AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/24 - 7/30

AEW Dynamite 7/26/23

Darby Allin vs Swerve Strickland

MD: I kind of miss AEW bringing out the numbers for rematches. This is the third singles match between these two in AEW though there have been Royal Rampages and tags as well, of course. It feels like the tenth singles match maybe, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They're well matched up. Darby can take all of Swerve's stuff naturally and has an almost preternatural way of getting himself in position or setting himself up to where things that shouldn't be possible or feasible seem at least not a wild stretch. Moreover, Darby's whole gimmick is resilience. He takes and takes and takes and takes and then has the two or three moves he can do to turn the tide and get a lightning-quick win out of nowhere. It allows for slightly more escalation than I'd put up with otherwise. They start with the overly fancy chain wrestling and go from there all the way to an avalanche death valley driver onto the apron, with precisely timed counters and cutoffs to keep the transitions interesting. 

Swerve really does bring a lot to the table, and I especially like the Swerve/Nana pairing compared to some of the other things they tried. I'm not sure of some of the timings on the distractions or specific things Nana said to Darby or Wayne, but the general vibe of the two of them dancing in sync or Swerve shuffling over the corner to seek reassurance after the Last Supper had them completely on the same page. In some ways, though, Swerve's entirely dependent on his opponent being able to fit into his act. When it's not quite grounded enough, you get something too floaty like the Wayne match. If someone can't keep up or feed into the spots, you get something like the Tanahashi match. Here though, everything hit and there was plenty of clever learned psychology and enough selling and resonance to keep it from going from clever to cutesy. I'm still hoping for a coffin match sooner than later between these two.

AEW Collision 7/29/23

Darby Allin vs Minoru Suzuki

MD: Not a lot to say about this one. Darby needed a win to heat him back up after a couple of losses and Suzuki is absolutely credible, especially as a surprise opponent. It never feels like a small thing to beat him. When you look at the annals of wrestling commentary over the decades, more workrate-heavy analyses are going to ignore Darby's initial reaction to Suzuki's music hitting, but the announcers certainly picked up on it and it underpinned the early, desperate onslaught. If the wrestler portrays investment, then it's easier for the crowd to be invested. It's the difference between people hitting a bunch of spots (clean or clever or otherwise) and a fully formed character acting in a compelling manner. You can run a throughline here: Darby wanted a fight. Darby realized what he got into. Darby ambushed at a key moment of the song and stayed on Suzuki. Darby realized that he could only chip away at him so much through conventional means but that he had to press the offense with strikes as there was an opening before him. Darby took Suzuki's stuff. Darby took the opening Suzuki gave him by going for his strike flurry instead of a chop and hit the Code Red. Darby realized that he could only put Suzuki away by throwing his body at him but in doing so, opened himself up to the sleeper. But he's Darby so he did it anyway and then found a way to sneak a win through desperate resilience. That's part of what makes Darby so great. It's all character driven based on the reality of the moment. Yes, he takes crazy bumps. Yes, he throws himself into everything. Yes, there's a real sense of danger with his stuff. But it's all grounded in something that resonates.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Taue vs. Nagata VS. Lesnar vs. Mysterio

Akira Taue vs. Yuji Nagata NOAH 6/6/03

ER: This is a match for the Taue fans. This is a Taue match. It's a match you can show any undesirable Taue-doubter as evidence of his deserved rep as a Pillar. I also understand that anyone who is reading this wouldn't bother wasting their fleeting life's time trying to convert a Taue-doubter at this point, but within this hypothetical, this match is a Taue Mind Changer. Taue is an aging, respected veteran who is put in the position of being the first real opposition to an invading serious threat. It's one of those great aggressive Taue performances, where a guy who made his career on his stoicism and unflappability shows real passion and lumbering intensity to shut this outsider asshole down. We Taue Heads love his lumbering intensity; his clumsy athleticism and absence of grace. The way he lurches and stumbles into offense and away from offense adds a realism that few possess. This match is a Taue clinic on selling offense and fatigue: the way his delivery changes and how he's able to show the affect his bursts of intensity have had on his gas tank, the way he stumbles and staggers and buckles his knees upon being struck or fighting to his feet. The best Taue selling makes him look like a giraffe who's been hit with a tranq dart, but also a giraffe who could still kick you in the face.  

Yuji Nagata was just coming off a dominant and active year-plus run as IWGP Heavyweight Champ, defending constantly and defeating everyone, before finally being stopped by Yoshihiro Takayama, who is sitting on commentary for this match. After losing his title, he took a week off, dusted himself off, then dragged his dick into Toyama and swung it into NOAH's business.  Nagata blew into town and bloodied up Masao Inoue, ran through all of Akiyama's exploders to beat him in less than 8 minutes, and now he's coming for Baba's doppelgänger. Taue is famously surly, but here his surliness comes out in his defense of Kings Road and he looks pissed at Nagata for making him do so. He is 42 years old and tiring, which I can relate to as someone who is 42 years old and tiring. He is going to unload his greatest hits at Nagata until he tires out, and Nagata is just going to have to weather it. He swings his hand at Nagata's head like a fired up 1980 Baba, throws the sole of his boot like he wears size 18s and they weigh 30 lb. each, slaps Nagata down in the corner, and throws every single nodowa otoshi like a man trying to spike a a football into the earth.  

 

Akira Taue was the reason I knew the words "nodowa otoshi" as a teenager, and he murders Nagata with a high backdrop chokeslam and then a real one armed classic, tries to give him one off the apron but settles for merely a boot to the face, and pulls back the ring mats to give him one on the floor of Budokan instead. 

The crowd is hugely into Taue and turns on Nagata hard when he starts kicking away at Taue's arm and snaps on a quick armbar after Taue had already reached the ropes. Taue gets his shoulder run into the ringpost, and Nagata keeps going back to that arm as a diversion the more tired Taue gets. I dug how he hit an Exploder that rolled Taue to his feet, and when Taue came up swinging Nagata just pumped his boot into Taue's bicep, and Taue decides to start going for broke with as many chokeslams as he can before the sand runs out. Taue flipping Nagata ass over crown off the top rope by his neck is an all time Taue match, in a match that had at least four other contenders for that. The fans were believing when they saw their man in red throw Nagata off that rope like a Street Fighter II killshot, visualizing it in slow motion with Nagata making groaning Arrgghhhh noises. 

If the first half of the match is about Taue the aggressor, the latter half him showing why he's one of my favorite salesman in wrestling history, and one of my favorite guys to watch take offense. Taue doesn't fall like normal men, and that makes me want to see him fall constantly. He's so good at progressively staggering to his feet in new ways, using his body's makeup and unique base to roll quickly to his feet, and is so talented at showing damage and fatigue that his legs keep reacting in new ways as he keeps having to get to his feet. There's a moment where you can tell the crowd knows that Taue is not going to be making another comeback, but they're also not sure that he's going to stop kicking out of anything Nagata throws him with. Taue has this feel of a guy who can't be pinned, and no amount of back suplexes or Exploders could keep him down. The Nagata Lock III was a thing that looked like it would dislocate both of Taue's shoulders, like the only thing that could have possibly stopped him that night. 

Lesnar vs. Mysterio Review

Verdict: 

This is probably the greatest singles match of Taue's last decade. Through the rest of the decade he remained great at having 1-2 major performances a year, but I'm not sure any of them hit this height. Is the Marufuji carry job as miraculous as I remember? Is the Rikio match as cool as I remember? What about that tag opposite Tenryu? This match is an argument for Taue still being a Top 10 guy in the world in 2003...

But he'd probably still have to be behind Brock and Rey on that same 2003 Top 10. Champ retains.  

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Found Footage Friday: Lucha Calm before the Lucha Storm: ECLIPSE~! FLASH~! ARQUEROS~! TEMERARIOS~! TERRY~! SKAYDE~! AND FRIENDS~!

Flash I vs. Eclipse 1990s Arena Coliseo Guadalajara

MD: We're sitting on Roy's recent uploads but I'd like to get a better sense of the big picture on them before we figure out how to tackle them. In the meantime, Rob found some things looking around and they're worth covering.

This, for instance, is a lost mask match and they really threw themselves into it given that it was just one fall. Flash had recently gone rudo, as best as I can tell, and he took it to Eclipse immediately, tearing the mask and ripping at his face. Eclipse came back fairly early into a solid beatdown with a quebradora and the rest of the match was pretty hot with finishes. The struggle on holds was particularly good since there was no room for error. They weren't giving one another much of anything. If Eclipse hesitated for a moment, Flash would fight his way away. Flash had an overall advantage due to a rudo ref (Mario), looking the other way for Flash's second to interfere and slow-counting.

Eclipse probably won on points. He was able to lock in more holds, to target Flash's leg a bit, and whenever Flash had an advantage, he found a way to come back. He had a spectacular springboard moonsault into the ring that was stymied by the worst slow count of the match. The finish was controversial as Flash caught Eclipse with an electric chair back off the top and an immediate double underhook submission but Eclipse claimed not to have tapped out. These were two guys who knew they had the spotlight and leaned hard into it.

Los Arqueros (Danny Boy/Lasser/Robin Hood) vs. Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu El Guerrero) Mexican National Trios Titles UWA 1/21/90

MD: Once upon a time, I tried to get the Shu el Guerrero vs Robin Hood mask match. I failed. But Rob found this and we're glad for it.It has no sound, has some clips, and is pretty grainy (and yeah, I'm not always the best at telling Danny Boy and Lasser apart), but it's a lot of fun.

