Found Footage Friday: PRE-MUTA SCALE MUTO SCALE~! BUZZ~! NEW VS. NOW~! BIGELOW~! FUJINAMI~!

Buzz Sawyer vs. Keiji Muto NJPW 7/21/87

MD: This episode of NJPW TV wasn't in the usual sets over the years. It had fallen through the cracks. There's very, very little written about this match, for instance, and the match deserves to have a lot written about it. It's wild. I have some questions about this episode of TV actually. There are some hype pieces before the matches and I don't know if they were just clipped out of how I usually watched NJPW or if this was a different show but they are cool and of the times. Laser lights and noises as you see Buzz posing and stuff.

Muto was Space Lone Wolf here, coming out to Final Countdown. He was getting a push as the young guy in NOW but he really felt like an outlier here. His stuff was smoother and more theatrical than anyone else in the company. He didn't fit in against the UWF guys, for instance, but since he was the only guy like that, he stood out. Buzz, is, of course, way over the top here, funny faces, noises, whining, etc.

At first this is a normal match with Muto controlling the arm and Buzz hitting the floor and Muto hitting the handspring elbow in the corner. But then Buzz tosses Muto out and they end up sort of under the ring with Buzz biting him and obviously some big blading happens here, as they both comes up bloody. Buzz works the wound: headbutts, biting, a chairshot. Muto bites to break a hold and they slam each other's head into the mat. It's pretty glorious carnage by this point, exacerbated by Muto punching the wound in the corner and Buzz hitting a snap suplex on the floor. All the while, the blood masses all the more. Muto reverses a suplex. Buzz gets his power slam. Muto tries for a desperate roll up out of nowhere.

It builds and builds, but to what? It builds to Buzz getting knocked out of the ring. He staggers, stands, arms extended, welcoming, blood running down his face. I've never seen a man waiting for a dive quite like this. He invites it. He longs for it. He wants nothing more than for Muto to embrace his in this grisly bloodletting, for the two to become one there on the floor. He craves an escalation of the violence, an increase of the danger, for flesh to hit flesh and bone to crash against bone.

And Muto, Space Lone Wolf, a boy becoming a man before everyone's eyes, does not disappoint him. 

The match is shortly thereafter thrown out, a heap of bodies and blood, but what a ride while it happened.

ER: Buzz is no longer working as Mad Dog, here he is some kind of ill, demented, disease riddled dog. He's weepy, he's weird, he sometimes appears to be crying, he mainly appears to be unwell. It's a totally unique take on the unleashed monster gaijin. He's not out and swinging at a soul, he's like a rabid dog who goy sprayed by a skunk and he's just wandering around and sort of whimpering, effects of the rabies hitting his system hard. Every time the camera cuts to Muta in the ring, he's wearing an expression of concerned distrust, no clue what this diseased dog has in store.

As he works over Sawyer's arm, Sawyer howls and whimpers and you can see a version of this match that doesn't build to blood and stays Sawyer fighting through arm work and I can see an interesting match there...but it plays so much better as Muto using it as a way to restrain a large unpredictable animal before he breaks free from his restraints. I don't know if I've ever seen a scene like Buzz holding Muto on the floor of the gym for so long, biting at his head. It goes on long enough that it almost seems like the illusion is broken, as it always looks like a man holding a smaller man down solely for the purpose of gigging his head, but the longer it goes it dips into the wrestling illusion being broken and back into something Not Supposed To Be Happening. The more young boys swarm, the more it feels like this diseased animal had done something unpredictable even for him. When Muto comes up bloody, I admittedly expected there to be more, but I also don't think there are many instances of Muto bleeding before this. The truly shocking thing happens just after, when Muto gets his first chance to bite Buzz back, and it is truly disgusting. Muto digs the entirety of his full lower jaw of teeth into Sawyer's forehead, and when he pulls away Sawyer has so much dark crimson on his face and chest that I said aloud "Muto fucking bit him FOR REAL!?" 

Buzz Sawyer has this magical blood that behaves differently from any other bleeder I've seen. His blood is not free flowing. He tried several times, earlier in the match, to bust himself open by slamming his head into the railing, but he only ever got a stain. Now, cut open, his blood does not flow free but it flows in spurts, when attacked. I don't know if I've seen bleeding like this. He spurts blood after Muto bites him...then it stops. Until Muto rans him into the ringpost, and then a new batch gushes out all at once, repainting his body. It's fascinating. The whole things ends in a mess, Buzz staggering around to let everyone in the arena see the damage, Muto looking shell shocked. I love the use of Sawyer's signature bump, flying out backwards through the ropes from a dropkick, and I loved him simply standing up from the floor, arms raised. He flies through the ropes and rises from the depths like Michael Myers standing up after a shotgun blast, and Muto knows his only chance is to ignore rules and referees and just try to escape intact. 

Every new piece of Buzz Sawyer footage adds to his legacy, the type of person who we will likely never see in pro wrestling again. Shape, look, attitude, style. We're not getting any of that back. Celebrate this.  

 

Antonio Inoki/Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Masa Saito vs. Akira Maeda/Kengo Kimura/Nobuhiko Takada NJPW 7/21/87 

MD: This was right in the midst of the NOW vs NEW feud where instead of having, for instance, Choshu's Army come in and declare war on everyone, they positioned all the old guys (and Muto) against all the younger guys. Inoki, Fujiwara, and Saito were sort of the leaders of NOW. Maeda, Fujinami, and Choshu were the leaders of NEW. This meant that Inoki could be positioned against all of the other top stars and none of them could be positioned against each other. It was a real frustrating state of affairs that only lasted a couple of months even if it did make for at least a couple of fresh match ups. It also absolutely killed Kengo Kimura's momentum. He was one of the hottest acts of the year having turned on Fujinami (in a Choshu-esque way) at the start of the year and disappearing to "learn boxing". 

Regardless of how frustrating the overall feud was, just given the people involved here and the potential match-ups, this was going to be fun and heated. This wasn't a subtle feud either. The commentary more or less outright said as the NOW team came out that they were trying to protect their spots and they presented it as a battle between fathers and sons (or at least older and younger brothers).

We never got that satisfying Inoki vs Maeda singles match but it was always exciting to the crowds when they faced off in a setting like this. Even before getting the towel off, Inoki charged him here. But all of these match-ups were exciting. The fans wanted to see Fujiwara vs Takada after a year and a half of the two being on the same side. Saito vs Takada was fresh (and felt unlikely). Fujiwara vs Kimura was particularly chippy with Kimura using that boxing skill in the corner (and some slaps) and Fujiwara fighting out. And Inoki vs Maeda when they finally faced off? Well Inoki was a genius in framing it. He took a tag from Saito and time just stopped with a huge pop. Takada was in the ring and he saw Inoki poised to enter and tagged in Maeda, and the place went nuts. It was a minute of awesome scrapping with a rolling kick and the spin wheel kick and headbutts and a half hatch suplex and Inoki scrambling his way to an advantage and Maeda jamming it. Just what you'd want until Inoki made the tag.

But even that was okay because the tag was to Fujiwara so now the crowd got THAT match up. That's the way a match like this worked. Fujiwara did get swept under, and I've seen enough of these, that for him to be the one to take so much offense in the match and work from underneath, well, I knew the ending midway through this bit of heat. It was chaotic enough but he was going to get the armbar on out of nowhere, and he did. All of this did feel larger than life. The feud was a failure but not necessarily because the action wasn't good or fans didn't like specific match ups. It's just that it didn't give them everything they wanted most. 

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bam Bam Bigelow 7/21/87

MD: This is usually a solid match up, but maybe not as fun as Bigelow vs Choshu, for instance. They'd wrestle a notorious 3-match series in early 1989 which was about making Fujinami as champion look as dominant as possible as he was teaming with Inoki and Choshu, wherein he won all three matches. 

This was well before that. It's sub-five minutes but I think we get most of it. Bigelow (who came out with a chair threatening the crowd effectively) dominated to start, just clubbering and power moves. I wouldn't say that it was the best clubbering in the world, but it worked. Fujinami came back by ducking a clothesline and leapfrogging Bigelow but then he crashed into Shibata's dad who was reffing. I can only assume he was supposed to crash into him right after the leapfrog which would have been a great visual, but instead, he came up short and had to clothesline him by accident, which came off as pretty funny. Bigelow used this to get a chair and smack Fujinami. He went for a top rope splash with the chair (with Japanese letters on it) on Fujinami, but Fujinami rolled. I'm sure he was supposed to get all the way out of the way but instead he ended up tripping Bigelow on the way down, which was another great visual, this one made better by the miscue. 

If it went to a finish right after that, this would have actually been very effective and one of the better sub-five minute matches I've seen in a while. Instead, Fujinami threw an enziguiri but then Bigelow went out and eventually over the rail for the DQ instead. Ah well. 

ER: This was like going into an ice cream shop intending to buy a scoop, but getting enticed by the different flavors on display, getting a few different tasty samples on those little wooden spoons...and then you realize the samples scratched that sweet itch and you back out of buying a scoop, annoying every employee in the shop. It's over before it really begins, but contains several moments of intrigue, most of them from the young red singleted Bigelow. You expect a couple big bumps, and get them. Toward the end of the match he ocean crashes over the top to the floor off a dropkick, then takes a faster and even cooler version of that bump going over a guardrail. While I wasn't sure which type of big bumps we'd get, I was expecting them. The neatest things were the things I wasn't expecting. Bigelow had an almost fistdrop turned into a single hand choke. I've never seen Bam Bam do a fistdrop, and this was not intended to be one, but it very clearly was one, just with different intentions. Then a huge missed splash off the top, that turned into a much weirder and cooler and bizarre looking moment. Bigelow had set a chair over Fujinami before going up top, but Fujinami rolled out the way of the splash a bit late. What this wound up doing was causing a fluke log roll effect, where Bigelow was going to splash flat on the chair, but instead his ankles caught Fujinami mid-roll and it whipped Bigelow into a face plant on the chair. A much worse bump than was planned, but much cooler in an unintentional cool accident way. 

