Found Footage Friday: BABA~! LADD~! LAWLER~! NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~!

Giant Baba vs. Ernie Ladd AJPW 8/7/80

MD: This is slightly more Found than New. It was probably part of the big 1980 season set drop from 2019, but it was hard to figure out exactly what was new and what wasn't from that. Now that someone posted it to YouTube though, it's nice and easily accessible for everyone. This is more or less a spring between two brilliant, giant, lanky wrestlers. I think this was building to a bigger match later in the month at Korakuen. It hits all the marks you'd want for an eight minute match between these two. There aren't a ton of bumps, but when they come, they're giant and awkward. Given the size involved, Ladd makes taking a mare look like a car crash and obviously him eating a back body drop is all that and more. Likewise, the holds. Baba locking in a side headlock is like King Kong doing it to Godzilla. Ladd mostly stays in this with shots to the throat but Baba's quick to fire back and they brawl on the floor a couple of times, once with Ladd ending up tied up in chairs. The finish was pretty amazing as Ladd can take things from Baba that others can't, in this case, an actual Thesz press where Baba somehow landed on him like he was Earthquake. Of course, Ladd got his heat back after to set up the next match. Fun battle of the titans here.

Battle Royal NJPW 11/19/81

MD: This followed the opening ceremony to the tour and cagematch has it with a few extra guys that aren't actually there for the battle royal. Normally not a big deal but when those guys are Andre, Murdoch, and Hansen, it's a bit of let down. It means that the most interesting guys in the ring end up being Killer Khan and Pat Patterson, often paired up with one another. That's not too bad in and of itself, at least until Pat gets eliminated. It more or less settles down to some of the Japanese (maybe Sakaguchi, Choshu, Kimura, Yatsu, Fujinami?) on one side and a Samoan, Khan, and Tiger Toguchi (Kim Duk) on the other. Not bad but still not Andre, Hansen, and Murdoch. Even then, it was weird lopsided as the Japanese side (who had the numbers advantage to begin with) worked together and the other side didn't (Patterson did more for the other side from the outside than they did for one another). And then when Sakaguchi was put into positions to make saves, he had to force himself to be a few seconds slow and it was all very labored. Anyway, this wasn't nearly as fun as the Battle Royal we covered a few months ago from the middle of the decade.

Jerry Lawler vs. Big Bully Douglas USA Championship Wrestling 4/13/02

MD: Lots of new stuff from Bryan Turner's channel. I was going to write up a Tracy Smothers vs. Kory Williams brawl, but the merrily accepted "string him up" chants by the 1997 Cooksville audience made it a bit much to cover, so it's back to the paragon of virtue that is Jerry Lawler instead. And this was a pretty perfect bullshit 2002 babyface Lawler match. Douglas was a bald bruiser sort, a lifer in these Nashville indies. With Ernest T at ringside, he could play a proper foil for Lawler, having just enough credible power offense and able to stooge and feed enough to make it all work with Lawler doing the heavy lifting with his selling, strikes, and overall timing.

The opening of this was wonderful gaga, as Ernest kept slipping Douglas an object (horseshoe, knucks, chain) and Lawler dodged the corner shot, stole the weapon, distracted the ref by blaming Ernest, nailing Douglas, and then after the fact showing the ref the object that Ernest had slipped in. It got funnier each time he pulled it off and as Ernest and Dougls were getting more apoplectic. Eventually, he missed the fistdrop, though, and ate that power offense (suplex, side slam, etc) with a bit of help from Ernest on the outside and with Douglas pulling him up a couple of times at 2. The comeback was preceeded by Stacy slapping Ernest. The strap went down, the punches rained down, a stunner that we all want to forget about occurred, and Lawler lifted Douglas up after one pile driver to tease a second when Rapada ran in for the DQ. That opening sequence was pure distilled Memphis and the rest went down smooth.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Boogie Jam 1984

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

Dory Funk Jr. vs. Tully Blanchard

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

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

Ernie Ladd vs. Rufus R. Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greg Valentine vs. Dick Slater

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

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

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

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

Assassin #2 vs. Jimmy Valiant

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

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Outlaws, Ladd, Piratenkampf, Kawada, Ishikawa, Shinzaki, Watts, Andersons, Thunderbolt

