Found Footage Friday: R'N'R VS FOOTLOOSE~! BENITO GARDINI~! FALK~! HOUSTON~!

Benito Gardini/Al Williams vs. Cyclone Anaya/Walter Palmer NWA Chicago 5/26/50

MD: This was a delightful 27 minutes, with some clipping, but you get so much of it, you hardly care. My buddy Ohtani's Jacket got here first and said I'd love Gardini, and guess what, I do. He likened him to a 1950s Porky, and I can see that on appearance and over the top antics, but, of course, with a deep Italians stereotype. He was great at getting driven down on his face (at one point the commentary said his nose would soon be like a wet donut), at getting caught up in the ropes and on top of the ropes, jiggling along with them, at making faces, and most of all, at getting caught in crowd-pleasing heel miscommunication spots. Meanwhile, he's one of the only US based workers I've ever seen do the headspin escape out of a headscissors. Legitimately funny, great left handed body shots so he could lean on his opponent when he needed to, big bumps. Definitely a fan.

Williams was instantly credible, if only because he had tons of tattoos (commentary said he was a member of Rough and Ready, Inc. or Grief, Inc., just a real nasty character). He was game for feeding into all of the babyface offense and playing into all of the comedy spots, while still keeping a mean disposition and hitting hard, especially with forearms in the ropes. Palmer looked good with his escapes and a big forearm off the ropes but we probably saw more of Anaya who was flashy and fiery and had an abdominal stretch/cobra twist with a few variations that he'd use as a finish. This moved quickly and never wore out its welcome and I'm eager to see more Gardini.

Ricky Morton/Robert Gibson vs. Samson Fuyuki/Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 10/28/88

MD: Pretty sure that the match that has been out there previously was the 5/24/88 one that ends in a count out. This is not that. This is pretty hilarious. We've heard stories of what happened backstage between these two and I don't know about that one way or another. What I do know instead is that Morton and Gibson used their powers for evil on this night. They worked this thing like they were Jr. Versions of Brody with a little 92 Freebirds built in (the former eats the match; the latter eats the crowd). They took and they took and they took.

They really dominated for the first half, quick tags, winning rope running exchanges 80% of the time, constant appealing to the crowd with claps (which worked; the crowd was into them, Rock and Roll chants and all). More than that though, whenever Footlose did get something in, they were quick to fire back. In the second half it was somehow worse even though it should have been better. There was some nominal heat on Morton; he was always so good at using roll ups for his hope spots. He'd eat some offense, some beat down, and then give you hope of a win out of nowhere. Here, however, he used those roll ups but after every single spot done to him. It broke the flow completely in a way that made it seem like it was 50-50 and that he was never in any real trouble. The finishing stretch had some nice nearfalls but the finish itself was a bit of a banana peel with Fuyuki getting a hand up from the outside and one of the R'n'R basically running into it. They were ahead ten to one on points. Just a masterfully selfish performance. 

ER: This is the Rock n Rolls last ever match from the only Japan tours they did in the 80s. I thought this match was clean, man. I watched this match in a Portland Air BnB basement on a TV that had motion smoothing turned on (or off, whatever the bad one is that every single girl in her 30s has on the TV at her place, so when you go over and they're watching Heat or Below Deck: Australia it looks like a fucking soap opera) and I don't know if I've ever watched wrestling this way but it just might make handhelds even better. My sister watching Mandalorian and it looking like people wearing cosplay gear hanging out in a western saloon TV set didn't work for me, but feeling like I'm smack dab in the middle of this crowd on a hot tour closing night of wrestling. It's crazy that the Rock n Rolls hardly went to Japan. For a team I love more than almost any team in history, I guess I assumed Ricky was a guy working Japan more than a couple AJPW tours here, a couple FMW show there kind of guy. Because they seem perfect for Japan and now I understand why the Youngbloods and Fantastics had such sustained (and good!) runs as AJPW gaijin. 

