FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: OMNI '87~! OTTO~! STRONGBOW~!

Otto Wanz vs. Jay Strongbow Graz, Austria 7/7/79

MD: This is the earliest Otto Wanz footage I'm aware of. It's part of Richard Land's patreon drop for this month. It goes ~40 with 30 of that being actual wrestling and not round breaks. It has an absolutely remarkable crowd. Hopefully he has a bit more of 1979 Austria/Germany in that tape collection because I want to see more of these fans. They were singing and chanting early, but they were up for absolutely everything and did they ever love Otto.

This is also an incredibly rare look at heel Chief Jay Strongbow. Maybe surprisingly, he brought the goods. This was right in the midst of the Valentine feud where Valentine broke Strongbow's leg, and he came in off of that and was an absolute bastard here. Otto spent most of the match trying to fight fair while Strongbow would fire off on him in the corner and punch and tear at his wound. If Otto was able to fire back, he rolled on out to the floor and they repeated the cycle. 

While the fans went way over the top every time Otto fired back, he controlled just a bit too much of this. Strongbow might charge in before the bell and he'd find ways to get under Otto and the fans' skin but he needed to be on top just a little more in the middle rounds. That said, when Otto finally had enough and started hitting back on Strongbow's terms, ignoring the rules, the fans were in high heaven. This wasn't quite as good as the Studd match but it was still an accomplishment for them to be able to go that long and still get it mostly right. Primarily though, this was about atmosphere. Just an amazing crowd; hopefully we get to see them again.

JCP Omni 2/1/87

MD: Almost anyone reading this watched it in real time and knows how special it was. Yes, it was a short card full of "tournament lucha"-esque short matches because we don't have the main event (Flair vs Windham - 60 minutes) as that was on another card, but it was our first new Omni show in years and hopefully the start of a new trend.

Bill Dundee vs.  Dutch Mantel

MD: Dundee was the Central States champ here. Dutch controlled the center to start, was Dundee stooged around, eating a back body drop, complaining about a phantom hair pull, wanting time out. They had a great bit early where Dundee got an eye rake and went for Shoo Baby only for Dutch to get it back and Dundee to take a whip trip. Eventually Bill managed a low blow and took over on the arm for a bit. Mantel hit one of the many great punches in such a short match and they went towards the finish, with Dundee escaping a roll up and pulling the tights for the win. Starting a trend for the night everything looked great in this one.

Bob Armstrong vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: 30 second crowd pleaser. I wouldn't have minded seeing what they'd do with a little bit of time but it wasn't meant to be. My favorite bit here was Garvin acting like he won after the fact (to no small amounts of heat too).

Arn Anderson vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: These weren't just matches for the sake of matches. This was shortly after Lex's debut and this show was another cog in the machine of getting him over as a key associate of the Four Horsemen, even if he wasn't wrestling on the card.  For something that's been locked in a vault for so long, the amount of care in the production is interesting. It's not just a single camera. They cut to JJ or cut to a reaction from Luger. This was meant to be shown. It just simply never was.

Obviously, Arn and Brad match up extremely well. There's a certain elaboration to the early sequences where they go around one more time than you'd expect or turn things in a way that feels just a little unpredictable while throwing everything they have into it. We had another quasi low blow to set up the heat, two matches in a row, this time off of an Arn inverted atomic drop out of the corner. One of the best things about this set up (more on this next match) was how well we could hear the wrestlers. Arn, after taking over, just says "Now, then..." and what came after the ellipse is his beatdown of Brad. They moved through it quickly with the spinebuster (being the most versatile move in wrestling) serving as a cutoff to a hope spot, before Bard caught Arn coming off the top. Finish had Lex intervene by pulling out the leg on a suplex. Just a small movement, nothing over the top, and then right back into his seat. A way to get him over as efficient and professional. Obviously it would have been nice to get a few more minutes of this but they made the best of the time they had.

Tully Blanchard vs. Wahoo McDaniel

MD: It's hard to go from modern wrestling to any of this, even for me who spends all of his time jumping around time and space. This match is the trickiest though. Everything looks so good and so credible. Every strike is a violent delight. It's almost shocking to see Wahoo chop away in the corner. It's so different from anything else you'd see today. There's nothing framed about it. It's not a product for TV. It's was there to capture every eye in the arena and somehow that translates better onto the screen than something perfectly posed for a hard cam.