Dick Murdoch/Dusty Rhodes vs. Sailor Art Thomas/Ernie Ladd AWA 12/16/72

MD: This was on the Luce footage that was out there, but I haven't seen it and it's a classic match/angle. I'm pretty sure there's a reality where we talk about Dusty Rhodes as one of the great heatseeking heels up there with Buddy Rose and Negro Casas and Tully and Piper and whoever else. You watch a match like this and you can't help but feeling robbed of hundreds of matches where Dusty was just pissing off the crowd. He had this way of bobbing in and out, of taking up space and real estate in parts of the ring he shouldn't be in, only to dash back out to the apron. He was a disruptive force. Murdoch's great here too, but we've seen more of that. Maybe he spits a little more here, but he's the Murdoch we know already. Ladd was an amazing monster face. Thomas was pretty much all bearhugs but he was just about fifty at this point. I assume it worked for the crowd. As good at the turn at the end was and as great as conniving heel Ladd ultimately is, it's a bit like Dusty. It's a shame we don't have years and years more to see the other side.

PAS: The match was clipped up enough that it was hard to get a sense of it as a whole (we jump right to Thomas and Ladd arguing, without getting a sense why for example), but we did get to see a bunch of cool moments and performances. It is a real trip to see Dusty do all of his Dusty mannerisms as a heel, and it works just as well. Lots of bearhugs and headlock punches by the face team, but these are a great pair of stooging heels to be placed in headlocks and bearhugs. Man I wish I had a time machine and video camera to capture everything for all four guys.


Ole/Gene Anderson vs. Bill Watts/Thunderbolt Patterson GCW 6/24/77

MD: So here's something. We've gotten our hands on a lot of 70s territory wrestling over the last five years, be it Houston or what the Network has dropped, or new Memphis or dusted off CWF or what. As such, we're always able to reevaluate certain notions. One notion I always had was that old school traditional tag team wrestling was all the Arn/Tully mode: cutting off the ring, grabbing a hold, working a limb, distracting the ref, doubleteaming, the grindier version of the Southern tag, I guess. I think we've found that hasn't always been the case. It wasn't usually quite so locked down. With the Andersons, however, it was, and it's telling, then, how much they manage to stand out in that regard. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say 100% that they were more the exception than the rule, but relative to a lot of what I've seen lately, they felt exceptional here. There's not a lot else to say about this. Thunderbolt looked better than he would a few years down the line. Watts was Watts, portraying himself as tough as nails John Wayne and getting over for it. The finish was such BS that you could see the cops getting into position before it happened. They could have gone with the visual pin counted by Watts and just had it be a DQ after that, but instead they let the heels go over. The sound on this was virtually non-existent but I bet the heat would have been amazing.


Franz van Buyten vs. Frank Merckx (Belgium 1984)

MD: Sometimes you watch a wrestler for the first time and that ends up just being your image of him forever. That was the case with van Buyten. I love the Andre/Van Buyten/Ali Bey vs Isamu Teranishi/Rusher Kimura/Thunder Sugiyama IWE match from 72. It's just this amazing lengthy comedy match where van Buyten comes across as the most put upon guy in the world, a Belgian Basil Fawlty of pro wrestling. I've seen spatterings of matches with him since, usually from at least ten years later, and they're much more on brand Segunda Caida fare.

This is right down our alley. A Piratenkampf match (which if you're not familiar is a combination flag/chain match, something pretty unique to Europe). A huge chunk of this is Merckx choking or decimating van Buyten's face with the chain with Franz mounting heated comebacks only to end up back in that spot. If you're going to work hope spots in and out of a hold, having the hold be your face getting torn apart by a chain is pretty compelling. They have time to really let this build and lots of "outs" for believable comebacks as Merckx needs to allow distance to get the flag. It means when the actual comeback comes and van Buyten gets to bloody Merckx, the fans are more than ready for it.

I have no idea how much of this exists, waiting to be uncovered, but it does feel like one of those underexposed troves.

