Found Footage Friday: ALOHA MR. LAWLER~! RICKARD~! ST. CLAIR~! THOMPSON~! PESAK~! VON SCHACHT~!

Jack Pesek vs. Fritz/Friedrich von Schacht Chicago 6/27/52

MD: This goes about twenty before Von Schacht gets himself disqualified for not breaking a hold and continuing to pepper Pesak's elbow with knees. They alternated between solid slugfests and maybe less than dynamic (for the point of the match) holds in the back third but the first two thirds was full of rousing stuff. Von Schacht was an early adopter of the bald, evil German gimmick and he was full of a wild physical charisma. A lot of the early parts of the match was Pesak tossing him out and von Schacht had a great way of landing in the least comfortable looking ways caught up in the rope often head over heels or in a ungainly heap.

He was able to get revenge and discus throw Pesek out once, but primarily he took back over with inside shots, hairpulls, and a dogged sort of aggression. More often than not, Pesek was able to outdo him on the mat though. We do have a few more von Schacht matches and I should double back for those too as he was pretty entertaining here. Some of the slugging towards the end reminded me of when things boiled over in 50s French matches, though it all sort of ended anticlimactically instead. 

Tony St. Clair vs. Clay Thompson Joint Promotions 8/19/67

MD: Occasionally, a member of the community goes above and beyond. Here, fxnj purchased an old film reel off an auction site, had it sent, converted, and then posted it. What we have now is the very likely the oldest full British match online (according to John Lister at least) and a look at what a catchweight match from 1967 looked like, as well as a rare look at Clay Thompson.

Yes, St. Clair, very young and known here primarily as the younger brother of Roy, spent the entire match with his mouth gaping wide open, but all in all, this was good pro wrestling, very good wrestling as sport in the British style. St. Clair had the weight (class) advantage, and used that to press forward for much of the match but Thompson had a clear skill and experience advantage and was able to use that to escape every hold. As evidenced by the finish, there was always a sense that Thompson was just one move away from victory and St. Clair, while being the aggressor, was really just trying to hang on.

This never boiled over, never even came close, though it was grittier on the back half, but there were so many little tricks and escapes by Thompson, and even some holds like an inverted short arm scissors that felt unique or rare. He'd escape again and again and St. Clair would just barely hold on to a wristlock. St. Clair was agile, cartwheeling here and there at times. That made the finish, where he succumbed to a figure-four and came into the next round limping heavily, all the more striking. I could watch a hundred matches like this and they're probably in a vault somewhere in England, gated behind an expensive and elite process. But at least they may exist, right?

Jerry Lawler vs. Steve Rickard Polynesian Pro Wrestling 8/9/86

MD: I'd heard about this match but never watched it before (more Found than New), as best as I can tell. Rickard was well into his 50s at this point. He's the father of New Zealand pro wrestling and created the On the Mat show. We have some episodes of that in the early 80s and I just never got around to checking them out. I'm not sure anyone in our circles really have. Should probably do that some day.

This was pretty straightforward. Lawler had a blonde valet with him for the trip to Hawaii. They cut midway through to Pedicino and some weightlifters. Rickard's age was noted and they talked about his Commonwealth title on commentary. They kept it on the mat for the first half, with a lot of Lawler complaining and Rickard showing him up on holds. Simple, effective stuff. The back half was full of punches, with Rickard meeting Lawler halfway with some pretty good ones, especially uppercuts. Lawler eventually crotched him and got DQed. Probably more on the FUN side of things, given the pace and the attraction feel but I'm not going to say no to a 80s Lawler match against a unique opponent that's new to me.

ER: It's been 40 years and we're still uncovering more evidence of Jerry Lawler being the greatest wrestler in history at working around any opponent's limitations. Jerry Lawler gets great matches out of green giants, TV comics, high school defensive coordinators, fundraising pediatrcicians, diabetic African savages, and various regional elderly men. Lawler is the best possible choice of wrestler to work Aloha Stadium against the biggest star of the Polynesia and presumably Micronesia territory, now in his mid-50s, and get the best match out of him. I enjoyed old Steve Rickard, thought he knew exactly where to place his two best punches and had an armbar takedown that looked like he was trying to post Lawler's arm, but this was just another Lawler masterclass in knowing the exact right match to work for an audience he had barely worked before. 

The video quality is such that it is easier to hear everything Lawler is saying than it is to hear almost anything commentary is saying. Sometimes I have no idea how Matt is able to pick up on certain things commentary is discussing - especially in old lucha - but it also makes me wonder how much the last 25 years of WWE television has made me consciously tune out most commentary. Anyway, this is the kind of super vocal Lawler performance that he usually reserved for much smaller crowds, not a stadium show. I don't know if I've heard Lawler be this vocal during a match, working a Best Possible Barry Darsow match against a territory star who couldn't hack it on the mainland. 