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Found Footage Friday: 1989 NJPW~!

2/8/89

George Takano vs. Hiro Saito

MD: Pretty solid match. Takano was being pushed more at the start of 89 (with his team with Super Strong Machine) than at any point since he dropped the Cobra gimmick. He looked good here in a singles against a very game opponent. He did take most of the match. Saito would try to get him in a hold and he had an interesting technical escape to everything (be it stepping through to set up a takedown or a headstand to get out of a headscissors). Saito had a nice escape or two of his own. Things really picked up down the stretch as they absolutely paintbrushed each other for thirty seconds. That led to a nearfall off of Saito's senton and Takano catching him out of nowhere with the spin wheel kick and then finishing him off with a suplex and top rope splash. You'll be glad to know they shook hands post-match.  

ER: This was good. Tight grappling, real force applied during submissions and lock ups and knuckle locks, real physics used in takedowns and near misses. Takano had some great stuff to steal, including a cool low kip up out of an armbar (going straight into leaning his weight down into Saito's legs to maneuver out) and a cool pendulum swing spinebuster takedown, shifting Saito's weight back and forth before slamming him. Saito's figure 4 headscissors is impossibly snug, and all of Takano's eventual escape looked well earned. Once he escapes he locks Saito into a disgusting leg-grapevined camel clutch that would have played as the finish. You know maybe someone shouldn't steal any of this Takano stuff as I don't know who would be able to apply it as well as he does. They work these holds until the 10 minute announcement and then get right up and go into the finishing stretch. I was getting used to these snug holds and suddenly we're getting suplexes, Takano going up for a high backdrop, Saito hitting his senton famously full weight. I think Takano is much more interesting working holds than he is doing actual running offense. All of his holds looked like he was stretching Saito, but his top rope splash finish looked like he was trying to avoid full contact at all costs. 

Bello Greco/Sergio El Hermoso vs. Hirokazu Hata/Naoki Sano

MD: When Hata and Sano came back from Mexico, they brought their sparring partners with them. There's a Fujiwara match with them that people should seek out. As best as I can tell, Greco was the real base and worker and Sergio was the flash and lead for the comedy. He kissed the announcer before the match and blew one to the ref, causing all sorts of havoc. Hata and Sano had some big climb up armdrags on Greco. And the kiss spot where Sano went flying the first time but Hata blocked it to tweak the nose/lips the second worked about as well as it could. Sano had a bit more style to what he was doing maybe, whereas Hata just played into what he was given more, but both looked good. Finish had Hata hit a dive to the floor off the top and Sano hit a German (but not able to hold the bridge) for the win. In context, a lot of these spots were repeated from the TV matches they were having, but they were all crowd-pleasers for the house show crowd.

ER: The exoticos' music is incredible. It's like someone doing a muted trumpet sound with their mouth doing a sexy Peter Gunn theme. They have a great act. You can tell it's a great act, because they got constant laughs for the full 14 minute runtime, while tons of wrestlers on this card couldn't buy a reaction. Matt Borne and Italian Stallion can't buy a single sound from the people of Sapporo, but they love every single thing Greco and Sergio do, with good cause. The fans love the silly rope running, they love the butt stuff (I wonder if Rick Rude ever saw Bello Greco and lifted an entire career of selling atomic drops), they love the accidents and the misdirection, just involved in every single movement both do. Their timing is great throughout, the absolute best bit being Greco running down the length of the apron to just miss Hata, running his own face into the turnbuckle. Sano looked like a guy clearly in the middle of his breakout year whenever he was in (his stepover armdrag early in the match was so fast and clean) and Hata looked like a guy who was not that, and I loved how they worked with the exotico tandem. They weren't guys being worked around, they were integrating nicely. I would have loved to see Greco and Sergio stick around longer than these few weeks of '89 and work with more opponents, see what the act could do in singles, but all the footage we have is so good in the way that I'm happy it never burnt out. 

Seiji Sakaguchi/Kengo Kimura vs. Matt Borne/Italian Stallion 

ER: This doesn't add up to anything big but has plenty of fun working parts. I have not seen much of Italian Stallion's 1989 New Japan run, and it's crazy how much time he spent there that year and only that year. Sakaguchi makes chopped liver out of him, swallowing him up whole and chaining judo throws while never letting go of his arm, which he caught when Stallion tried to throw one punch. One punch that doesn't land and Sakaguchi treats him like he's Seiji Sakaguchi fighting The Italian Stallion. Stallion isn't bad at all, but he is much better when he wrestles like a poor man's Matt Borne rather than his usual rich man's Joey Maggs. His dropkick hits like a truck and he throws Kimura with a cool belly to belly, but needs a better clothesline. 

I love how Matt Borne moves. He's just as unpredictable as Buzz Sawyer but keeps things more compact. He's a bulldog, goes hard after Sakaguchi and gets hit hard by the large man. I loved a double leg trip Kimura and Sakaguchi pulled on him, like they were actually trying to pull him apart like a wishbone. Borne really smothers Kimura whenever he's in with him, riding him on the mat and not letting him land anything until the finish. He even pulls some bullshit when the ref misses Sakaguchi's tag and Borne goes back to picking on Kimura, shutting down a hot tag. Crowd doesn't react in any way to his bombs away which is just cold. He eventually takes the pin when Kimura gets a piledriver, and I like how he sells the piledriver with confusion instead of neck pain. 

MD: Little bit of a weird one to me. Stallion (and Borne to a lesser degree) gave a bit to Kimura but mostly ate him up on the mat. Stallion would just roll around on top of him. As you can imagine, they'd give more for Sakaguchi though. Kimura did get the win with the leg lariat/pile driver combo so maybe he felt giving but it did seem like Stallion was going to assert himself as much as possible when given the chance (just not with one of the bosses). Maybe that's why he stayed around so much in 89? 

Super Strong Machine vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 

ER: This doesn't rise to levels of Fujiwara singles match greatness, but it is a Fujiwara singles match against one of my favorite New Japan 80s natives so it's obviously a great 12 minutes. Fujiwara is in house show antagonist mode and just trolls Strong Machine with annoying stuff all match. He breaks every lock up with a slap, in a way that's not meant to hurt but meant to rile up Machine into making mistakes. It's all mischievousness where he retains plausible deniability over being a troll but it's all there. Look at Machine finally make his first inroads and throw Fujiwara to the floor, only to see the insanely aggravating way Fujiwara casually walks back around the ring after hitting the floor. Fujiwara gets his head bounced off the turnbuckle bolt and just strolls away adjusting his trunks. I don't think there was a wink thrown to the crowd, but it was implied. Just a cool fucking guy catching eyes with a girl in a car while crossing the street. 

Things open up when Machine starts going after Fujiwara's taped up knee with an ankle lock, and you can tell it's getting to Fujiwara because he starts throwing backfists from his back into Machine's neck. Machine wisely maneuvers things into a single leg crab, much harder to throw backfists from that position. Fujiwara breaks free from it by fishhooking Strong Machine's mask with one hand and throwing punches with the other, gripping a handful of the bottom edge of his mask with his left while punching him straight in the jaw with his right. When he gets to his feet he throws half a dozen headbutts, still holding Machine by the mask, hopping on his bad knee while throwing them. There's a great moment where Machine fires up after Fujiwara kneels on his face, and demands Fujiwara punch him some more, like a man. Fujiwara happily obliges and buckles Strong Machine's legs. 

The finish sequence is hot as hell. Fujiwara catches a clothesline and puts his weight behind an armbar in one motion, but Machine rolls through, so Fujiwara tries to take him down again with a Fujiwara but Machine blocks it, so Fujiwara pulls an inside cradle. Fujiwara's greatest successes come from never wanting to finish a match a specific way, always willing to pivot to whatever might be available. 

MD:  Not top tier-Fujiwara, sure, but it was definitely chippy and snippy. They leaned on each other. Battering in the corner, etc. I'd say SSM had the advantage until he tried slamming Fujiwara's head into the post. Then he tried to stop the headbutts that would come (self aware in a very good way) but couldn't. He did pull Fujiwara out and post his leg and Fujiwara had to fight from underneath for a bit. Fujiwara came back with huge headbutts though and ultimately after two arm bar attempts (first rolled through) locked in a small package. Nice little self-aware bits in this, the sort of thing you'd be more likely to get from Super Strong Machine than a lot of his contemporaries.

Hiroshi Hase vs. Shiro Koshinaka

MD: This was really good. Super high on it. There's a rule for 1987-1989 NJPW Juniors matches: The best ones start with an immediate ambush/advantage, and Koshinaka got that, nailing Hase in the ropes on the first exchange and going after his taped knee. Lots of nasty little shots and bigger submissions. At one point he went for a suplex, and Hase's leg went out and his head just crushed into the mat. Koshinaka hit the butt butt, the top rope knee drop and even the power bomb. Then he shoved Hase out. The ref got in his face and that let Hase pull Shiro out to take over. 

I wouldn't have minded if Hase sold just a little more but I was generally ok with it. Most of his offense wasn't hefting Koshinaka up but slamming his head into the exposed post instead (the best kind of offense). Koshinaka bled. Hase stayed on the wound. The ref tried to stop him at one point and Hase pointed out that Shiro had been unsportsmanlike in going after his leg and this was warranted. 

Eventually he did hit the Northern Lights but couldn't keep the bridge given his leg. He ended up choking Koshinaka for the DQ, which is way better than it sounds on paper, trust me. Post match Hiro Saito came in and they beat on Koshinaka and anyone that tried to stop them. Honestly, as a finish, it's not something we saw much during this era in New Japan and it was grisly and effective for me. Really good match.  

