Found Footage Friday: OMNI 83~!

GCW Omni 8/28/83

ER: I'm so glad they included the opening promo package for this show, it's so good. Tommy Rich called Bill Irwin "Jack" (the greatest promo guys in history knew to call their opponents Jack), Mad Dog Sawyer has the greatest pro wrestling body imaginable, and the Brisco Brothers cut an honest to god excellent promo on the Roadies. Gerry is a bit rigid but he keeps calling their match a Texas Tarnado Match and talks about how they wrestle tarnadoes in the Great State of Oklahoma every day, but Jack is the real killer. I am not a big Jack Brisco guy. He is one of the All Time Greats whose work doesn't really thrill me. But he sounds so damn cool in this promo. He is calm, and delivers it with a smirk like he really doesn't give a good goddamn about the Road Warriors. There is no fear at all. He even makes fun of their big arms, and asks what they're going to do with those big arms when the Briscoes bend them behind their backs and they start gasping for breath, and then Gerry starts doing this incredible tongue out gagging. These Oklahoma men in their tan suits just out here mocking the fucking Road Warriors. Incredible. That sold me on their match so hard, I can't wait. 

Mr. Wrestling (Jesse Barr) vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Good mat-based opener to get over the idea that the fake Mr. Wrestling is capable enough. Lightfoot is basically the definition of a good undercard hand. I may or may not have mentioned it last time, but he was useful in Portland as a guy to build up Jay Youngblood coming in by giving the heels someone to beat first. They worked in and out of holds with some solid rope running. Barr did one of my favorite bits of mat wrestling where he has a toehold on and has to rotate around while keeping the toes in order to avoid his opponent from grasping his head. It's the slickest thing imaginable. Great finish here as he jammed a second headscissors takeover by turning it into a hotshot on the second rope, setting Lightfoot up for the running knee and then a back bridging pin for good measure.

ER: I dug this a lot. Barr does a lot of little things that I really like. I liked how he lay in wait to break Lightfoot's full nelson, holding his hands behind his head over Lightfoot's, motionless, before striking down in one quick motion. His drop toehold to set up his Indian deathlock was so tight. His fistdrop? A great, workmanlike Dibiase style fistdrop. He fell into the ropes selling for Lightfoot's comeback in a way that made it feel like he could accidentally slip through them. The finish is great, with Lightfoot going for a flying headscissors and Barr falling back with a hotshot that drops Lightfoot on the top rope to the middle. He sets up his Mr. Wrestling kneelift like an asshole, calling for it in the corner like an actually cool version of Edge. But the real asshole move was his jackknife neck bridge pin. I would have wanted to murder the guy if I were one of the front row men with their arms crossed. 

Brett Sawyer vs. Bob Roop

MD: This is an aside but I listened to an episode of Roop's podcast (#12 about his first tour of Japan) the other day and it was quite good. I'd suggest it. The more we see of Wayne, the better he comes off. Amazing connection with the crowd. Great seller. Throws everything into both his bumping and his shots, especially his comeback shots. Roop did a great job throwing himself into things too, especially his knee strikes. He used one to knock Wayne out of the ring early and Wayne came back a bloody mess. Blood on the second match on the card is a choice but it worked out here. Some great moments of comeback and cutoff, including a picture perfect posting reversal by Roop. Except for that wasn't a cutoff at all. As Roop tried to get back into the ring, a staggered Wayne managed to roll him up making it for two great, novel finishes in a row. Very good stuff for what it was.

ER: I really love Brett Sawyer now. I used to have not much of an opinion on him. All of these 1983 Omni shows have been so much fun, and everyone on them has had their stock raised by the new footage. Brett Wayne might just be the guy who has been raised the most, for me. Now, a lot of other guys had such high ceilings that they had less room to move up, but that doesn't matter. The Other Sawyer is great. This match was awesome. Bob Roop is one of the toughest men in wrestling history and looks like Ned Beatty. Sawyer looks like the ugly bassist in an 80s hair metal band, but he's just such a fucking great babyface. He has skills completely different from his brother. He was Mad Dog's younger brother, but by a lot less time than you'd think. They were a year apart but Brett Wayne was in permanent Kid Brother mode. Brett Wayne Sawyer was a GREAT Kid Brother wrestler. 

The Omni crowd sat with their arms crossed during a good opener, but Brett Wayne is the one who gets the old ladies waving their arms and pumping their fists for his comeback. This whole match is built around a big posting, where Roop runs Brett down the apron. Sawyer is great at dramatic falls, and I love how he absorbs the posting, how he falls off the apron, the time he took to get back in the ring. Sawyer is a great bleeder too, and as Roop hits a snaring clothesline you can see he has good color from the posting. Sawyer's selling is so good as he's fighting back, and it all builds to this incredible moment that mirrors his earlier posting. Sawyer now has Roop on the apron, now it's his turn for revenge, the fans all want it, the old ladies are screaming for Brett...and instead it turns out to be an incredibly done reversal. Sawyer runs Roop down the length of the apron and at the last second Roop smashes Sawyer's face into the turnbuckle, a shot maybe ever tougher than his posting earlier. I thought that would have played as a great, if demoralizing, finish, buy my boy Brett surprises me again when he gets a tight roll up immediately after, as Roop is getting back in the ring. I bit at all the exact things they wanted that Omni crowd to bite at, their storytelling and Sawyer's babyface fire hooking me just as it hooked ATL over 40 years ago.

Paul Ellering vs. Bruno Sammartino Jr.

MD: Seeing David with the Bruno Jr. name really hammers home how doomed the guy was. He was stocky and there's a world where he could have had a totally different name and been in Florida or Memphis teaming with Jim Neidhart and they could have been a hugely successful heel team, I think.  What we had instead was Ellering really guiding him through one. Paul would eat the mat and end up in cross toeholds again and again, then complain to the ref when he got out. He finally took over working the eyes and he had a great way of selling his fists after the punch or continuing to sell the leg that had him coming off like a vulnerable manager instead of a former muscleman wrestler. The fans were behind David when he came back. Weird spot down the stretch as he got pressed off the top (like Flair or someone would) by Ellering, but he came back again after that and hit a suplex and a belabored press slam before Ellering took a powder for the count out. Pretty transparent overall but still better than you'd expect and a testament to Ellering.

ER: That David Sammartino has BS all over his boots, poor kid really stepped in it. As Matt said, what chance did this kid have? He had his dad's build and none of his timing or charisma. There was a moment where he swept Ellering's legs late in the match and Ellering was just lying on his back, directing Sammartino to start punching him, and it took him forever to pull the trigger on them. Ellering did what he could, but you but my boy Brett Wayne in the same match and he'd have Ellering scrambling and begging off all around the ring. I did like Sammartino standing on Ellering's neck while holding his legs in a deathlock, but much of this was Ellering just making do. When Paul finally took over with a punch to a grounded Sammartino, shaking out his fist, I said aloud "finally" at my desk at work. Ellering had several nice punches and was good at working to get heat, since Sammartino was incapable of connecting with these people. Sammartino's big press slam was a good thing to end on. It looked good and I like how he really threw Ellering, but Ellering was great at deciding to take the count out loss, almost swinging at a cop on his way out. 

Texas Tornado Match: Road Warriors vs. Brisco Brothers

MD: This was already out there so I'll just hit it quickly. Gerry saying "Texas Tarnado" never gets old. What was most striking here was how this was so unproduced and raw. There weren't the sort of momentum shifts that you'd expect. It had all four men in the ring at the same time but very often one Brisco was in charge of a Roadie and a Roadie was in charge of the other Brisco. There were a few moments of double teaming if they got a Brisco out and a few moments of clear comeback, but in general, it was just barely controlled chaos. That's extremely refreshing even if it meant any possible narrative had to be entirely implicit. The finish was fun too since it had the Briscos resorting to using chairs (within the rules) and making it so the Road Warriors were too wary to come back into the ring. They got swung at every time they tried and that forced them to get counted out. It's a match that simply couldn't exist today.

ER: I thought this was mostly pretty bad. The Briscoes wrestled nothing like they said they would wrestle and the Tarnado stipulation played to nobody's strengths. Much of the fighting looked soft and slowed down. Many of the strikes looked so bad I had to check that I hadn't actually been watching the other matches in 1.5x speed and then got brought back to real life. Nope, it was just them moving slowly and throwing bad strikes. Animals kept doing this little hopping stomps, everyone moved like they didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone else, Gerry did a run of four push off double boots out of the corner and not only did it look like the Roadies didn't want to run into them, but Gerry threw them like he didn't want them to make contact. Jack did a couple things I liked, getting out of a bearhug with a big telegraphed eye poke, and I liked the visual of both Briscoes kicking their own Road Warrior in the knee around the ring at the same time, but then that chairs finish quickly brought this back to bad. The wrestling grapplers who were going to immobilize the muscle bound freaks on the mat, instead resorting to getting weapons (the Road Warriors did not do a single untoward action toward them!) and throwing the worst chair shots you've ever seen. Gerry's were especially terrible. The second match on this card had blood, motherfucker, throw a glancing blow off one of their heads or something, anything. No good. 

Mr. Wrestling II vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: Totally down my alley. Mr. Wrestling II was an absolute folk hero here and Zbyszko was just the perfect heel. II started by dropping the belt between them like a line in the sand. Then, of course, Larry stalled. Until II gave chase and finally caught him as he thought he was free and clear to slide into the ring. A massive beating ensued until Larry stalled more into the corner. Then as he finally let the ref allow II to get close, he hit a kick, pulled the turnbuckle back and smashed II's head into it. That allowed him to control for a while, including a very interesting chinlock where he put it over by leaning to the side. Such a little thing but it was visually effective. II made it up and Larry went for the exposed corner again but II turned it around on him, leading to another beating and the eventual finish, which had Larry hold the rope on a roll up after he couldn't get a pile driver to work. Post-match II hit a kneelift and Larry tossed the belt straight up in one of the best visuals I've seen in a very long time. This was exactly what it should have been.

