Found Footage Friday: CROCKET CUP 87 NIGHT 2~!

Crockett Cup 87 Night 2 JCP 4/10/87

MD: We had a lot more of Night 2 than Night 1 but some of that was still handhelds or pieced together and this is a big VQ upgrade regardless, so we're just going to go through this as much as possible on the idea that a lot of this is very much Found even if not entirely New.

Round 3

Bob & Brad Armstrong vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

MD: Really great stuff here. That's not a surprise. There's an extended (almost ten minute) heel-in-peril shine to begin where Tully gets a few moments but mostly gets clowned over and over. What makes this work is how he constantly tries to drive to the corner and everytime things go really wrong for him is when he tries to stretch the rules, like using his foot to make a tag. JJ complains and the Armstrongs do a phantom tag while the ref is dealing with that. I love the wrist control by Bob here. You get such a great look at how he's holding Tully's hand and the torque involved. So simple but so good. Eventually Luger does get in but the Armstrongs come back only for JJ to pull down the rope and send Brad flying.

The FIP isn't as long but they get a lot done quickly, using the guardrail and working over the back. Brutal stuff with Brad on the floor reaching not for the fans, but for his dad even though there's no way to make a tag, just trying to drag strength and power from his love. The hot tag is great too with Bob coming in fiery as can be, laying into the Horsemen with basically machine gun chops in the corner. I got a kick out of the finish which had the ref miss a pinfall due to the chaos and JJ and Tully do a double clothesline with JJ on the apron to pick up the win. It's funny to think that would add so much but it had symbolic value so it totally worked. Good tag and great to see it in this level of video quality.

ER: I thought this was tremendous, 8 perfect minutes of tag team wrestling. Also, 8 minutes reminding us of what a perfect wrestler Tully Blanchard was. Tully was the primary highlight of this, but I think the whole thing was highlights. Every single second of Bullet preventing Tully from tagging out is pro wrestling perfection. Every second. The cameras catching the perfect angles of the inches Bullet was letting Tully get from Luger, the cut to the hand-on-brow disappointment and disgust from JJ Dillon looking like Robert Prosky in Thief, Luger's teenage quarterback hands on hips frustration when the tags keep being prevented, the way Tully's legs dragged and floated when Brad held onto a side headlock, it was all perfect. Luger was a great partner for Tully. This was Luger's best hair era, by fair. It never came close to looking this good again. His fringe, his gentle approach to being a jacked Ramones superfan. I loved how all of Tully's long build to the hot tag was more about Bullet tagging in his son to square up to Luger, who looks like Asshole He-Man. 

Tully Blanchard has the same kind of physical bumping style as Bobby Heenan. Heenan's bumping gets talked about more because it's flashier and one of the greatest bumping styles anyone has ever attempted. Tully doesn't use the same physical movement as Heenan, but he bumps with the same physicality. Tully has the ability to work these inches and near misses as well as he works big looping O-face back bumps when tugged and pulled and thrown by the Armstrongs, in a way that only makes the Armstrong Family Biceps look like main event power. I don't think there's a more perfect bump than Tully ping ponging perfectly onto his belly into the corner right on his mark, after leaning into Brad's missile dropkick. It's that kind of precision that people see in Chris Candido, the things is that Candido is just 0.7 Tully. Candido was tan, shaped, modeled. Tully looked like your friend's dad who was the asshole orthodontist accused of touching a girl under the gas. The guy in your church denomination you don't want to talk to in the lobby after service.

Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express

MD: The feeding early on, especially by Bobby Eaton, is all time great. The way he's able to rush in and take things and contort pro wrestling physics and make it all look good is up there with the very best ever. He somehow hits the guardrail after getting tossed out and you buy it. He makes a press slam into a snake eyes look like a move that people should be doing weekly now but it's something I've barely seen this century and that if anyone else took wouldn't look nearly as good. Likewise, he took a chop (looked like to the chest to me) and then sold his face, pointing to his jaw repeatedly like he just lost three teeth. Lane does okay too, going head over heels just bouncing off a Warrior, but it's not quite the same as Bobby.

When the Express take over on Hawk, it's from going to the eyes again and again and again and double teaming at every point. They just have a few frenetic minutes in charge, but the sheer amount of varied and interesting cheating they're able to do in believable ways is just remarkable. You buy that the ref just didn't see it because they were so good and Animal was so frustrated. Eyerakes, tossing Hawk over the top illegally, using the racket, again and again. When the hot tag comes, everything becomes chaos and the ref goes down. Cornette threw a fireball at Animal and I thought Animal no sold it but on the replay you see that Ellering pulled Cornette's arm so he plausibly just missed. It's a dangerous thing to devalue though so I'm not sure I loved that. To the crowd, it must have looked like Animal just no sold it. Still that infuriated the Roadies and they took the racket and got themselves DQed the ref came to. This was another really good one as they matched up well and everything had the perfect weight to it, save maybe for that fireball at the end.

ER: This is a famously great tag that has never looked or sounded better. The sound on these new uploads is so key, it makes every bump seem like an impossible physical feat to maintain. There's so much good about this, including Bubba, Cornette, and Ellering at ringside. They all got reactions and none of the reactions took away from the others, just an insanely hot match where everything clicked. Bobby Eaton in 4K is truly something to marvel. He and Hawk are a perfect combination of wrestling physicality. Eaton was so gifted, another guy who moved all in his own way...and Hawk wrestles like the ideal jacked cool guy to be knocking Bobby Eaton around. Bobby was such a ham here, in a way that totally works when selling for the Roadies. Hawk hit a short hard chop that was so loud, Bobby improvised on the spot that it him right in the mouth, backpedaling all the way across the ring to tag in Stan. Sell it to the 18,000 people who couldn't see that it hit chest. Lane took some big shots too, getting whipped upside down into the buckles by Hawk and then calmly begging off as Hawk approached, like hey easy man we got other towns to make. Lane getting yanked by the arm from the apron into the ring was such a great bump, the athletic grace of the Midnights combined with the power of the Roadies. Bobby and Stan get great reactions for their bumps, but probably not as big as the reaction Bubba gets when he steps to the apron and removes his coat and hat. Huge. 