ER: This was really good. There was a different Koshinaka/Hase match on the New Japan DVDVR 80s set that happened the next month, from 3/16/89. I was higher on that match than the consensus (I had it 25 spots higher than the final results) and I think this is the better match. Koshinaka goes after Hase's leg like a heel and works the first third of this match as Junior Heavyweight Tenryu. Hase's comeback goes on so much longer and is equally violent, so much so that it turns Koshinaka into a bigger babyface by virtue of Hase being such an asshole. Hase pays merely lip service to Koshinaka's knee work - had the knee come back in any meaningful way, instead of Hase occasionally shaking it out while otherwise not acknowledging - it would have been one of the best New Japan juniors matches of the late decade. Koshinaka throws sharp kicks at Hase's knee that do not look pulled, so much so that it seems absurd when Hase goes on offense for 10 straight minutes with no sign of slowing down. 

Until Hase just flipped the switch, his knee selling was great. There was this almost third wall breaking spot where Koshinaka went for a snap suplex and Hase couldn't make it over on his bad leg, so instead whips nose first into the mat in one of the more disgusting DDT bumps I've ever seen. It's such a fucked up looking bump that it looked like a blown spot or miscommunication. It hits this meta level of "Hase's leg is so bad that he can't take moves the way you all expect guys to take moves" and it was something that could have made this match legendary. But Hase messes that up to and actually treats the spot like a fuck up, not acknowledging the bump he took at all and kind of quickly getting to his feet. 

But he went so hard on Koshinaka that I think he overcame the lack of selling. I've never thought of Hase as a kicker, but he unleashes some hellish kicks on Koshinaka. At one point, Koshinaka on his knees, Hase is just kicking him right across the bridge of the nose and Koshinaka hangs in for more, so Hase kicks him in the back of the head. He's really merciless, and Koshinaka turns into this fired up screaming babyface while taking everything Hase brought. Hase's torso and legs wound up smeared with Koshinaka's blood and he looked like a deranged animal biting at Koshinaka's head. The DQ finish looked great as there really was nothing the referee could do to separate Hase's mouth from Koshinaka's head. That man looked like he was pulling with all his might to pull him off and it was not happening. I'm curious what the consensus would have been on this match. Enough DVDVR voters would have hated Hase's selling, but I think more would have loved the violence. 

Antonio Inoki/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Big Van Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow/Rip Morgan 

ER: A great house show main event that never quite settles into a structure but has the two biggest gaijin taking tons of big bumps for the freaking powerhouse native team. That's a star studded lineup and Vader/Bigelow treat them as size/power equals for long stretches. Bigelow takes a full flip for Riki's second lariat one minute in. Just a full backflip like he's Jeff Hardy. Fujinami isn't taking a flipping bump for Vader's clothesline, he's blocking it and getting a sick backslide instead. This is Riki's lariat though, so even Vader is taking a big leaping bump for it late in the match. Vader and Bigelow get rocked by suplexes and clotheslines all match, from all of them. Choshu even suplexes Vader in from the apron! Everybody was taking suplexes man.  

There isn't even really any hierarchy in this match, it's kind of strange. Going into it Rip Morgan feels like the most obvious Guy Taking Pin in Main possible but he's in there working big exchanges with Inoki and Choshu. He hits a kitchen sink knee to Choshu that Riki takes so well that it made my stomach hurt. Riki leans into his Scorpion Deathlock like he's applying it to Morgan as a shoot submission. Nobody felt like a bigger start than anyone else, it was just six stars working a main event that nobody outside of this sports center will ever see.

Bigelow was the one who worked this with joy. Everybody works with energy but Bam Bam was having fun. He's not a monster, he's the guy working with some color, a little whimsy. He shakes his fist out after punching Riki, bodyslams Inoki with force, breaks up a pin with a falling headbutt to Inoki's face. He's doing light axe handles off the top and throwing headbutts, but also looks like he's giving Vader ideas on how to wreak havoc. Vader had this amazing press slam hoist of Choshu, super impressive, made him look weightless. Bam Bam gets in the ring and directs Vader to throw Riki onto his knee in a gutbuster. It rules.  There's an awesome 1-2 where Bigelow breaks Inoki's octopus hold on Morgan by leveling him with a clothesline, and right when he hits it he gets wasted by a Riki lariat, great bookend to him getting flipped by one early. There are some little clips in this so we don't get a full feel for the finish, but this is six guys I loved watching run around each other. 

MD: 1989 starts with the Power Elite of Inoki/Choshu/Fujinami coming together against Vader and Bigelow. They do a bunch of these matches in January and the start of February, so it's a little overdone by this point, but the plus side is that they've been practicing and honing the match. That meant some spots like the Inoki kicking off out of the over the shoulder double team worked quite well. 

I really enjoyed the start of this one, with the heels ambushing and then Choshu ducking a Bigelow clothesline, hitting a lariat that just staggered him and then hitting the real one that Bigelow took a flip bump for (very rare for 89 in general and especially a guy Bigelow's size). In order to keep things fresh and prep for the Russians coming in, they had Rheingans join Vader/Bigelow as their American player/coach and he was at the margins of this one. 

This was fairly back and forth. You feel bad for Fujinami here. He's fine but he doesn't come off as the ace/champ when teaming with two of the most charismatic wrestlers ever. Vader was there to basically get control again. It boiled over (with a clip, and during that clip Inoki may have actually won it) to either the DQ or the post-match where heels controlled in the corner wouldn't stop double teaming and charging in. 

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Found Footage Friday: BATTLE OF THE BAM BAMS~! Los Cadetes Del Espacio~! MARTINELLI~! JARQUE~!

Tony Martinelli vs. Gregorio Jarque New Jersey 1959

MD: New Wrestling Films find. Jarque was from Spain and I imagine if he was in there against Tony Oliver in Barcelona around this time, we would have gotten something special but there wasn't a ton to see here. This was a Bill Stern reel entitled "Rasslin' Ref" and the match was pretty much built around the ref getting rolled on top of during pins and then jawing with Martinelli. Solid stuff but nothing spectacular and a pale imitation of what was happening (even the comedy work) in France at this time, obviously, but I liked the consistency of what they were trying to do at least. They had a nice bit of trading mares towards the end until the ref got crushed one last time and just called it a draw.

Terry Gordy vs. Bam Bam Bigelow TWA 1/27/90

MD: This was a third Battle of the Bam Bams that we didn't know was even filmed but here we are. They had a strong sense of just what they had here and made every lock up feel like a clash of the titans. I expect Terry Gordy in 1990 to bump around and create motion a lot more and he did but only when he was charging towards Bam Bam in order to knock him down, just that extra oomph. He worked a little bit bigger than he did elsewhere in the year to signify the titanic struggle for the crowd. Bam Bam met him equally, as he's another guy that you expect to move around a bit more, and I don't just mean the cartwheels. But they kept this grounded for the most part, selling every knockdown as a big deal and working up to the next piece of contact accordingly. Despite this video being almost twenty minutes with very little before or after the match, there were some annoying cuts that made it hard to tell how thing went from Point A to Point B but you definitely got the overall idea. They worked in a chair battle at the end which gave everything a nice crescendo before the inevitable non-finish. 

ER: This is really exciting for me. We finally got the best version we're ever going to get of the Battle of the Bam Bams. 1990 was the only pre-coma year they fought and thus was the best time for them to ever cross paths. The best possible Gordy/Bam Bam match would probably have been either 1993 or 1987, but we know those don't exist and this is the best it's going to get. Also this match was not at all what I expected. I did not expect these two behemoths to go into Philly and work a slow-paced (not in a bad way) minimalist heavyweight clash. It goes on a bit too long but there was weight behind everything they did, and what's wild is it went on so much longer. There was a "20 minutes have elapsed" call at the 12 minute mark of the video meaning the 2-3 cuts to that point meant 8 missing minutes of footage (depending on how much the ring announcer was kayfabing the time call). At 12 minutes in, the match was already feeling a little long, but I love the majesty of the two largest men lumbering through a minimalistic 28 minute match at Temple University, an unlikely great wrestling venue. I love this venue as a Wrestling Venue, with those steep bleachers climbing up so high I don't think we ever saw the top. Both men took some great bumps, spread out well through the long run time. 

I loved Gordy's counters to Bammer's kicks and enziguiris, catching his leg and making him hop around, shoving him off into off balance out of control stumbles. Gordy takes a big back bump through the ropes to the floor and Bam Bam saves his biggest for the end of the match when Gordy head of steams his way through him for a clothesline to the floor. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised that Gordy made more interesting bump choices than Bam Bam but I am. The match peaked when the two giants squared off with chairs. Bam Bam swung a chair around more compellingly than almost any wrestler I've ever seen, in a way I have never seen him do. Bigelow was like an expert sign spinner, decades before that job existed. Bam Bam swung his chair around like a balletic Leatherface, a dangerous visual spectacle of a spot done as well or better than the ECW chair duels that came nearly a decade later. What an awesome showdown at a very good American college. I love these two daring to work a 30 minute clash of the titans, sending larger than life magic to the back row of a wrestling venue I'd never known before but now adore. 

Super Astro/Ultraman Jr./Solar vs. Divulios Negros I + 2/Sergio Romo, Jr. Arena Solidaridad

MD: A handheld match. I'm sure someone knows the dates and whether this one is found or new but it's new to us and it was a lot of fun. Very much what you'd expect from the Space Cadets, but worked well and balanced even better. They did pairings and matwork to start, fed right into rudo clowning (Super Astro with his little jump, etc.) and the tecnicos taking the primera. Pretty solid rudo beatdown in the segunda with Romo hitting from odd angles and a nice triple team submission and corner succession attacks. Plus some working over the mask. They had swagger. The comeback in the tercera came on a missed charge the tecnicos got their revenge, did some more clowning, and they built to the (very solid) dives and Solar tying up a Divulio for the win. Nothing revolutionary but getting to see these guys do their thing one more time is always a joy. 

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Found Footage Friday on Saturday: LAWLER~! IDOL~! RICH~! BAM BAM~! ROSE~! HENNIG~! SHEEPHERDERS~! NIGHTMARES~!