ER: Ah yes, the guy in 1984 Belgium who was taping an old man pirate battle. I love the feel of all this, tons of real grappling struggle, with the big bonus of a heavy chain being raked across eyeballs, noses, and gums. The crowd is absolutely on fire for this, and I really loved the cutaways to the crowd, filled with Belgian children and teenagers all going wild for two older guys bloodying each other up with a chain. It's so wonderful to me that this idea of pro wrestling is a form of entertainment that somehow was picked up and accepted all across the world, a real touchstone that people of all upbringings could respond to and get excited for. It's 25 minutes of two guys choking each other with a chain in a violent capture the flag battle, and boys and girls of all ages are hot for it. Merckx is a guy I've never seen before and for all I know I'm being tricked into spelling his name wrong. But he sure knows how to rearrange van Buyten's face with a chain, and we get some great handheld closeups of the chain smashing across the bridge of van Buyten's nose, ripping across his mouth, and great shots of Merckx throwing hammerfist blows with that chain wrapped around his fist. A lot of this match is basically in a phone booth, two guys locked together trying to choke each other to death with a chain. There aren't even many bumps, with one notably big one that sends van Buyten over the ropes to the floor, and I do wish we got more striking, as the blood and strikes don't really come until we're 20 minutes in. But that final visual was fantastic pro wrestling, with van Buyten climbing the buckles and reaching for that flag, holding the flag pole in a pose like he was planting the flag at Iwo Jima, while Merckx lies on the mat trying to pull him down off the top. I absolutely adore these snapshots into a pro wrestling culture that I didn't know existed.

PAS: There is something so grimy about a chain being raked across someones eyes with this yellowed film quality. The whole thing is kind of icky in the best possible way. Merkx is a burly barrel chested guy and makes this whole thing feel like a fist fight, this is van Buyten's match, and he has a bunch of interesting ways to work within the oddball gimmick. Actually climbing a pole with a chain is cooler visually then trying to touch turnbuckles, and I really liked how van Buyten used leverage and the finish was really exciting. Loved this, and Europe is really an undiscovered mine.


Toshiaki Kawada/Maunakea Mossman vs. Jinsei Shinzaki/Yuki Ishikawa AJPW 7/11/00

PAS: This is the only time Ishikawa and Kawada ever faced off, and you get the sense in an alternate universe this would be an all time legendary match up. It is really fun to see the indy team slotted into an All Japan tag, Shinzaki toned down a bunch of flourishes and really went in on uppercuts and leg whips, he and Kawada have some really fun exchanges, including Shinzaki doing his praying top rope shoulder block directly into a Kawada face kick. Shinzaki and Ishikawa sensibly tried to keep Mossman in the ring and went after his knee, Ishikawa had some very cool leglocks, although he left himself open to a Kawada jumping kneedrop so nasty that I imagine it made him nostalgic for Ikeda. I would have liked to see a bit more of an aggro finishing run to make it a real classic, but what a fun treat to show up randomly like this.

ER: Man, Phil is really underselling that this is the only time Ishikawa and Mossman ever faced off. I think a bunch of us were aware this match happened, because Ishikawa really only worked All Japan a handful of times, and knowing there was potentially a match opposite Kawada was just a cruel tease. And now we have it and it's still kind of a cruel tease. It's a long match (nearly 25 minutes, even with some clipping in a couple spots) but doesn't really ramp up to much, with the last few minutes not really feeling any different than things that happened in the first 10 minutes; and there were some odd stumbles or miscommunications or power plays, like Kawada popping right up from a Shinzaki powerbomb, causing Shinzaki to start selling giving a powerbomb, and then Kawada notices Shinzaki is selling for some reason so then kinda just sits down. So there were some awkward moments. And, Yuki Ishikawa is in this thing far less than the other three guys, including a really long stretch at the finish where he was just kinda watching from the floor after getting dumped there by Kawada minutes before. So, the match has issues, it isn't great, but I still would have watched it with a smile had I known all of those things ahead of time. It was totally worth it to see the moments of Kawada and Ishikawa squaring off and rattling jawbones. Ishikawa has such powerful elbow strikes, these short unwavering blows right to the jaw, and Kawada is a guy who is going to react great after getting his jaw rattled. I liked Team Indy working over Mossman's leg, though I wish it would have gone somewhere more interesting. Mossman is a guy with some cool kicks, and clearly those kicks were going to happen no matter what, and I loved Ishikawa eventually catching one at chest level and dropping down into a kneebar. Kawada had several fun bits with Shinzaki, my favorite being him doing an absolutely all time Kawada sell after taking an enziguiri and then stumbling slowly backwards halfway across the ring before plopping on his butt. It's my favorite Kawada sell, and this is one of the best ways I've seen him utilize it.