The finish is incredible, one of the great chained together bullshit finishes I've seen. The Midnights throw Hawk over the top to the concrete with full distraction, then Bobby hits Hawk in the ribs with the loudest racket shot and kicks him straight in the guts. It completely breaks down into chaos and pandemonium after the bell and it's fucking pro wrestling baby. That's chaining it all together. That's what we used to do. We used to cut off the ring and drink a case of beer and we used to chain bullshit together without reversals of reversals of reversals. A Cornette fireball to endless racket shots to bodies going every direction in perfect chaotic order. The Roadies murder Bobby with a Hart Attack to cap it off. Bubba takes a hit through the ropes that sends him crashing to the apron and down to the guardrail. He looked humongous and the fall was grand. Incredible pro wrestling. 

Rick Rude/Manny Fernandez vs. Superpowers (Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff)

MD: The #1 seed vs. the biggest babyfaces in this. While the first round had its share of fairly lame teams (especially compared to the year before), now in the quarterfinals you see the breadth of the talent here. This was a huge match. They'd only run it once before at a show at the Great Western Forum. It was a way to put the tag champs up against these guys with the belts not on the line. Rude vs. Nikita was such a natural pairing too and they leaned into that early with some fun strength stuff including Nikita breaking out of a full nelson.

Dusty played FIP after taking a post shot on the outside, with him gradually working back towards a comeback and these guys all knew how to milk it of course. Things broke down after Dusty hit a leaping clothesline off the ropes. Rude came in and then Nikita. Manny went for a flying body press but Dusty rolled through for the wins as the fans went nuts. 

ER: This was short but hot the entire way. I love the Raging & Ravishing team. Everyone in Crockett is so physical. I keep using various forms of that word because everyone is so physical in a totally different way. Manny Fernandez doesn't even look like someone who exercises, he looks like the most dangerous man in a bowling alley, but then he's throwing these impressively controlled kneedrops and holding back his body to keep his shots worked, and it's crazy how dangerous he can make himself look while being this safe. Rude is so good at working with Nikita and Manny knew exactly how to work as Rude's partner, I just love how these men fell around the ring. 

Round 4

Giant Baba/Isao Takagi vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

MD: Baba/Takagi had a draw as Ricky Morton was out (what a shame to lose that weird match). This was a kind of weird one too. Lots of leglocks early. It looked like things would open up when Luger slammed Baba but then he missed an elbow drop and Baba just beat up Luger and Tully. Novel pairings at least and fun to see them take his stuff (chop, big boot, Russian leg sweep). Takagi looked strong in there, good strikes and the fans really got up when he mowed through both Tully and especially Luger. Takagi missed a corner charge and weirdly Luger couldn't get him up for the rack. He hit an elbow drop for the pin instead. Up until the finish I could see there being interest in a Takagi vs Luger match back in Japan but after that, nah.

Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff vs. Midnight Express

MD: This was a blast really, the whole shine especially. There was an early bit where Koloff broke clean on Eaton, Eaton refused to break clean on Koloff, punching him in the face, Koloff gave chase, Eaton dodged a shot back in the ring and pointed to his brain, Koloff slingshotted him back into the ring and then dropkicked him, which was absolutely perfect pro wrestling. Beautiful stuff. Then Lane got thrashed about and claimed it was a tights pull and Eaton got caught in the ropes as Dusty pinballed him again and again in a teeter totter only to fall outside and immediately get hiptossed onto the floor. Pure Eaton right there. He does the silly painless bit to pop the crowd and decides to take the huge bump anyway. Dusty finished it by giving all of the Express and Bubba elbows and basking in the glory of it all.

Heat was on Nikita and they did what the Express did best, fit a ton of egregious offense into a very small amount of time. They focused on the neck cheated in both large ways and small, and made use of numbers and ring-positioning. They pushed it just a little too hard, had just a bit of miscommunication and Nikita used that to hit the Sickle, no hot tag needed. Given all the different finishes at play, it worked. It also felt a bit like a banana peel, definitive as it was, because of the lack of the hot tag, so that almost protected the Express in loss in a weird sort of way.

Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham

MD:A lot to cover in a paragraph or two. This match, given how it was preserved/presented over the years and that it was going back to a relatively dry well, has traditionally not been thought highly of. But I do think it was very good. There are individual bits that I love, and I honestly do think they come together. 

Some of those bits:

• After the initial feeling out, Flair chops Barry in the corner. Barry puts on a grin and storms out. Flair backs off but struts it off. They repeat the process and this time Flair falls down before strutting. Then Flair gets in a knee and does it one more time. This time Barry sells it big but still storms out and threatens to do a ten punch on Flair. He backs down. Flair goes for a cheapshot and Barry fires off on him. It was such a great exchange in part because how it escalates.
• Late in the match, Flair, who has been knocked around both inside and outside the ring, gets an advantage and scales the top. We all know what's coming, but the execution is so different than what we'd see in the years that would follow. Flair slows himself down to jaw with the fans. Once he reaches the top, he does it again. Barry gets up and waits for him to turn. When Flair does, he's shocked and begs off. Barry shoots a punch to his gut before grabbing him. Flair shakes his head repeatedly. Barry goes to throw him. They struggle over it. Flair grabs his hair. Barry finally gets him over.
• The biggest tease of the match is Barry hitting a one legged missile dropkick which looked so out of the norm for 87 that it felt like a big deal. He pins Flair for 3 but flair had his foot on the rope and got his hand there too at the last second. The hand drew the ref's eye to the foot and after he made the count, he had to restart the match. He was beside himself over it.  Barry immediately gets his finisher, being the leaping clothesline off, only for Flair to get his foot on again. The moment had passed.

