Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! GILBERT~! FREEDBIRDS~! R'N'R~! SILVER KING Y EL TEXANO EXPLODE~!

Fabulous Freebirds (Roberts/Gordy) vs. Rock 'n Roll Express Mid-South 6/24/85

MD: Unique pairing that you'd think we have more footage of than we actually do, at least with this particular iteration of the Freebirds. This went closer to fifteen than ten, but not by much, had a hot crowd, and was an all time Gordy performance. Everything was good, but he was such a beast in this. I want to talk about how well Roberts stooged early, but Gordy just overshadows all of it. Once Roberts finally was able to tag into him, he just bullied Gibson over in a rough German Suplex, just deadlifted him over. That wasn't the start of the heat, but it was jarring enough that I thought it would be. Shortly thereafter Roberts was back in and let Gibson make the tag, leading to Morton posting himself, which was far less unnerving since that's how you expect the heat in an R'n'R match to start. Gordy leaning on him was just nasty though, a running punch in the ropes that took his head off, fist drops, a super athletic cut off where he turned a reversed whip into a leap onto the second rope and dive back off. Morton was finally able to make a hot tag after reversing a Roberts piledriver attempt (which felt suitably dire), but Gordy asserted himself again. Gibson hit a roll up on Roberts, even though he wasn't the legal man and Gordy just walked up, casually lifted Gibson off of it, and ganso bombed him for the pin. Pure brutality. You watch this and what feels most surprising is that it took a whole eleven months after this before Watts put his main singles title on Gordy. Again, I'm sleeping on Roberts' performance here, sleeping on how good Morton was at peppering little shots in from underneath to keep the fans behind him, the ways the Freebirds worked around the ref, etc., but Gordy was such a looming presence that he deserves 90% of the copy here.

ER: Had I been asked about it, I would have thought Ricky Morton would have crossed paths with Terry Gordy a lot more than he actually did, but most of the matches they had were from early career late 70s Memphis that we surely don't have. Prime New Orleans crowd Mid-South Rock n Rolls vs. Freebirds is a great thing, Hayes always seen strutting in silhouette on the floor, Roberts and Gordy - shockingly - separating Ricky from Robert. One thing I like about writing about wrestling with Matt, is that we often land at the exact same conclusion on a match but get excited by different things within the match (and a lot of the same things, we're not special) but I try not to read what he wrote until I've watched the matches, just to see what jumped out to each of us. It's a rewarding way to sync up on wrestling, and it was rewarding here because he was enamored with Gordy, while I couldn't take my eyes off of Buddy. Gordy was great. He was Gordy. I lost it when Gordy hit this huge body press off the middle buckle, but a lot of this seemed like the same great Gordy that we always get. Buddy Roberts felt like the man running the show. 

Buddy out bumped (or at least tried to out bump) Ricky and I thought he had the most vicious offense in the match. He hit this jawbreaker on Gibson that had a little hitch in it, and that hitch really made it seem like a real connection had been made, similar to how Harley Race's hitch on his kneedrop always gave it that split second emphasis that made the connection feel more real. He threw Regal-sharp elbows in the corner, and Ricky sells them like his face is suddenly searing hot. When it's time for Buddy to bump and sell, he's a freak, going hard into the buckles and rebounding into a hard back bump, leaping into a big bump after recoiling from an atomic drop, comedy bumps that look like they really really hurt. Morton's selling in the match is really incredible. There's this great moment where he takes a hot shot, springs off the top rope, staggers to a different side of the ring, and winds up draped chest first across the bottom rope. Morton also gets launched over the top to the floor on a hiptoss behind the ref's back, and knows how to sell a huge bump like that just as well as he sells something like having his eyes raked across the top rope. Morton might sell his eyes being raked over the top rope better than anyone else. Robert's hot tag felt a bit rushed a lead immediately to the finish, but the finish really was beast mode Gordy. Earlier, Buddy had prevented a sunset flip with a well timed punch. Well, when Robert successfully gets Buddy over on one, in the middle of the count, Gordy just lifts Gibson up directly out of his sunset flip and just drops to his knees with a disgusting piledriver. There was no attempt to protect Robert on this one, this just looked like Gordy breaking up a bar fight, shutting that damn match down. Awesome. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Eddie Gilbert USWA 6/17/92

