Found Footage Friday: SHEIK~! POFFOS~! STASIAK~! VON ERICH~! RED LYONS~!

Canadian Big Time Wrestling (Unaired Pilot) 1975

Gene Dubois (Dave McKigney) vs. Waldo Von Erich

MD:  Lord Layton is our commentator because that's what you do with retired Lords apparently. They led off with the national anthem. This is from London, Ontario. I don't know how much Dubois or Waldo Von Erich I've seen (you figure I would have at some point but I don't think I have), but this made me want to see a whole bunch more of both. Waldo had headgear on at first and slugged Dubois (wearing his jacket still) before the bell before taking it off. They really didn't look back from there. Dubois was a shaggy singlet wearing guy and came off like a world's best Brody in a lot of ways. At one point early, after eating a thrashing, he landed on his feet out of a back body drop and started to fire back. They really just threw themselves at each other the whole time, going in and out of the ring. Dubois caught Von Erich a few times, either pulling him out by the legs or landing him stomach first over the ropes on a corner whip. Finish was a let down as Waldo wouldn't let Dubois back in the ring and kept kicking at him again to draw the DQ, but this was a great start for this endeavor and I now need to see how much other footage we have of these two.

The Patriot vs. "The Alaskan" Jay York

MD: Patriot was from "the heart of America" and someone in the comments suggested it was Michael Farhat but I can't say. York was working singles for some reason and they went a different direction than the first match, keeping it on the mat. Some really good mat wrestling in here though, including York rolling across the Patriot to switch positions into a headlock. Eventually he got fed up and started clubbering and they went right home after that with York hitting a neckbreaker drop off the ropes out of nowhere. So far, I'd pick this show up if I was the network. 

Cage Match: The Sheik vs. Tiger Jeet Singh

MD: Layton made sure to let everyone know how rare it was to see a cage match on TV. Singh was, I suppose, at least de facto babyface here mainly because people wanted to see the Sheik lose. Apparently in this one you could ONLY win by going through the door. Going over the top was illegal which is something I can't say I've heard before in an escape rules match like this. A few early shots in to the cage, a lot of scrambling for the door and cutting each other off. Sheik went to an object early as well. They both ended up and trading the object back and forth. Lots of what you'd expect here with tossing and grinding against the cage. At one point, Sheik did try to escape over the top but got dragged back. Finish had Singh errantly punch the Sheik through the door and to the floor. I imagine people tuning into this would have gotten their money's worth here at least.  

North American Championship: Stan "The Man" Stasiak (c) vs. Ron Doner

MD: Fairly short one here. Stasiak ran into armdrags to start, including an assisted kip up where he got put right back down. He had big meaty shots that he took over with but they had a great bit where he missed the heart punch in the corner and had to sell his hand. He got caught up in the ropes and pummeled too but all it took was him taking over one last time and locking on for the heart punch to win it. Love the heart punch. This was fine for what it was but it wasn't meant to be much.

World Tag Team Championship: The Poffos (Angelo & Lanny Poffo) w/ Saul Weingeroff (c) vs. "Irish" Mickey Doyle & Billy Red Lyons 

MD: There's a self-published Mickey Doyle biography out there and I'm tempted to get it. He was touted here as the fresh young start of the promotion though I don't think he was quite as young as they were billing him as. It's great to see Angelo and Lanny all the way back in 75. Lanny had to be 19 here tops and he was full of cartwheels and backflips as you'd imagine. He had a singlet over his tights and took the singlet off, which was silly.  

Honestly, this was a bit of a mess. It was almost refreshing to see how much of a mess as it was because you never see old matches that go over the rails quite like this. Lanny bumped and stooged all over the place, just flailing and flapping around. At one point he took a back body drop face first in the oddest way and he hit a pretty odd missile dropkick too. Angelo begged off and got bodyslammed what must have been six times to the point of it being very funny but not making much sense. Doyle's hair started springing every which way like it was Lanny's cartwheels. Lyons looked great ("rolling like a winner" as Layton put it), full of fire and solid looking shots but that was kind of beside the point.  The ultimate finish had Lanny and Doyle crash into each other and Angelo push Lanny on top of him from the outside. That brought Layton out to tell the ref what happened and get things overturned (because of that push!) and when Saul and Angelo complained, Layton said that he wasn't just a commentator but that he represented all of the people in the crowd, which was a unique way of putting it. Anyway, this was entertaining but definitely unmoored.