Structurally, they go from Flair getting a hotshot and taking over and working the arm to Barry coming back and Flair taking back over to work the leg and getting the figure-four. They got in and out with advantages switching, throwing in plenty of high spots and building to some of the big moments above. When Flair wins it after a series of back and forth pin attempts and holding the tights, it's acceptable but not exactly satisfying, but it didn't need to be given the victory that would follow.

Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

 

MD: Ok, so I'm running out of time on this one and it's definitely been out for years. One thing I do want to point out that you get watching the show in context is how people controlled Nikita and had a chance by targeting the next throughout the show but the whole show builds to this one where they tear the brace off of his neck. So I really did appreciate that in context. 

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Found Footage Friday: VALENTINE VS. MURACO~! ARMSTRONGS VS. STUD STABLE TEXAS DEATH MATCH~! COWBOY LANG IN SUN CITY~!

Greg Valentine vs. Don Muraco WWF 7/24/88

MD: This was in the Toronto Network dump from last year, and it's a bit of a miracle match. There wasn't a lot else new on the show so we're just getting to it now though. This was a grudge match between face Muraco and Valentine after Valentine took out Billy Graham's leg. It was Muraco's last WWF feud. He was jacked to the gills here (which was probably necessary considering how drenched he was before he even did anything). Valentine had the brace already. The crowd had Bulldogs/Warrior vs. Demolition/Fuji and Savage vs. Dibiase to come, but so far had sat through Terry Taylor vs. Scott Casey, Powers of Pain vs. Bolsheviks (a uniquely terrible pairing) and Haku vs. SD Jones, and they were absolutely up for a match with some heat and guys they considered to be stars. They were buzzing the whole way through.

Muraco gave them something to buzz about, too, believe it or not. He charged forth before the bell and spent the first many minutes of the match absolutely dismantling Valentine's arm. The best parts here were when he smashed it into the announcer's table (giving us a great look at the little TVs Monsoon and Mooney were using to follow along with the action) and when, after doing a stepover dislocation, Valentine decided to take a flop bump for absolutely no reason, one of three or four in the match. Muraco messed up on a corner charge and Valentine hit a series of desperation elbow drops and went straight to the leg. While he made sure to use his good arm primarily, you'd still like to see some lingering grimacing as he was transitioning. It wasn't a dealbreaker though. Valentine eventually flipped the brace and went for the figure four but Muraco blocked it three different ways. He was doing a better job favoring the leg in his hope spots: falling on a slam, having to really pull the tights to only half get a pile driver. This all lead to a big hulking up (the Jerry Blackwell stoic style) which the crowd absolutely went up for, but they timed a ref bump in the set up for the tombstone and one brace shot later, it was all over. Some of Muraco's stuff looked a bit airy but he brought a huge intensity in the beginning and the end and Valentine covered the rest. Great last gasp for a guy who hadn't had much of a deep breath for years. 

ER: This was a late July summer show and you know NYC was hot as hell because this was one of the wettest shows you've seen. Every boy on this show was as wet as you've ever seen them, and Muraco and Valentine were downright soaked with meaty summer sweat. Click on any minute of this file and you will see some gassed dudes burning through electrolytes. You haven't seen wetness like this before. This is just two big wet boys hammering on each others' limbs right after the crowd had watched SD Jones take a back bump after getting kicked in the back of the head. This is totally different, as Don Muraco breaks out some of the coolest arm work of his career while Valentine does a bunch of fun stunned selling, like he was going into shock from having his arm demolished. Muraco bounced the arm off the turnbuckle, rammed his arm and shoulder into the ringpost, and hit a great shoulder breaker. Those were somewhat expected, but I was not expecting his cool legdrop onto the arm or even his stuff over to butt bump the arm. Now, sadly, he worked over Valentine's left arm, which meant that Valentine could still fire back with his right arm, and he really dished some shots. The arm work didn't come into play in the finish in any way, but it was a cool way for him to control until Valentine was working over his leg with the shin guard. It was a great way to take Muraco down the stretch as he was good at fighting Valentine off and also burly enough to walk through some wicked Valentine chops and other offense to build to a big comeback. Muraco's piledrivers were disgusting, adding insult to injury by giving Valentine a wedgie on one, then clutching him for an awesome Gotch lift tombstone that was one of the gnarliest finishers of the era. Can't hold up to a shin guard to the head though. 

Pepe Gonzalez/Little Mr. T vs. Cowboy Lang/Bad Jim Brown South Africa 1980s?

MD: A whole bunch of South Africa stuff got dumped around a year ago and we played it safe and just watched the Matt Borne match, but hey, they give these guys twenty minutes in a 2/3 falls match and someone has to watch it, right? Cowboy Lang was one year off from working in five different decades. We've seen him in a bunch of territories over the years.  It meant that he knew every trick in the book by this point and considering they had a bunch of time to kill, they used a bunch of them. Gonzalez worked at least one or two WWF shows. I'm not digging in to see if he worked as Pepe Gomez as well, but if he did, he worked even more than that. He could kind of go too. Some good rope running spots with him, especially with Brown basing. He took a beating well too. Little T was there for the big payoffs to the comedy spots, but they were good. His introduction to the match was in a great full nelson bit where Lang kept breaking free just as Pepe was going to position him in the corner for a shot from T and then finally gloating and turning to get it put on again. But T gets him instead and this builds to a bunch of heel communication bits with punches. What made this work better than a lot of similar matches I've seen was the amount of time it had. That meant that they could get some real heat on Pepe, sneaking shots in, controlling the ring, working a missed tag by the ref, all the good stuff. It made the comedy comeuppance resonate just a bit more when it came. It's amazing what a few extra minutes, well used, can do for a match.

