AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/24 - 10/30

AEW Dark Elevation 10/24

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Jollyville Fuck-Its (Russ Meyers/T-Money)

MD: Great use of the time they had here by Nasty Russ and T-Money. The airplane spin/punch combo was instantly memorable and popped Ian and Menard. They were able to hit one or two more things on Ortiz too, and he was good enough to sell it even after he somehow hefted T-Money up for the fisherman's buster for the finish. Otherwise, they got to do the thing that we saw them do so well last time they had an Elevation appearance, feed, Russ flipping for Ortiz's comeback lariat and T-Money running into all of Eddie's shots and being a great giant canvas for the corner chops. But yeah, another ten minutes in some indy would have been nice.

AEW Dynamite 10/26

Bryan Danielson vs Sammy Guevara

MD: There was a moment in January or February where one of my absolute top Danielson AEW matches was Guevara, heel Danielson and face Guevara that was, driven by Guevara's athleticism giving Danielson the ability to push and push and push and the animosity that came from Danielson's sheer disdain for Guevara's claim to fame, the vlog, fueling the violence. I think my perfect wrestling world at that point had Danielson taking the TNT title and facing all sort of oddball challengers on a near weekly basis. No one could have predicted how 2022 turned out though.

This got a long, fairly complete fifteen minutes and had its share of Guevara pushing Danielson in the way he likes to get pushed, but plenty of character and crowd interaction as well. The commercial break fell a little later than usual maybe, allowing for Guevara to dive in right at the start with an immediate attack. The story here, as much as anything else, is that Sammy wouldn't know when to quit, when not to stay on something (be it forearms, or kicks) or would go for that extra flourish and pay for it (his tricked out back flip after a leapfrog or the missed moonsault, into a second, into a standing shooting star press), but then able to get back into things through his athleticism alone. Add in a bit of abuse from Tay and Danielson's comebacks being driven by grit and fury and absorption of blows and this was fairly enjoyable all around. There's a PPV match with no commercial break that these two could have that would really give Danielson his adrenaline-laden dream, and this wasn't that, but it leaned well into the hierarchy and Danielson's cruel mastery of pro wrestling while still highlighting all of those things that make Sammy special and tapering down all of the excesses that sometimes that people out of his matches.

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Loosely Formed 1998 WWF: Rock n Roll Express! Brian Christopher! Head Bangers!

Rock n Roll Express vs. The Head Bangers WWF Raw 2/16/98

As half-hearted as this "angle" actually was, it was really cool that WWF brought in Tommy Young to ref some of the NWA title matches

Robert Gibson worked much harder during this run than was probably necessary. Just watch how fast he bumps for armdrags and how quickly he feeds offense!

Ricky does a back rake to Mosh, and then does a second one underneath Mosh's shirt

The punch exchange between Ricky and Mosh was far better than I would have guessed it would be. Mosh tightened those rights up when working Ricky the God

Thrasher has a nice powerslam on Ricky

Ricky takes a humongous flapjack, coming one minor rotation away from looking like a Beverly Brothers victim

The Stage Dive was timed incredibly well here and rarely looked this good

Right after Mosh hits the powerbomb portion of the Stage Dive, he throws Gibson over the top to the floor. Gibson really flies, taking that bump like it was 1986, and hilariously that lets the Rock n Rolls win by DQ since getting thrown over the top draws a DQ under NWA rules. This could have/should have continued as a very fun lower card angle, if Cornette was allowed to constantly change rules to gain advantage, under the guise of "Classic NWA Rules". Sorry clowns, you can use tasers if your NWA license is up to date!

Brian Christopher vs. Tony Williams WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

Tony Williams is Memphis worker Kid Wikkid, making his only WWF appearance

Christopher has really great short right hands that he throws exactly like his dad, and I have no idea when exactly he stopped throwing punches like that

also like his dad, Christopher takes a nice backdrop bump

Kid Wikkid has a cool somewhat uncontrolled pescado

Great spot where Christopher ducks a low running crossbody and Wikkid flies right over him and under the ropes to the floor

You know what? Sure Brian, I think you should do a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor and then throw a missile dropkick to the back of this guy's head

Did Brian Christopher have the best bulldog on the roster? Almost certainly. Dustin had mostly stopped using it at this point. Matt Hardy had a good one but Christopher's was better because, as a heel, he could also use the bulldog as a transition for his opponent shoving him off into the turnbuckles

The finish is a real weird one, as Wikkid does a rana takeover and must have smashed the back of his head into the mat (even though it didn't look like a terrible landing) because he comes up with some of the rubberiest legs I've ever seen, completely unable to stand without leaning his weight onto Christopher. He somehow manages to fake his way to an Irish whip but he's a man drowning out there with nothing to lean on. I think he was supposed to get one more piece of offense off that whip, but the man literally couldn't stand on his own, so Christopher called an audible and spiked him with a gross DDT and then dropped a guillotine legdrop to an unmoving Kid

I pointed out Kid's obviously rubberized legs during the finishing sequence, but there were several smaller moments in the match where he looked wobbly. The pescado, the way he moved before tossing Christopher up with a backdrop. 

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Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! GILBERT~! FREEDBIRDS~! R'N'R~! SILVER KING Y EL TEXANO EXPLODE~!

Fabulous Freebirds (Roberts/Gordy) vs. Rock 'n Roll Express Mid-South 6/24/85

MD: Unique pairing that you'd think we have more footage of than we actually do, at least with this particular iteration of the Freebirds. This went closer to fifteen than ten, but not by much, had a hot crowd, and was an all time Gordy performance. Everything was good, but he was such a beast in this. I want to talk about how well Roberts stooged early, but Gordy just overshadows all of it. Once Roberts finally was able to tag into him, he just bullied Gibson over in a rough German Suplex, just deadlifted him over. That wasn't the start of the heat, but it was jarring enough that I thought it would be. Shortly thereafter Roberts was back in and let Gibson make the tag, leading to Morton posting himself, which was far less unnerving since that's how you expect the heat in an R'n'R match to start. Gordy leaning on him was just nasty though, a running punch in the ropes that took his head off, fist drops, a super athletic cut off where he turned a reversed whip into a leap onto the second rope and dive back off. Morton was finally able to make a hot tag after reversing a Roberts piledriver attempt (which felt suitably dire), but Gordy asserted himself again. Gibson hit a roll up on Roberts, even though he wasn't the legal man and Gordy just walked up, casually lifted Gibson off of it, and ganso bombed him for the pin. Pure brutality. You watch this and what feels most surprising is that it took a whole eleven months after this before Watts put his main singles title on Gordy. Again, I'm sleeping on Roberts' performance here, sleeping on how good Morton was at peppering little shots in from underneath to keep the fans behind him, the ways the Freebirds worked around the ref, etc., but Gordy was such a looming presence that he deserves 90% of the copy here.

ER: Had I been asked about it, I would have thought Ricky Morton would have crossed paths with Terry Gordy a lot more than he actually did, but most of the matches they had were from early career late 70s Memphis that we surely don't have. Prime New Orleans crowd Mid-South Rock n Rolls vs. Freebirds is a great thing, Hayes always seen strutting in silhouette on the floor, Roberts and Gordy - shockingly - separating Ricky from Robert. One thing I like about writing about wrestling with Matt, is that we often land at the exact same conclusion on a match but get excited by different things within the match (and a lot of the same things, we're not special) but I try not to read what he wrote until I've watched the matches, just to see what jumped out to each of us. It's a rewarding way to sync up on wrestling, and it was rewarding here because he was enamored with Gordy, while I couldn't take my eyes off of Buddy. Gordy was great. He was Gordy. I lost it when Gordy hit this huge body press off the middle buckle, but a lot of this seemed like the same great Gordy that we always get. Buddy Roberts felt like the man running the show. 

Buddy out bumped (or at least tried to out bump) Ricky and I thought he had the most vicious offense in the match. He hit this jawbreaker on Gibson that had a little hitch in it, and that hitch really made it seem like a real connection had been made, similar to how Harley Race's hitch on his kneedrop always gave it that split second emphasis that made the connection feel more real. He threw Regal-sharp elbows in the corner, and Ricky sells them like his face is suddenly searing hot. When it's time for Buddy to bump and sell, he's a freak, going hard into the buckles and rebounding into a hard back bump, leaping into a big bump after recoiling from an atomic drop, comedy bumps that look like they really really hurt. Morton's selling in the match is really incredible. There's this great moment where he takes a hot shot, springs off the top rope, staggers to a different side of the ring, and winds up draped chest first across the bottom rope. Morton also gets launched over the top to the floor on a hiptoss behind the ref's back, and knows how to sell a huge bump like that just as well as he sells something like having his eyes raked across the top rope. Morton might sell his eyes being raked over the top rope better than anyone else. Robert's hot tag felt a bit rushed a lead immediately to the finish, but the finish really was beast mode Gordy. Earlier, Buddy had prevented a sunset flip with a well timed punch. Well, when Robert successfully gets Buddy over on one, in the middle of the count, Gordy just lifts Gibson up directly out of his sunset flip and just drops to his knees with a disgusting piledriver. There was no attempt to protect Robert on this one, this just looked like Gordy breaking up a bar fight, shutting that damn match down. Awesome. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Eddie Gilbert USWA 6/17/92

MD: Some all time goofing by Eddie as Lawler more or less sits back and watches. There's a match in here, but of the 26 minute video, less then ten minutes have the wrestlers making contact. That doesn't mean it's not great. The first ten is all about Eddie leaving the ring at any opportunity, stalling, jawing on the mic, causing all sorts of havoc. Once they finally get going, there's a three minute segment of pure pro wrestling perfection where he tries to sync his ideal of a three-count with the ref's, both of them going down one after the other to time it out. Of course that leads to the ref counting too slow for him and too fast for Lawler. Obviously Jerry's an all time pro but I'm kind of amazed he didn't break during all of this. That's your shine here, with Lawler barely having to move a muscle. Eventually Eddie takes over, including a sleeper until he misses a fist drop. Lawler drops the strap and hits a nice bulldog before the second sets up a ref bump (and Gilbert getting his pound of flesh by stomping the hell out of the downed ref to make up for previous indignities). The last five minutes of footage is the screwjob finish, it getting reversed after Jarrett comes out, and Gilbert launching another monologue at the injustice of it all. I couldn't tell you what the crowd felt that night but thirty years later, all the bullshit aged like fine wine.