Primera had very strong pairings, a lot of competitive matwork with clever escapes. I wouldn't say that was quite the same with Shu and Robin Hood. They were still competitive but there was more oomph and less flash to it all. The refs sure liked to raise their hands after every exchange, but in my head canon, Shu won the fall for his side by dropkicking Robin Hood into submission. The segunda sped things up which benefitted the tecnicos. Picture perfect placement in basing by Los Temerarios helped though. They went back to the mat with different pairings for a lengthy tercera. Lots of really tricked out high drama stuff before everything broke down for the tandem moves, dives, and and exciting sides evening finish that brought it back to Shu and Robin Hood. They hit big stuff and leaped from high places on one another before a clutch pin out of nowhere (a clutch clutch) to end it. Just a very complete, very straightforward title match worked more or less clean but with clear animosity. Still, it'd be nice to see that mask match.

PAS: So cool that lucha like this keeps showing up. This is a classic trios match from 33 years ago which gives us a long chance to look at some cool wrestlers who we don't have a ton of footage of. Shu feels like a guy who might have a Navarro/Panther reputation if we had more available. He is built like a mailbox and is great at basing and putting on cool submissions. Robin Hood is another member of the Alvarado family (Brazos) and they have awesome wrestlers on ever branch of that family tree. This feels like the first match of series and I really want to see the next match which probably got chippier, still amazing that we got a chance to watch this.

Skayde/Vortize/Aztlan/Kanon vs. Black Terry/Dragon Celestial/Emperador Azteca/Fulgor I IWRG 2/26/14

MD: We have so much lucha ahead of us in the weeks to come, but a match like this reminds me so crisply and so clearly why I love it so much. It's structured in such a serene way. The primera has the initial exchanges: matwork, gamesmanship, the individual characters clashing against one another, building to a big moment of action. It gave us a tease of the captains (Terry and Skayde) against each other but just that. It gave us a little bit of animosity but never boiled over.

Then the segunda went from measured exchanges to quicker (and different) pairings, rope running, flowing action, still with clear resets. We actually get one dive at the end, again a tease for the tercera, and an abrupt finish. Then in the tercera, there are meaningful punctuated moments that are broken up as wrestlers flow into the match one after the other, all building to finding some way to get to Skayde vs Black Terry. They have a pointed exchange but even that's just a tease as it leads to the final dives to clear the ring for a finish that pushes things off for matches to come. So this match could exist in a format that was standard but with specifics that met the moment and the wrestlers therein. It's not even my favorite form of lucha, which is much more focused on beatdowns and revenge after that beautiful, built to, reacted to moment of comeback. But it's still wonderful and still has so much of the anticipation and payoff and aristry.

As for specific pairings, I really liked Aztlan and Dragon Celestial in the primera and Skayde and Dragon in the segunda. I'd love to see more of that second match up. There was a nice bit of chippiness throughout, especially when Terry was in there, but for Emperador Azteca and Kanon too. I'm not sure I had a sense of the overall direction of the feud but, this type of lucha is so universal that you can jump in and enjoy yourself.

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: The Legend of Sandokan: At War With Anibal

MD: We are back. Graham had a big life event and I went on vacation and I can't promise that we're going to be stable and weekly moving forward but I can reassure people that we're in for the long haul. This stuff is worth it. In the midst of all the chaos of the last few weeks, Graham's prepared a bit of a bio on Sandokan, focused on his feud with Anibal especially. I'm constantly amazed by the research he's done and the knowledge he's pulled out. This is naïve and ignorant of me, of course, but it's just astounding how little our English-speaking circles knew about Panamanian Lucha. This is such a vibrant, rich world, full of exciting matches that we are lucky still somehow exist and stories of legendary, culturally relevant matches that we'll unfortunately never get. We're going to spend the next few weeks with Idolo (An iconic turn! A chain match! A mask match!), and I think it's only fitting that we give Sandokan some time first. The easy comparison so far has been a Carlos Colon type figure, unmasked (by the time we get footage of him), a statesman, somehow who can represent the sport, who can go, who can wrestle and brawl and carry the crowd with him. 

GB: While Roberto Duran might be the worldwide recognised star, in Panama, his legendary status would always be usurped by one man that he would (literally!) play seconds for, Sandokan.

Coming from humble beginnings, the little boy from El Chorrillo, a corregimiento in Panama City, sought to live out his dreams of emulating his idol El Santo by joining the local wrestling gym on Calle 14 de Barraza. A mere few weeks later, on May 21, 1966, he was presented with a list of names and a chance to debut. “Sandokan” he pointed to after being erroneously told the name represented a Hindu King that fought for his people. With $2.50 slipped into the palm of a promoter, he had a mask shipped to him from Mexico and he never looked back. So began the career of Panama’s biggest star.

Rene Guajardo battles El Idolo in front of 23000+ rabid fans.

Until the recent semi-remodeling of Estadio Revolución in 2009, no sporting event was able to hold close to the attendance lucha libre was putting on in the “golden era” of the early 1970s. So popular, in fact, that government regulations came swiftly in controlling just how many fans promoters could pack into the arenas. This means that while the record books have the highest attendance as Guajardo/Idolo (23,868), it’s not quite the apples to apples comparison many make it out to be in saying this gate proves Idolo as the bigger star than Sandokan. Attendance for wrestling would always be a sellout crowd but the number of fans getting through the gate would continue to dwindle over the years with official capacity of Gimnasio Nuevo Panama (GNP) dropping to 15,000 following the Guajardo/Idolo record-smasher in August 1973 and a further drop to 14,000 weeks later (again, after a raucous crowd enjoying a card with the likes of Idolo, Anibal, Ray Mendoza, Blue Demon and Huracán Ramírez). It all appeared that one last big gate was never to be seen again.

Thus, Sandokan/Anibal packing GNP to the literal rafters three years after all these restrictions is most impressive, considering fans were pushing through the gates and hanging on, peeping through the doorways of the stadium to get a glimpse of the fight. Estimates put the total attendance just shy of the 20,000 mark. If true, it would be the third highest gate in Panamanian history, behind only Idolo/Guajardo and a basketball match from 1970. While I’m quick to sing the praises of Don Medine, Samy de la Guardia is the single man responsible for two of those gates.

Many fans walked into the stadium that night with a smirk. Idolo bested Guajardo, now it was Sandokan’s turn to send another “Aztec” packing. Despite a seemingly relatively short build to the mask match, Sandokan was deftly familiar with Anibal’s gameplan by now, having teamed in 1975 against a who’s who of Panamanian and Mexican stars.

However, Sandokan, having dominated the match, found himself facing a shocking defeat. Harnessing a surge of momentum,and probable hubris, in the final caida, he hurled himself towards his opponent in a suicide dive. However, Anibal, with his agile reflexes, evaded the attack, leaving Sandokan to collide harshly with his shoulder on the unforgiving edge of the ring. This brutal impact barred Sandokan from re-entering the ring within the vital 20-second window.

The gymnasium descended into an eerie silence, a wave of disbelief sweeping over the crowd as they witnessed their champion's unexpected downfall. The glory of the night was begrudgingly conceded to Anibal, hailed as one of the greatest wrestlers in the annals of Mexican wrestling. On that fateful night, the crowd watched as Sandokan, their fallen hero, solemnly removed his mask for the first and only time in his illustrious career, surrendering it to Anibal - The Blue Arrow.

As the fans left the building dejected at the loss of their hero, many wrestlers rushed to Sandokan backstage to belittle him for his choice. Many of his closest colleagues would go on to say his career was over. The money may have been good but this defeat would prove the “sunset of his stardom” as Samy recalled overhearing in the locker room.

Yet, one voice would prove prophetic. Bienvenido Cueto, the main referee to the mask match, was the lone man saying Sandokan was on his way to superstardom. He was right. His injury made him a national hero. A hero that valiantly fought for Panamanian pride and succumbed not due to lack of skill but due to something outside his control.

Hot off the loss, Anibal/Sandokan would be the tinder that started the blaze that became the Torneo Internacional de Parejas. Teaming with El Idolo, the tournament cemented itself on the histories of Panama vs Mexico, with Anibal having unmasked Sandokan and Septiembre Negro shaving El Idolo bald  (not that you’d know as he never dropped his mask!). With huge match-ups against Wagner/Negro, Ultraman/Anibal and Lagarde/Guajardo (the latter Sandokan had real-life beef with), the tournament was a huge success for Empresa Coliseo and further cemented Idolo and Sandokan as sporting a-listers.

In singles competition, red would face blue a further three times in June 1977, 1981 (for Sandokan’s world title) and finally in January 1993 when Anibal made his last trip to Panama during the twilight years of his own career. Struck by cancer, and riddled by financial woes, Anibal took one last pay-off to settle the books with Sandokan in a match billed “the final battle”.

Word of Anibal’s mask loss to Máscara Año 2000 13 months prior already had fans uneasy with the stipulation. For many, it was seen as lip service and a quick check for those involved, especially Anibal who had “prostituted” himself (to quote one fan). However, no anger prior would match those of the fans once the final whistle blew. Sandokan’s arm was raised in victory but fans were livid. He won via countout, the same way he had lost 17 years earlier. With kayfabe still very much en vogue, fans smelt a rat. To make matters worse, there appeared to be a miscommunication between Anibal and the referee, leading to the referee having to jump a few seconds to call the countout.

