Found Footage Friday: STEAMBOAT~! ORTON~! PIPER~! ORNDORFF~! HARTS~! BEES~!

Ricky Steamboat vs. Bob Orton Jr. WWF 3/6/86

MD: We've got a trio of matches from Richard Land's patreon that weren't in ready circulation here. It's worth checking out. There's a well known Steamboat vs Orton match from Landover in 85 and this is a good partner to that.

They go fairly long here (I thought it was headed to a draw actually, especially after Orton survived the flying body press), and it's relatively back and forth thought with fairly lengthy stretches of momentum. Orton's a bump machine here, flipping into the corner and flying all over the place for Steamboat's shots.

Likewise, Steamboat sells like you'd expect him to. After the first minute or so, you can tell that they were going long, but it really picks up in the back half. Steamboat gets a win out of nowhere but then Orton pile drives him after the bell and hits the ref, getting himself suspended immediately (got to put over the PA commission).

Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff WWF 3/6/86

MD: Even Monsoon said this feud had been going on for a while at this point, but they get in and out and get the job done here. Great hot start. Piper's one of the best at throwing fists to start like this, making sure to lose and get knocked out of the ring, only to throw a drink right into Orndorff's face.

Orndorff spends most of the rest of the match selling the eye, and Piper uses to to full advantage anytime Orndorff starts to get over on him, including one great fall away (in the basketball sense, not the wrestling sense) eyepoke. Just when Orndorff finally has Piper on the ropes (or in a Crab as it is), Orton rushes in to cause the DQ. The feud was a little worn out at this point, maybe, but they covered a lot of ground with high energy in just a few minutes here.

Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees WWF 3/17/86

MD: We come in slightly JIP here, but this was really good. Anvil takes the first chunk of it, getting clowned by the Bees. Brunzell has a great drop toehold, but more of a trip with his arms and there are some good rope running spots. Hart sneaks in on commentary to complain about the (legal) doubleteaming.

Harts take over on Blair and they keep it moving and interesting. Brunzell's hotheaded and draws the ref repeatedly giving this a real southern tag feel. Choking with the ring rope. Double teams (including a modified decapitation). Illegal switches. Some really good hope spots in there as well. Brunzell comes in hot after the (very earned) tag and hits the dropkick for a nearfall. The Bees pick up the surprising (to me at least) win after another bit of miscommunication. Honestly one of the best heel Hart Foundation matches I can think of.

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New Footage Friday: Boogie Jam 1984

The Steamboat vs. Flair match from this show was available before, otherwise everything is new stuff.

Dory Funk Jr. vs. Tully Blanchard

MD: This was a good opener, not at all worked like I was expecting. Tully was so smart. It's almost comedic how hard he struggled to find anything to do other than to sit in Dory's headlock, which is one of the most boring things imaginable to watch. Sitting in that thing wouldn't have got him over. Getting knocked out of the ring and stooging on the floor though? Absolutely. If Dory's in there throwing forearms and European uppercuts instead, it's going to be a pretty enjoyable time and that's what this was. Tully on top wasn't as interesting mainly due to Dory's quiet selling but all of Tully's stuff looked good. The finish was smart and sufficiently pissed off the crowd which is what you'd want in a match like this.

ER: Man Tully is an all time great. I have always liked Tully, but as a kid I was more into Arn (possibly because he looked like a cooler version of my dad) and seeing what he pulls in the match it is just one more of a million points in Tully's favor. Tully is like Terry in this match, right down to the era-appropriate curly mop of hair. He handles Dory like a total pro and takes rote Dory spots and turns them into gold. Have you ever seen the side headlock -> rolled into a pin look as interesting and engaging as it did here? Look at all the small body movement struggle happening during these multiple side headlock pinfalls, shoulders twitching, hips hitching, feet pushing off the mat trying to find better leverage, the whole thing was amazing. We've all seen Dory grind a match to a halt with a headlock before action ever starts (just look at the Harley/Dory match that Phil and Matt suffered through last week) and this looked like Tully absolutely refusing to have an uninteresting match. Even when Dory misses a moment Tully is right there with an interesting follow up. Look at when Dory is being choke in the ropes, and Tully snaps the ropes to get Dory to recoil, but Dory doesn't move an inch. Well, Tully just flies right in with a hard kneelift without missing a beat. I mean I don't think anyone would disagree that this is one of the more fun and interesting Dory singles matches we've seen, and Tully is a MAJOR part of that, and possibly the only part of that. Tully stooged and bumped his way through all of this while Dory felt 1/3 committed at any given time. Tully made every Dory strike look like it sent him off balance, just constantly doing favors that weren't going to be paid back in any way other than a pinfall victory. I think this match should be viewed as a legendary Tully performance, and I don't think that's a bold statement.

