Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1980~! WRIGHT~! KAMALA~! WISKOWSKI~! MARTIN~!

Hanover Germany 10/4/80 (Richard Land Patreon)

Caswell Martin vs. Karl Dauberger 

MD: Martin's really a joy to watch. I look forward to new matches of his almost as much (but not quite as much) as Fujiwara and that's saying something. Yes, he does some of the same bits a lot (the cartwheel out for instance). But he has that same sort of imagination and creativity where you wonder how he's going to treat an exchange. And he's interesting in different settings whether it's WoS or here or UWF. 

This was face vs face or whatever they call it in Germany. They were just teaming the previous night after all. And it was a pleasant sportsmanlike affair until the last round where things got a little heated. A lot of great escapes by Martin really. He had a way of handstanding up just a little higher to rana out of a double leg and even did a spinning headstand toupe escape out of a grounded side headlock that I'm not sure I've ever seen done quite that way. They'd be good sports about things. He'd use a butt butt escape out of a go behind and Dauberger had a good laugh from losing his wind from it. Lots of nearfalls and reversals here and they had the crowd the whole way. Down the stretch it got a little chippy with Martin doing a facewash with his foot and they picked up the pace with rope running and a couple of bombs (very nice double underhook slam by Dauberger for instance) before Martin got him on a banana peel takeover from a waistlock. Good stuff.

Ed Wiskoski vs. Jim Harris 

MD: Here we have Ed Wiskowski, as a cowboy, against Jim Harris, before he became Kamala. It's a massive stooge-fest from Wiskowski, the sort where he'll take face first bumps just from being in a headlock and it was hugely entertaining stuff that had the crowd. Harris just had to be a center of gravity and keep the pressure on, but he did it so well that you think he could have had a pretty great career even without the gimmick. Wiskowski is usually the biggest guy in a match and he was a little taller than Harris still, but here he worked like the smaller man. Flying all over the place, arms flailing, trying and failing to slam him.

When he did take over it was by going after the eyes and drawing a public warning and that lasted just until he got carded and the distraction let Harris come back with big clubbing blows. Finish had Harris go off the second rope but miss a splash so that Wiskoski could come off the top with Bombs Away and then actually slam Harris for the win. Good stuff though. Extremely entertaining and it makes me hope we get more Harris from this tournament against guys like Wright, Colt, or Destroyer.

ER: We call this era Kamala 0: The Departure Point, in which Sugar Bear Harris is sporting a tri-hawk two years before Clubber Lang existed, and he even comes out throwing jab fakes. But Harris is extremely raw here and it gives us a chance to see - yet another - incredible Ed Wiskoski carry job. I love Ed Wiskoski. He's like if Nick Nolte got into pro wrestling and was just as good at wrestling as Nolte is at acting. He's got the same military straight posture and size, and the same amazing hair as same-era Nolte. However, Wiskoski wrestles much, much differently than Nick Nolte does in this hypothetical situation where Nolte got into wrestling instead of doing Who'll Stop the Rain. I don't think Nolte, with his size and looks, would be one of our most gifted stooge bumpers in the same way Wiskoski is. Ed Wiskoski might be the tallest wrestling stooge we were ever gifted and I am in love with the way the man moves. Jim Harris at this point - and at many points - had a very limited tool bag and Wiskoski works this entire match staggering and falling all around the ring for simple arm strikes. 

Wiskoski does not ever go crybaby John Tatum but he has bumps that Tatum would go on to steal. That includes the way he stacks his bumps so that one headbutt makes Wiskoski take a bump that then sends him face first into the turnbuckles which then turns into a third bump recoiling from the buckles which could also turn into a fourth bump if he gets pinballed by another strike. Wiskoski spends the first two plus rounds stuttering and staggering around for Harris, comes back in the third with a couple of nicely timed eye pokes, and then spends another couple rounds building to some classic chained Wiskoski bumps until Harris misses a middle buckle splash. I could watch this man fall all day. I will say however, and I think this is important: Wiskoski is not a "realistic" bumper, but I don't think his bumps could ever be seen as "comedy bumps". This is difficult to do. It is hard to be a theatrical bumper without including several comedic pratfalls, but he somehow pulls off silly unrealistic bumps without ever feeling like he is doing them for a laugh. They are always in direct response to the offense he is selling, and never feels like he is doing them to show off his own athleticism. They might look silly in a vacuum, but they always look appropriate within a match, and that's a line he walks so impressively that it only makes me love him more with every new match we get. 

Kim Duk vs. Manuel López 

MD: We spend a lot of time with 90-91 Kim Duk given his extended run in Puerto Rico so at first it was nice to see him here. Lopez is not someone I'm familiar with so I was curious how this would go. Not particularly well. The first thing you notice is just how huge Duk is, which is not something that stands out as much if he's wrestling TNT or Scott Hall (or people like Jumbo or Hogan) but he just towered over Lopez. It created a sort of disconnect in the match because while they did wrestle it like Duk had a size advantage, he was primarily technical so you barely expected Lopez to get anything on him. And he didn't get much. In the second round, they picked up the pace a little and Lopez came flying back off a charge into the corner only to get caught and carefully tombstoned as an act of mercy. They can't all be winners.

Bob (UFO) Della Serra vs. Takashi (Sumo) Ishikawa

MD: UFO remains as over as ever. Ishikawa came out to Turning Japanese. He's an interesting character as he disappears from AJPW so as not to be part of Jumbo vs Revolution or Tsuruta-gun vs Super Generation Army, though he pops back up in SWS. He ends up being more of a role player instead. But he could go and hit as hard as anyone else from the decade. I'm not sure if this is clipped or if it's just short but during the middle the camera cuts to some of the wrestlers standing by the entrance watching or talking to each other. They seem to match up well from the bit we do see with trading of slams and armdrags and Ishikawa having a nice step over to break the grip before launching karate type strikes.. Ishikawa leaned into the sumo bit with crouched charges and got caught on one in the corner and rolled up.

Klaus Kauroff/Le Grand Vladimir vs. Salvatore Bellomo/Steve Wright

MD: Another incredibly entertaining tag. I didn't like the Duk match much but the overall level of quality here is just amazing honestly. This had what you'd expect early with the fans singing along to Bellomo and especially Wright making absolute fools out of the heels. Lots of great stuff. Rope running spots. Ref goofing bits. Wright a dervish of cruel and hilarious technique and bounding about. But then things did settle down to heat, and they actually went double heat on it, including some southern elements like drawing the ref. Both hot tags and comebacks were a ton of fun, with Wright pinballing people and Bellomo coming in hot. They finished with a draw, but with Wright and Bellomo both doing the Franz Van Buyten dash across in the ring to leap up and punch. Very fun stuff.