New Footage Friday: Ricky Morton Week

Rock and Roll Express vs. Buddy Landell/Doug Somers ACW 6/89

PAS: Really fun short TV tag with a great heeling and stooging pink booted Buddy Landell performance. I loved how he backed Morton into the corner and gave him a contemptuous little tap on his cheek, only for Morton to pop him in the jaw which Buddy sold with a Valentine flop. We got the heels working over the Rock and Rolls only to get the hot tag, match ends weakly with Landell and Somers getting DQed for tossing Morton over the top, we never really got the full payoff although I enjoyed the journey.

MD: This is from Atlantic Coast (Nelson Royal's late 80s promotion) TV and is just a really fun eight or nine minutes. Landell's an all time stooge to start, disengaging, snapping his fingers, pinching Morton's cheek and then taking a slow, overwrought timber bump when he gets pegged for his troubles. After Gibson wipes out on the post, Somers and Landell put on a master class in ref distraction, underhanded switches, and cutting off the ring. It's only a few minutes of control but they make it feel longer and weightier in the execution, which is always what you want in a match like this. The transition to comeback made sense for a short TV match (the double-teaming backfiring as a second rope axe-handle knocks Gibson across the ring to make the tag) and the finish was the sort of thing that kept the program going and got people to head out to the local shows to see something more decisive. It was what you'd want from a sub-ten minute TV match with these four and I bet the house shows were really good.

Ricky Morton/Beau James vs. The Battering Ram/Justin St. John SSW 10/21/95

PAS: This is a Hell before Halloween match, a tornado tag with weapons in the corner. Really fun short Memphis style main event brawl. Never hear of the heels before, but they had nice punches and a willingness to be hit by a bullwhip which is pretty much what you need for these types of matches. Beau bled some, although not a full Beau James gore fest. Match had commentary but not crowd noice, which does hurt it a bit, so much of these types of matches are about building to a huge crescendo and while we could tell it was happening we couldn't actually hear it.

MD: We wanted to close out the Morton theme week with a SSW match and first gravitated to an 09 match vs Eaton but it only went a few minutes. This was a weapons in every corner match, so there was all sorts of things involved, from a staple gun to a bullwhip. The story was that Beau got taken out on the post early and Morton had to fight off both guys. Once Beau got back in they worked over the wound a bit, but after a shot from said staple gun, it devolved into a lot of back and forth weapons shots. Morton using the bullrope was especially fun and the heels stuff looked good enough, even if Battering Ram seemed to meander about now and again, though that added to the chaos as much as subtracted. If they were going to go with color and woundwork in a match like this, you'd hope for a bit more flow and having it spread around a bit. Battering Ram's mask was white and stayed white, for instance. It felt like a match of its time, an odd port into SSW, but it was an interesting relic to see mid-90s Morton in the midst of something like this.

Ricky Morton vs. Bam Bam Bigelow MEWF 10/23/97

PAS: This was not would you would expect at all. Bam Bam is the babyface defending the ECW title on a Baltimore indy, and Morton is working as a Memphis heel. Small heel against giant babyface is kind of a weird dynamic, and while Morton is fun complaining about a hair pull and bumping around, I don't really think Bam Bam had the type of charisma needed to work as an overdog babyface, he isn't Hulk Hogan getting his hands on Bobby Heenan, just too subdued. Finish was an eyeopener, Bam Bam catches a Morton bodypress and hits a disgusting looking sit out piledriver, stood Morton straight up and looked like he broke his neck. Completely separate bit of horror from the rest of the low stakes match. Interesting, but ultimately a failure. 

MD: A rare, as in I think it only happened a handful of times, look at traveling ECW Champ Bam Bam Bigelow. You'd probably want the roles to be reversed here, as Morton was a heatseeking, stalling and stooging heel, and Bigelow was the brick wall, dominant champ, but we take what we get. Morton ran into the wall well to start. Even when things turned, after Morton brought out Hamrick to help him, Bigelow never really seemed in too much danger. It's not that Morton's stuff didn't look good, as it was fine, but you didn't really get the sense he was putting a dent in Bam Bam. That wasn't to say that you couldn't imagine a world where Morton might somehow cheat to win though, so it still worked well enough, and he was scummy enough about it and Bam Bam dynamic enough in his high octane hope spots, that you were happy to see things turn around. We miss how Hamrick's taken out of the equation, but the finish, with Bam Bam catching Morton off the top and planting him with Greetings from Asbury Park worked really well. I don't know if it was the indy ring or Morton's sell or what, but Bam Bam bumping himself on the impact was just resounding. I think I'd feel better about this one if we had dozens of traveling champ Bigelow matches or another five or six face Morton vs Bam Bam ones.