Sheepherders vs. Nightmares CCW 1/17/87

MD: Charles has received a new set of DVDs in the mail. He's going through it and has already identified some very interesting sounding lost matches. Be sure to follow his work in general. Here's one of the matches and it's a very straightforward, very solid tag. Got to love Solie here, first calling the Sheepherders "twisted steel" which made me wonder where he was about to go with that, and then refusing to differentiate Butch or Luke or Davis or Wayne for the entirety of the match, just calling them "A Nightmare" etc. Thanks Gordo.

This hit all the right notes balancing being grounded and maintaining a slightly chaotic feel throughout. During the shine, the Sheepherders kept rushing out of the ring every time the Nightmares got the better of them. It put a certain sort of punctuation on everything and really got across the slickness of the Nightmares. I'm pretty sure it's Wayne that works FIP here, and the transition was this great over the top bump due to the rope being pulled down. He got color as time went on and had some really well timed hope spots. When the fans started to chant USA, he'd reward them by giving them hope. That's exactly how these things should work. Always be struggling to get back into it but struggle the most when the fans are getting behind you. Some nice cutoffs too, including him going to the wrong corner. Plus a missed tag due to drawing the ref. They did a bit where the Sheepherders chair use backfired to set up the hot tag and had everything thrown out on the comeback as they used a chair successfully this time. The Nightmares got the best of them on a subsequent attempt and everyone brawled to the back. A good use of thirteen minutes of your time.

ER: Love this kind of 10 minute forward moving simplicity. When I think of Nightmares tags I think of minimum three great Danny Davis bumps. This had no Danny Davis bumps and instead had one great Ken Wayne bump that built to a great Davis hot tag. In between that bump and that tag we got the Sheepherders clubbing and kicking ass. Aggressive Sheepherders were a thing man. What a cool team. I would have loved to see heel Bushwhackers in WWF. Heel Bushwhackers during that couple month of '93 when Rock n Roll Express was in. Do we have any of the Well Dunn house show tags? They have such a great asskicking look here. I've always appreciated how clean Butch Miller's bald spot was. He had that young Bob Hoskins cut. Luke Williams had great pop and execution that you'd never expect even if you were familiar with some of their best brawls. He had this nice missed Hitman elbow off the middle buckle (more like a diving forearm smash) and paid it off later as they're cutting off Wayne when he hits a truly excellent falling elbow on him. You don't think of "precisely worked offense" when you think of the Sheepherders or Bushwhackers. Ken Wayne's backwards bump over the ropes to the floor was a cool Big Bump of a match to set up the nice long heat, which had one of those really well done moments when a ref cuts off a freshly tagged babyface with a near spear, making for a waist tackle and actually holding Davis in the air for a moment as Davis is reaching past his shoulders to join the fray. The eventual hot tag was hot, Luke bumping these nice careening pratfall bumps while getting punched around by both Nightmares. As they fight to the floor, Butch monkey flips the ringside commentary table onto himself in the chaos after getting smashed into it. It's all hot. 

Jerry Lawler/Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Austin Idol/Tommy Rich Memphis 3/9/87

PAS: Lance Russell saying "Tommy Rich is split wide open" is my love language. Incredible stuff, one of the best matches we have unearthed in the history of this project. Wild bloody Memphis brawling with three of the greatest ever to do it in Rich, Idol and the King. Add in a green but game Bam Bam Bigelow, who came off as such a force of nature. 9 minutes bell to bell with the wild pushed pace of a bar brawl. So much of this feud was built around nasty ball shots, and I loved how they teased the posting on Lawler, and then had Lawler finish Idol with a top rope fistdrop to the nuts, an awesome NO DQ finish. Bam Bam flying through the hard ringside wood table was wild and unexpected and the post match beatdown and bloodying of Lawler was tremendous, especially considering how rarely Lawler bled. Pure joy, the platonic ideal of what I want from wrestling and a hell of thing to wake up to. 

MD:  I feel like you could watch this a dozen times and see something remarkable that you hadn't noticed yet each time. It's great that Russell is not looking on some sort of monitor but calling what he's seeing, so we hear different tastes of chaos than what's right in front of us. I've seen this a couple of times now but on my last watch the things that stood out the most were the way the heels just charged into every bit of offense, Lawler's ability to create organic and interesting violence from all sorts of obtuse angles at any point, and how well a guy as relatively early into career as Bigelow knew when to give and when not to give. There was a sense that Rich and Idol really needed to get either Lawler or Bigelow (the latter being more of a challenge) down and out of the match to control 2-on-1, but they simply couldn't. Lawler was too savvy and Bigelow was just too much. The big moment in that case was when Lawler more or less blocked the chair shot and came back to even the odds. Maybe my favorite bit of all of this from bell to bell is when Lawler scoots up from the second rope to the top to hit the very low fist drop as Solie notes it's legal in this match. The way the table bounces and contracts as Bigelow hits it post match is a wild bit of physics to really cap everything off. You can read about this one but it's really best experienced yourself.

ER: Our 1980s DVDVR sets were so comprehensive. The first time Phil and I met, we hung out in his parent's apartment watching 4 hours of handheld 1989 Memphis footage and made the historic decision to each vote YES to include the match that would go on to place 125th out of 125 matches on that set. The Memphis set was better for having Jerry Lawler, Jeff Jarrett, and Freddy Krueger vs. Dutch Mantel, Master of Pain, and Ronnie P. Gossett. Just like it was better for including Buddy Landel vs. Freddy Krueger. Also, what kind of idiots were voting on that thing who thought there were 121 matches better than Jackie Fargo vs. Jimmy Hart? Anyway, if that Ronnie Gossett trios match had been unearthed in 2024, you would be reading about it on Segunda Caida. Instead, we're talking about a match that could have placed in the Top 10 of that Memphis set if we had it then. If we had it then, one of the Freddy matches wouldn't have made the cut, so this is for the best. It's incredible we're still getting new matches of this caliber. What a powerhouse, even better than it sounds on paper. 

I've watched this thing three times now and I've come away with a new favorite thing each time. Well, that's not true. My favorite thing ever single time is Lawler piledriving Austin Idol and dragging him spread eagle to the turnbuckles, climbing to the middle buckle, doing that perfect pause that Lawler does to build suspense on whether or not he thinks he needs to come off the top rope, then doing that perfect no look step to the top rope he does (that is one of my favorite signature movements of any wrestler in history), before flying off with the greatest fistdrop ever committed to tape. If there was one man in the world I trusted to safely fistdrop me in the balls from the top rope, it would be Lawler, but it's still a real Wheelbarrow on a Tightrope situation and I don't know if I can name a wrestling finish I've ever loved more. Look at the way Idol straightens and kicks his legs! Look at the way Idol holds and rubs his balls with his left hand during every second of his post-match spike attack on Lawler! I might have been too bearish in thinking this was only a Top 10 Memphis set match. 

So my favorite thing is locked in. But Matt's right about seeing something remarkable each time you watch. By the third viewing I was wondering if I had ever seen a babyface physically chasing a heel through the crowd during a brawl. I've seen a hundred ECW matches where guys walked together in the crowd while holding each other's hair, but I don't think I ever saw anyone getting punched in the face and running from the back of the arena for the safety of the ring only to run directly a Bam Bam Bigelow punch. God I wish I could have seen Chris Candido do just that, even if Candido was no Tommy Rich or Austin Idol. Rich and Idol took offense, ran into offense, and turned violent as great as any heel team of the 80s. Lawler and Bigelow were great at surprising them with a punch or a knee, and it's incredible how well everyone in this match had a constant innate sense of where everyone else was at all times. I've never seen such precise, out of control chaos. 

Everyone in this match was constantly turning around into a punch or turning around to punch someone, and there was more struggle in these 10 minutes than I see on entire wrestling cards now. Not every punch came easy, a face didn't get smashed into a guardrail every time someone tried. Lawler held onto the ropes to prevent Idol from pulling his balls into the ringpost like he was fighting against being pulled into hot lava. Bam Bam shoved Idol's head back by the chin before punching him and it looked like violent mafia shit. I couldn't believe Bigelow's bump through the ringside table, and was astounded that a match that ended with The Greatest Finish Ever wasted no time moving into the biggest bump of the match and some of the most violent sharp stake work we've seen. If Lawler punched one ball of Idol's he was going to take it out on his face with a broken piece of wood, and Lawler's gusher after being run face first into Idol running at him with a stake tells me that fistdrop crushed nuts. Tommy Rich is like Bobby Eaton for me, a guy who I love more with literally every new match I see. If there was a wrestler today who moved in and around and through a brawl the way Tommy Rich does here, I'd show you my favorite wrestler in the world. I watched this match a fourth time while writing about it. 

Buddy Rose vs. Curt Hennig Portland 7/2/88

MD: This was a special "Curt Hennig returns" episode of TV. He commentated on a match, cut a promo with the babyfaces, wrestled Buddy, and then came out at the end to explain to the ref how the heels cheated to have a result overturned. The appearance was setting up a match against DeBeers who he said was part of why he lost the World Title two months earlier. My memory is a little iffy on that one though. Rose was primed for a loser leave town match with the Assassin. The stakes on this particular TV match, however, was that the loser would end up a dunk tank later that weekend. Curt would be in WWF by the end of the month after a few more AWA shots, but here, he felt like a very big deal. In some ways it reminds me a little, thematically, of that post-world title match between Martel and Race right before Martel goes to WWF. Just a last burst of someone being a certain sort of star before they ended up stamped by the WWF machine for the rest of their career.

The match was very fun but obviously, coming in at just ten minutes, wasn't going to live up to the previous Hennig vs Rose feud. Some of the usual brilliance though. Buddy started by turning a rear bearhug into a dropping body scissors. Then after Curt escaped, Buddy dodged something with a cartwheel only for Hennig to get him in that self same drop down body scissors. They did a tit-for-tat bit with Buddy bumping off the top with a press, only for Curt to turn it into a great small package when Buddy tried to get him the same way. Cute finish where Hennig was able to eat a Superplex but hook the legs at the last second and get a shoulder up. That meant Buddy thought he won and started to gloat only to realize what had happened and that he had a dunk tape in his future. Just a fun glimpse of something that had been out of our reach for a long time.

