Found Footage Friday: BREMEN '83

November, 1983 Bremen 

MD: We're a few months behind on the Germany stuff now and this is a Bremen November 83 tape that doesn't have some of the foreigner appeal as the 80 and 81 stuff, but that makes it almost all the more important to dig in and see what we get.

Indio Guajaro vs. Steve Paersey

MD: Paersey is Stephan Petipas (a Maritimes star). Guajaro could be a great stooge when he wanted to be. The first round is all him getting one-upped. He'd get thrown and then when he threw Paersey, he'd do a cartwheel. He'd get a top wristlock only to have Paersey take him over with a headscissors. He'd try for a monkey flip but Paersey would land on his feet and do one to him. The crowd was happy for all of it. Second round had Guajaro trying cheapshots or pulling the hair only for Paersey to get the better of him, including a recoil shot off the ropes, some big uppercuts, and stepping on his hair. Third round had Paersey hit a headbutt and take over with some mean stuff. Paesery came back and hit a back body drop and won it on that. This was a crowd pleaser that didn't outlive its welcome.

Wolfgang Saturski vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I mostly know Wallas from some mid 80s tours, but we do have other Europe footage of him. He was the heel here. This was chippy early with Wallas having an advantage (maybe not entirely clean) until Saturski dropkicked him out and did a Rick Rude like taunt (pre-dating Rude, of course). He ended the round with an endless full nelson slamming his head into the corner again and again. He took over in the second with a cheapshot in the ropes and controlled with bulldog like chokes and then ultimately a nervehold, slipping the choke back on anytime that Saturski tried to fire back, using the ropes when needed. Saturski had a big comeback culminating with him doing a catapult back off the ropes onto his knees and things sort of just petered out with Wallas deciding he was done and Saturski being declared the winner. They had the crowd but this ended up being a lot of the same with a few good moments.

Steve Casey vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: We come in JIP here. This is face vs face and they play into a lot of comedy bits where they roll around on pins or both pin each other and a very fun one where they do mares, hang on, roll around, and roll up the ref who was able to leap over them once but not twice. Good imaginative technical stuff all around. Casey hit a headbutt to the gut. Morgan hit his recoil headbutt in response. Casey won it with the arm drag slam out of nowhere after a few rounds of the back and forth. This was a fun one even if it never boiled over.  

Steve Paersey vs. Tony St. Clair

MD: Another gentleman's contest. Clean breaks and holding the ropes open. Cute exchanges early with cartwheels and rolls and placing the opponent to the apron either by lifting them or throwing one's own body. They moved into grittier stuff from there, with St. Clair controlling on the arm. That didn't mean we wouldn't still get the occasional cartwheel as he got out of the way to take back over a hold though. Overall, a lot of hanging on through attempts to escape like body slams, though Paersey finally got free with one to work the leg. St. Clair had a way of doing these sort of nonchalant nothing escapes where he just jammed a slam or popped out of a hold and it almost always got a laugh. Speaking of those, at one point, Paersey went for a roll up and St. Clair went right into lady of the lake position and got rolled around. Anyway, the tape cuts out right before a finish. This was fun overall but a little long, maybe wearing out its welcome just a tad. 

Dave Morgan vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: More of the same. Paersey had a spot he did where he tried to legdrop the arm and missed. He did it in the last match too. Fans seemed to like it. Second round (presuming we came in during the first) picked up the pace a bit. Morgan's recoil headbutt really is a cool spot because it's heatseeking. He won't just do it the same way every time but he'll go halfway across or around the ring to find you, hitting from all sorts of angles. He also had this sort of sweeping kickstand type kick I've never seen anyone else do where he brings the foot up and then back. Paersey just dropkicked him in the face for his trouble. Then Morgan returned favor with this really cool bit where he did the drop down and loop in like he was going to go into a cross legged headscissors and do a handstand but he just whacked him in the shoulders with his feet. Paersey somehow won this one with an atomic drop after all of that. This had sort of a WoS feel of course, but it was all a little looser, more of a house show, which makes total sense.

Mal Kirk vs. Rene Lasartesse 

MD: When I saw the card, this was definitely the weirdest looking match. What weird body types, Kirk lumpy and Lasartesse a skeletal figure, tall and looming. Kirk is the babyface and this is, of course, clipped to incoherence. A shame. We get a Kirk comeback which leads to Lastartesse escaping. A lot of action between rounds as music was playing which gave things a violent Benny Hill feel. Lasartesse takes some liberties on the outside and Kirk comes back in with a chair and clocks the ref with it and that's basically that. If we had more of this I bet it would have been interesting.

