Found Footage Friday: BUNKHOUSE STAMPEDE~! CENTRAL STATES SHENANIGANS~!

Bunkhouse Stampede JCP 12/14/86

MD: Omni next week as we're going to give Eric more time to recover from D3AN. This was another recent drop from JCP's debut at the Rosemont Horizon (so says Charles and we believe him when he says things). Very good cross section of the talent here though obviously no Flair, Tully, Dusty, and Nikita since that was the main event tag. It's hard to talk about any one specific thing in this but I definitely have a few thoughts. 

The first is that this, more so than almost any other battle royal I can think of felt purely chaotic. Workrate, spots, any of that is impossible here because there are just so many people and there are a few weapons (boot, flimsy trash can lid, Animal's wrist spikes, a strap, etc) flying around moving from participant to participant. The second that someone starts to do something interesting, someone else comes behind them and nails them. Sometimes it registers, sometimes it doesn't. Animal got someone with the spikes but they didn't realize it was happening and they didn't sell it right. The match was full of stuff like that but somehow it's additive because it just adds to the feel. 

None of the usual critical tools to talk about wrestling (structure, selling, workrate, execution) work in an environment like this. You wouldn't want it all the time but as a novelty, it's fascinating, because these are still incredible talents and characters all interacting with one another and having to operate on the fly. No plan survives more than a few seconds and everything becomes reaction. 

You can follow the flimsy trashcan lid around the ring as different people get it and since you're never going to keep track of the action (Ronnie Garvin's in this and I couldn't tell you one thing he did and he'd be a great person to watch generally), it's a good center point. It's best use, by the way, was when Rick Rude wrapped it around Animal's skull. It was that flimsy but it's a great visual. Rude and Manny drove a lot of this, with Manny scrapping with Wahoo (a precursor to their AWA feud a little while later I guess). Lots of heat for both, but at the end it was Eaton and Animal and that went about as well for Eaton as you'd expect in Chicagoland. This was a bit of a mess but despite what certain people will tell you sometimes a mess full of tons of talent is exactly what you need.

ER: This was so great, appropriately released in the middle of a battle royal compilation video, directly before the Great Berzerker Battle Royal. This battle royal is great because it throws 25 or so of the best dressed photo album dads in the world into one crowded ring and just hangs out with them. Almost everyone bleeds, but it would have been just as good (better?) if they had just been in there drinking beers like they had just finished a softball game. The cagematch listing is not accurate, because there is no Dick Murdoch, Road Warrior Hawk, Big Bubba, or Baron von Raschke, but that doesn't matter. Well, maybe Dick Murdoch would have mattered. Okay Dick Murdoch with a 50-50 poly cotton blend t-shirt stretched over his stomach would have made a huge difference. This is a blood and fashion battle royal. Everyone is in their finest yard weeding jeans - except for Jimmy Garvin, who is by far the easiest to find man in the ring at all times - and old t-shirts and tank tops. 

Every man is dressed entirely appropriate for a Bunkhouse. Jimmy Valiant looks tall and powerful and exactly like Toby Klein just looked at D3AN. Bobby Eaton gets pummeled in the corner all match and survives all the way to the end until Road Warrior Animal throws him violently to the floor, Eaton swinging a weight belt at his face a few times before he's gone. Arn Anderson is an incredible focal point all match, a target in his red slacks and white t-shirt. He punches, he gets punched, he bleeds, he is eventually eliminated without his shoes. You see, more than one person removes their boots or shoes to use as weapons, and Arn's stocking feet up in the air is a reminder of that. Ole is in camouflage pajamas like he's Udo Dirkschneider in the "Balls to the Wall" video. Wahoo and Manny put on a helluva performance before eliminating themselves, punching each other bloody and bashing each other into ringposts. Ronnie Garvin looks incredible in his black sleeveless shirt (that gets ripped away at some point) and brown leather weight belt. Barry Windham stands tall in dark blue jeans and a dark blue tank, Rick Rude stands tall in part because of his cowboy boots. Tim Horner is in a goldenrod shirt and takes the fight well to everyone larger than him, meaning everyone but Bill Dundee. Bill Dundee is in town because he had to leave Memphis in July, and he runs around hitting everyone and pulls these great I'm a Little Guy faces whenever someone tries to lift him up and over. Dutch Mantell is dressed like Bunkhouse Buck, who modeled his entire fashion on Dutch Mantell in a Bunkhouse Battle Royal.  

As far as drunken softball fights go, you've seen better. But I don't think wrestling fashion ever approached being this good again. Everyone knew exactly what kind of fight they were headed into. The red Ricky Morton and the purple Robert Gibson, the kneepads over the jeans, the Yard Work Outfit Supreme. Just throw on some old shoes that you don't mind getting dirty, some pants you don't mind kneeling in, find a bandana you can tie around your pants, or like the Bullet, around your neck. You know the drill. You've never seen 25 better dressed wrestlers in any one place at any one time and you never will again. This was the golden era, when men knew how to dress for a fight.  

Ken Timbs vs. Rufus R Jones (Boxing Match) Central States 3/28/85

MD: Next two are from one of our other great archivists, being Ben/ArmstrongAlley/KrisPLettuce, who has just organized some Central States. This was passed off to me as especially awful, and it's not quite as embarrassing as it could be. You think of the Piper vs T boxing match with the heavy gloves and T getting gassed as awful. The problems here were entirely of a different sort. 

If anything, there were two many punches. There was zero drama over the first few rounds. Jones just kept punching away again and again and Timbs kept his hands up until he couldn't and went down multiple times. There haven't been THAT many worked boxing matches in wrestling but the trick is to treat them like a wrestling match with boxing trappings and not a boxing match in a wrestling ring. That means that you do shine/heat/comeback as much as possible and in the shine, you should have the heel get some false advantages and then eat comeuppance. There was nothing of that here. Just Timbs walking into fists and selling as Jones chugged along. There wasn't a build to any highs at all. It was just a dull train moving slowly.

When he did take over in later rounds, it was because he was valiantly outpunching Jones in the corner. Only after he took over did he jab him in the eye with his thumb as Gary Royal distracted the ref. Totally backwards. Then later on Royal distracted the ref and Timbs got a knee in to take back over again. Only then he kept doing the knees when the ref was looking once more. One knee, followed by punches. That's the way to go. Maybe a second one that gets caught which could have led to the further distraction and Royal slipping the object in to Timbs' glove (because that was necessary) but don't just do it blatantly in front of the ref. 

Just no artistry, no build, no payoff. The place where that did happen was on the finish as there was a dramatic power around the object (which the fans noticed) and Jones had to duck it repeatedly before getting it himself and KOing Timbs with his own loaded glove. Maybe it was more powerful to put all of the actual "pro wrestling" part of this right at the end, but I don't think so. Just completely tossed the comparative advantage out the window and then didn't even make it believable for all the punches that Timbs was just eating.  

Gypsy Joe vs. Mr. Pogo (Chain Match in a Cage) Central States 3/28/85

MD: Well, this is definitely down our alley. Yes, there's a cage. It's about seven feet tall, I think. It doesn't come into play except for to set the mood and to show that they're enclosed and no one can get in and no one can get out, and in this case, I'm perfectly fine with that. There's enough going on with the chain after all. 

This was touch the corners, but they didn't try for a bit. Joe's advantage early on was fun, as he went after the foot first and then dodged a chain shot causing it to recoil and hit Pogo in the face. Pogo took over with it wrapped around his fist and didn't look back. One chain punch after the next, opening up Joe. The VQ is what it is, but you can tell he bled big. Eventually he went to touch the corners though and that let Joe come back. They did a good job of really building up anticipation for his first punch. He started going around and Pogo held him back until Joe finally charged in and took a shot that knocked him into the fourth corner.

Post match the cage did come into play. They had said that Sheik Abdullah the Great's New York Office had said he was on a fishing trip but he came in wearing a disguise with the heels to help beat on Joe and it took a while for the babyfaces to make the save. A good post down beating even if it was surrounded by the extra stuff. Otherwise, a nice minimalist bloody affair. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: OMNI 8/14/83~! PIPER~! BUZZ~! ZBYSZKO~! GARVIN~! SHEIK~! TOMMY~! IRWIN~! ROAD WARRIORS~!

GCW Omni 8/14/83

Arn Anderson vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Interesting to place this one. This was Arn's second to last match in the territory. Borne had flaked out before this leaving Arn on his own and aimless. He drifted over to the babyface side and was mainly used for putting over the Road Warriors in various ways before heading to Alabama as Super Olympia. So this was more or less a babyface match. Arn was the aggressor maybe and ate a whole bunch of chops leading up to the finish but this was really just on the mat for the most part. Anyway, Lightfoot was a solid hand, a guy I know mostly for being Youngblood's little buddy to set up a program in Portland. This was five minutes in and out, and certainly didn't wear out its welcome before the double pin finish and Arn getting his shoulder up. Post match he shook Lightfoot's hand and past one Tony Zane match a couple of weeks later, that was it for Arn in Georgia.

ER: This got really entertaining when they transitioned out of the ground work and Arn was staggering into Lightfoot's chops, and that was the last 10 seconds of the match. Arn was 23!!

Fake Mr. Wrestling I (Jesse Barr) vs. Rick Rood

MD: Yes, this was Barr. I'm not sure if he was trying to work like Woods or not. I do know that he'd feud with Mr. Wrestling II after this and Wrestling II would take his mask in October. This went ten minutes as a draw which may have been surprising but Wrestling was supposed to be a bit of a fraud and he got his heat back after the match by attacking Rood. He had pretty solid armwork throughout with some big comebacks and revenge armwork by Rood. Rood had good fire and it was funny to see him do things like a headstand to get out of a headscissors which was very not Rood. Ten minute draws are far more palatable than 20 minute ones and this made me wonder what a babyface Rood might have looked like later in the decade.

ER: This was among the earliest Rick Rude matches I've seen, and it's very early. This is like 30 matches into a 1,500 match career early. It's impressive how far along he was this early while also wrestling like a completely different guy. This early on he still had elements of who he would be a thousand matches from now, in how he moved and how he sold while feeding. He already had an honest use of physics in his basics like dropdowns and shoulderblocks. He was already delivering his offense in a way where you could tell he knew what the goal of his match was. He also of course did a few funny things I have never associated with Rude, like a headstand escape out of Mr. Wrestling's great headscissors. I didn't actually know it was Jesse Barr until after I watched this. I was real confused when he beat Rude's ass after the loss after working an entire 10 minute draw without ever trying to beat Rude's ass. The crowd was really pissed off and I thought there was this great 50 year old Tim Woods heel run. 

Brett Sawyer vs. The Iron Sheik

MD: Brett was really good. Obviously there was a ceiling to him as a drawing card (Flair match from Portland and teaming with his brother vs. the Road Warriors aside) but he was just a great mid-card presence, very down home and folksy in a way that would never make it to TV today, not without being more stylized like a Mark Briscoe. But he just came off as a guy down the street with a lot of fire in his heart. 

