Found Footage Friday: BIG BUBBA~! ARNOLD~! HAMILTON~! MIGRAS~! FALCON~! HALCON 78~! TAKANO~!

Larry "The Missouri Mauler" Hamilton vs. Don Arnold Hollywood Wrestling 8/31/53

MD: This was 2/3 falls and went over 30. The first fall was clean and mostly hold based. Arnold would put on a hold (armlock, toehold, headscissors), and then after a great deal of struggle, Hamilton would get a counter (hammerlock, bodyscissors) and control with that for a while. Within five or six minutes, they were looking fairly haggard, just for how hard they were working the holds. Arnold was clearly the aggressor here, but Hamilton took it with his great "rodeo" headlock takeover, which has a big windup, enough to be a viable finisher. Second fall had the cracks start to show. Early on Arnold turned a legsplitter into a standing anklelock and the commentary called it a "Hackenschmidt". When he won the fall with an abdominal stretch, called as such, which he got on cleverly by ducking another windup for the headlock takeover, commentary called it a Billy Varga special. As the match went on the fans started to boo Hamilton as he kept going to the ropes to escape. It was subtle. He also grabbed the hair for a smaller headlock takeover and went for a toehold after a rope break too soon. It wasn't much but it was enough to turn the crowd. That meant when Arnold put on a long and fast airplane spin to pick up the win, everyone was pretty happy with the result. A lot to like here in between the formula of the first fall and how hard the holds were worked, the callback counter that won Arnold the second fall, and the subtle but definite heeling from Hamilton as things went on. 

Migra I/Migra II vs. Falcon/Halcon 78 WWA 9/19/87

MD: Los Angeles WWA with two teams that basically look alike. Cheat sheet is that Falcon has some extra flourishes on the sides of his mask. And Migra I is the more massive Migra. The commentators work with the ring announcer and spend the first three minutes of this trying to figure it out while the Migras just hug one another repeatedly to get heat. We only have the first two falls of this (best as I can tell) but they're fun.

Primera was full of fun stuff. Halcon clowned Migra I on the mat. Migra II kept going to the eyes and hanging on to Falcon's mask to keep a headlock on until he got shrugged to the floor and ended up punching the post. They had a pretty elaborate finishing sequence where Halcon and Falcon had to figure out how to avoid getting tossed into one another so they could get distance and lure the Migra's into a trap. Crowd-pleasing stuff. 

Segunda had Migras take over just by separating their opponents and leaning hard on Falcon. This ended up mostly mask ripping and wound work, but we like mask ripping and wound work. It seemed like they were going to end a caida once Halcon finally got past the ref to get in and they took him out too, including with a nice stump puller, but things kept going. At one point, Falcon, bloodied and sprawled on the ground was offered a drink by a kid through the guardrail so that's always nice. Eventually the ref just called it and the tape cuts after twenty minutes with the last fall still to go. Good for what we had though. 

Shunji Takano vs. Big Bubba AJPW 3/27/88

MD: Maybe the most fun four and a half minutes you'll have today. This was a Classics drop we're just catching up on. Takano, by 88, had a lot going for him. Size and fire. He'd grow into it even more in 89 before his career started to take weird turns. Looking at him here and he looked like the future of the company though. Also, oddly enough, Bubba looked like the future of the company too. He looked like a guy who could have toured as much as Doc and Gordy and fit right in. Yeah, he was a different size and shape, but he had such presence and could move. He looked like a million bucks here.

He pressed in right from the start with punches to the face and this great axe handle. Takano turned it around and dropkicked him out. He sold it with huge frustration, going after the guardrail, only to come back in and dominate. Lots of great power offense here, his spinebuster slam, back body drop, clothesline, and more great strikes, a headbutt and this beautiful sweeping chop. Then he got out the belt and started choking Takano with it, jarring, effective stuff. He climbed up to the top with it but that just let Takano come back tossing him off in a big moment. Takano followed up with a body press off the turnbuckles but Bubba turned it around for the Bubba Slam. It felt like a really refreshing WCW Syndicated TV match in a way AJPW very rarely does. Ah, what could have been.

ER: Shunji Nakano is a kind of under-discussed guy. Maybe people just hated Super Ninja, I don't know. His look was Larger Japanese Mike Awesome and he could really take a hit and throw a suplex. This is 4 minutes of Big Bubba dishing out hit after hit after hit and Takano had one suplex that might have been the biggest suplex bump Bubba had taken to that point in his career. Bubba is barely 100 matches into his career, in his 2nd match ever in Japan, a couple months away from WWF, just a baby. Boss Man was my favorite wrestler as a kid because he was shaped exactly like my dad. That same exact belly, dress shirt pulled tight, hugging his stomach because of the tuck. Never fat enough where they had to get larger pants and tuck their stomachs into their pants - that's what we call Ronnie P. Gossett fat - but incredible belly hang over the waistband of their slacks. Some of us have Bald Dads, some of us have Tall Dads, I was lucky enough to have a Fat Dad. 

How quickly did Bubba get this good? When was he Actually Good? He's a marvel here. Find me a single misstep, all match. It's the perfect 4 minutes of material. Every detail, every hit, every miss. Complete package. 15 year pros don't have a fast swing and miss clothesline as good as Bubba's. The speed he takes a dropkick bump over the top to the floor, and the anger he shows after (scaring a few ringside fans) is done with a veteran's confidence. He double axe handles Takano in the back of the head; the man hits a sidewalk slam with one suspender down like the world's largest Jeff Leonard. He tosses Takano so high with a back body drop, and the visual looks nuts because you never see guys Takano's height taking back body drops. Bubba throws his full weight into his falling clothesline, like a big fat guy STO. His enziguiri slashes across the face. The casual removal of his belt before choking Takano to his knees, climbing to the top rope for choking leverage, was like something you'd see a hitman do in an 80s Hong Kong action movie. 

And, while I'm not sure it needs to be said, I will say that the Bubba Slam clears the Black Hole Slam every day of the week. This isn't swing dancing. This stomach goes over the belt. 

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Matches from AJPW 11/25/90: WALKING TALL DORY~! NO RESPECT DYNAMITE~! KIDNEY PUNISHING HANSEN/KAWADA~!

The Funks vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith AJPW 11/25/90

ER:  A pretty amazing match that I had never seen, with four standout performances. It's so hard hitting, and these new All Japan Classics episodes showcase that in the best way. The sound on these episodes is incredible, and it puts you right in the middle of this high impact style. I can't imagine what it was like sitting front row for such a physical style as All Japan - let alone be a participant in it! -  but this video makes it feel like I was there 35 years ago. It's one of five Tag League matches smack in the middle of the show, and they kill each other and treat it like a match with actual stakes. It's an awesome Dory match and more evidence that Dynamite Kid's Winter 1990 is him at one of his highest levels. Dory comes off like the tougher, harder hitting Funk, an actual Cool Dory match. The match peaks with the Bulldogs working over Terry's Not As Damaged 46 year old legs in ways that contributed to Terry's Old Knees while Terry scrambles in half a dozen of the greatest attempts at making a hot tag, a face in peril to his big brother's ass kicking tough guy. 

Johnny Smith is at his absolute beefiest; Dynamite is at his most bitter and dangerous, a little guy starting the most violent fights at the bar. It's a great team. Dynamite looks angry the entire match, on the apron, in the ring, and treats Terry like an old man to be put to pasture. Terry works lighter to come off as vulnerable to loss as possible, and is at perhaps his most sexy. Sexy Terry working as Pretty Ricky. Ponytail Terry with his little mustache and the best body of his career. I love Hot Ponytail Terry in his Body Glove tights, and here's Dory in his blue trunks working stiffer than anyone in the match,  maybe anyone on the show (Eric's Note: Kawada and Hansen kick each other so hard in the kidneys later on the card that Dory Funk would have died so let's leave it to saying he worked stiffer than anyone in this match). It adds up to a middle of the card tag match that was worked as a small show main event. 

Listen to how hard they're all smacking each other! Dory's contact on his collar and elbow tie-ups with Johnny were the sound of bodies used to taking hits. When Dory is in against Dynamite, he hits him with uppercuts that are so hard that I don't think Kid had to sell his limbs all going numb. He looked shocked that Dory was hitting him so hard. He tees off hard on Smith and really looks like a mat expert going after Smith's knee and ankle. Everyone worked this super honestly, but Dory's work was the most honest and well executed of all. And here's Dynamite, the by far smallest man in the match and the guy who I'd least want to confront about anything. He goes after Terry with no respect. Maybe my favorite spot in the match, is when Terry is hitting Johnny with headbutt after headbutt before they both go down. Johnny goes down, Terry spirals down after, and the second Terry hits the mat Dynamite's eyes go wide and he scrambles up to the top rope to hit a headbutt to Terry's stomach. He pulls it off so hastily, making it look like a snap impulse, and his knees land full weight one inch from Terry's face. It looked so dangerous and was only one of the things that made this match play so tough. Dynamite is so geared up when he's in against Terry, that they even do a spot where Dynamite presses Terry off him on a kickout and Terry flies several feet from it, like Dynamite was Yokozuna. Dynamite kills Terry with clotheslines to the back of the head, throws him to the floor with a back body drop, and - most incredibly - drags him into a standing stretch muffler that blew me away. Dynamite's body had to be in constant agony and as he locked in the muffler and stood to his feet, clasping his hands while the much larger Terry was hanging upside down in a headstand, his pain was as palpable as any I've seen.  

The Bulldogs working over Terry's knee was some excellent third act cutting off the ring. Dynamite wanted that knee all match, and when he got it he was like a dog with a chew toy. He was slamming Terry's calf over his knee and it looked like one of the most violent pieces of work I've seen. Terry's selling was incredible, crawling and leaping towards Dory while Smith and Dynamite had to keep tackling and blocking. There were some nearfalls that got the big crowd to bite, like one of the most well-used and well-executed rolling inside cradles. Dory pulled the cradle and Smith rolled it over and the movement was so good that Yokohama bought in. Terry's win over Smith was so well done, as Dynamite had totally drained Terry and suddenly one of the biggest stars in wrestling history looked like he could be beaten by Johnny Smith. He has to resort to scrambling on top of Smith during a pinfall exchange and just weigh his body down. The Bulldogs looked like a tough vital team against two legends, and The Funks looked legitimately at the top of their abilities. 

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. The Land of Giants AJPW 11/25/90

ER: Phil and I wrote about this match 7 years ago and I don't think I appreciated it enough then. It seems funny to say that I didn't appreciate an Old Andre match enough, as I think every single review of any Old Andre match I've ever written is me appreciating and analyzing every step he takes. I love the 1990 Tag League old broken but still proud Giants, and we should all be thankful that we got to see them against the worst Fake Road Warriors team ever assembled in a respected promotion. I cannot and will not say it is a great match, because it is not. The Land of Giants - Skywalker Nitron especially, specifically - are total cornballs. Nitron is the goofiest of all, almost surely the goofiest wrestler All Japan used in 1990. You're off the hook Richard Charland and David Sammartino. But part of what makes the match great, is that Andre and Baba know that these two are cornballs, and the gift that brings us is a very active Andre match. 

