Found Footage Friday: SAVAGE~! LAWLER~! MABEL~! PCO~! TAKER~! MANKIND~! JARRETT~! RAZOR~!

Jerry Lawler vs. Randy Savage Memphis 3/23/85 (Jonesboro)

MD: I'm not going to wax poetic on the WWE Vault finding this. You know. We live in amazing times.

The match itself was very interesting. Savage had turned a couple of times during his primary Memphis run and he was a familiar face and he was over. He had Newman with him. He was clearly the heel. The fans were still split. So they did everything they could to present Lawler as worth cheering and Savage as worth booing. To start, they had Lawler break clean at every point and get the best of Savage on rope running exchanges. 

After Lawler got a knee up in the corner, and raised his hands to show he meant for it to be a legal attack, Savage went out, got on the mic. Then Lawler did the same complaining about Tux, then Tux got to talk, and Savage again, and they went around with it, really laying out the case that you should cheer Lawler and boo Savage, even if it didn't look like that at face value. And then, when they got back into the ring, Lawler nailed Savage on the break, but by now, it was fully established how much he deserved it and how Lawler had tried to play nice first. On the next break, Lawler stepped on Newman's hand on the apron instead. The fans want to see the babyface hit hard and clown the heel and they built to it coming off as a pure babyface move and nothing petty or spiteful. 

Then of course, they inverted it by having Savage freak out about Newman getting stomped, run around with a chair, and get a cheapshot in on the next break. Unlike Lawler, though, Savage celebrated as if he'd accomplished something monumental. Suddenly, the crowd wasn't split anymore. They were booing Savage. Pretty masterful stuff. 

Because they had to tear things down and then build it all back up, Savage didn't really take over until around twenty minutes in and he did with a clever bit of misdirection with Tux and his cane. From there, things were pretty wild with Lawler coming back a couple of times and the fight spilling out to the audience. Incredibly crowd pleasing stuff with rapid fire slamming of heads into turnbuckles and grounded punches. Lawler turned Tux interference back on Savage one last time and hit the fist drop for a definitive win. Post match, he ALMOST got his hands on Tux but had to fight off three other heels instead (and he did to the crowd's delight). Really brilliant stuff overall in how they ensured that the crowd was exactly where they wanted them.

ER: To think there was a time in my fandom that I would have been bored by something like this. Savage, avoiding contact to rile up the half of the crowd who hates him while simultaneously appealing to the half who adores him, an incredible cross section of fans that not only allows this match its beautiful slow burn, but encourages it. This was 20 minutes of slow burn and shifting allegiances with men actually pleading their case on the house mic far more than hitting each other. They get so much mileage out of Savage just going out to the floor and getting upset, with little bits of in-ring character like Lawler popping his head up and down for four straight dropdowns while Savage sprinted back and forth over him. 

All the bullshit started breaking down when Savage finally started hitting Lawler and Lawler caught a Savage kick, hopping him out to the center of the ring, holding Savage's leg high up on his chest and drawing it out before finally tipping and fistdropping him in one move. Savage then catches Lawler's leg the same exact way and goes  through the same routine, only this ends with a Lawler enziguiri (a great one!). The misdirection around Tux Newman getting his cane to Savage and everything that happened after that was the kind of fire you want to see from a Lawler/Savage match. The way Savage punched Lawler all around ringside was filmed so perfectly it's as if they purposely took the brawl in front of the cameras, without actually doing that. It was just Savage giving everyone some close up magic and popping Lawler in the forehead around each side of the ring, these individual reared back shots every 10 feet, then hitting a big axe handle to the floor, then another. It's an honest to god miracle that he didn't blow out his knee until his mid-40s because he was just jumping onto concrete on every show for 15 years with or without cameras present. 

Savage is battering Lawler, and it all turns into one of the great turnbuckle smashing comebacks. Savage is bashing Lawler's head into the buckles, and they start coming a little slower with a little more resistance. The sixth time Savage is actively working to get Lawler's face to the buckle, and by the seventh Lawler has fully blocked it, and the crowd is here for it. When the strap comes down, Lawler's back is to the camera so we get to see Savage react to it, and Savage's eyes are the perfect eyes to be reacting to the strap coming down. We get them in shocking HD and it plays like such a famous clip that you'd think we'd have been seeing it in highlight videos for 40 years. Lawler's fistdrop off the middle buckle is as good as you can actually do a fistdrop...but his earlier missed fistdrop into the mat and subsequent sell might have been even better. Just another classic match we didn't realize existed until the last week. 

WWF House Show Footage

Mabel vs. Pierre MSG 11/26/94

MD: Really enjoyed this one. Pierre looked as good as anyone in the company at this point. He flew all over the place for Mabel early, timing all of his stooging perfectly and just bumping big given his size. One bit of punishment after the next. The transition was great. Mabel tried to suplex him back into the ring (and this didn't seem like a huge effort considering what he'd already done to him) and Pierre dropped straight down to the floor from the apron, causing Mabel to get hotshotted onto the top rope.

Then all of Pierre's offense was equally good, maybe too good, because the crowd was starting to go for him despite him working them a bit. Thankfully, they still went for Mabel on the comeback (reversing things on the floor to post Pierre) and Mabel hit two or three big things on the way out. Just a strong, larger than life undercard house show match.

ER: I love Mabel, ADORE Mabel, I will always back the big man...but HERE is a damn Quebecer Pierre performances if ever there was. It's no secret PCO is insane - it's been his main brand for a decade now - but I don't remember him going this hard in New Generation Raw matches, let alone on house shows. This was a man working UP to MSG, taking bumps that put 1-2-3 Kid to shame and hitting offense like a truck. I loved the layout of this, where it looked like the whole thing was going to be Pierre getting tossed repeatedly. He gets thrown so violently to the floor on the first lock up that there is no way he was able to work like this night in and night out....a thing one could have said before we found out how much he loves falling from great heights. Mabel suplexes him like it's nothing, throws him into the air with a high back body drop, really slamming him at will. 

Pierre turns the tide by stopping a suplex into the ring by throwing his body weight back and stunning Mabel on the top rope as he drops to the floor yet again. Then we get this great mix of Pierre trying to tame this sea beast by jumping all over Mabel's back, and taking big bumps as he's swatted away. He takes a back drop to the floor and responds by running up the nearest turnbuckle and hitting a real heat seeking missile of a dropkick. It always feels unsustainable, only a matter of time before Mabel would catch him again, and when he does it's just as great as before. Pierre takes an even higher backdrop than before, kicks out of the spinning heel kick but gets crushed by an avalanche, than takes his well earned time wobbling to the center of the ring and back, turning around to get flattened by a Mabel crossbody. 

Undertaker vs. Mankind Meadowlands 7/5/96

MD: I haven't seen any of the Taker vs. Mankind  stuff in a while and I wasn't quite prepared for where they were at this point in the feud. I don't remember Taker's shots ever looking quite this good for one thing. I don't know if that was Mankind leaning into them or Taker just laying them in because he was used to working him. 

This kept moving quite steadily, with Taker controlling for the first half but never in a straight line. Mankind would take over for a few shots and get cut off. He'd lose focus and start chasing Bearer. He'd go for a chair only for Taker to get it instead. He'd knock him over the rail only for him to come flying back with a clothesline. 

When he did really start to lean on Taker, he couldn't put him away. Taker punched out of the Mandible Claw in a great bit. He'd kick out of everything else and eventually Mankind lost focus again and started to hit himself and slam his head against the turnbuckle. Even then, even as he shot a choke up to stop the second Claw, Taker had to really fight for the comeback and it ended up as a pretty complete experience for everyone watching. A good entry into their series. 

ER: I shouldn't be surprised by Foley going this hard on a house show, but seeing it in HD it's shocking how much damage he took in front of a bunch of New Jersey sickos who knew how much of a sicko he was. If you ever look at Foley's schedule over '95-'98 and see a house show match like this, you'll wonder how his body didn't give out the first few months of his WWF schedule. When Foley started in WWF he was still making trips back and forth to Japan, going back and forth to take sick beatings on opposite sides of the globe. I guess his body was just conditioned to it by that point but I was still surprised how hard Taker was laying it in and how bad Foley's bumps got. It's obvious Taker is hitting him hard from the bell, clubbing him hard on the back of the neck and throwing tighter strikes than I associate with 1996 Undertaker. 

But then the chairshots start, which are much harder than 1996 WWF chair shots, and it all peaks with Foley taking his backwards bump off the apron to the guardrail...but this lunatic lands back-of-head first into the thickest bottom rail of the guardrail, and the leap back was FAR. The leap backward being so far is probably what led to his body not flying into the railing itself, but flying backward just to whip the most tender part of your head into the thickest steel...that's a guy who should be working 180 matches a year right there. That bump would concuss and give brain damage to most men, but it doesn't even slow Foley down. He still takes more crazy bumps on the floor, including a great one over the railing, off a chair and onto the concrete, which seemed to signal to the Meadowlands crowd that he really was doing this for them, as the chants for Foley started to have a One Of Us feel to them the more damage he took. Awesome fight. Foley really did himself a minor disservice by focusing on his goofy "having fun with Owen" house show matches in his first book, because I had no idea there were hard performances like this out there. I, of course, should have known. 

Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon Montreal 10/21/94

MD: Most of the Hall I've seen lately has either been 90-91 Puerto Rico or 88 NJPW so it's weird to see him as Razor. This went a few directions I wasn't quite expecting and I think, as much as anything else, it was them trying things. They had wrestled a few times earlier in the year but this was fairly early in their 'marriage' that would last a while.

It's funny because I buy it out of 2025 Jarrett, but I'm not sure I was feeling the strut here. Much more gripping and organic was the way that he paintbrushed Ramon's head after taking him down a few times. All of that paid off so well with him running right into Ramon's open handed slam and bumping huge. Beautiful stooging and feeding. He'd subsequently get knocked out, come back strong, and run right into the fall away slam and Ramon paintbrushing him a bit in return.

