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.  

 

 

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New Footage Friday: Flair, Slaughter, Johnny Valentine, OG Kroffat, Roadies, Freebirds

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ric Flair Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This is a hell of a thing. It's a 30+ minute Slaughter vs Flair match from 85. We had 4-6 minutes of footage before. I don't think this was on anyone's radar as a possibility to be released, but it's a very unique match up. Maybe there's Crockett stuff with them (I started to look through the 82 JCP results but stopped at seeing Flair vs Jerry Blackwell in St. Louis and gave up because I got too frustrated that we don't have that), and there's that one WWF match that made tape, but this ended up feeling really unique. It's not the best match ever but it had a lot to like.

We've all seen hundreds of Flair matches. Narratively, he's such a loose wrestler. He does what he feels is right in the moment and because of who he is and the presence he has, it's almost a feedback loop. What he does in the moment is right because of who he is. He defines what is right and ultimately, so much of it is about the idea of Ric Flair instead of the specific actions of him. I tend to look at wrestling in a very textual way and Flair is a creature of context, of symbolic ideals. You can't break his matches down move for move. Ultimately, he's about no more and no less than constant engagement of the crowd, filling the time in the most compelling way possible, even if it didn't create a greater whole, and for all I'm able to say definitively, I'm not sure I can definitively say that's not the right ideal to shoot for.

Slaughter was larger than life too. As a heel, he was good at grinding down, bumping and stooging. As a face, brawling and selling. You didn't get a lot of the brawling here but the match shined the most when Flair was working over the arm and Sarge was showing the toll. It was probably weakest, past the early headlock spots (the Slaughter armwork that followed was way more compelling), when Sarge was working over the leg. While Flair had a tendency to sell his leg way more than any other body part (and if I had to guess, that's because it's subconsciously what he liked to work over the most or maybe the broadest, most visual thing there was to sell), Slaughter seemed to be struggling with actually putting on the figure four and it made everything a little clunky. The opening feeling out segment was absolutely great, two over the top characters meeting and Slaughter having a lot of fun at Flair's expense. I don't always love Flair playing as vulnerable as he did here for a lot of this, but against an opponent so over the top like Slaughter, it worked. Flair had to use every dirty trick to get an advantage, but once he really dug in with it towards the end, he was vicious and effective and that made Slaughter's comebacks, especially the finish with the out of nowhere with the cobra clutch all the more exciting. The color was saved for the post match with Boris. There were a few creative decisions I didn't entirely agree with, but this was absolutely effective for what it was and it felt like a dredged up dream match, one of those champion vs champion affairs that are never quite as satisfying as they could be but that felt monumental and important.

ER: I think Matt really wrote all that anyone could have wanted on this match, love his thoughts on Flair's match construct, really fascinating analysis and attention to detail, there's not much I'll be able to provide on this match that Matt didn't already. BUT! I liked it. It was one of those big champ vs. champ matches that we all know isn't ending definitively, so you soak up and enjoy it for the charisma of two legends who rarely matched up (including a couple intriguing/unseen Slaughter/Savage vs. Flair/Mountie house show matches I'd love to surface), and dig how great these two look against each other despite seldom crossing paths. I thought they worked the pace really well considering they were going fairly long, and they spaced out a couple of great big bumps to make them feel like an even bigger deal: Slaughter took a big tumbling bump to the floor, and then Flair took two different ones, the second showing him landing on a ton of different objects before hitting the ground; hits the ringside table, falls onto men, hits a chair, thuds to the floor, it's like a great death scene where someone is pulling down curtains and sweeping some China off a table before hitting the floor. My favorite moment was Flair and Slaughter fighting in the corner, Slaughter selling Flair's chops as well as any man, Flair dialing in some of his greatest punches right to the chin, Slaughter recoiling and holding his face, the chops loud enough to literally change the sound pattern of the crowd din that went the whole match. This match was filled with great moments without ever necessarily building to anything extraordinary, and this is okay with me. For a 30+ minute match it certainly didn't feel like it, so it's not something I'm going to nitpick, this felt like it was structured specifically to be enjoyable to this crowd. There's no way someone watching this in the arena wouldn't have been losing their mind. Boris Zhukov runs in and I like the energy of his shots to Slaughter, and then he goes and dumps Slaughter right on his head with a tombstone. Jeeeeez (this set up a really fun singles match between them). So it's a 30+ minute match that ends with a bunch of hunks like Brad Rheingans, interrupting their Chippendale rehearsal to run out in just jeans and boots (seriously, they looked like a male stripper construction worker flash mob), saving their boy. Historically, this is real important, and made for a great Friday afternoon view.