ER: This is one of the more backseat Lawler matches I've seen, with Lawler clearly hanging back and letting Gilbert work a long routine. It's incredibly entertaining, and I especially loved how Eddie was bragging to the crowd about his Global title, telling them, "I'm the one you see defending my title on ESPN every day...oh wait, I forgot that everybody here is so poor that they can't afford ESPN." This is 85% bullshit and 15% incredible Memphis wrestling. The punch exchanges were tremendous, and I had to watch Eddie punching out Lawler in the corner several times. It's not just about great all of Gilbert's punches were, it's also how perfectly Lawler whips his head in reaction until the KO punch rocks and slumps him in the corner. Gilbert's missed fistdrop off the buckles looked so good, and I love how it lead to the strap coming down and Lawler unleashing his own punches, big bulldog, and a perfect dead drop DDT. The bullshit was so all-consuming that I was actually surprised when they settled down and wrestled for awhile, and I'm not sure I would have minded if they ever did. Of course, we're lucky that they did, but we're just as lucky that some guy was recording Eddie just jacking around for 20 minutes. 

Silver King vs. El Texano IWA Japan 5/23/94

MD: Hell of a sprint between partners here. There were a lot of the spots you'd expect given the audience with tricked out armdrags and Silver King springing forward, but it was all punctuated with hard shots, be it the Texano punch at the beginning, just how much Silver King threw himself into his spin wheel kick and dropkicks, or the chop exchanges. Silver King might get an advantage on an exchange just for Texano to come back with a really sharp leg kick and power bomb, just like that. They did sell in the back third and let things resonate but some of that might have just been exhaustion. If you wanted to distill a story here it was Texano's strength advantage vs. Silver King's speed advantage, but a lot of it was just two partners really going at it. You could feel the trust between them, as Texano had to base for some spots that were getting away from them and wouldn't have worked otherwise, or just in catching some of the dives. They could have done 20% less and probably had a better match for it but since this is basically a one time match, I'm certainly not going to fault them for putting it all out there.

ER: Los Cowboys Explode! I don't think I actually knew that we ever got a Texano/Silver King singles match and this really delivers. This is an insane gas tank match. Both guys are shaped like Jake Milliman but go go go for 13 straight minutes, no letting up, hardly any recovery time after a ton of big bumps and a lot of motion. Silver King has the hair of an early 90s stand up who got his own sitcom, the kind of mullet Richard Jeni would have had if he was born in Torreon. Texano looks so great here. He works the way Silver King would eventually work in 2001. That's nothing against King, but it was clear that Texano was basing and keeping this train running, and it allowed both to shine. Texano's strikes all hit with a thud. He looked like he actually buckled King's legs on a kick (hey I know we have 10 minutes of rope running left, how about I belt you in the hamstring?) but his clotheslines were incredibly impactful. Texano had two different clotheslines that would have broken my chest. The arm and leg drags were cool, and I think the coolest was Texano going up for an electric chair but only getting one leg over, so kind of improvising into a kind of freaked out Robert Gibson style headscissors. King's moonsault press was gorgeous, and his tope con giro was fearless. The visual on it was amazing, as Texano had just taken a sky high bump over the top to the floor, and King followed it right up with that tope, just the best bodies in motion pro wrestling. This had the feeling of a lucha version of a Jay vs. Mark Briscoe match, just two guys who know each other front and back throwing out some of their craziest stuff with full trust and no backing down.  

 

 

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Dirtbag Barry Windham Dispatches Milksop Michinoku

Barry Windham vs. Taka Michinoku WWF Raw 2/23/98

ER: What a great Barry Windham look. Taka is already waiting in the ring, Windham comes down the ramp flanked by his boys, points at Taka the way a man points when he knows he has somebody's number, while perfectly swathed in his vest, chaps and bandana. He goes on to wrestle the entire match wearing the vest and chaps, and it's a look I love on him. I do not like that they did this match, and I did not like how they worked this match, even though it was probably the best Windham showcase of the last several month's of his final WWF run. This was the first time - since introducing the Light Heavyweight Title - that they went out of their way to show that the best light heavyweight would get absolutely run the fuck over by anyone on the roster who weighed 50 lb. more than them. The whole match was presented as a real travesty, that poor defenseless, tiny, weak, overmatched, frail  Taka Michinoku was tricked into signing a contract to a match he had zero chance of winning, probably because he is stupid and doesn't understand the language of contracts. And, since the poor little light heavyweight champ has zero chance of winning, he just works the match like he is scared and tentative and the entire thing is Windham showing off all of his awesome offense. I don't think people on the roster were even acting this scared of Kane, but here's Taka knowing he has absolutely zero chance of defeating Barry Windham.

AT LEAST all of Windham's offense looked great. He throws his right hand from his hip, tosses Taka way up into the air with a gutwrench suplex, is always doing eye rakes and back elbows, and even throws a Bruiser Brody style high one-armed bodyslam (don't remember anyone else ever doing a bodyslam like that in WWF). Taka hits two total moonsaults as the entirety of his offense: one quebrada and one moonsault press off the top, but he hits them in a way where he barely grazes Windham...yet it seems like that's how he intended to throw them?  He connects with each of them the exact same way, with his right arm connecting with Windham's left arm. Barry is there to catch them, but Taka appears to do them to intentionally graze him. I can't explain why. Windham's superplex looks awesome and the diving lariat is about to be the sure finish before the lights go black and Kane comes out. Lights out means the ref has to legally cease all counting, even if he's already counted 2 and his hand is coming down for 3. Lights go out, everyone inside the ring ropes has to freeze. Refs don't work in the dark, thems the rules. Don't like it? Take it up with the union. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Asquini! Trujillo! Mercier! Gonzalez! Momo! Latif! Siki! Schmid!

Bruno Asquini vs Tomas Trujillo 8/21/87 

MD: We get the last eight or so of this. Trujillo is the Peruvian we've seen the last, but he's very good. He's got interesting angles to come at with his offense, plays to the crowd well, bumps big, can handle complex rope running sequences, and has the big swooping climb up armdrag, which would be better on a babyface, but still stands out. He matched up here with Asquini, who by this point was relatively old, but still worked hard and had a sort of twinkle in his eye in how he wrestled. Saulnier as ref got just a bit too involved here. The put upon, furious tiny terror gimmick has its moments but I was more interested in seeing these two match up. Trujillo actually gets the win after catching Asquino off the ropes with a quick pin. I feel like outside of a monster like Henker, we haven't seen heels win almost at all in the last decade.

Jose Gonzalez vs Guy Mercier 8/21/78

MD: I love how clean this match was narratively. Twenty minutes. Entertaining. Well worked and competitive. Ebbs and flows. Saulnier (the ref) being a bit annoying but getting plenty of comeuppance and he can't outstooge Gonzalez who was just one of the best. Mercier grounding everything like the old pro he was.

I don't do this often but let me run you through how the match was set up as it was as clean as anything I've come across in the footage match. They have a feeling out exchange where Gonzalez gets an early advantage with multiple mares and armdrags and biels but where Mercier gives him comeuppance and sends him to the outside with a reversal. Then we get an extended cravat sequence where Gonzales hangs on through multiple escape attempts as Mercier tries to escape. After he finally shrugs him off, Mercier does his spin out legpick and starts with a toehold, peppering in legdrops onto the leg and changing position. This is probably the most extended portion of the match save for the actual heat later on, as Gonzalez manages to reverse it in the ropes and then uses the ropes for leverage as Saulnier keeps missing it. We've seen tag partners work together but less of one person really using the ropes like this. Mercier is able to take back advantage with more of the same, with Saulnier getting chopped for his trouble. Gonzalez gets another shot at it, in the corner, grinding the leg over his shoulder, but Mercier konks him in the top of the head with his foot and Gonzalez bumps forward into Saulnier (second public warning on Mercier).

They reset into a go behind reversal by Mercier, who drops Gonzalez into a bodyscissors sequence, with him thudding Gonzalez down repeatedly. Eventually, he gets out, eats a monkey flip to land on his feet, poses, and Mercier dropkicks him out (and then dropkicks Saulnier twice for good measure). Gonzles sneaks back in, gets a cheapshot and starts the real heat, a lot of stomps, headlocks with punches, and bicep poses to the crowd. Eventually he ties Mercier in the ropes and they run a spot where Saulnier gets his foot stuck trying to get him out, which the crowd loves. The transition is Gonzalez missing a charge and choking himself in the ropes. That leads to Mercier tying Saulnier up in the ropes too so he can whack Gonzalez on the top of the head, sending him tumbling and stooging on the outside.

The finish is some back and forth forearms, with a Mercier advantage, Saulnier preventing Gonzalez from holding the rope to avoid a whip, a nice bit where Mercier hits a gut shot the first time and gets sunset flipped the second for a nearfall, and a third whip where he hits the armdrag slam (really nicely as he'd been looking away until a split second before) for 3. This was one of the cleanest matches I've seen narratively. It only went seventeen or so, which helped, had clear characters, and they worked nicely segmented sequences (feeling out, stylist hold advantage, heel hold advantage, stylist overcoming to regain hold advantage, stylist presses advantage into clowning, heel comes back and gets heat, stylist comes back as they go to finish), but I do sort of wonder if it's just me living in this footage for a couple of years now.

Jean-Pierre Momo vs Salah Latif 8/28/78

MD: We get the last five or six of this. It went around twenty before we got here. There's a Breton folk group in the crowd dressed up. It feels like a smaller venue. Latif had a lot of headbutt related offense, despite not looking like a guy who would. I'm not sure if the ring was slightly smaller or usual or what but there were some spots where the positioning was off and dropkicks didn't quite unravel like they should. It felt like they were working towards a draw but Latif kept going for a double underhook in the end and finally hit a sort of floatover suplex with it to score a win with a couple of minutes to go. They hit hard enough but it wasn't the smoothest match in the footage.

