Found Footage Friday: WAR GAMES~! MISAWA~! KOSHINAKA~! PIRATA~! COLOSETTI~! BENETTO~!

Shiro Koshinaka vs. Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 10/14/83

MD: As best as we can tell, these next two haven't been in easy circulation. Thankfully gus came through and figured out how to get them off of a tricky disc and upload them. This one started out as one thing and morphed into something entirely different. People should go out of their way for it.

Where it started, and where I figured it would end, was as Young Misawa putting Young Koshinaka through his paces. He controlled for basically the first two thirds of this as an undercard young boy cruiserweight bully. They both had red trunks and Misawa really did a number on Koshinaka, grinding down on the arm. A lot of shots of the back of Misawa's head and emotive selling from Shiro. Shiro would try to escape and Misawa would get him back in. There was a nice floatover arm twist and some rolling with the short arm scissors, etc. Eventually, Shiro turned things into a cross toe-hold and took over with that and later a Romero Special.

When things picked up, though, they really picked up. Shiro's butt butt, sure, but also Misawa doing a front flip into a kick off the top, followed by a huge dive to the floor, and then Shiro hitting a double stop off the top. It felt like whoever was agenting the match went on a smoke break and they just decided to do whatever they wanted for the last two minutes before Shiro finally dragged Misawa down with a bulldog. Misawa looked more like the guy who would become Tiger Mask II than the guy who would become Misawa here, but he looked like the best possible version of that guy.

Shiro Koshinaka/Mitsuharu Misawa/Halcon Ortiz vs. Coloso Colosetti/Pirata Morgan/Tony Benetto 3/16/84

MD: This is likely one of Misawa's first matches in Mexico. He was matched up with Colosetti here in the initial primera pairings and it went mostly ok. There were one or two times where he seemed just a little lost, like when it was time to tag Shiro in after Coloso left the ring, but in general, he did fine. Colosetti had great for-the-last-row body language, really working big, both when matched with Misawa and during the comeback in the tercera as he was batted around the ringside area. Shiro was matched with Benetto; basically a lot of Kato/Bruce Lee back fists but he did get his double stomp off the top in too. Ortiz and Morgan worked well together, as you'd expect, the best pairing of the three even if maybe that's not why we're here.

Morgan did get to match up a little with the Japanese contingent, most spectacularly for a spot towards the end of the primera where they basically hit a veg-o-matic (bearhug, lean back, kneedrop) on him. Most memorable, though, is the ending image of him as Misawa and Koshinaka were getting the win on his partners; Ortiz decided to just bodyslam him over the top, not touching the rope, so he could hit a dive. The heat during the segunda was effective and efficient though there could have been more of it maybe; possibly a small clip at the start of the tercera to give that feeling. The comeback was fun with plenty of Koshinaka backfists. Misawa was just finding his way here but it's a good way to spend twenty minutes.

War Games: Hotstuff Hernandez/Jeremy V/Jimmy Rave/Onyx vs. Iceberg/Jason Cross/Justice/Rainman NWA Wildside 06/28/03 - EPIC

MD: Are there just an infinite number of these matches hidden away somewhere? Is there some sort of alternate reality that we can just endlessly pull these from? Or are we coming to the end sometime soon? We've covered so many over the years and they're all great and this is no exception. Wildside was just amazing for the sheer diversity in the ring, every size, shape, temperament. And it all came together and it all worked. It was like the entirety of possibilities of what pro wrestling could and should be were in the ring together. Just wild stuff. 

They started with Jeremy and Rainman, maybe not the pairing I would have chosen myself even though they'd been feuding but Rainman was a pro in these and kept things moving. Right when Jeremy (who got color early) was gaining control, Bailey's team won the coinflip and Cross came in, absolutely crushing Jeremy with a dragon suplex and brainbuster and setting the tenor for the rest of the match. Jeremy, Jimmy, and Jason had a high hill to climb here since not only were they in there with monsters of various shapes and forms, but the monsters almost all did crazy stuff. There was a Superplex on Iceberg (I think by Onyx). Iceberg used the cage to steady him to hit a top rope elbow drop, etc. And Justice (being Abyss) came in as the mystery man and towered over everyone. Hernandez was like a missile when he came in to even the odds. They managed well enough by flying around though, Cross hitting a ton of offense, Jeremy showing heart (and getting the win in the end with his camel clutch/cobra clutch combo), and Rave maybe getting the spot of the match with a sunset flip powerbomb on Justice off the top.

