Found Footage Friday: TAJIRI~! HHH~! BABA~! EIGEN~! FURNAS~! MVC~! SPIVEY~!

Dr. Death Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs. Dan Spivey/Doug Furnas AJPW 10/19/90

MD: I like Kroffat as much as the next guy, move even, but Spivey being in there instead increased the hoss level considerably. This was heated from the start too. Doc had it out for Furnas for some reason. He gave him the middle finger before the match. Furnas returned the favor by swinging a kick at him as he was squaring up with Spivey. Doc wiped his sweat in Furnas' direction. Furnas gave him the finger. Doc told him to kiss his butt. You get the idea. It's a good way to start a match. 

It doesn't let up from there. Furnas uses the three point stance to knock Gordy down, but Doc's able to grind Furnas down well enough that he makes sure to rush over and smack Spivey around a bit too, before mouthing off and maybe even spitting at him drawing Spivey in and it's just an absolutely chaotic feel early on.

What follows is about five minutes of the best wrestling you'll ever see. Doc catching Furnas in mid air and bringing him to the top rope, the two of them trading slaps and Furnas leaping over him to hit a belly to belly. Doc and Spivey smacking each other all the way out of the ring. Spivey hitting a bossman slam on Doc and boos ringing through the air as Gordy breaks it up. The place absolutely exploding as Furnas press slams Gordy only to eat a lariat. It's a hell of a five minutes before everything settles down to holds.

They take it down before building it back up and the overall effect is a hell of a thing. Gordy and especially Doc get a ton of heat. Furnas is able to clap up Spivey. There are a bunch of great nearfalls down the stretch before an extremely definitive ending but one that took that bit of extra effort. These are the sort of lost matches we hope to find.

ER: I love All Gaijin matches in All Japan because it's interesting to see how they can organically draw heat and interest without any kind of Nativism at play. No side is necessarily more loved or hated, only more established. Dr. Death understands that and leans into the MVC's established rep and for seemingly no reason goes hard on Doug Furnas. I have zero reason to believe there is any kind of animosity between Dr. Death and Doug Furnas, but everyone in this match made me believe there was. Doug Furnas was fairly established at this point. Not at the level of beating teams like Doc and Gordy, but already a two time All Asia tag champ who had beaten big teams. Doc quickly turns him into an underdog babyface which leads to a more spirited wild eyed performance from Spivey and some incredible payoff when Furnas finally starts throwing them around. 

Everyone was so good in this match that I fully bought into Doc and Gordy as two guys who actually hated Furnas (they didn't), Furnas as a guy out of his depth (he wasn't) and Spivey as a guy fearlessly telling MVC to back the fuck off and stop taking liberties with Furnas (they weren't, but at times it didn't seem like Spivey realized that). Doc was doing some performative middle fingers and phony baloney heat drawing across the ring while Furnas looked like a guy making the universal face of "Hey man I didn't do anything to you do you have the right guy?" You could tell Doc had the right guy when he sat Furnas on the top rope and slapped Furnas so hard to break. Furnas looked like Allen Covert and sold the slap by making the face that Allen Covert makes when his girlfriend leaves him in one of the few Sandler movies where that happens. Doc is great at bullying Furnas to rile up Spivey, and Spivey is that great combination of large and reckless and Just Getting Real Good so that he always gets too amped up on his first punch of an exchange and throws some potatoes before dialing back a little. He always looks ready to pop off, and it's a killer distraction from Furnas finally popping off. 

Doug Furnas gorilla press slamming Terry freaking Gordy - and the scared face Gordy makes while being held up high in that press - is an incredible spot. It would have been an amazing press slam anyway, but once Furnas added a pump it became an all timer. The crowd lost their minds at that press slam and that hyped Doug up so much he did a backflip and then ran as fast as he could into Gordy's biggest clothesline of the match. Doug finally suplexing Death was so cool. I love the way Doc bumps when he's reeling, just as I love when he decides one turnbuckle isn't enough for a stampede. MVC made damn certain that they were the bad guys here and were so convincing that the fans bought them as bullies against two of the toughest dudes. Terry Gordy out here getting booed over and over for breaking up pins and picking on Mega Athlete Doug Furnas.   

