Found Footage Friday: '86 CROCKETT HANDHELD~!

JCP Handheld Cincinnati 4/27/86

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: We just get five minutes clipped here. It's a real morality play though. Clear, clear lines. Garvin earns nothing. Whenever Wahoo gets the chants, he's smacking him around the ring. Garvin begs off and gets a cheapshot low. He uses Precious pulling the hair from the outside to distract so he can take over. He uses an eye rake. When he's in charge he's laying in stomps or tossing Wahoo into the rail. Wahoo has big definitive shots. Garvin is underhanded and peppers things in. Night and day. Wahoo comes back, does the war dance, hits the chops, but Garvin kicks out at one and runs away to the draw a count out and fight for another day. 

ER: I don't think I ever thought Cincinnati was a place Crockett even toured but I'm also old enough now that a lot of information sounds like new information. I know they ran Cleveland frequently but maybe I didn't ever think about Cincinnati as Crockett Country because we didn't have footage until some guy who loves awful chili that tastes like pumpkin pie brought a camera to document it. I'm glad he did. He wanted the match bad enough to record it as fully as he could while editing on the fly to save battery for the bigger matches. This man, who smelled of raw onion, knew Flair and Garvin had worked broadways in the Carolinas. He couldn't risk it. So we got this clipped, but it's house show perfection. The crowd is so entertained by professional house show Wahoo, not murdering Garvin but doing all his same painful strikes and Native Stooges chops. Wahoo hits Garvin hard and forces Garvin to work up to him. Garvin had excellent worked stomps and the way Wahoo sold being punched in the corner could teach every wrestler today. Watch Wahoo flinch away from a shot under the ribs, reflexively rear back for a punch, before taking another. The best punches and strikers are almost always the best at selling punches. 

Baron von Raschke/Ivan Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Hector Guerrero

MD: This was probably a rough 20 minute draw that turned into a good 13 minute clipped draw. Though there was nothing we saw in those 13 minutes to really make me think the full 20 would have been that much of a slog. They went with a double heat structure with a long shine that consisted of Raschke being a pole in the center of the ring that Hector got to roll around and Ivan's arm getting worked over as he bumped, stooged, and fed more. First heat was on Manny and had some good assisted holds that drew in Hector and got heat. Then Hector got to make a big house of fire entrance with rapid punches until he got swept under. The idea was that once he got the hot tag (again rolling all over the place) there just wasn't enough time for Manny to get the win, though he came real close. I don't remember too many draws being worked quite this and it's a solid structure on paper. 

Most fascinating thing to me is just watching the Baron. He lost the offense once by goose stepping and setting up the claw. He had a way of both hitting offense (even stomps) and bumping that he'd move his waist but not his abdomen. He's like an old action figure without enough points of articulation. You can make him sit up in the middle, but then you can't bend his knees or waist. And he still takes bumps and hits offense, but it's amazingly stilted. I've seen plenty of Baron matches but maybe it was just worse by 86? Anyway, maybe this was helped by the clipping, maybe not, but it worked for me.

ER: We love guys who move weird and nobody moves around a ring weirder than 1986 Baron, who is my exact age but he moves like someone re-animated a 75 year old monster from memory. His bumps are terrible, taken only one way, rolling back to his seat waving his arms like he's Accredited Giant Gonzalez. I like how Manny works like Chavo when he teams with Hector. I wonder how he worked when he teamed with Chavo. Probably like an asskicker. Manny hits like a rock and pulls off a flying headscissors, Hector brings energy and the crowd loves his evasive tumbling. Koloff works like the best Haruka Eigen. He did an All Japan tour in 1990 when he was in his late 50s and I need to see every match we have from that tour. I loved how he bumped for Hector's late match hot tag, Korakuen would have gone wild for the ways he ran into the turnbuckles and bounced his way halfway back across the ring. While I'm curious how Baron worked his bearhug, I respect the camera's choice to edit. 

Dusty Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson + Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff [Cage]

MD: This is still a bit clipped but you get the sense of what's going on and I loved the Dusty vs Arn portion until the finish. This being a house show, there was such freedom for Dusty to absolutely demolish Arn. Arn sold the cage at first, not the danger of it but the fact he couldn't get away. Then he managed to run himself knee first into the cage. Dusty took over on it with such one-of-a-kind timing on seizing the foot, taking him down, holding it, looking to the crowd, stomping, stomping again. If a conductor of an orchestra is primarily worried about controlling the time and volume, Dusty was the best conductor of a crowd I've ever seen. Just a virtuoso. 

After smashing and rubbing Arn's head against the cage a bit, Arn actually came back with these beautiful low kicks from the ground, just sweeping his leg against Dusty's as if he was dance fighting. He honed in and then, once he had a real advantage, the Russains came out with the chain. I would have probably liked it more if Dusty mounted a comeback and then they came in? But there was also the sense that this was the plan all along if Arn got even the smallest bit of advantage. 

I suppose it worked either way as Magnum rushed in to break it up and start his match with Nikita. This had a totally different feel. Magnum did control early including a goofy atomic drop that sent Nikita in (and justified the blading) and using the cage to help himself bound up to the top turnbuckle for a double axe handle.Nikita lawn darted himself head first into Magnum's gut to take over and Magnum worked well from underneath. At one point he ate a backbreaker and crawled on his knees across the ring and it really worked for me.

Great transition, maybe even an all time one honestly, as Nikita went for the sickle, Magnum moved, and he went arm first into the cage. Things opened up from there with Magnum throwing all sorts of punches and a great sweeping dropkick. I loved the finish too, as Magnum went to toss Nikita head first into the cage, but Nikita grabbed Magnum's head at the last second and they both went in at equal speed. Just a real symbolic sense of them being equals/rivals/fated. That led to a ten count where it seemed like Nikita might beat it but he collapsed and Magnum shot up at the last second to a huge pop. Lots to love here.

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Opening few minutes of this were great. Flair would press Garvin into the corner, try to take a liberty, smack him, immediately get smacked back, sell it with shock. It was a lovely bit of vaudeville. I'm torn on parts of this one overall. Flair's narratives just don't come together how I'd like. What happens in minute 17 doesn't necessarily stem logically from what happens in minute 6 like with other greatest-of-all-time wrestlers. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what happens in minute 17 isn't good and that it doesn't fit the moment or the characters. But it leaves me wondering if something was left on the table sometimes. But maybe I'm wrong and this is better and more organic somehow. 

Here, when Flair did take over, it felt clear like he was fed up from all the shots he took from Garvin and that he just wanted to lay shots in, not worried about winning or any sort of strategy. It was raw and human and effective, and I think the issue isn't it necessarily, but when he went into the finish and started to target the leg. I preferred him punching Garvin in the face to being just as mean about the leg, but then when things had to slip into some sort of finishing sequence, it wasn't one that matched the rest of the contest. My favorite shot he did was when he had Garvin draped over the top rope like Sheamus (or like he was setting him up for Eigen's spit spot) and instead of just whacking him in the chest, he punched him in the cheek. 

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe the narrative is that Flair was angry and he was mean and cruel but in the face of Garvin constantly firing back, maybe he was a coward and maybe he blinked first, and he went to the knee out of desperation and then tried to cover it with bluster like it was his plan all along. Maybe it's my fault for just not having enough faith in Flair. Maybe I'm not fair to Flair. Regardless, the finish did hit, with Garvin, leg torn up, eating a second shinbreaker anyway to punch Flair in the face. Both guys went sprawling to the floor and got counted out. You can't say the fans didn't get their money here at least.