New Footage Friday: Beau James, Frank Parker, Cactus, Kawada, Juicer!

Cactus Jack vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 3/31/91

MD: 1991 Foley was the most game wrestler ever. Yes, he hit the plunge. Yes, he spent a good portion of the match running into Kawada's strikes. It got a bit too chinlocky in the middle, which isn't a huge issue but the nature of a HH is that you can't really get in on the action and see them work it. I think he would have been an amazing Lawler opponent at this point and it really shows why he was a great Sting opponent the next year. He did feel somewhat plugged into an American formula though, which didn't completely work in this setting and with this opponent.

ER: Well, we now have tape of both times Kawada and Foley squared off, and neither one of them are very good. It's pretty unfathomable to watch this match with hindsight and think "That bad-bodied guy who can't throw a good looking clubbing forearm will have finished a Hall of Fame career in less than a decade". Completely incomprehensible. Imagine these two matching up in 94-96. That said, even though Foley hasn't looked great in the available footage from his lone AJ tour, I'd still be interested in seeing every singles match he had on the tour, especially the Taue and Ogawa matches. So yeah, Cactus threw a lot of iffy forearms that looked like he was holding back, and locked in a couple different long chinlocks, one barely a minute into the match. Brutal. As a bonus to these long, do-nothing chinlocks, they had their backs to our thankless director, meaning we just saw a minute plus of Jack's melty body leaning on Kawada. About 1/3 of this match was spent lying in those chinlocks, so thank god Kawada had no problem kicking Jack's ass whenever they were on their feet. Kawada fired off 3 great sidekicks with Jack on the ropes, a couple nice spinning heel kicks, and an awesome lariat to the back of Jack's head. Jack hits the elbow off the apron, and takes a bonkers bump into the crowd off a reversed Irish whip, really throwing himself over the guardrail with a cannonball. This felt like a very odd mismatch, but that was probably also its best feature. You take out the few minutes of lying around, and make this a 4 minute match with Kawada kicking Jack around the ring while Jack stumbles and flies into the crowd? I'd watch it again with friends.

The Latin Fury vs. Juicer WWF 1/8/92

MD: There are two sorts of tryout matches, the one where they barely do anything and the one where they do way too much. This was probably the latter but in this case, who cares, because it worked. I'm really curious what the hell Barr was doing there. He was fully in the Juicer gimmick with a shirt in support of Pee Wee Herman which is the most non-1992 WWF thing I've ever seen. Konnan in 92 had a lot going for him. All the pieces never really come together but he can do a bunch of stuff relative to later in his career, has charisma (at least enough to get two clap alongs with him), and a decent enough look. They could have gone with him (and not just as Max Moon #1 or what not). He could have teamed with El Matador against Money, Inc. or gotten beaten up by Borga a year later? Something. Anyway, the most important thing was how thoroughly the TV taping crowd was into this by the end for two guys that weren't big TV stars. You rarely see that and it definitely built and was because of what both guys were bringing to the table, Konnan's clunky plethora of stuff and Barr's feeding for him and general jerk attitude

ER: This was a bunch of fun, and I'm not sure many other people could have gotten more out of Konnan in this situation. Fully agree with Matt here that Juicer did NOT look like a guy wrestling in WWF in 1992. I bet there were hundreds of camcorder-shot home movies of people getting themselves ready to go to a KISS concert or a Raiders game, and every one of those people had better looking face paint that Art Barr. His face paint has a real shot on video regional slasher movie vibe to it, helped in no small part by face paint over a bad mustache and a mullet that would get him free access to any Molly Hatchet show (and by free access I mean you could just walk right back to the loading area and nobody would question that you are a load guy for Hatchet). And that Pee Wee shirt? Save Pee Wee? This was well after the scandal, and after the public tides turned much more sympathetic. This was after his MTV appearance. Barr clearly had this shirt for a year and it's weird they would even allow him to wear it in a dark match. And yes, I'm wearing my Free Winona shirt as I type this, but I really don't see why that matters. These Challenge tapings must have been absolutely brutal to sit through. Imagine all the bored as hell parents that got dragged to these by their kids, and had to sit through a few hours of 2 minute squash matches. And then you had this weird little gem from two unknowns, both with excellent fringe on their tights, both with bad hair, and Barr stooges his way magnificently through the whole thing. Konnan was pretty spry here, even if 80% of this offense would have looked horrendous with someone lesser than Barr across from him, but Barr was great at both taking complicated juniors spots (always winding up in the right place, even when it looked like Konnan wouldn't be anywhere near that place), bumping big for arm drags, hamming it up while in submissions, throwing himself crotch first onto the top rope with glee after being tripped off the top, hitting some kind of big dive that the camera completely misses, just great timing and great bumbling heel charisma the whole way through, even lingering hilariously in the ring long after Konnan had left, wandering around the ring completely speechless at his own loss. Konnan tried a lot of things that probably would have made 10 year old me flip out, and the match ending springboard lariat works out far better than it should have (Konnan looked like he was going to land way short, but somehow leapt farther than expected, and again Barr knew exactly where to meet him). This was undoubtedly the best match the crowd saw the entire taping, and a great glimpse at Barr shining somewhere he just wouldn't have fit in.

