Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 3: w/McDonald vs. Haystacks/Finlay (5/19/84)

Week 3

Big Daddy/Drew McDonald vs. Giant Haystacks/Fit Finlay 5/19/84

MD: Decided we needed to move ahead a bit as all 79 matches weren't fair. Here we have Finlay (with Princess Paula) and Haystacks and a fairly big Scot in McDonald. Interesting to note that Daddy was more interested in McDonald than he was Turpin. Paula slaps him before the match and Daddy's quick to comfort and calm him down. Likewise, after getting splashed off the top rope by Finlay and eating a regular big splash from Haystacks to lose the first fall, Daddy was quick to check on him. 

Otherwise, it's a little harder to gauge him here, because the best part of this was Finlay and McDonald. Headbutts from McDonald. Forearms and uppercuts from Finlay. Some great Finlay escapes, a headstand out of a headlock, and moving one leg over the other to escape a different hold. I'd say that Fit made more of the motion for Daddy too, crashing into the corner groin first, and bouncing off and eating back body drops and a toss over the top, which should have been a DQ but the ref just looked past it as not intentional. Fit was great on the apron too, getting up on the bottom rope and peering over, making himself more of a presence in a match with far larger wrestlers.

That said, on the one big Haystacks vs Daddy exchange, Daddy took a whip and really did run the ropes at full speed (surprising speed for him I'd say) only to crash into him. Even though Walton noted that Daddy couldn't do his "big boom stuff" against Haystacks, he still won the exchange as Haystacks was quick to retreat. Finish of the second fall was weird (and noted as "curious and unusual" by Walton) as Daddy came in hot after a tag and crash into Haystacks in the corner, knocking him into Finlay and out of the match. Then he made short work of Finlay too and both were counted out ending the match on a "Knockout," despite it really just evening up the falls. 

He moved a bit more gingerly here than in 79, but when it came time to burst against the ropes, he did. I think maybe there was a little less pomp and circumstances, a little less build to the exchanges here too. I'm not sure if that's because Finlay took up more of the air in the match or not though. Something for us to keep looking at as we continue on. I'm not sure if he was just in there with more larger than life, actualized characters and it was less his show because of that. I'm also not sure if that's not a testament to him that he didn't hog all the spotlight even if he won soundly, if weirdly, in the end.

ER: I guess I should have known that this would be a total Finlay Match that built to a couple Daddy/Haystacks interactions, and young David Finlay turned a humongous one match performance into a great four man showing. Finlay is incredible. What a wrestler. Every new Finlay match I've ever seen only assures his place among the greats. He does everything so well, and I loved every exchange he had with everybody here, including the lovely slapper (because she slaps people, I assume that's what all the YouTube comments about here mean as well) Princess Paula. The crowd of course wants to see Daddy and Haystacks, but Finlay is the one who knows how to fill the 90% of the match that is not that, and it's wonderful. His sequences with Daddy are some of my favorite Daddy sequences I've seen. His full contact shoulderblocks to Daddy and the large-in-any-other-match Drew McDonald are fearless and rugged. He slams into Daddy and doesn't budge him, and when he does it again he's knocked flat and fast to his back like Benoit bumping to give himself CTE. He hits so hard that I squealed with glee when he kipped up, floating to his feet like Mark Rocco, leading directly to Daddy throwing him far over the ropes to the floor, Finlay spilling up and out and over like Jerry Estrada. 

I am less familiar with McDonald, but loved all of Finlay's work with him. More tough, unflinching shoulderblocks, everything they do is rock solid. Finlay does a weightless headstand escape out of a tight side headlock and hits McDonald with one of the most brutal elbow strikes I've ever seen; an elbow held close to his body, smashed into the side of McDonald's head and jaw. Finlay executes everything perfectly, swiftly, and violently. He can grab an arm and wrench a very large McDonald around, and he leaps into McDonald's face with his entire forearm. Finlay does a cartwheel escape out of a headlock push off that would have looked like one of the more athletic things on a 90s Michinoku Pro show. When he's back to being knocked around by Daddy, he flies into the turnbuckles for Irish whips so hard that it's a miracle he didn't wind up like Tom Billington. One of the whips sends him in crotch first to the corner so hard that it knocks the turnbuckle pad off. But Finlay is smart about treating Irish whips from Daddy differently from others: later, when McDonald shoots him in, Finlay leaps into and off them into a flying elbow smash, like the most violent fighting move in a West Side Story number.

Big Daddy is clearly the worker of the two big men, but at Haystacks' size I'm just fascinated seeing him move around. I'm a fan of the rules where the same men who finish one fall have to start the next, seeing McDonald get squished to completion by a Haystacks standing splash (that was more just Haystacks falling forward onto him) then forced to compete with the man who did the squishing. Haystacks had these great big clubbing fists thrown laterally up and across McDonald's chest. Andre had a big arm strike to the chest like that and would do it the same way, toward the camera, making it look even larger than life. But while *I* surely wanted to see Finlay drilling large men with elbows and taking bumps larger than the era's biggest bumping juniors, the thrill is seeing the heavies collide. I loved the way Daddy and Haystacks threw each other off balance, the way they teetered into the ropes which felt equal parts theatrical and "large man trying desperately to keep his footing". While I could have predicted Finlay getting pitched high into the air with a back body drop (what kind of tough fool would charge screaming at Big Daddy!?), I 100% did not expected Haystacks getting bumped over the top to the floor. I didn't thin it was possible! It wasn't fast, it shouldn't and couldn't have been fast, but Daddy smashes into him and shoves him over backwards into a real impressive fall where...frankly I don't know how Haystacks' legs supported him. At his size it looks incredibly dangerous to hit concrete feet first at downward increasing speed, and of course that man's not getting back into the ring after that fall. 

Just another excellent Finlay match? Definitely, of course. But a Finlay match that expands on the work of three larger and larger and larger men, filled with constant intrigue because of the build.  

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