PAS: Every once in a while the network really drops something special. These are two of the biggest stars of the 80s and we never had them matching up before. I didn't love this match, but loved that we got it. This was a Flair match, and while Slaughter delivered some cool stuff, it felt a little like he got shoehorned in a match formula. I really liked Slaughters work with the hammerlock and headlock, and thought it was pretty lame when he started work a figure four. He looked like Disco in that terrible Russo gimmick with print out. I loved Flair's punches to the face and knee drop, and when this turned into a brawl it got special, still I would have rather seen Flair work a Slaughter match then Slaughter working a Flair one.

Road Warriors/Paul Ellering vs. Fabulous Freebirds Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This felt larger than life, another top-of-the-card war. The Roadies were at the height of their power, with every big move shaking the Meadowlands. I'm not sure I've ever actually see them do anything cooler than Animal press slamming Gordy. No one in the crowd even blinked during the attempt. It took too much effort for the Birds to really get over on Ellering. If they combined the attempt at heat with the real thing and didn't give him a pseudo-comeback in the middle, this would have been stronger. The finish was BS but the best sort. Buddy elbowdropping the ref was visually striking. The Birds took the inevitable lost but immediately got their heat back with the huge double back body drop into a powerbomb (in 1985) on Ellering and then the Roadies cleared the ring to end it. New Jersey knew what it liked and it liked the Road Warriors.

PAS: I do love these big main event punch outs. Birds are really great bouncing off the Road Warriors and I loved Gordy as the big dog willing to growl. Ellering is a weird figure in the 80s, as a babyface manager he seemed to exist only to sell so the Roadies didn't have to. The beat down on Ellering was fun and the Warriors hot tag was really explosive, that Animal shoulder block looked like a missile. This kind of made me want to watch some more Warriors matches, sure they aren't going to sell but I appreciate heavyweight wrestling that looks like it hurts.

Kintaro Oki/Michiaki Yoshimura vs. Johnny Valentine/Dan Kroffat JWA 05/29/72

MD: Big thanks to Loss for finding this for us. Valentine is exceptional. He might be the best total package that we have the least amount of footage of. He makes everyone else look shoddy. The way he utilizes leverage and pressure on the simplest holds shows us just how much we take every aspect of pro wrestling for granted and how much more gripping it could be.

This was my first look at the original Kroffat and he reminded me a bit of Wiskowski, both visually and in his ability to marry really sound tag work with dynamic stooging. This was structured with just total control by Valentine/Kroffat for the first fall, long periods of varied grinding holds, quick tags, and drawing a pissed off Yoshimura in. The second fall was lightning quick, just a comeback, a hot tag, headbutts and a finish. Then the last one having a little bit of everything (including Oki pulling off a "Look to the sky/faked you out" spot), before it ended with Valentine pre-creating the Brock vs Orton spot with endless bloody elbowing which either led to a draw or a DQ or who even cares. It was great. I'm pretty sure we should just watch Johnny Valentine matches all the time from now on.

PAS: Johnny Valentine would be my favorite wrestler ever if we had more footage. This wasn't a world class match, but it was another world class performance. Kroffat and Valentine are a fun tag team, Kroffat is a lot more expressive, hitting every move and bump for the last row. Valentine would tag in and start grinding and pounding away. Oki and Yoshimura didn't do a ton to stand out although they were really solid. The finish was awesome though with Valentine pummeling Oki until he started leaking all over the ring, and Oki fired back with great looking gory headbuts. Every Valentine match is a treasure, and this was minor jewel, but a jewel nonetheless.