MD: Some all time goofing by Eddie as Lawler more or less sits back and watches. There's a match in here, but of the 26 minute video, less then ten minutes have the wrestlers making contact. That doesn't mean it's not great. The first ten is all about Eddie leaving the ring at any opportunity, stalling, jawing on the mic, causing all sorts of havoc. Once they finally get going, there's a three minute segment of pure pro wrestling perfection where he tries to sync his ideal of a three-count with the ref's, both of them going down one after the other to time it out. Of course that leads to the ref counting too slow for him and too fast for Lawler. Obviously Jerry's an all time pro but I'm kind of amazed he didn't break during all of this. That's your shine here, with Lawler barely having to move a muscle. Eventually Eddie takes over, including a sleeper until he misses a fist drop. Lawler drops the strap and hits a nice bulldog before the second sets up a ref bump (and Gilbert getting his pound of flesh by stomping the hell out of the downed ref to make up for previous indignities). The last five minutes of footage is the screwjob finish, it getting reversed after Jarrett comes out, and Gilbert launching another monologue at the injustice of it all. I couldn't tell you what the crowd felt that night but thirty years later, all the bullshit aged like fine wine.

ER: This is one of the more backseat Lawler matches I've seen, with Lawler clearly hanging back and letting Gilbert work a long routine. It's incredibly entertaining, and I especially loved how Eddie was bragging to the crowd about his Global title, telling them, "I'm the one you see defending my title on ESPN every day...oh wait, I forgot that everybody here is so poor that they can't afford ESPN." This is 85% bullshit and 15% incredible Memphis wrestling. The punch exchanges were tremendous, and I had to watch Eddie punching out Lawler in the corner several times. It's not just about great all of Gilbert's punches were, it's also how perfectly Lawler whips his head in reaction until the KO punch rocks and slumps him in the corner. Gilbert's missed fistdrop off the buckles looked so good, and I love how it lead to the strap coming down and Lawler unleashing his own punches, big bulldog, and a perfect dead drop DDT. The bullshit was so all-consuming that I was actually surprised when they settled down and wrestled for awhile, and I'm not sure I would have minded if they ever did. Of course, we're lucky that they did, but we're just as lucky that some guy was recording Eddie just jacking around for 20 minutes. 

Silver King vs. El Texano IWA Japan 5/23/94

MD: Hell of a sprint between partners here. There were a lot of the spots you'd expect given the audience with tricked out armdrags and Silver King springing forward, but it was all punctuated with hard shots, be it the Texano punch at the beginning, just how much Silver King threw himself into his spin wheel kick and dropkicks, or the chop exchanges. Silver King might get an advantage on an exchange just for Texano to come back with a really sharp leg kick and power bomb, just like that. They did sell in the back third and let things resonate but some of that might have just been exhaustion. If you wanted to distill a story here it was Texano's strength advantage vs. Silver King's speed advantage, but a lot of it was just two partners really going at it. You could feel the trust between them, as Texano had to base for some spots that were getting away from them and wouldn't have worked otherwise, or just in catching some of the dives. They could have done 20% less and probably had a better match for it but since this is basically a one time match, I'm certainly not going to fault them for putting it all out there.

ER: Los Cowboys Explode! I don't think I actually knew that we ever got a Texano/Silver King singles match and this really delivers. This is an insane gas tank match. Both guys are shaped like Jake Milliman but go go go for 13 straight minutes, no letting up, hardly any recovery time after a ton of big bumps and a lot of motion. Silver King has the hair of an early 90s stand up who got his own sitcom, the kind of mullet Richard Jeni would have had if he was born in Torreon. Texano looks so great here. He works the way Silver King would eventually work in 2001. That's nothing against King, but it was clear that Texano was basing and keeping this train running, and it allowed both to shine. Texano's strikes all hit with a thud. He looked like he actually buckled King's legs on a kick (hey I know we have 10 minutes of rope running left, how about I belt you in the hamstring?) but his clotheslines were incredibly impactful. Texano had two different clotheslines that would have broken my chest. The arm and leg drags were cool, and I think the coolest was Texano going up for an electric chair but only getting one leg over, so kind of improvising into a kind of freaked out Robert Gibson style headscissors. King's moonsault press was gorgeous, and his tope con giro was fearless. The visual on it was amazing, as Texano had just taken a sky high bump over the top to the floor, and King followed it right up with that tope, just the best bodies in motion pro wrestling. This had the feeling of a lucha version of a Jay vs. Mark Briscoe match, just two guys who know each other front and back throwing out some of their craziest stuff with full trust and no backing down.  

