FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: OMNI 7/3/83

7/3/83 Full Show 

Bill Irwin vs. Brett Wayne

ER: Great combo of guys, a weird size mismatch but not a wrestling mismatch. We're both big Irwin and Sawyer fans, two more men who've had their career cases bolstered by all this Omni footage. Irwin is this great wrestling weird guy, a stumblier Terry Gordy, big and lunging and always off balance a bit. He's a stomping lummox and Brett Wayne is a strong underdog who connects with the Omni setting. He's great at fighting to his feet, he's great at taking offense with real expression. The way he rag dolls on a big backbreaker is just one good example of his emotive selling. Irwin mostly in control, but that off balance gait makes him feel less in control. 

Irwin builds to his biggest offense, and it's all powerful stuff. His gutwrench and vertical suplexes land heavy, and I loved his Bruiser Brody kneedrop. Fresh off an All Japan tour where he worked exclusively as Brody's partner, he does a pitch perfect impression of Brody's bodyslam and King Kong kneedrop, only Irwin's kneedrop looked better. Everyone in the Omni and my house thought Irwin was missing that kneedrop when he was setting it up. It hits square and Brett already has his foot on the ropes. I wish it had missed so it didn't lead directly to Brett fighting back with babyface fire. 

The count out finish is excellent, as Irwin tosses Sawyer to the floor and Brett gets his whole leg hung up over the guardrail as he lands. The guardrail isn't even especially close to the ring, a whole commentary table and more away, he just flew. He takes another, different kind of great tumble over the rail when Irwin boots him from the ring. Great rail work. Buzz Sawyer saunters out as this is happening, and there's a great bit where he keeps half heartedly talking Bill out of jumping off the top buckle to the floor as Brett is struggling.

MD: Loved this. Great way to get the crowd going. There was a massive size difference but they milked it as far as they could. In the first exchange on the mat, Wayne scrambling free got a massive pop because they made a big deal out of it. Then Irwin complained about him being greased up. The first few minutes were bit after bit, Irwin missing an elbow or running into a boot or getting twisted around while trying to control the arm. Celebratory babyface shine stuff made better by the connection Wayne had with the crowd, the size difference, Irwin's willingness to stooge. 

He did take over and there weren't really hope spots or comebacks so much as big kickouts from Wayne, starting with a kickout at one. Because it started the sequence, it had a completely different effect than a late match nearfall that was about fighting spirit. It was a bit of defiance before Irwin had beaten him down as much. At one point he managed a kick out and the place went nuts and Irwin slapped the mat in frustration. Then Irwin hit the knee but Wayne's leg bounced up on the rope for a great visual. He got mad at that (instead of making faces) and tossed Wayne out. Wayne took this amazing pinball bump over the rail, and then when knocked off the apron as he was trying to come back went sailing over it again. Great stuff leading to a countout. Post match, Irwin menaced him like he'd come off over the top but officials stopped him. He still got over for the sheer threat of it given his size.

Bob Sweetan vs. Killer Brooks 

ER: I love Killer Brooks' look as a wrestler so much, a total dirtbag who looked like Ricky Jay without success. He has the look of a man to be looked at with scorn, and the Omni all feels that scorn. This is a man to avoid as he's buying his beer and Twinkies at the store. Brooks is so hateable on sight that the Omni is excited to see noted huge piece of shit Bob Sweetan punch the hell out of him. That's what this is, a big fat piece of shit punching a scum bag around the ring while the scum bag begs off and takes funny bumps. Killer Brooks is one of the more underwhelming wrestlers I've come across in our 20 years of 80s projects, but he's great at getting punched around by Sweetan. Sweetan had a great bit where he kept badly hiding headlock punches from ref Nick Patrick, but the crowd disliked Brooks so much that they kept siding with Sweetan and saying he did nothing wrong. The time limit draw finish is unsatisfying, but Brooks' scramble at the finish was the coolest part of the match. Mr. Piledriver finally sets up the piledriver, and Brooks, panicking, floats his leg out to the ropes while dragging Sweetan down with a double leg. It looked more spry and agile than anything I've ever seen Killer Brooks do, so it's possible it was all an accident. 

MD: I'd say this overachieved. Same idea as the first match in some ways but this time Sweetan was more the aggressor and able to push Brooks around. Fans went up for every punch, especially the ones in a headlock that he hid from the ref. Brooks took over with a cheapshot or two and kept laying in punches (big stomp ones). Sweetan hulked up with a "Now you've done it" look that got a pop fromt he crowd and Brooks did take a draping face first bump into the corner. They kept brawling to the bell for a time limit draw. Pretty minimalist overall but you can't really say it didn't work. I do think Brooks needed something extra during his control whether it was working the crowd more or a little more variety in offense, but the fans still went up big for Sweetan's comeback. I would have rather a double DQ for too much punching than the draw maybe too.

Tully Blanchard vs. Pez Whatley

MD: Ah, this is why they didn't do the DQ in the previous match. After cutting Pez off on a comeback, Tully got DQed here for pounding on him in the corner. Then they had a post match of Tully running into a bunch of punches before he got the upper hand and more or less kept his heat on the way out in the Tully way. Match itself was a lot of fun. First few seconds were beautiful as Tully turned a handshake into a slap and then ran like hell. Of course he got clowned shortly thereafter. Then he reached over the ref to hit a cheapshot in the corner and was off to the races. What a jerk. What a pro. Little odd to see him in this setting but he was going to get over as a heel anywhere and he clearly did here.  

ER: I could have watched Tully go after Pez for a half hour without getting restless. Tully is both for this, born to move as despicably as possible. I think I love this match structure, where Tully beats Whatley's ass by being an underhanded but tough asshole for 5 minutes then Pez beats Tully's ass for a couple minutes after the DQ. Tully's movement should be studied. It's dickhead Baryshnikov, strutting around on his tiptoes after cheapshots and violent outbursts. That short elbow he shoots into Pistol's jaw, before violently pulling him by his trunks through the ropes to the floor? That's what I want. I want that trunk pull, that sudden jolt to the waist that sends Whatley's head and shoulders folding to the apron. The crowd hates Tully's shit pants smug strut after. Pistol's punches after the bell were hot fire, and Tully takes two big spills for him. He drops like lead from a missed middle buckle elbow, and flies fast through the ropes to the concrete to put over Pistol's atomic drop. If I could be guaranteed a Tully match like this on every indy card, I'd ho home happy with wrestling every time. 

Ronnie Garvin vs. Iron Sheik

MD: Weird card so far. This was a deal where the title was on the line for the first ten minutes only but it didn't matter because it was a non-match. Garvin choked him with the towel and kept choking him with the towel and the ref just threw it out. He said he was going to give everyone a July 4th gift and get Sheik out of the country and then really didn't do that. They did leave the fans with a happy memory as Garvin atomic dropped Ellering into Sheik on the floor. Still, this had to feel a bit like a rip off. And actually, that's maybe not the best idea in general, because Ellering was in the next match and it was built at least a little about deferring punishment to him. This card is kind of all over the place even if specific bits are okay in isolation.

ER: This was hot, smoking hot. Garvin is an animal and Sheik is great at being overwhelmed by this haircut of a man. The timing and scrap of it all was tremendous. It was a great Paul Ellering match, a guy we don't always praise and a guy who doesn't always add to a match. Here he's excellent dressing, a bee buzzing on the periphery and getting tangled into and out of the action in ways that felt like a guy actually breaking up and exacerbating a fight. When Nick Patrick would get tangled with them it would get even better! Sheik gets hung by the neck from the top rope that Garvin used to distract and snare like a gi. These Omni DQs/count outs/messes are great at building to a climactic explosion of someone out of the ring, and this one was perfectly executed: Sheik's flying into Ellering with a running kneelift, Garvin sidestepping at the last moment. Timed to the T, with nobody looking around for a cue. The sense of space from all used to max effect. 