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WWF 305 Live: Bam Bam vs. The Undertaker

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Undertaker WWF March to WrestleMania IX 3/28/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: It's a drag that Bam Bam got cut from the WrestleMania card, even though the scrapped match with Kamala almost surely wouldn't have been even as good as this TV special main event. I've told this story a few times, but only one kid in my class "saw" WrestleMania IX on PPV as it happened, so Robert was the one giving me and several other kids the full rundown of every single thing that had happened on the show. I put "saw" in quotes for a reason. I don't know why I put Robert's name in quotes though, as that was his real name. Anyway, several years later I was made to question whether Robert had actually watched a single second of WrestleMania IX, when I rented the Coliseum Video and found no mention of the Kamala/Bigelow match that Robert had described in unquestioned detail. 

Honestly, I probably didn't even know that the match had been officially cut for time until years after that, when I got online in the late 90s, as up until then I probably assumed the match had just been edited off the Coliseum Video release for time, rather than eliminated entirely from the show. I had rented WCW PPV tapes, so I was familiar with matches being edited off home video releases. I've seen Bigelow/Kamala house show matches from around this time that were surely them working out their upcoming WM9 match, and honestly Robert's description of a match he never saw from a show he might not have watched was quite accurate, so even if he was a liar he was at minimum a liar who understood likely match layouts and booking scenarios of the show he was pretending to have seen. This might mean that Robert is/was dangerous. He was the only kid I ever know who went to juvie, but that would have been after WrestleMania IX. 

This match was a great Bam Bam show, as it was almost entirely him clubbing and headbutting Undertaker down to the mat, then making a bunch of "are you kidding me with this fucking guy?" faces as Undertaker would sit up regardless of what Bigelow had just done to him. Bigelow is really good at putting over Undertaker's size, flattening out on all of his bumps to make it look like Undertaker's powers included control over gravity. I liked how splat flat Bam Bam took a drop toehold and Taker's leaping DDT, and Bam Bam is someone who at least acts like his shoulder is really really hurting and demobilizing him while an undead zombie is taking an eternity to back up the turnbuckles and find his footing before jumping off of them. 

There was a good visual of Bigelow taking full control by ducking out of the way of Taker's flying clothesline, so Taker does a cool flipping rolling bump out to the floor. It's all clubbing and slamming and whipping into steps, hitting a high delayed back suplex, and then me swooning for Triple B as he places his hands on his hips in frustration as Undertaker still keeps sitting up. I can see them working variations of this bit on house shows, as here there's an amusing moment where Bigelow slams Taker and walks away, and then...kind of peeks back over his shoulder, like Undertaker is a Boo ghost who will stop sitting up if you catch him in the act. Everyone in the arena knows it's just building up to Bigelow's headbutt sending him diving into an empty pool, but I'd love to see how times in a row Bigelow could reset Undertaker's positioning without getting to the payoff. I think he has enough funny mannerisms and eye rolls to pull off an endless series of Just Trying to Prevent a Guy from Sitting Up. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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Found Footage Friday: MUTA~! VADER~! DEATH~! SAITO~! BIGELOW~! BABA~! GYPSY JOE~!

Giant Baba vs. Gypsy Joe AJPW 8/20/81

MD: Baba really charges right in at Joe here and starts on him in the corner before tossing him out and threatening to go after him. If he had, this might be in the running for a really great sub-five minute match. Joe came to no-sell Baba's head chop, which is a pretty alarming sight to be honest. That led to a great moment where he took over briefly with an eye rake, only for Baba to get annoyed that he wasn't selling the chop and hit an eye rake of his own. Baba most certainly got it. In fact, the reason why he didn't chase him out early was so he could chase him out the second time that he tossed him, a payoff to that initial tease that would lead to the match ultimately getting thrown out. This was more of a weird few minutes than anything else, but you can't fault either Baba's savvy or that early intensity.

ER: This was Gypsy Joe's first All Japan match, one of IWE's big foreign stars going after the big All Japan Boss after his old home fed's dissolution. This was the beginning of a several year run in All Japan for Joe, but watching this out of context you might wonder if this guy who isn't selling Baba chops would ever work Japan again. Joe even puffs his chest out and challenges Baba to chop him some more, and then ignores those! When Baba tosses him to the floor and Joe comes back in immediately with a chair, I love that we got to see a little bit of panic from Baba, and even more I love that Baba dropped down quick to a knee to sell Joe's first chop of the match (a great overhand in the corner). You bet Baba's chops got even harder the rest of the match. It's funny that "Baba Chops" were a running joke among "smart" fans for years, but they really are fucking great. His knife edge chops really do pack wallop, and his classic overhands look like a giant smashing the heel of his palm right into the crown of Joe's head. Joe can no sell those all he wants, he's definitely taking a full blow to the dome. 

Steve Williams vs. Keiji Mutoh NJPW 5/26/90

MD: Williams had a very weird spring 1990, bouncing between All Japan and New Japan. To put things into perspective, he was working All Japan on the 23rd and New Japan on the 24th, and then was back to All Japan (where he had a great Hansen match) by the start of June. And he had done a New Japan shot in February too, so, just a weird period. No one else really was jumping around like that, but then Williams was a pretty special talent at the time. He hit the ring with a crazy intensity, threw people around, threw himself around, and so on. In some ways, Mutoh was an ideal opponent for him too. He was one of the only guys in Japan who could work up out of a chinlock like an American babyface (young Kobashi being another and they had a fun match the next month where Kobashi did just that).

When this match was Williams or Mutoh throwing themselves at each other, or Williams throwing Mutoh, it was a lot of fun. Overall, though, I thought Williams either gave too much or Mutoh took too much. There were moments midway through where Williams was using backslides or small packages to work from underneath which is just completely backwards. Even when Williams dodged the moonsault and took over, it was a brief bit of control before he went careening into the post on a missed charge. There was definite electricity here, but they needed to trust the basic tenets of pro wrestling more instead of making this so even or even lopsided in Mutoh's favor.

Masa Saito/Koji Kitao vs. Big Van Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow NJPW 5/26/90

MD: I've seen plenty of early SWS Kitao lately, and I have to tell you, it's amazing to hear a crowd so behind him. Vader, and to a lesser degree, Bigelow, did heroic work helping to make him here. Vader eating him up just a little only to let him come back huge, knock him out of the ring, and then sell the frustration and emotional weight of it by tossing chairs into the ring, was just top notch stuff. There was a moment after they started in on Saito where I thought Saito was going to take all the heat and it'd build to a massive, explosive Kitao hot tag. That was not to be, but I almost didn't mind because Saito - a guy who spent so much of his year in the states - decided to do a Dusty Rhodes impression against Bigelow, firing up big with arm twirling atomic shots and reversing a vertical suplex just for the hell of it. When they leaned, it was actually on Kitao, which makes sense, because he needed to get his reps in selling. So, it was probably the match it needed to be, untelevised and in front of this crowd, but not as good of a match as it could have been if they just used more smoke and mirrors and kept Kitao out of it. He had size and the fans were behind him. It was amazing how exposed he was by the end of 1990. Full credit to Vader here for selflessly making him look great.

ER: This really is Kitao getting to work through a few different roles in front of a large 5,000 person crowd but without any of it being taped. It's unsatisfying seeing Vader and Bam Bam hold back against him, but I guess we weren't going to get the two biggest dudes nuking him on a show that wasn't taped. They look like such monsters here. Vader in the mastodon helmet, and Bam Bam in the sleeveless gear. I prefer cap-sleeve Bam Bam as a look, but sleeveless Bam Bam has a neat circus strongman aesthetic that feels totally different. Also, Masa Saito as the smallest man in a tag match is so cool. This match was all about Vader being very VERY generous in selling Kitao's offense. My favorite part of all this might have been Vader selling for Kitao, then throwing chairs 40 feet across the arena into the ring, getting his heat back and more. Bigelow takes some huge bumps and is really quick. I'm not sure you're going to find a man this size who can take a backdrop as high as or take a snap suplex bump as fast as Bam Bam, but it probably helps when Saito is doing the tossing. Dusty Saito was a giddy surprise, using those rolling Dusty fists to power Vader into a back suplex, the kind of memorable moment that tends to happen on the best house shows. Vader really beats the shit out of Kitao after the bell on the floor, WAY more than he was hitting him during the match proper. Have you're schoolboy win, you're going to take at least a few forearms to the chest. 

Big Van Vader vs. Keiji Mutoh NJPW 10/7/90

MD: It's fun to see the similarities and differences between this and the Williams match. I'd still say Mutoh took a little too much of it overall, but whenever they reset to a stand up, Vader had an obvious advantage. There was also a real sense towards the end, after the comeback and during the finishing stretch, that as good as Mutoh was in hurting Vader and getting him down, he couldn't put him away, not even with the moonsault. Moreover, when he did the rolling dodge of a clothesline, it had only taken a dropkick to take Doc out. Against Vader, he had to do the rolling dodge, the jumping back kick, and then the dropkick. We lose a little bit of this when Vader's beating Mutoh around the ring, but what we do get to see is fun. The sheer momentum of Vader crashing not just into but through the connected guard rails is an impressive sight. Meanwhile, it may have taken more to get and keep Vader down, but Mutoh survived two big splashes until the third (just barely) kept him pinned. The fans were up for Mutoh's comebacks, but I bet they would have been up for them even more if he let Vader get a bit more on him.

ER: I love a nice short sprint, and this was tidy and quickly violent and cool. It didn't reach the heights it could have, but this isn't a match that really happened so it's great to see. Vader goes up early for a back suplex, but most of this is Mutoh doing everything he does full force and Vader finding cool ways to sell it by absorbing it, while punishing Mutoh. He slaps him around, hits a press slam that looks so effortless that I'm not sure I'd be able to lift my cat above my head the same way, and he really knows how to flatten a guy on elbowdrops. I love how he took hard dropkicks by basically freezing in place, more stunned than hurt. He was really great at getting into position for everything Mutoh had. My favorite might have been when he took the handspring elbow by dropping down to a knee and staggering out, then takes the (stupid) one handed bulldog straight onto his forehead, better than most I've ever seen taking that (stupid) move. The man absolutely annihilates a guardrail and always looks like the most unfuckwithable man, and the whole finishing stretch was beautiful. Look at how Mutok shoves and presses up off Vader's chest after hitting the moonsault, or how Vader sets up a Mutoh sunset flip by missing his splash. Mutoh pays for that sunset flip, and you can see how the crowd KNEW that splash was curtains. 