Beau James vs. Frank Parker SSW 9/27/14

PAS: Old fashioned nasty Southern chain match. Parker had put James on the shelf with a back injury and attacked his family, and this was Beau James out for revenge. Nothing fancy here, just lots of nice looking punches with chains wrapped around fists. I especially liked James' wife coming out to check on him when he got punched in the spine. Both guys bled a bunch (Parker's blade work was a bit obvious, you could see every part of the magic trick), James is great at a Southern babyface comeback, and the post match where he breaks Parker's arm with the chain was especially nasty. SSW wasn't afraid to have some crimson flow and I am really looking forward to checking out more of their brawls.

MD: I haven't seen a match like this in a while and on those grounds, it was appreciated. The blood started almost from the get go. All of the offense was based around the chain. It peaked with James' comeback midmatch. There are plenty of different ways to "hulk up," and James' is the rarely seen dead-eyed fat guy perfected by babyface Crusher Blackwell. They went on for a bit after that, including some very, very unfortunate pantomime by Parker where he just couldn't get rid of his blade. Things sort of petered out after that. Also, it was pretty weird that they made such a big deal out of James' back at the beginning with his wife coming out, only to never go back to it. Past that, this was focused and effective and violent. I just thought it peaked midway through.

ER: This is my kind of thing, a couple of beefy 40 somethings hitting each other with a chain. I don't know if Beau James actually had back surgery (as his nephew was talking about on commentary), but he is shaped similarly to a couple people I've known who had to get back surgery, and wrestlers are crazy people who work hurt, so I bought into the back injury. The chain shots to start looked a little weak from both men, which is the catch-22 of a chain match: even shots that probably actually hurt, might not read. But once we got to Beau's back pain I was in, loved Misty running out and thought her reactions were great, loved ref Brian Logan (would not have recognized him as the former Damien in OVW) decking a potential run-in with a short right hand, and dug James getting his forehead worked over with a chain. Parker looked good working over Beau, both threw nice punches (this was to be expected with these two), and I'm not sure if I've seen a more obvious blade job than Parker's. Damn son, this was Abby at Heroes of Wrestling level bad. I have a feeling southern workers would shame backyarders for doing something like that, but we got that out of the way and Parker at least got good color, and was good at playing the heel who got busted open and then regretted everything he'd done once the tides turned. Finish worked real well too, as Parker climbed to the middle buckle but got yanked off by James, then James hit three nasty shots to Parker's chin with both hands and chain. In an era where we get MMA-style ref stoppage finishes, I bought into James' match ending shots. Post-match might have been the coolest part, as James wraps the chain around Parker's arm and the middle rope and keeps tightening and yanking the chain to break Parker's arm. I've never seen that, and THAT was some chain work that read well. I wanted more from this, but I also really enjoyed it. But I also can't imagine a world where I wouldn't enjoy fat guy punches.