Stan Hansen/Tommy Rich/Ole Anderson vs. The Road Warriors/Paul Ellering

MD: I feel for Arn that he wasn't in the Tommy Rich role after they made a big deal about him not going with Ellering in the build. This is Ole in his Bill Watts standing tall phase and he is over but it's still weird. Also weird is Hansen and Tommy Rich as tag team specialists and, of course, like always, the Roadies eating so, so much offense in the extended shine. It goes on forever. Very fun to see Hansen cutting off the ring by blocking so Rich can come in and keep the assault on. He also hit a great monstrous belly to back out of a headlock.

Pretty interesting heat. They kept cycling in the babyfaces (first Hansen) and controlling with headlocks using hairpulls or their own corner to keep control. There'd be tags but it'd be right back into the headlock. They opened things up on Rich which let Ellering tag in quickly over and over to get cheapshots. Eventually he kicked his way out of the corner (to great applause) and made a hot tag to Ole. Ole ended up back in the headlock and they really worked it this time. I thought maybe they took the fans a bit too low because there'd already been a hot tag but when Ole started to fight back, the fans did get up for the comeback. He went through the legs which was a wild image and got a hot tag to Hansen. Everything fell apart after that and I think the Roadies were DQed for tossing Rich over the top. Man Mountain Darsow (who just debuted on TV) came in to take care of business and the fans did like that. Too many inconclusive finishes on this one, I think.

ER: Hansen vs. The Road Warriors is so sick. He looks so damn tough against them, he looks towering. The way he knocks them both back with chops, the way he moves both with no issue, it's marvelous. Hawk and Animal are not yet Hawk and Animal. They are not will imposers yet, they are machines without full ideas of what to do. They're 10-20 matches into a 2,000 match career, a feeling that has never been felt before. Think of being 10 of 2,000 into anything. Your 10th ever beer, or your 10th ever burger; how those would be if Stan Hansen was punching your neck while you had it. Hawk has this nasty side headlock grab that looks like some real ranked bouncer Dalton sweep up the eyeballs toughness, and Hansen just lifts him cold and quick with a back suplex, like it was instinct and the easiest way to shake off a 275 pound man. 

The Road Warriors are infants with fuzzy Monchhichi haircuts. Hawk, always gifted with finding surprising ways to take offense, apparently had that skill from go. I watched it back a few times when he ran through a Wildfire punch to his stomach, stumbling through it and out of it with a leg buckling forward roll.  The Road Warriors long headlock control wasn't my favorite. Animal did the greater portion of it and his control was too stifling with too little advancement; too slow burn without catching fire, too smothering to lead to rewarding babyface selling, minimal intrigue given to Tommy and Ole in the headlocks. The headlock on Rich was enough, we didn't need one on Ole. Rich finally tagging out to Ole was one of the best parts of the match, Ole great at fighting messily through Hawk and Animal and Ellering for good measure. 

The real treat is after the match, as I've never seen any part of Barry Darsow's one month long Man Mountain Darsow era. His rarest persona. He's dressed like a 5 year old who likes big truck, and big hulking baby who's a Real Man's Man. Unrestrained Darsow is a sight. It's the biggest I've seen him outside any modern YouTube thumbnails. Had I been there and been even slightly more interested than the depressed man in white slacks in the front row, I would have thought Darsow was a future wrecking ball no different than Hansen and the Road Warriors. I wouldn't have known about how much he would call people goofballs.  

Buzz Sawyer vs. Scott Casey

MD: Casey had come in from Southwest and built this with a promo that he heard Sawyer was the toughest guy around so he wanted to fight him. Meanwhile, there had been some Rich and Sawyer animosity (re)building with a great backstage fight at the last Omni show. This was definitely good. Buzz got outwrestled to start, and he made it very engaging, constantly moving and flailing, teasing clean breaks and handshakes, taking his signature bump sideways out of the ring after a punch during rope running. 

He took over with a spinning heelbutt in the ropes after all those clean breaks and his cutoffs were all wild bits of body motion as he got his feet up. Finishing stretch had him missing a huge top rope knee drop and then holding the ropes after a roll up reversal. I could have used a little more on the comeback but this was really just to set the stage for Rich making the save for Casey and the two of them having a wild bloody brawl around ringside. Better to save the energy and fans' attention for that. 

Larry Zbyszko vs. Mr. Wrestling II

MD: We've not covered the weekly TV the vault has been posting leading up to this show. Those have had less great matches and more were great episodes where stories ran throughout the show.  

They had built to the last match by having this great show long story with Larry saying Wrestling II didn't deserve a shot followed by II winning a handicap match (pinning one person after another with his new pal Rick Rood coming out to ensure Larry didn't interfere), and then Larry's crony Killer Brooks failing to pin two guys, the second being Rood, after II came out to help him. 

That led to the last Omni show having Wrestling II get a pinfall on Larry that was counted by by Rood while the ref was down and stealing the belt. On the next show, they instituted a new rule where in case of a draw, a ref could decide a winner, and it was all about setting up Killer Brooks and guest commentator Wrestling I as co-refs for the upcoming match.

The following week, Larry finally got Geigel to force Wrestling II to give the belt back to him, but that led to a $25,000 vs Mask challenge where Larry brought in Tully and Wrestling II had Pez as his partner. They'd do a three round elimination tag. The reason for this was clearly because GCW TV wasn't set up to do one long match over the whole show. That defeated part of the purpose of the TV to cut promos for the weekly shows around the horn. By doing it in rounds, they could be a bit like Portland who would do promos between falls of 2/3 falls matches. The elimination gimmick was more to put Wrestling II's mask more at risk and build the story of the match. 

That was fun (even if it was weird to see Tully as anyone's second banana) and led to Wrestling II beating the odds.

Which brings us to this long, long title match. Like I noted, it was a great build and we were lucky to see it. 

The premise here is that with the two refs, Larry wants to wrestle clean if Wrestling II dares. Wrestling II does dare ("Mr. Zbyzsko, my name is Mr. Wrestling"). Brooks is all cleaned up which is funny to see. 

So they work this match for far longer than you'd expect with Larry getting one-upped hold after hold, exchange after exchange, and throwing a fit on the outside (with the fans counting along) only to come back in and get shown up again. That meant headlocks that II was able to keep despite Larry's best efforts, times where it looked like Larry might have gotten an advantage with something legitimately slick only to immediately lose it, and rope running where he did A-B and C right only to get clowned on D. At one point, when Larry was disengaging to try to figure out what to do, II grabbed the house mic and said "I thought you wanted to wrestle" to a big pop. We've seen this a thousand times, but I've never seen it taken to this level where they just run it for so, so long building up pressure for him to totally lose it. And the best part was that they had the fans the whole way between the build, the premise, and the execution (including and especially Larry's selling of the humiliation).

Finally, Larry got frustrated enough to throw a punch. Brooks (playing it even) was quick to admonish him and II hit a kneelift, only for Larry to go sailing out. Then the humiliation continued. Roll-ups, rope running, monkey flips. There'd be little glimpses of Larry losing it, not breaking clean in the corner, escalating to a body slam (only to get slammed immediately himself), but he kept going back to the wrestling, even having just a bit of luck with a full nelson. It wasn't enough and II escaped. That's when Larry lost it and kicked II through the ropes onto the table on a rope break. This was a whole 30 minutes into the match, which is a massive testament to the two of them, being able to keep the ball in the air that long.

Larry opened things up from there, peppering in punches on headlocks. Both I and Brooks (surprisingly) admonished him. He'd keep throwing punches, with Brooks doing most of the admonishing. Because he was giving him grief, there was only so much I could do, even as Larry came back for more punches. Eventually though, that little bit of delay, that little bit of distance let II start to duck and weave and mount a huge comeback.