Look, during the same year, Cage of Death was going on in Philly. I get that Blood and Guts take more from that than from classic War Games, but these Wildside and Anarchy attempts really show how you can bridge the gap between the two.

PAS: This didn't have pools of gore that some of the other all timer Landmark Arena War Games had, but it felt kind of on the level of them. This was like a version of the 1989 War Games, with a lot of huge dudes throwing each other with big power moves. This might have been the most I have ever enjoyed Abyss, and it felt like the slugfest between him and Hernandez felt like a huge big man showdown. Iceberg not being a huge star in the 2000s was a big mistake by the wrestling world, he was a monstrous force of nature, who would still bump big, Iceberg taking a superplex felt like felling a Redwood tree. His top rope Sudanese Meat Cleaver was truly disgusting looking I expected Jeremy V's head to pop off like a Pez dispenser. Finishing submission looked great although that kid did take a whole hell of a lot of punishment to end up winning. Classic stuff, in the upper tier of these matches which is a hell of an upper tier. 

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New Footage Friday: Funk, Abby, Big M's, Twin Devils

Mando Guerrero/Carlos Mata/Al Madril vs. Twin Devils/Coloso Colosetti Olympic Wrestling 1979?

MD: Let's start with the good. This was not just fun but impressively fun. It goes close to thirty minutes and feels, more often than not, like a fast-paced 80s lucha trios where the tecnicos clown the rudos. They manage this without the three fall structure, however, and without any real period of long heat. Despite that, it never feels incoherent or meandering and never wears out its welcome. It never really feels excessive. I'd argue that it's even more impressive because you have two vaguely interchangeable guys on the heel side in the Twin Devils. Their gimmick is that they're the same, so past a little bit of the heat that does exist and one illegal switch, there's less variation on the heel side to work with. Basically, everything worked just like it was supposed to from the introductions to them raising the ref in the air and celebrating at the end.

That said, I'm going to harp on Mando some more. The guy coasts through the entire match not taking any offense at all for the first twenty minutes and then when he finally ends up in a hold, he picks up his opponent in it, powers to the corner and tags. Then when he ends up in another it's only due to the illegal switch and it's still just for a short time with him never really at risk. Sure, this was a face-dominated comedy match for the most part, but his partners handle things much differently.

Look at the start of the match with the initial exchanges: Mata works fairly evenly, taking a bit but getting the upper hand, with his opponent looking competent and he looking all the better for overcoming him. Madril teases vulnerability but only to clown his opponent, but it's still elaborate and carefully orchestrated (while seeming natural). There's anticipation and payoff to it and at least the threat of danger. Mando just eats whoever he's in there alive with spot after spot. They're impressive spots but it's so one-sided. That repeats basically every time he's in the ring and follows the pattern I always see with him. You can't unsee it once you realize what's going on. Honestly, I think it was ultimately detrimental to him in the match. Mata's stuff felt much more earned and ultimately, Madril's was much more memorable. Anyway, I won't harp on it here but if Phil keeps tossing me Mando matches, I'm going to call Mr. Guerrero on what he's doing. Yeah, I'm a killjoy.

Still, I'm going with "impressively fun" on this one.

PAS: Fun chance to get a look at a bunch of well known guys without a ton of footage available. We certainly get a lot of time to see what they can do, although it basically stays in one gear the entire match. It is like the first fall of a house show lucha match with the technicos doing all sorts of tricks to make the rudos look foolish. I really dug them three stooging a Twin Devil in the corner, and the spot where the technicos kept dogpiling on both Twin Devils. Madril looked the best, his punch combos were especially spicy. Still this never cranked up into something special and it is a lot of time to invest in something which stays this inessential.