MD: Coming in behind Phil and Eric here, this was NOT the only time that Shinzaki and Kawada faced each other. That said, what's going to stick with me on this one months from now, past Shinzaki and Ishikawa absolutely demolishing Mossman's leg, are the interactions between the two. Yeah, that's not why we looked forward to this. That's not why we put this at the top of the list. There was just this amazing dissonance to it, as if the existed in a slightly different reality. Kawada had this tendency of just stopping before Shinzaki was about to land something. With Kawada, you have to suspend disbelief far less than with other wrestlers (that's true with Ishikawa too, for instance, which was part of the appeal). That's the long and short of it, right? That's one reason we all love these guys. That's why I sort of get short circuited by the mid-late 90s AJPW when it gets just a little too kickout/excess heavy. With Shinzaki on the other hand, there's an additional level of suspension necessary. Everything is a bit more stylized and affectated. That, in and of itself, is fine. It can be great. If you're willing to go along for the ride, it can be a hell of a ride. Kawada rightfully wasn't willing to go along for the ride and that made for a bunch of great little spots of him just accepting no nonsense, even as Shinzaki kept going back to the well. That part ended up way more enjoyable than you'd think.

Overall though, the match itself was problematic at times. It was a lot of the same, even with the limbwork. The clips meant that we lost a transition, which is the truest sin of all clips. I don't feel like the finishing stretch had enough to it. It was feels like a great find, just maybe one that wasn't as great for the reasons we were hoping for.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Johnny Smith, Miracle Violence, Bossman, Bad News, TA, Ladd

Magnum TA vs. Ernie Ladd Houston Wrestling 11/9/84

PAS: This is a matchup we have seen before, but a new match. Really dug fired up babyface Magnum, and dirty tricks Ladd. The opening was great with Magnum jumping Ladd at the bell and throwing these lighting face overhand rights in succession, with Ladd flopping into the ropes horizontally.  Ladd was all cheap shots and foreign objects and broad pantomimes which made the crowd rabid. Ladd kind of worked like a heel late period Baba, two old and arthritic to move fast, but the size and timing makes up for a lot. Would have liked to see a real finish, but this was a pair of great role players, playing their role.

MD: New Houston footage is gold. We have a couple of Ladd vs Magnum matches and they're generally good. This is no exception. Ladd was such a master of creating meaning. He's brilliant, even broken down, at using his size to its full advantage. He just gets it like few others his size have. It's one thing even for a guy like Terry Funk to crash out of the ring and end up with a chair around his head (that enhanced by his credibility), but it's another thing for a guy as lanky and huge as Ladd. You have to love how he needs to resort to illegal objects and chicanery and cheapshots to get over on Magnum too, even given the size and the fact he's champ. That just makes Magnum look all the better and gives Ladd extra heat because it frustrates the (always great Houston) crowd. Magnum holds his own here, just a mean bullying face, the sort that crowds will always love because it's a tough guy wish fulfillment. The finish was BS but it sets up a no DQ match and a cage match after it, so you can't be too down on it.


Bad News Allen vs. Ron Simmons CWF 12/16/86

MD: This is interesting almost solely for Bad News leading Simmons through the match. Lots of standard babyface stuff from a guy who had only been in the business for a few months. You got some sense of Simmons' star power already but he wasn't there with the expressions and the crowd interaction yet. Bad News, on the other hand, was super giving, surprisingly so if you've seen him in other environments. Some of his stooging (like complaining about a hair pull) was just tremendous, and he made sure to do little things to get over Simmons strength (such as doing a test of strength but with two hands to Simmons' one). The belt shot at the end was more of a whip with the strap, but to the face, and just brutal. I'm not sure I've ever quite seen that done with a title belt before and you wonder why not, since it was such a great visual, except for that it probably hurt like hell.

