been a tree falling in the woods, a different woods than the one with  Wolfgang's tree. 

This match is a Dar showcase against a very fun wrestler who has an even more ridiculously fragmented appearance rate than himself. Josh Morrell is this hyper athletic guy who shows up once or twice a year to get massacred, and always has new ways of falling on his face or backflipping his way into a bad situation.  He's great as a showcase opponent, and is good at getting himself some shine. I have no idea why he isn't an actual regular as he's always entertaining. Dar bullies Morrell around and Morrell hits back, literally. I loved Dar's slap after going for a knucklelock, and how Morrell went right at him and knew what kind of match it was going to be. Dar hit some of his most painful kicks, and Morrell is a guy who always leans into kicks while making them look painful. Dar had a couple of cool legsweeps too, kicking Morrell out at the shins, and Morrell is good at whipping his face into the mat and holding his loose feeling jaw after. Dar took out Morrell's legs as a way to get to his arm, an attack he kept up until finally getting the win. The balance felt really nice for an extended squash, another argument for Dar as the best Time Management guy on the brand. 

Grizzled Young Vets vs. The Hunt NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/27/20) (#81)

ER: A nice simple match to showcase the Vets, but that doesn't mean the Hunt doesn't get to shine as well. GYV get to work some nice double teams, strong cut offs, and both set up The Hunt's comebacks really nicely. GYV have nice complementary skillsets, and this match saw them both lean into their differences: Drake is the stronger seller, better at taking offense, quick, and tenacious; Gibson is vocal in a way many wrestlers aren't, good at stooging, and good at setting up and executing double teams. I liked the early moments of each Vet saving each other from the apron, leading to them cutting off Boar from Primate. Drake throws a real stiff back elbow, they work a cool tandem kneelift, great tandem backbreaker on the floor, and they just keep hammering down on Boar with splashes, clotheslines, and elbows, refusing to let him tag out. Primate's eventual hot tag is very fun, nails Gibson with a spear and tosses Drake with a backdrop, but it also leads to my least favorite kind of GYV double teams, the "Gibson holds a guy while Drake does a couple thigh slap kicks", but the ending stretch did have some surprises. Primate usually doesn't stand out more than Boar, but I loved him attempting to take out Gibson with a big axe handle off the top to the floor, and how he uses the same axe handle to Drake but does not see the blind tag. This all felt like a Grizzled Young Vets/The Hunt touring house show match, but on a brand that doesn't actually do house shows, these tags stand out. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Sanniez! Hassoni! Bernaert! Calcard! Prince! Noced!

Albert Sanniez/Kader Hassouni vs Bernard Caclard/Pierre Bernaert 2/15/73

MD: Another swimming pool match. We've seen some of these that were fairly weak but the last one we saw was pretty funny (though Catanzaro being in it stacked the deck) and this one had some great action, but then again, it had Sanniez who is one of the best juniors we've seen out of France. Bernaert, by this point, was an incredibly experienced tag team worker, a great stooge, and here, actually wrestled a bit more than we'd seen him in a while since much of the action was kept to the center of the ring given the water surrounding them. That said, and while Bernaert took most of the bumps into the pool throughout the match (Calcard's saved for the post match own goal), I'd say it was Caclard who created much of the motion on the heel side, as he was able to base and keep up for Hassouni and Sanniez's quickness. Calcard had a great front chancery suplex throw too. Sanniez' reverse bridging headscissors escape remains amazing to watch and he did it twice here. When it came time for the heels to take over (after Sanniez went flying through the ropes on a tope to nowhere due to a missed move), they were sufficiently vicious as you'd expect. Honestly, the pool didn't limit the action much at all, even when the ring was bobbing violently towards the end given how fast and hard they were going. Maybe this would have been slightly better as a conventional match but it was still very good overall.

Petit Prince vs Daniel Noced 3/16/73

MD: Every Petit Prince match we haven't covered is a treasure and this is no difference. I wouldn't call it the most impressive or spectacular match we've seen, but it's one of my favorite performances of his. He seemed more mature as a wrestler when it came to selling a limb, to squaring up to build anticipation for a move, in knowing when to go all out with speed and when to milk something for the crowd. Noced was exceptional too, both as a base, and as a stooging, bullying jerk, a real contrast to the Prince. There was just a little more stalling out of him than we've seen lately, a little more of that focus on his nose towards the end of the match when you'd expect things to be picking up, but it worked because the fans were emotionally invested and because the Prince played a long, one way to take them down one last time before the finish.

After some quick chain wrestling to start, they settled into around fifteen minutes of holds here, Noced controlling to start, first with a wristlock and then a hammerlock before the Prince took over with a short arm scissors. All of it was brilliant. What people will ultimately know about this match will probably come from the gifs of the escapes and escape attempts, and there'll be yuking it up about how wrestlers are spot monkeys or whatever else, but it's the set ups that make all of this really resonate. It's like chess, with each attempt at an escape built up with three bits of motion to even create that opening, and then multiple escape attempts being necessary before slipping out can occur, and then it's usually right back in so that they can take it back down and build it back up again. Without having two or three minutes to work the hold and slowly escalate upwards, the ultimate bursts of motion and acrobatics wouldn't mean nearly as much. Taken as a total whole, it creates the illusion of believable counters on top of counters, with Noced often not sure which way the Prince will go next and trying to adapt during and after the fact. Looked at as just a gif in isolation, it's going to be an amazing spot, but taken as a whole, there's an underlying struggle that creates the environment for which it can exist. But please, gif this stuff anyway; people should see it. And if it takes them back to the source, all the better.  But without the long dedication to a hold, the ultimate flash would feel far, far more empty.

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AEW (And Friends) Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/16 - 5/22

Only one AEW match this week but Eddie Kingston's been barnstorming, and since Phil has to watch them all for the Ringer, we're on top of all of it.

AEW Dynamite 5/18

Blackpool Combat Club (Moxley/Danielson) vs. Peace, Love, and Pro Wrestling (Matt Sydal/Dante Martin)

MD: I am heartened, but not hardly surprised, by Phil picking this match over the Hangman Page one for AEW's match over at the Ringer, and go over and read his review there. I'd put Woods vs Yuta up there as well for the week and even Bear Country vs Workhorsemen, but I'm happy to write about this one. This is the first time in a short while that we've seen the BCC up against babyfaces instead of heels, interesting given that they are in a program now against the JAS. The match was structured accordingly, with an immediate rudo ambush and no shine. It meant that both Sydal (paired primarily with Mox) and Dante (hitting everyone but especially paired with Danielson) got to be the recipients of hot tags and got to be houses afire. It did mean that we missed out on some early feeling out or a quick exchange with Sydal or Martin and Danielson. There's a twelve minute Danielson that's going to be very exciting some day but for now it was just a taste on the comeback and then Martin getting stomped out and surviving up until the point he didn't in the stretch. Regal and Jericho did a great job getting over the discrepancies between the two groups as the match was going and you know Jericho's going to design a "Money, Merch, and Sports Entertainment" shirt out of the exchange, whereas Regal was great at indicating that he knows everyone's weaknesses and that he was the one who had been there for Hager from the start, not Jericho. We missed out on a shine but two comebacks of Sydal and Dante doing their thing surrounded by Mox and Danielson beating people to a pulp works pretty well too. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Isaiah Broner AIW 5/21/22