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Akira Taue vs. Harkua Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/27/90

MD: This is a recent Classics drop and a Baba 30th Anniversary match. Jumbo gives him a plaque before the match and everything. This gets a ton of time, 20+ it feels like and it's just packed full of character and comedy. It's hard to do justice to it all or even half of it but I'll point out a few things.

First, Eigen, amazing as always, really shines at the start. He faces off against young Taue to start but then darts to the corner and slaps Baba before running out. They reset, he does the same thing but this time teases Baba and slaps Rusher. Then when facing off against Rusher, he ducks and slaps him twice before leading him to the corner for a long heat segment. They kick away at him forever before we ultimately get some goofy stuff with Okuma and headbutts. There are a ton of headbutts in this match and while Rusher gets some in, a lot of them are eaten by Taue.

Taue's a lot of fun here. I've seen every bit of 1990 footage we have of him and he wasn't there yet, but here he's got this sense of wild abandon, limbs flying and flopping about, that would soon be gone from him. He looks like he's going to become an entirely different wrestler here between his selling of the headbutts and a sort of physical recklessness.

This refuses to end, a lot of the normal things you think might end it getting broken up. They run some of the best Eigen spit spot stuff ever, as both Taue and Baba get to do it, with Baba getting it on his hand and everyone almost cracking up (and Kobashi cracking up decades later on commentary). Then Rusher goes for it, but he's blocked, and Baba comes in from the other side with a chop and it's pretty hilarious let me tell you. The finish is a fun combo of Taue hitting an atomic drop sending Okuma into Baba's foot and then right back into Taue's belly to back. My only regret is that they didn't repeat the atomic drop/boot sequence a couple of times first. Great fun that no dirtsheet would have appreciated at the time but that we can absolutely appreciate now.

ER: This is one of those Wrestling Heaven situations for me. I love my King's Road, and I love my boys. Give me 20 minutes of VILLAIN SHOKAI up to their old bullshit and the nuanced twists that come with every new 20 minutes. It's crazy how many ways they found to do their same bullshit slightly different over the years. You recognize the behaviors but there are always things they do different, things I've never seen, or realistically perhaps things I've seen a million times but don't care because they all work so well together that I don't ever get tired of them. All of these old men matches (Masa Fuchi was 36 lol) were written off unfairly by morose tape traders, so now everything in them is ripe for discovery. Nobody was talking about how great Haruka Eigen was when I got into trading, none of these guys were getting any kind of acclaim. We're long past that now.

Now, before this even starts, you just know Eigen is going to get up to shenanigans before Villain Shokai starts bringing headbutts and hamstring kicks. Eigen starting the match with a slap and run routine on Baba and Rusher is so classic, celebrating in the aisles with young boys you barely recognize, knowing he was going to get paid back down the stretch. A lot of these start with long heat on Kimura, eating boots and headbutts and selling the headbutts so believably (that happens here), but that's not where the match stays. I thought they did a great job integrating everybody and keeping Baba's involvement short and exciting. Villain Shokai made quick tags and this settled into me being excited watching an Akira Taue who didn't wrestle a single thing like my favorite wrestler Akira Taue. 1990 Taue is so cool as can see hints of the Taue that would be there just a couple years later but you'd only notice them if you were familiar with them. For the most part, he's a totally different guy with totally different offense and movement. 

His most important characteristic that he apparently always had, was his realistic approach to bumping. Watch how he sells an Okuma headbutt to the mouth, watch the way he falls with limbs flopping around and not in a controlled wrestling school back bump. The realistic bumps and selling were the things that instantly drew me to Taue at the end of the 90s, and with all the '90 Taue we have as evidence we can see that it's just who he is, a thing that would be near impossible to teach someone. He also has completely different offense and I love "elbowdrop Taue who doesn't use his giant feet in any way" but maybe I only love it because I know we're not far away from "big feet to face and the best chokeslams ever" Taue. 

You get so much tough guy sneaky prankster Eigen that you forget they had already started honing the Spit Spot this early. It's still early, as the front row all knows what's happening when it's happening, but nobody is holding up newspapers. People are fleeing, which only draws attention to one woman who is not moving at all while every other woman around her scurries to safety. Baba getting involved in Eigen's Spit is a thing that does not happen in most of these, and his involvement here brings two incredible moments: Baba clutching Eigen under the chin and clubbing his chest, only for Eigen to spit all over Baba's hand, leading to Baba wiping off his hand all over Eigen's head; then when Rusher is winding up to club Eigen, Fuchi intercepts his arm. While the two are locked in struggle, Baba creeps in from the other side and just knife edges Eigen. Taue's back suplex drops like a damn anchor. These 20 minutes always feel like 5 to me, something I never say about Modern Epic Wrestling. 