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Found Footage Friday: BIGELOW~! VADER~! LAWLER~! FARGO~! DUSTIN~! A HOGAN~!

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Big Van Vader NJPW 9/5/88

MD: Second encounter ever between these two. Sometimes Bigelow has a tendency of being too much of a US style babyface in Japan; clapping and working from underneath when you want him to really press his size and just brawl and slug with these guys. A little cartwheel-y, you know? It helped keep him over though. The fans clapped along. They chanted his name both here and in 90 when he spent some time in AJPW. In this one specific case, it was okay because part of his job was to get Vader over, and he'd do that best by recoiling into his shots and bumping all over the ring for him. It may not have been the match that I wanted, ultimately, but it served a purpose. Despite being the first to go bumping over the top to a Bigelow dropkick, when Vader asserted himself, he really asserted himself, with the beating spilling to the outside with an object shot and nasty punches. This was fated to be a double countout, brawl around the ringside area sort of match, but they really managed to put over Vader's ferocity before Bigelow got a comeback. Instead of taking the bump off the top after Bigelow caught him up there, Vader hung on causing both wrestlers to go tumbling to the outside together in a spot you don't see a ton but that really worked with two guys so big. I'm sure no one was too satisfied by a double count out finish but at least it was set up with a big dramatic crash. Post match, Vader stormed around the ring and then Bigelow finally rushed back in to get a last burst of adoration from the crowd.

ER: I love this day and age, where for so long we had two of the three early Vader/Bam Bam singles matches, and then 35 years later the middle match of the three shows up. I liked the theatricality Bigelow brought to this (his cartwheel didn't come until after the match, actually, and it looked incredible). I like that he was just not mirroring Vader by working as the same exact slugging big man. Bigelow was never Vader. He was never a guy who lit up opponents or worked slugfests. I don't think Bam Bam was as great a worker as Vader, and maybe he would have been better if he was more of a Vader, but I love him as Bigelow. Let Vader be the guy who punches a ring boy in the head when the ring boy walks off with his mastodon helmet, and Bigelow can be the guy getting huge cheers while cupping his ear like Hogan. This was a match more about the big bumps than the stiff strikes. 

The strikes were cool, with a few big Vader right hands, and theatrical Bam Bam strikes where he throws a forearm with a leg out behind him. But the bumps were the thing that kept bridging the match to bigger things. Vader flies backwards over the top to the floor after a Bigelow dropkick, then spends a minute threatening fans while Bigelow soaks in the cheers. Bam Bam's corner bump was a sight to behold, flying upside down and winding up draped over the top rope, then Vader smashes into him to knock him to the apron and down to the floor. Finally, when they both crash and burn to the floor, that's when the real brawl happens, with Vader hitting Bigelow with a ring bell hammer and using a table as a full on battering ram. Obviously this match was never leading to a pin, but I love the excited dudes jumping up and down in the crowd as two giant men fought past. And when Bigelow makes his way triumphantly back to the ring? You've never seen a better cartwheel in your life. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Jackie Fargo NWA Worldwide 1999

MD: Fargo was almost 70 here. It was for his hair. Nicole Bass was in his corner. You can imagine without even watching, right? Really, this was a wonderful thought experiment of how Lawler would deal with him, exactly where the line was in making him a threat vs protecting himself and everything else on the card. It meant throwing one's whole body backward for each Fargo punch like only Lawler could do and it meant using every distraction of Bass and from Stacy to pepper punches into Fargo's gut in the corner. For Fargo it meant hitting an atomic drop but then selling his own knee or getting his biggest advantage with a blatant low blow. I thought they did a great job of walking that tightrope in a way where people felt like they were getting their money's worth but it never became unbelievable or ridiculous. In the end, Bass turned (WWF solidarity), Fargo lost his hair. And... well, that's the tricky part with some of the Turner footage. He's doing a heroic job posting it but he's posting as he come across tapes so I'm not 100% sure what happened next. Presumably this would lead to some sort of match with a younger talent fighting for Fargo's lost honor where Lawler would get his comeuppance, but I'm not entirely sure of the chronological here and this footage, while not necessarily new, was so lost and is now so found, that cagematch's little help on any of it. Lawler was definitely primed for some comeuppance after this one though.

ER: This was really really great. I had no idea Fargo was actually working matches this late, and thanks to a pitch perfect performance from Lawler and Stacy Carter, this turned into one of the most fun (non Black Terry) matches involving a 70 year old. We wrote about a different Bryan Turner upload recently, from less than two years after this, where Jackie Fargo was guest reffing a Lawler/Rapada match and could barely get down on his knees to count a pin, so only did so one time. Here he is throwing punches so good and taking cool old man rolling bumps, inspiring enough to make me realize that I have only 30 years to learn how to be a 70 year old man who can throw a great worked punch. The whole match is nothing but highlights, nothing but ace volleys from Fargo, Lawler, and Kat. It needs to be said every time, that Lawler is not only the greatest wrestling puncher, but the greatest puncher seller in wrestling history. Lawler flies around for every Jackie punch, punches that deserve to be flown for, and gets into it with the fans with this fun cowardly demeanor. Pre-eye job Lawler had such great face acting, and somehow this handheld video from 1999 has such incredible sound that you can hear individual crowd members hurling insults and Lawler's reactions to those insults. 

Those insults do not get any louder than from two larger, older women who Carter enrages so much that you'd think she trained under Tracy Smothers. I had no idea The Kat had Smothers Power. Just by briefly running away and then telling these women to shut up, it takes no fewer than six security guards to hold back these two Actually Mad women, both of them almost making it into the ring. Later, Lawler targets one of them again, and she yells clear as a bell, "He ain't nothing but a puss! PUSSY! PUSSY! That's what you are!" It riles everyone up so much that Carter has to get on the mic and implore everyone to please be quiet. "Everybody shut up! [Lawler] can't concentrate!!" Lawler, Fargo, and Carter were all amazing, but a special bit of recognition also needs to go to the ring announcer who lets everyone know without an ounce of incredulity, "5 minutes gone, 55 minutes remaining." This was billed as having a *60* minute time limit!? What a tremendous thing for an announcer to say during a match pitting a 70 year old man against a 50 year old man. 

The punches are excellent throughout obviously, but we built to a great spot where Lawler reallllly winds up a punch that then sails right over Jackie's head, and then Fargo hits an atomic drop, collapsing to the mat selling his own knee. The post-match is great too, with Lawler and Carter filling in a ton of mic work when the hair clippers predictably don't work. Stacy Carter as Luanne Platter is really brilliant, a bank teller who is lured into marrying a 50 year old carny with promises to fund her own hair salon. Carter keeps insisting on the house mic that she be the one to shave Fargo's head, and their exchanges are gold. "She IS a real beautician, you know. Stacy, you're a licensed cosmetologist, right?" "Yes, and they are NOT doing this right." If these two couldn't make it, what hope do the rest of us have? 

Dustin Rhodes vs. Horace Hogan NWA New Jersey 8/16/01

MD: Ended up on this one when someone challenged me on Dustin's bad periods, with the implicit assumption that 99-01 was in there. It's true we don't have a ton of footage of the period, but this was between Dustin's run as one of the lead babyfaces in dying days WCW and his return as Goldust in 02. And hey, it's a good showing. He comes out as the Lonestar to George Thorogood and he is a totally viable indy main event babyface. Punches look good. Armdrags are sharp. He works the crowd up from underneath in chinlocks or sleepers. He takes some nasty shots on the outside driving his body into the edge of the ring. And yes, he hits his signature cross body to nowhere in front of this crowd bumping big to the floor. Horace, who obviously is the devolutionary connective tissue between the NWO and the Bullet Club when you see him in this setting, is fine. He's got a good way of muttering as he wrestles, gets probably legitimately annoyed with the crowd as they keep telling him to call Hulk for help, and believably serves as the other half of Dustin slamming his back into the edge of the ring. And yeah, he goes over quick for those armdrags too. Nothing in this match that gives you any reason to think that Dustin wasn't a high class talent in the middle of 01, even if we don't have that TCW footage that'd really prove it.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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WWF 305 Live: Earthquake vs. Bam Bam

Earthquake vs. Bam Bam Bigelow WWF Superstars 2/20/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: I love when we'd get a surprise high profile match on Superstars, and this one is exciting. I don't think they even announced this match on that week's Raw, they just went straight into the Superstars intro with a Sears photo shoot of Bam Bam and Earthquake yelling at each other. It was always exciting to turn on Superstars and see a match between two "actual guys". This is a big one. I mean, I was a dumb enough kid that I was also excited for the Virgil/Bastion Booger rematch, but this match actually feels big. Bam Bam is wearing his yellow-dominant flame gear, which always makes him look like a gigantic 9 year old wearing his fire jammies. He also gets in the ring and yells along to his theme song, timing out the Bams, and it's just one of those things that makes Bigelow so perfect. He looks like only he looks, he wears his all-over yellow flame jammers, and he goes around yelling his own name. He's a gigantic toddler and he has my favorite face. The camera does small shaking movements as Earthquake comes out, camera manipulation done right, and it's wild to see how much larger Earthquake is than Bam Bam. Bigelow is huge, but there are a couple of camera angles that reveal just how much taller, wider, and bigger Earthquake was, and the crowd is hyped for it. Lawler even points out how he can't believe Earthquake is bigger than Bigelow. I've been to an NXT house show/TV taping in this building (more modernized than it was in 1993, but the angles and lines were the same) and this is a great match for that room. It's a more vertically built room with no second level, so you get a good view down on the ring, and brother these two filled that ring. 

