Found Footage Friday: MIL~! GORDMAN~! KOLOFF VS KOLOFF~! GRINGOS LOCOS~! PANTHER~!

Mil Mascaras vs. Black Gordman (Mexican Death Match) Los Angeles 80s

MD: This is from Richard Land's last upload as well. We'll probably have at least one more week of the German footage after this, but we might break it up so we can focus on some things that aren't behind paywalls (even if it's worth paying). I'd never seen it or seen it listed anywhere. Gordman is listed as a 13 time Americas tag champion and winner of the 1974 Battle Royal which makes him feel like a bigger deal than he usually does when he pops up elsewhere in the early 80s. This is a Mexican Death match. The ref can't stop it. There must be a winner after a pin and a ten count.

They go back and forth for the most part, with the transitions generally based around low blows. Mil's stuff looks really good here, including some really solid jabs I don't associate him with, plus a nice bodyslam into a suplex type move, and just keeping the crowd up by slamming Gordman's head into things. Gordman eventually brings a chair in, misses, and gets clocked by Mil. Mil goes one step further and nails who we think to be Pete Collins (the guy who created the Monster in an infamous shlock gimmick that I can't find much about). Collins bleeds big off of the errant shot, putting it over well by staring off in fury as the blood runs down his face (refusing to wipe it off). After Mil and Gordman gnaw on each other a bit, Collins slips Gordman a chain. Mil gets it, clocks Gordman for the pin, clocks Collins while the count is going, and the fans go up as high as they can get for it all. Pretty classic, iconic stuff.

ER: My dad used to mention Black Gordman as a guy he used to see at the Cow Palace when he was a young man, and I remember reading a Meltzer bio about him and Great Goliath probably two decades ago, about how unassuming a star Gordman was. I haven't seen much footage of him (because we didn't have much Los Angeles or San Francisco) and while I know this is late in his career, I do love how unassuming he is. He is a man of my size but shorter, has next to no offense, no real look, and yet clearly knows exactly what to do opposite Mil Mascaras's bright glowing star. Mascaras looks so cool here, like when Eddie came back somehow leaner than ever while also being more muscular than ever. Laugh all you want about the sucked in stomach but what the fuck do you know about Johnny Weissmuller? Gordman had this athletically unathletic way of taking Mil's offense, like how he would get rammed into a turnbuckle differently than anyone I've ever seen, not recoiling at all, just splatting his face into it like the victim of a pie gag. But then when it's finally time to separate from the buckles he takes this beautiful bouncing rolling backward bump and comedic pratfall. The man has no offense and when it's finally time for him to take over, the zeal he puts into biting Mil's fingers is hilarious. A wrestler who finally has their chance to take control who chooses to just bite is a concept that no longer exists in wrestling, in the same way that it would be impossible for a guy who looked like Gordman to be a star. Mil's chain wrapped fistdrop is a cool ass way to earn a 10 count, dropped right into the button of Gordman's jaw. 

Ivan Koloff vs. Nikita Koloff (Chain Match) Peach State Wrestling 10/90

MD: Obviously another great vein of footage comes from the work done by Ben/goc/KrisP/ArmstrongAlley, whatever you want to call him. We rarely focus on the stuff he puts together and organizes because it's more episodic territory work and we tend to hone in on single matches with FFF. This is definitely a single match from a recent batch of Peach State he's been putting together. It's more found than new but it's gotten very little attention over the years.

Yes, this is a touch the corners chain match with most of the blood and guts coming post match as a Sheik and his minion come out to attack (heel) Ivan so (face) Nikita can make the save and they can presumably set up tag matches to come. That said, these two absolutely know how to work one of these to the fullest. That means they go for the corners (and get three) after each knockdown, generally leading to an almost immediate transition and repeating the formula, but there's also escalation in the offense.

That means things start out with punches and kicks, and they slowly work in the chain for punches and whip shots and comedic crotchings, before building to Nikita hitting quasi sickles with it wrapped around his arm. Very effective pacing overall. Finish has the ref take an errant shot and Ivan winning even though he missed a corner before everything breaks down post-match. The save is pretty endearing overall though and while I would prefer a big mauling and a big comeback as opposed to the constant stop-start of going for the corners, they were so good at these matches that they made things feel fairly dramatic nonetheless.

