Matches from AJPW 11/25/90: WALKING TALL DORY~! NO RESPECT DYNAMITE~! KIDNEY PUNISHING HANSEN/KAWADA~!

The Funks vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith AJPW 11/25/90

ER:  A pretty amazing match that I had never seen, with four standout performances. It's so hard hitting, and these new All Japan Classics episodes showcase that in the best way. The sound on these episodes is incredible, and it puts you right in the middle of this high impact style. I can't imagine what it was like sitting front row for such a physical style as All Japan - let alone be a participant in it! -  but this video makes it feel like I was there 35 years ago. It's one of five Tag League matches smack in the middle of the show, and they kill each other and treat it like a match with actual stakes. It's an awesome Dory match and more evidence that Dynamite Kid's Winter 1990 is him at one of his highest levels. Dory comes off like the tougher, harder hitting Funk, an actual Cool Dory match. The match peaks with the Bulldogs working over Terry's Not As Damaged 46 year old legs in ways that contributed to Terry's Old Knees while Terry scrambles in half a dozen of the greatest attempts at making a hot tag, a face in peril to his big brother's ass kicking tough guy. 

Johnny Smith is at his absolute beefiest; Dynamite is at his most bitter and dangerous, a little guy starting the most violent fights at the bar. It's a great team. Dynamite looks angry the entire match, on the apron, in the ring, and treats Terry like an old man to be put to pasture. Terry works lighter to come off as vulnerable to loss as possible, and is at perhaps his most sexy. Sexy Terry working as Pretty Ricky. Ponytail Terry with his little mustache and the best body of his career. I love Hot Ponytail Terry in his Body Glove tights, and here's Dory in his blue trunks working stiffer than anyone in the match,  maybe anyone on the show (Eric's Note: Kawada and Hansen kick each other so hard in the kidneys later on the card that Dory Funk would have died so let's leave it to saying he worked stiffer than anyone in this match). It adds up to a middle of the card tag match that was worked as a small show main event. 

Listen to how hard they're all smacking each other! Dory's contact on his collar and elbow tie-ups with Johnny were the sound of bodies used to taking hits. When Dory is in against Dynamite, he hits him with uppercuts that are so hard that I don't think Kid had to sell his limbs all going numb. He looked shocked that Dory was hitting him so hard. He tees off hard on Smith and really looks like a mat expert going after Smith's knee and ankle. Everyone worked this super honestly, but Dory's work was the most honest and well executed of all. And here's Dynamite, the by far smallest man in the match and the guy who I'd least want to confront about anything. He goes after Terry with no respect. Maybe my favorite spot in the match, is when Terry is hitting Johnny with headbutt after headbutt before they both go down. Johnny goes down, Terry spirals down after, and the second Terry hits the mat Dynamite's eyes go wide and he scrambles up to the top rope to hit a headbutt to Terry's stomach. He pulls it off so hastily, making it look like a snap impulse, and his knees land full weight one inch from Terry's face. It looked so dangerous and was only one of the things that made this match play so tough. Dynamite is so geared up when he's in against Terry, that they even do a spot where Dynamite presses Terry off him on a kickout and Terry flies several feet from it, like Dynamite was Yokozuna. Dynamite kills Terry with clotheslines to the back of the head, throws him to the floor with a back body drop, and - most incredibly - drags him into a standing stretch muffler that blew me away. Dynamite's body had to be in constant agony and as he locked in the muffler and stood to his feet, clasping his hands while the much larger Terry was hanging upside down in a headstand, his pain was as palpable as any I've seen.  

The Bulldogs working over Terry's knee was some excellent third act cutting off the ring. Dynamite wanted that knee all match, and when he got it he was like a dog with a chew toy. He was slamming Terry's calf over his knee and it looked like one of the most violent pieces of work I've seen. Terry's selling was incredible, crawling and leaping towards Dory while Smith and Dynamite had to keep tackling and blocking. There were some nearfalls that got the big crowd to bite, like one of the most well-used and well-executed rolling inside cradles. Dory pulled the cradle and Smith rolled it over and the movement was so good that Yokohama bought in. Terry's win over Smith was so well done, as Dynamite had totally drained Terry and suddenly one of the biggest stars in wrestling history looked like he could be beaten by Johnny Smith. He has to resort to scrambling on top of Smith during a pinfall exchange and just weigh his body down. The Bulldogs looked like a tough vital team against two legends, and The Funks looked legitimately at the top of their abilities. 

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. The Land of Giants AJPW 11/25/90

ER: Phil and I wrote about this match 7 years ago and I don't think I appreciated it enough then. It seems funny to say that I didn't appreciate an Old Andre match enough, as I think every single review of any Old Andre match I've ever written is me appreciating and analyzing every step he takes. I love the 1990 Tag League old broken but still proud Giants, and we should all be thankful that we got to see them against the worst Fake Road Warriors team ever assembled in a respected promotion. I cannot and will not say it is a great match, because it is not. The Land of Giants - Skywalker Nitron especially, specifically - are total cornballs. Nitron is the goofiest of all, almost surely the goofiest wrestler All Japan used in 1990. You're off the hook Richard Charland and David Sammartino. But part of what makes the match great, is that Andre and Baba know that these two are cornballs, and the gift that brings us is a very active Andre match. 

Andre is old but not nearly as old as he'd look in 1992. He was in the ring a lot against both cornballs and had a bunch of great ideas and ways to attack both of them. He looked really strong, even if Nitron sold some of his offense with the goofy acting only seen from people reading stories to small children in libraries. Andre looked like he had a lot of fun beating these two goofs up. He had two different cantaloupe fist punches, one while holding Nitron in a headlock and the other just thrown to the face and followed up with a NOAH worthy headbutt. He grabbed Masters in a knuckle lock and made it look like he was crushing his hand. The camera had a zoom in on Andre interlacing his fingers with Butch and his fingers were so big they looked like they were forcing Masters' fingers to break apart. It looks like something that would and did drop Masters to a knee. The best part is when he broke the knuckle lock by rearing back and punching Masters in the fingers. 

This match has Andre the fucking Giant holding Rob Zombie's Michael Myers in a bearhug. Freddy vs. Jason is my least favorite Nightmare on Elm Street movie and my least favorite Friday the 13th movie, but Andre the Giant vs. Michael Myers is a horror movie showdown we needed to see and I would have paid money to. There's no way I would have gone into that movie and gotten Andre keeping his bearhug locked in by pulling on The Shape's rattail. Moustapha Akkad wouldn't have had the guts. 

Stan Hansen/Danny Spivey vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 11/25/90

ER: The Funks vs. New Bulldogs was a hard hitting match. Every open hand on chest and back landed with a loud crack and Dory Funk threw in a last hurrah before his 50s with a great Walking Tall badass role. It's great. But then two matches later Kawada and Hansen took such righteous anger out of each other's kidneys that it made me think *I* was going to piss blood. This is some of the toughest wrestling you'll ever see. Hansen is in full force of nature mode and he hits Kawada like a kid in training camp. Every chair, every shoulder, every godforsaken kick, was felt thoroughly. Hansen is such a force of nature, that you're not expecting Kawada to take such a force so head on. Kawada kicks Hansen back even harder and cracks baseball bat shots off the old cowboy's torso. Kawada makes such wicked contact that Hansen's pancreas selling looks like the man is learning how to sell a bruised pancreas in real time. Hansen is the best Train Running Off the Rails impacter in wrestling and it was amazing to see Kawada throw his whole body at a moving train. The finish is incredible and features one of the greatest low bridges I've ever seen. Misawa flies over the top rope with such speed that I jumped in the same way I do in the movies when a car gets unexpectedly T-boned. Spivey's team with Hansen took his timing to a really high level. Misawa is there one second and gone the next and as he's flying one direction, Hansen runs the other and knocks Kawada into the sky with a western lariat. Later, Doc and Gordy try to hit harder clotheslines on Taue in the main event and make fine cases. Later still, Jumbo and Taue outdo them all with their clotheslines to Gordy. It's show-long clothesline oneupmanship I can support. And then Jumbo gives Gordy another. 

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1990 Andre Remains Undefeated, 1990 Hansen is Unmoved, 1990 Funk is Ponytail Terry

Andre the Giant/Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Stan Hansen/Joel Deaton/Dan Spivey AJPW 12/1/90 - EPIC

ER: I love this. It's 8 minutes long and every second is great. It has numerous peaks from all six men, efficiently mixing and maximizing several different pairings, playing perfectly into the natural hierarchy. You know this is going to end with Joel Deaton being pinned by somebody, you know the second Deaton is left in the ring that we are close to the end, but those facts do not diminish a single exchange because often what should happen happens for a reason. The match has everything, including my three favorite pro wrestlers all doing the things that make them my three favorite wrestlers. This is the only time my three favorite pro wrestlers ever were in a match together. Do not even try counting some West Texas battle royal from 50 years ago, this is the only match Andre, Funk, and Hansen ever had. Isn't that something?  

Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen never had an exchange that wasn't worth watching, and here it's Ponytail Terry, taking a swing at Hansen on the apron, a swing to connect. I don't think Hansen sees it coming but his blurred vision instincts knew he had to duck quick and low with the speed Ponytail Terry was approaching him. Hansen chops Terry so hard, Terry punches Hansen like he does, and it's great...

but it's nothing like the smile on Andre's face as Hansen is backed into their corner and he tags in. I don't know if Andre entered a ring quicker over the rest of his life, and Hansen hops backward up onto the bottom buckle like a trapped animal. His instincts are correct. When he tries to lock up, Andre grabs pro wrestling's ultimate ass kicker by the fucking throat and backs him up all the way across the ring, dropping him with one punch to the chest while Mustache Joel Deaton runs for his life down the apron. Everyone got their own individual Andre Jump Scare spot. 

Andre uses his size and Sasquatch grabbing ability to herd all three big men into a corner and hold them there so the Funks can use him as a battering ram. Hansen is trapped below the pile and shows he's one of the best wounded animals in wrestling, only here it's his pride that's wounded and makes him advance on Andre with punches and chops. Hansen is an egotistical Great White Shark in a way that nobody else has ever captured. Hansen famously never stops advancing in his matches, and when Andre stops him dead in his tracks by grabbing his fucking throat, I wonder how many times it will take him to learn that this is the one man you cannot keep advancing on. Andre does not back Hansen up by the throat, this time, he punches him in the nose and tags out. 

Sometimes Dory looks at his opponent with those Sydney Sweeney eyes and upends them with two hard uppercuts, and it's the best 1990s Dory.

