Found Footage Friday: BOCK~! HEENAN~! SD MARK II~! CMLL 4 vs 3~! DUSTY~! DUSTIN~! CODY~!

Nick Bockwinkel/Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne/Super Destroyer Mark II AWA 10/3/80

MD: A recent find from a Wrestling Playlists disc buy. You know the deal. Follow along with the work. This was a blast. Perfect pro wrestling. Destroyer is Slaughter of course. Heenan and Bockwinkel make a big stink out of it to start. This was supposed to be a Loser-Wears-the-Weasel Suit match and they refuse to wrestle if that's the stip. Therefore, they will be heavily fined or suspended but the local promoter says that the match will still take place for the fans. 

Heenan is great here as you would imagine, but he spends a lot of this on the apron or getting cheapshots in with one big moment of comeuppance in the middle and another at the end. It's really all on Bockwinkel who stooges all over the place. Because he doesn't have a competent partner, he's even further behind the eightball and he absolutely wrestles that way, getting knocked around the ring, keeling over after shots, getting abused by both wrestlers. They have a few moments of heat where they're able to get over either by Gagne missing a dropkick or Bockwinkel getting Destroyer in the eyes and following up with a King of the Mountain but it's never for long. Gagne has a great hot tag in as he hits his dropkicks with the second into a nice upkick right onto a charging Bock. 

Finish is Heenan loading up his broken arm and nailing Destroyer from behind so Bockwinkel can pin him. Post-match he demands the weasel suit to put on Gagne because they won but the babyfaces get the better of them and slip it on him. Nice bit here as Destroyer goes to Bockwinkel who is all tangled in the corner and  forcibly shakes his hand before they leave. Post match, Bockwinkel gets the weasel suit off of Heenan and starts beating it up. Just a great bit of emotional vulnerability to send the fans home happy by someone who is usually so buttoned up. 

ER: What a perfect vibe. I think I need to go through a real AWA phase. The vibes don't get much better than this. Heenan and Bockwinkel are a perfect team, Greg Gagne is a guy who is way underrated and undervalued as a babyface, Slaughter is legitimately one of the hardest working big men of all time. The Peg never felt hotter. Everyone did everything I loved seeing them do in this match. Heel Bockwinkel is some incredible stuff. Heel Bockwinkel feels like Billy Robinson crossed with Ric Flair. Heenan is like Buddy Roberts crossed with Tully Blanchard. Everyone throws strikes here that are perfect for who they are. Heenan's 3/4 arm slot attacks with his cast looked like Gagne should have been left bruised. Heenan looked like he should have been scared of Slaughter and fought him accordingly. Bockwinkel looked like he really wanted to snap Greg's neck over the top rope. 

Heenan's Race bump was one of the most incredible versions of that spot. Heenan had this amazing knack for "holding on". Race would tumble dangerously to the floor on his. When I think of any great over the top bump it's always accompanied by "to the floor". But Heenan had this way of hanging onto bumps that made them feel even more dangerous than if he had let go and flown to the floor. It feels like he's body is being torn in multiple directions. I wonder how many weasel suits there were. He's the only wrestler in history to get pulled into a fur suit to rabid reaction for well over a decade. It's impossible to not love Bobby when he's losing his mind in his Where the Wild Things Are fur suit. The zipper always gets stuck, but this time we get to experience the joy of Nick Bockwinkel being flustered while he's trying to get Bobby out of the suit. We have that now. 

Gigante Silva/Atlantis/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Fuerza Guerrera/Gran Markus Jr./Pierroth Jr./Violencia CMLL 09/05/00

MD: Another that Charles salvaged from old discs. I'm not sure I've ever heard of CMLL doing a 4-on-3 match like this but here we go. Pierroth and Silva were the captains and Pierroth had a ton of heat with the crowd,  especially the Arena Coliseo tecnico cheering section which was loud and rowdy and chanting for Mexico the whole way through. The rudos swarmed Atlantis to start staying on him and then Tinieblas pinballing them from one to the other. Once Tinieblas went out they did something I'm not sure I've ever seen before; they pulled Atlantis back in so that Silva couldn't come in. They were even cutting off the ring.

This all led to a huge tug of war spot, but with Atlantis' arms being what they were tugging on. All of the rudos and Atlantis went tumbling across the ring, heralding Silva's real entrance to the match. The rudos tried to swarm him but he managed to whip all of them across the ring in a 4 person Irish Whip. Then he hit a corner clothesline and let me tell you, if you told me that he had killed someone in the ring and not Khali, I would totally believe you with how brutal his shots looked. I don't know if the rudos just asked him to go full on or if he didn't know how not to but every strike was grisly.

The comedy kept coming as Atlantis and Tinieblas lured them into a bunch of rudo miscommunication (a lot of which was Markus, who had lost his mask by this point, crushing his own partners), before they built to endless Atlantis and Tinieblas big splashes on all four rudos, before Silva got to finish it off. This was about ten minutes of ringtime in one fall and definitely didn't wear out its welcome. Fun stuff.

Dusty Rhodes/Goldust/Cody Rhodes vs. Dudebusters (Trent Baretta/Curt Hawkins/Caylen Croft) FCW 7/9/10

MD: If the Vault isn't going to give us old Greensboro and Omni, something special like this, something one of a kind, is up there on what I'd want. This was Dusty's last match, teaming with his sons (one a face, one normally a heel), up against the hottest heel act FCW had to offer at the time in the Dudebusters. Baretta and Croft had their act and it was bolstered with Hawkins returning. At the time, I thought they'd all join Ryder (who had spent 2009 coming into his own on ECW) on the main roster to be his muscle and they could have gotten a good midcard (maybe IC title level) act out of all of it. It was not meant to be. 

I love the presentation here. It's one camera with a bunch of interface noise (like a 16 bit line and contrast or whatever and a little golfing guy icon). The Dudebusters come out with white Dusty Sucks Eggs t-shirts. Dusty and family come out to his WWF theme song, cowbell and all. Dustin is Goldust. Cody is Dashing (but no mustache or faceguard yet).