ER: Phil and I were talking a couple days ago about how Bad News was somebody who should be the absolute coolest, has the coolest look and the coolest background, but doesn't have a lot of matches I really like. Feels like he should have cool matches, usually doesn't have cool matches. But he was really popular at my school among my friends in the late 80s, because he looked cool and he rarely lost. I remember him losing to Hogan on SNME, but that was Hogan so none of us faulted him for that, obviously he couldn't beat Hogan. Every other PPV he would either win or go to a double DQ, just a guy who we all saw as way higher up on the hierarchy that he actually was. And he only became more popular due to a lie that I started. So keep in mind that I was 8, and 8 year olds have no clue how the world works or if a lie is plausible or not. Some kid at camp once told me that he found an uzi in "somebody's" house, and took the uzi. He said he had the uzi in his bag, but couldn't show it to me because he also had $10,000 in the bag and didn't want people to see it. All of this seemed perfectly plausible to me, a stupid fucking child. So I *may* have told people that Bad News Brown was...Shel Silverstein. We had a few Shel Silverstein books in our classroom, and to an 8 year old it wasn't too much of a stretch that a black and white photo of Silverstein looked like Bad News Brown (or Sid Haig, but none of us would have known that), and none of us would have known that "Silverstein" isn't a really a common name for black people. Those books were really popular in our class, so Bad News Brown then became even more popular among those of us who watched wrestling. And then years went by and I didn't think about it and I ended up tricking myself into a false memory, as I saw a picture of Shel Silverstein a decade later and thought "wait I thought he was black".


Terry Gordy/Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Big Bossman/Johnny Smith AJPW 7/18/93

ER: It's so cool seeing Bossman come out to Hard Times in some community center looking building in Osaka. Oh, and remember when Paul Heyman brought Johnny Smith in to work an ECW PPV main event opposite RVD, but got cold feet at the last minute that fans wouldn't accept Smith so replaced him with Balls Mahoney? Wouldn't accept Smith? Here's Smith 6 years prior going toe to toe with Doc and Gordy, and literally knocking both wobbly with shoulder blocks, but yeah probably would have looked overmatched against RVD. There are two kinds of MVC matches, the kinds where they gobble people up and club and smash their way through, and the kind where they hang back a bit and lie in some holds. This is more the latter than the former, but not much to the match's detriment. Gordy hangs on the apron a lot, and Doc seems off a beat in several moments and particularly doesn't seem to know the rhythm and timing of Bossman's spots.

We get a nice babyface performance from Smith carrying this through, with some explosive bursts from Bossman. Smith really gets the crowd behind him by not backing down to MVC, slamming into them like he was the size of Bossman, throwing cool elbows between the eyes, cutting low on clotheslines and landing a couple nice ones to the back of Doc's head. He's the guy clearly taking the pin, but the crowd keeps getting more into him the more he refuses to stay down. Bossman gives him welcome respites, coming in and throwing his in-contention-for-best-ever uppercuts and moving quicker than anyone in the match. We get some awesome moments, like Doc muscling up the HUGE Bossman for a press slam (I thought he was going to quit on it but he kept powering through and even tossed in an extra rep), or Doc catching a Smith crossbody off the top and running him into the buckles for a Stampede, only to turn around and run into a Bossman elbow to get a great nearfall for Smith. Smith runs a big gauntlet down the stretch, taking powerslams, a powerbomb, a chokeslam, and gets a surprising last gasp kickout after a tandem chokeslam/backdrop. Bossman and Smith only teamed a few times, only once making tape, so this match doubling our footage count was a nice treat showing a cool complementary set of bruisers.

PAS: Not at the level of the Bossman tag we reviewed a couple of weeks ago, but this was a fun big boy battle. Smith is built like a block of firewood, and never lets the MVC eat him up, he takes a pretty big thumping, but keeps coming at both guys. I mentioned in the previous Bossman tag match (and will mention over and over again if we do the rumored Bossman in AJPW C+A) how great he is at doing complex sequences. And we get a great one here as he slides out of the ring and slides quickly back in misses a clothesline, gets both feet up and nails Doc with a windup uppercut. He is so smooth with that stuff, that it really makes me wish I saw him work El Hijo Del Santo. The presslam by Doc was an all timer, and although it felt a bit awkward, I dug how hard it was to take out Smith at the end.