Ernie Ladd vs. Rufus R. Jones

MD: I love watching Ladd work. He's lankly but uses every inch of his frame to get his message across. Forget working to the back row; you could see him take a bump from the moon. One of my favorite wrestling tropes is when a huge guy pisses off the crowd by consciously not working to his size on offense but cheating again and Ladd has that down as well as anyone ever. He eye-pokes, uses the object, begs off, etc. I don't think anyone in the crowd expected the Rufus win out of nowhere and it lit the place up.

Bob Orton Jr./Don Kernodle vs. Mark Youngblood/Wahoo McDaniel

MD: If there was just one person who we have relatively limited 74-84 footage of that I'd want more of, it might be Orton. We have so little complete of his tag team with Slater. It's obvious from this just how great a tag worker he was. The way he cuts off the ring and sets up double teams with Kernodle. The way he follows up a Kernodle power slam (a novel move for the time) with one of his own to create some sort of branding. The use of ref distraction. All good stuff. Also, he made it all seem organic and opportunistic instead of pre-arranged spots, especially his use of the ropes. That makes such a huge difference and it's decades lost to wrestling. It's virtually unimaginable in a world so polished.

This had double heat as a structure, so much heat in general. The fans being this into everything helped. The southern tag structure helped. Kernodle being enough of an ass to slap Wahoo across the face in the early going helped. Mark obviously wasn't Jay and all of his stuff looked a bit clumsier, but the crowd was going to cheer for his wardance anyway. Both hot tags were good, with the second one with a ducked double-team set up, great. The double chop finish was so simple but the crowd came absolutely unglued and it made it feel like the best finishing move ever. Just a really good old tag that never wore out its welcome.

PAS: There are few things I enjoy more in wrestling then Wahoo chopping the shit out of someone, and he had a really great opening run of lacing into Orton and Kernodle with both heels really flying for each shot. Both Kernodle and Orton are really great bumpers. Mark Youngbloods chops were pale imitations, although he was a fine face in peril, including getting slammed spine first into the guardrail, which felt like the kind of bumps some crazy fuck in GCW would take, not an 80s babyface.

Angelo Mosca Sr./ Angelo Mosca Jr./Junkyard Dog vs. The Great Kabuki/Ivan Koloff/Gary Hart

PAS: This had a little more Mosca Jr. then you would want in any situation. He has a rep for being one of the worst second generation guys ever, but he just looked kind of dull and all of the early heat was on Jr. Kabuki is always fun to watch, as is any JYD we get, but I wanted this to be crazier after the great angle which set it up.

MD: Mosca, Jr. was such a doomed project. That said, the fans were behind him because they would have been behind anyone in the world on this night, and it was pretty enjoyable watching Kabuki kick him. Mosca, Sr. and JYD were obviously great on the apron. In 84, that's generally where you'd want both of them (though with someone else in there as the third man). The use of Hart here was inspired: first coming in getting shots in on Jr., then later sneaking in his choke on Sr. to set up the second bit of heat, and finally getting his comeuppance in the final act to set up the hope spots, the comeback, and the triumphant finish.

This needed to be one thing, a build for JYD to get in and do his thing, and we got it basically twice with it working both times. This wasn't the sort of match that could carry a card by itself, but it was a fun mid-card attraction.

Greg Valentine vs. Dick Slater

MD: This is the best look at babyface Valentine we are ever going to get and it's well worth seeing. It's also an amazing look at 84 ace heel Dick Slater. With Flair gone for big swaths as champ, it was Slater that anchored things. Outside of one chinlock during the shine (which was made way better when he went seated with it), I really liked Valentine here. He was stoic, but had this amazing ability to just be still and let the fans build up their anticipation. Slater, on the other hand, did these big wind-ups which had the same effect just through a different avenue. I loved the contrast in their selling, something that was easy to see due to a few revenge spots (biting a wound, but more importantly, punches while the opponent is trapped in the ropes, slamming their head back into the cage). Valentine would acknowledge it, but Slater would just throw his body into everything. It created a firm distinction between babyface and heel.