Things get a little muddled for the finish unfortunately. We get a bit of out of the comeback clipping leading to a double down. II then does get the kneelift but Larry's hand is in the ropes and Brooks starts giving II grief. That causes I to get in his face and Brooks to toss I out. I eventually comes back and takes Brooks (who had been more or less doing his job) out of the match. II has a clear advantage down the stretch but can't quite put Larry away before the bell. As it rang, he had him in a great sleeper, with Larry's legs far, far out causing a big visual lean. I awarded the match to II (given the new rule that refs could do that on a draw) but said the belt should stay with Larry. The clipping hurts it a bit and it'd almost be better with only one ref (though it did help cover some of Larry's punching, maybe), but overall, I thought this was a fairly big accomplishment to pull off.

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 83~!

GCW Omni 8/28/83

ER: I'm so glad they included the opening promo package for this show, it's so good. Tommy Rich called Bill Irwin "Jack" (the greatest promo guys in history knew to call their opponents Jack), Mad Dog Sawyer has the greatest pro wrestling body imaginable, and the Brisco Brothers cut an honest to god excellent promo on the Roadies. Gerry is a bit rigid but he keeps calling their match a Texas Tarnado Match and talks about how they wrestle tarnadoes in the Great State of Oklahoma every day, but Jack is the real killer. I am not a big Jack Brisco guy. He is one of the All Time Greats whose work doesn't really thrill me. But he sounds so damn cool in this promo. He is calm, and delivers it with a smirk like he really doesn't give a good goddamn about the Road Warriors. There is no fear at all. He even makes fun of their big arms, and asks what they're going to do with those big arms when the Briscoes bend them behind their backs and they start gasping for breath, and then Gerry starts doing this incredible tongue out gagging. These Oklahoma men in their tan suits just out here mocking the fucking Road Warriors. Incredible. That sold me on their match so hard, I can't wait. 

Mr. Wrestling (Jesse Barr) vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Good mat-based opener to get over the idea that the fake Mr. Wrestling is capable enough. Lightfoot is basically the definition of a good undercard hand. I may or may not have mentioned it last time, but he was useful in Portland as a guy to build up Jay Youngblood coming in by giving the heels someone to beat first. They worked in and out of holds with some solid rope running. Barr did one of my favorite bits of mat wrestling where he has a toehold on and has to rotate around while keeping the toes in order to avoid his opponent from grasping his head. It's the slickest thing imaginable. Great finish here as he jammed a second headscissors takeover by turning it into a hotshot on the second rope, setting Lightfoot up for the running knee and then a back bridging pin for good measure.

ER: I dug this a lot. Barr does a lot of little things that I really like. I liked how he lay in wait to break Lightfoot's full nelson, holding his hands behind his head over Lightfoot's, motionless, before striking down in one quick motion. His drop toehold to set up his Indian deathlock was so tight. His fistdrop? A great, workmanlike Dibiase style fistdrop. He fell into the ropes selling for Lightfoot's comeback in a way that made it feel like he could accidentally slip through them. The finish is great, with Lightfoot going for a flying headscissors and Barr falling back with a hotshot that drops Lightfoot on the top rope to the middle. He sets up his Mr. Wrestling kneelift like an asshole, calling for it in the corner like an actually cool version of Edge. But the real asshole move was his jackknife neck bridge pin. I would have wanted to murder the guy if I were one of the front row men with their arms crossed. 

Brett Sawyer vs. Bob Roop

MD: This is an aside but I listened to an episode of Roop's podcast (#12 about his first tour of Japan) the other day and it was quite good. I'd suggest it. The more we see of Wayne, the better he comes off. Amazing connection with the crowd. Great seller. Throws everything into both his bumping and his shots, especially his comeback shots. Roop did a great job throwing himself into things too, especially his knee strikes. He used one to knock Wayne out of the ring early and Wayne came back a bloody mess. Blood on the second match on the card is a choice but it worked out here. Some great moments of comeback and cutoff, including a picture perfect posting reversal by Roop. Except for that wasn't a cutoff at all. As Roop tried to get back into the ring, a staggered Wayne managed to roll him up making it for two great, novel finishes in a row. Very good stuff for what it was.

ER: I really love Brett Sawyer now. I used to have not much of an opinion on him. All of these 1983 Omni shows have been so much fun, and everyone on them has had their stock raised by the new footage. Brett Wayne might just be the guy who has been raised the most, for me. Now, a lot of other guys had such high ceilings that they had less room to move up, but that doesn't matter. The Other Sawyer is great. This match was awesome. Bob Roop is one of the toughest men in wrestling history and looks like Ned Beatty. Sawyer looks like the ugly bassist in an 80s hair metal band, but he's just such a fucking great babyface. He has skills completely different from his brother. He was Mad Dog's younger brother, but by a lot less time than you'd think. They were a year apart but Brett Wayne was in permanent Kid Brother mode. Brett Wayne Sawyer was a GREAT Kid Brother wrestler. 

The Omni crowd sat with their arms crossed during a good opener, but Brett Wayne is the one who gets the old ladies waving their arms and pumping their fists for his comeback. This whole match is built around a big posting, where Roop runs Brett down the apron. Sawyer is great at dramatic falls, and I love how he absorbs the posting, how he falls off the apron, the time he took to get back in the ring. Sawyer is a great bleeder too, and as Roop hits a snaring clothesline you can see he has good color from the posting. Sawyer's selling is so good as he's fighting back, and it all builds to this incredible moment that mirrors his earlier posting. Sawyer now has Roop on the apron, now it's his turn for revenge, the fans all want it, the old ladies are screaming for Brett...and instead it turns out to be an incredibly done reversal. Sawyer runs Roop down the length of the apron and at the last second Roop smashes Sawyer's face into the turnbuckle, a shot maybe ever tougher than his posting earlier. I thought that would have played as a great, if demoralizing, finish, buy my boy Brett surprises me again when he gets a tight roll up immediately after, as Roop is getting back in the ring. I bit at all the exact things they wanted that Omni crowd to bite at, their storytelling and Sawyer's babyface fire hooking me just as it hooked ATL over 40 years ago.

Paul Ellering vs. Bruno Sammartino Jr.

MD: Seeing David with the Bruno Jr. name really hammers home how doomed the guy was. He was stocky and there's a world where he could have had a totally different name and been in Florida or Memphis teaming with Jim Neidhart and they could have been a hugely successful heel team, I think.  What we had instead was Ellering really guiding him through one. Paul would eat the mat and end up in cross toeholds again and again, then complain to the ref when he got out. He finally took over working the eyes and he had a great way of selling his fists after the punch or continuing to sell the leg that had him coming off like a vulnerable manager instead of a former muscleman wrestler. The fans were behind David when he came back. Weird spot down the stretch as he got pressed off the top (like Flair or someone would) by Ellering, but he came back again after that and hit a suplex and a belabored press slam before Ellering took a powder for the count out. Pretty transparent overall but still better than you'd expect and a testament to Ellering.

ER: That David Sammartino has BS all over his boots, poor kid really stepped in it. As Matt said, what chance did this kid have? He had his dad's build and none of his timing or charisma. There was a moment where he swept Ellering's legs late in the match and Ellering was just lying on his back, directing Sammartino to start punching him, and it took him forever to pull the trigger on them. Ellering did what he could, but you but my boy Brett Wayne in the same match and he'd have Ellering scrambling and begging off all around the ring. I did like Sammartino standing on Ellering's neck while holding his legs in a deathlock, but much of this was Ellering just making do. When Paul finally took over with a punch to a grounded Sammartino, shaking out his fist, I said aloud "finally" at my desk at work. Ellering had several nice punches and was good at working to get heat, since Sammartino was incapable of connecting with these people. Sammartino's big press slam was a good thing to end on. It looked good and I like how he really threw Ellering, but Ellering was great at deciding to take the count out loss, almost swinging at a cop on his way out. 

