Found Footage Friday: GIANT GONZALEZ SPEAKS~! LAWLER'S FANS SHRIEK~! HURACAN RAMIREZ RETREATS~!

Huracan Ramirez/Huracan Ramirez Jr./Kung Fu vs. Bestia Salvaje/Indomito/Killer Arena Naucalpan 1/10/88

MD: A farewell match for Huracan Ramirez and the oldest footage of Arena Naucalpan we have. We come in with a media discussion of Ramirez, but quickly get to the match. This is handcam and as blurry as can be but we can tell who everyone is (the hardest being between Ramirez and Ramirez, Jr. but there are clear differences to their bodies). 

And footage like this is a gift. Who knew that we'd ever get it, right? Yes, it's a little hard to watch but we're pros and it's worth it every time. The Ramirez' did well on early exchanges and then Kung Fu got to play into some very fun rudo communication including some scrambling and tripping that felt novel and interesting. Everything took a turn once Killer was able to get his hands on him, however, all the way to hitting a tombstone on the floor in the midst of the chaos.

That wasn't quite the match ender that you'd think it'd be but it let the rudos really take over. Ramirez got a big moment of shine here where he stood tall against all of them and did well for a while, but it was down to Kung Fu recovering and coming back in with nunchucks to turn things around. That was basically the end of the match but not the end of the beating as Indomito, bloody face contrasting with blonde hair, took an absolute thrashing from Ramirez around ringside. The match was thrown out or the rudos won by DQ but it hardly mattered as the crowd burst in the ring to celebrate with Ramirez. It's clear how much this mattered to them and to the wrestlers and shaky cam or no, it's a joy to get to be a fly on the wall to history like this. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Doink the Clown Pro Wrestling Shenandoah 3/19/94

MD: Indie match between Lawler and a Doink that the internet thinks is Steve Keirn and I believe it. We get maybe the first two thirds of this, as clearly the person filming was running out of tape from capturing the entire Damian Demento match that preceded it. But what we get is pretty great. All minimalist shtick in front of a crowd that was made up of kids happy to chant Burger King for twenty minutes. Basically the best crowd you could get for a thing like this.

When Lawler finally did engage, he got clowned (literally) again and again. He'd miss a punch in the corner and get tagged. He'd miss a punch, duck Doink's punch, miss another punch, and get tagged. The building, timing, and payoff were all wonderful. Exactly what you'd want. Eventually he started to play hide the object, never actually using it but hiding it over and over as the ref checked the hand then the singlet again and again. Finally, Doink got fed up, took the ring bell, and put it under his own singlet and it was a beautiful piece of pro wrestling hilarity I'd never seen before. The match cuts out shortly thereafter but that was well worth the YouTube click.

ER: 15 minutes of 90s indy wrestling Metal Machine Music in the form of shrill children tirelessly screaming maniacally at Jerry Lawler. Lawler doesn't land any offense for those 15 minutes. He takes one great back body drop, and takes two punches. It's what he fills in the spaces between those moments of impact with that draw enough heat to keep waves of high pitched ambient sound ricocheting off the walls of a packed to the rafters gymnasium. Shenandoah is a town with less than 5,000 people and it looked and sounded like every resident was there. Lawler could have worked this match with anyone - no offense to Keirn - such were his powers in 1994. I love the way he throws his over-confident missed punches. The two he throws to miss here are a comic book version of Lawler's normal punch style, reared back and thrown straight as an arrow to exaggerate his full body lunge when fist finds no face. I wish we could have watched 15 full minutes of him pretending to have a weapon. I wish we could have had 15 full minutes of him selling his balls after Doink pulled the middle rope into them. I wish we could have seen the Johnny Gunn/Damien DeMento semi-main that used up the rest of our cameraman's battery. The ending is lost forever, but Lawler made small town ears ring on a Saturday night, same as it ever was. 

Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage vs. Mr. Hughes/Giant Gonzalez WWF Dark Match 8/17/93

ER: I've wanted to see this match for so long. There were not actually that many Giant Gonzalez matches in WWF. 60 matches across 1993, 85% of them happening on house shows or TV taping dark matches. We've seen all of the other possible Giant Gonzalez combinations, of which there are far too few. He was mostly married to Undertaker and Randy Savage on house shows during his run, kept him away from most of the roster, offering no opportunities for him to break out of his comfort zone. I would have loved to see what Bret could have done with him in a singles match, hell in half a dozen singles matches. I'm confident we would have gotten Giant's best matches, until we get the Lawler match footage from USWA. But there's a roster of people I'd love to see interacting with him. Let's see what Tito could have done, or Mr. Perfect. Let's turn him on other heels so we can see freak show dreams like Gonzalez vs. Yokozuna. No, we got mostly Undertaker or Savage, meaning there weren't any unique one off matches that could potentially show up on handhelds. 