ER: Now we're talking, now we're back to the good stuff. The Omni Zbyszko has been so good, and this continues that trend. But this is also a tremendous Wrestling II performance, just fire the whole way through. The crowd starts swelling when Larry begins removing the turnbuckle pad, knowing what's coming, and once he smashes II into the buckle the real great shit begins. I love how these two fall for each other. Look how II smashes into that buckle and falls slowly down the ropes to the mat, and look how explosively Larry falls when the tables get turned. The second time Larry got smashed into the exposed buckle he sold it so well that I was sure he broke his nose, lying there on the mat covering his face, I fully expected a bloody nose and mouth when the hands came away. Wresting II was pushing 50 and his work was excellent. He beat Zbyszko's ass around the ring (paying him back for those great punches Larry threw right across his jaw) and scraped his boot all over Larry's face. Zbyszko took at least three back body drops from the guy, fast ones. Wrestling II has the best kneelift in wrestling: short, quick, sharp, damaging. I loved him dropping standing into Zbyszko's head and neck, doing a quick fist shake out to straight his arm after one to the dome. Zbyszko's finish was real scummy, great hold of the ropes after a cool piledriver reversal from II, and the post match fire was excellent. Wrestling II nailing him with another all time great kneelift causing Larry to toss the belt up into the air as he bumped. 

Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin (Loser Receives Lashes)

MD: When this show came out, I think people undersold just how great this one-two punch was, as one match led into the next and heated it up to a massive degree. Pez had the crowd anyway and the Kabuki/Hart act was super over; plus you had Ole to cheerlead, but it was all incredibly cleverly done. 

Rich and Irwin really did have great chemistry. There was a way that the two were visually balanced, something about how they both moved, emoting for the back row, big arm movements, a sort of lankiness where the sum of the two was more than the individual parts. And they had a certain explosiveness to how they hit the ropes, and whipped each other. They'd bring it up and down here, going right back to that explosiveness. Tommy got color early, because of course he did. He'd have a great hope spot where he reversed a smash in the corner and fired away for a bit until he got cutoff back in the corner again. The finish had him hitting the damndest small package out of nowhere, with the legs hooked just right. The fans went nuts and then doubly so as he handcuffed Irwin in the corner and started whipping. They had to deliver on the gimmick at least a little so he got a few shots in before Hart and Kabuki ran down to break it up. Then they got some shots in on a prone Rich before the place really exploded as Pez and Ole charged in to stop it. 

ER: Yeah this is another reason why we're here, this is what we want. Two wild men, Wildfire and Just Wild, one of the best bleeders of all time against a guy who will throw a couple dozen pump kicks into a bleeding man's face. Everyone in Georgia was so complementary to each other's style, everyone synced up so well, everyone was great at feeding for everyone else. This footage really is magic. Even before the blood, I could have watched a match built around these two hitting the ropes and Irwin doing drop downs. Irwin stayed on Rich and Rich was great at getting kicked around. It's a simple formula that they kept going to most of the match and I never tired of it, because Rich kept finding great ways to put over the kicks to his bleeding head. My favorite moment was Irwin busting Rich open because before you see that Rich is busted open, you see Irwin looking at his fist after punching Rich, and then shake his fist off. He clearly does not shake his fist because of the impact of his punch, he is shaking it to get the blood off. It's so good. The small package finish works really well, love how Rich grapevined those legs and how Irwin was wiggling to kick out. All of the pins in this were great, now that I think about it. Irwin had a great one where he posted up on Rich's laid out arm, body weight on one arm and his arm pressed down onto Rich's flattened arm, and I have no idea how Rich kicked out. Irwin missed a charge into the buckles really violently, perfect way to set up Rich cuffing him around the ropes. There were only a few whippings before Hart and Kabuki got in there to break it up but they all looked nastier than I expected, Rich really airing out that whip. 

Pez Whatley vs. Great Kabuki

MD: That led right into the Pez vs. Kabuki match, with the crowd on edge from the start. Pez dismantled Kabuki from the get go with each shot drawing that Ooooof noise that is so welcome in these early 80s matches. He got too close to the ropes as he was goozling Kabuki though and Hart got him in the eye. Hart was entertaining throughout since he was constantly trying to evade Ole. They brought it up and down with nerveholds but the fans got up for Pez's comebacks each and every time. Then they built to bigger spots with Kabuki coming off the top until Pez caught him and tossed him off. Finish had Hart grab the leg on a suplex attempt from the outside in but Pez actually kick out (the babyface never kicks out that scenario) and then Ole trip Kabuki off the ropes so Pez could hit the jumping headbutt for the win. Place went nuts, Ole celebrated with Pez. Post-match they had Kabuki ALMOST go after Hart until he got him under control; just beautiful pro wrestling all around.

ER: How good are these OOOF shots!? They added to every match they gave the OOFs and in such an ahead of its time wrestling crowd way. What's the fan crossover of fans who were doing the Omni OOFs and Knife Edge WOOs? Every shot in this match and the other Good Ones had it's own punctuation and since everyone in the territory was capable of throwing a great punch the matches feel like constant exclamation points. That's another reason the Road Warriors/Briscoes match was so bad, it was just a sloppy tornado with punches and soft kicks and a weird legdrop and nobody could find the rhythm. Nobody was timing their strikes for impact they were just in each other's way. No OOFs. 

If Brett Sawyer is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the Omni stuff started showing up a few years ago, then Kabuki is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the DVDVR Texas and All Japan 80s sets. The Chris Adams series was the peak but Kabuki revealed himself to have a real consistent TV match quality and a style I really like. Maybe our greatest Mysterious Asian Striker gimmick worker. He felt violent like Abby but with no weapons, just the savate kicks and throat thrusts and aura. Pez Whatley has been a real treat on these Omni shows too - they're a gift that has raised many boats - and his big headbutts and the way people were living with his selling were so good. The way Kabuki bumped for Whatley's first headbutt, flying back into a leaping bump for the first time all match......then the way Gary Hart bumps for Whatley's headbutt!!Hart takes it on the apron and leaps up high enough that I gasped, thinking he was crashing off the apron to the floor, but instead he gets tangled in the ropes in seven different ways before getting to the apron. It's the best Tangled in the Ropes bumping ever done among heel managers with the latest name Hart. Kabuki leapt high in the air to absorb Whatley's flying headbutt and it was the right amount of cartoon impact the crowd needed for one gigantic OOF. 

Dick Slater vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD:  The first thirty seconds of this went exactly how I was expecting. The two meet up on the floor and you get every impression that this was going to be a wild draw. But then it went in a completely different direction and stands as an incredibly complete match, just a real heated, grudge-filled but grounded main event (with some big high points) and it's almost surprising there wasn't a title match involved given how they worked it.

Slater controlled the arm early. They'd go out of it and right back into it. Sawyer would pull the hair or get a cheapshot in but they'd run two or three bits and then Slater would drag him back down. Varied stuff, hammerlock and wristlock variations, with the best of it being Slater throwing in a bunch of headbutts while he had the arm. The transition here had Ellering get involved, whacking Slater as his head was between the ropes and Buzz had the ref distraction.

First heat was chinlock heavy but they worked it well and the fans went up for every hope spot with the cutoffs being sufficiently weighty, including the last one where Sawyer tossed Slater to the floor. He started to hulk up out there and came back with big punches. This could have well built to a finish but instead the ref went down, Ellering handed Buzz some knucks, and they went around for a second bit of heat, Slater now bleeding. He survived the power slam, though, started firing back again, beating Slater around ringside. When things got desperate and Buzz went back to the knucks, Slater got them and KOed him right in front of the ref for the DQ. 

Just super complete. That's the best word for it. This is one of those matches that closed every parenthesis and was full of compelling stuff in the middle. Second time I went through this (even not remembering the details), I could feel every banana peel slip or cut off by Buzz coming but it all felt just right, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. You could program a match like this but of course it's Buzz and Slater's mannerisms and wild abandon that turned it from theory to gripping practice.

ER: 20 minutes of new Buzz Sawyer means 20 more minutes cementing him as one of my favorites. Can you imagine seeing a guy looking like and shaped like Buzz Sawyer walking into an Olive Garden in a mint green polo? A guy with that hairline who is jacked in that specific way looks like Instant Trouble. I don't know that there are five looks in wrestling history that I love more than Buzz Sawyer's. The fact he's not just a Perfect Look but he knows how to use it is lighting in a bottle. The way he uses his look, the way he bends his back taking payoff punches, the way he false starts and stomps before locking up, the way he walks around in a circle before bringing it back around to taking a shot. He's the beefiest Chris Candido possible and Dick Slater is like a strong silent Roddy Piper. People respond to both. 

They can work slow and they can work big and they have no problem filling 20. They could have filled 30. There were three different points where it felt like they were peaking things to the finish and they all worked, and the small stuff in between was no less interesting. The highest peak - and what certainly felt like the push to the finish - was Slater finally zombie staggering furiously after Ellering at ringside, throwing chairs and kicking tables in a rage while Ellering runs away in his silk robe like Don Knotts. Mad Dog grabs Dick from the ring and gets his lights punched out. You'll see two different great powerslams, Slater throwing a series of 8 consecutive headbutts short arm headbutts after also being the one to hit a charging JYD headbutt earlier, two hidden weapon punches that look like the finish, a great ref performance from Nick Patrick - a guy who needs to get more praise for everything he does - and a post match sour grapes stuff piledriver that could have started a riot. Pro wrestling. 

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Found Footage Friday: BASH 85~!

Great American Bash JCP 7/6/85

Buddy Landel vs. Ron Bass

MD: A twenty minute draw, only a bit cut (we lose some of Buddy's control). I always was partial to this feud so it's nice to get a bit more of it. It filled out the midcard well, just having Bass trying to get revenge on JJ basically for picking a city slicker instead of a country guy. 

This was going long and it had a lot of Buddy getting early stalling and comeuppance. Buddy's body language is almost generational, the way that he scoots through the ropes after taking a shot or gets fired into the corner. He tries to outwrestle Bass and fails, tries to outsneak him and fails, tries to outfight him and definitely fails. When he does take over, it's about grinding Bass down and letting JJ get shots in when he can. The comeback on the floor is fiery and the crowd loves it but it's a prelude to the bell ringing for the draw. Post match, Bass gets his hands on JJ and Buddy tries to intervene only for the two to end up crashing into one another. Satisfying stuff even despite the draw.

Ole Anderson/Arn Anderson vs. Buzz Sawyer/Dick Slater

MD: This was a blast. I love the Sawyer/Slater team, even as babyfaces. Huge energy. They came in hot firing away at the Andersons, with Buzz and his fuzzy boots swinging a title belt around over his head. It was stooging fiery chaos for the first half, with Slater's windmill punches and Buzz running about biting arms and interjecting at every point. He had one charge into the corner where he shot back at high speed with a forearm that was just nuts. 

Eventually the chaos was too much and the ref got distracted so that the Andersons could take over on Slater. Super hot crowd for this as Buzz stomped back and forth on the apron. Some great hope spots and last second cutoffs where an Anderson would lock up the legs. The hot tag was sufficiently hot but things ended pretty abruptly with an elbow drop cheapshot behind the ref's back. Could have used another rotation on the finish but this lived up to my expectations.