Texas Tornado Match: Road Warriors vs. Brisco Brothers

MD: This was already out there so I'll just hit it quickly. Gerry saying "Texas Tarnado" never gets old. What was most striking here was how this was so unproduced and raw. There weren't the sort of momentum shifts that you'd expect. It had all four men in the ring at the same time but very often one Brisco was in charge of a Roadie and a Roadie was in charge of the other Brisco. There were a few moments of double teaming if they got a Brisco out and a few moments of clear comeback, but in general, it was just barely controlled chaos. That's extremely refreshing even if it meant any possible narrative had to be entirely implicit. The finish was fun too since it had the Briscos resorting to using chairs (within the rules) and making it so the Road Warriors were too wary to come back into the ring. They got swung at every time they tried and that forced them to get counted out. It's a match that simply couldn't exist today.

ER: I thought this was mostly pretty bad. The Briscoes wrestled nothing like they said they would wrestle and the Tarnado stipulation played to nobody's strengths. Much of the fighting looked soft and slowed down. Many of the strikes looked so bad I had to check that I hadn't actually been watching the other matches in 1.5x speed and then got brought back to real life. Nope, it was just them moving slowly and throwing bad strikes. Animals kept doing this little hopping stomps, everyone moved like they didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone else, Gerry did a run of four push off double boots out of the corner and not only did it look like the Roadies didn't want to run into them, but Gerry threw them like he didn't want them to make contact. Jack did a couple things I liked, getting out of a bearhug with a big telegraphed eye poke, and I liked the visual of both Briscoes kicking their own Road Warrior in the knee around the ring at the same time, but then that chairs finish quickly brought this back to bad. The wrestling grapplers who were going to immobilize the muscle bound freaks on the mat, instead resorting to getting weapons (the Road Warriors did not do a single untoward action toward them!) and throwing the worst chair shots you've ever seen. Gerry's were especially terrible. The second match on this card had blood, motherfucker, throw a glancing blow off one of their heads or something, anything. No good. 

Mr. Wrestling II vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: Totally down my alley. Mr. Wrestling II was an absolute folk hero here and Zbyszko was just the perfect heel. II started by dropping the belt between them like a line in the sand. Then, of course, Larry stalled. Until II gave chase and finally caught him as he thought he was free and clear to slide into the ring. A massive beating ensued until Larry stalled more into the corner. Then as he finally let the ref allow II to get close, he hit a kick, pulled the turnbuckle back and smashed II's head into it. That allowed him to control for a while, including a very interesting chinlock where he put it over by leaning to the side. Such a little thing but it was visually effective. II made it up and Larry went for the exposed corner again but II turned it around on him, leading to another beating and the eventual finish, which had Larry hold the rope on a roll up after he couldn't get a pile driver to work. Post-match II hit a kneelift and Larry tossed the belt straight up in one of the best visuals I've seen in a very long time. This was exactly what it should have been.

ER: Now we're talking, now we're back to the good stuff. The Omni Zbyszko has been so good, and this continues that trend. But this is also a tremendous Wrestling II performance, just fire the whole way through. The crowd starts swelling when Larry begins removing the turnbuckle pad, knowing what's coming, and once he smashes II into the buckle the real great shit begins. I love how these two fall for each other. Look how II smashes into that buckle and falls slowly down the ropes to the mat, and look how explosively Larry falls when the tables get turned. The second time Larry got smashed into the exposed buckle he sold it so well that I was sure he broke his nose, lying there on the mat covering his face, I fully expected a bloody nose and mouth when the hands came away. Wresting II was pushing 50 and his work was excellent. He beat Zbyszko's ass around the ring (paying him back for those great punches Larry threw right across his jaw) and scraped his boot all over Larry's face. Zbyszko took at least three back body drops from the guy, fast ones. Wrestling II has the best kneelift in wrestling: short, quick, sharp, damaging. I loved him dropping standing into Zbyszko's head and neck, doing a quick fist shake out to straight his arm after one to the dome. Zbyszko's finish was real scummy, great hold of the ropes after a cool piledriver reversal from II, and the post match fire was excellent. Wrestling II nailing him with another all time great kneelift causing Larry to toss the belt up into the air as he bumped. 

Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin (Loser Receives Lashes)

MD: When this show came out, I think people undersold just how great this one-two punch was, as one match led into the next and heated it up to a massive degree. Pez had the crowd anyway and the Kabuki/Hart act was super over; plus you had Ole to cheerlead, but it was all incredibly cleverly done. 

Rich and Irwin really did have great chemistry. There was a way that the two were visually balanced, something about how they both moved, emoting for the back row, big arm movements, a sort of lankiness where the sum of the two was more than the individual parts. And they had a certain explosiveness to how they hit the ropes, and whipped each other. They'd bring it up and down here, going right back to that explosiveness. Tommy got color early, because of course he did. He'd have a great hope spot where he reversed a smash in the corner and fired away for a bit until he got cutoff back in the corner again. The finish had him hitting the damndest small package out of nowhere, with the legs hooked just right. The fans went nuts and then doubly so as he handcuffed Irwin in the corner and started whipping. They had to deliver on the gimmick at least a little so he got a few shots in before Hart and Kabuki ran down to break it up. Then they got some shots in on a prone Rich before the place really exploded as Pez and Ole charged in to stop it. 

ER: Yeah this is another reason why we're here, this is what we want. Two wild men, Wildfire and Just Wild, one of the best bleeders of all time against a guy who will throw a couple dozen pump kicks into a bleeding man's face. Everyone in Georgia was so complementary to each other's style, everyone synced up so well, everyone was great at feeding for everyone else. This footage really is magic. Even before the blood, I could have watched a match built around these two hitting the ropes and Irwin doing drop downs. Irwin stayed on Rich and Rich was great at getting kicked around. It's a simple formula that they kept going to most of the match and I never tired of it, because Rich kept finding great ways to put over the kicks to his bleeding head. My favorite moment was Irwin busting Rich open because before you see that Rich is busted open, you see Irwin looking at his fist after punching Rich, and then shake his fist off. He clearly does not shake his fist because of the impact of his punch, he is shaking it to get the blood off. It's so good. The small package finish works really well, love how Rich grapevined those legs and how Irwin was wiggling to kick out. All of the pins in this were great, now that I think about it. Irwin had a great one where he posted up on Rich's laid out arm, body weight on one arm and his arm pressed down onto Rich's flattened arm, and I have no idea how Rich kicked out. Irwin missed a charge into the buckles really violently, perfect way to set up Rich cuffing him around the ropes. There were only a few whippings before Hart and Kabuki got in there to break it up but they all looked nastier than I expected, Rich really airing out that whip. 

Pez Whatley vs. Great Kabuki

MD: That led right into the Pez vs. Kabuki match, with the crowd on edge from the start. Pez dismantled Kabuki from the get go with each shot drawing that Ooooof noise that is so welcome in these early 80s matches. He got too close to the ropes as he was goozling Kabuki though and Hart got him in the eye. Hart was entertaining throughout since he was constantly trying to evade Ole. They brought it up and down with nerveholds but the fans got up for Pez's comebacks each and every time. Then they built to bigger spots with Kabuki coming off the top until Pez caught him and tossed him off. Finish had Hart grab the leg on a suplex attempt from the outside in but Pez actually kick out (the babyface never kicks out that scenario) and then Ole trip Kabuki off the ropes so Pez could hit the jumping headbutt for the win. Place went nuts, Ole celebrated with Pez. Post-match they had Kabuki ALMOST go after Hart until he got him under control; just beautiful pro wrestling all around.

ER: How good are these OOOF shots!? They added to every match they gave the OOFs and in such an ahead of its time wrestling crowd way. What's the fan crossover of fans who were doing the Omni OOFs and Knife Edge WOOs? Every shot in this match and the other Good Ones had it's own punctuation and since everyone in the territory was capable of throwing a great punch the matches feel like constant exclamation points. That's another reason the Road Warriors/Briscoes match was so bad, it was just a sloppy tornado with punches and soft kicks and a weird legdrop and nobody could find the rhythm. Nobody was timing their strikes for impact they were just in each other's way. No OOFs. 