MD: Most memorable here will be the two big spots, Doc somehow getting Bossman up with the high effort gorilla press and the awesome blocking of the Oklahoma slam with the forearm. More on the former in a minute. Smith really held his own here, staying in it. I thought it was all a little too headlocky in the end and it certainly wasn't the bombastic affair that the last Bossman match was, but it was still good, and maybe attuned to the crowd. Back to the Press slam spot. Yes, it was a huge effort by Williams, but one thing I loved about it was how they teased it a moment before. Bossman locked in a headlock (a lot of that here) and Doc tried to lift him up and over with the belly to back but couldn't do it. It's a little thing but that tease made the press slam that immediately followed mean all the more. That's the stuff in wrestling I live for.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Lawler, Rude, PG-13, Rich, Dougie, Koko, Bruno, Baron, Bruiser, Ladd

Dick The Bruiser/Bruno Sammartino vs. Ernie Ladd/Baron von Raschke WWA 8/25/73

PAS: This was a no DQ match with Sam Menacker the play by play announcer as the special referee. Apparently according to Cagematch the Bruiser/Bruno tag team was called Annihilation Inc. which is a hilariously Progress Wrestling tag name for the early 70s. This a pretty great big star tag match with Bruno and Bruiser walloping the heels and Heenan running around bumping and getting in the mix. It was kind of odd to see Bruno take a subsidiary role, he is usually such a titanic force, but he was definitely the B-Side of the tag team. Bruiser is a trip, super expressive with some fun Stooges spots, including making Ladd punch himself. Finish was wild with Heenan splitting Menacker open with a foreign object and the heel working over both faces with the ring microphone, kind of odd to have such a non-finish in a no-DQ match but it certainly got the crowd into an appropriate lather.

MD: Where to even begin on this one? Apparently Bruno and Dick the Bruiser were called Annihilation, Inc. I sort of loved Bruiser here. He was far enough along that he could be a big ham, but not so far along that he had become a self-parody like he would into the 80s. Bruno might have been the outside attraction but Bruiser was the guy who was the most over with this crowd. He had this way of adding an extra pause to everything, almost freezing time for just a little too long to be believable but just long enough to transcend belief, to push it from faux realism to borderline mythic.

The heel side here was great. Ladd was just larger than life, with an athleticism he'd lose later. He threw himself into Bruno's punches and back out with the bumps. He had this way of maximize his physical presence, not just on offense, but on selling, taking up as much space as possible to get over his writhing and pain, especially by the ropes and on the apron. I also love the idea of a guy so big needing to utilize a loaded thumb gimmick. There's something underhanded and insulting about that. The Baron was more chickenshit than you might expect. I think he was back body dropped about fifteen times in the match.

Menacker was all over this match as the special referee. It was no dq, so he was mainly there to stop Heenan from overtly interfering. If this was a title match or something more serious, it would have grated, but as an over the top tag, it fit perfectly, really didn't take any heat or credit away from the babyfaces, and the fans loved it.

ER: This was a blast and there's so much to cover that I'm not sure where to begin. I haven't seen any Bruiser or Crusher from when either were closer to their peak, so it was wild seeing Bruiser getting reactions like he was all four Beatles in 1964. Every time he would move an inch he would get wild shrieks from the fans, it was insane. I'm not sure I've seen a large crowd in love with a wrestler this much, pure adulation. He clearly loved soaking it up, but I just couldn't get over how much people screamed when he would do something as simple as go for a pinfall (imagine if Bruiser was in the USWA 10 man below, just doing pinfalls! The event would sound like an absolute massacre with all the constant screaming). Due to Bruiser's impossibly huge popularly, Bruno really could have been any man. I don't think I've ever seen a legend as big as Bruno so clearly relegated to second banana status, sheerly due to the popularity of someone he's teaming with. Imagine Hogan and Rock teaming in 2002 and seeing fans flip out for Rock and then look at Hogan as someone who is standing in front of the Rock and could he please move because we can't see the Rock when you're standing there. Bruno is the cute sheep wandering back into frame in front of the cutest sheep in the petting zoo.

The heels basically stooged for 20 straight minutes, which is fine by me. Ernie Ladd looked gargantuan. Obviously the guy is big, but he looked like freaking Andre here. He also took 3 bumps over the top to the floor, was made to punch his own face by Bruiser (and bumped big for it) and was a real great foil for Bruiser. Baron isn't really a great bumper, he has a long awkward body and falls more like 2010 Akira Taue, if Taue was also constantly getting a chair pulled out from under him. But those bumps work tremendously well in a stooge setting, buckling at the waist from kicks to the stomach, falling on his butt after big punches, taking a ton of backdrops, all of it great. Two different times he does this awesome apron pratfall: He's standing on the apron and takes a shot, and his legs fan out so he's basically doing the splits heels first on the apron, holding onto the top rope while his butt is hanging over the floor, before dropping to the floor. The second time he did this bump was when he was holding Bruiser prone and Ladd naturally accidentally clocks him, just an all time great pratfall. Heenan is fantastic at ringside, kicking at officials, running in with sneaky and not so sneaky punches, causing total chaos and distraction, introducing a ringside microphone cord to choke Sam Menacker and others; Menacker got a couple little Walking Tall moments too, got to slide Baron's foot off the ropes during a pinfall, stuff the fans could get into. This was great, real crowd pleaser. Nobody went home disappointed by this one.