The first third of this (after getting under Sheik's skin with the patriotic chants) was all headlocks and rope running and Sheik really was pretty lithe stooging his way into these and keeping up off the ropes. Brett eventually got caught and then Sheik jammed his face into his boot (with his boot on the top rope, which was a nice bit that he may not have been flexible enough to pull off in later years). That started the blood and with it came the woundwork and it was pretty glorious. A bloody Brett would wave his fists and try to power up and fight from underneath and the crowd ate it up. Sheik cut him off and did more damage right until the banana peel finish where Brett fell on Sheik on a suplex attempt and the place became unglued. Post match Ellering and Sheik pounded on Brett until Rich and Buzz (certainly not aligned) ran out for the save. Pretty electric stuff. This was third match on the card and it inspired so much emotion. Beautiful pro wrestling.

ER: There were at least five other matches on this show I was more excited to see. I don't know if I even registered this match when my eyes skipped past the bottom of the card to where the Valentine, Tommy Rich, Buzz Sawyer, and Road Warriors matches. I'm so glad I didn't just skip to those other matches as this match is a condensed gem. The fans really like Sawyer, hate the Sheik, and you get to see a vicious quick Sheik that would be a completely different wrestler in less than two years. Sheik is one of our great weird body wrestlers, and it's not a coincidence that so many of our great weird body guys were high level amateur wrestlers. Gary Albright's small arms and hunched shoulders and powerful belly, Tamon Honda's full long upper torso with his short sturdy legs glued to the canvas, and Iron Sheik's shredded distended belly with small arms and close shoulders, all weird amateur grappler bodies and all great. Sheik moved so weird and here he moves really well...while still moving the weird way Sheik moves. He has the same stiff old man posture as he did when he was ruining indy cards in the late 90s, but he has this cool unexpected quickness. When Sheik did a hindu squat splits dropdown into a leapfrog to set up a fast Sawyer sunset flip, I yelled aloud. 

Putting your boot up on the top turnbuckle and slamming someone's face into your boot is a real Lost Great Spot. Think of the last time you saw it. I saw Barry Horowitz do it 20 years ago and maybe it was something FTR pulled when they were The Revival. Tag partners should also yell at their partner on the apron to give them a boot more often. The boot eyelet raking made a comeback at some point, somebody needs to bring back the boot smash. Sawyer gets busted open from biting and Sheik pushes it well past biting when he throws a gorgeous belly to belly that started with him picking up a bearhug. His missed cannonball that gave Sawyer some fight was so unexpected. It's so weird watching Iron Sheik do a huge front flip. I love how it didn't lead to Sawyer's actual comeback, it just gave him a little time to fight to his knees and get the crowd believing. The finish coming right after as its own surprise was a great way to triple that reaction just as it was dimming. 

The post match was great with Buzz Sawyer and Tommy Rich coming out to save Buzz's bro from one of seven or eight Paul Ellering fueled beatings. Tommy looked so loyal, standing over Sawyer wanting to fight anyone who got near, but Buzz had this unreal aura. It's so unmistakably bad ass, a guy you don't want to cross who keeps this dangerous cool composure. "I know people don't like me but I'm not a total asshole" big brother energy. The way he carries himself with his hands in his sweatpants pockets, that torso in a tight 50/50 blend blue t-shirt, the fucking bandana essential to the look, sending calm threats to Ellering as he walked up to him. An unemployed adult older brother who stays at home all day coming out to the front yard to tell his teen brother's bully how he's going to cut him. 

Larry Zbyszko vs. Ron Garvin

MD: The TV title was on the line for the first ten minutes here. I'll be honest that there are single matches i want more or less out of the Omni footage, but if we're talking a run, then I want as much as Larry's run as possible. We have bits and pieces but it's right down my alley on paper. I think it ages better than a lot of heel Dibiase footage for instance.  

Anyway, this was the panacea to Larry's usual tactics as he only had ten minutes to try to take Garvin's title. Yes, he got punched out of the ring early, but he couldn't linger. He had to be more aggressive than usual. Tons of great punches in this one, especially in the corners. There was one comeback by Garvin where he knocked Larry down and then held on to the arm after he fell and the crowd realized it, realized that he was going to pull Larry back up to hit him again, and were elated about it. Larry was able to fire back out of the corner using the ref as a distraction and took about half the match pretty soundly. He had an advantage at the end as Garvin missed a knee drop and it seemed like he might have a chance of taking the title with a pile driver but Garvin turned it into a pin and got the win. This was a nice subversion of the Rood match which did go to a ten minute draw. It seemed like it would here too or that Garvin was going to lose and then he snuck out the win at the last moment. 

ER: I love this era of Zbyszko. Yeah Garvin looks like a jacked up super tough brat pack era Judd Nelson and hits with his trademark up close short range power, but Zbyszko man. Zbyszko sells the impact of Garvin's strikes better than maybe anyone. I love the tough guy sturdy gravity Valentine sells them with but Zbyszko is so moveable, a wiggly guy who bounces off ropes and uses body movement the same way Tully did, recoiling fast but being punched and physically reacting to those punches exactly the way 9,000 people wanted to see. He knows exactly how I want to see Larry Zbyszko reacting to being hit. He also punches exactly how I want to see a man punch. All the punches were great for the whole match, but Zbyszko's tight, straight reared back rights looked perfect. The finish of this was incredibly done and I didn't see it coming. We had our 10 minute draw already and every single piece of wrestling language made this look like a frustrated Zbyszko unable to win within 10 minutes. I actually but when Larry pulled off a sweet and smooth inside cradle to block a bodyslam in its infancy, but the actual finish was a great surprise. Zbyszko looking like he was going to cave in Garvin's teen idol 'do, with all the execution of Zbyszko lifting up the way you do just before you sit down, Garvin shifting his weight at the peak of lift off to tip the weight. Great finish, great match. 

Road Warriors vs. Mr. Wrestling/Mr. Wrestling II

MD: I really enjoy 83 Roadies. They were raw but they hadn't quite settled into what they'd become a year or two later. They wrestled much more vulnerably, more stooging, more backpedaling, while still being monsters both aesthetically and when they were doing damage. We've been hearing it for the last few matches but it's so great to have the crowd make that primal guttural noise whenever a babyface threw a shot. It was chaos to begin and chaos to end with Mr Wrestling having to fight from underneath in the middle. Wrestling II came in hot and it was rousing stuff but Zbyszko nailed him from the apron out of nowhere after a couple of kneelifts. All of this felt larger than life especially to this crowd.

ER: Man I LOVE the way the Road Warriors sell for two 50 year old man throwing big arm swinging punches. The Road Warriors sell so well for the Wrestlings that I want to see 1983 Roadies against 1989 Baba/Rusher. I couldn't get enough for Wrestling's big swinging punches that are thrown like nobody else threw punches and the way Hawk perfectly knew to throw his head back for them, just enough. We know the Road Warriors were not yet the monsters they would become just a year or so later, but it's still wild seeing Hawk taking multiple back body drops. This had another spectacular finish, with action so good I had to keep rewinding to watch what each individual was doing. Wrestling II was fending off Animal in the top corner, Hawk was roughing up Wrestling in the foreground. Wrestling gets thrown over the top down onto a table and almost into a front row before charging back into the ring by stepping up onto that table and getting back into the fight. Animal keeps charging into Wrestling II in the corner and keeps catching knees, until he charges in and catches two boots shoved squarely into his chest and gets bumped back hard. Zbyszko sneaks in and bashes II in the back of the head and staggers him into the greatest This is the End powerslam from Animal. This was not the structure I expected going in but now I want more Hawk and Animal selling for great old man strikes.  

Greg Valentine vs. Pez Whatley

MD: Pretty remarkable Pez performance here. He came in hot, even while Greg still had the title in hand and had Valentine rocking and falling over the place with headbutts early. Greg took over with a nasty kneeling piledriver and started on the arm. Pez came back with one arm with some great silly in his hope spots, using the head when he could, really solid stuff. They dropped the arm selling for the most part as it went on but you almost didn't mind because Pez was so good at working from underneath on a chinlock, just constant motion fighting up and engaging the crowd. Transition was another pile driver attempt which was a little like the Garvin/Zbyszko match but they had Valentine go into the corner again. Things got out of hand and it ended up as a DQ with him using the belt repeatedly, but Pez drove him off so the crowd got at least some satisfaction out of it. Very good match overall though, even if the arm selling went nowhere. 

ER: Every heel in this territory knew exactly how to sell the strikes of every top babyface and it's all so beautiful. Valentine makes Pez Whatley a god and Pez wiggles his way up to it, and once again, this rules. Valentine is on the Found Footage Friday Mt. Rushmore as we've now been uncovering unseen classics of his for nearly a decade, every one of them broadening his case as one of our greatest workers. Here's another for the pile. I'm so used to seeing Valentine take strikes from fellow tough guys and hitting them back. I've seen that Valentine more than I've seen the Valentine who sells for smaller ethnic babyface, and this one is great. With Valentine's selling, his head whips and stunned cobweb shaking, Whatley's headbutts looked peerless, the culmination of decades of black wrestler headbutts. His perseverance and big time style and charisma through his comebacks were getting reactions louder than any part of the Dog Collar main event, and it was such infectious babyface energy that played incredibly off the tough guy champ. Whatley's reversal out of the piledriver was such a cool spot, upending Valentine into and off the turnbuckles. It's one of those spots where, no matter how much wrestling I've watched, there's always something like that waiting to show me something new. 

Bullwhip on a Pole: Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin

MD: I've always been pretty high on Irwin. Great body language. Big lanky guy who was willing to throw himself into everything he did, and there was so much to throw himself into here. Every time either guy went for the pole, the other was on top of him instantly. Really gripping stuff. People don't understand today just how compelling these pole matches could be when the wrestlers put forth so much care towards whatever was on top of the pole. 

Here they had to really incapacitate the other. Irwin kept escalating things, hitting a gut wrench suplex, tossing Rich out of the ring, knocking the head against the post. Rich on the other hand got out of the way for Irwin's corner charge and he bumped huge over the top knee first, etc. Just more and more until finally Irwin started working the leg, a necessity since Rich wouldn't stay down. Even that didn't quite do it but it allowed for a hotshot and Irwin to finally get up the pole. One thing I wish we had were more pole matches from the 70s when there probably WASN'T an inversion of the finish. By the 80s, whoever first got the weapon tended not to be the one who got to use it and to see that once could be satisfying but to see it in every pole match gets a little frustrating. Sometimes you just want that nice clean feeling of something happening how it's supposed to. Still, Rich grabbing it mid swing and firing off on Irwin was a greater level of enjoyment for the crowd and this was really good stuff overall.

Dog Collar Match: Roddy Piper vs Buzz Sawyer 

MD: Pull this back up. Just watch a minute of it, any minute. Watch Roddy. Watch him move. Nothing specific that he does, though if you catch a bump or some selling or a punch, that's all the better. But just the in-between. Did you see it? Go look out a window or down the street. Find a neighbor, a spouse. Hell, look in the mirror. Watch yourself move. Whatever you see, it's not as alive and vibrant and vivid as this forty year old footage of Roddy Piper.

