Found Footage Friday: 1980 HANOVER~!

9/17/80 Hanover

Chris Colt vs. Axel Dieter

MD: Watching Chris Colt in dark blurry 1980 Germany footage is a real joy. There's no other word for it. He wrestles like the whole world is out to get him. Like he can see them coming from every angle. And they're also purple elephants. What a guy. He was complaining about hair pulling before they even locked up. With every exchange he won he tapped his head like he was a genius. Then he walked right into some immediate comeuppance and he complained some more. Just antics with every exchange. Some great bits that were clearly bits but that never felt like bits. They just felt like him being off his gourd. He'd press a dirty advantage between falls just kicking and stomping away but Dieter would just come back and give him the what for. Post match, he tried to charge in an attack only to end up upside down in the turnbuckles. That's Chris Colt for you. We're lucky to have had him even for a moment.

ER: Chris Colt wrestled this like he was Eddie Gilbert in Puerto Rico, a foreign invader stooge who threw cheap shots and resorted to punches when home hero opponent wasn't even considering them, meanwhile getting completely upended on 90% of all exchanges. If you had told me Chris Colt doesn't have any offense and just gets by on drama, stooging, and bumps, I'd believe you. He wrestles this like a manager who doesn't think he's going to win the match but wants to be as disruptive as possible before losing. Even the ref is through with this guy before his entrance music has stopped. Colt takes forever getting his clothing off and the ref just pulls his shirt off over his head. It's like Colt took that moment and tried to have a defiant tantrum until he lost. I loved how most of his cheap shots lead to him getting hit, trying to attack after the bell and getting tossed aside, attacking Dieter after his loss and getting dropped off the turnbuckles onto his head. The man took a back body drop like someone who didn't expect to get flipped in the air, like an America's Funniest Home Video where someone gets double jumped off a trampoline and breaks their collarbone. 

Steve Wright vs. Sal Bellomo

MD: This went the full five rounds and it was a lot of fun. Babyface vs. babyface. Sportsmanlike though it did boil over a bit down the stretch with a fast-paced big bumping (Wright) strike exchange and some wild rope running where Wright would keep getting Bellomo off balance as they worked to the bell. Before that, it was very back and forth. There was one round where Wright had a headscissors on the whole time, but a lot of the early stuff was Wright being a nuisance with his cartwheels and escapes, only for it to build to Bellomo to have a cartwheel of his own. Lots of hanging on to holds as well, even though escape attempts. When Bellomo got one over on him, Wright would be good spirited for the most part, clapping even on his back. They did some very high level work, including some monkey flip spots where they changed direction and pin exchanges going back and forth. I don't know how much substance it had over all, but everyone watching enjoyed themselves a great deal. Just good, strong professional wrestling for its own sake.

ER: This was so good, real pleasant, watched the entire long draw with a big smile. It's tough to do babyface vs. babyface and do it sincerely, and these two might have been the best to try it with. The German fans obviously love Wright, but Bellomo is the Germany revelation that we love so much. These fans get behind their home hero and love this spry Italian, and it creates a real nice environment for their work. Anyone who is only familiar with Sal from seeing some kind of awful 20 minute undercard draw against Samula has no idea what Hanover Bellomo is like. He and Wright don't hate each other, even though it gets more competitive and the handshakes get a bit more teeth clenching, and instead we build to a bit of competitive oneupmanship that never feels like the same kind of grating athletic display as Eddie/Malenko. Bellomo works like a World of Sport legend, I was stunned by his skilled headscissor escapes and the way he works Wright's brand of tough guy athletics. I don't know what 70s matwork exist of Bellomo but his German work is different than any US work of his I've seen, yet he never looks out of place doing it. He is adept at doing complicated exchanges with last minute twists, and there's this great moment where things tip over and Wright shoulderblocks Sal off the apron to the floor. It's a different kind of toughness than they'd been showing and came a bit out of nowhere, a fall bigger than the back body drops and other spills he'd taken. Great way to peak the action, great match to spend some time with. 

Caswell Martin vs. Le Grand Vladimir

MD: Night and day from the last match. The second Vlad hit the ring, even before getting announced or taking gear off, he had tossed Martin out over the top rope to huge boos. When things got settled and he WAS announced, the boos came back even louder. This went the full five rounds as well, but it was a different animal. At the bell Martin got some revenge but Vladimir kept trying to contain him. Early on that didn't go so well. Martin kept slipping out including a great up and over on a top wristlock and the Zangiev escape on a headscissors. Vlad would pull the hair to keep the arm and then express to the ref that it couldn't be possible for him to do that as he, himself, was bald (even if Martin wasn't). There was a whole round where Martin controlled on a cravat going in and out of it and that was well done. After that, Vlad had enough and goozled and stomped and got carded once or twice but controlled until a big comeback from Martin down the stretch. Fans were super into it as you can imagine, and things kind of bounced around with that until the bell and the draw. 

UFO vs. Tom Shaft

MD: Shaft is sort of limited by this point but he does those limited things pretty well. Against someone like UFO, that's enough. His shots look good. He had some nice rapid fire punches to the gut as they were firing back on one another. He had this clothesline to the top of the head and some sort of jumping knee or kick that worked. And he'd bump when it made sense. First round was a lot of UFO using holds and controlling but at the end of the second, Shaft went flying over the top on a shot. He came back in between rounds to get revenge, and then they slugged it out for a lot of the third before UFO won with a sunset flip. Shaft yelled at people after the match. It's interesting to see him since we don't have a lot of footage at least. 

Achim Chall/Michael Schneider vs. Moose Morowski/Ed Wiskoski

MD: Fun while it lasted but it didn't last long enough. You never know coming into these if you're going to have a near classic or if things will just end off going off the rails early. They worked over Morowski's back to start with Schneider bearhugs and these great jumping double knees to the back from Chall. Wiskowski is a wonderful stooge in these matches, eating a bunch of dropkicks and then doing a Buddy Rose-esque fall through the ropes to the floor. Heels took over by swarming and drawing in Chall, and it all sort of led to nothing as Morowski hit a backbreaker and Wiskowki came off the top with a diving headbutt to draw a DQ. If it was just for a fall, that would have worked because then they could have gotten it back quickly from the damage done and the babyfaces would have had to fight back from injury but that was just the match. I'm sure it paid off later but we get these scattershot.

9/20/80

Kim Duk vs. Louis Laurance (JIP)

MD: We come in at the end here. Laurance is far smaller but he hits a bunch of dropkicks until he gets trucked by a Duk dropkick the pin. Not much to say. 

Steve Wright vs. Takashi Ishikawa

MD: Wright really is the Johnny Saint of Axel Dieters. It's a good act, but it gets a little old. The cool thing is that Ishikawa could completely keep up. And the other good thing about Wright, of course, is that after all the cartwheeling and bounding and kip ups and laughter is done, he is actually a tremendous bumper and seller, and he did so here for Ishikawa after a pile driver. that was in the second round and they went into the third more even, slugging away a bit until Wright caught him with a very impressive twisting backslide for the pin. Could have had a bit more of this.

Chris Colt vs. Caswell Martin

MD: This was a lot of fun, the most fun you'll have watching wrestling this year, maybe. Colt has those voices in his head and a chip on his shoulder. He'd try all sorts of things and Martin had not just an answer, but often a hilarious answer to everything. He'd climb around in a headcissors and toupie out. He'd suddenly have a hard head and goad Colt into punching it. He'd have Colt walk up the ropes in a full nelson and give everyone a thumbs down before dropping him. He'd get dropkicked and then drop him right back. Bit after bit after bit after bit. During the round breaks, Colt would flail about to the music and mess with the crowd. He'd get a few shots in or toss Martin out but he could never hold the advantage for long and it was all so entertaining that we're probably happier that way. Martin finally twisted and turned him all around before bridging his way for a pin. Great fun.

 

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Found Footage Friday: STUDD~! WANZ~! COCOS~! NOSAWA~! MASADA~! FANTASMAS~!

Big John Studd vs. Otto Wanz CWA 12/20/83

MD: This is a 40 minute John Studd vs. Otto Wanz match from December 1983 found in the massive lot of tapes that @maskedwrestlers was able to rescue from Germany. Go hit him up if you want to see it. Obviously, I jumped at it. I covered a slew of Wanz matches years ago and he has excellent timing, hits hard, and has a singular connection with the crowd. As the 80s roll on, he becomes less and less mobile and while none of those skills fade, the matches do suffer a bit for it. Then there's Studd. In so many ways, he's the most human of the giants, emoting frustration, fear, hatred, resentment. He's a two-hundred pound stalling stooge in a much larger frame. It creates an amazing dissonance he can use to rile an audience, but that dissonance unfortunately carries over to not being particularly dynamic on offense. 

This overachieved and I think it did so because the environment maximized the opportunity for these two to lean into their strengths. This match takes place over nine rounds. There's a minute rest period with music playing in between each. While the narrative can build over rounds, it creates a clear break and bit of respite. Studd has a reputation of sitting in some fairly uninteresting holds and there's very little of that there. There were other advantages as well. Studd's height allows him to strike down and always have an excuse for getting back into the match. They're both massive and everything, from a lock-up to punch to a snap mare to one of them daring to go up to the turnbuckles feels weighty and consequential. The ten count to win added gravitas to every knockdown as well. Maybe most important of all is the fact that Otto is very good at working from underneath in holds, constantly moving his hands, constantly trying to fight his way to a different position. That's more than half the battle against Studd. The crowd was hot the whole way through. There were two camera angles here, spliced together; one picked up the crowd better than the other, but they were buzzing, constantly chanting "Otto, Otto".

If any one of these pieces dropped, it might have been a slog, but none of them did. Let's take it through the text itself. This is going to be a little dry but I want to make the case knowing people may not have forty minutes for this. Right from the get go, after the anthems, Studd was quick to shove Otto, to demand a test of strength. They locked up, shoved off, crashed off the ropes into each other and shook the entire arena. Studd struck downwards with elbows and clubbers. Otto would come back off the ropes with big meaty shots. Studd would attempt a chinlock, a standing one at the end of the second round with him peppering in a knee, and grounded ones in the third, but Otto was quick to get up and the third ended with him jamming Studd's mare and turning it around, to a big pop from the crowd. 