 

 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: REY JR.~! PANTHER~! GILBERT~! FIRE~! INFERNALES~! LA PARKA~!

Eddie Gilbert vs. Huracan Castillo WWC 8/6/94

MD: This was limited by the gimmick, obviously, but you watch it to see the spectacle of it and how Gilbert chose to work it and milk moments. For one, before they got into the ring he took a head into the post and immediately bladed. That way, if nothing else, there would be color. There were flammable pieces of material in fixed intervals just outside the ropes and visually, things were most spectacular when the wind was blowing and the fire seemed to be reaching into the ring. Much of the match was based on Castillo trying to work Gilbert into those ropes and it portrayed that sense you get in exploding cage or barbed wire matches that the heel simply cannot escape. For most of the match, the payoff was Gilbert's hand getting whacked into the fire. Gilbert was able to get a little bit of control and get some revenge, but after Castillo's comeback (off of a Hotshot of all things), Gilbert took some shots to the face into the fire, bumping around and recoiling like crazy for it. The overall effect was diminished by the end since the fire had gone down significantly, but the finish revolved around Gilbert getting some barbed wire and choking Castillo with it, moving things forward to the next match in a very Memphis manner.

PAS: I thought this was awesome, it would have ruled if it was just a bloody Memphis punch out, but add the spectacle of the flames into, what a treat. Tremendous Gilbert performance, his punches looked great, got great early color, and did a wonderful job of making the fire bumps look horrific. Castillo was a fine regional babyface, and got amped up, but this was an Eddie show. I am surprised they used powder as the transition weapon, rather then the Gilbert fireball, but I dug Eddie using the barbed wire to set up the rematch, clever booking, and I need to search out the barbed wire match between these two.

Winners/Rey Mysterio, Jr./La Parka/Octagon vs. Blue Panther/Los Payasos AAA 9/2/95

MD: Maybe the biggest appeal here is just seeing Blue Panther hang out with a bunch of clowns. Really straightforward structure on this one. Exchanges in the primera leading to a tecnico pin, beatdown in the segunda, comeback in the tercera leading to some of the flashier spots, the dives, and the finish. A lot of the details were very good though. I loved the Panther vs Parka exchange in the primera. That felt like a fairly unique match up and they had fun with it on the mat. Coco Azul based really well for Rey too. I was less into what Winners and Amarillo were up to. Payasos and Panther worked well on the beatdown including some nice tandem offense and submissions. The comeback was great as Rey just went through everyone's leg to create chaos for La Parka to dance around. It was exactly what it should have been and the fans loved it. In general, it was a lot of fun to see the other tecnicos keep Parka chants going throughout the match. Rey's backflip dive over the top with a La Parka boost was memorable, but just the way he'd get up on a floating armdrag was endlessly impressive for the time and even now. Finish involved Los Payasos beating down Octagon after a dive and then starting to fight with the crowd, allowing Rey to slip in for a last second countout win. This was pretty much as enjoyable as you'd expect.

