New Footage Friday: David Von Erich, Race, Tor Kamata, Jumbo, Wahoo, Billy, Baba

Fritz Von Erich/David Von Erich vs. Harley Race Wrestling at the Chase 8/10/79

MD: This is a match that's been out there, but there's not a lot written about it, and it's nice to see it in context of an entire TV show. In fact, there's so little written about it that it's a bit hard to figure out what's going on. Obviously, this was all about getting David over. He was 21. According to the announcing, he'd already had a big draw with Race. The handicap gauntlet angle to it all seems a little weird because Fritz never makes it in, but that also plays with expectations. If I'm reading things correctly: there's more interest in the match because Fritz is potentially going to face off against Race. Everyone there had to expect Race to beat David so that they'd get to that point. It also allows for things to safely be non-title and protect Race. It makes him look big for taking the challenge and they can rationalize the finish by saying Race was looking past David to Fritz, etc.

The frustration of Race, as we've expressed before, is that everything he does looks so good. Every headbutt, gutwrench (not that he actually gets to hit it here), knee drop, underhanded shot. It all looks good. Race is a guy who consistently beat people with a vertical suplex in a time where that had started to become sort of rare and you believed it because everything looks great. He just gives up so much. Maybe it was his job to give up so much and maybe because his stuff looked so good, he had to hit less of it relatively, but you just want to see him beat the snot out of someone like David and obviously that's not happening. That's not to say David didn't look good and that some of his stuff, like those whole body stretch-overs to turn over Race's headlock into his own weren't really good and fairly unique, but I would have preferred Race take a little more of this, if only because I'm a bad human being at times when it comes to wrestling.

The finish was absolutely amazing. David catching Race off of the diving headbutt with the claw and Race bleeding all over the place. It was iconic. I realize they may have gone to that well again at some point, but it felt like the best thing that happened in wrestling in 1979. I would have 100% dropped money to see David get a title shot against Race. You would have too.

PAS:  I thought this was super impressive Race performance. David was as green as Kermit's dick, he honestly looked like a guy in one of his first couple of matches. Race totally made him look credible in multiple near falls, but also beat him good enough to really engender the crowd sympathy, there were some great looking headbutts and kneedrops. You can see why David was considered such a future star, although it feels very smoke and mirrors. I liked the idea of David insisting to go it alone, although it did rob us of Fritz vs. Race which would have been awesome. That finish was totally iconic, I love the idea of the iron claw as a total kill shot and Race leaking blood made it look like the most dangerous move in the world. What a perfect bit of business, and honestly I am shocked this isn't considered one of the great wrestling angles of the 70s and 80s, really shows how much of wrestling history is framed by availability.


Tor Kamata vs. Tiger Conway Jr. Texas Championship Wrestling 9/10/79

MD: Did you guys know that Tor Kamata was a play on Torquemada? I didn't. I've seen a decent amount of him lately as well due to the 1980 AJPW footage. He's pretty much what you'd expect, a slightly more mobile Abby with slightly less presence, able to whip out those jump kicks and at least an attempt at a dropkick, and to get off his feet on bumps a bit more. The constant bowing went from being irritating to serene as he went over the top with it (and as Conway went full on 70s kung fu in mocking it). Tiger, as we stated before, is a guy that we're lucky to have learned a lot more about through Houston footage. That means we can place a match like this into a more proper context instead of just seeing it as a one-off. He was a great regional star, and in this match he manages to play a ton of different roles: fiery and taking it to Kamata with brawling, working from underneath, comedically mocking him, picking up the pace and flying, working around ringside using whatever he could get his hands on. All that and a great connection to the crowd too. I don't think this was an amazing find relative to some of the other things we watch, but it feels like another piece of that Conway, Jr. puzzle.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, I am sucker for a guy with a good throat chop, and Kamata was a perfectly fine guy for Conway to do his thing around. Conway is a great fired up babyface and gets plenty of chances to fire himself up. I thought the finishes to all of the falls were super cool, the diving top rope tope by Conway to win the first fall, the super unexpected diving top rope throat thrust by Kamata (was not expecting that guy to go to the top) and the tope to the back of the head by Conway, into the crazy over the top bump for the DQ. Conway feels like one of the true great flyers of the 70s and early 80s and has been great every time we have seen him. This isn't a classic like the Valentine match, but it is a bunch of fun.


