Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! COTA~! WAGNER~! SATANICO~! GARZA~! PANTERA~! CARAS~! FIERA~!

Bronco/Máscara Mágica/Pantera vs. Astro Rey Jr./Guerrero De La Muerte/Mocho Cota CMLL 2/23/96

MD: Roy's uploaded a bunch recently and we'll hit some of it. I'm not going to say no to new Mocho Cota, even 1996 Mocho Cota. He's a step slow, but what he does with that step is still great. He'll bump to the floor off a dropkick and then careen towards a little kid, halting at the last moment and menacing him with his missing fingers. What a guy. He also fed into rudo miscommunication as you'd imagine, so they kept things brisk, moving, and fun. According to Rob, this was a couple of weeks before Pantera jumped to AAA. He was matched up with Guerrero here early and looked good the whole way through, especially down the stretch where he got to stand tall at the end with the last pairing, post-dives, hit a great dive of his own, and then come back in to win the thing, which is honestly not a structure you usually see. He also drove the comeback, so he was certainly being featured. Mascara Magica was paired with Cota and they did ok, even if you got the sense that maybe he was still trying to figure it out a bit. You take Pantera and Cota out of this one and it wouldn't be as engaging (even if they did wildly different things) but as is, I enjoyed it.

Los Brazos vs. Negro Casas/Dr Wagner Jr./Rambo CMLL 3/15/96

MD: Apparently Brazo de Plata and Negro Casas really wanted to work with each other on this night, because they put on one hell of a show. Porky's fist was laser focused to Casas' face and it was great. Just the most brutal, mean-spirited, single-minded punches you'll see, no matter if Casas was standing, on the ground, in the ropes. And of course, Casas would just slide back into the ring at full speed only to get walloped again. They had an early exchange too where Casas did a reverse leg sweep and then Porky did the same in return. Great stuff. Porky had his shoulders bandaged and that made him a target overall. They primera had a great bit where the rudos, two at a time, tossed one Brazo after the next off the top rope. Then they tried Porky with all three and got squashed and pinned. Perfect comic build and timing. The segunda had them really hone in on Porky's shoulder, double teaming him and forcing hum to the floor. The remaining Brazos held their own for a bit, but Rambo pulled out an object and bloodied El Brazo and it became an inconclusive mauling. This was great while it lasted though.

ER: You go into this excited to see whatever happens between Super Porky and Negro Casas and then all of the Porky/Casas interactions turn out to be even better than you expected. The whole thing is great but everything that Porky and Casas do - especially to each other - is better than you expect and that means it's all time great. There is one especially great exchange between them that is like extravagant lucha morphing into shootstyle. No, this isn't UWFi, but damn when Porky gets swept and ankle picks Casas on his way down I flipped. Porky aimed carefully guided punches at Casas's face a dozen different times and Casas kept falling for them in bigger and bigger ways. Porky would knock Casas down and lean his weight on him and throw punches from half mount. It all builds to one of the most incredible ways to end a caida, when the rudos press slam El Brazo and Oro off the top turnbuckle. Two men handled them, but all hands were required on deck to press Porky. They all backed him into the corner and Porky started throwing potato shots at everyone, flat footed lefts and rights. Casas gets hit so square that he banana peels all the way to the opposite corner. When all three rudos finally get underneath Porky to slam him, they wind up crushed underneath. 

The segunda shows Porky as one of wrestling's great Targets. Rambo and Casas target his taped up shoulder. Injured Porky is one of my favorite salesmen in wrestling, his movements feel so suddenly real but delivered by the incomparable physique of Porky. He has one of the most sympathetic faces in wrestling (and here he doesn't even cry!) and the way he plops on his butt and kicks his legs while Negro and Rambo and stomping and kicking him is like a giant baby getting stomped out. 

Rambo is always great in matches like this. He's great during bumping for tecnicos (loved him hopping on his back across the ring after a Brazo de Oro quebradora) and then becomes the most violent rudo during the segunda. His wrapped fist shot to Oro was so good it held up in slo motion, and when he gigs El Brazo he really gets the blood flowing. Rambo knows several ways to open a cut, slamming Brazo's face into his boot in the corner as blood gets all over it, then starts kneeing him directly in the cut repeatedly. I wish the DQ had happened in the tercera so we got the full set of falls, but this was great stuff.   

Dos Caras/Héctor Garza/La Fiera vs. Bestia Salvaje/Dr Wagner Jr./Satánico CMLL 4/3/96

MD: The primera here was a super fun two minutes. First Caras and Fiera mowed through Bestia and Satanico with double teams, including a Hart Attack of sorts on Satanico. Then Wagner got the better of them with a flying double clothesline and Garza flew around for him before hitting a clutch roll up. From there, they did one of those multiman submissions where the third guy kneels on the shoulders of the person/people being stretched. You almost never see the tecnicos doing that and Garza paid for his hubris with Wagner pulling him off so he took a nasty bump into the ropes and then got posted, but the tecnicos still took the caida. 

The segunda started with in and out exchanges, with Wagner getting the best of Fiera and then everyone basing for Garza (who had to make frequent comebacks admittedly). They went around with it until Wagner ended up dangling from the ropes on a great bump/stooge spot, before the rudos finally took over. Wagner finished Garza off with both a superplex and a top rope splash, one after the other, doing it all himself (well, Satanico held Garza down at the end, not that it was needed). The beatdown that followed was short and nasty, with Satanico driving his foot into Garza's groin as the other rudos held him and chewing on his fingers. He meandered too close into the tecnico corner and they turned it around for some final exchanges, some rudo miscommunication, and then a triumphant tecnico victory including Wagner walking around forever with Caras on his shoulder holding an armbar before they finally rolled forward. As fun as you'd expect with guys this talented. 

ER: This had a great ramshackle feel to it. Tight rudo team who all had different ways of bumping cool in a large flat CMLL ring. It's a powerhouse rudo team with three workers who were all cool in different ways in 1996. Wagner got to show off his power, Bestia got to show off his speed and his grace while being built like Vincent Pastoricito, Satanico got to show off his cunning and sadistic leadership. But where they're at their best, is coming together to assault sweet young Héctor Garza. I don't know why Garza's magic didn't work in the United States. You watch his work in Mexico before his US run and his tecnico connection to crowds is so obvious, and it's just not there in WCW or WWF. His babyface presence and charisma mostly vanished on US TV. 

He was brought in to both WWF and WCW with plans on making him one of the pushed ones among his niche, but both bailed on him quickly. In WWF he was a two month foreign babyface firebrand, a busted experiment that stumbled so the later-that-year Taka Michinoku foreign babyface firebrand push. He was given the big solo in all the early WCW trios matches but never connected as even a top 5 luchador babyface with any WCW crowds. The charisma always instantly returned in Mexico and it's evident here. Any time the rudos focus on Garza the match becomes laser focused and Important. He is a tecnico muse to each rudo and inspires them to increased punishment. Satanico and Wagner seem like they take joy in assaulting Garza and I think Garza connects the way he does with Mexico crowds because some felt that sadistic joy and either felt he deserved it for being too pretty while other felt he was too pretty to deserve it. Wagner's top rope superplex and Superfly splash on on him was a real highlight, some real Welcome to the Big Leagues moment, and Garza in Mexico was still great at being the victim of those moments several years into his career. 

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El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: The King of Kong

Week 50: The King of Kong

EB: It was supposed to settle the feud. A cage with a roof and a lock on the door to ensure no interference. Finally, we would settle things once and for all between Carlos Colon and Dick  Murdoch. But it seems that Murdoch had a plan, as Joe Don Smith was able to pass Murdoch a piece of barbed wire through a hole in the fencing. Murdoch proceeded to attack and cut up not just Carlos Colon with the barbed wire, but also attack and cut up referee El Vikingo as well. The match had no definitive winner and it seems Murdoch’s actions are under review by the WWC committee due to his attack on the referee. While that matter is under review, one more match has been signed between Colon and Murdoch. It is scheduled for April 6 in Carolina and it has a few stipulations attached. Due to the attack with the barbed wire, the match will be a barbed wire match. In addition, to ensure that Joe DonSmith cannot interfere in any way, he will be locked inside a small cage that will be suspended above the ring. Will this finally settle this feud? 

Another long running feud that has apparently reached its climax is the one between Action Jackson and TNT. This feud was restarted in January when the Original TNT made his return to Puerto Rico and continued even after TNT had claimed the sole rights to the TNT name. After three months, TNT has been able to defeat ActionJackson and regain the TV title. But it seems that Action is getting a title rematch at the upcoming TV taping, so we will have to see if this finally settles the issue. Let’s go to the April 6 episode of Campeones to find out once and for all if the rivalry between TNT and ActionJackson can finally be put to rest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGCLcUayh-0

Hugo and Profe welcome the viewers to another episode of Campeones on TeleOnce. They run down who will be inaction on today’s program (including a name we have not heard of before), when Hugo mentions that we will go to what happened last Wednesday at the TV taping when Action Jackson was facing the new TV champion TNT. We cut to TNT having Action in the Cobra Dinamita when a huge masked guy climbs into the ring and attacks TNT from behind. This man is known as King Kong and he is the latest acquisition of Gen. Skandor Akbar. Kong attacks TNT, finishing the attack with a splash off the top turnbuckle. It looks like the TNT has finally gotten past action Jackson and already has someone new targeting him. Kong continues stomping on TNT until reinforcements arrive to make the save. 

Back to Hugo and Profe, and Profe is gushing about how impressive and wonderful King Kong’s first impression was. Hugo says that because of this attack, tonight’s card in Carolina is undergoing a change. Instead of facing Motor City Madman, TNT will now be facing King Kong. Hugo also says that TNT wants to send his apologies to the fans for not being able to appear on the Thursday and Friday shows due to the attack (with El Profe interjecting ‘and tonight's as well!’), but Hugo says TNT says he will be there tonight. Also tonight, a huge main event as the Universal title will be defended in a barbed wire match and Joe Don Smith will be suspended 15 feet above the ring in a small cage to prevent him from interfering. Last week, it was Joe Don who passed the barbed wire to Dick Murdsoch that was promptly used to hurt both the referee and Carlos Colon. Hugo says that the WWC is reviewing all of these things DickMurdoch has done and may be deciding soon what actions to take against this individual. Profe is looking forward to seeing Carlos Colon torn apart by the barbed wire and Dick Murdoch as the new Universal champion.Hugo says we will have video of what happened last week as well as some special interviews, but these seem to be edited off the version of this episode we have available. Hugo finishes by promoting the merchandise available for fans to purchase tonight and also plugs an amateur boxing tournament that was happening that night as well in Miramar (where they tape their TV). Again, please remember to buy your tickets at the box office, protect your money.