Manny Fernandez/Buzz Tyler/Sam Houston vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Superstar Billy Graham/Konga the Barbarian

MD: I haven't talked about what we had and didn't have here but we came in during the heat on the old footage of this one. That's all beatdown on Houston who survives and survives until he's able to get close enough to draw his own guys in and win in the ensuing chaos with a roll up.

All of that is in here and it's pretty good pro wrestling, but we get the front here as well. That was Graham and Konga stooging (as once Abby got in, it would be time for the heels to take over). And it was very good. This is some of the best I've seen 80s Graham look. He was flying around way more than usual and leaning hard into the goofing. Konga did his share as well honestly. And all of that was fine because it set the stage for Houston getting destroyed. The fans absolutely loved the finish. It really seemed at this point that they could make Houston into a big deal in the years to come.

Paul Jones vs. Jimmy Valiant (Dog Collar)

MD: Previously we just had the opening feint and the finish here. The feint was great, as Jones hemmed and hawed and refused to put the dog collar on before trying to slip it on Abby instead. That didn't work but it drew attention so Abby could stab Valiant in the forehead. Previously we had commentary over that but here we got to clearly hear a scream from the crowd and that's the sort of thing that makes all of this better. 

Jones controlled, smacking a bloody valiant with the chain wrapped around his hand. He made sure to bask in it and taunt the crowd. Said crowd went up huge for Valiant's comeback as he manipulated Jones with the length of the chain. He got the sleeper on. Abby tried to interfere. Valiant was too smart for it and he got the win before Abby unloaded on him. Pretty enjoyable piece of business overall.

Russians vs. Road Warriors

MD: This couldn't have been more heel-in-peril. Not only was it Krusher and Ivan, Nikita wasn't even there because he was prepping for the main event. Even though the Roadies were the AWA champions, only the JCP titles were on the line (which given the finish made no sense anyway).

And the Warriors took the brunt of this. Maybe Ivan would get an eye rake or Krusher would get a few body shots in, but then they'd miss an elbow drop and would get swept right back under again. Animal press slammed Krusher into the top rope, then pressed Ivan off the top. Hawk got in on the action. In no case did they really get them up but the struggle made it work nonetheless. It was a bit of diminishing returns though.

They had a sort of convoluted bit to let the Russians take over and they kept control with frantic, almost desperate quick tags. Even then, when the hot tag came, it was while the Roadies were taking shots. They just didn't matter. Things devolved quickly after that as both sides used chairs. It get having the Russians finally look vulnerable but a straight up Clash of the Titans might have been more palatable. 

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Andre the Giant Didn't Have to Treat Joel Deaton Seriously

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Dick Slater/Joel Deaton AJPW 11/15/90 - GREAT

ER: Just another 90s Andre gem, the kind of playful menace performance he never would been given credit for having against mustache Joel Deaton. Andre didn't need to have a fun match against Joel Deaton, ever. 1990 Joel Deaton looked like Eric Roberts in Star 80 with less success and was above maybe only Ricky Santana on the All Japan gaijin hierarchy. Andre didn't need to do a single thing with Joel Deaton in 1990. Instead he puts on a little show, playing the menace who cartoonishly thirsts after beating up Joel Deaton. He is security getting enjoyment from throwing Eric Roberts from the Playboy Mansion. 

Andre still had incredible presence in his first several 1990 tours with All Japan. The increasingly vulnerable and broken down Andre of 91-92 came fast and his work and acting changed with it. 1992 Andre was still unique and special to me. There was still major aura, but it wasn't a Powerful Giant aura, and he couldn't have worked this match this way against Joel Deaton in 1992. In 1990 Andre still had powerful confidence and aura; a man who could walk through attacks and grab you with unmatched strength. Every second Andre is on camera, he is picturing Joel Deaton as a steaming turkey dinner. 1990 Andre was special. His November 1990 All Japan tour is in all likelihood his Last Truly Great tour, the way March/April 1990 was the last Truly Great Grateful Dead tour. Touring Legends lumbering through Nagano and The Omni with playful menace before the fall. The only difference is that I love 91-92 Andre and I never listen to 92-95 Dead.  

Everybody is good in this match. Baba's worked fun stretches with Deaton and Slater and each came with little surprises. Baba works Deaton like he's a white trash rookie Taue. I am a big 1990 Baba fan. He's playful and adds in visual winks whenever he does a move that he knows looks more spry than any fan was expecting from him. He takes an incredible, layered bump in the corner late in this match after Jowl Fucking Deaton hits him with the best clothesline of the match. I'd have bet $20 on Deaton running into a size 15, and Baba sold it like he had already taken that bet. Baba in 1990 was still leaning into real clotheslines with his weird chest and taking big bumps into the corner. A guy surprising you with a big bump is always more interesting than a guy who bumps a lot. 

Dick Slater is a great opponent for 1990 Baba because Baba can still work stiff enough to justify gaijin over-bumping for him and gaijin bumping for Baba and his reactions to the bumps are one of my favorite little things in wrestling. Slater's 90s is extremely under-discussed for something so great. I need to start writing about Dick Slater's work when he was My Current Age and how great he was right up until his unfortunate back injury. The more we cover IWA-Japan Dick Slater, Puerto Rico, SMW, any year of 90s WCW, All Japan tour Dirty Dick Slater, all of them, the more he might seriously look like a top 50 worker of the 90s, maybe higher. He had Tully Blanchard Energy just when we needed it most. Rough 'n' Ready would be much more appreciated now than they were in 1996. We would have gotten a memorable late 90s ECW run. Anyway,

this is an Andre match. As great as 90s Dick Slater was, nobody was ever Andre. This is the beautiful kind of Andre gem where he has a competitive match against someone who shouldn't be competitive with Andre In His Current State. I love that Andre match. I love how Andre works every person. I want to see matches where he is old but unstoppable but letting Joel Deaton survive. His confidence and presence are unmatched. He is sporting incredible and absurd Capital J muttonchops, that I would make fun of on any ska gimmicked Chikara wrestler who had the same but here you're left with something so much deeper. It's weird to think about Andre styling one of his sideburns into a perfect capital J, so do you think it was just a weird accident? If it was, why would he leave it and not clean it up? Are we to think he has enough energy to shave at all but not enough to fix a coded message on one of his cheeks? The world's largest Prince in a dispute with his record label, signaling to the press with a coy wink that he's going back to his roots as Jean Ferre. That can't be an accident. 

Andre stands on the apron, visibly salivating. Fantasizing about how much he's going to mess Joel Deaton up. Deaton had tried to sneak a chop in on Andre after tagging in and Andre saw it coming a mile away. He doesn't take his eyes off Deaton again. Deaton is in the ring, tied up on his back by Baba's weight, and you can see Deaton staring not up at Baba, but staring wide-eyed directly into Andre's eyes on the apron. Staring right through his mustache. I can't imagine how scary that would have been in 1990. Andre has such a visible craving for Deaton that his entire body drifts down the apron toward him; a man not realizing he's going 85 as he subconsciously keeps up with a hotshot in another car. You've never seen his eyes more excited when he tags in and grabs Deaton by the throat the second Deaton throws a punch. He palms Deaton by the mustache and throws a hand across the bridge of his nose, holds him in a sleeper that looked like it would have strangled Deaton to death in seconds flat had that strike to the nose hadn't happened. This is not a physically broken man, this is a Strongman Giant. When he holds Slater and Deaton prone for Baba, it is clear that neither could have wriggled out of his clutches if they tried. Andre could project his unreal strength and physically overwhelm large men. He allows Deaton to catch a break on the elbowdrop. It looks worse when Old But Powerful Andre eases up on the elbow, but the man had already had his feast, no need to pick the bones. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE 

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! HARRIS~! SLATER~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~! BABY SHAMROCK~! AKITO~! SANO~!

Dick Slater/Ken Shamrock vs. Shunji Takano/Shinichi Nakano AJPW 10/20/89

MD: This isn't the world's easiest HH to watch; it's pretty far back. Thankfully, everyone's fairly distinct, from the extreme size difference between Takano and Nakano that would define their roles to the match to Shamrock's light blue trunks. There is a Joe Malenko vs Fuchi match later on the card that only exists for a few minutes pro-shot but it's just an exercise in futility to try to watch it on this HH. You need to see the close up magic and it's just a blur at thid distance. This one's easier to parse.

The historical value here is seeing Shamrock in Japan in 1989. We have one or two other matches with him on this tour but it's not a lot to go on. This is a little bit more, though it's more informative to see where Slater was. He's a guy who doesn't have a lot of interesting Japan matches from around this time. Either the hierarchy is way off and he's getting beaten up by Jumbo or he's teamed with someone they're trying to elevate like Spivey and it's up to him to lose the offense. Here he was top of the totem pole and they got to lean on Nakano quite a bit. That meant some nice looking stuff (Neckbreaker, Russian Leg Sweep, punch combos) and goading Takano in to set up double teams.

Shamrock showed promise, with one nice mat exchange with Takano a bit of bumping around for dropkicks and hitting some of his own, and good struggle against Takano's belly to belly before going over for it on the second or third try. He had a fairly awkward splash off the top and a modified abdominal stretch which worked more than it didn't but definitely looked odd. They dragged Nakano down a few times allowing Takano to come in and wreck people before an abrupt finish where Shamrock (with Slater's help) survived Takano's knee off the second rope only to immediately eat a German from Nakano. I liked when they had mid-card matches end without a big back and forth stretch but with the damage just being too much over time because it made those main event stretches and all the saves and kickouts that came with them more believable. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Harris (Kennel Cage Match) MWA Thunderdome 98

MD: The gimmick for the show was that the top three matches had this smaller cage within the ring. It fit right inside the ropes basically. This was a wonderful ten minutes. They stalled for about a third of it, then after Smothers dodged a punch and strutted arrogantly, Harris nailed him and he bumped around the ring like an absolute champ for two or three minutes. That meant pinballing into the cage a couple of times, but mostly just managing to get his feet over his head as he went all over the place for Harris' punches. He'd get a cheapshot out of the corner only to get planted into the cage once again for his trouble. Then he called for interference, snuck a weapon out as Harris fought it off, and clocked him for the win. Simple yet over the top and just the sort of glorious bs that I want in third-from-the-top 98 Tracy Smothers in a little cage. 