MD: The match is on IWTV, and Phil wrote it up on the Ringer. It was a war. There are explicit narratives and implicit ones in wrestling. Explicit ones are more along the lines of long limbwork or big vs small or a southern tag where there's a lot of cheating with hope spots and cut offs or even shine-heat-comeback. To me, an implicit narrative is more about making everything take effort and struggle and filling in gaps, by making the match absolutely airtight. This match was airtight. Everything was worked for. Nothing was given. Eddie wasn't going to get a single throw without battering Broner first. Broner could heft Kingston up but he'd have to put him back down and smack him around a bit before tossing him too. Eddie chipped at the arm, not to actively dominate the story for five minutes, but to passively make it so Broner's killshots weren't quite enough to kill him. That's the other half of the equation. If a match is airtight and violent but nothing's registering, if nothing has impact, it's just going to be noise. Here they hit hard and then sold the impact of what happened. They recoiled. They staggered. They sold. So everything took effort, but once it hit, it was worth the effort. That was from the first chops and Broner's killer forearm all the way to the finishing stretch where he could show his toughness, where he could get up in the face of Eddie's best stuff, but once he did, he was helpless to do anything but to take the next shot. Nothing was glaring. Nothing was telegraphed. Nothing was over the top. Yet it was all violent and it all earned and it all meant something and it all mattered. When a match can pull all of that off, it's a hell of a thing.

Eddie Kingston vs. Davey Richards Glory Pro 5/22/22

MD: I haven't seen a Davey Richards match since chain suplexes in and out of the ring were involved. It's been a decade probably. That said, he's an interesting and unique Kingston opponent, not to mention older and maybe wiser. I'll say this: you watch a Davey Richards match and you're going to get commitment. This is a guy who is always on, who is always feeling it, who is always in the moment. I may not have always liked or agreed with those moments during his career but you never doubt his belief in himself and what he's trying to portray. You may end up disbelieving what he's trying to portray, but you end up believing that he believes it, and in this day and age, that is a special quality and it's worth something. That gels with the notion that with Kingston, what you see is what you get.

It meant that that the early wristlock feeling out process was full of struggle and grit. They covered a bit of the match with work on Eddie's leg, and he was the guy, out of the two, you'd want selling, so that was a good thought. Eddie, maybe inspired by his opponent, hulked up after a bunch of insulting Kawada-style kicks and you can't say it didn't fit the match, and then the finish had Richards full on motion charging in only to run into a freight train. I'm not sure I need to see them run it back, but as a thought experiment and a clash of two very different styles but similar levels of commitment, it was fun and never wore out its welcome.

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Coffey vs. Dragunov

15. Joe Coffey vs. Ilja Dragunov NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/19/20) 

ER: This has to be my favorite Joe Coffey singles match, and it's got to be because he has a punching bag like Dragunov to pummel. Coffey has a lot of thudding strikes and Dragunov is someone you can just thud and thud and thud. Coffey is a fast bumper too, so when he gets knocked around by Dragunov he really gets knocked around. I like how they tangle, like how they ground each other, and I always like how Ilja fights to his feet and how hard Coffey runs into him to put him back down. Coffey had a couple really big bumps during Ilja's initial onslaught, including a really fast painful tumble over the top off the apron to the floor. He crashes into Ilja with the Glasgow Send Off just as hard as he crashes on all of his misses, and I liked how the Send Off kept coming up throughout the match. Coffey's body shots and chops looked really hard, and Dragunov's body always reads damage really well. I liked how Coffey pivoted things to going after Dragunov's knee with a crazy avalanche style knee breaker, then tenaciously kept on the leg even while Ilja is kicking him in the face from his back. It all built to some really big stuff, some hard lariats, a big delayed German and a huge impact top rope senton from Ilja, and Coffey getting a big superplex when Dragunov gets slowed by his knee. Ilja is the guy who just keeps fighting through any beating, and Coffey started to desperately spam the Send Off, trying to take out Ilja's knee, but kept showing his hand and instead running straight into brutal knees or the ringpost. The finish looked really good, with Ilja flying into Coffey's face with the Torpedo Moscow headbutt just as Coffey was turning to throw his lariat, just a great escalating battle. 

PAS: Dragunov has gone from being a guy I thought was goofy, into one of my favorite wrestlers in the world to watch. I really need to revisit his WXW stuff to see if I would like that, too. I thought this was great. Coffey may be the best puncher in the WWE, and he really unloads with hard body shots and big hooks. I liked him trying to take the starch out of Ilja while Ilja was just throwing his body around back into him. The Russian suplex by Dragunov looked great, and that Gotch lift really should be a set up used more often in wrestling. I also loved how Dragunov used his speed and awareness to stay ahead of the game, as Coffey kept missing violently. He landed hard into the turnbuckles, into Ilja's knee, and finally his head. You have to love a guy willing to throw himself so recklessly into harms way.

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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Found Footage Friday: TOGO~! SNOW MAN~! CENTURION NEGRO~! MONJE NEGRO JR~! MEIKO~! AMANO~!

Snow Man (Chad Collyer)/Fujin vs. Dick Togo/Hideki Nishida 6/4/01

MD: This was from a lucha themed show at Korakuen Hall called Lucha Aid, which may be something people know about (there was a music video for it back in 2011 that's long been scrubbed from the internet), but it doesn't seem to be on cagematch and the only thing I can find online is from the April 30 2001 Wrestling Globe newsletter. Long story short on this one, Togo spends most of the match on the apron and you spend most of the match wishing he was in the ring. When he is in there, he matches up well with Collyer, and in a brawling bit on the floor has amazing punches and takes an insane bump into a bunch of empty chairs. Collyer is actually a lot of fun as Snow Man, constantly saying his name and posing and playing a strongman gimmick. A good chunk of the match is Fujin vs Nishida though and while nothing is outright offensive except for Fujin's elbow smashes, it's not exactly super compelling either. Still, even a little Togo goes a hell of a long way.

Centurion Negro vs. Monje Negro Jr. 9/17/06

This is hair vs mask and we get the last two falls of it. Centurion Negro won the first which we don't have. This starts out with him in control but Monje Negro quickly takes over and just batters him around the arena, a lot of shots into chairs and the like with Centurion bleeding and Monje Negro going after the wound a bit. Centurion gets a good comeback moment but chooses to go after the ref instead which allows for a cheap roll up. Cheap is the term for Monje Negro actually. He took a lot of stylistically interesting shortcuts, including catching the ref's arm instead of kicking out or dropping to his knees to hit a back body drop instead of bending over. He also through a really great foul as Centurion was about to put him in an abdominal stretch type move. As the tercera went on, he bleed too and ultimately got his comeuppance after a ref bump. If you like guys slamming each other into chairs and walls as they go around an arena (and who wouldn't) this one had a lot to offer.

