Found Footage Friday: R'N'R VS FOOTLOOSE~! BENITO GARDINI~! FALK~! HOUSTON~!

Benito Gardini/Al Williams vs. Cyclone Anaya/Walter Palmer NWA Chicago 5/26/50

MD: This was a delightful 27 minutes, with some clipping, but you get so much of it, you hardly care. My buddy Ohtani's Jacket got here first and said I'd love Gardini, and guess what, I do. He likened him to a 1950s Porky, and I can see that on appearance and over the top antics, but, of course, with a deep Italians stereotype. He was great at getting driven down on his face (at one point the commentary said his nose would soon be like a wet donut), at getting caught up in the ropes and on top of the ropes, jiggling along with them, at making faces, and most of all, at getting caught in crowd-pleasing heel miscommunication spots. Meanwhile, he's one of the only US based workers I've ever seen do the headspin escape out of a headscissors. Legitimately funny, great left handed body shots so he could lean on his opponent when he needed to, big bumps. Definitely a fan.

Williams was instantly credible, if only because he had tons of tattoos (commentary said he was a member of Rough and Ready, Inc. or Grief, Inc., just a real nasty character). He was game for feeding into all of the babyface offense and playing into all of the comedy spots, while still keeping a mean disposition and hitting hard, especially with forearms in the ropes. Palmer looked good with his escapes and a big forearm off the ropes but we probably saw more of Anaya who was flashy and fiery and had an abdominal stretch/cobra twist with a few variations that he'd use as a finish. This moved quickly and never wore out its welcome and I'm eager to see more Gardini.

Ricky Morton/Robert Gibson vs. Samson Fuyuki/Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 10/28/88

MD: Pretty sure that the match that has been out there previously was the 5/24/88 one that ends in a count out. This is not that. This is pretty hilarious. We've heard stories of what happened backstage between these two and I don't know about that one way or another. What I do know instead is that Morton and Gibson used their powers for evil on this night. They worked this thing like they were Jr. Versions of Brody with a little 92 Freebirds built in (the former eats the match; the latter eats the crowd). They took and they took and they took.

They really dominated for the first half, quick tags, winning rope running exchanges 80% of the time, constant appealing to the crowd with claps (which worked; the crowd was into them, Rock and Roll chants and all). More than that though, whenever Footlose did get something in, they were quick to fire back. In the second half it was somehow worse even though it should have been better. There was some nominal heat on Morton; he was always so good at using roll ups for his hope spots. He'd eat some offense, some beat down, and then give you hope of a win out of nowhere. Here, however, he used those roll ups but after every single spot done to him. It broke the flow completely in a way that made it seem like it was 50-50 and that he was never in any real trouble. The finishing stretch had some nice nearfalls but the finish itself was a bit of a banana peel with Fuyuki getting a hand up from the outside and one of the R'n'R basically running into it. They were ahead ten to one on points. Just a masterfully selfish performance. 

ER: This is the Rock n Rolls last ever match from the only Japan tours they did in the 80s. I thought this match was clean, man. I watched this match in a Portland Air BnB basement on a TV that had motion smoothing turned on (or off, whatever the bad one is that every single girl in her 30s has on the TV at her place, so when you go over and they're watching Heat or Below Deck: Australia it looks like a fucking soap opera) and I don't know if I've ever watched wrestling this way but it just might make handhelds even better. My sister watching Mandalorian and it looking like people wearing cosplay gear hanging out in a western saloon TV set didn't work for me, but feeling like I'm smack dab in the middle of this crowd on a hot tour closing night of wrestling. It's crazy that the Rock n Rolls hardly went to Japan. For a team I love more than almost any team in history, I guess I assumed Ricky was a guy working Japan more than a couple AJPW tours here, a couple FMW show there kind of guy. Because they seem perfect for Japan and now I understand why the Youngbloods and Fantastics had such sustained (and good!) runs as AJPW gaijin. 