Akito vs. Yasushi Sato Sportiva 11/30/11

MD: With thanks, as always, to Sebastian for all of these Sportiva matches, including the suggestion. Akito was far younger than Sato here, and at one point mid-way through he sort of got swept under, needing (and ultimately getting) a clutch defensive counter to survive and overcome. Early on, however, he had this great way of chaining together holds and an even better way of turning an escape or kickout into an immediate submission. There are norms in wrestling. Usually, even in the most go-go-go matches imaginable, after a kickout or an escape, there's a brief pause or reset. Even if there's going to be an unclean break and subsequent stomping or another hold attempted, it happens after a blink, a pause, a breath. There's a theatricality to it that even the people most concerned about getting their stuff in can't full escape. With shootstyle, you'll see a throw or a kickout turned immediately into a grounded top wristlock, for instance, but it's almost always done by the aggressor. Here, Akito would push out of a leglock or kick up out of a pin and simply keep his hands moving, one smooth motion to capture an ankle and lock in a hold of his own. You wouldn't want it for every exchange, but done two or three times in the match, it was striking because it pushed against exepectations in a blink and miss it sort of way. It was when Sato started to push in the same sort of relentless and unforgiving of way that he was able to take over.

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Found Footage Friday: AJPW HANDHELDS~! TIGER MASK II~! FURNAS~! SNUKA~! TAKANO~! TENTA~! SPIVEY~! ACE~! RICH~! SLATER~!

Tiger Mask II vs. Doug Furnas AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This was a sprint that went just a little over five minutes, but if I was Baba, I would have come out of this wondering if I hadn't found the Dynamite Kid for my Tiger Mask. They'd teamed against each other during the tour (with Furnas teaming with Kroffat and an Oates trainee "Greg/Craig Brown"), but this was their first singles match. I'm not saying that the same sort of chemistry was there because Misawa just didn't exactly have a ton with anyone while under the mask, and Furnas was more dropkicks and backflips than anything else, but he had that explosiveness when he landed on his feet that made me wonder if there might not have been some money in the pairing as they were at this point. In Furnas, Misawa had someone to bounce off of who could also keep up with him. After this (and partially due to Misawa's injury in 89) they wouldn't face off again until 90. By that point, fate had them moving in very different directions.

John Tenta/Shunji Takano vs. Tiger Mask II/Jimmy Snuka AJPW 12/16/88

MD: They told a little story here by having Tenta take out both TM and Snuka with dropkicks only to errantly hit Takano at the end, which led to a neat moment of Tenta catching Snuka off the top (no small feat!) and Misawa following it up with a missile dropkick to knock him over for the win. Takano looked sharp in there. I think he'd have a better sense on how to use his size against varying opponents a year later, but he was big and lanky and agile with a nice dropkick and superkick. He took the Snuka leapfrog/chop shot with a skidding bump across the ring too. Tenta was further along sooner than I remembered too, having a couple of surprising agility spots but generally just asserting himself like you'd want him to and he had the elbow drop already. The best bit by Misawa here was a stubborn assault on Takano, knocking him out of the ring with a baseball slide, doing another, and then not quite hitting a tope but just charging at him between the ropes headfirst never leaving the ring. Snuka didn't do much, but then he never does at this stage of his career, just his signature spot, grinding things down with a hold, and then whatever's necessary for the finish. He did get a run of throat shots on Tenta followed up by a bodyslam but it didn't have the build you'd want for such a momentous spot. This was more of a novelty than anything else, but it was a fun one.

ER: I liked everyone here and even though it was overall inconsequential, everyone had cool moments, and there was one incredible spot that I don't think I have ever seen before. Tiger Mask is my least favorite Misawa era, but it's cool seeing him as more of a big bump guy than a shutdown strike guy, and the way he leans into a takes Tenta and Takano's great dropkicks here is just a perfect take of a dropkick. I like how he sticks and moves, and the way he finally goes after Takano gave us the match's incredible moment: he hits a baseball slide to roll Takano to the floor, a harder baseball slide to knock him into the guardrail, and when Takano makes it back to the apron Misawa just hits him with a Pete Rose slide. I don't think I've ever seen someone do a baseball slide headbutt before. It wasn't a tope, it was clearly intentional, just diving into a head first into Takano's face. Snuka took two big bumps to the floor, including a really fast one over the top, and he absorbed several nasty swinging strikes from Tenta. Takano feels like a man out of place in All Japan, but in a cool way. He's a New Japan style worker crowbarred into All Japan and he feels like if Nobuhiko Takada if he got into pro style instead of shoot style. I don't know. I liked all of these guys in this. I'm glad some guy recorded it and immortalized the baseball slide headbutt. 

Dan Spivey/Johnny Ace vs. Tommy Rich/Dick Slater AJPW 12/16/88

MD: RWTL action. That's where you got some of the most hierarchy bending and most interesting match-ups, many of which only survive today due to handhelds. I'm getting flagged that Spivey and Ace came out to a song from Bubblegum Crisis which amuses me for some reason. I don't think it was anything associated with either of them in general. Ace was like a leaner, more fiery version of Spivey here, just a force of mullets between them. This morphs into a southern tag where they work over Ace's arm pretty well and cut off the ring through hope spots but it resets once Spivey gets in there. I'm not used to Spivey working as so pure a babyface in Japan so it's a bit off-putting. Spivey grinding down on de facto heel Rich's arm isn't as interesting and would have worked better as a shine instead of a mid-match reset. At least 88 Rich isn't afraid to headbutt Ace right in the face. Once Rich starts stretching for Slater, Dick wakes up from his tuned out slumber and decides that they'll be babyfaces too for a while, so I guess that was funny. That only lasts long enough for them to start punching Ace in the face again, but then who can blame them. It has a pretty solid finishing stretch though. Rich and Slater could still turn it on when they had to. Unfortunately a lot of the rest of the match was all over the place given how much time they had to kill. 

ER: This tag and the Tenta tag was on the same card as the legendary Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Kawada RWTL final, a match that is literally the greatest match of 1988. This was a throwaway RWTL match on the same card as the RWTL Finals, and that probably didn't help this match feel like much more than filler. The one story the match had going for it (other than Match With Four White Guys) was this was Tommy and Dick's last chance to win one Tag League match. Crusher Blackwell & Phil Hickerson also finished with 0 points in 1988, which is pretty fucking stupid, and no other year of the Tag League ended with two 0 point teams. So Dick & Tommy knew that a win would keep them out of the basement, which makes them the underdog babyfaces, but Spivey & Ace are the more popular team so that's how we kind of wound up with a time killing tag with constantly shifting roles. But I also happen to find time killing Kings Road matches to be calming comfort food. Not every one of these things needs to build to something. I wish we got to see Tommy Rich kill more time in Japan. Tommy Rich takes a backdrop bump and hits two different great middle buckle fistdrops: one late in the match after he and Dick did a tandem clothesline to Johnny Ace's neck that caused Ace to drop straight to his knees, and actually hot tagging into the match with one on Spivey. Rich gets one excellent nearfall down the home stretch, taking abuse from Spivey and nearly getting to 2 points with a tight backslide, and it was the loudest the crowd got all match. 

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New Footage Friday: Kerry, Race, Murdoch, Gino

Harley Race vs. Dick Murdoch Tri-State 4/2/77

MD: I'm glad we got this, especially for the post-match turn and the start of the years' long Akbar vs Murdoch feud, as well as for Murdoch's awesome leg selling and the Harley headbutts and what have you, but it's a shame we didn't get a whole match here. Murdoch was so present, just completely in the moment at all times, making everything he did seem so believable despite being heightened and unreal in a way other wrestlers of the era may have avoided in an NWA title match. I have to admit I was a little confused by things, because Murdoch was working like a local hero against the visiting champ despite Akbar being out there for him. It all made sense in retrospect with the turn. Anytime we pick up a classic territory angle like this (especially one I barely knew existed), it's a gem. Here at SC, we're always hoping for the full match though.

PAS: This was more of an angle then a match (at least what we got), but the last couple of minutes of the match were great stuff with Race and Murdoch really teeing off on each other with some especially nasty stomps by Murdoch, and great Harley headbutts. Akbar and Dr. X beating down Murdoch post match was pretty great, I especially loved the carniness of them cutting away to basically a green screen while the action got described because of the brutality (and Murdoch did seemed to have opened one up)

Kerry Von Erich vs. Gino Hernandez Houston Wrestling 2/22/85

Previously we just had the last few minutes. All the cool stuff is at the beginning so I'm glad we got this. It's pure Houston, just six or seven years later, with Gino returning and Kerry challenging. Gino as the reviled hometown villain was great. Dibiase as his inexplicable second was great. Gino's the greatest rat pack member that never was. Taylor was just sort of there seconding Kerry. This ended up as a good TV title match where everyone knew the BS was coming. I don't think this set up a Dibiase/Gino vs Kerry/Taylor match but if it did, I would have wanted to watch it.


Mid-South 11/11/85

Bruise Brothers vs. Steve Williams/El Corsario

MD: Not every upload is a winner. This was one of the matches I was most looking forward to. Williams was young and game and eager to bump. Who doesn't like seeing the Bruise Brothers? Especially over babyface Bruise Brothers? This lasted seconds though, and a match can be fun when it lasts seconds but there's not much to write about it.

Jake the Snake Roberts vs. Humongous

MD: In a way, Jake did it to himself. He's so outspoken about his method that you examine him more harshly than you would other people. Sometimes he lives up to the (his own) hype, sometimes he doesn't. I think he's done pretty well with the new footage we've gotten though. Here, he's just tremendous in the opening minutes. I love thought experiment wrestling, namely "how will wrestling X deal with situation Y" and here Situation Y is Humongous being a monster who will clubber Jake whenever he gets a hold on. Him trying to chop the tree down from the top down and facing that struggle is really good wrestling. Likewise, the transition (namely Humongous hitting one big legdrop after setting it up by missing earlier on) worked for me, as did the start of the head (those falling headbutts with the hockey mask are really good). It all ended up being too long with the bearhugs and what not, and then had the most late 80s WWF style finish ever with Jake leaving the pin for absolutely no reason. They went pretty heavy on the heel dominance between this and the tag match that followed (which we already had).

Dick Slater vs. Butch Reed

MD: This felt like a trial balloon for the eventual Slater title win that would come a month or two later. It was a bounty match but also a title match and while the post-match was wild and fun, the match itself was worked far more towards that title end than the bounty end. That made sense given the main event, just like the first tag made sense being so short given the long tag title match later in the show, but it wasn't really what I wanted from this. We also lost the first many minutes, which is not something you want to lose in any title match really.

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New Footage Friday: Boogie Jam 1984

The Steamboat vs. Flair match from this show was available before, otherwise everything is new stuff.