Andre looks like he's having the time of his life on the apron. Apron work is just one other thing that old Andre excelled at. When Dory reverses a whip and sends Deaton his way, Deaton hits the damn brakes while Andre nods and grins at him like crazed Willem Dafoe. This match sets up the idea of Joel Deaton getting whipped into Andre more than once and pays it off incredibly for the finish. Hansen and his goons all hit Dory hard on the floor far away from where Andre can reasonably get over to them, which is a great old Andre spot where heels take advantage of how there's no chance Andre will be able to even reach them. But they always eventually wind up too close. Spivey tries to get all cute back in the ring and rolls Dory up with an abdominal stretch cradle, but Andre reaches over the ropes and breaks up the pin by grabbing Spivey's entire mullet in his fist and not letting go! Spivey looks like a man actually considering whether he's fine with having his hair ripped out to escape. Andre is the best apron threat in wrestling history. 

You can see the moment Hansen knows he's not defeating Andre and you can see the moment one second later when it stops bothering him. Hansen had a pattern all match of using Joel Deaton as a projectile in his war against Andre. Deaton was used in two rocket launchers, and 1.5 of them connected. When Hansen got tired of getting throttled, he decided in one instant to whip Deaton as hard as he could in Andre's direction. Joel Deaton is a great pro wrestler and even though we all knew the entire match was building to his demise, he never once wrestles like he knows. When Hansen whips him toward Andre and starts heading for the showers before even seeing whether Deaton got caught or not, Deaton really thinks he is hitting a big time clothesline on Andre. He is not a man forced into running toward his own death, he isn't a guy running towards someone just to take a spot, he is a man doing his best to connect with that clothesline. 

It doesn't connect, Andre kills him. Hansen won't stick around to see the pin.  

You want to tell me old Andre's elbowdrop sucks? You're wrong. In this very match you can see an example of the most perfect elbow every dropped, that of Stan Hansen. There has never been a better elbowdrop than Hansen's. His form is perfect, his landings always directly on target, his impact incredible and something I wouldn't survive. You cannot throw a better elbowdrop. Andre's elbowdrop is ugly. Not just by comparison, it's just ugly. The form is terrible. He looks like an old dog who is taking five steps just to lie down. Legs down first, then the left arm to the elbow, then the right, slow roll to his side, off center on his favorite fur covered rug. But when the camera cuts in close and you see Andre lying across Deaton's chest, there is no way Deaton could get a shoulder up if his life depended on it. When old Andre pinned someone, it was a shoot. Andre lying on top of you cannot be kicked out of, so the delivery of Andre falling on top of you does not matter. Hansen's elbowdrop is about maximum targeted impact. Andre's is about finding the best way to get laterally onto his opponent. Impact is not created in form when you are Andre's size, it just Is.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Found Footage Friday: TERRY~! DORY~! ABBY~! KIMALA II~! KONAKA~! NORI DA FUNKY~! RUSHER~! EIGEN~!

Dory Funk Jr./Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Kimala II AJPW 12/7/90

MD: On paper, this played out pretty much how one would think it might. Actually, even on paper, it had a little more to it than a lot of the Funks' matches on these 1990-1991 tours and the Abby/Kimala ones around the 1990 RWTL. I like almost all of those matches but so many are handheld so you don't quite the full smack of Dory's uppercuts or the fully joy of Terry's antics and they usually have a bit of a ceiling to them. Still good, still full of mastery, but they don't push it quite over the top.

This goes over the top and we get to see it in jarringly crisp video quality. The first third of it was back and forth. Dory's uppercuts were brisk. Terry's punches were amazing. Even just seeing them do a spinning footwash onto Kimala 2 looked gnarly giving the sheer size of his head. They were even able to double slam him. Kimala always had just enough "stuff" too, coming off the top with a headbutt as Abby held on to a poor victim, that abrupt dropkick that could change the trajectory of a match. And then Abby's throat shots or clothesline drop looked great in this VQ. Amazing moment here to end that first third as they set things up for Terry vs Abby, only for Abby to give a maniacal smile and tag out to Kimala once again.

It was the prelude to blood and panic; Terry would almost immediately get the spinning toehold on Kimala only for Abby to rush in for the fork and go right after his ear. What followed was a beautifully symphony of Terry Funk, blood running down the side of his head, flailing, bumping, writhing, and menacing a poor cameraman as he convalesced around the ringside area. Also lots of crazy, wild punch combos that were pure Terry. This, of course, let Abby and Kimala have the advantage (including bloodying Dory up too) until we rolled into the third act with Terry getting the fork and the fans going nuts for the Funks' revenge. We've seen some of this act before: Abby with the fork, Abby getting comeuppance from it, he made a career partially out of it, but the Funks had a way of making it weightier and more visceral than anyone. At a time where they felt a little more like an attraction in their All Japan matches, they still do a match like this whenever they wanted.

PAS: Man I loved this! Chaotic Terry Funk is one of the true treats in pro-wrestling, he is the greatest wrestler ever and his true mastery is when things go off the rails. When he gets stabbed in the ear and everything goes pear shaped, we get some awesome out of control Terry including him roughing a poor innocent cameraman and bleeding all over his shirt. Terry and Abby is as great a match up in 1990 as it was in 1979, Abby isn't as mobile, but mobility isn't his calling card anyway. I am a low voter on Dory as a technical wrestler, but have always enjoyed him in brawls, and he was super fun here, throwing thumping uppercuts, bleeding, and even doing a spot where he propelled Kimala over the top rope with a legscissors. Kimala 2 is a guy with a lot of bounce and was fun as sort of a hyperactive brother to Abby's more slow moving menace.  Still this is special because of the GOAT, and anytime we get to see him add another page to his novel it is a blessing.

ER: Man I could watch exclusively All Japan matches to the very end of my days. I loved every man in this tag, all doing the exact things they do best. But of course, the most exciting thing to all of you is the fact that none of us have ever seen Terry Funk square off against Kimala II before. Kimala works a lot of this match and seemingly has zero issue getting the shit beaten out of him by Funk. It's hilarious that Terry appeared to be throwing worked punches at Abby - even after Abby started to slice the man's ear off with a fork - but appeared to actively hit Kimala as hard as possible. When Kimala misses an avalanche, Terry hits a BEAST of a standing lariat, making some of the hardest contact you can make from a flat footed swing, then drops the full weight of his knee on Kimala's face with a very much Not Worked kneedrop. When Kimala gets to his feet after that kneedrop, Terry shoot punches him in the face in the exact same spot he just dropped a knee. Later on when the square off again, I was shocked to see how excited Kimala looked when Terry tagged in, slapping his belly and running in place as if he couldn't wait to walk out with a shattered orbital bone. And sure enough, Funk almost instantly overwhelmed him with punches to knock him to his back, then threw more pounding fists from his side while Kimala lay motionless. 

But while Funk/Kimala was the unique unseen match-up, the Terry/Abby interactions were legendary. When Abby pulled out the fork for the first time on the apron he did it with the showmanship of a magician, turning to the crowd and wiggling his fingers and making lil' stinker faces. "You know what I'm getting out!" before just walking into the ring and stabbing Terry straight in the head. Abby stabs the fuck out of the Funks, and when he starts stabbing Terry in the ear Terry goes nuts at ringside, sprinting at and then getting tangled up in a camera guy, then falling over a table like only Terry Funk can fall over a table. Not one fucking person can ape Terry's body movement, and his falling glacier bump onto and over a table is Uncut Terry. I love the first full reveal we get of Terry's badly bleeding ear, that realization of "Oh yeah obviously Abby was just stabbing him as hard as possible in the ear with the fork" leading directly into him forking the hell out of Dory's bald head. 

Abdullah's fork work here was incredible. The reaction he gets pressing it into Dory's fucking eyeball was real, and I loved the sicko fucking way that Kimala kept tagging in and going mouth first after every fresh fork slicing that Abby opened up. Kimala and Abby were such a fun team, as aside from Kimala licking and chewing up all the Funk's blood we got two different moments of Abby running full speed into Kimala as he had a Funk pressed into a corner. One of the most special things in pro wrestling is seeing one of the fattest men you've ever seen, running as fast and hard as he can into another one of the fattest men you've ever seen, for the sole purpose of squishing a third man. Terry gets a Stone Cold level reaction when he finally wrests the fork away from Abby and starts stabbing and punching him around ringside, and Kimala takes a flat out instant bump tumbling headlong over the top to the floor from a Dory low bridge headscissors, and his screams as Dory locking in the spinning toe hold made that hold feel as dangerous as it ever looked. Men Kimala's size aren't built to fall that fast onto concrete, and him fucking up his leg should be almost expected from such a fall. Hearing him yelp while Dory pulled on his leg added realism I was not expecting from a match that already had a fake Sudanese man stabbing two men hard enough to get 8 years for assault, had he done it anywhere other than in a ring at Budokan. 

Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen AJPW 1/27/91

MD: This was the last show of the tour so they were in a singles match instead of a tag. It amazes me that these two would still be going at it ten years later in NOAH, but it really was a timeless act. In the months that preceded this, Baba was teamed with Andre in the RWTL. At this point, he was out with an injury I think, and wouldn't be back til June. That meant Rusher was captaining the comedy for AJPW and Eigen was a perfect foil for him, just a total shitheel. From around this period, we have a few tags with rough vq as they're HHs and an even tougher singles encounter that you can barely make out. With tags, they usually did a good job of delaying the gratification of Rusher getting his hands on Eigen. It was trickier with the singles match but still worked out pretty well here. It started with Rusher chasing him around the ring to get a handshake, Eigen shaking, and then Eigen immediately slapping Rusher to a big reaction. 

Following that were a few unclean breaks by Eigen and then some real advantage. He was even able to position Rusher on the apron, facing the crowd to hit the smack to the chest (like Sheamus') which were his own signature spot to take. Eventually, he started chopping the heck out of Rusher and Rusher went from wincing in agony to powering back, flooring Eigen with one shot and taking over, never to look back. He'd smack him on the apron twice; Eigen always spit into the crowd when taking this and we have two good shots, first of the crowd grossed out by it and then all of them running from the impending spit like they were at a Gallagher show. Post match, we even can translate a bit of what Kimura was saying (hopeless on old fancams). He ended the show and his part of the tour by reminding Eigen that it was cold out there and telling him not to catch a cold, cracking the crowd up. I love watching these guys do their thing.  

ER: I'm sure it's easy to see the names Haruka Eigen and Rusher Kimura and write this off as comedy, but you'd be missing out on one of the most savage Eigen matches you've ever seen. Haruka Eigen's All Japan/NOAH run is one of the best comedy runs of any wrestler ever, maybe the funniest comedy worker of my life not named Super Porky. And he is plenty funny in this match, he just decides to segue from comedy to outright ass kicking in a way that he rarely did once he hit his mid-40s. When Rusher offers him a handshake at the bell, he accepts it and then slaps Rusher, skipping away and running behind the referee, then slaps Rusher again when they finally lock up. I laughed hard, and was fully expecting a match filled with his cherubic face making pleading faces as Rusher softly punched and shuffled after him, but instead Eigen begins throwing stiffer and stiffer strikes until he is hitting Rusher harder than I've seen him hit anyone during any part of his 15 year King's Road career. Rusher chimes in with open hand chops directly to Eigen's throat (which Eigen sells with alarmed screams), but Eigen is the one throwing headlock punches, hard flat boot kicks into Rusher's ribs, and graduates to caving in Rusher's chest while turning his own legendary comedy spot on its ear. 