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When Shotgun Saturday Night Went to Chattanooga, 2/16/99

On 2/16/99 WWF had what had to have felt like an interminably long taping in Chattanooga, TN, taping 19 matches for airing on Super Astros, Sunday Night Heat, Raw, and Shotgun Saturday night. 19 matches on a Tuesday night! But the three matches from the Shotgun taping stood out more than the rest, because all three matches were WWF wrestlers against local southern indie talent. It's another invasion that was shut down one night in, but this one probably didn't have the same drawing potential. After the ECW invasion, after the NWA invasion, before Invasion. This is the Tennessee Mountain invasion we never talked about!

WWF Shotgun Saturday Night (Broadcast 2/27/99)

HHH vs. Buddy Landel

ER: HHH does his very long ring intro that 17 yr old me thought was cool, and Jim Cornette on commentary says "These people are jacked tonight! They're ready to suck it!" The match started out good and ended quickly in disappointment. Buddy and HHH each have their ponytails and each clearly wear their influences, and Buddy is a little thicker around the middle at this point, but it starts simple and cool. Landel grabs a tight headlock, HHH gets one of his own, both guys get a little time to establish their headlocks, HHH gets a nice go behind and Landel snaps him with a nice back elbow. It's all shaping up very nicely, Landel eats a knee and takes an impressive snap bump...and then HHH calls for the Pedigree and it's over, 1 minute and 40 seconds in. 100 seconds, with the first 80 seconds worked like they were going 8-10. Not only was that pointless, it reeked of wanting to put someone in their place. Is it possible that they were in the middle of a long night of tapings and wanted to speed things up a bit? Sure. But it sure felt disrespectful to someone like Buddy.

The Hardy Boys vs. Frank Parker/Roger Anderson

ER: Hardys come out in their OMEGA shirts (that wasn't a thing they normally did during this era, right?), and this match rules. This is more like it. This is going the way of a Hardys squash, and it's fun seeing their offense from 20 years ago. Matt had a great elbow drop that he doesn't really use anymore, Jeff did his awesome swanton to the floor, Matt hit his nice bulldog, we get a cool double team where Jeff leapfrogs Anderson and he runs right into a Matt swinging neckbreaker (it's a smart way to get someone in position to take a neckbreaker, as they'd be naturally ducking their head down so the don't run face first into a leaping man's crotch) Death & Destruction were taking hip tosses and big backdrops and not gaining any ground. And then Anderson held the top rope down without Jeff seeing it, and while running the ropes Jeff took an absolutely insane, fast bump over the top to the floor, smacking his head off the apron on the way down. Awesome bump that sounded like it surprised Cornette. From there Death & Destruction get a lot of control, and they worked the match from there as if they're an actual signed team. Parker drops a great leg, there's a fun chop exchange in the corner between Matt and Anderson, D&D take over with some kneelifts, it all gave a cool glimpse of a tag scene that might have been, if only WWF wanted a couple other guys who looked like Festus. Imagine three awesome lumpy bald goatee guys in a stable!? Hardys' finisher was really awesome, the legdrop/splash from the top, and this match delivered what I hoped this match would.

Tiger Ali Singh vs. Killer Kyle

ER: This is me, going out of my way to watch a Tiger Ali Singh match. What a weird WWF run he had. I bet most people can hardly remember a thing about the guy, but he showed up on TV for years, then would disappear just as quickly as he came. Who kept wanting Tiger Ali Singh? This was also worked fairly even, and Cornette really didn't talk much about the Smoky Mountain alum Kyle. Each got to hit cool powerslams and Kyle gets to throw a bunch of punches and chops. Singh was pretty bland, hit a needless chinlock and made Kyle look bad when he unexpectedly backed out of a punch that Kyle was clearly throwing to connect, threw off the timing of everything. The finish was cool though as Kyle whiffs on a lariat, and before turning around Singh kicks him in the back of the knee and then hits a neckbreaker.

So instead of trying to make money on a Tennessee invasion, bringing back Smothers and Tony Anthony and the Rock n Rolls, they went and shot this moneymaker in the foot right as it started.

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New Footage Friday: Wahoo, Valentine, Death and Destruction, Ricky Morton, Daisuke Ikeda, Yuki Ishikawa

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Greg Valentine NWA Charlotte 6/11/94

PAS: This is an all time legendary feud, which dates back to the wars Wahoo had with Greg Valentine's dad. This is end of the road Wahoo, but he would still throw a welting chop and take a walloping. This starts a bit slow, but soon kicks into gear, with both guys lacing each other. Valentine was especially vicious with an elbow to the back of the neck and a chop right to the throat. Finish was a bit wonky with special ref Swede Hansen (of all fucking people) punching Valentine and quick counting him. No idea why in a match with two actual legends you needed to get the heat on Swede Hansen, but outside of that, this was everything you would want from a pair of aging prizefighters slugging it out.