Infernales (Satanico/Pirata Morgan/MS-1) vs. Hector Garza/Lizmark/El Dandy CMLL 9/2/95

MD: Fun bit early on here where Satanico and Pirata had Garza held hostage in their corner and Lizmark and Dandy had MS-1 in theirs and it was a bit of a standoff. You're not going to win fighting Los Infernales on their own terms, however, so they eased into the beatdown almost immediately thereafter. No one can direct traffic quite like Santico and lucha beatdowns don't get better than Infernales ones. The comeback moment was just ok, Lizmark coming in to get a shot in, but he was really over with the kids on this night, so it's hard to complain. It was followed by Dandy throwing amazing punches at everyone, including an all time shot to Pirata on the floor. There weren't a lot of exchanges in this one, Satanico putting Garza through the paces to start and then later on a really good Dandy and Morgan one but given who was in there, it all flowed well and did what it was meant to.

Read more!

Fuchi Fridays- Mr. Fuchi v. Eddie Gilbert WWC 1982

Mr. Fuchi v. Eddie Gilbert WWC 1982

This was a shortish simple studio match, but I really enjoyed it. Basic exchanging of holds, but man does young Fuchi (rocking a sweet stash) know how to crank in a headlock and a front face lock. Gilbert seemed to be tightening up his holds a bit too. This could have used a little more flash, as it didn't have a finish run and Gilbert wins with a knee lift, but it was very fun to see both of these guys in their early days

Read more!

It's Suicide the King Knows, He Tried it Twice

Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher vs. Doug Gilbert/Reggie B. Fine, USWA 12/6/93 - FUN

ER: Fun match that if it had happened on Worldwide or Saturday Night I probably would have thought was one of the best matches in their run. This was a short 5 minute brawl worked Texas Tornado style, with interference and brawling through the crowd and all sorts of bullshit. I like how Lawler looked the same from 1979-1987, and then suddenly from 1988-1993 all the fashions and trends caught up with him so suddenly he's got neon green tights or a pink shirt under a white jacket with stubble beard. Christopher brawling around with Doug was a hoot and Doug levels Christopher with maybe the best punch of the match, then gets into it (a little too convincingly) with a black fan at ringside. Dougie can dog it sometimes but this was a real good Doug performance. Christopher tends to shine in matches with his dad, seems like he turns it up to try and outdo his dad. Memphis also shows how ahead of the times they were when it came to mid-to-late 90s wrestling misogyny when Christopher piledrives Toni Adams to a big pop.

PAS: Yeah this was a wild little brawl, the kind of thing Memphis excels at.  Dougie v. Christopher was the focus and really nasty. Reggie B. Fine looked borderline untrained, and not in a fun Moondogs way. That and the short length was what kept this from being anything more then a nifty curiosity. That piledriver on Toni Adams was especially vicious looking, he really planted her and the glee of the crowd was a little off putting.


Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher vs. Doug Gilbert/Eddie Gilbert, USWA 12/13/93 - FUN

PAS: Another short arena tag, although this was a tease of Memphis bullshit rather then a tease of Memphis brawling. For a ten minute match they don't lock up for the first four. Lawler has a cameo more then anything else as most of the match is the Gilbert boys playing hide the rope and working over Christopher. Lawler just shows up for the finish. Some fun shtick, but you really want more from an arena match

ER: This is an 8 minute tag built around the Gilberts using the tag rope to choke Christopher. First punch gets thrown like 5 minutes in (although Eddie and Doug throw some doozies here), Lawler is on the apron until the last 30 seconds, the Gilberts always seem to go out of their way to get into it with the one black fan at ringside, an old man in a cowboy hat takes a swing at Eddie, Dougie looks, moves and wrestles the way I imagine Jimmy Wichard would wrestle (but man is Doug's DDT maybe the greatest DDT ever). This would be a fun and funny TV match, but kind of a downer this happened as an arena main event.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

Read more!

SLL's All-Request Tuesday Afternoon

The Southern Boys vs. The Freebirds (WCW, 1990)
Requested by Victator

This was the first of a best of three match series for the "Southern Tag Team Championship", which I had never heard of before, and which no records of actually exist. Until someone tells me otherwise, I'm guessing this was the Freebirds' Million Dollar Belt. It's not like I've ever gone out of my way to watch a lot of early 90's Freebirds matches, so I wouldn't really know.

