Found Footage Friday: FINLAY RETIREMENT TOUR~! GRIZZLY!~! BROOKSIDE~! FINLAY, JR~! LAWLER~! SID~!

Fit Finlay vs. Cannonball Grizzly 10/6/12

MD: This was Finlay's last singles match. I hadn't realized that Grizzly was still active this late into the 21st century. He more or less cracked the code by the mid 90s and while you weren't going to get a ton of movement out of these two at this point necessarily, this was buoyed by the advantages of the rounds system, Grizzly's presence and size, and Finlay's selling and ability to strike from underneath.

Watching a rounds match now and again feels like good medicine for your pro wrestling viewing brain. I don't know if it's a sign of getting older myself but I gravitate more towards entry points than finishing stretches and with a rounds match, you get a number of different entry points, which when used smartly and organically, can create different narrative beats. Likewise with the bell at the end of each round. This started with Finlay locking in a few holds and transitioning between one and the next with his usual moments of violence. Grizzly had the size and the strength however, so he took over pretty quickly. The first two rounds had the bell ring with Finlay finally punching out of a hold.

For a meaningful momentum shift to occur, one of two things were necessary: either Finlay would have to turn things around earlier in the round or Grizzly would have to control deeper into the round. The latter occurred as the third round had a long bearhug and when Finlay tried to get out, Grizzly stayed on the back. That meant he could control starting in the fourth as well, but Finlay fought his way out and started to chip away at Grizzly. He pressed forward with that chipping in the fifth, charging right in and working on the arm, with the sixth having Grizzly desperate and charging right in only to have it turned around on him after he made a mistake. So there's a clear narrative through the rounds created by each round playing off of what happened before. It was building to Finlay pressing his advantage and overcoming (which included Grizzly missing a big flip off the turnbuckles) until his second, Brookside, pulled the ropes down and then started unloading on him. That said up the match to come. They still filled a lot of time with the actual match here and they managed it, broken up by the round breaks, primarily with simple holds and hard shots. It's more of what I might expected from 1982 than 2012, but it worked for the crowd due to the skills at play.

ER: I thought this was excellent. I imagine most people will be surprised to learn that PN News was involved in something this good over 13 years after his ECW run. It turns out that Finlay in his mid-50s vs. Cannonball Grizzly in his mid-40s is one of the best Finlay Retirement Tour matches we have. We don't have enough Finlay matches against big fat guys. One of Jerry Lawler's best match types is against big fat guys, and after seeing this it's easy to see Finlay having 4 star matches with Plowboy Frazier. You think of all the big fat men who we never got to see get roughed up by Finlay before flattening him, and it just breaks your heart. Finlay vs. Mabel, Finlay vs. Tenta, Finlay vs. Vader; these are the images that flash like stars behind my eyelids as I pass into slumber. Cannonball Grizzly makes his entrance to the 1992 sounds of Ugly Kid Joe, in 2012, and I easily picture a world where Ugly Kid Joe is a band who successfully tour Europe in the 2010s. I like this idea of Cannonball Grizzly being forever frozen in time in 1992, the peak of his US success. 

But yes, this was excellent. At the time of this writing, it is the greatest Paul Neu match any of us have ever seen. It's also perfect that a German worker's last name is Neu. It makes me want to seek out the work of John Guru Guru or Tom Ash Ra Tempel. This goes 7 rounds and builds slowly and steadily through all of them. It's built around struggling out of convincing and simple holds, and it's done fantastically. Grizzly has really convincing knuckle locks, and is able to hang in and hold onto then even while Finlay is elbowing him from his back foot. Finlay squeezed Grizzly's traps and grabbed at his nose in the 1st round, Grizzly used the first opportunity he got to return the favor why doing it right back in the 2nd. Finlay ends the 2nd by punching Grizzly in the face and then hitting three hard lariats, the first and third especially rough, sending sweat mist exploding off both. Finlay knows that the shot that puts a big man down needs to look like the strongest one. 

Finlay twists his way through a Grizzly bearhug in the 3rd, trying to break it with a leveraged judo throw and getting Grizzly off his feet but not over, turning in the bearhug to try and find any way out, ending when he gets whipped hard into the buckles. I wish we had gotten a 20 minute Finlay/Andre match that was just Finlay trying to find ways out of a bearhug until Andre just fell on him. Grizzly builds off that bearhug and turnbuckle whip in the 4th, immediately throwing elbows into Finlay's kidneys and locking on the bearhug with his hands clasped over them. Finlay finally getting the headlock takeover out of the bearhug felt like a huge escalation and I love how it took a lot out of him, finally lifting Grizzly off his feet enough to turn him over but walking around after like it wasn't quite worth it. 