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New Footage Friday: COLON! INVADER! BEAU JAMES! HARRISON! ICP! FUNK! LAWLER! BROWN! KASH!

Beau James vs. Ricky Harrison SSW 4/17/98

MD: To me, this felt a little like Beau's magnum opus, the match he had in his head fifteen or twenty years before and now got to play out. It was high stakes and heavily built to, for the title, the crowd, and loser leaves for six months. This felt big, with the first half almost worked like a NWA title match and then the middle and back half more full of heat and comeback and Memphis style ga-ga. As such, it filled a lot of time, but never really wore out its welcome, even when we were on the third ref getting bumped. Because it had enough room to breathe and enough room to have a lot of fulfilling substance, and a clear resolution with the babyface getting over and the heel getting his comeuppance, it all worked. It's when that stuff comes in place of a real match and in denial of that resolution that you feel less than satisfied. I do think I wanted to see this go up an extra gear with a bit more brawling and hate, and there were a couple of logical fallacies, like Beau having a hidden object with him for the whole match and not going for it until it came time for the heel ref to get bumped. It would have made more sense to introduce that earlier. All in all, though, I think it's a pretty big achievement to pull off a match like this in a satisfying way, both in the early substance and the later style.

PAS: Big match Beau is always worth watching, he really knows how to make something a moment. As someone who idolized Lawler he often had the Loser Leave Town stip as a big show gimmick. Here he was working heel against Ricky Harrison and they brought in Brian Hildebrand to ref the match. I really enjoyed the wrestling section at the beginning, James kept Harrison grounded with some punishing mat wrestling, crossfaces, knee work and short right hands, he even hits this sick flying drop toe hold. Harrison has a nice punch and good timing and that is what you need for a match like this. The second half of the match ladles on the shtick a lot, two ref bumps and a heel ref. I could have used a little less frosting, for the match to entirely work on me, but it certainly worked on the crowd and James had clearly gotten them to ready to see him sent on his way. Got me excited to start up a Beau James LLT mini C+A. 

Jerry Lawler/Kid Kash/Monty Brown vs. Terry Funk/Insane Clown Posse  JCW 7/17/04 - FUN

ER: I really wish we got a classic heatseeking promo from Lawler to start this. He's opposite ICP AT the Gathering of the Juggalos. You're not going to be the face in that spot. He should have absolutely nuked this crowd, the heat would have gotten molten so easily. But, he probably didn't feel like being doused in high fructose corn syrup and washing Faygo out of his hair two days later. Funk gets in the ring and grabs the mic, says "I only have one thing to say" and then tells a 2 minute joke about a chicken's asshole. According to the video camera, the match started at exactly 4:20, which I refuse to believe was an accident. The match was plenty fun, with almost all of the heat aimed directly a Kid Kash's valet getting called a man in several different ways by the crowd. 

Kash looked great bumping around for ICP, and ICP themselves were shockingly exactly what the crowd wanted to see. ICP had both clearly improved since their WCW run, too, which helps. Violent J actually impressed me several times, and kind of made me want to do a Violent J mid 2000s deep dive? Is that stupid? J knows how to stumble around in between punches shockingly well, staggers convincingly, and always made it right back to his mark. His punches are decent too, and he throws a great eye rake (and back rake!). He even took great bump getting tossed to the floor, clearing the ropes and taking a huge back bump. Violent J would have made a 500 in 2004, and that's awesome. Shaggy threw a nice brainbuster on Kash, did a cool guillotine legdrop off the apron to the floor, and won the match with a big guillotine legdrop.