Meiko Satomura vs. Carlos Amano GAEA 1/17/99

MD: This had existed heavily clipped previously but this seems to be the first full look at it. Aggressive, heated, chippy. They really go at it, full of animosity. Satomura came in with a taped up arm and has to wrestle defensively to start. Amano is able to chip away at her because of it and eventually starts to work on the arm. The arm, however, is primarily a gateway to other offense and especially to other offensiveness as she's there to bully and humiliate Satomura with the help of her cronies. That causes Satomura to lose her cool and grab a chair outside, which at first backfires on her, but as she's able to absorb both offense and humiliation and as Amano goes to the clothesline well one too many times, she's able to duck a shot on the outside and fire back after Amano guts herself on the rail. It's a match full of cool exchanges, spots, and moments, but my favorite is probably when both of them are tied up in the corner, each having hold of a leg, wrenching a joint high over the ropes simultaneously, mutually assured devastation. A close second would be some No Future style flicking kicks out of nowhere that looked amazing. There's a decent amount of interference here, but the match is so engrossing that it doesn't make you mad at the layout but instead that Meiko isn't getting her revenge or triumph, which takes some effort considering how jaded we all are in 2022. The finishing stretch had Satomura take one or two potentially baffling turns, maybe sacrificing her own assured win because she really, really wanted to hit the death valley bomb but overall this was a lovely, furiously fought gift for the GAEA channel to give us.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: More Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

Barry Windham vs. Owen Hart WWF Raw 3/9/98

ER: This match shouldn't have been as underwhelming as it was, the only Owen/Windham singles match that ever happened. There were several Hart Foundation/Blackjacks tags in 1997 but this was the singles match. And I don't know how else to describe it, other than as a hard worked match from two men who worked like they were on muscle relaxers. Is it possible to lazily work hard? You watch this match and ask that question. Barry Windham takes so many bumps during this match and they didn't stop for a single hold, 5 minutes of exchanges that kept the same pace front to back. At the same time, they both had this thousand yard stare and it's like they were doing moves to each other without making eye contact, making it feel like a hyper-realistic THQ/AKI demo. Windham looked tired and sluggish, but his timing was right on point and he was active the entire time. He threw suplexes and a nice DDT, had a great looking dropdown into his diving lariat, got up for back suplexes and backdrops and bumps to the floor. But he also throws his punches at half speed and just walks into offense multiple times. You watch Barry Windham slowly walk directly towards an Owen Hart dropkick and then tell me these two aren't actually a simulation. This was during the three month stretch where Owen got his nuts bashed in every week by Chyna, and that gives Barry Windham the count out victory, his last ever WWF win. We were this close to a Dirtbag European Champion. He could have worn black and white striped shirts and change his name to Beret Windham.

Barry Windham vs. Eric Sbraccia NWA New England 9/20/98

ER: Here's a fun glimpse at Barry Windham - same age as my present age - wrestling an indy show in between his WWF and WCW stints. Erich Sbraccia was a Good 90s Indy Wrestler, coming out with goons like Tony Rumble and Knuckles Nelson, all of them looking exactly how all Late 90s East Coast Indy Wrestlers were supposed to look. And man I wish this match went longer. It's only 7 minutes, a real shame, as they clearly had material to work longer. The crowd was hot and reacting to Barry like it was 1993. Sbraccia throws some armdrags to surprise Windham, then slams him (looks like Barry came in expecting an armdrag so Sbraccia had to muscle him into a slam, which looked impressive). And of course then Barry comes back with the same and it's great seeing Windham throwing fast armdrags. I said Sbraccia was good, and he did a lot of basic things I like out of my guys: There's a fast rope run exchange where he really swings low and for the fences on a missed lariat, and he takes a really great backdrop bump; later he eats a couple nice punches from Windham and takes a wonderful pratfall bump onto the apron, his boot getting hung up on the top rope. Windham was really hustling too, taking a fast bump to the gym floor and landing with a thud, and really whipping off the ropes with his diving lariat. The finish is all mumbo jumbo run in from Knuckles, and it was annoying in that way you can tell a match is going home a minute before they arrive home. This delivered as a 7 minute match, but it really could have been a great match with 14 minutes. Both guys seemed game, but this was just about the end of Indy Windham. Indham.

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Mini Complete and Accurate: Dan Severn in WWF

Dan Severn vs. Flash Funk WWF Raw 4/6/98 

ER: Kind of a robotic debut, but an effective short dead eyes killer showcase. Even though an actual match between these two would have been much better, I like when they put two tough guys in there together. Funk had size for an extremely agile guy, so with Severn's throwing strength and Funk's height you get a couple cool high Severn takedowns. Severn's takedowns all looked great, but his open hand slap ground and pound didn't really read as well to the crowd. The intensity was there, with Severn pouncing on Funk through the ropes and both almost tumbling to the floor. Given even a couple more minutes this could have been a stiff style clash for the ages, and Funk even hits his great spinkick right to Severn's chin. But this was not going to be Severn debuting in a competitive match, and he hits a mammoth belly to belly on Funk before tapping him with a Fujiwara. This was the lost weird dream match that some indy should have booked in the 2010s. I have a feeling that every single Severn WWF match is going to feel like something special that wasn't given a chance to be special.

Dan Severn vs. Mosh WWF Raw 4/20/98 

ER: This was really cool, as it was basically worked like a Bloodsport match. Severn shot in with a fireman's carry takedown and double legs and kept Mosh down with his weight, but Mosh was no pushover on the mat. I've never thought of Headbanger Mosh as someone with amateur wrestling tendencies in the ring, so it was cool to watch him not go limp on takedowns and throws. He was taken down with a reverse waistlock and kept fighting to his right and actually almost pulled off a go behind on Severn! It really looked like Severn wasn't expecting it and they both kind of awkwardly tumbled into the ropes. Severn threw him with a couple of cool rolling gutwrench suplexes, and Mosh kept trying to slow the momentum of them, only making them look cooler and fought for. Mosh even got a big arcing takedown while Severn was distracted, and Severn nearly took a huge head drop off it, like he was Misawa taking a big German. I really dug the two grappling on their feet, ending with Severn throwing what looked like a shoot bodyslam, then doing a similar lift into a powerslam before trapping the arm. The only actual strike that was thrown was a kneelift from Severn. Well, there was a really terrible punch thrown on the floor, when Thrasher took out Cornette with a punch that landed somewhere around Cornette's elbow. You give Severn and Mosh two more minutes, and you come out with something better than the majority of the shootstyle indy matches from this current craze. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Montreal! Henker! Corn! Leduc! Schmidt! Frisuk! Viracocha! Tejero! Ben Chemoul! Bordes!