Blood pouring from his face, Sandokan had to be quickly escorted from the arena as a riot unfolded. Fans trashed the stadium before moving onto nearby government buildings. Nothing was safe from their wrath as the national guard had to be called to quell the mob. While harsh in tone, the Sandokan/Anibal feud would forever be mired by chants of “fraude” whenever you ask them about it.  

Nearing fifty, Sandokan’s career was far from its nascent but he still continued to fanfare until his retirement, holding a few more world titles and taking the hairs of Tahur, Gálvez and (apparently) Mexico’s heartthrob Vampiro.

There’s a pretty comprehensive list of his apuesta record on his Luchawiki page, however, there are some notable errors and exclusions. Error: Sandokan took Septiembre Negro’s mask in 1989 not 1985. In terms of exclusions, most importantly, Sandokan took the masks of Guatemalan legend Rayo Chapin, Fishman (dates unknown) and Villano III (circa 1975/1976).

 

At a spry 77, Sandokan still shows great passion for lucha libre in Panama and has spent the past few years trying to grow its fandom once more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/17 - 7/23

AEW Collision 7/22/23

CM Punk/Darby Allin vs Ricky Starks/Christian

MD: This was very down to earth and very conventional, albeit with some unique partners and a certainly unique crowd. I came in to the first Collision thinking they needed to run some big angle from the start, and maybe, if they wanted to keep every single eye that fell upon the show, they did, but that's not what they went with and it's obviously not what they're doing. They're looking a slow, steady, consistent pro wrestling television and that means long, disciplined, measured TV matches of high quality like this. You can draw a throughline from the booking overall to the layout of this match. 

For one, all four wrestlers were completely engaged, completely committed, selling every emotional beat 100%. That might be the early bits with neither Starks nor Christian wanting to get it. It might be Starks on the apron watching Christian go for the diving headbutt and deciding to do the "look out to the crowd" visor pose of Christian's. It might be Punk making mental mistakes by chasing Starks after he committed slight transgressions at various points, or even Christian looking at Starks across the ring to get him to commit one of those transgressions. That meant for clever and elaborate transitions. It allowed for a strong double heat after a long and entertaining shine. Starks wrestled big. Darby made everything look better and more impactful. Christian's every movement was absolutely precise. Punk was a star, drawing heat and adulation and getting the fans all the more behind Darby.

This was comfort food at a high level. I try to watch things with an open mind, but if you've seen enough tag matches, especially ones that play within the line to try to make the most of the modality's conventions and norms, certain timings just feel right. They nailed it at almost every point here. Exactly when I felt some sort of inner need for Punk to loop in a hope spot, he did. Darby's offense is set up for big comebacks but that also makes him a great hot tag. He got in a few of his bombs and then immediately transitioned things back to heat by bouncing off of Luchasaurus. 

Everything was built up. Everything was paid off. Everything mattered. It was the complete opposite of the sort of matches we often get on Dynamite where babyfaces will break the rules of the match in the name of spots (where the spots are the ends and not the means) or where things break down a third the way through the match and then never come back. This was far more grounded, takes a different sort of patience and investment, but has a greater payoff. So long as you have crowds reacting to Punk and Punk reacting to crowds (and to a degree the emotional beats that FTR are good at setting up and laying down), there's a real chance that fans can be conditioned to expect something more than pure candy, imaginative visuals and set pieces, and emotional payoffs that are welcomed but not really earned from tag matches once again.

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Found Footage Friday: WOLFIE~! JAMIE~! WOLFIE~! JAMIE~! WOLFIE~! JAMIE~!

Wolfie D vs. Jamie Dundee 8/14/92

MD: Here we have a pretty green Wolfie and a Dundee who had gotten his start a couple of years earlier. They're two very young wrestlers given a ton of rope. I look at this relative to, let's say the Waltman vs. Lynn matches that were happening during a similar time, and I see two young guys that were trying to express their vision of wrestling and use all that rope that they were given.

The vision is different though. Waltman and Lynn were watching tapes. Wolfie and Dundee were channeling what they grew up with. They were pushing it to a certain limit. Wolfie was bumping big. They went up to the top. They had some fast exchanges. But he was also hiding the chain and stooging into the post. Dundee was selling big and had honed a pretty good punch that he channeled with proper babyface fire. It was rough around the edges, but the general shape of it was sound and the direction it was headed had a lot of substance and value to it. As time went on (even as this series of matches went on), they'd start to layer in their own particular interests and affectations, but at this early point, they were mimicking what they knew and were only starting to make it their own. It was a worthwhile effort overall, however.

ER: Look at these sweet baby boys! Jamie Dundee looks like early Billy Kidman, if Kidman had a rattail instead of a 12 year old boy's haircut. Rookie year Wolfie D scrambles and stumbles to the floor selling a punch like prime doofus Buddy Rose, looks incredible getting run face first into every top turnbuckle (with no kind of padding on any of them) and getting his lights put out by a Dundee right. His backdrop is the height of an instant Memphis legend. When Dundee throws a stomp, he throws it straight down across Wolfie's mouth and of course Wolfie D takes an fantastic ring posting, and goes over the top to the floor with even more gusto. Dundee has a baseball slide dropkick that lands and his punches get better the longer the match goes. Several young men smoke cigarettes all around ringside. This is really great. Rough around the edges, like Matt said, but with that same energy as teenage Briscoes matches, where they feel like kids copying moves they'd seen, but knowing exactly what and why they should be copying those things. 

Wolfie D vs. Jamie Dundee (Chain Match) 8/21/92

MD: They came back with a chain match and the pre-match promo from Wolfie made you think that this was supposed to be the blow off. It's a chain match with no blood, with few chain-assisted punches, with some mishaps of the chain coming undone from Wolfie's wrist, but they still kept it full of animosity and this worked for me overall.

There are different ways to be a heel, of course, but maybe nothing works quite so well as presenting a dissonance in the minds of the fans. Wolfie talked trash coming out. He had won the previous match (albeit with help). He had a clear size advantage over Dundee. Yet the second he hit the ring, he tried to avoid putting the chain on, and while Dundee used the chain in big sweeping motions, utilizing it to move Wolfie around the ring, to pull him out of it, to cut the distance between the two of them so he couldn't get away and so that Dundee could lay in punches, and increasingly as the match went on, as a direct instead of indirect weapon, Wolfie barely seemed to want to use it at all. He took over with eye pokes. When he was able to sneak his way to being on top, he was fine with the chain falling off and laying in boots instead, even when there was a weapon right there waiting for him. When he did use it, it was to choke, something close up and easy and familiar. Dundee was open to all of the violent possibilities of those rings of metal and Wolfie, craven heel that he was, was terrified of them despite all of his tough talk.

Given their relative youth, I have no idea if that was a conscious decision or just an unconscious one but it ran through the match, a match where Dundee took far more of it, but where you still always had the sense that Wolfie's size and lack of regard could turn the tide at any moment. As I said above, there was a lot to like about this, but what it needed, what I would have loved, would have been for Wolfie to really take over and open Dundee up before they went to the same clever "throat shot counter on Wolfie as he came flying off the top" finish. If this had even a couple of minutes of bloody heat in the midst of everything else they were doing, that would have taken it over the top. Maybe the venue didn't allow for it though. But if that's the case, maybe don't do a chain match? It's great that they leaned into so many of the spatial possibilities inherent with the gimmick, but when you leave the most important element on the table, it's hard not to look past.

Wolfie D vs. Jamie Dundee 9/10/92

MD: This went about six minutes and felt like it was transitioning to other things. They slapped hands after the start (Wolfie had gotten his heat back after the chain match with an attack) but Wolfie almost immediately went for the eyepoke and tossed Jamie out. Jamie skinned the cat and that led into the shine. This is a pretty small sample size. It's worth noting that there's nothing for either guy on cagematch for this year at all. It did seem like Wolfie was more developed into who he'd be in 1993 here than at the start of the series. He had a bit more swagger, a bit more flow. In the first match, he reminded me of a heel Jeff Gaylord or something. By the end of it, you saw a little more of who he'd become.

I still liked the dissonant heeling. The venue had rafters very close to the top rope, allowing for steadying or even getting just a little more height. A lot of the transitions and big spots were set around the top rope, either with people getting crotched or actually hitting things. Wolfie finally hit a top rope clothesline and that's when he decided to use his second for a ref distraction and get a pair of knuckle dusters, when he was in complete control. That's the sort of cowardly heeling driven by a lack of faith in one's self by the character that you have to appreciate on some level, that is, if you find it believable in the first place. Dundee had the crowd here and a lot of that was a preternatural sense of timing and his selling, though some of it was his last name too. The finish had a masked man come in to try to stop the cheating, but ultimately getting Dundee disqualified. By this point, it's pretty safe to say that these two were on their way.

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. SAXON

36. Saxon Huxley vs. WALTER NXT UK 9/24

ER: I've slowed down on the project, but it still amazes me how far I've made it into my NXT UK Guide. Before starting this pointless endeavor, I never would have thought of writing a sentence like "This was the best Saxon Huxley match I've ever seen", but this was the best Saxon Huxley match we've seen (so far?). Huxley, Jinny, and Tyson T-Bone are the three NXT UK workers who I think could have really good matches but are rarely put in a position to have really good matches. They're the best, most underutilized wrestlers in the fed, and this felt like the first time in ages that any of them had been used for something cool. They've made mistakes in the past comparing Huxley to Bruiser Brody, but his whole thing works a lot better if you just think of him as the drummer from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Here he's a madman who starts stiffing WALTER before WALTER even has a chance to start in, actually makes it work for far longer than you'd think, before WALTER takes over and punishes him far longer and with way more pettiness than you'd normally see in a show opening Non-Title Match.