Steve Paersey vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I almost wish we could get this to Pettipas' family. He's all over this footage. And he's good. He really is. This was a draw. Wallas worked heel. He had a lot of stuff. A back brain kick, a neckbreaker, lots of chokeholds/chinlocks, a low blow down the stretch while he was being pinned and the ref was looking at the count, which you never see, and plenty of shots in the ropes. Paersay took it all well, had a great bump in the corner where he took a headstand on the top of the turnbuckle pad, mean comeback shots, and a good ebb and flow of working out of things and getting the crowd behind him. For all the matches to go long, this was a good choice. They had armwork and legwork that didn't really go anywhere but it was more about immediate comeuppance for Wallas than anything else.

Mike Shaw/Col. Brody/Wolfgang Saturski vs. Barry(?) Douglas/Tony St. Clair/Dave Morgan

MD: I'm not convinced all these names are accurate. This was fairly clipped too but it was novel for being a six man and for having Mike Shaw, who was already 26 or so. He was spry, had a decent sense of what to give and what to, and could taunt and work the crowd. This was chaotic and crowd pleasing for the most part. There was a fun bit early where the babyfaces traded off neckbreaker style holds one after the other. Brody got the biggest laughs/pops when he missed charges, first into the corner and later at someone who was tied up in the ropes. The babyfaces were constantly ending up beat down in the heels corner but then their partners would come in to toss the heels over the top. It was that sort of match but it cuts off before we get a finish.

Jon Harris vs. Wolfgang Saturski 

MD: This stuff is so stylized. Big sweeping, swooping folk hero wrestling. Just so over the top and bombastic with the shots. Everything is a big clubbing shot. Harris had an underhand sort of punch I've never seen before. It almost felt like the stooges deal where you hit the top of the hand and it goes all the way around to whack someone. They looked painful at times but not in conventional ways, but you just rolled with the fantasy. The crowd sure did. Harris got a few licks in but mostly he got his comeuppance again and again to everyone's delight. He'd get stuck in the ropes and charged at, catapulted back onto the knee, etc. Toward the end, after a round break, Saturski actually did the Franz Van Buyten bit where he launches himself across the ring to leap into a tencount position and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else do that. Anyway, this is one of those matches I'm going to try to force Eric to write about because he can do it more justice than I can. You wouldn't want to spend all the time with a match like this but it's fun to visit now and again.

Col. Brody vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: Brody looked very good here. The chain wrestling as they fought over arm advantages was excellent. Eventually it got more stoogy and Brody got comeuppance, but everything before that was slick. And Brody was quite the stooge (at least in 83) too, going over the top three or four times and the crowd loving it each time. He'd take liberties with a hairpull or cheapshot but the rounds nature of this meant that he never had advantage for long, even if they did get chippy between rounds once or twice. Things built to a big airplane spin which Paersey got the worst of (despite doing it) and everything spilling to the outside for some brawling and a slam as the tape cuts off. Nothing groundbreaking here but a very high level of craft and skill.

Dimitar Dimitrov vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: Excellent technical babyface match. These two were really going at it on the mat. I'd say this stuff would have stood up well to some of what we got from UWF the next year. Gritty, full of struggle, lots of clever technique and escapes. At one point Dimitrov put on a cloverleaf so quickly and from such an askew angle that you blink and you'd miss it. The roll up exchanges they did were really good because they were so deep. It didn't feel collaborative like almost every other roll up exchange I've ever seen. But they were also playful with the way they'd shoot an arm out to get out of a pin.Morgan showed a very different skill set than some of the other matches on the tape, even the clean babyface ones.They traded some great suplexes too including Morgan taking him over with a German that was hugely uncooperative and Dimitriv doing maybe the earliest fisherman's suplex I've seen? Finish had the first real rope running of the match and Dimitrov caught Morgan doing a leapfrog taking out the knee mid-air. He couldn't beat the count and that was that. There have been a ton of great spots and exchanges on this tape but you go so deep into these to find a match like this that no one would probably find otherwise. I did some digging and Dimitrov was "Don Kolov" who might have even trained Santino Marella? Anyway, I think this was a find.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Wolfgang Saturski

MD: Lasartesse is amazing. He's one of the only wrestlers in history that can get real true heat just by... walking slowly around the ring. And he has this sort of dispassionate passion. Saturski started the match by rushing over and clapping his ears and he was shocked but then decided to just ignore it, as if it was beneath him and it is its own form of selling. Then he did a bit where he hammerlocked Saturski and punched him in the gut and then pretended his own gut was hurt. That happened twice and then finally Saturski nailed him in the gut and pretended his was hurt and the fans loved it. 