Once he took over, he controlled primarily through some nice cutoffs (an enziguiri, dropkicks, corner whips, a nice punch, etc). They really did a great job of building the hope spots, getting bigger and more elaborate each time until Ramon finally punched his way through it all only to get redirected over the top. Ramon controlled out there but Jarrett reversed a whip for a cheap (but effective count out). 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and friends) 9/23 - 9/29 Part 2

AEW Collision Grand Slam 9/28/24

Claudio Castagnoli/PAC/Wheeler Yuta vs Private Party/Komander

MD: I'm going to pass on Moxley vs Allin. I just have more to say about the Collision matches. It was very good. It's wrestlers pressing each other to the limit. It's exactly what we need. I'm not going to cover too much of the actual happenings in this trios match either. Obviously, Claudio was an amazing base; PAC is really finding himself in this role, is reveling in it; Kassidy, Quen, and Komander saw their opportunity and fought from underneath and showed fire with a never-say-die attitude.

But really, this was all about the interplay of Yuta with his partners. This will play into the Jarrett vs Page match as well, but balancing complex characters in pro wrestling is hard. At the end of the day, it has to transfer to the ring and has to live in front of a crowd, an opinionated, reacting crowd. You can't control these reactions except for through craft and cunning. We're in an age of instant response where people will tweet about a new episode of scripted television, but that won't affect those shows in the moment. It doesn't impact the actual art as it's happening in the same way as wrestling where the crowd is part of the overall effect.

It means that if you lead with real complexity, you could get a split crowd when you don't want that at all. But if you can actually pull it off? Well, then you get something that only a tiny fraction of all pro wrestling ever has managed to deliver upon and that has almost always been a success.

Wheeler Yuta is the most interesting character in wrestling right now. By its inherent nature, this moment can’t last. He's going to make a decision one way or another. Then, maybe he'll be a heel, one who has to live with his decision and his actions and the constant peer pressure around him. He'll be the living, breathing definition of a young man trying to justify what he had done and what he had become, likely by throwing himself entirely into the dark vision that Jon Moxley presents. He could be a heatseeker, bolstered by his betrayal, getting under everyone's skin, made all the worse because deep down, everyone knows that he's just weak. Yes, there are some parallels to Jack Perry that they'll have to navigate but it's not quite the same.

Or he can lean hard into what the fans want right now, can master his rage and frustration and emotions and stand for something. He can be the light that continues to shine after Bryan Danielson has gone off into his retirement. He can be the nucleus for a new Super Generation Army, someone to actually be elevated into a star. He could be a Kobashi who represents the fans' love of wrestling and the spirit they all want to have inside of them. Remember, AJPW didn't push Misawa and company to the moon right after Tenryu left. They held steady on with hosses like Hansen, Doc, and Gordy on top until the younger talent was built up, into 1991. That paid off for years. Yuta can be built in the same way. He can press up against PAC, Claudio, Moxley again and again, getting just a little farther each time, until he finally overcomes. Is that something AEW wants? Do they want to sacrifice part of the now, maximizing the moment, in order to truly build people, to not just give them one big feud, one big moment, and then shunt them back down onto the card because they don't fit the Dynasty dynamic?

I don't know, but right now he's Schrodinger's Wrestler, trying to control his own emotions, with all of us unsure where he’ll land. Jon Moxley has given into his emotions. Bryan Danielson has conquered his own. Yuta is in flux. He's a trained killer with a good heart. It's so essential here to have Claudio and PAC clearly coded as heels in the ring, ones that believe in something, ones with a chip on their shoulder, ones with a point, but ones that are absolutely painting a crystal clear picture. The crowd knows exactly how to respond to them. They're the grounded stability that makes this sort of complexity possible. Claudio has an almost familial expectation for Yuta, simple and direct. PAC, finally at home in a way that maybe he never was with his last set of partners, in turn has an almost bestial glee at the idea of Yuta giving into the twisted spirit and joining them. Every cut to him snarling and smiling provides the exact color this storyline needs.

And Yuta walks the line like the star he could be, believable, compelling, engaging. He's an unlikely protagonist but wrestling is an unlikely business. The fans have cautiously let him into their heart, for in so many ways he represents them in the face of what’s happened. If a TV deal is just about to be signed, there's never a better time to take a risk. It could well be time to make a leap of faith and take a gamble on Yuta for the sake of the future, no matter which way he falls. After all, there isn’t currently a better story in wrestling.

Jeff Jarrett vs Hangman Page (Lumberjack Strap Match)

MD: And Hangman Page is the second most interesting character in wrestling. I think this needs less breaking down, but I do want to note a couple of things. Hangman won the match. After doing so, he slapped the mat like he was a fired-up babyface. Then he hung a guy. Before that came a low blow and the Deadeye. Before that came him basically fighting off nine people, including someone's wife and a giant, all with straps. Talk about being all over the place narratively. Or at least, it should have been on paper. But it worked on the strength of Hangman Page and Jeff Jarrett as performers, maybe with a little of Tony commentating based on what Page had just threatened to do to him too. That's super impressive (and incredibly compelling) when you think about it.
 
What I loved most about this one, however, was how they treated the gimmick. Maybe a straight up chain/dog collar/strap match between the two would have been more visceral and gripping, but since they decided to go this route (seemingly to transition Page towards the BBG; small concern there as they're not the same sort of constants that Claudio/PAC are playing - it could get messy), the way to do it was to treat the straps held by the lumberjacks like a big deal. They built to Page getting whalloped by basically everyone and they built to it smartly. That meant him getting pushed towards the apron early on and treating it like a huge thing, something to be avoided at all costs. He took it seriously with total earnestness. There was no inkling of irony. It reminded me of how Onita would get over the exploding cage early in those matches. If you build up a gimmick as something the wrestlers are wary of, then the fans are going to care about it too.

They were laser-focused and consistent with it. When they did play things as cute, for instance when Jarrett got tossed out to his cronies and they gave him a hug and pushed him back in, they immediately turned it by Page throwing him out the other side of the ring so that the heels over there could give him some shots. Therefore, when Page finally did hit the floor, him getting whipped as a huge deal. Remember, this was a show with a Texas Tornado tag and a Saraya's Rules hardcore match. They'd seen crazier things than even Satnam whipping someone, but none of it was built to like this. Just impressive stuff overall. If Hangman can keep some of these lessons close to his heart moving forward, the sky is the limit for him. I know a lot of people think he was always great, but this little bit of discipline, this little bit more of giving himself over to believing and getting the fans to believe, well, it can take him even further, further than he's ever been.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 8/19 - 8/25 Part 3

MD: I don't have a lot to say about the Coffin Match. In some ways it was weirdly minimalist in not a lot happened but everything that did happen was monumental, but ultimately a bit too much DID happen overall for me to say that. Also not a lot to say about the Dustin 10-man. It was really just a finishing stretch with a bit of prelude. I did want to double back to some other things however.

AEW Collision 8/24/24

Big Bill vs. Hook

MD: Part of the joy of pro wrestling is that that it is interactive. It's live television, sure, but it's live television in front of a crowd, where the crowd can be conditioned, can be manipulated, but cannot be completely controlled. Nine times out of ten, when the crowd loses control, it's to the detriment of the match. In those situations, it's also usually due to some miscalculation in the match itself. But wrestling, at its best, is at least partially improvisational, and an out of control crowd is a possibility to live in the moment and create something special.

Hook's rarely, if ever been in a situation like this, but Bill's pushing 40 and is a fifteen year vet. There was a miscalculation here. I won't go too deep into the angle itself, but it's problematic at best and everyone knows it. Leaning into the fact it's problematic only partially mitigates the problem. In some ways, it makes it worse. This match was set up to protect Bill and to make Hook work from underneath to overcome a much larger opponent and look all the better in victory. It was meant to chip away at him on the heels of a big return so that the angle could be heated up and both he and Jericho could claim momentum coming into All In.

A couple of problems. One, the crowd wanted to cheer for Bill anyway. He's larger than life, charismatic; people have fond memories of him. Two, the match was set up for Hook to charge in early and maybe get a shot or two in from underneath or to have Keith attack him when the ref was distracted so that the odds were against him and you could explain away him not firing back more. It was all to build first for him to hit a suplex on Bill (and on Keith to take him out) and then for the Redrum to finish it. Basically, Bill was taking not a majority of this, but 95% of it. It's almost impossible to get behind a babyface who isn't constantly fighting back, even if he's cut off. Against the right opponent and in front of the right crowd, that's fine. This was neither. And the fact of the matter is that it's not all that novel to see Hook suplex Bill. We've seen it before, not just here but in previous feuds and it's not like Hook has even had that many feuds. So it went from 50-50 support for Bill and Hook to 60-40, to 70-30, to an overwhelming tidal wive as the match went on.

So Bill had this incredible crowd to deal with, one that was going to cheer whatever he did, and he went all the way with it. He yelled at them that they couldn't support him now when they never had before. He gave every hand motion imaginable to every corner of the ring. He crossed his arms to look as dorky as goofy as possible and stomped around. He leaned hard into his offense in the meanest and most unfair and conniving ways. Nothing worked, but he justified all of it with the effort. He had posed and preened and bounced a bit at the start, just a bit of cool heel trappings, but when he realized the damage that caused, he went as far from it as possible. None of it did Hook any favors, but thanks to Bill making it seem like the adulation was the absolute worst thing in the world, it probably didn't do him any longterm harm. And then he worked it all into the finish by playing to them and turning around between chops while Hook was on the top rope so he could get caught in the Redrum. People may look at this as a failure, but I see it as Bill masterfully averting disaster. All of this now going to be there, potential energy to be tapped into when the time is right. The time just wasn't last week.