Structurally, my favorite thing about this might have been how they tied the transitions to the use of the cage. They teased it early but didn't pay it off until Slater threw Valentine back into it with a cheapshot. The woundwork was good, and I liked Valentine's selling of his own headbutts given it. When Valentine came back, the cage got an assist for it. I liked the finish a lot, but wish they'd teased it earlier on with some leg damage instead of the chinlock. Great lost match with a great crowd.

PAS: I thought this was pretty awesome, pre-WWF Valentine is a big winner in the WWE dropping stuff on the network, between this and the Piper match we have had two new classics. So strange to watch Greg work babyface, but he does have nice timing, and there was a big "Let's go Greg" chant. The structure of this match was a pretty standard 80s cage match structure, but both guys bring extra to the table to make it stand out. Valentine is such a bruiser, and every one of his shots was 5% nastier then they needed to be. I loved the section where they are both on their knees, and Slater is throwing great jabs, and Valentine his hurling these overhand smashes to the neck. Slater has really fun Terry Funk cosplay with his selling, and does a great job of being "Dirty" Dick. There is a part where he is just smashing the back of Valentines head into the match, which felt just like the kind of line a scumbag bar brawler would cross. Finish was fun, although it did feel a bit like Greg was on his way out. Loved that we got to see this.

ER: I don't have a lot to add, this was just 20+ minutes of two hardasses beating each other around a cage, and Valentine is one of the meanest toughest dudes in wrestling history. His clubbing shots to Slater's body had to have left Slater bruised for the next week. Slater did a really fun Terry Funk approximation in this (I don't think as good as Tully's Funk approximate earlier, but one that was very appropriate for this match). I loved Valentine going after Slater's knee in unique ways, especially when he was on his knees and clubbed an approaching Dick right in his thigh, then his knee to drop him to his level. And the shots to the leg were even cooler to me because they didn't set up any extended legwork, they set up a *reason* for Valentine to continue making attempts at leg work, with his figure 4 attempt eventually leading to him being pushed face first into the cage and rolled up. Slater was really fun selling Valentine's hard shots, bouncing between rope and cage, I'll always love a stooge who hits hard. Valentine kept pulling out neat little tricks that others should steal, like when he had Slater on his back and grabbed both legs, Slater covers up, so Valentine leaps over him and drops a knee right on Slater's chest! The more Valentine that shows up further solidifies his legendary status. 

Assassin #2 vs. Jimmy Valiant

MD: Not much to say here, except for this. Jones, just in his reaction to Assassin #1 getting sent back to the locker room, probably extended the viability of the feud by another year. Talk about full commitment to what was going on. This was all sizzle, but after an hour long title match, that's fine. You watch a show like this and wonder how the territory wasn't doing way better than it was in 84. Then you remember that they just lost Piper and they were about to lose Orton and Valentine and that Flair was away every week and it makes a little more sense, but this crowd was just so good.

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New Footage Friday: Jake the Snake, King Tonga, Piper, Dick Slater, Inoue, Steamboat

Mighty Inoue/Ashura Hara vs. Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat AJPW 5/14/82

PAS: What a nifty match. Steamboat and Slater were working as a workrate heel team, dominating the natives with hit and run offense,  which is one of the only times I can remember Steamer working heel  The late Dirty Dick was an offensive juggernaut he had this great amateur scramble with Hara and lands some nasty jabs and knees to the throat and a dope piledriver. Inoue had a great series of rolling sentons, but this was mostly the native team fighting from underneath. So weird to see Steamboat hit his big crossbody as a heel double team, there is an alternative universe where Steamboat/Slater was the Midnight Express as opposed to a random one off team on an All Japan tour.

MD:It's hard to understate just how much we have to watch right now. We're looking at dozens of matches virtually unseen by the eyes of the community over multiple years of AJPW TV as well as handhelds and whatever else pops up. Just on what we have available to us in this moment, we could probably run this feature for six months or longer. That said, when Dick Slater dies, you probably should watch a Dick Slater match.

He gets a rap for being a Terry Funk clone/tribute act, but if you're going to be a tribute act for someone, you could do a lot worse. As a kid, I first encountered him as one of the Hardliners, with Murdoch, and while both guys were past their prime and while the act was short lived, they left a mark on me and probably set the stage for my enjoyment, later in life, of that sort of mean, gritty meat and potatoes heel tag team that would just credibly beat babyfaces up. Later on, I encountered him as heel ace while Flair was away being champ in 84 Crockett or attached to Dark Journey as a heatseeker in Mid-South or as a wild babyface in Southwest/Houston and that's not to begin on the stuff we don't have much of his like his big runs in Florida or his reportedly excellent team with Orton. He's a guy I really like and that I'm always glad to get more footage of.