Mammoth Siki vs Daniel Schmid 8/29/78

MD: I expected Siki to be the face here and Schmid the heel out of previous matches, because Siki had a good reaction coming out, and because the commentary talked him up as a good guy, a former accountant, a bouncer, etc. Plus Schmid is a natural heel, a Buddy Rose analogue. He's a few years older here and I know they brought him out the last time we saw him after a injury that was either real or fake, but seemed pretty severe. Since we're up to 78, Portland could have brought him into run an angle as Buddy's cousin and it would have been the best thing in wrestling that year. He could do kip ups and rope running quite like Buddy after all. This had a lot of him working from underneath in armbars or nerve holds. Not the most exciting stuff, but he was working hard and the crowd was behind him. The Breton folk group started playing music to support him and that's exactly when he timed his comeback, which is how wrestling is supposed to work when you're not working to specific quarter hours on TV. We're at least ten years into when I started noticing the trend, but this was the clearest I've ever heard the "Bonuses", which, in this case, was when people in the crowd or local businesses rewarded things that happened by offering donations to the wrestlers, 120 francs for Schmid and less for Siki by the end, and someone even gave the ref 10. It's a uniquely French thing as I've never encountered it anywhere else, but quite common throughout the 70s. Sadly, this ended with said ref getting crushed off the ropes in a mishap and then Siki stomped him which led to the DQ. It was an ok novelty but shouldn't be the top of anyone's list to watch.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends): 10/17 - 10/23

AEW Dark 10/18

MD: Eddie was our only guy this week and he was on Dark, so I figured I'd just do the whole show. It's been a little over a year now since I've been watching AEW. One interesting thing about the promotion relative to other ones over the years is that different people from different generations get very different things out of it. Punk and Danielson coming back drew me in. Kingston and Dustin and Darby, among others, kept my interest, but on a week to week basis, it was the webshows that really worked for me. If Dynamite feels like crash TV with original ROH style dream matches, and Rampage feels a bit like late 91-early 92 WCW Saturday Night with a Dangerous Alliance match and a few midcard matches, Elevation and Dark feel like WCW syndi shows. Squashes and a few midcard matches. It's one of those things people of my generational tolerated for years, maybe grumbled about, but ultimately had no idea how good we had it.

In an ecosystem like what I described above, squashes are a amazing, right? Guys like Naylor have been so good at highlighting them and why they were special over the years, but they highlight moves, characters, give the announcers room to breathe. They're not exhausting like sprints can be. They're pro-wrestling comfort food while giving wrestlers the ability to really express who they are. You can tell a story in them or not depending on what you're trying to achieve. All the talk about how wrestlers are wasted not being on TV is irritating, to say the least. The nature of AEW's roster is that people get rotated on and off to keep things fresh. Someone like Ruby Soho coming out to her theme on Elevation gets the fresh and excited crowds going. Emi Sakura is the MVP, having hard-hitting entertaining tag after entertaining tag with partners that can vibe with her act and opponents that are better off for getting reps with her. It's the perfect place for Dalton Castle and Danhausen and Brandon Cutler and the Wingmen, giving the crowd extra value for their ticket and helping to keep acts over. It lets them try out new talent or new tweaks upon a gimmick. I was excited when Deeb, for instance, finished up her title match programs and was interacting with people like Emi and Skye Blue again.

The problem, as much as fans being small-minded, is AEW not doing enough to use the shows to build to everything else going on. There was a patch back six months ago where if someone was going to have a match on Dynamite or Rampage they'd often get featured on Elevation, and they did some things, like building to the ROH PPV with Dark and Elevation, but in general, it's underutilized. I don't know a single person who watches the webshows and feels like they're not valuable or worth watching though, no matter how much griping you get from the people who don't watch (the most worthless griping of all). This was an especially star-studded episode given they were in Canada and it was taped before a live Rampage, but don't sleep on the studio Darks either. Studio wrestling is great given that with AEW we get all sorts of variety. You may not want it as your only wrestling but as part of the whole, it balances things out.

Hikaru Shida vs Vanessa Kraven

MD: I've been giving a lot of thought about 'aces' lately. I think it's due to watching a ton of Inoki over the last year. It could be because I want to watch some Big Daddy and make some calls for myself soon. Don't hold me for that. One aspect that I think is important in an ace is to leverage the cachet you have with the crowd to find ways to highlight what makes your opponent unique. Shida absolutely did that here, making full use of Kraven's size and strength. This was not at all the same sort of match that she would have had with someone smaller or with a different background. Some of that was leaping into the catch on the outside off the chair and eating that samoan drop on the apron (which then, thanks to the AEW house style, she could use later in the match to escape the Samoan drop and set up the finishing stretch). Some of it was the struggle for the falcon arrow, barely getting her over, and then letting her kick out of it. The creativity and imagination and care that went into how she laid this out was definitely appreciated however.

Dark Order (Evil Uno/John Silver/Alex Reynolds/10) vs Tyler Tirva/Shane Hawke/Zak Patterson/Jordano)

MD: Again, we get the freedom of the web shows here. They're not trying to hit any major time marks. They're not worried about picture-in-picture commercial breaks. This was in Canada. This was about showcasing Uno, as well it should have been. It's one of those things AEW does best and that we spent decades getting denied due to weird piques of spite "up north." Though some of this was diluted by Taz poking Jose the Assistant on commentary, but certainly not for the live crowd.

This was surprisingly complete, with Reynolds getting some shine to start (useful given that he plays FIP a lot), a tease of Uno early only for him to get swarmed, some heat on Silver (including eating a huge gutwrench), and everything set up to combine the big Dark Order spots and all of Uno's signature spots mixed with all of his showmanship. They could have just had Dark Order run through these guys but they gave it enough substance to make Uno's spots mean just a little more.

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Mo Jabari/Jake O'Reilly

MD: Just a stylized mauling. Jabari and O'Reilly might get one shot in but they sure wouldn't get two in a row. Ortiz knows this is his moment to come into his own and showcase his own identity and he's been doing that with the Rick Rude or the crotch chop before the veg-o-matic or the tiger style (which, now that I think about it, may not be his own identity at all). Those crossfaces in the corner were nasty though, and Eddie's chops sounded as good as they ever did. The anger management angle for Kingston made sense in the Sammy match; I'm not sure if it's totally believable moving forward, but the Pac match it seems to be building to should be fun at least.

Best Friends (Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent) vs Kobe Durst/Steven Mainz/Jessie V

MD: This was a straight up crowdpleasing squash on the heels of the Cassidy/PAC main event one day earlier. Occasionally they'll run these where guys can just do whatever and they don't even give the enhancement talent a hope. It was pretty brutal with Trent not quite getting all of the flip into a spinebuster (and he save the same sort of shrug that Silver got when he tried to suplex two guys at once). The Sole Food into the Half and Half looked great though. Cassidy then came in and punched everyone. I'm not sure if it's Keith Mitchell retiring or what but they don't seem to time the hug nearly as well as they used to. Anyway, this was never going to be much but it was fine for what it was.

Ari Davari vs Brandon Cutler

MD: Like I said, people watch AEW for different reasons. There are some people who are thoroughly into the Elite, to the point of having Omega avatars and whatever else. I don't have a ton of time for any of them for reasons no one needs to hear right now, but I do think Cutler's been one of the bright spots of the company over the last month. He's a guy who throws himself entirely in the act, who's unafraid to do anything necessary. He cares so much that the fans care, and as the only bastion of the Elite remaining, they care just a little bit more. You put him up against a guy like Avalon (like we'll see this week) or Danhausen or Serpentico and you get a fun comedy match, but if you put him against an actual wrestler like Davari, and you get a kind of interesting, contrast-laden match, where he can work from underneath. Here, Davari threw a lot of simple, driving shots, credible stuff that put over his annoyance of the entire situation. Cutler would comeback with fun 80s offense but Davari would cut him off by going for the eyes or with Kiss' help or through something just as conniving that sort of defies hierarchy and highlights how offended he is that he has to lower himself to wrestle Cutler. It made for a pretty fun match. I would have rather Hook had to go through all of the Trustbusters first before getting Davari, though part of that was just beacuse I wanted to see Hook vs Slim J (who is the new 5th finger if Punk isn't coming back, by the way).

Willow Nightingale vs Seleziya Sparx

MD: In a lot of ways this was an inversion of the Shida match. Willow still wanted to give some shine to the local, even if she was working heel, but she made her work for it and chip away, not going down easily, leaning hard into her size. It's hard for a babyface with a size advantage to know just how much to give while still showing the right amount of vulnerability, especially given the hierarchical difference here, but I think she nailed it. Willow has great emotive reactions in her selling, able to switch between ebullience, exhaustion, and aggression. All of Sparx' stuff looked pretty good, even some of the overwrought things like how she vaulted over the turnbuckle to hit a running kick. That's the sort of thing that is maybe a bit much but you can't fault it if the kick looks good. Jody Threat got a lot of attention last week, but Sparx should get some as well.

QT Marshall vs Dante Martin

MD: A year ago, when I first encountered him, I thought QT should wrestle more like a manager. He's capable of a lot of things (including missing a 450) but just because he can, doesn't necessarily mean he should. That said, for a lot of this period, AEW's needed credible mid-card heels to eat losses. Having the Trustbusters now help a little bit, but that's really been the Factory and the Wingmen, and Lethal, and as such, it does make sense for QT to stretch his wings a bit more. He's good at it and especially good at engaging with his opponent and the audience. They were all over him, despite having sat through all of the previous matches and even if no one necessarily bought a ticket for him, they all had a seemingly great time getting on his case and it'll be, consciously or subconsciously, part of their enduring good feeling about the night in the months and years to come.
 
Dante, in the meantime, probably through no choice of his own as he'd rather be teaming with his brother, has had a lot of ring time to improve. I thought he was already pretty far along in the singles match with Black last October, but his expressiveness and interactions with the crowd have developed since then. He's a great seller on top of his ability to seemingly freeze time as he flips around the ring and soars through the air. He's a case where the sum is greater than any specific part, as his flipping rana into the ring here would be the most spectacular thing in almost any other match in the world but felt almost subdued alongside his huge dive to the outside and stuttering splash to avoid the cutter. The finishing stretch worked to protect QT in loss but still felt like an accomplishment for Dante. Definitely the sort of match that Dusty would have been proud to call the Moo Match of the Week on WCW Prime in 1995 even if maybe it wouldn't make a comp tape for the year.

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5 Minutes with Chris Hamrick

Chris Hamrick vs. Dr. Feelgood MCW 8/5/98

ER: This was so cool, and reminded me a lot of the Vic Grimes/Erin O'Grady WWF tryout match. Now, that match happened at a sold out Raw taping and this match happened in a small building in lovely Smyrna, TN, but the vibe of putting all of your coolest moments into a tight 5 gave it that spiritual tryout match feel. Hamrick's pants were resplendently tasseled, the best kind of gear for a dynamic bumper like he and I liked Dr. Feelgood's terrible gear too. I'm not sure how many official years of medical school or training that Dr. Feelgood went through, but he's got the Caduceus on his tights and the smock shirt of perhaps a phlebotomist-at-most or RN-at-likeliest, and he would have stood out as more of a bumper himself if he weren't opposite one of the all time greats. 