ER: I don't have much to add other than to bring up the possibility that Cowboy Lang might have actually made it to that 5th decade of wrestling. His last listed matches online were from 1999, but I know I saw him live more than once on APW shows, and I was not in attendance for any of the shows listed on cagematch. I was definitely in attendance for matches against Bobby Dean and Lil Nasty Boy, which would have happened in either 1999 or 2000. I remember Lang being a real hit with the crowd as he was the only cowboy wrestler on the card, on shows that happened in or adjacent to farming areas. A little person in his mid 50s working line dancing spots in an opening match is going to get a big reaction in a town with multiple cowboy bars. I say the guy made it to 5 different decades. 

The Bullet/Brad Armstrong/Scott Armstrong vs. Robert Fuller/Jimmy Golden/Elix Skipper Wrestle Birmingham 8/12/05     Part 2

MD: We don't often get to highlight the stuff our old friend over at Armstrong Alley posts, due to the show vs match set up of FFF, but this was a good one to pull out and take a look at. The sound comes in a minute or so into the clip, so don't worry about that. This was a Texas Death match but didn't have Texas Tornado rules. That meant the ten count gimmick was integrated into more of standard tag format. During the shine, you had Elix Skipper taking a lot of stuff, eating early pins, and then stooging/selling big as he got back to his feet. Some of the pins weren't entirely believable but when there's no actual consequence in getting pinned, maybe there was just no reason for him to kick out and jump up at one? Once you got past Brad's early Russian Leg Sweep it worked a little better. They drew in Fuller with some taunting too, very Br'er Fox trickster folk hero stuff (more on that later) and Fuller is the most offendable guy in wrestling history so it worked. 

When they took over on Brad, they worked in the ten counts as bits of hope that would then be cut off. Brad can work from underneath as well as anyone and the heels kept it moving and compelling. The finish was the sort of BS one might expect, with the Bullet getting the sleeper on fuller, interference causing a distraction, Golden KOing Bob with the knucks and then the ref calling the first man to his feet the winner. Again, they went back to the rustic trickster aesthetic: as the ref was admonishing Golden for trying to help Fuller back to his feet, Brad and Scott pulled Bob up. Classic Americana, out cheating the cheater. Everyone looked pretty spry in this except for Bullet Bob who was more than a half step slow, but even he was still pretty credible just for who he was and the mask to make him look a bit younger. The gimmick made things interesting, though even with the history and animosity it was weird to see a Texas Death Match that wasn't an outright hate-filled brawl.

ER: There are a few important takeaways from this. The first is that Robert Fuller and Jimmy Golden - in their mid 50s - still looked good enough to be tagging regularly on much bigger shows than this. Fuller hardly worked over the previous decade, and Golden hadn't been a featured TV performer since 1997, but they had better energy, better timing, and better bullshit facial expressions than most of the tag teams WWE was trotting out in 2005. You watch the Stud Stable here and tell me you'd rather see a Road Warriors team with Animal/Heidenreich, or the Heart Throbs, or Charlie Haas/Rico. The Stud Stable may have been in their mid 50s but goddamn was tag wrestling looking bad on the main stage in 2005. 

Second takeaway is that Brad Armstrong looked incredibly good for a guy who had worked about as many matches as Robert Fuller ever since WCW's closure. Not only was Armstrong the most jacked I've ever seen him, but he was worked fast and hard and taking big bumps any time he was in the ring. I'm not really a high vote Brad guy. I think he's one of the 5 best Armstrongs* but I don't think I could put him higher than 5. But if he worked most of his career the way he worked this match, he just might have been my favorite Armstrong. Look at how hard he gets run into the turnbuckles! Look at how great his spit sells are whenever he gets punched! Why is 2005 Brad Armstrong so good and so gassed?? 

Third takeaway is that Elix Skipper, youngest man in the match, looked like total shit and had all of the worst offense. What was his spin kick ever supposed to be? Bullet was an old man still in incredible physical shape, but couldn't really move even half speed any longer, but it really wasn't that noticeable when Elix Skipper's offense was also thrown at half speed and wouldn't have even looked good at full speed. Fourth takeaway is that it was insane how much effort Wrestle Birmingham put into wraparound comedy sketches in their programming. I'm not sure if any of them were actually funny but damn did those guys go out there with actual planned material when they really did not need to do any of that. 

*Expanding on putting Scott over Brad, a request: Depending on the night, I think it would be possible for any Armstrong to be 1st and any Armstrong to be 5th. On this night Brad was first, Bullet was last, Brian was second**. Scott vs. Brad is admittedly a tough comparison, as we have so much more Brad footage available. Brad worked longer matches in WCW and got all of the New Japan tours, Scott mostly worked Smoky Mountain and pulled job duty in WCW. So the Brad vs. Scott WCW comparison is mostly made on Brad working offense vs. Scott taking offense, and I prefer how Scott takes offense more than I prefer Brad doing offense. Brad has strong execution but I don't think he really uses it in imaginative ways. Scott is great at taking bumps as a heel or babyface, knowing which bumps to use depending on his role within the match (e.g., you won't see him take backdrop bumps as a babyface but the man will get some height as a heel). I also think Scott's personality blossoms as a heel, whereas Brad supposedly had this great personality that never managed to show up meaningfully on film. Perhaps the biggest reason I prefer Scott over Brad at this point in my life, is that I've simply seen more Brad and know what to expect. Scott still has the capability to surprise me, and that's more exciting to me now than Brad working an armdrag sequence. This match though? Brad looked like the all time greatest Armstrong. You find me Brad performances like this and I'll start reviewing the best of the jacked to the gills Brad footage. 

**check out the Road Dogg vs. Raven match that took place after the Stud Stable/Armstrongs match, which made me want to seek out a bunch of 2005 Raven. Raven looked like shit any time he wasn't wrestling, but between the bells this man could still work! I have limited memory of 2005 Raven in TNA but I guess now I need more 2005 Raven. 