 

Eddy Guerrero/Love Machine Art Barr vs. Blue Panther/El Magnate Monterrey 1993

MD: I don't know if this is the best match we've gotten out of this channel, but it feels almost like the most surprising. You figure you're not going to get another Gringos Locos match and here we are. The alignments were weird here as we were post mask match and Eddy and Barr were definitely going in very hot at times but the ref was stopping them at other times and Panther and Magnate were technically rudos. Barr cut an impassioned pro Monterrey speech at the end as well. But on some level it didn't matter because animosity is animosity and this had a ton of it. That meant lots of Barr going after Panther's match and Eddy running interference. It meant a comeback where they were beating Barr into the seats. It meant a wild dive or two. And maybe most of all, it meant an absolutely crazy finish where Barr went for a Martinete playing on the apuestas match and Panther snuck in an upside-down foul. Great finish. This was better to just take in and enjoy because who knows if anything else quite like it will pop up.

ER: 1997 Eddie goes harder than almost any wrestler I've loved; a blow away great year where he returns from an injury fully formed into the most charismatic heel in wrestling. It was incredible. And you see him here in '93 and he looks good, the movement and impact are getting there. But he's nowhere near 1997 Eddie just like that Eddie was nowhere near 2003 Eddie. And you see Art Barr in 1993 and you see him bringing 1997 Eddie energy with this wild eyed flipped lid intensity that gives an edge to him as a tecnico. Tecnico Eddie never had any edge. Heel Eddie was a more polished and higher end of Art Barr's Gringo Loco rudo. Eddie was more athletic and had better comedic timing and better ring timing and had more impressive body control. As brilliant as it is - and 1997 Eddie really, really is - it's a juiced up version of 1993 Art Barr. Art Barr had this intensity as a tecnico that can only be pulled off naturally. Every part of Barr going after Panther was constantly ramped up, punches building to harder punches to dramatically unlacing a mask to being whipped into a violent tope. Panther ends this with a full armed shot to Love Machine's balls to stop a martinete, a surprise new note in a truly great feud. 

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Found Footage Friday: TSURUTA-GUN~! VS~! SUPER~! GENERATION~! ARMY~! BARR~! DANDY~! PANTHER~! CHARLES~! ESTRADA~! RAYO~! HERMANOS DINOMITA~!

Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Masa Fuchi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi NJPW 3/3/91 

MD: Oops, this one's on me guys, sorry. There was a big dump of handhelds that came into the community back in 2018 and it was a lot to parse through. Over the years, we've covered a lot here, and I'd had reached out to all the usual tape trading subjects from years past to see what was really new (albeit with little interest from them who have all moved on) but sometimes something I thought had already been out there actually wasn't. And this wasn't. So, as best as I can tell, it's going to be a brand new Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi match that almost none of you (if not absolutely none of you) have ever seen. And it holds up with some of the best stuff of this period, quite frankly.

The whole thing is good but it probably peaks in the first couple of minutes. The match starts with Kobashi and Fuchi on the mat for a minute, including Kobashi's rolling cradle. Kawada comes in. They'd heated up Kawada and Taue pretty fierce in January and it was still going strong here, so Taue wants in (and Jumbo wants him in), Kawada immediately tags back to Kobashi like a true heatseeker and Taue sneaks in a cheap shot onto Kawada on the apron the first chance he gets. The crowd has come to like Taue by this point but there are no good guys here, just pure animosity, as shown by Kawada rolling back in, ignoring the fact that Kobashi and starting a massive early-match brawl with Taue that everyone has to break up. It's a hell of a way to start a match.

After that it settles down into the beats you'd expect: more Taue vs. Kawada, Misawa eating a beatdown and coming back with the forearm, Kobashi with the superman house afire hot tag until Jumbo shuts him down, both sides getting and advantage and comebacks as the cycle through the pairings, until they finally isolate Kobashi and crush him on an outside table (or in this case, on a chair that they put on a table). The heat on Kobashi is great after they start on the leg, with a Jumbo elevated half cab, a Fuchi STF, and a Taue Scorpion Deathlock, the fans chanting "Kobashi" the whole time. When he's finally able to get a hot tag of his own, there's this cool bit of stuttering alternating structure where they start on Taue only to cycle back to Kobashi (after a rocket launcher off the top to the floor) only for Fuchi to clip his leg out illegally back in the ring, only to do another comeback and cycle back to Taue. This all leads to the sort of high octane, extended finishing stretch you'd expect, including, maybe, the first time they do the combo Jumbo/Taue belly to back/top rope driving clothesline. Put simply, if this is something you like, and this feud is as universally liked as anything I can think of, there's a hell of a lot to like here.