Otto pressed the advantage in the fourth round, dropping Studd with a single leg and then rowing along in time with the crowd's chants with a standing toehold. Otto had a way to make these interesting and entertaining, whether working on top or from the bottom. They had teased slamming each other earlier, but at the end of this round, riding his momentum, Otto finally got Studd up and over as the bell rang. Right after, I'm Still Standing played for the crowd and it felt like a high point in some DreamWorks animated movie. In the fifth, Studd, desperate, was able to get Otto out of the ring and brawled with him there. He caught him on the way back in and layed in some heavy shots. He couldn't hold back Wanz for long though and Otto controlled this middle portion fairly well, even through Studd's attempt to work his arm in the sixth. 

By the seventh round, Studd was at his wit's end. He demanded they announce over the house mic that he had previously said that Otto was going down in the seventh. Otto charged in, they slugged it out, and Otto got the best of him in the corner at hit his signature flip senton. Studd was a bedraggled, sweaty mess by this point. He managed a cheapshot and a corner  beatdown of his own, but Otto powered up and tosses Studd from the ring. There was a clear narrative throughline in all of this, and while it could have potentially been a bit more dramatic, the crowd wanted to see Otto fight back again and again and it led to what happened after the seventh. Instead of staying in his corner, Studd attacked between rounds. This was treated like a horrific offense, with officials and Wanz's second coming in only to get dispatched with ease by Studd to a chorus of boos. Studd beat Wanz around ringside before pulling down the corner pad and opening him up with the metal underneath. Otto was able to fire back at the bell but Studd had the advantage.

Studd pressed that advantage in the ninth, picking Otto up a couple of times with a level of aggression you wouldn't expect out of him at this point of the match, before crashing into the exposed post himself, and finally getting slayed for the ten count (if just barely) by an Otto pile driver. 

Between the round system and Otto's ability to work from underneath, this never slowed down for long. The level of motion may have been more subdued but how hard they hit didn't. Studd taking three or four big steps across the ring to lay a clothesline across Wanz' chest was absolutely impactful. And those times when they really moved, whether it be Studd missing an elbow drop or Wanz coming flying off the top with a big shot, meant all the more for the build. Lots of little bits of build and payoff throughout too, whether it was Otto hitting that slam or changing the trajectory of the match by jamming the mare attempt. They very much knew what they were doing and while I think this could have been even stronger if Studd took slightly more of the middle, that only made his egregious (and dissontant; why does someone so big have to do that!) cheating between the seventh and the eight mean all the more. This was an unquestioned accomplishment. They went forty minutes, never losing the crowd, always hitting hard, utilizing holds at times but not wearing out their welcome and never just sitting there, finishing strong.

ER: I always think of Matt as the Big John Studd Guy because Matt was the guy who really dove into what made Studd different from other big workers, learning his patterns and strengths better than anyone else I know. I think I was close to the trail. I remember talking to Phil about him years ago, tell Phil that Studd wasn't anywhere near as big as he was billed. I thought he had Big Dick Dudley or Col. DeBeers size and build and was a fake big man. A man with military posture like DeBeers or Nick Nolte in Who'll Stop the Rain. Adding size. But I was just being tricked by Studd's sometimes odd style, the smallest working giant we've ever had. Matt recognized it for the oddity it was and cracked the code on what the best assets of Studd were. So Matt covered this match well, as I knew he would. Matt left me the link to this match in the draft of our review and told me to "give myself time." I did, because of course I wanted to watch 40 minutes of a Giant and an Obese Regional Megastar. I love the fat regional babyface. I love Big Daddy. Imagine if Abdullah the Butcher was the big Puerto Rico babyface and Carlos Colon was the island's greatest heel? The feud would be even more blowaway great than their actual feud. 

This is 40 minutes of big man wrestling heaven, where two behemoths worked like rival lumbering mastodons punctuated by polka and electronic instrumental themed rest breaks. It was slow but always intense. Otto Wanz is a real favorite of mine. I love a country who gets behind a big fat guy who looks like a King of Fighters character, and is the kind of fat guy that looks more normal in a double strap singlet than he does in normal clothes. John Studd has some of the great understated gear in wrestling. The long white tights have literally never been pulled off better. The fit impeccable, the build never more impressive. John Studd looked like a tree of a man and Wanz looked like a Bill Plympton drawing. His face has this youthful woundability, and no matter how short or long any Wanz match is, it will be constantly filled with Otto chants. Otto is a master of falling into ropes in dramatic ways, hitting the bottom rope on Studd's short arm western lariats to the fucking face, falling sideways or chest first into them reeling from other strikes. 

This was not a stiff match but had the appearance of a stiff match, an exquisitely worked long match where every single impact had real weight behind it. The longer they worked, the more dramatic it felt. This felt like a true clash of the titans. Studd was not a cheating heel, and often he would call his shot in a more badass way than I've seen from anyone this side of Stan Hansen: multiple times pointing to his very large flexed forearm before swinging it straight at the bridge of Otto's nose. Every time either one of them fell or was knocked down felt like a major deal. The few spills through the ropes to the floor felt like major moments all, none bigger than Studd kicking Otto's ass around ringside while a worried man on the house mic pleads with him to stop and a large old man in a dinner jacket keeps getting dangerously involved. 

The drama and big match feel were so strong here that you wouldn't even need to know anything about Wanz or Studd. You would be easily able to see their appeal even though nobody else works quite like them. I loved the pacing of this, I loved how it felt like it really could have kept going a full hour. I knew Matt had my best interests in mind when leaving a 50 minute link to a Wanz/Studd match, but I never anticipated feeling robbed of a longer match. 

IWRG Retro 3/8/2001

Suicida/Coco Rojo/Coco Blanco vs. Payaso Misterioso/Nosawa/Masada

MD: More IWRG Retro. This is episode 27 which feels like a high number so I probably have to go back and see what I missed. This is the same show with the Santo/Silver King trios main event. This from the undercard definitely worked for me. Nice mix of Nosawa and Masada moving at high speed with Segura, including doing a great job of getting into position for his stuff and then everyone just playing into Los Cocos' act with a bunch of crowd pleasing comedy stuff. Payaso Misterioso had some heft to him so Segura bounced right off of him, but then he'd stumble into a shot from Rojo or Blanco to get knocked out of the ring, that sort of deal. The primera had the beatdown, the segunda the comedy in the comeback, and then they cycled through fairly quickly in the tercera. The finish had Los Cocos get the advantage on the Japanese with quebradoras into submissions, only for a third figure to come in to disrupt things. Probably Minoru Fujita? What we had here was a little clipped but it was 13 minutes of good fun overall.

Enterrador/Bombero Infernal/Black Metal vs. Fantasma/Fantasma Jr/Ultimo Vampiro

MD: Pretty complete trios match here. Fantasma Sr. was just over 50 here if I'm not mistaken. Jr. is his nephew and, alongside, Vampiro, rounded out the tecnico side with flying since Sr. wasn't going to do that.. The rudo side were better than the sum of their parts. Black Metal was tall and Enterrador ("Undertaker") was wide in an Abyss sort of way. Apparently he'd have a mask match with Ultimo Vampiro later that year and from what I saw here, I sort of wonder if that exists. (Edit: It does.). Point being, in the segunda especially, Bombero Infernal was directing traffic as a poor man's Satanico and it all went quite well. Fantasma, Sr. was very giving, allowing for his mask to get pulled in a big way. He was front and center for the comeback, moving out of the way of an Enterrador dropkick. Black Metal used his height to the fullest, first eating a double dropkick from Fantasma, Jr. and Vampiro and then basing for a huge over the top dive. The finish had Enterrador vs Fantasma where Fantasma fooled Bello Greco (who had ref duties here) by tossing his mask to a charging Enterrador to draw the DQ. Totally blatant, no way the ref should have been followed, but wildly charming at the same time.

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RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 4

Bobby Eaton vs. Bill Dundee CWA 7/24/82

ER: Exciting under 10 minute studio match for Eaton's Mid-America Heavyweight title, with Dutch Mantel as Enforcer sitting in a chair at ringside right next to Jimmy Hart. This is a hot 15 minute segment, with Hart running down Dundee as undeserving of a title shot (even laughing him off as a "midget"), leading to Dutch Mantel causing a huge scene in the studio trying to get his hands on Eaton (who had just taken the title from Dutch a couple weeks prior). Dutch and Hart sitting next to each other at ringside gives us some great atmosphere for the match, the first half of which is filled with Dundee beating Eaton to the punch on everything. Eaton misses offense and Bill is there to land a moonshot punch, throw a hiptoss, and otherwise knock Eaton onto his butt. Eaton sells majestically for Dundee, with the best bit a headlock punch that sends Eaton duck walking backwards into the corner holding his nose. Dundee misses a big splash allowing Eaton to take over, and we get some mighty fine punches, a high elbowdrop, and a great kneedrop. Dutch yanks Bobby's leg from the floor (with Eaton face planting  like the rug got yanked out from under him), then Dutch pummels Hart as Dundee steals the title from a distracted Bobby. King Cobra and others cause a big melee after Dundee's title win, leaving Superstar busted open but good. Memphis was so great at jamming a ton of memorable moments into 15 minutes while also furthering several different feuds, and you aren't going to find many better segment anchors than Eaton/Dundee. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Jerry Lawler/Sweet Brown Sugar CWA 2/6/83