HHH vs. Tajiri WWE 1/25/03

MD: This is the sort of Vault drop that we're looking for, Hunter reign of terror match or no. Previously we only had a few minutes of this. With the introductions and post-match this is 30+ minutes. The biggest takeaway, past maybe how good Tajiri is here and how it's a shame we don't have a bunch of other 20+ minute matches with him from this era, is that Hunter consciously worked it differently than almost any other match of the period. Maybe even almost any other match of his career.

There's the whole bit about Hogan doing two extra bits of chain wrestling in his Japanese appearances (when it's more the reckless energy and Axe Bomber people should be looking at). To me, this was more about Hunter getting to work the sort of classic NWA Title match style that he didn't think the current WWE audience would appreciate. The problem was that he just didn't have the reps with it (which isn't really his fault). It meant he did the sort of stuff you'd expect him to be good at (feeding into headlocks and other holds) well, but when he tried some fancier escapes, it didn't quite click. The headstand escape to the headscissors was cute and all but people haven't clipped him basically comedically putting himself back into the hold to set up the positioning for it.

What did work were the transitions, the hope spots, the cutoffs. Hunter took over by clipping Tajiri with a clothesline on the handspring and that looked great. They worked a lot of hope spots given the time the match had to breathe and it meant when Tajiri did comeback, it felt momentous. Lots of moving parts and hoohah on the finishing stretch but the fans certainly got their money out of all of it. I loved hearing Earl talking up close too. That's something you'd rarely get in the heavily produced WWE, even in the early 00s. This just felt very different and refreshing in a sea of 2002-2003 Hunter matches I have memories of but really don't want to revisit.  

ER: I remember being 21 and reading about this match in the Observer and DVDVR but now I'm twice as old as I was then and my wants and priorities have changed. How far away, the post college years where my friends and I split an Observer subscription for several years and my friend Jason would use his work photocopier to copy even double issues for all of us. If this match had been taped, I would have traded for a tape to see this match. The 2025 version of doing that is me making 30 minutes of time to watch a HHH match. I'm glad I did. It closed a loop and lived up to its release. I love that it's shot handheld, I love the format, and I loved the story.  I always love the story of a guy who isn't World Title level getting a lengthy main event title match. If it exists, I'd be equally excited to see Brooklyn Brawler getting a long Shawn Michaels title match on a house show after winning a battle royal. 

HHH works this much more like a heel Bret Hart match and shows that he's better at that than when he's working his touring champion Flair match. Thank god this isn't his touring Flair match only in Japan. He's more execution focused than when he's in his Flair Entertainer mode and while I don't think he's anywhere near Bret as an execution guy there were several moments that I thought he looked a lot tighter than expected. He's better at bump as Bret than he is bumping as Flair and it made the match come off harder hitting than theatrical. Tajiri's kicks were great ways for him to storm back into the match and I liked how he would use them as unpredictable combos thrown at different body targets. HHH is bad at standing still making an "I'm waiting to be hit face" but much better at taking strikes that are less expected. We didn't have to see him hold his head a certain way as he waits to hair whip react to a punch, instead we just got Tajiri throwing kicks up and down his body. 

HHH as a guy working over shoulder back breakers is one of the coolest versions of HHH. Do more of that. Less Irish whips and more backbreakers! When Tajiri finally slips out the back of one of the backbreakers it's this great spot that looks like it's going to fall apart entirely and end in an awkward tangle but it somehow bumbles expertly into a clean sunset flip pin away from ropes. I thought for sure both men were falling and going to wind up in an ugly heap of blown spot but instead it made it all look like HHH was struggling to stop Tajiri's momentum. Tajiri using the Tarantula while the referee was out seemed like the one time where it would have been acceptable to let HHH Act. Just let him scream and NXT sell for a full minute while completely stuck, no ref to save him. I was disappointed that Tajiri maintained the 5 second rule. We didn't get enough of Tajiri maniacally refusing to break Tarantula. 