The anticipation early here, both of them six feet apart, the chain between them, a rabid game of chess to decide which would rush first to strike. At the start it was Buzz but when it was Piper's time, he became a man possessed, cutting the distance with wide eyes and a wild snarl. Buzz scored first blood but Piper's comebacks on the floor were things of myth and legend.

Matches like these, from this era, often end shortly after that first huge comeback, after the turn of the tide, after revenge is grasped. This one, however, went around one more time, as Buzz was able to sneak in a low blow. Things spilled back out to the floor but Piper fired back once more, moving the guardrail and basically punching Buzz back into the ring. Gripping, satisfying, refreshing stuff. In some ways a prototype for what would come later in both of their careers and something that almost impossibly lived up to the picture we had in our heads.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: BASH 85~!

Great American Bash JCP 7/6/85

Buddy Landel vs. Ron Bass

MD: A twenty minute draw, only a bit cut (we lose some of Buddy's control). I always was partial to this feud so it's nice to get a bit more of it. It filled out the midcard well, just having Bass trying to get revenge on JJ basically for picking a city slicker instead of a country guy. 

This was going long and it had a lot of Buddy getting early stalling and comeuppance. Buddy's body language is almost generational, the way that he scoots through the ropes after taking a shot or gets fired into the corner. He tries to outwrestle Bass and fails, tries to outsneak him and fails, tries to outfight him and definitely fails. When he does take over, it's about grinding Bass down and letting JJ get shots in when he can. The comeback on the floor is fiery and the crowd loves it but it's a prelude to the bell ringing for the draw. Post match, Bass gets his hands on JJ and Buddy tries to intervene only for the two to end up crashing into one another. Satisfying stuff even despite the draw.

Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Buzz Sawyer/Dick Slater

MD: This was a blast. I love the Sawyer/Slater team, even as babyfaces. Huge energy. They came in hot firing away at the Andersons, with Buzz and his fuzzy boots swinging a title belt around over his head. It was stooging fiery chaos for the first half, with Slater's windmill punches and Buzz running about biting arms and interjecting at every point. He had one charge into the corner where he shot back at high speed with a forearm that was just nuts. 

Eventually the chaos was too much and the ref got distracted so that the Andersons could take over on Slater. Super hot crowd for this as Buzz stomped back and forth on the apron. Some great hope spots and last second cutoffs where an Anderson would lock up the legs. The hot tag was sufficiently hot but things ended pretty abruptly with an elbow drop cheapshot behind the ref's back. Could have used another rotation on the finish but this lived up to my expectations.

Manny Fernandez/Buzz Tyler/Sam Houston vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Superstar Billy Graham/Konga the Barbarian

MD: I haven't talked about what we had and didn't have here but we came in during the heat on the old footage of this one. That's all beatdown on Houston who survives and survives until he's able to get close enough to draw his own guys in and win in the ensuing chaos with a roll up.

All of that is in here and it's pretty good pro wrestling, but we get the front here as well. That was Graham and Konga stooging (as once Abby got in, it would be time for the heels to take over). And it was very good. This is some of the best I've seen 80s Graham look. He was flying around way more than usual and leaning hard into the goofing. Konga did his share as well honestly. And all of that was fine because it set the stage for Houston getting destroyed. The fans absolutely loved the finish. It really seemed at this point that they could make Houston into a big deal in the years to come.

Paul Jones vs. Jimmy Valiant (Dog Collar)

MD: Previously we just had the opening feint and the finish here. The feint was great, as Jones hemmed and hawed and refused to put the dog collar on before trying to slip it on Abby instead. That didn't work but it drew attention so Abby could stab Valiant in the forehead. Previously we had commentary over that but here we got to clearly hear a scream from the crowd and that's the sort of thing that makes all of this better. 

Jones controlled, smacking a bloody valiant with the chain wrapped around his hand. He made sure to bask in it and taunt the crowd. Said crowd went up huge for Valiant's comeback as he manipulated Jones with the length of the chain. He got the sleeper on. Abby tried to interfere. Valiant was too smart for it and he got the win before Abby unloaded on him. Pretty enjoyable piece of business overall.

Russians vs. Road Warriors

MD: This couldn't have been more heel-in-peril. Not only was it Krusher and Ivan, Nikita wasn't even there because he was prepping for the main event. Even though the Roadies were the AWA champions, only the JCP titles were on the line (which given the finish made no sense anyway).

And the Warriors took the brunt of this. Maybe Ivan would get an eye rake or Krusher would get a few body shots in, but then they'd miss an elbow drop and would get swept right back under again. Animal press slammed Krusher into the top rope, then pressed Ivan off the top. Hawk got in on the action. In no case did they really get them up but the struggle made it work nonetheless. It was a bit of diminishing returns though.

They had a sort of convoluted bit to let the Russians take over and they kept control with frantic, almost desperate quick tags. Even then, when the hot tag came, it was while the Roadies were taking shots. They just didn't matter. Things devolved quickly after that as both sides used chairs. It get having the Russians finally look vulnerable but a straight up Clash of the Titans might have been more palatable. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: 1989 Copps Coliseum WWF Show

1/16/89 WWF Copps Coliseum Toronto

MD: This is another Richard Land find and you should be checking out his stuff at (@maskedwrestlers) since he provides about 1/3 of the new footage coming out today.

Red Rooster vs. Danny Davis

MD: This made me feel like I have to check out a lot more Danny Davis, honestly. He got on the mic at the start and said Heenan was paying him for this but he would have done it for free. Then he shoved Taylor and ran around the ring from him, got chased in, did some rope running, stopped, taunted, and walked right into a punch before taking a powder, all before his ring jacket was off. Great stuff to begin. Then came the real stalling as he just pressed himself in the corner and covered his head. When Taylor finally did get him he begged off until he could turn an arm wringer into a clothesline and then he looked pretty solid in control. There was just a spring to his step. He had some nice stuff (a weirdly balanced shot off the second ropes, a throat cross chop when Taylor started to come back) and then begged off again towards the finish where Taylor got him with the Scorpion Deathlock. I enjoyed this one.

ER: Imagine what a crushing day it was when Terry Taylor was told he had to get the top of his hair dyed bright red. I can't imagine, but it's a conversation about your career as a top pro being over and done with. Look at him here, with his blond locks and no red, a man existing as a man and not as a rooster. But I am much more of a Heel Terry Taylor man. Let me see that evil Mark Harmon unleashed, like you find out the guy running your goof around summer school is actually a real hard ass who will probably assault more than one of the students. No, this match is owned by Heel Danny Davis, and I agree with Matt that more Danny research must be conducted. Fans hate this man on sight, even before he gets on the mic to say, "Bobby The Brain Heenan paid me a lot of money to come to this god forsaken place! But brother, he didn't pay me a dime because it's gonna be myyy pleasure." Then he one-handed shoves Taylor.  

Davis has great movement and plays to the crowd expertly, the kind of guy who you'd want to keep as a heel house show undercarder. How he punches Taylor over the referee, that stiff quick short arm clothesline to break an arm wringer, those great running short kicks to a downed Taylor's jaw, his very good short right hands aimed straight at the chin - including a fist shake out after one, thus cementing Davis's status as a Great Puncher - all of it is stuff that Danny Davis performs far better than we've ever given him credit. If you were doubting his Great Puncher status, he also throws nice corner 10 count punches and dropped a hammering fistdrop from the middle buckle, and if that's not the trifecta then man I don't even know what we're doing here. The thing is, even better than his corner 10 counts? His shoulder shrugs in the corner. You remember how Batista always had real awful shoulder shrugs, coming in way too light and making it obvious just how much he was holding back? Soothe yourself by Danny Davis going hard into Taylor's stomach and ask yourself why we don't demand better. Demand Danny Davis. 

Curt Hennig vs. Rick Martel

MD: This was a draw that did air but was clipped in half or so. I can't speak to that version. I will say that the good stuff here was very good. The feeling out process where Hennig won the first few exchanges only for Martel to turn it around and toss him around with all the babyface fire anyone might want was just as good as you'd expect. Martel's one of the only guys I've ever seen that was so into the flow of what he was doing that he'd do flat back dropdowns to set up an armdrag. After that rope running they went into extended controlling of the arm by Martel and they kept it interesting enough, with lots of escape attempts by Perfect, before building to an elaborate bit where it looked like Perfect might get him three times before finally dropping him with a belly to back.

Perfect's control started out engaging (especially as he was still selling the arm) but they went into a long front face lock. Obviously, these are two guys that could work that, and Martel was going to work from underneath well, but it was also clearly eating up a bunch of time in a twenty minute draw. The payoff was good though as again Perfect was going to rush right in to all of Martel's fire. Once he cleared the ring of him that was the time limit so it didn't really even build to the sort of nearfalls you often get with a draw. It more felt like they were just calling it a day (even if Martel tried to invite Hennig back in).

ER: This did not need to be a time limit draw, and it didn't need the moments you knew they were working towards a time limit draw, but I also thought Hennig was fantastic throughout all of it. Look at black trunks Perfect in '89. It's easy to talk about Hennig the bumper but it's really all about Hennig the ball of energy. It's going into every exchange with real aggression, real purpose. You see how hard both men are leaning into a collar and elbow and you see how Hennig throws everything - armdrag, hop toss, fireman's carry - with real purpose. His punches look like he's really trying to mess up Martel's pretty face. This era Hennig was going to come in hard and then feed even harder, making his opponents' bodyslams and hiptosses look more violent than his own. Before things settle down into arm work and front face locks, he takes a great bump off a light dropkick, flying out through the ropes and off and over the ringside table, then faceplanting all around the ring while Canadians lose their minds. 

I love how hard he pushes all the rope running that leads to him eating shit. He pushes Martel fast, like he's trying to get him to mess up a sequence, but it always ends with him on the mat kicking his legs in a hold. He does two different missed charges into the turnbuckles that lead to long series of him eating bigger bowls of shit. The arm work is long but Perfect makes it look so convincing that I heard two different people - women! - yelling for Martel to break his arm. He's good at timing how long to keep the crowd engaged while kicking in a hold, and knows when to start breaking out match ending fireworks. Curt Hennig is perhaps our finest wrestler ever at bumping like a heel who has his shoelaces tied together. A lot of the Minnesota guys were great at that. Was it common practice to work 2 a day drills while pantsed or something? Hennig gets kicked around hard before fleeing at the sound of the bell, and every fall is that of a man escaping a ransomed kidnapping. We act like it's a foregone conclusion that this was "just another match clearly worked as a time limit draw" but this was the first time limit draw that Hennig worked during the Perfect era. This wasn't just a thing he and Martel were doing around the horn, this was a Copps exclusive where some tag specialist took Perfection to the limit. 