Dory Funk Jr. vs. Tully Blanchard

MD: This was a good opener, not at all worked like I was expecting. Tully was so smart. It's almost comedic how hard he struggled to find anything to do other than to sit in Dory's headlock, which is one of the most boring things imaginable to watch. Sitting in that thing wouldn't have got him over. Getting knocked out of the ring and stooging on the floor though? Absolutely. If Dory's in there throwing forearms and European uppercuts instead, it's going to be a pretty enjoyable time and that's what this was. Tully on top wasn't as interesting mainly due to Dory's quiet selling but all of Tully's stuff looked good. The finish was smart and sufficiently pissed off the crowd which is what you'd want in a match like this.

ER: Man Tully is an all time great. I have always liked Tully, but as a kid I was more into Arn (possibly because he looked like a cooler version of my dad) and seeing what he pulls in the match it is just one more of a million points in Tully's favor. Tully is like Terry in this match, right down to the era-appropriate curly mop of hair. He handles Dory like a total pro and takes rote Dory spots and turns them into gold. Have you ever seen the side headlock -> rolled into a pin look as interesting and engaging as it did here? Look at all the small body movement struggle happening during these multiple side headlock pinfalls, shoulders twitching, hips hitching, feet pushing off the mat trying to find better leverage, the whole thing was amazing. We've all seen Dory grind a match to a halt with a headlock before action ever starts (just look at the Harley/Dory match that Phil and Matt suffered through last week) and this looked like Tully absolutely refusing to have an uninteresting match. Even when Dory misses a moment Tully is right there with an interesting follow up. Look at when Dory is being choke in the ropes, and Tully snaps the ropes to get Dory to recoil, but Dory doesn't move an inch. Well, Tully just flies right in with a hard kneelift without missing a beat. I mean I don't think anyone would disagree that this is one of the more fun and interesting Dory singles matches we've seen, and Tully is a MAJOR part of that, and possibly the only part of that. Tully stooged and bumped his way through all of this while Dory felt 1/3 committed at any given time. Tully made every Dory strike look like it sent him off balance, just constantly doing favors that weren't going to be paid back in any way other than a pinfall victory. I think this match should be viewed as a legendary Tully performance, and I don't think that's a bold statement.

Ernie Ladd vs. Rufus R. Jones

MD: I love watching Ladd work. He's lankly but uses every inch of his frame to get his message across. Forget working to the back row; you could see him take a bump from the moon. One of my favorite wrestling tropes is when a huge guy pisses off the crowd by consciously not working to his size on offense but cheating again and Ladd has that down as well as anyone ever. He eye-pokes, uses the object, begs off, etc. I don't think anyone in the crowd expected the Rufus win out of nowhere and it lit the place up.

Bob Orton Jr./Don Kernodle vs. Mark Youngblood/Wahoo McDaniel

MD: If there was just one person who we have relatively limited 74-84 footage of that I'd want more of, it might be Orton. We have so little complete of his tag team with Slater. It's obvious from this just how great a tag worker he was. The way he cuts off the ring and sets up double teams with Kernodle. The way he follows up a Kernodle power slam (a novel move for the time) with one of his own to create some sort of branding. The use of ref distraction. All good stuff. Also, he made it all seem organic and opportunistic instead of pre-arranged spots, especially his use of the ropes. That makes such a huge difference and it's decades lost to wrestling. It's virtually unimaginable in a world so polished.

This had double heat as a structure, so much heat in general. The fans being this into everything helped. The southern tag structure helped. Kernodle being enough of an ass to slap Wahoo across the face in the early going helped. Mark obviously wasn't Jay and all of his stuff looked a bit clumsier, but the crowd was going to cheer for his wardance anyway. Both hot tags were good, with the second one with a ducked double-team set up, great. The double chop finish was so simple but the crowd came absolutely unglued and it made it feel like the best finishing move ever. Just a really good old tag that never wore out its welcome.

PAS: There are few things I enjoy more in wrestling then Wahoo chopping the shit out of someone, and he had a really great opening run of lacing into Orton and Kernodle with both heels really flying for each shot. Both Kernodle and Orton are really great bumpers. Mark Youngbloods chops were pale imitations, although he was a fine face in peril, including getting slammed spine first into the guardrail, which felt like the kind of bumps some crazy fuck in GCW would take, not an 80s babyface.

Angelo Mosca Sr./ Angelo Mosca Jr./Junkyard Dog vs. The Great Kabuki/Ivan Koloff/Gary Hart

PAS: This had a little more Mosca Jr. then you would want in any situation. He has a rep for being one of the worst second generation guys ever, but he just looked kind of dull and all of the early heat was on Jr. Kabuki is always fun to watch, as is any JYD we get, but I wanted this to be crazier after the great angle which set it up.

MD: Mosca, Jr. was such a doomed project. That said, the fans were behind him because they would have been behind anyone in the world on this night, and it was pretty enjoyable watching Kabuki kick him. Mosca, Sr. and JYD were obviously great on the apron. In 84, that's generally where you'd want both of them (though with someone else in there as the third man). The use of Hart here was inspired: first coming in getting shots in on Jr., then later sneaking in his choke on Sr. to set up the second bit of heat, and finally getting his comeuppance in the final act to set up the hope spots, the comeback, and the triumphant finish.

This needed to be one thing, a build for JYD to get in and do his thing, and we got it basically twice with it working both times. This wasn't the sort of match that could carry a card by itself, but it was a fun mid-card attraction.

Greg Valentine vs. Dick Slater

MD: This is the best look at babyface Valentine we are ever going to get and it's well worth seeing. It's also an amazing look at 84 ace heel Dick Slater. With Flair gone for big swaths as champ, it was Slater that anchored things. Outside of one chinlock during the shine (which was made way better when he went seated with it), I really liked Valentine here. He was stoic, but had this amazing ability to just be still and let the fans build up their anticipation. Slater, on the other hand, did these big wind-ups which had the same effect just through a different avenue. I loved the contrast in their selling, something that was easy to see due to a few revenge spots (biting a wound, but more importantly, punches while the opponent is trapped in the ropes, slamming their head back into the cage). Valentine would acknowledge it, but Slater would just throw his body into everything. It created a firm distinction between babyface and heel.

Structurally, my favorite thing about this might have been how they tied the transitions to the use of the cage. They teased it early but didn't pay it off until Slater threw Valentine back into it with a cheapshot. The woundwork was good, and I liked Valentine's selling of his own headbutts given it. When Valentine came back, the cage got an assist for it. I liked the finish a lot, but wish they'd teased it earlier on with some leg damage instead of the chinlock. Great lost match with a great crowd.

PAS: I thought this was pretty awesome, pre-WWF Valentine is a big winner in the WWE dropping stuff on the network, between this and the Piper match we have had two new classics. So strange to watch Greg work babyface, but he does have nice timing, and there was a big "Let's go Greg" chant. The structure of this match was a pretty standard 80s cage match structure, but both guys bring extra to the table to make it stand out. Valentine is such a bruiser, and every one of his shots was 5% nastier then they needed to be. I loved the section where they are both on their knees, and Slater is throwing great jabs, and Valentine his hurling these overhand smashes to the neck. Slater has really fun Terry Funk cosplay with his selling, and does a great job of being "Dirty" Dick. There is a part where he is just smashing the back of Valentines head into the match, which felt just like the kind of line a scumbag bar brawler would cross. Finish was fun, although it did feel a bit like Greg was on his way out. Loved that we got to see this.

ER: I don't have a lot to add, this was just 20+ minutes of two hardasses beating each other around a cage, and Valentine is one of the meanest toughest dudes in wrestling history. His clubbing shots to Slater's body had to have left Slater bruised for the next week. Slater did a really fun Terry Funk approximation in this (I don't think as good as Tully's Funk approximate earlier, but one that was very appropriate for this match). I loved Valentine going after Slater's knee in unique ways, especially when he was on his knees and clubbed an approaching Dick right in his thigh, then his knee to drop him to his level. And the shots to the leg were even cooler to me because they didn't set up any extended legwork, they set up a *reason* for Valentine to continue making attempts at leg work, with his figure 4 attempt eventually leading to him being pushed face first into the cage and rolled up. Slater was really fun selling Valentine's hard shots, bouncing between rope and cage, I'll always love a stooge who hits hard. Valentine kept pulling out neat little tricks that others should steal, like when he had Slater on his back and grabbed both legs, Slater covers up, so Valentine leaps over him and drops a knee right on Slater's chest! The more Valentine that shows up further solidifies his legendary status. 

Assassin #2 vs. Jimmy Valiant

MD: Not much to say here, except for this. Jones, just in his reaction to Assassin #1 getting sent back to the locker room, probably extended the viability of the feud by another year. Talk about full commitment to what was going on. This was all sizzle, but after an hour long title match, that's fine. You watch a show like this and wonder how the territory wasn't doing way better than it was in 84. Then you remember that they just lost Piper and they were about to lose Orton and Valentine and that Flair was away every week and it makes a little more sense, but this crowd was just so good.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 10/8/95

Bunkhouse Buck vs. Ric Flair

ER: My god this is what you LEAD OFF an episode of Worldwide with? And this 100% delivers as an all time syndicated classic. This is a straight up asskicking. Buck beats the absolute hell out of Flair here. This is honestly the stiffest I've ever seen Buck work and Flair leans into a pretty mean beating. Buck is throwing hard back elbows, hard forearms shots to the chest, big punches, a real great corner clothesline, he rips at Flair's nose and mouth, kicks him in the face, drops a boot right down onto Flair's head in a way that Flair looks like his brains rattled, just a total mugging. This looked like Buck got underpaid for a couple of Birmingham, Alabama NWA title opportunities against Flair a decade before, and he's said nothing about it until this match. Flair takes an absolute beating here and it's great. Flair puts on this great big bumping sympathetic performance, with Buck as a real imposing monster. Flair takes three different bumps over the buckles, and they're escalated in a real satisfying way and important to the match: First time he's whipped into the buckles and goes upside down, falling hard back into the ring; second time he goes upside down and falls down the apron and takes a nasty spill out onto the Worldwide stage (with Buck hitting a kickass forearm off the apron); third time is during his comeback when he goes upside down in the corner, but runs the length of the apron to hit Buck with a top rope axe handle! An awesome usage of a signature bump to escalate the story of the match every time it's done. And to put the absolute most perfect cherry on top of this delicious Sunday, Flair wins this match with a running elbow, like he was dispatching of Donovan Morgan on a house show. This was perfection and one of the all time greatest matches in syndicated WCW history.

