All Japan Battle Royal 1/3/79

1/3/79

ER: This is a pretty early iteration of the format that I would come to adore, taken a bit more seriously and worked a lot more dryly. It's only 10 combatants, so there's none of the scrambling chaos of later versions, no huge dogpiles, no betrayed alliances. There are still special moments, obviously, because how could there not be? I like how Destroyer went after Don DeNucci, throwing a great headlock punch before putting him down with an airplane spin into fireman's carry. Now, the ring being filled with traitors and all, of course everyone flips DeNucci onto Destroyer the second Destroyer pinned him. Two favorites eliminated early, and at that point it mostly became Bruiser Brody's ring. Brody even leaps out of the ring to start a fight with the eliminated Destroyer before hopping back in to isolate himself. The remaining natives all jump Brody, and I am amused at guys like Rocky Hata and Takashi Ishikawa holding Brody's arms while Motoshi Okuma is on his knees jamming headbutts into Brody's stomach. However, it is futile. They all dogpile Brody and in perhaps the only instance of this I have ever witnessed, Brody kicks out of a All Japan Battle Royal dogpile! Even Stan Hansen didn't get to kick out of a dogpile!! Of course, Hansen was never foolish enough to allow himself to be dogpiled. We get a good spot where Great Kojika and Karl von Steiger battle over an endless abdominal stretch, with von Steiger finally getting it. And then Rocky Hata gets an inside cradle on both of them! Hata and Okuma try to double up on Brody, but Brody easily pins Okuma using Hata. This really wasn't worked with very much silly energy, and the combination of silliness and unexpected stiffness is what can make these special. Fun moments for sure, but the format was still evolving.

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Even More 80s Christmas AWA

Jerry Blackwell/Greg Gagne vs. King Kong Brody/Masked Superstar AWA 12/25/84

ER: More nice tag formula, although Gagne got kind of swallowed up by Brody. Gagne was FIP for most of this with Blackwell getting a big hot tag, but the money match-up throughout was Blackwell/Brody. There was one great moment where Brody was firing up big boots right to Blackwell's forehead, with Blackwell leaning into them and powering through them while the crowd went nuts. Brody played monster well, and AWA is probably the Brody era that I have seen the least, but I thought he was a great fit here. Blackwell is also a guy who is a great babyface (which is also not the role I've seen from most of my Blackwell viewing).

Earthquake Ferris vs. Brian Knobbs AWA 12/25/86

ER: Ferris was the football coach or wrestling coach or P.E. coach or some kind of sports coach at the high school my girlfriend from like 20 years ago went to, and every year he would run a wrestling benefit show for the school. The year I was dating her I went and saw Greg Valentine, saw Sabu, her parents sat through a pro wrestling show and had zero respect for me, it was fun. And guess what, this rules. Brian Knobbs is just a couple months into his career here, and looks like a spitting image of Bridget Everett. Ferris works a couple of really fast cool armdrags and drops Knobbs with a big body slam. Knobbs talks trash about how fat Ferris is. Ferris is more of a bump machine than I remember, especially loved this massive missed elbow drop. Knobbs had some of these weird and violent, almost World of Sport movements on some of his attacks. He drops a super quick knee on Earthquake's leg, and does these great slashing attacks to the arm, started wrenching the arm he was attacking around the ropes. He really brought a more violent attack than I was expecting. I might need to do a rookie year Brian Knobbs deep dive. Ferris shows nice spunk on his comeback, hitting this sky high avalanche, just throwing arms back and diving in with nothing but belly, way high up. Then he gets Knobbs up in an airplane spin (The Ferris Wheel!!!) which leads immediately to a quirky splash finish. This match was fun as hell. When you're grinning your ass off and loving the 1986 melted candle body fat boy wrestling, you tell 'em Eric sent you.

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DVDVR Puerto Rico 80s Set: Invader I vs Bruiser Brody (6/15/86)

Disc 2: Match 13: Invader I vs Bruiser Brody (6/15/86)

Ok, let's talk about Brody. There are two ways to look at him. One is relative to the hype. Relative to the hype, Brody is terrible. This is the guy who is lionized as the greatest brawler of all time with awards named after him, who's brought up again and again in shoot interviews by old wrestlers as being great and believable and fearsome. When people in 2016 watch Brody matches on tape and don't see that, it's then pointed out that the fans reacted and he kept getting booked, so obviously the problem is with us as viewers. Some of it is that he can't live up to that level of hype. Some of it is that he simply doesn't. Some of it is that wrestlers value things that we don't. He was a role model to numerous wrestlers in standing up against promoters and that bleeds into how they talk about him in-ring. Apparently, he had amazing stamina which is all Flair ever wants to talk about with him.

