Found Footage Friday: 1986 NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~! SID~! EATON~! GOLGA~! SEVERN~!

Battle Royal NJPW 6/20/86

MD: I've been spending a lot of time with 1986 NJPW in a DVDVR thread with quick reviews that aren't quite SC worthy. While there is a ton of NJPW vs. UWF that you've seen and heard and would expect, there was other stuff going on. Most of that involved KY Wakamatsu doing his best megaphone Jimmy Hart impression managing the foreigners of the tour, which ranged from von Erichs to Samu to yes, Andre. On the same card as the 5/1 gauntlet tag is Andre/Wakamatsu vs. Inoki/Ueda (with Ueda's face turn being one of the real angles of the first half of the year). That said, past the image of Andre hitting guys with a bullwhip, there isn't a lot of actual comedy that's made tape, either TV or handhelds, in the year. That's why this lone battle royal, buried on a handheld disc that contains most of the Sagawa Express Cup one-night tournament, was so surprising. Sagawa Express was a company that Inoki got to invest in New Japan and the tournament has a nice Kimura vs. Maeda double DQ sprint and some good selling by Inoki against guys like Eadie and Murdoch. It also had some short, unsatisfying CMLL type tournament matches. 

And it had this battle royal, with some guys easier to recognize than others, given the video quality: Kido, Fujiwara, Hoshino, Ueda, Cuban Assassin, for instance. It's Japan style so everyone can dogpile one wrestler, and that happens almost immediately to Klaus Wallas, who we have only a few Japanese matches of plus some German stuff I really need to C+A because he was awesome here, killing everyone before the pool had enough of it. They then take out his partner on the tour, Cuban Assassin, just for the hell of it. From there, they do comedy spots putting shine on the ref with him getting boots up in the corner and Hoshino raising his hand, and even him causing Ueda's elimination by back body dropping him, keeping in mind that Ueda was an upper mid-carder at worst here. They do an alley oop spot with everyone tossing one wrestler in the air by grabbing a limb each. They do a goofy 2000s indy multiple headlocks at once spot in 1986! Fujiwara does an airplane spin! I get how they convinced Kido to be in this (a trophy; can't get enough of those), but it's obvious Fujiwara's overjoyed to participate just to mess with everyone, even after he gets eliminated. It's about ten minutes and even living and breathing this stuff for the last few months, I couldn't identify all of the undercard guys who never made TV or tape. But this is a strange burst of fun in the midst of a fairly serious, dour time in the company.

Sid Vicious vs. Bobby Eaton SCW 5/14/05

MD: The back half of this one had the sound ten seconds off. I don't think it was an issue for the first half but I had to stop it and start it at one point. Point being, that feels exactly how one should watch Sid matches. The impact isn't going to be there on any of his strikes, so best to imagine what you're hearing and average out the two. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. No one imposes his reality into a match quite like Sid. This was one of his first matches back after the leg injury, with the premise being: Eaton was his friend and he had claimed to give him a chance to walk away and then attacked him from behind on the way out of the ring. It was all Sid, and I'd argue that the focus on the back was effective as an overall whole, even if you wouldn't want to isolate and gif any of the individual strikes. Eaton treated everything like it was devastating. The announcers were selling it like an all time mauling. There was the visual spectacle of the size difference and of Sid with his jeans with knee braces over them. Bobby's hope spots (and he got two) were a blocked punch, some shots fired back, and attempts at slams where the back gave away, but he almost got him the second time. Wrestling is about getting people to suspend disbelief and when you have a giant imposing emperor that believes completely in his own lumbering strikes and a guy like Bobby Eaton working with him from underneath, it doesn't matter if he's naked or not; we're all going to agree with one another that he's got some of the finest clothes we've ever seen.

ER: The people that want to hate Sid (and I don't think I associate with any of them) never want to give credit to Sid for the intangibles. Sid was someone who always had terrible strikes, but bad stomach kicks and arm strikes that don't even attempt to approximate punches don't really matter when you can connect with people the way Sid could. Sid is someone who had It, and had the confidence to get across his persona without ever needing to refine his skillset. Growing up, my next door neighbors two houses down were the Nordstrom Family, and the Nordstrom children were my best friends. Mr. Nordstrom had curly hair exactly like Sid (styled the same, only brown), he was an electrician, and he had served in 'Nam. He was the kind of man who was so physically intimidating that I didn't realize until well into my adult years that he was only an average sized man. He was not a mean man, but when we were causing ruckus and he raised his voice, there was no parent in the neighborhood you listened to quicker than Mr. Nordstrom. Years later, at a party nowhere near my home, some guy found out I was neighbors with them and it turned into a half dozen different people all telling stories about how scared they were of Mr. Nordstrom when they were kids/teens. And I think that's the same kind of way that Sid worked. I never saw Mr. Nordstrom get physically violent in any way with anyone, and yet everyone knew this man was the toughest dude around. 