"You guys think it's funny to splay me out on the ropes and have me spit on the fine Korakuen attendees? Here's how it feels. You think I'm a joke? Am I a joke to you? Here's what it feels like you motherfucker." Eigen clubs Kimura in the chest as hard as I've ever seen him hit anyone, forcing the ref to hold him back by the shoulders as he kicks at Rusher from the apron. In a world where Eigen typically uses the referee as a shield, we have now seen the referee forced to hold him back from furthering a beating. I love him. And when it eventually all catches up to him and Rusher throws him to the floor, you know he turns the tables and makes Eigen spray spit into the 6th row. Haruka Eigen is a man who tried to break free from his comedy roles and make his way into action dramas, only to be dragged back into comedy. The finish is excellent, as both men start wailing on each other with punches and chops, and Eigen gets up steam to elbow Rusher right in the ear. Rusher's selling is excellent as Eigen hits the ropes to comeback with a killshot elbow, but Rusher hooks him with a clothesline hard enough to put down any man. I have waited far too long to start a Haruka Eigen Complete & Accurate.  

Konaka Pale One vs. Nori da Funky Shibiresasu Sportiva 10/3/18

MD: There will always be room for Japanese warehouse nightclub wrestling here on Segunda Caida. Sebastian tells us that Nori da Funky is a guy who was in a Japanese hip hop group that did the opening song of Naruto and who wrestles like a powerhouse. Konaka we've seen before with his white face paint and ghost look and awesome combo of tiny close-up adjustments to get in and out of holds and abruptness in putting things on. The video's 30 minutes but the match itself is more like 15. It's a war though.

Konaka has Nori da Funky's number early, able to twist him about in hold after hold. Nori's able to at least put up a fight and just power his way through and into certain things. They go into strike exchanges a couple of times and I appreciate the way they sell each and every shot. There's no standing and taking everything. It all has weight and consequence. Every hold, every shot, every suplex. Even the roll-ups and kickouts seem grueling. Konaka's abruptness plays into his mid-match strategy as he keeps locking in a sleeper hold out of nowhere with Nori having to use all of his strength and savvy to escape, never the same way twice. In a test of strength Nori's going to win. In a game of chess, Konaka has the advantage, and the finishing stretch roll-ups leans more towards chess, ending with a clever spot that Yuta should steal. There's stuff on the mic after and entrances to start so don't be daunted by the time on this one. It's well worth watching.

PAS: We are in the glory days of weird Japanese indy footage shaking loose. Mutoah is selling their stuff and other micro indies, guys are finding tapes over in Japan, and digging into weird archives like this. Pale One is pretty cool, he really wrestles like the ghost of Shu El Guerrero or something, and I love the fact that the Japanese version of Shaggy 2 Dope wrestles like a WAR trainee in 1995, and the strength versus technique part of this match was really nifty. Love the final roll up, such a cool way to get a pin when you are out matched physically. Really looking forward to digging in to this stuff further. 

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Found Footage Friday: NEW BULLDOGS~! OLD FUNKS~! IWRG RETRO~! LA CORPORACION~! TEAM CASAS~! LAWLER~! MERCURY~! COACH~!

New Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith) vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr. AJPW 11/20/90

MD: I don't think this is an all time classic, but I do think it's a bit of a "for want of a nail" scenario. Let me put it this way: if this match had existed on tape in the mid-90s, I think it would have been put on a lot of comp tapes and traded around. I think it would have ended up as a match with a "rep." We look at things with different eyes in 2023 than in even 2003 though, and that means maybe not being quite so amazed by the most novel thing in the match and instead really appreciating certain other elements. 

As such, it was a tale of three or so matches. There was a lot of Dory being down on the mat with Johnny Smith and less of hm down with Dynamite. Smith, against Dory, felt smooth, credible, like he belonged. They kept things moving. The matwork was more explosive with Dynamite and that's actually impressive in its own right, just the notion that matwork can be explosive. Then there was Terry feeding, primarily for Dynamite, though with a bit of being stuck in Smith's headlock too. That style of chain wrestling is just so different from what we see today, less set spots and exchanges and more of Terry just grasping at anything he can to try to escape. When in there with Dynamite, Terry bounced around the ring as they crashed into each other at high speed.

The match shifted gears when Terry got Dynamite out and started to beat on him on the floor. My favorite version of the Funks is the bloody, scrappy one where they're fighting monsters, but my second favorite is when they're outright bullies, like that really fun Martel/Zenk match from 86 where they treat Martel with respect but wipe the mat with Zenk. That's what we get here, first on Dynamite and then, after he rolls limply over to Smith, onto him. Tag. Pile driver. Tag. Pile driver. Seven times on Smith in a row. It's just a remarkable two minutes. He kicks out (too much) and is saved in the end and it has some reaction from the crowd, but maybe not as much if they really milked it instead of doing it so matter-of-factly. Moreover, after Dynamite makes it back in, Smith is back on his feet and rolling just a minute later. Still, definitely 1998 comp tape material and certainly a worthwhile match for anyone with even a vague interest in either of these teams, something that should definitely see the light of day and now it has.

IWRG Retro 4/6/23

La Corporacion (Black Tiger/Pentagon Black, Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro/Veneno/Scorpio Jr.) vs. Negro Casas/Felino/Heavy Metal/Matrix/Black Dragon/Mike Segura/Fantasma, Jr. IWRG 7/4/2005

MD: The     other half of the IWRG show and it got a ton of time (35 mins or so). It was good too, constantly moving with a lot of solid exchanges. I wouldn't say anyone stood out more than anyone else, really and no one looked terrible, though maybe Matrix or Fantasma, Jr. and Veneno were the weakest on either side. Maybe. There weren't any long bits of momentum from one side or another, just a lot of resets and into the next exchange. There was more of a sense that if you got into the wrong corner, you might get swarmed, in that sort of big NJPW multi-man tag style that you don't see in lucha as much.

Big indy moves had definitely reached lucha indy matches. Mike Segura managed to land on his head with some pretty crazy stuff from Cerebro Negro, for instance. And Pentagon Black was doing an Argentinian backbreaker into a cutter/facebuster sort of finisher. There was only one real dive but it was a huge one, with Black Dragon pressing up against the corner and going head first over it out of a running start. Despite a lack of major momentum shifts, there were patterns; Heavy Metal took out three guys with his bridging fisherman's suplex. Black Tiger got a couple of lucky fouls in. It ended with La Familia Casas vs Pentagon Black, Black Tiger, and Scorpio, Jr. with Metal outfoxing the rudos' interference for a deep roll up win on Scorpio, Jr. who had done a pretty good job asserting his physicality up until there. There was always something happening with characters that jumped off the screen just enough to keep you eternally engaged. Not at all a bad use of 35 minutes.

Jerry Lawler vs. Jonathan Coachman/Joey Mercury NEW 4/28/07

There was a similar handicap match vs. Romeo Roselli the night before and I'm glad we have this one instead. I loved the ebb and flow of it. They started off on the mic with Coachman bringing out Mercury as a surprise partner and teased a bit of Coach getting into it before starting with a big chunk of Mercury vs Lawler. It was all based around punches and it was all very, very good. King snapped his head back for Mercury's, of course, and he had a great tease high, go low that played off of Mercury's reconstructive face surgery.

When it was time for Mercury to take over, it was with a bunch of standard stuff like slams and back body drops but they all looked big and impactful and lived up to the moment. King got a comeback in when Mercury got distracted by the valet but he was able to take back over. Likewise, the first time Coach came in to pick at the bones, he got distracted as well, but they held off him getting his comeuppance. Eventually, Mercury went to the top rope double axehandle well once too often and ate the shot to the gut, the fistdrop, the pile driver. I would have liked them to find a better way to get Coach into the ring after that. He sort of just asserted himself to try to break things up and was pinned anyway. I would have preferred Mercury stumbling back into him or something along those lines. Regardless, he took two of the worst stunners imaginable, so bad that they were comically good, before Lawler pinned him for the feel good moment. There's a really good match with Mercury and Lawler from later in the year that felt more like a Memphis classic, but this was just straight up well executed and laid out and a lot of fun.

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Found Footage Friday: Second Annual Ilio DiPaolo Memorial Show/97 WCW House Show

Second Annual Ilio DiPaolo Memorial Show - WCW - 6/7/97

MD: This starts with Tony Parisi doing the national anthem for both Canada and the States, a pretty classy DiPaolo video with a ton of footage, and then switches from gallant to goofus for a martial artist (Gary Castanza) tribute video that really needs to be seen. Later on, they did a presentation on Buffalo boxing champs and brought out Carmen Basilio. The Legends presentation was nice, with guys like Ladd and Waldo Von Erich and Kurt Von Hess coming out and Thesz speaking. They did a presentation with Jim Kelly to set up the Savage match (more on that later). 

ER: The Ilio DiPaolo tribute video really was great, with an actual shocking amount of DiPaolo footage against at least a dozen different opponents. WWE owns more footage than any company in history and none of their video packages come close to using this many unique matches per package. Perhaps even more shocking, is how much footage they had for martial artist Gary Castanza's tribute package. I'm not sure my family has a photograph of me later than my high school graduation photo, but WCW is somehow in possession of hours upon hours of Gary Castanza footage to cull from. We're lucky they had that access, as Castanza is one of my all time favorite breeds of martial artist: A man who looks like Randy Marsh who also invented his "own style of fighting". You should watch him fight, but you will not be surprised that much of his "own style of fighting" involved standing in one place and throwing guys who grab him in a very specific way, like a Steven Seagal aikido expo. From the plentiful footage of this man's life, it appears like he fleeced a ton of police departments into paying for his self defense training programs, and I will always get behind a guy who got paid money to make cops look like idiots. Oh, and definitely watch 12:47 of the video to see Castanza screaming in full close-up while wearing some kind of bite suit helmet. After a warm and somber video tribute to this local community hero, Brian Knobbs brings Castanza's widow and three young children in the ring while yelling "MAKE SOME NOISE" into the mic directly next to their faces. 

