New Footage Friday: TOGO! CAN-AMS! KIKUCHI! BRAZOS! EDDIE!

Los Brazos vs. Eddie Guerrero/Lizmark/Rocky Star  Juraez 1988

MD: There are a hundred reasons that I wish Eddy was still with us, but this match made me think of another. Imagine the ground he could have covered with a podcast. Dives clear the way for finishing encounters and here he could have recounted Brazo de Plata flying off the apron at him to clear the stage for El Brazo vs Rocky Star and the foul that ended this.

That was the focus of the match and well it should have been. Off the top of my head, I can't think of too many matches where El Brazo got to shine as opposed to his more colorful brethren, but he did here, from the cheapshot (with Porky as charismatic bait) to the bloody beatdown on Star (who came off as a star to the crowd) to the initial comeback, begging off and delaying the real satisfaction, to the full on bloody revenge and the toe-to-toe standoff and foul at the end. The Brazos excel at giving you almost everything in every match, and while the early beatdown meant that we got a bit less of the rope running and comedy (though we got some and it was good when we did get it), I'll happily take a balance that leans more on blood and hate anyday.

PAS: When you look at this match on paper, the least exciting feature matchup is El Brazo vs. Rocky Star, but the Brazos can basically do no wrong and El Brazo vs. Rocky Star was a serum soaked war. It was interesting how the match structure was inverted a bit, starting with wild brawling and beatdowns and then having roping running and exchanges in the Segunda, even some Porky comedy. All of the Brazo's were incredible in this match, vicious and buffonish, they are as good as anyone in wrestling history in flipping the switch from clown to killer. Eddie and Lizmark were cameo guys in this, but Eddie flashed some of his genius and we did get to see Lizmark's incredible cliff dive plancha. Every scrap of footage of these guys is a total mitzvah.

Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas AJPW 8/27/92

MD: As best as I can tell, only 6:14 of this aired on TV. They had a match earlier in the year as well. If given the choice, I'd watch a Can-Am Express tag over mostly anything else from All Japan in the era. Kroffat's a joy, more of a classic jerk heel wrapped in agility and athleticism (stepping on faces and punctuating it with a spit, dropping knees on Kikuchi's skull while he's in stuck an elevated crab). Furnas is as explosive as they come (the way he hits the frankensteiner out of nowhere, the way he drops to his knees to get crazy torque on the powerslam, the cool waistlock into a side slam).

This builds with heat on Kikuchi and a hot tag to Kawada but the crowd never gets close to the level of the Kobashi/Kikuchi matches. It all builds to a great finishing stretch full of cutting off saves and escalation that feels meaningful and earned but never too over the top to be believable.

PAS: Goddamn is Dan Kroffat a fucking machine in this match. Nasty prickish brutality with just explosive athletic execution. He just brutalizes Kikuchi in this match, and Kikuchi is the greatest tackling dummy in the history of professional wrestling. It is fun to watch Kawada in the Kikuchi tag partner role, and how different he is from Kobashi, instead of an explosion of enthusiasm, it is like Kikuchi tagged in Anton Chigurh. He saunters in and kicks Kroffat in the orbital bone harder then anyone should be kicked in a cooperative performance. Finish run was fun, although it didn't elevate to the heights of the famous Can-Ams tags. Still this ruled, and I am with Matt on Can-Ams tags being one of the coolest things in this period.

ER: Prime Can-Ams are such a treasure, two hyper athletic killers who feel like they would be the machine precise evil European tag team had The Mighty Ducks been about pro wrestling. You think the vibe is going to be different for the first few minutes, as Kikuchi is throwing stiff elbows and landing kicks, and I being to wonder if they sometimes let Kikuchi play the aggressor and not the Ricky on house shows. But then I wake up and Kroffat is stepping all over Kikuchi's face, kicking him in the chest, and Furnas throws Kikuchi's helpless body straight into the air. It was the most vertical German suplex you've seen, and Kikuchi lands folded right on his neck, looking like when Wile E. Coyote would accordion into desert after cutting a cliff side out from under his feet. Furnas works a backbreaking Boston crab and Kroffat drops knees to the back of Kikuchi's head, just coming off like the biggest jerks the whole match. Kawada's big hot tag is fun and he really aims to pay back Kikuchi's beating by mugging Kroffat. This could have benefitted from even more time. I'm not typically one to ask for matches to go past 20, but I think they still could have worked interesting stretches that went untapped. I liked Kikuchi's last burst of a run and the way Kroffat dispatched him (after Furnas separated them by kneeing Kawada through the ropes to the floor), but I think the ever increasing fervor of the infamous Kobashi tag made me think of the ways they could have gone longer. But make no mistake, this left me wanting more in the best way. It feels like I suddenly started typing inadvertant sexual things about this match, so I'm going to stop.

Dick Togo vs. Asykal Singapore Night Festival 8/24/17

MD: Togo as far afield, grizzled and aged local gym master punishing the insolence of youth is wrestling perfection. I liked how the setting meant that Asykal couldn't get distance. I like how hard he had to struggle and struggle for a slam, how it (just a bodyslam) felt like a big, meaningful win, and how thoroughly he paid for the hubris of bowing to the crowd after it.
Short and sweet, pure and satisfying.

PAS: I love wandering monk Dick Togo traveling the wrestling backwaters and delivering a show. This was on a mat on a stage, no ropes, no real elevation, and the restrictions didn't stop Togo from delivering the hits. Asykal didn't look tremendously trained, and it didn't really matter. Togo made him look credible in moments, and then crushed him outside of those moments. That running Senton was nearly as brutal looking as his flying one. Feels like we need to review all of the Singapore Togo. 

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Richard Charland: Most Nondescript Wrestler Ever!?

I saw a post on Twitter a couple of months ago from Rob Naylor, calling Richard Charland "the most nondescript wrestler", and I was intrigued because I had never heard of Richard Charland. Or, it's possible that I had heard of him, and had seen him multiple times, because perhaps he was so nondescript that I had forgotten about him multiple times over. Well, no more. I'm going to increase the digital footprint of one Richard Charland, who has also gone by the name Garth Vader, which is such an incontestably great and stupid gimmick name that it may disprove Naylor's claim before any footage is even watched. Imagine Big Van Vader dressed up like Garth from Wayne's World! Before now, I never have, and never would have. But because of Richard Charland I can't stop thinking of Vader in a huge Aerosmith shirt, flannel, and big black glasses. Richard Charland has already brought untold joy into my life before ever seeing one second of his wrestling footage, so I am now afraid I am so biased and in the "I will die for Garth Vader" camp that I won't fairly and accurately judge these cherry picked Charland matches. But I will try. 

Richard Charland/King Tonga vs. Jacques & Raymond Rougeau Montreal 6/13/85

ER: This was more angle than match, as Tonga is eventually jumped by Butch Reed and Charland aids Reed in the attack! But he looks fine up until the attack. His tandem dropkick with Tonga looks good, he takes a great backdrop bump, I loved him committing to his missed standing splash that allows Jacques to hot tag Raymond, and I loved him desperately leaping for Jacques a split second too late to stop the tag. There were only a couple minutes to judge, but he seemed like an interesting wrestler in those couple minutes. I'm giving Charland the point in this one.

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. The Fantastics AJPW 8/18/90

ER: I really love All Japan matches from the 80s and 90s featuring gaijin who went on only one or two All Japan tours. You get a fun mix of WWF job guys, or guys who just knew guys, and it adds another dimension to their work. And Charland is more interesting than many of them for the fact that he was not on the winning side of ANY of his All Japan matches. It is fairly common practice to give a gaijin a win on their first night of the tour, even if they're only going to be the guy taking a fall in six mans the rest of the tour. Richard Charland took the pin in every All Japan match he worked, and got pinned in a singles match by Haruka Eigen to end the tour. Eigen was not a guy who was winning a ton of singles matches in 1990. He traded wins with Mark Scarpa and Goro Tsurumi, and beat Richard Charland. He lost 3 times to Rusher Kimura. Richard Charland may have had the losingest All Japan tour of the 90s. And this feels important. Richard Charland was Christian Laettner at every Dream Team practice. Charland's squad was going to lose just by virtue of having Richard Charland on it. Now, it should be noted that this is also Eric Embry's only All Japan tour, and while he was also on the losing side of almost all of his matches, he did pull a draw with Isamu Teranishi, and I assume he would have had the opportunity for other tours if it weren't for his accident.