Rockers vs. Brainbusters

MD: This had Billy Red Lyons interview the Busters (no Heenan) before the start. Nothing notable but nice to see. The match itself started great with Michaels looking like a huge star outclassing Arn (Arn feeding for it perfectly) and then escaping to slap the hands of the fans like he had escaped with the crown jewels. Then, he, being Michaels, doubled down on it and no sold all of Tully's stuff (Tully still bumped huge for him), and it wasn't until Jannetty came in that they even started the false transitions. Just another case where this would have been better if Michaels took that first win, gave Tully a tiny bit, and then overcame. Ah well. Jannetty looked great as he overcame (including fighting out of the corner and hitting a backflip to reverse a double top wristlock.).

Really a never ending heel in peril (though one full of entertaining individual bits) until Michaels ducked a Tully clothesline on the outside only to run into an Arn one. Thankfully the Busters were great at making the most of their time on top. Michaels knew how to be a star already and was constantly trying to fight back. I think a babyface should be doing that but maybe he didn't quite have the proper escalation in it. Arn crotched himself on Michaels' knees to set up the hot tag and things got chaotic but the Busters fairly quickly snuck one out. The great stuff was absolutely great but in part due to Michaels' tendencies and Arn and Tully being happy to just go along with them, this didn't come together like it could have.

ER: This really did feel like a 15 minute match where Tully bumped and stooged and made narrow misses for 13 of those minutes, and I did not mind that layout one bit. I was wildly entertained watching the Rockers punch through Tully for a long tag, as Tully is wildly entertaining at getting run over by punches. He cannot just walk a straight line to a destination and it's perfect. When he's punched, it's a turning drop to the knee before getting punched in another direction; when he misses, it's a quick turn back to his target to take his medicine. He finds several safe and less safe ways to fall to the floor and continue his constant motion and I loved them all. I loved the theatrical slow mo Sgt. Slaughter bump to the floor and the ways he would fall off the apron into a back bump. He treats every punch from each Rocker as something worth bumping for, and it makes his eventual tag out moment even greater when he turned a near tag out into an inverted atomic drop. The Brainbusters really didn't have a lot of offense here - that Arn clothesline on the floor that the camera missed, Tully's atomic drop to set up his tag, and Arn's spinebuster after ducking a clothesline - but the Rockers didn't really have any offense either. Even when Michaels goes up top after they hit tandem superkicks, he only comes flying off with a punch. And I'll take it. The finish is fantastic, even if uncommon. Marty goes for his first flying headscissors but it's too close to the ropes, and Tully pulls his head down from the apron and slam dunks his head over the top rope.     

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Paul Roma

MD: I'm honestly a little astounding how good this was. (Eric will not be, but he is a Mike Sharpe truther). It was 80% shtick and 20% Roma hitting dropkicks, but the shtick was really good and Sharpe was incredibly entertaining. He's one of the most vocal wrestlers ever and there were times where I could shut my eyes and still know exactly what was going on just from hearing him stammer. Mainly when he was begging off but not always. And he did a lot of begging off. A lot of stalling. They got tons of mileage out of a handshake bit at the beginning, out of him threatening to leave, out of Roma catching his foot on a kick attempt. Just one bit after the next after the next with Sharpe throwing himself into it completely and Roma being a perfectly fine straight man. It's the sort of match the sheets would have grumbled about in 89 but that plays a lot better in 2025 when there's nothing like it in the world anymore. You can see the value so clearly now. Honestly just a great show for stooging up til this point, and from guys that don't get the credit for it like Davis and Sharpe.

ER: We get an honest to god Iron Mike Sharpe ring entrance and the fact that he is in his hometown of Hamilton, Ontario and announced as such does not give him a single second of goodwill from his town. These are his people, and the people of Ontario fucking hate the mirror that he is holding up for them. The women scream for Roma as he removes his jacket, but when the match is over I will challenge those same women to tell me anything Paul Roma did during the match. They won't be able to, because this is Iron Mike Sharpe's town, and Iron Mike Sharpe's match. To use an already dated out of existence joke format: Mike Sharpe is the Tully Blanchard of Barry Darsows. He has the size and sound and lack of offense of Darsow, but watching him directly after a Tully match you really see what a large adult son Tully Blanchard he is. He is not as hateable on sight as Tully (few men ever have been) but how much of an instant turn off does one have to be within pro wrestling to be booed on sight in his own hometown? 

I love how quickly Sharpe takes armdrags and how it's the only bump he really takes differently than his standard arm waving back bump that he uses for everything else. His swinging arm into Roma's stomach looked excellent and the man gets tied up in the ropes more efficiently than any wrestler other than Andre. But where Andre was always a temporarily inconvenienced giant, Sharpe has a way of making it feel like he just might be stuck in those tangled ropes for the rest of the evening. The finish is outstanding and probably something that no wrestler other than Sharpe would even want to do: Sharpe loads up his cast and swings it at Roma, but Roma catches it and throws Sharpe's loaded arm back into his head. It's so stupid and so hapless that it can only be a Mike Sharpe finish. We didn't know how good we had it, and as Matt points out, it's because nobody comes close to being a Mike Sharpe any more. We didn't recognize how essential different workers were to a roster. 

Greg Valentine vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Another awesome match in their feud. What can you even say about this really? They lay into each other in the corner. Garvin's great at firing back out of it just when you think Valentine has him. Valentine's great at stumbling about and getting a sneaky advantage right until he doesn't. There were some really brilliant specific moments which shows you they weren't just hitting each other blindly. At one point, Valentine's about to do the flop and Garvin catches him so he can hit him one more time first. Valentine takes over with a shinbreaker but when he goes to the second, Garvin nails him before he collapses so they both go down. Finish had Garvin wanting to use the shinguard as a weapon and getting distracted by the ref so he got rolled up but post match he hit a punch version of the Garvin Stomp to a prone Valentine and nailed him with the shinguard anyway. The world would have been better off if we had whole promotions based around this style instead of whatever else we got in the 90s and after.

ER: It would be a good idea if we just kept getting new Garvin/Valentine matches every couple weeks. Every single one we have has been a real gift, and while there are a lot of similarities among them there are always new ideas and ways that certain sequences can be extended. This was, I think, the shortest one we have, and I think going less than 10 actually made their strikes play harder. The first two minutes is just them shoving each other in the chest with both hands and I would have been happy if we never even got to the punches. I could have watched them shove each other and burn out their arms for eight minutes, just to see who would be the first to fall. 

But I do like the strikes. 

Valentine always takes more punches than he gives in the Garvin battles, but I think this one takes the cake. He just gets battered. There is often a corner punch out stretch of their match, and Valentine's selling made this stand out from the rest. Garvin kept punching and chopping him and Valentine kept getting knocked to his ass, hitting the bottom buckle and getting pulled back to his feet only to be punched and chopped some more. When he finally can no longer stand and begins pitching forward into a Flop, Garvin actually holds him up with both hands on his chest. Garvin looks like a support beam propping up a leaning building in the Philippines, and it's all so he can just punch him in the head one more time.  

When Valentine does flop, there is no rest to be had. Garvin starts raking his back and Valentine sells multiple back rakes so well that it made me think of how Tenryu might've sold a back rake if that had been something that any wrestler in WAR ever did (they did not). But it's all back rakes that Valentine sells incredibly, punches to the nose (that Valentine sells incredibly), a fantastic headbutt, and one of those sleepers that starts like a violent clothesline. Garvin is a monster and I don't think there was anyone else on the roster who would have put up with this. Garvin has his own great run of selling when Hammer turns a side headlock into a knee breaker, then does it again. Garvin is limping around on one leg, and after he takes the second knee breaker he landed one big punch that knocked Hammer to his back while it spiraled him into the mat. 

I think calling Garvin's punches after the bell a punch version of the Garvin Stomp kind of undersells how nasty those punches were. Garvin just got into mount and threw disgusting punches while Valentine was on his back. He threw eight of them, and Valentine couldn't really move to absorb them, so Garvin just stood over him raining down shots that built into even more disgusting hammerfists, both fists held together like an ape attacking his handler. Hammer can barely move and has to take a rapid succession of wicked punches and man....is this the best of the Garvin/Valentine matches? I think this one packs in the most action, and it felt like they went even more violent with the shorter runtime. 

Randy Savage vs. Bad News Brown 

MD: This has been out there before but I'm not sure I've ever seen it. It's a street fight. Bad News is out with a Mets shirt. Savage is out with a white shirt with a Gold's Gym tank top over it and grey Zubaz type pants and pink elbow pads so it's a look. Liz looks like Liz. That feels like a missed opportunity. It's basically ten years before its time. You give it a couple more minutes and some more goofiness around the finish and it could have been a 1998 Austin No DQ main event. Brown started with a chair but then missed a punch on the post outside. Savage used the timekeeper's table and kept on him. Then he took the weight belt off and used that. Brown came back with a chair. They set up a table and but the ref got crunched in between it and Brown. That's when we got the Ghetto Blaster and the visual pin, then a hilarious second one as Brown got the ref up and slammed Savage but the ref did a face first bump as he passed out again. When he came to Savage rolled up Bad News for a quick pin and that was that. Post match they went at it with Brown getting an early advantage and Savage fighting back as the locker room cleared. Pretty bizarre to watch overall, but it worked well for what they were doing especially if they went back to it.

ER: This was on the very first DVDVR 80s set, the one that was assembled and arranged differently than all the other eventual sets because this was the very first time we were doing this and nobody had any idea how large this project would grow with subsequent sets. "Controversial" is not the correct word for it but I remember some people wondering why this match was included at the time. There were a lot of imperfections and missing matches on that first set, and I still can't believe that was 20 years ago now. 2005? Impossible. It was not well received by the people who participated in that first ballot. It finished in the bottom 10 out of 100 matches, and it almost surely wouldn't have been included were the set put together with the same method that all subsequent sets were assembled. From the very next set (Other Japan Men's) we were watching every single match from the territory/fed and picking among the very best. There were plenty of matches that should have been included in a WWF 80s set, and we sadly never got to re-do that one. I can't find my initial ballot either, so I have no idea how high/low I ranked it 20 years ago, when I was a 24 year old man, but now I think it's pretty safe to call this pick ahead of its time.  like a pretty ahead of its time fiat pick (that I believe was made by David Bixenspan, credit due).

Maybe it belongs just for the gear. Nobody shows up for a fight like this and they're idiots for that. I loved Bad News in his 50-50 poly-cotton Mets tee and Savage just went over the top with gear. The Golds tank top and Zubaz would have been enough but the tight undershirt and pink elbow pads that looked like knee pads he was wearing on his elbows make it insane. It's possible Big thought it belonged on the set because it was a unique match for 1989 WWF. Savage was the World Heavyweight Champ and it's not like he and Bad News were working Harlem Street Fights around the horn. This was the first (and only one that exists on tape) and they worked just eight total over the next couple months. It's short, it's a tough fight, Savage takes some tough spills - including getting thrown hard over the railing to the concrete, a girl in her neon green sweatshirt helping push him back over the guardrail so he can go after Bad News. Bad News punching the ringpost felt like a novel spot in 1989, and him setting up a table in the corner and running a ref straight through it feels even more novel. That ref got crunched man. The bullshit finish is incredible, with Bad News getting a real long visual pin over the champ, then reviving the referee just for the man to collapse again just as Bad News re-secured the pin. Maybe people disliked it 20 years ago because it was too short? It's less than 8 minutes long, which feels more like a snack than a World Heavyweight Title match, but I'm glad I watched it again now that I'm sliding down the other side of the mountain. 