Tajiri kicking out of the Pedigree was something we all read about in 2003, but it plays far crazier than it reads. This is a detail I remember reading about. It was shocking to hear that Tajiri had kicked out of a Pedigree, but the details at the time actually downplayed what really happened. When it was reported, the reporting made it sound like the Pedigree was hit and Hebner - blinded by mist - took an eternity to make the count. That makes sense and it still sounded surprising that Tajiri kicked out. In actuality, the whole thing happened in under 10 seconds. Tajiri kicked out of the Pedigree less than 10 seconds after it was hit, which nobody else was doing in 2003. 

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WWF In Your House: Final Four 2/16/97

Shamefully, I've never seen the Final Four main event. It's a big 90s WWF blindspot for me and there's no reason for it, other than I don't love 1997 WWF. The highs are high, but the arenas are cold, the undercards are stale, the house style leaned towards dull, and I don't think the shows are filmed well. But other than that, I can't complain. A fact that can double as a reason, is that I've been watching - daily - a lot of 1997 WCW lately for my wildly entertaining and cumbersome book, and watching something like this does make for a nice comparison point. Plus, In Your House events were still under 2 hours at this point. They're basically a Coliseum Video with worse editing.  

Anyway let's correct the mistake of me never seeing a universally praised match with 3 of my favorites, and also double down and replace that corrected mistake with a bigger mistake: reviewing the entire show. 

1. Marc Mero vs. Leif Cassidy

ER: Marc Mero gets a ring full of sparklers, and Cassidy is already waiting inside that ring of sparklers. How often did they already have somebody waiting in the ring to start a PPV? I really like how the French announce team talks about Chattanooga, but the crowd is cold for this one. A Wildman shouldn't start off a match working a kneeling wristlock, so the cold is earned. Cassidy at least throws in bumps and acts like a dickhead. When Cassidy is kicking at Mero's leg, I buy his look of disgust. Cassidy throwing legsweeps and heel hooks is more interesting than what Mero was doing with the match. Okay we are going into the heel hooks and the elbowdrops to the inner knee a lot more than I was expecting. Interesting to me doesn't mean "interesting to the live crowd", but to the crowd and wrestler's credit they did all come together to root Mero through the legwork. 

It just hit me that the whole thing is laid out like a Tony Garea/Johnny Rodz match, and how a lot of 1997 WWF undercard matches felt like they were doing tributes to bad 1982 WWF undercard style. Not only is that a terrible style to be doing in 1997 - especially compared to what WCW was doing - but this was in Chattanooga and people in Tennessee were getting Lawler/Dundee in 1982, so Salvatore Bellomo vs. Baron Mikel Scicluna wasn't going to cut it. Mero has a cool short runway tope to break up Cassidy threatening Sable, and the shooting star press looks like even more of a crazy 1997 finisher today, but WCW opened their February PPV with Syxx/Dean Malenko like one week after this. People saw the difference. 

2. The Nation of Domination (Crush/Savio Vega/Faarooq) vs. Goldust/Flash Funk/Bart Gunn

ER: What even is this babyface (?) team? What do those three men have in common? Are they all recent TV victims of the Nation? I didn't watch any of the TV surrounding this match, but that's a tenuous reason to have three men teaming up on PPV. One of the clips they showed was Goldust getting jumped on a house show. Was WWF setting up PPV six mans on house shows in 1997?! Also I know I'm a big hypocrite because if I saw this match was on a WAR card I would lose my shit, and I would be right to do so. And this match - what we get of it - might be worth losing your shit over? It's filled with Flash Funk in his Labelle boots, hitting huge planchas (including one he gets Irish whipped into), and a nice run of the Nation cutting the ring off on Funk. Flash has a great sequence to build to his hot tag, back flipping over a Vega/Crush double clothesline and leaping through them with one of his own. 

The hot tag goes to Bart Gunn and it's kind of incredible to have one of wrestling's best babyface hot tag guys on the apron but choose not use Goldust as the babyface hot tag in a match where Goldust was the one shown getting attacked at a house show and makes the most sense as the babyface hot tag. But hey I guess liked the simple usage of Gunn. He comes in, throws left hands, hits a couple clotheslines, and gets a nice visual pin on Faarooq with the bulldog. This is a very fun six minutes, but ends way too early and feels way too incomplete to fully recommend. There was hardly any Goldust, Crush, or Vega. I don't know if you can have a good a trios match while barely utilizing half of the participants. It's useful as a match you can point to when talking about strong Flash Funk performances - maybe the least recommendable era of Scorpio's career - as it has some of his best flying and great selling. That means something. 