ER: I was saving this one for my Saturday morning. Waking up, making some coffee, settling down to watch an unseen All Japan trios classic, and baby it was everything. This was an untaped Korakuen main event smack dab in the middle of a tour and these guys go so hard that any reasonable person would think this was an end of tour big show main. Everybody goes hard in this and the dynamics are incredible. 1991 Jumbo was my favorite Jumbo, Kawada and Taue fucking hate each other and are at each other's throats the whole match, Misawa was incredibly fast and aggressive and already knew how to carry himself as a superstar, every single person still had a vendetta against Kobashi's knees, it's all incredible. There isn't a single lull in the action at any point, it's all go go go with quick tags and constant oneupmanship. 

The way Tsuruta-Gun went after Kobashi's knees it's a damn miracle the man made it nearly a decade before the knee surgeries started piling up. They're all real dickheads about it, but the best is when Fuchi runs in with a dropkick right to the knee pit...or was it when Jumbo buckled it with a mule kick to the ACL...or was it when Jumbo was holding Kobashi damn vertically in a single leg crab? A real Dickhead's Choice. Taue threw some of the hardest clotheslines of his career, really shutting down some bullshit, and I flipped my lid when he leveled Misawa with a tope suicida after Misawa had leapt off the apron with an elbow into Jumbo's jaw. I don't think I've ever seen Kobashi get thrown with a Rocket Launcher to the floor, just one other thing that's nuts to see on an untaped house show. It's cool that Misawa was a better kicker than Kawada in 1991. Kawada had the same kick routine here that he would continue to hone and improve as the decade went on, but the variety and impact of Misawa's kicks made this look like his peak attack level, setting everything up with kicks and then sealing the deal with elbows. Jumbo's kitchen sink knees looked organ-rearranging, and he threw Misawa with a bodyslam that looked and sounded so painful that all 2,100 people in Korakuen made the exact same pinched face "oooooooooof" reaction. Six legends bringing real emotion and high energy and hate-filled stiffness for 30 minutes in my favorite wrestling style of all time? It's all I wanted. 

Love Machine/El Dandy/Panterita del Ring vs. Blue Panther/Emilio Charles Jr./Jerry Estrada CMLL  5/3/92?

MD: Some great stuff in here even though it was a twenty minute video that went more like fifteen instead of the thirty that went twenty-two and gave us the pairings that I really wanted. Obviously it was a perfect rudo side. My experience with Panther and Love Machine is more the mask match and what followed elsewhere, so it surprised me that Barr was more over with the crowd. The announcers noted that the dynamic had been different in Mexico City for the mask match and tried to explain it.

This had an ambush/comeback/beatdown/comeback sort of structure which was fitting a lot into the time and it never quite settled down. We got glimpses of great things though, Panther running from a fiery Love Machine, Dandy's awesome, awesome cracking punch and the not equal but still great and very different thudding punches of Charles and Estrada. When Barr finally got his hands on Panther, he was really able to tear into him (and tear off the mask). Estrada hit the usual ridiculous dive into the crowd. The ref was the same one we've been seeing who was very hard on the tecnicos and missed the cheating. Charles and Panterita really only got to pair up after the dives and that looked fine, with Charles faking a foul (he'd previously done one of his own). Post match, when Panterita was beside himself at the unfair loss, Estrada walked right over and yanked his mask off hilariously. I wish it had a little more to it but you can't fault any of the action here.

ER: I love that this was the standard for a throwaway weekly trios match in 1992. This adds a new layer to the Blue Panther/Love Machine feud and I don't think I've ever heard a weekly crowd respond so positively to Love Machine before this. Blue Panther as a cheapshot artist who can also wrench you on the mat was probably my favorite era of Panther (even those I do love old man tecnico Panther) but it was eye opening seeing how big the tecnico reactions were any time Love Machine started to wail on Panther, culminating in a tremendous tope suicida that flattens a few people in the front row. Dandy and Estrada worked magic any time they crossed paths, but somehow Panther and Love Machine outpunched them here. I wish we could have seen more Panterita Del Ring. The man worked differently as Safari and then evolved into Ephesto, but as Panterita he could really cut loose and we only got a little taste of that here, as he was the clear 6th banana of the match, and Estrada's perfect unmasking of him after the match only made that status more concrete. This was the perfect kind of unearthed lucha match to just devour like junk food. 

Rayo de Jalisco Jr/Mascara Sagrada/Black Magic vs. Los Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000, Universo 2000) CMLL 5/17/92

MD: A weird moment in time as a chunk of these guys were main eventing the AAA debut show right around (maybe even two days before) this match. This immediately followed a tribute to Rene Guajuardo, who, among all of his other accolades had trained and promoted in this area, and had just passed away. The match itself made me wish for the tecnicos from the last match.