Jim Duggan/Hercules vs. Ted Dibiase/Virgil

MD: This was already out there as well so I'll keep it quick. Herc and Duggan team up very well. Two versions of the same sort of visual idea with big shots and driving motion. Duggan constantly moving forward especially on his hope spot punches is something I didn't appreciate enough for a lot of my life. Honestly, Dibiase is fine here, feeding and stooging, but he doesn't give himself over to it in the same way a lot of the people earlier in the card. Everything is technically sound but it almost feels more like him putting himself in the right place at the right time in a more modern way as opposed to that sense of total abandon that we got from Davis or Sharpe or (in different ways) the Brainbusters (or in a different way) or Valentine (in a different way). Virgil is interesting here as he never really does much, mainly just plays interference and holds someone for Dibiase. It's actually a clever use for him. This was ok, and fit well on the card. I just don't think Dibiase stood up well to his predecessor heels.

Read more!

FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: OMNI '87~! OTTO~! STRONGBOW~!

Otto Wanz vs. Jay Strongbow Graz, Austria 7/7/79

MD: This is the earliest Otto Wanz footage I'm aware of. It's part of Richard Land's patreon drop for this month. It goes ~40 with 30 of that being actual wrestling and not round breaks. It has an absolutely remarkable crowd. Hopefully he has a bit more of 1979 Austria/Germany in that tape collection because I want to see more of these fans. They were singing and chanting early, but they were up for absolutely everything and did they ever love Otto.

This is also an incredibly rare look at heel Chief Jay Strongbow. Maybe surprisingly, he brought the goods. This was right in the midst of the Valentine feud where Valentine broke Strongbow's leg, and he came in off of that and was an absolute bastard here. Otto spent most of the match trying to fight fair while Strongbow would fire off on him in the corner and punch and tear at his wound. If Otto was able to fire back, he rolled on out to the floor and they repeated the cycle. 

While the fans went way over the top every time Otto fired back, he controlled just a bit too much of this. Strongbow might charge in before the bell and he'd find ways to get under Otto and the fans' skin but he needed to be on top just a little more in the middle rounds. That said, when Otto finally had enough and started hitting back on Strongbow's terms, ignoring the rules, the fans were in high heaven. This wasn't quite as good as the Studd match but it was still an accomplishment for them to be able to go that long and still get it mostly right. Primarily though, this was about atmosphere. Just an amazing crowd; hopefully we get to see them again.

JCP Omni 2/1/87

MD: Almost anyone reading this watched it in real time and knows how special it was. Yes, it was a short card full of "tournament lucha"-esque short matches because we don't have the main event (Flair vs Windham - 60 minutes) as that was on another card, but it was our first new Omni show in years and hopefully the start of a new trend.

Bill Dundee vs.  Dutch Mantel

MD: Dundee was the Central States champ here. Dutch controlled the center to start, was Dundee stooged around, eating a back body drop, complaining about a phantom hair pull, wanting time out. They had a great bit early where Dundee got an eye rake and went for Shoo Baby only for Dutch to get it back and Dundee to take a whip trip. Eventually Bill managed a low blow and took over on the arm for a bit. Mantel hit one of the many great punches in such a short match and they went towards the finish, with Dundee escaping a roll up and pulling the tights for the win. Starting a trend for the night everything looked great in this one.

Bob Armstrong vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: 30 second crowd pleaser. I wouldn't have minded seeing what they'd do with a little bit of time but it wasn't meant to be. My favorite bit here was Garvin acting like he won after the fact (to no small amounts of heat too).

Arn Anderson vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: These weren't just matches for the sake of matches. This was shortly after Lex's debut and this show was another cog in the machine of getting him over as a key associate of the Four Horsemen, even if he wasn't wrestling on the card.  For something that's been locked in a vault for so long, the amount of care in the production is interesting. It's not just a single camera. They cut to JJ or cut to a reaction from Luger. This was meant to be shown. It just simply never was.

Obviously, Arn and Brad match up extremely well. There's a certain elaboration to the early sequences where they go around one more time than you'd expect or turn things in a way that feels just a little unpredictable while throwing everything they have into it. We had another quasi low blow to set up the heat, two matches in a row, this time off of an Arn inverted atomic drop out of the corner. One of the best things about this set up (more on this next match) was how well we could hear the wrestlers. Arn, after taking over, just says "Now, then..." and what came after the ellipse is his beatdown of Brad. They moved through it quickly with the spinebuster (being the most versatile move in wrestling) serving as a cutoff to a hope spot, before Bard caught Arn coming off the top. Finish had Lex intervene by pulling out the leg on a suplex. Just a small movement, nothing over the top, and then right back into his seat. A way to get him over as efficient and professional. Obviously it would have been nice to get a few more minutes of this but they made the best of the time they had.

Tully Blanchard vs. Wahoo McDaniel

MD: It's hard to go from modern wrestling to any of this, even for me who spends all of his time jumping around time and space. This match is the trickiest though. Everything looks so good and so credible. Every strike is a violent delight. It's almost shocking to see Wahoo chop away in the corner. It's so different from anything else you'd see today. There's nothing framed about it. It's not a product for TV. It's was there to capture every eye in the arena and somehow that translates better onto the screen than something perfectly posed for a hard cam.

Tully is so vocal here, blabbing on about how he's an honorable man, complaining about every perceived offense perpetrated by Wahoo. I imagine only the first few rows could even hear it but it was part of his full immersion into the moment. There was no going through the motions. He was living and breathing the part. It's magic watching him scramble out of the ring or try to dash his way back for a sneak attack only to get caught and have his limbs somehow fall over one another. Selling isn't even the word for how he takes Wahoo's stuff. His portrayal was so good that it warped reality and made the the lie more vibrant than any truth could possibly be. 

The finish was simple, straightforward, matter of fact. Wahoo had him down. JJ drew the ref. Lex casually rose, clocked Wahoo with the belt, and sat back down, crossing his arms. Nothing over the top. Everything subdued. Just a great way to establish Luger.

Elimination Tag: Ron Garvin/Robert Gibson vs. Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey/Bobby Eaton)

MD: Very fun seeing Garvin in there instead of Gibson for whatever reason. He was tagging with Windham regularly at the time, including feuding with the Midnights. You have to love Gibson in the shine. There was the spot where he leaped frogged over Eaton after Condrey had tagged in and you expect Condrey to be about to tag him, but Gibson just stops short and hits a bodyslam instead. Or Eaton feeding for Gibson when he was outside after tagging Garvin in. You'd half expect him to try to take Gibson off the apron with a cheapshot but he just gets nailed over and over. It plays with expectations just a little while feeling totally organic. Likewise, they played with them by having Garvin get his foot on the rope after the Bubba shot, something that followed two finishes where Lex had interfered in a similar way.

This morphed into a conventional tag for a bit with Garvin working from underneath. His comeback just being a shoulder block out of the corner was actually unconventional but fit him perfectly. The racket shot that took out Gibson was pretty nasty. Then, as Eaton was rolling Gibson out, Garvin rolled him up to even the sides. Maybe you would have wanted a second bit of heat to play on the numbers advantage instead but they were wrestling against the clock and these matches were so rare that almost any tweak must have felt new and fresh. They still had Condrey control for a bit until they cracked heads and went into the finish. Garvin went over after the miscommunication, but they made sure to get some heat back on him after the match.

Super Powers (Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff) vs. Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov

MD: Shame we miss out on the Dusty/Nikita entrance here. Non match as the Russians immediately use the chain. It's a little surprising how little the fans seemed to care. They were just happy about Nikita firing back and Dusty and Nikita having their hands raised. Not sustainable but it was early enough into the turn, maybe that was all that mattered. Just a crazy notion in 2024 that people would care so much about their guys winning that they'd accept a non-match like this. Different worlds. You can barely even compare them.

Road Warriors vs. Ragin' and Ravishin' 

MD: Definitely a show where maybe too many heels had the titles. Again, when the Roadies were proclaimed as the winners by DQ, the place went nuts, so maybe I'm wrong. Business doesn't stay good forever though. This was fun just to see Rude and Manny bounce off of the Warriors. When it was time for Hawk to get worked over, he balanced being a Frankenstein's Monster with being properly vulnerable extremely well. It's a tough line to walk but he walked it, things like popping up from the pile driver but only half way, just in his body language. It's tough to play sympathetic while remaining a entirely larger than life but he managed it and that just ramped things up for the hot tag.

ER: An hour of perfectly shot Omni footage shows up with little warning, incomplete but a gift nonetheless. I didn't expect the work to offer us any new insight into any of the workers as most of these undercard matches were short, but I am an easily persuaded man. I have the kind of simple brain that can watch one hour of wrestling from 1987 and come away with new opinions on workers that we have hundreds of hours of footage from. I'm going to say that it's because we got this footage in such sparkling HD, and more importantly some of the most crystal clear sound you will ever hear on a wrestling show. That might have been my favorite part of this gift, that there was no commentary so you didn't even have to turn your TV up too loud to hear details happening in the ring and the crowd that you would have otherwise never heard. I love any new handheld footage that we get. Handhelds might be my favorite kind of wrestling these past few years, giving us the experience of being in the crowd seeing pairings that otherwise never made TV. But this footage? This footage makes it feel like you're standing at ringside in 1987. You can hear so many little things, and the footage looks beautiful. There were 4,500 people in the Omni that night and due to the way they lit the place we can see maybe 30 of them. But we can hear what sounds like 10,000 of them. Wrestling is mic'd so terribly now that crowds are muted, commentary is king, and we realize that the crowds are muted because there just weren't instances of audience members trying to get themselves over in 1987. It was pure. 

When some woman screams out"Work on him, Dutch, work on him!" it's because she cannot stand Bill Dundee. Being here at ringside you can feel how badly these heels were hated, feel how adored every babyface was, and here in-ring insights that we've seen but never heard so clearly. When the ref admonishes Dundee for grabbing Dutch's hair, I've never heard Dundee say anything as hilarious as, "The hair? I don't want to touch his hair." Dutch Mantel did not give anyone a chance to not touch his hair. We get to hear better than ever before, every single Tully Blanchard dumb asshole flip out. Tully looks like Wings Hauser and screams at the ref over every non-infraction like a small-dicked high school assistant basketball coach. You've seen the body language of Tully being the biggest asshole in wrestling but you've never heard him like this. Every wrestler on this card is a wrestler with great body language, but getting such clear audio to pair with the body language is so special. It would have been great enough seeing Manny Fernandez and Rick Rude stumble and beg off from the Road Warriors, but things like hearing Manny screaming out NO! as Rude almost goes for a one-handed knucklelock with Hawk, or Manny screaming NOOOOOO! in a totally different way when he's getting press slammed for the second time. It gives such a new dimension to these workers and these matches. 