This match is the most unique of the 60 Giant Gonzalez WWF matches. It's one of his only tag matches, and it's an intriguing on paper pairing. I'm a big fan of Mr. Hughes and his 60-something match WWF run. He and Gonzalez are a cool team of freakshow giants, and while the match itself isn't some kind of hidden gem, there are moments featured that we don't see ever again and I always love that. The Mr. Hughes/Mr. Perfect sections are genuinely good. Perfect was on a strong run in '93 and I love the way his body reacted to Hughes. There's a Hughes back elbow and big boot that Perfect sets up and leans into so well, his bumping style more reactive than athletic, and it's one of the things that made his later work so good. Hughes was a real physical specimen that should have been a bigger deal. His size and look are awesome, and he takes an incredible Jerry Estrada style back body drop during Perfect's comeback, leaping his knees into Perfect's shoulder so he's several feet higher in the air when Perfect flips him. It's an impressive visual and you can probably count on one hand the men that size who could have done the same. 

But, while it's not a very adventurous offensive performance from Gonzalez - he limits himself exclusively to some of his worst overhand clubbing shots to the back - it gives us what is our only glimpse of something different. This match gives us Giant Gonzalez: Vocal Showboat, a completely different look at the largest man in wrestling. I've never seen him more vocal during a match. He trash talks the crowd, trash talks his opponent - both in the ring and actively from the apron - and he shows personality that was lacking in his TV footage. The camera catches him doing something so funny, and it more than anything makes me wonder what might have been, had they kept him around and used him as a tag partner of other monsters. The moment comes when he tags out, as he makes eye contact with a ringside fan. As he's walking to grab the tag rope, he waves a large hand down over his airbrushed ab muscles, smirk on his face like he's displaying his body for some taken girl, confidently showing off his muscles that are just as fake as his airbrushed pubes. It's such an amusing piece of heel comedy, something we otherwise didn't see him attempt. That's why I find these matches so valuable. All it takes is one quick gesture, otherwise unseen, giving us a glimpse of a different past.   

MD: I watched this before reading Eric's comments (usually I get places before he does so I can't cheat off of him but this time he got there first), and was thinking to myself that I was going to have to come down real hard on Gonzalez' offense. Real hard. You don't want to compare him to Andre but you do have to sort of compare a giant to a giant and late era Andre was immobile but he made every shot seem credible, while you got the sense Gonzalez, who was more mobile, was just afraid to hurt the people he was in the ring with. His kicks barely extended. His shots were just so so soft, and that's ok on some level, but there was no way to sell them as anything but. He didn't have any idea how to use his size to inspire imagination. Thankfully, the one shot that did look great was the one that counted, towards the end when he caught Perfect coming off the ropes while on the outside, which distracted the ref and allowed Savage to get his illegal shot in to set up the finish. That one looked quite good.

BUT that said, I am totally aligned with Eric on the idea that trash talking Gonzalez is something special. With no commentary, you heard everything, and he'd just bellow in from off screen and you'd more or less make it out, would make it out enough, and that guy was alive and feeling the moment. It made me think that he probably did have some pretty entertaining house show performances towards the end, especially if you shut your eyes.

Otherwise, the moments that stood out to me were right at the start, Hughes taking Harvey's hand in a sort of sensitive gesture of friendship as the match started. And the crowd going up for Perfect and chanting for him and Hennig letting it sink in and basking. Otherwise, he and Savage really got almost nothing, a couple of chops at the start. Even when Perfect went through the legs for a tag, Savage got swept right under almost instantly. Interesting match along those lines, one that really protected the heels even in a loss, but that still gave the fans that moment of basking at the beginning and moment of triumph at the end.

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Found Footage Friday: LOST LUCHA~! HIJO DEL SANTO~! BABE RICHARD~! KONNAN~! REY SR~!