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RIP Bullet

Bob Armstrong/Eddie Graham vs. Dick Murdoch/Bob Roop Florida 12/28/74

ER: This is only a 6 minute clip, but there is so much value in these 6 minutes that of course you have to see it. It's one of those tags where the ref never seems to have control, with all four combatants and Gary Hart running around potatoing each other at will. Armstrong is too much fun to watch in this, as he wiggles and glides and dances his way into and out of the ring, firing downward punches and elbows, giddily hopping and bopping into the action. All of the bumps in the match are cool and off balance, more guys spiraling away and stumbling out of punches than guys taking back bumps off strikes. Eddie Graham was a good staggerer and great at coming in with a well timed punch, and I loved seeing he and Roop grapple. All of their standing lock ups look tough as hell, constant struggle, and Roop crushes Graham with his shoulderbreaker down the stretch, which looks just as violent in 2020 as it did in 1974. Murdoch was a major standout, as while Bob is wiggling and punching his way through things, Murdoch is working everything. His belly is big but he is fast, and he runs this entire show. He's a great heel bumper here, not over stooging, but in there to be a threat while also making the babyfaces look like a threat. I loved him and Bob fighting over a brainbuster, how Murdoch's legs wobble when he's eating Armstrong's punches or getting a chair shoved into his face, how athletically he spills to the floor while not looking at all athletic. A lot of this was a battle on just who to focus on, because these guys all do interesting things when they're not even in the match.


Bob Armstrong vs. The Mongolian Stomper NWA Mid-Atlantic 9/9/75

ER: This was a ton of fun but stopped right when things were getting great, but what we got rules. It's a hot Mid-South Coliseum crowd and Lance Russell is calling the action, meaning it sounds the exact way wrestling should sound. Stomper is an absolute physical specimen. Armstrong is also as in shape as he always was, but Stomper looks like a final boss. It's based nearly entirely around the tightest side headlocks you've seen, with both men using their big arms to try and separate each other's melons from their shoulders. Stomper gets shot into the ropes, Bob leapfrogs over and flies backwards with a back elbow, with Stomper slipping to the floor to avoid the big elbowdrop. Back in, and there is a ton of super engaging Armstrong side headlock work. Armstrong has the most apropos surname ever, and Stomper is a master at being an oversized heel going through all the physical throes of being trapped in a snug headlock. When Stomper finally gets loose of it he flings Armstrong into the corner, Armstrong leaps gracefully to the middle buckle and hits an axe handle. Stomper is super generous here (no doubt building to running this match back a few times) and just stooges all over for Bullet, never managing to block a single kick, punch, or chop, and falling prey to every single leapfrog. There's a great theatrical ref bump where Armstrong runs the ropes so fast that Stomper runs him right into the ref after a dropdown, and the ref flops around fantastically after taking an Armstrong shoulderblock. If that shoulderblock is enough to send a mountain like Stomper to the mat, what would it do to a mere referee? Armstrong gets the pin after a big elbow, but Stomper grabs his belt and Gulas sets up the title match that I don't think I have access to. Armstrong knew how to make the most out of the most basic pro wrestling movements, and Stomper is the same thing, heel category. It's a special thing seeing them play off each other.


Bob Armstrong vs. The Mongolian Stomper NWA Mid-America 9/16/75

ER: This is under 5 minutes, not a full match, but it's essential. It's the final few minutes of a rowdy bloody match for Stomper's Southern Heavyweight title, and we get it before the blood starts flowing. They throw big swinging punches and constantly have to be separated before throwing at each other more. Armstrong gets busted open and Stomper doesn't go for anything other than working that cut for the rest of the match. Armstrong's face is covered and Stomper has Armstrong's blood on his legs and body. Bob is not someone who grows squeamish at the sight of his own blood, and it just inspires him to bust Stomper's head open. Not long in, and this loses all pretense of a wrestling match and it becomes a fight. It's so great, just the two of them clutching at each other's heads and refusing to break holds as they strangle each other on the apron. This was an expertly done non-finish, the kind of bloody realism that made you forget there had even been a match happening.


The Bullet/Adrian Street vs. Robert Fuller/Jimmy Golden Continental 9/1/86

ER: Not a Bullet showcase by any means, but a showcase in strange bedfellows. I don't know how much babyface Adrian Street I've seen, but a Bullet/Street babyface team is a fun idea, especially with Fuller and Golden to bump around acting confused by Street's wiles being turned on them. Street freaks everyone out, goes after the ref, goes after Golden and angers him by making him feel things, really gets under the skin of Kevin Sullivan on commentary, is constantly backing Golden up on his heels. Everybody was confounded by street, and the dichotomy was more amusing because of how much Golden and Fuller towered over him. Bullet was the guy saving Street throughout, and I liked the few moments they worked together. Bullet hitting Golden with an atomic drop, sending him flying forward into a Street kiss, sending Golden bumping wildly backwards (selling the kiss 4x as much as he sold the atomic drop) is pro wrestling. Bullet basically worked this match as Street's groomer, dragging Golden to their corner to be assaulted, and punching him in Street's direction for more kissing. Fuller and Golden finally cut Street off from Bullet, and I loved Fuller choking Street from the apron, Bullet getting a hot tag but the ref missing it, and finally Bullet going after Fuller on the floor. Tom Prichard runs out and things get gross with him forcing kisses on Miss Linda while Sullivan talks about how she's getting it finally from a real man. Luckily Steve Armstrong runs the heels off, wearing a neck brace and short white OP shorts.

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New Footage Friday: Last SMW Show Ever!

Smokey Mountain Wrestling 11/26/95. This is a HH of the final SMW show and it is great to see Jim Cornette go out on his sword.