The two big tag matches on this show were as great as they looked on paper. Rick Rude was one of the hardest workers in history and my opinion on him goes up whenever we get new footage. I don't think I've ever seen a Rude match where he wasn't On the entire time, and seeing he and Manny both On against the Roadies is just great pro wrestling. Rude and Manny don't just bump all over the place, they're doing a constant physical routine against two of the most physical monsters of the era. Also, is Hawk one of the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time? If you had asked me 5 years ago I wouldn't have considered either Road Warrior for a Top 100, but Hawk was something else man. After going back and seeing how great "washed" 1998 Hawk was and seeing more and more footage from the decade before, it's clear that Hawk never needed Animal to be a real force in wrestling. This man had It. An unreal aura and some damn great in ring. I don't know how many better flying clotheslines I've seen than Hawk's in this tag. The clothesline off the middle or top buckle is one of the tougher clotheslines. You have to worry about your landing more than the impact of your clothesline, so they often land soft. Hawk's lands as hard as any of his running clotheslines and he follows it through all the way to the mat, like he was doing a flying STO. I think I've seen Daisuke Ikeda hit one better, but Hawk, man. I love this guy. 

This was a one hour presentation with nothing but highlights. The crack of Dutch's whip with this HD sound. Dennis Condrey making me ask aloud "wait was Dennis Condrey the better worker in the original Midnights?" The way Big Bubba held Robert Gibson for racket shots, and the perfect timing of Jim Cornette jumping to the apron to racket Gibson mid-headscissors. The way the Ragin Bull chopped Animal harder than either Road Warrior could hit. Lex Luger's two perfect pieces of interference to help Arn and Tully, remaining completely uninvolved in each match until the finish, sitting arms crossed and observing the matches like an indifferent-faced innocent boy, other than two quick moments of a grabbed ankle and a belt to Wahoo's face. The noise these people made for Nikita. This whole show was moment after moment after moment. And finally, we got to see them and hear them clearer than the folks in Atlanta that night. 

Read more!

RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 4

Bobby Eaton vs. Bill Dundee CWA 7/24/82

ER: Exciting under 10 minute studio match for Eaton's Mid-America Heavyweight title, with Dutch Mantel as Enforcer sitting in a chair at ringside right next to Jimmy Hart. This is a hot 15 minute segment, with Hart running down Dundee as undeserving of a title shot (even laughing him off as a "midget"), leading to Dutch Mantel causing a huge scene in the studio trying to get his hands on Eaton (who had just taken the title from Dutch a couple weeks prior). Dutch and Hart sitting next to each other at ringside gives us some great atmosphere for the match, the first half of which is filled with Dundee beating Eaton to the punch on everything. Eaton misses offense and Bill is there to land a moonshot punch, throw a hiptoss, and otherwise knock Eaton onto his butt. Eaton sells majestically for Dundee, with the best bit a headlock punch that sends Eaton duck walking backwards into the corner holding his nose. Dundee misses a big splash allowing Eaton to take over, and we get some mighty fine punches, a high elbowdrop, and a great kneedrop. Dutch yanks Bobby's leg from the floor (with Eaton face planting  like the rug got yanked out from under him), then Dutch pummels Hart as Dundee steals the title from a distracted Bobby. King Cobra and others cause a big melee after Dundee's title win, leaving Superstar busted open but good. Memphis was so great at jamming a ton of memorable moments into 15 minutes while also furthering several different feuds, and you aren't going to find many better segment anchors than Eaton/Dundee. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Jerry Lawler/Sweet Brown Sugar CWA 2/6/83

ER: This is the last 6 minutes of a 16 minute match, but another example of a tremendous No Offense Lawler performance, and Eaton shows that he can use weapons with the best of them. We get one punch early as Eaton and Lawler spill to the floor, and from there it's nothing but Eaton throwing beautiful worked shots with weapons and Lawler showing that he's the best ever at bumping into inanimate objects. Lawler takes bumps into the ringpost better than any wrestler in history, and here he gets to show how devastating he can make a rope stanchion look. Eaton drags one into the ring and plants it in the middle, grabbing Lawler by the back of the neck and throwing him down throat first onto the stanchion. I remember seeing Finlay do that in his WCW match against Hak, and thinking that there aren't many guys who would be able to make that read as painfully as it would feel, but obviously Lawler is one of those guys. Eaton is a master at worked chairshots, and he has this incredible diving shot to Lawler's throat, like a big running fistdrop or elbowdrop except driving a chair into Lawler's throat. Eaton also drops Lawler with a piledriver onto that chair, with Lawler doing his perfect piledriver stomach bump. Sabu (Cocoa Samoa, not actually Sabu obviously) and Sweet Brown Sugar are mostly non-factors in the part of the match we get, as this is all about the two greatest worked strikers in wrestling history painting a little masterpiece. Eaton finishes with a wrapped chain punch to Sugar, a cool snapshot of Eaton adjusting all of his offense to include weapons, and Lawler showing how compelling he can be without throwing a single fist. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Arn Anderson/Terry Funk ECW When Worlds Collide 5/14/94

ER: I had never actually watched this match before, it just existed as one of those legendary on-paper matches I figured I would watch eventually. This was an ECW tag that would have greatly benefitted from being worked as a traditional tag. But they didn't really go full-on ECW either, the ref didn't seem to know what kind of match to call (with lots of scattered rule enforcement), and Terry's lack of selling and pacing really hurt the match overall. It's not too often where I can say that Terry Funk's participation in a match hampered a match, but even with the good he brought to this match I think the bad outweighed it. The match totally works just on the weirdness of Beautiful Bobby and Arn Anderson confidently strutting into the ECW arena and getting huge reactions from the crowd. Even those mutants are going to be excited to see Bobby in his watermelon Bubblicious colored tights. All I really wanted to see from this match was 1. Eaton in the ECW Arena, 2. Arn vs. Sabu, 3. Eaton vs. Funk (a pairing that is much more rare than it should have been). We got all of those and a ton of good interactions, it just didn't really build to anything. So, it's 20 minutes of four of your favorite wrestlers doing things that make you like them as wrestlers, and that's at minimum going to be very entertaining. 

Eaton's punches were the best thing about the match. He tagged in and immediately started throwing gorgeous right hooks to Terry's jaw. Eaton throws plenty of his perfect short punches in this match but I adore those big looping rights, with Terry recoiling in the ropes with every one. Terry takes a big bump to the floor when Sabu just literally bodyslams him from the ring through a ringside table, and later Arn takes his own big ass bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the top by Sabu. Sabu uses a lot of soft chair attacks throughout the match, crazy to think how hard wrestlers were braining each other with chairs just a couple years later when you see Sabu and Funk throwing 1997 Lance Storm chairshots in this match. Arn felt like the only person in the ring who knew how to throw an effective chairshot, which I was not expecting. There's some great stuff too, like Funk sticking Eaton with a piledriver through a piece of broken table he had laid over the bottom rope. It had all the makings of one of those Funk spots that don't get pulled off properly, but it looked vicious and Eaton really looked like a guy who had been crippled. 

Things kind of fell apart after that when Funk missed a moonsault, Sabu nailed Funk with a moonsault, and then Funk sold it by just standing up and immediately going back on offense. Funk did a lot of that. He'd crash and burn on his own move, get nailed by Sabu or Eaton, then just stand up and go on offense. He was also moving around with very little energy, nowhere near as much as his typical level of flopping around. I mean I get it, he's 50, but I don't think I'd show anyone this match as proof that the 50 year old could still go. It's great hearing the Arena get hyped for Eaton's Alabama Jam, then see Sabu pull out his moonsault variations on Arn and really crush him with a slingshot senton. The whole finishing stretch is a mess, with Eaton and Funk brawling into the crowd (most of which we can't see) leading to Funk hitting Eaton with a piledriver in the eagle's nest (which we can't really see). Public Enemy gets involved and easily run off by Arn, there's a really tepid spinning toehold exchange between Funk and Sabu, Arn ends up turning on Funk due to an errant chairshot, and Arn batters Funk's knee with a chair (again best chairshots of the match) and Sabu wins with a half crab. Throughout the match the ref had been keeping track of the legal men and doing his best to get chairs out of there, and then did none of that during the finishing stretch, which just added to the mess. This is the kind of match ECW could have turned into a killer 3 minute music video that would have made you feel like you missed the match of the year. It's not, but you'll be smiling a lot for 20 minutes. 

Read more!

RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 2

Bobby Eaton vs. Chris Champion NWA 1/23/88

ER: Cool TV match that I kept expecting to go the time limit, with Eaton working over Champion's good arm while Cornette berates Champion from ringside. Champion had really nice jabs and nice timing on his dropkick, and that's more than enough for Eaton to work with. I love Champion's Future Lost Boy haircut, and the idea that he was smart enough to travel 15 years back from the future but can't avoid a car accident. Eaton is great at running right into Champion's dropkick, his punches all sing, and the zig zags shaved into Champion's head give Eaton a perfect target for a wicked kneedrop. I love how Champion punched with his cast arm, while Bobby kept grinding away on the good arm, and we also get to hear Eaton talking trash while wrenching in hammerlocks. Cornette was great at ringside, bashing Champion with the racket, getting in Tommy Young's way, and getting right in Champion's face when Eaton had a submission near the ropes. Eaton took a nice backdrop bump on Champion's comeback, and Bobby's quick sharp running knee strike to Champion's spine was a cool thing to drop him with (as well as Cornette holding Champion's foot so no kickout). I knew there were several MX/New Breed tags but I didn't actually know we got a singles match between any of them, so this was a real treat. 

Bobby Eaton/Sting vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Cactus Jack WCW 10/26/91

ER: Fantastic Center Stage war that played with the same chaotic energy as all of their prior interactions. I loved how Bobby and Sting rushed to the ring after the heels' entrance. You never get to see fired up babyfaces charging into battle anymore, and how could fans not get behind two heroes who charge at their crazy foes with punches and kicks? Cactus was a real great Center Stage bumper, and here he takes a huge backdrop over the guardrail down a fire escape exit ramp, the kind of building location that you could tell he had been dying to incorporate into a big bump, and later he splats off the apron with a missed cannonball. Eaton is on fire throughout, but they're smart about how often he gets cut off and how quickly things turnaround, and those quick turnarounds really make a short match pack a wallop. His punches all look great, but those don't mean as much when Abdullah and Cactus are ripping at your face holes. There's a great spot where Abdullah blocks a Bobby monkey flip by holding in the corner (a monkey flip Bobby hit in their earlier singles match) and that's when the gouging starts. Abdullah has some incredibly nasty face work, really looked like he had two fingers dug into Bobby's right eye socket, ripped at his nose, Cactus comes in and rips at Eaton's mouth and kicks him in the head several times, and Bobby's selling and bumping for Abby's throat thrusts make them feel as deadly as they look. Eaton and Abby are really great opponents and all time legends, but that earlier singles and this tag are most of the available interactions we have between them. There is a Lethal Lottery Starrcade tag a month later, and that's it. We have been gifted with cool wrestling handhelds, but it's probably too much to ask for their two house show singles, or the holy grail of Bobby/Abby teaming up vs. Dustin/Windham. This tag and their singles match a month prior accomplish a ton of story in under 9 minutes total, and it's a shame this didn't go on for months. 