Jeff Jarrett vs. Ariya Daivari

MD: And sometimes everything goes exactly how it's supposed to. This was the same exact crowd, only one segment later, and it went perfectly. It was such simple stuff, Daivari posing in the corner to boos, Jarrett to cheers. It was Daivari doing the strut repeatedly as he got the better of Jarrett only for Jarrett to clock him, then Jarrett teasing it but unable to do it until the final comeback. It was Jarrett counting along with Aubrey and the crowd while Daivari stalled and stooged outside the ring. It was Daivari menacing Karen to distract Jarrett so he could take over and then later Jarrett getting cut off because he checked on her. It was Jarrett working from underneath in a sleeper so the crowd could get behind him and throwing punches that the fans could chant along to. And all the while, there were the tiny bits of connective tissue to ensure everything made sense and was timed and placed perfectly. The crowd just wanted to be involved. They wanted something to get behind. They wanted to feel like they were part of it all. The Hook match wasn't set up to give them that. The Jarrett match absolutely was. Pro wrestling can be fascinating when it goes wrong, but man is it ever beautiful when it goes right. 

AEW All In 8/25/24

MJF vs. Will Ospreay

MD: I'm not disappointed in Ospreay.

I'm not even disappointed in Max, not really. Maybe a little.

Mostly? Mostly I'm just disappointed in myself.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/5 - 8/11 Part 1

AEW Dynamite 8/7/24

Bryan Danielson vs Jeff Jarrett

MD: There's a lot floating around the ether this last week. There were discussions about the best wrestler potentially being the one who drew the most. The Olympics were happening, including one person scoring more than another in gymnastics for a less graceful looking routine because the level of difficulty was higher. While I wouldn't subscribe to the first notion, I do play with the idea that the point of most matches is probably not to have the aesthetically greatest match possible. When trying to examine a match, it's worth figuring out the purpose behind it. What were they sent out to accomplish? How does it fit into a bigger picture? What was the point? Occasionally you'll get something that is meant to be great for the sake of being great, but usually, they're trying to do something else and greatness is, in part, revealed by how thoroughly they are able to succeed at that goal. And yes, some purposes are far, far harder than others. In fact, I'd say having a great match for the sake of having a great match is generally far easier than any number of other possibilities that could potentially limit unbridled creative freedom.

The point being is that what they accomplished in the first half of this match was downright miraculous, as high a level of difficulty of anything I've seen this year. The purpose of this match was not to give people a potential dream match in Jarrett vs Danielson, though that didn't hurt. The purpose of the match was to heat up All In's main event, most specifically by heating up Swerve Strickland and making him out as the most dangerous man in the company. Swerve was shown watching from the back on a monitor and came out post match, but he wasn't otherwise involved. Ricky Steamboat was on commentary instead. It was up to Jeff Jarrett to push Bryan Danielson, a man he claimed to respect and admire, as hard as humanly possible in order to reinforce the artistic concept that Swerve Strickland was dangerous enough to warrant such torturous treatment in a "tune up" match.

And they nailed it. Jarrett attacked with the guitar even as Danielson was making his entrance, and the next many minutes of brawling backstage and through the crowd brought forth into the world an idea, a notion, a truth: Strickland was simply that dangerous. It became undeniable. They bounced off of jarringly unforgiving trash cans. They hit each other with some of the most beautiful punches of the year. They went up and down stairs. They drew a mob around them in the concession area that didn't feel like they were watching a pro wrestling spectacle, but instead like they were watching an actual fight; that last bit was like nothing I've seen on televised wrestling in ages.

I'm not entirely convinced that it completely survived back in the ring, but very few good and true and pure things survive in front of a 2024 pro wrestling crowd unfortunately. That was ok, though, because once they hit the ring something else happened. The job was already done. The idea was birthed into the world with two proud papas laying in shots on one another with a real sense of chaos. The match was now big enough for a second idea and the second idea was just as perfect in its own way and solved the other necessary half of the equation.

Jeff Jarrett had the purest intentions; to take this man that won the Owen Hart Cup, a man a generation younger than him but that was tapped into the true spirit of pro wrestling, that represented so much that Jeff loved and that this family had loved for generations, and give him the one last push he needed to make it all the way to the top one last time. Jarrett knew that he was just the man to do it, that he'd walked the paths of darkness and light and come out the other side, beaten and battered, grizzled and aged, but knowing all about the limits that a man need be pushed to. His intentions were pure. He meant well. But you don't step into the shadows without the shadows changing you. You don't get so close to glory without glory tempting you. Jarrett was just the man to give Danielson what he needed, but that meant that he was a man always walking the precipice of his own weakness.

And in the back half of the match, blinded by the light, he slipped and he fell back into the darkness. He lost sight of all of his good intentions and gave in to his old instincts. It no longer became about sharpening Danielson's steel or hardening his hide. The means became the end and the end became destruction. The goal shifted, no longer to strengthen Danielson, but to break him, to snap his leg.

If the first half of the match was about establishing just how dangerous Swerve Strickland was, then the second half became about showing how Danielson could overcome. He escaped Jarrett's attempt to use a chair to break his leg. He used the chair in a moment of brilliant visual desperation and innovation to escape the figure four. And then, chair bracing it, he put a knee through Jarret's chin, opening him up and scoring the win.

It's ok to watch this and appreciate moments of execution, to bathe in the great punches, the immersive selling, the clever spots, the chaotic feel. But take a step back and really think about what they were trying to do. Think about how many other matches you've seen that actually accomplished the sort of challenging task that they managed here. They hyped up the main event of the biggest show of the year by indirectly making a third party (the champion) look more dangerous and then, through channeling who and what Jeff Jarrett is and has always been, redirected the spotlight back onto Danielson (the challenger) to show how he can meet that threat head on. There may be greater matches this year, but I'm not sure I can imagine a greater in-ring accomplishment in 2024.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/8 - 7/14

AEW Dynamite 7/10/24 

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Page

MD: There are so many bad faith criticisms of AEW: bots, grifters, tribalists, just kids who are getting their kicks off of it like kids have always done since the start of the internet. It makes it hard to parse through what's real and what isn't, what's meaningful and what's not. For instance, the notion that AEW doesn't tell stories is patently ridiculous. Sometimes something on Rampage slips through, but in general, every match is there to further a rivalry, to heat someone up for something else, to set up a post-match, to reinforce a theme. Where I think that throws some people who are acting in good faith, is that story is not necessarily plot, and many of them have been conditioned to look for plot. This is an issue with serialized storytelling across a bunch of different genres, mediums, and properties. There's the idea that if there's not some sort of worldshattering permanent change then nothing worthwhile happened, even if characters were developed and explored in meaningful, heartfelt ways. It's an immature way of consuming fiction, one maybe a bit too focused on canon and lore. Look at Danielson vs Kingston from earlier in the year. It was full of story, full of emotional, character stakes. Bryan Danielson wouldn't see the change in Eddie, the value in him, the merit. Kingston just wanted the proof of a handshake from someone held to such high standard, that held him to such high standards. They played it out in the ring and Eddie got his handshake and Danielson found peace in himself. It's wonderful. It's brilliant. It's maybe some of the best character development that can happen through wrestling. Danielson moved on to other things. Kingston lost the Continental Championship soon thereafter. So maybe for all the great story, it didn't have canon-shaking plot. Plot is having the fate of the company at stake in a ladder match. It's who's going to join the NWO next week? (It's Who's the Devil? by the way). Story should be enough because story takes you on a journey but fans have been conditioned otherwise and as much as I hate to say it, sometimes plot does hit just right.

What made this match so special is that it was bursting with plot that was underpinned by story, by character motivations. The stakes couldn't be higher. This was the finals of the Owen Hart tournament. The winner gets to main event at the biggest show of the year and go for the title. (That's the plot; here's the story). Last year, it was about friendship. That was well and good and fits AEW well. This year though? For Page, it's about justice, about hatred, about the gratification of tearing something down that should not stand. It's about punishing the fans for rewarding (or at least forgiving or ignoring) evil deeds. It's about being the hero of your own story when the entire world is more then villain every day. It's about reclaiming what was lost and putting reality back on track. It's about crossing a line and knowing you crossed a line and knowing further that the only way you can justify it, that you can make it right, is to win. Only then can you put things right by taking that title and setting the company right; otherwise, you did all of it for nothing and you're left a villain. Page needed to win. But then, so did Danielson. For him, it's about the end of the road, the final countdown, a retirement for the sake of family. Page would tear down the world for his family; Danielson would build one up instead. He needs closure. He needs to show the world that this is on his terms, that he is the best, that he would be the best, that he will always be the best, that this isn't him running away from wrestling, but this is him running towards love in the name of a promise with nothing else to prove. This is him showing the world that now because he has reached the absolute pinnacle of pro wrestling, he can climb the mountain of being the best dad imaginable. It's about leaving no regrets so that he can look ever forward towards his daughter and not back towards his grappling past. And all the while, the end is snatching at his heels (or in this case, his neck), threatening to take every decision out of his hands. For Jarrett, it's all about the past, it's about the decades when he didn't look back, when he didn't properly grieve, when he let the demons consume him instead, about the peace he's subsequently found and about doing one last good thing in wrestling in the name of his friend and his friend's family. Jarrett has nothing left to prove; all of his wrongs have been righted and all of his rights have been wronged. He still has agency though. Blood still flows through him. In the name of his friend, he can still change the course of history one last time, a last ride of the Last Outlaw. It's not his story anymore; he knows that. He can do his part to make sure that the story ends how it should though. So you have these three characters, three worldviews, forced into a pressure cooker where each has to reach their destiny but not all can.