Shogun/Faisan vs. Babe Richard/El Master Arena Coliseo 1984-1985

MD: It's rare that lucha this old pops up and I don't think we have a ton of Richard pre-reffing. Shogun is the Ramirez from the last few months.  Master was Richard's brother. They had a pretty good act as heatseeking rudos. Constant motion. Faisin did a spot early where he took one's hands up to the top rope and when the other rushed in, he faked a kick, then stepped on his head/shoulders, to bound off and armdrag the other. I'm not sure I've seen it done quite like that. Then Shogun came in and they played right into a bunch of rudo stooging. Once they took over (and got the primera with a foul), they were constant double teams and pulling feet in from the outside to be weapons. Just constant nuisances. The handheld nature of this meant we heard all the laughter as they were getting theirs and the heat when they were dishing it out. Comeback became quebradora city until Faisan took an errant palm strike and fell down, getting a foot up as he did to foul one of his opponents before the ref and draw the DQ. Very weird finish that I am glad is lost to time because no one seemed to like it.

Rey Misterio Sr./Arana Negra vs. "Huracan Ramirez Jr."/Konnan LA Early 90s

MD: A series of finds from the family of this Ramirez. Arana is going to be Misterioso and we come in with a rudo beatdown. He works the crowd well enough here. They all do more or less, and the crowd is very into Konnan (and Ramirez knew his job was to get them chanting along for him). It's fun to watch Misterio beat on him. Most of the Rey Sr. I've seen has him as a tecnico but it's always fun to watch him play rudo now and again. He was quite good at it. Konnan was quite good at making sure people's faces ended up in his crotch, including when Arana tried to do push ups. Rudos took back over with chairs (including a drop toe-hold onto them) and Konnan was good at looking like he was constantly trying to get back in it or fight back, even with a rudo ref. Finish had Misterio get a foul on Konnan behind the ref's back but he spent too long celebrating and got nailed himself with a Konnan foul. The fans seemed pretty happy about all of it at least. An interesting look at how certain instincts played out in front of a crowd like this and of a relatively svelte Misterio Sr.

Huracan Ramirez Jr./Hijo del Santo vs. Mosco de la Merced/Tornado Negro Anaheim Late 90s

MD: We get about ten minutes of action here and I'm not sure if it's just the primera or if it's the whole thing, but it is fun. This is parking lot tent lucha. Ramirez looked pretty good here, starting and then being part of the finish. I don't know if Tornado Negro was a natural enemy to him or what but they matched up well with armdrags and what not. The fans wanted to see Santo and so do we and he had a few minutes of playing the hits with Mosco, sweeping him out of the ring, doing the headstand headscissors, a headscissors takeover, the rowboat. It's all rousing stuff and the fans eat it up. Then Ramirez comes in for some rudo miscommunication stuff, including yanking the ref down, before he hit a power bomb out of the corner and Santo flew off the top with his headbutt and they brought it to a finish. We're not going to refuse seeing Santo we haven't seen before and the setting was nice but it was pretty lightweight stuff.

ER: My girlfriend and I are in Reno for a birthday weekend getaway, and we watched this in bed at like 1:30 AM after getting some of the best pizza (shout out Noble Pie Parlor). We had just talked about El Santo movies the day before when she saw a couple in one of my many dvd and blu ray stacks, and I had given her a brief history lesson and told her about the times I saw El Santo's son live, explaining that he is regarded by me and everyone else as one of the finest wrestlers in history. Lo and behold, the next day, new Hijo del Santo appears in the wild and here we are watching him. This is probably not the greatest intro someone could get to Hijo del Santo, but I loved her reactions and insight. Mainly, she wanted to know, that if he was such a big star, then why was he working this show under a tent outdoors without a very big crowd. I told her he was a major star who was still a man of the people, and as long as someone paid his rate he would play any venue and still put on a performance worthy of the Santo name. 

I have never seen him turn in a Less Than Santo performance, and in that way this was a good way to introduce someone to him. Because once Santo entered the ring, she understood his star power. She has been absorbing wrestling through osmosis, it being regularly on in my place, but she has never seen anyone who moves like Hijo del Santo. I told her that I hadn't either, and would recognize his motion anywhere. She was captivated by how light he was on his feet, his cross ankle headscissors, all of the things we are so familiar with, captivating yet another soul. We have all seen dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of Santo matches more essential than this one, but I don't know if there's a wrong place to jump into this man's career. Even in this venue, you can feel the star power and see what's special about him. I'd watch him work his magic with anyone, anywhere. 

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