3. Rocky Maivia vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

ER: I didn't actually check the full card for Final Four before I fired up this review, and I gotta say I'm not jazzed about watching a HHH/Rock title match. That said, this was really good. It has a great opening. They do a really cool section around dueling drop toe holds, a bit of a scramble, a loud slap delivered by HHH and returned by Rocky and it snaps the crowd awake. Helmsley hits kind of hard and Rocky bumps bigger and a bit more recklessly than he would a year later. I wish we got a bit more Rocky bumping, as the HHH control after the hot opening was solid, workmanlike, but doesn't give Maivia a ton to play against. Rocky isn't great at emotive selling in 1997. He only knows one move and it's "heave on the mat". He just lies there and heaves, which is the worst way to make a grounded side headlock interesting. But the more he moves, the more the crowd swells, and he's very good at taking offense. He is much more watchable when he runs into Hunter's running knee (which Hunter brings up to face level) and misses a high dropkick than he is is hitting a running crossbody. 

Rocky's big punch comeback has some fire but was missing something, much better taking at a hot shot off the top turnbuckle. Yep, Rock's offense sucked in 1997, but HHH tucked his head painfully on that stupid "hop around you" DDT. This had a really good opening and a second act that felt like it was building to a hot third, and I don't think we got there. Of the Islanders given a surprise title win in 1997, it's clear that Prince Iaukea was so much further along than The Rock. We'll see how this continues to develop, but as of February 1997 it's clear that Iaukea is more advanced as a wrestler and in line for a more successful career. Not one single person could have predicted what Rock would become by June 1998 if they had only seen him in February 1997. Impossible leap. If Byron Saxton had become an all time short term draw a within a year. 

4. Owen Hart/British Bulldog vs. Doug Furnas/Phillip LaFon

ER: This is one of those on paper matches that feels like it should be great, but this was not great. That's partly due to a lot of this being angle instead of match, but also due to the angle itself not being any good. I don't think the Owen/Bulldog team was ever as good as it should have been, and even working normally I don't think they were ever as complementary as they should have been. That means in this match they are a team of non-complementary guys who are now intentionally not communicating as part of an angle. It's awful. And let's just get it out of the way now: British Bulldog looked like shit. He didn't look like shit physically; he actually looked healthy. "Healthy" isn't a word typically used to describe The British Bulldog, but this era is the healthiest he looked. He's noticeably smaller and has none of the inflated muscle he had through most of his career. Every person in this match is basically the same size, even though I don't think of any person in this match being the same size as any other person in this match. Bulldog and Owen are essentially the same exact guy here. So physically, he looks great. 

He just wrestles like shit. His strikes are shockingly bad, just putrid strikes with no kind of weight behind them. His clotheslines look so pulled that you'd think his body was incapable of taking any kind of resistance. Bulldog was much smaller and not wrestling like a heavyweight...sorta. Other than holding LaFon up in a vertical suplex, he does no power spots, instead doing sliding dropdowns and sunset flips. The powerslam is still his finisher, but it's more like Charlie Haas doing a powerslam. British Bulldog is like if Doc Dean had worse stomps. 

 

Owen and LaFon feel like they would be a much better team with better chemistry. I liked the twists they did on their own Malenko/Guerrero roll-ups. I'm pretty burnt out on 2 count kickout reversals but theirs looked fresh, and it helped that they weren't doing these reversals in a bunch of their matches. Owen and LaFon feel like two sides of the same coin and even their movement is similar. None of the Owen/Bulldog offense looked good and they really did feel like a time who never teamed before, more than a team having disagreements. When Bulldog holds up LaFon in a vertical suplex, Owen goes to crossbody LaFon to the mat and instead mostly lands on Bulldog's face. But I did like Owen's spinning heel kick into him when LaFon ducked out of the way. Their best interaction against each other was strong, when Owen actually slapped him and Bulldog responded with his best clothesline of the match.