Andre is old but not nearly as old as he'd look in 1992. He was in the ring a lot against both cornballs and had a bunch of great ideas and ways to attack both of them. He looked really strong, even if Nitron sold some of his offense with the goofy acting only seen from people reading stories to small children in libraries. Andre looked like he had a lot of fun beating these two goofs up. He had two different cantaloupe fist punches, one while holding Nitron in a headlock and the other just thrown to the face and followed up with a NOAH worthy headbutt. He grabbed Masters in a knuckle lock and made it look like he was crushing his hand. The camera had a zoom in on Andre interlacing his fingers with Butch and his fingers were so big they looked like they were forcing Masters' fingers to break apart. It looks like something that would and did drop Masters to a knee. The best part is when he broke the knuckle lock by rearing back and punching Masters in the fingers. 

This match has Andre the fucking Giant holding Rob Zombie's Michael Myers in a bearhug. Freddy vs. Jason is my least favorite Nightmare on Elm Street movie and my least favorite Friday the 13th movie, but Andre the Giant vs. Michael Myers is a horror movie showdown we needed to see and I would have paid money to. There's no way I would have gone into that movie and gotten Andre keeping his bearhug locked in by pulling on The Shape's rattail. Moustapha Akkad wouldn't have had the guts. 

Stan Hansen/Danny Spivey vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 11/25/90

ER: The Funks vs. New Bulldogs was a hard hitting match. Every open hand on chest and back landed with a loud crack and Dory Funk threw in a last hurrah before his 50s with a great Walking Tall badass role. It's great. But then two matches later Kawada and Hansen took such righteous anger out of each other's kidneys that it made me think *I* was going to piss blood. This is some of the toughest wrestling you'll ever see. Hansen is in full force of nature mode and he hits Kawada like a kid in training camp. Every chair, every shoulder, every godforsaken kick, was felt thoroughly. Hansen is such a force of nature, that you're not expecting Kawada to take such a force so head on. Kawada kicks Hansen back even harder and cracks baseball bat shots off the old cowboy's torso. Kawada makes such wicked contact that Hansen's pancreas selling looks like the man is learning how to sell a bruised pancreas in real time. Hansen is the best Train Running Off the Rails impacter in wrestling and it was amazing to see Kawada throw his whole body at a moving train. The finish is incredible and features one of the greatest low bridges I've ever seen. Misawa flies over the top rope with such speed that I jumped in the same way I do in the movies when a car gets unexpectedly T-boned. Spivey's team with Hansen took his timing to a really high level. Misawa is there one second and gone the next and as he's flying one direction, Hansen runs the other and knocks Kawada into the sky with a western lariat. Later, Doc and Gordy try to hit harder clotheslines on Taue in the main event and make fine cases. Later still, Jumbo and Taue outdo them all with their clotheslines to Gordy. It's show-long clothesline oneupmanship I can support. And then Jumbo gives Gordy another. 

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1990 Andre Remains Undefeated, 1990 Hansen is Unmoved, 1990 Funk is Ponytail Terry

Andre the Giant/Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Stan Hansen/Joel Deaton/Dan Spivey AJPW 12/1/90 - EPIC

ER: I love this. It's 8 minutes long and every second is great. It has numerous peaks from all six men, efficiently mixing and maximizing several different pairings, playing perfectly into the natural hierarchy. You know this is going to end with Joel Deaton being pinned by somebody, you know the second Deaton is left in the ring that we are close to the end, but those facts do not diminish a single exchange because often what should happen happens for a reason. The match has everything, including my three favorite pro wrestlers all doing the things that make them my three favorite wrestlers. This is the only time my three favorite pro wrestlers ever were in a match together. Do not even try counting some West Texas battle royal from 50 years ago, this is the only match Andre, Funk, and Hansen ever had. Isn't that something?  

Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen never had an exchange that wasn't worth watching, and here it's Ponytail Terry, taking a swing at Hansen on the apron, a swing to connect. I don't think Hansen sees it coming but his blurred vision instincts knew he had to duck quick and low with the speed Ponytail Terry was approaching him. Hansen chops Terry so hard, Terry punches Hansen like he does, and it's great...

but it's nothing like the smile on Andre's face as Hansen is backed into their corner and he tags in. I don't know if Andre entered a ring quicker over the rest of his life, and Hansen hops backward up onto the bottom buckle like a trapped animal. His instincts are correct. When he tries to lock up, Andre grabs pro wrestling's ultimate ass kicker by the fucking throat and backs him up all the way across the ring, dropping him with one punch to the chest while Mustache Joel Deaton runs for his life down the apron. Everyone got their own individual Andre Jump Scare spot. 

Andre uses his size and Sasquatch grabbing ability to herd all three big men into a corner and hold them there so the Funks can use him as a battering ram. Hansen is trapped below the pile and shows he's one of the best wounded animals in wrestling, only here it's his pride that's wounded and makes him advance on Andre with punches and chops. Hansen is an egotistical Great White Shark in a way that nobody else has ever captured. Hansen famously never stops advancing in his matches, and when Andre stops him dead in his tracks by grabbing his fucking throat, I wonder how many times it will take him to learn that this is the one man you cannot keep advancing on. Andre does not back Hansen up by the throat, this time, he punches him in the nose and tags out. 

Sometimes Dory looks at his opponent with those Sydney Sweeney eyes and upends them with two hard uppercuts, and it's the best 1990s Dory.

Andre looks like he's having the time of his life on the apron. Apron work is just one other thing that old Andre excelled at. When Dory reverses a whip and sends Deaton his way, Deaton hits the damn brakes while Andre nods and grins at him like crazed Willem Dafoe. This match sets up the idea of Joel Deaton getting whipped into Andre more than once and pays it off incredibly for the finish. Hansen and his goons all hit Dory hard on the floor far away from where Andre can reasonably get over to them, which is a great old Andre spot where heels take advantage of how there's no chance Andre will be able to even reach them. But they always eventually wind up too close. Spivey tries to get all cute back in the ring and rolls Dory up with an abdominal stretch cradle, but Andre reaches over the ropes and breaks up the pin by grabbing Spivey's entire mullet in his fist and not letting go! Spivey looks like a man actually considering whether he's fine with having his hair ripped out to escape. Andre is the best apron threat in wrestling history. 

You can see the moment Hansen knows he's not defeating Andre and you can see the moment one second later when it stops bothering him. Hansen had a pattern all match of using Joel Deaton as a projectile in his war against Andre. Deaton was used in two rocket launchers, and 1.5 of them connected. When Hansen got tired of getting throttled, he decided in one instant to whip Deaton as hard as he could in Andre's direction. Joel Deaton is a great pro wrestler and even though we all knew the entire match was building to his demise, he never once wrestles like he knows. When Hansen whips him toward Andre and starts heading for the showers before even seeing whether Deaton got caught or not, Deaton really thinks he is hitting a big time clothesline on Andre. He is not a man forced into running toward his own death, he isn't a guy running towards someone just to take a spot, he is a man doing his best to connect with that clothesline. 

It doesn't connect, Andre kills him. Hansen won't stick around to see the pin.  

You want to tell me old Andre's elbowdrop sucks? You're wrong. In this very match you can see an example of the most perfect elbow every dropped, that of Stan Hansen. There has never been a better elbowdrop than Hansen's. His form is perfect, his landings always directly on target, his impact incredible and something I wouldn't survive. You cannot throw a better elbowdrop. Andre's elbowdrop is ugly. Not just by comparison, it's just ugly. The form is terrible. He looks like an old dog who is taking five steps just to lie down. Legs down first, then the left arm to the elbow, then the right, slow roll to his side, off center on his favorite fur covered rug. But when the camera cuts in close and you see Andre lying across Deaton's chest, there is no way Deaton could get a shoulder up if his life depended on it. When old Andre pinned someone, it was a shoot. Andre lying on top of you cannot be kicked out of, so the delivery of Andre falling on top of you does not matter. Hansen's elbowdrop is about maximum targeted impact. Andre's is about finding the best way to get laterally onto his opponent. Impact is not created in form when you are Andre's size, it just Is.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Found Footage Friday: AJPW CLASSICS~! ABBY~! WAJIMA~! MAGEE~! TAKAGI~! IDOL~! RICH~! KABUKI~! TIGER MASK~!

Abdullah the Butcher vs. Hiroshi Wajima AJPW 1/2/88

MD: Abby had bigger fish to fry. His eyes were on Jumbo and Baba. Wajima was just a guy he had to babysit here. I'm not going back to see if this did ratings or not but I bet it did even as Wajima was less of a TV draw than he'd been the year before. I'll be honest. I started my AJPW chronological watch with 89 in part to avoid the guy. I kind of regret that now though not necessarily because of anything he did here. More because I would have liked to track every Tenryu match after his turn. But I'd say in small doses, i.e. this match, Wajima was pretty interesting to watch.

Here we got to see him through the lens of an Abdullah the Butcher that wanted the country of Japan to remember that he was a singular and formidable monster. 

Wajima would try a bunch of things. Abby would no sell them in the most bored and stoic way possible, hilarious to both me (despite myself) and the crowd at the time, and cut him off with the throat shot. The fans would chant Butcher over and over again. Then Abby would do some stylized karate shots and pose. It was something. To Abby's credit, it built to Wajima finally got him over and even though the first time that happened, Abby looked more bemused and surprised than anything else, it did sort of matter because of the mountain Wajima climbed. It would have just mattered more if it was, let's say, Isao Takagi (since he'll come up later) or Shunji Takano doing it and not someone who had been around main events for a while. Abby quickly had enough of that, hit a shoulder block and started laying in the elbow drops. Wajima kept putting his feet on the ropes and Abby got incensed and started going after anyone that moved with Baba making the save. Definitely a match that one experiences, this one.

ER: Another lifetime ago, I was the sole person on the Pro Wrestling Only All Japan 80s Nominating Committee to want this match as on the 150 matches on the final set. I understand the need to keep someone like me in check on a group project like the 80s sets. We were cultivating something important and historical for a large group of people to see and experience. Setting new talking points and updating tastes and standards. All 150 slots were important. I sincerely wanted this Abby/Wajima match on the Final 150. I love it. It deserved to be on. The main argument against it was that some thought it was the clear 150th place finisher, which might be true. Some would rank it low because it's only 6.5 minutes bell to bell. It isn't a title change, it doesn't build to a hot finish, and obviously not enough voters went to the wall for Abdullah the Butcher matches, because he had no matches on the set. Hiroshi Wajima had three. So maybe we put this match on the set as the fourth Wajima match and the only Abby match, and it finishes last? Is that bad? 

The two last place matches, #149 and #150, wound up being two different Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Bruiser Brody matches. Their 1983 match was #149, their 1988 match was #150. That 1988 match was #150 on my own personal ballot, in full unanimous agreement with the mass voting bloc in finding Jumbo/Brody '88 to be the very worst match of the 150 best All Japan matches of the 80s. Did we need to have two different Jumbo/Brody matches on their if they were considered the two worst of the set? Every territory we did was going to have a match that finished dead last. There has to be a Worst Scorsese Movie. I always wanted to put a colorful match on the set as the one we thought would finish last. For the WWF set I wanted the best of the Bobby Heenan/Ultimate Warrior weasel suit matches (which didn't make the set). For the Memphis set I Phil and I were the ones pushing for the Nightmare Freddy matches that finished dead last. 