ER: This is the last 6 minutes of a 16 minute match, but another example of a tremendous No Offense Lawler performance, and Eaton shows that he can use weapons with the best of them. We get one punch early as Eaton and Lawler spill to the floor, and from there it's nothing but Eaton throwing beautiful worked shots with weapons and Lawler showing that he's the best ever at bumping into inanimate objects. Lawler takes bumps into the ringpost better than any wrestler in history, and here he gets to show how devastating he can make a rope stanchion look. Eaton drags one into the ring and plants it in the middle, grabbing Lawler by the back of the neck and throwing him down throat first onto the stanchion. I remember seeing Finlay do that in his WCW match against Hak, and thinking that there aren't many guys who would be able to make that read as painfully as it would feel, but obviously Lawler is one of those guys. Eaton is a master at worked chairshots, and he has this incredible diving shot to Lawler's throat, like a big running fistdrop or elbowdrop except driving a chair into Lawler's throat. Eaton also drops Lawler with a piledriver onto that chair, with Lawler doing his perfect piledriver stomach bump. Sabu (Cocoa Samoa, not actually Sabu obviously) and Sweet Brown Sugar are mostly non-factors in the part of the match we get, as this is all about the two greatest worked strikers in wrestling history painting a little masterpiece. Eaton finishes with a wrapped chain punch to Sugar, a cool snapshot of Eaton adjusting all of his offense to include weapons, and Lawler showing how compelling he can be without throwing a single fist. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Arn Anderson/Terry Funk ECW When Worlds Collide 5/14/94

ER: I had never actually watched this match before, it just existed as one of those legendary on-paper matches I figured I would watch eventually. This was an ECW tag that would have greatly benefitted from being worked as a traditional tag. But they didn't really go full-on ECW either, the ref didn't seem to know what kind of match to call (with lots of scattered rule enforcement), and Terry's lack of selling and pacing really hurt the match overall. It's not too often where I can say that Terry Funk's participation in a match hampered a match, but even with the good he brought to this match I think the bad outweighed it. The match totally works just on the weirdness of Beautiful Bobby and Arn Anderson confidently strutting into the ECW arena and getting huge reactions from the crowd. Even those mutants are going to be excited to see Bobby in his watermelon Bubblicious colored tights. All I really wanted to see from this match was 1. Eaton in the ECW Arena, 2. Arn vs. Sabu, 3. Eaton vs. Funk (a pairing that is much more rare than it should have been). We got all of those and a ton of good interactions, it just didn't really build to anything. So, it's 20 minutes of four of your favorite wrestlers doing things that make you like them as wrestlers, and that's at minimum going to be very entertaining. 

Eaton's punches were the best thing about the match. He tagged in and immediately started throwing gorgeous right hooks to Terry's jaw. Eaton throws plenty of his perfect short punches in this match but I adore those big looping rights, with Terry recoiling in the ropes with every one. Terry takes a big bump to the floor when Sabu just literally bodyslams him from the ring through a ringside table, and later Arn takes his own big ass bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the top by Sabu. Sabu uses a lot of soft chair attacks throughout the match, crazy to think how hard wrestlers were braining each other with chairs just a couple years later when you see Sabu and Funk throwing 1997 Lance Storm chairshots in this match. Arn felt like the only person in the ring who knew how to throw an effective chairshot, which I was not expecting. There's some great stuff too, like Funk sticking Eaton with a piledriver through a piece of broken table he had laid over the bottom rope. It had all the makings of one of those Funk spots that don't get pulled off properly, but it looked vicious and Eaton really looked like a guy who had been crippled. 

Things kind of fell apart after that when Funk missed a moonsault, Sabu nailed Funk with a moonsault, and then Funk sold it by just standing up and immediately going back on offense. Funk did a lot of that. He'd crash and burn on his own move, get nailed by Sabu or Eaton, then just stand up and go on offense. He was also moving around with very little energy, nowhere near as much as his typical level of flopping around. I mean I get it, he's 50, but I don't think I'd show anyone this match as proof that the 50 year old could still go. It's great hearing the Arena get hyped for Eaton's Alabama Jam, then see Sabu pull out his moonsault variations on Arn and really crush him with a slingshot senton. The whole finishing stretch is a mess, with Eaton and Funk brawling into the crowd (most of which we can't see) leading to Funk hitting Eaton with a piledriver in the eagle's nest (which we can't really see). Public Enemy gets involved and easily run off by Arn, there's a really tepid spinning toehold exchange between Funk and Sabu, Arn ends up turning on Funk due to an errant chairshot, and Arn batters Funk's knee with a chair (again best chairshots of the match) and Sabu wins with a half crab. Throughout the match the ref had been keeping track of the legal men and doing his best to get chairs out of there, and then did none of that during the finishing stretch, which just added to the mess. This is the kind of match ECW could have turned into a killer 3 minute music video that would have made you feel like you missed the match of the year. It's not, but you'll be smiling a lot for 20 minutes. 

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Otto Wanz Upload Challenge 3: Slaughter

Otto Wanz vs. Bob Slaughter CWA 12/18/82

MD: This dropped a few months ago but I'd been hesitant to watch a 54 minute video. This initiative got me over that hump. The match is closer to 45 with round breaks as well. That said, any match that goes long has to justify the time. What can be accomplished in 40 minutes that can't be in 20? Is it just to make it seem more impressive/epic, to give the fans more value? There's a huge celebration at the end of this so I think that's part of it, that this was the culmination of something bigger, being a tournament or whatever. The narrative of the match itself didn't entirely make it work. There were repeated themes, such as Slaughter taking advantage out of the corner and beating Wanz around the ring, or Wanz damaging Slaughter's leg or back and keeping control that way, more than a general sense of build and escalation. There was an excellent fifteen to twenty minute match in the start which would have ended with Wanz, who had been beaten around the ringside area, no selling a few jabs and coming back, and some exceptional bumping and limb selling from Slaughter later on, but I'm not sure it ever came together to be more than the sum of the rounds. Wanz took too much of the back half too as Slaughter's control segments seemed to be shorter and shorter. The fans were happy with this and Slaughter kept it interesting from underneath with his bumping, stooging, and selling, but that doesn't make for the most compelling story. I did like the finish, as Slaughter's back ended up damaged and he got caught on a dropkick and turned into a crab. This has given me hope for the shorter 83 match at least. 

Otto Wanz vs. Bob Slaughter CWA 7/9/83

MD: Great slugfest, almost a sprint really. This had no rounds for some reason and had an ebb and flow to it but they went at it hard right from the get go. Lots of brawling on the floor, with Slaughter taking at least half of it and Wanz bleeding big. There was an air of inevitability in the back half as Otto hit some big clotheslines and Slaughter bumped out, to the point I thought it might end on a clothesline, but they brought it back in for a pretty good finishing stretch. I'd say it escaped the Wanz formula we've seen so far and stands better as its own entity than almost all the other matches. It might not feel as important as the longer match but it's easier to swallow and probably more enjoyable.

ER: I thought this was pretty incredible. A big powerful match with an Austrian crowd that kept roaring like a thunderstorm. Watching this made me feel that Otto Wanz must have been the biggest pro wrestling star in the world. Few wrestlers in history have played to reactions like this one, and that's something that moves me. Slaughter is a big guy, and he flies around this filled Graz arena in a way that makes Wanz come off like a real superhero, while making sure to take plenty of opportunities to punch Wanz right in the head. They start with some long lockups, all building to Slaughter taking bigger and bigger bumps as he's propelled away from Wanz, including an absurdly high backdrop bump. Slaughter begins to avoid Wanz, collecting himself on the floor and breaking counts in the teens, and this just makes the crowd swell louder with joy every time Wanz sends Slaughter pinballing into the ropes and onto the floor. Slaughter finally punches his way to control, sends a couple of short headlock punches into Wanz's head to finally slow him down, punches him in the ropes and chokes him over the ropes, using his large weight against him. Slaughter grounds Wanz with a nice side headlock, and the roar when Wanz started to power up out of it and finally turned it into a hammerlock was like sweet ambient noise washing over. 

We build to some great brawling on the floor with Slaughter throwing Wanz hard into the ringside barricade a couple times, throwing him into the ringpost, and throwing more and more hard punches at his head. Wanz gets busted open and it all makes the crowd wilder still for him. This was worked like a Texas Death Match, with both men having to answer a count every time they were knocked down, and the home stretch is this great drawn out back and forth with both men getting closer and closer to being down for the count, with a long run of Slaughter barely hanging on. Wanz hits his rolling cannonball and big clothesline, Slaughter punches back and hits a heavy ass bodyslam, and it all comes off very dramatic and important. I really thought this whole thing was tremendous, feels like it should become one of those matches with a legendary crowd reaction, deservedly so. 

MD: I think that covers most of the recent uploads. I can see myself coming back for some of the greatest hits (Andre, Funk, Murdoch, Bock, Vader) at some point now that I have a very clear baseline. And hey, if there's anything specific anyone ever wants me to look at, just leave a comment. 

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Otto Wanz Recent Upload Challenge 2: Ed Leslie and Sailor White

Otto Wanz vs. Ed Leslie CWA 7/14/84

MD: I've looked high and low for what I'd consider to be a good Leslie singles match. That's the kind of thing the Eric and Matt side of SC would tout if we could find. Not that long ago, I took a look Martel vs. Beefcake from right before the face turn. No dice. It was pretty terrible. The problem with heel Beefcake is that he's completely unbelievable. The harder he tries to emote and be into the moment, the more ridiculous it looks, a guy pretending to be pretending to be emotionally honest. That said, he was surprisingly decent here. His offense consisted of punches and swatting blows and knees, and the match was very similar to the Barbie one, down to a nearly exact finishing stretch (except for set up by a back body drop reversal of a pile driver before Otto hit his own and ended, after the bodyslam, with a Oklahoma Roll, which was a little more satisfying as a finisher). Maybe because he had such a large canvas to work on, Leslie's shots all looked pretty good. The opening comedy wasn't as structured. When Wanz hit the body presses in the corner, they weren't quite as warranted by unclean Leslie breaks, but the fans didn't care. Like the Barbie match, there was a bit on the floor with some shots into a table, but Leslie put up a bit more of a fight there. There was a much better transition where he ate a back body drop to the floor. He actually ate a couple of big bumps here. Moreover, his reactions only got over the top once or twice. I'd call this a legitimately good Leslie match. You saw the cracks, but enough went right that it was hard to care. The stark similarities between this and the Barbie match, however, would definitely raise some red flags for me if I was ranking Wanz for some sort of comparative project.