Then it's just the simple matter of turning all of that into a wrestling match, right? Bots, bad faith grifters, good faith kids, they all get to say that something is all good or all bad, something's the best or the worst. Unfortunately, I'm too old to have that luxury. This stuff is complicated, and I have a complicated relationship with Adam Page's wrestling. He's put up on a pedestal by a lot of well-meaning people who have bought into the many qualities he has to offer. I like the idea of him. I like a lot of about his act, plenty about his presence. I just struggle with how he structures so many of his matches. To me, wrestling should be about build and payoff, about gratification delayed. He sure likes to gratify people and people, in turn, like to be gratified. Too much, too soon, (and I know how this is going to sound) too cool. There's something to be said about making art that you and your friends would like; it's an art student's mentality and it often drives the form forward. There are drawbacks though and a time to be disciplined as well. He does so many individual things well. He emotes so well. He wears his heart on his sleeve in the ring in a way that creates deep engagement. And now, finally, as a heel, he's slowing down and creating a different sort of mood, imposing, stifling, unrelenting, but also methodological. He's sharing his pain with the world, rubbing his knuckle into the wound of life, and it's a slow, measured twist of the knife. This Adam Page is creating atmosphere instead of just shooting off fireworks. (And, as an aside, I still think one of the biggest attainable money matches in wrestling is Page, worn down to raw, bitter fury by the weight of the world vs a carefully built-up Mad Dog Connelly, the mysteries of soulful eternity trapped behind his eyes; this is attainable for 2025. This is attainable! It can happen!). 

So here we had this match, at the intersection of plot and character, with every stake imaginable, not just hints but entire swaths of the real underpinning the fiction, an uncertain outcome, with wrestlers ready to bring everything they had to make it work. Everything played out to its logical conclusion, from Page walking out the babyface tunnel, Jarrett looking the other way, and the subsequent spit, all the way to Danielson pulling out one last miracle roll-up to survive and push forward to Wembley. Along the way, Page, seething, took every advantage, and Danielson, bleeding, pulled out every stop. He was the whimsical master early with the Lance Storm rolling half crab in Calgary, but when his back was against the wall later on, he whipped out his ROH flip dive that he hadn't done in years and years. And it all built to Jarrett standing tall between them, refusing to sink to Page's level, forcing the match to end in dignity. Page, in his current state, perhaps couldn't triumph in a situation held up by dignity and honor. He was the hero in his own mind, but one has to be true and pure (as Eddie had been) to slay the dragon on his final ascent towards the heavens. There are people who will refuse to see the value in this match; for those who choose such a thing, I have nothing but pity. For the others, who can't yet see the glory within, I have envy instead. Someday they'll find it and see it as if for the first time. They'll get there in time and this will warm their hearts and rouse their spirit, just like it did for all of us that were living and breathing it last week.

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Found Footage Friday: TEAM USWA~! TEAM WCCW~! THUNDERDOME~! BRET~! FLAIR~! MONTERREY DEEP DIVE~!

Thunderdome Cage Match: Team USWA (Bill Dundee/Danny Davis/Jeff Jarrett/Billy Joe Travis/Gary Young) vs. Team WCCW (Eric Embry/Tom Prichard/The Awesome Kong/El Grande Pistolero/Steve Austin) USWA 1991

MD: This is going to be a found week. I swear I've seen this before but it could just be a phantom memory or I'm getting it confused with some NWA Anarchy match or something. Everyone's in the cage to start and there are handcuffs set up around the cage. Whichever team gets handcuffed to the cage first loses and the survivors get the key and get to unlock their partners for five minutes of pure, unfair violence. There's also a pinfall stip but it's confusing to everyone how it works even if it plays into the finish. 

Kong gets handcuffed right as the match starts, which gives the babyfaces an advantage from the get go and also takes out of play the biggest physical threat in the match. It's a choice, I guess. There is that sort of danger you get from let's say a NJPW elimination match, where if you get too close to someone who's handcuffed, you can get disrupted or grabbed. That too plays into the finish. In general though, Kong is a non-factor here. There's one solid visual of all of the USWA guys attacking him post match (which gives away the finish, sorry), but in general, he's gone from the get go. Pistolero might have been Gypsy Joe. If that's the case, it's a shame he didn't get to do much either as he's one of the first guys to get handcuffed. 

They cover a lot of ground in less than ten minutes here, though. Everyone gets bloody pretty quickly. People get slammed into the cage. They change dance partners and make some use of numerical advantages when they come up. the USWA side is pretty solid and you have at least Embry and Prichard on the other side, given who gets taken out early and the fact that Austin is green but game. It comes down to Travis and Prichard. Prichard gets too close to Jeff who nails him. Travis rolls him up but he's too close to Embry who breaks it up. Prichard is able to handcuff Travis and get the key. Dundee kicks Prichard who loses the key. Young gets it. The heels win but the babyfaces get free and the fans are delighted by the beatdown that follows. Pretty clever stuff all around. I think there's room for this gimmick in 2024.

PAS: This was basically an all punches match, and luckily we have 6-8 of the greatest punchers in wrestling history throwing hands. If all it is is Bill Dundee and Eric Embry throwing hands, Dayenu. Add that to Billy Joe Travis uppercuts, lots of blood and a crowd pleasing finish. Pure candyfloss pro-wrestling pleasure. I am not sure it would work in 2024, who even throws good punches anymore, but shit it worked in 1991.

ER: I thought this was incredible. I can't believe how much they did in 10 minutes, and I never expected it to swell to an insanely sadistic babyface conclusion. There are seven great punchers doing literally nothing but throwing punches and literally everybody bleeds. The Thunderdome stipulation is low key brutal and actually more violent than anything in the PG-13 Beyond Thunderdome. They did these matches with Robert Fuller and Eddie Gilbert replacing Gary Young (that's a plus) and Billy Joe Travis (that's a lateral and a totally different vibe). I get Kevin Nash being unavailable but I wonder if they tried to get Al Green...

On paper I wouldn't have thought handcuffing every one of your opponents to the cage would work, but then I laughed the moment Amazing Kong got cuffed 1 second into the match and spent the rest of the time hoping someone would come near enough to kick out at. Everyone else was too busy throwing punches. They all looked great, but my favorite bit was when Dundee (who looked incredible all match) finally got cuffed and Eric Embry was trying to line up a punch on someone, but he back into Bill Dundee who caught him with a short punch to the cheek and then a harder punch while he was stunned. Jarrett had tremendous fire throughout, Nightmare Danny Davis always comes off like Rutger Hauer in a street fight in these kinds of matches, and Billy Joe Travis is an incredible dirtbag with real babyface fire. You can tell by looking at him that he's a dirtbag, but the man is a fighter and when he's on your side you want that. 

The finish is downright sadistic. The winning team - the team who cuffs every opponent to the cage - then gets 5 minutes to beat their extremely disadvantaged opponents without mercy. Prichard wins the handcuff key for WCCW but Dundee kicks it away, meaning Gary Young gets it and uncuffs all the USWA guys, who - despite losing - proceed to fuck up every member of World Class to a rousing babyface reaction. This is such a long beating that I kept waiting for the Memphis fans to turn on their own. Seriously, after the match it's just 5 mean being beaten bloodier and bloodier by the good guys, desperate to fight back but chained to a cage, the Good Guys lining up shots at sitting ducks. When the halfway announcement of 2.5 minutes comes, it's already felt like this beating has gone on far too long. This is a merciless beating and the blood flows freely as Team Memphis just stomps on dead bodies like total psychopaths, never once stopping to consider if what they were doing was the correct choice. Ethics aside, every second of this was amazing. What I thought was a silly gimmick that would get in the way of what would have been a better 5 on 5 tag, turned out to enhance every part of it. 

Tigre Universitario/Principe Franky vs. Bello David/Bello Guerrero CMLL 12/92

MD: Deep into the crates here, as Roy didn't even break the matches out of these episodes. I'm going to try to go through each and every one however. Between the pre-match interview and the primera, I got the sense that David and Guerrero were in the midst of a gimmick change maybe. David had a Millionaire name as well and he might have recently lost a match? Luchawiki isn't much help there. Tigre and Franky were in matching gear and worked well as a tandem.

This was crowd-pleasing, action-packed undercard lucha though. There are a few clips; when we come in, they're hitting a foul on Franky and control for most of the primera. Lots of well put together double-team stuff, mostly double clotheslines and back body drops and elbow drops and the sort. The tecnicos come back and hit some flashing stuff including a great rowboat to win the caida. There's some fun stuff with Guerrero accidentally hitting the ref on the outside as well. The rudos got their fall back in the segunda (and showed more exotico tendencies) and everything built to cycling and a pretty exciting finishing stretch where Tigre and Franky continued to work well together (both with an alley-oop into a double axe handle in the corner and the tandem topes into the seats towards the end). The finish had each side getting a fall but Franky accidentally hitting the ref as David kept dodging dropkicks; he locked in a submission but the ref DQ'd him as David was tapping. Entertaining stuff all around.

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair WCW 2/20/98

MD: Again, this feels like something we would have seen at some point, but it's still worth watching. MGM Grand House show from early 98. They fit a ton into the first few minutes, with Bret sort of stumbling bemused through Flair's act. It's entertaining but I'm not sure I'd call it particularly great or resonant. Definitely entertaining though. That means he has a slap fight with Charles Robinson, trading inverted atomic drops, eating an eye poke in the corner off a break, putting Flair in a figure-four, that sort of thing. Bret got serious fairly quickly once Flair took over, working from underneath as Flair hit some vicious stuff on the floor and a really nice belly to back. We get what I assume to be a brief cut so we never see how Bret gets out of the figure-four but he goes full Lawler for the finish, dropping his strap and fighting out of the corner before hitting some moves of doom and locking in the Sharpshooter. Definitely a moment in time and certainly crowd-pleasing.