Cody is set to start but Dusty tags in and I absolutely love how the Dudebusters sell for the idea of him, scattering and leaping up to the top rope just because he entered the ring. Obviously the crowd is going to go nuts at the idea of Dusty driving them nuts. They're selling not a punch or a kick but an idea and an ideal and a larger than life presence. That's beautiful pro wrestling and we see so little of it in 2024. Cody felt a little looser than usual in this setting and Dustin was having a blast, including playing off a Dudebusters deal where the kept kissing his cheek by moving so they ended up kissing each other. This was the first time that Cody and Dustin teamed that we know of and they had some fun tandem stuff (like a catapult bounce back onto the knees/second rope move combo). In general, Dustin was moving great in there and looked like a million bucks.

Eventually the Dudebusters used a distraction to take over on Cody and we got the first of a double heat. They controlled the ring well. The hot tag to Dustin wasn't so hot but that's because the real one was going to be to Dusty later. They took back on him with another bit of distraction (they were good at that). It all built to the true hot tag to Dusty, the place exploding, and Dusty hitting a couple of things before picking up the win. As celebratory and reverent as it should have been but a better match than it needed to be because they let the Dudebusters take so much of it.

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The Weasel Suit Matches

There were three WWF weasel suit matches that made tape, from the Spectrum, MSG, and LA Sports Arena. By memory I have only seen one, and don't remember which one it was, so I thought it would be fun to see how they match up with each other. Plus, a bonus AWA Gagne/Heenan weasel suit match, the feud that started it all.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF 6/18/88

ER: This is the kind of match that would have been so confusing to me had I seen it when it first happened. I was young and had just started watching wrestling, so I had no clue about anyone's history. I knew what I saw. In '89 my friends and I were all laughing at the idea of The Genius of all people getting a title shot at Hogan. To us, Genius wasn't even a real wrestler. We had no idea who Lanny Poffo was, just knew The Genius. In 1988 I would have never even considered that Bobby Heenan was a wrestler. I knew him as a doughy manager of bad guys. The thought of a manager even attempting to defeat the invincible Ultimate Warrior would have been the strangest sight to my child eyes. And luckily for me, Dick Graham and Rodger Kent on commentary sounded exactly like me and my friend doing commentary over WrestleMania VI while watching it on scrambled PPV. They approached this match with a child's innocence, wondering how this match even got signed, seemingly unaware that Heenan was also a wrestler.

The whole match has a really weird tone, and it's kind of cool. The commentary feels like people completely unfamiliar with the product, and Warrior behaves downright silly throughout. He charges to the ring wearing the actual weasel suit (commentary keeps trying to think of the word for "claws" while describing the suit, "Look you can even see the....nails.....talons.....on the suit.....What word am I thinking of? What do animals have instead of nails?") and whips the suit around his head Mystikal style. Warrior even does a funny little marching band leader march around the apron while wearing the suit. The match is short but very satisfying. Heenan has a bigger belly than he had before, but he is still super agile, sneak attacking Warrior with strikes that get no sold, begging off, and then leaping through the ropes to the floor using that muscle memory that old wrestlers retain. 

This is going to be a quick match, which even my child brain would have expected. I like how Warrior doesn't work this like a typical Warrior match. He's not running around doing shoulderblocks or press slams, he's really playing to the crowd and milking reactions in a smart way. He puts Heenan down with a sleeper after Heenan tries leveling off more strikes, and Heenan gets a long, glorious death as he slowly drifts off to sleep. Heenan swings and fights and goes down like a champ, really struggling to get out of it and fight off slumber before succumbing. Warrior ups the silliness by flat out WALTZING with the weasel suit!! And let me tell you, Warrior looked like a beautiful dancer. For an actual doofus, Warrior clearly took himself way too seriously most of the time, and it was cool to see him actually showing a sense of humor with the stipulation. It takes him an eternity to get the weasel suit on, but the crowd is into it, and Heenan looks straight out of Where the Wild Things Are when it's on. Hercules jumps Warrior, Heenan finally wakes up, Warrior lariats Heenan so he can do his awesome flip bump, and I am satisfied.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF MSG 6/25/88

ER: This was tremendous, the fullest and most complete version of their match. They milked their time getting to where they were going, and it was totally worth it. I love Heenan in his Andre singlet. Most people two strap it. Not many people one strap it. Lawler one straps it, but with tights. Barbaro Cavernario one straps it, but he's a caveman. Heenan and Andre are one strapping their black singlets so they can show off their white, white thighs. As it should be. The opening to this match is similar to  the Spectrum match the week before, with Warrior posing on the turnbuckles and Heenan rushing behind him to club him in the back a few times, which Warrior ignores. Heenan leaps through the ropes to the floor, and that's where this match really takes off. Heenan spends so much time running away from Warrior, with Warrior stalking him like a weird flamboyant tasseled Michael Myers. It all builds to a classic gag where Warrior drops down out of sight and hides behind a corner, naturally leading to Heenan backing his way all the way around the ring before backing into Warrior and getting choked. What makes this already even better than the prior match, is Lord Alfred Hayes (on commentary with Rodger Kent and Billy Graham) absolutely losing it at Heenan taking a beating.

But things jump up to a level I wasn't expecting, when Heenan does arguably the greatest hidden weapon routine I've ever seen. Heenan fishes a weapon out the front of his singlet, and jabs it into Warrior's throat. The ref is on him and Heenan has an absurdly quick sleight of hand to tuck the weapon so that it is perfectly poking out a couple inches out of has singlet, past his butt cheek. He then lets the ref check his legs and boots. The camera gets a great shot of the weapon poking out and Heenan taking it out the moment the ref turns. He jabs Warrior again and slips it incredibly fast into the back of his boot. Ref fooled again, Heenan jabs Warrior, and I don't see him slip it anywhere. We didn't see it, because Heenan has it hidden UNDER his left boot. It was such an incredible routine, done with actual expert quick hand skills, just a masterfully performed bit. Rodger Kent was great at running play by play over the weapons hiding, his own world class performance as it sounded like the best possible Lance Russell getting flummoxed by the weapon not being found. Heenan bites off more than he can chew and Irish whips Warrior into the ropes, and Warrior catches the hand holding the weapon as Heenan tries to tomahawk him with it. Great visual, all played the best.