Otto Wanz vs. Sailor White CWA 7/11/81 

MD: This was very good. White is Moondog King and that makes for a hoss fight. They did the same playing with breaks (clean and otherwise) early on and the fans were delighted (as always) anytime Otto didn't break clean. Here it was definitely warranted though. White had a manager and he would slow things down by getting advice from him. There's a moment in the second round where he did so and immediately went for a bear hug, which is the sort of use of a manager you rarely see. He lifted Otto off the ground but it was reversed to a big pop. Between the second and third falls, White ambushed Wanz for big heat and he was able to keep control for a bit until Wanz made a comeback out of the corner, including one of those rolling sentons. Fiery and intense but White stalled it out by talking to the manager again and waited out the round. Point being, White was able to get advantages here and there with chokes and cheapshots, but Otto never gave him much for long. Wanz really got how to work the crowd while he's in charge of a hold, though. He'd starts with a toehold, which got a pop, and slowly worked the knee in to drive it further, which popped the crowd differently, and then turned it into a crab of sorts, which drew the chanting. It's always impressive to see a guy do so little and get such escalating results. There's a point later on where he tied White up in the ropes so he could go relax on the ropes himself, which popped the crowd in a folk hero sort of way. It's all but over after White bumps shoulder first into the corner and out of the ring and Wanz focuses on the hurt limb. The crowd went nuts when he went out after him. Ultimately, though It made for a fairly anti-climactic end, albeit one that both protected White and still made the crowd unbelievably happy. This felt a little formless at times, but some of that is what you get with the rounds system and the advantages and disadvantages therein. It was a good clash of the titans sort of match though and Otto showed a lot, without necessarily pulling off the athleticism he had a year before in the DLJ match.

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New Footage Friday: ROCCO! CASAS! COTA! ATLANTIS! LIZMARK! LADIES!

Rose Roman vs. Ramona TaSelle Chicago 1950s 

MD: The downside here is that there's no sound. The upside is that for a women's singles match from this footage collection, it goes a bit longer than most of what we already had. The bonus is no Russ Davis who has good days and bad days, but almost always bad ones with the women. There's other footage of both Roman and TeSelle and they seem younger here. Maybe that's just on me as TeSelle seems to wrestle like it. She's less secure in her cheating, coming off as earnest in wanting to bend the rules but less competent. She has a hard time drawing the ref off to use the ropes. The audacity is good though. There's one moment where she gets to the ropes (she does that a lot) to force the ref to break a Roman arm puller only to audaciously try to get one of her own instead of breaking clean. There are a couple of nice little flourishes like a body drop in a toehold position or Roman's Leg Nelson but this was more of an A for Effort sort of match than anything else. Though we couldn't hear a pop, at least a few people were visibly happy for Roman sneaking out the win, so the crowd probably appreciated the effort too.

PAS: Nifty little match, that Roman Leg Nelson was violent looking stuff she war really smushing TaSelle's neck. You definitely get a sense that these ladies were way more skilled and technical then the Moolah trainees I grew up with, although this was more of a fine 10 minute match, then anything midblowing.


Mark Rocco vs. Mongolian Mauler CWA 4/12/90

MD: Here's our Segunda Caida Mark Rocco tribute match, against the Mongolian Mauler, because of course it is. I've seen a bunch of Rocco. I'm not sure I've seen much blue-eye Mark Rocco though and certainly not against a larger, more monstrous bad guy. This was his show, in front of his crowd, and he was going to play it exactly how he wanted. That meant he gave and gave dynamically but never for long. You can see that right from the get go when Mauler ambushed him with his flag only for Rocco to immediately come back and get the crowd going. It meant that Mauler was half on his back foot for most of the match and couldn't really wrestle how he should have, laying in and leaning in. The public warnings and round structure probably didn't help. In the last five or six minutes he had a little bit of opportunity to do so, maybe a minute of clubbering and bullying, but Rocco wouldn't stand for it for long. Some really clever stuff in here though. I love Rocco coming out of a round break by throwing the traditional British spitting water at Mauler's face (and then hitting him with a quasi-Pedigree) which drew him a public warning but is a tactic I don't think I've ever seen in UK wrestling. The finish was really creative as well, with Rocco first turning a second flag assault back on Mauler and then defacing it so that when the aghast Mauler bent over to pick it up, he was vulnerable to a sunset flip. Rocco probably took a bit too much of this, but at least he was entertaining (as always) about it.

ER: This is probably the first time I've seen Rocco against this kind of an opponent, a big fat guy not specifically versed in British style, just a low rent Killer Khan. Rocco against a low rent Killer Khan was a fun pairing on paper, and I liked it in execution too. This match should have been Rocco selling after taking a flag shot while Mauler cheats to stay ahead. That makes sense and would normally be the layout I would root for. We've all complained enough about Rocco as a proto-Angle guy who didn't bother with selling because that took away time from his "cool stuff". It's valid, but I also liked it here because I think it lead to a more active Mauler than we otherwise would have gotten. It's not like Mauler was going to fully work up to Rocco's speed, but I liked seeing Mauler take over off of a big Rocco miss, like his springboard kneedrop that always hits the mat hard. Rocco was smart about setting up things that worked so that they made sense when they missed later, and we got some nice move reflection from two very different bodies (like Rocco hitting his falling elbow, and a few minutes later getting crushed by Mauler's elbow off the middle buckle). Agree with Matt that the flag finish was far more creative that I was expecting. I was expecting a flag attack that ends in a DQ, instead Rocco baits Mauler into defending the flag and pins him!


Negro Casas/Mocho Cota vs. Atlantis/Lizmark 1990s?

MD: This was pretty much pure joy, from the first few moments of Atlantis using his cape to taunt Casas like he was a bullfighter, to the end with Cota fouling more blatantly than anyone has ever fouled, to all the kids rushing in for the post-match celebration. Casas and Cota could well be my two favorite rudos, guys who just understand stooging like no one else. And feeding. Man, did they ever feed here. They made Lizmark and Atlantis, who aren't slouches by any means, look like a million bucks as they ran into their offense again and again. There was a moment in the segunda where Casas got whacked in the chest and tried to convince the ref he got fouled because of it. Just amazing cheek. The comeback moment was beautiful too, stemming from Cota and Casas both hurting their heads on a double headbutt; that was followed by Casas running halfway around ringside to eat the biggest Atlantis quebradora ever and Lizmark yanking Cota up and down by his hair while sitting on the top turnbuckle. This one was very much for the kids but I can't imagine anyone seeing this and not being wildly entertained.

PAS: Tremendous find, no idea about the year or where this is, but it is two of all the all time great rudos colliding with two hall of fame level technicos in a straight up lucha libre match. Casas is the master of finding small ways to entertain, he is as worth watching in a house show match like this as his in a huge apuestas or title match. I loved him doing the pose off with Lizmark and he just flew into every bit of offense by both guys. That quebradora on the floor was massive, as was the little bits of Atlantis and Casas grappling. Nifty stuff and I can't wait to dig into this channel some more.

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New Footage Friday: LARRY CHENE!! FINLAY!! IIZUKA!! ZRNO!! SLINGER!! HOROWITZ!!

Rocky Columbo vs. Larry Chene Chicago 9/25/1953

MD: This was one of the most satisfying draws I've seen in a long time. Wrestled incredibly evenly, they made a show of it, one that stands up easily, if with real differences, to a lot of the 50s Catch we've seen seeing. They spent the first ten minutes really going at it before settling into holds that worked into spots for most of the rest of the match. They did a lot of hold-for-hold exchanges, though Chene, who wrestled this clean, was going to be the standout for the way that he continuously managed to bump himself, throwing himself into top rope on a miss, eating a bump off a dropkick while sitting on the top and then missing his attempt at receipt, bumping huge on both an electric chair position (out of a pumphandle) and on a headlock reversal, etc, ending up choked between the ropes, and so on. They kept it sportsmanlike and even, keeping things brisk and interesting so that when the bell finally rang, you found yourself surprisingly okay with the fact the match didn't have a winner.

PAS: I thought this was totally awesome. Larry Chene was nuts in this, taking crazy bump after crazy bump. He has this high back bump where he gets thrown in the air and lands directly on his spine, it is kind of a combo of a back body drop and a high back drop bump. There is also a great spot where Columbo lifts Chene and places him on the top rope, just to dropkick him off with Chene flying backwards and tweaking his knee. Chene tries to return the favor but Columbo jumps off the top and Chene ends up taking a Psicosis bump on the back of his head. Columbo was a solid grappler, and had a crazy TJP style rope fake, but this was mostly the Chene show. What a staggering talent he was.

ER: We've been watching a lot of French Catch this year, marveling at the speed and bumps and physical creativity, because none oF us had any idea that any of that even existed. And here we are, several years before our earliEst French footage, watching our own Chicago boys doing the exact same kind of wild hybrid wrestling that would have been impossible to predict. This is only the second Larry Chene match I have ever seen, and the first match I saw is our 1963 MOTY. Well, a decade prior and Chene is in our 1953 MOTY. Chene is a real marvel, and he and Columbo go at it so quick that the commentator reminds them a minute in that thematch has a 30 minute time limit. Slow down, boys! They do not. Chene has all these crazy spots that find him flying into the ropes the way most people don't fly into ropes, taking big chest first bumps into them like he was being hotshotted. He takes what has to be the absolute earliest recorded Psicosis corner bump, and also winds up missing a dropkick and hanging painfully by his leg over the top rope. Of course, later he hangs himself between the top and middle rope, another spot I never would have guessed happened in the early 50s. These two smack into each other in incredibly fun ways, really hard shoulderblocks that are sold with a nice amount of give, both guys running into each other and then recoiling from the impact. It was a refreshing take on tough guys who just absorb shoulderblocks and collisions, as a lot of these collisions felt like a car accident that sends both cars spinning apart from each other. The match goes to a draw and never loses that pace that the commentator warned them about 10 seconds in, and we're all left better for it.