The other way is to look at him a vacuum. That paints a slightly better picture. This is a guy who was very savvy about protecting himself and his position and his aura. In some ways he's the opposite of a guy like Terry Funk, who was able to create a legacy through selling. By not giving, Brody could feign toughness and give credence to the wild image. It didn't matter that his stuff didn't look all that good, because he built up enough credit with the fans/media/etc that it didn't have to. In that regard, he was a great "worker," as in he was "working" everyone, ensuring his bookings, granting himself freedom in what bookings he took, and making money. It sure didn't make for great matches, however.

You could even argue that by no-selling so much, especially in early parts of matches, by bumping but then bouncing back up again and again (and usually cutting his opponent off with an eyerake), it allowed for meaning to be bestowed whenever he DID sell. I don't think the evidence bears that out often. Some of that is due to the nature of AJPW tag matches, which is a lot of the Brody footage we have. They don't follow the shine/heat/comeback formula as much, which would allow for such things. We've seen that a bit more in Houston, but unfortunately, a lot of that footage has him as a babyface, which sort of defeats the purpose. Here in Puerto Rico, against a guy like Invader I even in a match that was mostly even, it works better. This was actually one of the best Brody matches I've seen.

When Brody was on top early, it wasn't as good as Invader's matches against Kamala or Abdullah, where he had a real force to sell for, but he's Invader I, so he made it work. When he comes back after a low blow, he's just unrelenting and the sense of escalation in the brawling leads to the arch-typical Brody formula actually working for once. He does start to sell more and more. It's absolutely warranted. And yes, in this particular situation, it means more because of how ungiving he was earlier in the match. When Invader drives Brody off with a chair, it feels like he actually achieved something. It's not easy to make a BS double countout finish mean something, but they managed it here, with the crowd carrying Invader on their shoulders to end the footage.

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DVDVR Puerto Rico 80s Set: Disc 1: Carlos Colon vs. Bruiser Brody (Chain Match) (Summer 1984)

Disc 1, Match 9: Carlos Colon vs. Bruiser Brody (Chain Match) (Summer 1984)

Let me just state something to begin: I am not turning a corner on Brody. He is, by far, the most egregious case of the footage not living up to the myth. Sure, it generally wasn't due to lack of talent or skill, but instead how he chose to use the talent and skill. Even then, much of the dissonance comes from the fact that a big majority of Brody that we have is from All Japan, where he was apt to give the least in order to, in his mind, keep his gimmick up. It just came at the extent of dozens and dozens of matches that could have been excellent otherwise.

That said, there are specific matches I like, and specific performances I like (though less of those), and even an era or two that I've come to enjoy. Most specifically, the 1977 Houston footage that's popped up on NWAOnDemand had him inexperienced enough that he didn't "know better," maybe? With the face turn that year, however, he starts eating up matches to their detriment.

This match, however, I'd put pretty firmly in the "Enjoyed" category. It might be that he was fighting his boss for the night. I tend to chalk off certain good Hansen performances (including ones that are the odds on favorite for #1 on this set) to the fact he's wrestling the guy who's paying him. Part of it was the chain gimmick too, though.

Brody sold, and he sold quite a bit here. It wasn't just his usual back flailing followed by immediate recovery either. He'd stay down, he'd let Colon move him about, and he'd even sell emotionally, expressing the crazy idea that he, with his head bloodied, fists crashing against him, a crowd wanting him dead, and a chain around his throat, was actually in danger. That's more than half the battle right there and it was one that Brody's performance actually won here, as in it won me over. That was right from the get go where he didn't want anything to do with the chain. It was the opposite of the usual languid apathy I expect from his reactions.

I think the chain helped, both in allowing him to credibly sell without feeling like he was hurting his character and its invulnerability, but also in making his usual lackluster offense feel all the more potent. Yes, his fist drop wasn't all that dynamic, but when you took into account that he had a chain wrapped around his fist, it was hard to mind. Not only did he choke with the chain, but he did it both inside and outside of the ring, the ability to move around like that, even while doing the same thing, at least giving the illusion of action to the match. And some things, like wrapping the chain around Colon's eyes, were actually inspired.

Any match where a wrestler wins by touching the four corners has the deck stacked against it, but they used the gimmick well here, with transitions based around one of the wrestlers stopping his assault in order to try to win. The finish had maybe one too many flourishes. If they had gone to it sooner after Colon touched the third turnbuckle, it might have worked. It wasn't just Brody knocking him into it but it was Brody knocking him into it after interference that should have helped him and it all seemed a bit much. The post match brawling and bloodying was almost enough to make it forgivable though. As weird as it is to have a Brody match in this position, this one might have topped the set, up til this point, for me.