ER: This match simultaneously felt like not a whole lot happened over almost 30 minutes, but also didn't drag a whole lot over 30 minutes. I don't think it was great, at times it felt like they were going long to stall for time for some unknown reason. The whole 30 minutes felt like a feeling out process, and the match was like 85% for the tecnicos, which is really odd for a match this long. The Twin Devils come off as both lazy and fun, bumping big to the floor one minute, slowly walking into place for spots the next, or doing a weird spot with Madril where Madril is lying on his stomach and a Devil lifts him into the air and drops him back on his stomach. But it just looks like Madril is jumping up into the air and landing on his stomach. Colosetti had a ton of energy in this and fed Mando really fast, and generously. Sadly he disappears for most of the last half of the match so we don't get to see a lot of what he can do. But I really liked Madril in this. Madril is a guy I've seen enough of, but had no opinion of. This is the most I've liked him and he puts in a super charismatic show. There was this really fun and really silly (in the best way) moment in the corner where a Devil is backed in, and Madril throws these short tiny shots to the ribs, like a brother annoying his sister on a too long car ride, and then starts poking him in the face and plucking at his eyebrows. It's preposterous and looked like a ton of fun. The match is probably too long for what it is, but I imagine if I had been there live with friends we'd still talk about that 30 minute match where everybody just kinda fucked around and told jokes the whole time. The Dean Martin Roast of fading territory wrestling.

Dusty Rhodes/Junkyard Dog vs. Ted DiBiase/Matt Borne Houston Wrestling 2/11/83

PAS: I loved every second of this. We have two of the greatest "Walking Tall" wrestlers ever, walking tall over two great heels willing to fly all over the ring for every punch or kick. Awesome performance by the Rat Pack, they stooge like total All-Stars and then flip to vicious when they need to. They have great looking stomps and punches. Most of the match though is the Superteam running rampant. Dusty is dancing and throwing punches and dancing and elbowing, and the Dog comes in and lays waste as well, he unloads an awesome punch combo in the corner. They even break out a Star which is something you rarely see outside of WOS and Lucha, DiBiase and Borne really sold it like they were tearing a groin. Totally satisfying send a crowd home happy match, and a credit to the performance chops of all four guys.

MD: New Houston is the best. We have a gap late in 82 and early into 83. It was just one of the periods that wasn't covered as much, definitely a shame because I can't be the only person who really wants to see that Bockwinkel vs Johnny Rich main event, right? Right? We miss a bunch of Stagger Lee and almost all of Borne.

Flaws first: Some of the hot tags could have been set up/timed better. You have two singles wrestlers on one side and sometimes that happens. It's not the end of the world as the crowd didn't care, but they would have cared all the more if a bit more work was put into that. This simply wasn't going to be a match with a lot of heel control. More blatantly, this was noticeably sloppy at times, with stuff downright and obviously missing, more so than usual, more so than you'd expect from guys at this level, and generally when JYD was not in the ring. I don't think it mattered all that much, though. While a whiff might be sold, they made sure not to sell it too much (some of that was just because the faces weren't going to sell at that much in this match anyway). Moreover, it added to the wild and desperate abandon that Dibiase and Borne were portraying.

Honestly? The whiffs aside, this is one of my favorite vulnerable heel Dibiase performances. He was in craven beg off mode basically the whole match, feeding and feeding and feeding, and he was just so over the top that he sort of transcended the usual black-gloved technical bad guy ted. He'd always bump and stooge but when you're in the ring against two beings as larger than life as JYD and Dusty, in front of a crowd that was absolutely crazy for them, it gives you a certain ability to take it up a few notches higher. There were certain faces Ted made in this match which were all-time great and he turned his head into a heat seeking missile for Dusty and JYD's fist in the most unbelievable but effective ways.

I'd call this just a really good (though certainly not perfect) house show style star-studded main event. Remember, a couple of years ago we were getting two or three of these a week.

Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher NWA-NJ 5/12/95

ER: I love when this kind of 90s indy wrestling shows up, even if it's not actually technically "good". I love the snapshot it provides, always love seeing the crowd and wondering what kids in the crowd were thinking as a really fat guy stabs an old guy in the head with a fork. I have no idea how I would have reacted to something like this in person. The match itself is about 6 minutes, most of it Funk and Abby locked in an eternal struggle, Abby struggling to stab Funk in the head with a fork, Funk struggling to not get stabbed, Abby drops his fantastic elbow and later misses one with almost as much force. Tony Rumble is around, so Abby doesn't have to take bumps into the timekeeper's table or take a sloppy DDT onto the floor, many members in the crowd are modeling previous years' New York Giants Starter clothing line, a dad holding a baby laughs and points as the two large sweaty men brawl right past them fighting over a chair, and the ring announcer repeatedly warns fans to stay in their seats and the more he says it the more he feels like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun telling people to move along, nothing to see here, please disperse. 