Giant Baba/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Billy Robinson/Wahoo McDaniel AJPW 10/17/80

MD: There are some things you learn almost instantly from this match. It's a crime there aren't a slew more Wahoo/Robinson matches out there. Wahoo/Baba is a more compelling pairing than you ever would have imagined: the dueling stylized chops are a thing of vicious beauty. In a match with Billy Robinson in it, it's Wahoo's nasty joint manipulation on Baba's hands that I'll remember six months from now. I've seen dozens of Jumbo/Baba matches by now, but Wahoo and Robinson really got the best out of them, highlighting two different types of intensity, with Baba grinding in and using his size and Jumbo bursting forth at high speed. Like I said before, Robinson and Wahoo worked so well together: the mauling of Baba's hand/arm was great, most especially Wahoo stepping on it so that it was outstretched for Billy to come off the second rope on it with a stomp. This was constant struggle with just enough over-the-top wrestling trappings to make it sizzle. Are any of the singles matches between Wahoo and Baba out there?

PAS:  This was a match that had some really fun parts with never getting out of first gear. Loved Wahoo vs. Baba, it felt a bit "greatest hits" for a matchup I hadn't seen before (cagematch has two singles which we can hope show up at some point), loved the chops to the hand, super nasty and a great way for a chopper to foil another chopper. Robinson always looks so smooth and he also really took chunks out of Baba's arm. I just wished this hummed a little more, it had great moments, but it just kind of finished without a big crescendo.

ER: There's a moment in this where Billy Robinson jumps off the middle rope onto Baba's wrist and Baba's weird long Nosferatu wrist sits there crooked in air and it's an incredible wrestling moment. Nothing else could have happened in this match, and I would have still been completely into it. We did get more of that, so that hypothetical was just a waste of your time, but goddamn that was a great spot. Robinson and Wahoo are a cool tag team who tagged a lot, that I haven't actually watched tag a lot. So seeing them work over Baba's wrist and punch him in his giant ribcage is something I wanted to see on a Friday night. I don't think I've see a Wahoo match where he he goes after a limb as aggressively as he and Billy go after Baba's weird long arm. This felt like more of a chillll house show match than a big classic tag with four huge stars, but every year, older and older I get, the more I really really like chill house show matches. There's a simple satisfaction watching big star minimalism, and it's a great end of work week bleary eyed view. Seeing Robinson snap Baba over with a headscissors just makes my week.

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New Footage Friday: Fishman, Black Cat, Fritz Von Erich, Kabuki, Hercules Ayala

PAS: Network put up a nearly complete Star Wars card from 1981 (Kerry vs. Race was out there before, and we took a pass on Killer Tim Brooks vs. Mil and a Battle Royal) so we decided to review a couple of the matches from that show and threw on a cool NJ HH to close out the week.