Funk and Lawler were going to be the highlights here. Lawler stalled a lot when he first tagged in against Funk, which could have been a good move to get heat, but it just kind of quieted the crowd down and slowed down what had been a nice pace. Once they got going it was obviously good, but Lawler was fun against everyone here. It's weird (and great) seeing him throw all of his great punches against ICP, see him hitting big roundhouses in a setting like this, but Funk/Lawler is the legendary pairing. This might also be one of Lawler's better uses of the Stunner, my least favorite Lawler spot. The context of the spot is important, as once he introduced the Stunner to his moveset he was mostly working babyface on indy shows. Here he was the heel, and it works much better as a heel heat spot than as a cheap pop; later, Funk gives him a Stunner and Lawler shows that he takes a Stunner better than almost anyone I've seen. He dropped down in a perfect plane and made it look like Funk's shoulder really did jam into his throat.  Funk's punches look good, Lawler takes a nice backdrop bump, but then starts throwing nothing but great combos on Terry. Our cameraman zoomed in at a perfect spot, right when Lawler is pressing his fist against Funk's nose to measure his shot, then drawing his fist back and bringing it smashing back in that same spot. He piledrives Funk on the floor, then hits a beauty back in the ring. The match went 20 and could have accomplished everything in 15, but obviously you'll want to watch them work in this environment no matter what.

MD: This was something. The non-wrestling stuff bits were as fascinating to watch as the wrestling bits. Lawler seemed pretty appreciative to be in front of that crowd, though he still managed to get heat once the match got going. Funk did everything under the sun to get over in this setting, and for the most part he did, because he's Terry Funk. Kash was generally there to feed for the Posse. Violent J really wanted to get his stuff in, which makes sense, I guess. Monty Brown was generally there to be a spoiler. The crowd seemed most interesting in throwing stuff at the valet. Ultimately, it was all probably what it should have been with this crowd. I don't mind dipping into a match like this but I'm glad I don't live there.

PAS: This felt like a match full of stars in front of a hot crowd. ICP aren't great, but they are perfectly competent and are Bruno in the Garden level over in whatever farm this show was at. Everyone else in this match are superstars at this kind of big match tag. Monty Brown didn't have a long career, but feels like a force of nature. Lawler vs. Funk was great, that punch Lawler lined up was an all-timer, and I loved the piledrivers Lawler hit. Funk was pretty physically diminished, but was still Terry Funk. It is crazy to think we are farther away from this match now than this match was from Funk vs. Flair or Lawler vs. Dundee. It feels like time has sped up.  

Carlos Colon vs. Invader 1 WWC 7/27/13

MD: 67 year old Invader 1 vs. 65 year old Carlos Colon here. Carlos still had his instincts and timing though he had slowed down, certainly. The jumping jack for his comeback was more of a hop. His shots all looked good though, and the age only made his selling more poignant. His big bump was running into a boot in the corner which looked great. Invader, on the other hand, was pretty spry, working with a mask but without a shirt. He went over the rail, took some chairshots, and ran well. He's also maybe the greatest seller in pro wrestling history, so him eating Colon's shots and recoiling around ringside was still pretty compelling. There was some grisly choking with a chair and the low blows you'd expect out of old man Invader 1, but it maybe wasn't quite as grisly as you'd want. This was to set up an Anniversario mixed match with Stacy Colon and Tigresa and Stacy took a pretty huge post-match beating to set it up. Definitely effective for what it was and a great showing for two mid-late 60s year olds.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday: Heenan, Larry Z, Jumbo, Tenryu, Lawler, Beau James, Dirty Dutch, Goldens

Jumbo Tsuruta/Giant Baba vs. Killer Karl Kox/Dick Murdoch AJPW 2/25/81

PAS: This is a 2/3 falls match where we get parts of the first two falls and the whole third. Mainly worth it to see Kox and Murdoch as a team, and they rule. nothing is more of a natural heel team then two guys that look like racist southern sheriffs in the 50s, you almost expect them to interrupt the match to go firebomb a black church. Kox is one of my all time favorites, and there is so little footage available. Fun to watch him team with Murdoch, when you watch them together it is almost like Murdoch is Dick Slater to KKK's Terry Funk, Kox has all of the Murdoch shitck and does it even better, his punches are a bit more awesome, elbow drop is even more throat crushing and his Brain buster is even more brain busting. I really like the double team that Baba and Jumbo use to finish the fall, and I dig the cheapshot finish, but this was more of a showcase then a great match.