If Brett Sawyer is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the Omni stuff started showing up a few years ago, then Kabuki is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the DVDVR Texas and All Japan 80s sets. The Chris Adams series was the peak but Kabuki revealed himself to have a real consistent TV match quality and a style I really like. Maybe our greatest Mysterious Asian Striker gimmick worker. He felt violent like Abby but with no weapons, just the savate kicks and throat thrusts and aura. Pez Whatley has been a real treat on these Omni shows too - they're a gift that has raised many boats - and his big headbutts and the way people were living with his selling were so good. The way Kabuki bumped for Whatley's first headbutt, flying back into a leaping bump for the first time all match......then the way Gary Hart bumps for Whatley's headbutt!!Hart takes it on the apron and leaps up high enough that I gasped, thinking he was crashing off the apron to the floor, but instead he gets tangled in the ropes in seven different ways before getting to the apron. It's the best Tangled in the Ropes bumping ever done among heel managers with the latest name Hart. Kabuki leapt high in the air to absorb Whatley's flying headbutt and it was the right amount of cartoon impact the crowd needed for one gigantic OOF. 

Dick Slater vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD:  The first thirty seconds of this went exactly how I was expecting. The two meet up on the floor and you get every impression that this was going to be a wild draw. But then it went in a completely different direction and stands as an incredibly complete match, just a real heated, grudge-filled but grounded main event (with some big high points) and it's almost surprising there wasn't a title match involved given how they worked it.

Slater controlled the arm early. They'd go out of it and right back into it. Sawyer would pull the hair or get a cheapshot in but they'd run two or three bits and then Slater would drag him back down. Varied stuff, hammerlock and wristlock variations, with the best of it being Slater throwing in a bunch of headbutts while he had the arm. The transition here had Ellering get involved, whacking Slater as his head was between the ropes and Buzz had the ref distraction.

First heat was chinlock heavy but they worked it well and the fans went up for every hope spot with the cutoffs being sufficiently weighty, including the last one where Sawyer tossed Slater to the floor. He started to hulk up out there and came back with big punches. This could have well built to a finish but instead the ref went down, Ellering handed Buzz some knucks, and they went around for a second bit of heat, Slater now bleeding. He survived the power slam, though, started firing back again, beating Slater around ringside. When things got desperate and Buzz went back to the knucks, Slater got them and KOed him right in front of the ref for the DQ. 

Just super complete. That's the best word for it. This is one of those matches that closed every parenthesis and was full of compelling stuff in the middle. Second time I went through this (even not remembering the details), I could feel every banana peel slip or cut off by Buzz coming but it all felt just right, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. You could program a match like this but of course it's Buzz and Slater's mannerisms and wild abandon that turned it from theory to gripping practice.

ER: 20 minutes of new Buzz Sawyer means 20 more minutes cementing him as one of my favorites. Can you imagine seeing a guy looking like and shaped like Buzz Sawyer walking into an Olive Garden in a mint green polo? A guy with that hairline who is jacked in that specific way looks like Instant Trouble. I don't know that there are five looks in wrestling history that I love more than Buzz Sawyer's. The fact he's not just a Perfect Look but he knows how to use it is lighting in a bottle. The way he uses his look, the way he bends his back taking payoff punches, the way he false starts and stomps before locking up, the way he walks around in a circle before bringing it back around to taking a shot. He's the beefiest Chris Candido possible and Dick Slater is like a strong silent Roddy Piper. People respond to both. 

They can work slow and they can work big and they have no problem filling 20. They could have filled 30. There were three different points where it felt like they were peaking things to the finish and they all worked, and the small stuff in between was no less interesting. The highest peak - and what certainly felt like the push to the finish - was Slater finally zombie staggering furiously after Ellering at ringside, throwing chairs and kicking tables in a rage while Ellering runs away in his silk robe like Don Knotts. Mad Dog grabs Dick from the ring and gets his lights punched out. You'll see two different great powerslams, Slater throwing a series of 8 consecutive headbutts short arm headbutts after also being the one to hit a charging JYD headbutt earlier, two hidden weapon punches that look like the finish, a great ref performance from Nick Patrick - a guy who needs to get more praise for everything he does - and a post match sour grapes stuff piledriver that could have started a riot. Pro wrestling. 

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

GCW Omni 8/14/83

Arn Anderson vs. Joe Lightfoot

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

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

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

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

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

Brett Sawyer vs. The Iron Sheik

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

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

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

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

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

Larry Zbyszko vs. Ron Garvin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greg Valentine vs. Pez Whatley

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

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

Bullwhip on a Pole: Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin

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

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

Dog Collar Match: Roddy Piper vs Buzz Sawyer 

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

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

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

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On Brand Segunda Caida: The Goon

The Goon vs. Dan Jesser WWF Superstars 7/20/96

ER: Honestly, anybody who hates this gimmick is an actual fucking idiot. This whole performance was awesome and would absolutely slay on the indies (or in major feds) today with zero changes. We get a short, hilarious highlight package of Goon slashing and high sticking people on a hockey rink, and once the bell rings he literally throws his gloves off and starts hockey fighting Jesser. It's brilliant. And it's brilliant because Bill Irwin is a mean son of a bitch. He lights up and overwhelms Jesser with right hands, then throws him into the ropes and lariats him right in the back of the head. Jesser isn't a total zilch in this, working in a fun spot where he has Goon by the arm and keeps ducking right hands before flipping Goon onto his butt. The Goon's offense is simple but really tough, loved his flying knee into the corner and all of his strikes looked really good. His finisher is awesome, just flying as hard as possible into Jesser with a body check, sending Jesser bumping in awesome fashion through the ropes to the floor. For good measure, Goon runs out to the floor and checks Jesser again, from behind, right into the apron. For guys whose finishers involve sending a guy to the floor to get counted out, I'm gonna say that The Goon's body check is as good as Berzerker launching people past the ringside mats. Anybody who has ever told you that this gimmick wasn't good was not being honest with you, and you shouldn't trust them.

The Goon vs. Marc Mero WWF Raw 7/22/96

ER: This match ruled so hard. I cannot believe how wrong everyone was about The Goon! I knew I liked Bill Irwin, but The Goon is brilliant. This is also by far one of my favorite WWF Mero matches, both guys working stiff and Mero breaking out some cool highspots. The Goon throws down the gloves at the bell and throws hard hockey punches at Mero, big elbow, and sets up the body check in the corner. His hockey offense was so awesome and it will never ever get old to me. He throws rabbit punches, throws Mero into the ropes only to skate in with a low shoulderblock to the gut, steps on Mero's neck with his ice skate boots, the whole thing is amazing. Mero is a former Golden Gloves boxer who has no problem throwing blows with The Goon, and a dirty hockey fighter vs. a cultured boxer is a cool match-up that people would probably be more excited for today than in 1996. We get a couple nice nearfalls, with Mero hitting a roll-up that I thought was the for sure finish. But the match goes to even more interesting, deeper levels, really an awesomely laid out spectacle. To open the show they did a segment where Sunny brought out a big cake for Shawn Michaels' birthday, which of course babyfaces Michaels and Ahmed Johnson shoved into Sunny's face. So the ringside area was covered in cake, and here comes The Goon aiming to check Mero into the ring steps, and Goon slips on icing and flies into the steps himself! Goon was slipping around on the icing, then Mero hit his big tope con giro which Goon caught perfectly. Back in and a slingshot legdrop gives The Goon a loss two matches into the gimmick. But no matter, this was a match with tons of asskicking, and The Goon's brand of slugfest came across really cool in the middle of 1996 WWF. I wish 1996 Irwin was around to be doing this gimmick in current wrestling.