This is joined way in progress, and we only get the final 4 minute stretch, but it is a great final 4 minute stretch. The Fantastics came off like a tiny Kroffat/Furnas, with both impressing the hell out of me with their stiffness and aggression. It's a tight 4 minutes, starting with a cool rope running section where Charland ducks out of the way of a flying Fulton, and Fulton immediately returns the favor ducking away from Charland, leaving him uncomfortably on the top rope. Fulton and Rogers came off almost mean here, and were seriously working like a tiny muscled up Can Ams, which is great! Rogers hits a heavy Samoan drop and a really great powerslam that made him look like a mini Dr. Death. Embry is awesome here, giving us a glimpse of exactly what it would have looked like had Dutch Mantel did some early 90s AJ tours, bringing that brawling element and just planting Fulton with a sick piledriver. Fulton was mad in this one though. I'm not always a Fantastics guy, but now I want to see all of the Fantastics in AJ. Fulton is throwing great punches and even flies off the apron with a knee. The Fans' short legs work to their advantage, as they get no hang time so every time they leave their feet for a move it feels like it's landing faster and heavier, like Fulton cannonballing Rogers with on arc, just flipping him straight down. Fulton's kneedrop/Roger's splash is a cool combo hit well. The Fantastics kind of owned this 4 minute stretch, and Embry outclassed Charland, but Charland looked like a guy who belonged and could have managed just fine in All Japan. I wish we had the full match. 

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas AJPW 8/21/90

ER: This was JIP just like the Fantastics match, but had some great moments, including an absolute holy shit spot. The Fantastics match was hotly sequenced and made the Fans look like mini Steiners; this doesn't seem as tight, and the layout was a little more "guys doing things until the end happens" without the same build. That's not an uncommon early 90s All Japan tag structure. And I liked watching these guys do stuff, so I liked this match. Furnas hit two really big "couldn't stop them if you tried" suplexes including an Albrightesque belly to belly, and the Can Ams don't seem to be treating these two as very credible threats, even though Embry has a singlet that perfectly matches the red/blue AJ ring, and Embry brings the south to Japan by lowering BOTH STRAPS. But this JIP tag was all about one spot, and my god what a spot it was. I have no idea why Kroffat even agreed to take it. Charland plants Kroffat on the top rope and tags in Embry, and Embry climbs up to the middle buckle, his back to the ring. He's fiddling around with positioning, Charland is holding him steady...and Embry jumps backwards into the ring with a classic piledriver, off the middle rope. We've seen more flipping piledrivers than we ever needed to, but I honestly don't know if I've seen a classic piledriver delivered this way. It looked insane. Picture how great Lawler's standing piledriver looks, the way he kicks his legs forward to land in a perfect seated position...and now picture him doing the same thing off the middle rope. But it does not win the match. Obviously. It was performed by a man teaming with Richard Charland. But at least Furnas broke up the pin instead of Kroffat kicking out of THAT piledriver. Charland eventually takes the L by eating a big Doug Furnas powerslam off the middle rope, but I would have taken that powerslam 10 times out of 10 over that piledriver. 

Richard Charland vs. Demolition Ax NEWF 9/27/91

ER: Now this will be a true test of Charland. Teaming with a cool wrestler against other cool wrestlers in the coolest fed of the 90s is going to produce some fun matches. But this is Charland working a newly mostly retired star on a Vermont indy show. And there are a few things that you could say certainly prove the thesis we set out to determine, and one is that the commentator for this match doesn't know who Richard Charland is, and he even says "I don't know who this guy is". That's bad. The screen graphic then states it is Demolition Ax vs. Richard "The Magnificent" Sharlan. The commentator misses the (misspelled) name and from that point on refers to him as "Richard the Magnificent One". And look, I've enjoyed my little dip into Richard Charland, but he's not a guy who is magnificent, at least not how the term is commonly used in wrestling to describe pretty and/or egotistical heels. But he is now Richard the Magnificent One. And to add to Richard Charland's problems, he's literally chased into the ring by a giant lumberjack holding a giant axe. It's Paul Bunyan, who was a legitimate giant that worked one New Japan tour (teaming mostly with Ax) as "Canadian Giant". 

But I dug Charland here. He was a stalling stooge, a guy who got clubbed in the neck every time he got close to Ax, so he would bail to the floor, beg off, toss a microphone, and then get in close and get clubbed all over again. When he took over he did it by cheating, a lot of choking Ax with a ring mic cord, and Ax was always a guy who put over a choking really well because everything about him read like a guy who wasn't getting proper blood flow to his heart. Charland even blasts him with a great kick from the apron, and the pan back reveals this to be a very well attended Vermont indy show. When Ax fires back Charland gets thrown nicely several times into a ringside table, and eats a great clothesline. I love how quickly Charland went down, and I love how low swinging and blunt Ax's clothesline was. Ax even goes to the middle rope for a crossbody. After losing, Charland refuses to leave the ring, claiming it was only a two count. He starts appealing to individual fans and it's hilarious. He points out people, holds up two fingers, points to another guy, nods and points at him like "yeah this guy is with me!", gets down on the mat and does a slow 2 count followed by a slow "safe" sign like it was a play at the plate, and call me crazy but all this reads even better because of his full motorcycle cop mustache.


ER: So what did any of this prove? Is Richard Charland the Most Nondescript Wrestler EVER? He's got a mustache that makes him look like Liam O'Brien opted to get into wrestling instead of forming a bowling team with Jesus Quintana, and he was a non-zero part of these four very fun and different matches. He worked a fun 10 minute match around punches kicks and chokes with an aging star, and it ruled.

So...if Richard Charland ISN'T the most nondescript wrestler ever...who is?


It's Ted Dibiase Jr.


Obviously.

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New Footage Friday: Moondogs, Aoyagi, Mr. Fuji, State Patrol, Can Ams, Matsunaga

Moondogs/Mr. Fuji vs. Pedro Morales/Ivan Putski/Tony Garea WWF Kuwait 1983

ER: I loved this! I loved it so much I wound up watching it twice, back to back. That is the first time that has ever happened with any match involving Garea, Putski, Fuji, etc. But here it is and it's totally great. These Kuwait shows seem like an absolute blast from the wrestlers' perspective, as every old gag gets a gigantic reaction. The crowd responds huge to every single thing they're supposed to respond to, so we get a simple match with a ton of heat and rabid excitement for the simplest exchanges. Fuji is fantastic in this playing a great stooge. He gets his salt knocked out of his hands by Putski, pinballs around so he can get punched by all the faces a couple times, does some funny misdirection, scrambles on his knees to tag out, all the exact things this crowd wants to see. The faces don't need to do much, the fans are reacting to Fuji and the Moondogs (if that doesn't sound like a cool as hell Hanna-Barbera crime solving show I don't know what does) reacting to the faces. Putski has a lot of energy and the crowd rightfully reacts huge to all of his headlock punches, and I cannot imagine what they even thought of the round hairy Moondogs. Garea comes in and does a lot that one headlock that you've seen Garea do, but soon you got Rex holding him in a long as hell bearhug, building to that tag, and Kuwait warms my heart by getting so damn into this bearhug. It's beautiful. We get the Moondogs cutting off the ring and it's satisfying as hell, because you know the roof blows off the place when Garea finally tags in Putski. It wraps pretty quickly after this (all of the Kuwait matches we have end very suddenly on things that weren't typical finishers), but honestly they could have kept this up for 30 minutes. This was simple, insanely effective wrestling, and instantly became my favorite match I've seen of several of these guys.

PAS: Pretty fun to watch the crowd go absolutely bananas for really simple wrestling. Every time Putski throws hands they totally lose there shit. Moondogs and Fuji are fine as foils, and everything was executed well (outside of the finish which looked botched) This exact same match wouldn't work well in the Boston Garden, but in front of a crowd that hadn't seen all the shortcuts before it was a total blast.


Ryuma Go/Masahiko Takasugi vs. Masashi Aoyagi/Mitsuhiro Matsunaga Pioneer Senshi 1990

PAS: This is exactly what you want it to be. Go throws the prematch flowers at Aoyagi and gets met with a big spin kick and we are off. It feels ragged and unprofessional like the best Karate Gi matches do. Go bleeds early and Aoyagi bleeds in the middle of the match, and blood all over a Gi is still one of the coolest visuals in wrestling. The Go/Takasugi team is perfectly willing to deliver dangerous looking stomps to the back of the head. Really fun to watch young lion Matsunaga working as a Aoyagi dojo boy, what a weird career he had.

