Found Footage Friday: 50s WRESTLING FROM BUFFALO~! HUTTON~! BRAZIL~! SNYDER~! LINDSAY~! CRUSHER~!

MD: My impression is that footage might have been converted and posted years ago but then was lost for a while. The Zabio vs Marino match is out there on YouTube but nothing else is and people in our community have never seen the Hutton match (or any other Hutton match! Or any other Luther Linsday match!), for instance. 

Footage Link

Luther Linsday vs. Fred Atkins Buffalo 10/11/57

MD: I could be wrong about this, but this feels like a historic find. We have no real footage of Lindsay who was a great Thesz opponent and spoken highly of him, one of the biggest African-American wrestlers of the 50s and 60s. We get most of a 20 minute draw here, just one clip in the middle of about a minute, tops, and it's good look at him, I'd say. Atkins spends a lot of the match working a wristlock (with brief trips to hammerlocks and other things), splaying the fingers when the ref can't see it to keep Lindsay down. Lindsay teases punches but eventually gets forearms in to force breaks. He works well from underneath, selling the arm throughout, but forcing Atkins to adapt and getting the fans excited for a potential shot. When it's time for him to fire off, he has big strikes in the corner and a great headbutt that Atkins sells like death. They're wrestling for a draw and it doesn't really boil over in the end but it's well worked up and down hold. You get some sense of how he portrayed his power, both physical and star, here. I'd be interested to see him against a more dynamic opponent, but I'm just glad to see him at all.

Wilber Snyder vs. Wally Greb 4/25/58

MD: You occasionally see this sort of match in the 50s, where an older journeyman who knows all the dirty tricks is put up against there against one of the young stallions of the wrestling world, one of those guys who are still getting established but who have the square jaw and all the skills in the world and will one day be a champion. I think of that mostly with young Verne (though we saw a lesser version of it with Bill Cody vs Honest John Cretoria not that long ago) but we get it here with Snyder. Snyder comes off as an absolute wrestling machine, able to chain holds and escapes beautifully. Greb's underhanded tactics means that he's on top for a good chunk of the match but there's always the sense that Snyder could beat him at any moment and it's just the cheating keeping him afloat. Examples of that are when Snyder does a perfect headstand to escape a headscissors and then jams Greb when he tries to repeat it. That sort of thing. Snyder has this great back of the neck clap shot he uses at times down the stretch once he's had enough with Greb and puts him away with the abdominal stretch once things pick up. Greb more than did his job here and Snyder looked like a future champ.

Bobo Brazil vs. Jim (Brute) Bernard 1/17/58

MD: This was sub-30 seconds, just a big leap frog and bigger dropkick by Brazil. That's how they brought him into the territory. He'd won his two previous matches in 13 and 23 seconds. Bernard and Brazil would have wars later, but not on this night. Post match, he called out Gene Kiniski. I don't think I've ever seen a 50s match quite like this but it was a great way to get Brazil over instantly as a sensation in a new territory.

Dick Hutton vs. Wally Greb 11/1/57

MD: So it was something to get our first Luther Lindsay match, but we get maybe the first Dick Hutton match on tape too? I'll say that ultimately this was almost more of a Greb showcase, as he controlled a lot of the match with holds and dirty tricks while in the holds. Hutton was almost understated working from underneath, coming back with really big shots, with definitive strength, with a sort of physical confidence. It was hard to get too much of a sense of things past that, though. The early holds were hard fought but there were times he seemed to be almost sitting in the later ones. Boxer Joe Muscato was the ref here, as in the Lindsay match and they did do a spot where Hutton kicked out pressing Greb onto him. So not a ton here, as the match goes just over 8 minutes, but you get a sense of Hutton's size and strength and what his comebacks looked like. That's something to go off of at least. Greb continues to look like a competent journeyman for what it's worth.

Roy McClarity vs. Al Korman 10/18/57

MD: This might have been the most purely entertaining match in this footage. So far as I can tell, we never had any Korman footage either though we have a few McClarity matches. Korman was a great stooge, a cheapshot artist, had a fun kneelift and great reactions. McClarity had a lot of stuff, kneelifts and knee crushers and a dropkick, and some nice shots, including a bit of punishment where he paintbrushed the head repeatedly was Korman was sitting in the ropes. A lot of it was Korman trying to take liberties in holds and then McClarity (who was touted for both his height and his speed) escaping and getting some real revenge before they went back into it. Snyder and Hutton had both used versions of the abdominal stretch in their wins, but McClarity took it with the cobra clutch, with Korman wobbling around the ring entertainingly post match.


Gallaghers (Mike & Doc) vs. Lisowskis (Reggie & Stan) 4/17/59

MD: We have matches with the Gallaghers and matches with the Lisowskis but this might be the first we have with both against each other. Reggie, of course, would be Da Crusher. Stan was just his wrestling brother, but they fit each other well. Mike and Doc were the heels here and they really played the part well. Really, this almost felt like an All Japan tag. Mike and Doc cut off the ring, cheated at every opportunity. The Lisowskis just kept on coming in to even the odds. Reggie was an absolute force, a proto-Hansen, just constantly coming at you. The Gallaghers had a way of putting on a front facelock choke for a few seconds and immediately pulling things back to their corner but it was pretty inevitable that this would break down, with the Lisowskis tying up one Gallagher and repeatedly pile-driving the other until they got DQed. Post match they brawled some more and yapped on the mic about how they were the winners anyway and the crowd loved it. Just a good look at both teams.