Wolfman vs. Sgt. Rock

PAS: Sgt. Rock is Miss Jackie/Miss Texas, and she is always going to be worth watching. Wolfman is a big hairy guy who kind of looks like a Moondog. Compact fun scrap, with Cornette talking shit to the Wolfman, thus giving Rock a chance to potato the shit out of Wolfman with some nasty forearms to the back of the head. We get a Wolfman comeback including a spanking spot (because this is 90s indy wrestling), but another bit of Cornette interference leads to some powder in the eye, a  Rock low blow (and she really puts some mustard on it) and a DDT for the win. Very formula match, but Miss Texas always brought a bit of shocking violence to everything she did.

MD: What stands out immediately is just how credible Jackie with a drill sergeant gimmick was here. She came off as way more dangerous than Wolfman, being a vaguely sympathetic poor man's Valiant. Honestly, if your promotion is saddled with a bottom-of-the-card guy due to your sponsor, you could do worse than a moderately charismatic fake Valiant. Everything she did (even if it was mostly maring Wolfman by the hair/beard) looked crisp and sharp, including a nice back elbow. Even so, she was full on heel, geting advantages due to powder and a low blow due to Cornette's distractions, missing en elbow drop and then begging off, etc. It's 1995 in Tennessee so while Jackie could be presented as dangerous, she was still going to get spanked. The match didn't need it, but the crowd sure expected it. In general, I thought this was effective and was the sort of thing that would have gone a long way in making Sgt. Rock into an effective part of Cornette's militia if SMW had continued.


General Jim Cornette vs. Butch Cassidy

PAS: This is pretty much everything you would want from a Cornette vs. Midget match. I loved the spot with Cornette challenge Cassidy to a pushup contest and Cornette doing knee pushups, great bit of wussy heel stuff. I am also a fan of the running the ropes until you pass out. Cornette had some pretty good looking offense, and took some fun bumps, including taking a midget suplex (although to be fair Cassidy isn't super short, he is probably Adam Cole's height). Sgt. Rock runs in to kick Cassidy's ass, and she is an amazing second, always ready to beat the shit out anyone.

MD: A lot like the Jackie match, this would have been better if they went 20% away from what was expected and leaned into what they had in front of them. Cassidy's body type wasn't the same as a Lord Littlebrook or Cowboy Lang or whoever. He was leaner and looked stronger and had his kneeling pose down. It meant that the logical comeuppance for Cornette was for him to get overpowered and they gave us that, to good effect, but only after doing the hand-biting first. Again, the crowd expected what it expected and you probably had to give it to them, but there was a better, tighter match in here. This also went twenty minutes, more with the pre-match talking and intros, and I think the opening comedy, as fun as it is to see Cornette do his thing, outwore its welcome. The heat was about the right length but they should have cut that first bit in half. Cornette is a great bully when he gets the chance to be, but I think the crowd had moved on by the time the comeback came. The big suplex spot at the end was hit to near-silence.


Wildfire Tommy Rich/The Punisher vs. Bullet Bob Armstrong/Buddy Landel

ER: I love a 10 minute tag with 5 minute announcements about the 60 minute time limit. I wouldn't have put it past Cornette to run a broadway match on the last SMW show, and this one features my favorite black wrestler, The Bullet! You know Bullet has the sweetest damn moves as he glides across the floor during his entrance, finishing it by tossing a casual as can be looping high 5 to Landel. The Bullet was obviously going to be the heroic hot tag at the finish, meaning this was going to be the Wildfire show the rest of the runtime. Tommy Rich works the entire ring with shtick, circling Landel and refusing to lock up, backing Mark Curtis into a corner, "accidentally" cheating from the apron whenever possible (really getting the crowd riled as he executes a corner choke while Punisher is the legal man), and the moments of Wildfire and Nature Boy throwing punches in the middle are the kind of moments that make me love SMW. Punisher also looks good, better than I remember Bull Buchanan looking several years later (although the camera keeps going unfocused whenever he gets in the ring, so maybe the cameraman was just giving us Punisher's fairest angles), and we get a great spot where Cornette is banging on the apron directing Tommy, and Bullet comes in and stomps Cornette's hands. This was all super simple, low bump count stuff, and with the personalities involved it didn't need to be anything else.

MD: Couple of things here. They set this up at the start of the show with the announcement that Le Duc wouldn't be there and Armstrong offering Landell his pick of partners. It almost felt like the world's best Raw-format as they got the promo section out of the way at the very start of the show. They just did it in a couple of minutes instead of half an hour. From the listing, I was expecting Bob Armstrong but I wasn't expecting the Bullet, so that was a nice surprise. I don't think they'd used the gimmick for a year and a half at this point and the fans popped big for the music cue. I don't have strong feelings about SMW in general but I do have a real soft spot for the Bullet gimmick and they worked the match with the Landell as FIP and the Bullet getting the hot tag. We lost clarity on some of this due to VQ but best as I can tell, this was a good paint-by-numbers short southern tag that hit the marks you'd want: you had a good punch or two in the shine, the heels cut off the ring well, the hot tag had a flourish. It was definitely a little surreal to witness a world where Tommy Rich was the heel and the fans were chanting Buddy, Buddy.

PAS: Fun basic southern tag match which built to the big Bullet hot tag well. They wrapped it up pretty quickly right after that, I would have liked to see the Bullet juke and jive a little more. The blurriness made it hard to see exactly what the heels were doing to Buddy, but there was a great moment where Tommy Rich just unloaded on him.