PAS:  What a wild, chaotic and satisfying match this was. Eaton is amazing as a fired up southern babyface, you could see how great he would have been if he and Ricky Morton Freaky Friday'd in that tag feud (Morton would have made an amazing Eaton too). This really made me want to go and watch every WCWSN and Worldwide Abby and Cactus tag, they felt like such a whirlwind of violence, which was Abby's real pro wrestling superpower. Cactus was fucking nuts, he took four insane bumps in a five minute tv match, and also had a great punch out with Bobby, throwing great looking jabs only to get caught with the left hook. I loved the call back spot with Abby blocking the monkey flip. It is probably something only I and Eric noticed, because we happened to watch both matches within a week, but I love that they were smart enough to put it in there for the obsessives. 

Bobby Eaton/Arn Anderson vs. Steiner Brothers WCW 3/28/92

PAS: This was a house show match designed to showcase the Steiners and get the crowd excited to see them do their thing. We get a bunch of fun stooging Arn moments, Rick biting him in the butt, him diving into an outstretched foot, classic clown show Arn. For a guy who had such a rep as a serious killer, he was a great stooge. Bobby eats most of the big shots from the Steiners, taking a real reckless looking Frankensteiner and some of the big Rick overhand rights. I thought all of the business in this match was great, but I wish we had gotten a longer heel on top section. It really only lasted about 90 seconds (although it did have Bobby land his incredible looking top rope knee drop) and you need to let it simmer a bit more than that to make the hot tag pop. Still. this was a great opportunity to see amazing performers, perform. 

ER: This was like the Steiners working a 90/10 match against Well Dunn, with Eaton and Arn as the world's greatest Well Dunn. Dangerous Alliance doesn't get a single piece of offense until about 8 minutes in, when Eaton lands a right hand on Rick that then gets him immediately clobbered. A huge chunk of this is Arn stooging around for the Steiners with stumbling clownshoe mannerisms, great Bugs Bunny shit like outsmarting your opponent and then turning around to find that you did not, in fact, outsmart your opponent. Eaton and Arn take several armdrags and hiptosses and hard Rick door knock right hands while Madusa does a great job on the floor running around and trying to get her boys to focus. Arn's bumping is so great here, even his silly spots that don't quite make sense end with whip crack bumps, like him boot after questionably attempting his axe handle to a downed Dogface. Eaton is great at taking dangerous Steiner offense (like Scott's Frankensteiner at the finish) but I LOVED a sequence he had with Rick. We already had the cool unexpected layout of Bobby being the aggressive guy on offense and Arn being more of the bumper, but Eaton ups it with this: He goes for a slingshot suplex on Rick, and on the bounce Rick shifts his weight and lands behind Bobby in a reverse waistlock. Eaton holds the ropes to buck Steiner off and block the O'Connor roll, only to turn around and get clotheslined to the floor before even knowing what's happening to him. Gorgeous sequence that looked naturally executed and not like a guy just playing reversals wrestling. 

Read more!

RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 1

It has been a rough couple of weeks for wrestling deaths, and the great Bobby Eaton had a great career and great life. There is so much tremendous footage available, so we are going to be doing several posts over the next week.

Bobby Eaton vs. Koko Ware CWA 12/6/80

MD: I think this was actually December 1980, deep into the year without Lawler, which is a time in Memphis I always have a lot of fondness for, just due to the outlandishness of having guys like Ellering and Eaton king. This is pure Memphis, as Valiant's out to destroy poor Koko's TV (again; he's de facto lead heel having just insulted Tommy Rich's mother) and Koko can't do anything about it since he has to fight for his life against King Eaton. He would have been an underdog in any situation, but he's got extra fire and extra anger as the TV gets destroyed by the announce position almost immediately, and it's up to Eaton to bully him and lean on him and really keep the offense going in order to keep Koko down. The containment works exactly as intended and when Koko ducks a shot and starts to fire back the studio goes nuts building to a bigger prize when Koko actually gets his hands on Hart. If I have my timing right on this, they were in the midst of Tojo/Valiant vs Rich/Koko main events with Eaton vs Tony Charles in the mid card and this was a great example of entertaining TV that served a lot of purposes and gave the fans a legitimate thrill and pop despite being entirely inconclusive and setting up the live shows to come. Exactly what studio wrestling should be and Eaton played his part perfectly. 

PAS: These two formed a legendary but under footaged tag team a couple of years after this match, and it was cool to watch them work a studio fight. One thing that really struck me about this match was Eaton's athletic explosiveness. Bobby Eaton didn't look like an elite athlete, but man was his motor high and his attacks kinetic. Just the speed and force he hit a simple elbow drop, just great. Fun business with Handsome Jimmy smashing the big ass 1980's vacuum tube TV too.

ER: 21 year old Bobby Eaton is a treat. He's like an athletic brother of Francis in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, making chubby faced sneers while working a long mid-match headlock. But the 21 year old also hit really hard shoulderblocks and threw his headlock punches with a confident sass. Koko plays this like kind of a cooler black Bob Backlund, sticking his butt out to sell Eaton's already hot punches. Drop downs and leap frogs are quick and honest, and Eaton hits one of the most gorgeous highlight reel elbowdrops. He runs off the ropes and leaps from the three point line, landing perfectly horizontal with his elbow across Koko's collarbones. Jimmy Hart is an incredible manager and not only was his voice great from ringside, but his physical involvement at the finish was really tough stuff. Hart had a feel of a guy getting into a public fight and immediately getting in over his head, like a too tough talking small town pharmacist. 10 minutes of Memphis stacks up consistently with the best wrestling ever. 

Bobby Eaton vs. Abdullah The Butcher WCW 9/28/91

PAS: This was an incredible four minutes. Abby jumps Eaton before the bell while he is hugging some kids and smashes him with a kendo stick, posts him, throws him into chairs and lights him up with chair shots. They brawl to the back, and right when you think this is 90 seconds, they pop back out from the curtain with Eaton pasting Abby with those right hands, he tees off with a chair on Abby, and looks like he is going to finish him off with an Alabama Jam until Catcus runs out and jumps him. Eaton gets thrown off the ring apron into the guard rail, and gets double teamed until Rick Steiner runs out for the save. Totally wild stuff, with Eaton almost working as a Steve Austin babyface. Loved it. 

ER: Here's a great match to show someone who would be interested in seeing in how much can be accomplished in pro wrestling in just 4 minutes. This hardly ever gets to be a real match, the bells rings before 4 minutes have even passed, and yet I guarantee every fan in attendance went home talking about this match. Abdullah jumps Eaton during his entrance and really beats him, including throwing him like a comic book villain through some chairs, then beating him down on the floor with a chair. He completely overwhelms Eaton, kicking his ass back through the curtains. Magic happens once they cross that curtain threshold, as Eaton comes out firing, punching Abby back to ringside and runs halfway around the ring to find his own damn chair. You get a real joyous bloodlust crowd reaction when Eaton charges back with his chair, and he absolutely pastes Abby with 4 or 5 chairshots that looked as violent as any Attitude era shots. Cactus runs in when Abby gets in too much trouble, and he rocket launches Eaton off the apron ribs first into the guardrail. This was incredibly entertaining, Abby looked humongous and dangerous, Eaton looked like the kind of babyface everyone would want to root for, Rick Steiner looked like a fearless top babyface. It was the best of everything. 

Bad Attitude (Bobby Eaton/Steve Keirn) vs. Ricky Steamboat/Arn Anderson WCW 5/1/94

MD: There's a moment midway through this match, just after the heels took over with a blind switch, where Eaton hits an elbow drop off the top rope on Anderson. It lands well and looks impactful, because of course it does, but afterwards, Eaton does something odd. He stumbles off to the side and bounces off the second rope before he recovers to keep the beating going. You're left wondering why he made that specific decision. Was it to sell the beating he had taken so far? Was it to get over the damage that he was willing to do to himself and how dangerous and powerful the elbow drop was? Was it to justify with a move so back, even so early in the beatdown, didn't immediately put Anderson away. I don't know. It could have meant any of that or all of it, but fifty other wrestlers doing an elbow off the top in that moment wouldn't have done it. Eaton did and it added to the match because it felt totally natural and it felt meaningful. It made everything that was going on somehow more tangible and real; it wasn't rote and you didn't expect it and it made you wonder, but in a way that drew you more into the match instead of taking you out of it. That's what Bobby Eaton did. 

If it was to sell the early beating he took, that would have certainly been warranted, because he fit a lot of pain and stooging into a three minute period, bumping up and over the rail, including a press from Anderson off the apron into it. None of the bumps were particularly huge but he sold them in such a skittish, almost tragic way that they meant far more than far bigger ones than most others would take. We're eulogizing Bobby here, for good reason, but a quick note on Arn: he always says he wasn't a great babyface because he didn't have "tools," and here I think tools are shorthand for dropkicks and the sort. He always had the makings for a standing tall Bill Watts/Dusty Rhodes style babyface though and that's fully at play here. He had amazing timing on hope spots (which makes sense as he was always so good at his cutoffs) and could garner sympathy as he dragged himself around the ring during a beating, and when you had great strikes and a lightning fast KO move like the spinebuster, you didn't need to be throwing about flying back elbows. Though, of course, it helps when you're across the ring from someone like Bobby Eaton.

PAS: 1994 WCW is a bit of a blind spot for me, I don't really remember seeing very many Bad Attitude matches before, but this "pals of Stan Lane" version of the Fabs is really great. Keirn had turned into a real creepy looking guy at this point, and had really good heel facial expressions. He hit this awesome looking flying forearm for his high spot and was great at the nuts and bolts parts of being a heel. I enjoyed babyface Arn, loved the Spinebuster as a babyface move here, and he and Steamboat make a really effective pair. Of course Bobby was electric, with big bumps and great looking small bumps, cool twists on formulas, and a real speedy energy for a guy who was also great at going slow. 

ER: Bad Attitude were a really great proto Southern Comfort, with a wild eyed Keirn sporting a craziest era Billy Bob Thornton shaved head mullet as Eaton plays the more strait-laced southern pro. And you get to see these complementary souther pros take apart a FIP Arn for 8 minutes, and it's great. Eaton takes some big leaps, getting rocket launched by Arn from the apron to the guardrail, and later landing a perfect top rope elbowdrop on Arn. He and Keirn cut Arn off from Steamboat really effectively, with Keirn coming off like a cool closed fist punching tough guy and Eaton knowing exactly how to play all the timing spots, when to distract Steamboat, when to direct Arn back into the wrong corner. Steamboat's hot tag is really the only down part of the match, with Steamboat coming in with lesser Kofi Kingston offense, karate chops that are the weakest looking strikes in the match, and a standing splash that's pulled so much it's like a dad fake wrestling with his toddler. We only got half a year of Bad Attitude, but it was a real great combination of two legendary tag wrestlers who gelled immediately. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday: NWA GREAT AMERICAN BASH TOUR 7/10/87!!