MD: As best as I can figure here, this King Kong is actually Awesome Kong and not King Kong II who is the King Kong that teamed with Awesome Kong as part of the Colossal Kongs. Got it? Regardless, this was pretty effective overall. He had good presence in framing the moment after TNT crashed into him off the ropes and moved pretty well heading up to the top for a splash.

EB: Our first match is Huracan Castillo vs Rick Valentine, an offshoot of the Caribbean tag title change from a couple of weeks back. Valentine blindsides Castillo before Huracan can take off his ring jacket. Valentine controls for a couple of minutes before Castillo comes back and finishes Valentine off with a body press. Short match as Valentine is finishing up his year long run.

MD: I think this week might be just about it for ol’ Kerry Brown in Puerto Rico at least this time around. You have to admire the run that he had. This was a pretty compact affair where he attacked Castillo before he got his jacket off and they skipped the shine to go straight to the heat. Valentine was focused and effective and had a nice neckbreaker. Castillo came back with energy and jumping knees and won it clean without any real drama with a body press. Professional stuff at least.

EB: The California Studs have done very well in their run so far and have moved into position to challenge for the World tag team titles.They were not successful last week, but Akbar, Lee and Anthony cut a promo on facing Bronco and Invader tonight in a rematch. Akbar promises the gold will be theirs tonight. Bronco and Invader respond by saying it won’t be easy, with Bronco saying you have to go it there willing to fight, willing to die, willing to kill if they want to get these World tag titles.Invader puts over the quality of the Studs and they will be ready when that bell rings. 

MD: Still amusing to see how the choreography is off. Akbar starts speaking and sticks the mic in Lee’s face but they all have to wait for the voice over to be done. Lee talks and does the “tell ‘em, big man” for Anthony (which is funny in its own right) and then they have to wait again. I do like how this is where Devastation Inc. ended up between World Class and Global. Invader and Bronco don’t necessarily seem as hot about this program as Studs do. Anthony’s talking about how they left the babyfaces laying in their blood and Invader’s talking more about conditioning and competition. 

EB: We saw him debut earlier in the program by attacking TNT, but here is our first look at King Kong in a match. His opponent is Jerry Mercado and it goes as well as you would expect for poor Mercado. Hugo on commentary says that he's heard that this King Kong weighs 450 pounds and Kong makes quick work of Jerry. A big splash gets the three count and poor Jerry is stretched out after the match. Akbar has found quite the big gun here.

MD: Kong has the cool barbarian robe deal, so that’s a plus. He does a kick (just an okay kick), then a DDT of all things and the splash you’d expect and I reiterate that he’s moving around int here pretty well. That’s the whole match. They stretcher Mercado out after the fact. There’s every sense that the top guys (Colon, Invader, etc.) could do something with him but I’d wonder what he and Giant Warrior could do with each other.

EB: Profe is with Scott Hall and they talk about Hall’s match tonight against Giant Warrior. It is for the Caribbean title and Hall says it will take more than face paint, arm ribbons and some screaming fans to beat the blond outlaw. Warrior responds by reminding Hall that he beat Hall in the bullrope match and that he is looking forward to winning that Caribbean title.

MD: We have to be running out of time on Hall too but at least we get to see him do all of his hand gestures while Profe talks. Warrior won a recent bullrope match so now he gets a shot at the Caribbean title.

EB: Our main event is a match that took place recently between the California Studs and the team of Giant Warrior and Ricky Santana. Anthony and Santana start off by exchanging punches, followed by Santana getting the better of Anthony on a corner whip. The crossbody by Santana is broken up by Lee and all four men are in the ring. Warrior and Ricky send the Studs out with a double team (Warrior holds santana while Ricky kicks the Studs). The Studs regroup and Brian Lee is tagged in. The match continues with Ricky in control by using his speed to counter Lee and Anthony. It gets to the point where Lee has to rub Anthony’s shoulders to psych him up. A blind tag to Lee finally allows the Studs to take control when Ricky is blindsided by a Lee clothesline. Lee distracts the referee by taunting Giant Warrior and drawing him into the ring, allowing Tony Anthony to attack Ricky on the arena floor. The Studs keep Santana isolated but a couple of missed moves by Anthony allows the tag to be made. Warrior briefly cleans house on the Studs. All four men are in the ring and it leads to Santana getting a small package on Anthony that is reversed by Lee. The Studs get the win. Hugo complains that they stole that win and then starts doing one last hard sell for tonight’s show as the video cuts.

MD: The Studs really fit in well. If I had my choice, maybe there’d be more contrast between Lee and Anthony but it’s also a lot of fun to see Lee stooging so huge. He ran a sequence with Santana early here where he won on shoulder tackles but then lost on speed and it was full of him flexing, pinballing, stalling, stooging, escaping outside of the ring and it was great stuff. Warrior had a nice big where he lifted up Santana to kick everyone too. Heat was on Santana after a nice blind tag transition (Anthony leapfrogged him and he ran right into a clothesline) and they built well to the hot tag to Warrior. Finish had Santana get a roll up as the ref was distracted and Lee pushing them over so Anthony could win. You could put the Studs against any two guys in the territory and it’d probably be good.

EB: We now go to the west coast version of Super Estrellas from the same day.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MQ1Q-wa60g

The version we have starts with a Rick Valentine vs Giant Warrior match already in progress. Valentine jumped Warrior before Warrior was able to get his ring jacket off. Sound strategy but Warrior is able to shake Valentine off and gets the win while still wearing his ring jacket. And that should be it for Rick Valentine in CSP.

MD: Similar to the Castillo match in Valentine attacks before the ring jacket comes off. It doesn’t go quite as well for him as Warrior is just too big. They go back and forth a bit but Valentine runs into a boot and maybe this is it for him?

EB: We get a series of interviews regarding matches for tomorrow’s house show in Quebradillas. Monster Ripper is facing Sasha in a non-title match. Ripper reminds everyone that she is the champ and that she won't let Sasha beat her to get a title shot. Sasha is garbage, a worm and she will prove it tomorrow. Sasha responds by urging the fans to support her tomorrow as she looks to get another title shot and bring the title to Puerto Rico.

Ricky Santnaa is facing Gran Mendoza tomorrow and the topic is that controversial glove that Mendoza uses. Ricky sends a hello to the fans in Quebradillas and Hugo says that the ladies are especially looking forward to seeing Ricky tomorrow.

MD: Not a lot to say about these. Ripper’s got the belt. Sasha wants the belt. She wants to give it back to the people of Puerto Rico. And Santana has to contend with Gran Mendoza and his loaded glove. We’ll hear from him later.

EB: Up next is Dick Murdoch taking on Kim Duk. Duk threatens Murdoch with the kendo stick while trying to enter the ring, with Murdoch begging off. Murdoch snatches the kendo stick from the ref when he is trying to put it away, but is not able to use it before the ref takes it back. Murdoch then tries to jump Duk when he has his back turned for the salt ceremony, but Duk catches Murdoch and wards him off with the threat of salt being thrown. As the match goes on, Hug takes a moment to explain what happened the previous weekend during the cage match between Carlos Colon and Dick Murdoch. Joe Don Smith slid a piece of barbed wire through the cage fencing to Dick Murdoch, which Murdoch used to attack and cut up not just Carlos Colon but the referee as well. Hugo says the incident is being evaluated by the WWC committee and we have to see what decision they reach regarding this disgusting and unprofessional action. In the ring, Murdoch takes control due to some dirty tactics and controls most of the match with punches and elbows. Duk eventually starts punching back and goes off on Murdoch for the last couple of minutes (with some great stooging and begging off from Murdoch). Duk gets the cobra clutch on Murdoch and it looks like he may have Murdoch down, but Joe Don Smith jumps in for the dq. Duk chases Smith but Murdoch attacks from behind and they briefly double team Duk. Murdoch then wraps a cord around Duk’s throat and chokes him out. Duk wins by dq but Murdoch has left him down.

MD: Murdoch, as always, is great to watch. He had antics at the start with the kendo stick. His hands were going all over the place throughout. He controlled most of it and all of his offense looked great, but when Duk was ready for his comeback, he took everything and made it look ten times better and a hundred times more entertaining than usual. He ended up in the cobra clutch but Joe Don (in full baseball gear) broke it up for the DQ with them double teaming Duk and leaving him laying after the fact. 

EB: El Galan Mendoza is next with Monster Ripper and Mendoza claims he is making his return (dude, you’ve been around since January). He is facing Ricky Santana tomorrow. Hugo brings up his glove and Mendoza is aghast that Hugo would say such a thing about any illegal use. They are followed by Akbar and the California Studs, their opponents tomorrow are TNT & Kim Duk, who close this section with comments of their own.

MD: Mendoza, on his own with Ripper, as much as I think he’s a solid talent, is kind of punching above his weight here. It is nice to see Duk and TNT together after all they’ve been through since Duk was brought in as heel TNT’s karate associate.

EB: We next get the King Kong vs Jerry Mercado match we had on Campeones. King Kong will be in action tomorrow in Quebradillas against Miguelito Perez. 

MD: This is the same match from the other show. Akbar is always respectful of Perez, Sr. but he really wonders what Perez Jr. is thinking going up against Kong.

EB: Dick Murdoch is bragging about taking Joe Don to his ranch in Texas and putting him to work. Then he has some words for Giant Warrior, who he is facing tomorrow in Quebradillas. Afterwards, Giant Warrior says that Murdoch is a tough man but he will not back down.

MD: Murdoch has fun confusing the town of Quebradillas with a food. He does a good job of putting Giant Warrior over as dangerous but also indicating it won’t matter a bit.

EB: We have the El Bronco music video that was done when he debuted back in December 1990..

MD: This is not at all important but considering how much Bronco’s valet is featured in this video I wonder why she’s never around. It could also be an old video from when he was coming in the first time?

