Found Footage Friday: SANTO~! NINJA~! YOUNG STUD BABA~! CALYPSO~! WHITE WOLF~! GILBERT~! DUNDEE~! NEW SOUTH~!

Giant Baba/Michiaki Yoshimura vs. Calypso Hurricane/Chief White Wolf JWA 5/12/64

MD: This one fell through the cracks when one of the Baba anniversary specials came out. It's only ten minutes and heavily clipped but what an amazing look at 26 year old Baba. He was an absolute monster. We have him here scrapping on the mat with Adnan, just chucking Calypso head first into the corner like he was a sack of potatoes, hitting this amazing standing kick around the side of Adnan to the back of his head, cutting off the corner so Yoshimura could deliver damage from the outside, throwing these blistering chops, and, after a hot tag, just chopping high and low and stomping the life out of people. There are so many reasons to love 80s and even mid-late 70s Baba, but you couldn't look away from him here. I still can't get over those kicks that seemed to go all the way around Adnan's body to hit him in the head. Points to him, by the way, for really phoning in the Native American gimmick with the laziest dancing and whooping you'd ever see. He did look great on the mat with Baba though, so he gets credit for that.

ER: Of course we all wish this wasn't clipped, but who could complain about a fresh 9 minute look at a young, whip fast, and jacked thicc Shohei Baba, as well as a great look at how damn good Adnan Al-Kassie and Ciclon Negro were in an era where we couldn't see them. Baba is the draw here, both for us and the fans who, during the pre-match introductions, can be seen literally standing and open-mouth gawking at the presence of Baba, who was almost surely the largest human anybody in the building had ever seen. If they had seen a man that large, somewhere, they had certainly never seen him move like this. It kicks so much ass seeing Baba run through Baba spots I know and love, only 3x as fast and with the impact of Stan Hansen. Look at him run the ropes with Calypso! Look at the fucking boot he throws at White Wolf's face! He's like if Yoshihiro Takayama had a few more inches. Calypso/Ciclon Negro is a guy who always had the rep of a great, respected worker, but most of the footage we have of him is from his late 40s/early 50s. Seeing him in his early 30s makes him look like a guy who would be one of my all time favorites, were I my father's age. He had an excellent style of bumping, athletic but appropriately tuned to the offense he was taking, a real immediacy to his work, a big bumper but with weight. Also, check that spot where Yoshimura moves out of the way and Calypso punches White Wolf in the face, off the apron, and then stands there looking and feeling like a real boob. 

El Hijo del Santo vs. El Ninja 12/13/85

MD: Wild structure on this. Primera was an ambush and a comeback attempt and a cutoff. Segunda had the comeback (that we missed the prime moment of) and a double count out after a dive. Tercera had a lot of the back and forth submissions and drama. And then the final extra fall, due to the count out, was basically some more beatdown and a roll up out of nowhere instead of a real comeback. The fans were up for all of it though.

And, just like the structure wasn't calcified into a more familiar form, neither was Santito. He sure as hell had selling of nerve holds down. I'm not sure I've ever seen it done better. Interestingly, the tercera ended with his flipping senton and rush across the ring; instead of hitting a tope, he hit a reverse body press off the top instead. He also had some pretty fun tricked out submission and pin attempts before that, including this neat Rings of Saturn number and a flexible attempt to get a full nelson with one of his legs. Ninja was fine here. He was a journeyman and understood the weight of the match. He made the kicks and nerve holds work, had some interesting stuff of his own during the hold exchanges, and was happy to escalate to choking with a towel in that final fall. It was clipped up so we missed some of the primera and that big moment of comeback; I had thought we were going to get another one at the end but they went with a flash pin instead. Still, it was a very interesting look at a relatively young Santo.