Also, I had no idea what kind of backstage altercation there was between these teams until Matt told me something happened on one of these tours and Robert Gibson kicked Fuyuki in the face, so I thought this match was going to be worked in Bad Blood...but instead I thought this match was most notable for Robert Gibson working the entire match visibly using only one leg. Is Robert Gibson okay? Robert Gibson looked like he got roughed up and forced to wrestle one legged as humiliation, because every time he moved he was dragging his left leg straight behind him while hopping on his right. I remember seeing a 2000s AAA match where Pimpinela drug his leg the entire time and wondering if these guys are just psychos or they're the greatest salesmen in the world giving themselves a Jorgen Leth/Lars Von Trier  Five Obstructions Dogme 95 task of working a match within a personal challenge. Whatever was happening, this handheld, motion the smoothest it has ever been, had me feeling every shoulderblock and every bump, every kick, every perfectly downward angled Ricky Morton punch, the fucking 11/10 suicide dive Ricky does where his body truly feels like a weapon, this handheld had real live impact. And there was Robert Gibson, shaking his leg on the apron and trying his best not to put weight on it during his (much briefer than Ricky) in-ring interactions. That it was so exaggerated and not gone after in any way by Footloose makes it all the more jarring. Was his leg hurt and they were instructed to stay away from it? Kings Road is a style famous for exploiting shoot injuries of opponents. Years later in 2002 NOAH it felt expected that Kenta Kobashi made a big comeback after his knee injury only to have Jun Akiyama go after his knees so hard that Kobashi missed several more months with knee injuries. Is Gibson doing some kind of Teddy Hart phantom knee injury? To what gain and for what cause? Whatever, he kept it believably up for entire match without seemingly anyone else talking about it, and the match was still somehow the perfect 9 minutes of constant hard contact and no stopping for breath. The heat was up bell to bell with stiff work free from Bad Blood. Handheld wrestling is our greatest treasure. The purest presentation of the best eras of wrestling. 

Tony Falk vs. Barry Houston NWA Worldwide 5/11/00

MD: I came into this expecting Houston to bump all over the ring for Falk. We've seen enough of this Worldwide stuff to know that they didn't give away a ton on TV because they wanted people to come to the shows. Most matches didn't end in a finish. This went around ten minutes though with a commercial in the middle, and it was really Falk bumping around the ring for Houston. He'd rope run with him, would take armdrags and mares and back body drops. Of course, it was Tony Falk, so after every bump, he'd milk it, hang out with his manager, whine to the ref or the crowd, stall, and it was all highly entertaining stuff.

He'd complain about hairpulling too, which was heat-garnering since that was most of his offense through the match. Post-commercial he was in charge with a top wristlock, going to Houston's ponytail again and again. Eventually, after a Falk DDT (again nothing with a big bump), Houston started to fire back and hit one of his own. That set up a frog splash where he almost hit the ceiling. "Basket Case", being Mark Jindrak came in to take out the ref. I thought Houston was saving his bumps for Jindrak to get him over, which would have made sense, but he really only take a press up pancake before Falk leaped off the second rope at him. This had all the Falk I was expecting and more, really, but not nearly as much of those Houston bumps. From the bit of 2000 Houston I've seen, I do wonder if he wasn't working quite like he had a few years earlier.

ER: We have limited amounts of post-'99 Houston available so every match is a gift, and while I thought Houston looked like Barry Houston in this match, this was a Tony Falk show. Houston looked his most professional: His gear and body were the best he'd looked, but the window was already shut for whatever reason. He should have been given some kind of real TV role in 98/99 but it never happened to the degree we wanted, and here he is in Tennessee getting shown up by a Tony Falk who is in his early 40s, looks like he is in his late 50s, and moves like he's in his late 20s. Houston looks good, but it's also one of the few matches we have where he works "on top". We grew so accustomed to Houston bumping bigger than Kidman and leaning into beatings, that he's like a whole new wrestler when we see him work dominant. It's not bad, it's just different. 

But Tony Falk is the one who looks like a star. Well, let me rephrase that, because he looks like absolute shit. He looks like Eddie Marlin in the Cowboy Boot match had Eddie Marlin showed up really out of shape. Falk is wearing a singlet and you can tell he has just an awful body under that singlet. And yet, I was consistently surprised and impressed by how quickly he got up for everything. Falk was a real bumper here, body as bad as I've seen but speed undiminished. He took armdrags the way 1995 Barry Houston would take armdrags, went up for a backdrop, and sold punches perfectly. Houston has nice punches and Falk would bump every one of them as a one shot kill. I loved this great telegraphed missed punch Falk threw, holding up his fist, kissing it, and then of course sending it right past Houston's head. His begging off was great because it was less heel and more Tired Man. Gypsy Joe was at ringside for Houston and when Joe got involved we got our meanest punches of the match. Time to find more fat big bumping Tony Falk I guess. 

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New Footage Friday: PATTERSON! CHOSHU! THESZ! SILVERSTEIN!! CYCLONE!!