Something has to finish last. Abdullah the Butcher should have been #150. Or #147. Time has proven me correct on this match. I love this match. It has incredible aura, incredible atmosphere, feels filled with danger and tension and unpredictability for its entire short runtime, and devolves into genuine spectacle in Korakuen. This match has intrigue. Abby had returned to Japan a few weeks earlier after a three year absence. He had primarily been a New Japan guy in the first half of the decade and now he was a New All Japan Guy. Abby looked like as big a superstar in 1988 as he had a decade earlier. I don't think we put enough respect on his 87-95 run. Watch this match and witness the power of his charisma. Wajima was one of my favorite kind of wrestlers: Disgraced Former Sumo, but he was a big name and had the greatest robe in wrestling. People respected him. 

Abdullah the Butcher clearly was not one of them. This whole match feels uncooperative and Abdullah looks like a guy who just keeps fearlessly making an all time great sumo look like a chump. There is no fork stabbing. There is no blood. But there is a lot of Abdullah the Butcher no selling Wajima's strikes and looking at him with unblinking, unimpressed eyes. His head is the perfect shape and his expressions are incredible. He walks through or ignores every Wajima strike while throwing screaming taped finger thrusts into his throat, and every single time he does karate poses, a new one every strike. He steps repeatedly to a champion sumo and makes more poses and faces than you've ever seen him do. Wajima finally takes the hint and does a couple shoot throws grabbing Abby by his sizable pants. Abby had finally been Gotten in a match where he disrespected Wajima over and over and over, and once he gets thrown he decides NOPE and runs into a legendary sumo with  full contact shoulderblock and drops three running elbows onto his neck and chest. 

Abby is so disrespectful to Wajima - AND THEN SHOVES JOE HIGUCHI, HARD! - that it draws out Jumbo and Baba and every green-tracksuited undercarder, and Abby spends 10 constantly enjoyable minutes avoiding physical interaction with Baba and Jumbo while throwing fingers at the throat of every tracksuit he sees. Jumbo is screaming at him while being held back, Baba takes his tracksuit jacket off and is walking around in track pants and no shirt, Abby is walking around the rows of Korakuen flanked by TNT and Black Assassin who isn't a guy anyone knows. It's the best. It's always intriguing, always entertaining. 

Here's the match that unanimously finished #150, which is extra appropriate because it was the main event of 3/27/88, with the Tom Magee and Tommy Rich/Austin Idol matches we cover below. Watch this match and tell me it's better than the spectacle of Abby/Wajima. 

#150: 

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Bruiser Brody AJPW 3/27/88

Also, I was the extreme high vote for one of the Wajima matches that made the final set. I had Wajima/Ishikawa vs. Tenryu/Hara 6/8/87 as my #4 match. #4! It finished #141. #141! I ranked a match #4 that finished in the bottom 6%! You can't get much farther apart than 4 and 141. I haven't watched that match since doing the set, 13 years ago. I'm going to watch it later. I'm justified 15 years later in my love for Abby/Wajima, let's see what shit I was working through in 2012 to be the extreme high Wajima voter: 

Hiroshi Wajima/Takashi Ishikawa vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara AJPW 6/8/87

[Watched it again, turns out I was completely right once again. This match rocks. It's four sumos all angry for different reasons, Tenryu and Wajima cannot stand each other, everyone takes unprofessional shots. Wajima sells Tenryu's enziguiris better than anyone, Hara clotheslines Wajima in the side of the face and Wajima pays him back with one that knocks him onto his head. Every second of it has aura and/or sumos hitting each other hard]

Tommy Rich/Austin Idol vs. Tiger Mask II/Great Kabuki AJPW 3/27/88

MD: You'll want to stick around for the post match where Idol gathers a crowd around him and starts to pose like crazy. That's the most interesting thing in this one but it's also legitimately interesting. The second most interesting thing is the chinlock he puts on Kabuki where he works it so hard that every vein in his neck looked like it'd pop. The sheets said that Idol and Rich didn't get over because the Japanese didn't know what to make of guys who mostly punched and I find that kind of absurd and dismissive. The third is that Rich/Idol come out to Roll with the Changes by REO Speedwagon. 

I didn't love the feeling out stuff here or the finishing stretch to be honest, but I did think the control on Kabuki where they went after his neck/throat with a bunch of headlock punches/throat shots and a great Rich neckbreaker, plus the aforementioned chinlock was all very good. Tiger Mask probably just wasn't the right guy to match up against these two?

ER: Rich and Idol come out to "Roll with the Changes" and I love it. Tommy Rich was still using REO Speedwagon in Japan when he worked WAR in 1993, when the song was 15 years old. The match rules because it's Idol and Rich working a Memphis tag with Kabuki going along with it, Idol and Rich cutting off the ring and throwing punches from real and comedic angles, Idol connecting with Japanese fans as an honest to god cult celebrity. Jerry Lawler got such an ice cold reaction in his limited Japanese work, but Idol grabs the attention of the All Japan crowd and them makes aloof faces like he doesn't understand why.  At one point Idol tags in and throws Great Pro Wrestling Punches while dropping to a knee, throws a snapmare that is actually a man flipping another man to his seat by the head, and then throws punches to a seated Kabuki and chokes him on the mat before running him face first into Tommy Rich's knee. It is everything I love about wrestling distilled into 15 seconds. When he throws headlock punches to Kabuki, Kabuki drops forward to his knees like his nose is broken. Tommy Rich hits a fistdrop off the middle buckle. Idol hooks his hands under Kabuki's chin and flexes his arms as he pulls his neck back over his knee, hair looking like a swag version of the Mark Davis cut, and all is right. Austin Idol had a connection with the Japanese crowds and even in loss, that cult status looms over the victorious Tiger Mask. Idol flexes his biceps in the crowd and the reaction makes it clear that the people want More. 

Tom Magee vs. Isao Takagi AJPW 3/27/88

MD:  Some of these have been out there more or less for a few years but we never covered them (it's hard to keep up with Classics) so they're really new enough. And this was quite the thing right here. Magee came out to Danger Zone like he was Masa Fuchi or something, stood on the top turnbuckle, dropped his cape, posed, and did a shooting star press into the ring right into a tumble. Hell of a thing. 

And you know, parts of this were competent. Sure he landed on Takagi with his first leapfrog and there was just a weirdness to some of what he did. He'd do a headscissors at an angle I've never quite seen it and grabbed the ropes not for heat so much as so he didn't fall over, while in a grounded headscissors. His strikes were stylized to say the least. He put his foot on Takagi's leg while holding an armbar, not to drive him down but to set up a drop toehold and I don't quite get that. Lots of little things like that, but the armdrags looked ok and he was spirited in his legdrops and kneedrops and hiptosses and what not. 

But really this was about the spin wheel kicks. His was basically a beesting, the chop of the spinwheelkick, where he got the edge of his foot into the midsection of Takagi. Takagi when he later reversed a whip and hit a charge and just careened at Magee, went foot first right into his face as he arced. And yes, right after that, Magee opened up in a big way, blood coming down his face. The match was over by that point though as he did a somersault to "dodge a charging Takagi", put in quotes for a reason and then did a belly to back position backbreaker which I've never seen before for a submission. Hell of an entrance though. 

ER: I don't really think Tom Magee is that much different than many guys who are pushed as a Fast Rising Star on the modern indy (or national television!) scene. He had great athleticism and actually had more offense than I realized, and he isn't AS terrible as advertised when it comes to fitting that offense into an actual match. He feels like someone who could have been molded with more time, but wasn't given more time. I liked some things he did (like his weird drop toehold) but the main thing he had going against him was also the same thing he had going for him: He moved like an alien in the ring. If not like an alien, he moved like someone who had been given the implanted knowledge of pro wrestling, without actually knowing or understanding what pro wrestling was. Many of the things he does look "fine" but he does them as someone who doesn't know what he is doing, and the crowds can feel it. He is doing a kneedrop, he is doing a legdrop, he is doing a weird drop toehold, but he is doing it in a way that doesn't feel like pro wrestling, it feels like a memorized series of steps. Tom Magee memorized the sounds of the alphabet phonetically but cannot actually read or understand letters, and it is off-putting to the people who love wrestling. If you gave an alien a recipe to make a pumpkin pie, but they had never tasted a pie or seen what a pie looked like, you would almost surely get some sort of creation that had similarities to pie while also being grotesque in a way that aesthetically offended you. It's why Magee didn't seem to realize he was even bleeding from the nose and mouth after being hit by a spinning heel kick. He does not understand these humans, nor the ways they leak.  

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Found Footage Friday: RESURGENT DYNAMITE~! YOUNG ROCCO~! GYPSY JOE~! WOLFIE D~! THE LAND OF GIANTS~!

Mark Rocco vs. Terry Jowett WoS 5/24/73

MD: Amazing historical find by Allan here. This has to be the earliest Rocco we have, and maybe even by a couple of years, right? He was only around 22 here, already a three year pro. And it's fascinating to see what he was doing at this age and how he was presented. Jowett had ten years experience on him and Rocco, despite winning out in the end with a near tilt a whirl slam off the ropes, was the underdog and it was ultimately an upset. 

Along the way, there was a ton of entertaining spots, though maybe not the exhausting (in a good way, in small doses) Rocco trademark I'd expect. All the explosiveness and dynamism in how he hit stuff and took stuff but not consistent, if that makes sense. Jowett was a great counter to his antics, and I'm personally sympathetic to his hairline (Rocco's was shaggy and he already had the trademark mustache).

There was a rough around the edges feel to this, that would, in years to come, conform into Rocco's edge of your seat style. We come in during the third here (and leave two rounds later with the finish) and there are lots of quick and deep pin attempts. After one escape where Rocco just sort of stumbled out to the crowd's amusement, he was quick to go for a joking handshake, great instincts in not losing his focus and in keeping the crowd engaged, in making it seem like they were seeing a show instead of making one of their own out of what they were watching. 

Some of the comedy spots were great, whether it be Jowett booting Rocco on a drop down, or criss crossing his own limbs and rolling about so Rocco couldn't get an advantage, or my favorite, when Rocco started his hyperactive roperunning only for Jowett to run in place instead, making Rocco out to be the fool. Very funny stuff. 

Rocco would get dirtier as the match went on. Interesting, after he started clubbering for the first time and drew a public warning, Walton chastised him for it, not for the cheating itself, but because he didn't earn much from the warning. He only took over really when he dropped a knee (legal apparently) on Jowett's throat, and then only until the end of the round as he leaned in on the arm while he could. Lots of imagination in both his offense and his bounding and bumping (one time fliping all the way over and sailing between the ropes) and towards the end, he had these cobra clutch ripcords I can't remember seeing much otherwise. 

Really just a great historical snapshot of one of the most dynamic wrestlers of all time early into his development. One of my favorite finds this year. 

ER: Remember how much we, as an online contingent of pro wrestling writers and historians of Noticers used to criticize Rollerball Rocco? He was the British embodiment of the same criticisms we held towards Kurt Angle, the all flash-no substance, looks cool-means nothing type of wrestler who fell out of favor with us. I don't think we could have anticipated the Kurt Angle/Dean Malenko style of constant movement detached from meaning would become the predominant pro wrestling style in every company in the world, so much so that things have looped back around. Now, watching even the "worst" era of Mark Rocco indulgence gives me new respect for his style and ability. 