Greg Valentine/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Tony Parisi/Gino Brito

MD: This had the local newspeople announcing and seconding and was very much the legends match on the card. And then Valentine and Funk skipped the shine entirely and went right to heat, the jerks! It wasn't idle stuff either as they were getting it on Parisi and Valentine kept rushing over to elbow Brito in the skull to stop tags and draw off the ref. Valentine/Dory teamed a bit in 83 and they were a well-oiled machine here, really complementing one another. Valentine, of course, wasn't afraid to bump and stooge around the ring when it was comeback time either. After a spirited, but brief, comeback ending with a Brito figure-four on the Hammer, they went into a second round of heat, building to Parisi having enough and rushing in and a DQ-drawing blatant ref bump. The fans didn't love the non-finish but at least old-timer babyfaces got their hands raised. For guys who were very much inactive, Brito and Parisi more or less held up their own. I was expecting more matwork and feeling out, not a trip straight to heatseeking, but it all worked out for the best. And hey, post match newsman second for the heels, Art Wander went after the babyface second with way more fire than you'd expect, and was revealed to be nWo.

ER: This match did not have any right being as entertaining as it was, as 3/4 of the wrestlers were 55 years old and two of those men had not been worked in a wrestling ring for a decade. Tony Parisi showing out was an especially nice surprise, and after seeing him here I'm bummed we didn't get him working any northeast 90s indies. This was all about Valentine and Funk being assholes and throwing nothing but elbows and jaw rattling uppercuts, cutting off the ring and making blind tags. Parisi was a really great babyface here, and the crowd was insanely loud for he and Brito. This was a huge show with a listed attendance of 13,000, held in the arena where the Buffalo Sabers play. This show drew a larger crowd than nine (!) of their 1997 PPVs. From the sound of the crowd, it certainly feels like that 13,000 figure is correct. Heel Valentine and Dory were so entertaining, and Parisi was really great at getting more and more fired up until he was throwing punches with the energy of a babyface half his age. There were so many satisfying beats in this, with some totally unexpected surprises, like Dory hitting a fucking brainbuster on Gino Brito, bringing him into the ring from the apron. 

Valentine really cracked the ref to draw the DQ, and the ref had this great backward leap into a flat back bump landing. Then we got a post-match with local newscasters that was insane! Art Wander was a Buffalo sports radio personality who was definitely older than any of the match participants, and he went after another sportscaster like a fucking psycho. He tore the guys' cool ass jacket and they scrapped and got thrown to the mat in a way that...honestly looked like what an actual fight between two men in their mid 50s/early 60s would actually look like. If two of the weird older guys at your office got in an unexpected fight over something stupid, it would look exactly like this, which means this ruled. You can still find Angelfire pages that list Jim Neidhart as a onetime member of DX just for getting tricked by them on one episode of Raw, and I think that means Art Wander should be listed as an official nWo member. Also, the page has both of them represented by South Park caricatures. 

Dean Malenko vs. Alex Wright

MD: Eric can speak much better than I can about 97 WCW and Dean in specific. That said, they really did adapt to the crowd for this match. Wright trashed the town on the mic to begin and it was for the US title so there were some stakes, but they crowd just didn't go up for the early matwork. It was good too with Wright using cartwheels to position himself. The second Dean started to lay in some shots and throw a suplex, they came alive, and they loved booing Wright's dancing and loved it more when he ate a dropkick over the top as comeuppance for it. They shifted to a formula where Wright would cheat to stay on top, throw uppercuts and stomps to keep the crowd simmering, and then Dean would come back by beating him around the ring until he cheated to get back heat. There was a pretty good near-fall laden finishing stretch with the crowd hating Wright's cut-offs and going nuts for the Texas Cloverleaf. I'm not sure if this one was because they had more freedom to adapt as it was a house show and not a PPV or what, but they did a good job of it here.

ER: The two Ilio DiPaolo shows he worked were literally the only times Alex Wright worked Buffalo, and it's to our benefit as he immediately recognizes that he is going to be booed as a Eurotrash heel and fully plays up that archetype. This was very soon after Wright started acting more overtly heel on television, so this is his big house show breakout with the new character. Because of the defined face/heel dynamic, and because Wright works a lot of this getting heat on Malenko, it is a much better match than they would have had on actual WCW TV or PPV. It lengthens sequences that would have been outright eliminated on TV, like every part of Wright working the mat, allowing for that extended Wright heel control that there wouldn't have been enough time for. WCW was not a house show company at this point, and we don't have anywhere close to as many WCW house show fancams as we do WWF, so I loved this look at them working to a crowd rather than working to an Orlando theme park studio. Malenko's best matches during this era are when he is the active underdog, fighting to comeback against a larger opponent. Wright was often presented on TV as a cruiserweight and here he more correctly works as a big tall guy who can keep a little guy down. 

Malenko had a really nice corner clothesline and hard vertical suplex, but instead of getting the long and pointless Malenko chinlock, Wright quickly broke that chinlock with a jawbreaker and took over. Wright worked uppercuts, leaping kicks, hard ground and pound, axe handles, all good control while the fans hated him. Malenko really benefits from working as fast underdog, as he's good at timing and good at quick execution, so his brief comebacks (like when he dodged a Wright charge and hit a cool quick crossbody off the top) work really well. The finish was sudden but worked nicely within the context of the match, as Malenko again dodged a Wright charge at the last minute, sending Wright neck first into the top rope on a missed crossbody, allowing the quick Cloverleaf application. This would not have been the match we'd have otherwise gotten from them in 1997, and I wish we had more looks at what could have been happening on WCW midcards. 

 

Public Enemy vs. The Steiner Brothers

MD: We have several Steiners vs. PE matches but they all tend to go around 6 minutes. This got at least double that and they used the extra time for pure, glorious house show BS. They jawwed on the house mic, insulted the Bills, insulted the crowd, and then Rocco refused to lock up with Scott. He stalled his way right into Rick's fist on the apron, then got upset and tried to leave until they threatened to fine them $1000 if they didn't make the ten count. Unsurprisingly, the fans loved the mad scramble back to the ring and Rocco had so much heat that someone was shining a laser pointer at him. That's pure 1997 heat right there.

They made good use of the back half of their time, with Grunge really throwing himself into all of the Steiners' shots, Scott returning the favor for Public Enemy, Rick cleaning house on a hot tag with the suplexes and Steinerlines you'd expect, Rocco and Scott setting up the finish with a great bit of chair choking to keep them out of the way, and said finish being Grunge own-goaling himself through the table. Scott's frustrating by this point (and probably far earlier) as he has all of the tools and the size and the look to go with them, is perfectly willing to sell and hit hard, and has a real affection for Rick, but just refuses to connect with the crowd. That animosity for them that he channeled so well as Big Poppa Pump a year later, made him a tough babyface to get behind here. Rick would be mimicking a chicken and driving Rock nuts and Scott barely wanted to revel in things with the crowd when they were loving the ten count. Really good stooging performance by Grunge and especially Rock here. All the stuff you probably only got on house shows.

ER: There were a lot of Steiners/Public Enemy tags but never ever one like this. As I say a lot, WCW was NOT a house show fed at this point. They were a TV product, and they had a LOT of TV. This tribute show was nearly halfway through 1997, and WCW had only run 23 house shows. For comparison sake, WWF had already run 56 house shows, but they also only had 3 hours of TV a week. Anyway, as I said, even though we got a ton of Steiners/PE TV matches, I've never seen one like this, with Public Enemy playing overt crowd-antagonizing heels with the Steiners almost as after thoughts. If you somehow saw this match, and had never seen either team before, there's no doubt you would leave thinking that Public Enemy were the big stars and the Steiners were more of a generic meathead team. 1997 Steiners just do not have the same appeal as they had even a couple years (maybe even one year?) prior. Scott just looked tired. He had no energy, barely engaged the crowd, and often stood on the apron leaning on the ropes listlessly waiting for his hot tag. And really, in this match, that's all he needed to do. 

Public Enemy were perfect at stalling, hitting all the beats, sprinting back to the ring to get one hand under the ropes to break a count (after being threatened with a $1,000 fine). Rocco got up on the guardrail to get down in people's faces, and threw stiff shots at Scott until getting caught in a press slam and thrown into Grunge. Any time PE would take a single piece of offense, they'd roll to the floor to stall more. Grunge gets upended by Rick's high powerslam, rolls to the floor selling his back while Rocco called for time outs and got on the railing again. I loved Grunge taking over by blindsiding Scott with a lariat from the apron, turning the match briefly into a PE brawl, with Rock choking Scott on the floor with a chair. Grunge went through his own tables a lot, and this was a great version of that spot, as you're watching him set up his table and know that he's taking too long, and the crowd gets excited when they see him taking too long, and of course crashes right through it into a loss. Heel Public Enemy could have been a real great use of them in WCW, but I also understand their value in dancing with Orlando grandmas. They were a fun babyface team, but after seeing them here it really feels like we missed out on a potentially great WCW heel run. 

Randy Savage vs. Diamond Dallas Page

MD: Savage and his dad interrupted the Jim Kelly presentation and the back and forth was just a bit too long as Kelly obviously was stretching outside of his skillset. Still, due to both the angle and the sheer star power, Page was super over and Savage had tons of heat. They worked something of a sprint, with Savage explosive in his cutoffs and cheapshots and Page putting it all out there including a dive. Finish had a ref bump and Kelly knocking Savage off the top to set up the diamond cutter, with him going into business for himself with a couple of elbow drops that the ref had to ignore. Jim Kelly was not a top-tier celebrity interloper but they worked around him well enough and the crowd was happy anyway. 

ER: Missy Hyatt called Jim Kelly an absolutely clueless lover, and he appears to be equally clueless at doing wrestling angles. Unlike his encounter with Missy, this went much longer than a few seconds. When Kelly and Macho Man were shoving each other, it didn't even look like Kelly had been involved in any kind of physical altercation in his life. This man has no sort of physical charisma. You wouldn't have even guessed he was an athlete, let alone a Hall of Fame quarterback. He looks and moves much more like David Flair appearing on Nitro before he started to train. The "elbowdrop" Kelly hit on Savage after the match-ending Diamondcutter was one of the least athletic things I've seen, and I had to watch it a couple of times just to make sure that it was supposed to be an elbowdrop and not just him slipping and falling on Savage. A slip and fall probably would have looked better and made better impact. 

But the match between Savage and DDP kicked plenty of ass. DDP and Savage had great chemistry, both knew how to bump really well for each other, and DDP's aggression played well into Savage's stooging, like when DDP flew out of the ring with a pescado when Savage rolled to the floor to stall. Every Savage punch was treated like a big moment due to DDP's selling, the way he staggered with split legs after a standing blow or the way Savage blocked a sunset flip with one pointed shot. I thought DDP's offense looked really great as taken by Savage, like that awesome high lift atomic drop or the pancake piledriver, but I wish we could have seen a couple more beats of action before Kelly shoved Savage off the top. Every camera missed the Diamondcutter, but somehow captured two different angles of Jim Kelly falling on Savage with far worse form that Art Wander had earlier. They hilariously cut to one of the Bills linemen at ringside immediately after Kelly's "elbowdrop" and he was making this perfect "yeah I don't know about that, man..." face. That elbowdrop was worse than every single interception that man threw during his near complete quest to lose every single Super Bowl of the 1990s. 