Fritz Von Erich vs. Great Zabio

MD: Unfortunately, we only have three minutes of this but it's fun while it lasts. Zabio, past being a piano player, was a beatnik gimmick and the announcer lets us know that Fritz says there are no Beatniks in his Germany. He really laid it in but when it was time for Zabio to comeback, he recoiled well and took a good armdrag. That was about it for this one though.

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New Footage Friday: 1984 WWF MSG Shows

3/25/84

B. Brian Blair vs. Charlie Fulton

MD: Pretty good second match on a card. Straightforward but well worked with Blair controlling a shine on the arm, where he kept it interesting and varied, a pretty pedestrian transition where Fulton wouldn't break clean on the corner, some solid back work that followed, and a fiery comeback with good, chippy shots from Blair. All the offense looked good, the selling worked, the crowd barely cared, and Monsoon and Patterson were entertaining on commentary talking about Tony Garea and old injuries. About as good a mid-80s MSG second match as you could hope for.

Ivan Putski vs. Iron Sheik

MD: Well, you can't say the fans didn't care about this. It didn't last long either. Sheik looked fine in there, with good clubbering in his early ambush and then quality stooging and staggering and feeding after Putski came back with his belt and the rapid headlock punches. Putski knew what he was doing, I suppose, and even hit a nice suplex reversal. The Polish Hammer looked crummy as Sheik recoiled into the corner off of it to set up the finish. Four minutes that worked but that definitely shouldn't have been any more than that.

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Tony Garea

MD: This wasn't listed in the results. Lucky us. Look, it was fine, but the only thing worth mentioning is how Sharpe got heat to start by complaining about his weight being announced as 282 when it's really 284. I like the sort of subtle image that evokes. This isn't like the Buddy Rose deal. It instead shows just how irritating Sharpe is to the crowd. Who cares if it's 282 or 284? What's the difference? Why get so worked up over that? What a pest. Of course, knowing about Sharpe's OCD, who knows?

Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine

MD: They were building to a rematch to end the next show, so this ended inconclusively, but what we got was good. Monsoon was playing up that Sheik had hurt Backlund's neck and shoulder, and Valentine eventually was able to target it, including a pretty nice short arm scissors. Backlund managed a back bridge while in it, before shifting Valentine over, which is not something I'm sure I've seen before. Of course the hold ended with the lift, before a brief comeback and a subsequent second bit of heat with the leg. There Backlund pushed Valentine off of a figure four attempt only for Valentine to run right back with an elbow drop which is an all time great cut off. It ended up on the floor with them slugging it out convincingly and set up the more decisive rematch the following month. Backlund got to interact with all the matinee kids after the match.

Paul Orndorff vs. Tito Santana

MD: We didn't really have a good match for Orndroff when he died earlier this year, so this feels like as good a choice as any. I know there's a readily available match vs. Santana (the May MSG) that a lot of people watched at that time. This goes back to the Sharpe bit (or Albano's pre-match antics) but Orndroff really lingers on his way in, including complaining about how his robe was being carried. Trying to get heat that way is up and down the card on this show and it's something no one in wrestling even thinks about doing today. Match itself was solid. They were working towards a draw. Some production elements are just funny. Patterson got there late to announce the first match because he was stuck in traffic. No one clued Monsoon in on the finish so he was aghast that it was even a 30 minute draw let alone a 20 minute one (let alone an 18:30 draw). Everything Orndorff did looked good. They were fairly minimalist in the matwork but it all worked. Tito doesn't get enough credit for his strikes though a good chunk here was Orndorff making them look good too. Tito had a great atomic elbow off the second ropes and his big comeback move was a diving elbow into the ropes after Orndorff had tossed him back in. Both guys could be absolutely explosive when the moment called for it. Finish was the sort of BS people were used to in New York and it sets up that May match which doesn't even have a much better finish.

5/21/84

Bobo Brazil/SD Jones/Rocky Johnson vs. Samoans(Afa/Sika/Samula)

MD: Historic match to some degree as it was Brazil's last MSG appearance. He was almost 60 and it showed whenever he tried to do anything complicated, though he looked pretty good moving around in general. I swear there was one moment in there where it seemed like he wanted to do the headscissors take over/headlock takeover at the same time spot with two Samoans and it just did not work. He got to clear house at the end with headbutts before they double clotheslined SD on a leapfrog (sounds better in theory than it was in practice, like the rest of this match). Rocky was almost 40 and he looked very good in there. I get that Brazil was a sub for Atlas for this short run but I don't see why they couldn't give them the nod on this. Brazil was billed on the way in as the greatest black wrestler of all time, but it wasn't a great showing and I can see why this stayed in the vault.

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