Furnas and LaFon wrestled like a fucking team. These dudes wrestled like every single tag team on TV today wished they wrestled like. It's crazy you don't hear Furnas/Kroffat every mentioned by modern wrestlers as influences, because there are dozens of guys on current wrestling TV who seem to be wrestling like worse versions of Furnas/Kroffat. They were doing this high speed move chaining so much better than all of the teams who have turned that into the prevailing Big Match tag team style. When Furnas made his hot tag it made the match actually hum for the first time, with nothing but cool shit getting chained. But then it ends with Owen barely hitting LaFon with his Slammy award. Major boner not just giving Furnas/LaFon the titles here. 

5. Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin vs. Vader vs. Undertaker

ER: I'm not sure why I haven't watched this before now. I really didn't know anything about the match other than it still gets consistently praised and that Vader got busted open. I remember seeing the Raw Magazine with Vader's bloody masked face on it in the supermarket, at a time where I hadn't been exposed to that much bloody wrestling. I had bought an old copy of the War Games Bash '87 clamshell VHS at a Healdsburg video store and that had really opened up my wrestling world. That who tape was bloody and had at least two dozen instances of somebody getting their face painfully raked across chain link. I don't think I had seen bloody wrestling before that tape, and I don't think I had seen blood in a WWF match before seeing Vader bloodied up on that magazine. 

And Vader bleeding is really the thing that makes this match great. It's really chaotic, more chaotic than any main event WWF had done, because most of the match is two separate singles matches happening in the direct way of each other, without ever really getting in the way of each other. Impressive feat. It rules that Vader gets busted open like 2 minutes in, running full face into a chair and then taking a big bump into the ring steps, quickly apparent that the cut over his eye is disgusting. It's great that the match became all about Vader's disgusting eye and didn't focus on a goof like Undertaker, a man who is doing his silly rope walk in a match where you can lose by being thrown over the top. Just out here making everyone look like fools. It's only when Vader is swinging wildly at him with a chair - and then getting that chair mashed into his face by Taker's boot - that the match really starts to feel like a match. Well, I guess it felt like something great was going to happen before the match when Vader and Austin were flipping each other off. But Vader is a force and the crowd is hyped and loud. People love seeing Vader get chokeslammed, people love Vader kicking Bret in the balls and beating him with a chair, the people loved Vader and Austin hitting each other with the ring bell and fighting on top of some balding guy who Vader fell on top of. 

Vader gets kicked in the balls by Bret Hart in one of the most teed up kicks to the balls to ever appear in a main event. When Vader is eliminated, he is uppercut in the balls by Undertaker. People get choked with production cables and kicked in the balls in this match, and every time they show Vader's cut it looks worse. His missed moonsault is incredible. It defies physics. That moment where his hand is no longer in contact with the top rope and his body is leaning back before starting his rotation, it looks like you're about to witness the most dangerous accident. But then he gets superplexed by Bret and you begin to wonder which bump is worse for a man the size of Vader to be taking, and how fucking stupid it was that WWF had a 400 pound mastodon who could bleed out of his eye for 20 minutes and still go up for a moonsault and a superplex and then take a bump over the top to the floor, but still not see a role for him as a star.

I liked everybody in this match. Bret was as great as Bret always is in main events, Austin was lean and incredibly fast, Undertaker somehow fit excellently into the chaos, and I guess that's the key to why this worked so well: it was constantly chaotic with very little downtime, without any pairing ever overshadowing the other pairing, no matter who was fighting or where they were fighting. But this was Vader's show, a legendary big man performance that probably would have come off great even without one of the more grisly cuts in modern WWF history.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Richard Charland: Most Nondescript Wrestler Ever!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


It's Ted Dibiase Jr.


Obviously.

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Pierroth in WWF!

Man, what might have been. By 1996 WCW had some of the best luchadors in the world, and they were becoming popular attractions on WCW undercards. Naturally, WWF brought in some of the leftover luchadors to compete, even though most of the luchadors WWF brought in couldn't really work the same style that was the actual reason for WCW luchadors becoming a popular attraction. It was a move inspired by any well-intentioned mother who bought her teen a pack of Yu-Gi-Oh cards because he played Magic: The Gathering. It's an attempt, but with no actual knowledge behind the attempt. "This is a card game and I know you like card games" = "Here are Mexican wrestlers and apparently people like Mexican wrestlers now". It was misguided and done with seemingly no knowledge of why they were doing it. This was NBC's "Joey", a Friends spinoff made by people who seemingly had never seen an episode of Friends and had no clue why people enjoyed the Joey Tribbiani character. It was a short-lived experiment that only lasted a couple of months, yet somehow the AAA luchadors got a showcase trios on the Royal Rumble card. A couple of the guys brought in seemed to be pushed above the others: Hector Garza (who makes sense as he was a hunky guy in his 20s who could do a nice tornillo) and...Pierroth.