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All Japan Motherload - The Funks vs. Bruiser Brody/Jimmy Snuka - AJPW 12/2/87

ER: In which two men - both of whom will find themselves on different ends of the murder controversy spectrum - team up against two vacationing brothers who have likely not murdered any humans in their life, but have likely had many experiences putting down assorted dogs and livestock. Four men. Four men who have been around DEATH AND MURDER their whole lives. Four men who start a tag match with 10 minutes of a side headlock on Jimmy Snuka. Four men recorded on a handheld camera by some person in the crowd (this match supposedly aired on TV but this is certainly not the TV recording). Yet overall, this match was good! Brody and Snuka were the two best men in the match. You may not believe that. It intrigued me on paper because I saw "Terry Funk" and "1987" and I thought...I don't recall seeing those two things together. And sure enough, in 1987 he and Dory just worked this one AJ tour and a match in Puerto Rico against the Road Warriors. I don't think Terry worked at all in '88. So them deciding to lock on 10 minutes of headlocks to start this match is not entirely unexpected. Please imagine with me, Terry greeting Baba after landing in Japan, and saying in his Terry Funk voice "Baba I don't know just how much I'm gonna be able to do this run". You know that you just read that in Terry Funk voice and you also know that you love reading things in Terry Funk voice.

So we get those 10 minutes of side headlock, and they aren't entirely boring. Terry is a guy who is usually pretty fun working holds, working anything really. It's never quite as mechanical or mindless as other guys, and there's that added excitement of "any second know he may just do something entirely Terry Funk". Snuka is not bad at being a guy in a headlock. I felt his frustration. Dory is unlike Terry, in that much of the time he cares not about making holds interesting, not just in his work but in his face. I don't believe I've ever seen a person more bored with what they are doing, than when I looked into Dory's eyes during various tag matches. His faces are almost Kikuchi-like in their long term selling, as you really believe that just the act of being a professional wrestler is physically draining his lifeforce. You really believe that he is trapped in this cycle of needing to continue wrestling, while it's also destroying him from the inside. You see people at the DMV enjoying their job more than Dory Funk. But things pick up when Brody sees Snuka's frustration, develops his own frustration, and comes in to boot Terry with one of the harder front kicks you've seen Brody unleash. Snuka takes over and grabs his own headlock, but awesomely punches Terry from the side headlock, Nolan Ryan style. He sat in that thing for 10 minutes, and now he's showing what HE would have done with that same side headlock. He plants Terry with a great piledriver and Funk hilariously won't allow Snuka to turn him over for the pin. Funk straightens his body as if to sell some sort of locked up paralysis, but as Snuka keeps trying to roll him over for a pin Funk keeps his body straight and clearly fights getting rolled over, for a long and awkward amount of time, in a really blatant sorry not sorry kind of way. I would have been pissed if I were Snuka, and I personally am not a man who has ever been driven to murder, so Snuka must have been REAL pissed. Brody was fun, lighting up both Funks with stiff yakuza kicks, and blasting Terry's chest with chops. Even over the poor fancam audio those chops sounded brutal. Brody also takes a wild bump into the crowd that really belies his selfish rep. He and Terry brawl to the floor and Funk takes a piledriver on the exposed mats, then eventually a chair joins the ring and this gets thrown out. The headlocks were shockingly not bad, and after that was gold. 1987 was a weird year.

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NWA Classics On Demand - Price Tag Review #4

We got some new stuff today, nothing that got me super excited, but definitely new footage.

Bruiser Brody v. Rocky Johnson 9/8/78 -$0.25

This was a 2/3 falls taped fist match for the Brass Knuckle Title. Rocky came to the ring with 70's Heavyweight Cleveland Williams who they said was in charge of taping his hands, cool old school touch. The match itself was well laid out, with Brody doing more selling then I am used to seeing from him. Still the execution just wasn't there, if you are going to do a taped fist match, I am going to need to see stuff land, and both guys punches were really loose. I liked Brody ripping up the turnbuckle, and was surprised to see Rocky go over, but this wasn't nearly violent enough. Brody continues to be the biggest old school lie.

Dusty Rhodes/Bad Leroy Brown v. Killer Karl Krup/Gary Hart 9/8/78- $0.10

It is always fun to watch Dusty dance and shtick it up, but this was a pretty bad heel team. KKK is by far the lesser KKK, and Gary Hart is a great talker, but a crappy wrestler. Pretty much a one man Dusty show, which is fun, but makes for a rough 25 minutes

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