Inca Viracocha/Anton Tejero vs Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes 1/18/73

MD: This was exceptional. So many of these Ben Chemoul and Bordes tags (and Ben Chemoul and Cesca for the six matches we have of them together before Bordes) are so, so good that it's hard to rank them but this has to be towards the top of the list. Viracocha did everything well, but Tejero was just an amazing big bumping base that had the visual of being almost Brazo like to really put it over the top. This match might set some sort of record for bumps over the top and to the floor or off the apron as Tejero just went over again and again in the first third, Bordes got absolutely killed in the second, and then the heels got their comeuppance in the last. There were some absolutely amazing sequences like Bordes getting lawn darted and bouncing into the front row only to come back on the second attempt at it with cartwheels and dropkicks as he bounded around the ring and took out both opponents.

The heat was strong and meaningful, cutting off the ring and taking out first Ben Chemoul and then Bordes, who had his back just demolished with whips and creative tosses to the floor and a huge backbreaker. He had a great bit of hope in there as he fought back in but over shot on a flying body press and got stamped out. Then the comeback was fiery and full of revenge and the final fall was hugely entertaining including a great spot where they crushed the ref between the two Peruvians and a high energy finish where Bordes leaped to the top and got his flying body press. I don't really see how this could be any better considering what they were trying to accomplish.

PAS: This was really great, felt like a classic lucha match, with Viracoeha and Tejero as big bumping, big stooging rudos, and the Chemoul and Bordes iconic technicos. Bordes was bumping big and I loved his big KO right hand, and when he went wild and started cartwheeling and flipping all over the ring. Tejero spent more time flying out of the ring then in it almost, and Bordes especially just got tossed everytime he hit the floor. Totally breezy 30 minutes, really something nearly any wrestling fan can enjoy. 

Mr. Montreal vs Der Henker 2/10/73?

MD: Big time heavyweight clash here. Henker was a big powerhouse but so was Montreal. Early on they played it up with Henker jamming Montreal's mares and headlock takeovers in a way I'm not sure I've ever seen before. It took a shoulder block (also jammed) and a rushing headbutt to the gut to even get him into a position where the headlock takeover worked. This might have been methodological at times, but there was always that sense of struggle. The first half of this was really the two of them trading holds with neither getting an advantage. Eventually Henker's inside shots won out and he did take over with nerveholds and rabbit punches. Montreal came back big, dropkicking Henker out and tossing him around the ring, but he overstretched by going to the mask. That let Henker toss him out and post him and the writing was on the wall after that. While Montreal didn't bleed, he did sell it all well enough to really get over that it was the beginning of the end. The appeal in a match like this is that guys that are bigger and stronger are showing the technical prowess. There were less in-and-out escapes but they played up the power and the struggle instead, and Montreal did go up and over out of a top wristlock into a headscissors. It was just the right amount of flash to go along with the hammering blows and the just overwrought enough battling over a test of strength or full nelson.

Jacky Corn/Gilbert LeDuc vs Daniel Schmidt/Janek/Jean Frisuk 2/10/73?

MD: This is our first look at Schmidt and the first time we've seen Frisuk (Fryziuk, called Yanek here) in ten years. And this was very good. In part it almost felt like a throwback to the 50s with some of the holds, some of the spots, and the absolute slugfest that it devolved into again and again. Schmidt and Frisuk played de facto heels, Schmidt young and spry with as much energy as anyone we've seen in this footage other than Bollet maybe, and Frisuk older, a little slower on some spots, but still able to throw fists (or forearms as it was) and grind down. I say de facto because it was clean, with LeDuc and Corn helping Frisuk up after winning the second fall and all hands getting raised after the third. They had taken the first by capitalizing quite mercilessly on Corn going over the top and when the hot tag came in the second, it was very hot. Corn and Leduc were some of the best sluggers in wrestling history and they got more than their share of revenge with one big shot after the next. Down the stretch, it was all parties firing off on each other. Basically, if you enjoy watching wrestlers throw hands, this is one of the best matches in many a year from the footage for it.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/9 - 5/15

AEW Dynamite 5/11

CM Punk vs. John Silver

MD: Interesting match due to the crowd not quite being as anti-Punk as was likely expected. While there were clearly some planned callback spots, namely Silver hitting the backslide early and then rolling through when Punk tried it later and the tornado DDT spots (two attempts tossed off, the second with Silver landing on his feet and then a back twisting one that Silver fudged a little but not hugely to the detriment of the match), a good chunk felt called too. Punk made sure to give everything impressive and impactful in the match to Silver. When he had Silver beat him to a pulp in the corner, the fans stopped being so split and got behind Silver. Later on, during the break, when it was Punk's time to be in charge, it was with slow and methodological offense and he drew chants about Chicago pizza being terrible and PG Punk, which he reacted to, garnering more heat. Still, the crowd wanted to cheer for him and by the time he'd fought back in the end and was hanging out on the apron, things were split again, which makes it all the more impressive the boos he got for using the Buckshot. It was never about Punk being an over the top heel, just the little things that shifted the hearts of the crowd.

ER: I really got into this when Silver started beating Punk down in the corner with elbows, but also how quickly Punk took back control after. It's a real important moment in this fun TV match. Every time Silver threw at him, it rocked Punk, but Punk controlled long stretches with his statesman Bret Hart offense. I don't think of Punk as a guy with a great Russian legsweep or inverted atomic drop, but damn did they look great here. Silver's fired up comeback was awesome, loved the kick combo that looked like it came from three directions, and the brainbuster was good enough that it made me think about how nobody really does a great brainbuster these days. The ugly ass buckshot lariat with Hangman looking on commentary looking like a Wyatt Russell character was great antagonizing king shit. I hate Jim Ross saying "Johnny Hungie" more than I hate almost anything. 

Jeff Hardy vs. Darby Allin 

Phil covered this over at the Ringer.

MD: Even with that in mind, I'm not entirely sure what to say about a match like this in 2022. It was weirdly minimalist in as there were not that many spots, not that many interactions, but every single one had a huge impact. It went maybe twelve minutes but it felt somehow infinite and instant at the same time. My favorite part of the Fish vs Hardy qualifying match was Matt working the apron as a corner man and keeping the crowd focused and on point. There was none of that here. It was all climbing and set up and then payoff. 90% of the harm done in the match was self-inflicted. That said, even in a promotion full of big stunts, and big Sting stunts at that, the leap off the ladder stood out and should be memorable for at least months to come if not years. The first replay angle was remarkable. Jeff didn't catch as well as you'd hope but it was like losing a fly ball in the lights. That was Jeff's body language. That was the height differential between them. Jeff's physical charisma and his full body selling has been developed and honed over decades and Darby's one of the best today in emoting the impact of damage done; that combination meant that everything resonated and meant something even if it never coalesced into an overall story. You believed that they would try to one-up each other until the end of the world or until their joints and bones turned to dust, and you sort of believe the finish, that Jeff realized that nothing was going to stop Darby and the only way to save both of them was to break the code of daredevils and sneak in a pin, pressing Darby against the ladder after the coffin drop. I don't know. The match was a pretty good trick but I never need to see them do it again.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Vince McMahon

Vince McMahon/Steve Austin vs. The Rock/D-Lo Brown WWF Raw 5/11/98

ER: This was only the second time Vince put himself in a match on Raw, here as Austin's surprise partner. That means Vince was going to stay on the apron the entire time while Austin fought the Nation by himself for nearly 10 minutes. There was no chance Vince was going to do any exchanges with the Rock or D-Lo, although it would have been hilarious in retrospect if D-Lo Brown was the guy tasked with working Vince through exchanges in maybe his first ever match. Peak babyface Austin can do a match like this in his sleep and make it look good, and the crowd stays into every single movement he does the entire match. Vince is limited to a real wrestling strength of his: smirking on the apron like a guy who has it all figured out, every time Austin starts getting outgunned. 