PAS: So cool that this just showed up. I do a semi-regular YouTube search for "Hijo Del Santo" as he is probably the greatest wrestler who has footage on tape that just might pop up on YouTube some day. This is one of the earliest Santo matches and Ninja wasn't the Monterey wrestler, but a re-gimmicked 60s luchador taking a mask loss payday. He had some nice wrestling martial arts stuff (more Stan Lane than Akira Maeda) , but was otherwise pretty much an opponent for Santo to work stuff out on. Great looking tope was probably the highlight, with Ninja getting sent into seats, and I did like the rolling senton into almost a diving RKO from the other side of the ring. More a cool look into an underseen period than a great match, but man was I happy it showed up. 

TKG: New Santo match shows up and it moves to the front of the queue. You add that it’s an 80s, mask match and yeah…plus I originally thought the Ninja was going to be a Garza relative.

First fall is clipped, but Ninja works like an 80s karate wrestler. He may have more different kinds of kicks than most 80s karate offense guys. I especially liked the kick he did in third fall set up by a Yoga tree pose style calf stretch. Kicks ranged between Stan Lane loose and Kabuki stiff. Left match wishing there was a Stan Lane v Ninja match and Kabuki v Santito one.

Like Kabuki, when Ninja wasn’t kicking he was putting on a nerve hold and Santo awesome selling it. In the 80s most people sold a nerve hold by trying to fight to power out. Santo sold it like he had a crystal ball and had seen shootstyle matches, and sprawled for ropes every time Ninja put the nerve hold on him.

We don’t get Santo’s transition to offense in second fall but we get all of Santo’s beautiful offense. And a double count out finish.

Don’t really get this, as Dandy v Emilio Charles draw meant both guys shaved head…and at one point there was interview with Rafael Maya where he talked about similar draw finishes. It feels like Ninja won two falls straight but whatever. Third fall had some real cool tight ras de lona pins and surfboard near falls.

And fourth was mostly brawling and felt abbreviated. The ‘unusual booking’ instead of leading to hotter final fall made the fourth feel really anticlimactic. Still hot crowd, great third fall and a bunch of neat little things.

Doug Gilbert/Bill Dundee vs. New South (Kory Williams/Ashley Hudson) NWA Nashville 4/14/01

MD: Best part of this was probably Williams and Hudson goofing around on the mic before hand and Gilbert and Dundee putting them in their place. The match tried to have its cake and eat it too. It was a "Climb the pole" deal with Hudson's boomerang atop it, and the winner being whoever got it first. Usually it's about getting to actually use the boomerang and this cuts off before we see if that happens. Moreover, there was a bat hanging around the ring early too so that almost felt like it defeated the purpose of it. And finally, despite the pole gimmick, they stuck with standard tag rules, though they seemed confused about what corner they were supposed to be in and New South made a tag in the ring at one point. It made no sense that the partner on the outside didn't just go for the Boomerang at certain points.

That said, the actual work was ok. These guys knew what they were doing for the most part. That meant a lot of Gilbert taking punches and making them look good and throwing punches that naturally looked good; likewise with Dundee's jabs. Williams was more than happy to stagger around the ring selling. It never boiled over, unfortunately, and there were probably way too many low blows. Old(er) man Dundee could get away with that and make it charming but I'm not sure about the rest of them. This needed more heat and a deal where Hudson got the boomerang but Gilbert got it from him and opened them up post match, something like that.

ER: During the pre-match mic work, Doug Gilbert gets the mic to counter Kory Williams' jabs and tells the New South that "at least everyone in this building knows who we are", and after a 5 second pause one of the commentators just says "GAY". That's when I knew we were diving into the good stuff. And I thought this was good! I enjoyed it more than Matt (and Tom, who watched it earlier in the week and opted out of writing about it). This delivered because it had guys up on the top rope who probably shouldn't be on the top rope, and by people I mean Doug Gilbert, who made the match by kicking Kory Williams in the balls while both were standing on the top rope. It's also important that the pole was so tall that the boomerang hanging from it is never even in frame until Hudson grabs it and it's perfect, because every pole match needs a preposterously tall pole that most participants would be unable to climb given unfettered access to it. We got one great Dundee tease where he showed that he still had crazy climbing strength into his late 50s, and the rest of the match he spent punching New South around the ring while Kory Williams staggered and flopped around. This was right around 8 minutes long and had four different ball shots, and I wish that the video had ended with Hudson climbing up the pole completely off the screen, no boomerang ever shown, all of us left wondering just how tall that pole actually was. At least they didn't show the top of the pole, so we are still empowered to dream. 