The first British wrestling I was exposed to was a Johnny Saint/Rollerball Rocco match and that match was at least a decade after this one, and it is an entirely different Rocco. It should be, he's incredibly young and only three years into his career. As Matt says, he is the underdog in the match and commentary frequently talks about him like a baby who they impressed made it even this deep into a wrestling match. But he does not wrestle like a stupid little baby, he wrestles like tough guy with a real cool command of physics. His snapmares play like violent offense, his timing is impeccable, and his strikes always looked damaging. He was adept at comedy (Matt mentioned the very funny rope running spot where he ran back and forth as Jowett mocked him like Bugs Bunny) and really the only inexperience I saw was how he didn't always seem to know what to do next, never capitalizing on snapmares and kind of waiting around for Jowett to stand back up (which is another hilarious Kurt Angle parallel). I thought that actually worked for his young mustachioed punk character as it made him look like he was big timing the veteran Jowett. Rocco's bumping for the finish was excellent, a real rewind worthy moment where he back bumps and then handsprings back through the ropes feet first and takes another pratfall on the floor, a comedy bump that looked like either the greatest lucha rudo comedy bump or the payoff to a John Cleese bit.    

The Land of Giants (Skywalker Nitron/Butch Masters) vs. New Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith) AJPW 12/1/90

MD: I'm pretty well suited to know what's new and what's not new from 89-91 AJPW or so, and I'm pretty certain this classics drop is new. We're going to cover it anyway because that's what we do, cover Land of Giants matches. We get about six minutes out of the nine here, with a clip in the middle that annoying means we lost the transition to heel offense, but you can imagine it for the most part. 

And honestly, I liked this a lot. I have issues with late era Dynamite but this was one of the best performances I've seen out of him from 89-90. The most important thing is that he needs opponents he can't just chew up and you can't chew these guys up. They're huge. This started with Smith vs Nitron and I thought they actually matched up well, too well. Some of that was Nitron not working big enough but some of it was Smith not working small enough. He wasn't acting like he was in there with a giant. Even though Masters worked bigger, he'd still do the same thing against him later. 

Dynamite knew how to get the most of them though. When he came in, he had some awesome looking stuff, a fistdrop from an angle that you don't usually see it, a headbutt followed right by a jawbreaker. He was punching up and he was valiant for doing so and he wanted everyone in the crowd to know it. We get the clip then and come back to Masters working over the back, and it's honestly one of the best sells for a bearhug I've seen in a long time. I've criticized Omega's selling of his diverticulitis lately because while it's probably accurate, real to how he feels, it comes off as hokey. Dynamite knew what back pain felt like; he was probably feeling it there depending on how much he had chosen to dull it that night, but he was able to project it to the back row in the best of ways. Nitron's bearhug wasn't quite as good but the effect was still the same. 

The comeback was pretty huge as Dynamite fired up to the top as Masters was inexplicably headed up there to put him away and they did a huge superplex. Smith came in and cleaned house. Finally Smith slammed Masters and Dynamite came off the top with the headbutt much to the crowd's delight and they won as simple as could be. Not sure what was in those lost three minutes (when we came back in Masters was beating on Dynamite on the floor) but the six we got were pretty good. 

ER: This was probably the most entertaining Land of Giants match I've seen, and it was because of a more interesting and risky Butch Masters performance than I expected, and a downright fantastic "late era" Dynamite performance. This whole thing was totally worth it just to see Dynamite as a sincerely scary looking man going hard as fuck after Masters. Dynamite's face is scarred, his body is stiff, but the man feels like a threat at all times. Johnny Smith was at his beefiest in this era, so it actually works when he's throwing down with Nitron and Masters, but this is Dynamite's match. Dynamite hits an incredible fistdrop on Masters, a lunging fist torpedoed into Masters' throat, so perfect that I watched it half a dozen times. I would have said this match was incredible if everything else in it looked like dogshit. After that fistdrop he throws Masters to the floor so hard that it turns into what has to be the biggest bump of his career. Dynamite is great at running face first into boots and was good at drawing sympathy as both Giants take him to The Land of Bearhugs, but the big shock is him hitting a superplex on Masters. I have no idea what Butch was going to do up there, but whatever it was I wasn't expecting him to get suplexed off. When Smith tags in, Masters leans all the way into a stiff missile dropkick to his upper chest and gets wrecked by a Smith clothesline that I think hit harder than all of us expected, especially Masters. 

The icing on the cake was Dynamite hitting a flat out disgusting diving headbutt, smashing his forehead into Masters' teeth. You can see a knot already starting to form on the right side of Dynamite's head and Masters lies on the mat holding his face. Dynamite looked and wrestling like a pilled up psychopath, in the best way. That headbutt was one of the meanest things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. Smith sets Masters up over halfway across the ring and Dynamite wants him there. He does a shoot headbutt to a man's face and Masters has no idea what hit him. It is Dynamite's head whipped into the entire side and mouth of Butch Masters, like a soccer hooligan leaping off the bleachers. 

Wolfie D/Steven Dunn vs. Gypsy Joe/Danny D Evansville 9/20/00

MD: I don't know. Sometimes you just want to see Wolfie D (here in full Slash mode) go up against Gypsy Joe? And there was some of the early, with a feeling out process and then the first (shorter) of a double heat after Wolfie took Joe down with a hairpull. Pretty simple control stuff with Danny getting drawn in to allow for the blind switches. Joe eventually made a comeback off of a whip reversed and teased a stinkface maybe, because it was 2000 after all. No punches here though. That's important because those were saved to the end.

Danny got leaned on for most of the rest of the match, and it made sense because even though Dunn was a pro and Wolfie a pro's pro I'm not sure you wanted them stooging for this lanky guy with dubious agility all that much. But it was a joy to watch Wolfie just destroy someone and they worked him into a few solid hope spots, including out of a bodyscissored full nelson. When Joe did make it back in (on a hot tag which was earned but not quite maximized re: the timing) the punches came out and they went into a pretty quick roll up win. You never quite know what you're going to get with the Bryan Turner uploads until you get there but this was pretty well worked overall.

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Found Footage Friday: 80s SPAIN~! PANTHER~! PSICOSIS~! REY~! FANTASTICS~! KIKUCHI~!

Santi Rico(c) vs. Manuel Acapulco 3/30/83

MD: Spanish wrestling! Don't get too excited. This looks like a one off and it is well, well past the glory years. As an overall presentation, it's fascinating though. This is on a variety show of sorts and likened to when they had someone run two days straight from one city to another or a stunt man on. Here it's the defense of a title. That said, they were ready to put their best foot forward and it was a celebration in its own way.

The centerpiece was not Mr. Ferraras, the president of the Castilian federation who was interviewed beforehand and presented  the belt/sash (a nice collection of flags upon it) to the world champion at the end. It wasn't the wrestlers, Santi Rico billed from Spain who had been active for a few years at least and Acapulco (Montezuma?) who was billed from Mexico. Apparently neither had 100 matches under his respective belt. More on them later. It wasn't even Quasimodo, our friend from the French footage, who was known in French as the Caribbean Cyclone, who was there to witness and talk about his school of 30 wrestlers he was training. 

The centerpiece, to me was Bobby Deglané, who even with my rough Spanish and YouTube's translate function, came off as an exceptional commentator, especially for someone who was never on national TV as such. He was a stalwart of the radio days however and was as poised and collected as one could be. He introduced all the rules (which part of the foot you could hit with, for instance, or the twenty count on the outside which was different than boxing) and explained all the techniques. They describe the realness of wrestling as half spot and half spectacle and he was quick to point out the damaging effects of shots to the head for instance. 

Some of the normative things were interesting. They called it American wrestling, Catch as Catch Can. The referee had a whistle for rope breaks. It was set up in six rounds of five minutes with a minute in between. There were ring girls to kiss cheeks and present trophies at the end as well as hold up the round numbers. They even said "Seconds out" at the start so there were elements of British wrestling as well as French (or vice versa depending on how things developed). The crowd was very into it despite being potentially unfamiliar.

And the wrestling was ok, spirited, high effort. It was rough around the edges based on what you'd expect, but that made sense given how quiet the scene was. I'd say that Acapulco looked the smoother of the two as one out of every three things Rico.went for didn't quite work. A lot of the holds did, headscissors, inner armbars, headlocks, mares, with all of the escapes. Rico had dropkicks and they varied. Acapulco leaned rudo as the match went on, throwing knees and rabbit punches and eventually headbutts that led to color (have to make things feel legitimate). This was not Cesca vs. Catanzaro. I'd say it wasn't even Flesh Gordon vs. Eliot Frederico but it was a pretty fascinating glimpse into a people trying to showcase and remember their lost tradition, a tradition that we've more or less accepted that we'll only ever be able to marginally touch.

Isamu Teranishi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Fantastics (Bobby Fulton/Tommy Rogers) AJPW 1/11/91

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HjFd7h3fKU

MD: We've missed a few matches from AJPW Classics but it's a bit tricky since some of what gets shown are matches we already had JIP where we just get the first 5 minutes. Maybe we still should go back for something like MVC vs. Jumbo/Taue but I never know. This, however, is, I think, new. And it's fun if flawed.

I struggle with this Fantastics run as they tend to do a lot of stuff and really eat up their opponents if possible. They got the memo and knew they had to look strong in order to be over in All Japan but it really doesn't make for great matches, especially when they're up against Footloose. Then you just get noise. This was better than that because they were able to dominate and Kikuchi's a lot of fun working from underneath. Lots of individual fun stuff whether it was Teranishi trying (and sometimes succeeding) to land on his feet against Rogers or the Fantastics hitting a bunch of double teams. 

Still, when Kikuchi was able to fire back or Teranishi able to stand strong, the Fantastics generally just shrugged it off. The worst of this was when Fulton missed an axe handle onto the guardrail from the apron. Pretty good spot, something you don't see every day. Didn't change the trajectory of the match a bit. Ah well. This isn't Can-Ams vs. Kikuchi, that's for sure. Still pretty fun for what it was though. Just what it was had a ceiling.

ER: I thought this was real tough, hard fought, with a feeling like it was going to turn unprofessional any moment. There were moments of miscommunication between Rogers and Teranishi, but it added to the vibes of Something Going Down. Really, it was probably just because everyone worked real stiff and kept fighting all match. Matt correctly notes some seemingly big spots that don't change the trajectory of the match, but I thought that just made everyone come off tough, wanting to fight. I like Asshole Bully Fantastics as their style is totally different. You still see those moments of babyface grace - look at how clean Tommy Rogers hits a sunset flip off the top - but there are more moments of these little guys throwing real shots. Rogers throws two hard back elbows at Kikuchi's eye when he seems surprised by a hammerlock reversal, so Kikuchi throws two elbow smashes at his eye. I love when Kikuchi is targeted with real abuse, like they all know he can take it and it gives them license to fill up their asshole meter. 