Fit Finlay/Takayuki Iizuka vs. Mile Zrno/Prince Zefy CWA 9/13/91 - GREAT

MD: This was good stuff while it lasted but probably didn't rise to become better than the sum of its parts. A tag match that only half makes use of the implicit benefits of formula leaves opportunities on the table. Iizuka and Finlay were a great offensive team though. Completely believable that they could take over at any moment. All of Iizuka's stuff looked good and Finlay was a real presence in the corner. I've seen my share of Zrno but I tend to think of him as a cool, tough, technical machine. Here he shined as a more traditional babyface, and the crowd was very much behind him. Zefy's stuff didn't look as sharp but he bumped big (inducing on a ducked rana/dropkick attempt that set up the first fall) and took a solid beating. While they did a good job drawing the ref away so Finlay could cheat off and on through the match, they really just gave away the hot tag for no reason except for maybe heel hubris. Still, lots of good here.

PAS: All of this German Finlay that has shown up has been a real blessing. He and Iizuka are a fun bruiser tag team, with Finlay especially in his ass beating best. This is spunky babyface Zrno and much like highspot Blue Panther he can easily shift back and forth between technical master and guy with a nice dropkick getting fired up. Zefy was fun if a bit raw, and he was taking big bumps. I loved Finlay just chucking him balls first on the top rope with real menace, it got him DQ'd and it lost him the match, but it was a total fuck it moment, and a great one.

ER: It doesn't get more automatic Gem for me than a new Finlay match. At this point it might be a more worthy venture for us to find the Finlay matches that are not at all worth watching. That'll be a short list, but a weird fun project. All of the recently unearthed German Finlay is excellent, and I like how this match was all about Finlay hanging back and really only coming in when Iizuka got in over his head, and Finlay works great in those kind of quick starbursts. Iizuka has always been great at taking beatings but he clearly knows how to dish them, and I loved his interactions with Zrno. Zrno works like a stiff Euro Tommy Rogers, which is a great thing. He had hard uppercuts, a great headscissors, strong energy, and some fantastic (haha) mounted corner punches. Finlay was a great agitator from the apron, and every time he would storm into the ring you knew someone was about to get wasted. I love Finlay's Vader attack clothesline, the one where both of his feet are briefly off the ground as he slams his arm and chest into his opponent. The DQ finish was nasty, with Finlay slamming Zefy onto the top rope with an atomic drop, although it would have played much better if Zefy hadn't acted like nothing had happened to him seconds later. Finlay should have gotten back in the ring and done it until Zefy sold it properly or just burst his sac like he was Tommy Dreamer.

Richard Slinger vs. Barry Horowitz AJPW 1/9/93

MD: Fun Horowitz showcase. Early going had Horowitz outwrestling Slinger but Slinger outstriking him. The crowd turned on Horowitz after some elbows on the apron and a catapult onto the bottom rope and he played heel for the rest of the match. Horowitz was full of credible and varied offense (neckbreakers, neck whip, northern lights, just grinding Slinger's face across the mat in a headcissors). Slinger was naturally explosive and had an ok hope spot or too but probably needed at least one more, just as the finish probably needed one more time around: Slinger came back with a short spin kick reversal after Horowitz' huge pile driver (an attempt at which led to a hope spot earlier) but a bit of that comeback before the pile driver would have made everything feel more balanced. Still, solid prelim showing from guys who don't always get time like this.

PAS: Man for a guy who spent the vast majority of his career as a jobber, Horowitz will eat someone up if he has a chance. I remember an APW match where he just overwhelmed Donovan Morgan. He takes about 85% of this match, constantly cutting Slinger off every time he tries to get any momentum going. Horowitz has a lot of cool offense and was going to break out all of it. I really liked the headscissors where he dragged Slingers face across the mat, and his northern lights suplex look good. Slinger's final run with a pump kick and huge superfly splash was cool, but this would have been better if it hadn't been so one-sided

ER: Allow me to be the high vote on this one. That is coming from someone who was actually there LIVE for that Barry Horowitz/Donovan Morgan match that Phil mentioned. That match was so weird and unexpected, because it went 25 minutes and 20+ of those minutes were Horowitz controlling Morgan, who was an APW title holder at the time. That match was 25 and felt 40, lots of grounded headlocks and a crowd that was tiring, and Donovan got upset when someone yelled "just wrestle already". Obviously the guy meant "please just DO something" but once that got yelled the plan was clearly "let's rub this mat wrestling in their face". The match seemed to be attempting to rehab Horowitz's TV jobber rep, which is a weird thing to do against one of your top homegrown guys. This match had some elements of that, but didn't approach the weirdness that a 25 minute Horowitz/Slinger match would have.

This starts with Slinger really owning Horowitz, hitting a couple of slick takedowns with fancy control, and some of those hard kicks he throws. Slinger never gets talked about in the same breath as other kickers (Slinger doesn't really get talked about in general, which is a shame), but he has such great whipping kicks, always landing them hard. He hits a couple of great standing kicks and a big thudding kick to Horowitz's back here, also gets great height on his dropkick (which Horowitz kind of leans out of). The Horowitz control segment was way too long, but Horowitz had a lot of cool offense and it became fun seeing what he would break out next. I really liked his mat game, thought he had some super convincing grapevine cradles, and I will third the love for his headscissors that dragged Slinger's forehead across the mat. The most telling sign that Horowitz's control was going too long, is that by the end of it he wasn't hitting moves nearly as crisply as he was 8 minutes prior. You can see his perfect northern lights suplex earlier in the match, but down the stretch he kind of flubs two potentially big moments: there's a fireman's carry on the floor that is supposed to drop Slinger chest first onto the apron, but they both kind of just fall without hitting the apron; then, a piledriver that looks like it's going to be excellent, that sees Horowitz lean WAY too far back, making it look more like Slinger landing on Horowitz than getting his head driven into the mat. Slinger's big comeback was short but finished with a big damn exclamation point, as his superfly splash looked organ rupturing. The structure for this was a little perplexing, but Horowitz had such a deep bag of tricks that I kept getting into it the longer it went. Now lets find the handheld of Taue/Horowitz from a few months later.


ALL TIME MOTY LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

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New Footage Friday: EDDIE!! SABU!! REY JR.!! MOOSE MOROWSKI!! TAKASHI ISHIKAWA!! PSICOSIS!!

Takashi Ishikawa vs. Moose Morowski CWA 1980?

PAS: Takashi Ishikawa is a SC favorite, and this was a match more reminiscent of his epic WAR run, than much of his stuff on tape from the 80s. Lots of aggressive mat scrambling at the beginning leading into tempers flaring, and both guys unloading on each other with hard chops and punches. This was lunchpail stuff, two hard guys standing in front of each other throwing. There was some fun brawling on the floor, Morowski punching Ishikawa in mid air and a nice shoulder breaker finish. This was very much my kind of shit. This uploader has uncorked a fire hose of German 80s footage and we will be reviewing a ton of it in the upcoming weeks and months.

MD: For a thirteen minute match with the wrestlers being announced and round breaks, this didn't disappoint. Ishikawa came off absolutely special and Morowski showed quite a bit too. Things started fairly normally with Ishikawa getting the better of things on the mat, including at least one smooth as silk takedown. Towards the end of the first round, Morowski had enough, launched a cheapshot and started to bully Ishikawa including with a really nasty shot in the ropes. Definitely the wrong move against the wrong opponent. Ishikawa took the round break to stare Morowski down and sip some water, which he then shot right in his face as the bell rang before unloading with offense. That was the rest of the match, with the two of them launching blows at each other, including Morowski choking him and launching him onto a table on the outside. The only thing that sort of dragged this down is that Ishikawa's comeback, fighting out of a bear hug, was disrupted by the round break.

ER: If you had told me these two had crossed paths, I would have assumed that it happened in All Japan (which did happen, at least once), but I had no idea Ishikawa ever worked Germany. I'm a big Moose Morowski guy (if you want to spend 45 minutes of your day watching a bunch of cool short Moose matches, here's a nice primer I wrote), in the same way that I'm a big Col. DeBeers guy. They both bring the same skills to the ring, and I love their specific skillsets. Ishikawa worked this match like a fired up larger Kantaro Hoshino, and I liked how he battled back against the cheapshotting Morowski. Morowski tried to use his size to bully Ishikawa (think about how cool or stupid someone would have to be to bully Takashi Ishikawa!) and it actually works. But it feels like it works because Ishikawa opts to be honorable, and as Ishikawa sticks to his honor it just makes him more fired up as the match goes on. Morowski uses his size to intimidate Ishikawa, loved when he tried to tie him in the ropes and threw big right hands, tossed Ishikawa around (including onto a ringside table), and for me the match got really good when Morowski locked in a bear hug. The bearhug came late in the round, and as Ishikawa fought back with Baba chops, the chops kept hitting harder and harder the more he threw, like Ishikawa had finally had enough and he was taking everything out on the center of Morowski's head. The visual of Morowski completely laid out as we entered a rest period was great. Before, Moose had been so cocky, walking around and delaying the rest period by getting in Ishikawa's face, reaching past the ref to mess with him, and now here he is crumpled on the mat. The finish was cool too, with a fiery Ishikawa flying off the top neck first into a Moose punch, shot down out of the sky, and then put away with a nasty shoulderbreaker. This was short, but very efficient, and very cool.


Sabu/Psicosis/Damian 666 vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Halloween/Starman AAA 10/1/95

PAS: What a randomly awesome match to run across on the internet. 95 Sabu and 95 Rey Jr. are the two most electric wrestlers in the world and it is really cool to watch them match up. We get the whole gauntlet of Sabu here, chair assisted leg lariat, table spot, blown spot where he potatoes his opponent, reckless spinning moonsault where he lands right on someones ribs. We also get Sabu doing the insincere rudo handshake spot which is pretty great. Rey is so fast and slick back then, there are multiple lightning quick ranas and headscissors, including a bunch of cool exchanges with Sabu. I would guess Starman is a local Nor-Cal worker, he clearly pissed Sabu off, because he was getting tatered during the entire match. Fun to watch Mexico's Most Wanted work against each other too. Sort of an off Psicosis night, as his timing seemed wonky and didn't bump as clean as he usually does. This was a house show lucha match which a bit of bumpiness to it, but it was awesome to watch as a 1995 time capsule for some all time greats.