EB: We have another series of promos for tomorrow’s card, as Action Jackson is facing Bronco tomorrow and he mocks Bronco's dancing. Bronco promises he will not be made a fool off tomorrow, and Miguelito Perez promises to do his best for the fans tomorrow against a guy that is big.  

MD: Jackson’s really funny because he’ll toss it over to Profe and then just keep talking as Profe talks over him with the mic and it’s certainly memorable if not particularly effective. 

EB: The California Studs are facing the team of Super Medico #3 and Invader #4. The tecnicos do well early on but Invader #4 falls prey to a Tony Anthony punch and then Lee proceeds to take over once tagged in. They work over Invader #4, but eventually the hot tag is made. All four men are in and the tecnicos are briefly in control again until Medico #3 misses a charge and is clotheslined on the top rope. This allows Brian Lee the opening to hit his flying kneedrop and get the pin. 

MD: They have the match bookended by the Studs video. Medico III and Invader IV is actually a pretty smart team now that Invader I is with Bronco and Medico I had to hang it up. Invader IV is pretty spry and agile and Medico III has some size and his dad’s striking (though not quite as good). I get the sense they don’t run with this pairing for long though. Here they were there to put over the Studs. More good stooging and controlling the ring (with some Akbar interference). Finish had Invader IV make the hot tag but Lee able to redirect Medico’s throat over the top rope and then he hit the bombs away knee from the top clean to get the pin. Studs train keeps on rolling. 

EB: Our final match for the episode is Doug Gilbert taking on Ricky Santana. The first half of the match has a focus of both wrestlers working over each other's arms, with Gilbert then controlling the middle portion with some chinlocks. Ricky comes back and they end up taking a not smoothly executed tumble over the top rope to the outside. They start fighting as the ref counts them both out. Hugo then closes the show. 

MD: This wasn’t a lot to write home about. The early bits where Gilbert controlled the arm by pulling the hair repeatedly were done well, but a lot of the middle chunk were chinlocks where he wasn’t as active as he could have been. He’s not exactly a force, just sort of a heel presence on the midcard, and they ended up protecting both of these guys with a double countout.    

Carlos Colon vs Dick Murdoch barbed wire match from April 6 in Carolina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fSbbbCKVsY

EB: We finally have a match from the Carlos Colon and Dick Murdoch feud. This is a barbed wire match where Joe Din Smith will be suspended in a cage above the ring so he can't interfere. We begin with Joe Don already above the ring in a cage as Colon and Murdoch are facing off. Colon is able to back Murdoch up into a corner and it seems Murdoch's tights have gotten caught on the barbed wire Murdoch asks referee Victor Quiñonez to help remove the barbed wire from his butt.Colon and Murdoch start exchanging punches again (although Murdoch takes a moment to sell the pain of being pricked in the buttock by the barbed wire) and Murdoch is the first one to try to shove his opponent's face into the wire. Carlos fights Murdoch off and avoids going into the wire. Murdoch flips off Colon. They continue exchanging blows and we get a camera shot where we can see Joe Don hanging above the ring. Murdoch manages to knock Carlos down and starts signalling to Joe Don. It seems they have a plan and it involves Joe Don lowering a blackboard with some instructions written on it. Joe Don has hidden some wire cutters near the ring and the blackboard is telling Murdoch where they are at. Murdoch heads to a corner and finds the wire cutters, and puts them to use by cutting off a piece of barbed wire.  Murdoch then uses the piece of wire to choke Carlos. It is no dq so the ref can only watch and see if Carlos gives up. Murdoch headbutts the ref for good measure to ensure he doesn’t intervene and stop the choking with the wire. Carlos is able to break out of the choke by foul kicking Murdoch and then proceeds to give him a taste of his own medicine by choking Murdoch with the wire. The ref finally is able to toss out the wire and Carlos scrapes Murdoch's head on the barber wire. 

Murdoch is bleeding and Carlos continues the attack by working over the cut. However, Murdoch cuts that off with a foul blow of his own. Murdoch rams Colon’s head into the wire and is in control as Joe Don uses the blackboard to send down this message of encouragement: ‘You're winning!’.Carlos is now bleeding and is sent back first into the barbed wire. Murdoch continues punching (with taped fists) and Carlos catches his arm on the wire. Murdoch continues working over Colon’s forehead but eventually Carlos makes a comeback.Carlos sends Murdoch into the wire a couple of times and we see Joe Don banging on the cage in frustration. Murdoch rakes Colon’s eyes to stop the attack. Murdoch gets a piledriver for a two count and then signals to Joe Don for something. Joe Don lowers some brass knuckles, but Carlos intercepts them. Carlos wallops Murdoch with the knuckles and gets the pinfall win. The crowd cheers as Colon has his hand raised. Carlos wants to continue attacking Murdoch but the ref waves him off. We still have Joe Don above the ring in the cage, looking defeated. 

We cut to when Joe Don’s cage is being lowered, and Carlos goes back into the ring. He decks Murdoch with a punch that sends Murdoch head first into the bottom of the small cage. Murdoch is knocked out and Joe Don is trapped in the cage with an angry Carlos Colon waiting for him. Carlos rolls out of the ring to wait for the cage to be lowered, while Joe Don starts begging for them to lift the cage back up. Carlos has the knuckles and is yelling for them to lower that cage. The ref opens the cage door as we see Murdoch slowly roll out of the ring, still a bit out of it. Carlos stalks Murdoch who then motions to Colon and points at Joe Don in the ring to try to get Colon off his back. It works as Carlos gets in the ring and unleashes some frustration on Joe Don. Murdoch does eventually come back in to get Colon to back  off, but Joe Don took quite a few lumps. Carlos has gotten some measure of payback on both Murdoch and Joe Don.  .  

MD: We’re lucky to have this one. Joe Don Smith was elevated over the ring in a small cage. It’s more or less what you’d want from a barbed wire match but with that Dick Murdoch twist. It started with his trunks getting caught on the wire and it didn’t really look back. He controlled after a low blow but then Colon came back after one. Meanwhile, Murdoch’s idea for the match, which was wonderful in practice, was to use a small blackboard to trade instructions back and forth with Smith. It was pretty comedic in practice. Super entertaining. At one point, he sent down a note saying how great a job Murdoch was doing. 

I think early on he got Murdoch some wire cutters so he could cut off a part of the wire to use to choke Colon. Of course Colon got it himself later. After the cartwheel, Colon used headbutts and they all seemed to twist Murdoch about and send him headlong into the wire. He bled big. Finish had Murdoch get a pile driver and then, confident, ask Smith for knucks. Colon got them and won the match. Post-match was all about Colon getting his hands on Smith and to set it up, as the cage was being lowered, they pulled off one of the greatest stooge bumps I’ve ever seen, as Murdoch missed a shot and got nailed right into the lowered cage, getting KOed. That let Colon unload on Smith before Murdoch could recover and pull him away. This was really a blast. Maybe it needed just a bit more of Colon getting ripped apart but otherwise, it was great stuff.

EB: Next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emociones, TNT seeks payback against the massive King Kong, Galan Mendoza gets a new tag partner, and the California Studs paint the town red (well, the ring at least).  

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Lucy! Ikeshita!

Disc 1

4. Tomi Aoyama & Jackie Sato Interviews - 2/21/80

5. Lucy Kayama vs. Yumi Ikeshita (All Pacific Title) - 2/21/80

K: Before we get to the match, we have an announcement from Commissioner Ueda that Tomi Aoyama will have to vacate the All Pacific title and cancel her title challenge against Jackie Sato due to an injured knee. This is all real, but they make the most of it for TV purposes by getting over how devastated Tomi is to lose this opportunity, saying that she doesn't care if she loses a leg in trying to win the title. The next interview with Jackie about the situation also holds the line, as she talks about how she missed a lot of time due to injuries early in her career. It all makes wrestling feel very important and winning a title to be the crowning achievement of their lives.

So this is for the vacated All Pacific belt. There's a high level of ambition to this compared to most of the matches going on around the time. The first 10 minutes or so are mostly just matwork, but it's very gritty and interesting matwork with a slight feeling of escalation throughout. You don't see either of them having an obvious strategy or targetting a specific limb or anything, it's more like they're just reacting in the moment with whatever opportunity is available to them. It's "riffing" but it feels more genuine than in the Zack Sabre Junior sense, as I don't get the feeling that any of this was choreographed. 

Examples of interesting offense around the many hammerlocks include them doing that turning Greco-Roman test of strength spot that I associate with Billy Robinson vs. Giant Baba, but with a twist that Ikeshita brutally forces Kayama backfirst straight down onto her knee. Ikeshita also headbutts Ikeshita's shoulder while working her arm on the mat. There's a fanastic spot that Matt's already GIFed on Twitter when Ikeshita walks up Kayama's body onto her shoulder to turn her over into an armbar (I don't know how to describe it exactly). It's cool enough that Ikeshita makes the mistake of attempting it a second time a few minutes later, but Kayama counters it this time and creates space for her comeback segment. 

I think there's a nice contrast between the two segments in that while Ikeshita was on top for most of the first 10 minutes, Kayama was still fighting back and standing up to her. However, once we get into Kayama's segment where she has the momentum, Ikeshita comes across as unsporting and while not quite 'cowardly' she's hardly showing fighting spirit. She backpeddles constantly, tries to get to the ropes and goes to the outside for an extending period breaking up Kayama's flow. There's nice little moment where she backs off from Kayama and actually falls over looking kinda foolish for a second. Her brief 'hope' spots are totally opportunistic and acts of savagry where she goes straight for the throat or eyes. This escalates into her pulling out a weapon and trying to stab Kayama with it to shrieks from the crowd, which sets up Kayama snatching it off her and getting it a stab of her own on the outside, justified revenge, but perhaps a mistake to fight Ikeshita on her terms.

Ikeshita can't quite help being a kinda "cool" heel, but her performance here certainly isn't going for that and I think it is effective with her audience, even if me in 2025 still thinks she's kinda cool :)

The more this turns into a brawl the more sloppy and difficult to follow it gets. It's entertaining but I don't think it quite developed from the bulk of the match up to this point, the shifts in momentum start to feel a bit random until the finishing stretch, which was good. Lucy goes for a big dive to the outside and misses, but unlike earlier in the month where she won the tag titles soon after missing a dive, this time Ikeshita immediately pounces on the mistake and soon has her in the ring, gives her two big piledrivers and takes the win and the belt.

