Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! HARRIS~! SLATER~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~! BABY SHAMROCK~! AKITO~! SANO~!

Dick Slater/Ken Shamrock vs. Shunji Takano/Shinichi Nakano AJPW 10/20/89

MD: This isn't the world's easiest HH to watch; it's pretty far back. Thankfully, everyone's fairly distinct, from the extreme size difference between Takano and Nakano that would define their roles to the match to Shamrock's light blue trunks. There is a Joe Malenko vs Fuchi match later on the card that only exists for a few minutes pro-shot but it's just an exercise in futility to try to watch it on this HH. You need to see the close up magic and it's just a blur at thid distance. This one's easier to parse.

The historical value here is seeing Shamrock in Japan in 1989. We have one or two other matches with him on this tour but it's not a lot to go on. This is a little bit more, though it's more informative to see where Slater was. He's a guy who doesn't have a lot of interesting Japan matches from around this time. Either the hierarchy is way off and he's getting beaten up by Jumbo or he's teamed with someone they're trying to elevate like Spivey and it's up to him to lose the offense. Here he was top of the totem pole and they got to lean on Nakano quite a bit. That meant some nice looking stuff (Neckbreaker, Russian Leg Sweep, punch combos) and goading Takano in to set up double teams.

Shamrock showed promise, with one nice mat exchange with Takano a bit of bumping around for dropkicks and hitting some of his own, and good struggle against Takano's belly to belly before going over for it on the second or third try. He had a fairly awkward splash off the top and a modified abdominal stretch which worked more than it didn't but definitely looked odd. They dragged Nakano down a few times allowing Takano to come in and wreck people before an abrupt finish where Shamrock (with Slater's help) survived Takano's knee off the second rope only to immediately eat a German from Nakano. I liked when they had mid-card matches end without a big back and forth stretch but with the damage just being too much over time because it made those main event stretches and all the saves and kickouts that came with them more believable. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Harris (Kennel Cage Match) MWA Thunderdome 98

MD: The gimmick for the show was that the top three matches had this smaller cage within the ring. It fit right inside the ropes basically. This was a wonderful ten minutes. They stalled for about a third of it, then after Smothers dodged a punch and strutted arrogantly, Harris nailed him and he bumped around the ring like an absolute champ for two or three minutes. That meant pinballing into the cage a couple of times, but mostly just managing to get his feet over his head as he went all over the place for Harris' punches. He'd get a cheapshot out of the corner only to get planted into the cage once again for his trouble. Then he called for interference, snuck a weapon out as Harris fought it off, and clocked him for the win. Simple yet over the top and just the sort of glorious bs that I want in third-from-the-top 98 Tracy Smothers in a little cage. 

Akito vs. Yasushi Sato Sportiva 11/30/11

MD: With thanks, as always, to Sebastian for all of these Sportiva matches, including the suggestion. Akito was far younger than Sato here, and at one point mid-way through he sort of got swept under, needing (and ultimately getting) a clutch defensive counter to survive and overcome. Early on, however, he had this great way of chaining together holds and an even better way of turning an escape or kickout into an immediate submission. There are norms in wrestling. Usually, even in the most go-go-go matches imaginable, after a kickout or an escape, there's a brief pause or reset. Even if there's going to be an unclean break and subsequent stomping or another hold attempted, it happens after a blink, a pause, a breath. There's a theatricality to it that even the people most concerned about getting their stuff in can't full escape. With shootstyle, you'll see a throw or a kickout turned immediately into a grounded top wristlock, for instance, but it's almost always done by the aggressor. Here, Akito would push out of a leglock or kick up out of a pin and simply keep his hands moving, one smooth motion to capture an ankle and lock in a hold of his own. You wouldn't want it for every exchange, but done two or three times in the match, it was striking because it pushed against exepectations in a blink and miss it sort of way. It was when Sato started to push in the same sort of relentless and unforgiving of way that he was able to take over.