These two packed so much lunacy into this. Hamrick pulled out a springboard plancha and this awesome springboard stomp, hanging Feelgood over the middle rope and springboarding into that stomp, boot smacking him precisely across the face as Hamrick landed in a knee slide like he was doing a Chuck Berry guitar solo. This felt like a dance they had both perfected, and the only one who wasn't clued in on what they were doing was the cameraman. I would have been furious at this guy if I was Hamrick, as the camera kept zooming in on Hamrick and mostly missing all of his craziest moments. The camera pulls in too close on the plancha, misses half of the classic horizontal Fuerza bump to the floor, and then completely misses the somersault bump off the apron to the floor. We catch the aftermath and Hamrick holding his back, but this is an unforgivable cameraman sin. The reality is that Chris Hamrick had such unseen and unexpected bumping and offense that camera people hadn't yet caught up to what he was doing. Dr. Feelgood had some big stuff of his own, like a fucking top rope powerbomb (!), a really cool pop-up atomic drop, a doctor bomb, and a nice tilt a whirl backbreaker. Somehow the blond bombshell powerbomb is not the actual finish, but it comes back for the finish when Feelgood goes for another and Hamrick leaps off the top rope to snare him with a super rana. The leaps of faith that Chris Hamrick takes are almost unparalleled. He had such excellent form on his big moves; a man who knew how to fall in ways that nobody else could. 

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Found Footage Friday: JARRETT~! MOONDOGS~! INOKI~! GOTCH~! SUPERSTAR~! MANNY~! GORO~! UEDA~! ISHINRIKI~!

Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch NJPW 10/4/72

MD: As a general rule we don't look at clipped reel type footage. This is pretty historical and timely however, so even though we just get glimpses here, I'd like to recount a few spots. Inoki hits the front dropkick out of a lock up, which felt like one of his early trademarks. In the singles match between Gotch and Inoki we do have, Gotch hits an amazing German. Here he hits a great butterfly suplex but then Inoki reverses an attempt at a second into a backslide in a smooth and beautiful motion. Equally beautiful was the way they turned the cobra twist into a tumble out of the ring to lead to whatever the finish was. In this we also saw hints of a rolling short arm scissors (probably leading to the Gotch lift), a strike exchange, and a Gotch headstand out of an early hold. We avoid these more to save ourselves the grief of imagining what we don't have, but the bits we see here look look great.

Antonio Inoki vs. Masked Superstar NJPW 9/23/82

MD: Bill Eadie is comfort food pro wrestling. He has good stuff for 1982 (Swinging Neckbreaker, Neck Drape over the top, Russian Leg Sweep, Neckbreaker Drop off the ropes), but he's going to grind you down more than that. There's nothing fancy about his holds or escapes, but they're tight and snug and well-worked and there's weight behind them. He has nasty little inside shots and thudding stomps. He'll bump when it's called for, especially on a missed move, but the flash and flair you might get out of a Dick Murdoch on top of all of that, just isn't there. There'd be just enough stalling, just enough getting under the crowd's skin and taking liberties that they were emotionally connected to the ever-plausible action, but it'd never tip them over the top. He wasn't a UWF style guy, certainly not a wizard, but he was an endlessly credible pro wrestler. Inoki knew how to work against someone like that, holds to begin, escapes and counters, slow and steady. Eadie went underhanded and took over and leaned and leaned and leaned. Inoki came back once, got his shots in, even a figure-four, but then was cut off. Finally, Eadie missed a diving headbutt off the ropes and it was ritual from there: the back-brain kick, the flying octopus hold, the elated crowd. Eadie was the match. Inoki was the spark. Together they made fire. Simple, straight-forward, elemental pro wrestling.

Jerry Lawler/Jeff Jarrett vs. Moondog Spot/Big Black Dog USWA 4/8/92

MD: Armstrong Alley/goc/KrisPLettuce has been doing heroic work over the last few years gathering and disseminating footage in the back pages of tape catalogs that were never put online. A lot of that turns out to be oddball promotions which don't have a ton of matches that make sense for what we do for FFF, but here's one that does. This was a handheld from Evansville. It was a street fight, part of a feud a few years before its time in Jarrett/Lawler vs Moondogs, a real predecessor to the hardcore style we'd get a few years later. Richard Lee was seconding the Moondogs, which was the story of the match as they had a numbers advantage. This was probably Jarrett's career year, generally for the sorts of matches he was in and how he was positioned as a babyface fighting valiantly from underneath, and we see a lot more of him, matched with Spot, than we do Lawler, who was goozled in the corner by the Big Black Dog. Whoever was taping this went so far as to say that Lawler hadn't come to work tonight to which his friend asked when did he ever? That was funny. Still, it was a babyface team meant to draw sympathy against not just larger opponents but entirely unfair numbers game in a properly chaotic and violent environment with lumber and chairs used freely. When the time came, there was a fiery chair-laden comeback from Jarrett and enough miscommunication for Lawler to come back and drop the strap. Jarrett led the fans in a count before they crotched Big Black Dog from the inside out, before another Moondog (Cujo or Spike) ran out to draw the DQ. A nice, chaotic ten minute example (even if occasionally hard to see) of just what they were running here and why it's historically important.

ER: This really did feel a lot the exact same thing you would see several years later in ECW, and then in bastardized version several years after that in WWF. Moondog Spot and Jarrett were really swinging on these chair shots. Usually when there's any kind of brawling tag with Lawler in the ring, his punches are going to be the best thing in the match. Well, outside of him running across the ring to punch Spot in the face to start the fray, he's mostly tangled up with Big Black the entire match. And, while there was small joy to be had in Dog holding Lawler up in a big choke and Lawler throwing a couple punches to try to stagger him, all of the fire was brought by Jarrett and Spot. Jarrett wails on Spot with a chair, Jarrett gets run face first into a 2x4, and the trash can used to beat Jarrett senseless at the finish looked like it weighed 30 pounds. Jarrett took a pounding, but Richard Lee was a real megastar here, taking a miscommunication clothesline from Spot that sends him violently back into the ropes, then later takes a clothesline from Big Black to the side of his head. He's the agent of chaos who will take a couple painful bumps and then be dodging punches while tying the ref up in complaints. The whole thing rules, filmed in a dark arena by some guy and now watched in bathrooms on phones by weird guys 30 years later. 

Goro Tsurumi/Ishinriki vs. Manny Fernandez/Umanosuke Ueda NOW 11/8/92

MD: Wild bloody scene with some strange starts and stops, a finish missed due to the Ebony Experience menacing the ringside area, and a few memorable images. Half of this was a weapons-laden bloody brawl. Half was Manny and Ishinriki running spots. It began with women (and a little boy) with flowers and escalated almost instantly to crazy violence as Manny, the sides of his head shaved, rushed in with a kendo stick. A minute or two later, he was having Nam flashbacks (let's all pretend, ok?) trying to stop an already bloody Ueda from stabbing everyone with a butcher's knife. It was all pretty gripping stuff. The exchanges with Ishinriki were pretty good, size and some finesse vs speed and brutal kicks. Ishinriki had a couple of nice dives too. There were a few moments where Tsurumi and Manny were just hanging around waiting to hit each other but there were also flying chairs and plenty of blood to go around. I couldn't rate this one if I tried due to the chaotic nature of the shooting and the stilted nature of the action but it was still quite the spectacle.

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Dirtbag Barry Windham, Slumming It with Tom Brandi

Barry Windham vs. Tom Brandi WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

ER: This is the Company Man era of Dirtbag Windham, as his thick blonde hair is now long enough to stay slicked back and his black trunks now have "NWA" across the butt in white letters. He's still wearing the leather vest of a wrestler from Texas, but he's cleaning up. I really like heel Barry when he acts all chummy, just hanging with the boys and cheapshotting and playing innocent. As he's circling Brandi at the start of the match, he throws out a low 5 to Robert Gibson on the floor. So fucking cool. This was a really fun scrap, with Brandi throwing a lot of punches and Windham pushing pace and then backing off and then pushing pace again. Brandi's standing punches looked surprisingly good, but they're more exposed when he's throwing 10 count punches in the corner or mounted punches on the mat. When you see him throw from a standing position, he has nice form. When you see him punch from any other position, you see that he only moves his arm, and has no follow through with the rest of his body. Your body needs to react to you punching someone too. Striking a fine pose on a standing punch is one thing, but you need more movement on a mounted punch because it's all you, your opponent can't physically react to the punch as much because he's on the mat. 

Windham took a big high backdrop bump after backing Brandi into a corner and slapping him, so great at playing the larger more imposing man who also cheats and then runs directly into trouble. Windham might have *looked* out of shape in this era but he moved with quick approach speed, so he's good at running into bumps and doing last second dodging. A nice dodge sends Brandi into the ringpost, and there was some great stuff around the Rock n Rolls holding Brandi so Jarrett could show off his punches. This weirdly felt like one of our best Tom Brandi performances, which isn't actually a thing anyone was going out of their way too look for, but it's probably the best I've seen him look. He had to play off several moving parts with the NWA standing all around the ring, and I guess that might not be as difficult when all 5 guys you're playing off (Rock n Rolls, Jarrett, Windham, Cornette) all have elite wrestling timing, but still. Barry has a nice high back suplex and a really great vertical suplex that looked like 1988 Windham. The finish was cool, with Brandi punching Ricky and Robert off the apron (each taking their own big bumps to the floor, quite obvious in retrospect how much they were busting ass during their weird late WWF run) and then getting held up a bit by Jarrett, Windham instantly setting up a lariat off the opposite side ropes. Windham and Brandi worked a week of house show matches a couple weeks after this match, and I don't think I've ever wished someone had taken Tom Brandi handhelds until now. This match was only a few minutes, and a Windham/Brandi house show match with twice as much time could be really good. 1998 house shows in general have a lot of great matches that never got worked on TV, but at least we got the bones of this one. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten Brothers! Vladimir! Strogoff! Mercier! Asquini! Taysse! Viracocha! Gonzales! Trujillo!

Guy Mercier/Bruno Asquini/Gerard Taysse vs Inca Viracocha/Jo Gonzales/Tomas Trujillo 8/7/78

MD: On paper, this one may not seem so special. Some stylists (French and Italian) against the Peruvians or Spaniards. This is, however, our first real trios match. We had one previously back in 74 but that had been more of a penalty box match where the third wrestler on the stylist side didn't join until halfway in. At a glance, it doesn't seem to catch on like it did in Mexico around this time, as I don't see more of these upcoming in the footage.

That's a shame as the style was so suited for the ins and outs of traditional trios matches. There was an extra flow to the pairings in the first third, wrestlers cycling in and out, with an underlying story of Gonzales (who was wonderfully over the top here and I'm not sure I've given him enough credit overall) sort of ducking Mercier. They felt like de facto captains in the narratives. Things shifted to a fairly clear heat where Asquini and Taysse would fight back but get trapped back into the heel corner. They'd cycle in and out but the advantage stayed with the heels. Mercier got knocked off the apron a few times but didn't get in. The only real move of note here was a Trujillo slam where he fell too, landing sort of in a suplex (We still haven't seen a standing vertical one. This was more like a Snow Plow). Most of it was shots and stomps but it was all effective and drew heat.