 

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New Footage Friday: PG13! FINLAY! KILLER KARL KOX! DERRICK KING!

Killer Karl Kox Turns Face! AWCW 1973     Pt. 2     Pt. 3     Pt. 4     Pt. 5

MD: We don't do whole TV shows often but this feels worth covering. It's possible this has been out there but quick googling and youtube searches didn't bring it up and it popped up on a TV youtube channel as opposed to a wrestling one, which is always a good sign. This is just a great episode of territories TV, one that felt close to ten years before its time. 73 is not that deep into the decade and things are already defined by the war between Big Bad John's crew and the People's Army.

Lord Layton's perfect as the host, always feigning a struggle with his own moral quandary of journalistic neutrality vs rooting for the good people against the very bad, which just somehow makes the good feel better and the bad worse. The fans are interesting here, never popping at individual lines in the interviews, but waiting until the end. As Karl Kox (who had just turned face) was going on about how he did it for his dead mother who didn't want to see him reviled anymore, I wasn't sure if he really had the fans because of it. In the end though, they were on board. It's such a novel, unique to this area, thing that Big Bad John's biggest gripe was that he had paid $1500 to fly Kox out to be part of his crew and now that money was wasted. That wouldn't have worked almost anywhere else in the world.

This episode had four matches, all of which at least a little competitive. The first (part 2 video) was Bulldog Brower/Abby vs.  Larry O'Dea/Billy White Wolf, with Brower taking a good chunk of the match and the promo after. It left me wanting to see more of him. He had a great presence, a bulky force of gravity in the center of the ring, with big wind-ups to his shots and smart use of his size. It was a weird setting to see Adnan, but he was mainly there to bounce of Brower. Post match promo had Brower enthusiastically talking over John so they couldn't entirely stay focused but it worked for what it was.

Part 3 has the second match, which is Tiger Jeet Singh vs. Kox. The match was short but effective in establishing Kox as a tough and mean looming presence, now a babyface but not one that changed up his style at all. Singh moved and bumped around a bit more than you'd see a decade later, but he was still mostly what you'd expect. The forearm out of nowhere that ended it was great though. Post-match, Kox talked about how the other faces didn't trust him yet, which brought them out. This was the best part of the whole show as King Curtis, untrusting but pragmatic, said that they needed the greatest weapon in all of wrestling, the brainbuster (said like only he could) on their side.

Part 4 introduced Angelo Mosca to the territory, with Layton (who claims to have personally recruited him) playing up his sports and academic credentials like JR might fifteen years later. George Barnes is the sacrificial lamb and he stooges and bumps around well for him, but obviously doesn't have the chance to shine like in the recent Memphis footage we saw. Mosca is fine, but honestly, what's most notable is how out of breath he is in the post-match promo, even noting it and his nervousness, which is a good cover. Definitely not the sort of crazy Mosca promos we'd get in 84.

Then it ends with Waldo von Erich vs. Mario Milano, and if you can get past how deep Waldo still was into the nazi stormtrooper gimmick, even in 73 (it felt more severe than the Barons' goose stepping), this was actually really good. I don't think I've seen a ton of Waldo but he really worked the glove gimmick well, just absolutely unrelenting with a lot of different but all credible bits of offense surrounding it. Milano was fiery in his comebacks and revenge spots, quick to throw out headbutts. Just a good TV main event to put some heat back on the heels after the Kox turn and his win over Tiger.