Chris Benoit vs. Meng

MD: If not for FFF I don't really see Benoit anymore. They have to come to me. That said, I wasn't as against seeing this one as I might have been five years ago. I wouldn't have sought it out, but I didn't avoid it. And it was ok. This crowd was very much into guys hitting each other hard and when they did that, the match worked for me. That was the first half or so (which instilled some broader issues with everything overall maybe). Benoit would charge forth and really put himself into his kicks and chops and punches. Meng would absorb. Benoit would make a mistake, like slamming Meng's head into the turnbuckle or go for one too many chops. Meng would take back over until Benoit was able to miss a move. Eventually things built to Meng pile driving Benoit on the floor and then leaning on him with chokes and what not. It was fine but I don't think the fans were along for the ride. They wanted more of the early stuff and not heat and comeback. Benoit would get a hope spot or two but again, it wasn't scrapping. The finish had a German and a dive, but when Benoit went for his second dive, Meng caught him with the Tongan Death Grip, Benoit in the ring, Meng on the apron. He got counted out, a finish that satisfied no one and didn't accomplish anything that an agent might hope it would on paper. If they cut out the middle and end and just had them throw themselves at one another for another five minutes until the thing got thrown out, I have a feeling this particular audience would have been all the happier.

ER: I've been writing ALL about 1997 WCW for an upcoming book project, and Chris Benoit is someone (maybe the literal only one) that I am getting tired of writing about. Before starting that project I was like Matt, not actively seeking out Benoit and only writing about him if he was part of a show or match that I was only writing about for other, not-Benoit guys. But writing about 1997 WCW means that I'll be writing about 60-80 Benoit matches and well, that was my choice.

But I did really like this match and I appreciated how Meng worked it much more than I appreciated Benoit's contributions. Meng is the most feared man in the last 30 years of pro wrestling, at least to me, because the thought of losing my nose - let alone from a person biting my nose off my face! -  is one of my biggest nightmares. Maybe my biggest. My nose is easily my best facial feature. It ties my entire face together. If I lost this beauty I have no idea how I would go about my life. I've grown too accustomed to the way I look and cherish the few plus features I've been blessed with. It's too late for me to rebuild my confidence from scratch and confront life with a massive physical deformity. I handled several years of high school acne, but I can't go through that stage again. As I do not actively seek out fights with huge Tongans, I should be safe, but just knowing there are people out there who could conceivably bite off a nose has haunted me. 

However, this Meng who bites noses clean off faces is not a Meng that shows up in the ring very often. With all the stories you've heard about Meng, you'd expect more existence of savage in-ring beatdowns, and those matches just don't really exist. He gets his nose biting kicks outside the ring, sunshine. But this match is more of a glimpse of what that Meng would look like, and it's great. He throws two chops to Benoit that would end the day of a normal man, and works a lot of this like a real freight train. His big arm swinging strikes all looked great, and he would punctuate strike exchanges with a big smashing headbutt. He also threw transition moves like bodyslams with real big move energy. Benoit's big strength is that he has no problem weathering the kind of beating this Meng could throw at him, and I liked how he fought back by timing boots to stop charges, and that suicide dive he built to was huge. Meng's Piledriver on the floor was the kind of mean badass shit he rarely did on WCW TV, another glimpse into an alternate WCW that this show has given us. I didn't mind the Tongan death grip cool down sections, even though this would have made a better 7 minute all out war that just ended with a DQ or count out, if it was going to end in a count out anyway. The cool down kind of built to a finish that wasn't going to be happening, so why not just lay waste to each other and go out in an explosion? 

Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. 

MD: This was supposed to be Rey vs. Juvi and Juster came out saying Juvi wasn't there but they still wanted to give the crowd WCW's best high-flyer and he had an open challenge. Dean came out to put the title up. In front of this crowd, I don't think Juvi would have done the trick either. You probably needed Fuerza. Dean did an admirable job hitting his wrestling-someone-smaller-than-him offense and getting Rey everywhere that he needed to be to hit his stuff, most spectacular being the press up to the top from what felt like the middle of the ring so he could hit a twisting body press. He caught all the dives too. Even though Dean was de facto bully and the crowd oohed and ahhed at Rey's hope spots and comeback, Dean and Wright had managed to get the crowd behind him earlier and he was all the more admirable for putting the title on the line with no notice in his second match of the night. Rey wasn't exactly drawing the usual amount of sympathy, even when he was writhing on the outside. Still, you can't fault the action, especially considering Dean was doing double duty. Another finish (a double pin) that the fans hated. There's very little reason for these sorts of finishes on a house show. I'm not saying they could have made Dean in Buffalo by having him cleanly staving off Rey's challenge, but it might have helped for future appearances without hurting Rey in the least. 

ER: I think this era of Malenko and Rey were a good match for each other, while also being capable of playing into each other's worst traits. Juvy was supposed to be in Malenko's spot, and even though we got a lot of Juvy/Rey TV matches from this time I would have really liked to see a house show Juvy/Rey. Despite what promoter Gary Juster proclaimed about Rey before the match, I think Juvy was easily the craziest and even most inventive high flyer WCW had on their roster. Rey is a legend and deserves every piece of praise he gets, but 1997 Juventud was on some whacked out shit. You watch months of Juvy matches, and you see how many different pieces of offense he was coming up with every time out. Rey had certain spots he always hit and tended to hit them the same way; Juvy had a higher error rate but also tried out a ton of new material. There are comics who can work their classics, and then there are guys who go out there constantly working new bits and throwing twists on old material. Rey could surprise with the greats, but when he was in with a Technically Good Base like Malenko, you were almost surely going to get the exact same match Rey and Malenko often had with each other. There's less Wild Card factor when they wrestle each other. Juvy - in the best of times and worst of times - truly embodied Wild Card Spirit. This also made me think about Juvy vs. Malenko, which is a match that barely happened, despite both guys working constantly on TV at the same place for 3 years while having exactly these style of matches with everyone else. 

Rey/Malenko matches always have several incredible looking moments, and also seem to be paced exactly the same: They go go go for a couple minutes, then they go into long stretches of Dean just holding Rey on the mat until Rey gets up and runs fast for 20 seconds, and then Dean holds onto him for another minute, and it keeps going like that until eventually one of the times Rey stands up leads to a disappointing finish. Dean is a strong base for Rey, and knows how to set up spots that end with spectacular Rey showcases, but also there's a completely detached artlessness to a lot of it. You'll get one of the most insane and perfectly executed spots - like Rey getting whipped up onto the turnbuckles and flying back with a corkscrew moonsault that Dean runs directly into - but then it's followed up with Dean looking downright bored waiting for 5 o'clock to hit while holding onto a rear naked choke. Whenever Malenko is wrestling anyone smaller than he, there never seems to be any kind of sense that he's using these holds to advance the match. It almost always seems like he's only using these holds so that both can catch their breath for the next stunt. Resting is somewhat essential when you're moving like they do, but it doesn't have to feel so blatant. Malenko in control often makes it feel like there is no sense of an actual match or any kind of fight, but much more two circus performers that are catching their breath before their next trapeze stunt. 

Rey doesn't help that feeling, either. He goes along with all of it, as whenever he's pulled to the mat he is always immediately unmoving and practically comatose, tongue literally hanging out the side of his mouth like he's a vegetable, until it's time for him to "fight" to his feet (in quotations as it's usually just him standing up while Dean loosely acknowledges his headlock) and then sprinting and jumping for another 20 seconds. Rey was just not very engaging in holds yet, which I think is the main reason that they weren't drawing any sympathy from this specific crowd. It feels like too obvious an exhibition, when Rey simply flips a switch to go from innovative flyer to a bedridden grandmother too weak to reach for her pain pills. Rey got so much better at drawing sympathy in holds the older he got, and he's been one of the best sympathetic salesmen for ages now. 

The pacing for this pairing will just always be lifeless holds interspersed with some of the coolest movement you've seen, and I don't think it would take much to tweak that formula into a more fully formed match. Rey's rope flip seated senton to the floor looked amazing, and the springboard version into the ring looked just as great, and Malenko catches each of them like a real pro...but watching Malenko matches at this stage of my life means that I'm always going to wish that Malenko could have acted like a small human man actually landed ass first on his chest, instead of just viewing every single move as an opportunity to start a series of seesaw 2 counts. The moves all look spectacular, but they sure would mean a lot more if every single one of them didn't lead to Malenko just turning them into his own pinfall sequence. 

Lex Luger/Giant vs. Scott Hall/Kevin Nash

MD: Fun house show Hall performance here. At one point he was stooging around after three inverted atomic drops by Luger and you can see Nash breaking on the apron. Giant was on the apron for the entirety of the match until the hot tag as Luger worked the shine on Hall and Nash took over on Lex from there. You could do a lot worse than having a massive bellowing presence in the corner slamming the turnbuckle and cheering Lex on. Nash, to his credit, took a big bump over the top off of a Giant dropkick after the hot tag. Lex flew around a bit when he was knocking Hall about, but then didn't go down on the power slam towards the end, which was a little weird. Finish was Luger (the illegal man) racking Hall (the illegal man) while Giant stopped Nash from using the belt and used it himself to draw a DQ that also looked like Luger and Giant might have won the belts. There was a lot of trash in the ring at the end and the funny image of Hall and Nash laid out as the Fugees played over the loudspeaker. They probably ran this exact match a bunch in this era.

ER: This was a big house show match in 1997, and it's a good match with big star power. But I also think it's a repeat example of how Giant/Luger didn't ever quite fully click as a team, and yet another example of what incredible chemistry Hall and Nash had. This was a great Hall performance, and a great Nash performance, and watching them felt like they could have been placed in any era of US wrestling history and stood out as the most popular, charismatic team. The Outsiders bumped for a significant portion of this and yet felt like huge stars the entire time. Hall stooged around for Luger and took several inverted atomic drops, never going full Rick Rude, but always knowing exactly what he was doing. As much as I enjoyed their stooging, I thought the best parts were Nash going after Luger and then bumping big down the stretch for both Luger and Giant. Nash throws his big knee lifts, back elbows, and big boots, while Hall runs distraction from the apron (including getting forearmed off by Luger into a big bump on the floor) to allow Nash to remain in control.