ER: I dug this, as I am going to do with a loosely constructed karate gi guys vs. trad pro wrestlers match. It took a little while to really get percolating, overcame some stumbliness from Matsunaga, and blossomed into a great mix of blood and shoot throws and unprofessional kicks. Go and Takasugi were the owners and headliners of Pioneer, and I love when a couple of karate goons kick the tar out of authority. I didn't really see how Aoyagi got busted open, but it's a real gusher, sending rivers down his chest and covering his face, and around this time Aoyagi and Matsunaga start really taking things out on Go. I really liked the Aoyagi/Matsunaga dynamic, with Matsunaga throwing off balance kicks and kind of getting in over his head, occasionally getting his leg worked over or picked up and slammed hard, with Aoyagi always coming in to save him by kicking Go or Takasugi in the head, and Go especially takes the messy end of these kicks. I love those moments in Aoyagi matches where he violently kicks someone to the floor, always landing one of his hardest kicks in the match and then shoving someone unceremoniously to the ground with both feet.


State Patrol vs. The Can Am Express AJPW 6/4/91

ER: This was a good match, but not as great as the match I had built up in my head. This didn't quite have the cohesion or build that the greatest AJ tag discoveries have, and doesn't seem to ramp up as much as it should. It's a 18 minute match that feels more like they were pacing out 27 minutes, so we somehow get a ton of action while also feeling that we got things cut short. We don't have a lot of State Patrol in All Japan even though they did several tours. They were a team I always loved in WCW and feel like part of a whole wave of WCW guys who got overshadowed at the time by people who liked Benoit, Regal, and Malenko, even though undercard guys like Buddy Lee Parker or Gambler or even Vincent were working similar, or complementary styles at the same time to much less acclaim. So here's the State Patrol against one of the thee tape trading teams of the 90s. Kroffat/Furnas were an incredible on paper team who didn't always deliver their on paper potential, but always had a high floor due to the unique athletics of both men.

Tom Magee is a guy getting talked about a lot now, which is funny for several reasons, one of which (that I haven't seen discussed) is that Tom Magee's ceiling was Doug Furnas. We have 10-15 years of Furnas footage out there that was hot at the time but nobody cares about now, where you can see every positive Magee trait executed by a guy who was as good as he was gonna get. Furnas got effortless height on leapfrogs and could snap off a few press slams like it was nothing. Tom Magee was never going to be Hogan and it's foolish if anybody ever actually said that. It's unfair and stupid when current baseball prospects get compared to Mike Trout. There is zero chance of that happening. But Doug Furnas was cool and he's the best possible Magee. State Patrol are two guys who can work stiff and dish back, and so are the Can Ams, so at minimum you knew you were gonna get a couple hard forearm shots, a couple tough suplexes, and a couple nice double teams. We got it all and it was good.

James Earl Wright is a fun guy who got even less exposure than Buddy Lee Parker, as he never had that "Power Plant Trainer" fame like Buddy Lee. But Wright was damn good and threw himself into offense really well (always taking high backdrops and fast suplex bumps) but also committing to his own offense. He throws low fast clotheslines and I love the State Patrol's forearm/German suplex spot. Both guys do nice elbow drops which is a favorite move of mine that has been slowly phased out without anybody noticing the past decade. Kroffat throws a mean sidekick and fastest possible snap suplex, Furnas hits hard pivot belly to bellys, we get a cool misdirection into the finish with State Patrol hitting a top rope shoulderblock to each other when Kroffat flips out of a suplex, and the crowd did keep getting louder. But I think these teams have even better in them, so I'm left merely smiling that I got to see them fight at all.

PAS: I actually think Eric is underrating this, which is surprising because this is the sort of thing I would expect him to overrate. This was just a tightly worked powerhouse tag match, the kind of thing you might expect from a great Stieners match. State Patrol landed everything with a thud, especially great work from James Earl Wright, who was throwing heat, great looking lefty lariats, big elbow drops, nice forearms. That forearm/German suplex double team was completely awesome and should be stolen by a half a dozen indy wrestling teams right now. Loved watch Furnas stretch out and show off, and his Frankenstiener finish looked about as good as that move has ever looked.

MD: This is from a stacked show, stacked enough that I thought about pressing us to review the whole thing. Instead, we'll fill in gaps with the five, or so, key matches over the next year. The context matters. On the one hand, yes, this is part of the AJPW handhelds, and part of a great show in specific. On the other hand, this is the State Patrol. I don't think it could ever live up to what was in Eric's head, unfortunately.

This is a really cool Worldwide main event about five years before its time and with twice the room to breathe. All the little things worked well. Kroffat and Wright had an especially good bit of matwork. The State Patrol moved in and out of the ring really well, just somehow always in the right place at the right time against two opponents they probably hadn't faced off against too often. They cut off the ring well, allowing for a very effective face-in-peril run for Furnas.

We knew a lot of that already though. What the match has as well are some crazy State Patrol double teams (that German/forearm looked great), rapid fire elbow drops, Buddy Lee Parker rope-walking successfully, and some fairly complex bits of positioning on tandem spots. Where I'm with Eric is that I was left wanting more.

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New Footage Friday: Dick Murdoch! New Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can-Ams! Infernales vs. Villanos in TJ!

Dick Murdoch vs. Johnny Rodz WWF Kuwait 1984

PAS: Murdoch is on one in this match. Three stooges selling, phantom air punching, multiple shoving matches with the ring announcers, just the full Murdoch. Rodz was a fun foil in this match, but my goodness what a Murdoch show. It was clear that he was going to take everything to 11 in front of a crowd who may not be familiar with wrestling, so he was especially off his rocker here. There may be five minutes of shtick before the first lock up, some all-time atomic drop sells, everything you would want from a showman in front of a small crowd of Emir’s in a carpeted soccer stadium.

MD: We had a few Kuwait matches to take a look at. After a scan of a few matches (including a pretty fun Adonis/Murdoch/Smirnoff vs. Morales/Johnson/Gama Singh cage match and a 25 minute tag with a fake Masked Superstar, Don Muraco and DeCarlo/Bellomo!) this was the way to go. Two immediate thoughts. First, one of my favorite matches of all time is Funk vs. Martel from Puerto Rico from 1986. In it, Funk wages an indirect war with the entire country of Puerto Rico. This kind of feels like that, with Murdoch spending more time arguing with the crowd and menacing the PA announcer than fighting Rodz. Second, you know how even in the most serious matches, Murdoch ends up stooging in the third act. Like in the amazing Karl Kox match? Here, you don't get anything but the stooging. It's the purest distillation of comedy house show Murdoch and it's a thing of beauty. The way he shooting gallery walks across the ring after getting hit by Rodz is amazing. His reactions to the PA guy calling out every bad thing he does? Brilliant. His stagger shadowpunch selling? He wasn't wrestling for the empty back rows; he was wrestling for someone on Mars. The crowd was a constant buzz. Rodz did his part, but you get the sense he was just happy to be there. This is in no way good but it is in every way great. Dick Murdoch, walking contradiction.

ER: You see some on paper potential for a Murdoch being Murdoch match, and then something so bizarre comes along and ends up out-Murdoching any kind of Murdoch you were hoping to see Murdoch. First, let me say that I really loved Johnny Rodz here. It's tough being the straight man forced to play things normal and not look like a nerd while your opponent is duck walking around the ring and starting fights with timekeepers. Rodz bumps really big for Murdoch to keep him looking like a threat while Murdoch is hilariously stooging to fill in the gaps. There's no chance anyone in the crowd knew who Murdoch was, but because of the work of both men they all got to see Murdoch as a very believable threat and total buffoon. I loved Rodz' big bump off Murdoch's 2nd strike of the match, staggering fast 3/4 of the way across the ring and spilling hard into the ropes, and later Rodz does an awesome twist on Flair's corner bump, flipping over the top and landing hard on his butt on the apron. Murdoch is a great striker, but Rodz had a big variety of shots that made him look super credible. I especially liked him hitting a leaping punch to Murdoch's beer belly, then tags him in the chin when the gut punch causes him to buckle. Obviously Murdoch is a master. He was his own one man Ministry of Silly Walks here, doing this absurd straight leg/straight arm waddle while being punched, and clearly peaking with his atomic drop sell. Murdoch sells an atomic drop like someone who is dangerously close to shitting their pants, knees buckles, on his tip toes, asshole clenched, rubbing out his tailbone, while also moving his hips as if he was working out a major wedgie without using his hands. He punches the air and flops face first with his butt in the air, he punches the air and gets kicked over onto his butt, and every second of it is great. These two men reached people who - honestly - they couldn't have actually known how to reach. They just did what they knew how to do in the most exaggerated way possible, bringing the gift of stooging to Kuwait.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Kenta Kobashi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat AJPW 10/7/92

MD: There are a lot of batches of these handhelds. For instance, there's a batch of AJPW dates that we've barely looked at because they were followed so quickly by first Fujiwara vs Fuchi and then by the new NJPW set. This was part of yet another group where we knew these aired on TV but generally JIP or clipped and sometimes just as part of a digest of finishes. As best as I can tell (and I double checked it with Ditch, so we'll call it the best I could tell), only four minutes of this actually aired on TV.

