Found Footage Friday: OMNI 2/5/84~!

GCW Omni 2/5/84

Jesse Barr vs. Johnny Rich 

MD: Usually these shows have one long match early, either a draw in the first or second match. This went long with the first two and it was done purposefully. The second match went to a draw, but the crowd was primed by the first ending in a pinfall when it felt like they were working towards a draw (at least that's what it felt like to me). We can't know for certain what a 1984 crowd thought, but given it was booked this way, the idea was almost certainly to introduce the idea that a match can end at any point to keep the interest strong for a second match worked long in Thornton vs Armstrong. As much as the crowd liked Rich, and they really liked Rich on this night, Armstrong was the one going for Thornton's Jr. Heavyweight title, and because they wanted to keep Brad strong, that's the one that had to go to a draw. Did it work? I think, as best as we can tell from crowd noise, it did.

The matches were fairly similar. Long holds worked in and out of. Barr vs Rich had more shtick and I probably liked it more accordingly. They did a great bit early on where Rich worked out of a headlock, Barr did a dropdown, and Sawyer elbow dropped him, only to invert the sequence a minute later but have Barr miss the elbow drop. They did another bit where Barr tried to press Rich's hands down in a double knucklelock so he could step on them only for Rich to move his hands and punch him. Or they'd escalate to rope running and Rich would get one on Barr and then when Barr tried it a few minutes later, Rich would drop to his knees and punch him instead. Then a couple of minutes later, they'd have Barr stop short and try a falling punch only for Sawyer to move. Crowd-pleasing stuff. Barr finally had enough and roughed Rich up a bit, but Brett came back big and Barr stooged all over the place for him. Finish had Barr try to toss Rich off the top but get rolled up. 

ER: When I fired up a new Omni show I was not especially seeking out a Young Boys style opener where Jesse Barr works side headlocks while Rich gets kickier the longer he's in them, building to shoulderblocks and knucklelocks. New Japan Young Boys have much better timing on rope running spots but Rich and Barr's timing gets better the longer they do the shtick and it starts to get actively good by the time they're pushing to the finishing stretch. Our Donald Sutherland coffee drinking swinger who is fast becoming the Straw Hat Guy of the Omni is not impressed, chewing his gum the whole time, but it gets good when Barr works the knucklelock into a hand stomp, but Rich is a beat ahead of him and punches him from his knees. Rich has a lot of good working punching from his knees, and things get even better when they work a great fistdrop sequence into it, where Rich lands a nice one after stopping short, and when Barr tries the same thing he punches mat. Barr draws real heat when the 10 minute mark is announced, with only 5 minutes remaining, and he starts picking Rich up at 2 counts, smiling to the crowd like he doesn't give a damn if they go to a draw. A heel not actually interested in winning is hilarious and the crowd rejects his indifference. I love the trick of announcing the 5 minutes remaining, announcing each remaining minute, setting things up for a clear time limit draw, before the babyface escapes with a quick roll through win. I started this too dog tired to turn it off, and wound up completely into what they were doing. 

Les Thornton vs. Brad Armstrong

Thornton vs. Armstrong had much more of Thornton leaning on Brad, especially with a headscissors. Brad would find his way out with headstands and all sorts of other techniques but Thornton would get him right back into it. Eventually, after beating on Brad in the corner a bit with European Uppercuts, Thornton ended up into a hammerlock and they switched to having Brad control that way for the next part of the match. Thornton got him out and started playing king of the mountain, and following up with a headlock as Brad got back in. Brad was able to turn it around and get him out, getting some revenge on the floor. Then as the time was ticking down they wrestled fairly even, both going for opportunities where they could get it and fighting towards the draw. Thornton vs. Brad was harder hitting with meaner holds and maybe tighter work, and still had the crowd going, but I had more fun with the shtick in Rich vs. Barr.

ER: I'm so tired of Good Hand Brad. It's 15+ years of documentation of a guy who refused to take anything to the next level. Act like it means something to you. It has to mean more than how well you can execute a hammerlock, right Brad? Does it ever interest you to take a ring posting in a cool, memorable way, instead of "the right way"? I was born into pro wrestling. My daddy is a legend, my brothers all wrestle. I want to be a better version of Tony Garea. That's my pro wrestling dream. Les Thornton throws a ringpost bump into the aftereffect of an atomic drop, so even among great physique guys who couldn't break out of the undercard, Brad wasn't front of the line. Thornton's butterfly and back suplexes looked like they were trying to actually get the match to a finish as time expired - nice aggression after taking nothing but scenic routes - and I wish they had committed to getting Thornton that inside cradle win at 19:30. 