 

I didn't know the match would evolve into what it did, but I really started paying attention when Huxley started throwing elbowdrops that were essentially him jumping onto WALTER as hard as he could, like Dennis Rodman's elbows to The Giant, where Rodman was just jumping onto top of him full weight. He was really good at flustering WALTER, sticking and moving with his running kicks, eating a shot if it meant he could land a couple, and when they fought to the floor I thought it was cool that he opted to break the count when it was possible he could have won by count out. He would live to regret that decision, as it pretty much leads directly to his murder. He misses one of those running kicks over the barricade, and it's all over for him. WALTER goes into kill mode and it's the best, slamming Huxley as hard as possible on the floor and kicking him wickedly across the back, which was already welting as he's tossed back first lengthwise across the barricade and then powerbombed off the hardest edge of the apron. WALTER just lined him up with the full edge of the apron and powerbomb him off the peak. 

The match is over for Huxley after that apron powerbomb, but I loved how the match itself wasn't actually over. Huxley made it back in on the 8 count, and we got to see that WALTER was totally fine winning the match in the way that Huxley had foolishly guilted into not wanting, perfectly content to take the count out that Huxley that beneath him. The rest of this match is WALTER having a loud empty arena fireworks match, teeing off on a too weak opponent and making loud echoing sound with every string. Huge chops thrown as hard as possible, Huxley trying to respond by cupping WALTER's ears on slaps, but no match for a big man hitting him as hard as possible. WALTER's top rope butterfly suplex sends Huxley past the middle of the ring, and before taking the win WALTER is doing mean shit like just slapping Huxley on the back as hard as he can and falling on him. It's great. This was WALTER's return to TV after tapings resumed during the pandemic, and he played this like a true Diva taking advantage of some perfect bathroom acoustics. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/3 - 7/16

AEW Collision 7/8/23

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe

MD: Summer vacation with the family has me behind here, so I'm going to hold off on Darby and Dustin matches, but let's try to quickly move through this one before moving on. I haven't rewatched the Punk/Joe series for years. They left more in the tank on this one. This was less Punk/Joe IV than a Punk/Joe oddity that'd slip through the cracks as a handheld a decade after the fact. When you think about the setting, you can't fault them: this was the semi-finals of an Owen Hart tournament, as something to help define a new TV show, one of the initial feuds to set the tone. Punk had gone out earlier in the show telling the fans to chant for Owen and in a key moment down the stretch, that's exactly what they did.

So what did we get if not the epic next chapter of a legendary feud? A very good TV tournament match with a tight, tight layout. There weren't any inversions (save for maybe the finish). This one was laser focused to fit the needs of the moment and because I'm sure now, a week plus later, everyone's written about the feel and the legacy and everything else, I want to briefly touch upon that layout.

They started with Punk ducking and moving, trying to get shots in when he could. He couldn't get too far with that strategy alone. Punk's character may be that of a striker, but Joe's a tank who just needs to get his hands on you to compact you like an accordion. Punk had a logical need to escalate and once he softened Joe up a bit he went for it. A bit doesn't cut it with Joe who walked away and then took over. From here, it was Joe asserting himself through the commercial break and Punk with escalating babyface comebacks. The crowd was split but that seemed more because they liked Joe than because they hated Punk, and this worked. A few strikes and a cutoff, a dodge on the floor leading to the clothesline off the apron and then a cutoff (that we miss) as Joe makes it into the ring first. All of it builds to Joe's first attempt at the Clutch and Punk hitting his biggest move of the match with a belly to back to shift things into an extended finishing stretch. The match opened up from there, with Punk repeatedly going for the GTS, setting up an expectation after three tries that he'd either hit it despite the weight difference or fall to the Clutch for his desperate stubbornness. Instead, he baited Joe in on the third attempt and rolled him forward for a banana peel win. Post-match, Joe got his heat back and reminded people that there's still an actual classic ahead of them. This, however, had to do its work while not overshadowing the tournament or the closing image of Ricky Starks to set up the final to come.

AEW Collision 7/15/23

CM Punk vs Ricky Starks

MD: I first caught this on the Sunday after and I had seen some negative or at least middling opinions on it first. That had lowered my expectations just a little coming in and with that in mind, this overachieved for me. This Punk run differs from the 2021-2022 one in how he's living in the moment. In this, I thought Starks was an almost perfect opponent. Something like Ospreay vs Omega is so carefully directed. Every shot, every angle, every spot, every move, every reaction feels drafted and redrafted and molded in plaster and colored in blood and sweat. This lived in the moment. It wasn't the spots you were watching for but the reactions on Punk and Starks' faces and how that shaped what they did or didn't do next.

When Punk did A, how did that impact Starks emotionally? When Starks did B, did Punk smile or frown or grimace? With Punk in 2023, it's impossible to predict exactly what the crowd will do at any moment so he's constantly adapting to the situation at hand. Some of that was in the struggle, like Punk's reaction to both of Starks' attempts at the rope walk. Some of it was in very muddy emotional beats. It was left to the viewer to decide whether Punk refused the favor of the ropes being held open because he was frustrated Starks got one up on him or because Starks had chosen to pose before doing it or as some broader mind game. It's left up to the viewer to wonder if that slight drove Starks' brutal forearms later or him crossing the line on the finish.

So much of this was based on the two wrestlers feeling each other out and just trying to figure out what their reality happened to be. Where did they fall on a spectrum? Who are they? Who do they want to be? What do they want this match to stand for, especially in the face of a torn crowd and the specter of the Hart family over them? And they came up with very different answers in the end. Despite part of the crowd being against him, despite all of his the insecurities that drive the man behind the wrestler, Punk the character is fully secure in who he is. He wanted to pay tribute to the Hart family that meant so much to him as a fan and a professional, to wrestle smart and provocative but clean. At times, after hitting a move or escaping one from Starks, you could see absolute elation come over his face. It was clear who he was, except for in those few moments where it wasn't clear at all. And Ricky? Well, we don't know, do we? 

That's the intrigue coming out of this match, and I think, how this match will ultimately be judged. That's the problem with star ratings. You wouldn't judge a chapter in a book, especially not before reading the rest. We have no idea where this is headed. Is it just the end of a tournament or is it the start of a story? Or a crossroads where two ships pass in the midst of very different journeys?

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2023 Ongoing MOTY List: MLW War Chamber!

 

AKIRA/Rickey Shane Page/Dr. Cornwallis/Delirious vs. Matthew Justice/Manders/Mance Warner/Alexander Hammerstone MLW 4/6/23 (Aired 4/18/23)

ER: MLW's Reelz run was short and fairly inconsequential in the pantheon of 20 episode wrestling television runs of our lifetime, but I will always love when pro wrestling is on television, especially when it's on a channel that runs no other pro wrestling programming of any kind. Somebody somewhere fell asleep during their daily COPS marathon and maybe they woke up during a cool Lio Rush match, saw Alex Kane suplex somebody on their head, or saw a match like this featuring several tough guys getting the edges of chairs thrown at their heads and faces while bleeding out, then falling asleep again and waking up during a daily marathon of JAIL. The War Chamber is basically just an open cage War Games with one ring, and it's an overall satisfying 30 minutes of fighting because it never forgets that the fighting and punching and bleeding is the most important part of a match like this. The worst of the indulgent NXT WarGames are a nightmare of time spent lying around or reacting to Big Moments. War Chamber has flaws and had some drag, but it knows exactly what it is and delivers more of a classic War Games feel than WWE has been giving us. 

If you thought wrote out a list of the 10 modern guys you think would be great in a classic WarGames, three of them are in this match: AKIRA, Matt Justice, and Rickey Shane Page. AKIRA spends the entire match kicking people hard in the face and chest, and then getting hit with chairs. Justice is a great guy to enter a WarGames early, and he's the one who brings in and starts throwing chairs, takes a great cage beating, and uses his body as a weapon (like letting Manders powerslam into RSP and AKIRA). Page is the guy they had start this thing, the first guy bleeding, the guy taking the disgusting suplex through chairs on a table, and the guy who had to have taken the most head trauma, while also being the guy stabbing people in the mouth and head with a fork. 

Beyond blood and punching, you know it's a good WarGames when a the most muscled up guy in the match gets a legit leg injury, and there's a big fat freak in a mask and bloody apron. I have no clue who Dr. Cornwallis is, but he looks more like Leatherface than Corporal Kirchner did, is fatter, and would have been incredible in W*ing. Kirchner could have kept Leatherface and just teamed with this guy's Buddy Bacon from Slaughterhouse. He moves well for a fat guy, and he fits well in the middle of all the chair throwing. Goons in cloaks and gas masks introducing a table into the ring feels like something you'd see in NWA Anarchy, a fed who knew how to do the best WarGames, and the big bumps and splashes that happened back to back to back at the finish was a great sudden escalation. Blood, fat guys, more thrown chairs than a Necro Butcher comp tape. Also, the team with the obese butcher is another Raven vague and undefined religious cult thing, so Raven stands at the top of the ramp the entire time looking like an old bloated Malcolm McDowell and their intro video heavily features that one photo of the Heaven's Gate cult leader, and I love that Raven's cult references are just so firmly rooted in 1997. 

This was MLW's crowning achievement on Reelz, the best thing they put on television over 20 episodes, and it looked like a promotion that belonged on television. 