Anyway, one of the big questions working on the Texas set left me with was how did Michael Hayes go from being so great in his '88 World Class run to being so bad in his '89/early 90's WCW run. This match does not provide much in the way of answers, though, because the 'Birds are actually pretty good here. Neither him nor Garvin are what they were in 1984, but they can both still throw hands and heel it up for the crowd, which is all either of them really need to do. Michael Hayes does that terrible "I will pin you by kneeling on your arms and posing so you can take me over in sunset flip position" spot, but other than that, no real complaints about their end of the match. The Southern Boys were a fun, high energy offensive team. Steve Armstrong had really pretty dropkicks, and Tracy Smothers made a great FIP. At one point, he eats a kneelift from Garvin on the apron and flew backwards into the guardrail. Nasty. Their finisher was pretty nifty, too. Not blowaway great or anything, but definitely a fun diversion.

Koji Kanemoto vs. Hayato Jr. Fujita (NJPW 5/26/2011)
Requested by Wrestling_KO Mike

Wow, I actually get to review a good 2011 puro match? It kinda figures, what with these being two really good wrestlers with a proven track record against one another. What's interesting to me though is that looking at it structurally (and taking away the expectations that come with the names "Kanemoto" and "Fujita"), I should have hated this match. It basically breaks down into two halves: one built around back-and-forth strike exchanges (the bane of 21st century puro matches), and one built around back-and-forth finishing hold exchanges (the bane of Kurt Angle-style workrate matches). You tell me that's how a match is structured, and I'll usually actively avoid it. So why does Kanemoto and Fujita trading forearms work when Sekimoto and Soya trading forearms in the match I reviewed last week didn't? For that, I direct you to something I wrote recently at the ProWrestlingOnly forums.

"Sell things the way you want people to buy them."

Kenta Kobashi and Kensuke Sasaki doing their big chop exchange at the Tokyo Dome in 2005 was a big, spectacular moment in a big, spectacular match. The idea that you can just throw that spot into any old match by two guys cosplaying as Kobashi and Kensuke and it will make your match a bigger deal is moronic. Kanemoto and Fujita are two jokers trying to replicate a tired spot that's long since had it's meaning sucked out of it. Kanemoto and Fujita are two angry pricks who are going to keep charging each other until the other goes down, and unlike all the other pretenders, it damn well looks like it. The botched apron double kick spot aside, everything was laid in hard and sold appropriately. The technical exchanges in the second half were super-slick and entirely convincing. Kurt Angle spent practically every match he's been in since the Rumble '03 Benoit match trying to recreate it. Within a month, his routine went from revolutionary to old hat. This felt as fresh and vital as Angle's work doesn't. They took a formula almost perfectly designed to drive me away, and they had me reeled in the whole time. I had not been paying very close attention to the Super Juniors tournament this year, so Hayato Jr.'s win caught me by surprise, too. Looks like it even caught him by surprise. Offhand, it struck me as the least of their three matches, but they are three very, very good matches, so that should not be read as a criticism at all. This is the real deal.

Sheik Khan Abadi & The Suburban Commandos vs. Johnny Plinko & Circum-Sexy (DMW 6/18/2011)
Requested by FLIK