Not quite a great match, I think I've said this a few times, but they mostly have the right idea and it feels like they're getting a bit closer to reaching the stars. Certainly a very interesting one.

***3/4

MD: Here’s the big title match to decide who gets Tomi’s vacated All-Pacific title. And it’s really something. They did some fairly scrappy matwork to begin, more so than I would have expected. That’s not to say they weren’t swinging at each other while in holds. Ikeshita was able to seize an advantage by working the arm, building to this great step up short armscissors takeover and roll. That opened things up enough for her to hit her fall away slams.

When she went for the step up again, Kayama was able to hang on, hold her high and drop backwards with her. I know this doesn’t seem like a ton (though it was a great spot) but that sort of transition with a callback really isn’t the sort of thing we saw much in 79. She honed in on the leg but couldn’t hold the advantage for too long because Ikeshita started playing hide the object. That led to yet another callback spot. She had nailed Lucy in the gut off the ropes with it. When she went for it again, Lucy was able to get a sunset flip hope spot out of it. It just feels different to me, closer to more modern, more complex wrestling. And it’s two matches now, so that’s a bit of a pattern.

Kayama got the object on the floor and mounted a bit comeback turning a teeter totter tombstone bit into a slam and following up with a gutwrench and tiger driver. Ikeshita sometimes went right to her belly so she couldn’t get pinned or put her knees up to avoid it, and she did the former here. It was a nice touch, as was the transition where she just launched a headbutt into a charging Lucy. Finishing stretch had her clock Lucy and the ref with chairs. Lucy was able to use her athleticism to vault over her only to get taken down. Ikeshita followed up with another series of bombs (Power slam, butterfly suplex, leaping bulldog) but missed a dive. Unfortunately, Lucy missed the Queen Rocket and Ikeshita put her down with a belly to back and two pile drivers, which is not a move we’ve seen much in the footage so far. The finish left everyone dejected but it made Ikeshita into someone to chase. There were definitely more modern elements here (callbacks for transitions and hope spots, dueling limbwork, etc.) and it felt like a very complete match overall to me. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 10/20 - 10/26

AEW Dynamite 10/22/25

Jon Moxley vs. Kyle O'Reilly

MD: Jon Moxley has mouths to feed.

He's got bodies to stack up. He's got things to prove. He's a strongman with an army. But that army needs to eat. He's convinced them that it's the post-apocalypse, that it's kill or be killed. 

And he went and got himself killed. He lost his title. He won a battle against Darby Allin but not the war. And there, in the center of the ring, he was made to quit. 

He feels the wolves nipping at his heels. He's supposed to be the wolf. He'd been the wolf with his back against the wall but then the wall fell in on him. Now they're behind him, getting ever closer. Now forget wolves. The chickens are coming home to roost. 

But he's still Jon Moxley. He's a barefist fighter. He's a bloodspot warrior. He's a submission scrapper. He's the best at what he does. And there's opportunity around every corner.

Kyle O'Reilly is a perfect opportunity. He represents everything Moxley claims to hate, everything that he rails against, the world that he's trying to destroy. O'Reilly has all the tools, all the training, all the skills, all the fight, but a weak liver, a tender heart. He wants to sit on a couch and make funny videos with his friends, wants a cheesy sitcom theme song, wants to make faces for memes as Mark Briscoe comes up with the word of the day. All this instead of being a champion. He's everything the BCC was created to stamp out and everything the Death Riders were escalated to burn to ashes.

So he faces him in the middle of the ring. He scraps with him on the mat. And he comes up lacking. O'Reilly wrestles him even and then takes it a step further, flying over into a cross arm breaker, outwrestling him. Moxley immediately grinds his heel into O'Reilly's face, bites at his ear, stomps his hand on the steel steps. So what if he got outwrestled. So what if he even got outstriked. He's Jon Moxley and he'd outrough him, would punish him for his foolishness, his temerity. 

But Mox wanted it too badly. He needed it too badly. He overextended, went sailing over the top rope, ended up on a chair with O'Reilly's feet slamming into his jaw. 

Even that's okay, though. Because he's Jon Moxley and finishing stretches are where he rules supreme. That last bit of a fight, one last gasp, one last takedown. A pile driver. A lock in of that bulldog choke, using his strength, leaning into his toughness, riding over, pressing down. O'Reilly kicks out, putting up a fight, but that's okay too. That'd just make Moxley look stronger in victory like he had so many times.

Except for that's not what happened. This isn't the same Jon Moxley. This is a Jon Moxley that's bleeding out, that feels those wolves getting ever closer, that can hear the rumbling of his men's stomachs, and that knows it's only a matter of time before he starts looking less like predator and more like prey. 

O'Reilly has an answer to everything Moxley throws at him. He snatches an ankle lock. He crashes down off the top rope with a stomp onto the leg. He is unrelenting. No smiles. No funny faces. No laughter. Instead, everything Moxley claimed he wanted out of him, wanted out of his competition, wanted out of AEW. Mox didn't want it all that much anymore, did he? 

He felt it all slipping away and so he did the only thing he could. He pulled himself to one foot, the other grasped, twisted, contorted. He used the referee to pull himself up and then, instead of quitting, he overturned the board, smashing the ref, drawing the DQ. One might say that he took fate into his own hands, but then surrender manifests itself in many forms, doesn't it? 

What a performance then from these two. What a complex, desperate, human story that they told through our beloved, rarely stretched and rarely challenged, all too comfortable and familiar medium of pro wrestling. There were strands of Hemmingway here: short, stilted sentences, the depravity of humanity, a man at the very end of his rope. 

What's really exciting though, even more than what they were able to accomplish here, is that Moxley hasn't even begun to hit bottom yet.

There's more to come.

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Things Used to Be Better. I Used to See Super Dragon Live.

Super Dragon vs. B-Boy MPW 11/3/01

ER: Billed as the SoCal Match of the Year by the title card, it is almost certainly not. Even among Super Dragon's other 2001 MPW matches it would be tough to call this the match of the year: A Low Ki time limit draw, a 2/3 falls match with Rising Son, and a Jardi Frantz match. Jardi might sound like a fake opponent to anyone reading this in 2025, but he was a great indie wrestler in 1999-2003. I had the time of my life during this era of west coast wrestling. I couldn't get enough of it and went to so many shows with friends. Even if I don't think this is what the 2001 SoCal MOTY might have been, this is definitely what a big SoCal indie match looked like in 2001, which was incredibly groundbreaking. I really liked Millennium Pro. Those were some good times. The shows were held at a Jewish Community Center in a nice neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. So, you're in the Valley watching wrestling in a hotel conference room style lit carpeted room and you'd get a bad Hardcore Kidd or Cincinnati Red match and a brilliant Super Dragon match and then you and your friends get to hear Adam Pearce ice out a room with a heavy breathing post-match late 2001 promo stating he was "blown up like the towers".

Our intrepid cameraman is seated next to a soft spoken mother and her little girl who is giggling through a 25 minute long SoCal match of the year. The girl asks her mom for her compact mirror so she can see how loose her tooth is while B-Boy is kicking Dragon across the face, dropkicking him in the back of the head, and throwing vicious crossfaces. Everybody left with loose teeth. B-Boy works over Dragon's leg and it's decent stuff, but everything is more compelling whenever he's stiffing Dragon up, which is most of the runtime. It's weird to see an era where Dragon wasn't the guy working more stiff in a match. B-Boy had an insane offense arsenal and we see it all, done with real energy. His Thousand Oaks Jam was more Bobby Eaton than Psicosis and that's a huge compliment. Crazy distance and a beautiful landing.

They take awhile to set up a cool spot on the floor, but the payoff is worth it to see in a well lit community center: B-Boy tries a reverse splash crucifix bomb off the apron and Dragon reverses it with a Super Calo headscissors that sent him down an aisle surrounded by coral upholstery hotel conference chairs. When Dragon goes for the follow up dive he gets stopped in his tracks deader than dead can be. The whole chain that led to the crucifix bomb was started by Dragon scouting B-Boy's past dive blocks, and didn't count on B-Boy staying diligent to stopping all dives. It was a great bit of layering where every action actually played off previous actions and subverted learned behaviors all within one match. Dragon's blocked dive wasn't his only miss, as he was good at leaving openings with a big miss. His missed phoenix splash was great and led to a strong nearfall.

This got super exciting when it was clear that the crowd was really wanting B-Boy to take this. He starts rocking Dragon with left-right elbow combos and levels him with a clothesline, and these people are living with it. Dragon takes a suplex on his head like Super Dragon would do and fighting spirits to his feet to hit a lariat even more badass than B-Boy's. We've dealt with 25 years of guys aping fighting spirit that they saw on their first puro tape, but this was before ROH even existed, before any kind of super indy style pulling from Japan. Roll your eyes at the masked man's fighting spirit lariat, but you cannot deny the humongous jump-to-their-feet babyface reaction the spot got, completely blowing B-Boy's loud support from just 20 seconds ago out of the water. This was a Super Dragon crowd who started growing loudly into a B-Boy crowd before being firmly turned back into a Super Dragon crowd...but then B-Boy kicked out after a Psycho Driver and the entire crowd shifted right back to being a loud B-Boy crowd. Incredible vibes.

Maybe this was the SoCal match of the year. There were other matches I saw live that I liked more, others I liked more on tape, but I don't remember any of them getting the entire crowd so involved with the ups and downs and the major tide shifts. That's special, and almost surely why it was so fondly remembered by anyone who witnessed it at the time. Still plays as something big today.

Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance APW 5/24/02

ER: Damn, there I am in the front row of this Gym Wars show with a girlfriend who would not be my girlfriend by June of 2002. I noticed her and my friend Jason before I noticed myself sitting in between them. There couldn't have been 80 people at those Gym Wars shows and we went to a ton of them over a several year period. I didn't even remember seeing this match but here is proof that I did, over half my life ago, in a Hayward garage with 60 or so other people who were all locked in, living in an era before cell phone dominance.