I really liked how they bounced into each other. The played to the top of the room, Bigelow hitting fun hopping shoulderblocks that don't move Earthquake, then Earthquake charging at Bam Bam with a belly bounce. You get some great Earthquake deep leans into the ropes and his huge missed elbowdrop. Bigelow is a lot of fun in control, hitting two slow lift back suplexes that draw a lot of oooooos and ahhhhhhs from the crowd when they both land (and both of them do land hard). In between the two big suplexes that sent two big boys crashing to the mat, Bigelow stomped and clubbed at Quake, yelling at fans while doing so. They went immediately into Earthquake's comeback, which was the match's only real flaw. The two back suplexes were such cool spots, but once Bigelow missed a falling headbutt after the second suplex they just went into the big finishing sprint. The finish was cool, with Earthquake coming back and hitting a pair of high leap avalanches, but Bam Bam slips out underneath a third, and Earthquake takes a cool topple over the top, to the apron, to the floor, to the count out. I don't think they would have had to put too much else before Earthquake's comeback to make it all feel a bit more complete, but what we got was good. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 1

I started reviewing Royal Rumble 1993 and thought it would be a quick little thing, but sometimes projects spiral and the words flow more than they should, and I was left with a behemoth of a show review. Part 1 comes today, Part 2 comes tomorrow: 

Beverly Brothers vs. The Steiner Brothers

When you see a Steiners/Beverlys match on paper, this is the match you hope it's going to be. It's 10 minutes and an excellent Beverlys performance. These guys all work snug, we get a great stretch of the Beverlys isolating Scott, and we build to Enos and Bloom betting annihilated on a Rick hot tag. Bloom and Enos are pure wrestling joy, mixing a cheapshit house style with the insane bumps and highspots of a big PPV tag. Bloom complains about hair and tight pulls after every huge biel and takedown he takes from Scott, but has no problem turning on a dime to whip Scott to the mat and then rock him with a gorgeous long uppercut when he gets to his feet. But Enos is so good on the apron while Bloom is doing his thing, and the match really gives us a look at how complementary they were as a team, not just their in-ring style but their personalities. Bloom was like the prep school shit with rich parents and no consequences, and Enos is his slightly less rich dumb jock friend. It's a great energy. 

When Enos tags in he does some incredible dumb jock stuff, shoving Rick on the apron one hand to the chest like a real idiot, and then running away! In a great moment that would get a huge reaction on any show, Rick tags in and immediately knocks Bloom off the apron as he jogs by. But just like Bloom, even as Enos is getting punked by Rick, he also gives it back big. Enos and Rick have some great stuff together, great timing. They really nail this one stretch where Enos hits this great high rotation powerslam, cuts low on a clothesline and really tries to take Rick's legs out with a dropdown, does a great leapfrog...but of course gets caught mid-air by Rick and dumped. Enos was something else in this one. He took some of the most dangerous bumps in WWF PPV history, just a crazy willingness to lean all the way into STEINER BROTHERS OFFENSE. He gets thrown by Scott with an overhead belly to belly that almost plants him squarely on the top of his head (and close enough that Gorilla and Heenan go momentarily silent), but this match is so good because Bloom runs right in and just WASTES Scott with a lariat. These teams are laying in and this match should really be talked about as one of the upper tier WWF tags of the decade. 

The Beverlys are really good at cutting Scott off from Rick, dropping backbreakers and ax handles and Bloom elbowdrops, quick tags, hard elbows, Enos choking Scott with the tag rope, all of it the kind of shit you want to see them doing to Scott Steiner. The crowd noise builds perfectly through all of it because these Sacramento fans know that Rick is going to blow this ring up, and there is a fantastic late cut off of a Scott tag attempt that quiets the crowd down so damn quick, just perfectly timed by Bloom. After the hot tag was denied, Heenan has a hilarious bit about how Rick didn't actually want the tag because he's "a known coward". Heenan had this great ongoing thing where he would matter of factly call someone a coward as if it's a thing everyone knows, and Gorilla reacts to it every single time, and I laugh my ass off every single time. 

The Rick hot tag is as good as expected, and Mike Enos really went through one of the most insane wrestling minutes I've seen. Enos takes a backdrop bump as high as any Rick Rude backdrop, then takes arguably the most disgusting German suplex in WWF history. The match's one flaw just might be that Enos is picked up for the next spot almost immediately by Rick, not giving *that* German suplex any time to settle in. If I saw a man the size of Enos take that suplex bump live, a match stoppage would have seemed appropriate. It's a crazy spot that - once they saw Enos was moving of his own accord - they should have shown a dozen times from every angle. The finish stretch is crazy, with Bloom wiping out on an awesome missed top rope clothesline and a great Scott victory roll for a near win. But Enos takes his legendary performance somehow one step further, and takes the match finishing Frankensteiner better than any man has ever taken the Frankensteiner. Enos goes vertical on it, sticking the landing in a way that made people immediately leap up, as if he hadn't just been thrown for the most disgusting suplex a minute earlier. Mike Enos is a goddamn lunatic and I genuinely don't know what 90s WWF tag matches you can genuinely put over this one. Total classic. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: It's unfortunate, but Marty Jannetty's ring gear has to be the worst ring gear in my time as a wrestling fan. Right? I don't know. There are other, good contenders. Maybe it isn't actually the worst. But, if not the worst, then at minimum I can say that there has never been any other wrestling gear that makes me feel the vicarious embarrassment that Marty Jannetty's 1993 Royal Rumble gear makes me feel. Sure, maybe that's hypocritical of me, seeing as how I lose my mind any time a wrestler shows up covered in tassels. When Jerry Estrada takes that bump over the top and his ocean waves of tassel crash into the shore as his body crashes into the concrete, I'm in wrestling heaven. Marty Jannetty just takes it too far. Maybe that's a good thing. Marty Jannetty may have established a Tassel Barrier in this match, and that's an important thing. It's good to know how far we as humans can, or should, go. And Marty established that we should not go here. 

Marty's gear looks like a child tried to make their own Tron suit out of torn toilet paper. If you pause the screen at the right moments, his ring entrance looks like Max Moon being drawn into A-Ha's "Take On Me" video. It is a hideous ensemble, and I thought it was hideous before I realized it's a two piece. Who crafted this entrance-attire-only blouse? Who crafted this blouse that looks like the most toilet-papered tree on Halloween? Can you imagine Marty Jannetty trying on his new gear in a small tailor's shop, analyzing all the angles in a full frame trifold vanity mirror, while a slender hunched old Italian man marks his hems with chalk? Well, turns that trifold mirror was cursed, and that mirror cursed Jannetty for the rest of his career. If you ever wondered why Marty Jannetty shows up in 1998 WCW looking like Enuff Z'Nuff's rhythm guitarist, lost and scared in a strange new grunge world, that's why. That mirror is why.

The match itself is weird. It has an excellent layout which gets the crowd downright rabid for the finishing stretch, but it's also filled with weak offense and stunt bumping that doesn't correlate to that weak offense. Michaels pinballs for every single punch Jannetty throws, and they are ridiculous bumps for what Jannetty is putting out there. Michaels gets bumped to the floor off a kneelift and Jannetty hits a tope that winds up looking like a couple trying to hold each other up at the skating rink before both slip and fall. But things get downright silly when Jannetty hits a flying punch off the top to the floor, and Michaels does a triple salchow to sell it. Now, I love a good flying fist or an absurd fistdrop, but there comes a tipping point where it probably makes a lot more sense to use your body to attack an opponent than just your fist. Marty's entire body crashes and burns off to the side while his fist grazes past Michaels' hair, and Michaels spins to the mat like Bear Hugger. A crossbody block would have lead to a safer bump for both AND would have read much better to the crowd, but wrestler offense is a funny thing. This is not as bad as that piece of Marufuji offense where he would tap his opponents' head into the top turnbuckle while hurling his own body out over the ringpost to the floor - as if Mitch Williams had not just fallen off the mound after a delivery but also continued rolling and tumbling all the way to the dugout - but it was incredibly stupid. So of course Marty does it again and Michaels punches him out of the air. Now, don't get me wrong, if some lunatic did a fistdrop off the top rope to the floor I would praise them as a wrestling offense god, in the same way I will always flip out seeing El Samurai or Makoto Hashi doing diving headbutts off the top to the floor. So now, not only are my takes on tassels hypocritical, I am also a hypocrite about what offense I enjoy and what level of stupidity I expect and demand out of it. Perhaps there's a boomerang effect where a fistdrop can keep getting more and more complicated until it gets very stupid, before becoming incredible again: 

1. Any kind of fistdrop from a standing position falling onto your opponent = Great

2. Fistdrop leaping off the middle turnbuckle = Outstanding

3. Fistdrop leaping off the top rope into the ring = Seems unnecessarily risky to your knees but fuck yeah

4. Fistdrop off the top rope to a standing opponent on the floor = You fucking idiot

5. Fistdrop off the top rope to the floor while opponent is on his back = You goddamn genius

The stretch of Michaels working over Marty's arm is satisfying (including a rough posting), but even all of that just builds to another stupid spot, which is Michaels coming off the middle rope and landing, standing, face first into Jannetty's boot, with no indication of what kind of move he would have hit had Marty not gotten that boot up. See, the twists and turns and momentum shifts all happen at the exact right place, except half (or more?) of the offense looks like incomprehensible bullshit. It's a cool exercise in seeing how fired up a crowd can get when you're hitting all of the turns of a match this well, that you can really give them any slop offense and - as long as you're shifting momentum at the right time - they will be right there screaming. 