Heavenly Bodies/Robert Gibson vs. Tracy Smothers/Dirty White Boy/Ricky Morton

ER: You didn't come to this one for wild spots, you came for sustained southern heat, and that's what they delivered. This was all about opportunist Robert Gibson not wanting to tangle with Ricky, and Cornette at ringside keeping the crowd all worked up. It's a simple and effective match, not many highspots and yet 100% crowd pleasing. Ricky starts things off, Robert does a great head fake like he's going to join him no problem, but clearly he's not. And from there we get a fun affair, mostly punches, armdrags, cutting off the ring, Gibson finally coming in when Ricky is down, Smothers flying off the top with an axe handle to the arm using all of his best goofy Smothers arm movement, you know the stuff you'd expect. Heavenly Bodies always come off so scummy to me, just looking at them and the way they walk around with their chests and bellies out, they always ooze the perfect amount of undeserved arrogance. Cornette comes in and bashes Smothers in the ribs, part of a nice fun twist where Smothers spends just as much time cut off from his boys as Ricky did earlier. Naturally, Cornette eventually brains his own man with the tennis racket to give the good ol' boys the win, but that arguably sets up the most important part of the match. 

This being the very last SMW show, half the locker room comes out to beat the shit out of Jim Cornette. Landel is out taking shots, everybody in the match that just happened is taking shots, Mark Curtis is throwing punches (he also threw a punch in the breakdown of the match itself), Cornette is out here like drunk Christmas party Vince taking everyone's finishers, including a stuffed piledriver. When the ring is cleared the Heavenly Bodies spend a hilariously long amount of time milking a potential racket shot to a stationary Cornette, and Ricky gets on the mic like a devil on the Bodies' shoulder and starts urging them to KILL James E. Cornette! He even starts a chant over the house mic of "Kill him! Kill him!" Ricky Morton is out here actually getting a crowd hyped to witness a murder! This is the final SMW show, and I'm sure this was all inspired by the Kids in the Hall all being buried in a mass grave to end their show, so what better way to close up shop than by killing your main character!? The Bodies milk it for several more minutes, Pritchard threatening to decapitate and/or castrate Cornette with the racket, before finally helping him up (with Cornette amusingly falling right back down when they're no longer holding him up). On the way out of the building, Jimmy Del Ray shoves a security guy in the back and then laughs about it.

MD: I'm a fan of Morton vs. Gibson from GAB 91, so it's nice to see the roles reversed. This was exactly what you'd expect it to be, guys who can do one thing as well as anything, and that one thing just happens to be one of the best version of wrestling possible. The shine had lots of feeding and stooging and joyfully cheating babyfaces. The heat had the heels mocking the faces to draw them in for interference, hope spots based around pin attempts (which is one of my favorite ways because it's not about hitting offense, just about snatching opportunities). If you want to compare the Bodies and the (second) MX, maybe, just maybe, the Express were better at tandem offense and keeping things interesting and the Bodies were better at cutoffs. Maybe. The finish is perfect. Gibson pays for relying on Cornette. The post-match is the perfect way for SMW to end. Everyone decides that Cornette is the common enemy of the world and comes together to teach the world to sing a song of pain upon the odoriferous snake. Morton egging the Bodies on to finish him is a perfect pro wrestling temptation (salvation?) and they end it all by squeezing out the very last bit of heat. If a promotion had to die, it's not a bad way to go.

PAS: Morton had left the promotion due to a drunken fight between Morton's girlfriend and Smothers wife at a bar. So this weekend was his surprise return teaming with Smothers to take on Gibson who had turned heel when Ricky left. They really didn't give us much Morton vs. Gibson (which I imagine would have been a big feud if SMW survived), but everything we got was pretty great. I thought the big finale was pretty perfect with everyone cleaning out Cornette, that is really the way ECW should have ended too, with the locker room taking out the bounced checks on Heyman.

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New Footage Friday: Dandy, Shu, Takada, Kobyashi, Armstrongs and Horsemen

Bob Armstrong/Brad Armstrong vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger NWA 4/11/87

PAS: This is pro-shot, with commentary uncut from the 1987 Crockett Cup. Really fun match structure with a long heel in peril section opening up with the Armstrongs working over Tully. You get a bunch of a close call missed tags, and cheating, much like you would if Tully was a face. Here though Tully is so loathsome that the crowd is enjoying watching him get screwed. Tully was so awesome here, I loved his fake test of strength, wild cheap shot swing, and he was great getting hoisted on his own petard. Really dug the Bullet of course, he has a ton of 70s babyface flourishes, knowing just how to egg on the crowd as he twists a wrist or throws a punch. His K-RATAY hot tag near the end of the match was class stuff. Loved JJ cheating too, what a smarmy prick he was, one of my all time favorite guys on the outside. He has the charisma of an ex-congressman turned pharmaceutical lobbyist.

MD: So we had this from out in the crowd with far worse VQ and we had a five minute clipped version that was on the official Crockett Cup video. This is pro-shot, with Tony announcing, and complete with great VQ, so we're covering it.

Generally, I'm wary of tag matches that lean too heavily towards heel-in-peril, but there are a number of things going on here that serve as mitigating factors. For one, this was part of a two day tag tournament, so there needed to be some variation in style and tone between the matches. Them doing a fun, face-heavy quarterfinal match here meant that they could lean further into the heat in other matches. Frankly, the crowd probably should have been burnt out and that they weren't was a real testament to the match. A lot of it is about the participants and the execution though. Bob and Brad are the folksy trickster family come up from the mountains, pure Americana. There's a charm to them that you wouldn't see in your mid-80s WWF face tag teams doing a lot of the same things. Tully is the king of stooges, who tries to cheat first and then deserves everything he gets. Luger's just oafish enough to fall for their tricks on the apron. JJ's always gold as the stuffy manager getting more and more infuriated and flustered on the outside. Of course, the heels are going over, not just here but in the next match too, so they don't need to be protected as much, while the guys coming in from outside in Bob and Brad likely do.