And then we go into the portion of the match where Heenan is just taking painful bumps into every corner of the ring. Warrior flings him pillar to post, Heenan takes a painful shoulder to ringpost bump, takes those perfect Heenan corner bumps where he manages to hit three different parts of the ropes before he hits the mat. He gets flung upside down back first into one, flies up across the corners of another leading to Warrior elbowing him down so he can hit two more things on his way to the mat, all just totally unique movements to Heenan. Warrior locks on the sleeper, Heenan goes out like a light, and Warrior is more efficient at getting the weasel suit on this time. The highlight of this portion of the segment is Hayes cry laughing throughout, while handling the play by play portion of one man dressing another man in footie pajamas. "Warrior is so precise! Putting it on so properly! Yes, that's it Warrior, get his arm in there." It was glorious. This match is a match that any fan of pro wrestling should love and respect. There really aren't many better versions of this kind of thing.


Bobby Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior WWF 7/15/88

ER: This is merely an abridged version of the MSG match, so is redundant. Same format, same material, only rushed through and therefore not as satisfying. We get some minor differences, with the best being Heenan refusing to get in the ring to start (both our prior matches started with a Heenan ambush) and Warrior grabbing Heenan from the ring by both arms and pulls him right into the ringpost. Heenan ran from Warrior, in the ring, back out the other side, rubbing his chest and stretching his rotator cuff the whole time to sell his posting. Warrior surprises him again by hiding, lifts him up in a double choke and tosses him onto the apron, then bounces his head off several turnbuckles while the fans count. 

Heenan grabs a weapon out the front of his Andre singlet (though I think it would technically be a Heenan singlet, pretty sure he was wearing this when Andre was still in trunks) and runs through the same routine in the same order as the MSG match, but it's done far more hastily, his sleight of hand isn't as clean, and he just loses the weapon instead of Warrior catching him mid swing. It's not as satisfying, but it's still a ton of fun seeing him stab Warrior in the neck a few times. Heenan takes his gnarly upside down bump after getting whipped into the buckles, gets thrown across the ropes in the corner and elbowed down, all repeats from the MSG match, only half as many bumps. The sleeper finish is academic, only he puts up even less of a fight than in the other two matches (even Alfred notes that he's never seen someone succumb to a sleeper so quickly). If the MSG match did not exist, this one would be the one to seek out. But since the MSG match does exist, this is mostly superfluous. 


Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne AWA 8/17/80

ER: This is clipped but it's cool to see the origins of this match, see how Heenan works practically the same in his mid 30s as he does doing part time work in his mid 40s. Gagne is a great babyface, and this has a ton of Heenan clobbering him with a cast. A cast would have been a nice twist to the Heenan/Warrior matches, but then we wouldn't have gotten the hidden weapon routine. I really liked the false finish of the sleeper hold, as once Gagne locked it in my brain had already been conditioned to Heenan needing to be put to sleep for the finish to work, so when Heenan managed to shake Gagne loose I actually made a WHOA sound outloud, alone. The crowd was insanely loud throughout this, as it was clearly a stipulation the fans wanted to see. I don't actually know how these matches were presented to WWF crowds, if they were actually promoted as part of house shows, if their were market specific promos for them, or if they were just thrown out there with little notice. The fans were clearly into the WWF weasel suit matches, but the fans in St. Paul were reacting to this match like it was a bloody I Quit match. Heenan bumps big, flies around for Gagne's great babyface offense, bumps shoulder first into the ringpost, does one of those great Heenan bumps where he flies into the buckles and gets his legs and arms hung up in the ropes on his way down, all of it slays. I'd love to hear the conversations between Heenan and Vince, love to know how the idea of bringing the stipulation back even came up. I imagine there are some good stories there, and I love when Vince was still willing to bring regional stipulations to his brand.

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New Footage Friday: Pro Wrestling USA 4/19/85

Larry Sharpe vs. Bobby Duncum

MD: Ok, so the best thing about this match was when Sharpe took a really dumb bump from the corner, just a real tortured thing where there's no way the angle should have worked. He ended up on a table, maybe the timekeeper's maybe not, and the guy swears at Sharpe to get off his table. This is very audible. Then, post match, you can hear, off camera, Sharpe yelling at him "Maybe you can talk to other guys like this but.." Amazing.

The match was disjointed, but fine, I guess? There was supposed to be another Samoan (Samula?) in there maybe? The local radio guy introducing seemed confused. Both of these guys were heels. Duncum was a bit over the hill and past his prime but moved well enough. I did not love his neck jabs. Sharpe had some good flurries and stooged well, but was presented as a poor man's Buddy Rose, which was problematic in its own right. This went home right when it should have with a pretty neat bulldogging elbow drive by Duncum. Sharpe couldn't get out there to yell at the guy quickly enough.

Wild Samoans vs. Tom Zenk/Steve O

MD: This was a completely one-sided match. The crowd wanted to see the Samoans kill Zenk and Steve O and that's what happened. Zenk didn't show a ton but Steve O was a vet by this point and knew what he was there to do. He had a span of a minute or two towards the beginning where he busted his own elbow on a Samoan head, and then tried to slam their heads together, etc. Later on he bumped all over the place including huge on a back body drop. The Samoans really knew how to play the crowd, including a big set up for the Samoan drop. Steve O should have had a job for life, but by design, this wasn't much.