Bobby Quance is basically 10 matches into his short career and is malleable in the best way. This is just 15 sick minutes of Super Dragon manipulating the match into anything he wanted it to be. It starts with nice engaging arm work and armdrag mat wrestling, with Dragon grapevining Quance's arm in cool ways while maneuvering him into pins, Quance coming back when he can with speed. Dragon lets Quance show off a bit, breaking the match open taking a headscissors to the floor to set up a big Bobby tope con giro, then catches a springboard huracanrana back into the ring for 2. That's when Dragon starts trying to shut him down by going after Quance's leg, and it rules. Dragon throws his full weight into a dropkick to the knee and starts kicking at it, then locks in what I can only describe as a very stiff figure 4. You see a submission several thousand times and suddenly you watch a match where you're also watching your 21 year old self watching a match and both versions of you are witnessing a truly great figure 4 leglock. Dragon starts goading Quance into slapping him in the hold and Quance is small enough that he can't quite reach Dragon's face. Quance's effort to make the ropes was great, but not as great as Dragon mocking everyone's applause with dainty hand claps when Quance finally gets the rope break.

Dragon is good at always making it look like he's trying to finish the match, while providing openings for Quance to extend the match. There's a cool Psycho Driver set up where Quance almost rolls through it with a rana, but Dragon blocks his reversal and pulls him back up to hit a beautiful piledriver. When Quance gives the rest of what he has, he limps convincingly through his comeback and hits a back elbow and clothesline much harder than you'd expect he'd be able to hit by looking at him. He gets geared up enough to foolishly try a shooting star press, sees Dragon has moved and lands on his feet...and realizes he would have been better off just missing the shooting star because Dragon never stopped kicking at all sides of his knee. Quance's knee buckles and he's left a sitting duck for Dragon's clothesline, and nobody in the states was throwing better clotheslines than Dragon in 2002. Dragon easily could have ended things there, but he gets in a slick show off move with a spot I do not remember him doing: he rolls over the ropes like he's doing the Misawa feint, but rolls back into the ring in one motion and leaps into a back elbow. So cool. His springboard spinning heel kick lands heavy to the back of Bobby's head, and I love watching my friend Jason put his hands up over his face after Dragon sticks him with the Psycho Driver. What a find, and what luck to have been able to see this kind of wrestling live in 2002 and sitting on my couch in 2025.

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Found Footage Friday: CROCKETT CUP 87 NIGHT 1~!

Crockett Cup 87 Night 1 JCP 4/10/87

ROUND 1

Bobby Jaggers/Rocky King vs. Thunderfoot I/Thunderfoot II

MD: It immediately bugs me why Dutch Mantell isn't with Jaggers. I know, I know, but the last match on Cagematch for Dutch before 4/10/87? End of March with Jaggers against the Thunderfeet! But he was wrestling Adrian Street for Continental on this date for some reason. So we get Jaggers and King. The winners here would face the top seed Raging and Ravishing in the second round. Thunderfeet are Ligon and Deaton, and Deaton and Jaggers probably would have been a good team. They're fine. This is fine. Jaggers has a nice double clothesline comeback. That was the best part of this past one Thunderfoot bump. 1987 Baltimore fans didn't seem to like King much. Probably best not to dig too deep there. Finish was a whole lot of nothing with King putting his head down not once but twice and getting caught both times, but with all the matches they had, they had to save some finishes.

ER: 1987 was crazy, man. This show drew over 13,000 people and you have Joel Deaton in a mask looking like a Mama's Family tag team that is wrestling Mama for some reason. Bobby Jaggers was really great in this. His offense hit really hard and his worked stuff had excellent execution. His Hitman elbow is really clean and he throws the non-Deaton Thunderfoot up into a really high back body drop. Jaggers was a really great seller too, took offense in an athletic way that belied his body. He looked like smaller Dusty Rhodes and honestly I might be a believer in the real Small Dusty potential of Jaggers. We need a Jaggers deep dive evaluation. Man Baltimore really got on Rocky King for a crossed up spot. People were actually saying Boo. 

Bill Dundee/Barbarian vs. Tim Horner/Mike Rotundo

MD: Yes, Capetta called him Rotundo. Tony called him Rotunda. If I have my timelines right, Horner was in between the short run with Ole earlier in the year and Lightning Express being the UWF tag champs a bit after this. He matched up really well with Dundee, who, to his credit, was very good in this player/coach role, telling Barbarian where to toss people and what not. This probably had a little too much Rotunda. If Horner was face-in-peril instead I probably would have gone for it more. Rotunda just doesn't inspire the same sort of sympathy. Dude just kind of sweats his way through his selling. Horner and Dundee did a great job keeping the fans into it on the apron though and Barb really did look like a force.

ER: How perfect does Barbarian looked? Could you imagine what a shame it would have been if this man never found pro wrestling? I can't even picture what it would be like walking through life in 1987. What a life. It's funny watching a specimen like that work Tim Horner and Mike Rotunda as almost equals instead of a guy ripping their intestines out and eating their face off their skull. Bill Dundee was excellent in this. Mid-South undersized heel Dundee is the peak of the Dean Malenko kind of fast moving juniors base who can move quickly and smoothly through chained exchanges. Dundee has his Lawler level execution of bumping, two of the greatest ever at putting over offense through controlled movement. He's the kind of guy you want to see doing things at every moment of the match. I thought it was actually more interesting that they tweaked the formula and had Rotunda as the FIP while Horner handled the hot tag. Rotunda as a face in peril might be the most interesting match structure of his career, forcing emotion out of him. He is more interesting being controlled than in control. Horner is really fun in the hot tag role and it's something you never see in this formula: the smallest looking guy in a match with Bill Dundee as the guy set on fire. I thought it worked best as the least traditional version of this match and 

Shaska Whatley/Teijo Khan vs. Jimmy Valiant/Lazer Tron

MD: This was a blast for the few minutes it lasted. So much of that was on the contrast between Valiant and Hector and how much Whatley committed to all the stooge spots. They'd run them bang bang bang in quick succession and it was pretty delightful. Valiant would draw his ire and he'd just run crashing into the corner and then they'd feed into heel miscommunication and double atomic drops and what not. They did a little bit of heat on Valiant and then a finishing sequence where the ref missed a pin after a pretty slick roll dodge/move off the ropes by Lasertron. When he looked back, Lasertron dumped Whatley over the top inadvertently to draw the DQ. Again they need lots of finishes for this thing. It's a shame we won't see more of that pairing here though.

ER: Sure sounds like the Baltimore crowd is chanting Shoeshine Boy at Whatley. It's crazy that Teijo Khan went on an All Japan tour. How'd that even go. I want a documentary on this guy spending a couple weeks in Japan doing Asian Face the entire time. Great Shaska Whatley heel comedy bump match. He looks like Johnathan Gresham's dad and takes these big empty pool senton bumps for everything, it's great. He throws these comically wide missed strikes to set up his bumps. He worked like Exotico Bad News Brown and it ruled. Whatley is a super over babyface in new to us 1983 Omni footage, and here the fans hate him more as a heel than they love Jimmy Valiant as a face. Lazer Tron stumbles on the Solar rope flip entrance. That's something Hector weirdly got better at doing the older he got. It's like some old man Mexican lucha power. Hector needed some years behind him before it could work. Needed another decade. Hector's at age 43 looked as great as Solar doing it at 53. 

Jimmy Garvin/Ron Garvin vs. Ricky Lee Jones/Italian Stallion

MD: Nothing here. Jones was Ricky Gibson actually, so that's interesting, but past some mat wrestling with Ron Garvin, he didn't get to do much. This was face vs face and while the fans were happy to see the Garvins and very eager to see them get the Midnights in Round 2 stemming from the fire angle that turned Jimmy face, this was sportsmanlike and quick. Jimmy won with a sunset flip out of nowhere. It's a shame that they couldn't have done RnR vs Ricky Gibson somehow but I think Morton was out with an eye injury. They could have even teamed Ricky Gibson with Robert and that would have been cool for one night too but alas, no.

Denny Brown/Todd Champion vs. The Mulkeys

MD: Big Mulkey chants. They were super over. Unfortunately, the bracketing meant they couldn't win here because the winners would face Baba/Takagi and they couldn't have Baba booed. They set this up so well on TV too by building up a fake team called the Gladiators for a couple of weeks and then doing a match vs the Mulkeys to see who would get in only for the Mulkeys to score the huge upset. They could have set up the brackets so a heel team could have faced them in round two though. Ah well. The fans popped for every bit of Mulkey offense (Which was basically a double back body drop and vertical suplex) but Brown hits a huge back body drop of his own and an Oklahoma Roll for the win. (again Ah well. I can't believe I'm complaining so much about 1987 Crockett booking here. I am enjoying this, honest!)

Nelson Royal/Mike Graham vs. Steve Keirn/George South

MD: Another baffling one was Keirn and Graham had teamed in the 70s and would team again in 87 Florida. This was actually a great performance by Royal and to a lesser degree Keirn. Royal was working South pretty even to start and the fans wanted nothing to do with it, chanting boring, so he decided to take it a different direction and work with a huge chip on his shoulder towards Keirn. Some very clever stuff and when they did pair off it was some great wrestling. Two problems: 1) I'm not sure South and Graham were on board, so it felt like a parejas increibles match or something with a heel and a face on both sides and 2) the match was booked to go to a draw. The crowd cheered the time call and cheered even more the draw since it meant both teams wouldn't be moving on. Not a good sign. Keirn did something awesome towards the end, tossing Graham over the top rope as the ref was distracted (should have drawn a DQ) and then dropping to the mat. Fun stuff, but it didn't amount to anything. This made me want to see a Royal vs Keirn match though.

Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov vs. Bob & Brad Armstrong

MD: We only had a couple of minutes of this before. Now we have the full thing. Not a ton to say about it overall though. Pietrov pretty convincingly handles Bob (who honestly makes him look great) until Brad gets the hot tag and comes in hot. The Russians try to use the chain and get caught. Pretty simple and straightforward but effective nonetheless. It's interesting to lose some of the "real" teams in round 1 like this. Ivan and Vlad were seeded actually, with the Mod Squad who were the only seeded teams having to wrestle in Round 1.