ER: There were a lot of Bret/Flair matches that happened, but we don't have as many of them as I assumed. Most of what we have exist as handhelds (I believe Souled Out '98 and the excellent Smack 'Em Whack 'Em title change are the only two officially released bouts) including the great '93 Boston Garden iron man. But almost all of the handhelds was during their long series of '92/'93 WWF house shows. WCW, despite running Hart/Flair within a month of Bret joining the company, rarely ran the match. This happened the month after Souled Out and then they didn't interact for nearly two years. This match is the weakest of the Bret/Flair matches we have, but I don't think that's really an insult. The WWF matches are all great, and while it's been some years since I watched Souled Out '98, that match was at minimum praised at the time. 

This is nowhere near as ambitious as their WWF house show title matches 5 years prior, and it worked much more as a compact greatest hits. We're missing a portion that may or may not be significant (I am leaning towards Somewhat Significant, as the crowd is rather loud through Bret's struggle in the figure four, and when we clip to them standing in the corner they have gone quiet. We could have missed 30 seconds or 8 minutes), and the focus their title matches have isn't really here. The ending, especially, seems a bit too simple: we clip to Bret taking down both straps, backbreaker, Hitman elbow, suplex, sharpshooter with no fight. It was too tidy for the drama they are each capable of. They were both such more compelling during Flair's control segment. Flair and Bret are each guys who are good at yanking on a leg, Bret's inside cradle and backslide were each strong nearfalls, and I popped for a Bret enziguiri while working underneath that felt like an underutilized Bret tactic. The smaller moments of this were better than the broader moments. I particularly loved the way Bret sank to his seat in the corner after getting Flair cheapshots him in the eye, and how he recoiled when Flair did it again standing. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/20 - 5/26 Part 2

AEW Collision 5/25/24

Bryan Danielson/FTR vs Jeff Jarrett/Jay Lethal/Satnam Singh

MD: I thought about skipping this because I already said everything that needed to be said for the Dynamite singles match. I thought about just mentioning how great the commercial break was with Satnam doing damage while Jarrett and Jay (and Karen) sat on chairs on the outside and Nigel had a great one-liner about how he never called Tony "Whipped him into the ropes" as that would be silly. I thought about just noting that I'll write five-thousand words if they ever give us a Jarrett vs Danielson singles match. But this was really good. I don't need to say too much about it, but it was really good. You had Danielson getting one upped by Jarrett early and then instead of it working into a shine where the heel gets his comeuppance, it not playing out until the end. You had Satnam showing how dangerous he could and should be by just reaching over and cutting off Dax's shine and draping him over the top; it's as easy as that. You have the protection of Satnam by him not doing all of his big spots every match. He didn't do the body press here. He did do the head-dribbling; he hadn't done that in the Danielson match. That's a huge failing of modern wrestling, the Andrade Effect. Andrade's double moonsault should happen one out of five, maybe even ten matches. He should hit the moonsault most matches and only do the double one on the rare occasion that someone is going to organically roll out of the way. It's 2024 here. We're not all so bull-headed that we're trying to power bomb kidman when we've never done a power bomb in a life. I know that Ric Flair felt like he needed to get all of his signature stuff in because he would have been disappointed if Ray Stevens didn't, but it's better to draw the crowd into something immersive than just give them rote ritual. Don't do anything for the sake of doing it. If Satnam has a number of physically amazing spots, the fans will appreciate seeing the one or two that they actually got to see that sometimes others didn't get to see, as opposed to everyone always getting to see all of them.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Danielson vs Jarrett. Jarrett feeding for Danielson's stuff was so great, just the way he'd slam his whole body back and forth in response. I hated that they were doing the quick camera cuts on Danielson's dropkicks. It's Danielson and Jarrett! We're not talking someone from the Nightmare Factory who only has 40 matches under their belt (and those people will get there but at least then I get the impulse, right?). Don't do the camera cut and rob me of the chance to see Jeff Jarrett respond and react to Danielson flying at him! It'll be ok. I trust them. They trust each other. Production guy who will never, ever read this; please trust them too.

So yeah, this was good. In this case, it was even better at 15 minutes than it would have been at twenty five and it gave them so much to go back to. I just hope there's time to before it's all said and done.

AEW Double or Nothing 2024 5/26/24

Anarchy in the Arena

MD: There's no way to talk about any of these matches coherently. So let me tell a story instead. I caught this the morning after but hadn't been spoiled. Kind of weird thing happened midway through, though. My 11 year old woke up. One of the firm and fast rules of pro wrestling in the household is that it never gets in the way of my family life. I've told this story before but I basically moved in with my then five-year old stepson the same month of the Benoit incident and it was very informative on how much wrestling I have the kids consume. My main feeling is that if they came across it on their own and took an interest, great, I'd show them stuff. Otherwise, there was a firm line. I don't necessarily hide it from any of them, but I usually do stop watching if they come around and want to do something. But she was up early and I wanted to see the end of the match so I tossed her a headphone and we watched the back half together.

I'm not saying this was absolutely her first match ever, but she really doesn't have a working knowledge of the tropes, even if she great at English and has a strong sense of fiction in general. We came in at the point where all of the babyfaces were put through tables which built to the fire spot. And I have to admit, it was pretty tough. I had to explain why they set up the table instead of just laying someone on and jumping on them. Thankfully pro wrestling logic more or less works out. More importantly, I had to explain why everyone was bloody right at the get go. The first time she saw Dax or Danielson, she let out a "Ohhh!" in shock, and then was even more so when I explained how that happened and she was aghast and wanted to know why anyone would do that, to which I reminded her that the second she saw it, she went "Ohhh!" She was more shocked by the fire spot as you can imagine. But she didn't get how he was able to recover and come back later. In general, I repeated, multiple times, that this is the sort of thing they only do once a year.

The nicest thing I can say is that overall, I was able to explain the way causality and consequence worked here. Once Darby got tied up, even as his partners tried to save him, there was a sense that he just had to end up hanging up. It was inevitable. Once upon a time, the sheer threat of it would have been enough, and it would have been like knights saving a princess from a tower before a dragon devoured them. Now, the fans demand to see the dragon devour the princess, even if he spits her out later. But the idea of the Bucks' shoes ending up in Danielson's hands made total sense to her. That sense of hubris and comeuppance is universal. The heels did something that was dangerous but also the height of vanity and it backfired upon them. That sort of thing is primal. All of that is to say that the match mostly held together. If anything, you could be annoyed as a viewer that Perry was able to come back in and even get the win but you're sort of supposed to be annoyed by that, so long as he ultimately gets his comeuppance later on. But still, it would have been better if something like that could have mattered more. But you could say that about almost everything on the card, right?

I did go back to show her the beginning again, because she likes Final Countdown and I thought she'd get a kick out of it. That meant I had to explain why Perry was the Scapegoat so that was another headache. The match was full of things (fire, exploding weapons, gimmicked shoes, the music) that all were callbacks; it's very true that this drained some of the organic sense of violence of it all and the next time they run something like this it needs to be raw. At times it felt more like the Jarrett vs Briscoe Concession Stand Brawl (a WWE style food fight) than, let's say Mad Dog vs Demus. Next time they run this, they should be sure everyone is expecting the former and lean hard with the latter. Some of the individual moments were transcendent though, most especially some of the things Darby let happen to him and the two big musical moments: Darby hitting the coffin drop right as the words hit and the shot of Danielson reveling in it all with the wide shot. Still, it's best to remind yourself that it only happens once a year, give or take Stadium Stampede. It just means that the rest of the year should try harder to be like the two Satnam matches and define a baseline of meaning so that the rare match like this can play off of it. Anyway, right after this we watched To Catch a Thief together and that was a more wholesome family experience.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/16 - 10/22

AEW Collision 10/21/23

Bryan Danielson vs Andrade el Idolo

MD: I'm going to pass on the battle royal. There were a couple of cute bits (even some involving Dustin) but nothing I feel the need to write about. 

I don't have a strong "in" on this one either. What it showed me, more than anything else, is that we missed out on another heel run from Danielson due to injuries in 2023. It would have done the elite feud a world of good for a heel Danielson to be able to be on some of the TV matches leading to Anarchy in the Arena or Blood and Guts. It's unlikely, given that he's on his end-of-fulltime-career odyssey right now that we'll really see him get to go full heel over the next nine months either. This match, where he's up against a guy determined to stand as a babyface when LFI is right there waiting for him, let him stretch those January 2022 muscles a bit though. 

This started out clean. It almost felt a little like a lucha match in its own way. They started chain wrestling (first set of exchanges) and escalated into rope running (second set) before things boiled over with Danielson throwing a chop, Andrade following suit, and Danielson escalating further with the kicks. Who knows if they had Mistico vs Rocky on their mind. Once Danielson took out the arm, though, things really opened up. That included the jumping jacks during the commercial break with Andrade rushing in,  hot-headed, which is about the only time I've seen that actually get under someone's skin (other than the crowd's) during his AEW run. The problem was, and this is going to be a problem for the next year if Danielson ever wants to lean this way, that the crowd wanted to chant for him. You'd get either "This is awesome" chants or "Danielson"/"Bryan." To be fair, Andrade has been a heel for so much of the last few years that while he's fought valiantly against the House of Black or Bullet Club Gold, I don't think the fans really buy into it yet. We'll see if the Miro feud changes that. My guess is that they get behind Miro; the Andretti match later in the night was very smartly put together but the fans kept on chanting for Miro despite it. 

I really liked the transition towards the comeback and finishing stretch. Danielson threw that right arm clothesline (not exactly a Danielson staple) a week or two ago. He's got the Luger-implant now, the bionic arm, and it gives him one extra narrative weapon to throw around, potentially a KO blow in a way that you wouldn't normally expect from a guy his size and style. Andrade ducked it though, which brought them into the stretch. Pulling back to last week's review, Bryan had me a little worried after the back elbow. It was just the way some of those first few roll-ups went. Fool me twice, shame on me, I guess, but it'll probably keep working again and again until All In next year. Danielson's doing amazing work; you can see here how he chose to work this one a darker shade of grey. I'd hate to lose even one potential match while we still have him like this.