This is just a straightforward, well worked, tag with a bit more substance/narrative than you often get from this setting. It might be the best I've seen Steamboat look in one of these random AJPW matches and maybe the closest to a heel I've ever seen him look. After the initial workrate-heavy (and very good) back and forth, it settles in with long stretches of dueling legwork, well-executed, and Slater and Steamboat working well together as a heel unit. Steamboat doesn't do anything outright dirty, but he's focused and unrelenting with just a hint of flash. It's a trip to see him breaking out a tandem elbow drop or atomic drop with Slater.

TKG: Aw man, I dug this a bunch. I am a big fan of Slater as WCW 89-97 rudo who you can just stick in anything and he’ll make it work, and that’s what this felt like. We need some scientific wrestling with Steamboat on one side and Inoue, Hara on other…get Slater and let him take over body of this. This is some fun scientific wrestling here and a neat Dick Slater showcase. I think my favorite section of this match was the early mat work where Inoue/Hara are working over Slater’s leg. Slater is just super active as a guy getting body part worked over, constantly looking for escapes, ways to break hold, ways to reverse etc.

Brett Sawyer vs. Jake Roberts GCW 10/23/83

MD: We watch footage. That's how we get at wrestling. That's how we understand it. Footage is our language. Most of the time, that's a blessing. When it comes to conventional wisdom and remembered narratives, sometimes it's a curse. It's disheartening to watch Ray Stevens matches and not see evidence of what everyone said made him special. It's downright aggravating to see Brody's offense look terrible time and time again. Then there's Jake. Jake Roberts, the self-professed master of psychology, the grand manipulater of the crowd. If you watch a hundred Jake matches, more often than not, it's either not there, or it's there to no great purpose. If it's there at all, it's there, instead, to replace greatness, as a lazy crutch to make it through the match, one that might bring a crowd up and down a bit, but never too up and never too down and never, ever all the way over the top.

Here, in the midst of one of the most legendary nights at the Omni, buried in the middle of a card that they had to structure somewhat carefully to leave the crowd with something left for the big main events, here against Brett Sawyer of all people, we get to see the Jake we were always promised and frankly, it's glorious.

Sawyer came in with a taped up leg, but despite giving up size to Jake, took the early part of the match. That is until Jake caught his leg in the ropes and starts in on it. After that he's just unyielding, attacking it from every angle, utilizing the full breadth of his tall, lanky frame to dive onto it for the sake of the last row, preying upon the weakness to bust Sawyer open, using dirty tactics like tying him back up in the ropes or hitting chop blocks from behind even when he didn't have to, and soaking in the rising tide of boos from the crowd. He oscillated between tearing it apart and letting everything sink in, slinking around the ring as Sawyer writhed. There was a palatable anticipation in the crowd for Sawyer to maybe make it back up in those moments and downright outrage when Jake rushed back in. Buzz came out as did your elder statesmen babyfaces in the form of Ole and Wrestling 2, making this seem downright momentous.

In the end, after the towel came flying in, Jake was escorted out by four police officers, and even then, I think the only things that halted a riot were the promise of the main events to come and the hope that sooner than later, Buzz was going to get his hands on Jake to avenge his little brother. It's everything we were always promised, finally.

PAS: It is pretty crazy on the night of Buzz Sawyers most legendary match, that Brett Wayne had the better match. This was masterful stuff by Jake, such a sleazy cheapshot artist abusing a poor babyface. From the moment he points to the knee brace, you could tell he was going to unleash some violence. I loved the early knuckle lock section where Jake kept climbing to the first turnbuckle to gain leverage, and even put his knee on Brett's shoulder. I also loved all of the knee work, it felt less like a scientific wrestler working on a limb for a submission, and more like a sadistic child torturing an animal. Roberts slinking around and chop blocking the knee, kicking Sawyer, lifting him up by the knee (which led to a great spot where Sawyer climbed up his body to land a big punch). Sawyer really leaks all over the ring too, and it brings out the council of elders 2, Ole and Buzz to eventually throw in the towel and save this kids career, as Jake just starts punching at the knee and staring down the crowd and the babyfaces. Bizarrely they didn't run Roberts vs. Buzz in the Omni after this, because this was one of the best set ups I can remember seeing.