Vince comes in to distract the ref and prevent an Austin tag, wearing his stupid bodybuilding pants while directing Patterson and Brisco. They're smart and don't have any long extended heat segment on Austin, so he always feels like a guy flying back into frame once you think the fight has been broken up. He cuts D-Lo off with an unexpected Thesz press, throws Rock to the floor, conks Patterson and Brisco's heads together, hits Rock with a mean clothesline on the metal ramp (with Rock bumping it on his shoulders like a lunatic), and Austin fighting against the odds was always a very entertaining role for him to shine within. The match ending bedlam was great, with Austin hitting D-Lo with a stunner, Vince coming into the ring and finally getting physically involved by pasting Austin with a stiff arm lariat. Patterson and Brisco try to hold Austin for McMahon but he fights them off (Brisco takes this great flipping bump after Austin punches him away), and suddenly Dustin Rhodes of all people comes out to fight the Nation with DX coming in close behind as we fade out. I remember watching this show with my friends in high school and all of us lost it during the main. All we wanted was Austin kicking ass and handing out stunners. 

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Found Footage Friday: MASAMI~! KANDORI~! TENRYU~! FUYUKI~! TIGER~! LEWIN~?!

Devil Masami vs. Shinobu Kandori JWP 1/16/89

MD: I'm missing some context on this one as most of the Kandori I've seen was later on, but there's a lot you can pick up from the text alone. The first couple of minutes of the match were about her making herself seen by Masami. She starts by putting out a hand only for Masami to refuse to shake it. They lock up but Masami overpowers her and casually hits her with a butterfly suplex, really just dropping her. So Kandori works her into the ropes on the next lock up and starts to slap her repeatedly. After the first, Masami sees her, and after the third or fourth she really sees her. Kandori got what she wanted but soon learns to regret it as Masami powers her immediately into a dangerous back drop, but Kandori was ready to take the punishment and is able to maneuver her into a crossface chicken wing and by that point, they have a real match going (Masami gets out by biting Kandori's wrist and Kandori answers with kicks to the spine, if you were wondering just what sort of match).

The beating that followed was fairly hellacious and one-sided. Kandori would occasionally slip out, pry off a leg, and try to do some damage, but even then Masami eventually had enough and tried to tear apart Kandori's leg for revenge. They went back and forth as the match went on, but always with Masami having a clear advantage, and always with Kandori having to slip out and over to get in a bomb of her own. Usually that came in the form of going back to the leg. Meanwhile, every big impact was made all the more thunderous by Kandori leaning in as hard as humanly possible. Her selling was consistent pain. Masami's on the other hand, appeared when it was most meaningful, especially as they rushed to the finish. Again, I can't put this thing in context, but on its own it stands up extremely well.

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki WAR 11/8/93

MD: Tenryu and Fuyuki were stablemates here, but I think even more so than that, they were two guys who knew each other so well in the ring, even if they hadn't matched up all that many times. Fuyuki knew everything about Tenryu and that's why he got dirty first with a stomp and a suplex and holds. He knew he had to in order to get the advantage he needed. Likewise, there was such subsequent tension when Tenryu escaped and had his back, had him up against the ropes. You, the viewer, like Fuyuki, the about-to-be victim, knew the other shoe was about to drop. It was just exactly when and how and Tenryu wrestled as if he was acutely aware of that tension and anticipation.

And the payoff came, because it was inevitable. A shoulder block and a series of these peppering, flicking kicks. The price sufficiently paid, Tenryu was happy to settle back into a Greco-Roman knucklelock but Fuyuki was going to keep stepping over the line (as he must if he was to have any chance at victory and to prove his worth as a man. And Tenryu was there over and again to put him back in his place as only he could. It was when Fuyuki finally pushed Tenryu, finally got him to go for the second rope elbow instead of reverting back to another knucklelock that he was able to capitalize, but even that couldn't last for long, for Tenryu was always back up, always rushing back at him clothesline or powerbomb or a simple shove onto the back of his head at the ready. Still, Fuyuki was no longer a young man. He had size and resilience and an understanding of his mentor's techniques and he hung even in the face of the storm, right up until the point that it blew him away. But not before reaffirming Tenryu's respect for him, however, and maybe that was all that really mattered in the end.

Super Tiger vs. Mark Lewin UWF 9/8/84

MD: If you look at the list of foreigners in UWF (even early UWF), Lewin has to be up there as one of the oddest stylistically. There are Takada and Maeda matches that I've never seen (and I have seen Meltzerian claims that Takada's win over Lewin was a big deal for Takada and UWF, but all I can say for sure is that Phil didn't like it much); I really need to go back for those but this one was pretty out there. Lewin didn't change up his act in the least. It began with Super Tiger throwing a lightning fast kick and Lewin recoiling back wondering just what he had gotten into and it doesn't really look back. Lewin sells all of Tiger's holds like he's wrestling Dusty in Florida, big broad selling. Late in the match he even lets himself get tossed off the top rope. The best bit of that is when the tiger feint gets him in the face and he starts climbing the guardrail in fury. On offense, he's clubbering with stomps, throwing ridiculous karate chops, and yes, gets behind Tiger with the dreaded nervehold. And Sayama is left to try to figure out if he's going to break the illusion by not selling or if he's going to break the illusion by selling. He chooses the latter and I'm not at all sure it was the right decision. The finish, both impressive and merciful is Super Tiger actually getting him up for the tombstone and after the match Lewin goes full maniac and starts dismantling the ring. All of this left me wishing we had the Fujiwara matches from this tour, but I doubt they were as bizarre as this.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got an actual cool tag team from that, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a straight up 1985 NWA style tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Two big dudes in face paint running into people is almost always going to be enough. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. This was great TV tag wrestling.

Barry Windham vs. Bradshaw WWF Raw 3/23/98

ER: THE BLACKJACKS EXPLODE!! WWF bringing back the NWA for a few months in early '98 was really weird, and I'm pretty sure I remember that it was all just to make fun of Cornette, so who's to say who the bad guy is here. We get a pretty cool mini video package before this match, something they don't do now as interestingly as they did here, and definitely not as efficiently. Within a 20 second video they had already explained why the Blackjacks broke up, how Barry was jealous of Bradshaw, showed several clips of Bradshaw murdering people, Bradshaw chasing Barry up the ramp after interference, and then we cut back to a smug dirty blonde Windham waiting in the ring. They had me at Hello. This feels like a match that would have fit nicely onto the WM14 card, though I get why it was not on the card. Windham seems pretty broken down by this point, which is weird as he was somewhat resurgent not too much later in WCW. Still, this was 3 fun minutes with a dozen different moments of two giant dudes smacking each other with vests and chaps. Seriously, I'm pretty sure half of this match was them removing their respective vests and chaps, and smacking the other a few times with each removal. Take off a vest, smack your opponent with it. Get them chaps off, smack your opponent with them. It's the 2019-present LA Park formula and it works, as documented here 20 years prior. Barry is moving a little slow and those knees seem to be barking, but he takes a couple of awesome bumps into the ring steps, getting run knees first in nasty fashion, eats a big boot from Bradshaw and falls into them again. Windham hits a cool DDT in the ring and we get a goofus roll up finish. You have Windham and Bradshaw in there, at least let one of these two hit their diving lariat! 