Eddie Kingston vs Jeff Jarret

MD: First and foremost, the execution here was top notch. Eddie was excellent throughout, acting, reacting, being the valiant hero, fist-busting Dave Brown, standing up to the odds as defiantly as possible, and creating all the big moments. Jarrett was a big, blustery, over the top villain, willing to take every insult Eddie was going throw at him, physical, emotional, or otherwise. All of Jarrett's coterie played their parts well. Sometimes that meant Sonjay running into a fist and sometimes it meant Lethal hitting a cutter through a table.

It was just the theory that was off. It's one thing to do a tribute. It's another to shove it down people's throats. I know that Jarrett lived it. Given the timing, Tony almost certainly had the DVDVR Memphis set and sure, Eddie had Memphis' Bloodiest Matches, but this felt like a copy of a copy of a copy. At some point, you lose fidelity. What made Memphis so special was that the chaos erupted around a steady baseline. Lance was master of ceremonies just trying to run a TV show (or Eddie Marlin trying to run an arena show) and the pressure created by these insane characters and their penchant for uncontrollable violence tore at the seams of the format. The characters were insane, but instead of things happening organically, this played out like the characters running through an elaborately designed set piece. It was more like the final stage of Double Dare, than the sort of streetfight you'd want between Jarrett and Kingston. 

That they went to the concession stand in Tupelo was a symptom of what was going on, not the disease itself. As with things that have been mythologized over the years, the underlying meaning and associated sensation, which are almost always more important than the trappings themselves, get lost in translation. So while there was blood, mustard, and tables, it all felt like a parody awash in sports entertainment instead of pure pro wrestling mayhem. That it still managed to work at all was down to the performances of the wrestlers.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 11/14 - 11/20 Part 2

AEW Full Gear 11/19

Eddie Kingston vs Jun Akiyama

MD: It's not every day you get to watch a guy live out his dream. We hear about dreams a lot in pro wrestling. Stuff like the Hardy brothers or Edge and Christian growing up to be tag team champions, Shawn Michaels with the boyhood dream fulfilled, Sasha Banks learning about Eddy passing in the arena, that sort of thing. And then there's Eddie Kingston, with a different life and a different dream. He'd been pushing for this match through social media and interviews and just wishing on a star, and we live in a pro wrestling world in 2022 where sometime wishes and dreams can sometimes can sometimes come true. That's the joy of AEW more than anything else, the dream of TWA and ROH fulfilled. And on this night, we got to come along for the ride.

Look, I'll be totally transparent here. If you read me talking about Eddie and Ishii and Eddie and Takeshita, you know that Eddie vs a Japanese guy isn't always my favorite Eddie Kingston. It can bring out the worst and the most excessive and all of the things that I, personally, don't love about the style. And yet, I loved just about every second of this. Some of that was Eddie, who put his heart out there, who wanted the perfect match, who threw his face into every forearm, who let out a scream, one of the many screams on this night actually, that was primal and true. It was, in part, Eddie going for a killshot on the apron so early or outright biting his hero to get an edge, completely unafraid to leave his mark on his idol's flesh. So much of it, however, was Akiyama, genuine, the real deal, no degrees of separation, with just enough grit and age to make the real even realer. So much of it was how much he threw himself into this, the way his knees buckled as Eddie lit up his chest, the bump he took the outside, the steel in his eyes as Kingston met his gaze, the amazing way his feet flew up on the DDT's impact. When he rolled through on the half and half and ducked under to hit the first exploder, the sort of thing you doubt again and again or at least that I do, that takes me out of a match each and every time, I bought it, or at least I let myself buy it, just this once. Call it a Thanksgiving week miracle. Call it yet another thing Eddie Kingston willed into the world on this night. 

As good and visceral and true as the match was, the post-match was all the more so. If you're here and reading this now, you probably got choked up a bit. There's nothing I can write that's more meaningful than that. When wrestling makes you feel, there's nothing better. He shared his dream with us, through pain and sweat and effort and persistence and hope, all from a guy who self-admittedly doesn't find that last bit so easy. The stuff pro wrestling dreams are made of.

Chris Jericho vs Sammy Guevara vs Claudio Castagnoli vs Bryan Danielson

MD: Maybe I'm feeling particularly forgiving due to the magic of Eddie Kingston's wish, but I'm going to go out and forgive most of the inherent failings of a 4-way here. Yes, at one point Claudio was out on the floor for a bit too long. Yes, Jericho really shouldn't have kicked out of the G2H/Shooting Star Press; someone should have broken it up instead, as is the point of having other guys in there. In general, though, this was really good and it was because all four wrestlers brought the best of what they could do and it was all pretty structurally smart, more focused on story than spots, or at least having the story drive the spots. I've said recently that Sammy is, in a lot of ways, the perfect opponent for 2022 Claudio and 2022 Danielson, but they're his perfect opponents as well. Danielson's able to make use of Sammy's agility and speed and intensity and creativeness. No one in the world can catch Sammy better than Claudio; the basing on the shooting star to the floor was like very little I've ever seen. Against these two, things that Sammy does that shouldn't work, whether it's his Snuka tribute leapfrog/backflip/standing Spanish Fly or the bonkers cutter followed by a Spanish Fly in rapid succession, simply work. The reason why we value execution in pro wrestling, whether it's great punches or incredible agility is that it allows for suspension of disbelief and when put against Danielson and Claudio, a new level of such suspension is unlocked for Guevara. 

Anyway, they quickly went into the story here, with the BCC pinballing the JAS and then facing off against one another. Later on, when they faced off against each other again, it was like two masters of a fighting style knowing exactly how to counter one another as they switched through the hammer and anvil elbows. Jericho and Sammy rained small slights upon one another before outright going at it to the crowd's delight. Jericho was astoundingly opportunistic here, channeling the most craven villains imaginable (full Bobby Heenan, really) and not paying for it and paying for it again and again until he made a daring leap during the giant swing, what felt like such a dangerous spot, whether it was or not, and then capitalizing for the victory. All four ways have the decked stacked against them and therefore, just by the sheer level of difficulty involved, this was better than it had any right to be.

Sting/Darby Allin vs Jeff Jarrett/Jay Lethal:

MD: I had some misgivings about this one because Jarrett being there made Sting seem a little older and you didn't want that given how many other main acts he's gone over in the last couple of years, but between Jarrett's condition and the fact that the first half of the match quite smartly saw young paired with old as they brawled around the arena, it worked out pretty well overall. I had wanted Singh in there or maybe a Sonjay/Singh/Lethal handicap, but at his stage of his development, it was probably better to just have Satnam in there for a few big moments, and what big moments they were, the two almost impossible catches, Sting's dive, the chokeslam, and the missed splash into the combo Death Drop/Coffin Drop which had been set up previously, but never hit as no one was quite big enough until now. Jarrett added a lot too, with reactions for the last row as he encountered Sting for the first time at the start, bouncing appropriately between Sting and Darby on punches, and then beating down Darby with fairly credible stuff when it was time for it.

I, and Taz along with me, thought that they steered off course when they took about three minutes to shift to more conventional tag rules. Immediately thereafter, Sonjay and Satnam just walked into the ring casually, so building to a hot tag for the sake of it was dubious at best. Sting couldn't quite land the finishing spot, but I was okay with this, as it was set up by Darby basically hulking(Stinging?) up after the just nuts guitar shot and there was a sense that maybe the student is becoming the master finally. Despite some grumblings about either Lethal or Jarrett from various quarters, this felt like it belonged on the card, no question.

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Found Footage Friday: JARRETT~! MOONDOGS~! INOKI~! GOTCH~! SUPERSTAR~! MANNY~! GORO~! UEDA~! ISHINRIKI~!

Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch NJPW 10/4/72

MD: As a general rule we don't look at clipped reel type footage. This is pretty historical and timely however, so even though we just get glimpses here, I'd like to recount a few spots. Inoki hits the front dropkick out of a lock up, which felt like one of his early trademarks. In the singles match between Gotch and Inoki we do have, Gotch hits an amazing German. Here he hits a great butterfly suplex but then Inoki reverses an attempt at a second into a backslide in a smooth and beautiful motion. Equally beautiful was the way they turned the cobra twist into a tumble out of the ring to lead to whatever the finish was. In this we also saw hints of a rolling short arm scissors (probably leading to the Gotch lift), a strike exchange, and a Gotch headstand out of an early hold. We avoid these more to save ourselves the grief of imagining what we don't have, but the bits we see here look look great.

Antonio Inoki vs. Masked Superstar NJPW 9/23/82

MD: Bill Eadie is comfort food pro wrestling. He has good stuff for 1982 (Swinging Neckbreaker, Neck Drape over the top, Russian Leg Sweep, Neckbreaker Drop off the ropes), but he's going to grind you down more than that. There's nothing fancy about his holds or escapes, but they're tight and snug and well-worked and there's weight behind them. He has nasty little inside shots and thudding stomps. He'll bump when it's called for, especially on a missed move, but the flash and flair you might get out of a Dick Murdoch on top of all of that, just isn't there. There'd be just enough stalling, just enough getting under the crowd's skin and taking liberties that they were emotionally connected to the ever-plausible action, but it'd never tip them over the top. He wasn't a UWF style guy, certainly not a wizard, but he was an endlessly credible pro wrestler. Inoki knew how to work against someone like that, holds to begin, escapes and counters, slow and steady. Eadie went underhanded and took over and leaned and leaned and leaned. Inoki came back once, got his shots in, even a figure-four, but then was cut off. Finally, Eadie missed a diving headbutt off the ropes and it was ritual from there: the back-brain kick, the flying octopus hold, the elated crowd. Eadie was the match. Inoki was the spark. Together they made fire. Simple, straight-forward, elemental pro wrestling.