Giant's strength is a role reversal, as he's better at taking a beating and building to a Luger tag, than he is standing on the apron waiting for his hot tag. The weakest part of his apron work is that the more verbal he gets, the more ridiculous he sounds. There's just something dopey about the biggest man in the arena yelling "Come on Lex, you're #1!" You're a fucking GIANT, dude, just yell a bunch of words that aren't. You don't even need to form sentences, just fucking shout. Maybe Andre could have pulled off yelling "You got this, pal!" at Haku or Baba (in fact he definitely could have, he's the greatest), but The Giant cannot. 

Kevin Nash somehow got summed up (by people who hate wrestling) as a lazy worker who always took the night off, and the more House Show Nash shows up from this era the more ridiculous that summation looks. Nash is also a giant, and the way he bumps in this match is yet another example of how he was one of the best bumping big men of his time. There's one gigantic bump, when Giant finally makes the hot tag and is running clotheslines through the Outsiders, and he throws a dropkick that sends Nash flying over the top to the floor. Nash takes a Berzerker level bump to the floor, and he's one of the few guys from the 90s who was actually bigger than John Nord! But it's not only his big bumps to the floor (which he almost always used in big matches, and in different ways), it's the way he goes down like a light for that belt shot, or the way he takes big man bumps without slowing down the offense feed. The man was a really great bumper who somehow got the reputation of someone who barely moved in the ring. 

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Found Footage Friday: All Japan 12/5/85

Haru Sonoda vs. Shinichi Nakano

MD: Good performance here from rookie Nakano. He showed a bulldog's tenacity in attacking Sonoda's arm (especially good headbutts to it) and never felt like he shouldn't be in the match. I'd seen him quite a bit recently in 89-90 and past a bit of meandering at times, I would have believed you if you told me this match was from that era. Maybe that was part of the problem in him not advancing more. Sonada (who was Magic Dragon but I imagine most people reading this would know that) came back with headbutts and inside shots and a lot of focus on the eyes. Nakano sold an eye rake with a back bump which was a choice. Finishing stretch was okay in that you at least wondered if Nakano had a shot.

Nick Bockwinkel/Curt Hennig vs. Mighty Inoue/Masa Fuchi

MD: This was what drew me to this show as much as anything else. A new Bockwinkel match. Against two of my favorites of the decade for AJPW in Inoue and Fuchi. AWA babyface Hennig was in for a lot of this, having his leg dismantled by Inoue and Fuchi as they cut off the ring. The nature of the handheld made the ring look huge and the distance insurmountable at one point for Hennig. There were a couple of clips there in that part but you got the idea. Once he did make it to Bockwinkel, Bock was amazing as usual. He immediately pressed Inoue in the corner, then raised his hand in a flamboyant gesture of an exasperated clean break before laying in some shots anyway. He followed it up with a deep slam across the ring before Fuchi came and the two of them scrapped their way to the floor. When it was Hennig's turn to get some revenge, he showed a lot of fire. The finishing stretch was definitive but unique, with Bock lifting Fuchi up for a Hart Attack move with Hennig's "Axe" and then hitting a rare power bomb for the win. I don't think it was ever better than the sum of its parts, but the parts were all very good.

ER: Normally I'm a fan of minimalist wrestling but I wanted a bit more from this one. I was hoping to see Hennig and Inoue work quick and land hard and instead it was a lock of Inoue holding Hennig in a leglock. It was engaging enough, but it wasn't the kind of engagement I wanted. Mockingly, the handheld cuts away right as Hennig starts punching Inoue from his back and Inoue starts connecting back. Fuchi wasn't as much of a dickhead here as he'd become, wrestling much more like Jumbo lite. I did really like Fuchi catching a Hennig kick and Hennig punching him a couple times while hopping on one leg. Bockwinkel hit hard when he tagged in, and the finish was spirited. Inoue splats Bock with his senton and then hits the mat just as hard when Bock rolls away from the next one. The Hennig Axe bomber Hart Attack looked awesome, and Bockwinkel's powerslam finish looked just as good. 

Tiger Mask II/Genichiro Tenryu/Motsohi Okuma vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu/Isamu Teranishi/Norio Honaga

MD: First couple of minutes here had me a little worried as everything was nice and clean and sportsmanlike. Then Yatsu came in and everything changed. 85 Yatsu came off as far more of a disruptor and dissident than Tenryu, a real chip on his shoulder, a real attitude, and more than happy to toss people around with one throw after another. Tenryu would meet him halfway, blasting him with shots and tossing him around on the floor, but he wasn't nearly as violent against anyone else, even Honaga who he was paired up with in the finishing stretch (a standard "junior getting some hope against a star before getting put down" bit). In fact, it was Okuma who came off as both a force and, really, a star, even though he was teaming with Tiger Mask and Tenryu. His headbutt act was perfectly suited for a house show setting and over. Following up from a bit where Yatsu (using Teranishi's distractions) kept coming in to break up submissions, Okuma did the same with headbutts. Eventually, the other side got revenge by all getting their own headbutts in on him (with the crowd egging Honaga along as he was the last and most hesitant of the bunch). I would have liked some of the teams' control segments to last a bit longer as it all felt a little too back and forth but once they got past that initial reluctance to really fight one another and Yatsu reset the mood, this became overall enjoyable.

British Bulldogs vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi/Fumihiro Niikura

MD: Pretty typical ten minute Bulldogs match here. It's 85 so Dynamite was mobile but roided to the gills. Kobayashi especially made the Bulldogs look good, not that it took a ton of work. They were leaping off of pin attempts for both of them and not just Davey Boy which I found interesting. Davey always looked like he was having so much fun in there while Dynamite never did. When it was time to eat offense for the Bulldogs, that was Davey too. I don't know. Unless we're talking 1980-2 jerk heel Dynamite, I always see the stuff I expect to in his matches. Hard to come in with an open mind. This was fine though.

Jesse Barr/Harley Race vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Giant Baba

MD: I had some hopes for this one. Generally, I think Race gives way too much in Japan given who he is and what his rep is and how awesome he can be when he's really laying it in. His partner here was Barr though so I couldn't imagine Barr carrying too much of the offense. This still had a decent amount of Race stooging though. Some of it was pretty ginger. He moved super slow out of a corner whip, for instance, but then he walked right into a belly to belly, so it's not like you can complain. When he did go on offense, it was pretty great, with some killer headbutts out of the corner and then holding Jumbo up for the world's longest delayed pile driver. Even the way he'd turn a Jumbo front facelock into a suplex, just the way he powered him over, had a ton of presence behind it. Barr was okay, bumping big for Baba (and glad to do it) and rewarded later by getting to belly-to-back him. The finish had Jumbo and Baba repeatedly kill Barr only for Race to save him again and again until both teams got counted out. My favorite part towards the end was the guys with the handheld camera shouting out what they thought Jumbo's next move would be (they got the clothesline right but didn't realize he wanted to do a revenge pile driver instead of the belly to back).

ER: This managed to be a bit dull and a bit surprising all at once. Jumbo had a couple dry runs on offense, and Race was a bit slow and deliberate at times, but I love these kind of matches because it's always fun seeing guys like Jesse Barr interact with huge legends. Race bumps a lot, getting big air on a Jumbo hiptoss and really tossed with a belly to belly, gets the legs knocked out from him by a Baba back elbow (after Race punched Baba in the eye), and down the stretch he takes his big rope flip bump backwards to the floor. I agree with Matt that it's more fun when Race fights back harder, and we get a feel for that when he's punching at Jumbo and gives him a hard atomic drop. I think '85 Jumbo is more interesting as a dynamic seller than on offense, buckling his knees at the impact of Race's strikes. 

Jesse Barr interacting with Baba and Jumbo delivered what I wanted, and I liked how the guys recording this either really liked Jesse Barr, or at minimum were pretending to like Barr to crack each other up. Every time Barr would pull off a move they'd yell "Barrrr!" I didn't really hear them react to any Harley Race offense, but they reacted to Barr the whole time. Barr had a really nice high bearhug on Jumbo that Baba had to come in and break with a chop to the back of Barr's neck, and later he got to throw Jumbo with a nice belly to belly, and drop Baba with a high delayed back suplex. Jesse Barr dropping Giant Baba with a huge back suplex was too much, I love it. Baba had a bunch of great chops and Jumbo knocked Barr to the floor with a big running knee, then Barr rearranged every ringside barricade with his body. It had dull parts, it had some great stuff, it's a good enough 12 minutes. 

Dory Funk Jr. vs. Riki Choshu

MD: First and last third of this were really good but I thought they'd be striking a lot more. Instead they worked the mat and that first third had them moving in and out of things frequently and really fighting for positioning and counters. Gritty stuff. In the middle, it devolved a bit more into fighting for one particular hold, be it a half crab or the Scorpion, but they picked things back up for the finishing stretch. At one point Dory hit a belly to back followed by a butterfly suplex and a Russian legsweep. Just boom, boom, boom. Then Choshu blocked the fourth boom (an atomic drop) and started throwing the clotheslines leading to one great near fall where Dory ducked it. Eventually, they hit the floor and Hansen and Dibiase (and then Hara and Rusher) came out to cause chaos and set up the next match and that was that. The good stuff here was very good.

ER: I thought this was pretty great, a hardscrabble match where nothing looked easy. This looked like a real workout for Dory and Choshu, and I thought Dory was especially impressive. Choshu is a real bulldog and goes after Dory on the mat, and it's cool to start a match with 6-7 minutes of catch as catch can before going into the stuff where you really need a gas tank. Dory was just a couple months away from his WWF stint and looked really big, far bigger chest and arms than he had earlier in the decade. That extra size comes in handy as he and Choshu have some pretty nasty collisions. The matwork was tough on its own, both guys working hard to block single legs and Funk fighting off the Scorpion, and I didn't think the finishing run would be as hot as it was. Not only did Dory start dropping Choshu, but both guys were getting to their feet quick, and the excellent camera work really zoomed in and showed how hard that 1985 AJ mat was. 

Every bump looked body jarring and Funk really looked like he was powering a heavy Choshu up. Funk's back suplex looked great and his butterfly suplex was strong, guy looked like he was out there on the farm loaded bales, and if Stan Hansen hadn't pulled a Russian legsweep even more deadly looked in the very next match then I would have said Dory clearly had the best legsweep on this show. Choshu threw a few lariats right at Dory's neck, and I like how accurately Dory sold them: one knocked him flat on his back, one to the side of his neck knocked him sideways and onto one foot, and when Riki started swinging his arm my man had to act fast. Dory ducking THEE lariat was perfectly done, as Riki swung for the fences and Dory just dipped his head under and hooked the waist, a nearfall on an O'Connor roll that would have been a really good finish. Tough as hell match, shocking this kind of workout was what they were doing when the cameras weren't rolling. 