It gets thrown out when both men shove the ref but continues long past that. We get a good look at the lobby of the rec center as Funk wildly wings a chair towards an area with too many people, as Abby hides in the dressing room. In the background on the wall, there's a hand written flyer that screams "POGS R HERE!", which, if we hadn't known the date of this match already, would have given us a decent idea. Funk hits himself with a chair and gets Abby to come back out of the dressing room, but they almost immediately fight back into the dressing room. We fade to black as other wrestler's try to save their duffel bags or jackets from getting rolled on by both of them as they brawl through the dressing area. We fade out with images of Dan Severn and Devon Storm and other wrestlers, amused in the background.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. Exactly what you would want if you paid for a ticket at an indy show to see Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher. Stabbing, Funk beating up Tony Rumble, Abby dropping his meat cleaver elbow. Both guys bleeding on fans. Funk is in the tail end of his third prime and is still willing to take a beating and bumps. Abby is a terrifying force of nature and I can imagine how great it would have been to see waddling towards you holding a bloody fork.

MD: I'm completely in sync with Eric on this. What will stay with me years from now is the announcer repeatedly calling for safety and calm in the blandest tone imaginable. It was both completely in line and completely dissonant with what we ere seeing. The words lived up to the unpredictability of Abby and Funk just going at each other with pulsing violence, waxing and waning as they orbited one another around the ringside area. That said, this wasn't a Puerto Rican soccer arena packed full of people. There was space for everyone to move in and around the action, so that there was violence and unpredictability but never quite the danger that ought to go along with it, certainly not enough to justify the frequency of the message, yet still deserving far more than the tone it received. This was the sort of thing that could only have existed exactly where and when it did.

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New Japan HandHeld Bonanza: Lucha Cherry Picking

Pete over at PWO has gotten his hands on a ton of New Japan HHs from the 80s. I am posting the Fujiwara matches in C+A posts, but I figured I would do some reviews of the lucha guys showing up and my buddy MattD showed up as well!


Tiger Mask/George Takano v. Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata 9/6/81

PAS: Slim and trim Brazos looking great. We have a couple of other 1981 Brazos New Japan matches and we don't have any lucha Brazos this early. They are here to serve as foils for the technicos and they do a great job eating fancy arm drags. We get a nasty Plata top rope senton which is less lung collapsing in 1981 then it was later. Takano is a big dude and he flies around quite a bit with some nice arm drags. Mask is at his best when he comes in, hits his stuff and leaves and he had some cool flipping sentons. Nothing mindblowing, but a great chance to see a couple of lucha greats early in their career.

MD: I'm going at this in a more comprehensive way than Phil, watching everything (including Tiger Jeet Singh handheld matches). He is a wiser man than I. For 81 Brazos, I jumped the line though. The setting on this is amazing. It's some sort of outdoor bathhouse with steam rising up in the foreground and a crowd that seems eager for all of the Brazos' relatively outlandish stuff. Tanako competently takes most of the match with Tiger Mask hitting just enough of his signature stuff at the beginning and end to leave you satisfied. Oro and Plata, despite being very young here, base perfectly both on offense in taking stuff (goofus and gallant) and fit in just as well as they would in Japan ten years later.

Tiger Mask/Gran Hamada/Kengo Kimura vs. Steve Wright/Coloso Colosetti/Black Man 3/5/82

Totally fun trios match, that was a better finishing run away from being a real lost classic. Black Man had a couple of fun lucha exchanges with Hamada, which included Hamada taking a couple of his legendarily high backdrops. Colosetti wasn't in a ton, but I liked his exchanges with Tiger Mask where he kept trying to brawl like a rudo, and kept getting caught with spin kicks, I loved how he finally got frustrated and just palm thrusted TM in the eye. The rudo star of this match was Wright, totally awesome performance, he may look like an accounts payable manager, but he is remarkable agile, at points looking more agile then Tiger Mask. He has really great looking cartwheels out of arm bars and a cool kipup, and when it got time to get nasty, he through some really nice uppercuts and some vicious bodyslams and an awesome looking judo throw. Match kind of ended abruptly, which is a problem for a lot of Tiger Mask matches, but it was a real treat to watch.