Jerry Lawler/Jeff Jarrett vs. Moondog Spot/Big Black Dog USWA 4/8/92

MD: Armstrong Alley/goc/KrisPLettuce has been doing heroic work over the last few years gathering and disseminating footage in the back pages of tape catalogs that were never put online. A lot of that turns out to be oddball promotions which don't have a ton of matches that make sense for what we do for FFF, but here's one that does. This was a handheld from Evansville. It was a street fight, part of a feud a few years before its time in Jarrett/Lawler vs Moondogs, a real predecessor to the hardcore style we'd get a few years later. Richard Lee was seconding the Moondogs, which was the story of the match as they had a numbers advantage. This was probably Jarrett's career year, generally for the sorts of matches he was in and how he was positioned as a babyface fighting valiantly from underneath, and we see a lot more of him, matched with Spot, than we do Lawler, who was goozled in the corner by the Big Black Dog. Whoever was taping this went so far as to say that Lawler hadn't come to work tonight to which his friend asked when did he ever? That was funny. Still, it was a babyface team meant to draw sympathy against not just larger opponents but entirely unfair numbers game in a properly chaotic and violent environment with lumber and chairs used freely. When the time came, there was a fiery chair-laden comeback from Jarrett and enough miscommunication for Lawler to come back and drop the strap. Jarrett led the fans in a count before they crotched Big Black Dog from the inside out, before another Moondog (Cujo or Spike) ran out to draw the DQ. A nice, chaotic ten minute example (even if occasionally hard to see) of just what they were running here and why it's historically important.

ER: This really did feel a lot the exact same thing you would see several years later in ECW, and then in bastardized version several years after that in WWF. Moondog Spot and Jarrett were really swinging on these chair shots. Usually when there's any kind of brawling tag with Lawler in the ring, his punches are going to be the best thing in the match. Well, outside of him running across the ring to punch Spot in the face to start the fray, he's mostly tangled up with Big Black the entire match. And, while there was small joy to be had in Dog holding Lawler up in a big choke and Lawler throwing a couple punches to try to stagger him, all of the fire was brought by Jarrett and Spot. Jarrett wails on Spot with a chair, Jarrett gets run face first into a 2x4, and the trash can used to beat Jarrett senseless at the finish looked like it weighed 30 pounds. Jarrett took a pounding, but Richard Lee was a real megastar here, taking a miscommunication clothesline from Spot that sends him violently back into the ropes, then later takes a clothesline from Big Black to the side of his head. He's the agent of chaos who will take a couple painful bumps and then be dodging punches while tying the ref up in complaints. The whole thing rules, filmed in a dark arena by some guy and now watched in bathrooms on phones by weird guys 30 years later. 

Goro Tsurumi/Ishinriki vs. Manny Fernandez/Umanosuke Ueda NOW 11/8/92

MD: Wild bloody scene with some strange starts and stops, a finish missed due to the Ebony Experience menacing the ringside area, and a few memorable images. Half of this was a weapons-laden bloody brawl. Half was Manny and Ishinriki running spots. It began with women (and a little boy) with flowers and escalated almost instantly to crazy violence as Manny, the sides of his head shaved, rushed in with a kendo stick. A minute or two later, he was having Nam flashbacks (let's all pretend, ok?) trying to stop an already bloody Ueda from stabbing everyone with a butcher's knife. It was all pretty gripping stuff. The exchanges with Ishinriki were pretty good, size and some finesse vs speed and brutal kicks. Ishinriki had a couple of nice dives too. There were a few moments where Tsurumi and Manny were just hanging around waiting to hit each other but there were also flying chairs and plenty of blood to go around. I couldn't rate this one if I tried due to the chaotic nature of the shooting and the stilted nature of the action but it was still quite the spectacle.

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Loosely Formed Statements on WWF's No Way Out of Texas 2/15/98

 

1. Marc Mero/Goldust vs. The Head Bangers

Marc Mero is a 1998 Rising Stock. Always on. Endless energy. 

Marc Mero's high back elbow and precise elbowdrop. Stocking Rising. 

Marc Mero's ass over crown bump to the floor for a Mosh lariat. Heat Seeker. 

Goldust working dropdowns and leapfrogs and a high backdrop bump in black lingerie. Picturing him working 2000s AAA. 

Marc Mero draws real heat. His bumps for Thrasher's shoulderblocks are real. Online Mero Discourse will swell. 

We get real blood 10 minutes into No Way Out of Texas. Thrasher takes a real manly bump when Goldust snake eyes him onto the ring steps. Blood spidering down his face. Match at a new level. 

Mero - the worker of 1998 WWF - immediately targets the cut whenever he is in, including stomping Thrasher all over the cut to spread the blood. 

We'll see if any chant will be louder during any other match than this MERO SUCKS chants. Scotching heat in February. That's before he unwraps some wrist tape and chokes Thrasher until the tape is red, and then the chants resume. 

Mosh has four sincerely great punches on his hot tag. 

2. Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku

Pantera has the greatest offense. Multiple rolling armdrags, THAT running swanton to the floor, a tricked out headscissors that felt more World of Sport than lucha, and a fast flipping bump to the floor. 

Taka's springboard plancha flies 4 feet past the guardrail into the entrance.

Pantera's rolling headscissors from the top rope to the apron is in the discussion of Greatest Headscissors in History. The tope diagonally past the ringpost was triumphant garnish. 

Well Brian Christopher called Taka Michinoku "slant eyed" on commentary. Jesus. 

Cools down a bit when Pantera is working over Taka's back, but I like it. 

The cooldown burst into flames when Taka took one of the highest bumps over the top to the floor that I've ever seen, moments before Pantera leapt over the top rope with his running senton, the most incredible move on 1998 wrestling TV. 

The cool back work stretch is paid off many times over when Pantera fills every bit of space with elbowdrops aimed with precision at Taka's lower back, and two different backbreakers that looked...backbreaking. 

Pantera pulls off an effortlessly accurate top rope moonsault, the way I might take a bite out of a sandwich, then snaps off a hurricanrana with both of them jumping off the top rope just as easily. 

Brian Christopher was a...real presence...on commentary. The entire match. You have never heard louder slurs on commentary. 

3. The Quebecers vs. The Godwinns

I'm not sure why they even brought in the Quebecers in 1998. They brought them back to Raw with no re-introduction, just the two of them wearing the blandest and worst gear of their respective careers. Still a good team, but out of place and oddly presented. 

Rougeau keeps ducking Phineas's lock ups and then yells "How about those Canadians, eh?" to the crowd like a prick. 

Jacques is out here getting mowed over by shoulderblocks, and when Pierre tags in he starts working wristlock exchanges with Henry. It's kind of silly, but those big boys did really yank the hell out of those arms. 

Phineas works really vicious with Jacques. He hits a full on Glacier front kick into Jacques's stomach and tries to pull his arm off with a single arm DDT. 

Henry drops his head and Jacques kicks him hard right across the chest. Pierre is the only guy not throwing leather so far. 

They're working this as a classic WWF heel in peril match, the crowd completely silent as the Godwinns cut Jacques off from Pierre. For some reason, the fans do not cheer for Rougeau's sunset flip nearfall, and I have no idea what crowd reaction they were expecting when Henry held Jacques in a chinlock that could only build to Jacques fighting back to his feet. 

The match is actually really good but the role reversal fucks everything up. 

The fans do not want to see Jacques make a hot tag to Pierre. The cannonball that they hit is not triumphant. 

Jacques hits a pretty crazy plancha off the top to the floor, crashing into Henry. 

Everything was completely backward and the crowd was icy but it was a good tag if you pretend it was in Montreal with a poorly mic'd crowd. 

4. Bradshaw vs. Jeff Jarrett 

Say what you will about Cornette being given a dead in the water idea, but I loved the short-lived NWA stable. What a bunch of weirdos. Windham, the Rock n Rolls, and Jeff Jarrett with my favorite gear and hair of his career. Robert Gibson is wearing a duster with county fair sweatshirt art of him and Ricky on the back. 

The opening is really well worked, just Bradshaw swinging arms and chaps and boots at Jarrett and Jarrett taking all of it. I loved when Bradshaw ducked down and Jarrett finally landed something, a stiff kick to Bradshaw's chest, and Bradshaw just straightened up and booted Jarrett in the face. 

It's funny when they exchange strikes, as Jarrett is doing these nice worked right hands but Bradshaw is just hauling back and smashing Jarrett with the edge of his elbow. 

I appreciate JR pushing the story that Jarrett knew to target Bradshaw's knee because Barry Windham told him about Bradshaw's knee in secret, because I guess it's better than telling the story of Jarrett targeting the two foot long braced kneepad that covers most of Bradshaw's left leg.

All of Jarrett's kicks to Bradshaw's leg look good, but none of it leads to anything. 

This was a lot better when it was Bradshaw laying waste to Jarrett and the NWA. It loses steam once they went into more of a back and forth. 

When the NWA runs out after the match, Robert Gibson takes a really fast, pretty crazy bump to the floor. I have to remind myself that Gibson was only 39 during this run and was really busting his ass. 

5. Faarooq/The Rock/Kama Mustafa/Mark Henry/D-Lo Brown vs. Ken Shamrock/Ahmed Johnson/Chainz/Skull/8-Ball

I remember watching this PPV a couple days after it aired, getting the tape from a friend whose dad had a co-worker who taped the PPVs. Something something the kids will never understand what we went through. If your parents didn't let you actually order PPVs, that's how you got to see a PPV in 1998. 

I remember watching this match before school, and my dad getting actually offended by them clearly running a team of militant black people opposite several white supremacists. My parents already hated pro wrestling because of its stupidity. I don't think my dad had ever even considered that there would be angles with white supremacist good guys. I remember him reading the paper and putting it down, saying "It's VERY clear what they're trying to imply here" and being mad about it. 

This match was set up by The Rock hitting Shamrock in the face with one of the most disgusting chairshots in history. 

