Jesse Ventura vs. Moondog Mayne Portland 5/7/77
MD: Savoldi footage here but on youtube. Definitely new to me and among the earliest Portland I've ever seen. We just get eight and a half minutes but it's great. Watching old Portland wrestling always feels like going home to me. It's just the atmosphere. Just such a family set up. Ventura here has a mask because he lost his hair so that's novel. Mayne is the One Man Gang, the Blond Bomber, scruffy and a local legend even by this point.
Ventura controlled early with pretty conventional stuff. We don't see how he took over on either fall that we get unfortunately. Mayne's comeback is great as someone gave him coffee and he just blatantly tossed it into the mask. He took the first fall with the bombs away kneedrop, that stalwart of the west coast (used by Stevens, Patterson, Mayne). When we come back in the second fall, he's trapped in the ropes and takes this great bump through them as Ventura frees him. He comes back with an eyepoke after a little bit of king of the mountain though and we leave off with Snuka having tossed him a cowbell from outside and him going to town on Ventura. Just a nice snapshot. Hopefully even more of this 77 Portland shows up. It's always wild to see pre-Buddy Portland.
ER: I thought this was pedestrian stuff until the moment Moondog graciously accepted a fan's cup of hot coffee and threw it in Ventura's face. Throwing beer or getting hit with a soda is always great wrestling, but you never get guys utilizing hot coffee or cocoa. Hot coffee to finally kick the main event into gear is so great. Lonnie Mayne is only 33 years old year but looks 60, so it looks cool when he takes the Harley Race bump to the floor. It looks like an old man falls head first on the concrete or an old man jumped off the rope onto his knee and it makes Mayne a more compelling babyface. It means he's the kind of great babyface who got loud cheers for eye raking and bashing Ventura with a cowbell. So we only get the first 7 minutes of a 20 or 30 minute 2/3 falls draw, which is not much. I want to know if there was blood, and what Ventura did when/if his mask got torn off, and how he looked. We need to go further back to establish when Sandy Barr firmly established his trademark look that he carried through the 80s.
Randy Savage vs. Danny Doyle/Buddy Landel ICW 1980
MD: New footage Allan uncovered and posted to Twitter. This is fascinating because it's Savage against two real undercard guys. This isn't even on Cagematch. The earliest Landel we have noted there is 81. Roop (injured) is on commentary with Izzy Slapowitz and a little of the latter goes a long way. Doug Vines is in the crowd watching. There's a 10K bounty on Ronnie Garvin who Savage (the champ) is dodging.
Like I said, it's Savage, as a vulnerable but dangerous champ against two undercard wrestlers, saying he can beat them both in the ten minutes, elimination style, and they really play up the numbers advantage and just how high a hill Savage has to climb against two guys. It's a while before he gets any offense at all and then even after he gets it, it's hard to keep it.
He hits the top rope axe handle to the floor on Landel and they note that while a top rope move into the ring is illegal, there are no rules against jumping to the floor since no one's ever done it. He then finishes off Landel by suplexing him back in. Doyle immediately rushes him and while Savage takes over, the bell rings as the time limit expires. Then Savage has a fit at the commentary booth, threatening everyone until Vines offers to take out Garvin next week for just $5000. Pretty engaging stuff that really made Savage look like he could be beaten and that he was edging ever closer to losing his mind and just accepting a challenge from Garvin. Very cool find.
ER: I never think much about the handicap as a match structure, but it might be our least explored "common" match structure. I say least explored, because they are not often worked like Savage works here, which is approaching the match as an actual obstacle. Yes, these two men are undercarders who Savage would have no trouble with in a singles, but the match takes an honest look at how tough it would be to face off against two men. Handicap matches are most commonly used to put over one man dominating two men. The Andre handicap matches are entertaining, brief looks at Andre stacking boneless men like cordwood, but rarely used as a way to actually just double (or triple) the danger Andre was in. It's like fighting a zombie. Easy in theory, but throw in another and it's suddenly easy to get overwhelmed. Savage was facing a couple nobodies and not getting overwhelmed, but he's treating it like being outnumbered and it's a fascinating approach.
Buddy Landel looks like Gino here and I love it. This is teenage Buddy Landel! Savage hits this kid with a middle rope elbowdrop that's weird because it's different than how Savage hits his top rope elbowdrop. Buddy takes two massive bumps to the floor, both through the ropes: the first bounces the side of his head off the apron, the second is after he's pinned and Savage sends him into a sprawling bump onto the concrete. Seeing No Kneepads Buddy Landel bumping this big is like a DVDVR version of the Can't Powerbomb Kidman joke.
Bob Roop is a real scary type. He's the most dull man you've ever heard on commentary, getting just trampled over by Izzy Slapowitz, who dominates him with his routine like Robert Smigel on a red carpet, and Roop just takes it with the sad little quiet responses of a man playing by the rules. It freaks me out man. Do you know how tough Bob Roop is? It's chilling to hear a real shooter and killer sound this soft, like finding out some guy who works at your mom's office has broken multiple mens' bones. Slapowitz and then even Savage call Roop a gimp and a "stupid cripple" when Savage's 10 minute time limit is legitimately shorted by a minute and it made me want to see Roop/Savage so bad. We probably don't have that.
Sangre Chicana vs. El Faraon CMLL 11/23/85
MD: This was a hell of a find. Yes it's anticlimactic but it's anticlimactic because they're trying to kill one another with a bottle which is the very best reason in the history of wrestling for a match to be anticlimactic. Props to Roy for finding this and the associated full episode of 85 EMLL That we will get to eventually.
Chicana is wild to start, massive hair bouncing around his head, the sort of hair that you'd pay a week's salary to watch him lose, that kind of hair, and he's relentless to start, guzzling Faraon's throat on the top rope, just all over him in the short, direct primera stretching him a couple of times before the ref calls it (though none of his trademark punches; those will come later). Then, for good measure, he decides it wasn't enough and that he needed to find a glass bottle.
The ref tries to intervene and he does stall things just long enough for Faraon to get his windback. He sells beautifully here, staggering but less and less as he gets his balance. He has this great trademark way of moving where he slides down through the second and third ropes to get to Chicana more quickly, and after an attempt at it that fails, the second hits and he gets the bottle and gets his revenge.
Eventually things make it back into the ring, and Faraon takes the segunda, but things go even again in the tercera, with Chicana firing back with some of the biggest, best sweeping punches you'll ever see. It all devolves to the floor and given the blood and chaos and mayhem the ref calls it off to no one's satisfaction. You get the sense this led to an even better match but at least we've not got to see this one in full.
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