Tully is so vocal here, blabbing on about how he's an honorable man, complaining about every perceived offense perpetrated by Wahoo. I imagine only the first few rows could even hear it but it was part of his full immersion into the moment. There was no going through the motions. He was living and breathing the part. It's magic watching him scramble out of the ring or try to dash his way back for a sneak attack only to get caught and have his limbs somehow fall over one another. Selling isn't even the word for how he takes Wahoo's stuff. His portrayal was so good that it warped reality and made the the lie more vibrant than any truth could possibly be. 

The finish was simple, straightforward, matter of fact. Wahoo had him down. JJ drew the ref. Lex casually rose, clocked Wahoo with the belt, and sat back down, crossing his arms. Nothing over the top. Everything subdued. Just a great way to establish Luger.

Elimination Tag: Ron Garvin/Robert Gibson vs. Midnight Express (Dennis Condrey/Bobby Eaton)

MD: Very fun seeing Garvin in there instead of Gibson for whatever reason. He was tagging with Windham regularly at the time, including feuding with the Midnights. You have to love Gibson in the shine. There was the spot where he leaped frogged over Eaton after Condrey had tagged in and you expect Condrey to be about to tag him, but Gibson just stops short and hits a bodyslam instead. Or Eaton feeding for Gibson when he was outside after tagging Garvin in. You'd half expect him to try to take Gibson off the apron with a cheapshot but he just gets nailed over and over. It plays with expectations just a little while feeling totally organic. Likewise, they played with them by having Garvin get his foot on the rope after the Bubba shot, something that followed two finishes where Lex had interfered in a similar way.

This morphed into a conventional tag for a bit with Garvin working from underneath. His comeback just being a shoulder block out of the corner was actually unconventional but fit him perfectly. The racket shot that took out Gibson was pretty nasty. Then, as Eaton was rolling Gibson out, Garvin rolled him up to even the sides. Maybe you would have wanted a second bit of heat to play on the numbers advantage instead but they were wrestling against the clock and these matches were so rare that almost any tweak must have felt new and fresh. They still had Condrey control for a bit until they cracked heads and went into the finish. Garvin went over after the miscommunication, but they made sure to get some heat back on him after the match.

Super Powers (Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff) vs. Ivan Koloff/Vladimir Petrov

MD: Shame we miss out on the Dusty/Nikita entrance here. Non match as the Russians immediately use the chain. It's a little surprising how little the fans seemed to care. They were just happy about Nikita firing back and Dusty and Nikita having their hands raised. Not sustainable but it was early enough into the turn, maybe that was all that mattered. Just a crazy notion in 2024 that people would care so much about their guys winning that they'd accept a non-match like this. Different worlds. You can barely even compare them.

Road Warriors vs. Ragin' and Ravishin' 

MD: Definitely a show where maybe too many heels had the titles. Again, when the Roadies were proclaimed as the winners by DQ, the place went nuts, so maybe I'm wrong. Business doesn't stay good forever though. This was fun just to see Rude and Manny bounce off of the Warriors. When it was time for Hawk to get worked over, he balanced being a Frankenstein's Monster with being properly vulnerable extremely well. It's a tough line to walk but he walked it, things like popping up from the pile driver but only half way, just in his body language. It's tough to play sympathetic while remaining a entirely larger than life but he managed it and that just ramped things up for the hot tag.

ER: An hour of perfectly shot Omni footage shows up with little warning, incomplete but a gift nonetheless. I didn't expect the work to offer us any new insight into any of the workers as most of these undercard matches were short, but I am an easily persuaded man. I have the kind of simple brain that can watch one hour of wrestling from 1987 and come away with new opinions on workers that we have hundreds of hours of footage from. I'm going to say that it's because we got this footage in such sparkling HD, and more importantly some of the most crystal clear sound you will ever hear on a wrestling show. That might have been my favorite part of this gift, that there was no commentary so you didn't even have to turn your TV up too loud to hear details happening in the ring and the crowd that you would have otherwise never heard. I love any new handheld footage that we get. Handhelds might be my favorite kind of wrestling these past few years, giving us the experience of being in the crowd seeing pairings that otherwise never made TV. But this footage? This footage makes it feel like you're standing at ringside in 1987. You can hear so many little things, and the footage looks beautiful. There were 4,500 people in the Omni that night and due to the way they lit the place we can see maybe 30 of them. But we can hear what sounds like 10,000 of them. Wrestling is mic'd so terribly now that crowds are muted, commentary is king, and we realize that the crowds are muted because there just weren't instances of audience members trying to get themselves over in 1987. It was pure. 