Kendo Nagasaki vs. Jim Duggan

MD: I'm not really sure what to make of this card so far. In a lot of the ones they've posted from this era, every match is competitive. We've seen three squashes so far, basically. Larry Sharpe is the guy who got the most offense in on a losing effort. Duggan's no selling of Nagasaki's stuff was fun, I guess? The whips were weirdly uncooperative. Dusty had been advertised in this spot (not sure where he was, but it wasn't Lenoir, NC with the rest of JCP) and I guess if you're going to sub him out for Duggan, you want to put the babyface over big? Another nothing match.

Baron Von Raschke vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: We've seen pretty good Baron matches and pretty good Garvin matches in the last month or two and this was neither. The best part was probably Precious' heatseeking. She was so good at riling people and getting pre-match heat just by putting herself in harm's way and daring the babyface to get her. It's a good act but I think it had limited shelf life. What killed this one dead was an extended chinlock/seated chinlock hold by Garvin. A guy like that, with that much heat, can definitely get away with an endless chinlock, but only if both wrestlers are working the thing. Here they weren't, so it didn't work either, especially in front of this crowd of jerks. That they still came back up for the comeback and finish is probably a testament to Garvin/Precious and the claw.

Freebirds vs. High Flyers/Tonga Kid

MD: This was a unique match up, at least. This was a pretty weird Pro Wrestling USA. Instead of JCP, you get the Samoans and the proto-Islanders and Backlund. It makes sense for the Meadowlands, I guess? This was the footage shown in Highlander, by the way, and you get a zooming camera over the top of the action sometimes. More on the overall camera work later.

This was a fun novelty, but I don't think ever really reached any level of greatness. Tonga was legitimately over and his initial exchange with Hayes, with them trading moonwalks, was memorable. Brunzell looked like a world-beater in the shine (thanks mainly to Gordy's basing). Maybe they went heel-in-peril a little bit long, but all the faces had to get a moment and the Freebirds were great stooges.

They had a little heat segment on Brunzell and a longer one on Gagne. The crowd wanted Tonga back in but that didn't 100% translate to getting behind Gagne. I thought camera angle from ringside sort of hurt this. Gagne already wrestles at odd angles, but now we were seeing things from odd angles as well. Usually that doesn't bug me but here it took me out of the match. It was the usual elaborate High Flyers build to a hot tag, but maybe they could have removed a wrinkle, even if Gordy's side slam and especially Budro's bulldog looked great. The crowd came unglued for Tonga but then the ref threw it all out a minute too early and it was a lot less satisfying than if he had just waited for the chairs to come in or if it was worked towards a twenty minute draw since that's exactly as long as it went anyway.

PAS: This had a bunch of fun moments, but never really came together as a great match. I really enjoyed Tonga Kid, he had some flash which as much as I like the High Flyers, they clearly lack.  His pop and lock response to Micheal Hayes's moonwalk was the highlight of the match. I think Gagne is a good wrestler, but he clearly didn't connect to a Jersey crowd which hadn't been following his family for years. I thought the Freebirds were cool, but this wasn't one of their most energetic performances, finish really was terrible, this match was too long to build to a lame cop-out like that.

Kamala vs. Sgt. Slaughter - Ugandan Death Match

MD: I enjoyed this a lot. The lack of rules really benefited Kamala. In a match where he could attack the throat and choke freely and there were no breaks, he legitimately seemed more dangerous and unleashed. I like how much he gave at the get go, really putting over how big a star Sarge was. Like always, when it was time for Sarge to sell and bump, he was great at it. His corner bump out was picture perfect, a thousand times better than Sharpe's in the first match. The hope spots worked with the crowd but were so slight, just a kick or a slam attempt, before he finally punched his way back and actually locked the Cobra Clutch on Kamala. The finish was pretty serious BS especially because it set up a Slaughter vs Billy Robinson match that we never got, though it did at least set up a Boot Camp Cage match that we might get eventually (I think that Meadowlands show has a new Martel vs Bockwinkel match plus Freebirds vs Duggan/Gagne/Hennig, so I hope we do get it). They barely used the actual death match rules. This probably would have been better suited as a Ugandan no holds barred match ending with a countout or some such. Slaughter killing everyone with the stretcher he was supposed to be taken out on was a great visual though.

PAS: It was fun to watch a pair of huge bumping big guys take big in ring bumps. Slaughter had great babyface timing and it was awesome to watch him fire back at Kamala. This was a match that was desperate for blood, a gore soaked Slaughter firing back and Kamala would have been really memorable. I am not sure Kamala's beating was big enough with out it. Man the AWA had terrible finishes though, you can see why the fans eventually soured on them.

Bob Backlund vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: This is definitely a Matt D match: wrestled title style with compelling matwork and chain wrestling to start, full of emotional selling (from Zbyszko who almost didn't stall enough to create the proper payoffs in the early going, but that was 100% on in every moment of the match), a good heel control segment (including a mini-King of the Mountain where Larry just crushed Backlund's head on the apron with a knee and well-worked, if not at all over, heel headlocks), and some callback spots in the comeback (both a revenge pile driver and face splitter/twister). It could have used some more compelling transitions, a babyface that the fans actually wanted to get behind (though most of the stuff Backlund actually did was spot on), and a finish which wasn't so damn AWA. It never wore out its welcome and it was a good Zbyzsko showcase. You watch this and you wonder, once again, at the idea that Backlund was WWWF champ for so long. Even when he's good, which is often, he comes off as such a goof. I will say this, no other combination in the world could have delivered an atomic drop quite as good as these two.

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Even More 80s Christmas AWA

Jerry Blackwell/Greg Gagne vs. King Kong Brody/Masked Superstar AWA 12/25/84

ER: More nice tag formula, although Gagne got kind of swallowed up by Brody. Gagne was FIP for most of this with Blackwell getting a big hot tag, but the money match-up throughout was Blackwell/Brody. There was one great moment where Brody was firing up big boots right to Blackwell's forehead, with Blackwell leaning into them and powering through them while the crowd went nuts. Brody played monster well, and AWA is probably the Brody era that I have seen the least, but I thought he was a great fit here. Blackwell is also a guy who is a great babyface (which is also not the role I've seen from most of my Blackwell viewing).