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There's a Picture Opposite Me, of Andre's Primitive Ancestry

Andre the Giant/Haku vs. Demolition WWF 1/23/90  - GREAT 

ER: This was released on WWF's...um... Unreleased DVD, and just look at that body language Andre is giving off before the bell. I love how the man leans into the ropes, love how the cameras cut back to him during Demolition's entrance to clearly show him rolling his eyes with a "These fucking guys" expression. Haku and Demolition throw down, with body blows and bad punches and a great missed Haku headbutt right into the mat. Demolition starts frequently switching out of the match, not making tags, just being annoying. It leaves Andre in the amusing position of complaining to the referee to restore some order. I don't know why it's so entertaining seeing Andre having a very normal conversation with the referee, but the whole situation kills me. Demolition is running in and out of the ring battering Haku with axe handles, and the largest man anybody in the arena has ever seen is standing in the middle of the apron arguing with the ref like he's on the phone with Comcast asking a question about his bill. "Well I'm asking you what the charge is for. No, that's what I said, I'm asking you." 

If I go to the doctor's office and the largest human I have ever seen is having a plain boring disagreement with the receptionist, it might be the funniest thing I will ever witness. "Well they told me my appointment was at 11. It's 11:25 and I have somewhere I need to be at noon. Yes, I understand how you can't control how long each patient exam takes, but I was told to be here 15 minutes before my appointment...Yes, Yes I understand that, but...Okay well the interference and illegal tags are literally happening right behind you...No I am telling you that...you know what, fine. I'll just grab my little rope in the corner."

Demolition has a lot of phony tough guy offense, a lot of stomping to cover up that their strikes never look that good, but let me just say that ALL of Ax's stomping clubbing punches to Haku's neck looked great, and Haku finally creates some space by catching Smash deep under the chin with a superkick, finally leading to our actual Andre involvement. Andre's control is very brief, literally standing on Smash before falling to his butt on a missed sit down splash. Once Andre is prone on his back, that's when Demolition can run wild, beating on a gigantic man who can't seem to turn himself over, a 180 year old tortoise getting stomped and axe handled. Let me tell you, Ax choking Andre and bouncing him up and down on the bottom rope is one helluva visual, right hand wrapped around Andre's throat (choking Andre with just ONE HAND!), Andre's head and shoulders draped over the bottom rope. But it's dangerous just working offense on Andre without sticking and moving, and Ax finds that out when he hits an elbowdrop and Andre just rolls over and starts to smother him. Ax made the foolish decision to lie down directly next to the wounded bear, and was somehow surprised when that bear just rolled over and wouldn't let go. Old Andre on offense is great, as he drops down with that butt splash (holding onto the middle rope for easy plopping), and I love how his eyes go wide with excitement when Haku smashes Ax's head into Andre's gigantic head. 

The finish run has a couple of my favorite ever Andre moments. The first is when he's holding Ax in the corner, pressing in with his butt, and when Ax tries to worm away from the expected Haku charge Andre just grabs Ax by the straps and throws him back into the corner like he's tossing a backpack into his car. I don't know if I ever saw Demolition's Cruising straps used against them and here's Andre just throwing that man by them like it's nothing. Right after that we get an even more incredible Andre moment, one that showcases how much better his physical acting was than any other wrestler's: After throwing Ax by the straps, Andre immediately begins talking shit to Smash, rubbing it in that he and Haku were wasting the old man, without realizing that Haku missed the avalanche. When he notices this and sees Ax crawling away like an escaped lobster, he yells out Hey! the way a giant yells Hey! and then just kicks Ax in the ribs.

Demolition's hot tag is strong, starting with Haku running into a hard Ax back elbow and taking a high backdrop for Smash. Andre drops down into the ropes in a cool way off a Smash clothesline, and a Demolition tandem lariat staggers him and drops him to his butt. Sadly, the finish is a bad one, just Demolition taking the Colossal Connections' belts and using them as a weapon in full view of the ref, Andre getting the hell out of the arena without even considering retrieving that belt. The concierge service, you see, takes care of that. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Ben Chemoul! Bordes! Lagache! Grelha! Saulnier! Renault!

Brief programming note: I've updated the Master List. It should be easier to search for a wrestler, or, once we get past the first year or so, to see things mostly chronologically. Feel free to share it widely and reply if you think we have any name or date or anything else wildly wrong.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs Pierre Lagache/Grelha Le Portugais 7/17/72 

MD: This isn't my favorite Ben Chemoul/Bordes match. It was one fall, which is often a plus but this was a long fall without a lot of drama and having the heels take a fall might have actually helped here. You can't judge these French matches against southern tags. It's a different thing in a different place from a different time in front of a different crowd with a different style. It becomes less about transitions and the tension between hope spots and cutoffs and the build to comeback then and more about ebbs and flows and how compelling the action is. It's about the engagement of the wrestlers with one another, the engagement of the crowd, the struggle of the holds, the cleverness of the spots, the personalities and skill and snugness.

Some of that worked out here, but some of it didn't. Lagache comes off as a smaller Bernaert to me, capable, able to base during fast action and for acrobatic escapes to holds, with the right put upon and sour attitude, especially in how he interacts with his partner and the crowd. He was fine. I wasn't overly impressed with Grelha (Maybe Grella?) though. He had the look right, a sort of caveman Mocho Cota (not quite Barbaro Cavernario unless he was the drunken mall Santa version of him). He'd bump over the top eagerly, would stooge well, occasionally had some good clubbering or stomping, but it just wasn't enough. The commitment wasn't fully there, the offense wasn't interesting enough, and he was too low on the overall weirdness scale. I've seen Lagache team with N'Boa against Ben Chemoul and Cesca and Grelha here was no N'Boa, at least not on this night. He paired better with Ben Chemoul who had a bit more theatricality in what he did and there were a couple of fun and unique spots like a catapult into the ref or Ben Chemoul and Bordes tying his hair into the ropes to trap him. In the end though, the stylists probably took too much of this and were never quite in enough danger. The one time the bad guys took over was due to drawing a public warning with blatant cheating and I liked that, and in some ways, it did set up them getting DQed at the end for running out of chances, but this either needed more drama or more shtick over all.