Also, I had no idea what kind of backstage altercation there was between these teams until Matt told me something happened on one of these tours and Robert Gibson kicked Fuyuki in the face, so I thought this match was going to be worked in Bad Blood...but instead I thought this match was most notable for Robert Gibson working the entire match visibly using only one leg. Is Robert Gibson okay? Robert Gibson looked like he got roughed up and forced to wrestle one legged as humiliation, because every time he moved he was dragging his left leg straight behind him while hopping on his right. I remember seeing a 2000s AAA match where Pimpinela drug his leg the entire time and wondering if these guys are just psychos or they're the greatest salesmen in the world giving themselves a Jorgen Leth/Lars Von Trier  Five Obstructions Dogme 95 task of working a match within a personal challenge. Whatever was happening, this handheld, motion the smoothest it has ever been, had me feeling every shoulderblock and every bump, every kick, every perfectly downward angled Ricky Morton punch, the fucking 11/10 suicide dive Ricky does where his body truly feels like a weapon, this handheld had real live impact. And there was Robert Gibson, shaking his leg on the apron and trying his best not to put weight on it during his (much briefer than Ricky) in-ring interactions. That it was so exaggerated and not gone after in any way by Footloose makes it all the more jarring. Was his leg hurt and they were instructed to stay away from it? Kings Road is a style famous for exploiting shoot injuries of opponents. Years later in 2002 NOAH it felt expected that Kenta Kobashi made a big comeback after his knee injury only to have Jun Akiyama go after his knees so hard that Kobashi missed several more months with knee injuries. Is Gibson doing some kind of Teddy Hart phantom knee injury? To what gain and for what cause? Whatever, he kept it believably up for entire match without seemingly anyone else talking about it, and the match was still somehow the perfect 9 minutes of constant hard contact and no stopping for breath. The heat was up bell to bell with stiff work free from Bad Blood. Handheld wrestling is our greatest treasure. The purest presentation of the best eras of wrestling. 

Tony Falk vs. Barry Houston NWA Worldwide 5/11/00

MD: I came into this expecting Houston to bump all over the ring for Falk. We've seen enough of this Worldwide stuff to know that they didn't give away a ton on TV because they wanted people to come to the shows. Most matches didn't end in a finish. This went around ten minutes though with a commercial in the middle, and it was really Falk bumping around the ring for Houston. He'd rope run with him, would take armdrags and mares and back body drops. Of course, it was Tony Falk, so after every bump, he'd milk it, hang out with his manager, whine to the ref or the crowd, stall, and it was all highly entertaining stuff.

He'd complain about hairpulling too, which was heat-garnering since that was most of his offense through the match. Post-commercial he was in charge with a top wristlock, going to Houston's ponytail again and again. Eventually, after a Falk DDT (again nothing with a big bump), Houston started to fire back and hit one of his own. That set up a frog splash where he almost hit the ceiling. "Basket Case", being Mark Jindrak came in to take out the ref. I thought Houston was saving his bumps for Jindrak to get him over, which would have made sense, but he really only take a press up pancake before Falk leaped off the second rope at him. This had all the Falk I was expecting and more, really, but not nearly as much of those Houston bumps. From the bit of 2000 Houston I've seen, I do wonder if he wasn't working quite like he had a few years earlier.

ER: We have limited amounts of post-'99 Houston available so every match is a gift, and while I thought Houston looked like Barry Houston in this match, this was a Tony Falk show. Houston looked his most professional: His gear and body were the best he'd looked, but the window was already shut for whatever reason. He should have been given some kind of real TV role in 98/99 but it never happened to the degree we wanted, and here he is in Tennessee getting shown up by a Tony Falk who is in his early 40s, looks like he is in his late 50s, and moves like he's in his late 20s. Houston looks good, but it's also one of the few matches we have where he works "on top". We grew so accustomed to Houston bumping bigger than Kidman and leaning into beatings, that he's like a whole new wrestler when we see him work dominant. It's not bad, it's just different. 