Earthquake Ferris vs. Brian Knobbs AWA 12/25/86

ER: Ferris was the football coach or wrestling coach or P.E. coach or some kind of sports coach at the high school my girlfriend from like 20 years ago went to, and every year he would run a wrestling benefit show for the school. The year I was dating her I went and saw Greg Valentine, saw Sabu, her parents sat through a pro wrestling show and had zero respect for me, it was fun. And guess what, this rules. Brian Knobbs is just a couple months into his career here, and looks like a spitting image of Bridget Everett. Ferris works a couple of really fast cool armdrags and drops Knobbs with a big body slam. Knobbs talks trash about how fat Ferris is. Ferris is more of a bump machine than I remember, especially loved this massive missed elbow drop. Knobbs had some of these weird and violent, almost World of Sport movements on some of his attacks. He drops a super quick knee on Earthquake's leg, and does these great slashing attacks to the arm, started wrenching the arm he was attacking around the ropes. He really brought a more violent attack than I was expecting. I might need to do a rookie year Brian Knobbs deep dive. Ferris shows nice spunk on his comeback, hitting this sky high avalanche, just throwing arms back and diving in with nothing but belly, way high up. Then he gets Knobbs up in an airplane spin (The Ferris Wheel!!!) which leads immediately to a quirky splash finish. This match was fun as hell. When you're grinning your ass off and loving the 1986 melted candle body fat boy wrestling, you tell 'em Eric sent you.

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New Footage Friday: Rock 'n' Rolls, Hennig, Gagne Long Riders, OMX, Tully, Magnum

Rock 'n' Roll Express vs. The Long Riders Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Really fun tag with the hoss Irwin brothers picking apart Robert while we get a fun show from Ricky on the apron, leading to an absolutely scorching Ricky hot tag. I like the Irwins. I don't know if they're actually good, but they read how I want a couple of bullies to read. They got big arms and big bellies and look like farm strong Moondogs, and they don't really need to do much more than that to make things work against a team like the Rock n Rolls. Ricky and Robert seem to work up to the Irwins (I mean literally, since the Irwins are big boys) and both tighten up their strikes so the size difference doesn't seem like a big deal. I was just tickled every time we could see Ricky on the apron, firing up the hot Meadowlands crowd (and really this had to be one of the first times the Rock n Rolls ever played in Jersey), throwing big punches from the apron, all leading to that hot tag. The hot tag even has my favorite Irwin moment of the match, as Ricky hits a cool crossbody on Bill and while pinning him, Scott just strolls over and kicks Ricky in the eye. Ricky looks so small compared to the Irwins but his power cannot be denied, he comes in and works absolute rings, throws these fantastic underdog fired up babyface punches, and wins with a cool slingshot sunset flip. Not an essential match, but delivered in the ways I wanted it to.

MD: On paper, I was really excited about this one. I got a kick out of early, early 80s (Dr.) Bill Irwin in Memphis footage, which was my first exposure to him, and I've always had a soft spot for the guy. If the Long Riders had teamed in the AWA a year or two before, I feel like they'd be much better remembered. This was just a cool, unique match up. It couldn't try to overshadow the Russians vs Roadies match that every single person in the crowd was there to see, or even the sheer heat (heel control might be a better term) of Slaughter vs Markoff/Zhukov that was higher on the card too, but it was still a really fun TV style match. Bill and Gibson had a really solid early exchange, one of the best I can remember having seen Gibson having actually. Scott was a really strong presence, using his size for the cutoffs. Really, both tag teams worked so well, the Express with their constant motion and quick tags, and the Riders just tearing at the Express like dogs with an axe to grind, taking every advantage. Gibson put on a strong performance as Face-in-Peril. The hot tag was hot. Morton was doing weird back bumps on his dropkicks. The finish was clever. It's really everything you'd want from a ten minute 1985 tag match. Good stuff.

PAS: I was totally into this. Rock and Rolls are my favorite tag team ever, and their legend has really been built against some signature opponents, so it is cool to see them work a new pair. I thought the Irwins were really good here, especially Scott Irwin who really came off as a violent force of nature, he had real explosiveness for such a big dude and landed everything with a thud. Morton was an awesome hot tag, he came in like an uncaged badger and really laid it in to the Long Riders. Really made me want to see a long feud between these two teams as they really meshed well.

ER: I actually didn't know that the Rock n Rolls are Phil's favorite tag team. The more you know.

Magnum TA vs. Tully Blanchard Pro Wrestling USA 12/29/85

ER: Like most of you, I'm a ranker. I don't know if I'm good at it, but every year I make ranked lists, favorite albums, favorite movies, favorite wrestling matches, favorite wrestlers, I like ranking. While watching a match - whether intentionally or not - I'll try to decide who I like most in a match, who's my favorite guy. It gives me a little framework for what I'm going to write about, and it's fun in a trios match as new guys capture my attention as a match goes on. And then you get something glorious like this and it is nearly impossible to pick a favorite, it's just 12 condensed minutes of the type of asskicking you watch professional wrestling to see. We get some hot as hell punch exchanges, and Magnum looked like an all time babyface superstar, like someone who was clearly going to be one of the biggest names in wrestling for the next decade. Tully knew exactly when to show ass and show his vicious side. He had a couple different very subtle weak leg moments, just absolute perfection, no stoogey Charleston wobbly knees, much more like when a fighter gets rung and you see a little buckle as they momentarily check out of our universe. He gets punched in the ropes by Magnum - short, violent, totally on point shots - and falls through the ropes onto the timekeeper's table, stands back up to the apron and gets rocked again, and uses the ropes to guide his butt down to the apron. 