Jerry Lawler vs. Rick Rude CWA 8/27/84

PAS: This is from a commercial video tape of USWA cage matches and seems to have fallen through the cracks, no other reviews, didn't make the DVDVR Memphis set, etc. This was worked kind of like a Bruno cage match with Lawler beating the bricks off of Rude for much of the match. Lawler laying in punches to someone is going to be always worth watching and Rude took an appropriate pasting. I am never going to be down with no-selling a piledriver and one of the great things about the Lawler hulk up, is how he remained vulnerable during it, popping up after a piledriver is the opposite of that. Still despite that this was a pretty heated brawl and really fun discovery.

MD: This was just a mauling. Every wrestler in his mid-20s should probably have to take ten minutes of Lawler's offense in a cage while the crowd gets more and more into it. It builds character. Rude already had a lot here, though, and you can hardly belief this is the same guy that started the year off as a bland babyface in Mid-South. I love his attempts to escape, especially the ones that are futile, either trying to go under the cage or in between the two slats. He wanted nothing to do with any of this and it's glorious. His little bit of offense comes late in the match, almost entirely because of Lawler's own hubris, mostly groin-related and wholly appropriate to his character. The no-sell on the pile-driver is fine because Lawler was still so fresh you figure he knows his to protect himself. It's worth it as the place comes unglued with the strap. It wasn't a spot he overused and here it meant a ton. Nice, refreshing violence with Rude coming off as a guy who deserved the comeuppance he received.

PG-13/Spellbinder/Tex Slazenger/Brian Christopher vs. Tommy Rich/Doug Gilbert/Jesse James Armstrong/Tracy Smothers/Koko B Ware USWA 2/6/96

ER: This match was plenty fun and also so so so so so stupid. It's a USWA vs. SMW 10 man anything goes tornado cage match, most pinfalls in 30 minutes wins. If you knew that info, and didn't even know the participants, you'd know that you'd want to see it. And then you see the names. PG-13! Tommy Rich! Smothers! Thicccc affffff KOKO! And then you realize that this is on USWA's home turf so PG-13 and Brian Christopher are working babyface, and you know this is going to be 8 stars. This match seemed too big to fail. These 10 names, in a cage, weapons, anything goes, the easiest win. The match doesn't even go the full 30, comes out to more like 22 minutes, just more condensed violence right?

And then they go and have almost SEVENTY PINFALLS in 22 minutes. That is not a typo. This was a match almost wholly comprised of pinfalls. Every back bump a guy took, that guy would get pinned. This started happening in the 2nd minute of the match, and kept going until the very end, when they hilariously tried to build drama with a last minute kickout. The kickout was absolutely hilarious, a genuine laugh out loud moment, because it was literally the ONLY kickout that happened the entire match. This was a match that had some guy getting pinned in some part of the ring literally every 15 seconds, and most of the match guys would be waiting in pinfalls for waaaaaay too long while a ref finished counting another pinfall at some other part of the ring. The pinfalls were so plentiful that the ref finally just stopped getting down to count some of them. The pinfall kickout was so hilarious because it made me desperately want JC Ice to yell out "Wait...THAT'S an option!?" Whoever it was that kicked out (video is pretty washed out and guys frequently are blocking other guys) was like the first ape in 2001 to learn how to use bones as tools/weapons. More guys got hit with a hubcap AND a cowbell than kicked out of any move. There were more referees in this match than there were kickouts. It was awful. The participants clearly were working under the rules of "Anything Goes, 'Cept Kickouts".