Mod Squad vs. Baron Von Raschke/Wahoo McDaniel

MD: Speaking of the Mod Squad, they had Dundee with them and they were the Florida Tag Champs, thus the seeding. Fun to watch Wahoo chop Dundee and then the two of them early on. They double teamed him though and he worked from underneath for a few minutes. Baron came in hot, which is a pretty funny image and the fans went nuts for the goosestepping/claw. Wahoo flew across the ring with a chop too but that drew the ref which allowed Dundee to slip in some knucks which meant the Florida tag champs moved on to the second round. Guess you had to protect them since they'd be an act moving forward?

ROUND 2

Manny Fernandez/Rick Rude vs. Thunderfoot I/Thunderfoot II

MD: Now this is an interesting match up because it's heel vs heel and neither side is redeemable at all. Jones went on the mic at the start to remind everyone that Raging 'n' Ravishing were the #1 seed. Midway through Thunderfoot #1 actually mouthed off to Jones while he had Manny in a headlock. He almost immediately got tossed off and thrashed of course. Eventually he made the tag and it looked like they were going to take over on Manny but Rude rushed right in, heel that he was, and broke it up. That led to a pretty quick DDT and the pin. Post match they stomped on The Thunderfeet for their audacity. 

Bill Dundee/Barbarian vs. Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff

MD: Another interesting one since this is the first match up between Dusty and Dundee to make tape (there was the ill fated 87 Memphis show where Dundee beat Dusty to be the "King of Memphis" but we don't have that). And it went about as you'd expect. Dusty caught Dundee's foot, elbowed him the skull; Dundee went head over heels and then out to the floor, where he immediately got scared by Nikita. Then he ran right in and tried to box Dusty which went about as well for him as you'd think. Fun stuff. The fans had wanted Nikita vs Barbarian from the get go, so they did that next, only for Dundee to cheat their way on top by choking Nikita (who had the neck brace) with the tag rope. Eventually Dundee tried to punch Nikita which led to a posing comeback, Barbarian cutting it off, Dusty coming in, and Nikita hitting both of his opponents with the sickle. Since they knew this was going short, they made the most of this.

Road Warriors vs. Teijho Khan/Shaska Whatley

MD: If anything (because of the tournament setting), Animal probably gave them too much. The fans were up for the hot tag to Hawk, but they would have been up for it even sooner. They had tried to ambush the Warriors to start but it got turned around immediately, with Hawk hitting an over the shoulder backbreaker into a power bomb of sorts and then Animal press slamming Khan, no small feat. There was a great moment where Khan and Whatley were pounding on Animal in the corner and he just shrugged them off to a huge pop (that's where the tag should have been probably?) but they kept on him until Hawk could get in and hit a quick power slam for the win. 

Midnight Express vs. Ron Garvin/Jimmy Garvin

MD: This we had from a single cam, maybe even a handheld, but here's the pro shot version. It's really a cliff notes version of the match they'd likely had around the horn since this is the biggest single feud being captured by the tournament. The pre-match is chaos with Precious chasing Cornette around and it all comes off great. Jimmy Garvin may have felt miscast as a babyface here, but he'd spent a chunk of time in Florida that way before getting the Gorgeous character and he got to show off his dropkick here, for instance. They get in and out of all of this quickly, Midnights taking over, laying it in and making the most of a few minutes, and then crashing into each other to set up the hot tag, Ron Garvin punching away, and Eaton almost sailing over the top on one before rolling to the floor. Ron almost got the pile driver on the floor, but Cornette really audibly cracked him with the racket when the ref wasn't looking. Midnights beat the count and Garvins don't and they move on to get future comeuppance, both in rematches and in the matches to come. Nice, compact piece of business here.

Giant Baba/Isao Takagi vs. Denny Brown/Todd Champion

MD: I'll be honest. You spend the whole match kind of sad it's not the Mulkeys vs. Baba and Takagi, with the latter playing heels. Instead they're amiable babyfaces and whenever Brown or Champion try anything, it doesn't go well for them. Lots of head chops. I like how Baba squares up before the Russian Leg Sweep because you just don't get that camera angle on it often. Takagi had his big corner charge and Brown sort of collapsed well out of the corner for it. This was sort of a lost opportunity relative to a more interesting set of opponents for them though. Imagine Dundee stooging for Baba for instance. 

Bob & Brad Armstrong vs. Kevin Sullivan/Arn Anderson

MD: Sullivan was in there as Ole had left the Horsemen. He was a fairly unique ringer for them given he hadn't been in JCP much at all in the prior years, but everyone knew him from magazines. I'd watched the TV leading up to this a year or two ago and this team was the most interesting to me. And they did ok. Early on Arn got outwrestled by Brad and Bob outpunched both of them, including fighting out of the corner and posing with a kung fu type deal that was pretty iconic. They took over on him by grabbing the leg off the ropes and did ok for a couple of minutes before Bob turned a double team around (literally, shifting Sullivan into Arn's outstretched knee in a pretty slick move). In the chaos that followed Brad got a sunset flip for the win. It was treated as an upset but one team was more used to working with each other than the other.

Lex Luger/Tully Blanchard vs. The Mod Squad

MD: Another interesting one on paper since it's heel/heel. Worth noting that it's not Tully and Arn. That really was a short lived team. This ended up being one of the highlights of night 1. Both teams cheated. The Mod Squad cheated better, taking advantage of some distractions by JJ where Dundee was able to coach them up. That's not to say the fans went for the Horsemen though. It was heel vs heel tournament action. Finish had everything break down. Tully got his feet up on a corner charge and hit a second rope elbow drop as JJ belted Dundee to prevent him from interfering (we had this hh before but we totally missed JJ belting Dundee). Unique stuff.

Big Bubba vs. Ole Anderson (Cage)

MD: This was out there but it's well worth watching. It's crazy to think how Bubba was used in 87 and 88, even 89, so early into his career. He was main eventing Bunkhouse Stampede finals with Dusty around the horn at the start of the year, moved right into the Ole feud, then became UWF champ. He moved over to WWF and had the run with Hogan and even a run in top positions on house shows against Demolition in 89. Then he'd be the #3 babyface in the company in early 91.This was mostly about Ole though. Amazing fire from someone who had seen so many babyfaces fire up against him. Just the way he spun around at the beginning. You'd never expect it out of him but you also weren't surprised to see he could manage it. Of course he could. This was just a slugfest but that was exactly what you wanted to be. Ole, when he fired back, did so with these great double sledges and everything built to Bubba missing the huge splash and Ole hitting a massive, belt assisted pile driver and then beating the ten count to win. It went just over 10 minutes and it was perfect at that length.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Lucy! Nancy! Kumano! Ikeshita!

Addendum 2 

3b. Lucy Kayama & Nancy Kumi vs. Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 2/5/80

K: Already sneaking in a match that isn't on the set proper but I've since uploaded a supplementary volume to include it. It was always being considered, but I'd made myself a rule to keep each volume to under 4 hours and this ended up being cut because it doesn't really link up with the rest of the 80s matches as it's really wrapping up an angle which played out through 1979, and I made the set assuming viewers wouldn't know anything about what happened before 1980.

However I've just done write-ups for every AJW match of the 1970s on this very blog, so now leaving this off would be a far more significant omission. So let's get into it.

The AJW crew really let you know from the start that a match is not gonna be just them going through the motions by how ferociously they go at it when the bell sounds. We didn't get a start like this for Jackie & Tomi's big match, though I guess the crowd were already hot for that one so there wasn't a need to catch their attention.

Nancy hits some slams and goes for the big classic Joshi pin early here, only for Ikeshita to block it with her knees like it was a frog splash. Cool little exchange that only really works in this promotion because of how they do pins. That counts as a babyface shine though. Throughout the 1st fall I feel like they do just about enough for Queen Angels to come across as on Black Pair's level as wrestlers, but they just don't have an answer for when Black Pair just start relentlessly cheating, which they do a lot. At one point Mami Kumano has Nancy Kumi by throat and hoists her up to her feet while strangling her and it looks so evil and feral, like Nancy just doesn't how how to deal with such a crazy person who'll do that. This probably goes on a bit too long as they meander a bit towards the end until Ikeshita gets the win with a very well-executed German suplex.

We get the customary 2nd fall. Black Pair beat down on Lucy meanwhile Nancy does good work on the apron looking genuinely concerned and sticking her arm out to try and make the tag. Mami puts Lucy in her dreaded pendulum swing which provokes Nancy into running around the run to put a stop to it but Ikeshita cuts her off, and this creates a soft reset on the outside. Then things get a bit strange. Nancy apparently cannot stand watching Lucy getting beat down any longer so just runs into the ring without a tag and starts wildly slamming everyone. It's a really good freakout actually. The referee protests for a bit but then seems to let it go. Things break down a bit more and before long Nancy hits a big slam on Mami Kumano, pins her and wins. Wait what, she wasn't the legal woman, and the referee knew it! Well I dunno about that. 

They up the ante a bit more for the 3rd fall. Mami Kumano kinda gets revenge for the terrible refereeing by whacking him with a chair, as well as everyone else, including her own tag partner! The spirit of Zenjo Reckless Abandon manifested itself in Lucy Kayama when went up top for a big splash to the outside but appears to have totally missed and just smacks herself into the side of the announce table in an awful looking bump. But because it's AJW she's back up and makes it back into to ring to win by countout. Another dubious finish to a fall that I suspect wasn't intended to happen exactly like that.

Well the finishes of the 2nd and 3rd falls clearly hurt this otherwise quite enjoyable match and crowning of new champions.

***

MD: Kadaveri summed this up well in that it felt different. They went through a lot of similar motions to other Black Pair tags from the 70s, with the initial burst by the babyfaces, by the long beatdown on Lucy interspersed with little bits of hope, with a chaotic brawl on the outside, with weapons coming into play, but there was just a bit more energy to it, just a bit more desperation. In the post match, I’m pretty sure Lucy said she did it for the injured Tomi and maybe that was what put her over the top. 

Some of the specific moments of transition and hope worked well for me. Lucy’s leapfrog out of harms way to set up a hope spot. The chairshot where Kumano cracked Ikeshita that I had to go back on a few times because it was timed so well. And yes, Nancy rushing in. There was also a moment where Lucy deliberately went to the floor to escape a potential pin which seemed a bit more strategic than usual. And of course, as Kadeveri mentioned, there was getting the knees up, but another thing you’d see Ikeshita do was to roll onto her stomach after a move so she couldn’t get pinned. When you add in the bridging escapes, it really does give the spirit of these pins a unique feel that you don’t get anywhere else in the world at this time.