But Tony Falk is the one who looks like a star. Well, let me rephrase that, because he looks like absolute shit. He looks like Eddie Marlin in the Cowboy Boot match had Eddie Marlin showed up really out of shape. Falk is wearing a singlet and you can tell he has just an awful body under that singlet. And yet, I was consistently surprised and impressed by how quickly he got up for everything. Falk was a real bumper here, body as bad as I've seen but speed undiminished. He took armdrags the way 1995 Barry Houston would take armdrags, went up for a backdrop, and sold punches perfectly. Houston has nice punches and Falk would bump every one of them as a one shot kill. I loved this great telegraphed missed punch Falk threw, holding up his fist, kissing it, and then of course sending it right past Houston's head. His begging off was great because it was less heel and more Tired Man. Gypsy Joe was at ringside for Houston and when Joe got involved we got our meanest punches of the match. Time to find more fat big bumping Tony Falk I guess. 

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New Footage Friday: THESZ! BRONKO! VERNE! FINLAY! SCHUHMANN!

Verne Gange/Bobby Bruns vs. Al Williams/Rudy Kay 5/50

MD: Nice, classic tag here, with cheating heels controlling the ring and fiery babyfaces, but maybe not more than the sum of its parts. It's impossible not to compare these to the French tags we've been seeing and those have just a little more complexity. Quick example: here, Verne is actually able to escape an armbar with a bodyslam. In France, that'd be three minutes of the other wrestler hanging on through it. They did everything right but the biggest stars here were Russ Davis on commentary (he was having a good night) and the young woman in the first row who was all but whacking the heel on the apron with her handbag. That's not to say that Kay wasn't a great stooge, because he was, quick with a punch whenever he was on the losing end of an exchange, sliding halfway out of the ring on amrdrags, letting Verne shake the rope to bump him in when he was on the apron. He was a great foil for Verne's earnest integrity. The bit we see of Williams dismantling Verne's arm at the end of the first fall was great though. He was the more interesting of the two on offense and used the ring well even if Kaye was the bumper. Bruns was more of a charismatic scrapper. Some interesting archaic elements here, like how both partners had to eat a fall (like in lucha) and how the ref flipped a coin at the start to see which partners would start. They'd occasionally shake to tag too. The second fall was so short that I wondered if the fans were throwing trash in because the heels got DQ'd or because they had wanted more out of it. While I thought the end of the first fall was put together well, this didn't really build to any sort of a satisfying finish overall.

Lou Thesz vs. Bronko Nagurski 10/51

MD: Even match up here. Lou was the master, playing with Bronko with false starts. Bronko was dangerous at any and every moment. Each inching towards the ropes could end with his big shoulder block. Thesz gets hit by this early and then makes sure to sell it for the next minute to remind everyone just how potent it is. Lots of posturing throughout but everything's earned. Bronko could use his size and strength to just stand up out of holds. Moreover, he was better able to sit on Thesz and keep him in holds. The first fall ended with Thesz having enough of this and escalating to punches which let him hit the Thesz press. The second had Bronko taking much of the advantage and ending it by cutting off a Thesz hammerlock attempt and hitting a couple of shoulder blocks in and out of the corner. The last fall didn't have a lot of near-falls where Bronko might have had a shot at the title but the finish was exciting, with Thesz actually using a drop down as a tripping move to set up the final dropkick. I'm a fan of matches where one move (be it the heart punch or claw) is treated like a kill shot that has huge impact and must be avoided. It doesn't necessarily matter what the move is, just how it's treated, so for them to at least partially build a match that highlights a simple shoulder block so well was a neat thing to see.

PAS: I didn't think this was very good. I like the idea of the killshot shoulder block a lot more then the execution of it, as it just looked like an OK shoulder block. Nagurski seemed kind of sloppy, and had some moments of showing his power, but most of the time looked sort of lost. Thesz is regarded as an all-time great, but he really should have been able to carry a football player with two left feet better than this, and I didn't think his execution looked very good either. If you are going to end a match on a dropkick it should connect, and his Thesz press looked off too. Still will watch all Thesz I can get, but this was a miss.