Lasartesse has fascinating offense too. He uses every part of his body, slaps, punches to the gut, knees, kicks, stomps, chokes, but it all seems credible but also outlandish, like getting hit by a skeleton. His slap makes a huge noise. It's hugely credible as he's slamming Saturski's head into the turnbuckle connector over and over. Everything builds to him lurking behind Saturski in the corner waiting for the ref to leg him get his hands on him, lurking and lurking, a looming specter of death. Then Saturski gets him with the most obvious mule kick in the world in the groin and starts choking him with something (maybe the tag rope?) and the place goes nuts for it. Then he takes Lasartesse outside and starts hammering him (really hammering him) with the ring bell and it's quite the sight overall. Saturski apologizes his way back into the match but Lasartesse is able to take the advantage and tombstone him for the 10 count KO and boos.

Brody/Wallas/Guajaro vs. Gaetano/St. Clair/Rocco?

MD: We get a decent amount of this. It wasn't listed on the tape. We get to see all of the babyfaces play face-in-peril including Rocco which is just weird. Brody and Guajaro are experts at swiping at people from the outside which is something I think should happen more in six-man matches. Gaetano is a very interesting wrestler too as he has a lot of stylized flourishes but they're all a half step slow and sweeping and nothing is as tight as you'd want. But they're crowd pleasers. They did the bit where St. Clair grabbed Brody's mustache and Gaetano went off the top to whack it. Then he followed it up by making a hand-talking-yap-yap-yap motion to the ref when he complained which got a big laugh.The footage cuts after Wallas gets a cheapshot on St. Clair and then clocks him. Anyway, babyface Rocco is just strange (big corner bump and some nice missile dropkicks from him and St. Clair here, but strange).

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Found Footage Friday: CATCH HAMBURG 93~! ECKSTEIN~! SCHMIDT~! GUAJARO~! BUCHHOLZ~! BRASIL~!

Catch Hamburg 05/08/93

Christian Eckstein vs. Klaus Schmidt

MD: This was a rookie match, worked fairly simply and straightforward. That said, it's always interesting to see what this looks like vs NJPW or AJPW or even the one or two we seemed to have with France. This had a lot of side headlocks but plenty of takeovers, especially from Eckstein. I was a little surprised by how much they kept it moving in that regard, sometimes with spots, both rote and moderately clever, but just with one headlock takeover or armdrag after the next. Schmidt worked pretty tight on his holds. I'm not sure just how long he'd been wrestling (for Eckstein it was probably around 9 months and he was trained by Tony St. Clair if you trust cagematch) but he looked pretty confident in there. This was rounds system and they wrestled it with purpose but also gentlemanly with it eventually escalating to a series of reversals and a backslide from Schmidt for the win.

Indio Guajaro vs. Marcus Buchholz

MD: We've covered a couple of Van Buyten vs Guajaro matches from back in the 80s so he's not entirely new to me. Here he was older, and reminded me a lot of a heel Snuka actually. He was confident, brutal, and didn't do a whole lot, just holding the center of the ring and more often than not, an armbar, and letting Buchholz try to work his way out, cutting him off with a hairpull or a quick whip of the arm again and again. Buchholz was ok working from underneath, constantly selling, constantly trying, having a lot of different ways to try to get out, especially because Guajaro wasn't having it with some things that you'd expect to maybe even work. This wasn't the sort of build we had from decades prior France where they'd build and build to an escape attempt, have that fail, and then start to build to the next. It was more one and done before switching to something that might work, but that fit the time and place well enough. Just when Buchholz finally started to mount a dropkick-laden comeback Guajaro shoved the ref and drew the red card, so it was a lot of build and very little payoff.