ER: A week after they no doubt bootlegged and watched Misawa/Kawada, Valentine and Wahoo decide to have their own match of the decade, on their terms. And it's pro fucking wrestling. There are semi truck trailers with advertising parked around the ring, a fan in the crowd who looks like Steve Keirn paces and smokes, two men high five, our camera is planted directly on the cheek of a man with a Vince Gill mullet and a stars and stripes coaches jacket like he was an South Carolinian Bela Karolyi, and it basically feels like we're in a first person shooter and this guy is our avatar, going out and seeing wrestling on a Saturday night. Valentine bumps around great for all of Wahoo's big booming strikes, which hit just as hard as 1978 Wahoo. Valentine does several great spills into the ropes, selling the impact. He also drops a nice elbow to the back of Wahoo's neck, and has no problem trading some chops that would stop my heart. This was completely the match this crowd wanted to see, every one of them was going nuts, I wish I got that chance to see more wrestling with a crowd like this.

MD: You pretty much know what you're going to get with a mid-90s indy match between mid-50s Wahoo and mid-40s Valentine. If you're reading this site and this feature, you're probably totally okay with that. These two knew exactly what they were doing, hit hard, got the crowd to buy into things and interact with them, and made everyone happy. As I said, you know what you're getting here, so you can only be so critical. I'd have liked a couple of minutes of legwork after Valentine slammed Wahoo's leg on the apron on the outside before the Wahoo strike-based comeback. I would have liked a couple of foreshadowing spots before the ref-driven finish. This stuff is timeless though.


Death and Destruction vs. Ricky Morton/Dan Cooley SSW 7/5/96

MD: Ultimately, this was a fun Morton showcase, a very straightforward southern tag. It's always a joy to see a Morton close enough to a prime drawing a heel into the corner by shadowboxing. Death and Destruction were Frank Parker and Roger Anderson. Anderson had a couple of years more experience best I can tell and it showed. Parker seemed a bit awkward feeding out of the corner or eating Cooley's armdrags. There were times where it seemed like Morton was doing the work for both himself and Parker. Anderson had more than solid timing and jawing for his role. The transition out of the shine could have been a bit more interesting (eyerake followed by a nice over the top bump by Morton; the eyerake is what I'm iffy on). Cooley was pretty green here but put in a lot of effort. I was surprised (though I shouldn't have been) by the fact Morton was the one to play face-in-peril. The comeback and the finishing stretch were by the numbers but fine. This whole thing was about half of a really good match.

ER: I was excited to hear we got some uncovered Death and Destruction, a team that easily could have had a long TV career like Disorderly Conduct. Hell, I'm sure a D&D vs. DC feud would have been the stuff of syndicated 90s legend. Depending on what time you got into pro wrestling on the internet, you either know D&D from their heavily pimped (in our circles) OMEGA match against the Serial Thrillaz, or you know Frank Parker as being the guy who was in one of the more infamous matches in TNA history, as he was the opponent of Cheex. And I agree with Matt that this was basically half of a really good tag. I don't agree with his assessment that Parker looked outclassed, I thought he took all of Cooley's slo-mo Tim Horner armdrags fine, and his punch exchange with Morton was my favorite part of the match. His punches looked great and heavy, and Morton had this cool short quick shots to the forehead to back up the larger man. Morton took a nice post shot, Cooley was on offense a bit too much, and it had a finish which is just about one of my least favorite finishes in wrestling: Cooley hits Anderson with a crossbody, Anderson bumps it, then just flips over and pins Cooley. Man I hate that finish. It never looks like a guy smoothly rolling through and surprising his opponent, it always looks like a guy just takes a move, then decides to ignore it. Still, loved Morton here, and I'd love for more D&D to show up.