MD: This is cool because one of the few significant Kox performances we have is the match against Murdoch. There were times here when he was out on the apron pantomiming what Murdoch was doing where he was almost like Dick's dad or older brother. They both have that same larger than life over the top-ness both throwing offense and eating it, even if they are completely different physically. Past the entrance, we basically come in on a long Jumbo, FIP, with Murdoch and Kox as a well-oiled machine cutting off the ring. It's amazing how commonplace and obvious something like this, that's virtually a lost art was. Now we're in a world of all-action tornado tags with 3/4th of the match being a finishing stretch.

Anyway, they had some great stuff, be it the brainbuster or the elbow drops or the suplex. The end of the first fall was just great with Jumbo floating over to escape a suplex and hitting the world's hugest flying knee after a Baba big boot. The second fall was the heels staying on top after that little blip and Murdoch making short work of Jumbo. Baba finally got involved towards the end and I thought the finish, while abrupt, was actually pretty cool. I wasn't expecting it and it definitely got over the Americans while protecting the Baba and Jumbo. I hope we come across a lot more of Killer Karl in the hunt for footage. It feels like we've just scratched the surface.

ER: Goddamn this was good. I love Kox so much (Ed: Find a better way to say that), he looks like the absolute toughest old white dude. He's 50 and looks 75, like a tougher version of Robert Duvall's Reverend EW in The Apostle, and Robert Duvall beat a man into a coma with a baseball bat in that movie. Kox is a man who looks like kids his in his neighborhood are scared of him, a guy who owns a mean dog, a guy who keeps things that fly over his fence. And he never ends up saving any of you from burglars while your parents are away. Kox reminds me of a meaner, more grizzled version of my grandfather, the late great George Yost. And my grandpa was grizzled. He was a lumberjack with 6 of his brothers. Two of them died as lumberjacks. He worked hard and was a millionaire, but lived in a trailer for most of the years I knew him. He lived until he was 91, and he wore those periwinkle old man jeans that I've never seen in stores, yet many old men in my life wore them. He was old and grumpy and perpetually hard of hearing. He loved pro wrestling when my mom was young, which is why she hated pro wrestling, because it was on a LOT in Riverside, CA in the 50s and 60s. He never learned my sister's name, even though she was 25 when he eventually passed away. He would call me Eric when he came down to stay with us, and called her "The Girl", but not in a mean way, in a "I just genuinely can't remember" way. He was vain. He kept himself at 170 lbs until he was 90, wanting to maintain his waistline so he could wear his favorite clothes (his light blue jeans and thick flannel shirts). And when he turned 90 he assertively told his Church to not print his birthday or age in the Church Bulletin, because he "didn't want people to know he was old." When I was still young enough to live with my parents, he would watch wrestling with me when he was visiting us for a couple days. He watched and seemed intrigued by Cactus Jack and Terry Funk getting pushed off the stage in a dumpster. He hadn't watched wrestling in decades, but Freddie Blassie was his favorite when he watched. He called my mother's school principal a pencil neck geek to his face. Karl Kox is a mean version of George Yost, and I've watched every single available match we have of him. So any time we get any new Killer Karl Kox footage it's some of the best wrestling news I can get.

Murdoch and Kox are so cool, jumping off the ropes way to much for round-middled southern boys, jumping with great elbows and axe handles, even Baba looks like he's gonna go off the top rope at one point. These two were such tough bruisers, and really scrambled to put a beating on Jumbo. I loved Murdoch going after Jumbo and missing on a fast elbowdrop. The finish of the first fall is one of the all time greats, with Murdoch running so damn hard into a big Baba boot, truly making it one of the most effective and nasty Baba boots in history, then stumbling back face first right into a smashing Jumbo high knee. We even get a slo mo shot of that great finish and it reminds you of the first non-deathmatch tapes you bought or traded for, watching thunderbolts ripple through Misawa's body as he got dumped on his head, watching sweat fly off Kawada's head as Misawa smashes him with an elbow, and now seeing Dick Murdoch spray spit after running into Baba's size 22.

