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.