After the first fall, they ramped the heat up more, putting a lot of it on Saulnier (being the diminutive ref, who we know well by now both as a wrestler and a ref) including him missing a hot tag to Mercier before Asquini rolled so he could make it. Mercier subsequently destroyed everyone, including Saulnier, whipping him into the corner repeatedly as he was tossing Gonzales around. The third fall had some elaborate spots including the six person at once headlock, set
up beautifully at the end by Saulnier getting in Mercier's face not to do it. They even did a spot where they pressed Mercier into a heel and counted a pin with him. Fun stuff all around, good performances, with Mercier and Gonzales standing out, and a taste of what French trios wrestling might have been if it developed further that way into the 80s. One last note, while there hasn't been a lot of week to week build in the French footage, it has happened occasionally and it looks to be happening again soon as I see the August 21, 1978 show is Asquini vs Trujillo and Gonzales vs Mercier. We should cover that next week.

Ivan Strogoff/Le Grand Vladimir vs Franz van Buyten/Daniel van Buyten 8/14/78

MD: More sound issues on this one, sorry. Unsurprisingly, it's worth watching though. Daniel is Franz' brother and works very similarly to him, including the same huge babyface comeback spot, one of the best of all time, that lunge across the ring up to the top rope to fire fists into his opponent's face. That's for the end though. This was fun with a different structure than usual. Strogoff and Vladimir were a formidable team, clubbing and leaning with armbars. The first third or so had them trying just that and Franz and Daniel out wrestling them. Ultimately though, they cut of Daniel and Strogoff put him down with a prototype of a Tiger Drive ('78 I guess).

Second fall had a pretty awesome comeback early on with Franz putting on maybe the tightest cravat I've ever seen, but Daniel ended up back in and beat upon. Delaporte was equally a jerk to everyone in this one, keeping Franz out but also pulling on Vladimir's beard when he went too far. Eventually hot tags were made and fiery comebacks were had. It eventually spilled out to the floor for a big brawl and got thrown out. These guys all matched up extremely well.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 10/10 - 10/16

AEW Dynamite 10/12

Chris Jericho (c) vs Bryan Danielson

MD: There was a period between when this was first announced and when I first caught it that I was envisioning going through the AEW roster and writing why I wanted to see Danielson wrestle people more than Jericho/Danielson 3. A paragraph about Angelico. A paragraph about Cutler. A paragraph about Nese. Etc. This is probably worth writing about though. They leaned into the Lionheart gimmick in a new way. They had to! He was Lionheart at the PPV. The story there was that the technical submission-based style Jericho had used to get the better of Moxley was completely ineffectual against Danielson and he had to resort to the low blow to win. Here, however, they were in Canada, and while I'd seen some doubt online beforehand, the wrestlers knew what they were walking into. 

This wasn't just Lionheart Chris Jericho (something that goes well into 99 after all) but babyface-coded Lionheart Chris Jericho. In Canada, that meant the fans singing along to Judas all on their own. It meant Y2J chants. It meant a 9 count punch in the corner right into the top rope frankensteiner. It meant dropkicks and topes. For Danielson it meant leaning into heel aggression, refusing the handshake upfront, less corner kicks, no flipping dropkicks in the corner, targeting the back and the abdomen, especially during the commercial break, doing the Liger pose just for the hell of it. Jericho got to play dress up, cupping his ears like Hogan, escaping the hammer and anvil elbows with a FU/AA of all things. I liked the high speed duck of the Judas Effect as they rushed towards the Judas effect. This wasn't a matchup I needed again but I appreciated how they twisted it given the setting. It's definitely one I don't need again after this, even given the finish, though they could probably wring one more out with a Painmaker Cage Match if they had to.

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2022 Ongoing MOTY List: FTR vs. Young Bucks 2

7. FTR vs. Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 4/6

ER: These teams had a nearly 30 minute match several months before this one, that I imagine was the exact kind of match that every Revival fan wanted to see them have in AEW. I preferred this one, and not because I'm a joyless sack, but because this felt much tighter, less bloated, and felt much more like a wrestling tag than a This is Awesome performance. Now, it's not exactly profound for someone to state that a match 2/3 the length of another match is "tighter", but it's an easy observation. This is 20 minutes that felt like it hit a dry patch for awhile around 15 minutes in, but still felt like it hit the sweet spot. Keeping it shorter avoids unnecessary kickouts and cuts down on superkicks. 

I liked every guy in this, with Matt Jackson standing out especially, a grating ass who actually backs it up before getting shut up. FTR were a great team here and really seemed to be operating as one, with smart tags and awesome dedication to making the small stuff work. FTR is a team that makes sure their drop toeholds look good, and I think that's fantastic. The Bucks are great at making fun of FTR's Bret/Arn idolatry while also clearly doing it as heels. It's an easy target, and after the Bucks did the tandem sharpshooters, Matt hit a Hitman elbow off the middle buckle and stood up doing the douchiest Bret pose, I was laughing my ass off. The douchebag balance is very important: If the Bucks are too cool then FTR look like dweebs who once saw a gif of Arn doing a fake-out punch to set up a DDT and decided to do that every single week. The mockery keeps the Bucks heels and it keeps FTR honest, and I loved when Harwood did a fake-out to spike Matt with a piledriver. 

I thought they built to cut off spots well the entire match, like Nick stopping a powerplex with a big rana, FTR stopping the Meltzer Driver (surely it still doesn't have that stupid name?) with a Dax powerbomb, or the way FTR were always there at just the right time to blast into frame with a partner save. The Bucks leaned into cheating down the stretch and I dug that, and thought they came up with enough plausible ways for Wheeler to keep winding up near the ropes, hurt but not dead. My only real gripe with the match is that Nick came back into the action way too quickly after getting nailed with a Dax brainbuster on the floor. The sprint directly after was the only time the match felt like it was letting the moves dictate the match instead of the wrestlers. That said, I don't think the match ever went full overload, really loved how they all worked together, and thought FTR's selling was super strong throughout. We'll get a third match before long, and I assume that one will swing back the other way and be closer to 40 minutes, but man I'd love to see them go wild for 15. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Found Footage Friday: ANDRE~! INOKI~! MAEDA~! CANEK~! CHOSHU~! RUSHER~!

El Canek vs. Riki Choshu UWA 12/19/79 

MD: Title match for the UWA World Heavyweight Title in Mexico City. We're lucky to have it more for Choshu being in the spot than anything else as it feels like we're much more apt to have Fujinami in a match like this. It went less than fourteen minutes over three falls. Choshu wasn't fully Choshu yet, but he was more than competent, hanging on to the arm for a lot of the first fall; it was about 60% of what we'd get from France just a few years earlier given such an exchange but 60% of that is still solid if you ask me. Canek was going through the motions of trying to escape but without some of the intensity we're used to. Canek took the early advantage when they picked up the pace, but Choshu caught him with a suplex and Scorpion Deathlock to end the first fall. Second was more back and forth with chippy strikes in between holds and Canek barely getting Choshu up with a press into a backbreaker. Tercera had some good nearfalls as they played into the title drama. Occasionally they were just a little off on some of their spots, but it was never anything that really took you out of the match. Finish was Canek tossing Choshu off the top and following it up with a flying body press. More enjoyable than great, but still a very complete match overall.

Antonio Inoki vs. Rusher Kimura NJPW 3/17/1982

MD: Kimura had come into New Japan to face Inoki late in 81 and they had a blowoff Lumberjack match in October. Kimura reemerged to menace Inoki at the end of his January 1982 series with Abdullah (which is all worth watching) and they were paired up in February and here in March. They come off as two alpha bulls of the 1970s, standing tall right around age 40. Kimura was a couple of years older than Inoki. The fans were into this and they almost got more reaction just standing, staring, posturing, or clapping to build anticipation than with the actual action. The holds were simple and hard-fought, straightforward grinding.

Midway through the match, Inoki, as he was want to do, became a complete jerk, starting a double knucklelock lock up and then just slapping Kimura, wrenching the arm into a pumphandle over the shoulder, and locking in a cross armbreaker. The fans loved it as they always did. Kimura came back with incredibly hard shots in the ropes and a massive running forearm, following it up with some brutality with a weapon on the outside (weapon shots were ok so long as they weren't in the ring in NJPW at this period). Inoki fought back hitting the enziguri to knock Rusher out and they brawled hard on the outside for the countout. Nothing was proven but the fans, so into this, got most of what they wanted to see, two big stars butt heads and egos with one another, and yeah, Inoki being a triumphant jerk. More heel-coded behavior that was wildly over for an ace babyface. Everyone loves a bully so long as he's your bully.

Andre the Giant/El Canek vs. Antonio Inoki/Akira Maeda NJPW 5/24/83

MD: Lots to see here. They had Maeda work almost all of this, likely because it wasn't taped. I haven't seen a ton of pre-UWF Maeda and it was strange to see him a little less confident than usual. Still, having Andre in the match will do that to anyone. The early minutes where Maeda had Canek in a standing toehold were interesting because Andre kept menacingly entering the ring. It ended up a bit like a pitcher who was thrown off by having to repeatedly look at the runner at first. I can't remember that same sort of feel in a lot of other matches, but that was the threat of Andre. They eventually did have Andre run in only to get single-legged himself and Inoki and Maeda locking in a modified version of the estella on Canek and Andre to a big pop.

Canek worked heel for the most part and had some good stuff (Neckbreaker drop, flying forearm, gutwrenching power slam, this great standing knee strike springing off the bottom rope like Abby's headbutt) though he was often working from underneath. Andre and Maeda really worked well together, surprising as that might be. Andre beat him around the ring, including the hugest chop. At times Maeda seemed unsure but Andre took his stuff, staggering for a dropkick and going all the way down for the spin wheel kick, the second time perfectly getting caught in the ropes. Brilliant Andre-in-Japan spots to end this. Inoki and Maeda kept tossing Canek into Andre as he was caught, so Andre, fed up, put his foot up to take out his own partner. Then Andre caught a massive Maeda dive only to help him over the rail for the DQ. I enjoyed this a lot even if it's not much of an Inoki tribute.

ER: Every new Andre match that shows up from any year only cements his status as the greatest wrestler of all time. Here we get Andre as a super active complainer, getting into and out of the ring a dozen times in a huff, threatening a walk out, it's all incredible stuff. This is a match where Inoki is hardly present, and Andre works the entire thing from his entrance to minutes after the bell. Andre moves as fast as anyone in the match, walking straight over the top rope and back the whole time, even exiting the ring like he was fucking Marty Jannetty or something. We get to see Andre as a Zbyszko stalling tactic guy, which is just what I wanted to see tonight without knowing it before watching it. This gigantic man just runs up and over the ropes and stamps his feet about Inoki being a sneaky opportunist and it rocks. His physical acting is the best in wrestling history. His apron work is incredible, but look at his in-ring selling. 