When some woman screams out"Work on him, Dutch, work on him!" it's because she cannot stand Bill Dundee. Being here at ringside you can feel how badly these heels were hated, feel how adored every babyface was, and here in-ring insights that we've seen but never heard so clearly. When the ref admonishes Dundee for grabbing Dutch's hair, I've never heard Dundee say anything as hilarious as, "The hair? I don't want to touch his hair." Dutch Mantel did not give anyone a chance to not touch his hair. We get to hear better than ever before, every single Tully Blanchard dumb asshole flip out. Tully looks like Wings Hauser and screams at the ref over every non-infraction like a small-dicked high school assistant basketball coach. You've seen the body language of Tully being the biggest asshole in wrestling but you've never heard him like this. Every wrestler on this card is a wrestler with great body language, but getting such clear audio to pair with the body language is so special. It would have been great enough seeing Manny Fernandez and Rick Rude stumble and beg off from the Road Warriors, but things like hearing Manny screaming out NO! as Rude almost goes for a one-handed knucklelock with Hawk, or Manny screaming NOOOOOO! in a totally different way when he's getting press slammed for the second time. It gives such a new dimension to these workers and these matches. 

The two big tag matches on this show were as great as they looked on paper. Rick Rude was one of the hardest workers in history and my opinion on him goes up whenever we get new footage. I don't think I've ever seen a Rude match where he wasn't On the entire time, and seeing he and Manny both On against the Roadies is just great pro wrestling. Rude and Manny don't just bump all over the place, they're doing a constant physical routine against two of the most physical monsters of the era. Also, is Hawk one of the 100 greatest wrestlers of all time? If you had asked me 5 years ago I wouldn't have considered either Road Warrior for a Top 100, but Hawk was something else man. After going back and seeing how great "washed" 1998 Hawk was and seeing more and more footage from the decade before, it's clear that Hawk never needed Animal to be a real force in wrestling. This man had It. An unreal aura and some damn great in ring. I don't know how many better flying clotheslines I've seen than Hawk's in this tag. The clothesline off the middle or top buckle is one of the tougher clotheslines. You have to worry about your landing more than the impact of your clothesline, so they often land soft. Hawk's lands as hard as any of his running clotheslines and he follows it through all the way to the mat, like he was doing a flying STO. I think I've seen Daisuke Ikeda hit one better, but Hawk, man. I love this guy. 

This was a one hour presentation with nothing but highlights. The crack of Dutch's whip with this HD sound. Dennis Condrey making me ask aloud "wait was Dennis Condrey the better worker in the original Midnights?" The way Big Bubba held Robert Gibson for racket shots, and the perfect timing of Jim Cornette jumping to the apron to racket Gibson mid-headscissors. The way the Ragin Bull chopped Animal harder than either Road Warrior could hit. Lex Luger's two perfect pieces of interference to help Arn and Tully, remaining completely uninvolved in each match until the finish, sitting arms crossed and observing the matches like an indifferent-faced innocent boy, other than two quick moments of a grabbed ankle and a belt to Wahoo's face. The noise these people made for Nikita. This whole show was moment after moment after moment. And finally, we got to see them and hear them clearer than the folks in Atlanta that night. 

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New Footage Friday: WWF on MSG 4/25/83

Mr. Fuji vs. SD Jones

ER: This match was quite fun and mainly notable for its EXCELLENT finish. I thought SD Jones was going to pull this one out (not an impossibility) as he hit two massive headbutts on Fuji. Fuji sold them in this fun knee-buckling way and Jones worked a real nice headbutt, grabbing Fuji's melon with both hands and rearing way back before safely whipping his head forward. The headbutts played as a nice payback for Fuji's great falling headbutts to SD's "midsection" earlier in the match. But just as I thought SD was going to get a newly seen win from 40 years prior, he comes off the ropes and Fuji powers him over with a super fast belly to belly suplex that made Fuji look like Yoshiaki Yatsu. 