Tommy Rogers bodyslams Kikuchi from the ring out to the damn floor, just slips out the back and throws him over the top on his back. It looked more like John Nord eliminating a job guy from a battle royal, not little power pack Tommy murdering a fellow junior. It looks nasty...but Bobby Fulton's full speed baseball slide dropkick as Kikuchi is recovering looked even worse. Fulton flew between the bottom and middle ropes and connected so flush that he bounced back clean. Now, I expected this to lead to a long heat section on Kikuchi, but there's that thing about everyone just coming off tough, because when they go outside to capitalize Kikuchi just fights them both off with elbows and a stiff clothesline. Bobby Fulton looked like a real killer here, even more than Rogers, and seemed to work a bit better with Teranishi. I was shocked by how fast old man (same age as me) Teranishi flipped onto his feet, and Fulton seemed surprised by it as well. Kikuchi's comeback was real choice, ducking a tandem clothesline and hooking Fulton's waist for a "surprise" German suplex that Rogers instantly dropped an elbow on. The finish was real sick too, with Fulton scooping up Kikuchi for a Samoan drop and flinging Rogers onto him with a cannonball. The Fantastics worked as bully heels in All Japan better than the similar sized State Patrol, and I bet there are many who have never seen them quite like this. 

Blue Panther/Cien Caras/Psicosis vs. Konnan/Rey Misterio Jr./Angel Azteca Promo Azteca 11/30/96

MD: Roy says this is new and even though it cuts out before the finish, that's over 20 minutes and when you look at who's in it, it's worth checking out. Blue Panther was paired with Konnan early and it was sort of fascinating what they did. I'm not saying it was always exactly what I wanted, but it was always interesting. Panther had all of his tricked out stuff and Konnan just sort of roughed his way through in a believable, competitive way. Psicosis or Caras would sneak in to get cheapshots whenever he had the advantage. Rey and Psicosis was old hat but the best damn hat you might want with how Psicosis would base for Rey and Caras and Azteca had some stalling and cheapshots around Azteca getting things in. That was the primera, ending with some rope running with Panther and Azteca and Konnan vs. the world before he set Rey up with a monkey flip right into a 'rana that was pretty damn spectacular.

Segunda has a brief but great Blue Panther vs. Rey exchange and Psicosis stooging beautifully as he was heading into the ropes when Rey was doing the 619 dive tease and he bumped on it. Psicosis also got jammed on a monkey flip in the ropes by Konnan and took a bump over the top after some great struggle. Caras overpowered Rey and the rudos took over. They kept the beat down going into the tercera (including Blue Panther just tearing at Konnan's eye) before Konnan mounted a big comeback against everyone and things picked up towards the finish as it all cuts off. Some very fun pairings and imaginative stuff here though. Tons of personality too.

ER: Any time 20+ minutes of prime footage turns up of these guys, it needs to be covered, and this is a fun as hell way to watch these guys, so many fun exchanges and individual performances. Any new Rey/Psicosis interactions are going to cause excitement, and the more Psicosis footage we get (there is a lot) the more obvious it is how much better he was before WCW. WCW really sanded all the edges off a tremendous all around rudo and boiled him down to being a base with a couple big bumps who wasn't really great at working 3 minute singles matches. Whenever I watch a lucha match from the same exact era he was working WCW, he's so much more of a character, so much more fully formed, so much more of a star. His stooging is an incredible part of his rudo character, one that was mostly boiled away when he became Rey's touring dance partner. Here it's alive and thriving. Tripping over the ropes and getting upset with the ref about it is a great Psicosis trademark that wouldn't have translated to American audiences but was perfect for Mexican audiences. He's able to work more violently here than he would in WCW, and him being more of a flagrant asshole gives greater weight to all of his big bumps. 

My favorite things about this were the Panther/Konnan matwork in the primera, and Cien Caras's increased involvement as the match went on. I don't think I've ever seen Panther hit the mat with Konnan and I thought it was awesome. I am someone who thinks Konnan is better than given credit for while acknowledging that many of the criticisms are fair. He doesn't look like someone who can keep up with Panther on the mat, but he doesn't need to. Panther doesn't need someone who can mirror his abilities on the mat, he is good at working with anyone's personality and ability. Konnan is no slouch, and I like the strength component he brings to mat reversals. Panther may catch him with slickness and technical ability but Konnan is able to use strength to adjust the hold around himself. There was a cool takedown where Panther went inside and used his body to force a single leg, working himself up to an armbar, and Konnan started escaping from it by getting one of Panther's legs in a scissor and forcing it one direction, then grabbing the leg nearest his head and pushing that another direction, so both wound up in this awesome tangle where Panther still had a sub but Konnan was forcing his limbs apart. 

If Psicosis was someone who dumbed his style down for American TV audiences, Cien Caras was a star whose character wouldn't have translated to American audiences at all. He is such a stud, but wouldn't be perceived as a stud to Americans, so all of the great stuff he does here wouldn't get over at all. This cool Mexican stud in his goatee, who keeps going for cheap shot attacks all match and bumping almost to avoid interaction. I loved the end of the segunda, where his boys started being pinned and he bumped himself over the top to the floor, eating shit in the process, running away from Konnan just to avoid being one of the guys taking the fall. But in the primera he also bumped around for Azteca and took a big charge over the top to the floor after missing him, setting up one big bump on offense to get over his big "own goal" bump later, meanwhile always running in and kicking an opponent hard to break up a pin. It's a shame we don't have the finish as I really wanted to see the payoff of Panther goes after Konnan's eye, but you don't need to watch this for its Great Match potential, just watch it to see some legends at various peaks, doing exchanges you haven't seen. 

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Andre the Giant Didn't Have to Treat Joel Deaton Seriously

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Dick Slater/Joel Deaton AJPW 11/15/90 - GREAT

ER: Just another 90s Andre gem, the kind of playful menace performance he never would been given credit for having against mustache Joel Deaton. Andre didn't need to have a fun match against Joel Deaton, ever. 1990 Joel Deaton looked like Eric Roberts in Star 80 with less success and was above maybe only Ricky Santana on the All Japan gaijin hierarchy. Andre didn't need to do a single thing with Joel Deaton in 1990. Instead he puts on a little show, playing the menace who cartoonishly thirsts after beating up Joel Deaton. He is security getting enjoyment from throwing Eric Roberts from the Playboy Mansion. 

Andre still had incredible presence in his first several 1990 tours with All Japan. The increasingly vulnerable and broken down Andre of 91-92 came fast and his work and acting changed with it. 1992 Andre was still unique and special to me. There was still major aura, but it wasn't a Powerful Giant aura, and he couldn't have worked this match this way against Joel Deaton in 1992. In 1990 Andre still had powerful confidence and aura; a man who could walk through attacks and grab you with unmatched strength. Every second Andre is on camera, he is picturing Joel Deaton as a steaming turkey dinner. 1990 Andre was special. His November 1990 All Japan tour is in all likelihood his Last Truly Great tour, the way March/April 1990 was the last Truly Great Grateful Dead tour. Touring Legends lumbering through Nagano and The Omni with playful menace before the fall. The only difference is that I love 91-92 Andre and I never listen to 92-95 Dead.  

Everybody is good in this match. Baba's worked fun stretches with Deaton and Slater and each came with little surprises. Baba works Deaton like he's a white trash rookie Taue. I am a big 1990 Baba fan. He's playful and adds in visual winks whenever he does a move that he knows looks more spry than any fan was expecting from him. He takes an incredible, layered bump in the corner late in this match after Jowl Fucking Deaton hits him with the best clothesline of the match. I'd have bet $20 on Deaton running into a size 15, and Baba sold it like he had already taken that bet. Baba in 1990 was still leaning into real clotheslines with his weird chest and taking big bumps into the corner. A guy surprising you with a big bump is always more interesting than a guy who bumps a lot. 

Dick Slater is a great opponent for 1990 Baba because Baba can still work stiff enough to justify gaijin over-bumping for him and gaijin bumping for Baba and his reactions to the bumps are one of my favorite little things in wrestling. Slater's 90s is extremely under-discussed for something so great. I need to start writing about Dick Slater's work when he was My Current Age and how great he was right up until his unfortunate back injury. The more we cover IWA-Japan Dick Slater, Puerto Rico, SMW, any year of 90s WCW, All Japan tour Dirty Dick Slater, all of them, the more he might seriously look like a top 50 worker of the 90s, maybe higher. He had Tully Blanchard Energy just when we needed it most. Rough 'n' Ready would be much more appreciated now than they were in 1996. We would have gotten a memorable late 90s ECW run. Anyway,

this is an Andre match. As great as 90s Dick Slater was, nobody was ever Andre. This is the beautiful kind of Andre gem where he has a competitive match against someone who shouldn't be competitive with Andre In His Current State. I love that Andre match. I love how Andre works every person. I want to see matches where he is old but unstoppable but letting Joel Deaton survive. His confidence and presence are unmatched. He is sporting incredible and absurd Capital J muttonchops, that I would make fun of on any ska gimmicked Chikara wrestler who had the same but here you're left with something so much deeper. It's weird to think about Andre styling one of his sideburns into a perfect capital J, so do you think it was just a weird accident? If it was, why would he leave it and not clean it up? Are we to think he has enough energy to shave at all but not enough to fix a coded message on one of his cheeks? The world's largest Prince in a dispute with his record label, signaling to the press with a coy wink that he's going back to his roots as Jean Ferre. That can't be an accident. 

Andre stands on the apron, visibly salivating. Fantasizing about how much he's going to mess Joel Deaton up. Deaton had tried to sneak a chop in on Andre after tagging in and Andre saw it coming a mile away. He doesn't take his eyes off Deaton again. Deaton is in the ring, tied up on his back by Baba's weight, and you can see Deaton staring not up at Baba, but staring wide-eyed directly into Andre's eyes on the apron. Staring right through his mustache. I can't imagine how scary that would have been in 1990. Andre has such a visible craving for Deaton that his entire body drifts down the apron toward him; a man not realizing he's going 85 as he subconsciously keeps up with a hotshot in another car. You've never seen his eyes more excited when he tags in and grabs Deaton by the throat the second Deaton throws a punch. He palms Deaton by the mustache and throws a hand across the bridge of his nose, holds him in a sleeper that looked like it would have strangled Deaton to death in seconds flat had that strike to the nose hadn't happened. This is not a physically broken man, this is a Strongman Giant. When he holds Slater and Deaton prone for Baba, it is clear that neither could have wriggled out of his clutches if they tried. Andre could project his unreal strength and physically overwhelm large men. He allows Deaton to catch a break on the elbowdrop. It looks worse when Old But Powerful Andre eases up on the elbow, but the man had already had his feast, no need to pick the bones. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE 

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Found Footage Friday: TAJIRI~! HHH~! BABA~! EIGEN~! FURNAS~! MVC~! SPIVEY~!

Dr. Death Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs. Dan Spivey/Doug Furnas AJPW 10/19/90

MD: I like Kroffat as much as the next guy, move even, but Spivey being in there instead increased the hoss level considerably. This was heated from the start too. Doc had it out for Furnas for some reason. He gave him the middle finger before the match. Furnas returned the favor by swinging a kick at him as he was squaring up with Spivey. Doc wiped his sweat in Furnas' direction. Furnas gave him the finger. Doc told him to kiss his butt. You get the idea. It's a good way to start a match. 