Watch Andre sell la estella better than any luchador I've seen; the way he howls and grabs at his hamstring and how Maeda goes right after the hamstring with kicks until Andre wedgies him like a little baby. Andre is a real showman, drawing boos from the fans while also drawing laughs, like when he does his throaty Giant Laugh while Maeda is crawling at his feet, then settles into working quick tags to cut Maeda off. I don't know why it's so funny seeing Andre work quick tags and keep stepping over the ropes just to come in and hit a punch. I love him. Maeda didn't always seem like he knew what to do with Andre, working a couple sequences uncharacteristically tentative. I guess I don't blame him for thinking twice about a sequence that ended with him taking one of the biggest chops ever. Maeda's comeback spinning heel kicks were fantastic. Andre took a big bump off the first and then got caught in the ropes on the second. Andre's bump over the top to the floor was amazing, just insane that he was taking bumps like that on shows that weren't being recorded. What a god. Him catching a Maeda pescado and trying to crush him over the guardrail, then chasing Inoki and Maeda all around the ring while yelling on the house mic, it's just great. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

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Lawler vs. Steen! Piledriver vs. Piledriver!

Jerry Lawler vs. Kevin Steen NEW 8/2/14 - FUN

ER: NEW is an indy that gets mostly ignored by people who devour indy wrestling, while drawing bigger paying crowds than any of those other indies. This was one of their biggest shows of 2014, outdoors in a minor league baseball stadium in Fishkill, NY. They know how to book a show with something for everyone, from little kids on up to weird pervert adults. This show had a surprisingly good Mike Bennett/Matt Taven match (I'm pretty sure every single NEW show has a Mike Bennett/Matt Taven match, they worked each other constantly there), Reby Sky when she was working matches with her entire ass out, a 50 year old man former MLB player who pitched approximately 50 middle relief innings for the Yankees right before they started winning World Series again (20 YEARS before his wrestling "career"), and a main event Hardy Boys/Young Bucks tag that is legitimately one of the greatest tag matches of the 2010s. This Lawler/Steen match was on right before the Bucks/Hardys match, and was Steen's literal last indy match before debuting on an NXT TakeOver a few months later. It's a Piledriver vs. Piledriver match, which is the kind of gimmick match I love. I love when only a specific kind of move can be done to finish the match, or a specific kind of move CAN'T be done to win a match. Lawler had only done the Piledriver match a handful of times in his career and I certainly didn't realize he had done on in 2014. 

Lawler is 65, and yet Steen is the one working this like a guy who doesn't want to get injured on a minor league baseball stadium indy show. Lawler's belly here was the biggest it ever got, I mean he and Steen looked nearly identical. This could have, nay, should have been worked as a father vs. son piledriver vs. piledriver match, all Lawler would have had to do was talk about his son Kevin. Nobody in Fishkill knows who Kevin Lawler is, it would have worked. The NEW commentary guy sounds exactly like Eugene Mirman, and he points out that Steen has offense that "isn't typical of a man his size". Kevin Steen is 5'10 and has a big belly, so the idea of "a man his size" is a pretty hilarious thing to say in a match against his size equal Jerry Lawler, in a match that Steen works as if he was the 65 year old man. Lawler even takes two backdrop bumps in this match, and gets bigger height than Steen does on his one. Whatever Steen is capable of doing "at his size" did not come into play here, and it didn't really need to. 

This is a piledriver match, meaning that obviously there will be backdrop bumps from guys standing up out of piledrivers, but a lot of this match was just Lawler punching Steen in the face. Steen is really good at staggering into place, and Lawler is good at throwing 40+ punches in a match and making all of them interesting. He throws a lot of left jabs, at one point throwing 15 straight, like he was golf course Bob Barker. They're good at building sequences up to the people at the back of the bleachers, like Lawler running at Steen with KO fists, staggering him more with each running punch, building fire for a knockdown but getting his foot picked by Mike Bennett at ringside; when Steen hits a series of weak axe handles off the middle turnbuckle, it builds to him getting punched in the stomach on his third, taking the Arn somersault bump. My favorite part of the whole thing was Lawler punching Steen in the corner, going face/stomach/face/stomach to punch wherever Steen's hands weren't, before throwing a big flurry to drop him, adding in a little horizontal fistdrop as the cherry. Matt Taven, in cargo shorts and general goof troop attitude and stupid American Volador face, was there as Lawler's second, a person to take the package piledriver so Steen could get one off before Lawler wins with his own. This match was fun, but could have been really great if Steen was in there to work. But he knew what kind of show he was on, and knew what the match was, and I respect that. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten! Vladimir! Lola! Brigette! Angelito! Hassouni! Richard! Menard!

Either 5/17/78 or 7/15/78 

MD: The poster below was in the footage itself. I have no idea who Rocco and Zorba are here (Claude Rocca maybe?). I'm also not sure on the date. I've seen both. Note that the second match in the footage is our first women's match, for those who might be curious at what the quality was there (high; the quality of "Combat Feminin" was high).

Le Grand Vladimir vs Franz Van Buyten

MD: The footage starts around twenty minutes in. Delaporte's the ref. There's no commentary but it sure seems like Van Buyten to me. There's no babyface in the history of wrestling quite like him. We get the last ten or so and they're fighting to a draw, though Van Buyten is almost constantly going for the win once he comes back. Lots of hard shots, especially off the ropes from Van Buyten, as well as slams, with Vladimir clubbering as well as anyone ever and using his knee a lot (knee lifts, knee crushers, knees to the gut). Van Buyten was constantly scrambling, avoiding chinlocks after mares with a quick roll out so he can rush to his feet to fire back some more. Delaporte calls him the winner on points at the end. Lots of empty seats relative to previous weeks. I'm not sure if that's just because we're earlier into the card than usual (this was the second match of the night) or what, but they missed some good action here.

Lola Garcia vs Brigette Borne

MD: This was excellent. It stands well next to a lot of the action we've seen in the 70s. It was very much more of the same, long holds well worked, building to big counters, big shots, and transitions into the next hold. Garcia looked to be the more seasoned of the two. Borne was working the stylist role and something of an underdog as well. Garcia had some amazing bridges, including one where she kept a toehold even after Borne had gotten an arm around her chin to try to counter. They were just constantly working for escapes, constantly driving for the next thing. There were moments I wish that they almost let things breathe just a little more, that's how hard they were wrestling. Some of what they did was incredibly slick too, like when Borne shot her into the ropes and followed in to tie her up, I've never seen it done so quickly and smoothly. The ref seemed to be favoring Garcia, and there was a tecnico/rudo sense that we do get sometimes, where the bad guy is expected to take some liberties but the stylist is held to a higher standard. It culminated in the one big comedy spot of the match where Borne kicked the ref into Garcia causing both to tumble over and the ref to go flying out of the ring. Hard-worked, entertaining, full of character. It's a shame we don't have another half dozen Garcia matches.

Jean Menard/Jicky Richard vs Kader Hassouni/Angelito

MD: I keep waiting for the quality to drop. It never does. I'm not sure how many people have been watching these from the start and following along week to week for the last few years during the pandemic, but I know it's been a few of you at least. This stuff is just still really, really good. Another great tag that goes long. It loses a little bit of focus in the second fall during the protracted comeback, but always with very good individual exchanges. Every time these guys lock up, it's just good wrestling.

Here, you had Angelito really showing off. He was able to pause in midair on hold escapes or monkey flips and really let things sink in. His bumps were huge. He just sailed across the ring on slams or biels and the occasional crazy, crazy bump to the floor. The ultimate finish is him not able to meet the ten count after missing a run up twisting moonsault. He had some really fun offense too including a repeated attempt at an elevated half crab and a doctor bomb just for the hell of it. Hassouni was a game partner, with a lot of quick pin exchanges with both Menard and Richard, trading holds with Menard, rope running with Richard. He had a flair for entertaining too, turtling into a lady of the lake for instance, and getting the crowd to sing Mamadou to his bouncing.

The announcer spent the whole match thinking Richard was Menard and vice versa but I at least know the former by sight by now (and you could tell from the public warnings, for instance), though I never know if it's Ricard or Richard. Regardless, Richard is an amazing base and clobberer that could still go when needed. He was announced as the "#1 Bludgeon" which is accurate. He also added press slams (into a gut buster and just a military press forward) into his arsenal. Richard was a clear bad guy here, constantly arguing with Delaporte, but Menard was mostly playing fair. He had endless amounts of cool stuff, slams from a suplex position, a Robinson backbreaker, a conjuro type spin out into a slam. Just a very interesting wrestler to watch. This followed the usual format for the late 70s, long feeling out, cheating leading to heat and a pin, a comeback in the second fall, and then a more entertaining third fall, with the entertainment less about comedy (save for Richard and Delaporte getting into it) than just all out action. The finish was abrupt and striking and a very cool spot for the time. Another great match, even if we know these wrestlers better than the announcer does now.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 10/3 - 10/9

AEW Dynamite 10/5

Darby Allin vs Jay Lethal

MD:  I don't think we've written a word about Lethal in four years. I guess we were ahead of the curve in thinking he was pretty good except for the finisher ruining everything? That's about the least interesting thing you can say about him now, but solid 2018 commentary right there. Anyway, Darby's inclusion in the Fingers is an endless bounty of me writing about stuff I might not write about otherwise. It's good for me, I suppose. There's a lot of griping on the internet around Lethal lately. The simple fact of the matter is that he's relatively credible given his past accolades including just the sheer length of his career, and his ability to competently work a competitive match, not to mention the fact he's got a literal giant for a heater and a pencil-wielding maniac as a manager. Yet, almost every time he's out there, he loses. AEW needs heels that can lose. No amount of losses will take away the above. If you need the Jungle Boys and Darby Allins and Ricky Starks of the world to win a solid 10-15 minute match on TV, he's a good choice. The roster isn't full of heels who can afford to lose and still remain credible, ones that you're not looking to push long-term. You don't want Hobbs losing too much. You don't want Brody King losing too much. As much as I'm a fan of Serpentico or Peter Avalon's act, they're just not credible in the same way. JD Drake is, and maybe preferable, but there aren't too many other people on the roster (People would complain even more about QT!) that can serve in the specific role Lethal does. One thing that AEW does sometimes, and that they should probably do more, is have a heel tag team wrestle as a singles act for a night which helps to give a guy like Isiah Kassidy (Darby went over Quen in March) or Anthony Bowens (last year at least) some attention and means you don't have to rely too much on the few Lethals they have. Butcher and Blade are right there after all. 