Kamala/Zodiac vs. Scott D'Amour/Terry Morgan

ER: This completely, unironically RULED. This was total chaos in front of a bunch of Florida elderly people and 12 year old kids in large size t-shirts, and that's kind of when pro wrestling is at its best. Kamala is shrieking around the ring throwing overhand chops and big stomps, Zodiac is running around babbling and fishhooking Scott D'Amore while Kevin Sullivan keeps stomping on D'Amore's fingers. This felt more like a crazy cult doing a home invasion than a wrestling match. Terry Morgan has this great jobber mustache, and Kamala picks him up over his head doing a two handed choke and it looked like he was lifting him up 10 feet in the air before dropping him. This whole thing was ugly and ridiculous and completely great.

Tim Horner vs. Diamond Dallas Page

ER: I always forget Horner got a little WCW run around this time, lots of singles and several matches teaming with various Armstrongs. He's an always fun classic babyface, and he milks a few different convincing surprise nearfalls in this one, a guy who never wins who always has an energy level that feels like he just might win. There was a rolling prawn hold in this that was held super snug, really looked like Horner was going to get the win even though that was obviously not happening. Kimberly  Page was a flat out absurd babe in October of 1995, oh and Tim Horner threw a great babyface dropkick. DDP gives Horner 4 different nice pinfall almost wins here, and then simply puts him away with his nice tilt a whirl slam. I wish Horner was around a year later so we could have seen him against some of the luchadors.

Dick Slater vs. Randy Savage

ER: This show was so going so great that you just knew this wasn't going to let you down, and it does not. This a similar kind of asskicking to Buck/Flair - not as good, but same spirit - and made me really hope for a Savage/Flair vs. Buck/Slater tag that gets more than 10 minutes. Seeing what the 4 of them did on this episode makes that tag a lost classic, they could have worked a legendary street fight as evidenced here. Slater and Savage throw nice 80s street fight punches, Savage takes a big bump to the floor, takes hard flat back bumps around the ring for Slater, and the finished has some inspired silliness: Slater puts Savage down and then tries to cheat to win, by removing his cowboy boot to give Savage a good clonking. The Corporal has the ref distracted, and Slater CANNOT get his boot off. He's yanking at it with both hands, kicking at it with his other foot, shaking is leg to get this damn boot off of him, getting more and more desperate to beat Savage with it. He finally shakes it off and Savage gets it and hits a wicked shot right off Slater's forehead. A picture perfect flying elbow finishes it.

This ranks up with my all time favorite episodes of Worldwide that I've watched. A ton of fun from top to bottom, and my review doesn't even cover the genuinely terrific Flair, Johnny B. Badd, and Kevin Sullivan promos that aired throughout, NOR did I cover the three different commercials for 1995 sexpot potboiler JADE, produced by Robert Evans, written by Joe Eszterhas, starring David Caruso fresh off of quitting one of the more lucrative gigs in TV history (which would have been far more hilariously tragic if he didn't somehow land an even more lucrative TV gig a decade later). This episode is what all syndicated WCW should aspire to. And YOU need to watch the Bunkhouse Buck/Ric Flair match linked above. It's genuinely one of my favorite matches I've watched out of allllll the syndicated WCW landscape.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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New Footage Friday: Hollywood Blondes, Dusty, Slater, Black, Dustin, Corino

Tommy Siegler/Roberto Soto/Argentine Apollo vs. Hollywood Blondes/Assassin ASWA 12/28/72

MD: This was a really interesting match from the Ann Gunkel promotion in Georgia. We have plenty of 70s footage but this feels more alien, if only because we don't usually see this Assassin and Roberts as a Hollywood Blond and Siegler's pretty rare, footage wise. Apollo looked great here, definitely the world's best Superfly Sifi Afi. Even if he was just aping parts of Rocca's act, he was doing it so well, that it didn't matter in the least. The guy died young of a heart attack, but it still feels surprising we didn't see him more into the early 80s. He could certainly go here. The Blonds were, of course, great stooges, but I thought everyone looked really good here.

This had a long shine with a few teases of the heels taking over. Past Apollo cartwheeling all over the place, and the heels stooging well, this was mostly notable for the announcers going out of their way to call Ann Gunkel the prettiest little girl promoter you ever did see.

The heat was equal parts boring and interesting. They ran through headscissors spots with all three babyfaces working from underneath. It felt a little like a lucha momentum shift instead of a classic face-in-peril. They were hot for all the tags but not as hot as they might have been. At one point the Assassin cut off Soto by turning a headlock into a belly-to-back which doesn't feel like a 70s spot at all no matter how common it'd be in, let's say 1990s AJPW (and both guys sold it as an impact too which was interesting). Siegler was the babyface that fought out of the headlock the best. I'd like to see more of him. After the final hot tag, this played out like a lucha comedy match from the 80s, with a few heel miscommunication spots and a lightning pin. Fun relic that showed off some elements that felt either experimental for the era or maybe connective tissue between what came before and what would come.

TKG: Was that Assassin Jody Hamilton? Cause damn he was once a lightheavy workrate machine. I mean still clearly doing "cerebral" gimmick but just workrate "cerebral". Kind of really the star of the heel team. Grey had an insane knee to the face, but Assassin was doing the more intricate stuff. The whole banged himself up a little loopy sell after hitting the big suplex to set up the reversal spot totally worked for me in the way that a lot of "I hit a big move then will be reversed next" signature 80s stuff doesn't. A lot of this was faces winning exchanges stuff and I thought they worked out a neat almost lucha hierarchy in how they set that up. Siegler gets the pin and was clearly being pushed here but was at the same time very clearly the low man on the totem pole. Apollo clearly captain (and the one guy to do the muga handstand escape out of the reverse headscissors that both other faces attempted to pull off) and Soto was an amazing workhorse who clearly was #2 guy on team. Soto is a machine on this and I need to see if there is much WWF Invaders on the network to look at. He also has a permanent thousand yard stare where his whole body communicates babyface but yeah mask makes sense.

PAS: The Assassin had Jody Hamilton's nose, so I am assuming it was him. Never thought I would see Jody Hamilton ripping off dropkicks and headscissors. I really enjoyed Apollo in this, he was clearly doing a tribute act, but he still had some really impressive agility and acrobatics. I loved his lightning fast one foot dropkicks. I would have liked to see a little more Buddy Roberts to get a better sense of him pre-Freebirds, but he seemingly had the least ring time of anyone in this match. Really enjoyable 20 minutes, which works as both a historical document and an entertaining wrestling match. 

Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat vs. Black Bart/Ron Bass/Tully Blanchard MAW 12/25/84

ER: You knew this was going to be absolute fire because everyone shows up dressed like they just got done with some yard work and Dick Slater wears a gigantic foam cowboy hat to the ring like he was Turd Ferguson. We don't get a finish to this, they're all out of time folks, but we get these six guys punching each other for 12 minutes and that's definitely something you want. Tully is the ultimate punching bag in this, falling all over the ring for everyone, and at one point Dusty and Dick are holding onto his belt while taking turns punching him, not letting him fall over the entire time. Black Bart stooges around the same way Necro Butcher does, which checks out as I believe he trained Necro. Ron Bass keeps spending time on the floor avoiding action, then entering only to get knocked right back. This was heavily controlled by the faces, but we do get a couple nice moments of Steamboat taking a beating, including a cool post-piledriver sell where he pushes himself backwards while on his knees looking lost in a fog, and he takes a monster bump over the ringpost to the floor. Not sure how much is missing or what this whole thing built to, but I loved every bit of it that we got.

TKG: Steamboat's superplex is so purty and Tully and Steamboat are great as I guess the Kikuchi and Fuchi's of this. Well that's all backwards as Jumbo, Taue, Fuchi are the face punishing heels heels while Dusty, Slater, Steamboat are the heel punishing faces. But AJPW should've done some touring bunkhouse matches. I was just watching the July 4, 81 Slater v Tiger Jeet Singh and Slater is so good at the babyface pacing of horseshit brawling and moves well between communicating moments of being a guy who just enjoys being in a fight and guy in a fight and then back.

MD: So this is more rare than found. It's a classic JCP TV match from the very end of 84. It's so cool to see Steamboat tag with Dusty and even just for Steamboat to interact with Bass. This was to establish Magnum as much as anything else. He's on the outside keeping JJ at bay. Just over the top bunkhouse brawl action with a crowd that was absolutely overjoyed to see every second of the bad guys running into the good guys' offense. Dusty looked like the biggest star in the world with his affectation-laden offense. Slater was a wild man, kicking, scraping, biting, using his boot to the fans' delight. This has the BS "We're out of time folks!" ending but sometimes you need a shot of that particular sort of disappointment in life just to remind you that you can't have everything you want. What we do have of this is way better than just being character building.

PAS: One thing I love about Slater and Dusty is that they always look like they are super excited to be in a fight. The opening seconds with Dusty in his bunkhouse gear, and Slater with the novelty foam cowboy hat just put a giant smile on my face. The smile didn't leave me until the cut off at the end of the match (this was a commercial tape for fucks sake, those things were expensive). Almost all chaotic brawling, with the heels mostly getting their comeuppance, flawless bit of business all around.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Corino UWF 6/8/07

MD: This is wilderness era Dustin, when he wasn't quite in the best shape. I had actually looked into this stuff not that long ago when a PR match popped up from 07. UWF was a TNA-affiliated promotion that was venturing north into the ECW Arena for some reason. There's actually a lot of potentially fun Dustin matches from this run, including matches with Scott Steiner and Aries and Damien Wayne and Bobby Houston. Probably the neatest thing about this, past the fact it simply exists is that Corino feuded with Dusty. Both guys got to cut promos. Corino brought out Mitch Williams, Philly's poor man's Bill Buckner, who at least seemed to have a blast out there as his heater (though he never got his comeuppance). The match itself was a decent enough brawl for their current physical state. It needed a few more minutes, but they bled early and hit each other hard and had a few imaginative spots with the bell. I liked how they sold the usually terrible finish to a bullrope match as Dustin having learned the tropes well from watching his dad. Now I just have to convince Phil to buy the Dustin Rhodes, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, Kirby Mack & TJ Mack vs. CW Anderson, Steve Corino, Hernandez, Homicide, & Elix Skipper double cage match from this promotion.

PAS: I am amused at the cheap heat use of Mitch Williams in Corino's corner, I wonder how much money you have to pay him to come out in a giant mustard colored dress shirt to get people to boo him. Pretty surprised we didn't get a Dusty elbow on him, but I imagine that would have cost more. Both Corino and Dustin are all time great bleeders and Corino especially seemed to blade two or three separate times. I enjoyed the dumbness of having to touch all the turnbuckles in a six sided ring. There were a couple of rude chair and cowbell shots, and this felt like a fun houseshow brawl, nothing all time great, but delivered what the crowd wanted.