 

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2023 MOTY MASTER LIST

1. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Will Ospreay NJPW 10/14/23

2. Bryan Danielson vs. Rush AEW Dynamite 2/8/23

3. Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley vs. Top Flight AEW Rampage 1/6/23

4. LA Park/Sayrus vs. Pimpinela Escarlata/Kaoma Jr. 3Bat Productions 9/9/23

5. Kenichiro Arai vs. GENTARO Mutoha Pro 2/5/23

6. Stu Grayson/Evil Uno/Hangman Page vs. Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta AEW Dynamite 3/15/23

7. Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage AEW Rampage 8/11

8. Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Toa Liona/Bishop Kaun AEW Dynamite 5/31/23

9. Darby Allin vs. Mike Bennett AEW Rampage 1/6/23

10. Akira/Rickey Shane Page/Dr. Cornwallis/Delirious vs. Matthew Justice/Manders/Mance Warner/Alexander Hammerstone MLW 4/6 (Aired 4/18/23)

11. Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs. Keith Lee/Swerve Strickland AEW Dynamite 7/5/23

12. Trent Beretta/Chuck Taylor vs. Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley AEW Rampage 8/4/23

13. Dustin Rhodes vs. Swerve Strickland AEW 2/15 (Aired 2/17/23)

14. Eddie Kingston vs. Tomohiro Ishii NJPW 7/26/23

15. Will Ospreay vs. Tatsuya Naito NJPW 8/12/23

16. Lee Moriarty vs. Orange Cassidy AEW Rampage 2/8 (Aired 2/10/23)

17. Kenny Omega/The Young Bucks vs. AR Fox/Dante & Darius Martin AEW Rampage 2/15 (Aired 2/17/23)

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Found Footage Friday: AJPW HANDHELDS~! TIGER MASK II~! FURNAS~! SNUKA~! TAKANO~! TENTA~! SPIVEY~! ACE~! RICH~! SLATER~!

Tiger Mask II vs. Doug Furnas AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This was a sprint that went just a little over five minutes, but if I was Baba, I would have come out of this wondering if I hadn't found the Dynamite Kid for my Tiger Mask. They'd teamed against each other during the tour (with Furnas teaming with Kroffat and an Oates trainee "Greg/Craig Brown"), but this was their first singles match. I'm not saying that the same sort of chemistry was there because Misawa just didn't exactly have a ton with anyone while under the mask, and Furnas was more dropkicks and backflips than anything else, but he had that explosiveness when he landed on his feet that made me wonder if there might not have been some money in the pairing as they were at this point. In Furnas, Misawa had someone to bounce off of who could also keep up with him. After this (and partially due to Misawa's injury in 89) they wouldn't face off again until 90. By that point, fate had them moving in very different directions.

John Tenta/Shunji Takano vs. Tiger Mask II/Jimmy Snuka AJPW 12/16/88

MD: They told a little story here by having Tenta take out both TM and Snuka with dropkicks only to errantly hit Takano at the end, which led to a neat moment of Tenta catching Snuka off the top (no small feat!) and Misawa following it up with a missile dropkick to knock him over for the win. Takano looked sharp in there. I think he'd have a better sense on how to use his size against varying opponents a year later, but he was big and lanky and agile with a nice dropkick and superkick. He took the Snuka leapfrog/chop shot with a skidding bump across the ring too. Tenta was further along sooner than I remembered too, having a couple of surprising agility spots but generally just asserting himself like you'd want him to and he had the elbow drop already. The best bit by Misawa here was a stubborn assault on Takano, knocking him out of the ring with a baseball slide, doing another, and then not quite hitting a tope but just charging at him between the ropes headfirst never leaving the ring. Snuka didn't do much, but then he never does at this stage of his career, just his signature spot, grinding things down with a hold, and then whatever's necessary for the finish. He did get a run of throat shots on Tenta followed up by a bodyslam but it didn't have the build you'd want for such a momentous spot. This was more of a novelty than anything else, but it was a fun one.

ER: I liked everyone here and even though it was overall inconsequential, everyone had cool moments, and there was one incredible spot that I don't think I have ever seen before. Tiger Mask is my least favorite Misawa era, but it's cool seeing him as more of a big bump guy than a shutdown strike guy, and the way he leans into a takes Tenta and Takano's great dropkicks here is just a perfect take of a dropkick. I like how he sticks and moves, and the way he finally goes after Takano gave us the match's incredible moment: he hits a baseball slide to roll Takano to the floor, a harder baseball slide to knock him into the guardrail, and when Takano makes it back to the apron Misawa just hits him with a Pete Rose slide. I don't think I've ever seen someone do a baseball slide headbutt before. It wasn't a tope, it was clearly intentional, just diving into a head first into Takano's face. Snuka took two big bumps to the floor, including a really fast one over the top, and he absorbed several nasty swinging strikes from Tenta. Takano feels like a man out of place in All Japan, but in a cool way. He's a New Japan style worker crowbarred into All Japan and he feels like if Nobuhiko Takada if he got into pro style instead of shoot style. I don't know. I liked all of these guys in this. I'm glad some guy recorded it and immortalized the baseball slide headbutt. 

Dan Spivey/Johnny Ace vs. Tommy Rich/Dick Slater AJPW 12/16/88

MD: RWTL action. That's where you got some of the most hierarchy bending and most interesting match-ups, many of which only survive today due to handhelds. I'm getting flagged that Spivey and Ace came out to a song from Bubblegum Crisis which amuses me for some reason. I don't think it was anything associated with either of them in general. Ace was like a leaner, more fiery version of Spivey here, just a force of mullets between them. This morphs into a southern tag where they work over Ace's arm pretty well and cut off the ring through hope spots but it resets once Spivey gets in there. I'm not used to Spivey working as so pure a babyface in Japan so it's a bit off-putting. Spivey grinding down on de facto heel Rich's arm isn't as interesting and would have worked better as a shine instead of a mid-match reset. At least 88 Rich isn't afraid to headbutt Ace right in the face. Once Rich starts stretching for Slater, Dick wakes up from his tuned out slumber and decides that they'll be babyfaces too for a while, so I guess that was funny. That only lasts long enough for them to start punching Ace in the face again, but then who can blame them. It has a pretty solid finishing stretch though. Rich and Slater could still turn it on when they had to. Unfortunately a lot of the rest of the match was all over the place given how much time they had to kill. 

ER: This tag and the Tenta tag was on the same card as the legendary Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Kawada RWTL final, a match that is literally the greatest match of 1988. This was a throwaway RWTL match on the same card as the RWTL Finals, and that probably didn't help this match feel like much more than filler. The one story the match had going for it (other than Match With Four White Guys) was this was Tommy and Dick's last chance to win one Tag League match. Crusher Blackwell & Phil Hickerson also finished with 0 points in 1988, which is pretty fucking stupid, and no other year of the Tag League ended with two 0 point teams. So Dick & Tommy knew that a win would keep them out of the basement, which makes them the underdog babyfaces, but Spivey & Ace are the more popular team so that's how we kind of wound up with a time killing tag with constantly shifting roles. But I also happen to find time killing Kings Road matches to be calming comfort food. Not every one of these things needs to build to something. I wish we got to see Tommy Rich kill more time in Japan. Tommy Rich takes a backdrop bump and hits two different great middle buckle fistdrops: one late in the match after he and Dick did a tandem clothesline to Johnny Ace's neck that caused Ace to drop straight to his knees, and actually hot tagging into the match with one on Spivey. Rich gets one excellent nearfall down the home stretch, taking abuse from Spivey and nearly getting to 2 points with a tight backslide, and it was the loudest the crowd got all match. 

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Found Footage Friday: SANTO~! KATO KUNG LEE~! VORDELL~! WAYNE~! THE MOST HUBRIS-LADEN MATCH OF 2002~!

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Kato Kung Lee 11/28/86

MD: This was from Santo's patreon and you can get it there. We've been spending so much time lately with our Panamanian friend Kato Kung Lee as a tecnico in Panama that it was a bit strange to see him as a rudo here but rudo he was. He was touted for his martial arts skill of course but it was telling early that he was only able to get an advantage by powering Santito into the corner. It was only after he took over that way that he leaned into the mean looking shots. If Santo's the best ever at anything, it's his rolling, convulsing selling or his selling on the outside with his head on the apron slumped over and his absolute explosiveness in key moments including comebacks. Both were on display here. KKL took the primera with this great kneeling cradle bodyslam that was almost like a falcon arrow in its own way, followed up by a full body stretch. We don't see how Santo comes back in the segunda due to a brief bit of clipping but do see his great dropkicks and even KKL cutting him off so that it becomes a banana peel roll up.

The tercera is where the blood comes in, with Kato Kung Lee taking back over after the seconds got involved during a cavernaria by Santo. We miss a little bit of that final beatdown but we get to see the come back, the dive, the senton off the top and the finish, with the crowd up for all of this. The best thing I can say about this is that it holds up against other Santo mask matches, with the blood coming a bit later than expected but maybe all the more dramatic for it. The best thing a Santo opponent can do in a match like this is make him seem like he's really at risk, and I think KKL managed that here due to his size and perceived skill.