I don't know what a Devil Mountain is, but it sounds like a great place to have a wrestling match. That said, I don't know how I feel about this one. As the unofficial internet consultant to the United Wrestling Coalition, I've watched a lot of poverty row indy wrestling lately. But while these guys were able to pull off bigger spots than the UWC crew usually goes for, I didn't always get the sense that they were any more polished than them. Pretty comfortable saying no one in this match was as on point as 2011 Twiggy Ramirez. And that's not a huge insult or anything, but it's not necessarily a great honor, either. I do want to say I liked the Suburban Commandos. They didn't use "It's a Nice Place to Live (But I Wouldn't Want to Visit)" as their theme, which feels like a missed opportunity, but they had a lot of big offense that I really liked. They had some cool double team spots. The military press dropped into a gutbuster on the other guy's knee was a personal favorite, as was their finish, an inverted flapjack into a powerbomb/neckbreaker combo. One of them also had a nasty snap backdrop. The finishing stretch was pretty suplex heavy, and I thought that was easily the best one. But they also had this one move where one of them had Johnny Plinko in wheelbarrow position, and Plinko willingly suspended himself straight outwards in the air so Sheik Abadi could come off of the ropes with a DDT. Business = exposed. And then there's the matter of the other four guys in the match. Sheiky baby threw some neat kicks and a running double knee, and broke out what I can only describe as a trust fall suicida, but he also had some really awkward moments, like a hot tag where he tried to get a little too fancy knocking the other heels off of the apron, and ended up rolling around out of place like a dolt. He wasn't awful or anything, but he left something to be desired. Then there were the heels. I didn't get the sense that any of them were terrible, but this was not a great showing for them. They tried to do this elaborate heeling shtick at the top of the match, but they had to choreograph it to involve all six guys doing the same thing at once, and the timing was way off. Really made it feel too stagey. They also were not afraid to stand around huddled together on the outside waiting forever to catch dives. That's not entirely their fault. I can understand the trust fall suicida taking too long to set up and them just being stuck waiting to eat it. But does catching one of the Commandos axehandles off of the apron require that much prep work? Beyond that, they seemed pretty non-descript. They also had a really superfluous manager. Seriously, he stood there the whole time during the opening micwork, and I don't think I even realized he was there until after the heels first got driven out of the ring. Even then, I wasn't sure he wasn't just the ring announcer or something. He did get involved later on, but I still don't know why he exists. Yeah, there was some interesting stuff going on here, but overall, it just didn't do it for me.

Eddie Gilbert vs. Ricky Morton (USWA 7/11/1992)
Requested by Tim Evans

Wow. So this is a roughly ten minute match between two really great wrestlers, who have kinda similar skill sets, though they tend to use them in different ways that would compliment each other. Two guys who are very much about dynamic brawling, dynamic selling, and dynamic playing to the crowd. This match is about dynamic nothing. I was genuinely stunned by how much this bored me. Did not see that coming at all. The match is mostly built around Morton keeping Gilbert trapped in an armbar, and these seem like the kind of guys who should be able to make that compelling. And well, it's not like either of these guys are Mutoh sitting around in a hold, but they're not what I expect from Morton and Gilbert, either. There really just isn't that much to talk about here, which is good in that it's Tuesday afternoon, and this was supposed to go up on Friday night, but not so good in that I want Morton and Gilbert to actually give me something to talk about. Kind of a strange finish, as the special TV time limit expires with Gilbert in control, but Gilbert wants five more minutes to put Morton away. He gets it, and is promptly flash pinned by Morton, who seemingly wins the USWA belt, but Gilbert never said anything about the five more minutes being for the belt, so he retains via Dusty Finish. It does, however, lead to a fun post-match angle where Eddie Marlin grants Morton a title rematch with any stipulation he wants, and Morton decides his dad Paul will be the special guest ref for the match (Gilbert: "I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD!"). Shame the body the match itself wasn't as compelling.

Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Ryota Hama & Manabu Soya (BJW 4/28/2011)
Requested by ダニエル

Well, if nothing else, you've got to hand it to Big Japan. They got a hold of the All-Asia Tag Titles, and they make it a really, really big deal here, even playing the national anthem before the match. It's something that could've rung false, but I totally accepted it here. It probably helps that they were working in front of a really great crowd. Crowd chants "Dai Nihon", and I'm wondering when they last time the interpromotional aspect of an interpromotional feud in Japan actually felt significant. The fact they got over that angle in 2011 is really impressive. Also, damn, is Hase looking old. I mean, I know he was a wrestler and everything, but still, he just turned 50 in May. He probably shouldn't be quite this decrepit.