It doesn't let up from there. Furnas uses the three point stance to knock Gordy down, but Doc's able to grind Furnas down well enough that he makes sure to rush over and smack Spivey around a bit too, before mouthing off and maybe even spitting at him drawing Spivey in and it's just an absolutely chaotic feel early on.

What follows is about five minutes of the best wrestling you'll ever see. Doc catching Furnas in mid air and bringing him to the top rope, the two of them trading slaps and Furnas leaping over him to hit a belly to belly. Doc and Spivey smacking each other all the way out of the ring. Spivey hitting a bossman slam on Doc and boos ringing through the air as Gordy breaks it up. The place absolutely exploding as Furnas press slams Gordy only to eat a lariat. It's a hell of a five minutes before everything settles down to holds.

They take it down before building it back up and the overall effect is a hell of a thing. Gordy and especially Doc get a ton of heat. Furnas is able to clap up Spivey. There are a bunch of great nearfalls down the stretch before an extremely definitive ending but one that took that bit of extra effort. These are the sort of lost matches we hope to find.

ER: I love All Gaijin matches in All Japan because it's interesting to see how they can organically draw heat and interest without any kind of Nativism at play. No side is necessarily more loved or hated, only more established. Dr. Death understands that and leans into the MVC's established rep and for seemingly no reason goes hard on Doug Furnas. I have zero reason to believe there is any kind of animosity between Dr. Death and Doug Furnas, but everyone in this match made me believe there was. Doug Furnas was fairly established at this point. Not at the level of beating teams like Doc and Gordy, but already a two time All Asia tag champ who had beaten big teams. Doc quickly turns him into an underdog babyface which leads to a more spirited wild eyed performance from Spivey and some incredible payoff when Furnas finally starts throwing them around. 

Everyone was so good in this match that I fully bought into Doc and Gordy as two guys who actually hated Furnas (they didn't), Furnas as a guy out of his depth (he wasn't) and Spivey as a guy fearlessly telling MVC to back the fuck off and stop taking liberties with Furnas (they weren't, but at times it didn't seem like Spivey realized that). Doc was doing some performative middle fingers and phony baloney heat drawing across the ring while Furnas looked like a guy making the universal face of "Hey man I didn't do anything to you do you have the right guy?" You could tell Doc had the right guy when he sat Furnas on the top rope and slapped Furnas so hard to break. Furnas looked like Allen Covert and sold the slap by making the face that Allen Covert makes when his girlfriend leaves him in one of the few Sandler movies where that happens. Doc is great at bullying Furnas to rile up Spivey, and Spivey is that great combination of large and reckless and Just Getting Real Good so that he always gets too amped up on his first punch of an exchange and throws some potatoes before dialing back a little. He always looks ready to pop off, and it's a killer distraction from Furnas finally popping off. 

Doug Furnas gorilla press slamming Terry freaking Gordy - and the scared face Gordy makes while being held up high in that press - is an incredible spot. It would have been an amazing press slam anyway, but once Furnas added a pump it became an all timer. The crowd lost their minds at that press slam and that hyped Doug up so much he did a backflip and then ran as fast as he could into Gordy's biggest clothesline of the match. Doug finally suplexing Death was so cool. I love the way Doc bumps when he's reeling, just as I love when he decides one turnbuckle isn't enough for a stampede. MVC made damn certain that they were the bad guys here and were so convincing that the fans bought them as bullies against two of the toughest dudes. Terry Gordy out here getting booed over and over for breaking up pins and picking on Mega Athlete Doug Furnas.   

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Akira Taue vs. Harkua Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/27/90

MD: This is a recent Classics drop and a Baba 30th Anniversary match. Jumbo gives him a plaque before the match and everything. This gets a ton of time, 20+ it feels like and it's just packed full of character and comedy. It's hard to do justice to it all or even half of it but I'll point out a few things.

First, Eigen, amazing as always, really shines at the start. He faces off against young Taue to start but then darts to the corner and slaps Baba before running out. They reset, he does the same thing but this time teases Baba and slaps Rusher. Then when facing off against Rusher, he ducks and slaps him twice before leading him to the corner for a long heat segment. They kick away at him forever before we ultimately get some goofy stuff with Okuma and headbutts. There are a ton of headbutts in this match and while Rusher gets some in, a lot of them are eaten by Taue.

Taue's a lot of fun here. I've seen every bit of 1990 footage we have of him and he wasn't there yet, but here he's got this sense of wild abandon, limbs flying and flopping about, that would soon be gone from him. He looks like he's going to become an entirely different wrestler here between his selling of the headbutts and a sort of physical recklessness.

This refuses to end, a lot of the normal things you think might end it getting broken up. They run some of the best Eigen spit spot stuff ever, as both Taue and Baba get to do it, with Baba getting it on his hand and everyone almost cracking up (and Kobashi cracking up decades later on commentary). Then Rusher goes for it, but he's blocked, and Baba comes in from the other side with a chop and it's pretty hilarious let me tell you. The finish is a fun combo of Taue hitting an atomic drop sending Okuma into Baba's foot and then right back into Taue's belly to back. My only regret is that they didn't repeat the atomic drop/boot sequence a couple of times first. Great fun that no dirtsheet would have appreciated at the time but that we can absolutely appreciate now.

ER: This is one of those Wrestling Heaven situations for me. I love my King's Road, and I love my boys. Give me 20 minutes of VILLAIN SHOKAI up to their old bullshit and the nuanced twists that come with every new 20 minutes. It's crazy how many ways they found to do their same bullshit slightly different over the years. You recognize the behaviors but there are always things they do different, things I've never seen, or realistically perhaps things I've seen a million times but don't care because they all work so well together that I don't ever get tired of them. All of these old men matches (Masa Fuchi was 36 lol) were written off unfairly by morose tape traders, so now everything in them is ripe for discovery. Nobody was talking about how great Haruka Eigen was when I got into trading, none of these guys were getting any kind of acclaim. We're long past that now.

Now, before this even starts, you just know Eigen is going to get up to shenanigans before Villain Shokai starts bringing headbutts and hamstring kicks. Eigen starting the match with a slap and run routine on Baba and Rusher is so classic, celebrating in the aisles with young boys you barely recognize, knowing he was going to get paid back down the stretch. A lot of these start with long heat on Kimura, eating boots and headbutts and selling the headbutts so believably (that happens here), but that's not where the match stays. I thought they did a great job integrating everybody and keeping Baba's involvement short and exciting. Villain Shokai made quick tags and this settled into me being excited watching an Akira Taue who didn't wrestle a single thing like my favorite wrestler Akira Taue. 1990 Taue is so cool as can see hints of the Taue that would be there just a couple years later but you'd only notice them if you were familiar with them. For the most part, he's a totally different guy with totally different offense and movement. 

His most important characteristic that he apparently always had, was his realistic approach to bumping. Watch how he sells an Okuma headbutt to the mouth, watch the way he falls with limbs flopping around and not in a controlled wrestling school back bump. The realistic bumps and selling were the things that instantly drew me to Taue at the end of the 90s, and with all the '90 Taue we have as evidence we can see that it's just who he is, a thing that would be near impossible to teach someone. He also has completely different offense and I love "elbowdrop Taue who doesn't use his giant feet in any way" but maybe I only love it because I know we're not far away from "big feet to face and the best chokeslams ever" Taue. 

You get so much tough guy sneaky prankster Eigen that you forget they had already started honing the Spit Spot this early. It's still early, as the front row all knows what's happening when it's happening, but nobody is holding up newspapers. People are fleeing, which only draws attention to one woman who is not moving at all while every other woman around her scurries to safety. Baba getting involved in Eigen's Spit is a thing that does not happen in most of these, and his involvement here brings two incredible moments: Baba clutching Eigen under the chin and clubbing his chest, only for Eigen to spit all over Baba's hand, leading to Baba wiping off his hand all over Eigen's head; then when Rusher is winding up to club Eigen, Fuchi intercepts his arm. While the two are locked in struggle, Baba creeps in from the other side and just knife edges Eigen. Taue's back suplex drops like a damn anchor. These 20 minutes always feel like 5 to me, something I never say about Modern Epic Wrestling. 

HHH vs. Tajiri WWE 1/25/03

MD: This is the sort of Vault drop that we're looking for, Hunter reign of terror match or no. Previously we only had a few minutes of this. With the introductions and post-match this is 30+ minutes. The biggest takeaway, past maybe how good Tajiri is here and how it's a shame we don't have a bunch of other 20+ minute matches with him from this era, is that Hunter consciously worked it differently than almost any other match of the period. Maybe even almost any other match of his career.

There's the whole bit about Hogan doing two extra bits of chain wrestling in his Japanese appearances (when it's more the reckless energy and Axe Bomber people should be looking at). To me, this was more about Hunter getting to work the sort of classic NWA Title match style that he didn't think the current WWE audience would appreciate. The problem was that he just didn't have the reps with it (which isn't really his fault). It meant he did the sort of stuff you'd expect him to be good at (feeding into headlocks and other holds) well, but when he tried some fancier escapes, it didn't quite click. The headstand escape to the headscissors was cute and all but people haven't clipped him basically comedically putting himself back into the hold to set up the positioning for it.

What did work were the transitions, the hope spots, the cutoffs. Hunter took over by clipping Tajiri with a clothesline on the handspring and that looked great. They worked a lot of hope spots given the time the match had to breathe and it meant when Tajiri did comeback, it felt momentous. Lots of moving parts and hoohah on the finishing stretch but the fans certainly got their money out of all of it. I loved hearing Earl talking up close too. That's something you'd rarely get in the heavily produced WWE, even in the early 00s. This just felt very different and refreshing in a sea of 2002-2003 Hunter matches I have memories of but really don't want to revisit.  

ER: I remember being 21 and reading about this match in the Observer and DVDVR but now I'm twice as old as I was then and my wants and priorities have changed. How far away, the post college years where my friends and I split an Observer subscription for several years and my friend Jason would use his work photocopier to copy even double issues for all of us. If this match had been taped, I would have traded for a tape to see this match. The 2025 version of doing that is me making 30 minutes of time to watch a HHH match. I'm glad I did. It closed a loop and lived up to its release. I love that it's shot handheld, I love the format, and I loved the story.  I always love the story of a guy who isn't World Title level getting a lengthy main event title match. If it exists, I'd be equally excited to see Brooklyn Brawler getting a long Shawn Michaels title match on a house show after winning a battle royal. 

HHH works this much more like a heel Bret Hart match and shows that he's better at that than when he's working his touring champion Flair match. Thank god this isn't his touring Flair match only in Japan. He's more execution focused than when he's in his Flair Entertainer mode and while I don't think he's anywhere near Bret as an execution guy there were several moments that I thought he looked a lot tighter than expected. He's better at bump as Bret than he is bumping as Flair and it made the match come off harder hitting than theatrical. Tajiri's kicks were great ways for him to storm back into the match and I liked how he would use them as unpredictable combos thrown at different body targets. HHH is bad at standing still making an "I'm waiting to be hit face" but much better at taking strikes that are less expected. We didn't have to see him hold his head a certain way as he waits to hair whip react to a punch, instead we just got Tajiri throwing kicks up and down his body. 