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Dirty Dick vs. Slick Ric: 1996 Syndie Series

Our buddy TomK found an odd two match Syndicated Series of these two matching up in 1996. It is a classic WCW 90s puzzler. It's heel vs. heel, totally random and pretty fun.

Dick Slater vs. Ric Flair WCWSN 3/27/96 (Aired 3/30/96)

PAS: This was a World Title match, Slater's first World Title match since he worked a house show series of Texas Death Matches against Flair in 1989 (CageMatch is the best). This was heel vs. heel with Flair accompanied by Miss Elizabeth and Slater by Col. Parker. This was brawling Flair mostly with a lot of chops and his fun downward punches, and he gives Slater a bunch of offense. Finish was a classic piece of horseshit: Elizabeth tells Parker that Woman wants to see him in the back and he struts to the back in full Robert Parker mode, Woman is tremendous as a soap opera temptress, asking Parker if his ring was really Elvis's ring. While Parker is in the back ready to pull it out, Flair rolls up Slater and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin. No idea why this match happened, no idea why they ran such a goofus angle around the finish, but it was totally great stuff.

ER: I loved Schiavone calling this match like Slater had a genuine shot at the title, and I like Flair in control mode with a guy with some clout. It's fun because Flair would come on the B shows and work stooging matches against guys like Joey Maggs or JL, but then brawl like a heavy with someone like Slater. We get some cool Flair punch angles that we don't often see, like his cool right uppercut that he rarely throws. Sadly we get a weird clip in the middle, not sure how Slater got Flair into the figure 4, but we get an awesome moment with Slater fighting for a backslide for a good 2 count. It looked like something Slater specifically did to make it more dramatic, just act like it's tough to hook Flair into it and then fight it over. We see so much slick execution these days that seeing a guy milk a backslide is just incredibly satisfying. Slater takes a nice bump to the floor and a nice heavy backdrop, and that finish was definitely a Col. Parker-specific WCW finish. I don't think there was another non-wrestler during this era of WCW who got more camera time during matches. At this point when I see one of Parker's boys is in a WCW match I just assume we'll get a few long shots of him being distracted by a wily female. They at least go to a split screen while he's getting conned by Woman (I've seen several matches where they just cut away from a match to see Parker trying to get his dungus wet), and I loved Slater flipping out on him after the loss, but you have Parker as your manager and you know that snake is gonna bite you occasionally. Not intentional Parker/snake reference.

Dick Slater vs. Ric Flair WCW Pro 5/11/96

ER: This is a much more complete match than their prior encounter and had a constant back and forth, with Slater reeling from hard Flair knife edges and throwing some nice punches back, and Slater trying to out-Flair Flair and work the leg by yanking it and locking in spinning toe holds. We get Woman likely driving ringside males crazy with interference while wearing a 90s gothy minidress, looking like if you took all of the hottest qualities from every girl in The Craft. Chris Cruise talks about how hobbled Slater is after 20 years as a wrestler, doing a nice job of building a little sympathy for the guy, and we get plenty of cool moments like Slater kicking Flair in the face from the apron with his cowboy boots, or Flair really planting his knee on a missed kneedrop. Finish was nicely set up by everyone throughout the match, as Slater goes back to the spinning toe hold but leans his face in too close and gets poked in the eye by Dirty Ric, then popped with a weapon from Flair's trunks. I dug how the announce crew was talking about how this match would be a battle over who was the dirtiest player, sounds like a fun weekend show title they could have changed hands a few times.

PAS: I don't really remember seeing Flair work this kind of hide the object match before and it was a fun finish. I love how this was sold like a series, with Dusty mentioning the WCWSN match, and how this was a battle to see who was the dirtiest player in the game. Slater worked this more like a babyface, not really cheating but brawling and taking it to Flair, often preempting Flair's attacks, catching him up on top and blocking his punches. Flair was full heel and had Woman interfere and eventually won with a knucks shot. I feel like a face Stud Stable versus heel Horseman feud could have been awesome and this was a little taste of that.

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New Footage Friday: Jake the Snake, King Tonga, Piper, Dick Slater, Inoue, Steamboat

Mighty Inoue/Ashura Hara vs. Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat AJPW 5/14/82

PAS: What a nifty match. Steamboat and Slater were working as a workrate heel team, dominating the natives with hit and run offense,  which is one of the only times I can remember Steamer working heel  The late Dirty Dick was an offensive juggernaut he had this great amateur scramble with Hara and lands some nasty jabs and knees to the throat and a dope piledriver. Inoue had a great series of rolling sentons, but this was mostly the native team fighting from underneath. So weird to see Steamboat hit his big crossbody as a heel double team, there is an alternative universe where Steamboat/Slater was the Midnight Express as opposed to a random one off team on an All Japan tour.

MD:It's hard to understate just how much we have to watch right now. We're looking at dozens of matches virtually unseen by the eyes of the community over multiple years of AJPW TV as well as handhelds and whatever else pops up. Just on what we have available to us in this moment, we could probably run this feature for six months or longer. That said, when Dick Slater dies, you probably should watch a Dick Slater match.

He gets a rap for being a Terry Funk clone/tribute act, but if you're going to be a tribute act for someone, you could do a lot worse. As a kid, I first encountered him as one of the Hardliners, with Murdoch, and while both guys were past their prime and while the act was short lived, they left a mark on me and probably set the stage for my enjoyment, later in life, of that sort of mean, gritty meat and potatoes heel tag team that would just credibly beat babyfaces up. Later on, I encountered him as heel ace while Flair was away being champ in 84 Crockett or attached to Dark Journey as a heatseeker in Mid-South or as a wild babyface in Southwest/Houston and that's not to begin on the stuff we don't have much of his like his big runs in Florida or his reportedly excellent team with Orton. He's a guy I really like and that I'm always glad to get more footage of.

This is just a straightforward, well worked, tag with a bit more substance/narrative than you often get from this setting. It might be the best I've seen Steamboat look in one of these random AJPW matches and maybe the closest to a heel I've ever seen him look. After the initial workrate-heavy (and very good) back and forth, it settles in with long stretches of dueling legwork, well-executed, and Slater and Steamboat working well together as a heel unit. Steamboat doesn't do anything outright dirty, but he's focused and unrelenting with just a hint of flash. It's a trip to see him breaking out a tandem elbow drop or atomic drop with Slater.

TKG: Aw man, I dug this a bunch. I am a big fan of Slater as WCW 89-97 rudo who you can just stick in anything and he’ll make it work, and that’s what this felt like. We need some scientific wrestling with Steamboat on one side and Inoue, Hara on other…get Slater and let him take over body of this. This is some fun scientific wrestling here and a neat Dick Slater showcase. I think my favorite section of this match was the early mat work where Inoue/Hara are working over Slater’s leg. Slater is just super active as a guy getting body part worked over, constantly looking for escapes, ways to break hold, ways to reverse etc.

Brett Sawyer vs. Jake Roberts GCW 10/23/83

MD: We watch footage. That's how we get at wrestling. That's how we understand it. Footage is our language. Most of the time, that's a blessing. When it comes to conventional wisdom and remembered narratives, sometimes it's a curse. It's disheartening to watch Ray Stevens matches and not see evidence of what everyone said made him special. It's downright aggravating to see Brody's offense look terrible time and time again. Then there's Jake. Jake Roberts, the self-professed master of psychology, the grand manipulater of the crowd. If you watch a hundred Jake matches, more often than not, it's either not there, or it's there to no great purpose. If it's there at all, it's there, instead, to replace greatness, as a lazy crutch to make it through the match, one that might bring a crowd up and down a bit, but never too up and never too down and never, ever all the way over the top.

Here, in the midst of one of the most legendary nights at the Omni, buried in the middle of a card that they had to structure somewhat carefully to leave the crowd with something left for the big main events, here against Brett Sawyer of all people, we get to see the Jake we were always promised and frankly, it's glorious.

Sawyer came in with a taped up leg, but despite giving up size to Jake, took the early part of the match. That is until Jake caught his leg in the ropes and starts in on it. After that he's just unyielding, attacking it from every angle, utilizing the full breadth of his tall, lanky frame to dive onto it for the sake of the last row, preying upon the weakness to bust Sawyer open, using dirty tactics like tying him back up in the ropes or hitting chop blocks from behind even when he didn't have to, and soaking in the rising tide of boos from the crowd. He oscillated between tearing it apart and letting everything sink in, slinking around the ring as Sawyer writhed. There was a palatable anticipation in the crowd for Sawyer to maybe make it back up in those moments and downright outrage when Jake rushed back in. Buzz came out as did your elder statesmen babyfaces in the form of Ole and Wrestling 2, making this seem downright momentous.

In the end, after the towel came flying in, Jake was escorted out by four police officers, and even then, I think the only things that halted a riot were the promise of the main events to come and the hope that sooner than later, Buzz was going to get his hands on Jake to avenge his little brother. It's everything we were always promised, finally.

PAS: It is pretty crazy on the night of Buzz Sawyers most legendary match, that Brett Wayne had the better match. This was masterful stuff by Jake, such a sleazy cheapshot artist abusing a poor babyface. From the moment he points to the knee brace, you could tell he was going to unleash some violence. I loved the early knuckle lock section where Jake kept climbing to the first turnbuckle to gain leverage, and even put his knee on Brett's shoulder. I also loved all of the knee work, it felt less like a scientific wrestler working on a limb for a submission, and more like a sadistic child torturing an animal. Roberts slinking around and chop blocking the knee, kicking Sawyer, lifting him up by the knee (which led to a great spot where Sawyer climbed up his body to land a big punch). Sawyer really leaks all over the ring too, and it brings out the council of elders 2, Ole and Buzz to eventually throw in the towel and save this kids career, as Jake just starts punching at the knee and staring down the crowd and the babyfaces. Bizarrely they didn't run Roberts vs. Buzz in the Omni after this, because this was one of the best set ups I can remember seeing.

TKG: I don't know man. I always like Brett Wayne Sawyer, and normally dig Jake egging on crowd. And liked some of the little moments like when bleeding Sawyer firing himself up by shaking fists and slapping mat and Jake cuts it off by stomping on his mat slapping hand. And loved the big Ole, II, and Buzz stuff ringside. Ole wanting to prevent Buzz from getting involved while interjecting himself and trying to fire up Brett was cool, but didn't do a ton for me

It felt like it just stayed at one level of intensity for 15 minutes, never felt like I wanted it to go from Jackass taunting audience and attacking leg to jackass challenging audience and trying to break leg...it went from jackass attacking leg and egging on audience to him continuing to do it until match ends

Roddy Piper/Cowboy Bob Orton vs. King Tonga/Superfly Afi WWF early 1986

MD: There was a moment right at the start here when I saw the paltry, somewhat disinterested crowd and all those empty seats, when I realized it was 1986 and not 1984, when I saw the two teams standing in the ring, seemingly calm, that I thought they might just phone it in. What gain was there to give this crowd, in this setting, anything but chinlocks? Yeah, it was Piper and Haku and Orton, but I had my doubts. No one's ever talked about this match, or even really this tour. There's not much evidence of it anywhere.