Magnum's punches didn't really need much putting over in this match, but Tully did little things the entire match to make them pop even more. Both guys bleed, and we work a lot of this with minimal rope running. I think they really only used the ropes a few times, with TA springing off with a running punch, and later shooting Tully in for the belly to belly, so this felt more like a fight. Of course, both guys throwing fiery punches and elbows for 12 minutes *may* have helped with that fight feel. The pro wrestling integrated itself nicely, with Magnum hitting a gorgeous press slam and the ref wearing some Shinya Hashimoto flared pants, and there's officially just Too Much Good about this. I loved when Tully knocks Magnum to the floor a couple times (with simple, fast and hard bumps to the floor from Magnum) and when TA started crawling back in, Tully just scampered over on his knees and started firing short punches from the ring to TA on the floor. Tully was really great at scampering, really added to the pacing of his matches, and here it made him come off like a wounded yet still aggressive animal, shoving off to create space but always as a means to attack, not hide. The match wrapped up a little too neatly, which is really my only complaint, but I fully buy the belly to belly as a finish because moments before I fully bought a punch as a finish. The punches that happened all match long were great enough that I would have bought one of them merely falling over and getting pinned as the finish. Glory be to the Network.

MD: Keeping in mind this match's placement on the card and the fact it was going to have time limitations, if nothing else, the only thing that would have made this one even better was if Tully had worn an eyepatch. It was a hell of a house show sprint between these two, just turned up a couple of notches considering the occasion. This is only the second full match we've ever seen between the two of them and it delivered well enough to be considered the little cousin of the first. They went all out, beat the crap out of one another, each got revenge on one another, Tully, on the outside, for what Magnum had done to him at Starrcade and then Magnum, on the outside and inside both, for what Tully did to him here. With a definitive finish, this felt like a feud ender, a final bit of punctuation (an exclamation point) at the other end of the war.

PAS: What a present this match was. We have one singles match between these two, and it is arguably a top ten match of all time, so getting another bite at the apple is amazing. It appears that these two don't know any other gear then hellfire, as they lace into each other here with wild abandon. We get two sets of wild punch exchanging, and it as good as the best Lawler vs. Mantel or Dundee punch exchanges, wild swinging and landing. Magnum looks great here, dominating Tully, but leaving openings to take shots. Both guys bleed, both fight like their life depended on it. Great, great stuff and I was thrilled to get to watch it.

Original Midnight Express vs. Midnight Rockers AWA 12/25/87

MD: The 86-7 Midnight Rockers would probably be a lot easier to swallow if more of their matches were this heavily clipped. Michaels especially had a tendency of taking too much too early for far too long. The stuff that they did was often really good: elaborate, creative, hard-working and compelling (as was the case here with some complicated set up and payoff to specific spots with Condrey and Rose stooging like champs). There was just always too much of it. They gave the fans too much of it for free bleeding well past the point where the heels should have been making them pay for their insolence (to the point where they should have been bleeding). It all becomes noise after a while. Here, due to the clipping, it doesn't wear out its welcome. Without that bloat dragging it down, the shine is good and memorable, the heat's good and memorable, the comeback is spot on and the rush to the draw is fun. It's a shame we can't judge this one for what we got instead of what probably really happened.

PAS: It seems kind of crazy to have a southern tag go to a 30 minute draw. That is a match formula which is pretty foolproof, but caps out at about 21-22 minutes. I agree with Matt that the clipping might have been a blessing, we had some fun spots in the opening face control, I loved the spot where Marty blocked Shawn getting whipped into the corner with his body, only to have it backfire when Randy Rose tried it, and OMX were champion stooges. This match went more then ten minutes before any heel offense, and even the best stooges would have trouble filling that time. I liked the heel control section, both Rose and Condrey are pretty vicious, Condrey really ripped Michaels head off with a clothesline. Still when they got to the countdown, it felt kind of rushed, and they never really built to a compelling conclusion, it just kind of ended. I loved the Star as a spot in a tag match, but it should be part of the early face control stooge section not your compelling saved by the bell near fall. Match with fun parts that never really came together.

Greg Gagne vs. Curt Hennig AWA 12/25/87

MD: There is a time and a place where this match would be special, a lost match hinted and rumored at, where this would be the great find of the week. Unfortunately, it wasn't the AWA and it's not 1987. I do sort of love the atmosphere here. Larry the Ax being supportive of his son was well and good a few years earlier when Curt was an up and coming babyface. It's endlessly superior when he's the preening, cheating champ. Proud, heel dads are the best dads. The deal with the multiple refs, with Verne being tied to the Ax, with it being Christmas, with Greg having come so close for so long... all of this felt big and special. The wrestling itself was really good too, with each guy standing tall and hammering one another, and Hennig's bumps being ridiculous but adding to the total effect instead of distracting from it, and all of the limbwork giving this the gravitas and weight a title match deserved. It's just that it's the AWA and they can never get the big things right. By 87, Verne, who had been so good at eating up opponents in his home territory, couldn't even protect himself properly. He looked like a dottering fool as Larry cheated how he liked, punching the old man for getting in his way and breaking up the sleeper just like Verne hadn't been there at all. The post match was heated enough and this should have led to a geriatric mixed tag match (it led to a non-title cage match instead), but they definitely blew the landing on this one.

PAS: I thought this was tremendous, we don't have a ton of AWA Champion Hennig, but all I have seen is stellar, so much better then the Mr. Perfect run which he is best known for. Gagne was really fun, he looks like a schlub but is a pretty dynamic offensive wrestler and a good seller. The early exchanges almost looked like Tiger Mask stuff, with really big height on all the throws and really athletic counter wrestling. I loved Gagne hitting a big headscissors and crotching himself on the ropes on the second try, great set up for Hennig's leg work. Hennig takes a big bump of his own into the ringpost setting up Gagne's arm work. I would have liked to see a little more stealth in the finish, as a straight belt shot in front of the ref is a pretty unsastifying finish to a big title match. I thought the pull apart post match was pretty electric. Greg is bleeding, Verne is slinging the strap at both Curt and Larry, and Curt is breaking away from the wrestlers pulling him apart to wildly throw shots. Really should have sold out the next month with a tag or hair match or something.