HHH as a guy working over shoulder back breakers is one of the coolest versions of HHH. Do more of that. Less Irish whips and more backbreakers! When Tajiri finally slips out the back of one of the backbreakers it's this great spot that looks like it's going to fall apart entirely and end in an awkward tangle but it somehow bumbles expertly into a clean sunset flip pin away from ropes. I thought for sure both men were falling and going to wind up in an ugly heap of blown spot but instead it made it all look like HHH was struggling to stop Tajiri's momentum. Tajiri using the Tarantula while the referee was out seemed like the one time where it would have been acceptable to let HHH Act. Just let him scream and NXT sell for a full minute while completely stuck, no ref to save him. I was disappointed that Tajiri maintained the 5 second rule. We didn't get enough of Tajiri maniacally refusing to break Tarantula. 

Tajiri kicking out of the Pedigree was something we all read about in 2003, but it plays far crazier than it reads. This is a detail I remember reading about. It was shocking to hear that Tajiri had kicked out of a Pedigree, but the details at the time actually downplayed what really happened. When it was reported, the reporting made it sound like the Pedigree was hit and Hebner - blinded by mist - took an eternity to make the count. That makes sense and it still sounded surprising that Tajiri kicked out. In actuality, the whole thing happened in under 10 seconds. Tajiri kicked out of the Pedigree less than 10 seconds after it was hit, which nobody else was doing in 2003. 

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One-Post Complete and Accurate Bockwinkel vs. Jumbo

MD: Back in November 2022, I was doing fairly detailed bullet point write ups of AEW TV over at DVDVR. I think maybe it was a little bit easier to do that at that point of the pandemic, I don't know. I had no intention of writing up the Death Triangle vs Elite series though, so I decided to counter-program by going through all of the singles Bockwinkel vs Jumbo matches we had on tape. These are more conversational message board reviews so not quite up to my normal Segunda Caida standard (maybe a little repetitive too since I didn't write them to be put in one post like this), but I thought I'd collate them all into a quick C+A. If you twisted my arm, then Matches 2-5 and 7 would be EPIC, 1 and 9 would be GREAT and 6 would be FUN, but I wasn't writing with that in mind. You can watch along as the matches are linked.

Match 1 of 9: Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 12/13/78

This was for Bock's AWA belt. It's basically in three acts. Bockwinkel controls the arm for one third, Jumbo controls the arm for one third, and then there's a finishing stretch as they work towards the draw. I can't even begin to express how hard they were working the holds. There are shots mid-match and you can just see the sweat pouring off of Jumbo just off of armbars and hammerlocks and in and out exchanges. In the middle of December. He created a ton of motion with Bockwinkel when he was working from underneath. Of course, the greatest strength of Bock is his reactions, the way he's always constantly in the moment and his pure elation of hurting someone. When Jumbo took over, it was all about Bockwinkel trying to escape and getting reversed back into it. With Bock on top, it was about Jumbo's different attempts at escaping. With Jumbo on top, it was about Jumbo using varied techniques to stretch Bockwinkel, switching things up after each escape attempt. There was a clear moment where he shifted to hammering Bockwinkel and going for the win. He knew time was against him and Bockwinkel had the champion's advantage. Some people might find this transition stilted or awkward or ignoring what came before, but it was really all about Jumbo trying to pick the exact moment where he'd worn down Bock just enough that he'd be able to hit his stuff and try to beat him. If he went too soon, Bockwinkel would reverse it. If he went too late, he wouldn't have enough time to put him away. And maybe there wasn't a perfect moment because the champ was just that good. Judging by the fact this went to a draw after they threw everything they had at one another, that was probably the case. We'll see how these matches develop from here, but the wrestling that took up at least two thirds of it was just so good.

Match 2 of 9: Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs Jumbo Tsuruta Hawaii 2/14/79

This one was 2/3 falls and man was it ever good. The first fall was full of so much of what I love about Bockwinkel and then the second fall was such an amazing showing for Jumbo. In that first fall, they went a different way with it, with Bockwinkel trying to take liberties to get an advantage early but getting jammed by Jumbo. This time, Bock didn't get his arm control first and it went straight to Jumbo's and they worked it and worked it with Bockwinkel cheating to get out or making it seem like he just might, but getting jammed right back down. He's always struggling, always fighting, always reacting and Jumbo's so smooth working from top. Eventually, Bock has enough and drops the pretense and just starts kicking and stomping him down, but Jumbo fires back, including a huge chop off the ropes that causes Bock to do his full body sell. They're about twenty in now, as there were a couple of minutes clipped here and his total exhaustion sell is the best ever. And it's still early really! Anyway, after blocking Jumbo's butterfly, Bock tries the King of the Mountain which is what he does when there's a babyface too fiery for him but Jumbo immediately fights out, rushes in and just unloads on Bock, super intense. He misses a knee in the corner and Bock, in short order, gets the figure four. Just great fighting out of it by Jumbo turning it a couple of times, but he succumbs. So that's the first fall and I love how one beat so smoothly led to the next and you could just tell what kayfabe Bock was thinking and trying to do at every point.

Second fall has Jumbo fighting with the bad leg and he does it so valiantly that the crowd really starts to get behind him. I've seen American crowds get behind Japanese guys before (especially in California) but maybe never quite like this and it's both Bock AND Jumbo here. He keeps falling a bit behind due to his leg but powering back, including hitting an atomic drop but being unable to hang on to the cobra twist. This ultimately leads to Bock containing him with a King of the Mountain (This time) but pressing it too far and allowing for Jumbo to fire back in, opening Bock up with chops and ultimately hitting the butterfly and the cobra twist causing him to pass out.

The last fall teases the time limit (9 minutes left) just from the start, and they have some near falls (a butterfly that Bock blocks but Jumbo turns into a piledriver, brutal stomps on the leg turned into a Jumbo half crab). You get maybe a sense that Jumbo doesn't know how to put him away but he goes for broke with his hurt leg with another atomic drop and gets another cobra twist only for Bock to toss the ref and draw the DQ. Really masterful match here. And just a lovely 1980 crowd to get behind a foreigner so thoroughly. I couldn't imagine a nicer crowd, the sort that you'd want for big wrestling match like this, that bought into it fully and that put aside their own biases to give their all for the challenger.

Match 3 of 9: Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs Jumbo Tsuruta AWA 6/22/80

This was in AWA territory and Baba was in to commentate for Japanese TV. That means, Heenan was there, Mean Gene did the Ring Announcing ("Tommy" Jumbo Tsuruta) and Verne said before the match he'd wrestle the winner. Heenan then shoved him for no good reason and Verne clocked him, which made Heenan sort of a non-factor for much of the match. Match itself was very good. They worked the entry point much differently than the last two, more of the format of Bockwinkel trying to abuse Jumbo and then Jumbo firing back tit-for-tat. If Bock would get an arm drag and slam him then Jumbo would get the spots as revenge and show him up. Bock took over with some real chippy stuff, just a double leg that looked like they were shooting and hard, hard shots onto the arm. He was trying to contain Jumbo but Jumbo hit the jumping knee and started to meanly work over the back. Bock may have unlocked grumpy Jumbo years early with how hard they were going at it. Less long holds here, but definite focus to try to set up the double underhook suplex and abdominal stretch. Bockwinkel would try to figure up from underneath but Jumbo stayed on him. When they finally got to the hold, Bock was able to push them out of the ring. He came back in with a bunch of headlock cheapshots to the throat. Two of the things I tend to give Bock credit for are his total engagement and full body selling as the match goes on. The cross-section of the two is how he just throws his entire body into everything he does. If he throws a punch, he'll sort of recoil back with it. There's a spot here where he goes for a pile driver, can't get it, and Jumbo gets one shortly thereafter, and as he's up, he's just flailing his feet perfectly. But he does that with almost everything. It's just this amazing performance presence in the moment that almost not other wrestler can live up to (Terry Funk and... maybe Negro Casas and Buddy Rose and I'm not even sure who else?). Jumbo kept coming back with the crowd definitely behind him, with Bock trying to slow him down, including with a King of the Mountain. Ultimately, they ended back up in the stretch, but Bock was able to hiptoss Jumbo right into the ref. Great ref bump but the follow up was muddled. Heenan took too long to blatantly interfere. They couldn't get the ref in the right place soon enough, etc. Shame as the match itself was great. So three matches, three different feels and structures, all good stuff.

Match 4 of 9: Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 2/4/82

I need to keep going with these as I have 9 matches and they only have 7. This was in AJPW but for the AWA Title. Verne had gotten it back and retired at this point. Between 80 and 82, I'd say Jumbo had moved on to his second form more fully. That is to say that he and Bock came off like equals here, which gave the match a different sort of feel. Bock slammed him from the get go, but then Jumbo returned favor and he took almost the entirety of the opening matwork by hanging onto the arm through Bockwinkel's escape attempts. On paper, some of this (the arm submissions, into a surfboard sort of test of strength, into the initial cobra twist) that took up the first ten minutes might not sound compelling, but when they were zoomed into Bock (and Jumbo's!) facial expressions, it was very good. Just full commitment to the struggle. Bockwinkel might be the best actor and reactor in a wrestling ring ever. And Jumbo, with mouth stretched open and gritted teeth, rose to the occasion.

This went just under twenty and it probably needed another two or three minutes with Bock on top. He took over after the Cobra Twist with some hard shots to the gut in the ropes, a little King of the Mountain, and a slam from a suplex position bringing Jumbo in from the apron. Bock had some holds here but it just needed a bit more heat. Jumbo's big comeback was with the jumping knee off the ropes out of the sleeper.

I'd say the last five minutes of this were excellent. Jumbo was absolutely feeling it, yelling and charging across the ring for these big jumping stomps to Bock's back. He'd use the crab and most of a camel clutch to really wear it down and set things up for the second Cobra Twist. Pretty dramatic stuff and the fans were buying into it. Bockwinkel was able to pry the leg out slowly and dramatically to get him over and escape. He had a last burst of offense, but was always reaching back to sell the back in a way that felt organic and never took away from what he was doing. Just the stuff that he was better than literally anyone in wrestling at doing and that puts him over his contemporaries because he's able to balance this and registering what happened in the match while still keeping it dynamic and exciting and emotional and electric. It all builds to him being unable to slam Jumbo and Jumbo trying to put him away with an airplane spin. Both wrestlers go tumbling out and Jumbo starts spinning him again again, spiraling around the ringside area erratically as photographers have to dive out of the way. Incredible visual. He's unable to beat the count back in though so it's a draw. This was a different dynamic and interesting to see but I think Bockwinkel ultimately gave up just a little too much without getting a little more back to really put it over the top. If Bock had leaned on him a bit more the place would have exploded all the more so when Jumbo hit the jumping knee. Still, great performances.

Match 5 of 9, Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 7/13/78

The armwork in the first ten minutes of this one is just all time great. Previous matches between them were more clinical and academic and "title match" but here he's doing top wristlocks and double wristlocks it's just so, so mean. It takes the full ten minutes for Jumbo to start to get an advantage and power over the top and Bock just grabs the hair or lays in a knee to the gut (he hadn't had to previously) after all that work and struggle. Finally something clicks in Jumbo's pre-grumpy brain and he steps around on an arm pulling wristlock and rakes Bock's face with his boot to take over. You can see him level up mid match.