Since one of the duties of Segunda Caida is to champion any luchador using the Pierroth name, WE obviously understood their intentions. But it was kind of odd. Pierroth then was the same age I am now, which feels old to be getting a new name push in WWF. While other luchadors got a showcase match at the '97 Rumble, Pierroth was actually IN the Rumble. This man was the Champion of Champions, according to Jim Ross.

We won't actually go over the Rumble match here, as I know his elimination is still a touchy subject for many. Some believe that Pierroth was never officially eliminated, as he wasn't properly told the rules before the match, and they feel he shouldn't have been punished for "eliminating himself" with a plancha, and should still technically be an active entrant 22 years later; others, are wrong. Let's take a look at the bizarrely, briefly pushed 38 year old masked brawler, WWF Superstar Pierroth!


Pierroth vs. Matt Hardy WWF Superstars 12/22/96

ER: This was a really cool match, paced quick as hell and getting absolutely no love and attention from the crowd. Pierroth came off real mean, hard punches, quick snapmare followed by a stiff kick to Hardy's back, hard lariat, back elbow, a cool Rock Bottom before that existed in this fed, just came off like a real badass. He really looked like a great brawler. Hardy came off as crazy as his brother, hitting an unexpected split legged moonsault...but then he unexpectedly upped the crazy, hitting an Asai moonsault after springboarding to the TOP rope, BARELY rotating in time to not land straight on his head. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen, but Hardy started selling instantly and Pierroth got right up. It looked like the moonsault landed (albeit with Hardy possibly bouncing off his forehead to get there), but they had other plans I guess. Pierroth hits a solid contact pescado, really landing heavy, AND - and this is important - for those of you itching to know, Pierroth's finisher in the WWF was a cool folding powerbomb. If I was a kid and saw this I would want to see more of both guys, and then be confused when I only saw Pierroth a couple more times on TV.

Pierroth/Cibernetico vs. The New Rockers WWF Raw 12/23/96

ER: This was weird, and really cool! Vince and JR were really amusing on commentary, pointing out how the fans don't really know who to cheer for because they don't know the luchadors and they don't like the New Rockers. Vince also points out we haven't seen much flying from the Mexican team, and JR actually goes off on him: "You know, that's just an unfair stereotype about Spanish athletes. Some of the best ones are high flyers, but many of them aren't. Look at Perro Aguayo, a great brawler!" JR goes full Mike Tenay and shuts Vince right up. Marty Jannetty was a really great wrestler all throughout the 90s, and Al Snow vs. Pierroth is a match up I didn't know I wanted but clearly I do. Pierroth again works stiff, and Snow is a guy who will work stiff back, and I dug the chops they were throwing at each other. Snow bumps really big for Cibernetico, taking a cool armdrag reversal and then going down like a shot for a hard dropkick to his chest, later taking a soft but somewhat reckless tope that saw both crash into the guardrail. Jannetty threw two really nice punches including a cool short uppercut, and a fantastic flying fistdrop, and I dug Pierroth throwing a bunch of short arm chops to him, knocking him down with a chop but always holding onto an arm to drag Jannetty back up for more. Pierroth hits a killer release powerbomb and a splash with a hard landing to win. Pierroth has a 2 match winning streak in WWF! JR fully advertised that Pierroth was in his late 30s, pointing out that he had been wrestling over half his life at 20 years. This guy is really going places in late '96 WWF!

Doug Furnas/Phil Lafon vs. Pierroth/Cibernetico WWF Superstars 1/5/97

ER: This is particularly notable, because Pierroth grabs the mic and talks trash before the match, and then grabs it *again* to talk more trash after the match, the match he had just lost due to DQ. This is a total hidden gem of a tag. This one should be a syndicated classic. Can Ams were dangerous guys who always had the potential to eat up an opponent, but Cibernetico and Pierroth were fine if the Can-Ams wanted to try that. Pierroth starts this by going right after Furnas with hard chops and a stiff corner lariat. It's part of a great sequence where Pierroth gets Irish whipped chest first into the opposite buckle, then bumps forward out the ropes after eating a Furnas lariat to the back of the head. It was one of those airtight sequences that you could picture Arn or Bobby doing in a tag. He then went right in and took down Kroffat with a clutch single leg, felt like he was directly going after both Can-Ams strongest suit and it made him come off like a total badass. 