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More 80s Christmas AWA! On Heenan! On Martel! On Blackwell and Gagne!

Rick Martel vs. Bobby Heenan AWA 12/25/82

ER: Network puts up new hunky Rick Martel, Rachel is going to be interested in seeing new hunky Rick Martel. Every time we see some early 80s Martel she just exclaims "He's such a good babyface!" This is, I believe, the only wrestler she has said this about. I don't even think she's seen much of The Model era, or how she would even handle heel Rick Martel. Oddly, I think she's seen the '91 Rumble, but Martel lasts so long that it's basically like a babyface Rumble performance, working against the odds. But it is undeniably true that Martel is a fantastic babyface, super expressive and knows how to make things feel like a big deal. Heenan here really comes off like a big deal. He's practically Fit Finlay in how well every single shot lands, and how nicely he takes every Martel shot. He even moves similarly to Fit. Heenan comes off like a total badass, just look how he kicks at Martel from the apron to keep him on the floor or throws winging double chops off Irish whips. Heenan was so good here that it's crazy to me he was only a part timer a couple years later.  Heenan blinds Martel early in the match and Martel is weirdly a guy who is really great at dramatically selling blindness. It's an odd thing to be good at but something everybody clearly knew or they wouldn't have had him still working it into matches a decade later. Martel is great on the defensive in this, but also great on offense. He fired back blindly against Heenan, tossing him with backdrops when Heenan would get close, firing back with great punches (that knock Heenan into the ropes Andre style), kicking at his legs in the ropes (nasty kicks to inner leg), and broke out a textbook sunset flip. The finish was awesome as Heenan gets dropkicked in the back and flies chest first into the middle turnbuckle, made the bump look real violent and worthy of a finish.

Rick Martel vs. Superstar Billy Graham AWA 12/25/83

ER: This was really fun, just a bunch of simple knucklelock exchanges and a nicely worked bearhug by Graham, which is more than enough to frame a nice babyface Martel performance. I like a good bearhug and post-WWF Superstar can still squeeze. I thought he was good at cutting off Martel, especially with a nicely timed throat thrust (a "tae kwon do chop") when Martel was starting to fire back. Maybe Graham's stuff wouldn't have looked as good without someone as expressive as Martel selling it, but the combo worked. Finish is at least a good bullshit finish, as Martel starts making strides and Graham just decides to launch him over the top to the floor for the DQ. Martel took the match finishing bump like a champ.

Jerry Blackwell/Ken Patera/Mr. Saito/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie vs. Greg Gagne/Jim Brunzell/Ray Stevens/Baron von Raschke AWA 12/25/83

ER: Hell yes, inject this kind of classic multi man action right between my toes. It's JIP 5 minutes but that still gives us 11 minutes of party. The heels all cut off Gagne from his boys, showing how effectively a simple formula can work 35 years later. The heels all took turns distracting the ref to keep Gagne from getting to hot tags and allow double teams, Saito sneaking in with leaping elbows off the middle rope, Patera coming in with a nice cut off shot while Blackwell is busying the good guys, Adnan sneaking in shots, Blackwell hitting a nice falling elbow and later missing a splash, all simple but effective stuff. The whole babyface side is excellent on the apron, keeping everything fired up, Stevens running in to try and do justice, Baron getting to goose step around to thunderous cheers on the hot tag, but Gagne again had an excellent babyface performance and even got to hit this ridiculous double stomp off the middle rope right off Blackwell's belly. This kind of match is like tasty popcorn in a movie, just can't stop eating it.

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New Footage Friday: Hogan, Bockwinkle, High Flyers, Blackwell, Hennig, Tito

The Network delivered a tidal wave of AWA this week, with a lot of new stuff, including a real gem.

High Flyers vs. Jerry Blackwell/Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie AWA 12/25/81

MD: This was basic and straightforward but just so well executed. Shine/Heat/Comeback/cheating heel finish. It's JIP so we lose some of the shine. If there was double heat on this, that'd probably where it would have been. It's hard to say. You get a complete picture here though. It's striking just how much stuff Gagne has a ton of stuff. If you need someone to control a heel's arm (even one as big as Blackwell), Greg's the guy to go with. Brunzell is more fiery than you'd think working the apron. The Flyers do feel like a big deal here, but that's not surprising. They always somehow do. All of this felt iconic, pure, distilled AWA.

PAS: Really solid main event tag team match. Blackwell and Adnan are a bruiser tag team, Kasie almost seems like too much of a bad ass to work as a heel manager. Blackwell has fists like hams, and a demolishing fat guy elbow. Greg was a great in this, I loved his wild punch combos to Blackwells body to make space for the hot tag, and he had some nice looking offense, including some nasty shots to the Shiek's knee. I totally buy a sneaky Blackwell splash ending anyone, that is a fat dude right there.

ER: I love Blackwell so much. He's the fattest version of Haley Joel Osment and is a guy I'll watch in anything. It feels like we've gotten a ton of fresh Blackwell in the past couple years, from Japan handhelds to stuff like this. And it's all great, I love how he moves, you get to see awesome elbowdrops and big fat guy bumps and painful avalanches and great missed splats on splashes, and after the match he lands an absolute curb stomp of a running stomp. Guy comes off like a total killer. Greg Gagne is a guy I like that really got a bum rap for years. He's a great babyface and always brings good determination, his blow up fired up punches are great and he's a good face in peril. I now get excited when new Greg Gagne footage shows up. Brunzell is a durable guy with a fantastic dropkick who can hang with bigger guys, and Adnan does amusing older guy heel stomps and reactions and backrakes. Plus we get some great regional folksiness on commentary, my favorite being "Greg Gagne just folded like a carpenter's rule." You picture James Stewart saying something like that in "Fools' Parade" and it sounds right. This is the kind of pro wrestling I like to watch.