That means that we have for you a never-before-seen-in-the-wild Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Can-Ams match, another iteration of one of the best tags of the 90s.

This is a good and interesting, but lesser version of the match-up. For one thing, the crowd, while definitely abuzz, isn't quite as electric. Also, there isn't quite the same commitment to a singular theme that makes the May match such a great Southern Tag.

This had another six months of history behind it and definitely some of the same elements. I love how Kroffat and Furnas can draw heat in this setting. Every time they cheat or even take a shortcut, the crowd boos. Some of that is Kikuchi's charisma or how beloved Kobashi was, but I think a lot of it is respect and admiration for Furnas and Kroffat. They really lean into it. There are two moments in the match where Furnas comes in behind an opponent who is fighting back against Kroffat and grabs him for a belly to back; the fact they repeat the spot later on adds more than it subtracts because it doubles down on the theme and it gets a reaction each time. I do think overall, there are a number of individual reactions instead of the sort of building one you get in the May match. Ultimately, they instead build to some pretty cool spots and a moonsault that the world for how hard Kobashi had to work for it. Ultimately this was good stuff that couldn't live up to what they'd already laid down months before.

PAS: I thought this was tremendous, their May match is of course an all time classic, and it is so neat that this big run of HH’s had given us two other versions of that match up. Kikuchi is of course a legendary face in peril, and he takes the expected level of beating here. Kroffat was especially nasty throwing knuckle punches like he was trying to open up his eyebrow, Furnas also bends him in two with a variation of a torture rack, which really looked like a guy being tortured. Lots of cool cut offs in this, Kikuchi flies into Furnas when he was about to leap into a rana, Kikuchi grabs Kobashi so he won’t get double team, only to pay the price when Kroffat lariats him off the apron. Video blips out a couple of times so we miss a shot or two, but we are still totally blessed to be able to check this out, and all four guys are at their prime.

Satanico/Rey Bucanero/Ultimo Guerrero vs. Villano IV/Villano V/Atlantis Tijuana 2001

ER: This was from a real hot time in TJ, tons of big talent was coming through fresh off the demise of WCW, and more talent was coming in from CMLL than any time since. This was also around the time me and some friends made some trips down there to finally check out Auditorio Municipal de Tijuana. I got to see some cool things there, and now Roy Lucier is posting a ton of handhelds that not many others have ever seen. This is a great house show style match with some great bits, spirited performances from everyone, and a nice build to a big dive finish. Satanico was an absolute machine in his early 50s, punching everyone in sight, working as ringleader of his Infernales goons, and throwing in a genuinely hilarious spot where Atlantis gets him to flinch and take two fast back bumps in anticipation of getting hit. All of the comedy worked, and there was a really good Bugs Bunny Duck Season/Rabbit Season joke where guys kept turning over sunset flips to favor their side, so the tecnicos flipped it on them and made Infernales flip their own man over, a really fun take on an old spot. Later I laughed when Atlantis started chasing UG around the ring and UG was running full speed but also Atlantis threw out practically a dozen tilt a whirl backbreakers (I know he's slower now, but I have no clue how he has any knees left at all) and worked with big energy; both Villanos looked good, and one in particular (I'm not going to bother to guess which one, as there's no way I'm reading a roman numeral IV or V on a handheld that I'm watching on my phone) has this awesome sequence where he hits a pop up rana, armdrag, and sticks the exclamation point with a cool cutter. All of Infernales alley oop avalanches got real good height, and I laughed at Bucanero/Guerrero locking on their overly complicated rolling leg bars and armbars, because everytime they would roll through Satanico would stroll over and just grab a free limb and start yanking. This was also during the period where Bucanero was maybe the biggest bumper in wrestling, and here he slides to the floor to challenge a Villano to slugfest, then brings it to the apron and takes his big vaulting bump over the turnbuckles to the floor. This all comes to a head with both Villanos hitting stereo dives, capping off the kind of fun and charismatic 15 minute match that anyone would love to have seen live.

MD: This was a blast. The New Infernales were one of the best acts in the world at the turn of the century. Satanico is probably the best guy in history at directing rudo violence. Atlantis was at the height of his power here and the Villanos were Villanos, nothing more said. The initial beatdown was fluid and solid, with everything the Infernales did smooth and practiced. They made each bit of complex tandem offense look natural, like it's obviously what would happen if these three goons teamed up. Even when something didn't quite work perfectly, it still felt like it fit into the match. I really liked the corner alley-oop. I've seen a million GdI matches and they very rarely use it. It made for a great transition. The back half of the match was mostly them feeding comedy spots for the tecnicos. You can hardly imagine Ultimo Guerrero running from Atlantis like that even a year or two later. His knee-bump over the top was at hyperspeed and Bucanero did this twisting trip flip bump over the other turnbuckle which I don't remember seeing him do too often (probably for good reason). I liked the extra (post-)post-dive wrinkle to the finish as I thought it'd end in the ring between Atlantis and Satanico. Just crowd pleasing lucha with some of the best acts in the world at the time.

PAS: This was a very CMLL trios for 2000 Tijuana. Pretty trippy to see these guys work in a different environment. Infernales were just such a smooth lucha machine, the first fall is rudo dominated and dominated in a pretty perfect fashion. Bucanero and UG's shtick eventually began to tire me in 2000, but I can really appreciate it looking back 20 years later. It was fun to see the Villanos who are such master rudos themselves work as technicos against another rudo force. Atlantis is great in this too, he was so fast and agile back then, and having watched him for so long, I was really getting a lot of joy anticipating where he was about to go. Beautiful bumps to the floor from Gdl, in a way that felt totally safe but looked totally dangerous which is really the best way to do it. Great stuff, had a grin on my face the entire time.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bradshaw and Barry: To Blackjacks And Beyond

Blackjack Bradshaw vs. Philip Lafon WWF Shotgun Saturday Night 6/7/97

ER: Lafon only worked 3 singles matches during his WWF run, which is weird considering he was there for over a year. He worked a house show match against Owen in Quebec (that I would love to see), a house show match against Phineas Godwinn (that I would love to see), and this match, the lone televised singles match of his WWF run. And it's kind of a lackadaisical affair for Philip, but not really to the match's detriment. Some of the set ups were a little too weirdly telegraphed and it always seemed like Lafon was the one doing it, but who knows. I really liked Bradshaw's aggression during his Blackjack run; he was clearly trying to work like Hansen, and he wasn't as good as Hansen (obviously not, but I'm saying he wasn't as good as same-era 48 year old Hansen), but he was really big and imposing and swung nicely for the fences. Lafon is a guy who can be a real assbeater, and I was hoping for that here, two guys who could work like bullies colliding. Lafon is half asleep and lethargic throughout, though still breaks out a couple cool tricks: He had a cool yank of the tights to send Bradshaw crashing to the floor, and a cool rabbit lariat right to the back of Bradshaw's head. But there were a couple moments where he visibly sandbagged Bradshaw, not getting up on a backdrop (that makes it cooler, as Bradshaw just pancakes him to the mat instead) and coming in lazy and heavy on the powerslam that finishes the match. He also took this weird timberrrrr bump off a big boot, looked like he was bored and trying to make Bradshaw look bad. Either Lafon and Furnas had a shooter aura, or Bradshaw had none of his later asshole personality and confidence, because any one of those things looked like something that any jobber would have caught a serious beating for pulling.