The Goon vs. The Stalker WWF Superstars 9/22/96

ER: I just might be crazy, and maybe it's because those ice skate boots were really tough to move in, but Irwin is so damn good in this gimmick that he actually MOVES like a guy starting a fight on the ice. His whole body movement is slightly off balance, but he hits with great explosive force and makes all of his shots look like big impact. Irwin vs. Windham surprisingly wasn't a match that ever really happened, which is a shame as this whipped in 1996 so imagine what it would have been like in 1989? The Goon throws his short right hand hockey punches, and they look so great! Stalker fires back with really nice, but more traditional punches, including his nice hooking uppercut. The Goon runs hard into Stalker, throws cheap shot back elbows (the gimmick is perfect!! Everything he does feels like a hockey cheap shot!!), and for the first time breaks out his full extension pump kick. Now, that's a classic nice Irwin spot, and I suppose it doesn't make as much sense to do it while wearing ice skates, as he would have just sliced Stalker's carotid, which is a bit much. Nice vertical suplex from Stalker here, and an even nicer superplex (obviously), and this was just a real nice workmanlike short match. He was clearly treated as a peer of Mero's a couple months before, but this whole match had much more of a "Stalker showcase" even though it was competitive. The Goon is still awesome.

The Goon vs. Flash Funk WWF Raw 12/2/96

ER: I *LOVE* that although The Goon's run was short, they kept matching him up with tough guys who didn't mind working stiff. Goon threw more stiff hockey punches, hard kneelifts, and sharp back elbows, but Funk is obviously a guy who isn't going to get eaten alive out there. Funk hits his slick sunset flip rollup out of the corner for a nice nearfall, then builds to a big lariat from the middle rope to the floor, and follows that with a moonsault from the top to the floor (and damn does his knee connect right with The Goon's face). The Goon is such a big bumper, taking a dropkick from Funk and doing a cool backwards butt first, through the ropes to the floor bump, and misses a leaping charge into the ringpost as nastily as I've seen anyone ever do it. He even brings some flying to counter Funk, hitting a cool elbowdrop off the middle rope and a couple variations on his pump kick. Both of them came off like tough guys in the one, and both took risks that were bigger than the reactions they were getting. But still, this was a cool match up from two awesome workers in weird gimmicks. Vince grunting and dancing to Flash Funk's theme music while imploring Funk to "get his booty up off the mat" is one of the worst things I've ever seen.

The Goon vs. The Undertaker WWF Superstars 1/5/97

ER: This match is exciting for many reasons. It's The Goon going out on top, going head to head with one of the top 3 guys in WWF in his final match. It's the end of the season, and The Goon just got told he's not going to be brought back next year. He still valiantly throws down those gloves to get into one last fight, and in a fantastic moment Undertaker becomes the first guy to successfully dodge The Goon's opening match cheap shot. Every other match saw The Goon jump his opponent at the bell and bully them into the corner with bitchin' rights to the eye sockets. Undertaker sidesteps The Goon and starts winging body shots in the corner, Goon bumping around like a doofus losing a hockey fight but who is going to keep swinging until he can't see. It's a fun match up and the cruel runtime tease was deceptive (the YouTube file of the match is 9 minutes, making me excited for a potential syndicated classic, but the match ends in 4 minutes and we get a Jim Cornette angle for as much time as the match got). Undertaker took most of the match, but The Goon didn't come off like a joke. He's a guy who looked tough even though Undertaker took 75% of this. He felt like a guy on Taker's level, and it would be a program I actually would fucking love. The Goon was a really impressive big guy bumper, and he really ran into guys, hard. I like how he took the chokeslam and the Tombstone, but man I wish this was a little more competitive and got at least a couple more minutes. What a weird little gem of a run.


ER: What do we actually know about Bill Irwin's run as The Goon? From the evidence here I thought it was a genuinely great, funny character that had potential as a popular midcard act. I don't know why WWF was bringing in 42 year old Bill Irwin, and then not rewarding him when he did the best anyone possibly could have done with a hockey gimmick. I'm not sure what more could have been expected. Whose idea was the gimmick? Why did they lose faith so quickly in the gimmick? What fault could they have found in Irwin's execution? I'm SO interested to know their expectations and reasons, so hopefully the reasons are common knowledge and someone can help me. I am a big Irwin fan, and think he's a guy more people should spend some time on. And I thought this gimmick was incredibly fun and incredibly well done. The fact we got so short of a run and so few matches from The Goon is a 100% honest to god unobjectionable shame. Take a 1/2 hour of your day to watch these matches and see why.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bill Irwin in WWF (Non-Goon Edition)

So Bill Irwin is a guy I've been digging a lot lately, and I had planned on writing up all of his matches as The Goon. But then I noticed three separate appearances he made with WWF - two Before Goon and one After Goon - and that kind of stands out. Were these tryout matches only televised? It's odd for an established guy to just work occasional one off matches with a major fed without having some kind of deal. But, here we are. Three non-Goon WWF Bill Irwin matches, and they are all genuine gems:

Bill Irwin vs. El Matador WWF Mania 1/16/93

ER: I love these kind of oddities. Here we get a territories battle between two guys who would have never crossed paths. I don't know why WWF brought in Irwin for a one-shot debut at the age of 38 (we already established they also brought in and pushed Pierroth at 38, which makes me - a 38 year old man - still feel viable) but it's a fun match. Tito works armdrags and hiptosses, Irwin takes a couple surprising bumps. The first is off a do-si-do hip toss, where they keep reversing each other until Irwin is tossed over the top to the floor. Later Irwin gets plastered by the forearm and falls butt first out the bottom two ropes to the floor. Irwin always has a couple surprises, from something little like a short jab, to something unexpected like a slingshot splash. The finish is cool too, with Tito hitting the forearm to the back of Irwin's head, almost like a slash attack. Irwin would not appear on WWF TV for another 3 years. The announcers talked the entire time like Irwin was an actual established guy, he got his "Wild" Bill nickname announced, got to  use the bullwhip before the match, then he went and had a great match...but this was it for 3 years. 

Bill Irwin vs. Duke Droese WWF Superstars 3/16/96

ER: Oh, so...this was great? This was really great? Is Duke Droese actually great and people haven't told me about it? This was during the era when I was not watching wrestling, so I have blindspots throughout (when I started playing catch up 20 years ago I wasn't running through Superstars episodes from a couple years prior to do so), but never remember hearing anyone talk up Droese. Droese fires off hard and fast straight right hands to start, and absolutely nothing was skimped on. Droese's punches looked great, he keeps a good base on his chops so he can throw them fast and cutting, lands boot on kicks to the stomach, even clonks Irwin with a hard trash can shot behind the ref's back. This whole thing was pretty relentless and Irwin hit back just as hard as he was being hit, hit a diving headbutt WAY too far across the ring, scraped his boot across Droese's face in nasty fashion, hit a full extension pump kick that didn't seem like it would reach (he started way early as Droese had barely come off the ropes) and yet it landed clean, clubbed him hard in the back of the neck, oh, AND Irwin takes a crazy high speed Harley Race bump to the floor. Irwin gets whipped in, flips backwards to the floor, hits the apron just about headfirst and then spills to the floor. Irwin took some great bumps in his first two WWF matches (three years apart), so we can only hope that he's the curly haired bump freak that WWF lost when they sent Berzerker on his Viking funeral. This whole match was an excellent pairing. It was a total hidden gem, just the tastiest peanut butter/chocolate combo, and it ruled.