Tito Santana/Hulk Hogan vs. Bobby Duncum/Ken Patera AWA 12/25/82

MD: There's a lot to really enjoy here. Hogan is an absolute bully, going out of his ways to poke Patera in the eyes when he doesn't have to, all of that. The fans love it. Santana works as rudo as I've ever seen him, faking the tags and cheating left and right. Tito Santana! Hogan's a bad influence. Patera really shines in this one. There's just real star power there. Everything he does has extra oomph and energy. It's patently ridiculous that this ends not in a double DQ but in Hogan getting DQ'd because he was getting in the way of the heels cheating. It might have been to set up Patera/Duncum as contenders but it just felt like punishing the fans for no reason.

PAS: Really fun to watch the two babyface icons of my early wrestling fandom team up. Hogan and Tito have barrels of charisma and I really enjoyed all of the babyface scheming early. Tito is a really good face in peril, and Hogan is an all time hot tag. Tito breaks out a Gibson leglock and takes a great semi flip bump on Duncum's lariat. I loved we got a couple of big Heenan bumps and didn't mind the double DQ as it had the kind of Katie Bar the Door finish you got a ton of in the 80s. This was a nostalgic match, so I dug the nostalgic finish.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Mad Dog Vachon AWA 12/25/83

MD: Just watch Bockwinkel rush in for the attack. Always a game plan. Always a purpose. Mad Dog wasn't going to do any topes in 1983, but his stuff looked nasty and credible. He'd bite your nose off if you weren't careful. Or, in this case, he'd fishhook your mouth and all but suplex you with it. Bockwinkel stooges and feeds and makes this feel like a right and proper main event for an end of the year show. This had a pretty goofy Dusty finish but the pop on Mad Dog getting the apparent win is huge. It's a testament both to the AWA crowds and to Bockwinkel that you could put almost anyone up and down the roster in there, from Brunzell to Rheinghans to the Baron to Robinson and the crowd completely believed that the title change could happen and that they might witness history.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, classic wrestling trope of over as fuck babyface taking out a sneaky heel champ. The Crusher is accompanying Vachon as a counter to Heenan, and has an unlit cigar in his mouth and another two in his pocket. Vachon tears Bockwinkle up, bumping him all over the ring, with Bockwinkle only getting brief moments of offense, when he can sneak in a cheap shot. Vachon really comes off as a vicious tough guy and Bockwinkle sells his ass off. The ending was super dumb as the ref just stops counting to DQ Bockwinkle before Heenan does anything. We do get some fun postmatch with Heenan taking a classic insane Heenan bump to the floor, but I can see why this kind of booking BS eventually doomed the fed.

Nick Bockwinkel vs. Curt Hennig AWA 12/25/84

MD: Nick Bockwinkel vs Curt Hennig is one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history. Maybe before I'd say it was one of the greatest feuds of the 80s. Before we didn't have this match. It slots in so perfectly and it's one of those things that I don't know how we, as wrestling fans, ever lived without.

This was during the period where Martel, not Bockwinkel, was champion, where Hennig was coming into his own as a singles mid-carder and occasional contender. Remember, just two years earlier he was reffing the Christmas show. It would still be a couple of years, and the tag run where he was to make Scott Hall a star, before they'd feud in earnest. This match was full of sparks that would ignite years later.

People praise Bockwinkel for a lot of things, for his promos, for his matwork, for his bumps, for his presentation as the perfect heel champion, and I love all of those things. What I love the most, however, is that he is always absolutely in the moment. He is entirely in to every moment, not as a performer hitting spots, but as a method actor who's completely dropped into what he's doing. It's the little things. There's a moment early on after he took over with an unclean lock up off the ropes where Hennig bumps out of the corner, selling. Bockwinkel does this tiny, enthused pump of his arm. It's the smallest thing but there's not another wrestler out of a hundred that would have chosen to show that emotion in that moment and it is absolutely everything when it comes to immersion. Bockwinkel believes. You believe.

This shifts to a great King of the Mountain and subsequent revenge from a fiery Hennig after that (the transition being wholly logical and warranted as Bockwinkel decided to play to the crowd and mime having the belt once more; everything always makes sense with Nick Bockwinkel). From here it's back and forth with Bockwinkel able to bully his way to advantages and Hennig selling the damage tremendously. Ultimately, after a second sunset flip hope spot (one that Bockwinkel struggled on much more than the first), Nick goes after the leg, locking in a string of figure-fours until the Hennig, toughing it out, somehow rolls him up for the pin and the win. Post-match, Bockwinkel is behind himself and beats Hennig to a pulp, coming back in again and again with no one able to stop him. You can't watch this and not think about what would happen two years later when a frustrated Hennig would turn heel on Bockwinkel. This was great on its own it's all part of an even greater whole and it's a whole that we've got an clearer picture of today.

PAS: Getting a new Bockwinkel vs. Hennig is like getting a new Santo vs. Casas or Dundee vs. Lawler, another chance to see a legendary match up, with all time greats who are always going to give something different. It was neat to see this version of the rivalry with Bockwinkle so dominant and Hennig still a young boy. Bockwinkle is so vicious and dismissive, tossing Hennig to the floor,  and really kicking the shit out of him when Hennig tries to get back in, it is the ultimate in dismissiveness. This kid doesn't even belong in the ring with me, and I refuse to treat him like an equal. It is what makes the reversal of fortune so satisfying, with Hennig constantly knocking Bock to the floor. The figure fours looked great, and I loved how Bock snapped after Hennig gets the sneak pin. Brutal onslaught, and Bockwinkle does really come off unhinged, like he can see all of his glory slipping away and was going to hold on tight with both hands.

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