Bradshaw vs. Barry Windham WWF Raw 3/23/98

ER: THE BLACKJACKS EXPLODE!! WWF bringing back the NWA for a few months in early '98 was really weird, and I'm pretty sure I remember reading that it was all just to make fun of Cornette. We get a pretty cool mini video package before this match, something they don't do now as interestingly as they did here, and definitely not as efficiently. Within a 20 second video they had already explained why the Blackjacks broke up, how Barry was jealous of Bradshaw, showed several clips of Bradshaw murdering people, Bradshaw chasing Barry up the ramp after interference, and then we cut back to a smug blonde Windham in the ring. They had me at hello. This feels like a match that would have fit nicely onto the WM14 card, though I get why it wasn't on the card. Windham seems pretty broken down by this point, which is weird as he was somewhat resurgent not too much later in WCW. Still, this was 3 fun minutes with a dozen different moments of two giant dudes smacking each other with vests and chaps. Seriously, I'm pretty sure half of this match was them removing their respective vests and chaps, and smacking the other a few times with each removal. Take off a vest, smack your opponent with it. Get them chaps off, smack your opponent with them. It's the 2019 LA Park formula, 20 years prior. I dig it. Barry is moving a little slow and those knees seem to be barking, but he takes a couple of awesome bumps into the ring steps, getting run knees first in nasty fashion, eats a big boot from Bradshaw and falls into them again. Windham hits a cool DDT in the ring and we get a goofus roll up finish (damn, at least let one of these two hit their diving lariat), and for some reason we all collectively wonder why we never got these two working a cool surfer gimmick as Barry 'n' Brad.

Barry Windham vs. Erich Sbraccia NWA New England 9/20/98

ER: Here's a fun glimpse at Barry Windham - same age as my present age - wrestling an indy show in between his WWF and WCW stints. Erich Sbraccia was a Good 90s Indy Wrestler, coming out with goons like Tony Rumble and Knuckles Nelson, all of them looking exactly like Late 90s East Coast Indy Wrestlers. And man I wish this match went longer. It's only 7 minutes which is a shame, as they clearly had material to work longer, and the crowd was hot and reacting to Barry like it was 1993. Sbraccia throws some armdrags to surprise Windham, then slams him (looks like Barry came in expecting an armdrag so Sbraccia had to muscle him into a slam, which looked impressive). And of course then Barry comes back with the same and it's great seeing Windham throwing fast armdrags. I said Sbraccia was good, and he did a lot of basic things I like out of my guys: There's a fast rope run exchange where he really swings low and for the fences on a missed lariat, and he takes a really great backdrop bump; later he eats a couple nice punches from Windham and takes a wonderful pratfall bump onto the apron, his boot getting hung up on the top rope. Windham was really hustling too, taking a fast bump to the gym floor and landing with a thud, and really whipping off the ropes with his diving lariat. The finish is all mumbo jumbo run in from Knuckles, and it was annoying in that way you can tell a match is going home a minute before they arrive home. This delivered as a 7 minute match, but it really could have been a great match with 14 minutes. Both guys seemed game, but this was just about the end of Indy Windham. Indham.

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New Footage Friday: Kroffat, Kawada, Pat Roach, Ray Steele,

Magnum TA/Randy Savage vs. The Mongolians 11/24/83

PAS: This was more of a cock tease then a match worth watching. Clearly they have raw footage Omni shows (including the rest of this tourney, the finals was Butch Reed/Pez Whatley vs. Savage/TA which I am sure was better), which is exciting, but this was kind of a dud. The Mongolians brought nothing to the table outside of silly haircuts, they were a plodding forearm and punch team, who didn't have good looking forearms and punches. TA and Savage control early with headlocks and front face locks, and there was some interesting stuff there, including TA rolling through a front face lock into mount. We get a couple of dull sections of the Mongolians in control, a hot tag to Savage, who only hits a second rope elbow for the pin. All this really made me want to do is organize an Oceans 11 style heist of the WWE footage vault.

MD: I'm not going to spend ten sentences griping that we didn't get basically any other match on this card. Still, this was a waste. It's a great look at the potential of 1983 Magnum. I don't know who told him to rush across the ring and attack the Mongol on the apron but he owed whoever it was a beer. The crowd loved that and therefore the crowd loved him. He came off like a star with an abandon that completely overshadowed Savage. Randy's best moment was realizing the incompetent Mongol tossed him into his own corner during a short FIP segment and bumping his way back to the center of the ring. This was the first match of the tournament and was paced as such: headlocks during the shine, a couple of hot tags without the time put in to earn heat, amorphous clubbering heel offense. Really it was enough to make me want to see Magnum/Savage vs the Bruise Brothers or Whatley/Reed from the same show but that's about it. This did what it was supposed to do but it wasn't supposed to do much.

Ray Steele vs. Pat Roach WOS 4/87

ER: I'm hardly familiar with these two, but I like Roach on sight as he's in his 50s, burly, and looks like a British version of Randall "Tex" Cobb. He also is the guy who boxed his way into a propeller blade death in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I wager you've seen him in far more movies than you've seen him in wrestling matches, so I'm happy this showed up. And it was a nice, satisfying, minimalist match with a lot of attention paid to simple bodyslams and wristlocks and the way it built to one big running forearm felt like this was happening in World of Muga. Roach has a few different cool neck bridges and I love how he weaponized a snapmare by turning it into more of a throw than a takedown. I don't believe I've seen it done or taken that way before. Steel was good at wrist control and grinding Roach down with a couple knees dug into the back and I loved how much of a big deal the bodyslams turned into. Roach started hitting release slams on Steele and each one kept him down for just a little longer, no pinfalls, just letting that slam soak into the bone. By the time we got to the ending running forearm (which looked like it shook Steele right out of the sky) it felt huge. Classic Muga mixed with World of Sport, meaning there was a backslide, a few bodyslams, a couple uppercuts, a forearm, a couple snapmares, and approximately 35 somersaults, and it was cool as hell.

PAS: This was a really good example of the power of simplicity when it looks good. Much of the first part of the match was based around working a top wristlock, but it was a great looking top wristlock and both guys had a bunch of small adjustments to make it look violent and impactful. I loved how size was used in the match, Roach is a lot bigger, and he menaced over Steele and had the slightest bit more sizzle on all of his shots. That running forearm was awesome looking, it looked like a KO blow and Steele sold it like he had his lights turned off. That is so much more effective then a dozen KO elbows or kicks which are shrugged off.

MD: There are a few other matches between Steele and Roach out there but I'm pretty sure this one hasn't shown up before. As it only goes a few rounds, it's a good starter match for anyone interested in British heavyweights, especially later era stuff (this is from 87). The atmosphere is everything that makes this style stand out: that "real sport" feel, the struggle for every hold, the shift between potential and kinetic energy where any increase in intensity might lead to a fall, the difficulty in switching momentum once someone gains an advantage. Everything is earned, but once something is gained, it's worth every bit of that effort. And despite all that, just like life, it can all end in a moment (in this case, by the means of a killer forearm). We don't review nearly enough of this stuff here. There are far worse things we could do than a C+A Pat Roach.

Dan Kroffat vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 4/2/92

PAS: I really loved this, Kroffat jumps Kawada during the streamers and low blows him early, for the rest of the match we get pissed off Kawada and Kroffat fighting for his life. Kawada really lays in the kicks to the face in this match trying to kick Kroffat's eyeball to the back of his head, Kroffat to his credit doesn't get eaten up, but keeps firing back, including landing a big wheel kick and a molar loosening superkick. Kawada actually works over the leg during the last part of this match, which isn't something I remember him doing. He does it in a very Kawada way, with these brutal leg sweeps which look like he is recklessly trying to tear Kroffat's MCL, ACL, all the CL's. The finish was awesome as he slaps on a nasty looking high angle single leg crab, and when Kroffat taps, Kawada just stomps out of the ring, like "Fuck this guy and this whole stupid wrestling thing."

ER: The way Phil described it I thought this would be a little more of a mauling, but I thought Kroffat had almost as many dickhead shots at Kawada as vice versa. But in Kawada's defense, Kroffat totally starts it. Kawada grabs his head and starts firing off those low kicks to the temple, and Kroffat responds by basically flopping to his back while sneaking in an upkick on Kawada's balls. He plays innocent but when Kawada gets up pissed, Kroffat knew what he did. Kroffat is pretty crafty throughout, and I always love how he hooks that crescent kick right around a guy's ear, but he sets up Kawada's stuff in nasty ways too, like crashing hard into Kawada knees on a senton attempt. And Kawada certainly is a beast, really looking already like prime Triple Crown level Kawada here, that confidence is there and he does punish Kroffat nicely. We've seen matches where Kroffat and Furnas eat guys up, so we know he's no pushover, but seeing Kawada tee off on him in the corner with whipping shins into Kroffat's head just feels like Kawada knows exactly what kind of wrestler he is. Kawada breaks out something I don't think I've ever seen from him (and I don't think I've seen done by anyone this well) as he hits this front legsweep on Kroffat, and not even a typical Inoki legsweep, more like a diving kick to Kroffat's knee and shin. And the finish is brutal as Kawada grabs a high single leg (think a Liontamer but with a half crab) and just starts stomping face until Kroffat is all "Dude, fucking FINE, I quit" and then Kawada just storms out like "Fucking GOOD just quit then". The fans filming this were clearly huge Kawada fans, as you can hear them the whole match giggling with glee at this awesome professional wrestler.