The execution being great helps. Tully is constantly trying to worm his way to the corner. There's nothing valiant about his fighting (even if it's still a little tough). Bob's 100% committed, charming in his cheating and crowd interaction. Brad's picture perfect, always exactly where he should be, including with a great shoulder spear cut off to a Tully tag attempt. When Luger finally gets in and shows off his strength, Brad shines with finesse in dodging and weaving and firing back, and the crowd comes unglued when Tully tries to take advantage only to eat a lightning quick missile dropkick. The heat is brief but the transition is good (JJ pulling down the ropes), Brad fights well from underneath, with a hot tag and awesome JJ-assisted double clothesline for the screwy finish.

Not brand new, not my ideal tag structure, but crystal clear VQ for a charming match with everyone playing their parts and a hot crowd. I'll take this over a Kane OVW match anyday.

Kuniaki Kobyashi/Norio Honaga vs. Nobuhiko Takada/Kazuo Yamazaki NJPW 3/19/88

PAS: Really heated interpromotional battle with Yamazaki and Kobyashi especially trying to rip and tear at each other. It opens with a stare down between both guys, leading to a Yamazki high kick and some very sharp ground and pound leading to both partners and a bunch of seconds separating both guys. Very well done subtle worked shoot, no wrestling reason to have seconds run in, so it conveyed the possible unprofessionalism without shouting it from the rafters. Takada then tags in and slaps on a kneebar, sometimes that guy is a dunce. Match has a bunch of those mini explosions between Yamazaki and Kobyashi, and by the end you really want to see those guys unload on each other (they don't appear to have a singles match after this, so sort of a weird tease which went nowhere).

MD: Going through these NJPW handhelds is a archaeological experience. As most of these matches have not been watched by the community as a whole, there's no telling what you'll get. We came across this one because it was adjacent to a Fujiwara tag vs Ron Starr and Scott Hall. Unfortunately, we only had a minute or two of that. In finding the match, however, I stumbled into this.

A house show/handheld match with three or four intercessions from the seconds in order to keep competitors apart raises red flags immediately. This was a boiling pot of a match, one that in another setting might have frustrated me because it never quite boiled over, even after Yamazaki and Kobyashi finally got their hands on one another. As an unearthed handheld though, the anticipation is palatable and satisfying. It's a shame we don't have another match full of payoff though.

El Dandy vs. Shu El Guerrero IWA Japan 6/23/94

PAS: Rob Bihari continues his killer upload streak with this IWA Japan HH from 1994. El Dandy is an all time great, and like most luchadores has a pretty limited number of on tape singles matches. Shu El Guerrero is a guy who worked most of his career in the UWA so his tape footprint is pretty small, very cool that this showed up. It is more of a nifty discovery then a great match however. It feels like Dandy and Shu trying to work a Puro Juniors match then importing a lucha match. The opening matwork could have used some more llave, I have seen both guys work maestros matches and they can be electric, this was more armbar/kneebar stuff and sort of dull. There were some very cool suplexes by Dandy, and a nice tope, but I wanted this to be more. Still who would have thought this was something we would ever get to see?

MD: Hyper-competent mat-driven exhibition lucha in Japan with guys we're always glad to get more footage of. I don't think we have more than a handful of Shu singles matches. I question the logic of working ten minutes of primera caida title match matwork in front of a crowd that's come to see Yukihiro Kanemura and Shoji Nakamaki in a barbed wire barricade chain match, but (I pause here wondering if Phil will let me get away with the "who am I to doubt" line? I decide against it) the crowd was quiet but appreciative, especially once the pace picked up towards the end.

ER: I didn't actually know before this that Dandy had worked Japan, so it's cool seeing him in that environment, even if this environment felt pretty icy. And this never felt like more than an exhibition of moves, but it was a 21 minute exhibition of moves and both guys showed a pretty deep offense pool. But moves - no matter how nice - done deep in the vacuum of space, and I'm pretty sure Matt is right about people watching these two do a series of sunset flip variations while silently waiting for barbed wire. Also, the crowd had just watched a Joe Gomez match. I can't think of many WCW workers I care less about than Gomez. But IWA and those other early 90s death feds were always a cool variety bag, you'd get young American indy goofs, a couple old American guys, shamed native guys ousted from their original fed, just a cool mix. On paper if you knew you were watching a card with Dandy, Dick Murdoch, Headhunters, and a barbed wire chain match, you'd probably be pretty stoked.

But the crowd was silent until towards the end, and as great as some of the stuff looked here there really wasn't much of an interesting story to the match. It was pretty much Dandy breaking out a bunch of great looking pin attempt rollups, and Shu doing his cast canon of power offense. There were a couple clunky moments and a re-done spot, but also a lot of truly great looking stuff. The main problem with the match was that they essentially worked the same level the whole match, which is impressive, but you need peaks and valleys. This was move trading without much rhyme or reason given to moves after the kickouts. Dandy hits 7 or 8 awesome roll up variations, including one of the absolute fastest wheelbarrow rollups I've ever seen (I rewound that spot three times) and the smoothest possible crucifix roll through, but he was doing them from beginning to end with all of them getting the same exact 2 count until one got a 3. Dandy hits a fantastic lawn dart dive over the top, and I absolutely loved a spot with Shu doing a big surfboard and Dandy upside down in the surfboard reaching out both of his hands for the ropes. Shu always comes off as heavy and impossibly solid, like a guy who doesn't look cut but looks like he's made out of stone, like Masa Saito, and alot of his power offense lands with a big thud. Dandy was young and lithe here and his roll ups are among my favorite of any wrestler. They are always so economical and look entirely physically sound, love how snug he keeps his legs to his opponent, love the aesthetics of his legs locking perfectly into place over his opponent's arms. Really I can only think of Hijo Del Santo as someone with tighter roll-ups, but Dandy's could be better. So we get 16 minutes of a 21 minute match, and if you had seen some of this in GIF form I bet it looked like a banger, and while it was never boring at all, it just didn't play out. Still couldn't be happier that it got uploaded.

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