Junji Hirata v. Luis Mariscal 8/29/82

Mariscal is a 70s and 80s luchadore who worked as a Baby Face and Scorpio trios partner and lost his hair to Villano IV and Perro Aguayo, I don't remember seeing him before, but he was a fun discovery. Young Hirata was svelte but hit hard, and these two had a nice scrap. It started with some basic but solid grappling, and then Hirata actually got snippy and they had a bunch of nice punch and chop exchanges. This was an undercard match with little heat, but I could visualize Mariscal having similar exchanges with Enirique Vera and tearing the house down. Really liked the multiple in ring topes by Mariscal to set up the pin

Kantaro Hoshino v. Villano III 8/29/82

PAS: Pretty strange match, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. V3 jumps Hoshino at the bell throws him to the floor, posts him, and hits a plancha. The match never felt in control, with Hoshino ripping at Villanos mask and Villano constantly biting Hoshino's head. It really felt like someone should be bleeding, and I enjoyed seeing a real lucha brawl in New Japan. Finish had Hoshino DQed for trying to rip off Villano's mask, and he goes nuts and beats up the ref. Then he ties up V3 in the ropes and tries to tear off the mask again. Really felt like a match setting up an apuestas, and I guess we need another batch of handhelds for that.

MD: Yeah, this was enjoyable. V3 rushes Hoshino and just doesn't let up for a few minutes. Pure rudo beatdown to start a match. I love how he keeps things moving, using the ring as a weapon, leaping off the ropes inside and out for extra leverage, pulling Hoshino half out to hit a knee on the apron, bulldogging him into the turnbuckle, etc. If Villano was doing this here against a guy working a different style, what the heck was he doing in Mexico at this time, right? When it's Hoshino's time to fight back, he goes straight to the mask and then follows it up with some revenge usage of the ring as well. The finish is where the weirdness sets in as they move on to rope running and submissions, like the end of a title match primera. Thankfully, it cycles back to hate with the mask ripping finish and the never-ending post match with the two trying to get their hands on each other. This left me wanting to see about three dozen more 1982 V3 matches. Then I made the mistake of looking at what else he did in 82. Not much, just, you know, feuding with Los Misioneros, including apuestas matches with Signo and Texano. This was definitely better than nothing though.

Black Cat/Isamu Teranishi/Kuniaki Kobayashi v. El Signo/Negro Navarro/El Texano 1/1/83

PAS: This was one of the most exciting matches to show up on this batch of footage. We have so little prime Missonaires de la Muerte, we know how awesome all these guys were as oldsters, and their rep is so great, that any time 80s MDM shows up it is a lucha fan holiday. This was more like an awesome first fall of a great trios match, then a great match on its own, but it was a awesome demonstration of what made this team so special. They were just relentless, attacking at the bell and always moving forward. Their pace was really something to watch, never not moving, never not attacking. They didn't take many bumps but every bump was athletic and crazy. We don't get a ton of offense from the Japan team, Kobayashi has a couple of cool armdrags, which Texano bumps huge for. For some reason Kobayashi and Teranishi start brawling post match, as the MDM just strut out victorious.

MD: Los Missionaries were the prototype for a rudo trios side for a reason and here you can so clearly see why. Relentless is exactly the word I'd use, too. This was just the perfect combination of complex spots and improvisational bridging. They kept working back into their corner, kept switching up, kept helping each other whenever possible while their opponents weren't on the same page at all. This would have played well as a Guerreros primera twenty years later (give or take a powerbomb), maybe even thirty. You saw hints of the stooging and miscommunication that would have, in another match, been part of a tecnico shine or comeback. You saw hints of them basing and bumping. At times they were moving so fast that you'd think that there was no way they'd feed an armdrag in time, but they do. Primarily, though, this was their showcase and they brought it, from the initial ambush to the triple team hanging seated senton on the floor and the nasty, nasty tombstone that finished things. Again, it just leads you to imagine all the things we don't have.

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