The fact that we have this whole episode, and with TV Roll information at start makes me wonder just how much is out there. I know there are bits and pieces floating around but I really did enjoy this.

ER: I'll primarily focus on the Kox stuff, but this was a fun episode of TV, presided over by the presumably 7 foot tall Lord Layton, we got to see Abdullah the Butcher without big flapping tiddies but just as stabby as ever, Bulldog Brower even bigger than Abby and with work that looked more than worth seeking out, a fun main event, and a classy 70s TV presentation. But I came here to see the Killer and I loved what we got. His opening promo was open faced and tender, talking about how he recently lost his dear mother, and how his hated ways had turned his family into targets of harassment, and how he wanted to change his ways to honor his mother. I loved his understand of the skepticism, and his reasoning that if he betrayed the fans and his word, he was also betraying his mother, and that couldn't be. It left me not knowing whether he was genuine or not - after all, we've seen old heels go back on their word after much greater promises - so Layton's skepticism is warranted. Kox's match with Tiger Jeet Singh was fascinating to me, as it seems like Kox might be the perfect kind of opponent for Singh. Kox is an expressive seller who can make a claw hold mean something, but I also like Singh digging his nails into Kox's neck and face, loved the way Kox would fight back and struggle up to his feet, and Kox throwing fists is always going to land with me. The finish even feels like a rarity, because how often have you seen a Tiger Jeet Singh match with him actually getting pinned? Kox pins him after a quick, sharpe forearm shot, the kind of shot that looks like it should end a match. Kox throughout this episode looks like Robert Duvall in Killer Elite, a tight mustache with hair that slowly unfurls around the edges, leaving him with fantastic wings that could even bely his plain faced honesty. I loved this whole presentation.

PAS: This really made me wish we had more Australian stuff from this period (do they have a TV archive we can raid?), the idea of these two warring armies full of super charismatic dudes is really appealing. Kox is just incredible in the role of the humbled man trying to atone for his many sins and this really made me want to see him face off with Brower and Abby and everyone. Really felt like a Florida style promotion 10 years before Florida was doing this sort of thing.

TKG: Everything I’ve ever seen from the People’s Army v Big Bad John has been a blast but I’ve only seen “best of never” full shows before. And these full shows are well paced. The whole Kox turns babyface because of his mother’s cancer is amazing. I dug the opening tag a bunch. Bulldog Brower is a guy I associate with dull WWF undercards and I left this thinking that I need to rewatch all of those. All his offense is nasty looking and he’s really fun as immovable object slowly getting knocked down when eating offense. Larry O'day is a guy I will forever remember being killed by the Miracle Violence Connection and it will take something spectacular to make me see him as anything else. The Mosca v Barnes match I thought was really dull but everything else was worth watching and neat watching a whole show format.

Fit Finlay vs. Rico de Cuba CWA 8/7/97

MD: This was a 10+ minute glorified squash where late 90s Finlay (having shrugged off a lot of the chickenshit stooging from his 80s career) just steamrolled some poor, long-haired doofus. He let Rico toss him a couple of times early on and gave him a thing or two as the match went on (especially due to slipping on a banana peel), but this was mostly Fit jamming elbows and forearms into different parts of Rico's skull, turning him inside out with an over-rotated powerbomb, unloading on him utilizing the apron like 00s Finlay, stretching him for fun, and getting so fed up with the guy's last comeback that he ate a red card DQ for half choking him to death in the ropes. More of a novelty for its length than anything else, since you come in expecting the cruelty. It's 2x your 98 WCW Saturday Night Finlay squash and it's good that we get to highlight that sort of thing to the world.