The second fall is an absolute murder. Jumbo is in complete punching bag crash test dummy mode, and Kox and Murdoch look like literally the best tag team I've ever seen. Murdoch throws the best back elbow, hits an awesome running powerslam, the greatest worked kneedrop. He and Kox have this great thing going where Dick throws Jumbo face first into Karl's knee as he's tagging in, Kox drags Jumbo's limp, heavy corpse over the top rope and bodyslams him halfway across the ring, Kox throws a short fast uppercut that would get an OOOOOOOO reaction when it showed up on a Great Punches mixtape. By the time Murdoch finally lays Jumbo out with a brainbuster, the pinfall is a mercy killing. Thinking of 2/3 falls tag team wrestling in terms of boxing and MMA, this fall would be an absolutely legendary round.

Third fall sees these great old men (HA! I called them both old, even though Murdoch here is younger than I am now. However older, I have not yet become nor will ever become the exact, specific kind of man that Dick Murdoch was, for better and worse). Kox gets to show of his somehow better than John Tatum stooging, as Baba gets involved and throws awesome chops at Killer's throat. After each chop Kox comes drunkenly firing out of the corner, throwing punches at nobody. But before long Murdoch and Kox are having an elbowdrop contest on Baba's chest, with Kox throwing the finest leaping elbowdrop you've seen, outgunning Murdoch's excellent take on the falling elbowdrop. Kox even gets to finish the match, gets to have a hidden weapon finish. How fucking cool is that? 50 years old, getting to use a hidden weapon to knock Giant Baba out and pin him in Tokyo in the main event. How cool is it to thing of Kox 20 years after that, telling people about this match while wearing a plaid shirt tucked into his jeans, and a hat that he got while visiting a decommissioned Naval aircraft carrier.

This match is honestly my favorite wrestling match I've watched all year. This is some great pro wrestling. It's what I get joy from, this thing I've been obsessed with for much of my life. We need to make this thing public and make sure anyone who wants to see it, will be able to. This is what it's all about people.

Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Bobby Heenan/Larry Zbyszko AJPW 7/4/81

PAS: Pretty awesome to see two of the greatest wrestlers of all time team up to take on Jumbo and Tenryu. As you might imagine we get lots of shenanigans from the AWA dream team, cheap shots and chinlocks with the strap wrapped around the throat. Heenan is great when he realizes the jig is up and he takes a great flip bump on Jumbo clothesline. I would have liked to see the finish be a little more competitive, it felt like Tenryu and Jumbo just decided to stop with the nonsense and end the match, but it was fun to see The Brain and The Legend in a different context.

MD: Obviously it's great to see any interaction between Larry and Bobby. Heenan was super demonstrative with the tag rope. In most matches you don't even notice it, but here he was using it as an open symbol for all of the chicanery and his heart. He was so over the top at times that you could confuse him for Percy Pringle, but it worked in front of this crowd. Obviously, he wasn't going to offer hard hitting or monstrous violence. What he had to offer was being as Bobby Heenan as possible. That included, apparently, taking a perfectly believable flip bump off of a chop. Larry, at this point, was an absolute king of feeding into offense too. Everything felt fluid. Yeah, it would have been nice to have a little more of this, maybe a six month run against the High Flyers, but I'm glad we got anything at all considering that the community's never even seen this pairing before. 


Jerry Lawler/Beau James/Dutch Mantel vs. Jimmy Golden/Eddie Golden/Jeff Tankersley SSW 9/18/10

ER: Man this was 12 good minutes of tag that I wish went 30. What a fabulous trios team we get from the babyface side, with Beau James at his biggest, 320 lb. (that just means his punches land harder), and the on again off again feuding legends Lawler and Dutch. Jimmy Golden is in great shape for 60, although his nephew Eddie is the one in 80% of this. We start with Beau, Lawler, and Dutch all getting to show off their skills against Eddie, showing off who has better shots in 2010. Beau throws such a great right hand and a stiff shoulderblock, Lawler and Dutch...well you know what those guys bring, and I loved when Jimmy got involved as he had a couple of fun stumbly, arm swinging bumps (especially when he went face first into the buckles, he stumbling back bump was sheer perfection). We get good moments of Eddie accidentally taking shots at Jimmy and Tankersley, and really the Goldens only take over when Lawler and Dutch collide and start fighting amongst themselves. Lawler is FIP throughout, taking boots and other shots from all of them, getting run into the ringpost still better than maybe anybody, taking a big backdrop, and Golden looks good taking over. Lawler comes back when Golden goes for another backdrop, Lawler stops short and punches him and tags Dutch (there was kind of a silly moment earlier where Dutch pulled his tag hand away) and then everybody swarms the ring. Beau tees off on Jimmy and Jimmy takes a couple more stumbling bumps, and we wrap things up in satisfying fashion. They clearly had the material to double this thing, and I wish we got some more (would have loved the Goldens surviving the Dutch hot tag and going through another control segment) time, and I wish we got more Beau James. His shots on Jimmy in the corner were great, loved his headlock punches, and I wanted to see more from the big guy. Still, this was what I expected, and made me smile the whole way through.