MD: This is the AJPW Kroffat I want. In a land where the heel/face divide is sort of murky and often underplayed, Kroffat's the heel that we hope for. It's not enough that he does one nasty, underhanded thing from the get go. He does three, utterly unleashing Kawada. It's still Kawada though, so this isn't some sort of firebrand vengeance. It's pinpoint precision. Kroffat knows what he did and tries to stay on top (small thing, but I really liked how he stops short on the headlock-shrug off, refusing to be whipped and just comes right back at Kawada again), but one caught kicked and the meanest shove down possible later and Kawada's totally honed in on the ankle. It's not enough that he kicks the leg out from under Kroffat a couple of times. Somehow he manages to specifically kick the ankle out. It's fairly back and forth from there, with Kawada trying to kill Kroffat and Kroffat more than holding his own, including some fairly cool stuff like Kroffat riding a back body drop reversal to a tiger-driver over into an armbar and the finish where Kawada stomps Kroffat's face off in order to lock in a vertical half crab. Great stuff. We're lucky this one got unearthed.

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New Footage Friday: Can-Ams, Kikuchi, Kobashi, Aoyagi, Kurisu, Steiners, Eaton, Enos

PAS: Pete from PWO drops another awesome batch of Handhelds including another Can-Ams vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi match, so despite the Network pooping out another turd, we get a great week of New Footage.

ER: Phil is an old crank, and let me say that for people of a certain age, Lex Luger slamming Yokozuna was a big deal. Preteen me loved seeing and hearing about all the different athletes from different sports, all wanting to slam Yoko. I loved that they got a tiny jockey to give it a shot, the whole thing made it seem to me that pro wrestling was a lot bigger deal than it actually was. I still remember how excited I was when Jim Duggan knocked Yoko off his feet in a match, and as we didn't have cable I actually went over to my grandparent's to watch the aircraft carrier showdown. I think a full upload of the Intrepid footage is something that would be extremely exciting to people who are currently age 31-37, and absolutely not interesting to anybody else. Phil's not wrong for being unexcited for uncut Intrepid footage, but it ain't for him.


Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas vs. Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi AJPW 6/1/91

PAS: This is a previously unseen precursor to their all time legendary match a year later. It doesn't reach the highs of the 1992 match (few matches ever really do), this had many of the elements that made that match so special. Kikuchi is an all time great face in peril, he takes huge bumps (the doomsday device DDT here is especially grotesque), gets his body bent in sick ways (both Can-Ams were trying to touch his heel to his head in Boston Crabs) and times his moments of hope and counters perfectly. Kobashi is a tremendous hot tag too, he has such a variety of big and great looking offense, and while I have sometimes found that tiring in singles matches, it is great in a tag format. Can-Ams have some really impressive tag offense, Furnas may not have been a complete wrestler, but man was he an athletic marvel, and when he starts throwing those monster dropkicks and ranas it is something special. The final set of near falls in this match really had the crowd rocking, and only the ref blowing the finish and counting three, when it clearly was two, keeps this from that rarefied air of top AJPW matches. Still what a discovery to unearth

ER: What a spectacular discovery, maybe the most fun tag match to get unearthed in the last year, four super creative guys all flourishing, really feels like these guys have enough material to work 45 without the match ever seeming long. From the beginning Kroffat is working the match with an immediacy that makes it feel like the match is going to be an under 10 minute burner, but they keep that energy up for 20 minutes. As I was watching this I kept thinking "Man I'm really impressed with Kroffat in this match..." then a second later "Man I'm really impressed with Kobashi in this..." and then "Man I'm really impressed with Kikuchi in this..." Sometimes when watching a match I'll be internally ranking who I think is having the best performance in a match, just automatically. And this match had me flipping out because everyone was in the running for best in the match. Kobashi is a guy we've all seen enough of at this point, but seeing him as the fired up hot tag protecting his buddy is reinvigorating, and it was a kick watching him toss off big Saito suplexes and unhinged lariats (one sees him spill into Kroffat's legs right after landing it and following through). Kroffat and Furnas were insane athletes, and here Kroffat is moving as quickly as I've ever seen him, all of his chops and strikes have this fast snap, and all of his cool kick combinations landed with precision. Kroffat threw one big crescent kick that landed fresh right across Kikuchi's chin, landed hard on a senton, was always where energy was needed. Furnas - as Phil noted - is not really a complete wrestler, but is a super fun wrestler in this setting. He has world famous power, and it's so cool to see his deadlift throws, and in a great spot he caught a Kikuchi crossbody and shifted his weight enough to show he had caught him, and then quickly planted him with a belly to belly.

Kikuchi was at his best here, at his most fighting spirit, able to crack you with an elbow and almost steal pinfall victories the whole time, and catching a mean beating from the Can Ams. His timing is always so good about going for roll-ups that you always buy them as possible match enders. We built to a lot of great saves and some big moments, the fans really getting understandably whipped up. I have no actual idea how Kikuchi survived the top rope DDT, it looked like a move where we should have been saying "Oh whoa footage of Kikuchi's final wrestling match finally got found", but both teams were just so good with saves and building nearfalls that Kikuchi just must have used the adrenaline from having not just died to ramp up his performance even more. The finish, clearly, is a damn shame. I'm sure the match was ending shortly anyway, but man what a shame. Wada calls for the bell on a pin that clearly gets saved by a diving Kobashi, and then it's one of those awkward situations where there's a language barrier and everybody keeps wrestling. What a bummer of a momentum killer to a match that still manages to be a straight classic. This match is right around the top of the best handhelds we've seen uncovered in the last year. A real find.

MD: What a find. The match we have between them is one of the best AJPW tags of the 90s. I personally like it more than some that are more touted. A lot of that has to do with Kroffat's oozing character and near memphis-esque grounding of things.

Botched finish aside, this was a blast. Obviously, I wish we had it pro-shot because Kikuchi's expressions and Kroffat's swagger were two of my favorite things about the match we had, but we're just lucky to have it at all.

There are a bunch of highlights, but what stood out the most were Kroffat and Kobashi going at it full intensity to begin. It's one of the best opening exchanges to a tag match you'll ever see. Add in a loose narrative of the Can-Ams taking more than not, with multiple fairly hot tags and an incredibly hot finishing stretch with believable kick outs underpinned a bunch of 2-count partner break-ups and even the botched finish really can't take this down too many notches. 


Masashi Aoyagi vs. Masanobu Kurisu NJPW 9/21/91

PAS: This is the second Kurisu vs. Aoyagi match unearthed from Pete's treasure trove of HH's. I thought their February 91 match was kind of a puro indy scum version of Necro Butcher vs. Samoa Joe, this was kind of like the later IWA-MS rematch, still great, still violent as hell, but lacking some of that kinetic energy. They actually start by feeling each other out a bit, before it breaks down. Kurisu lays in some of his trademark off putting stomps and headbutts, and he really crushes Aoyagi with some of his side of the chair shots. Finish has Aoyagi ripping off his gi, and throwing a bunch of big spin kicks until he lays Kurisu out for good. It never totally broke out into a riot, which is what you want from platonic ideal of this match, but I certainly enjoyed it and was jazzed that it showed up.

MD: I liked this as a second Kurisu vs Aoyagi datapoint. I'd only seen the first match in the run-up to watching this, but that was immediately iconic, both in the Aoyagi mad rush to begin and in the virtual stabbing Kurisu gives him with the chair. Still, that match was like lightning and it always interesting to see if it can strike twice.

This was fairly validating in that regard. While it may not have had the same level of raw violence as the first one, there were some different elements I enjoyed. I liked how Aoyagi started far more gingerly and carefully. It didn't help him but it added some variation and a sense of strategy. Kurisu was still the same descending fog of chaos. He chokes people as well and as believably as anyone I've ever seen. When Aoyagi would sell not having any wind, you more or less believed it as legit.

What I liked best was the comeback though. The spin-kick out of nowhere in order to counter a brutal beating was La Fiera/Sangre Chicana level of great. It was just one of those moments that really and feels like pure payoff, especially, in this case, because I wasn't expecting it after the last match. 