Now, I suppose that having Bobby Eaton selling every kneelift and clubbing shot could make anyone appear like a monster. Eaton's selling is divine. As Matt illustrated, he has basically no offense in this match, but for 10 minutes you get to smile while he sells ribs and his back and every single Sid strike. I loved how he fell back into the corner after a Sid kneelift, or how the pain twisted across his face when Sid ran at him with a boot to the ribs. Bobby Eaton is one of the most gifted salesmen in wrestling, and you combine that with one of the most physically charismatic wrestling in history, and you can work a fun match with basically zero offense. 

Dan Severn vs. Golga WPW 9/1/99 

MD: The match itself was just a couple of minutes, but they left me wanting more. Severn, for a guy so legitimate, absolutely embraced bullshit pro wrestling villainy here. He had a pre-match gym coach style promo where he said he'd win and then destroy the Cartman doll. He appealed to the fans after they popped for Golga's hands in the air waving. He celebrated after hitting moves that didn't deserve celebration. Just real shitheel stuff. You never know with Golga matches if it's really Tenta, but there's no one in the world that could miss an elbow drop quite like him. It's still crazy how much weight he had lost. You lament that we never got that Austin vs. Tenta run when they wanted to bring back Earthquake, but you also get how that wouldn't work. It doesn't mean he couldn't have figured something else out, because even smaller Tenta was great at knowing when to give and when to take, at making stuff look credible. Just having the strength to snatch a guy like Severn out of mid-air, and then you had the bonus that he'd go up for hip tosses as he did here. The match paid off the promo work as the second Severn actually was able to slam Golga, he took a powder and that was the match. It was a bizarre match-up on paper but they worked pretty well together. 

ER: I'm the guy who hates that we didn't get Yokozuna/Austin in 1999 so I'm definitely someone who would have loved Austin/Tenta regardless of Tenta's weight. Tenta still had size no matter how thin he got, and you could see him use some real strength here against Severn that would have lead to some great Steve Austin bumps. I need to go back and find all the 2002/2003 All Japan Tenta that I can get my hands on. I miss that guy and the way he leans into ring ropes. I love how Severn works this match like a small town indy Iron Mike Sharpe. Bet you never thought about how similarly Sharpe and Severn move in a ring, and I bet you never thought about how they're dressed identically. You're now putting it together that Severn is actually an Iron Mike Sharpe acolyte at heart and that's why he always seemed so uncomfortable and rigid during his WWF run. There isn't a single actual Dan Severn WWF classic, and yet every Dan Severn indy match we have footage of over a 25 year span is great. His speech impediment makes him an even better sneering heel, and I want more of Severn as the bratty kid whose dad owns several car dealerships. 

When they made contact and mixed it up, the match was great fun. All of Tenta's contact looked good: nice shoulder thrusts in the corner, high avalanche, big legdrop, walking all around the ring holding Severn up before finishing the rotation of a powerslam. He also clearly still knows how to build to a couple of big bumps. His missed elbow was a great miss, great crash, and there was an awesome Severn hiptoss that Tenta bumped really heavy for. Severn put his whole body into it and they made a hiptoss look like a violent Red Bull Army throw, like a guy throwing a tree stump on a World's Strongest Man competition. The ending is one of the more frustrating pro wrestling finisher I've witnessed, a way to leave all of the fans confused and annoyed. After that Severn hiptoss, he hits an impressively quick bodyslam...and then Golga just rolls out of the ring, grabs his large size Eric Cartman doll, and runs to the back, out of sight, and does not return. The literal only explanation is that Golga shit his pants and had to get the hell out of there. If you shit your pants in a match against Dan The Beast Severn, you don't stick around to be put in a rear naked choke. Nobody would voluntarily do this finish. Mine is the only explanation that makes sense.