MD: How has this thing been on the internet for a year and a half without us knowing about it? The match gives you a lot of what you'd want from this grouping. We get Sabu vs Rey exchanges. We get Halloween vs Damien exchanges including some real hamming it up. Tecnico Halloween is a lot of fun, by the way. We get Damien eating a really deep powerbomb pulled off the top by Starman. Sabu is as Sabu as you can get. At times he seems a bit unsure with the lucha flow, like during the initial rudo beatdown where he's stuck standing around waiting to get his stuff in or at the end of the primera where he's just a couple of seconds too late running in for the comeback, but he's still all over the ring bounding around and hitting his signature offense. Moreover, you get the sense the 95 version would have made an amazing singles match base for Rey. His crunchy but dangerous-seeming execution of everything is a perfect contrast for Rey's grace. I'm not sure if Psicosis was off so much as he had a hard time figuring out his role on a side that had both Damien and Sabu, who, combined, covered a lot of his usual ground. The match really didn't settle down into a narrative but the crowd was up for everything and there was always something to look at.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Mike Thunder EWF 1/26/02

MD: It'd get even worse later, because it would happen in front of big arena crowds in the midst of actual angles, but Eddy had to feel like he was constantly in the Twilight Zone during this run, and to a degree for the rest of his career with some scant exceptions (and having a babyface like Rey as an opponent). He goes heel early in the match, pulling a cheapshot off a handshake. He ultimately heels more and more, stalling with his valet, hiding behind the ref to launch another cheapshot, using the ropes as a weapon, jawing with the crowd, spitting at Thunder. The fans wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Thunder was fine too. Eddy took a lot of it early but still let him get some good counters in, which obviously meant a lot given the pedigree of the opponent. He was fiery enough on his comeback, even if some of the hope spots (like a reverse whip into the post on the floor which led to Eddy just taking back over as if nothing had happened) were odd. Some of the crowd kept on chanting for Eddy. The rest sat on their hands. Despite that, he didn't slum it at all. He was completely on, increasingly so as the crowd didn't want to go along with the heeling. It was just the fault of the booking. No one wanted to boo Eddy during this run.

PAS: Thunder had the look (and the name!) of a power plant guy, and this was like a longer version of Eddy vs. Robby Rage from an episode of the Pro. I don't mean that as a diss at all, that is a good match, and every scrap of new Eddie footage we get is a mitzvah. He is going to play the hits on a spot indy show in Texas, but everything he does is so beautifully executed that I am not going to tire of the hits. Can't believe that Thunder went over in this match, but the missed top rope rana into a flying blockbuster was a fine finish. No frog splash, but we did get to see his gorgeous brain buster.

ER: Rehab Tour Eddie was a real treat, and was actually the era where my Eddie fandom really went into overdrive. Getting New Japan and IWA Mid-South tapes, seeing how hard he was clearly working in ring, and the perfect real life as pro wrestling story situation of a man getting his life together before our eyes, really jumped my fandom to new levels. Getting not just an unseen match from that tour, but a match none of us had probably ever heard about before now, is just an impossibly cool way to spend my Friday evening. It would have been even cooler to get a new Eddie match against any kind of worthwhile opponent, and that didn't happen here, but Eddie is a guy who is still going to be awesome no matter the skill level of his opponent. Thunder is slow to the draw on just about everything, and Eddie does something I've never really seen from him, which is basically shrug off every single piece of offense that he lets Thunder have. It's really weird. He takes a lot of the match (and looks great doing so), but he basically works a less violent Finlay/Lorenzo match only it's 4 times as long and Lorenzo wins. 

Eddie takes some big bumps off Thunder's offense, but ALWAYS sells it by just getting up immediately and going right back on offense. There were at least three times where Eddie beat Thunder to his feet after taking a move DELIVERED by Thunder, and Thunder was clearly caught off guard. Eddie gets rammed into the ring post? Responds by turning around and running right back at Thunder. Eddie takes a high backdrop in the ring? He's already up and charging at Thunder before Thunder even has time to turn around. Eddie takes a big bump to the floor that sends him flying towards the announce table? Right back on offense. It's such a bizarre way to work, and he never once felt like he was taking liberties with the guy, while at the same time making sure all of his work was getting treated as a joke. I loved all of Eddie's offense here, with my personal highlight being the nasty leg grapevine that he turned into a vicious lion tamer, kneeling between Thunder's shoulderblades while bending his legs back, then seamlessly transitioning into a cloverleaf and then single leg crab. I'm just left confused as to why Eddie worked this like he was Kurt Angle, telling Mike Thunder to not stay down and sell so much, so he could hit more moves.

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New Footage Friday: PSICOSIS!! FINLAY! HERO! CLAUDIO! ST. CLAIR!

Fit Finlay vs. Tony St. Clair CWA 11/22/94

PAS: Midcard Piratenkampf match which would have been better as a main event, still its 1996 Finlay. It is really fun to watch Finlay break out his signature spots and adding a chain to them. He lays St. Claire chest over the ring apron to slam it, but adds a chain wrapped around St. Claire's neck. He throws his amazing forearms and adds a chain to the thud. This also has a bunch of fun leverage spots with the chain, with both guys taking nice yanked bumps off the top rope. The finish is kind of a dud with a run in and interference finish which feels like a cop out. Just have someone grab the bag.

MD: We've seen our share of these matches by now and the very best of them are the ones that get mean and bloody with a big beatdown and a big comeback. In this regard, it's not that different from a bullrope match. Sometimes, you're going to get matches where the guys actually try to win instead of kill each other, and this one was more like the latter than the former. That said, if you're going to have the latter, this was a pretty good way to do it. Finlay and especially St. Clair kept going for the pole and the flag. That created an opening and the opening led to comeuppance. Finlay was the meaner of the two, choking and laying in nasty shots with chairs and on tables, but he ate some pretty brutal receipts on the floor late in the match. The one good thing about them going for the win repeatedly was that the finish was fairly exciting because of the frequent attempts.

ER: I thought this was great, acknowledging that it could have been a violent bloody war, but loving that instead we got a kind of exercise in Finlay minimalism. It felt like Finlay was trying to craft the most interesting match possible while spending most of the match acting like 75% of the ring didn't even exist. Finlay seems to create those kind of interesting problems or challenges in his matches, and for a match based 80% around climbing up one corner of the ring I don't know how much more interesting he could have made this. I like fluffy Garry Shandling hair babyface Tony St. Clair, and loved the big tumbles he would take as Finlay would yank him away from grabbing a...pouch? Grabbing a pouch of something that I assume is worth winning? Finlay is awesome at working tug of war moments, the kind where he plants his feet and really makes it look like he's pulling with all his might to desperately prevent St. Clair's climbing. It's weird seeing a chain match where the chain is around the wrist instead of attached to a dog collar, but I like how Finlay still wraps it around St. Clair's throat, and bumps to the floor with a chain attached to your wrist are still impressive as hell. All of the floor brawling looked really great, especially Finlay battering St. Clair with a molded plastic chair. Finlay even does an early version of hitting the ringpost when your opponent moves, hitting the post with the chain. St. Clair's fired up shots looked great, and really it was all betrayed by a needlessly stupid ending. You can't have a clean-ish finish in a "grab the bag off a pole" match? Just let one of the guys take the coin purse after the other gets yanked off the ropes. Silly finish, but the rest was great.


Ultimo Dragon vs. Psicosis AAA 6/2/96

PAS: This is a matchup we saw a bunch of on WCW syndie shows and twice on PPV, so it was cool to see them in a singles match in Mexico. I don't really think this worked though. There were individual cool moments: I loved Psicosis's baseball slide bump, and there was some very fast rollups and exchanges. However, I think the heavy ref stuff and random interference didn't work at all, and really kept the match from having much momentum. Their Bash match is still a way better example of what they can do against each other.

MD: This was a glorious little piece of lucha indy bullshit. Psicosis, to me, was hugely underrated at the time. Hugely. He was so good at stooging, at working to the crowd, at being an absolute jerk while on offense. He might be the best base there ever was (up there with Fuerza, who does so much of the same stuff well, just from a slightly different angle), because everything he does adds to the match and about two-thirds of it is wholly selfless in setting up stuff for his opponent. It's more than just catching someone. It's acting as contrast, acting so that your opponent can hit all of his stuff as a reaction and this match is full of that. My favorite bit in this was probably a sequence with Dragon on the inside and Psicosis on the outside, where he basically bumped himself three times to set up Dragon's plancha. In this match, he was also getting the ref over as big as anyone, which tells you the other half of what you need to know about this one. Still, super fun.

ER: I liked this a lot more than Phil too, as it played like an awesome Psicosis broomstick match. I don't think Ultimo brought anything to this, as every single Psicosis bump I could have easily pictured him doing in a ring with nobody else in it. The ref stuff was entirely stupid, as at this point we've all seen the exact same rudo ref shtick for as long as we've been watching lucha (I have seen this same shtick live in 2019, there aren't going to be new jokes or scenarios added and it's not going to get more entertaining), but that was just another burdensome load for Psic to carry here, only adding to his legend. This whole thing was filled with Psicosis missing Ultimo by *this* much, splatting face first into turnbuckles, the ring apron, the ringpost, everywhere. This had every wild Psicosis you've seen plus a couple more, with him taking one of the highest hang time Jerry bumps I've ever seen early in the primera, throws himself onto his head at least three times, just crazy how on this guy was every single show. He mixes that in with playing off comedy with the ref, while Ultimo basically stands in place half the time and lets Psicosis work around him. Seriously, so much of this match is Dragon basically getting moved around like a child while Psicosis tumbles and splats around him. Legendary Psicosis performance, while everybody involved was working against that happening.


Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli Toryumon Mexico 3/4/06

PAS: You could tell that Hero and Claudio were super amped to be wrestling in Arena Naucalpan. This was basically Hero showing off all of the fancy armdrags and headscissors which Skayde taught him, and Claudio showing off what a world class base he was. I especially liked Hero's front flip rana to the floor, and tope rope cartwheel armdrag. Hero wasn't as heavyweight as he would get, but it is still crazy to see a guy that big rip off Mascarita Sagrada spots. Really joyful match to watch, thrilled wrestlers, amped up crowd, awesome stuff.

MD: Very interesting match. It made me wish, more than anything else, that these two had a chance to work a few months together in Mexico in this style, because the end result of that would have been amazing. Even here, with a bit more of a draft version, there was a lot to like. I could be wrong, but you have to figure the crowd wasn't super familiar with either of them. Claudio was constantly working to the crowd, making sure to engage them in between almost every move and ensuring a connection. Hero especially was working big, throwing out the most complex armdrag variations they could manage, shooting for the high "difficulty" score from the judges. Put those together and Hero's flip dive into a frankensteiner on the floor drew an honest and earnest chant from the crowd. One other thing I really liked was how, during his come back, he used the springboard armdrag not just for the sake of doing a big spot, but to create distance so he could hit the boot, which was really the move that got him all the way back into it. A lot of the lucha we see is with guys who run the same spots again and again in front of crowds week in and week out, and they didn't have that luxury here. With that in mind, this was a hell of an effort.

ER: I knew there was one short Hero in Mexico stint out there but I'd never seen any of it until now, and I love it. I love that to the Coliseo fans they just looked like two young Skayde students going through and working a Skayde match, and who could want anything more? Hero is so good at that style and can throw out mirror perfect versions of classic Skayde sequences all while peppering in his own charms. I'm not sure what the crowd was expecting when they saw a couple of tall white boys get in the ring, but you can tell by the third gorgeous pendulum armdrag they were fully onboard. The early applause honestly felt like "okay they get what we're into seeing". Claudio is one of the greatest flyer bases of our time, the guy with freak strength who came up with a ton of tiny flippers, and Hero is one of the greatest style chameleons of all time. The whole match really played like a fun greatest hits showcase of what they could do for fun. These two probably at least a couple dozen singles matches and I've seen many of them, and this is easily the shortest and most worked like a cool showoff exhibition. And a cool exhibition between two guys with cool bags of tricks is precisely what I wanted. This was all joy, all the hits, in front of a crowd that wanted to see that. Hero's armdrags were perfect, but him breaking out the handspring dragon rana is just a whole different level. Claudio was there to base and that alone was impressive, but there was joy to be had in both small things he did (his excellent cravate snapmare) and big things (his running diving uppercut to Hero's back), all while holding firm for every flip Hero tossed his way. Love these two, glad I finally got to see them in Coliseo, although I wish we had any footage against any era luchadors.

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New Footage Friday: LASARTESSE! VAN BUYTEN! AMERICAN ALPHA! REVIVAL! CAIFAN! HECHICERO!

Rene Lasartesse/ Double Trouble vs. Franz Van Buyten/Scott Casey/Boston Blackie CWA 1992

PAS: Lasartesse vs. Van Buyten is an all time legendary feud and this maybe one of their last matches opposite each other. This is a really fun house show style six man tag. Van Buyten kind of reminds me of the Bullet as he has some really fun old man dancing, monkey flipping and armdragging. Lasartesse struts around the ring like a total dipshit and stooges great. Really enjoyed Double Trouble, they were a totally ok roidy tag team, sort of a heel High Voltage and they should have had a solid WCW Pro run. They even hit an assisted flip senton, which is a pretty big highspot in 1992. Lots of jazz and misdirection and hot tags, exactly the way you want to see legends showcased in their declining years.

MD: Watching this, I'm not sure what I'd rather see, late 92 Lasartesse vs Lawler, with both of them letting every little moment sink in or 92 van Buyten doing that headscissors (or step over) counter to the armlock vs old man Nick Bockwinkel. We've hit a point where we've seen that counter so many times that it doesn't quite have the same zing it did before, but if it was really so commonplace, why aren't people using it in matches today? Anyway, this was a tale of two matches. About midway through, with a lot of heat and antics, Van Buyten (who had played FIP very well for a lot of the first ten minutes, so well that the camera angle/video quality really wasn't a problem at all) and Lasartesse (who had played a chickenshit old heel during that time) both got tossed and it settled down into a 2 on 2 with Casey as FIP. It was still perfectly fine, with everyone playing their roles well, but we were here for the old guys so it was a shame to see them gone. It built to a pretty amusing spot with one Trouble tied up and the second one used as a battering ram, before the heels overdid it and everything got thrown out.

ER: When I saw the name Double Trouble I thought we were getting the two big fatties who worked WWF house shows in exchange for selling the Undertaker name rights. That said, I really liked them and yes they definitely seem like a team that should have showed up somewhere. They broke out fistdrops and flying headbutts and high legdrops, each took big bumps over the top to the floor, an unexpected Drive-By, set up a great spot where one of them got tied in the ropes and the other gets rammed HARD into his gut battering ram style and yeah these are probably the actual better Double Trouble team. I liked how the first half played as the old man Van Buyten vs. Lasartesse showdown, and the second half was our Double Trouble showcase (or at least a showcase for me). Van Buyten was still super spry in his early 50s and his early headscissors is downright majestic. Van Buyten had wonderful babyface energy and I adored all the mincing and posturing from Lasartesse, the whole thing was satisfying.

Caifan Rockero vs. Hechicero Poder y Honor 1/31/09

PAS: This is the earliest Hechicero match we have on video and we get to see him against probably his greatest rival in Caifan. This was really a treat, you could tell that they had kind of a touring match worked out, and this had all of the little beats you want from these two.  They had an opening llave section with a lot of very cool twisting leg locks, the rolling leglock submissions is a Hechicero trademark, and he breaks out a bunch of cool ones here. It build to a bigger near fall section with some cool arm trap slams, a big armlock triangle submission near fall by Hechicero and a nifty top rope springboard rana by Caifan. You could see that both guys hadn't fully developed their personas yet, there was a lot of mirroring that was cool, but didn't allow then to differentiate themselves, the way they would in later matches. It felt like what it was, two super talented young guys in a garage figuring their stuff out, our boy Rob Bihari dug this one out of his crate and it was really cool to see.

MD: This is a great little piece of history and I'm glad Rob posted it. We don't have a ton of pre-2010 Hechicero online. I wrote up their 2010 match almost five years ago when I was still figuring out lucha. That was a hair vs mask match with more intensity. This had a very different feel given the sparse crowd. Hechicero didn't forget they were there certainly, but this did feel a bit like a match in a bubble or an exhibition. They had all the time in the world and a thousand things to try. It made for one tricked out hold or interesting spot after the next. I think I preferred it once they picked up the pace because they were more actively trying to foil and counter each other there. Honestly, I think my favorite thing in the whole match was Hechicero feigning not knowing that Caifan had landed on the apron after getting hoisted over the top so that he could try to launch a sneak attack. It failed, of course, letting Caifan fly in, but the set up with Hechicero tapping his head and really milking it before going for the sneak attack turned a normal spot into something with extra wrinkles just like one of his tricked out submissions.

24. American Alpha vs. The Revival WWE 4/23/16

MD: It's a little bit hard to remember just how special those first run of NXT house shows were. They didn't get around to my part of the country until Fall of 2016, and by then, a lot of the match-ups and moments I had wanted to see before had been cycled out. Top of the list was probably American Alpha vs Revival. We obviously have a number of big matches between them, southern tags turned up to 11 style, but it's nice to see one on a smaller stage.

The first fall was basically all shine, super athletic with well coordinated, complex spots and reversals, with AA looking world class and Revival being just competitive enough to make it seem like Alpha earned it. There was a transition tease at the end (with Dawson swatting down Wilder's feet from the apron to prevent a German) which really stood out.

The transition was also the end of the second fall, a set up for a shatter effect so elaborate that it could have served as a finish in and of itself. The structure of 2/3 falls tags is always interesting to look at. We have so many from Portland specifically that there are great examples. I think my ideal is when the heels takeover at the end of the first fall and the babyfaces come back at the end of the second, with a reset and second bit of heat into the third, but having an extended shine through most of the first two falls and lean into the heat for the third was a fun (and very WWF/E) house show variation here. Alpha has enough stuff and Revival stooges well enough that it worked. There were a lot of little things to like too. Dash is underrated at working the apron. Dawson doing a twenty second set up for a slingshot suplex in 2016 is how you make a move matter. I don't care whether they were just playing along or not, the fan reaction to the ref missing the tag was just what you wanted, as was the Gable chant that followed and the pop for Jordan pulling down the strap (even if maybe you wanted a bit more for the actual hot tag pop). The crowd knew that what they were getting was special and unique. Glad it popped up now.

PAS:  This was a lot of fun, I could totally see going to an NXT house show and just being engrossed with what they were doing. I was really impressed by Jason Jordan in this match, what a bummer the ending of his career ended up being. He was totally explosive, almost like Doug Furnas with better amateur takedowns, some of the better popped hips on suplexes, a total treat to watch. The Revival have their shtick down, and are really good at filling time, which is a real skill for a heel tag team in a southern tag style.