ER: I obviously agree with the Valentine love here. I love Greg Valentine (not a bold statement), and imagine just how much of a legendary badass Greg had to be just to not be considered a total joke by people who knew Johnny? Greg should be looked at as even more of a total legend just for the giant shoes that he admirably filled. Johnny is so cool and is a rare tough as hell guy who can be beat. He doesn't just gobble up opponents from what we've seen, and his clear toughness always makes it look like his opponent really went through hell to earn a victory. While I don't think the whole of the match made this legendary, the moment he starts raining down on Oki with elbows SHOULD be legendary. That is one of the more unexpected turns into total outright violence that I've ever seen in a match, things going along just fine with headlocks and grounding your opponent until suddenly you are draining your opponent of blood like it was 1850 and Valentine was curing Oki of an infection. Kroffat (or KING KROW as he goes by for some reason) looks like the toughest version of Peter Tork. He was an odd pairing with Valentine, but I liked his sometimes comically expressive bumps and mannerisms. Overall I thought this went too long, felt more like a 50s match than an early 70s match, but I also liked the slow burn due to that insanely rewarding culmination, that moment you really see Oki's head faucet just getting opened up.

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Weekend Wrap-Up: Matsunaga! Otsuka! Dibiase! Freebirds! Casas Family vs Ola Blanca '97!

I watched wrestling this weekend. Here it is:

Alexander Otsuka vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (BattlARTS 11/09/1999)

This is probably the most Segunda Caida-y match I've ever watched and I'm amazed it's never been on the site before. It's been out there (being on the 99 Yearbook, for instance), but doesn't seem to have gotten a ton of talk over the years. I'm watching this at the prompting of PWO's Elliott, who just covered it with Stacey on their podcast. Check it out. While I enjoyed this as much as they did, I had a slightly different take on it (and I'd insist that people watch it before getting spoiled by my take. You deserve to be surprised):

So Matsunaga comes down to the ring, sword in hand, terrifying the businessman-laden BattlARTS crowd, attacking the seats, and knocking one guy out of his chair and onto his ass. He's full of bluster. Otsuka comes down and immediately begins killing Matsunaga with a multi-front attack. He leads with forearms, chokes him with his own belt, posts him on the outside, gets revenge for the furniture by tossing him into the chairs, bites his burgeoning forehead wound, and brings him back in to suplex him. If life was a video game, Otsuka would be a create-a-wrestler who was the recipient of some sort of cheat code that gave him full attributes in every area. All of this is brutal and highly uncooperative. The suplexes are borderline deadlift. At one point on the outside, Otsuka slams his own forearm into the metal while trying to post Matsunaga and he just shrugs it off and keeps going. He's a force of nature. At this point, he wasn't even playing to his distinct advantage by going to the mat. He's just a force of nature.

What can Matsunaga do in the face of this? Really only one thing. He goes full Memphis. They reset and he garners a handshake. He makes a clean break. I'm expecting some wonderful bit of heeling at this point. What I'm not expecting is a fireball followed by minutes of hide the object with a giant "Asiatic Spike." That's what we got and it was glorious. He's up against this wrestling dynamo and he basically sheiks him as the only possible equalizer.

Otsuka quickly becomes a bloody mess. When he comes back, it's because he's able to duck a shot and lock in one of the world's most dramatic abdominal stretches, key because it locks up basically all of Matsunaga's limbs. How does he follow it up? With the god damn craziest flip dive to the floor, just because he had to check off that one last pro wrestling attribute he hadn't shown off yet. It turns his comeback into an impassioned hope spot though as he does as much damage to himself. Matsunaga's able to take back control, still utilizing his object, which builds to an even bigger comeback where, of course Otsuka gets the spike, which is absolutely perfect retributional pro-wrestling. His revenge is swift, bloody, and decisive. And this is a truly special match.

Ted Dibiase vs Terry Gordy (Steel Cage)/Ted Dibiase vs Michael Hayes (Steel Cage Country Whipping Match) (UWF - 10/17/1986) NWAOnDemand

The latest gem from NWAOnDemand. We'd had the cage match JIP, but this is the whole package: pre-match mic-work to set things up, the cage match, the crowd buzzing afterwards as Ted heads to the back and then comes back out, the whipping match in the cage, and then post match backstage promos (including some pre-post interview moments that serve as outtakes). Thirty-two minutes of great Watts-style wrestling.