Furnas takes this monster Sgt. Slaughter bump over the corner after Pierroth dodges, and then when Furnas makes it back in Pierroth throws a fantastic punch right to the nose. Goddamn this match rules. If Pierroth knew of the Can Am's tough guy reps, he clearly did not care. Cibernetico was pretty raw (and well, never got Actually Good), but here he had some young guy stupid in him and that's a plus. He throws some kicks to Kroffat that looked like they earned him receipts, took a wild Furnas overhead belly to belly, Kroffat snap suplexed him as hard as he could, chopped him across the collar bones, tossed him hard with a snap back suplex, rough stuff. Cibernetico earned his keep. Pierroth and Furnas have a cool little violent brawl on the floor, Pierroth taking a great bump out there and an awesome chest first posting. We even get an excellent bullshit finish when Cibernetico pulls the ref into the way of a Kroffat crossbody. Can-Ams couldn't go over these two in 1997, because Pierroth was Too Fucking Strong. Ref called the DQ on Cibernetico, but this was 50% Kroffat. His body hit the ref. I'm calling Pierroth's WWF W-L at 2-0-1. 

Pierroth/Heavy Metal/Pentagon vs. Hector Garza/Latin Lover/Octagon WWF Raw 3/10/97

ER: Yep, you're right, this is total Weirdsville. Our luchadors were being presented strongly on television for a couple weeks leading up to the Rumble, then they had a featured trios at the Rumble to start the new year, Pierroth and Cibernetico got to actually be IN the Rumble match, and then...they disappear only to show up 2 months later, and then never again. This is your swan song boys. Go out in a blaze of glory. And by entrances alone, you can already call this a win. Latin Lover is wearing his cuffs and collar, Heavy Metal looks like a total sleaze star in leopard print tights, stringy hair hanging over his face, and an expression that makes him look like he's about to pull out a switchblade. So this is already great. But there was nothing these guys could have done. On paper they got 8 minutes, but it wasn't a fair 8 minutes. Everyone here works hard and they're actually starting to win people over and starting to get reactions...and then they show "That Woman" Chyna in the crowd and cut away from the ring for 90 seconds while she is removed (she had been showing up and causing problems, attacking Marlena and getting in the ring to confront Bret), then the moment they remove Chyna and go back to the ring, they cut to a split screen for a great (but also 90 second) Brian Pillman promo. Luchadors were doing dives, but Pillman was busy talking about the witching hour and there were just way too many things fighting for attention (this era of Raw had constant split screen cutaway promos, the screen action always felt very hectic).

Heavy Metal mostly paired off with Garza, Pierroth mostly paired off with Latin Lover, and Octagon/Pentagon did their thing, and it worked really well! Metal and Garza pushed a really fast pace. They're the guys who really started to get a reaction, doing fast armdrags, Metal did a big handspring elbow and did a fast rolling dropdown to take our Garza's legs, Garza landed on his feet on a moonsault and then hit a springboard crossbody, and people were finally making noise. Pierroth was good at actively yelling at fans in the front row to get them involved (it works) and throwing tons of hard short chops to Lover. LL's chest is red shortly into the match because of Pierroth, and that's a good thing. Heavy Metal takes a humongous Jerry bump to the floor, the dives all look good (even in split screen) and of course we cap it off with Garza's tornillo knocking everyone down like pins. The only thing weird about the ringwork is Latin Lover doing a frog splash to someone who wasn't even there (Metal had been standing for some time) and Metal just rolls him up with la magistral. That could have been cleaner. Still, the match was really fun and if the fed actually wanted to promote lucha, fans would have easily gotten into it. There's no reason they couldn't have just put them exclusively on Superstars or something, have occasional feature matches on Raw, it would have worked. But, most importantly, Pierroth wraps up his WWF career with a dominant 3-0-1 record.

JR referred to Pierroth as "The Champion of Champions" in every single one of his 4 featured matches. Clearly JR knew class when he saw it.

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

Dick Murdoch vs. Johnny Rodz WWF Kuwait 1984

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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