Battle Royal (Christian Eckstein/Karsten Kretschmer/Indio Guajaro/Rolo Brasil/Klaus Schmidt/Marus Buchholz)

MD: Sometimes what's interesting in lost footage like this is to just see the regional differences to familiar things. When I think of Battle Royals, I don't think of Hamburg, after all. This was Royal Rumble format and is somewhat clipped but you get the overall sense of it. Because they start with just a couple of wrestlers, they're able to work spots early on until you end up with three or four people in there. It ends with a temporary alliance between Brasil (who we do have some other footage of but I don't think I've ever seen) and Guajaro against Buchholz. until an errant shot ends that. Brasil vs Guajaro would have probably been a fun heel vs heel match but we just get a little glimpse here. This was more educational for what was going on in Hamburg at the time than anything else, but since this popped up, maybe more will as well.

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New Footage Friday: VAN BUYTEN! GUJARADO! MORGAN! LOGAN!

Dave Morgan vs. Steve Logan Hamburg 1984

SR: Dave Morgan was a British worker who travelled the work and made a name for himself everywhere except Britain. I‘ve always enjoyed the little scraps and bits I‘ve seen of him, as he has that kind of subtle charisma of a rugged technician, like Osamu Kido or Shunji Kosugi. He won‘t do any of the fancier dancy bits of British wrestling, instead he‘ll throw a side suplex that looks like it requires zero cooperation and earn himself the respect of any audience he was working for without any theatrics. This was a clean match. I think Steve Logan was some young boy just starting out and making his way working the German tournaments and getting the rub by going long with a veteran here. The grappling here won‘t blow you away if you‘ve seen a lot of Euro stuff but there were some beautiful arm lock takeovers and suplexes especially from Morgan.

MD: I'd call this an excellent Morgan showcase. I don't get the sense we have a ton of matches of his but if we were trying to judge him for a Greatest Ever list, this is the sort of match we'd use to check off "carrying an able young wrestler to a multi-round draw." It was pretty clear he was directing traffic in there but he also managed to show a lot of depth and variety in what he did. The first half contained simplified versions of some of the catch holds/exchange we've been seeing lately, hanging on to an arm through multiple escape attempts, including the up and over headscissors and a second attempt at such being jammed. Logan, working from underneath, put a lot of struggle and effort into everything he attempted. There were a number of quick pin attempts and reversals here and the crowd was appreciative of everything. The match turned somewhat midway when Logan fooled Morgan on a series of cravates into a snap mare by slapping him on the shoulder. Morgan responded by this amazing stepthrough wind-up back kick to the ribs and turned up the brutalization. He had a few good suplexes and throws: a floatover, a butterfly, and a fall-away slam. He was able to flawlessly segue into some subtle comedy, getting caught up in the ropes or missing leg dives, and then into one big bump over the top off a dropkick for Logan's last flourish, before taking back over with a frustrated last attempt to put the youngster away before the time ran out. The crowd was up for everything and seemed very appreciative of the draw. Logan showed promise but this was Morgan's match.

PAS: Logan had a nice leapfrog, but as Matt and Sebastian said this was a Morgan showcase. He wasn't breaking out the super fancy mat wrestling, but everything he did looked tight and meaningful. I loved his big takedowns, really put his hips into the throws. It didn't really build to a big finish, but it was a fun chance to see what Morgan delivered.


Franz Van Buyten vs. Indio Guajaro Hamburg 1984

SR: 1980s Hamburg was a charming territory. Since we are probably going to review a lot of Hamburg stuff, I‘m going to have to state some disclaimers – not all German wrestling in the 1980s and before was run by CWA. In fact, CWA didn‘t even exist properly at this point. Hamburg was promoted by a guy named Sven Hansen and Rene Lasartesse, and it has a vibe that is slightly sleazier and raunchier than the stuff from Bremen, Hannover and Austria. Supposedly, the tent that they were running these shows in was really old and gritty, and a sizable chunk of the audience were pimps and their associates, not just from Hamburg. The crowds were pretty rowdy too, basically always yelling things like „Bash his face in!“ or „Rip off his balls!“. This was the kind of formula match that got these crowds really going, every single time. The face is the superior wrestler, the heel cheats a bit, and through lots of foul tactics it builds to a segment where the face is finally able to blow the bad guy away. Guajaro is a solid enough Colombian rudo, spitting at the audience, yelling Spanish into the mic, beating his chest and saying „I am the best!“ in German. Van Buyten must have had this exact match 500 times, but he is too brilliant to scorn him. Both guys were pretty lively here and there were some movements like rope running and leapfrogs that they didn‘t do later. The match had a good pace and an interesting finish were Franz took a big bump to the outside then Guajaro earned himself a DQ for bodyslamming van Buyten outside. Franz, of course, wants to continue fighting and we get Rene Lasartesse coming in wearing a sweater and throwing the Piratenkampf bracelets and chain into the ring and I‘ll bet the place was filled up for when Van Buyten accepted that challenge.