Does anyone actually know any differences between Skull and 8-Ball? Is one of them better than the other? Does anyone actually know which one is which? Did they themselves actually keep track of which was Skull and which was 8-Ball? When JR tells me that Skull is in against D-Lo, should I trust him? Should I trust JR to know the separate identities of Skull and 8-Ball, even though this is a War of Attrition match and JR very clearly did not know the definition of "attrition" when Lawler asked him to define it, and JR had to use schoolyard tacts like "*I* know what it is, do you?" until the moment you can tell someone came on the headset and told him the definition. You can tell someone came on, as JR was *floundering* and fucking seething at Lawler for pressing him on this, and after 20 agonizing seconds suddenly JR blurted out 6 synonyms for "attrition". (Skull has a slightly rounder face, FYI)

Shamrock dumps himself on his head doing a Japanese armdrag to D-Lo. 

Chainz drops several fast elbowdrops but I'm not sure if any of them are good. His big boot is better. 

Mark Henry looks like a total badass calling for Ahmed, and the crowd really comes alive when he and Ahmed start wailing on each other. 

D-Lo does a frog splash onto Ahmed's ass and legs, committing to the splash even as it looked like Ahmed was a man not expecting a frog splash. 

It is wild how much smaller Shamrock looks than everyone else in the match. 

Who could possibly give a shit that D-Lo Brown is a Certified Public Accountant, JR? How would that be interesting to any person watching D-Lo Brown in this War of Attrition? Talk about his nice Hitman elbowdrop.

Jesus now JR is talking about The Rock's degrees. JR tanked this match. They're fucking fighting JR, stop talking about everyone's fucking GPA. 

6. Vader vs. Kane

The cameras cut away just as Vader was about to do some V-hand crab dancing and shit this company hasn't known how to film wrestling in 25 years. 

Vader is throwing punches straight at Kane's forehead and then swinging his whole arm into the side of Kane's head. 

Vader gets a rear waistlock and grabs Kane by the hair with his left hand so he can punch Kane in the back of the head a bunch with his right, including one shot from behind that snuck up and under into Kane's temple. 

Kane isn't bad in control, but things are much better whenever it is Vader punching Kane in the head. 

Vader has taken big bumps for clotheslines. 

My dad would have made such a good Paul Bearer, if he was someone who ever dressed up in a costume for any reason (I have never seen my dad in any costume for any reason). My dad is more handsome than Paul Bearer, but the body shape and parted brown hair are too similar. 

Kane does his uppercut but he hadn't learned how to arm slap yet. 

Vader tests just how sturdy Kane's mask is by punching him directly into the face six times until Kane literally responds as if he's being swarmed by bees. 

Kane is wearing some insane Boris Karloff lifts, and whenever Vader rocks him with a standing clothesline you can really see them throwing Kane off balance. 

Does Vader have the best standing splash? It's up there. 

Kane's strikes don't look great, his top rope clothesline doesn't look great, but there's absolutely no denying how awesome it looks seeing Vader get tombstoned. 

7. Savio Vega/HHH/New Age Outlaws vs. Steve Austin/Cactus Jack/Chainsaw Charlie/Owen Hart

Savio Vega sure makes a lot of sense as a kayfabe partner and as a guy who would be able to work this match, but when a teenager hears Mystery Partner and that Mystery is replacing the World Heavyweight Champion, well...

All of the Austin/Gunn exchanges are really great. Gunn scrambling out of the ring to avoid a Stunner, then bashing Austin with the edge of a trash can on the floor, Austin running him the hell over with a clothesline, beating him with 1998 chairshots

Billy Gunn is doing all of Hunter's Flair bumps better than Hunter

Funk is in there taking nothing but damage, beaten by trash cans, getting powerbombed through a pair of chairs, taking a piledriver on a trash can lid, back suplex onto a lid, also threw a trash can into the air and taking the hit when it comes back down.

Billy Gunn has that Paul Koslo weave

Cutting Funk off from everyone else is a cool way to work this 8 man

Austin throws a mashed up trash can so hard at Billy Gunn's head, and again, Gunn bumping for Austin is perfection

Nobody backstage told Savio and Funk that they were wearing the same thing? Both got that big ol dad butt denim 

Owen Hart's best role is running in from the apron to back off DX, and then returning to the apron. He hits a great missile dropkick into Savio and later runs across the ring to hit a big dropkick and take swings at all of them. 

Ending is a bit abrupt, with Austin tagging in, wasting everyone quickly, and then just hitting a Stunner on Road Dogg, but the match was a really fun brawl. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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The Continuing Saga of Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

 Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 1/26/98

ER: The was a little scruffy, but I thought a lot of this was real good. I love this era of uncertain Windham looks, vacillating among different levels of dirtbag. Cowboy, biker, lazy pool guy, man who offers to wash office building windows and also smells, etc. This week he's still got the Blackjack hair, but now has a freshly shaved smooth fat face. He looks like a guy who wears a clip-on tie and makes fake IDs and licenses. Most notable about this was what I thought was a strong Hawk performance. I really liked his selling while getting repeatedly cut off from Animal, and I thought the pace pushing in his sequences with Jarrett were the best parts of the match. Windham works this like Buddy Rose and gets better the longer the match goes and Animal works a nice hot tag, but Jarrett and Hawk elevated this. There was a killer little sequence where Hawk stops Jarrett's sunset flip and punches him right in the forehead, and Jarrett instinctively trips him by the ankle and drags him down to keep control. 

This was the first of only *three times* that Windham and Jarrett teamed, and it's too bad. They had real chemistry and would have been a real upgrade to the tag division over the summer, and I loved the Aztec ring gear for Jarrett. I liked their ring control and simple things like a Windham vertical suplex followed up by a Jarrett elbowdrop. Both Road Warriors had some big long arm lariats and Animal's high rotation powerslam looked great, and I liked Hawk's role in this even before he hit his leaping fistdrop. The finish is messy but in kind of cool ways, with Hawk leaping recklessly off the top rope with a clothesline while he should have clearly seen that his target, Jarrett, was *not* facing him. Because of that, Hawk basically hooked Jarrett's neck and crashed himself, while Windham gave a weird but kind of cool short piledriver to Animal. The finish had Windham at his asshole heel best, blasting Animal with the tennis racket and then bat flipping it way out of the ring, back to Cornette. I need a GIF of Barry tossing that racket. 

Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Bradshaw/Flash Funk WWF Raw 2/2/98

ER: If Windham was a low key document forging dirtbag last week, this was more of him as a guy talking too much shit at a birthday kickball game. He had a smooth smug look on his face and kept obnoxiously flashing peace signs, a cheap shot artist even though he was the biggest guy on the field. Not coy about it, just smiling and getting away with it, with two improbably 40 year old Rock n Rolls laughing and helping him cheat. The match was better on paper than it was in execution, but only because Flash gets taken out of the match early, and his exchanges with Jarrett showed uncharacteristic hesitation. Most of the Windham talk from this era was about how out of shape he was, but this match shows that this man can flat out work regardless of what his body looked like. I guess that's always been something said about him, though. His crowd work during his brief WWF NWA heel run showed that he could still connect to the crowd as a heel, he was just doing it in a way that WWF didn't like looking at. He taunts the crowd from the apron the entire time he was not officially in this match, and only enters the match after the Rock n Rolls distract Bradshaw, allowing Barry to sneak around the ringpost with a western lariat. 

When Windham tags in, he hits two excellent punches, long uppercuts that started from behind his right lovehandle, and continued to mock the crowd any chance he got. It surely wasn't a good sign for the NWA angle that Bradshaw still managed to win this match despite having no partner and going against 5 people, but it was worth it for the post-match beatdown. Cornette blasted Bradshaw with the racket and Bradshaw completely ignored it, before being jumped by Ricky and Robert. I loved the visual of the Rock n Rolls holding Bradshaw by the arms while Jarrett ties up his legs, Windham hitting standing splashes on Bradshaw's bad leg. I wish we would have gotten a Blackjacks Explode PPV match instead of just a 3 minute Raw match two months later. The whole feud could have been so much more. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Dirtbag Era Barry Windham

Barry Windham/Jeff Jarrett vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got an actual cool tag team from that, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a straight up 1985 NWA style tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Two big dudes in face paint running into people is almost always going to be enough. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. This was great TV tag wrestling.

Barry Windham vs. Bradshaw WWF Raw 3/23/98

ER: THE BLACKJACKS EXPLODE!! WWF bringing back the NWA for a few months in early '98 was really weird, and I'm pretty sure I remember that it was all just to make fun of Cornette, so who's to say who the bad guy is here. We get a pretty cool mini video package before this match, something they don't do now as interestingly as they did here, and definitely not as efficiently. Within a 20 second video they had already explained why the Blackjacks broke up, how Barry was jealous of Bradshaw, showed several clips of Bradshaw murdering people, Bradshaw chasing Barry up the ramp after interference, and then we cut back to a smug dirty blonde Windham waiting in the ring. They had me at Hello. This feels like a match that would have fit nicely onto the WM14 card, though I get why it was not on the card. Windham seems pretty broken down by this point, which is weird as he was somewhat resurgent not too much later in WCW. Still, this was 3 fun minutes with a dozen different moments of two giant dudes smacking each other with vests and chaps. Seriously, I'm pretty sure half of this match was them removing their respective vests and chaps, and smacking the other a few times with each removal. Take off a vest, smack your opponent with it. Get them chaps off, smack your opponent with them. It's the 2019-present LA Park formula and it works, as documented here 20 years prior. Barry is moving a little slow and those knees seem to be barking, but he takes a couple of awesome bumps into the ring steps, getting run knees first in nasty fashion, eats a big boot from Bradshaw and falls into them again. Windham hits a cool DDT in the ring and we get a goofus roll up finish. You have Windham and Bradshaw in there, at least let one of these two hit their diving lariat! 

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