What takes it to the next level is the three minute run to the abrupt DQ finish, after Lawler has made it look like he was going to work a full match of satisfying stooging and loud hair pull complaints and subtle being the back cheating, before pulling out a run of four different ways of landing increasingly damaging punches. Lawler is out here looking like Smug Asshole #1 in his ugly fucking ketchup and mustard tights, the arguable worse color combo of his entire career, worse than any of the 1992 splatter paint tights which actually are great. He's a goof with a dumb goatee and ugly tights who suddenly lands the best punches on the 27 match show, before getting clocked with a Rickard punch that may as well have been him punching Lawler in the side of the head as hard as he could. 

I am consistently blown away by Lawler's innate timing and the way he sells offense as if he knows exactly how his opponent is going to throw it. His bumps and the way he sells every single strike always looks like he knows exactly how devastating or light the move looks. I have no idea how he is able to remove himself for the situation and understand that a shoulderblock landed soft enough that he shouldn't do a flip over bump but instead bump to his tailbone. You can't plan ahead for a Jim Powers punch to land, so how the hell is he able to anticipate how each individual punch is going to look? It's an incredible strength that I think only Stan Hansen, Finlay, Tenryu, and Yuki Ishikawa possess on the same level. 

I can't see Lawler ever dropping outside of my three favorite wrestlers ever, because we are still getting matches from my entire lifetime ago that add to his legacy. Nobody has gotten wrestling in the specific way that Jerry Lawler got wrestling. 

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New Footage Friday: Dog Fight, Sputnik, Fujiwara, Fuchi

Sputnik Monroe vs. Jack Pesek 3/3/66

MD: We have almost no Monroe. He's gained prominence in the last few years as a trailblazing figure and someone who cares so much about primary sources in wrestling (and what's more primary than footage?), I've badly wanted to see it. This is the guy who got over with the black audience in the balcony because he was so tough and mean a heel, who then started to call to them, to break laws to associate with them, and that just became more of a heel with the white crowd in the process. Was it genuine? Was it cynical? You're not going to get any answers here. That was in the 50s. Here we are in the 60s, in Florida, and Monroe comes off not as some sort of tough as nails grump (despite young Solie putting him over as such) but intead an over the top Jackie Gleason sort. This is all about his facial expressions. Pesar's fine and this is straightforward as it comes, technical babyface dealing with cheating heel, but there's something transcendent about Monroe's mug, some Jack Klugman appeal that makes you want to look at every reaction shot, that makes the comeuppance all the more worthwhile. Monroe could have played Joe E. Ross' role on Car 54, Where Are You? and no one would have bat an eye. It's not something that would fly today but it felt absolutely perfect for the time.

PAS:  I agree with Matt here, people hoping to get a glimpse of what made Monroe such a legend are going to be let down. I wonder if his appeal was primarily a function of geography, the way Carlos Colon never seems special outside of San Juan. This match was very 1960s, hammy heel stuff by Monroe, Pesek comes across as a babyface straight out of a Fuller Brush ad. I liked Monroe's top rope stomp, and it was nice to get a glimpse of the famous blond stripe, but as a match this didn't show us much.

Junkyard Dog vs. Buzz Sawyer 9/9/83

PAS: This is exactly what you want a battle of dogs to be. Nasty fight based almost entirely around biting. Buzz is so awesome in this, totally rubber balling around the ring for all of JYD's offense, and JYD is a great brick wall to bounce off of. Buzz starts by leaping into JYDs arms and biting his face and neck, and it goes from there. JYD bites big chunks out of Buzz's forehead and Sawyer starts spraying blood all over the ring. Eventually the ref gets bumped by both guys and we get a crazy pull apart with a bunch of guys in street clothes getting pounded on by both Buzz and JYD. Sawyer keeps getting knocked down, only to fly back into the ring and leaping at JYD. Houston always has great crowds and they were frantic for this, I have no idea why this didn't get run back the next week with a dog collar match, seems like the biggest no brainer booking move ever. Still really happy we got to see this.

ER: Awesome stuff, almost all of the first 6 or 7 minutes is Buzz bumping off a brick wall, running at JYD with leaping attacks that bounce him right off, amusingly bumping a few times from grounded headbutts (literally JYD holding still while Buzz crawls in and then tumble bumps from his knees, like something you would do to entertain a toddler, don't think I've ever seen this before), running quickly into a punch like he was boxing Bugs Bunny, just fantastic stuff. Before long Buzz is bleeding and still running into the brick wall, and JYD is a great brick wall babyface. Buzz is really an all timer, and soon they're biting each other's heads (you know, dogs and all) and then a bunch of refs get bumps. We get some great ref bumps, JYD throws one to the floor in a great tumble, Buzz kicks one in the stomach (check the ref taking that kick and holding his stomach, legs kicking; looks like a man who knows what it's like to get kicked in the stomach), and several wrestlers and suits run out from the back, all of them looking like they would play Joe Don Baker's buddies in a movie you know was awesome. Buzz and JYD throw kneeling punches and Buzz keeps throwing himself back into the fray, all of it the exact kind of thing that would create lines at the box office for the follow up show. Oh.

