Found Footage Friday: CANNON~! BROOKSIDE~! BALL~! IAN~! GRIZZLY~! ST. CLAIR~!

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Tony St. Clair IWW 2/15/98

MD: Look, Segunda Caida isn't out to be revisionist. We don't wake up in the morning with the idea we have to reclaim John Nord just to be difficult to everyone. We watch matches, we see patterns, we comment on them, conventional wisdom be damned. That said, sometimes, if we see something that we think defies the general narrative, we chase it. This is me chasing Paul Neu to Germany based on a few things we've seen. As a 25 year old, he was notoriously bad, gifted a gimmick that the fans really wanted to get behind with a push to match, but without the skills (either on the mic or in the ring) to make it work. This is him seven or eight years later and this absolutely worked.

These two were fairly frequent opponents over the years, going all the way back to 89 (and I'm not watching 89 Neu; I have limits). St. Clair was 50 here but he was still grizzled and hard hitting. This went about ten minutes before Brookside interfered and things broke down, but it was a solid ten minutes, especially the brawling on the outside. Well they stayed outside too as the ropes weren't tight enough and Grizzly had a problem whenever he tried to go into them or especially up onto them. You'd expect St. Clair to have pretty good forearms and uppercuts, but Grizzly's stuff looked credible too, from just throwing his body at St. Clair to tossing headbutts or shots to the gut. Looking at these three matches as a set, you can't say he wasn't comfortable with these brawls, even if he, at one time, had been the least comfortable wrestler imaginable. This likely set up a Schumman/St. Clair vs Grizzly/Brookside tag and that was probably pretty good too.

ER: It's pretty perfect that Germany's 90s Big Daddy was named Neu. It's a shame he never got another real chance in the states and really did get better with - get this - experience. If PN News was Neu! '86, then 1998 Cannonball Grizzly was Neu!, and then obviously PN Neuz was Neu! '75. Also, David Flair was the least comfortable wrestler ever. PN News always had more body charisma than first year and beyond David Flair. But even Flair seemed to be figuring things out after seven or eight years of doing it. 

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Ian Rotten (Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Match) IWW 5/9/98

MD: This was pretty much what you'd expect, and I mean that in a good way. Ian came out and insulted the crowd, taking his good time to get there. He stalled. He ultimately put over Grizzly, needing to go to underhanded or desperate shots for each advantage that he got, starting with the kick on the handshake, going low a few times, using the bat first, sneaking in a chairshot with one of the chairs I love in this promotion because they fall apart in the best, most dangerous ways. 

And Cannonball sold for a bit and started firing back again and again. He was a pretty solid standing tall babyface in the midst of a hardcore match here, grabbing anything not hammered down. There was one point where he jabbed part of one of those broken chairs into Ian's head and the announcer shouted out "That's the hardcore! That's core! That's core!" as only a German announcer in 1998 could. Shortly before that, during one of his comebacks, he launched himself through the ropes with a giant sized tope just because he could and because he knew he had someone big enough to more or less (more less than more but no one died) base for him. The finish was pretty gnarly as he got out of the way of a charge with the bat causing Ian to smash it into his own chest, and then, with some effort, he pancaked him onto it. Post match they made up and Ian was as carny as could be and everyone left happy. I'd say this was another good showing for Grizzly though. Though both of them were no holds barred, Ian could assert himself more and Grizzly had to work from underneath and then get revenge both for himself and for the crowd and he did a pretty rousing job of it through the blood and the carnage and the violence for the sake of violence.

ER: Did everyone else know that Ian Rotten worked Germany? Everyone else knew that Ian Rotten worked Ox Harley a couple times in one week, smack in the middle of Kentucky, and in between those matches he was main eventing a German indy? The video tape time stamp does not lie. Ian Rotten swings his barbed wire bat like Leatherface's chainsaw in some Hannover college gymnasium, and obviously he is wearing his Ribera Steakhouse satin jacket. He does a long respectful promo that builds to him talking about how ugly everyone in the town was. Ian Rotten has the shittiest body in the building and does biceps poses and Hogan ear cupping like a Will Sasso character. He stalls on the floor and waddles around in this really funny little duck walk whenever he gets on the mic to plead for them to go easy on him. 

It's all really satisfying, because Grizzly isn't a dumb babyface. He finally starts doing something to stop Ian's bullshit and you get a cool big fat babyface kicking and punching and headbutting Ian around ringside. Grizzly bleeds good blood when Ian hits him with the barbed wire bat and rubs it across his forehead, and his suicide dive is a really incredible bump for him. He ploughs through Ian and bounces hard on the floor. Ian platers him with a disgusting chairshot to the face and Grizz does a perfect little cartoon dance into a face flop, then gets up and whips Ian through a bunch of wood slat 1982 Boston Garden ass chairs, using the splintered fragments to Pogo Ian's head. Ian transition back to control by squeezing Grizzly's ball sac like a sponge, some of the most realistic looking rugby violent scrotal offense I've seen. I have no doubt in my mind that Ian has done that to someone in a shitty bar. After getting his balls twisted, Grizzly makes sure to just fall on Ian a few times. Honestly it's really great. This was a fast paced rugged fight with two sloppy bodies and sloppy bar blood over the eyes. Why was nobody brave enough to rate Cannonball Grizzly in 1998? 

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Robbie Brookside (Street Fight) IWW 1/17/99

MD: Between the commentary (youtube translate as usual) and his post match speech, plus, of course, the non-finish, I get the idea he might have been a last second replacement for someone. It makes sense, because they seemed to be learning the opportunities of the venue as they were going. Maybe my favorite thing in the whole match is Grizzly getting Brookside on the outside after reversing a series of neck-based submissions/chokes and lifting him up and slamming him back first into the ridge of a barstool. It's one of those things that no one plans in advance. You couldn't look at the stool and think "Hey, if I do a lifting bearhug and charge in, it'll look brutal." At least, I don't think you can. It's a moment of being so in the moment that you just heft a guy up and try to figure out how to make it seem like you're doing harm to him, the antithesis of any big tv streetfight now with a ton of set pieces and spots. Doing harm in the situation of the moment is kind of a lost art when it once was the entirety of pro wrestling.

Anyway, Grizzly looked good here overall. He used his size well in all the ways you'd want him to, as a weapon, as a cutoff tool, as an out of control opening creator for Brookside. He wasn't afraid to bump, but most of his bumps were not off of things Brookside did (and when they were, it was on the second or third dropkick not the first), but instead him careening out of control on a missed corner splash or elbow drop on the floor or somersault cannonball senton off the second rope. He slammed Brookside back into the corner to break a hold or absolutely flattened him with a rising pounce or Vader Attack when it was time to cut him off. Even his punches looked pretty good, and certainly him smashing Brookside into pieces of furniture on the outside. Brookside was a game opponent, charging in right from the get go, switching from one hold to the next desperately later, sweeping Grizzly's feet out on a billiards table to create a spectacular bump, running when it was time to run, but it was Grizzly who stood out here, just a guy very confident in his own size and power, the absolutely opposite of all of our memories of him.