Iron Mike Sharpe vs. Johnny Rodz

ER: I like this kind of brainlessly active 10 minute Garden undercard match, where Sharpe will complain about his announced weight (here he was announced at 282 but screams about how he's 292 "and all muscle") and then bumps around for Rodz' dropkicks and sunset flips. Rodz gets tangled in the ropes in a cool way to sell a strike, and I love how Rodz' fast tough guy shtick plays against Sharpe's dumb meathead shtick. There's a great moment at the end where Sharpe gets tied in the ropes like Andre and has to make a bunch of stupid faces while Rodz fires up MSG for an attack that never comes. Rodz is dancing around and doing a hammock routine over the corner ropes, and the whole time Sharpe has to stand there screaming while his arms are tied in ropes. When Rodz finally attacks he runs right into a boot, then Sharpe hits one of his trademark ugly straight arm lariats for the win. 

Ray Stevens vs. Tony Garea

ER: Stevens has a pretty disappointing list of matches in his lone consistent WWF run, really only staying for 6 months and matching up a lot against Strongbows and Garea. But this might be the most I've seen a wrestler do with the typical Garea undercard match. It's the same Garea match you've seen if you've ever bothered to see more than one Tony Garea match, but Stevens is so good that he knows how to sell and bump for Garea's side headlocks and dropkicks and headlock takeovers and surprisingly stiff shoulderblocks, basically working like Bill Dundee against a stiff. Stevens' movement and the way he throws punches and kicks really reminds me of Dundee too, and despite being 47 here was hardly washed. His bumps are interesting, not just flat back bumps, but throwing himself back into the ropes and really making it look like he's getting knocked around by Garea and his bad body shots. I really loved Stevens keeping Garea on the floor with pointed kicks and punches, with Garea bumping multiple times off the apron. It could have been really good if Garea had bladed, but Stevens really built it up nicely for a potential Garea comeback, and Garea's fast sunset flip (with Stevens really whipping himself over on it) looked like a finish. Strong nearfall. The actual finish was Garea hitting a crossbody but Stevens rolling through for a quick pin, leaving this great visual of Garea angrily storming around inside the ring while Stevens gets his hand raised from his back, just like in the Fuji/SD Jones match before it. Stevens looked really great here, great enough where I think there should be an actual list worthy 1983 WWF Stevens match. His 80s AWA career is written off due to a leg injury and age, but 1983 Stevens looked like a guy that would be one of my 2021 favorites. 

The Wild Samoans (Afa/Samula) vs. Chief Jay Strongbow/Jules Strongbow

ER: This is the TV debut of Samu (here as Samoan #3) and it's a real fun showcase for him and his speed. Both Strongbows work this with a fun energy, and with Samula doing big flat back bumps with every tomahawk chop, making the Chief look like a real fun lesser Wahoo. Samula took bumps like a man testing out a hotel mattress, leaping up and backwards like every chop was taking the legs out from him. He works the entire first fall without tagging in Afa, and his energy keeps bringing out a great active side of the elder Strongbow. Is Chief Jay Actually Good? This match seems to point to that, and I wouldn't have guessed there were really fun Jay Strongbow matches from 1983. The Indians win the first fall after eventually hitting a big double chop and Samula, and then do the same early in the second. Samula had already been taking big backsplash bumps and here he got to show off his high dropkick. Jay really leans in to take the double headbutt for the finish of the second fall, and I loved his staggered blinded selling of it when the third eventually began; it felt similar to how Lawler would woozily fight back while knocked out standing. It all builds to an amazing spot where Strongbow and Samula hit heads, but it sends Jay on an incredible backwards bump over the top to the floor. Chief Jay basically leapt backwards over the ropes and went tumbling down in a great bump. Both teams handle the hot tag in cool ways, with Jay falling flat backwards after a collision and landing close enough for Jules to fall in, and when Jules tags in and hits Samula with a hard overhand chop he flies backwards halfway across the ring and tags Afa and his flight. Afa's fast rope running cross up was a neat burst of speed for the sudden finish (which was handled a bit clunkily as Jay was breaking up the pin after the one count and the ref just ignored it). So, what's some recommended Chief Jay Strongbow? 