Misty Blue vs. Kat Laroux 

PAS: Surprisingly fiery 3 minute women's match. Laroux comes in with a crutch (fishing rod?) and starts pounding on Blue with it. That sets the tone and it ends up being a nasty little brawl. Blue finishes her off with a superfly splash which is a big move in 1987, and then wears her out with the same crutch.

Chris Adams/Sting vs. Barbarian/Thunderfoot #1

PAS: Weird tag, as you have a bunch of biggish name and then Thunderfoot #1. The sections where the Barbarian was in with either Sting or Adams was pretty cool, and then you had the parts with Thunderfoot. Barbarian vs. Sting was an especially neat match up, I would have liked to have seen that be a feud at some point. Barbarian has to be one of the most underused wrestlers of the 80s and 90s.

Italian Stallion vs. Black Bart

PAS: This was another fun short match. Stallion was really good at what he did, undercard dancing babyface who is going to put up a fight. Bart isn't a guy I normally have a ton of time for, but he was good here too, nice clothesline, bumped well on a monkey flip and the second rope legdrop in a heck of a finisher.

Buddy Roberts vs. Jerry Jackson 

PAS: I am not sure who Jerry Jackson was, he had the feel of WCW's Tom Magee, a roided up guy who they put in with a veteran hand to see what they could do with him. The answer here was not much, there is a reason we never heard of this guy, he was really tentative with his movement, there is a point where he triple clutches before trying a knee drop, and the stuff he hit looked really bad. Magee at least had some highspots, this guy didn't even have that. Roberts is going to do his thing, he is as professional a guy as it gets, but nothing was going to be salvaged here.

MD: I really don't have a lot to say about the undercard. The best thing was the 3 minute Laroux vs Misty Blue sprint. The Sting/Adams tag had the two of them very over in the entrances and at the finish but not during the body of the match itself. I liked Barbarian skulking around the ring weirdly at the start and the clash of the titans opening bit with him and Sting was good but it suffered from too many tags later in the card so the couldn't give it heat. Plus Thunderfoot had no credibility. Stallion vs Bart was fine but I would have rather seen them added to the Sting tag to make it a six man, maybe? I don't know what the Buddy Roberts match was about. He gave way too much if he was the face there. 

Lightning Express vs. Rick Steiner/Eddie Gilbert

PAS: Fun if kind of oddly paced match. The Express take about 75% of it, with a short face in peril section which is mostly a Rick Steiner bearhug. Steiner does have a really nice lookin bearhug though, that is a rawbone strong dude to be squeezing your ribs. Quick hot tag and a finish. Felt like it needed a couple more minutes to really work, but Gilbert is a fun bumper and I enjoy Rick Steiner.

MD: This felt more like a TV match than a house show match. It really didn't have any room to breathe. It was a good match of its kind though. Eddie was maybe a bit too over in front of this crowd. He worked like a competent manager more than anything else, which made Steiner's athletic strongman work seemed all the more potent. I liked how they went the extra mile on the transition: Gilbert drew Armstrong out of his corner which distracted the ref and let Gilbert catch Horner with a knee from the outside coming off the ropes. If they did that spot today (EDIT: Or you know, elsewhere on the card in a match with less thought), they'd ignore the ref distraction and just let the knee happen in plain sight. Most of the heat was a Steiner bear hug with no real hope spots, so there wasn't much there, but the finish was nice and chaotic, if pared down like everything else.


Big Bubba Rogers vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: Really enjoyable 4 minute match that felt like it could have been a taping dark match main event and the fans wouldn't complain too much. You got all of the hoopla of Garvin getting his entrance, super over as a face. Bubba coming out to the theme from Peter Gunn was so perfect. WWE should have licensed that for his 99 heel run. The match was basically two minutes of Garvin throwing these great punches up at Bubba, Bubba cutting him off, Garvin getting some low blows, Bubba cutting him off, and then after Garvin's last comeback, going into a BS DQ finish that you knew was coming. It was obvious by this point just how much Bubba got it, just in the way he paced things and how he would really milk the selling/bumping on the low blows, etc.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, super babyface Garvin isn't someone I have seen a ton of, but man he was great. Loved the double strap drop on the suspenders and the energy he had. Bubba had to be 70 pounds heavier then he was during his Bossman days and he really used that girth menacingly, but still had really surprising agility.


Michael Hayes/Terry Gordy vs. MOD Squad 

MD: The first half of this didn't even feel like wrestlers going up against broomsticks. It felt like wrestlers working with the crowd with no opponents at all. Some of that was the handheld cropping which would cut out the Mods entirely. A lot of it was just Hayes (and to a lesser degree Gordy) hamming it up. When the Mods had a chance, they stooged and pinballed valiantly, but they almost didn't have to and this would have been exactly the same. Amusingly, they used the same knee to the back transition but they did it right in front of the ref. The back half of the match was actually a match, with the Mods looking fine in control and Hayes working well from underneath and really engaging the crowd. Amusingly, when you watch a whole card like this, it wasn't just the second knee to the back transition but the third "heel goes to the top" transition so far. But this was a perfectly fine look at the 87 babyface Freebirds doing their thing in front of a less familiar crowd.


Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Dick Murdoch 

PAS: This was unsurprisingly excellent. Both guys come in with casts on their arms, so it is a battle of who can wreck the other guys arm the most. Williams does this really cool almost torture rack armbar where he hangs Murdoch over Dr. Death's back by his arm. Eddie Gilbert is at ringside for Murdoch and keeps cheap shotting Williams and allowing Murdoch to hit his arm with a cane. We had some great Murdoch stooging where Williams punched him, Murdoch fell into his arms, and Williams propped him up to punch him again. Finish was really cool too with Murdoch flying off the top rope directly into a Williams elbow, felt like a Misawa finish. I really liked how this built from a body part match into a bomb fest. A real hidden gem.

MD: The injury angle where Murdoch took out Doc's arm was in May. The TV match with Doc's comeback was in June. This was July and felt like a more refined version of the TV match that had less color and lower stakes. Doc had a cast that he wasn't supposed to use but that played into the finish. He was as dynamic as you'd expect, both in the way he worked over Murdoch's arm early in in his comeback attempts (even just trying to dart around the ring on his knees to get Murdoch after the initial shot to his arm). The counterpoint was that the early shine armwork was all sorts of loose and weird and nothing actually looked like it ought to hurt, but he was so enthusiastic and Murdoch sold so big that no one was really going to care. You get house show Murdoch in the stretch, which wasn't at all lazy, but was ridiculously over the top in the stooging about. But it's not 1985 or 1995 or whatever. It's 2020 and we're all stuck in our houses and stooging Dick Murdoch is the joy we all need.

Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton/Stan Lane) vs. Ron Garvin/Barry Windham

PAS: This incarnation of the MX was such a fun act, you had dancing Kung Fu Stan Lane, the always amazing Bobby Eaton, Cornette heat seeking on the outside and Big Bubba standing around looking menacing. Windham I though was kind of just there, but Garvin was a blast. He is a guy with some big exciting spots, and he knows how to time his headscissors or big punch for the maximum pop. I think I like the Lane MX more then the Condrey MX, Lane is such an amusing dipshit, his little dancing or strip mall karate adds so much character to the match. I loved him squaring up against Garvin's boxing stance, only to let discretion be the better part of valor, and bailing out.

MD: The difference between this match and comparable WWF Heel-in-peril matches from the same time is how many tricks they pull out. It's not just endless armwork control. It's one elaborate spot after the next and one gimmick after the next. They'll do a blind tag where Barry will get out of the way and Stan will have to leapfrog his own partner only to walk into a slam. Eaton will lose his pants and work for half a minute before realizing it. Bubba will get involved as part of the heel miscommunication that almost brought them to blows (the second of such spots; I'm surprised they didn't do one with Cornette too). Bobby will have the advantage over Garvin for a second but he'll come right back with a great headscissors takeover. When Stan finally takes over (and that takes about three steps, too - a missed elbow drop, a superkick to the gut, and Barry catching Stan's foot but Stan getting him with the other one), the Midnights start dancing victoriously. After all of that, they really needed another minute or two on top though. I love that Barry, even at his size, could still believably go through a smaller guys legs for the hot tag. He was like Dustin in that he could hide his height when he had to work from beneath. Garvin had the instinctive timing of a folk hero. He got more mileage out of pulling Eaton's pants down than most people would get with three minutes of elaborate rope running spots. For all of his eventual flaws, Hebner's timing and attitude in finding the hat in the middle of the ring really added something to the finish. Plus, the last person I was expecting to see during this match was Pat Roach! I'll take a short cut in the match for him.


Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard/Ric Flair/Lex Luger vs. The Road Warriors/Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff

PAS: What a delight this match was. Watching this you really see the charisma which is missing in today's wrestling. Is there anyone even as charismatic as Nikita in the WWE? Much less someone like Ric Flair or Dusty Rhodes. This match was all fireworks, big moments of the heels bumping, including Tully and Flair feeding into Animal press slams, and Flair taking an atmospheric high backdrop. There is a moment where Dusty tags in and he elbow smashes all four guys at once, so much fun to watch Dusty shuck, jive and jiggle. We get a couple of moments of heat on the faces, which leads to a couple of crazy hot tags. The crowd is on their feet for the entire match and it was really easy to get into the swing of things. Such a thrill to watch.

MD: Just an iconic match, with a hot crowd, where every interaction felt larger than life. The early image of the Horsemen on the turnbuckles and the faces standing tall in their corner will stick with me. Dusty in a circle with the heels launching bionic elbows and double punches is something they could get away with on a house show, but it's also the purest distillation of Dusty possible and I think it elated everyone in a two mile radius. The spot where Arn backs Animal towards a neutral corner so Tully can run up the apron and dive up the top only to get caught and set up an Arn elbow drop is one of the best possible transitions to heel control I've seen in ages, even if they didn't actually use it as such. The big problem with heel-in-peril, by the way, is that it doesn't have the same value as face-in-peril. There it's all build and payoff. There's much less value in a payoff which is the heels taking over, so all the build gets sort of squandered. There's value in a shine in general but usually only so much. Animal becomes vulnerable with the very next spot as he takes a bump out of the ring off a missed clothesline and then gets slammed, but there was really no reason not to let Arn's elbow drop be the move that turned the tide instead. That's all I'm saying. I did like Animal working from underneath as he kept going for the tag but was swarmed at from every angle due to the sheer number of heels. The second bit of heat on dusty was good too and built to a hot tag for Nikita and a that finish was nice and chaotic. You got exactly what you wanted out of this one.

Read more!