Kevin Von Erich/David Von Erich vs. Hercules Ayala/Ali Mustafa WCCW 2/21/81

MD: There was a lot to like here. I know David and Kevin had won some of the other tag belts in Dallas but this was their first time winning this one and it felt like a huge deal. Some of that was the setting. Some of that was the post-match celebration. A lot of it was the match itself though. They were a very good babyface pairing, with a lot of energy and just enough stuff between the double teams, the flying, and the claw. Ali was just a tremendous stooge, bumping, feeding, full of underhanded offense. I loved how he threw himself into dropkicks. Ayala brought the power and the size, more than doing his part. What really stood out was how often they went back to heat. I think the Von Erichs had ten comebacks here but between the size advantage and heel chicanery, they kept ending up fighting from underneath. It's not a well that's gone to all that often to begin with, but because they never took back over for long, it made for more of an escalation than any sort of stuttering and really got the crowd to build more and more for them as the match went on. As much as I tend to resent the Dallas crowd for their hero-worship, it's really hard to blame them given matches like this.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun. I loved the Von Erich's meathead charisma, they are great as big fired up country boys ready to fight. Kevin is a totally under rated flyer. He doesn't have the gracefulness of some, but he has a ton of power in his legs and really gets in the air on dropkicks and big elbows. Matt makes a great point about the structure, heels really controlled the match, and they were great at it, and the Von Erich's made a bunch of mini comebacks leading up to the big comeback which really blew up the crowd. Don't know much about Ali, but he was really great in this match, offensive looked nasty and he was a great foil, Ayala was a beast too, great press slam, and he had this moment where he came into break up a pin and just punched David right in the liver, a liver which was already working hard I imagine.

Fritz Von Erich vs. Kabuki WCCW 2/21/81

PAS: Kabuki is such a cool act, the weird penis nose mask, the spinning around, the face paint, the crazy bendy fingers, I am all in, wrestling needs more exotic weirdos. I am a fan of 80s old man walking tall matches, loved the Bill Watts stuff from Mid-South and any time Jackie Fargo or Eddie Marlin wrestled in Memphis. Fritz may be a garbage person, but he is pretty good at walking tall. Lots of Kabuki gesticulating and Fritz countering with a big punch. I loved the spot where Kabuki went for a nerve pinch under the arm, and Fritz countered with the claw. Gary Hart starts punching at Fritz's leg and a fan attacks Hart, have to love wrestling that can get drunks ready to jump barricades. Finish was kind of BS with David running in and beating up Kabuki, actually made Fritz look kind of weak. Still I dug this, although it is very in my wheelhouse.

MD: This was minimalist in the best ways. They knew what they were doing. Fritz came in first which both allowed Kabuki his elaborate pre-match rituals and let him sign about a hundred autographs for kids. About half the match was them looking for an opening an that made when either found an opening all the better. Listen to the heat for Kabuki's first real burst of offense. The crowd was irate because of the build for it. It kills me that we live in a world where the claw probably wouldn't work, because it's such an effective, visual tool that can be built towards throughout a match, that can be consistently countered or defended against, that can be the perfect instrument for a comeback. Fritz was the real deal here, absolutely genuine Americana. He was a gnarled old bastard who looks close to 73 than the 53 he was at this point. Kabuki was electric with his theatrics and Fritz' response, putting his finger to his head and spinning it to indicate in his slow, bigoted way that Kabuki was a crazy weirdo will be the image that sticks with me as much as anything else. The finish was definitely muddled. The idea was that Hart was interfering so thoroughly that David (who wanted revenge anyway) had to run in, but you had both a fan and Manning attacking Hart first which really muted the threat of him. I get that they had to protect Kabuki and Fritz but the sequence felt overstretched and neither of them or David ended up looking good.