So this was a good ten-fifteen minute match. That's the point. It may not be the match people wanted to see. It may not be structured the way people wanted to see it. But it was a good match, that was over with the crowd, that let Darby look good and more than that, get over an aspect of his character, and may lead to future stories. Like a lot of Darby matches that don't start with an ambush of some sort, they led with the wrestling, and escalated to a mistake/banana peel/capitalization, in this case, Lethal taking out the leg. Darby's basically 2022 Ricky Morton (just crossed with Jeff Hardy) in multiple ways and one of those ways is how well he utilizes roll-ups as hope spots. He's not always going to punch up and out of something or fight out of a corner, but he can draw you in and almost score a quick win before getting beaten on some more. Lethal's had years to learn how to effectively work over a leg and it got the fans clapping up, popping for the figure four, and believing that this would keep Darby on the ropes. They dealt with the albatross that is the Lethal Injection in a fairly clever way. The finish was fairly story heavy but settled back to the pin exchanges. Like the hope spots, Darby benefits from being the only guy on the roster with a flash pin as one of his real finishers and I liked the fight for it here. Usually the Last Supper looks slick and inevitable and here it seemed like Lethal was doing all he could to stop it. He just couldn't do enough. This was good. The fans were into it. It served one, if not more than one purpose. I'm not going to sit here and pretend it wasn't because people are bored with the idea of Lethal. If you want to go find Darby vs JD Drake instead, it's happened at least. 

Bryan Danielson/Daniel Garcia vs Chris Jericho/Sammy Guevara

MD: This was to heat up Danielson vs Jericho next week, a surprisingly tall task considering that it'd be for the ROH title in Canada and with Jericho a theoretically vulnerable champion and Danielson having the edge based on the previous two matches and the fact Garcia's gone over to his side, but they've run it twice very recently (including once with Jericho working the same Liontamer gimmick) and it needed some heating up. The appeal here then was fresh matchups: Sammy vs both Garcia and Danielson and Jericho vs Garcia. They went right to the latter, with Garcia clowning Jericho on the mat after a quick handshake. That was important as I imagine at least half the crowd came in expecting a Horsemen style beatdown. To make that sort of thing work, you have to keep Garcia on the apron and not have him scrap with Jericho. Therefore, by leading off with that exchange, they managed the crowd's expectations. 

Given everything that had happened backstage earlier in the day (and in the weeks leading up to this) Sammy had nuclear heat, and he capitalized on that here by inserting himself at almost every moment, starting from tripping Garcia early to stop the initial exchange and really never looking back from there. Sometimes it was breaking up a Garcia advantage. Sometimes it was trying to leap into the fray between Garcia and Jericho (only to get nailed by Garcia for his troubles). You got the sense that Danielson was eager to work with him and he took multiple Spanish Flys and caught a huge dive (but also cut off another one with a forearm). While Sammy stooged plenty, he also stood tall against both Danielson and Jericho. I'd argue that Jericho and Guevara worked better together for the first half but that Danielson and Garcia began to gel more (like resonating with like) as the match went on, all leading to the tandem submissions and hammer-and-anvil forearms. The finish was all about Jericho cementing the split with Garcia and ensuring Sammy went over at the height of his ire with the crowd, heating things up more for the match with Danielson next week. Instead of any prolonged heat with this one, it was more the stuttering annoyance of Sammy and Jericho's antics and both of them getting pushed back repeatedly by Danielson and Garcia. Really, it was more of a tease for the new matchups that could come out of it than anything else.

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I Watched More David Flair Because of Bryan Turner's YouTube

Flash Flanagan vs. David Flair USA Championship Wrestling 2/23/02

ER: A few months ago we covered a David Flair match that took place just a week after this match, and it was the most "complete" I had ever seen Flair as a worker. It made me mildly curious to see more of him from this era, just to see how consistent these improvements were. Even with the steps forward I saw, I still think there was a ceiling for just how "good" Flair could have become, but working a bunch of old hand Tennessee guys almost surely would have made him better. The commentary says that "David Flair has come a long, LONG way in just two short years in this great sport" and it is true, because during his time in WCW I don't think I've ever seen someone look consistently less natural in a ring than he. The most important difference between 2002 David Flair and 1999/2000 Flair is that by 2002 he actually knows how to move around the ring. In WCW he had no idea how to get into position for anything, looked lost constantly, and always had the hunched body charisma of an assistant high school P.E. teacher who gets involved in a spot at his school's fundraising show. He was never going to move around a ring like Bobby Eaton, but by 2002 he was no longer moving around the ring like David Flair, and that feels like huge progress. 

Aside from finally being able to actually move like an athlete, Flair had gotten good at several other things. His opening lock up was surprisingly strong, I liked how he got into a fan's face and then resumed selling as he limply broke the count from the floor; he throws a really nice vertical suplex, and he had a couple of surprisingly good right hands while fighting Flash in the corner. As with Charlotte, his worst stuff happens whenever he apes his father. His chops are still bad, though probably not as bad as Charlotte's. He takes a fine Flair flip to the apron and gets clotheslined off, but then takes a baseball slide dropkick by forgetting to get close enough to the apron to take a baseball slide dropkick. He also throws his clothesline weirdly under the chest, but he throws it hard and that makes up for a lot of the awkwardness. Flash Flanagan is, of course, a consummate professional, and keeps a lot of this on track even though there were weird shifts around who was heel and who was face. Flash hit his awesome springboard legdrop, and him hitting the whiplash blockbuster on the ref when Flair ducked was the coolest part of the match. 

Well, maybe Flair taking the lowest arcing backdrop I've ever seen was more cool. I swear the man looked like he tripped on a curb while out jogging. Still, I would call it an overall win that in 2002 it at least looked like Flair was capable of jogging like a human man. 

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Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! ROOSTER~! COLORADO~! REJECTS~! SLIM J~! ROCKWELL~! HAWKINS~! OKUMA~! EIGEN~!

Haruka Eigen vs. Motoshi Okuma AJPW 9/15/89

MD: Another recent Classics drop and it's a great thing to pop up because while we have a lot of Eigen and Okuma in this era, and likewise, a decent amount of All Japan comedy, it's always with them as foils for Rusher and Baba. It's rare to see the two of them one on one and really, comedy without Baba or Rusher. This was certainly something. They wrestled a bit before building to the comedy but once they got there, it never went away. It was a mean sort of thing though, Okuma headbutting Eigen in the mouth, both guys holding the other in the ropes like Sheamus and laying in a huge shot that would cause spit to go flying into the front row and everyone to go running, Okuma stepping over Eigen to hit the falling headbutt and then having it countered by Eigen tripping him. Okuma had somewhat more dignity here, with Eigen spitting farther, getting headbutted, having to run around the ringside area to try to find a way back into the ring without getting nailed, but Okuma got his comeuppance too. Very unique, very stylized, but interesting and worth watching at least once. The crowd was certainly into it and they should have been considering the effort, timing, and expert expressiveness of these two, all while being just hard-hitting enough to belong in 1989 AJPW. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Mike Rapada vs. Terry Taylor NWA Worldwide 11/13/99

MD: This was for Rapada's NWA North American title, with the appeal, as much as anything else, that it was a WWF announcer vs. a WCW office guy vs. a NWA wrestler, in 1999. The Nashville crowd was pretty big and fairly hot. Both guys had been feuding with Rapada and Lawler's promo setting it up was that Rapada thought beating him would let him get into WWF but that he'd never get there. The real appeal of this one, however, was seeing Lawler in a Triple Threat match. They'd been around for a chunk of the decade, obviously, and Lawler had called his share by November 1999, but you could see the wheels ticking even in the promo setting it up. 

Lawler and Taylor were de facto allies here, and this ended up pure Memphis. Lawler would use a sharpie (a real one, not an imaginary one), that Stacy handed to him into Rapada's throat repeatedly, but he'd have Taylor there in the ring to distract the ref. It allowed for a slightly different execution for hide the object but was effective through it's blatantness with Lawler being more blatant than ever. They built towards dissension between Taylor and Lawler as only one party could win the title, leading to a miscommunication headbutt to the groin and Rapada coming back. Finish was Taylor kicking out of all of Rapada's big moves and then stealing the win as Lawler was gloating after hitting Rapada with the pile-driver. This had its ceiling considering who was in there with the King, but it was great to see him experiment with the possibilities of a new form (and find ways to work all of his time-tested stuff in). 

Devil's Rejects (Azrael/Shaun Tempers/Patrick Bentley) vs. Slim J/Adrian Hawkins/Ace Rockwell NWA Anarchy 9/27/07

MD: As always, you can drop in to almost any of these Rejects matches and it feels like... well, home is probably not the right word, but certainly somewhere familiar and, for us at least, welcome. The Anarchy announcers are always the best at getting you up to speed too. They didn't know it but they were commentating for immortality. Here, things start out as 3 on 2 (really 4 on 2 given Wilson, the Staff of Righteousness, and that this was a streetfight). Hawkins had just refused membership in the Rejects and while he and Slim J meshed in look and style, and even had an early advantage by striking first, the numbers were against them. I liked Bentley a lot here, bumping huge out of the ring for Slim J to start, later on dragging his elbow over a wound when they were in control, playing his new character overtly in his elated reactions while still seeming menacing. When things seemed darkest and Hawkins was about to hit a pile driver off the top onto a chair on Slim J, Rockwell rushed out to even the odds which was a big moment and a bigger pop. That led to a great comeback highlighted by a Slim J diving reverse DDT on 2/3rds of the Rejects and a Coast-to-Coast by Hawkins. Eventually, as it so often happened the superior chemistry and teamwork (and sheer brutality) from the Rejects won out though, building and building and building it to a bigger payoff down the road and keeping these insatiable fans ever hungry.

PAS: I just love this stuff. I really should have been watching Anarchy weekly back in the mid 2000s, it is very much my kind of wrestling. The Rejects are a swarming gang of creeps as always, although it is a different vibe without either of the monsters Tank and Iceberg. Damn Slim J is a great brawler. I say it every time one of these matches come out, but it just blows me away how great he is at throwing hands, timing comebacks, bleeding, all of it. Really almost a 21st century Tommy Rich, and it is a shame he never got a chance to really have that kind of match on a bigger stage. Loved Rockwell coming from the back, he is an amazing brawler too, and that is a trope which always works. Rejects win felt earned and that double team reverse DDT that Azreal and Tempers did was awesome looking. Great match, but basically any time these guys matched up it was tremendous. 