Finlay pounces on Grizzly's limbs in the 5th while the German commentary still talks about Ugly Kid Joe. Finlay keeps adjusting his leg positioning while working an arm lock, keeping a wide base that looked impossible to get away from. The ropes were Cannonball's only possible escape. When he gets back in the ring he throws two full arms into the side of Finlay's head that make him look like Vader, but more so like Fat Joe wrestling like Vader. I think it's because Vader never had hot dog neck. There's a memorable fist fight to start the 6th and Finlay in his mid-50s still takes the hardest bumps into the turnbuckles since Bret. Grizzly missing an elbowdrop feels like as big of a nearfall as any actual offense you could do to him. Finlay starts the 7th by finding a fourth (at least) new way to painfully run into the turnbuckles, the top buckle hitting underneath the side of his ribcage, staggering him out into a real shutdown clothesline. Finlay's bump to the floor - through the ropes because of a traitorous Brookside low bridge - was a real surprise. Finlay is the absolute master at taking bumps that look like something he was not expecting to take. Brookside's attack on Finlay and the ring crew might be the most violent I've ever seen him. Brookside was kicking at Finlay's ear like he wanted to send him into retirement equilibrium-free.  

Fit Finlay/David Finlay Jr. vs. Dan Collins/Robbie Brookside 12/22/12

MD: Cagematch says this is both Fit's last match and David Jr's first one, and Cagematch would know in this case, I imagine. It wasn't exactly what I expected after the challenges following Brookside's betrayal, but it probably meant a heck of a lot more to Fit than a straight one-on-one street fight would have. David was what you'd expect here given his first match and his pedigree: slight in frame, flopping about with his selling, some promise when it came to shots in the corner and inspiring sympathy in this very specific situation. He had Collins and Brookside to move him about the ring when he was taking a beating and most of his offense was tandem stuff with his dad. Likewise, the structure went how you'd figure, a cycle of Finlay controlling, of David losing the offense and eating a beatdown, of that beatdown creating a handicap situation that Finlay had to overcome and of Finlay first overcoming, second smashing people into things (the apron, a table, any hard surface he could find), and then letting his son join in until he was overtaken again. It was effective and they filled a decent amount of time with it, never losing the crowd despite David's inexperience. With ten years of retrospect and considering that Finlay, Jr.'s had a pretty successful career so far, you can hardly imagine a better end to Finlay's career than hitting stereo finishers with his son in the middle of a German ring against some old rivals in front of an appreciative crowd. It was nice that he got to smash some heads in the process. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Sid Vicious NWA Main Event 11/7/08 

MD: Phil and Eric had reviewed a Lawler vs Sid match from 07 which sounds like an all time great Lawler performance and an all time terrible Sid performance. This pulls more towards the middle for both, as it was a pretty good Sid performance and your standard solid Lawler one. This was on the show that celebrated Lawler's 35th year in the business so you imagine Sid was a little more inspired because of that. He had Jimmy Hart at ringside. Lawler had Jim White, his first tag team partner with him though he was a non factor. They worked a bunch of Sid slams early and a Lawler attempt which let Hart mock him on the house mic (and set up the big moment towards the end). Having Hart here probably made it a little more successful than a similar gambit the year prior. After eating a few Lawler punches with a snap of the head but no overall selling, Sid cut him off with a slam out of a side headlock which was simple but effective. Lawler was going to make Sid's stuff look amazing, of course, but the visual that comes from Sid's size makes that pretty easy. It's not like he has great punches, but when he comes down with more of an arc with them instead of poking forward, it gave Lawler plenty to work with. They moved from hold (or choke) into shots, into a move (like a side slam or legdrop) pretty steadily here, with Hart slipping in shots when he could. Lawler, despite it being his night, still used a low blow to start his comeback. Sid not registering the punches early meant it mattered more when he did register them on the comeback and between that, the slam paying off, and Hart's interference backfiring, everything built exactly as it ought to have. Sid was fairly inspired on this night but I'm not certain this would have worked quite so well with anyone but Lawler.

ER: Sid felt really uninspired working in front of that 2007 NEW crowd, and while he doesn't "do a lot" here, it at minimum felt like he and Lawler were at least having the same match. In 2007 it felt like Lawler was having his own epic while Sid was fulfilling an obligation that he regretted. The only real difference between Sid here and Sid there, was his presence here always felt like it was building to the match's climax, easily controlling Lawler with his size in a way that was clear we were always building to a fired up Lawler finish. There is so little actual offense in this match, just a handful of bodyslams, some clubbing strikes, a big side slam, and a smothering hold, but they both knew how to milk the thriftiness of it all. Sid's bodyslams looked big and Lawler knows how to expertly sell a large man's bodyslam as well as he knows how to breathe air. 

Lawler tries punching Sid early and gets nowhere, but gets much farther when he punches and kicks Sid in the balls before punching face. The camera crew doesn't know how to film Lawler's fistdrop and they shoot his kneeling punches from his back, but the energy is there. The strap lowering into a dropkick was great, and the bodyslam payoff was real. I love heel Jimmy Hart getting involved. Hart mastered the old man big bump/non-bump, knowing exactly how to get up on an apron and get knocked off it without actually doing anything super dangerous. It's just another example of how everyone in this knew how to do the most without actually dying. How many of the Lawler/Sid USWA matches do we have? Any? It feels like mid 90s Lawler/Sid would have been the best version of their crossed paths.