Fit Finlay vs. Franz Schuhmann CWA 7/18/93

PAS: This was totally badass, Finlay and Schuhmann working a come as you are streetfight like it is a Jackie Fargo vs. Phil Hickerson Mid-South Coliseum main event in 1977.  Lots of nasty sharp shots with a belt and chain, and just killer Finlay punches and kicks. Schuhmann was an opponent, but landed shots and that is what you want for this match, he also took a totally gross bump on the tombstone. If that had happened on WWF TV it would be a viral gif. Finlay was so good in this, I mentally pictured Fit versus Hacksaw Jim Duggan or Tommy Rich. Total treat, and we really need to watch all of these Schuhmann vs. Finlay matches.

SR: Double juice brawl where they come in wearing jeans and shirts. It's pretty fun to watch two euro guys approximate a distinctly US type match. No idea how they got the idea to do this since I doubt any European TV station aired US territorial wrestling in 1993 but it ended up being a fun match. Schuhmann's punches needed work but the crowd is so into him that I can't call him a blight on the match, and Finlay's basic punches and kicks are so violent looking that it makes up for anything else. Because it's Europe they break out a chain and there are some absolutely sick strangulation spots. Great bump on the finish too.

MD: Here's how good Fit is: this is a streetfight with a dropkick and a power bomb and you completely buy them. I think Bill Watts would have had a hard time objecting. The dropkick came early from Schuhmann and Finlay sold it like a shot to the gut. Finlay's selling makes a lot of this. He was a guy who just got it. When he sold the belt shots from Schuhmann, it only made his own belt shots later (which were both great punches and these nasty short whips in the corner) immediately more potent. The finishing stretch was a bit wonky but also kind of great. Finlay hits the world's biggest tombstone but isn't satisfied with getting the ten count and lays in a few more belt shots instead of taking the W. That ultimately lets Schuhmann come back and they get creative for a beat-the-count ending that let the fans celebrate with Franz but had Fit keep his heat and have a legitimate gripe for a rematch.

ER: This might be my favorite Finlay performance of all the German Finlay we've watched so far. It's a real meat and potatoes street fight, with both men showing up looking like 90s European working class Jack Burtons in their torn light wash jeans (Finlay giving us a show with some tears right under the butt cheeks) and ripped up white shirts (Finlay even has some Asian mysticism on his shirt, just like Jack), and Finlay just lays right into Schuhmann. Finlay punches Schuhmann at a ton of awful angles, kicks him in the meat of the back and the spine, wraps a belt around his fist and punches some more. Finlay is so strong at setting up comeback spots and openings for Schuhmann, building to a big cool clothesline off the middle buckles from Franz. The belt shots were a cool equalizer, and Finlay makes Schuhmann's belt shots feel appropriately nasty. And that's really the strength of Finlay's selling, is that he always perfectly grasps just how much he should be selling something. He's not out there acting like his skin is getting flayed off, he's showing the stinging pain and putting over these shots in a way that makes both of their games look stronger. 

Finlay pulls off a street fight powerbomb and made it look like something you'd see in a MMA fight, a powerbomb that looked like Schuhmann absolutely could not have stopped it. It wasn't Sapp/Hoost where Sapp was able to just lift Hoost however he wanted, it was just Finlay using his expert knowledge of physics to snatch and grab a big dude and quickly plant him. The tombstone was nuts, with Finlay aiming to punish his own knees as much as Schuhmann's spinal column, really leaping and dropping down at a wicked diagonal (and, it must be noted, completely protecting Schuhmann on something that looked crippling). Finlay even made an unsatisfying finish actually satisfy, taking an awesome bump getting sprung from the apron over the ropes to the other side (a less dangerous but more unique and fun bump than his great bump past the ringpost earlier in the match), making it look like Schuhmann had vaulted him 8 feet. I liked Franz more than the rest of the gang here, but Finlay was god level in this match. A truly magnificent street fight performance, from a man who I think makes pro wrestling look better than anyone else.

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