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Loosely Formed Statements on WWF's No Way Out of Texas 2/15/98

 

1. Marc Mero/Goldust vs. The Head Bangers

Marc Mero is a 1998 Rising Stock. Always on. Endless energy. 

Marc Mero's high back elbow and precise elbowdrop. Stocking Rising. 

Marc Mero's ass over crown bump to the floor for a Mosh lariat. Heat Seeker. 

Goldust working dropdowns and leapfrogs and a high backdrop bump in black lingerie. Picturing him working 2000s AAA. 

Marc Mero draws real heat. His bumps for Thrasher's shoulderblocks are real. Online Mero Discourse will swell. 

We get real blood 10 minutes into No Way Out of Texas. Thrasher takes a real manly bump when Goldust snake eyes him onto the ring steps. Blood spidering down his face. Match at a new level. 

Mero - the worker of 1998 WWF - immediately targets the cut whenever he is in, including stomping Thrasher all over the cut to spread the blood. 

We'll see if any chant will be louder during any other match than this MERO SUCKS chants. Scotching heat in February. That's before he unwraps some wrist tape and chokes Thrasher until the tape is red, and then the chants resume. 

Mosh has four sincerely great punches on his hot tag. 

2. Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku

Pantera has the greatest offense. Multiple rolling armdrags, THAT running swanton to the floor, a tricked out headscissors that felt more World of Sport than lucha, and a fast flipping bump to the floor. 

Taka's springboard plancha flies 4 feet past the guardrail into the entrance.

Pantera's rolling headscissors from the top rope to the apron is in the discussion of Greatest Headscissors in History. The tope diagonally past the ringpost was triumphant garnish. 

Well Brian Christopher called Taka Michinoku "slant eyed" on commentary. Jesus. 

Cools down a bit when Pantera is working over Taka's back, but I like it. 

The cooldown burst into flames when Taka took one of the highest bumps over the top to the floor that I've ever seen, moments before Pantera leapt over the top rope with his running senton, the most incredible move on 1998 wrestling TV. 

The cool back work stretch is paid off many times over when Pantera fills every bit of space with elbowdrops aimed with precision at Taka's lower back, and two different backbreakers that looked...backbreaking. 

Pantera pulls off an effortlessly accurate top rope moonsault, the way I might take a bite out of a sandwich, then snaps off a hurricanrana with both of them jumping off the top rope just as easily. 

Brian Christopher was a...real presence...on commentary. The entire match. You have never heard louder slurs on commentary. 

3. The Quebecers vs. The Godwinns

I'm not sure why they even brought in the Quebecers in 1998. They brought them back to Raw with no re-introduction, just the two of them wearing the blandest and worst gear of their respective careers. Still a good team, but out of place and oddly presented. 

Rougeau keeps ducking Phineas's lock ups and then yells "How about those Canadians, eh?" to the crowd like a prick. 

Jacques is out here getting mowed over by shoulderblocks, and when Pierre tags in he starts working wristlock exchanges with Henry. It's kind of silly, but those big boys did really yank the hell out of those arms. 

Phineas works really vicious with Jacques. He hits a full on Glacier front kick into Jacques's stomach and tries to pull his arm off with a single arm DDT. 

Henry drops his head and Jacques kicks him hard right across the chest. Pierre is the only guy not throwing leather so far. 

They're working this as a classic WWF heel in peril match, the crowd completely silent as the Godwinns cut Jacques off from Pierre. For some reason, the fans do not cheer for Rougeau's sunset flip nearfall, and I have no idea what crowd reaction they were expecting when Henry held Jacques in a chinlock that could only build to Jacques fighting back to his feet. 

The match is actually really good but the role reversal fucks everything up. 

The fans do not want to see Jacques make a hot tag to Pierre. The cannonball that they hit is not triumphant. 

Jacques hits a pretty crazy plancha off the top to the floor, crashing into Henry. 

Everything was completely backward and the crowd was icy but it was a good tag if you pretend it was in Montreal with a poorly mic'd crowd. 

4. Bradshaw vs. Jeff Jarrett 

Say what you will about Cornette being given a dead in the water idea, but I loved the short-lived NWA stable. What a bunch of weirdos. Windham, the Rock n Rolls, and Jeff Jarrett with my favorite gear and hair of his career. Robert Gibson is wearing a duster with county fair sweatshirt art of him and Ricky on the back. 

The opening is really well worked, just Bradshaw swinging arms and chaps and boots at Jarrett and Jarrett taking all of it. I loved when Bradshaw ducked down and Jarrett finally landed something, a stiff kick to Bradshaw's chest, and Bradshaw just straightened up and booted Jarrett in the face. 

It's funny when they exchange strikes, as Jarrett is doing these nice worked right hands but Bradshaw is just hauling back and smashing Jarrett with the edge of his elbow. 

I appreciate JR pushing the story that Jarrett knew to target Bradshaw's knee because Barry Windham told him about Bradshaw's knee in secret, because I guess it's better than telling the story of Jarrett targeting the two foot long braced kneepad that covers most of Bradshaw's left leg.

All of Jarrett's kicks to Bradshaw's leg look good, but none of it leads to anything. 

This was a lot better when it was Bradshaw laying waste to Jarrett and the NWA. It loses steam once they went into more of a back and forth. 

When the NWA runs out after the match, Robert Gibson takes a really fast, pretty crazy bump to the floor. I have to remind myself that Gibson was only 39 during this run and was really busting his ass. 

5. Faarooq/The Rock/Kama Mustafa/Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown vs. Ken Shamrock/Ahmed Johnson/Chainz/Skull/8-Ball

I remember watching this PPV a couple days after it aired, getting the tape from a friend whose dad had a co-worker who taped the PPVs. Something something the kids will never understand what we went through. If your parents didn't let you actually order PPVs, that's how you got to see a PPV in 1998. 

I remember watching this match before school, and my dad getting actually offended by them clearly running a team of militant black people opposite several white supremacists. My parents already hated pro wrestling because of its stupidity. I don't think my dad had ever even considered that there would be angles with white supremacist good guys. I remember him reading the paper and putting it down, saying "It's VERY clear what they're trying to imply here" and being mad about it. 

This match was set up by The Rock hitting Shamrock in the face with one of the most disgusting chairshots in history. 

Does anyone actually know any differences between Skull and 8-Ball? Is one of them better than the other? Does anyone actually know which one is which? Did they themselves actually keep track of which was Skull and which was 8-Ball? When JR tells me that Skull is in against D-Lo, should I trust him? Should I trust JR to know the separate identities of Skull and 8-Ball, even though this is a War of Attrition match and JR very clearly did not know the definition of "attrition" when Lawler asked him to define it, and JR had to use schoolyard tacts like "*I* know what it is, do you?" until the moment you can tell someone came on the headset and told him the definition. You can tell someone came on, as JR was *floundering* and fucking seething at Lawler for pressing him on this, and after 20 agonizing seconds suddenly JR blurted out 6 synonyms for "attrition". (Skull has a slightly rounder face, FYI)

Shamrock dumps himself on his head doing a Japanese armdrag to D-Lo. 

Chainz drops several fast elbowdrops but I'm not sure if any of them are good. His big boot is better. 

Mark Henry looks like a total badass calling for Ahmed, and the crowd really comes alive when he and Ahmed start wailing on each other. 

D-Lo does a frog splash onto Ahmed's ass and legs, committing to the splash even as it looked like Ahmed was a man not expecting a frog splash. 

It is wild how much smaller Shamrock looks than everyone else in the match. 

Who could possibly give a shit that D-Lo Brown is a Certified Public Accountant, JR? How would that be interesting to any person watching D-Lo Brown in this War of Attrition? Talk about his nice Hitman elbowdrop.

Jesus now JR is talking about The Rock's degrees. JR tanked this match. They're fucking fighting JR, stop talking about everyone's fucking GPA. 

6. Vader vs. Kane

The cameras cut away just as Vader was about to do some V-hand crab dancing and shit this company hasn't known how to film wrestling in 25 years. 

Vader is throwing punches straight at Kane's forehead and then swinging his whole arm into the side of Kane's head. 

Vader gets a rear waistlock and grabs Kane by the hair with his left hand so he can punch Kane in the back of the head a bunch with his right, including one shot from behind that snuck up and under into Kane's temple. 

Kane isn't bad in control, but things are much better whenever it is Vader punching Kane in the head. 

Vader has taken big bumps for clotheslines. 

My dad would have made such a good Paul Bearer, if he was someone who ever dressed up in a costume for any reason (I have never seen my dad in any costume for any reason). My dad is more handsome than Paul Bearer, but the body shape and parted brown hair are too similar. 

Kane does his uppercut but he hadn't learned how to arm slap yet. 

Vader tests just how sturdy Kane's mask is by punching him directly into the face six times until Kane literally responds as if he's being swarmed by bees. 

Kane is wearing some insane Boris Karloff lifts, and whenever Vader rocks him with a standing clothesline you can really see them throwing Kane off balance. 

Does Vader have the best standing splash? It's up there. 

Kane's strikes don't look great, his top rope clothesline doesn't look great, but there's absolutely no denying how awesome it looks seeing Vader get tombstoned. 

7. Savio Vega/HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. Steve Austin/Cactus Jack/Chainsaw Charlie/Owen Hart

Savio Vega sure makes a lot of sense as a kayfabe partner and as a guy who would be able to work this match, but when a teenager hears Mystery Partner and that Mystery is replacing the World Heavyweight Champion, well...

All of the Austin/Gunn exchanges are really great. Gunn scrambling out of the ring to avoid a Stunner, then bashing Austin with the edge of a trash can on the floor, Austin running him the hell over with a clothesline, beating him with 1998 chairshots

Billy Gunn is doing all of Hunter's Flair bumps better than Hunter

Funk is in there taking nothing but damage, beaten by trash cans, getting powerbombed through a pair of chairs, taking a piledriver on a trash can lid, back suplex onto a lid, also threw a trash can into the air and taking the hit when it comes back down.

Billy Gunn has that Paul Koslo weave

Cutting Funk off from everyone else is a cool way to work this 8 man

Austin throws a mashed up trash can so hard at Billy Gunn's head, and again, Gunn bumping for Austin is perfection

Nobody backstage told Savio and Funk that they were wearing the same thing? Both got that big ol dad butt denim 

Owen Hart's best role is running in from the apron to back off DX, and then returning to the apron. He hits a great missile dropkick into Savio and later runs across the ring to hit a big dropkick and take swings at all of them. 

Ending is a bit abrupt, with Austin tagging in, wasting everyone quickly, and then just hitting a Stunner on Road Dogg, but the match was a really fun brawl. 

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