PAS: I enjoyed the griminess of this brawl. It started deliberately, but really picked up, with Guajardo landing hard forearms to Van Buyten's back, he really moved him with each shot. Van Buyten fired back by hitting these really cool diving bodypresses into Guajaro while Guajaro was tied in the ropes. Eventually they just spill into the crowd and wail on each other on the floor. Guajaro doesn't seem like a hidden great worker or anything, but he looks cool and brings some energy to a brawl like this. Did its job to get me excited about the Piratekamf.

MD: The more Van Buyten I see, the more I wonder if he isn't one of the greatest sellers ever. Guajaro was there to use his strength and ferocity, to take advantages and stomp and clubber, to refuse to break clean and maul Van Buyten on the outside. In the first third, Van Buyten would seize an advantage with flash and style. The middle was launched by Guajaro hitting a cheapshot double-thrust on a rope break and knocking Van Buyten over the top, following up with a slam into the post and a series of shots to the back and rib. The comeback was triumphant as usual, with Van Buyten playing chicken with the ref to dive at Guajaro before everything broke down and cards were bandied about. Guajaro didn't have to do a lot here, just be a looming dangerous presence and let Van Buyten do his thing from underneath. That was probably a good thing, but the final effect was a fun match in front of a game crowd.


Franz Van Buyten vs. Indio Guajaro Hamburg 1986

SR: We didn‘t get a new 1984 Piratenkampf, but I guess we can pretend the previous match set up this exact match. This is a match stip where even unspectacular workers like Dave Taylor or Frank Merckx can produce something pretty great. Unfortunately, that didn‘t quite happen with Guajaro here. Guajaro is a guy who is more suited for energetic, heat mongering affairs. Unfortunately, he didn‘t know to do much with this stip besides choking Franz a lot. The chokes looked nasty especially those where he dragged the chain across the mouth, but it needed a bit more inventiveness that Guajaro doesn‘t quite show here. There was some cool chain grappling early on built around gnarly endurance spots, and we DO get a great van Buyten comeback where he locks in a nasty chain choke himself before booting Guajaro in the face a bunch, even hitting a chain clad dropkick. The crowd wasn‘t into the choke-heavy body of the match but they got into it big time as they do when the fight for the flag started. Guajaro didn‘t do much in this section either so van Buyten just kind of bags the win. Still, it gets the full Piratenkampf point.

PAS: These Hamburg Piratekamf's have a specific rhythm to them, a filthy violent grinding rythm and this delivered that. Guajaro was dominant early, rubbing the chain into Van Buyten's mouth using it to pull his throat into the bottom rope, slowly torturing him. We had some great moments of leverage with Van Buyten tensing and pulling as hard as he could to keep Guajaro from the flag, and then an awesome Van Buyten comeback, with big hard shots from the wrist brace and chain and a great dropkick. Van Buyten is a really great comeback wrestler, works well with the crowd, times his spots well. He is up there with Colon and Dusty and Lawler in that 80s comeback babyface. I wanted maybe one more big exchange before Van Buyten got the flag, but otherwise this was great, and I am really happy we get to watch a bunch more of these types of unique cool matches.

MD: From my limited experience, there are different sorts of piratenkampf matches. For instance, there are the ones where the wrestlers are constantly going for the flag and then there are the ones with a lot of punishment and a big comeback. This was much more of the latter, which, on principle, I prefer. Ultimately, this was very similar to their other singles match, just enhanced by the chain. It had a lot of similar beats, with Van Buyten out-finessing Guajaro early on, getting leaned upon for the middle section, and then mounting a bit fiery comeback. I think, ultimately, the chain helped. It meant less motion but often times more viciousness. It meant that the hope spots were primarily Van Buyten pulling Guajaro off the pole, generally losing his own balance in the process so he couldn't capitalize. The comeback was a barrage of forearms by Van Buyten that were almost better than whatever he could have done with the chain and the crowd was absolutely up for it. Guajaro was much more inclined to choke with the chain than strike with it, which made for solid visuals given Van Buyten's selling, but no color of note. The finish could have used maybe a bit more oomph but again, the fans were wholly into it whenever anyone even got close to winning.

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