Lou Thesz vs. Cyclone Anaya Chicago 3/31/50

MD: I thought this was excellent. It may not have the same overt character as the Silverstein match because Thesz wrestled clean but they really went at it. A lot of it was just headlocks, but they worked and worked and worked them. Breaks were clean, but they were never easy, never given. When they worked out of the holds, the entire point was to work into the next one. That was the escalation as opposed to spots. Thesz was explosive, able to grab a double leg of nowhere, able to catch his opponent with a toehold take down off the ropes (and then to twist him into a cool figure four toehold that we never see now), and of course able to fly up with the Thesz Press which is as good a finish and probably did as much for him (especially in an environment where every match needed three finishes instead of one) as a Diamond Cutter did for Page. Anaya held his own here. I loved the end of the second fall where he goaded Thesz into back and forth mares in order to open him up for his deep cobra twist. The finish of the last fall was perfect, with Anaya going for the twist again and then hurting his leg as they both went over the top. The way Thesz targeted the leg again and again only to set him up for a dropkick was, like the end of the second fall, game of human chess stuff. Great showing all around.

PAS: This was really great, Anaya isn't a guy I had heard of before, but he made me a fan. Matt mentioned Thesz's explosiveness, which isn't something I really think of him for, but he felt like a Steiner Brother during parts of this match. He really tore into takedowns, and got huge ups on his Thesz press. I loved the psychology of the match with Anaya being outgunned by a master, but having the Cyclone twist as a killshot. He finishes the second fall with it and goes for it again right at the beginning of the third fall. It eventually backfires on him as he tries it too close to the ropes and gets bieled to the floor, with both guys taking a big bump and Anaya dinging up his leg. Thesz wasn't really working heel here, but he had a nasty streak to him, including absolutely obliterating Anaya with an upkick. I also thought there was a real fuck you aspect to the final single crab, like he was tired of this kid and was going to stretch him out and end it.


Lou Thesz vs. Ruffy Silverstein Chicago 3/17/50

MD: This had been up for a while when they did the big release back in 2014 but it was down until some copyright issues were cleared up. It's great to have it back. This is a really good look at Thesz as a travelling heel champion. It's not really how I picture him in my head. What's really interesting here is how the announcer doesn't really decry Thesz' tactics but instead insists that this is him taking Silverstein seriously. When the Chicago Film Archives dropped so many matches, it was hard to really organize and categorize them. That's, in part, why we're focused on chronologically going through the French footage two-three a week nice and steady. That, then, more than Chicago, is our point of comparison. I think this was just as competitive as a lot of the 50s French footage we've seen recently, though maybe not quite as complex or advanced. You had the sense that Thesz was making Silverstein work for every hold or advantage, through his positoning and how quick he was to grab on, let alone the cheapshots and the use of the ropes. I really, really love Thesz' elbow shot that he'd do in the midst of a break. The end of the first fall, that escalation into rope running and a dropkick out of nowhere, was right out of Jacky Corn's playbook (or possibly vice versa). When Silverstein had a moment, he used it well, with good looking shots and some quick moves into holds (like how he took advantage of an ugly missed dropkick to get a quick roll over to end the second fall), but he didn't have too many of those moments. Again, big credit to the announcer for making him seem all the stronger for the fact that Thesz had to cheat against him in the first place though. Silverstein did put on more pressure in the final fall but you never really got the sense Thesz was in trouble. While still very good, I think this might have been better if Silverstein took a bit more earlier and really made Thesz need to resort to those tactics. As it was, it was a situation where we were told instead of shown.

ER: Big fan of this nice long look at Thesz, and the way he can work as default heel against a respected local guy, showing dominance early without being blatantly cocky, and then revealing he still had a couple gears to shift into when he got frustrated. The announcer was smart about pointing out Thesz' less than sportsmanlike strikes, by acknowledging without hand wringing that there was nothing actually wrong with them, it's just not the type of thing that every one does. Thesz has this little back elbow he utilizes on a break that really feels like something that gets pulled in the NBA, bracing the back of his left elbow and weight against Silverstein and upon breaking, shoving his left palm with his right fist. So he's not hitting a sharp back elbow to the temple or anything, but it's more of an emphatic heavy shoulder shrug directly into the neck and jaw. They work a couple of exclamatory headscissors sequences and the best part was that Silverstein looked like a guy who wasn't quite sure how to get out of a Thesz headscissors. He tried to bridge out of the first one and I swear I thought he was going to get snapped in half; later when he tries to escape from another headscissors, Thesz basically twists his knees and sends Silverstein face first into the mat. Silverstein was competitive without ever fully seeming into it, but I liked how he won the 2nd fall by ducking under a Thesz dropkick, with Thesz sliding over Silverstein's back like Bo Duke sliding over the General Lee. Thesz is clearly not happy with dropping a fall, and after a minute or so into the 3rd fall he decides to put this thing to bed and just starts wrecking Ruffy with shots. I love Thesz's short glancing right elbows, and he just leans full weight into Ruffy from go and even the announcer throws up his hands with a "dumb voice" as if he's sick of sticking up for the technical legality of Thesz and his strikes. "Oh Thesz will break alright, he'll break your lower mandible." Thesz treated this 3rd fall like a big brother who was letting his little brother be competitive, but then the little bro accidentally busted big bro's lip, and you just can't do that.