When they got to the beatdown in the segunda and the tercera comeback that followed, it was pretty good. You can count on the Dinamitas to beat people around the ring and Cien Caras to be a charismatic ass about it. That played into the comeback as well where Rayo could play the other half of that song well enough. The primera exchanges and the crowd-pleasing spots in the end to led up to the foul on Rayo and the DQ, though? Not so great. Again, you can count on the rudos here to get some good shots in (like Cien Caras' hopping knee to the gut) and there was one fairly decent Mascara Ano 2000 and Mascara Sagrada exchange. Black Magic looked best on the tecnico side, charging into things and asserting himself. This late in the game and after all of the animosity of the beatdown and coemback, I wasn't really feeling the multiple headlocks/la estrella/flip-flop submissions like I might have otherwise. Maybe it really was time for the change that was coming. Maybe it was just that some of these guys were focused on the next thing.

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New Footage Friday: Beau James, Frank Parker, Cactus, Kawada, Juicer!

Cactus Jack vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 3/31/91

MD: 1991 Foley was the most game wrestler ever. Yes, he hit the plunge. Yes, he spent a good portion of the match running into Kawada's strikes. It got a bit too chinlocky in the middle, which isn't a huge issue but the nature of a HH is that you can't really get in on the action and see them work it. I think he would have been an amazing Lawler opponent at this point and it really shows why he was a great Sting opponent the next year. He did feel somewhat plugged into an American formula though, which didn't completely work in this setting and with this opponent.

ER: Well, we now have tape of both times Kawada and Foley squared off, and neither one of them are very good. It's pretty unfathomable to watch this match with hindsight and think "That bad-bodied guy who can't throw a good looking clubbing forearm will have finished a Hall of Fame career in less than a decade". Completely incomprehensible. Imagine these two matching up in 94-96. That said, even though Foley hasn't looked great in the available footage from his lone AJ tour, I'd still be interested in seeing every singles match he had on the tour, especially the Taue and Ogawa matches. So yeah, Cactus threw a lot of iffy forearms that looked like he was holding back, and locked in a couple different long chinlocks, one barely a minute into the match. Brutal. As a bonus to these long, do-nothing chinlocks, they had their backs to our thankless director, meaning we just saw a minute plus of Jack's melty body leaning on Kawada. About 1/3 of this match was spent lying in those chinlocks, so thank god Kawada had no problem kicking Jack's ass whenever they were on their feet. Kawada fired off 3 great sidekicks with Jack on the ropes, a couple nice spinning heel kicks, and an awesome lariat to the back of Jack's head. Jack hits the elbow off the apron, and takes a bonkers bump into the crowd off a reversed Irish whip, really throwing himself over the guardrail with a cannonball. This felt like a very odd mismatch, but that was probably also its best feature. You take out the few minutes of lying around, and make this a 4 minute match with Kawada kicking Jack around the ring while Jack stumbles and flies into the crowd? I'd watch it again with friends.

The Latin Fury vs. Juicer WWF 1/8/92

MD: There are two sorts of tryout matches, the one where they barely do anything and the one where they do way too much. This was probably the latter but in this case, who cares, because it worked. I'm really curious what the hell Barr was doing there. He was fully in the Juicer gimmick with a shirt in support of Pee Wee Herman which is the most non-1992 WWF thing I've ever seen. Konnan in 92 had a lot going for him. All the pieces never really come together but he can do a bunch of stuff relative to later in his career, has charisma (at least enough to get two clap alongs with him), and a decent enough look. They could have gone with him (and not just as Max Moon #1 or what not). He could have teamed with El Matador against Money, Inc. or gotten beaten up by Borga a year later? Something. Anyway, the most important thing was how thoroughly the TV taping crowd was into this by the end for two guys that weren't big TV stars. You rarely see that and it definitely built and was because of what both guys were bringing to the table, Konnan's clunky plethora of stuff and Barr's feeding for him and general jerk attitude