Michel Saulnier vs Guy Renault 10/9/72

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. They wrestled for a big golden trophy in this, and damn the wrestling here deserved a trophy. Beautiful beautiful match. Saulnier is certainly making an amazing case for himself with every appearance. The wrestling didn‘t have the kind of flips or whackiness like the more attention-drawing catch, but their movements were poetry in motion, each throw and running sequence executed to perfection. It‘s really amazing what you can do with armdrags, headlock takeovers and headscissors and varying them slightly. They worked all these really fast throws and ran the ropes, then settled it working control segments building to more elaborate counter sequences, then back to throws and rope running, all seamless. Just the kind of ebb and flow structure you want from a mat classic. Saulnier seemed to overwhelm the taller Guy Renault initially, so Renault worked a segment controlling him with a headlock which has to be one of the greatest headlock control segments I‘ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. Renault started hitting Saulnier with these flying headbutts and drew some boos from the crowd, then Saulnier fired back with a tope of his own that knocked both guys down and felt truly epic. Saulnier made beautiful comebacks and went for broke when it was time to hit european uppercuts. Tempers flare a bit with guys ending up in stalemates and in the ropes and taking offense, but they kept working a clean match but amping the stakes building to the eventual conclusion. These two really looked like masters of the style here, never a slip up in anything they did and they worked this with such a pace that I have serious doubts any two workers in the world right now could rival them. Great great match, every once in a while I go back to check in on French Catch and end up being immeasurably happy that we have this stuff.

MD: This was a title match for a European Super Lightweight title. It felt more special for it and for the fact that Renault's wife and kids were at ringside. They cut to them a few times, though the kids didn't seem super interested and the wife was spoken to fairly deep into the match when Saulnier was grinding his face into Renault's cheek on a hammerlock. Renault was billed a Teddy Boy and was bigger, but he wrestled this more cleanly than we'd seen him in the past. While it got intense at times, it did have that traditional title match feel.

And for the first half of it, I got a little worried we jumped the gun on the 1972 MOTY as it was really sharp action, holds worked in and out of, just excellent stuff. They'd build to faster and faster spots and more and more complex escapes and then fall right back into the hold. That included a lot of fast pin exchanges and rope running, high level stuff of the sort that felt novel with Savage vs Steamboat if only because people hadn't seen Saulnier vs Renault. Some of these were put together with clever and meaningful bookends that utilized repetition in a way you don't usually see in this footage. They may have actually overdid it a bit because it was somewhat evident that they were low on gas by the midway point. At that point, there were some leglocks by Renault that weren't nearly as compelling as what they had lead with. They both picked the pace back up and got a lot chippier in their shots by the end but it was a title match worked clean and it never quite boiled over, instead ending on a series of quick pin attempts. Still this was very, very good and fairly different to what we've been seeing at this point in the early 70s.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/2 - 5/8

AEW Dynamite 5/4

Blackpool Combat Club (Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Wheeler Yuta) vs. Andrade Family Office (Angelico/Butcher/Blade)

MD: This is the first of these trios matches where I came off a little underwhelmed. It needed another minute or two, maybe. Angelico got to do one tricked out submission on Danielson and Danielson responded by kicking the soul out of him in the corner, but it wasn't the 90 second exchange on the mat that we've been itching for since Danielson came into the company. That said, as a cliff notes version of the sort of match you'd want, everyone still got to highlight what makes them special, it's just that no one got to do a whole lot of it. Moxley got to toss Blade around the ringside area, and Blade got to get tossed around; Butcher got to be a brick wall against Yuta, and Yuta got to scrap against everyone and then fight from underneath, and the fans plenty happy to chant for him. This was by far the best use of Yuta's "through the legs" theatrics, and that means something. It shouldn't be in every match and he can do it as part of a feeling out opening exchange, but it's way more effective when used to build to a hot tag. A guy like Butcher is the perfect guy to use it against. Hopefully we get that ten minute Dark match between Angelico and Danielson at some point, that's the pairing everyone wants to see.

ER: I really loved the enthusiasm everyone worked this with, but I also thought that Angelico was the worst part about it. At one point I swear he threw a legsweep at Moxley that swept 5 feet in front of Mox's feet. Moxley still hopped in reaction, and it kind of made the follow up make more sense. But I don't care about Angelico, I care about how good The Blade looked here, because I thought The Blade looked great. I've always liked the Butcher and the Blade team even though I don't view them as a team that has great matches, but Blade gets better as a worker the more he just works like LA Knight. Watch the two of them: the movement is near identical, and the way they feed opponents is identical. Blade has really good timing when it comes to feeds, and I'll always love a worker who tags into a match and then runs immediately into a backdrop. I think Blade is always really good in matches with a lot of guys, as he seems to always be among the best at knowing exactly where to be when everything starts to break down. Also, Blade has Actually Great punches now. He throws a lot of long right hands in this match and I was really impressed by how they connected. I've said before that AEW isn't really a fed with a lot of punchers, and now I have to talk about how The Blade is one of the best punchers in AEW. Love to see it. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Gallus vs. Burch/Lorcan

54. Wolfgang/Mark Coffey vs. Danny Burch/Oney Lorcan NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/13/20) (Ep. #79)

ER: It's been fun going through all of NXT UK, and I'm not at the point where I'm starting to see the very first matches I saw of them. NXT UK bringing in Lorcan, Ohno, Kendrick, etc. was what originally got me to watch, and this match was my first time seeing Coffey and Wolfgang, who have turned into two of my five favorite NXT UK wrestlers. I watched this a couple years ago, and I loved it even more two years later. 78 episodes have already shown Wolfgang to be easily one of the best in the fed, but this match might be his greatest showcase yet. It's also a real fine showcase for Danny Burch, meaning his two greatest WWE performances just might have been this tag match and an NXT UK tag match vs. The Hunt shown two weeks prior but taped just the day before this tag. I'm not sure what Danny Burch was on that weekend in January, but I'm here for it. 

This was a hot 10 minutes that peaked with a heat section on Lorcan that built to a fiery Burch hot tag, but the whole thing had a nice back and forth energy. The Gallus takeover was so well done, executed in a way I haven't seen: Lorcan was going off battering Coffey and Wolfgang, running attacks on them in opposite corners, until Coffey grabs Lorcan with a rear waistlock after getting nailed, pulls Lorcan backwards into the corner, allowing Wolfgang to come flying across the ring with a high crossbody into Lorcan's upper chest. Wolfgang is great at using his body as a weapon, as he flies out of the ring hitting that crossbody and comes roaring back in with a divebomb elbowdrop to a sitting up Lorcan, and later dives into a seated Lorcan with a senton. 