Kumi scoring the pinfall didn’t take me out of it too much because I could see how it was easy to lose track in the chaos, but the dive absolutely missed and looked very nasty. Nancy was able to keep the Pair from making it back in, but that was certainly unfortunate. In general, this felt meaningful enough to be a title change, and it felt earned, even with a few blemishes. Lucy went through hell and took advantage of a few lucky moments, but you can’t beat the Black Pair without both resilience and luck. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Finale 2! Parmentiers! Rockies!

Michel Parmentier/Daniel Parmentier (Tony Lamotta) vs. Les Rockies du Ring (Eric LaCroix/Domingo Valdez) 2/17/91

MD: This last gasp of French Catch is from a show called the "3rd Half" or something along those lines, just a sports variety show. This one covered a Karate competition and then this fairly long (30+ mins) match. Michel is Marcel Parmentier's son. Daniel is Tony Lamotta, who we saw in a match from 1980. The Rockies were "Spaniards," but I'm not convinced in LaCroix' case. But despite it being 1991, the stylist side absolutely knew what they were doing and for the most part, this felt like it could have happened in 1976.

Just if it did, the commentary would be sharper, the camera wouldn't miss so many of the bits, and the heels would have been able to base just a bit better for some things. There were a few definite moments where they lost the plot, not going down for a leapfrog or up for a 'rana (I couldn't tell which), Lamotta doing the climb up takedown out of top wristlock only to sort of stumble over (it still worked). And maybe most jarring at all was the Rockies using both a clothesline and a front vertical suplex, neither of which ever showed up in the old footage, not even once until now. 

But the things that shocked being poor probably weren't as shocking to me than the things that went well, which was most of everything, even over 30 minutes. Lots of fast exchanges, lots of mares and takeovers and all the stuff you'd expect out of the back half of the footage (70s and on). They had holds to start, then rope running, then some hard shots and comeuppance. The Rockies controlled by cheating whenever they got close enough in the corner. I think at one point, the crowd gave a bonus, and they interviewed Daniel on the apron mid match. If this is the last match we have from the footage (and it is), it was nice to double back to a lot of those elements and the sheer technique that at least the Parmentier "brothers" brought into play. The commentary talked about the heyday of the 60s and 70s with the names you'd expect (Duranton, Delaporte, L'Ange Blanc, etc) but I'm more open to the idea that these guys were running small scale opposition to a small scale Flesh Gordon operation in a way that gave fans a more genuine traditional experience. The fans for this match seemed to be enjoying themselves at least. This was not without some missteps but in general, it's a nice way end our French Catch journey for now, on the notion that somewhere, even as late as 1991 at least some wrestlers were keeping at least some of the old magic alive.

SR: This was pretty fine. With it being 1991 you kind of fear French Catch might have turned into some kind of travesty (it was certainly going there with Flesh Gordon committing his horrors on New Catch) but wherever this was held they were still holding it high. The technicos looked old as heck but were still pretty spry and it was a long 2/3 falls tag with a quick pace just like in the glory days. The wrestling wasn't quite as mindblowingly fast and inventive but you still got your share of smooth ranas and guys getting bowled around. The rudos - Los Rockies - were a bit generic but solid hands. There was even some cool armworks which lead to some decent reversals. Tony Lamotta looked old as hell here with his balding head but could still deliver, and he looked fired up when he started handing out the manchettes. It does go a bit long but that's kind of the tradition with these.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/13 - 10/19

AEW WrestleDream 10/18/25

Darby Allin vs Jon Moxley (I Quit)

MD: So this had me, then it lost me, then it hooked me again, then it lost me, and I pretty much made it back for the finish. A bit like Moxley's year, yeah? Let's break it down. Moxley had just barely hung on at All Out in Darby's own gimmick match even after losing the title. He'd hit bottom and clung on thanks to reinforcements. In a world where Darby would have let him move on, maybe he'd be onward and upwards, taking a third swing at Hangman, going after Brodido, regaining the six-man belts, maybe refocusing for the C2 and Okada. 

But Darby wouldn't quit, he didn't quit, he couldn't quit. 

And Mox knew that. Yet here they were. 

There were ways out of this where Darby might have lost, most specifically if Sting's life was on the line. But then Sting's not normal and Darby's not normal and even that might not have worked. 

So if Darby wasn't going to quit under any circumstance, the match then was about Moxley punishing him for the sake of punishing him. There was to be no bottom. 

Moxley sees himself as a king, as truth, as a force that can mete out justice and push the world forward. He sees himself as a god. In a timely fashion, he sees himself as Inoki, a vengeful deity of struggle and conflict. Inoki was able to channel that with a certain purity of spirit though. Oh, there were lapses, like when he was in there against Maeda, but put him up against Saito, Choshu, Kimura, or even Fujinami, and there was an element of holy wrath at play.

But Jon Moxley is not Inoki. The cracks run deep, and through them, you can see glimpses of the vulnerable hypocrite within. 

What was he trying to accomplish here then? He wanted to punish Darby. He was riding the shaky confidence of beating Darby at his own game. Most of all, though, he wanted to prove to his followers and to the world that he was everything he said he was, that he could perform miracles.

And there's no greater miracle than making Darby Allin quit.

Darby planted his flag to start. Moxley stomped upon it. Darby scored the first points only for Shafir to involve herself and force the tide to turn. From there, the punishment began. Mouth, nose, ears. Soft, fragile bits. Hand, fingers, nails. A dismantling. An object lesson. All it took was one lapse, however, one bit of distance and Darby began to fire back. But then he overstretched as he so often did and slipped on the top rope, for Shafir to pull Mox away, and for Darby to wipe out on the apron (again).

I did find the first few minutes compelling. Maybe it was due to how Moxley was shifting up his offense, moving from one body part to another. But they did lose me somewhat here, as Mox whipped Darby in the ring, as Darby came back with mace and threatened immolation (again), as the Death Riders came out, as Darby held his own right until he didn't. 

Then they got me back. All it took was Claudio taking one sharp 180 degree turn. He had Darby up in a press slam. Claudio's strength is always impressive, but sometimes it feels like only Darby brings out something visceral and real within him. Claudio turning face and launching Darby into the announcer desk brought a vibrant color into the world, underpinned by Tony Schiavone's shout and Excalibur's whisper even as PAC dragged Darby's corpse around ringside. 

It wouldn't last. Part of the problem was that Jon Moxley did not have a miracle within him. There had been tasing. There was more punishment. The fishtank came into play. At one point they outright asked what would happen if Darby went unconscious. They'd just have to wake him up and try again. Sting's arrival felt like a mercy, but not for Darby. It felt like a mercy for Moxley, because the tower of babel he was building would never be high enough and he'd only look more the fool in his delusion. 

It was an onramp back into the match for me as well. Sting has that presence. Just pointing a bat, just throwing to Darby, that was enough. Mox demanded high and Darby went low, taking out the leg, defeating him soundly and quickly with a wrestling hold, a fitting conclusion for a hypocrite warrior. 

What are we left with then? It was a doomed match, one that couldn't easily follow the two tags that came before it (one goofus, one gallant). If Darby had been the aggressor throughout, maybe it would have been different, but the story here was of Moxley's ultimate hubris, of seeing himself as a god, when he is but a man. How we will remember this has a lot to do with where things go next.

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Found Footage Friday: ABBY~! KIMALA II~! RUSHER~! INOUE~! ORTON~! TAKER~! OMNI~!

Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs. Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue AJPW 12/1/90

MD: Big IWE stars vs. monsters energy here, even if Rusher and Inoue were up in the years. This overachieved from my expectations, which were set in part for seeing Abby in so many short, abruptly ending tags from this era and from seeing Rusher in so many comedy matches. I love those matches by the way, but that wasn't going to work here.

What we got instead was pretty gruesome actually. Rusher bled early and they worked over the wound with headbutts, chops, and Abby just sticking his finger in the wound awesome. When Inoue got in, he turned the tables, sitting up on Abby's shoulders and poking him repeatedly with the fork until he dropped back. Then he kept it going with a bunch of awesome headlock punches until Kimala broke it up. The kept things rolling with a couple of chairshots from the outside in. Pretty valiant stuff.

Even the finish had one or two more rotations than I was expecting as Abby hit his cool Angle Slam type suplex but Inoue survived it only to get crushed with the throat shot/elbow drop combo. Post-match, Abby and Kimala bowed to all four sides. Not a lost classic but I'd say still well worth your time.

ER: This was disgusting, extremely violent, not far off from Great. Matt said gruesome and that's a good word for it. This wasn't a Fork Stabbing Abby match, this was built around punching and bleeding and digging into cuts. The match is helped by the HD of these new episodes of AJ Classics, as the second Abby is stabbing his fingers into Rusher's head I knew they weren't going to hold back. Abdullah's stiff fingered thrusts and jabs looked so painful, and it is 50-50 whether or not he had some kind of blade in his finger tape, because Rusher's head bled quick and Abby's fingertips were soon soaked red. Kimura's blood ran in rivulets down his chest and Abby dug his fingers into Rusher's cuts and the rest of his face. It was disgusting and the cameras zoomed in close on it to show the savagery. 

But these IWE guys are tough, so when Rusher finally tags in Might Inoue, Inoue shoot punches Abby in the head a couple dozen times and it's incredible. Inoue enters the ring climbing onto Abby's shoulders and just punches and stabs away at his head. Did we know Inoue was hiding a sharp object that he was going to use to scrape and stab at Abby's head while throwing shoot hammerfists? Abdullah the Butcher doesn't stab a single soul in this match with a fork, but Mighty Inoue introduces a weapon with no warning? Maybe this match is actually greater than great. When they both go down, Inoue grabs him in a headlock and throws sick blood wet splat punches repeatedly as the camera is again right on top of these slasher movie visuals. Every time Inoue ran and flew at Abby with a headbutt, you could hear his head actually smacking into Butcher's chin! He hits one in the ropes to knock Abby to the floor, and more in the ring. Great spot. Inoue's flipping senton is always so cool. It hits with impact but has the flourish and showmanship of French Catch. Abby rolling just out of the way of a senton and leading to him massacring Inoue's throat was a great late match sudden turn. Abby's Angle Slam is a really great spot and I love when he breaks it out. Using his bulk to perform weight physics is an Abby we don't get to see as often as Stabbing Abby. 