Rocky Johnson vs. Don Muraco

MD: Rocky Johnson is a guy that absolutely got it. We don't have a ton of him from the 70s, but when he pops into a territory like Houston or Portland, he has a larger than life energy that doesn't really get talked up enough. It's probably because most people know him from this run, and then more from 84 on than 83 back, but he's probably a wrestler that deserves more of a look. The first few minutes of this were picture perfect in that regard. Muraco came down in Steelers gear with Albano. Johnson wanted the mic to call Muraco "Brother" which apparently was part of the program here as that offended Muraco. Albano ate a headbutt, both of them got double noggin' knockered from the inside out. Johnson started with the slaps that led to punches and Muraco took a powder. Then they moved on to strength spots where Johnson just stopped Muraco's whips like they were nothing. All great stuff. All got a reaction. Muraco was stooging all over the place. The finish worked too. After some solid beatings by Muraco, Johnson came back and ultimately hit this amazing standing dropkick onto Muraco who was perched on the top to get the countout win. The big problem was a bizarre structural approach probably having to do with Muraco as a vulnerable champ. After that shine, they had Johnson lean on Muraco with a long chinlock instead of the other way around. If that was part of Muraco's control, with them moving in and out of it with hope spots, it wouldn't have wowed anyone, but it would have still worked given Johnson's level of being over and Muraco's heat with the crowd. Instead, everything just ground to a halt for a few minutes. Pretty bizarre. That's 80s New York for you. The rest of this was good though.


Bob Backlund vs. Ivan Koloff

MD: If you're someone who like Bob Backlund matches, this will probably be something of a lost gem for you. They were very well matched. Koloff was slimmer than his 70s WWWF run and we know that he was still very good at what he did from his run in Crockett over the next few years. Instead of leaning into forboding strength, he played up his canny, and they built slowly and gradually and with great payoff to Backlund's strength spots, specifically a lift up out of a full nelson reversal and the gotch lift out of the short arm scissors. Say what you will about Monsoon on commentary, but him dismissing so much that happened in the ring did make it matter all the more when he really put something over, as he did with these. He and Patterson were both calling them the most impressive feats imaginable. Backlund was very good at knowing when to be beat down or to sell the aftereffects of something and when to just shrug it all off and go up for the crowd. He got out of Koloff's big bearhug by pressing Koloff's head down low enough so he could launch a knee. I've never seen that before and I might not believe it from anyone else. That was the thing with Backlund. He was so deep into his own character that it had to be hard for the crowd to do anything but believe along with him. He followed up his escape with this amazing crumbling pile driver. They made too much of the slow counting ref in the back third, but it was a pretty solid finishing stretch with an exciting calf branding near fall and Koloff going to the well once too often to see a suplex reversed for the clean as a whistle finish. Between how well these two were matched and that the crowd was into it, even chanting USA at times, they could have definitely gotten more than one match out of this one.

Jimmy Snuka vs. Superstar Graham

MD: I wasn't going to watch this but it was 3 minutes long and I figure someone's interested. Snuka remained on the rise and Graham fed for him and took all of his stuff and got beaten clean in the middle of the ring in 3 minutes. He looked withered and terrible, of course, but this was an effective use of a former champion to further get over the molten babyface and build his credibility. Just a very giving performance by Graham while still being a pretty embarrassing one given how he looked and moved and the shoddy kung fu stuff that was mainly just waving his hands around.

Swede Hanson vs. Pedro Morales

ER: This was a cool little 4 minute match with a couple neat surprises. I really liked Swede Hanson's lock-up and headlock game, even if it doesn't always go anywhere. He's a really big guy and his size during lock ups and headlock sequences always makes me sit up a bit, like I'm not expecting a huge old guy to effectively scramble to maintain a front chancery. Morales breaks an early smothering headlock by working his way to a knee breaker, which is where that sudden scramble from Hanson comes from. Morales takes a huge backwards bump through the ropes to the floor off a strike from Swede, and looks like he hits the back of his head on the timekeeper's table while basically doing Harley Race's bump. Morales comes back eventually with some solid body shots but then catches knees on a charge, eating a great Hanson running kneedrop for a close nearfall (in what I thought was the finish). Hanson had hit a couple other nice kneedrops earlier, those old school worked knees that were worked and throw with the full shin. Morales wins with a small package, but if this got a couple more minutes it would have been a great Velocity match. 