PAS: Man that babyface trio is a group of all timers. I loved all the early bumping around by the heels, especially Eddie Golden who was an awesome pinball and could turn vicious in a moment. With James and Eddie Golden you have a pair of all time born too late guys, this should have been a regional feud for the ages in the 80s, but they were both guys out of their time. Lawler is amazing at taking a beating and building to the hot tag, his post shots were brutal looking, and the punches by the Goldens and Tankerlsy really looked like they were brutalizing him. Jimmy Golden is just ageless, and I think there are probably some real Golden Gems among this SSW footage I agree with Eric that this really could have used another 5 or 10 minutes, but that may be just us getting greedy.

MD: Lots to like here. I think this may have peaked at the entrances though. The Goldens came out to All Hell's Breaking Loose. I watched the first year of Continental last year and Golden/Fuller coming out full of swagger to the near spoken word beginnings of that song was probably the best part in the midst of a year that was full of best parts. Dutch looked like the coolest old man in the world. As for Lawler? The venue, with a crowd that was by no means huge, felt electric, like it was hundreds of people more than it was, when he walked down.

The match itself was fun though, running the old "Partners who don't trust each other" gimmick. I like how they played it out, though, setting it up with two heel miscommunication spots, teasing it with one for the faces that was averted, and then going through with it off of a heel-driven shove that sent Lawler into Dutch. The arguing that ensued explained the heels taking over. Them taking over was Lawler eating a solid beating inside and out, with ref distraction and Dutch refusing to tag in. Ultimately, though, the heels get too big for their britches, hit Dutch, and he tags in and ends it. Exactly what it should have been and thoroughly enjoyable for what it was, just classic character driven storytelling that never gets old, well executed. Eddie particularly grew into a great stooge and Lawler has that immortal ability to sell every moment as meaningful and important to him (and if it's important to him, it's important to the crowd).

ER: I must find contention with Matt saying Dutch looked like the coolest old man in the world, as earlier in this post we witnessed 50 year old Karl Kox wearing a tight blue t-shirt hugging his near-retirement belly, the worlds KILLER KARL KOX written simply in white. White bubble lettering.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER

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Wednesday Morning War Games: CWA - G1 v. The First Family & the VSS

G1 (Tony Givens/Robby Cassidy/Moe Jenkins/Wayne Adkins) v. The First Family (Brian Logan/Beau James) and The VSS (Alyx Winters/Chase Owens) CWA 3/21/09

I thought this was totally awesome, CWA is the most recent iteration of Kingsport TN indy wrestling which is a tradition which goes back decades. I loved the opening section of this with Robbie Cassidy bumping around and busting open Chase Owens. Cassidy was fucking great in this, classic southern punches, big cage bumps, an awesome top rope fist drop, I had watched bits and pieces of Kingsport indies before (Tony Givens used to send me DVD's) , but this match made me want to search out more Robby Cassidy. James and Logan are a classic fat guy southern heel team, lots of great looking punches and cheap shots, sort of next generation Dirty Rhodes and Don Bass. This built nicely to a pretty crazy ending, with the faces locked in the cage another heel group comes out and menaces an injured member of G1 doing commentary, Winters does a nutty plancha off the cage onto the floor to break it up, and then there is a wild brawl on the floor and in the ring. The heels throw all of the faces out of the ring and focus on Givens, until Robbie Cassidy does another nuts dive from the cage to take out Logan, the only thing I didn't love was the finish with Givens getting a stoppage on James with MMA elbows, they didn't look great and they added some unneeded 2000s to a match that was gloriously 80s. Still this was a fucking blast, everything you want a War Games to deliver.

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