ER: Love that this showed up, anything to add to our pile of both Kurisu and Aoyagi, and even better when it's against each other. Here we get a glimpse of evil goatee Kurisu and he takes nothing but hard kicks in the early parts, enough that I don't know how he's going to make it back into the match. But oh, right, it's Kurisu, so he finally catches a baseball bat kick to the chest and loads up one of the greatest headbutts you've seen. The kind that's so hard that he has such heat on his forehead afterwards that he keeps checking it, positive that he's cut himself open. And then we get to the real plain leveler of Kurisu, when he grabs a chair from ringside. Kurisu - much like Necro Butcher after him - is a true artiste with a folding chair. Necro's specialty was his precise aim in chair throwing, Kurisu's is in the fine art of landing a chair into the side of someone's neck. He does this, several times, and you can tell when Kurisu is pulling his chair shots, and he's someone with a great worked chair shot. Some benevolent soul needs to bring us an LA Park vs. Kurisu Chairman of Wrestling match. There were a dozen worse vanity matches at the most recent Mania Weekend shows, surely someone recognizes what a draw Park will be, and what an...additional expense Kurisu would be? Kurisu kills Aoyagi with chair shots, including a masterpiece with him leaping off the ropes. Once his chair is taken away he just goes on to stomping neck. I really dug Aoyagi's gi removal as a Hulk up/Lawler strap move, and his standing spinning heel kicks were great. Kurisu was super smart about selling them, as you can tell one was supposed to be the finish but Aoyagi kicked low and swung into Kurisu's arm, so Kurisu just got up and let Aoyagi spinkick him in the head again, so the finish looks better. Awesome.


Steiner Brothers vs. Mike Enos/Bobby Eaton NJPW 2/16/94

MD: It's a joy to get to see Eaton do his thing like this. For 94 Eaton, there was an extra bit of oomph to it all, including a big bump over the guard rail off an apron dive by Rick and a near tragic attempt at letting Rick reverse a Doomsday Device into a belly to belly.

It's the nuts and bolts stuff that stand out. Enos is a little flashier but past his opening handshake with Scott, every single thing that Eaton does has meaning and serves the purpose to get the Steiners over as faces. It's perfectly distilled tag team wrestling which is somehow more enjoyable for the setting.

Otherwise, this is pretty much everything you'd want out of 94 Steiners in a 10 minute match. Scott has his matwork shine (including a nasty STF). They do a big, perfectly timed spot with Rick plowing through everyone. Rick's a wrecking ball. Scott's a machine. Enos and Eaton are the foils who can take their stuff and grind them down for the last comeback. Past the crazy botch (which the crowd loved because of Enos' unwitting posturing after the fact, so it more or less worked anyway), this was spot on for what it ought to have been.

PAS: Puro Bobby Eaton is the best, he had a couple of tours of New Japan (including a tag run with our boy Tony Halme, which is true dream match material). He has a bunch of experience working with the Steiners and there are bunch of fun moments, I especially loved the early amateur scrambles with Scott, which he breaks up with one of his classic uppercuts. Nothing I love more then Rick Steiner clotheslines and he has some great ones here, including a great one off the apron which sends Eaton into the front row. I liked Enos trying (and failing) to match Rick suplex to suplex. I didn't mind the doomsday device counter, it wasn't cleanly hit but it looked devastating.

ER: This is really fun, and for a show that wasn't taped these guys all take some nice spills. Eaton takes a hard Scott lariat over the top to the floor, then moments later takes a big bump into the crowd on a lariat. Enos goes toe to toe with the Steiners and keeps getting shown up in amusing fashion, challenging Rick with a huge powerslam and getting upended by one moments later, trying to get underhooks on Rick, who easily adjusts and hurls him with a belly to belly, Enos tries to muscle Scott into a top wristlock and Scott flips both Enos and Eaton. Enos' meathead charisma really helps this in unexpected ways. It's a neat combo and we've seen a few Eaton/Arn tags against the Steiners, but Eaton with Enos is like a more fun version of Eaton and Kenny Kaos. The Doomsday Device belly to belly suplex counter is just a nutso spot to even attempt, that you can't really criticize for not working out (since nobody got killed). A few years ago a friend criticized Rick Rude for not hitting a clean kneedrop in the Piper/Rude cage match, but it's a freaking kneedrop off the top of a cage! To hit it cleanly would have meant certain death for Piper. The move was crazy to try, but Enos gets some laughs by prematurely celebrating, which turned the spot into a dangerous - but saved - stooge spot instead of a botched dangerous spot. Awesome stuff, great action for a match that wasn't taped.

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New Footage Friday: UFC vs. Memphis, Blackhearts, Can-Ams

Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Ricky Steamboat vs. Big Van Vader/Animal Hamaguchi/Bam Bam Bigelow NJPW 10/11/90

MD: We went with this because it had Vader in it so it was timely. It's not the best showcase match for him, though. There's some exciting brawling with Choshu to begin but this one is really much more about Bigelow, Steamboat, and Choshu. Vader and Hashimoto just aren't in the ring as much. I love Bigelow from this era. Vader may have been more willing to ham it up with crowd interactions than he would be later, but Bigelow takes it a step further. He does a flip bump on a Choshu clothesline. How great is that?

Steamboat really is the X-Factor here, though. He's as Steamboat-y as it gets, providing the heart of his match with his selling, allowing for a stretch of heat that you'd never get in a match like this without him, but also realizing he's in Japan and being double tough in his attempts to fight back and way, way over the top in his offensive bursts. There's this clothesline duck-jumping kick to the head-karate pose that he does against Bigelow that is the most flawless bit of pro wrestling imaginable Post-match angle goes on forever but Hamaguchi makes it worth it with his unexpected charisma. I imagine most people would be glad to watch this.

ER: I've not actually seen any Steamboat/Vader matches in WCW, but I don't think they matched up that often and I certainly didn't realize they had matched up before WCW. But I don't seek out a lot of Steamboat, so this is not something I likely would have known. I am definitely low vote on Steamboat, and didn't think he looked good here, but it worked because everyone treated him like Kikuchi in the classic AJPW six mans. He was nowhere near as good as Kikuchi here, but his light chops and almost connecting dropkicks made him the easy choice to isolate from the group. At one point Bigelow is throwing nice right hooks and has to remind himself to acknowledge Steamboat's little chops. Bigelow had a really great performance and never tried to out-monster Vader, who looked like an outright monster. Hamiguchi would tag in and work like an actual animal let out of a cage. This heel team probably only teamed up on this show, but man that is a winning trio. Bigelow was there for big man bumps (even taking this great banana peel bump onto the apron after the pinfall), Vader looked gargantuan and completely unstoppable, and I loved Hash and Riki as the guys running in to save little Ricky. Bigelow and Vader are a fun team and I loved them using their fat, like Bigelow holding onto Steamboat in the corner while Vader just squished him in a fat sandwich. We didn't get a ton of Hash, but he made his presence felt with a squarely planted DDT, and not many people are better than Choshu at tagging in and blasting folks with a hot tag lariats. I also loved Hamaguchi hugging it out with Choshu after the match. "Hey, no hard feelings, I just teamed with who they told me to" leading to Bigelow and Vader immediately calling him out on his bullshit. "We were still here dude. We saw you."

PAS: I thought this was great and mainly great because Steamboat was spectacular in it. I thought he was a great face in peril, he is an all-time great seller, and I loved how he kept fighting back during the beatdown section, he gets pounded by Bigelow or Vader, but he always fires back with a chop. I loved the section where Bigelow and Steamboat kept exchanging and each shot was faster and harder until they were just unloading on each other. That is a matchup I can't remember seeing before, and I feel like they would have had an all time singles match. The Vader vs. Hash sections were awesome, although it was more of a taste then a meal, but man is that an all time battle of badasses. The finish run was great, with every body running in a throwing big shots ending with a classic Choshu lariat.


Can Am Express vs. The Blackhearts AJPW 9/4/91

MD: This got a lot of time and was big and dumb. Kroffat is one of my favorite AJPW 90s guys because he is a hugely natural de facto heel in a place where you don't always get that. Here, though, the Can-Ams were playing de facto babyface, and they don't hold up as well. Furnas is a solid muscleman hot tag in that role, but Kroffat, even with some flashy flourishes, was playing against type.

The Blackhearts deal is that they have a great entrance in the dark, will bump big, and have so, so many ridiculous tandem double teams, none of which actually look good. The sum of it all gives them an A for effort but this was far more fun than good.

PAS: This was an amusing big dumb heavyweight tag spotfest. It was more Eliminators then Steiners, but it was some big dudes with ideas. Some of them looked bad (the Blackhearts double bulldog was conceptually interesting, but looked dumb), some of them looked cool ( the assisted face buster by the Can-Ams was nifty) but they were all kind of thrown out there without a ton of substance. Still I enjoyed large parts of this in a turn off your brain off kind of way. I could see an ECW video montage of this match set to an Alice in Chains song being pretty cool.