Bock's still able to keep the advantage due to the hurt arm though (Jumbo selling after he hits elbows) and Bock presses it in the corner, but it's just not enough of a lever and Jumbo comes back. Bock's able to block the belly to back though and hits one of his own. Exciting stuff. He followed it with a pile driver but went back to the well and Jumbo comes back. By this point, it's sort of clear that Bock has to do something extra to really keep Jumbo down and he tries, going up for a second rope knee drop, something he's learned from Stevens over the years, but never does himself. He misses (of course) and Jumbo starts on the leg, going for a figure four. Bock survives, but is selling big. He's good enough at almost every point to find a way back whether it's an eyepoke or punching from underneath and he manages to start the King of the Mountain and even post Jumbo on the outside. He's still desperate though and gets backdropped when he tries a pile driver on the floor.

The match really opens up after that, with Jumbo hitting a knee lift so high that the announcers call it a leg lariat. He starts on the back after this, but Bock wins a punch exchange. I love the balance between a competent champion and a desperate cheater with Bockwinkel. He was always credible. Always dangerous. But backed against a wall, he'd do anything to survive. It makes it mean all the more a little later on when Jumbo is able to fire up and win a punch exchange and hit a stalling turning pile driver of his own. As the match rolls into the last five minutes, Jumbo leans more and more on Bock's back (With Bock doing some amazing full body selling draped into the ropes), getting the crab and ultimately going for the cobra twist. Bock tries to turn it and crashes into the ref. This leads to a phantom fall after the belly to back and another ref bump as Bock nails him when Jumbo moves. There's a figure four afterwards (and maybe they should have not moved onto the back and stayed with the leg if that was going to be the phantom win #2?) but the ref calls for the dq and Jumbo is despondent. This was some really good stuff. If last one they were equals, this one you got the sense that Jumbo had Bock's number and furthermore, that he was going to get him next time.

Match 6 of 9: Jumbo Tsuruta vs Nick Bockwinkel AJPW 2/23/84

I hate to say it but I wasn't feeling this one quite as much. It's a shame because it's the end of a big journey for Jumbo and Terry Funk is the special ref. It even starts brilliantly with Bock rushing in for a cross body right at the bell. I love his entry point gameplans. He got a major early advantage from that and the next fifteen (!) minutes or so was him controlling the arm, and honestly, I wish it was better. Bock did his job, really working it, at times working it almost too much to keep the crowd in it, just huge flailing motions while keeping technique and switching it up again and again, one hold after the next. Jumbo seemed weirdly listless though. I could hardly tell this was the same guy who was doing such gritty working from underneath in the previous years. I just don't really get it given the setting; my only guess, other than him just feeling sluggish for some reason like sickness, was that he knew he was winning the title and he wanted to look at strong as possible. He did sell towards the end of it, but mostly when he was out of a hold and trying to take over.

Ultimately (after a tease with the jumping knee), Jumbo fought into a front face lock and after he couldn't get the double underhook suplex, he hit two pile drivers and they were on. It was fairly back and forth from there, with a big feel to it, inside and outside of the ring. Jumbo pressed an advantage with a beautiful double underhook (when he actually hit it) and gutwrench suplex. Bock got a knee up on a corner charge and landed a pile driver of his own. Jumbo dodged a corner charge and dug in on a crab. Funk was really a non factor for most of the match, a shame considering how he could have helped those first 15-20 minutes sing, but I liked him a lot during the crab, explaining the stakes to Bock but that he could quit. Bock's full body selling was at play here, the best ever. The way his arm flailed about as Jumbo was positioning him for the gutwrench was just so, so good. No one better. Bock took back over and knocked Jumbo into Funk, both of them sailing out of the ring. There was a second ref though. Bock continued to press, slamming Jumbo from the outside in repeatedly. Jumbo finally floated over (beautifully, might I add) and hit a belly to back with a bridge as Funk slid back in for the ironclad win. It was a great moment, but it wasn't as great of a match as the ones that preceeded it. I'm not sure if they were under a certain directive to do things a certain way. I know that Funk didn't want to take attention off of them but Funk, being Funk, always makes things better. While Jumbo was fiery at certain moments, and while the crowd went absolutely nuts for the win, he was neither what he had been against Bock previously or what he would be (a vicious gladiator) in the years to come. This is not the best match in the series.

Match 7 of 9: Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (c) AJPW 2/26/84

This was a couple of nights later and was Jumbo defending. I have to look at where this is on the tour actually. Let me see. There were a couple of nights left but this was the last really big match for Jumbo on it. I imagine the Japanese fans having seen what happened with Baba a few years earlier and certain other things, half expected Bockwinkel to win it back, that Jumbo would just get a win but not get to hold it through the end of the tour. That, combined with the fact that Bockwinkel took so much of this, gave things a real sense of drama. This was certainly better than the title change and it might be my most favorite match of the series so far, even though I don't necessarily think it was the best.

Bockwinkel controlled for the first eight minutes or so with headlocks and front face locks. He had more history as a title match wrestler and they were great headlocks. Watching this, you wanted Jumbo to try to toss him off just to see Bockwinkel grind down and sink to his knees. Really top notch stuff. He hit a pile driver between the headlock and the front facelock exchanges, but ultimately lost things by trying to go for a butterfly suplex. He needed Jumbo into the corner but lost the offense. He'd take back over quickly enough but then hit a clumsy but cool cross body off the top and Jumbo would take over after that. Bock was going out of his comfort zone with both moves, externally calm but internally roiling over having lost the title and he was paying for it.

Jumbo would hit an errant pile driver here and go for a sleeper only to get driven into the corner (more there later). This led to the bit we were missing from the last match as Bockwinkel locked on a cobra twist only for Funk to somehow go sailing out of the ring, followed by him getting strung up in some rope running. Good. If you're going to have Funk, use him. It was right in the middle of the match, between chapters, like a palette cleaner. Jumbo would go for the butterfly, but get jammed, allowing Bock to get a crab attempt. Jumbo would toss him out with sheer strength and, after some back and forth, go for a sleeper again, only for Bock to chuck him out, starting the real King of the Mountain stuff. Two points here; one, when Bock was getting in a cheapshot from underneath, he'd follow it up (while being admonished by Funk) by selling his whole body as only he could really putting over what Jumbo had just done to him and the weight of the match and how desperate he'd been to get out of that spot; second, he used King of the Mountain in almost all of his matches and it was often used to cut off a hot babyface and keep control, but he used it at different points and in different ways. It always fit the match.

Anyway, the King of the Mountain was really good here, with Bock continuing to go for it, suplexing Jumbo in once right on his head, and having Jumbo fire back into the ring another time. Before the last one, they both hit heads and then did a double punch which shifted gears towards more of a finishing stretch. The last KOTM had Jumbo get his leg stuck in the ropes and Bockwinkel just unload on it. This led to a figure four and both guys hitting the floor. Bockwinkel had clear control as the count was on, but at the very last second, as Bock was about to roll back in and win, Jumbo grabbed him so he couldn't make it in. It was a very dramatic, New Japan style finish that kept Jumbo the belt as they were both counted out. Very much a Bock match with Jumbo just needing to show fire and having the crowd behind him. Good stuff.

Match 8 of 9: Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs Nick Bockwinkel AJPW 3/24/84

This was another really good one, driven by the fact that Bockwinkel, as the challenger, controlled a lot of it. That meant headlocks to begin, but the best headlocks imaginable. When it seemed like Jumbo might get out, a hairpull, when Jumbo overcame that, he hit a drop toehold and really locked in a deep scissored toehold. When the fans would chant for Jumbo, Bock would grind it more and Jumbo would sell huge. When Jumbo turned over his own headlock out of it, Bock was able to turn it around for a shinbreaker and a leglock. When Jumbo made it to the ropes, Bock switched to attacking the leg and starting a king of the mountain. I just love that from a narrative perspective. Bock put him in trouble and Jumbo worked so hard to get out only to get immediately stymied by something else and the work began anew.

Anyway, Jumbo fought his way back in and even got the jumping knee, but Bock was basically fresh and got out at one. From there, Jumbo was just trying to contain Bock, and he couldn't do it. Bock floated over and started going for the figure four. This was real Clash of Titans stuff, with Jumbo pressing his arms up to try to prevent the leg from dropping down. Bock eventually got it though. Just amazing overhead visuals on this struggle and then the hold. Jumbo made it to the ropes and Bock started slamming his leg against the apron brutally. Back in the ring, Jumbo comes back with a leg caught enzuigiri to a huge pop and he's back in the fight. Butterfly suplex, two count. Pile driver, two count.

The leg selling is gone by the way which is a shame. Jumbo could have used it to let Bock take back over, for instance. Instead, Bock just fights from underneath, hitting a pile driver of his own. What I love is that before he picks him up for it, he just turns his head ever so slightly to take in the crowd; he's always so in the moment. It's a tiny thing but it's everpresent in his work. They crash into each other and then do a double punch (Bock hits a belly to back out of a headlock in the middle). Bock tries for another King of the Mountain but Jumbo storms in with chops. This is pissed off angry proto-Gladiator Jumbo, a very different entity than a few years earlier even if he wasn't who he'd be a few years later. Bock knows he's in trouble, so he tosses him into the ref and hits a belt shot on the outside. Jumbo recovers though, charging in, tossing Bock out, and going for belt shots of his own. When the ref gets in the way, Jumbo nails him too, the seed of violence already taking root. Post match, they brawl repeatedly with people trying to separate them, Bock gets big cheers from the crowd, and Jumbo cuts a promo about defending in the US. He had defended against Lanza, Robinson, and Brunzell the first round and in the second, he'd even face Baron Von Raschke (We don't have that one unfortunately), before falling to Martel. I really liked these two Bock-As-Challenger matches, though I probably liked the last one a bit more. This one had the first inklings of really violent Jumbo though.

Match 9 of 9: Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs Nick Bockwinkel AJPW 9/12/87

This was for Jumbo's International Title and it only went around ten minutes. It was worked very differently from all the previous matches. I'd call it an AJPW heavyweight sprint. There were holds but they weren't worked for long. They were worked hard, of course, but without overt consequence and escapes or reversals were relatively quick. There was no moment of posturing, no empty space within the match. They were right back up throwing knees or forearms or going for the next hold or spot. That doesn't doesn't mean there wasn't implied consequence. I've never seen a Bockwinkel match end with him sucking air like this. Yes, he was at the absolute tail end of his career, but it was a testament to how hard they were going.

I'd prefer a match where things built and resonated more but there was nothing unbelievable in this. It was both men jockeying for opportunity at any moment and going as hard against each other as they absolutely could. Jumbo won off of a flying body press, which is nice as it's an unusual way for him to win and the fans would remember next time he'd hit one, but I'd rather him have used the Thesz Press as that was one of his more regular moves, if they were going to go with a finish like this. Both men, the worse for wear, shook hands after the match. If nothing else, this shows another hat Bockwinkel could wear and that he could hang even in the wilds of hard-hitting 1987 AJPW. Overall, it's not my favorite of the series, but it's an interesting and different look at things and shows how the company and Jumbo were progressing. I'm not going to rank the nine but I'd say the best matches overall would be the middle defenses for Bockwinkel and the two defenses for Jumbo with the lesser matches being the title switch and this last one. It's all good in its own way though.

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