Bill Irwin/Kit Carson vs. Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown WWF Shotgun 2/21/98

ER: The third and final of our "Bill Irwin" matches in WWF, and he remains an odd guy to only be bringing in for occasional job duty. If that's all they wanted out of him then I'm sure it would have been easy to offer him full time work, put him in a team with Windham or Bradshaw or job him out on weekend shows. But it's also weird for them to bring in a guy in his mid-40s for job duty, so I don't know what to make of these scattered Irwin appearances. I do know that WWF talent has looked fantastic opposite him (which again makes it weird that he wasn't used full time, this Irwin ouroboros is confusing me) and that's what matters. This match is basically about the asskicking team of D-Lo and Henry. D-Lo was a mean dude here, and everything he did landed hard. Hard punches, back elbows, and the best lariats I've ever seen him throw. We get this awesome sequence of Irwin getting ahold of D-Lo's left arm and wrenching it, leading to D-Lo rattling his teeth with a right back elbow, unspooling his arm from Irwin (like he was rewinding a Rainmaker), and nails him with a short arm lariat. Hell yeah. This was early in Henry's TV time with the company, and he had just joined the Nation a month before, so he was green but clearly had the goods. I loved his brick wall stuff, big man elbowdrop, and two humongous slams. His powerslam finish is great, and a huge arc Henry powerslam topped by a D-Lo splash is a great team finisher. This made me want to go watch a bunch of D-Lo/Henry tags.

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New Footage Friday: Rock 'n' Rolls, Hennig, Gagne Long Riders, OMX, Tully, Magnum

Rock 'n' Roll Express vs. The Long Riders Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Really fun tag with the hoss Irwin brothers picking apart Robert while we get a fun show from Ricky on the apron, leading to an absolutely scorching Ricky hot tag. I like the Irwins. I don't know if they're actually good, but they read how I want a couple of bullies to read. They got big arms and big bellies and look like farm strong Moondogs, and they don't really need to do much more than that to make things work against a team like the Rock n Rolls. Ricky and Robert seem to work up to the Irwins (I mean literally, since the Irwins are big boys) and both tighten up their strikes so the size difference doesn't seem like a big deal. I was just tickled every time we could see Ricky on the apron, firing up the hot Meadowlands crowd (and really this had to be one of the first times the Rock n Rolls ever played in Jersey), throwing big punches from the apron, all leading to that hot tag. The hot tag even has my favorite Irwin moment of the match, as Ricky hits a cool crossbody on Bill and while pinning him, Scott just strolls over and kicks Ricky in the eye. Ricky looks so small compared to the Irwins but his power cannot be denied, he comes in and works absolute rings, throws these fantastic underdog fired up babyface punches, and wins with a cool slingshot sunset flip. Not an essential match, but delivered in the ways I wanted it to.

MD: On paper, I was really excited about this one. I got a kick out of early, early 80s (Dr.) Bill Irwin in Memphis footage, which was my first exposure to him, and I've always had a soft spot for the guy. If the Long Riders had teamed in the AWA a year or two before, I feel like they'd be much better remembered. This was just a cool, unique match up. It couldn't try to overshadow the Russians vs Roadies match that every single person in the crowd was there to see, or even the sheer heat (heel control might be a better term) of Slaughter vs Markoff/Zhukov that was higher on the card too, but it was still a really fun TV style match. Bill and Gibson had a really solid early exchange, one of the best I can remember having seen Gibson having actually. Scott was a really strong presence, using his size for the cutoffs. Really, both tag teams worked so well, the Express with their constant motion and quick tags, and the Riders just tearing at the Express like dogs with an axe to grind, taking every advantage. Gibson put on a strong performance as Face-in-Peril. The hot tag was hot. Morton was doing weird back bumps on his dropkicks. The finish was clever. It's really everything you'd want from a ten minute 1985 tag match. Good stuff.

PAS: I was totally into this. Rock and Rolls are my favorite tag team ever, and their legend has really been built against some signature opponents, so it is cool to see them work a new pair. I thought the Irwins were really good here, especially Scott Irwin who really came off as a violent force of nature, he had real explosiveness for such a big dude and landed everything with a thud. Morton was an awesome hot tag, he came in like an uncaged badger and really laid it in to the Long Riders. Really made me want to see a long feud between these two teams as they really meshed well.

ER: I actually didn't know that the Rock n Rolls are Phil's favorite tag team. The more you know.

Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Like most of you, I'm a ranker. I don't know if I'm good at it, but every year I make ranked lists, favorite albums, favorite movies, favorite wrestling matches, favorite wrestlers, I like ranking. While watching a match - whether intentionally or not - I'll try to decide who I like most in a match, who's my favorite guy. It gives me a little framework for what I'm going to write about, and it's fun in a trios match as new guys capture my attention as a match goes on. And then you get something glorious like this and it is nearly impossible to pick a favorite, it's just 12 condensed minutes of the type of asskicking you watch professional wrestling to see. We get some hot as hell punch exchanges, and Magnum looked like an all time babyface superstar, like someone who was clearly going to be one of the biggest names in wrestling for the next decade. Tully knew exactly when to show ass and show his vicious side. He had a couple different very subtle weak leg moments, just absolute perfection, no stoogey Charleston wobbly knees, much more like when a fighter gets rung and you see a little buckle as they momentarily check out of our universe. He gets punched in the ropes by Magnum - short, violent, totally on point shots - and falls through the ropes onto the timekeeper's table, stands back up to the apron and gets rocked again, and uses the ropes to guide his butt down to the apron. 

Magnum's punches didn't really need much putting over in this match, but Tully did little things the entire match to make them pop even more. Both guys bleed, and we work a lot of this with minimal rope running. I think they really only used the ropes a few times, with TA springing off with a running punch, and later shooting Tully in for the belly to belly, so this felt more like a fight. Of course, both guys throwing fiery punches and elbows for 12 minutes *may* have helped with that fight feel. The pro wrestling integrated itself nicely, with Magnum hitting a gorgeous press slam and the ref wearing some Shinya Hashimoto flared pants, and there's officially just Too Much Good about this. I loved when Tully knocks Magnum to the floor a couple times (with simple, fast and hard bumps to the floor from Magnum) and when TA started crawling back in, Tully just scampered over on his knees and started firing short punches from the ring to TA on the floor. Tully was really great at scampering, really added to the pacing of his matches, and here it made him come off like a wounded yet still aggressive animal, shoving off to create space but always as a means to attack, not hide. The match wrapped up a little too neatly, which is really my only complaint, but I fully buy the belly to belly as a finish because moments before I fully bought a punch as a finish. The punches that happened all match long were great enough that I would have bought one of them merely falling over and getting pinned as the finish. Glory be to the Network.

MD: Keeping in mind this match's placement on the card and the fact it was going to have time limitations, if nothing else, the only thing that would have made this one even better was if Tully had worn an eyepatch. It was a hell of a house show sprint between these two, just turned up a couple of notches considering the occasion. This is only the second full match we've ever seen between the two of them and it delivered well enough to be considered the little cousin of the first. They went all out, beat the crap out of one another, each got revenge on one another, Tully, on the outside, for what Magnum had done to him at Starrcade and then Magnum, on the outside and inside both, for what Tully did to him here. With a definitive finish, this felt like a feud ender, a final bit of punctuation (an exclamation point) at the other end of the war.

PAS: What a present this match was. We have one singles match between these two, and it is arguably a top ten match of all time, so getting another bite at the apple is amazing. It appears that these two don't know any other gear then hellfire, as they lace into each other here with wild abandon. We get two sets of wild punch exchanging, and it as good as the best Lawler vs. Mantel or Dundee punch exchanges, wild swinging and landing. Magnum looks great here, dominating Tully, but leaving openings to take shots. Both guys bleed, both fight like their life depended on it. Great, great stuff and I was thrilled to get to watch it.

Original Midnight Express vs. Midnight Rockers AWA 12/25/87

MD: The 86-7 Midnight Rockers would probably be a lot easier to swallow if more of their matches were this heavily clipped. Michaels especially had a tendency of taking too much too early for far too long. The stuff that they did was often really good: elaborate, creative, hard-working and compelling (as was the case here with some complicated set up and payoff to specific spots with Condrey and Rose stooging like champs). There was just always too much of it. They gave the fans too much of it for free bleeding well past the point where the heels should have been making them pay for their insolence (to the point where they should have been bleeding). It all becomes noise after a while. Here, due to the clipping, it doesn't wear out its welcome. Without that bloat dragging it down, the shine is good and memorable, the heat's good and memorable, the comeback is spot on and the rush to the draw is fun. It's a shame we can't judge this one for what we got instead of what probably really happened.