Dustin Starr/Din Thomas vs. Derrick King/Matt Serra 6/15/18

PAS: This was a match in the long storied southern tradition of the sold show money mark tag match. Instead of opposing high school football coaches, we have two ex-UFC guys Thomas and Serra working with old Memphis hands Dustin Starr and Derrick King. This was part of Dana White's Looking for a Fight travel show. Starr and Thomas work heel and Dana White and Jerry Lawler are at ringside along with Starr's valet. Fun shticky match, with King and Starr having really great punches and Thomas and Serra doing some nice amateur rolling. The stuff with the UFC guys against the Memphis guys was a little awkward (Thomas looks like he might have gotten knocked silly by Starr's axehandle), but I am always going to enjoy this kind of match.

MD: Well, this was something. The best thing about this was the fact it felt so Memphis. Really, the first twenty odd minutes or so (out of 27) were pure Memphis. Calhoun was ref. Lawler switched the sides and big timed Dana. Starr is pure throwback, not the Brian Christopher we want, but probably the Brian Christopher we deserve in 2018. There was stalling, jawing, strutting, pretty good punches and over the top selling. The next best thing was Serra and Thomas sparring, with Serra throwing Thomas all over the place. And the last best? Probably Dana White's shit-eating grin as he watched Starr stooge all over the ring.

It all fell apart in the last few minutes with Serra and Dana spending the entire run-up to the hot tag just talking to each other casually as King struggled his way to the corner. That was pretty much the worst hot tag in wrestling history. There was maybe one too many bits of White getting involved with Maria post-match but ultimately this was fine. I was curious how they were going to protect the UFC guys, especially when they were in with the wrestlers and that all worked pretty well. Serra bullied Starr. Despite Serra having the cartwheel, Thomas was the one who seemed more natural for wrestling. He was having a blast, even relishing a bodyslam. And it all ended with a reminder that everyone should spend some cash on Jerry's food. It's the most Memphis thing I've seen out of Memphis in a while

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Do Your Best To Present Yourself to Yoshiaki Fujiwara as a Work With No Need to Be Ashamed Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Satoru Sayama Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is worked more like a Fujiwara v. Karate guy mixed match, which is always a fun match up. Sayama was basically all tubby spin kicks. Fujiwara was awesome in aggressively taking Sayama down, basically Sayama would throw big kicks and Fujiwara would absorb or dodge the kicks until he could grab a single or double leg and drag Sayama down into a submission. Sayama would drag himself to the ropes and get stood up and we would restart. The match came down to whether Fujiwara could tap him before Sayama knocked him out. The finish was a super brutal ankle pick which felt like a finish. Sayama was a little tubby and rusty, and the match needed a more dramatic ending to put it up there with their classics against each other, but it was a fine addition to the canon.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Dan Kroffat vs. Mitsuya Nagai/Masahito Kakihara AJPW 12/6/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is a JIP match from the All Japan tag league, we get about 7 minutes of a 12 minute match. Really fun Fujiwara performance as one might expect. Early part of the match Fujiwara works almost like a heel manager, cheap shotting Nagai and Kakihara from the outside, including doing a figure four on the ringpost while Kroffat distracted the ref. Finish run was pretty great as both Nagai and Kakihara try to KO Fujiwara with kicks, and no one is better at selling and countering big then Fujiwara. Finish was a Fujiwara classic as he caught a Nagai kick and turned it into a leg catch armbar for the tap.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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1992 Match of the Year

Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat AJPW 5/25/92

PAS: This is a match with four great individual performances from the wrestlers, where the star of the match is the crowd. The match was for the All-Asia titles and was held in Kikuchi's home town and the atmosphere felt more like a NBA Finals Game 7 then any wrestling match I can remember. When Kobashi is teasing his moonsault they reacted like Oracle fans on a pull-up Steph Curry 3. This match had been legendary for the JIP version which was around for ever, when that match started Kikuchi was already being worked over. The added stuff with the uncut version was pretty great, I loved Kroffat's dickish jab, and Kikuchi firing back with big elbow smashes. The beatdown on Kikuchi was really nasty, taking that press slam bump to the floor, and then getting chucked into a table, gross big bumps especially for 1992. Kikuchi really got bent backwards with the boston crabs, and stretches it wasn't a thing where he looked super flexible, more like it was actually going to crack a vertebrae. This match also had some awesome timing on saves, Furnas hits a big frankenstiner on Kobashi and Kikuchi just hurls himself from the top rope with a crazy headbutt right at 2 and 9/10ths. I do think that Kikuchi should have gotten the pin, the moonsault was a huge move and beautifully done, but this felt like Kikuchi's night and he should have been the one standing tall.

ER: I don't think I've ever seen the complete version before this, and I loved the things it added, particularly Kikuchi levelling Kroffat with elbows and pummeling him to the mat. The crowd was so wonderful throughout, I got goosebumps three different times. These people were plugged right into Kobashi and Kikuchi, their victory that important. I thought Kroffat and Furnas put up an excellent heel performance, without overtly acting like heels. They weren't rubbing anything in, they weren't taunting the crowd or K&K, just coldly, violently and precisely snapping off moves. Kroffat's rolling snap suplexes were so vicious that while Kikuchi is an expert salesman I fully buy his "where the hell AM I?" face after Kobashi makes the save. Everything had such thud and machine like efficiency, Furnas muscling up a press slam, brutal doomsday lariats, Kroffat thrust kicking Kobashi in the chin, shoot Kroffat even outchopped Kobashi with some absolutely cutting short quick right chops. The crowd never gives up on K&K and watching/hearing them live and die with every pinfall is exhilarating. The saves were expertly handled, Kikuchi outlasts Kroffat as by the last couple minutes Kroffat looks totally gassed, heavy legged, and here's this little guy who has taken everything they can dish out, mustering enough strength to bury his shoulder in Furnas to prevent the save. Inspiring, classic.

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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An Overflow of Good Converts to Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Keichi Yamada NJ 9/23/87 - EPIC

Real hidden gem from your random bad VQ HH Japanese webpage source. Great story with Yamada as this aggressive little bulldog who was never going to stop coming forward. Fujiwara was countering his attacks, but he could never slow him down. It reminded me of a Clay Guida UFC fight. Yamada didn't have the teqnuqie, but he was going to overwhelm him with pace. I never thought of Yamada as much of a mat wrestler, but he was super fast and impressive in the early exchanges. Fujiwara was totally spectacular here too, taunting Yamada when he would come in recklessly, smacking him with slaps and countering his moves. He also did a great job selling fatigue as you could tell he was frustrated with inability to put this little fucker away. Finish was awesome with Fujiwara countering desperation shot after desperation shot with the Fujiwara armbar, but Yamada would survive, get to the ropes, and charge right back ahead. Until finally Fujiwara trapped both arms and ended it. Too bad this only exists as a tiny poor VQ avi file, as I could see this finishing pretty well on my NJ ballot.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Dan Severn NJ 8/2/96 - GREAT

Very cool power vs. guile match up. Severn really comes off like a monster here, throwing around Fujiwara with big time suplexes. This reminded of the kind of match ups Fujiwara would have with random Russians in PWFG, as he really worked an entertaining contest around Severns limitations. There were a couple of awesome looking Fujiwara counters, Severn shoots for a firemans carry and Fujiwara catches him in armbar using his legs. There is another move where Fujiwara counters a double leg with an mid air armbar while locking the legs as well. Totally beautiful move which I really bought as the finish. The end was just Severn throwing a bunch of overhead tosses, with Fujiwara finally being too weak to kick out. Felt like the finish run was a bit repetitive, but this was about as good a non Tarzan Goto match I have seen from Severn.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Dan Kroffat vs. Steve Williams/Mike Rotundo AJPW 11/19/00 - SKIPPABLE

Nothing much here, total squash with Williams and Rotundo jumping their opponents at the bell, hitting some big power moves on Fujiwara and pinning him after a top rope powerslam. The whole match was just over a minute. Under other circumstances, I would have been intrigued to see Fujiwara work the mat with Rotundo, but not here.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu vs. Ryuji Sai/Kohei Sato Zero-One 10/17/04 - SKIPPABLE

This was during the period where Z1 was running all cage match shows, so this for in a cage for no reason. Pretty much a nothing match, with a couple of decent exchanges from Sato and Fujiwara, but this felt perfunctory and Choshu finishes it rather quickly with a lariat.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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