Damon Scythe vs. Robby Lance ECCW 6/29/02

MD: The sheer hubris of these two, huh? I mean, you want to judge a match accurately, like you would any other match. Consistency is important in this sort of thing. I want to point out that they never, ever had the crowd. A little, just a little for some of Lance's comebacks. But he kind of blew that with some cocky covers and a few too many underhooks and overhooks and cradles and straightjackets and whatever, when he probably should have been portraying more desperation when he had an opportunity while behind. There was some sense of escalation as the match went on and bombs mattered more (until they didn't down the stretch) but they also started the match off with a German and a Tiger Suplex and there wasn't really a sense on why some submissions were more effective than others. I know they had matches leading up to this, but I have no idea if it was in front of the same or a similar crowd, but this crowd in particular wasn't at all ready for what they were offering them. They weren't conditioned. They weren't understanding. Plus it was 2002, probably the single worst moment in indy wrestling history for hecklers wanting to put themselves over with references or demands. They led things off by being called Marky Mark and ended it with fake countdowns to when the match should end.

So I had to get all of that out there. At some point around the 25 minute mark, the shopping plaza should have been struck down by lightning for what they were trying to accomplish, but it was still fun to see twenty years later. Everything was hard hitting. Everything was tricked out. Everything was overly elaborate in the best pro wrestling bullshit manner. Because they agreed to the same level of twisted reality and because they were selling and countering and putting effort into all of it, you just toss your hands in the air and sort of buy all of the excess. I mean, the crowd didn't, but I am older and wiser and not trying to get myself over (even while posting on a pro wrestling blog in 2023). Lance's second fall was off of some submission so wonky that he lost it and just jammed in a nasty hammerlock, which, on the one hand, good instincts, right? But on the other? That was an exception though. Most things worked surprisingly well, if you just tried to shut out the noise and the images. If they were in the back of a shopping plaza with chains instead of ropes in Japan, this might be an all time classic? Probably not though. There's some alternate universe where these two start Catch Point ten years early. In this universe this match and these two wrestlers end up forgotten until now.

Vordell Walker vs. Damien Wayne SAW 6/14/13

MD: This was in a cage, for Wayne's NWA National title, and DVDVR darling Walker's last shot at the title. The cage was used pretty effectively here as a way to justify blood, as a way to steady top rope moves, and just to make everything seem bigger. Wayne had a way of selling everything like he was in a giant arena and watching that through the grates of the cage probably helped it relative to the overall setting. The fact that Walker's shots (chops, headbutts, missile dropkick, you name it) all looked massive didn't hurt.

Some weird structural decisions midway through unfortunately, with Wayne getting passed an object when he was more or less in control (having just hit a top rope elbow drop). You'd want that to happen after Walker hit something big maybe? The object was gone after that and it didn't have a huge impact overall in the match. They were going back and forth for most of this, which was fine, but that probably should have been done at a different point and maybe to open up a more prolonged bit of heat. Maybe my favorite use of the cage was Wayne using it to steady himself when Walker was in the tree of woe; they set up maybe the only good sitting up out of the corner spot I've ever seen with Wayne, steadied, stomping Walker's gut to make him sit up so he could hit a legdrop. When he tried it the second time, he ate a hanging suplex, which more or less set up the finishing stretch. These two just paired up extremely well with one another and while the finish could maybe use just a little more oomph and I had that one narrative quibble, it was a solid cage match all around.

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Espectáculos Promociones Panama: Gemelos Infernales! Flamarion! Gran Darazín!

Gemelos Infernales vs Gran Darazín/Flamarion 1988

MD: Let's call this a palette cleanser. There's a chain match ahead of us. Plus, Los Gemelos Infernales show up all the time, a real staple in this footage, and I was hoping to learn something about them from Graham. So far my understanding has been that Gemelo I is a character and a stooge and Gemelo II is more of the smoother workrate guy. I have no idea what to make of Gemelo III. This was in three falls even though it was much shorter than many of the matches we've been seeing lately. My favorite part was the absolute mauling we got in the primera. It was only around three and a half minutes but it was non-stop and creative with the Gemelos ambushing the tecnicos from the start and just leaning on them with flip bombs, axehandles off the top (both standard and while a partner had someone up in a torture rack position), and basically just hitting them with every strike imaginable, finishing it with submissions, including the very rare foot assisted nelson stretch.

The segunda had comebacks and cutoffs. as they made the tecnicos work for it. Both guys had a nice over the shoulder throw. and Darazin flew in well with his headbutts. The back half of the match was spirited with a bunch of 2 on 1 spots. Sometimes the timing or placement seemed a little off, especially with Darazin and maybe the most interesting bit of all of it was the Gemelos jawing with the crowd, with their opponents, with the camera. In the end, the numbers game won out. Flamarion and Darazin were two wrestlers working together. The Gemelos were an incessant unit and they took the win with an assisted backbreaker (and I'm always a fan of one partner helping the other put their opponent in an otherwise improbable submission) and a standard over the shoulder one. This was a pretty good showcase for what made them stand out.

GB: Los Gemelos Infernales, the trios twins. While they never reached the public status of their more famous counterparts in Sandokan and el Idolo, they are still triumphantly remembered by many fans as a unit that revolutionised Panamanian wrestling. Not bad for three undersized kids from Darién, who had massive shoes to fill, coming from a family of professional jockeys and boxers.
 
Trios wrestling is nothing new. It’s been a staple of wrestling and, more importantly, lucha libre for generations. It’s a quick and easy solution that can often produce magic by accentuating the positives and hiding the flaws. It usually clicks. Likewise, in Panama, it was used as a way to get multiple wrestlers on a card and to advance multiple feuds at once. However, trios had often been just three luchadors tacked together. They might have some form of alliance but everyone worked mostly in a vacuum. There was no overall strategy and there had been no rush of ticket sales caused by a billboard headlined by a 3v3 encounter. 2v2? Sure, the Torneo Internacional de Parejas in 1977 was huge business and led to the historically important Guajardo/Idolo singles match - a Panamanian match that would change Mexican lucha libre forever. But 3v3? Nowhere close.

Everything changed in 1983 when Gemelo Infernal III debuted alongside his cousins, Infernal 1 and 2, against Mascara Roja, Gavilan de Oro and La Cobra. By this point, Primero and Segundo (actual brothers) had already been enjoying great success in the two years prior. Their own careers had started on the 3rd of October 1981 when Gemeos Infernales debuted for Samy de la Guardia’s Coliseos promotion (facing Tupac Amaru and Antorcha II - Sandokan’s brother). Seemingly much to Samy’s ire, the duo would quickly jump ship to their competition sensing a better future for themselves which, with the benefit of hindsight, I think is a fair assessment. There is a pretty strong through-line between them getting over and Don Medina using that success to book big trios programmes in the mid to late 80s. The first of two billboard blockbusters being Los Gemelos vs Kendo, Super Ratón and Negro Casas and then the Los Brazos invitational (where Gemelos, sans III due to his short stature, made it to the finals). They would go on to fight Brazo de Plata and Oro later in the year (around December, I believe) but the match on January 3rd was called off because of the Brazos being “botón pequeño”. I’m not sure of the colloquial meaning, sorry!

As outlined, trios wrestling was never cohesive until Los Gemelos turned Panamanian lucha on its head. There was (and *still is*!) a lot of internally consistent psychology to their matches, and it plays out here in this match we’re posting (if a little crude in the implementation). Gemelos were much smaller than their usual counterparts, often giving great weight away to their opponents (such as Ursus, Tahur etc), so they would ensure victory through relentlessly swarming their opponents. They were piranhas lost out in a sea of sharks. Ferocious, tenacious, they wouldn’t let their opponents breathe between blows. So much so, one of the biggest upsets of the 1980s was their 3-on-1 fight against the giant Tataki where they became the first wrestlers, anywhere in South America, to ever topple him. I forget which wrestler said it best but the words were “if you have one Gemelo, you have a chance. If you have all three? Forget about it”. And that’s true. They were incessant. Not quite the bloodthirsty maniac that Galvez was, but they would still fight to the death if it meant victory:

Their masks were simple, but poignant to their characters. They were hellhounds, beasts from the netherworld and that was beautifully crafted in their original masks seen on top:

Hidden above their eyebrows was a metal plating (some say platinum, others say plaster) that they would secretly use to their advantage on headbutts. With the referee distracted, they’d go for the kill. So integral was the mask to their success against bigger opponents that they would never bet their masks in apuestas. While Gemelo Infernal 1 had done so against Aguila Solitario (controversially taking the latter’s mask by having Infernal II, who was hidden under the ring, sneakily switching with him late into the match), the trios would rather put up their hair instead of their mask (losing their scalps to Dinastía Idolo, for instance). Without that plate, they knew their days were numbered at the top of the card. Quaintly, this rumor is something that they still deny to this day, saying it was a trait of the family to have “hard heads”. Though the rumors persist so much that the Guatemalan star, Verdugo, said he battled long and hard against the Gemelos, often having to “pry” their masks to dislodge the plating just to save his skin.

As I’ve outlined before, Panamanian wrestlers hardly travelled abroad as, unlike Mexico/Guatemala/Puerto Rico, they had to do so on their own dime and time without the help of their government or promoters. However, Gemelos Infernales took the leap in around 1987 with Joe Panther, making big splashes in Costa Rica and El Salvador where they would see their greatest success in beating both Kato Kung Lee and El Hijo del Santo. I have no doubt they would have seen great success in the UWA, if they had ever had the opportunity. Alas.