Rusher Kimura/Ashura Hara vs. Ted Dibiase/Stan Hansen

MD: This had one clip in the middle but probably not a big one. Hara and Rusher took it right to their opponents, with both sides trying to drive each other back into the corner when possible. Dibiase tries hard but when paired with Hansen he always comes off as a guy trying to wear his dad's suit. This was short and entirely back and forth but it had the sort of energy you'd want given who was in there.

ER: Man how cool does Baba look at ringside with his yellow stripe on black track pants, black shirt tucked in? Our director was 100% right to zoom in on him. The Yellowjacket ringside track suits were a real highlight of 1985. There was a cut in the middle of this one, so I'm not sure how much we missed, but what we have is 8 minutes of a real good fast-paced scrap. Everybody comes off like a tough son of a gun, with Hansen bullying Rusher around and the still-spry 44 year Rusher fighting back hard. Rusher was easier for Hansen to bully 5 years later, but he was still beefy and mad in 1985. I love the way Hansen tangles guys up and spins and rolls around the ring with him, really tussling. His body language is always the best, and he pays close attention to things that could easily be throwaways, like the way he clamps heavily on Rusher and Hara's traps when he locks in a nerve hold. 

Hansen never makes it easy on anybody. He's always pulling on you, laying on you heavy and not giving you rest holds, and always hitting so damn hard. Hansen is just the most annoying opponent, more relentless than Fit Finlay and 60 pounds bigger. And I like when guys like Kimura and Hara can deflect that relentless energy, even if only temporarily. I loved the finishing building to Rusher's hot tag, when Hansen rushes into a Hara boot and spirals his way dramatically down the length of the ring. Rusher tags in and throws a ton of headbutts and Hansen reacts to them like he's in a swarm of bees. I liked Dibiase here too, holding his end of Large Gaijin Hansen Partner of a big tandem shoulderblock that knocked Hara ass over elbow, and bringing the beauty of the falling fistdrop to Hiroshima. He dropped a bit of the technique here and to focus on the energy, and I kind of like Dibiase wrestling like Joel Deaton. Hansen hits one of the smoothest violent Russian legsweeps I've ever seen, Dibiase wins it with a big rotating powerslam, and Hansen slides out of the ring and gets the hell out of that arena like he was missing his bus. Great stuff. 

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St. Peter Gave Out Medals Declaring Andre the Nicest of the Damned

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Kenta Kobashi AJPW 3/4/92 - EPIC

ER: This was excellent, a great match format played to perfection. Any time there's a match where one side of guys is average age 50, and the other side of guys is under 30, I'm going to love it. Andre is somehow the youngest member of his team, but also the oldest. All of the young guys are now legends. This was on a huge Budokan show, 16,000 fans who were very into all six of these men. This was not a "legends match" where the young take it easy on the legends, with maybe a couple saucy shots thrown in to get a crowd ooooohing. No, this was the young guys willing to get hurt just to kick some old guys' asses. But the legends hit back even harder, and they manage to keep a super successful 50-50 pacing that made it feel like either team could pull out the win. The crowd got progressively louder throughout, and they *started* loud. The way they were screaming and filling the ring with streamers for every participant during the introductions made it feel like a match worth caring about, and made it feel like a main event. As excited as I was for it on paper, I don't think I actually expected it to be as great as a typical big 1992 All Japan trios match. But it is. 

It's paced really well, filled with unique pairings and great exchanges, and peaks with an awesome heat segment on Baba were all the young guys beat the shit out of their patriarch. But the legends are no pushovers, and that leads to several great moments of old guys knocking cocky young guys on their asses. Everyone is a strong contributor to this. Dory and Kikuchi start with some firm spry matwork that ends with a nice Kikuchi fireman's carry. The matwork only gets chippier when Dory throws his whole shoulder into a couple uppercuts, and spry old Dory doing matwork with Kikuchi was a thing I didn't know I really enjoyed. Dory turns a Kikuchi hiptoss into a tweaked abdominal stretch and rolls it into a tight pin, and that's when Kawada gets his shot. Kawada always felt like he was going to be an asshole to veterans in matches like these. He's a great guy to fully announce what kind of match this was going to be. Dory/Kikuchi was spirited but mostly professional, but Kawada shows no such reverence to Funk by kicking him as hard in the liver as he would ever kick Misawa. Funk throws really hard uppercuts and I loved him tagging out after tiring his arm out hitting too many jaws. 

Kawada not giving a fuck about who anyone used to be was one of the many continuing highlights of this match. He is great at being disrespectful because he's also great at selling offense and falling on his ass. Baba can still move at this point and holds his own nicely with Kawada, but they kind of neutralize each other, and the second Kobashi tags in Baba starts throwing the stiffest Baba chops off Kobashi's chest. Kobashi absolutely torpedoes him with a shoulderblock and then does probably the most appropriate rolling cradle in the history of him unnecessarily putting that into matches. Kobashi cradling Baba and rolling him around the ring was a crazy visual, with Baba's cool weird body being tumbled dry low for all to see. It worked as a visual and as a cocky young guy spanking the veteran and embarrassing him, and I can't think of a better usage for that move. 

This entire time Andre is looming on the apron like a mythical colossal giant. He looms large in the background like a comic book thug blocking an alley, heavier than any point in his career, rocking the one strap until the day he dies, hair and sideburns shagged out like Muzzy. In 1992 he was mostly presence on the ring apron, and even though he was a presence that had to almost always be leaning on the ring ropes, he was still a major presence. I really love 1992 Andre, the absolute slowest Andre, because he moves like a fairytale giant. He's slow, but he's this big stomping toddler who is also as powerful as five men. I love slow, stomping, vulnerable Andre. You can easily outrun this version of Andre, but he still looks like a guy who lives in the haunted woods and snaps branches off old oak trees to use as toothpicks. He chokes, chops, and headbutts Kobashi before Kobashi knocks him backwards teetering into the ropes, and the crowd is extremely invested in the danger of Andre falling down. Everyone is in awe of Andre but also knows he might break like porcelain if he unexpectedly falls, and the danger of 1992 Andre adds greatly to his in ring drama. He's not going to bump, but the fact that he might accidentally bump is something he knows how to expertly milk. 

Kikuchi gets in and immediately acts like a smug young punk, high kicking Andre in the face and then getting punched out of the sky when he comes off the opposite ropes. Kikuchi is such a tenacious little prick and the Andre stuff keeps getting better as the giant fights off the pest. Kikuchi leaps up to his feet with elbows and Andre keeps swatting him off, but things get even better when Kawada comes in. Kawada kicks the hell out of Andre and it's some incredible pro wrestling from both. Kawada doesn't hold back and so Andre knees him in the stomach and stands on his hand. Kawada throws a kick to Andre's belly that makes Andre let out a sound like the death moan of a grizzly. Kawada keeps kicking and Andre does these dramatic falls that make it look like he's going to spill over the ropes, and when Kawada kicks Andre right in the fucking knee brace Andre nopes his way the hell out of the match. I talk about Andre's great in-ring acting, and this spot is a perfect example of that. Kawada soccer kicks Andre in his worst knee and Andre angrily waves his arms like a man standing up from a table saying "Fuck it! I'm done!" and in one motion wheels around to tag out. I have no doubts that this was a planned kick, a big moment to show Kawada's impudence, but Andre was able to make it look like a real moment. That carny element of trickery and keeping up appearances, that eye widening gleeful look when he gets Kawada in a chancery and knees him in the stomach, and a moment like this where he convincingly hints at shoot elements. Old Andre is like Old Buster Keaton (or maybe five Buster Keatons stacked up under a large coat), using muscle memory and a wealth of stories in only facials and reactions to entertain regardless of physical health. 

Kawada is really on one and fired up after kicking an old man in the knee, so hits a hooking heel kick under Dory's chin right after Dory takes Andre's tag. Dory gets a nice butterfly suplex on Kobashi, but also takes a lariat to the collarbones from Kawada and gets rolled into a rear naked choke. The heat segments of this are fantastic, filled with Baba makes saves by stomping guys in the back of the head, and a great moment where Dory stomps Kawada in the back of the head and Kawada jumps to his feet to elbow Dory in the face. The boys gang up on Baba and it's so good, with Kobashi hitting a perfect moonsault for a great nearfall (imagine doing a moonsault to your boss, just coming a few inches away from whipping your knee into an old man's face from the top rope), and Kawada kicking Baba's forehead a bunch before crushing him with his top rope Tenryu elbowdrop. Baba takes a legdrop from Kobashi, a Kawada kneedrop across the face, and a stiff tope rope Kikuchi headbutt, and the kickout inspires a crowd roar. 

The finishing stretch is great fun, with Kobashi holding Baba prone for what would have been an insane Kikuchi missile dropkick, only to get caught by a surprisingly Suddenly Right There Andre. Once Andre took that leg kick from Kawada I assumed he would not be getting into the ring for anything else and would work exclusively from the apron. Suddenly he is RIGHT behind Kobashi and chops him right in the fucking cerebellum and it looked like the most murderous strike in the entire match. Baba is freed, Kikuchi dropkicks into an empty pool, and Andre squishes Kobashi into the corner to trap him. The Funk victory with the spinning toehold is set up so well, with Kikuchi throwing fiery elbows (you really got the sense here that Kikuchi could still actually somehow get a pin on Baba or Funk) and coming in hot with a heel kick, only for Dory to catch the heel and lock in the toehold. The old men shut down the young and also no doubt spent the next several day packed in ice. I loved every single part of this, and I loved every single person in this. What a match. 

PAS: Eric did a hell of a job covering this match, and I agree it is a corker. I loved how Kawada especially came right out guns blazing. He wasn't looking to praise his elders, he was looking to slay them, and it was badass. Everyone was great in this, and it's some of the most enjoyment I have ever gotten out of a Dory Jr. performance. Baba was really spry, and Andre was perfect. I am also a huge fan of end of the road Andre, he feels so primordial, like an ancient force risen from the deep. That shriek of pain felt like a real moment, the beast has shown his weakness. His return near the end to nearly decapitate Kobashi almost felt like a jump scare in a horror movie. You though Carrie was dead? Here is her hand pushing out of the grave.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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New Footage Friday: All Japan 11/19/90

Masa Fuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Ricky Santana/Doug Furnas

MD: In general, it's astounding that these AJPW Handhelds are as well-shot as they are. Occasionally you're bound to get a match like this where there's just nothing the poor guy shooting can do to capture the action. We got glimpses of Furnas powering people about, maybe the tiniest hints that Ogawa was starting to put a few things together, a buzz for Fuchi doing awesome Fuchi things, and some energetic stuff (stooging? flying? who knows!) from Santana, but mostly, we're looking at the back of people's heads. Ah well.