Kimala II was the odd man out in this, and he usually is, which is why I always look forward to Kimala II matches. He is the weirdest All Japan regular during their extended run of high expectancy ring work. He is clumsy, he doesn't work anywhere near as stiff as the style demands, he falls weird on offense, and despite being in his mid 20s he moves about as well as Abdullah the Butcher. But he torpedoes into the action at fun times, including a big bump thrown through the ropes to the floor. He's probably the thing holding this match from being legitimately great, but you can't deny the crowd excitement when he started slapping his belly. 

Dustin Rhodes/Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Steve Austin/Brian Pillman/Barry Windham WCW 2/7/93

MD: We get the last eight minutes of this and then a big post-match brawl. On the one hand, it's a shame we lose out on the elimination match because it sounds amazing on paper, but we're better off for what we do get here than nothing at all. Part of that is because Steamboat looks like the best babyface in the world here. Some of it is the way this is shot with no commentary. It just feels closer up, right in the midst of the action, and Steamboat working from underneath here is just transcendent. The way he moves his body, expanding and contracting, hanging on to the ropes, finding strength within, expressing pain and writhing emotion, is just over the top great. 

And Austin, in his own way, is almost as good. He's put upon, frustrated, aggravated that Steamboat refuses to quite, that he paints himself as so sympathetic a figure, that he dares to appeal to his humanity. At one point, Steamboat ... it's not begging off, I wouldn't say he's begging off, but he does seem to call for some level of mercy, maybe just to get things back on a more even playing field, but Austin, framing it perfectly, timing it as dramatically as possible, cinematically in a way that would only work in footage like this, that would be overwrought or overproduced on TV, literally spits on the effort. That makes it all the more poignant when Steamboat, in the midst of his big comeback, blows a mist of spit himself later on. Just really primal stuff.

That stays through into the chaotic post-match, bodies flying and violence ebbing and flowing and ebbing again. Weirdly enough, Shane Douglas might have stood out the most here, as he came off as a real powerhouse. Still, this post match, as good as it was and with a real sense of consequence for matches to come, comes off a little like a consolation prize for the elimination match we didn't get. Still, what a look at Steamboat and Austin.

Kurt Angle vs. Undertaker vs. Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry WWE 3/3/06

MD: House show match from the vault from Australia. I was expecting to see Henry assert himself. That was the draw, but really this was all about Randy Orton, especially but not only him reacting to Undertaker. It's a bit clipped and we come in after entrances with him preening in the corner only to turn around and find Taker there, going for a handshake before he gets rocked with punches. It's easy to joke about the Kyle Fletcher parallels but he was around 26 here and they're clearer here than at almost any other point of his career as best as I can remember.

This is not a version of Orton I remember well, but he was pretty effective even if I did see the strings at times. Plus it was a house show so they really played into it. There was a bit where he teased getting knocked into the crowd three or four times before finally landing on a fan's lap and thanking her after the fact. It was all pretty funny stuff. Plus he was flying around as a menace throughout, including dashing from one opportunistic pin to the next.

Angle was a bit of a non-factor overall, in part due to his current persona, I think, but just because Undertaker and Orton were taking up so much air. And then Henry just seemed there to cut people off at times. He did it effectively but his role could have been much more interesting. Still, this was fun for what it was, but it would have probably worked just as well as two singles matches. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jackie! Tomi!

Disc 1

3. Jackie Sato vs. Tomi Aoyama - 1/4/80

K: This is probably the biggest match the company could put on at the time. Company Ace vs. Heir Apparent, World Champion vs. All-Pacific Champion. It’s non-title and had a 30 minute time limit (title matches would have 60) so they’re telegraphing a bit that this isn’t THE match between the two, but it’s still a pretty big deal to see these two in a singles match.

The crowd were pretty hot for the previous Junior Title match and they’re even hotter for this one. When Tomi Aoyama climbs to the top turnbuckle the screaming is so loud it comes out a bit distorted in the audio. There’s a couple of young girls in the front row I noticed who are really getting into it and reacting to the big spots. True wrestling connoisseurs there. 

When the match starts they both have these fighting pose stances squaring off at each other and it feels like they’re both taking each other seriously. Tomi is a bit more aggressive, which I think works in the matches favour as it benefits her to come across as confident, Jackie doesn’t need that so much as she’s already the Ace. There’s a cool little spot where Jackie launches Tomi into the corner, and Tomi counters it by leaping to the top and going for a boomerang splash or something, but Jackie just does a backroll to get out of the way and Tomi adjusts to land on her. I say this a thousand times watching this stuff but that’s a cool logical spot that someone should steal now and it’d fit into modern wrestling fine. 

I feel like if I’d seen this after watching the 70s stuff I’d be surprised how much of the early match is taken by Aoyama. Not just that, it’s that she’s in control primarily through mat wrestling rather than any of her high-flying. In fact, the couple of times she does actually go for a top rope roof Jackie able to just move out of the way. It feels like Jackie has her scouted for what she’s most known for, but is struggling to deal with her on what is supposed to be Jackie’s superior domain. There’s a couple of occasions in this early period where a hold gets broken and they had a soft-reset, and you think “ok this is where Jackie takes control”, but the back-and-forth doesn’t happen, Aoyama quickly gets back on top each time.

I thought this structure worked great. It gives a big boost to Aoyama’s credibility/levels her up a bit without hurting Jackie’s stature at all. It works all the better that when Jackie does get a comeback - and her comebacks comes not from one of those soft-resets, but a proper fighting comeback - her offense looks fantastic and clearly more damaging than Aoyama’s. It’s just she hadn’t been able to deploy it yet. She’s also just cool. She does a Big Boot so casually like no one else I’ve seen in that she just lets her foot just hang in the air for a couple of seconds after clocking her opponent with it. She makes it look easy.

Jackie isn’t able to consolidate control though. Aoyama actually gets a comeback in pretty quickly by countering a headscissors into a hold of her own to start her 2nd prolonged period of control. This 2nd one differs in that while the 1st was established her as on Jackie’s level on the mat, this was getting her over as a real threat to win the match. She’s a lot more vicious now and her offense is mostly targetting Jackie’s leg. There’s cool moment where she goes for a Figure Four but Jackie spins over onto her front before Aoyama can lock it in, but this makes it an even bigger moment soon after when Jackie isn’t able to block it and we get cuts to the crowd looking very distressed as Jackie is put in the submission and has to clamber for the ropes. 

It feels very cohesive that Aoyama loses this 2nd period of control not by losing on the mat, but she went for a piece of her signature high-flying offense (a dropkick) but Jackie countered it. The counter is awesome. Jackie just sidesteps the dropkick, puts out a knee and drops Aoyama straight onto it to turn the dropkick attempt into a gutbuster. This leads us into a huge 3rd act/climax of the match where they go 50/50 or close enough. Jackie sells the leg quite well I thought for the first few minutes of this, hobbling a bit on it while on offense or moving until she gradually shifts back into moving normally. I don’t think Aoyama had done serious enough damage to her leg to warrant selling more than that. There’s a great moment where, after initially failing to do a Giant Swing, Aoyama manages to hit Jackie with a dropkick - the first time her flying offense actually pays off; and then goes for the Giant Swing for the 2nd time and she’s able to get Jackie up and spin her around.

They finish this with another great scream reaction from the crowd for Jackie missing a dive and crashing into the outside, only for Tomi to crash and burn even worse when she goes for a (this time deliberate) dive to the outside. She’s able to beat the 20 count back into the ring, but then Jackie hits her with a sick backdrop that lands her on the back of her head and they are both counted for a double KO. I’ve sometimes complained about non-finishes in a lot of the 70s matches but this is a draw where it felt like that match had built to that conclusion so I have no problem with it.

I love this. Desperation to win, gritty matwork, innovative spots, lots of little narratives that get paid off within the match, and of course someone getting dropped on their head. The first Zenjo Classic.

****1/2

MD: I’m curious to see where Kadaveri is going to fall on this relative to everything we saw in the 70s but this might be the best match we’ve seen so far, and the most complete. This was non-title and they were really pushing this as the match up that would take them into 1980. The idea was that if Tomi had a good showing here she could get a title match or at least that she’d need a good showing to have momentum for a title match. There was a real tension here, with a hot, vocal crowd, the hottest we’ve seen in a while. It should be noted that a lot of the transitions came after moments where they were tussling for pins and trying to hold each other down, for instance.

I think there was just more of everything. This felt more complete and actualized than a lot of what we’d seen in the 70s. There was a higher level of familiarity. Tomi rushed in with dropkicks but she went for both a dive (though not the Queen Rocket) and her jump to the top finish early only for Jackie to get the heck out of the way quickly. Later on in the match she had to really work for the giant swing too. 

There was also more limb targeting and selling, even on offense. It didn’t make it through act breaks but it was more tangible and made it farther into the match than usual. Tomi went to Jackie’s leg early and she leaned hard on it with a lot of different flexibility-enhanced holds. Jackie had a comeback with a few power moves but Tomi cut her off by going back to it and when Jackie was able to come back again, she was noticeably stumbling until they moved on to the next big theme.

The finish was very self aware and smart, heading towards their next match. Jackie had dominated for a time, using all sorts of offense like her belly to back toss, falling power body slams, and these wrenching backbreakers. She had hit a couple of her off the rope cross takeovers (not sure what to call them. They’re like flying cross chops but she grabs the head and tosses her opponent down but it’s a trademark of hers). After a tussle, Tomi had come back and they faced off at the twenty minute mark to finish things up. Jackie got an advantage with a roll up into her belly to back suplex, but she missed another one of her flying cross attacks and rolled out. Time seemed to stop as everyone knew it was time for the Queen Rocket. Tomi wiped out though. She made it back into the ring but Jackie went to put her away with another belly to back. She pressed off the top rope to counter it and they both crashed down, unable to beat the count, leaving things even for their big title match (though fate, or booking, I’m not sure which, would have other things planned for that). 

It was still rough around the edges at times (though generally in ways that added as much as it potentially took away) but when you combine some of the evolving smartness and self-awareness to the work with a hot crowd and big stakes, this felt like a step forward for the promotion. We’ll see if it’s part of an evolutionary line or just a momentary blip though.

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