Found Footage Friday: SABU~! NISHIMURA~! COSMO SOLDIER~! WILD BOYS~! MOONDOG~! DANTE~!

Wild Boys vs. Dante/Moondog Power Slam Championship Wrestling 9/17/93

MD: Not going to lie, I can't tell Jordan and Neely apart in a cage. That's going to make this problematic because while I think Jordan is the one in the post match angle, I'm not sure. If I'm wrong, accept my apologies here. The actual action here was pretty brisk. Maybe six or seven minutes total of a match but it was nonstop. There was a chair in the cage and that defined almost everything that happened, with the Wild Boys controlling early. Everyone ate the cage well here too, including the Moondog but it was those chairshots that stand out. Dante was able to take over midway through including a number of shots off the top where he use the cage to steady him. Wild Boys mounted a heated comeback and got a roll up win, but one left the ring post match and the manager trapped the other in there. The beating was bad enough but then Moondog threw a fireball and it nearly became a riot scene as everyone was rushing to get him water and there was some deep Nashville concern at play given the selling and how close to the ring everyone had been.

ER: I had no idea what to expect from this match, as I didn't know anyone in the match until I saw it was an actual Moondog and not just some guy working Mudshow Moondog. So Larry Latham is in there and that means I know who Dante is, and the Wild Boys are in jeans and sneakers with full heads of hair, like 75% scale Bart Gunns. Latham was 40 going on 70, Dante was a white goof in a mask, and the Wild Boys were southern boys in jeans. Except it was like Rock n Rolls vs. Russians in a cage that was sturdier than you'd assumed when your brain was in Mudshow Mode. The Wild Boys are the perfect punch-backers, firing punches that kept getting better the longer they were in the cage, Dante taking really strong bumps hitting the cage and falling to the mat holding the ropes to desperately stop his momentum. Dante took bumps like a more hinged cage match Bobby Heenan: not as spectacular, but the same As A Manager energy to make up for Moondog Spot's old man shutting down comebacks and taking chair shots. Dante was the one taking back body drops, Moondog was the one with the clout to shut down the Wild Boys with a single shot. The Wild Boys had honest babyface energy that kept getting stronger the more they were allowed to fight, and I loved the quick fireball escape. Moondog gets the hell out of dodge before most people can even figure out what happened, and the ringside concern for the burnt Wild Boy is so sincere and serious. I don't know how many people in frame were In On It or were genuinely concerned and helping out as a Good Civilian, but I'd buy any number from Zero to All. 

Sabu vs. Osamu Nishimura Lima, OH 8/7/94

MD: Blurry ten minute sprint. I thought Sabu might work more towards Nishimura since it was a rare opportunity and that they might start on the mat, but there really wasn't much of that. They only lingered there towards the end and then not for long. If anything, Nishimura worked towards Sabu, which was what the crowd hungered for anyway. That even meant a relatively early dive.

One great strength of Sabu is that he was very giving. He had the luxury of being so because he could grab a chair at any point and become instantly credible. That's what happened here. Early on he ate a clothesline on the floor and the dive and a subsequent dropkick in the ring but the second he introduced the chair, everything turned on its head. His strikes looked great too and I don't know if that was Nishimura leaning into them or the video quality of the tape. A second chair attempt backfired on him down the stretch and Nishimura hit some real bombs (a German and a nasty Power Bomb) but Sabu survived and overcame with the chair yet again. The Facebuster is one of those moves that looks almost more nasty when it's not coming off the top because of the short period between start and finish. Part of me wanted a bit more of Sabu hanging on the mat but this was probably the right match for this crowd on this night and it's hard to fault it overall.

Cosmo Solider/Super Taira vs. Koji Niizumi/Kubo KAGEKI 2/27/11 

MD: A Sebastian special obviously. Speed and finesse vs size and toughness as everyone worked hard for a non-stop twenty minutes. Kubo had the size and hit like a truck while still able to move. Niizumi had precise, stiff strikes. And Cosmo and Taira stayed in it by utilizing double teams and quick shots. I will say that Taira, while hitting as hard as anyone in the match, did bug me a bit by not registering shots that were coming his way, even when Niizumi was starting to come back and fire back, for instance. There were plenty of times where Cosmo would go for a lift or a suplex and barely get the guy over and that just added to what was going on. My favorite bit of all of this might have been when he turned Niizumi's crab attempt into an ankle lock with the Fujiwara headstand twist, but there were a lot of little slick bits like that throughout. The back half had things moving at a machine gun pace but it was all interesting enough that you didn't mind much, and other than Taira, everyone was register what was happening consummately. The finish sort of came out of nowhere on a rana but you got the sense almost anything that was happening could have ended it, so it was as good a way to exit as anything else. 

Read more!

DEAN~!!! 2 Day 3: JD Drake vs. Josh Woods

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

JD Drake (w/Anthony Henry) vs. Josh Woods (w/Tom Lawlor)

MD: The chaotic and mutable spirit of indie wrestling lives here as this was initially supposed to be Woods vs Lawlor, but ended up with Lawlor seconding Woods. Thankfully, this time around (as opposed to DEAN~!!! 1) Filthy Tom had time to carefully prepare his sartorial style and he came in looking like the caddie-ist of corner men. It actually matched Woods' turquoise wave gear well. Henry, on the other hand, has been training hard in his absence and felt it important to let everyone know that by coming down to second JD without a shirt.

I missed the Workhorsemen and this was a great venue to see them both back together again (even if it wasn't a tag, though I'd like to see this tag, but that's beside the point). They're the ultimate utility players. You can plug them in to any role and they'll get the job done. You could debut them as Ricochet's new crew next week (as opposed to CRU or whoever) and people would gawk (not a bad thing given they're trying to get heat and dissonance drives heat) but they'd be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing the right way every single time that they'd need to be and it would work. You could have them call out FTR and do a short program, could have them try to survive the Hurt Syndicate for ten minutes on TV, could have them challenge Dustin and Sammy on ROH, could have them menace Top Flight (not sure anyone works better with Dante than Drake), and they'd get the job done. Drake's instantly credible between his size, how he moves, how he carries himself and Henry has that snap precision execution and throws himself into everything he does. 

Woods, given his background, is instantly credible, and he definitely threw himself into everything here. This was just his second match this year (with a VIP match earlier in May). He got the better of Drake early on with takeovers, holds, and some nasty knee strikes on the floor. You don't want to be on the floor with JD Drake though because he's got the best transition move in all of wrestling, his press up against the ropes into a big meaty shot. I liked Dylan's call explaining that you're hurt not just by the strike but by the pressure of the ropes going the wrong way at the wrong angle or what not. After that, Henry made his presence felt and it made sense that he'd be a little more impactful than Lawlor out there (a perfectly fine encouraging cheerleader, mind you), given the tag team stylings of Henry and Drake. That included a beautiful neck twist on the apron with big follow through as Drake was distracting the ref. 

Woods came back with quicker, more high-impact, high-motion offense than you might expect and they rolled into a stretch where Drake hit his cannonball but missed the moonsault allowing Woods to hit a pretty impressive corner twisting suplex. Just good wrestling executed well. I don't think it chipped into the same sort of unique space that Woods vs Lawlor might have but it helped ground and round out the card.

Read more!