MD: Houston wrestling is the best. I spent a year and a half of my life entirely focused upon it as my primary source of wrestling and those were happy times. Now we get bits and pieces here and there and this a hell of one. This match is one thing and one thing only. It is pure, distilled. It's a contrast, what happens when two similar things clash when one is superior to the other. Sawyer tries his usual Mad Dog offense only to find there's a bigger dog in the yard. The crowd knows what's coming again and again and the crowd loves it more each time. JYD even tosses the ref around better than Sawyer, yet somehow, probably thanks to the amazing post match insanity, Buzz never seems diminished. It's a perfect wrestling match. That doesn't mean it's the best wrestling match ever, but it is perfect as what it is and you don't see that every day.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masa Fuchi AJPW 7/11/00

MD: As I write this on Friday morning, I'm a little annoyed I can't crib from Phil and Eric's notes. I'm first in on this one. Phil's been eager to watch this for a month or more and it's the first of the new set of handhelds that we're tackling. I sold it to him (as I watched it first) as more of a Matt match than a Phil match, though noted that he'd still like it. It's Fujiwara and Fuchi after all.

This felt like a Maestros match to me, like the endless litany of Solar vs Blue Panther matches. A better example would probably be old man Panther vs Old Man Casas, just given time in a way that they really weren't in CMLL during their feud a few years back. They filled the time with dueling limb work, Fujiwara going to the armbar early and then digging in with it and Fuchi's great equalizer being an assault on the leg. All of that was great, of course, and totally down my alley, but what I liked just as much (and even more than the eventual disintegration into bestial, inhuman headbutts) was how Fujiwara's attitude drove the action early on. You got the sense that Fuchi wanted to work that straight up maestros match and here Fujiwara was peppering in shots from the corner and sneaking in cheapshots whenever he could. Familiarity bred frustration in Fuchi and it was that slipping of facade which led to Fujiwara's first armbar attempt, that first opening. You can never read too much into what Fujiwara does. It's so direct, so distinct, so natural, but also so substantial. Primal but complex.

This was a draw. This was ultimately worked to a draw and things sort of never came back together to an acceptable finishing stretch after they made it out the other side of the limbwork to the violence and back again. I knew that coming in though, and I knew it the whole way through, and thus forewarned, it didn't bother me one bit.

ER: Believe it or not, this era was the first time I was watching "current" Japanese wrestling. Everything before this had been compilation tapes of older stuff, FMW comps, death match comps, or AJPW comm tapes. But by 2000 I was just getting Japan stuff that was actually happening, and this freshly depleted era of AJ was one of those. This show was from the very first tour after the NOAH mass exodus where they were essentially left with Kawada and Fuchi on the native side of things, with about a dozen or so other gaijin and freelancers. So there response was "bring in some olds and some shootstyle guys and let them go long!" You need to flesh out a card somehow, and I love that they let the two oldest guys around be the ones to go long. This was really the only extended time that Fujiwara and Fuchi were even in the same fed, they teamed far more often than they opposed each other, and this is their only singles match. And it feels like a Fujiwara/Fuchi singles match. I love the story behind Fuchi's rise back to All Japan prominence, a guy who had been in the undercard for years but due to circumstances had to step up and stretch out, the Unforgiven era for Fuchi (it also pains me that "old man" Fuchi is like 8 years older than present day me). Fuchi's story was one of the first Japan stories I got into, so it's great to see all of this. We've all seen dozens of matches from each that is better than this, but this match has the stuff you want to see from these guys. Fujiwara works the arm and has some sick reversals into the Fujiwara, has no problem stomping and kicking at Fuchi's arm, and also is the only one of the two who has no problem sneaking in punches on ref breaks. Fuchi eventually goes after the leg, including a great section where he wraps it around the post a few times, twisting and wrenching the ankle in between ringpost shots. Eventually this spills into headbutts, though doesn't really feel like a match that's building to anything in particular in its 30 minutes. My favorite moments were simple, things like Fujiwara finding mean ways to bend Fuchi's arm around the ropes, or Fujiwara's dedication to selling his knee; at one point a hold gets broken, Fujiwara stands back up pushing off the leg Fuchi had been working on, and Fujiwara loses his balance. Now, Fujiwara was already in his 50s, it could have easily been an instant of him just losing his balance. But considering we'd already seen him throwing a few limps while circling Fuchi, we can probably safely assume we were just seeing a master at work, doing what he was paid money to do: Be the professional hired gun that he is.

PAS: These are a pair of guys who played very similar roles in parallel promotions through the 80s and 90s. They were the sadistic WW2 prison guards torturing people with a twinkle in their eyes. Fuchi tearing ligaments in All Japan and Fujiwara popping joints in New Japan, UWF and PWFG. Watching them match up here was like an DC versus Marvel crossover comic, Who would win a race between Flash and Quicksilver or a shootout between Green Arrow and Hawkeye. This lived up to what you would hope it would be, both guys testing each other on the mat, we get a cool long section of Fujiwara trying to escape a headscissors, another long short arm scissors section, and several Fuchi escapes from Fujiwara armbars.  There is some nasty standup with slaps and headbutts and a pretty cool finish with both guys getting close to submissions before being saved by the bell. This was a draw and it was worked like a draw. It was great to watch, but was missing a couple of trancendent moments which your true Fujiwara classics always have. I saw a clipped version of this match a year or so ago, and I loved the fact I got to see it all.

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