PAS: I loved how this escalated, obviously Thesz was the bigger, badder star, but I thought Silverstein really had his moments. I loved how he rocked Thesz with big football tackles and cracked him with a forearm so hard Thesz had to take a standing 8. Thesz does this really cool selling where he almost takes a timeout, he can't stand, or has to lean into the ropes. He really feels rocked, like he might have gotten his bell rung legit. After Silverstein putting him on queer street a couple of times, I got why he got nasty in the third fall, and that third fall was a grimy little fist fight from both guys. Thesz has this technician reputation, but he could go gutter with the best of them. The legend was that there was some bad feelings between the two, and that is why this felt out of hand. It looked like hard hitting wrestling to me, but it could have easily been a quasi-shoot too.

Riki Choshu vs. Pat Patterson NJPW 10/26/79

ER: This was a match-up I'd never thought too much about, and yet now seeing it in front of me it suddenly seems really obvious just how similar these two are. Outside of their nationalities their looks and styles feel like mirror images: same build, same movement, same headlocks, same exact movement on kneedrops. Patterson takes a lot of this match, and I like the way he holds Choshu down. He really leans his weight over Choshu's body on a cool smothering chinlock, not resting but clearly weighing Choshu down. He kept beating Choshu to different attacks, cutting him off abruptly and not allowing him any space. I loved the different ways Patterson used knee strikes, with a nasty quick knee to the gut and a later short knee right between the eyes when Choshu was trying to get to his feet. I laughed at Patterson rolling to the floor for a breather the second Choshu was actually able to make space, a guy who needed to regroup the second things shifted the other way. Choshu landed super heavy on a big dropkick, and really looked like he deadlifted Patterson up for a great certical suplex. I loved how late Patterson moved on Choshu's kneedrop, really suckering him in before scooting a shoulder out of the way and then immediately going back to work. Choshu really brought a ton to the finish, some of the best "occupying time" work I've seen. Patterson goes up top and drops off with a knee, then immediately goes back up for another one. The second Patterson went up for another Choshu started struggling to get up, grabbing for the ropes to try and lift himself up, so that when Patterson nailed him with the second and final knee it met Choshu's chest a few feet off the ground. So many other wrestlers would have just stayed on the mat, waiting to take that second knee, but Choshu added a whole different layer to what they were doing, looking not just like a guy who was going to fight until he could no longer move, but using his time to sell struggle in a way that made the finishing knee mean more and look more devastating. If I was unfamiliar with Choshu and that was the lone thing he brought to the match (it wasn't), I would already want to see a ton more of him, because it's those kind of touches that show how deeply someone understands big match atmosphere and presentation.

MD: Pretty certain this one's never been in circulation in our usual circles (or if it has been, it's very rare). Ultimately, this is to set up a bigger match with Sakaguchi which has been out there. I'm not sure I've ever seen it though and I ought to because this sets it up really well. They really go at it here, with Patterson inclined to take every advantage imaginable. It almost feels like a schoolyard fight, but with Patterson channeling the rep Blassie used to have, just goozling and launching inside shots and lightning quick to grab the hair whenever Choshu gets even a hint of an advantage. And when Choshu really does? Well, that's when he hits the floor and stalls. He's just a great presence here, mean and nasty, while making it absolutely clear that he needs to cheat to get out of everything while Choshu manages to escape very similar moves with strength and skill and courage. For example, he'll reach around with a hair pull to escape a Scorpion Deathlock only to immediately put on a crab and have Choshu power out. That sort of thing. That means something and that matters. The big stuff in the match was really big too, with Choshu powering Patterson into a huge, offset airplane spin into a proto-AA, and Patterson hitting a brutal bombs away as Choshu was getting up after dropping him face first onto the exposed turnbuckle. Every new Patterson performance feels like buried treasure and this is no exception.

PAS: I had always though of Patterson as more of prototype big bumping heel, but he was a nasty fucker here, more Johnny Valentine then Dolph Ziggler. He really ground away at Choshu and when Choshu fired back it really meant something. Loved the finish (no surprise there with Patterson being a legendary finish guy) with Choshu trying for a sneak top rope kneedrop, only to miss and weaken a wheel for Patterson to work over, before hitting the two bombs away. Eric mentioned how great Choshu trying to get up after the first one, only to be driven into the mat with the second was, and man was it great. Made the whole finish look super violent and brutal, and made Choshu look like a tough motherfucker in the loss.

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