ER: Matches like these remind me how often I take handhelds for granted. For all the amazing handheld footage we have of various territories and eras, we don't really have a ton where 75% of the match is blocked by someone's head. What we do see are some moments that make Doug Furnas come off like a monster heel, Fuchi like a VERY relevant 36 year old (that man was prematurely shunted to openers and old man trios), and Ogawa like a guy that big crowds are really getting behind. Furnas had this kickass muscular athlete spot where he hit a press slam and then did a back handspring into a running shoulderblock that sent Ogawa flying. Fuchi works super fast exchanges and comes in at the end to hit a sick kneedrop off the top rope. Fans went nuts thinking they were seeing Ogawa pin Furnas with a nice bridging German, but Furnas knows just how to egg them on and rubs their faces in a strong belly to belly. 


Mitsuo Momota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith

MD: This one we could see clearly and it was fairly good stuff. Johnny Smith didn't have Davey's likability and oafish charisma, but he was a physical force and very athletic. In some ways, his edge synced better with Dynamite's. Kikuchi already had a lot going for him in 1990: His stuff snapped, he could draw sympathy, and he had fire in his comebacks. Momota was fine here but he worked best as an underdog and Kikuchi was there to play that role. Good finish, getting him out of the way for the bodyslam tombstone and headbutt.

ER: I really like the Dynamite/Smith team. Smith is a sound wrestler but pretty colorless, and Dynamite is a broken down 32. But the team dynamic is stronger than the Bulldogs dynamic would have been at this point, as Dynamite doesn't have to provide nearly as much flash and instead can rely on his strengths as an asshole. Here he's mostly utilized as a guy stopping Kikuchi's momentum and saving Smith, and it works really well. Dynamite looks and acts like a real tough guy piece of shit, with his slicked back hair and sideburns, and I loved every instance of him breaking up a pin with a boot to the back of someone's head, stopping a Kikuchi Boston Crab with the hardest chop of the match, and coming in late to smack Kikuchi off the top rope. We missed the first couple minutes of this, and that's likely where most of the Dynamite/Momota exchanges happened. The little bit we got looked great, with Momota working some fast juniors exchanges and then stopping Kid short with a straight kneelift. Dynamite's finishing 1-2 was really nasty, deadlifting Kikuchi into a scoop tombstone (that had to be hell on his back) and hitting a crippled (but still crazy) version of his top rope headbutt that inadvertently adds a forearm across Kikuchi's throat. This was a different Dynamite Kid than his uninjured heyday, but this iteration of him sees him picking and choosing how to use his fading athleticism, while increasing the emotional heft of his selling (the way he sells a falling headbutt looks like he rung his own bell). It's a different way of doing things, but I always get engaged seeing a wrestler operating at his base muscle memory. 


Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma vs. The Land of Giants (Skywalker Nitron/Butch Masters)

MD: Eigen and Okuma get a solid B- for effort in trying to fend off Masters and Nitron, including chaining some strikes together to finally get one of them down, but the finish was inevitable from the start. Land of the Giants had presence due to their size and worked best when hammering down on their opponents or lifting them up. Their other strikes, including the kicks in the corner? Less so. This was still effective enough in presenting an attraction and making fans wonder how a more accomplished team might fare against them.

ER: Man, the fans in Niigata LOVED The Land of Giants. At least during their entrance. When the two giants stormed out and ambushed the natives you'd think the crowd was watching the Road Warriors. Land of the Giants might be the actual worst of the big league Road Warriors knockoffs, but I'll always think a pair of teaming giants has a high floor, no matter how glaring their weaknesses might be. And there are weaknesses. Nitron is very tentative with all of his stuff, almost always double pumping or stuttering a bit before making a move. Masters has a lot more confidence and has better timing, but neither of them have good strikes. It shouldn't be difficult for two legitimately huge guys to just swing their arms and voila, Good Looking Strikes, but pro wrestling doesn't really work that way. The best stuff here came from Okuma and Eigen making inroads and the fans getting excited about the distant prospect of an upset. Okuma especially got them fired up, taking advantage of a (really nice looking) missed Masters avalanche and helping Eigen knock him to the mat. I laughed at Eigen grabbing a single leg and Okuma kicking Master's plant leg out from under him, and Okuma misses his diving headbutt by whipping his forehead down into the mat. I also really loved Okuma's delayed reaction sell of the double big boot, looking up at them as if to say "TWO boots??" before falling to his back. The assisted legdrop is a cool finisher for Land of the Giants, but of course Nitron hesitates twice before finally lifting Masters. 

Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue vs. Stan Hansen/Dan Spivey

MD: Mighty Inoue really wrestled like a million bucks, but here he also got exposed as being really tiny. What was striking, however, was that Hansen and Spivey actually made him LOOK like a million bucks here, letting Inoue outmaneuver them. That lasted right til the end where he somehow rode Hansen's attempt to interfere into his somersault senton and took Hansen out (and literally out of the ring) before the distraction had him walk right into the Spivey Spike DDT. Kimura was only in for a little, but but he got to give Hansen a taste of his own medicine with the world's longest eyerake. If Inoue was two or three inches taller, he could have been one of the biggest stars of the 80s. Sometimes you get these bizarre house show performances where Hansen will give a ton to someone, like we saw some months back with Blackwell. Here, though, Inoue made it all seem earned. 

ER: This is a great house show curiosity, a match that looks like a surefire on-paper steamrolling and instead is worked as if the teams were equals. Hansen and Spivey paid a lot of reverence to the two old men (Rusher Kimura here is 8 years older than I presently am), with Spivey selling Rusher's headbutt like a real momentum shifter multiple times. Hansen runs over several audience members on the way to the ring, but he generously sells for Inoue, and the two big men getting knocked around by two smaller/older guys is incredibly entertaining. Spivey was smart about what to sell, not going down for every move but every other move, consistently selling the headbutts as a big move but merely getting knocked on his heels by shoulderblocks and lariats. Rusher has a fun hot tag where he punches Spivey right in the neck, Inoue hits a big bulldog on Spivey and has a great run of flying shoulder tackles (including one that Hansen bumps to the floor), but he misses his beautiful somersault senton right after disposing of Hansen and Spivey pounces with his spike DDT. I always get excited for new All Japan handhelds, because there are always weirdo gems like these where we get glimpses of guys working outside of the established All Japan hierarchy.


Dr. Death/Terry Gordy vs. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace

MD: We get a few really good minutes of footage if you skip past the handheld issues that start this video out. There's a 50% chance that's all you'd get anyway with a match like this if it was filmed for the TV, so I can't complain too much. The clarity comes in right when Williams had Kobashi in a bear hug and the fans were going nuts for him to escape. Instead he ate a belly to belly. From what we could see, everyone looked great. Ace is an underrated apron cheerleader, not that this crowd needed much leading. Kobashi had been in the spotlight for about a year and a half at this point and he definitely already had It here, working from underneath and unleashing his fire when it was his time to get revenge. Unfortunately, the few minutes of clarity we got just made you want to see more since this looked like a great one overall.

ER: This was just the final 5 minute stretch of a 17 minute match, and I'm sure we at least got the best and hottest 5 minute stretch of the match. Sure it would be nice to have full matches on handhelds, and a lot of people would be excited for new Kobashi footage, but I like that we got complete versions of the other matches and just the finish of this one. The crowd is over the moon for Kobashi here, but on this same show I've been way more into babyface performances from Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Motoshi Okuma, Rusher Kimura, and Mighty Inoue. I don't even think Kobashi was the best babyface in his own match, as this felt way more like a great Johnny Ace show. Kobashi had goofy slaps during his big hot tag, and meanwhile Ace is taking big bumps off the top and breaking up pins with his whole body, really knowing when to let Kobashi shine and when to step up. Gordy and Doc looked exactly how you'd expect them to look, and the hot crowd made the match-finishing Gordy powerbombs feel even bigger. 


Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Kimala II/Abdullah the Butcher - GREAT

MD: This was fun for what it was and you knew what it would be coming in. Andre vs. Abby is a rare match-up if not a completely unique one, and both Abby and Kimala II were respectful and willing to put over the grandeur of their opponents. It was interesting to see a 1990 Giant Baba match where he did the brunt of the work. The highlight was the corner battering ram spot but Abby's timing was as good as ever. It was a crowd-pleaser though it was funny that Abby and Kimala got some chants from obvious dissidents before the match started.

PAS: I thought this was awesome. I am an end of the road Andre super fan, and watching him throw hands with 1990 Abby is really thrilling. We don't get a ton of it but it ruled. There is a 2/3 falls Abby vs. Andre match from 1977 in Houston, and it's probably in Billy Corgan's garage. DAMN YOU CORGAN!!. I enjoyed Kimala bringing the athleticism. He just flew into all of Baba's stuff, hit a dropkick, dove off the top, really wrestled around Baba and made his stuff look good. I would have loved to see the crowd brawling between Andre and Abby, but what we got was a blast.


Mitsuhara Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr.

MD: This went all the way and from what we could see, which admittedly wasn't everything was really good. The crowd was up for it and made it feel like a big deal, a sort of parallel to Tsuruta-gun vs the Super Generation Army, but the latter facing legends in the Funks instead. It had just about everything you'd want: Dory throwing forearms instead of sitting in holds, Terry getting a ton of sympathy as he took all of Misawa and Kawada's stuff, a big comeback with an amazing exchange ending in him ducking a Kawada kick and flooring him, and an incredibly exciting and increasingly wild last ten minutes as they built up to the draw. Dory and Terry rose to the occasion, including tossing out a standing double hip toss which seemed pretty unique from them. I loved the bit where Misawa and Kawada both tried a Scorpion Deathlock since that's a death move in AJPW. And it ended with Kawada surviving the spinning toehold as the clock ran out and a show of respect from the four.

PAS: Terry vs. Misawa is a match up that only happened here (Terry worked with Tiger Mask II in the 80s) and they really had great charisma with each other, Misawa's stoicism blended nicely with Terry's wild shit. We get some fun feeling out stuff with Dory early and it built to a pretty exciting finish run, with Terry hitting his piledriver on Kawada and Misawa and Kawada trying to finish the Funks with scorpion death locks. I liked how the finishing run felt frantic, sometimes draws just finished, but here both teams felt like they were working against each other and the clock. 


Joel Deaton/Dick Slater vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue

MD: This had a sense of inevitability from the start, but it was still pretty good for what it was. Deaton and Slater were able to maintain control when they leaned into their teamwork. Taue wasn't quite there yet but he was closer than he was and could better use his size and presence, though in this match he was there to set up the big tag to Jumbo. Inevitability is the best part about Jumbo, that last minute where his opponent survives but where everyone in the crowd knew the hand would be raised and the backdrop was coming. Slater, despite being past his prime still came off as fairly credible in this setting.

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