In an industry of shady characters, and as much as their personas paint otherwise, by all accounts, Gemelos Infernales are some of the good guys. The trio still live near each other, always willing to interact with their neighbours and help out with the local community whenever they can. They’re the life of the party wherever they may be. Just ask (very!) young Negro Casas:

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 6/26 - 7/2

AEW Collision 7/1

Dustin Rhodes vs Powerhouse Hobbs

MD: In some ways this felt like a restart for Hobbs with QT as his manager. He didn't get to hold the TNT title long enough to really establish what that would look like and it was pretty smooth here. QT grabbed the foot to cut off the shine. QT slammed Rhodes' head into the post to start the heat. One of the three biggest babyface spots of the match was QT eating a punch and doing a ridiculous Heenan bump on the apron. QT got a punch back into set up the finish. Maybe QT got a bit too much of the heat, even with Hobbs doing his best. That best was the focused woundwork during the commercial break, including punching the wound repeatedly and then wiping Dustin's blood on his own gear. They snuck in a few little bits to make this feel important enough for the tournament, Hobbs jamming Dustin's powerslam, that big pop one count kickout on the first spinebuster, one of the ugliest destroyers you'll ever see. I was for all of it. Dustin didn't hulk up after the kick out; it was defiance but he still had to fight back. That destroyer (which should have been a code red) felt more natural and organic than almost every one that's hit clean. It felt like Dustin, using his size, somehow struggling Hobbs over. And while you sometimes see people stop short to dodge the powerslam, you never see it blocked like that, and of course that made it matter all the more when Dustin actually hit it. Very solid quarterfinal tournament match overall.

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Found Footage Friday: SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! Matches from WAR-ISM 11/11/93

Full Show 11/11/93 Handheld

 

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Dan Sileo

ER: Is this the same Dan Sileo who was a football player and lame sports talk host on Bay Area's KNBR in the 2000s? I didn't know his football career but I remember him on KNBR, but it can't be the same guy. That guy was a defensive lineman and this guy doesn't look that much larger than Ultimo, but whoever it is, this True Blue Rex Kwon Do practitioner really adapted to pro wrestling almost shockingly well. I thought this was great, and I loved every part of it. Sileo has a gaudy stars and stripes gi and, while I know the Danny McBride strip mall karate guy is an easy and well-used reference at this point, goddamn is this guy just the millionth strip mall karate guy to look exactly like that. 

I loved the way they kept advancing this. The leg work was really cool, with nasty heel hooks off caught kicks, and a cool deathlock where Sileo was applying different kinds of pressure and then even ripped his gi off before rolling through the deathlock (which I don't think I've seen before?). When he got frustrated and threw a chair into the ring, Ultimo did incline push-ups off the chair and then had the ref hold his ankles down while he did a couple sit ups. Everything had nice snap to it, from things like (both men's) chops, to a super impactful version of Dragon's handspring elbow, to all of the kicks everyone threw. Sileo had an impressive command on selling, too. I was really impressed when Dragon whiffed on a spinning heel kick over Sileo's head, and he knew not to bother selling it and instead went right after Dragon. That's not an instinct most heavily trained wrestlers would have. Sileo broke out a majistral that looked as impressive as any I've ever seen Ultimo do, and the two counts down the stretch were all incredibly well done and worked through. This is the first time I've seen Dan Sileo and I am now honestly wondering how Dan Sileo didn't become a bigger star. This man understands pro wrestling, has great instincts, and is incredibly entertaining. This man takes a German suplex high up on his shoulders and somehow has great suplex selling? Who the hell is this guy? 

There is an incredible moment when Sileo is whipped into the buckles and does this awesome cocky flip over the top to the floor, landing on his feet, posing for the crowd, and by the time he turns around thinking he had evaded Ultimo, Dragon was already doing a suicide dive past the ring post into him. I did not think we'd be seeing Ultimo hitting a dive onto a some karate guy, trusting some strip mall karate guy to catch a high speed tope, a high speed tope that is already well in motion when Sileo is facing away from Dragon. This spot was timed so well, it was somehow a great catch, and Sileo was able to be facing away for most of it and turn around just in time to be annihilated. The most seasoned wrestler you know will never look this natural while waiting to catch a blind dive. I am going to need to write about more Dan Sileo matches. Complete & Accurate Bonecrusher Sileo coming soon!

PAS: Rewatching WAR over the years, I have been pretty underwhelmed by the Ultimo Dragon matches, but I guess I just needed to see him working ex-NFL linemen in Gi's rather than juniors matches where he's being outclassed by luchadors. Loved this, an awesome weirdo fight, with Ultimo ruling and Sileo being really fun too. Loved Ultimo doing pushups on the thrown in chair and hitting a wild tope on Sileo while he was celebrating. Sileo's entire shtick was great, he took a German suplex right on his neck and hit a cool jumping La Magistral. I really need to see Sileo work Dave Taylor and Ulf Hermann in Germany, and I really wish that Ultimo got a chance to work Jerry Flynn on a WCW Pro or something. 

2. Nobukazu Hirai vs. Shigekazu Tajiri

ER: This was a rounds match between a gi guy and a pro wrestler, and the best parts of this had the bad blood that we all associate with pro wrestlers vs. gi guys. There were multiple moments, in the first round especially, where it was clear that Tajiri did not want to cooperate, which is a best case scenario for a match like this. A couple of things got crossed up, Hirai grabbed Tajiri aggressively by the gi lapels, and then you had Hirai forcing his way into a shoot northern lights suplex and shoot bodyslam with Tajiri very clearly trying his hardest to sandbag. Hirai had started all this chippiness by throwing a playful kick at Tajiri when the former was entering the ring for the match, and that energy kept coming back, like when one of the rounds ended and Hirai kicked Tajiri in the ass on the latter's trip back to his corner. Not all the kicks land, and that plays to the match's benefit, as one of the best moments is Tajiri suckering Hirai into doing a spinning heel kick and just ducking it, then kicking Hirai in the face. Hirai does some great cocky shit like throwing a couple of German suplexes and then standing on Tajiri's neck, then deciding to let the ref count Tajiri down for a potential KO. I don't think the submission or kicks in this worked as well as the ones in Dragon vs. Sileo, but the 3rd round build was satisfying, and I liked Tajiri increasing the use of spinning heel kicks down the stretch. His (surprise) winning spinning heel kick looked Hashimoto level.

3. Masao Orihara vs. Satoshi Kojima

ER: I have a feeling there are a LOT of unseen or unheralded classics in the WAR vs. NJPW feud and this is ranks with the best of them. This was the only time Orihara and Kojima wrestled each other, and brother, I don't know why that is but based on this match alone they seem to fucking hate each other. These two are total assholes to each other for over 10 minutes, egging each other on into really violent match that stayed within a pro wrestling framework, just a really stiff constantly-verging-on-unprofessional pro wrestling match. The fans chant for Orihara at the bell, but after Kojima refuses a handshake and instead slaps him and German suplexes him on his head before the bell, then throws elbows as hard as possible and dumps him with a powerbomb, and the fans start chanting KOJIMA. 

Every single thing in this match was thrown with the intention to hurt, and there were a ton of great moments that looked like they were luring each other into fully committing to a move only to pull the rug out at the last possible moment. Kojima goes for his elbowdrop and lands teeth first into Orihara's boots, but the elbow was thrown with the confidence of someone who never thought his face would meet boots. Orihara does a pescado into nothing and his body does not look like someone who expected to be diving into an empty pool. They manage to make missed dropkick and sidestepped spinning heel kick spots look good, because every single thing done in this match was thrown with real intent. Orihara's leg work and heel hooks were as violent as anything you'd see in a Fujiwara fed, with the holds really sunk in. You could see how suctioned he was to Kojima's leg when Kojima was trying to yank away like he was in a bear trap but Orihara's grip only tightened, so Kojima had to start throwing legit strikes to desperately try to force some kind of break. 

It's tough to find cool examples of no-sold piledrivers but I'll have to tip my cap to them here, because this was it. Orihara spikes Kojima on the top of his head with a classic Lawler piledriver and Kojima rises to his feet and attempts to cripple Orihara with a Tombstone like he was Undertaker working Hogan in 1973 PRIDE. Orihara responds by spiking Kojima even harder with another Lawler piledriver, and brother, it feels okay to throw selling out the window when your neck is suffering this much real impact. These were piledrivers thrown by men who wanted to just feel something. No move is guaranteed to land, and it doesn't stop either man from throwing everything with full conviction, and yet the whole match maintains a vibe of "worked pro wrestling" while also feeling like both guys are sneaking in offense that the other wasn't expecting. It sure didn't look like Orihara was expected to be dumped on the back of his head by a couple different suplexes, and it sure didn't look like Kojima expected to take two boots up kicked into his chin....and yet it also seems like both guys fully expect it? Let me tell you, *I* did not expect Orihara to hit his insane moonsault over the ringpost to the floor, because I cannot imagine the level of trust it took in Kojima - a man who had not felt trustworthy at any part of this match - to even think about hitting that moonsault. Orihara wins by kicking Kojima in the eye and rolling him up with la majistral, and Kojima is so pissed after that he starts punching Orihara, and Orihara just leaves the ring, no selling all of the punches as he goes. YES!!

4. Arashi vs. Yuji Yasuraoka

ER: Arashi is in his mask and just poured into his bicycle shorts. He looks like a dream scenario where they brought in Giant Brazo as part of Los Brazos. He is humongous, and his tits are spectacular. This was short but entertaining, with Yasuraoka throwing kicks as hard as fast as he can but none of them ever phasing Arashi, so Arashi just lets the man kick him for a bit and then just starts throwing him around the way a large sumo would throw around a smaller man, with years of training and muscle memory behind the throws. The finish is great, as Arashi absorbs kicks and decides to let Yuji know what striking is really like, and so bullies him into the corner with open hand sumo thrusts and I swear, Arashi is just palm striking Yasuraoka's head back and forth between his open hands like he was forming a pizza dough. Arashi wins the match with two headlock takeovers, locking his arm around Yasuraoka's neck so tightly and then rolling over with his own large body with such force that it looks like he's trying to pop Yuji's head off his own body like a Barbie doll. 