TKG: I don't know man. I always like Brett Wayne Sawyer, and normally dig Jake egging on crowd. And liked some of the little moments like when bleeding Sawyer firing himself up by shaking fists and slapping mat and Jake cuts it off by stomping on his mat slapping hand. And loved the big Ole, II, and Buzz stuff ringside. Ole wanting to prevent Buzz from getting involved while interjecting himself and trying to fire up Brett was cool, but didn't do a ton for me

It felt like it just stayed at one level of intensity for 15 minutes, never felt like I wanted it to go from Jackass taunting audience and attacking leg to jackass challenging audience and trying to break leg...it went from jackass attacking leg and egging on audience to him continuing to do it until match ends

Roddy Piper/Cowboy Bob Orton vs. King Tonga/Superfly Afi WWF early 1986

MD: There was a moment right at the start here when I saw the paltry, somewhat disinterested crowd and all those empty seats, when I realized it was 1986 and not 1984, when I saw the two teams standing in the ring, seemingly calm, that I thought they might just phone it in. What gain was there to give this crowd, in this setting, anything but chinlocks? Yeah, it was Piper and Haku and Orton, but I had my doubts. No one's ever talked about this match, or even really this tour. There's not much evidence of it anywhere.

So, I was wrong. Very wrong. Piper saw this as a canvas full of possibilities and gave a performance that reminded me of Terry Funk in Puerto Rico as much as anything else. Some wrestlers see empty seats as an opportunity to have a night out. Piper saw them as hundreds of weapons with plenty of space for them to be thrown. It became less of a match and more of an open world battle, down to Haku chasing Piper across a field to tackle him.

Eventually, it more or less settled into a normal match with the heels getting heat and the crowd slowly but surely figuring out how to react, but even then there's the ever-present possibility that Piper was going to run off into the field at any moment. He'd settled down a little since 84 but really only a little. My biggest regret with this one was that the camera didn't stay on him all the time. Orton's great but it's the manic unpredictability that you can't look away from. When I watched this, it only had about 130 views and it still has less than 200 as of this writing. Go watch this now and boost that number. You'll thank us.

TKG: Was this good enough to have made the WWF 80s set? It’s not as good as any JAPW or Puerto Rico arena tour match but it is a fun arena tour match. And doesn’t have the inexplicable heat of the Spoiler v Rocky Johnson match from the same Kuwait tour, but this is so much more entertianing. The arena tour stuff is fun as all the attached chairs seem super awkward as they got tossed around and I dug big chunks of the in-ring stuff. Was this a smaller ring than they normally use? Really felt like the heels could hit a top rope knee drop to anywhere in the ring. I dug all the top rope knee drops to cut off faces. I think there were three or four. People complain about big finishing moves getting used in body of matches, but fuck those people. The Sivi Afi eating death finisher also looked as nasty as you wanted it to.

PAS: On the eve of one gulf state stadium show we get a look at an earlier version. There have to be max 150 people at this show, and for some reason Piper/Orton and the Tongans go completely crazy, I can't remember any 80s WWF match being worked like this, as it was closer to a Memphis arena brawl then anything else. They immediately spill into the crowd and guys in thobes are fleeing as the wrestlers are stumbling through the crowd hurling chairs at each other violently.  Piper and King Tonga was especially great with Tonga open field rugby tackling Piper in the soccer stadium grass and whaling punches at him. Afi some how ends up busted open and is really bleeding badly, and one point he is trapped under a table as Piper tries to crush his chest. Both heels take some athletic bumps, and Piper does his awesome blinded shadowboxing. Totally off the wall match, which would have been legendary if it was on a Saturday Night's Main Event instead of in front of two dozen Kuwaiti shieks.