When people remember this as a great match (Meltzer gave it 4 stars, and if Jungle Boy and Rocky Romero worked this note for note exact same match with dog ball's worse offense, it's impossible to see him going less than 4 stars on it), they remember it from the moment Sherri slaps Shawn thru the series of close pinfalls. When Sherri slaps Shawn the ARCO Arena explodes, and Shawn does his best selling of the match. When Marty drags him back in Michaels immediately takes his craziest/best bump of the match, taking the HHH backwards corner bump faster than anyone should ever take that bump, and Marty drags him back in again. The crowd really thought they were seeing a title change, so every single nearfall plays huge, deservedly so. Shawn missing a superkick only to get put down hard by a Marty superkick really did feel like the finish, possibly because it was the only bump Michaels took that wasn't in three parts, just put him down on the mat. The shenanigans at the finish play out too quickly and a bit too ham-fisted, with Shawn throwing a wide elbow on a punch to take out the ref, and Sherri accidentally hitting Marty with her heel. Shawn hits a superkick, Marty takes a ridiculous flip bump that felt mostly disconnected from the kick, and that's it. It's a great match with an incredible amount of flaws: some of the most detached bumps and goofball offense choices, and yet a match that earned the big crowd reactions. 

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. The Big Boss Man

ER: This is a great three match series to start a PPV with, a great hour of pro wrestling, with three very different matches. The is a match that of course I was excited for, two of the biggest coolest shaped guys at some real in-ring peaks. 1993 was a great in-ring year for both of these guys, Bigelow an adventurous big man with a big gas tank, and Boss Man hitting a legendary peak with his post-WWF All Japan tours. 1993 Boss Man was the best combination of size and speed, slimmed way down from his 1989 biggest, but much bigger than his 1998 WWF return. 1993 was when Boss Man was shaped exactly like his Hasbro figure. Bam Bam Bigelow has the best shape in wrestling and Boss Man has night stick work that makes him look like a cool gigantic American King of Fighters character. They move fast and they hit hard, basking in the salad days of big fat men. 

There's a ton of movement and it always leads to a big crash, and a lot of this is worked at a super crazy pace for two guys this size to keep. There's fast rope running and fast spots, like Bigelow lifting Boss Man up for a huge back suplex, but then faceplanting hard on a missed falling headbutt when Boss Man sits up right after. Bam Bam has really high impact avalanches and starts the match story early when he starts throwing shots at Boss Man's back, with a fist to the back knocking Boss Man forward through the ropes. Right before them, Jannetty and Michaels thought of the bump they were going to do and then kept doing it regardless of the offense, but Bigelow and Boss Man really knock each other down and fall in some big ways. Bigelow drops Boss Man with a huge hot shot that looks like Boss Man is going to go crashing right into the camera; Boss Man has this great high speed clotheslines to knockdown Bigelow, and then at least 25 different punches to knock him around to different parts of the ring. Boss Man was a great puncher who isn't talked about enough as a great puncher. He has great uppercuts, great aim (he can pick a target on the chin and not show light), and can throw them close or long range. He slides to the floor for a big right hand, gives the fans a corner 10 count, throws hard mounted punches, all great. 

But it's not enough to work great through the fast paced sections, you also have to time out the cool down sections so the fast sections peak, and they do that really well. It's a great transition because it happens with a spectacular spot: Boss Man missing a charge and taking a fast, impressive bump to the floor, appearing to smash his back on the edge of the ring apron on the way down. Commentary picks up on it the second it happens and Bigelow immediately moves to focus entirely on Boss Man's back, as if everyone knew Boss Man was going to take a sick bump back first off the apron. Bigelow works the back with some real effective stuff, grabbing an awesome reverse waistlock bearhug and throwing headbutts to grind Boss Man down. Boss Man's comeback has some nice detail work, with a great spot where he is able to pull off a vertical suplex, but it's a messier suplex that wasn't as effective due to his back being weakened, so Bigelow beats him to his feet. It's such a great thread to put into a match: working a Too Convincing back injury on a suitably dangerous looking spot, like Chris Hamrick setting up knee work by violently tangling his knee in the ropes. The only weak point of the match is that it wraps up a little too easily and suddenly, the match almost disappointing by coming to its logical conclusion: Bigelow weakening Boss Man enough to slam him and hit the diving headbutt. It's where everything was heading, Boss Man was getting weaker, and then Bigelow put him down. I think one more Boss Man nearfall hope spot could have put this on a much higher level, but this was a great 10 minutes.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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Andre & Bam Bam Go to UWA

Andre the Giant/Bam Bam Bigelow/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Villano III/Fishman/Canek UWA 4/24/92 - FUN

ER: 40 matches-to-go-Andre wrestling in Mexico must have been some wild stuff to see. Look at how many kids are in the crowd of this UWA show, all getting to see a tecnico team made up of three of the biggest luchador idols of modern lucha history, and on the rudo side you get to see the two - presumably - largest men you had ever seen in your life (with the Headhunters in the next match!). Andre looked like a burnt out 500 lb. Eric Bogosian, but there's so much life when he's in the middle of acting out a story. Here he is, taking a month long Mexico vacation while working a handful of UWA shows, getting real joy out of working comedy spots in Arena Neza. Obviously he stays on the apron for much of this, but he's the best apron worker of all time so that always leads to moments. Here Wagner and Fishman tied up and - as soon as Fishman backed Wagner into the corner - Andre casually chopped Fishman in the back to swing the advantage, like an uncle reaching out to get your nose. Andre smacks Fishman, smiles at Bigelow, then kind of shrugs at the ref. Seeing Andre explaining away cheapshots to a Mexican referee is the closest we ever get to Hiding a Weapon Andre and it's wonderful. He plays that act through the primera, culminating in a spot where he sneaks in a no look cheapshot on Fishman but hits Wagner instead, with Wagner as a rudo selling the chop 4x as much as tecnico Fishman. Andre makes these great apologetic faces to Wagner and explains what he was going for, and it's the best. 

Andre gets into the ring to end the primera, taking out Canek with a couple of lariats, then choking Villano III. The top Mexican stars being smaller than guys Andre typically fought only made him look like more of a giant, able to palm Canek's entire head and drag Villano III around by the neck like a sack of laundry. Andre is setting Villano on the turnbuckles by the neck when Fishman has this tremendous moment of dumb tecnico hubris, decided the best way to stop this giant was by hitting a sunset flip. And so, while Andre chokes Villano III, while Bigelow hits a nice somersault senton on Canek, Fishman climbs to the top rope just to clear Andre on the sunset flip, rolls down Andre's back, and immediately pulls Andre down onto his chest. Andre was huge in 1992, looking bigger this month than in his matches a month prior, and Fishman thought he could just tumble right through. 

The rudos work Canek over more in the segunda, and there's a great moment where he hits the triumphant bodyslam on Bigelow, but the bodyslam proves to me more symbolic than actually damaging, and he causes himself more pain than he causes Bigelow. Andre sets up a few spots where he holds Canek from the apron while Bigelow hits an avalanche, and he does a really nasty full nelson around the top ring rope. Andre was really great at being the stunned giant, letting out a bark when Canek catches him in the stomach and getting knocked into the ropes from a Canek spinning heel kick. Andre's weak stomach was an awesome late career add, a weakness he would use to transition to the big opponent comeback, and he was good enough at selling his stomach that there was always a sense of danger that Andre was about to violently ruin a singlet. In a great twist, Andre gets knocked into and trapped in the ropes, but Bigelow uses the distraction to hit a glorious uppercut between Canek's legs, then grapevines Canek's leg and trapped it, selling like Canek kicked him (Bigelow) so hard in the taint that his foot got stuck. Rudos win straight falls, and I really didn't talk about how much of a blast Bigelow was having. This was the only couple month stretch he ever worked in Mexico, and he knew exactly what to do and looked like he loved doing it. He had a couple smiles during this match that made it look like he was on vacation, and seeing him there makes it pretty easy to imagine this 400 pound fireball gringo as the biggest thing in lucha. 

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WWF 305 Live: Bigelow vs. Kamala!

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Kamala WWF 5/15/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: This match was supposed to be part of WrestleMania IX but got bumped for time. At school the next day, there was one kid who got to order WrestleMania IX. He was holding court with the wrestling fans, telling us all everything that happened. He was outed as a liar a week later when a different kid saw the show (after his dad got a tape of the show from a co-worker) and found out there was no Kamala/Bigelow match. The first kid had described that match in detail, and the second kid was now telling all of us that the match wasn't even on the show. The first kid - a liar - wisely pivoted to the match being a "bonus match" that he got to see because they bought the show and were given a special code to see it. The second kid, seeing the show on a VHS tape, obviously did not have access to the Bigelow/Kamala match. I'm not going to lie, that first kid was REALLY convincing. Also, kids are very stupid, so they will believe the lies of other kids who are also stupid. 

And the thing is, even though the kid was lying and had in reality likely never seen WrestleMania IX (kids are liars and also a lot of kids want attention, he did nothing wrong), his description of the Kamala/Bigelow match that didn't happen is basically the same as this actual house show match between them that DID happen. So, while a liar, at least the kid understood the product enough to plausibly fantasy book an entire show. I really liked this match, and think there could have been an actual great Bigelow/Kamala match had they been given time to have one. The strike exchanges looked really cool and both guys took interesting bumps for the other. Bigelow started with some fun house show shtick demanding a handshake from the cannibal and doing all these big body gestures to swoop in with multiple handshake offers. He was moving like the world's largest matador just finding silly little ways to offer Kamala his hand, before of course jumping him. 

Bigelow's elbow strikes looked good, Kamala's overhand chops looked great, and Kamala takes a cool bump getting thrown to the floor. I always love the messy way Kamala bumps to the floor. He always made it look like he was not actually supposed to fall through the ropes to the floor. Bigelow drops some big headbutts and then misses a splash, eats an overhand chop and a thrust kick, then gets run into the turnbuckles. Bigelow takes a fun back bump off the buckles and then eats a splash, but of course Kamala pins him incorrectly. Ref Jesse Hernandez does a bunch of fun pantomime showing Kamala that Bigelow needs to be on his back, getting onto the mat on his own back with big exaggerated motions. And, while learning the ways of these civilized humans, Kamala falls victim to a schoolboy. 

The kid who lied to all of us completely nailed the finish of the WrestleMania match that never happened, exactly how it happened. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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