Wolfgang is great at creating space, a great guy to work with Lorcan. I loved how it looked when Lorcan leapt for a tag and Wolfgang caught him over his shoulder to drag him back over to the Gallus corner. The visual was a nice preview of Wolfgang scooping Burch over his shoulder for the match ending powerslam later on. When Burch does tag in it's awesome, knocking Wolfgang off the apron (with a nasty bump to the floor by Wolfie), muscling Coffey over with a German and holding onto the waistlock, then pulling Coffey into a headbutt. There were some real fine pinfall saves by both teams, those fun pinfall dogpiles that get one guy shoved painfully on top of a pin, and I'm kind of a sucker for when the camera shows the pinfall and leaves an obstructed view of the man about to break up that pin. Wolfgang takes Lorcan out of the match with a wild spear through the ropes and too the floor and gets back in to scoop Burch into that powerslam. A week before this match Wolfgang/Coffey worked one match in the NXT Dusty Tag Classic, and then this match against the future NXT tag champs. This was a killer glimpse at what it would have been like to see Gallus working with other WWE and NXT teams instead of being kept in the UK bubble, and it's a shame we never saw more of it. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: TIGER~! MAEDA~! FUJIWARA~! KIDO~! TENRYU~! KABUKI~! MOCHIZUKI~! FUKUDA~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs Super Tiger/Akira Maeda UWF 10/5/84-GREAT

MD: You could more or less sum this one up as two of the most dynamic offensive wrestlers of all time against two of the greatest defensive ones, though that would be understating Kido and Fujiwara, both in general and in this match. It's undeniable that Tiger and Maeda were the aggressors here for the most part though, constantly driving forward, constantly throwing kicks and suplexes and leaps from the top, all with varying levels of complexity. Meanwhile, Kido and Fujiwara would get battered, would endure, would capitalize on a mistake or create an opening and would fire back, Kido with forearms or Fujiwara with his headbutts, only to get cut off once again. The magic of this style and the magic of the Fujiwara/Kido team is that you know that no matter how thoroughly Maeda and Tiger might run up the score all it would take one moment, one mistake, one opportunity for Kido to escape or Fujiwara to win the day. So while you watched the cumulative damage rack up, the tension always increased. Unfortunately, the finish was almost perfectly clipped to make it look like Fujiwara was pure magic, but you can connect the dots in your head to figure out how they got there. Still, a little frustrating after almost thirty minutes, but you can hardly fault the journey for a technical blip upon arriving at the destination.

PAS: New Fujiwara is basically Christmas for me, and especially this period where he was smack dab in the middle of his prime, lots of tiny little moments of genius from him, along with some great stuff from Kido who is kind of the Dick Slater to Fujiwara's Terry Funk. The highlight of this match for me was Super Tiger, I have no time at all for NJPW Sayama, but UWF Sayama, a Sayama where he just embraced his inner crowbar was perfection. He is just killing Kido and Fujiwara with sick unpulled kicks to the head and stomach and some uncalled for jumping knees, at one point he splits Fujiwara with a knee, and we get see our guy Yoshiaki work his way through the blood in his eyes. So amazing that there is still new HH from 1984 which just show up on the internet on a random Tuesday

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Great Kabuki WAR 11/9/93

MD: As a general rule, I prefer Kabuki in tag matches over singles. He's great at coming in and disrupting things, with two of the great sudden strikes in wrestling history between his uppercut and the cut off kick to the face, but sometimes he has a tendency to take a relatively short singles match and eat up too much time with holds when you'd rather see him scrapping. I wasn't too worried about that here since he was up against Tenryu so you know that one, the holds will all be full of struggle and two, eventually, Tenryu will get him up and to the ropes and will throw some killer chops. Then, you know, Kabuki will come back with the uppercut and things will be off to the races. That's what happened here after a methodological start. It bled into mid match heat where Tenryu got roughed up on the outside and a great comeback where he blocked the uppercut and drove forward with the sumo palm strikes across the ring. Finishing stretch was Tenryu overwhelming Kabuki and Kabuki just getting points for surviving as long as he did. Nothing overly surprising here, but you don't watch something like this for a surprise. You watch it to see Kabuki and Tenryu hit each other repeatedly.

SR: These two could have just punched and kicked each other and done some staredowns and it would‘ve been a quite good match, but we got something more neat here. Tenryus resume of great houseshow matches is for sure impressive. We get a fun opening with Kabuki trying to stand up to Tenryu with his great uppercuts, and Tenryu just chops and lariats him in the throat with Kabuki sells passionately. Tenryu seems to have this in the bag easily but then Kabuki catches him with a surprise thrust kick and Tenryu tumbles outside. Immediately a bunch of Heisei Ishingun goons start swarming Tenryu and brawling with his seconds. Tenryu eats chair shots while Kabuki cuts a promo. Back in the ring Tenryu is bleeding and Kabuki takes him apart punching and kicking the cut. Tenryu is able to snap a Fujiwara armbar but has to let go of the hold because his blood is blinding him in a really neat moment. Tenryus facial expressions and body language are outstanding even on a blurry handheld. His exhausted surprise abisegiris were really cool, also. Great little match due to structure and grit.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Masakazu Fukuda Yume Factory 8/4/98

MD:  This went a little over 11 minutes but I wouldn't necessarily call it a sprint. There was just a bit too much substance to it for that. Mainly, it was Mochizuki's kicks against Fukuda's throws (and general sense of resilience because Mochizuki struck first and frequently), but what I loved the most about it was how well it implemented pro wrestling tropes or spots to make them feel organic and natural. Mochizuki would cycle his brutal kicks right into a ten punch in the corner. The match turned on him missing a clothesline into the post but it wasn't telegraphed or set up or winking. Nothing about it felt like a spot, but instead a thing that just happened to occur during this fight. Tack on to that a really strong finishing stretch with a few near-falls that got me and you get a great hidden gem.

SR: This thing getting uploaded by the cameraman almost 25 years later has to be a near miracle, but then we‘ve seen a lot of miracles by now when it comes to highly improbable things ending up on the internet. This was a great striker vs. grappler matchup. Seeing Mochizuki here makes one sour that he retired to Dragon Gate, as he was throwing kicks and hands in a totally unpredictable and non-choreographed way here that was really cool, coupled with some swank agility. Fukuda's style is really unique, he is this lanky tall guy who just glues himself to opponents when he grabs them and drags them into his throws and submissions. He also absolutely rattled Mochizukis shit with a nasty dropkick and some stiff strikes, but Mochizuki kept firing back. The match had a few Hondaish moments, at one point Mochizuki went for a punch to Fukuda and Fukuda attached himself to Mochis arm and dragged him into another hold. When Mochizuki went to recuperate Fukuda just dragged him over the ropes and threw him, with Mochizuki landing hard on all his throws. This was to the point and absolutely no nonsense with both guys giving each other little space a nd all the offense looking like it required zero cooperation, I get WYF was a niche indy back then, but this kind of indy match is a real breath of fresh air these days.

PAS: This was really cool, Fukuda has kind of a tragic story, but he was on his way to being one of the coolest Japanese wrestlers of the 90s. I just love how he would clasp and throw Mochizuki. Always finding cool ways to cut off Mochi's flurries of offense. Mochizuki is pretty great here, as he is just a kicking machine and not a spot guy. His big kicks meshed really nicely with Fukuda's grappling, and you never got a sense of who was going over and the finishing slam by Fukuda was a great coup de grace on a very exciting finish run. Really makes me want to see more WYF stuff. 

 

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