So the match starts, and it's not long before Sekimoto and Soya are doing the standard chop/forearm exchange. Again. It pretty quickly starts to like like this is going to be second verse, same as first, just with a better atmosphere, and I hunker down and prepare for the worst. And then, something strange happens. Sekimoto and Soya grabs each other by the hair, and Soya manages to push Sekimoto in the corner. Neither man will break, and Kyohei Wada actually has to step in between them, and when he can't break them up on his own, Okabayashi comes in to pull his tag partner off of Soya. Then, when Kyohei is admonishing Sekimoto, Soya pushes him aside and bum rushes Sekimoto. The crowd boos Soya's heelishness as he stomps a mudhole in Sekimoto, and it starts to dawn on me that I may be watching an actual good wrestling match. And then Hama tags in for the first time, and the idea is completely and totally confirmed. First of all, since the last time I saw him, Hama seems to have started taking some stylistic cues from Vader, only with a bit less of an emphasis on stiffness and a bit more on fatness. Secondly, good lord, is Ryota Hama ever fat. I know that's not a revelatory statement or anything, but seriously, that is a fat, fat man. He is built like a Moai head. It's amazing. Third, he kinda looks facially like a giant baby, and he only has one facial expression that he maintains through the entire match, yet he somehow manages to express every emotion he needs to with that one expression. I don't know if it's just some Sergei Eisenstein shit where I'm seeing the same face in different situations and projecting emotions onto it based on context or if he's really just that skilled, but I'm totally digging it. Look at his test of strength with Sekimoto and thrill as the expression he uses to display smug pride as he's winning shows surprise and alarm just as effectively when he's losing. Fourth, good lord, is Ryota Hama ever fat. And he knows how to use it. There are a bunch of great spots built around the fact that he is made entirely of sausages. Standing on Sekimoto's chest (with Soya pushing down on top of him), the rolling senton, the Abdullah elbow drop, the Umaga charging ass into an opponent slumped in the corner. He also makes a great brick wall. I mean, he is not as athletic of a brick wall as Mark Henry, but he definitely has his own thing going for him. Henry is a ridiculously built dude, so charging into him seems like charging into an actual brick wall, whereas charging into Hama is more "NOTHING MOVES THE BLOB!". His Vader Attack isn't as dynamic looking as Henry's Vader Attack, but he can two steps toward a charging Okabayashi, and you buy that the momentum required to move him two steps forward is all he needs to bounce Okabayashi right off of him. Also on the Vader tip, his punches aren't quite as stiff as Vader's (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, anyway), but he's throwing hands in sort of a Vader-ish way, and they do look pretty good, and the Big Van Crush on Okabayashi definitely looked like it could've been a credible match ender.

So this ended up being pretty fun, but it's not just down to pork vacuum Hama. Structurally, this is a massive improvement over the 2/6 match. That was a generic post-2005 puro heavyweight match, which is a shitty match formula that I almost never enjoy. However, most of the first half of this match is worked as an 80's southern tag, and most of the second half as a 90's All Japan tag, which are two awesome formulas that I almost always enjoy. Sekimoto was surprisingly effective working slab-of-beef-in-peril, and while I've already gone over what Hama brings to the table, I do want to say that Soya was very good here as well. He didn't play heel as overtly as a lot of guys do when working as interpromotional invaders, but he gave a hard-hitting, spirited performance, and came across way more determined and hateful here than the bland guy trying to convey fighting spirit in the last match. When he starts doing strike exchanges again late in the match, there's actually some emotion behind it, as opposed to just two guys going through the motions. Okabayashi is also way better here than he was in the previous tag. Admittedly, that's not hard, but he was fun coming in off of the hot tag (I lost my shit when he tried to rack Hama), and he gets a heat segment of his own that's pretty good before it breaks down into the 90's All Japan extended finishing stretch. Key to those is that you have to actually build emotional investment in the match during it's body so that the audience is hanging off of every nearfall at the end, something a lot of current puro matches forget to do. To that end, using the southern tag formula in the body to set up the long finishing stretch was actually an ingenious move, and I'm surprised it's not something that's done more often. This is another match I didn't know the outcome of going in, so Hama's Big Van Crush, Okabayashi and Sekimoto's awesome back-to-back top rope splashes, and Sekimoto's discus lariat (and probably a few other things I'm forgetting) all had me thinking it was over before it actually was. When the Big Japan crew finally does put down the invaders, Hiroshi Hase comes in with their belts and helps Sekimoto back to his feet, and they all hug, and it's one last big match moment that this little match that could actually deserved.

Read more!