ER: This was a bunch of fun, and I'm not sure many other people could have gotten more out of Konnan in this situation. Fully agree with Matt here that Juicer did NOT look like a guy wrestling in WWF in 1992. I bet there were hundreds of camcorder-shot home movies of people getting themselves ready to go to a KISS concert or a Raiders game, and every one of those people had better looking face paint that Art Barr. His face paint has a real shot on video regional slasher movie vibe to it, helped in no small part by face paint over a bad mustache and a mullet that would get him free access to any Molly Hatchet show (and by free access I mean you could just walk right back to the loading area and nobody would question that you are a load guy for Hatchet). And that Pee Wee shirt? Save Pee Wee? This was well after the scandal, and after the public tides turned much more sympathetic. This was after his MTV appearance. Barr clearly had this shirt for a year and it's weird they would even allow him to wear it in a dark match. And yes, I'm wearing my Free Winona shirt as I type this, but I really don't see why that matters. These Challenge tapings must have been absolutely brutal to sit through. Imagine all the bored as hell parents that got dragged to these by their kids, and had to sit through a few hours of 2 minute squash matches. And then you had this weird little gem from two unknowns, both with excellent fringe on their tights, both with bad hair, and Barr stooges his way magnificently through the whole thing. Konnan was pretty spry here, even if 80% of this offense would have looked horrendous with someone lesser than Barr across from him, but Barr was great at both taking complicated juniors spots (always winding up in the right place, even when it looked like Konnan wouldn't be anywhere near that place), bumping big for arm drags, hamming it up while in submissions, throwing himself crotch first onto the top rope with glee after being tripped off the top, hitting some kind of big dive that the camera completely misses, just great timing and great bumbling heel charisma the whole way through, even lingering hilariously in the ring long after Konnan had left, wandering around the ring completely speechless at his own loss. Konnan tried a lot of things that probably would have made 10 year old me flip out, and the match ending springboard lariat works out far better than it should have (Konnan looked like he was going to land way short, but somehow leapt farther than expected, and again Barr knew exactly where to meet him). This was undoubtedly the best match the crowd saw the entire taping, and a great glimpse at Barr shining somewhere he just wouldn't have fit in.

Beau James vs. Frank Parker SSW 9/27/14

PAS: Old fashioned nasty Southern chain match. Parker had put James on the shelf with a back injury and attacked his family, and this was Beau James out for revenge. Nothing fancy here, just lots of nice looking punches with chains wrapped around fists. I especially liked James' wife coming out to check on him when he got punched in the spine. Both guys bled a bunch (Parker's blade work was a bit obvious, you could see every part of the magic trick), James is great at a Southern babyface comeback, and the post match where he breaks Parker's arm with the chain was especially nasty. SSW wasn't afraid to have some crimson flow and I am really looking forward to checking out more of their brawls.

MD: I haven't seen a match like this in a while and on those grounds, it was appreciated. The blood started almost from the get go. All of the offense was based around the chain. It peaked with James' comeback midmatch. There are plenty of different ways to "hulk up," and James' is the rarely seen dead-eyed fat guy perfected by babyface Crusher Blackwell. They went on for a bit after that, including some very, very unfortunate pantomime by Parker where he just couldn't get rid of his blade. Things sort of petered out after that. Also, it was pretty weird that they made such a big deal out of James' back at the beginning with his wife coming out, only to never go back to it. Past that, this was focused and effective and violent. I just thought it peaked midway through.

ER: This is my kind of thing, a couple of beefy 40 somethings hitting each other with a chain. I don't know if Beau James actually had back surgery (as his nephew was talking about on commentary), but he is shaped similarly to a couple people I've known who had to get back surgery, and wrestlers are crazy people who work hurt, so I bought into the back injury. The chain shots to start looked a little weak from both men, which is the catch-22 of a chain match: even shots that probably actually hurt, might not read. But once we got to Beau's back pain I was in, loved Misty running out and thought her reactions were great, loved ref Brian Logan (would not have recognized him as the former Damien in OVW) decking a potential run-in with a short right hand, and dug James getting his forehead worked over with a chain. Parker looked good working over Beau, both threw nice punches (this was to be expected with these two), and I'm not sure if I've seen a more obvious blade job than Parker's. Damn son, this was Abby at Heroes of Wrestling level bad. I have a feeling southern workers would shame backyarders for doing something like that, but we got that out of the way and Parker at least got good color, and was good at playing the heel who got busted open and then regretted everything he'd done once the tides turned. Finish worked real well too, as Parker climbed to the middle buckle but got yanked off by James, then James hit three nasty shots to Parker's chin with both hands and chain. In an era where we get MMA-style ref stoppage finishes, I bought into James' match ending shots. Post-match might have been the coolest part, as James wraps the chain around Parker's arm and the middle rope and keeps tightening and yanking the chain to break Parker's arm. I've never seen that, and THAT was some chain work that read well. I wanted more from this, but I also really enjoyed it. But I also can't imagine a world where I wouldn't enjoy fat guy punches.

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