This was the worst All Japan battle royal I've ever seen. Now granted, the All Japan battle royal is one of my favorite gimmick matches, and they always leave a ton of room for personality to shine through. This is like if someone watched a couple of All Japan battle royals, and came away thinking the key to those being fun was the pinfalls. Or a computer noted when the biggest pops occurred on a card and determined that people cheer loudest during ring entrances and winning pinfalls, so the computer spit out some dot matrix paper stating that the most successful crowd reaction would be for a match that is only ring entrances and pinfalls. And for all the guys in the ring, and all the potential action that was happening, and all the guys spending more time on their backs than all the whores in Tennessee, we spend the whole match in a real tight shot from a ringside handheld camera. A match with this match participants needs some distance to put everything into scope, to follow the action. Watching this much action in a tight frame is like showing up late to the movies and having to sit in the front row, needing to turn left and right to follow action across the screen. 

Even with an entire, match long constantly annoying series of pinfalls, there were some small, tiny gold nuggets in this. Maybe not super nice gold, maybe tooth gold, but still it would be impossible to put these 10 guys into any pro wrestling situation and not get *something* out of it. These 10 guys have good enough schtick that you could have made this a "Hands Tied Behind Back, Must Wrestle on Knees" match and it probably would have turned out better than this. But still, there were moments. Tommy Rich looked like a guy who I want to see in more (better) multiman garbage brawls; it was fun seeing PG-13 as babyfaces, their usual (wonderful) schtick being cheered wildly instead of booed; Christopher hits a big dive off the top to the floor, Dougie hits people with a chair, Koko clonks a few guys with a cowbell and drops someone with the ghostbuster, I thought Jesse James actually showed a ton of charisma and was always super active, and we get a cool spirited post match run in with some skinny dirtbag guy in cut offs talking a ton of shit, Miss Texas eating a piledriver from Koko, and coming off far more violent than anything in the actual match. I cannot imagine a worse match featuring all 10 of these guys. I mean seriously put these exact 10 guys in ANY match other than this one, run that fucking simulation a thousand times, and I just can't picture it being worse than what we got here. Literally any singles match combination from those 10 names would have been better. Pick the least enticing singles match (Jesse James vs. Spellbinder?) and I'm positive it would be better than what we got. This was improbably awful. There's no way this match should have been this bad.

MD: Yeah, look, I don't even know what to say about this. Eric's got it covered, right? Ok, I do sort of occasionally enjoy how malleable the rules of wrestling can be. There are norms that everyone agrees upon and when people break those norms, it has the potential to screw up everything for everyone, because it shatters the social contract that allows for suspension of disbelief. Sometimes, however, you can be in a situation so unique that the norms don't apply. Old Survivor Series matches kind of work like that. You can definitely get eliminated on a bodyslam in an old Survivor Series match. This sort of had the makings of that. You had two companies feuding. It was in a cage. It was falls count anywhere and no DQ and chaotic.

Still, this was absolutely nuts. They should have made it so one counts worked as falls. If normal marathon matches are the equivalent of soccer games, low scoring with a lot of defense and very much a test of endurance, this was a basketball game, with everyone hitting layups and running back across the court. There was some cumulative selling as things went on but it was dangerous because anytime you fell down for more than a second, you were going to get pinned. Maybe it was more like Pro Wrestling Calvinball. Of the things I'm fascinated by in this match, it's not really the structure or any specific spots or performances. I wonder how they convinced someone like Tommy Rich to get pinned fifteen times on tape. Was it because he was going to get to pin someone else fifteen times? You know these guys weren't getting paid much for this. How did they put this together? The announcers could barely keep track of the score. It sort of crescendoed to a final moment. It wasn't like a battle royal where you could remember the order of elimination. Somehow they got to where they were going, so more power to them, I guess.

Last thought, this was a cage match where the cage was solely used to corral the participants and keep them in an area. It served a purpose, pushing everyone together so closely that there'd be constant action and constant pinfalls, but it wasn't uesd in any other way.

PAS: This was a mess, such a cool looking match on paper, with all time great guys like Tommy Rich and PG13, plus awesome fun dudes like Koko and Doug Gilbert, hard to fuck it up, but they fucked it up. This reminded me of an All Japan Battle Royal, where Misawa would get knocked down and dog piled to get eliminated, those were light hearted undercard fodder, this was a main event with guys going down to eye rakes and bodyslams. USWA was always trying weird stuff, a lot of times it worked, this time it really didn't. We have very few arena matches from 90s Memphis, so I was amped when this turned up, it could have been left on the cutting room floor.

Read more!