5. Great Kabuki vs. Tommy Rich

ER: Tommy Rich still comes out to REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes" in 1993 and it's hard not to think of this song within the context of Tommy Rich's life. 23 years old, making towns around Georgia in his Ford Fairmont, waiting to see if there's another radio single off You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish before committing to buying the 8-track. Rich and Kabuki go way back and worked each other several times over the preceding decade, but it's hard not to be disappointed with this match. You could not call this a bad match, but on this card it kinda was. I love Tommy Rich kneeling on the inside of Kabuki's leg and throwing worked elbow strikes, complaining to the ref about hair pulls and shit, but this was a show where every match so far has had moments where someone almost got knocked out and moments where guys were actively trying to knock the other out, so the bar had been raised pretty high over the first half of the show. The final stretch of this was great, when Rich blasts Kabuki with a stiff clothesline and a perfect fistdrop off the middle buckle, and Kabuki starts throwing knee trembling thrusts to Rich's throat, but Rich losing to a small package is going to feel like a downer after the violence that had taken place in every match prior. 

6. Black Cat vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki

PAS: Total out of nowhere classic. This was a lumberjack match and part of the WAR vs. NJ feud, with Black Cat coming in as a New Japan stalwart and trainer to take on Fuyuki. Just a pair of barrel chested bruisers clocking each other with clotheslines and hard punishing shots, each one a little further then it was supposed to go. Cat, for example, cracked Fuyuki right in the eye with a short elbow and Fuyuki responded by splitting his head open on a turnbuckle bolt. Cat then proceeds to lose blood at an alarming rate, leaving stains over the mat. Cat fought valiantly, but eventually was felled by a pair of super nasty looking powerbombs. Hard nosed violent WAR style stuff, just an ugly treat to watch.

ER: The WAR/NJPW feud has produced some of the most agreeably great matches ever, an incredible success rate, unparalleled heat, and this show has two more of them that we've never seen. Orihara/Kojima and Black Cat/Fuyuki are completely different matches and completely great additions to the WAR/NJPW legend. The latter has great blood and is much more punch based, the former is two guys doing pro wrestling moves as stiff as possible. It's wild that the one with juniors and without blood is more violent, but even without blood the hate was palpable. This match felt less like hatred, and more like a great bloody pro wrestling dramatic-selling brawl. This was long, nearly 20, and I don't think the holds moved the match along as well as Orihara's leg attacks did, but this was a bloody match between two brick shithouses cracking jaws, and we don't have to choose a favorite. This was also a Lumberjack Death match, and I wish I knew all the things that went into these two needing a Lumberjack Death match. WAR really wasn't a gimmick match fed, choosing instead the superior gimmick pairings. Who needs stipulation matches when you can just team weird guys up against each other? 

Fuyuki looked like the best version of Takeshi Morishima, or perhaps a more accurate comp to Gordy than Morishima was. This felt like the most violent version of a classic Crusher match, two guys with barrel torsos throwing hooking punches across each other's jaws and throwing clotheslines set to smash. Fuyuki's diving clotheslines were engulfing, blowing through Cat with insane closing speed. Black Cat threw short elbows across Fuyuki's temple and Fuyuki threw down right back, and whenever it threatened to spill into the middle of warring WAR vs. New Japan Lumberjacks, it only got better. This feud was so perfect, because everybody involved on both sides of it was a total asskicker, and everybody seemed like they really fucking hated each other. Satoshi Kojima acted like a fucking asshole to Orihara, Tenryu trolled Tatsumi Fujinami so hard earlier in the show that Fujinami got Actually Upset and ripped off his suit jacket while needing neck tendon flaring restraint from Manabu Nakanishi. Tommy Rich and Bonecrusher Dan Sileo are left looking like cornered southerners trying to stay between the WAR gang and New Japan crew whenever Fuyuki got an asshole smirk across his face and threw Cat into the fellers. The blood came midway when Cat got run face first into a turnbuckle bolt, and Fuyuki must have sent the sole of his boot into Cat's cutout least eight times. Black Cat wobbled his legs and fought back and Fuyuki managed to dominate and make Cat bleed out without coming off like a bad guy, instead looking like a man representing his cause. Sometimes a 30 year handheld shows up online and when you're done watching it you can say that you've seen upper echelon Kodo Fuyuki, Satoshi Kojima, Masao Orihara, and Black Cat performances, and everything feels right. 

7. Koki Kitahara/Super Strong Machine vs. Heisei Ishingun (Kengo Kimura/Tatsutoshi Goto)

ER: This is a really cool tag that brings together four guys who I think are almost always universally underrated as workers. Out of these four, I think Kengo Kimura probably gets the most respect as a worker, and when was the last time you saw literally anybody talking about how much they love the career of Kengo Kimura? Super Strong Machine is the best possible Bison Smith, throwing nothing but hard elbows and clotheslines and slams, Vince McMahon's idea of a perfect wrestler in 1977, and I don't think I've ever not been entertained by a SSM match. Koki Kitahara is a WAR punk through and through, and it gave this match a fun dynamic, as he was the one WAR guy in with three NJPW guys, with Strong Machine the guy who's playing both sides without acting passionate allegiance to either side. So This match was all about three of these guys having a tough but professional tag, while Kitahara tried to get under everyone's skin before eventually succeeding in doing just that. Everyone else has no problem throwing spirited elbows and clotheslines but Kitahara's the one kicking people in the eye and throwing kicks at knees, with Kimura's Red Gi crew yelling at him from the floor only causing him to act like more of a pudgy punk. It all escalates when Masashi Aoyagi gets on the apron to try to settle him down, and Kitahara chooses to go after AOYAGI with a chair! Kitahara is enough of a crazed asshole to go after AOYAGI with a chair and you just have to love and appreciate a psycho like that. I love how Kitahara finally gets Kimura to snap, kicking at him mockingly while he's down, and getting the vet all riled up until Super Strong Machine can't save him. I loved Aoyagi sneaking in at the finish to hit Kitahara with a spinning heel kick to set up the finish, and thought the tag unsurprisingly kicked ass. 

8. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ashura Hara

PAS: This delivered everything you want from this matchup on paper. A pair of guys built like sacks of flour chopping, lariating and headbutting each other in unsafe and violent ways. Not a lot of fancy moves, although Tenryu did hit a enzigiri right to Hara's eye and cheek, but just crazy violent shots. I love how Tenryu just lets his chops float. At one point he catches Hara right in the trachea and the ref looks at him like "c'mon man I am just trying to do my job." Hara doesn't back down at all either, laying in some really meaty clonking headbutts, and sick lariats right into the clavicle. This is WAR as WAR gets.

ER: I always associate Hara with Tenryu. Hara was the longest term Tenryu tag partner in Revolution, left All Japan at first opportunity to join him in SWS and then retired in WAR in 1994. Hara is a Tenryu guy, and that means that we really don't have many Tenryu/Hara singles matches. I think they had less than 5, and I'm sure this is the only one I've actually seen. This is Tenryu VERSUS Hara and that is an incredibly cool thing. And this really is the exact thing you would want from a Tenryu/Hara match, which is two best friends trying to urge the other one to hit them harder and harder, except you've never had a friend who wanted you to hit them harder and harder because we've never done competitive sumo. Tenryu and Hara hit each other so fucking hard in this match and I've never known another person in my life who could hit somebody this hard. WAR Hara is the fattest Hara which makes him the coolest Hara, and he looks even cooler when Tenryu runs into him incredibly hard with a shoulderblock and then drops his shoulder and winces hard and shakes out that limp arm after Hara doesn't budge an inch. 

After Tenryu hurts his shoulder on Hara's torso and Hara didn't even give him the liberty of acting like he had even been touched, Tenryu makes it his match long mission to make Hara lose sensation in at least one of his arms. These two are old ass running buddies and if you are old sumo running buddies that means that sometimes one of you will get chopped over and over in the neck and slapped insanely hard across the face. Hara does his best to not budge whenever Tenryu hits him and is shockingly successful, and none of us can ever comprehend how hard Ashura Hara has been hit in his life, and how hard he has hit people. You have to get hit in the face and neck an absurd number of times to be able to take six straight chops to the neck from Genichiro Tenryu without registering any pain. Hara is able to walk through a shocking amount of pain to repeatedly murder Tenryu with his perfect lariat, but Tenryu drops him to his knees with a chop right to the throat. The only time I even notice the referee in the match, is after that throat chop when he steps up to Tenryu like "hey man that guy is your best friend." Hara can't use one of his arms his whole chest and neck and shoulder is all purple bruising just a few minutes in, so he has to just spam Tenryu with lariats from the arm he can lift. When he keeps hitting Tenryu in the ropes as hard as he can, he gets a full head of steam for a killshot and flies hard through the ropes to the floor when Tenryu just drops to the ground as his only possible defense. Hara's sell of Tenryu's enziguiri is more perfection, taking it to the teeth and crumbling to his chest and knees, butt up in the air. 

Imagine the ways these two could have surpassed Ikeda and Ishikawa if only their friendship was just a little bit different. I'm glad we got them murdering each other a few times over the span of their Revolution. 

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