So, I was wrong. Very wrong. Piper saw this as a canvas full of possibilities and gave a performance that reminded me of Terry Funk in Puerto Rico as much as anything else. Some wrestlers see empty seats as an opportunity to have a night out. Piper saw them as hundreds of weapons with plenty of space for them to be thrown. It became less of a match and more of an open world battle, down to Haku chasing Piper across a field to tackle him.

Eventually, it more or less settled into a normal match with the heels getting heat and the crowd slowly but surely figuring out how to react, but even then there's the ever-present possibility that Piper was going to run off into the field at any moment. He'd settled down a little since 84 but really only a little. My biggest regret with this one was that the camera didn't stay on him all the time. Orton's great but it's the manic unpredictability that you can't look away from. When I watched this, it only had about 130 views and it still has less than 200 as of this writing. Go watch this now and boost that number. You'll thank us.

TKG: Was this good enough to have made the WWF 80s set? It’s not as good as any JAPW or Puerto Rico arena tour match but it is a fun arena tour match. And doesn’t have the inexplicable heat of the Spoiler v Rocky Johnson match from the same Kuwait tour, but this is so much more entertianing. The arena tour stuff is fun as all the attached chairs seem super awkward as they got tossed around and I dug big chunks of the in-ring stuff. Was this a smaller ring than they normally use? Really felt like the heels could hit a top rope knee drop to anywhere in the ring. I dug all the top rope knee drops to cut off faces. I think there were three or four. People complain about big finishing moves getting used in body of matches, but fuck those people. The Sivi Afi eating death finisher also looked as nasty as you wanted it to.

PAS: On the eve of one gulf state stadium show we get a look at an earlier version. There have to be max 150 people at this show, and for some reason Piper/Orton and the Tongans go completely crazy, I can't remember any 80s WWF match being worked like this, as it was closer to a Memphis arena brawl then anything else. They immediately spill into the crowd and guys in thobes are fleeing as the wrestlers are stumbling through the crowd hurling chairs at each other violently.  Piper and King Tonga was especially great with Tonga open field rugby tackling Piper in the soccer stadium grass and whaling punches at him. Afi some how ends up busted open and is really bleeding badly, and one point he is trapped under a table as Piper tries to crush his chest. Both heels take some athletic bumps, and Piper does his awesome blinded shadowboxing. Totally off the wall match, which would have been legendary if it was on a Saturday Night's Main Event instead of in front of two dozen Kuwaiti shieks.

ER: I had no idea WWF did a Kuwait tour in 1986, though I found an LA Times article from that year talking about how Hulk Hogan's single was popular in Kuwait. I always love wrestling matches held in unfamiliar areas, wrestling fans arranged around a ring differently than you're used to, and most importantly a crowd filled with people who don't seem like they typically go to wrestling shows. I have zero clue what the Kuwait wrestling scene was like in 1986, and it's not too much of a stretch to picture Piper and Orton talking backstage before the match and saying "Let's put on a show for these guys in dresses." And almost immediately the match spills into the crowd and the people in the crowd respond as if they have zero idea how to handle what is happening. People are scrambling to get out of the way, Orton takes a flying bump over the guardrail, all the chairs in the crowd look like every single person just brought their own chairs from their kitchen, Orton jams a chair into Afi's groin, Piper runs from Tonga and gets tackled from behind at the knees like a fleeing perp, there's a good chance the commentator thinks Afi is actually Superfly Snuka (which could help us timestamp this match more to the first 3 months of 1986, as the Superfly nickname certainly didn't last long, and Piper was gone after Mania and came back months later as a babyface feuding with Orton), chairs get thrown and there's a genuine sense of confusion and chaos among the crowd. Nobody has identifiable Event Staff gear, so there are some random guys just running up to the action, really could have been any old psycho. In ring there's some classic ring cutting off, Orton especially is awesome doing false tag claps and actively talking trash to ringside fans. We spill out to the floor again, Piper upends a table and throws it on Afi, stomping on it. Fans genuinely seem unsure how to react to any of this. When we get back in the ring we get a great spot where Orton and Piper cheat enough to make Tonga get in the ring, and as the ref orders him back out Tonga gets rushed and knocked off the apron, taking an absolutely nasty bump, falling backwards while getting his foot caught in the bottom rope and lands right on the back of his head. The ref checks on him while a double team front suplex easily finishes off Afi. Phil is totally right that none of this at all felt like a WWF tag match from this era or the next couple eras. Do we have any info on what else was on this show (other than the Rocky Johnson match that also showed up)? Do we have any information at all on why WWF ran Kuwait in 1986? Hogan popularity? Sold show? Fascinating discovery.

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My Favorite Wrestling: WCW Worldwide 6/30/96

Dave Taylor/Bobby Eaton vs. Fire & Ice

ER: This is fun for what we got, but man I really wanted to see an actual full tag match between these two. Just like the Faces of Fear vs. Duggan/Pittman match from the previous episode, the potential was high as there were 4 tough guys who didn’t mind hitting hard or getting hit hard. And there were plenty of guys getting hit hard in this match, it was just a very quick 4 minutes. Taylor and Train do a nice shoulderblock exchange, and Taylor wrecks him with a few uppercuts, high dropkick to the chest, and a nasty forearm smash across the chest. I love Dave Taylor. A C&A Dave Taylor will need to be done in the future. I have a feeling he won’t really have many classic singles matches, but he is never less than enjoyable in a tag or multiman. So the match is going great, but sadly Eaton gets kind of steamrolled. He tags in, throws a couple nice punch variations to a held-by-Taylor Ice Train, then goes for an ill-advised top rope elbow. Once he misses that Fire & Ice just takes over. Norton didn’t seem in the mood to sell anything, Eaton takes a big crooked backdrop, eats Norton’s crippling shoulderbreaker and a big splash from Train, and on the floor Regal advises Taylor to not even attempt to break up the pin. So what we got was real fun, but could have been all time great had it gotten 10 minutes and actually let Eaton shine a bit.

Kurosawa vs. Alex Wright

ER: This had some miscommunication, and the layout left a lot to be desired, but I was impressed by how expressive Kurosawa was. Wright had a bunch of potential but often disappointed. He hit a couple athletically pretty but light landing dropkicks, and a couple European uppercuts that seem a lot weaker when we're merely 10 minutes removed from Dave Taylor. But Nakanishi took Wright's offense in a fun stooge style, really cartoon-y but atmosphere appropriate. Nakanishi has light arm strikes but really heavy legs, so he hit a couple of so so forearms but then aimed to kick a hole in Wright's chest and threw some big stomps. He also committed to a big missed elbow off the top. So there was some heart in the match, but it didn't go to a very interesting place. Nakanishi did some offense for awhile, then Wright came back with a spinning heel kick and German suplex. And, how crazy is it that Nakanishi is basically still working a full schedule?

ER: Macho Man does a promo with Mean Gene to build up the upcoming WCW Theatre at MSG show, and threatens guest referee Bruno Sammartino . Still can't believe they don't use a graphic of Bruno to build this up. 

Rough & Ready vs. Cobra/Bill Payne

ER: Bill Payne was around for a shockingly long time, was a guy big enough to actually get an entrance now and then, but also never win a match. He looks like Super Crazy mixed with Julio Fantastico. Rough and Ready were truly the cruelest gift, an awesome pairing that only got paired 20 times, with half of those not making television. I love the combo of 1996 combo of mid 40s Dick Slater and Pussy Wagon Mike Enos (The Mauler??). Bill Payne eats a full landing vertical suplex from Enos on the spinning stage, painful spill, and I'm now a Bill Payne fan. He also eats a badass fallaway slam off the middle ropes from Enos. Enos is really muscling this guy around and it's awesome. Slater kicks Payne in the gut with a flat out great stomach kick, and Enos hits one of the biggest high rotation power slam you've seen. You need to cherish the Rough & Ready that you come across in the wild. It is nature's endorphins.

The Gambler vs. Booty Man

ER: Gambler has his sick as hell red trunks with all four playing card suits on the back. Gambler is such a great stooge, and a real pro, the kind of guy I really appreciate. I'd rather watch all of the Gambler matches than the best Kenny Omega matches. Gambler is the Chris Elliott of wrestling. A little thicker, but an understanding of physical reaction, a fun but punchable face, and an undeserved smug cockiness. Booty doesn't bring much of interest other than Kimberly Page. Gambler brings nice clubbing arms, solid stomps, big falls, and leans into Booty's high knee. High Knee. Say it.

Kensuke Sasaki vs. The Giant

ER: Surprised they would put Sasaki in with the Giant, as I didn't think Sasaki was there to lose one minute matches. He throws hard chops and hard leg kicks, and Giant's big chokeslam is super impressive, as he lifts him with one arm, then lifts him higher before dropping to his knees with the slam. I wanted more, obviously.

Hugh Morrus vs. Lex Luger

ER: Luger is a god on these 1996 shows, and he has truly gotten the worst of what WCW has to offer. Who else is having to make chicken salad out of a main event opposite Hugh Morris or Konnan? Luger knows how to craft matches out of these lugs beyond lugs, working this one like a great Hogan match. Morrus gets a couple of big slams to start and they slow play them, with Morrus hamming it up and Luger selling them with a "You think that's a knife" face. Luger let's him think he's at a disadvantage, then just explodes on Morrus with a bunch of nice forearms and shows off a bodyslam of his own and hits a nice powerslam on a big guy. Luger really does work the best version of the Hogan match you're used to, because he's not working with the same level of insecurity. He's cool with his spot on the pecking order, happy with the amount of money he's made, not scared of guys like Hugh Morrus. He knows he can sell for Morrus and naturally look like a star, so it makes a Hogan-style match more like a Nice John Cena match without toddler shorts and goofy faces. Morrus gets to merely miss the No Laughing Matter instead of having Luger take it, then just kick out and go for win. Missing the moonsault that leads to a Luger comeback is a much more organic way of moving the match along, and Morrus also gets to eyerake his way out of a Torture Rack. A Hogan match with him missing a legdrop would make it more interesting, give it some more depth. Morrus didn't look great here, but it didn't matter, because we had Lex Luger running things in 1996.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WCW B-SIDES

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