Found Footage Friday: RIP BART SAWYER~! VOLS~! WOLFIE~! FLASH~! ISHIKAWA~! JAGUAR~!

Lucy Kayama/Mimi Hagiwara vs. The Young Pair (Rimi Yokota/Seiko Hanawa) AJW 1979

MD: This one had been out there for a while, but never complete. The first nine minutes were always missing. Yokota is pre-Jaguar here. Those first nine minutes seem essential to the overall match; after a bit of feeling out with dueling foot stomps, Yokota and Hanawa lean in hard on Hagiwara. This includes some nice roll back guillotines and a rolling headscissors by Hanawa and Yokota, a lot of arm stretch surfboards, and tying Hagiwara to the tree of woe. It's a pretty brutal mauling, that lasts into the footage we did have, with a southern tag bit of the ref missing the tag before Kayama is able to finally get in. They steady revenge that followed (highlighted by the Kayama using the seated bodyscissors with roll-back and slam-forward we saw so much in the French footage) for the next many minutes doesn't resonate nearly as well without the lengthy initial beatdown.

We miss the Pair's transition back to offense (maybe just an off camera slam by Yokota) but the back half of the match is them demolishing Hagiwara's leg. Hagiwara is already an emotive seller, always active, always engaged and engaging the crowd and to be fair Yokota and Hanawa give her a lot to work with, just tearing it apart with targeted offense on the inside and outside of the ring. The comeback isn't as clean and focused as I'd like but it's still clever, with Hagiwara snatching a flying octopus hold out of nowhere and Kayama coming in hot. They go to that old southern tag standard of the FIP wanting back in too soon to set up the finish. Good match made better by the restoration of the missing footage.  

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Isami Shinkiba Tournament 12/25/2018

MD: It's old man Ishikawa vs a kind of tubby karate guy in a gi. Pretty self-explanatory really. Ishikawa controlled early by not allowing Isami to strike. Isami would have to occasionally use a rope break (and Ishikawa smacked him on the butt afterwards for his trouble). In the stand up, despite Ishikawa throwing some mean headbutts, Isami had a clear advantage. It was just once he got him down that he wasn't quite sure what to do with him. Ishikawa could absorb most of his seated blows and he almost needed to let him back up so he could get his full body behind his strikes. That opened him up for Ishikawa to snatch a limb though and it tired him out, making that possibility all the more likely. Finally, Ishikawa was able to move around him, getting a mare. Isami tried to escape with a nice roll through into a hammerlock, but he wasn't in his striking world anymore; once he left it, Ishikawa put him away with a nasty no-give arm trap.

ER: I thought this was going to be much more of an exhibition based on how things started, with Shinkiba looking like Sammo Hungover and Ishikawa grinning like a goof while playing Inoki leg kick games from his back. Shinkiba really doesn't look like he can do much of anything for the first few minutes, like Ishikawa is essentially working an exhibition with an easily takedownable tub in a gi. He takes him down and easily locks in a couple submissions while Shinkiba puts up about as much fight as I would against Ishikawa. Yuki even swats him playfully on the butt after Shinkiba quickly lunged for the ropes after a smooth Ishikawa rolling kneebar. Maybe that swat on the butt is what set this guy off, because then he starts throwing inside leg kicks and high kicks from both sides, Ishikawa leaning into all of them, and even starts open hand chopping Ishikawa in the arm to get access to his ribs. Shinkiba does a really great solebutt to the intestines, with a smack that sounded like a thigh slap but I saw no thigh slap in sight. When Yuki starts throwing headbutts, he hits an even louder one so I guess this guy just throws great kicks to the stomach. I loved him teeing off on Ishikawa's body with punches, pinning him to the corner with short closed firsts aimed at the torso. But he can't KO Yuki, and because of that, Yuki is going to find a way to tap him. 

Bart Sawyer/TN Vols (Reno Riggins/Steven Dunn) vs. Wolfie D/Flash Flanagan/Ashley Hudson MCW 12/25/98 (Aired 1/2/99)

MD: I wanted to do a Sawyer match since he passed away recently. I can't believe that we've never covered this one before (I had to take it back to the center to ask) because it's wild. Almost book worthy. Maybe book worthy. It's fifteen minutes of absolute chaos, ten of it being the match. This is the master footage so there's no announcing over it and you hear everything. The camera and even the crowd have no idea who to focus on since the violence is all over the building. You can be focused on Sawyer and Wolfie brawling off in the corner and hear sounds of impact from off the screen. It was back and forth. I won't say it was full of brilliant transitions or even a heroic comeback but it was full of memorable moments and lots of blood, most especially from Dunn.

There's crazy, heated stuff in here. Chairshots galore, including a battle between Wolfie and Sawyer. Riggins lawn darting Flanagan into the fourth row. Tons of Australian flag shots. The set piece where Sawyer climbed up some sort of roofing. The post-match beatdown where the heels got their heat back. And of course the crazy finish where Riggins shoved Wolfie off the balcony through a table and then Sawyer tried to leap down after him for the pin and had his foot jam on the concrete as he landed. These were a bunch of pros who knew how to handle a match like this, to keep it moving, to keep the crowd into it, to build to some very big spots, and then to keep the heat up to try to get people back for the following week.

PAS: The Nashville Fairgrounds has seen a lot of blood spilled in matches just like this over the years. From Jackie Fargo through the Moondogs through early TNA. Just a really cool example of the kind of main event all over the fairground brawls which have been mostly lost to history. No really structure, just a bunch of bloody brawling in every nook and cranny. Flash Flanagan is well known for taking insane stunt bumps, but Wolfie took it on this day, falling recklessly off the balcony and awkwardly nuking himself on the table and the hard concrete. I really prefer this kind of stunt to what we see now. Not only was there no crash pad, there was no athleticism. It really felt like a guy zooted out of his mind falling off a roof, which fit well with the chaotic atmosphere of the entire match. Sawyer wasn't the focus here (not sure this had a focus) but you could see how well he fit in this kind of Tennessee street fight.