ER: I have been to three NXT house shows and all of them have been great experiences, real high bang for my buck while being set in nice smaller venues (including a gorgeous old rock venue in the middle of downtown Sacramento). By the time I got to see my first NXT house show in 2016, neither of these teams was on the tour, and this match was better than any match I saw across three shows (with a War Raiders vs. Strong/O'Reilly match from 2018 being the closest competition). This felt like an actually fleshed out (and better) version of the fondly remembered Brain Busters/Rockers tags from 30 years earlier, without ever feeling like they were aping those matches. AA just felt like such a timeless classic babyface team, a team who moved so explosively that it felt like they could be responsible for getting casual fans excited about high dropkicks and tight armdrags and classic Morton/Jannetty style headscissors (that Gable himself doesn't even do anymore). Both of them - especially Jordan - had such pop in everything they did, and this is the kind of go go go I wish had caught on as a house style instead of the learned behavior horseshit we got instead. Gable was charismatic as hell, loved him hitting an axehandle off the middle rope on Dawson, rolling through and coming up swinging at Dawson on the other side of the ring; also loved him hitting a second headscissors on Dawson right near the opposite side of the ring and pointing at Wilder on the apron while before taking Dawson over. It was like he was waving to his buddy from the top of a rollercoaster. Both teams spent their time in control wisely, and Revival particularly feel like a team that can work an interesting 5 minute or 45 minute tag match on any given night. Down the stretch we even get a perfectly timed moment of Jordan finally getting a hot tag only for the ref to send him back to the apron and admonish him for not using the tag rope. This was such a good tag, and it felt like they had material they hadn't even worked through yet. These teams worked a ton of matches throughout the Carolinas, I have no doubt that all of them ruled.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: TEMPERS! PRIMO! CANDIDO! HASH! TAYLOR!!

Shinya Hashimoto/Col. Brody/Wojtek Polanski vs. Franz Schuhmann/Dave Taylor/"Herkules" Greg Boyd  CWA 7/8/89

MD: This was a lot of fun. It felt looser than a normal tag, like how falls come more easily in a Survivor Series match. I've been veering away a bit from Col. Brody in all of the new footage we've gotten and maybe that's been a mistake. He was pretty engaging and dynamic here. This was a relatively unique setting for Taylor and he was more of an energetic babyface than I'm used to, but he played the role well. I loved the hair-pull/mustache-pull spot at the start especially because I thought the latter would come out of the headlock but they delayed it for just an extra moment. Hashimoto was cartoony in the best way. It's a shame we only had a little bit of him vs Taylor but, for the setting, it was just what you'd expect. The shift in wrestling norms because of how much they were trying to fit into a short period of time was a little jarring, but I'd certainly like to see a few more of these.

PAS: Really fun heel team here, Polanski is a guy I hadn't seen before, but was a big mustachoed bruiser with good clubbing forearms, Brody had good shtick too, and Hashimoto is an all time great. He is hamming it up a bit, but we do get an awesome spin kick to the gut and some big chops. Taylor as a big time babyface tag wrestler was nifty, he was a super versatile wrestler who could do a lot of different things. I loved his double monkey flip, an awesome Tommy Rogerish spot. It felt like they packed a lot in 10 minutes, and could have used some time to stretch out, but I really enjoyed it.

ER: This didn't do much for me. All the quick easy pins made it feel like a joyless version of an All Japan battle royal, where if someone fell onto their back they were automatically pinned. In this match it didn't matter what put them on the mat, if anything at all caused them to fall on their back, they were toast. There were small pleasures to be found, sure. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hashimoto work so silly, hitting a great spinkick under Taylor's chin and then giving us some "Look at my Japanese karate" poses after, including a karate crotch chop? Dave Taylor was a fired up babyface and I really wish we could have devoted this time to a Dave Taylor singles match against any one of the heels. Taylor had an awesome moment in the turnbuckles where he tied up Brody with a body vice, Brody breaks it, and Taylor grabs a headscissors and flings Brody over the top to the floor. Brody is a guy I'd like to see more, as he plays - in size and shape - exactly like Col. DeBeers, but without the stooging bumps. He's got a great big mustache and we get a fun bit of Taylor really gripping those handlebars before being scolded by the ref. Wojtek Polanski looked like a gassed Santa and has the most Polish wrestler name possible. Sadly, we don't have much footage of him, as his helicopter crashed when the Polish pilot got hot and decided to turn the fan off.

Eddie Colon vs. Chris Candido WWC 7/03

MD: This was a really good TV match to further the feud and set up Stacy Colon being in Eddie's corner at a bigger show. Despite that and despite the fact that there was a pretty sparse looking crowd which the audio mixing muted even further, they went really big. We're talking early tope, springboard placha, suplex from the apron to the floor that Candido shouldn't have been taking, missed flipping senton off the top big. Big. Primo was 21 and had been wrestling for a couple of years but not everything looked super smooth, but he had the right idea in general. Candido was great, very giving before his cut offs and perfectly sound in weaving in the bigger 2003 spots and stooging just as much as he should against this particular opponent and not a bit more. I love how he worked in a blatant low blow just because he was wrestling in PR and that was the language down there. My favorite spot in this was probably Colon's big moment at the end where he blocked a powerslam off the ropes (which was the move that gave Candido a fairly early advantage) and hit a standing tornado DDT (which is something he got jammed on in the corner earlier) was a nice little callback/payoff. I thought Tammy was excellent here, both in being completely engaged and supportive on the floor and her reaction to finding out Colon's sister was going to be involved in the rematch, but Candido had the best line when he griped that Colon was ruining his "happy, happy home."

PAS: Candido is really the guy you want in 2003 to lead a green highflyer through a match. We get Chris in his Terry Funk pants and he isn't full Funk but does his share of bumbling and bumping. I especially liked the tailbone bump to the floor off the rana, and I imagine much of Primo's big spots would look much worse if there wasn't a consummate pro there to run interference. I think we would have been better off with a little more brawling and shtick and 20% less moves, but 2003 Primo clearly wanted to do ROH.

ER: I love the YouTube thumbnail for this, which looks like someone interrupted Candido and Sunny while they were at lunch. Watching Candido in his final couple years is a real bummer, as he seems kind of on auto pilot but then seeing him in the ring on auto pilot it was clear he had a lot left. He had all of these sequences down pat and clearly lead this from bell to bell. Eddie was really young but had a nice left hand and some fearless lean into spots, and I would have liked to see him utilize that left hand a lot more. Candido bumbling around from that left could fill an entire match, but Candido opted to fill it with a lot of offense. Candido wastes Eddie on an early powerbomb (kinda surprising he'd go to that so early in a match), drops him with a couple Germans, hits a great tope, and Eddie flies into everything. Eddie had some real big misses, including a corkscrew moonsault to nothing and running headlong into a Candido clothesline. Sunny was the one really on fire here, she had every single ringside move nailed, had a perfectly timed spot where she yanked Eddie's legs, jumped into the ring to break up a pin by rubbing the ref's face in her chest (even though it looked like the ref was just expecting her to grab his arm, funny if she opted for face to boobs as an audible), and shrieks advice to Chris. Candido splats nicely on bumps, peaking with a huge bump over the top that lands him right on his ass on the hard ground. This made me curious about what other dad bod era Candido gold might be out there, as I've really only seen him in IWA and TNA, didn't even realize he was working Puerto Rico. Stick around for the Sunny/Chris promo after the match (where that YouTube thumbnail came from) to watch them work an amusing comic heel promo.

Andrew Alexander vs. Shaun Tempers Empire Wrestling 2/10/14

MD: For the most part, this was the sort of chain match that you hope all chain matches are and only about half ever become. There was no corner touching. It was pinfall or submission. The blood came early as Alexander wasn't about to put up with Tempers' antics. The chain was teased with big whips at the start but then used immediately thereafter and used often. They had some clever spots but nothing that took you out of the idea that they were trying to hurt each other, including a chain assisted running plancha which actually made for one of the most believable dives ever, as Tempers had nowhere to go. There couldn't have possibly been a cleaner heel/face divide with both wrestlers acting appropriately, with Tempers getting advantage through a lucky reversal or distraction. Unexpectedly, I didn't love Alexander's punches. They felt pretty out of place in a match where everyone was using the chain as a weapon. Not a big thing in the grand scheme though. The finish was maybe a bit much too, with a ref bump, a couple of phantom pins, and interference that would have made more sense in context, but the chain assisted neckbreaker and Alexander's spastic selling were both picture perfect for the match.

PAS: These GA Indy feds really know how to run gimmick matches, we have reviewed some great War Games from this area and this is an old school dog collar match done right. Alexander takes it to Tempers early and opens him up, with Tempers able to get some advantages through viciousness and dastardliness. They never got too fancy, with a couple of big spots, Alexander doing this great counter of a posting attempt, and the dive Matt mentioned working great. Mostly this was just old fashioned chain assisted violence, and while I agree they probably didn't need the gaga at the finish, that neckbreaker with the chain was a killer finish. At some point I need to just do a giant deep dive into GA indy wrestling.

ER: This was great, and while watching it dawned on me how entirely absent this type of match is from the current wrestling landscape. There is a major absence of matches involving one man hitting another man with fists and choking him with a big chain. We added a great dog collar match to our 2020 MOTY List, but that was very much a blown out 2020 indy epic masquerading as a dog collar match. That match felt more like the multi stipulation Hacksaw/Sawyer match than "merely" just a dog collar match. At the other end of the spectrum we have death match wrestling making a curious head poke into mainstream acceptability, and yet nobody out there is just running a straight up dog collar match. This cuts out all the bullshit, no touching corners, just touching fist to face and wrapping that chain painfully around your opponent. Alexander really felt like a guy working a dog collar match in 1986, as he had great punches (left AND right hands), an awesome kneelift, took a gigantic fast bump over the top (even crazier when compared to Tempers much more sane bump to the apron later), and hits a bonkers no hands dive over the top as a fantastic late match highspot. There were some unnecessary shenanigans at the end, a ref bump and a ball shot and a stopped ref count when he notices Alexander came out of his collar, but the finish itself was excellent. After the ball kick from Tempers, he wraps the chain tight around Alexander's throat, and the panicked selling from Alexander was so good that it made me question just how anybody would have actually known if that chain was too tight or not. Tempers gives him a vicious Rude Awakening, snapping that chain wrapped throat over his shoulder, and Alexander does a great convulsive sell during the pin. This really captured the feeling of classic dog collar matches, the kind of match that looks even better now than when it happened.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

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