PAS: It seems kind of crazy to have a southern tag go to a 30 minute draw. That is a match formula which is pretty foolproof, but caps out at about 21-22 minutes. I agree with Matt that the clipping might have been a blessing, we had some fun spots in the opening face control, I loved the spot where Marty blocked Shawn getting whipped into the corner with his body, only to have it backfire when Randy Rose tried it, and OMX were champion stooges. This match went more then ten minutes before any heel offense, and even the best stooges would have trouble filling that time. I liked the heel control section, both Rose and Condrey are pretty vicious, Condrey really ripped Michaels head off with a clothesline. Still when they got to the countdown, it felt kind of rushed, and they never really built to a compelling conclusion, it just kind of ended. I loved the Star as a spot in a tag match, but it should be part of the early face control stooge section not your compelling saved by the bell near fall. Match with fun parts that never really came together.

Greg Gagne vs. Curt Hennig AWA 12/25/87

MD: There is a time and a place where this match would be special, a lost match hinted and rumored at, where this would be the great find of the week. Unfortunately, it wasn't the AWA and it's not 1987. I do sort of love the atmosphere here. Larry the Ax being supportive of his son was well and good a few years earlier when Curt was an up and coming babyface. It's endlessly superior when he's the preening, cheating champ. Proud, heel dads are the best dads. The deal with the multiple refs, with Verne being tied to the Ax, with it being Christmas, with Greg having come so close for so long... all of this felt big and special. The wrestling itself was really good too, with each guy standing tall and hammering one another, and Hennig's bumps being ridiculous but adding to the total effect instead of distracting from it, and all of the limbwork giving this the gravitas and weight a title match deserved. It's just that it's the AWA and they can never get the big things right. By 87, Verne, who had been so good at eating up opponents in his home territory, couldn't even protect himself properly. He looked like a dottering fool as Larry cheated how he liked, punching the old man for getting in his way and breaking up the sleeper just like Verne hadn't been there at all. The post match was heated enough and this should have led to a geriatric mixed tag match (it led to a non-title cage match instead), but they definitely blew the landing on this one.

PAS: I thought this was tremendous, we don't have a ton of AWA Champion Hennig, but all I have seen is stellar, so much better then the Mr. Perfect run which he is best known for. Gagne was really fun, he looks like a schlub but is a pretty dynamic offensive wrestler and a good seller. The early exchanges almost looked like Tiger Mask stuff, with really big height on all the throws and really athletic counter wrestling. I loved Gagne hitting a big headscissors and crotching himself on the ropes on the second try, great set up for Hennig's leg work. Hennig takes a big bump of his own into the ringpost setting up Gagne's arm work. I would have liked to see a little more stealth in the finish, as a straight belt shot in front of the ref is a pretty unsastifying finish to a big title match. I thought the pull apart post match was pretty electric. Greg is bleeding, Verne is slinging the strap at both Curt and Larry, and Curt is breaking away from the wrestlers pulling him apart to wildly throw shots. Really should have sold out the next month with a tag or hair match or something.

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All Japan Motherload - Terry Funk vs. Masked White Dinguses

Terry Funk vs. The Asteroid - AJPW 10/29/80

ER: In which Bill Irwin wears his Super Destroyer mask and inexplicably works as THE ASTEROID; proceeds to get quietest crowd reaction during ring intros that you have ever heard. Match is JIP and we cut to a gassed Irwin holding a headlock on Funk. And for a match largely controlled by Asteroid this was fun, and got really good by the end when they're throwing great punches at each other. For his part, Irwin brought size, actual snug headlocks (and Funk is a guy who knows how to put over a nice headlock), and then finally throws down with Funk. Once Funk starts laying in the punches it rules and Irwin doesn't embarrass himself. The final two minutes are great with big punches, Irwin taking a nice backdrop, Funk trying to rip Asteroid's mask off, and then hitting a huge butterfly suplex on a large dude. No idea why Irwin thought being called The Asteroid was a cool idea.



Terry Funk/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Jack Brisco/The Avenger - AJPW 4/27/81

ER: The Avenger is Moose Morowski, who is a name you read and go ohhhhhh yeahhhhh but really have no idea who he is/was. But that name seems like a name you've seen before, somewhere. It's possible he was a villain in some sort of Archie comics universe. Brisco seems thoroughly apathetic towards his partner. This match was all about Brisco doing Brisco-y things, which can be both interesting, unique, and entirely robotic and boring. Funk is hilarious trying to get Jumbo to crack before the bell, as Jumbo clearly wants to start but Funk keeps offering, and eventually Jumbo starts shoving Funk towards the apron. Funk's comic timing is great here as Jumbo would nudge him to the apron and right when Jumbo would turn around Funk would be back in offering to start the tag. Match is basically a bunch of leg work until Avenger taps to the spinning toe hold, while Brisco stands on the apron within reach, opting not to save him. Funk has some cool indian deathlocks and really hams it up spinning into them. Regarding Brisco being both unique and annoying, I like how he actually takes moves more realisitically (within a pro wrestling universe framework). This means no flat back bumps, more believable reactions, not going down on dropkicks but instead being sent stumbling, getting knocked sideways on shoulder blocks. It wasn't realistic in an MMA sense, but pro wrestling real, in the way prime Akira Taue would take offense. When he would do his amateur stuff it also looked really great, namely when Funk was trying to scramble for a tag and Brisco kept blocking him with a front headlock and wide base. It looked awesome. The negative is a lot of Brisco's stuff looks weak, or unfocused. He'll just grab a leg with no real plan, and then Funk just kicks him, with Brisco somehow not planning on Funk using his other limbs. And while sometimes his bumps off shoulderblocks look more real, other times it just looks like him wussing out of them. He rolls away from Jumbo's a little too early, which makes it hilarious when Funk hits him flush with one directly after. For his part, Avenger puts over Funk's leg locks GREAT, yelling and begging through his mask, screaming and putting over the pain. The guy was the most obvious sitting duck on the card, but at least he worked with what he got.



Terry Funk/Dick Murdoch vs. Big John Studd/The Asteroid - AJPW 11/80

ER: Big John Studd was maybe the weirdest guy booked as a giant. Maybe Big Dick Dudley. But Studd never looked much bigger than his opponents, and had a much more slender build than most of them. Here he looked the same exact size and build as Edge. It seriously just looked like Edge working bearhugs and entering the ring over the top rope. It says a lot about styles guys choose to work, as so often you'd hear Edge described as a smaller guy, but it was entirely because he had an awful flimsy moveset. Studd lumbers, clubs and works bearhugs while being the size of Edge, and people presumably bought him as a giant. It's always confused me. Even as a child I didn't understand what was supposed to be a big deal when Andre slammed him. He looked no larger than a couple dozen of the other guys in the WWF. The whole match was worked around Studd getting Terry and Murdoch in a bearhug. I'm a sucker for bearhug spots and you won't find many guys who sell a bearhug better than Terry and Dick. Dick is great regularly rearing back to punch but then getting squeezed back into submission. Terry is even better because he punches Studd right in the face a couple times in a way that Studd did not seem to expect. Funk really smashes him right in the eye, then throws some of the best body blows you've ever seen. And thanks to the internet, the world now has MULTIPLE Asteroid matches floating through its galaxy. The Asteroid does not look very good.  Neil Degrasse Tyson seems to think Earth is overdue to be hit by an asteroid, but thanks to this footage we already know that it actually happened 35 years ago, and we also know that it got deflected by Terry Funk doing the worst spinning toe hold he's ever done.

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