PAS: Rico De Cuba definitely looks like a guy who should have been walking across the beach with Joe Gomez, Jim Powers and the Renegade, and Finlay treats him like that guy. We get all of the classic Finlay brutality, nerve holds which look like he is ripping out chunks of his traps, elbows directly into the trachea, knees across the nose. Cuba gets a couple of comebacks, which didn't look great but Finlay bumped huge for, including flying over the top rope twice. I liked Finlay psychotically trying to rip his head off for the DQ, and this was exactly the kind of thing which made us fall in love with him.

ER: This was so great, this was like if one of those Finlay vs. Johnny Swinger matches from Saturday Night were given 12 minutes instead of 3 minutes. The beating was just as cruel, it just went on 4x as long. Rico de Cuba was given a couple of very short flourishes, and Finlay sold like Cuba was a total superstar in those brief moments. My favorite stretch of the match was when Finlay took two super fast bumps over the top to the floor, working a great Berzerker routine of taking a fast (flipping) bump over the top and landing on his feet, rushing back in and getting tossed just as fast out the other side. Almost all the rest of this is Finlay absolutely mugging Cuba. It is a true greatest hits of every piece of Finlay offense that I love: numbing bodyslams, hard strikes, cruel elbowdrops, snug cravats and chinlocks, precision kneedrops, stomping right on Cuba's chest, and drawing the match ending DQ by tying Cuba's head into the ropes and yanking on his legs. Finlay on WCW Saturday Night is some of the greatest wrestling displays in history, and this is him sharing that formula on some non-Karagias long haired shiny trunks pretty boy 5,000 miles away from Universal Studios.

TKG:  It’s Finlay beating the stew out of some putz. I will always watch that. The early elbows to the nose were so fucking great. And Finlay doing crazy flying out of the ring for de Cuba’s stuff was wild. Man when Finlay puts a guy in a crab that is a fucking deep crab.

Drew Haskins/Derrick King vs. PG-13 SAW ?/?/09

MD: My big takeaway from this is that Haskins with this same gimmick and attitude, would be pretty in demand right now. There's a pre-match promo here establishing the (newly turned?) heel character and how he's on Tiger Beat, etc., just ridiculous over the top snotty heel pretty boy claims. When he actually comes out, a big chunk of the match and commentary is based around the fact he's sans knee pads and wearing dress shoes. Dundee seemed way more into this than Wolfie, both in interacting with Haskins early on (taking the shoe off and tossing it, etc.) and the way he worked the apron during Wolfie's face-in-peril later on. Lots of charisma there still, even in 2009. This hit the marks for a TV tag match but what I'm going to remember the most is the shtick.

PAS: You don't normally see JC Ice outshticked in a match, but Drew Haskins was really on one here. The dress shoes was a great bit of nonsense, and when JC Ice wearing cut off acid washed jeans shorts and a hockey jersey is clowning your clothes you know you have really done something. I think this was hurt a bit by having most of the heat on Wolfie come during the commercial break, as it goes from heel bumbling almost directly into the count out finish, where a midget comes out and hits Wolfie with a broom. I do love watching Derrick King throw jabs, but I imagine there is a better match between these two teams out there.

ER: Hell yes, gimme something like this once a week to watch and write about, just the best kind of Wrestling is America footage you can get. Shown on regional TV, sponsored by a local bail bond company (Grumpy's) that has a crudely drawn rockabilly babe logo, Derrick King wearing hot pink gear, Drew Haskins in ice blue trunks, dress socks and loafers (wrestling in loafers is far more funny than it should be), and PG-13 looking like versions of their heyday selves who have since done time. Haskins takes great pratfalls related to his shoes, including faceplanting after tripping on the low rope getting back into the ring. Derrick King takes two of the highest backdrops, certified Memphis classics. Everyone throws punches at the level you'd want to see, with King's jabs and Wolfie's overhand right standing out especially. We even get an appearance of Half Dollar in the double count out finish, the cohort of King cohort Big Dollar. It's all classic Memphis bullshit, the best junk food.

TKG: The midget was named half dollar!!! I absolutely don’t understand how Drew Haskins didn’t become a bigger deal.

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