ER: I love it! Fully agree with Phil about old guy Walking Tall matches. I would wager a substantial amount that I was the high vote on the Eddie Marlin/Tommy Gilbert Memphis match (and also bet that Phil was the 2nd highest vote) and I assume if you've read much of anything I've written you would know that I have a general fondness for old guys wrestling. That juxtaposition between an incredibly tough man, who is now also very vulnerable due to humans' peculiar habit of eventually dying. Fritz was in his 50s here but looked large, and powerful; a vast aging physique that still flashed plenty of muscle. The man looked like someone who could still muscle around cattle. And what a sight it is to see the ringside area swarm with children and adults alike, all trying to get their programs signed by a man they would later grow to not respect. And we get a simple yet effectively hot kick and punch match with Fritz lifting heavy legs into Kabuki's gut, and throwing punches that....well, realistically I could watch an old cowboy punch another old cowboy like that for 20 minutes and have it be one of my favorite matches of all time. See, our 1976 MOTY. Kabuki grounds him and bites at his throat, Fritz reverses to a stomach claw from his back, and we all know how silly the stomach claw was but it somehow never looks silly in the least when Fritz is applying it. Hart attacks Fritz's leg when they're in the ropes and a drunk fan charges in to save Fritz. It is a fact that any spectacle that can inspire a drunk man to play hero, is almost always going to be great. This is not a man who runs onto a baseball field or charges the Nitro ring or makes jack off motions behind a live on the scene news reporter. Those people are in it for the fleeting fame. This man is not Soy Bomb. This man was so incensed watching his legend get treated unfairly, that he felt it necessary to step in and show Fritz he was NOT ALONE. This man was so wrapped up in the drama that was professional wrestling and the Von Erichs, that he - in that moment - felt that HE was the solution. In that moment he was the guy thwarting an armed robbery. And that's a level of performance that most performers will never achieve. David Manning annoyingly gets the biggest babyface spot of the match when he punts Hart from the apron, Kabuki throws great uppercuts but gets pinned by a backdrop, DVE is somehow a babyface for beating down a man just so his dad can pin him....but I don't care, because this was 10 great minutes of pro wrestling.

Fishman/Black Cat vs. The Cobra/Shiro Koshinaka 10/6/85

ER: This was a fun low stakes tag, making me want to seek out more and more Black Cat. He was so cool here at dickish little things, yanking Koshinaka out of a pinfall by his hair, swiping at Cobra from the apron when he ran the ropes too close to their corner, nice aggression; he really did little things you don't typically see in juniors matches. Koshinaka was also a pleasant surprise. He has been wrestling for more years than I've been alive, and it was neat seeing him even younger (he showed up a lot on the NJPW 80s set, but mostly from '87-'88, nothing this early). He was on the good guys team here but showed plenty of spunk, slapping both heels around (especially taking it to Fishman), landing a heavy plancha on Fishman, good punk charisma. Fishman we recently saw in an unearthed 1998 match against Santo, a real treat of a match that made me curious to see more of him. Here he was mostly feeding Koshinaka, but he throws meaty chops, bumps hard for dropkicks, takes a squirrelly backdrop bump on his shoulders, and throws a killer back elbow. Takano lightens up on some things, but gets crushed by a Black Cat lariat (after landing on his feet after a flip, the best) and throws some cool armdrags, rolling across Cat's back to do so. The match ending sunset flip is reckless but smooth. Nothing blowaway, but a really fun match.

PAS: Fishman is a truly legendary lucha libre figure, and I have never gotten it. He worked the Monterey show I did commentary on years ago and was the worst guy on the card. He was old then (although old luchadors normally rule) so I am always looking forward to catching glances at him during his prime and trying to figure it out. This match doesn’t do it though, he seems like a replacement level tecnico and feels like the least interesting guy in this match. Black Cat is one of those guys who was around NJPW forever, but man is he great, he feels like a great regional rudo, like Toro Bill or Arandu, a guy you know had dozens of classics which never showed up on tape, but just radiates professional asskicker. He had an awesome journeyman career, starting out as a Villano IV tag partner in UWA, worked as a trainer and ref in New Japan for years, had a weird AAA run as a Gringo Loco and even had a WCW Worldwide match against Chris Adams. Nothing spectacular in his performance in this match, but impossible not to enjoy him.

MD: I'm glad I'm on the same page with Phil and Eric here re: Black Cat. This was a great showcase for him. All of his stuff looked mean including these little bursts of bullying chain wrestling, and he based perfectly for his opponents. The rope running sequence with Cobra definitely stood out: he threw himself into the arm drags and they managed some fairly complex fakeouts before ending with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. I wasn't quite so high on Fishman. There's something very iconic about him as an entity but to me, here was just there in this one, effective but forgettable. I do think we have more Black Cat in this footage and we should poke around to see what we can find.

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