ER: I had no idea WWF did a Kuwait tour in 1986, though I found an LA Times article from that year talking about how Hulk Hogan's single was popular in Kuwait. I always love wrestling matches held in unfamiliar areas, wrestling fans arranged around a ring differently than you're used to, and most importantly a crowd filled with people who don't seem like they typically go to wrestling shows. I have zero clue what the Kuwait wrestling scene was like in 1986, and it's not too much of a stretch to picture Piper and Orton talking backstage before the match and saying "Let's put on a show for these guys in dresses." And almost immediately the match spills into the crowd and the people in the crowd respond as if they have zero idea how to handle what is happening. People are scrambling to get out of the way, Orton takes a flying bump over the guardrail, all the chairs in the crowd look like every single person just brought their own chairs from their kitchen, Orton jams a chair into Afi's groin, Piper runs from Tonga and gets tackled from behind at the knees like a fleeing perp, there's a good chance the commentator thinks Afi is actually Superfly Snuka (which could help us timestamp this match more to the first 3 months of 1986, as the Superfly nickname certainly didn't last long, and Piper was gone after Mania and came back months later as a babyface feuding with Orton), chairs get thrown and there's a genuine sense of confusion and chaos among the crowd. Nobody has identifiable Event Staff gear, so there are some random guys just running up to the action, really could have been any old psycho. In ring there's some classic ring cutting off, Orton especially is awesome doing false tag claps and actively talking trash to ringside fans. We spill out to the floor again, Piper upends a table and throws it on Afi, stomping on it. Fans genuinely seem unsure how to react to any of this. When we get back in the ring we get a great spot where Orton and Piper cheat enough to make Tonga get in the ring, and as the ref orders him back out Tonga gets rushed and knocked off the apron, taking an absolutely nasty bump, falling backwards while getting his foot caught in the bottom rope and lands right on the back of his head. The ref checks on him while a double team front suplex easily finishes off Afi. Phil is totally right that none of this at all felt like a WWF tag match from this era or the next couple eras. Do we have any info on what else was on this show (other than the Rocky Johnson match that also showed up)? Do we have any information at all on why WWF ran Kuwait in 1986? Hogan popularity? Sold show? Fascinating discovery.

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Pat Patterson vs Bob Orton (MSG - 08/30/82)

Pat Patterson vs Bob Orton
MSG 08/30/82

39:40 in

Richard Land is a downright treasure of the community. He goes off and finds WWF rarities from foreign TV or obscure things that didn't heavily make the circles (or at least haven't been posted online). I can't be the only one out there who wants to watch "Ian Mooney" host D-Show Wrestling Spotlight with Sensational Queen Sherri (Or Vince host it with Elizabeth, just as surreal in the opposite direction). And yes, sometimes you just want to see the dark match from the first episode of Raw that only aired on Italian TV (It was Bob Backlund vs Damien Demento). He's also been posting longform shows from MSG and elsewhere. That's where I came across this.

It's a ten minute match that precedes Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid on a card with Buddy Rose vs Bob Backlund. Moreover, Orton's a guy who tends to be underrated and overlooked, though he does get great word of mouth from his peers and tends to come across well in every situation we have him in. Due to blackballing and just where he happened to be, we tend to have less of him in key situations than we'd like. We certainly don't have much complete footage of his team with Slater in Mid-Atlantic, which was supposed to be great. Patterson is someone I've learned to go out of my way for. No, we don't have much of him in the 60s, but what I've found is that post prime Patterson holds up far better than post-prime Ray Stevens, for instance. There's still a lot to appreciate and remark upon in his matches. So ten minutes of these two buried on a 1982 MSG card seemed like something worth watching.

Fiery forty year old babyface Patterson in New York always felt like an odd fit (maybe it shouldn't have) but he made it work through sheer effort and smarts. Here he took a huge chunk of the match, so much so that it probably shouldn't have worked. Orton was going over (albeit with a dirty but definitive countout), so given the relatively short timeframe they had to work with, it did make sense for Patterson to dominate. The challenge was for Orton to keep his heat throughout. He did, and in doing so, you can see hints and traces of just how good he was.

It goes back to selling, in the broader sense, to reacting. It wasn't enough that Patterson would block a punch and hit Orton. Orton sold it, and the meaning behind it, by winding up huge, letting the block linger, and then, once he was hit, stumbling across the ring to the outside and then falling back in over the top rope while swinging wildly. He ran into a bodyslam and bounced three times, waving his arms dramatically, and begging back into the corner. When he hit a shoulder block off the ropes, it was with his arms flailing in celebration. When he was rolled up off the ropes on a second attempt, he kicked out and flew under the bottom rope to stomp around in frustration. When he ate a sunset flip, for two, after some criss-cross running, he scooted back out and sat on the apron between the second and third rope in frustration. All of this massed until he had enough and rushed in instead of darting away, only to get outpunched by Patterson. When he finally took over, by using the ref as a distraction, it felt like the only thing he could do, but it still made him look good and crafty without hurting Patterson a bit. The finish, a crotching over the top rope that looked maybe a fifth accidental, did the same.

Both guys came out looking better than they came in. Orton only clowned for five or six minutes, but every second of that time was inflated in meaning due to how committed he was to his reactions (Patterson just as committed on offense). He only had control for a minute or two before the comeback, but they made the most of that as well. This isn't a lost classic, but it was a textbook example of how being committed to selling the importance of everything in the ring can make even a relatively short, relatively one-sided match richer and more vivid.

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