PAS: My thoughts on this match line up with Eric and Matt. Unsurprisingly I loved Morton in this, his early match jiving was great as was his eponymous face in peril work. He is just such a professional at this whole thing. Death and Destruction were good stuff, I especially liked Anderson's straight punches to Morton's nose. I thought Cooley looked bad, his armdrags were really sloppy looking and his hot tag was performative in a way that came off goofy, I think I would have really liked this if Morton had a less try-hard partner. Lots of Death and Destruction in SSW and I am looking forward to finding some class stuff.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda PWFG 8/12/95

PAS: A newly unearthed PWFG show (I'll be reviewing the whole show soon) gives us a very early look at this all time great rivalry. This already had a ton of spice, as the tumble out of the ring at the bell and Ikeda hits a great spin kick to Ishikawa's stomach sending him into the chairs. It is a great start to a match which delivers on what it promises. Ikeda spends a lot of this match trying to destroy Ishikawa's internal organs, he hits him with brutal spinkicks, straight body kicks and Chavezian body shots. Ishikawa puts on some great looking holds, squeezing Ikeda's head like a zit, twisting his ankles into odd and painful directions, and throwing some big shots of his own including a big knee lift which glassed up Ikeda's eyes. Finish was great, each guy gets a big knockdown and the come up and both guys are just unload their arsenals, not exchanging elbows to show their toughness, but franticly throwing everything they have at each other. Ikeda catches Ishikawa with a slap to the ear which drops him, he pops back up, but it is the third knockdown and he loses by TKO. Ishikawa wants to keep fighting and they have to be separated. It is interesting to watch this legendary rivalry in it's incubatory form, while there later matches were often brutal wars of attrition, this was more of a frantic pedal to the medal fight, the kind of thing you might see from two MMA fighters trying to get on a UFC main card, fun to watch them expend that kind of energy.

MD: Definitely another gem. These two are the perfect cross section of unmitigated violence and astonishingly slick grappling. When you've seen enough wrestling, not much can surprise you, but the more I see this pairing (and I haven't seen them quite as much as Phil and Eric so I'm still allowed to be in awe), the more I remain blown away by just how they manage it. They're pure struggle with nothing given and the consistent illusion that if one makes the tiniest misstep, allows for an opening, drops a guard, leaves the smallest hole in his defense, he will pay dearly. This could be with vicious stomps to cement a hold or with a spin kick out of nowhere or with leverage gained for a devastating belly-to-belly. The selling feels just as abrupt. It becomes more about momentum shifts and advantage than a long-running narrative, but you end up left wondering, two thirds through the match how a comeback might even be possible. The level of skill involved in all of this consistently blows me away.

ER: How cool is it to see two guys who have matched up probably over 100 times in their career, in what might be their earliest singles match? I know I have a BattlArts singles match between them from a year later, not sure there's another one this young. I love the charm and violence of their more experienced matches, with Ishikawa playing more of a Fujiwara "hang back, minimize the beating, look for your opening" with Ikeda as the always advancing bully. Here they're both punks in their 20s and Ishikawa is super aggressive with offense and kicks. Ishikawa didn't use a ton of kicks even by '98, so it's a trip seeing kickpads Ishikawa fly at Ikeda with high kicks and knees. Ikeda is still a bully, still comes off more icewater veins than Ishikawa, kinda letting Ishikawa tire himself out on flurries before pouncing, or backpedaling until Ishikawa slips and then diving into him viciously. Aggression is really the cause of many of the momentum shifts here, and I loved seeing these two tumble to the floor a couple of times because they were too busy kicking each other's asses to pay much attention to their ring placement. We get a lot of nastiness shining through, look at them grabbing at each other's hair while Ikeda works for mount. Kick-y Ishikawa is fun, but Ikeda always has those lethal feet, and his mulekicks to Ishikawa's gut look absolutely match ending. He drops him fairly early with one and either Ishikawa is among the great salesmen in the history of this great sport (which, he is), or that's a man who had the wind kicked out of him through his stomach. All the twisting looked really great throughout, and the knockdown drama at the end was really exciting. I've watched enough Ishikawa to know that he can't be counted out, and I loved the ending of him popping up right after getting TKO, showing that he wasn't down and that Ikeda only won because of a fucking rulebook. These two guys.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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