Eddie Gilbert vs. Jose Estrada

ER: This was right before Gilbert's serious car accident and it's fascinating the kind of reactions Gilbert was getting as a young babyface in WWF. Gilbert looks and works like young babyface Portland Roddy Piper, throwing energetic corner punches and surprising Estrada with a Thesz press for a near win, and is getting the kind of crowd reaction that Owen never got in the early 90s in a similar role. Gilbert and Estrada have a fun chemistry, and I especially liked how Estrada kept cutting off Gilbert with a punch to the head or stomach. Sometimes Gilbert would charge in and jet get stopped by a punch to the guy, other times Estrada would actually pause a hold he was doing just to punch Gilbert, or punch Gilbert in the face right when Gilbert was working his way out of a hold (Gilbert starting to break a headscissors? Cut your losses and just punch him!). Estrada doesn't wrestle without scruples, but it sure makes him look smart to not cling to a failing hold. This is a show with a lot of really well done finishes, and this was no different: It's a quick bit of rope running where Gilbert tries to catch Estrada with an O'Connor Roll, but Estrada holds on and bumps Gilbert, then runs at Gilbert for his own sunset flip, which Gilbert rolls out of and falls into a double leg pin. 

Andre the Giant vs. Big John Studd

ER: This is actually a neat footnote of a match to appear, as Studd had to be Andre's most frequent opponent over his long career. Studd and Andre feuded for parts of a decade in WWF alone, and this was the first time this attraction had played New York. Studd/Andre would have been a big attraction here, and I love how Studd riled them up by throwing down a $10,000 challenge. This motherfucker was challenging 10K over bodyslams *this* early into their WWF feud? Studd just started at 10K and only went up to 15K by the end of the decade. More guys on the Indies should challenge people for the money in their pocket. But this is a big match, starts and builds like a big match, but has a cruel dismissive count out finish that gets actual garbage thrown in the ring in MSG. 

The story is minimalist but very satisfying. Andre gave Studd a few laughing one handed shoves when he got in the ring, and kept shooting Studd these great Kubrick stare death looks like "No, please, keep talking, let's see what happens." Studd throws punches aimed at Andre's left arm, and Andre is good enough to work a Sell the Arm match as the largest man in his sport in 1983. He throws clubbing punches at the side of Studd's head and neck, and throws heavy chops that physically move Studd when they connect (and they always connect). But Andre throws all of those strikes with his right arm, and is great at selling pain when Studd is working a Fujiwara and dropping weight onto the arm. Andre is great at keeping active in holds and reacting to micro movements and changes in Studd's leverage. I loved how Andre trying reaching back to grab Studd in a headlock with his free arm, with Studd tucking his chin so Andre couldn't hook it, but still having to get his face smothered by Andre's big arm. Studd really got knocked around by Andre's comeback, really getting moved by his strikes and taking a couple bumps falling through the ropes to the apron. But Studd's strikes also got louder the longer the match went, with one axe handle blow to Andre's back sounding like a gunshot. Andre rams Studd into the corner, using ass and shoulder, and all of Studd's strikes to fight for a breath look hard.  

There are two great bodyslam teases, with Studd really getting his hand buried to get Andre off a leg, and an even better one as the very finish to the match: Andre grabs Studd on the apron to bring him back in over the top with a bodyslam, and Studd blocks it by just hooking his feet around the top rope! Studd is holding on for dear life with his toes glued together, and when Andre can't pull him free he just drops Studd, then plops down leg and ass first on his chest. Studd roles out of the ring and Nopes his way right down the entrance way without looking back on time. Fans are furious, and it turns out this was the only Andre/Studd match that would ever be run at MSG. They deserved a bit better than that finish, but I really dug the match as a big early moment of a long feud. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

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