This is the penultimate encounter of the Freebirds vs Dibiase/Doc feud, which also included some really great Doc vs Gordy matches and the awesome Hayes vs Doc cage match, which people need to sign up for the service and see if they haven't yet. Doc is supposed to wrestle Gordy here in the cage but Ted claims that they injured him. I assume he's on a Japan tour instead. Hayes wants them to give the match to Gordy but Ted takes it for himself, even though he's booked right after in the whipping match.

The cage match is pretty much everything you'd want it to be. Gordy, like always, is an absolute beast in using his body mass to control the match. He uses the ring, and in this case, the cage, so well, bullying Dibiase around, fighting out of the corner, using the turnbuckles as weapons. He has such a natural physical presence. Dibiase, on the other hand, is such an ideal mid-south babyface, a triple tough brawler who can take punishment, who can and will sell (both his back to Gordy's offense and ring utilization, and his face from the sheer power of Gordy's blows), but that'll come back with his fits and guts alone. I had never realized until watching this match that the true, absolute point of Dibiase's signature fistdrops is to work over a bloody wound. They're amazing here.

In the end, he escapes to the back with the win and the belt, causing Hayes to rant and rave and the crowd to buzz elatedly for the few minutes before Born in the USA comes back on and Dibiase makes his way back out for round two. This is simple, straightforward, and effective. Hayes wants to steal back the belt and escape the cage and whatever punishment he can muster is just to allow enough space to manage that. It (along with the fact that Hayes is seen as much as a manager as anything else) helps rationalize how a worn down (and ambushed) Dibiase can fight back. Every time Hayes gets a real advantage, he goes for the belt. Every time he does, Dibiase recovers and battles back. It's short, sweet, and effective and leaves the fans buzzing and happy, all preparation for the Gordy vs Dibiase blow-off match on Halloween night.

The post match Gordy promo is a horrorshow of blood and fury. It's great to watch on its own and very cool to see the few seconds of him getting ready to talk in the "outtake." Just classic stuff all around.

Dr. Wagner Jr. & Silver King vs. Felino & Negro Casas (CMLL - 5/9/1997)

Here's another one that was bouncing around but that just got uploaded in a more complete form. This is "sangre contra sangre," the Casas family vs the Sons of Dr. Wagner, and there's a lot of pomp in this version of the footage. There's a video recap to set it up, pre-match promos, shots of the family, Bestia Salvaje in a wheelchair carted out by Black Warrior for some reason. It all feels like a big deal and is a cool presentation.

The match itself is very solid but not quite as good as the other ones I watched. Here's something it has going for it, though: Negro Casas is always brilliant, but when you give him specific things to work with, he can take them so, so far. Here he has the family situation and Felino to protect, but he also has a gaping wound on his knee. Wagner and Silver King are absolutely game rudo bases, both of them going the extra mile, Silver King with his over the top expressions and Wagner by making sure to take wonderfully overdramatic bumps into the crowd to make sure everyone is paying attention to him.

Structurally, this has a few fun wrinkles, with both Felino clowning the rudos and a full heat segment and comeback/elaborate rudo cut off in the primera. There's maskwork and revenge maskwork, more beatdown heat into the start of the segunda that culminates with a fiery Casas finally recovering enough to burst into the ring to save his brother and a finish which keeps the feud going by making the Casas brothers look strong even as Wagner outsmarts Felino.

Oh, and like just about every Casas match I ever see, he pulls out something I haven't seen him do before (that doesn't mean he hasn't done it before, just that I hadn't seen it in the hundreds of matches I'd seen with him). Check out this little rope running exchange with Silver King:

Very fun novelty that felt special; definitely a good way to spend a half an hour.

Now I need to get back to watching Lucha Underground S3 so we can catch up before the show comes back in a month or two. We're lagging because of me, not Eric.

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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.

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