Ron Garvin vs. King Kong Bundy

MD: Not a ton to say here. We come in JIP. and maybe lose the first ten minutes or so of it actually. We come in with Bundy leaning on Garvin but they build towards these great, great Garvin flurries, first in the center of the ring and then in the corner. Bundy's able to push Garvin away but he keeps coming at him. Just as Bundy really has him in the corner, Ellering comes out and Bundy chases him to the back so Garvin wins it. I assume this was mid-turn for Bundy and Garvin was just sort of there as a babyface to fight along the way. The good stuff here was good but we didn't get quite enough of it.

ER: I was hoping for a big slug out as the only remaining footage, but we get instead a fun build to Garvin throwing punches, working his way closer to Krang with eye pokes and foot stomps and frustrated the largest man in town, before triumphantly teeing off on him. Bundy takes punches like he's being swarmed with bees, and what's even better is he gets his hands on Garvin instantly and beats the shit out of him. Paul Ellering is contractually obligated to appear in 75% of the matches so Bundy just chases him off after beating Garvin's ass. We deserve to see this as a real match. 

Jake Roberts vs. Jerry Brisco

MD: As always, 83-84 Jake is the Jake we were promised: a slinking, long-limbed psychological master. This doesn't go nearly long enough. Brisco outwrestles Jake early causing Jake to slither around the ring trying to escape. Jake uses his reach advantage to cut him off and control. Brisco starts outwrestling him again on the comeback. Jake takes a great corner bump as he runs in and gets tripped. As he's going for the figure-four, Ellering gets on the apron. Jake then gets the ref between them so he can hit a cheapshot and hit the DDT. It was stylistically different than the rest of the card but I would have liked a bit more. What we did get here was very good.

ER: I don't even need to write much about it, I just love the way Jake Roberts moves. This 1984 Omni has given us the slinkiest dirtbag Jake Roberts. He looks and moves like a giant spider version of my cool Little League coach Tom Menghini, who coached us to a title in 1991, smoked, and often wore no shirt. This is six minutes of Jake movement from what might have been his best year of moving. Jake moves so compellingly that Gerald Brisco may as well have been Les Thornton or Brad Armstrong. He could have drawn believable stories with near upsets with any of those men. His powers were larger than life. His is one of our great necessary wrestler looks, a nightmare drunk fan sitting in the cheap upper deck Candlestick seats. His sprawling upside down out of nowhere corner bump isn't enough to rouse a single emotion from our emotional black hole Ordinary People Omni front row regulars, but the cheap seats thunder. I love how Jake sells his annoyance at Brisco's tenaciousness with his entire body. Jake could have been John Tatum if he didn't look so dangerous and so cool. The dismissive way he shoves the ref into Brisco, kicking Brisco in the balls as he does it, is done with the precision of a prison hitman. We've seen a career of Jake giving long limbed perfect DDTs, and we may have just found the purest one. This is how it looks, how it moves. 

Mr. R (Tommy Rich) vs. the Spoiler

MD: Chaos from the get go. More often than not, when we get a new Spoiler match, it doesn't disappoint. He was well into his 40s here but he still moved incredibly well for his size. Very fluid and active. They brawled to start including, Spoiler tossing in the little wooden ring steps and then Rich threatening him while he was on the top. Spoiler was incessant, using the claw, pulling at the mask, teeter tottering Rich in the ropes. When Rich would come back, Spoiler would go high and come down upon him, including just casually walking up the ropes in the middle of the ring to hammer down. He took a huge bump in the corner as Rich got out of the way allowing Rich to come back and work the mask himself. That would happen a few times honestly. Spoiler must have taken three bumps in the corner. This had a crazy feel as they fought around ringside, with Spoiler going for the bell only for the ref to stop him. Towards the end Ellering ran in and Rich was about to tear him apart until Spoiler nailed him with a chair. Babyfaces made the save. Just a great high energy brawl with perfect chemistry. 

ER: We are so over the moon for The Spoiler. Where were we, as a blog, before we wrote about Spoiler matches? He's such an Our Guy kind of guy, a real weirdo, who wrestled as a man inspired by nobody. Tommy Rich is also Our Guy but this isn't a Mr. R match, this is a Spoiler match. Every second of this is a Spoiler match. Even when he's doing something you've seen before, he's doing it in a way that is truly his own. Jardine's rope work is an incredible trick. Nobody else was walking on the ropes like that. Why is such a large man climbing and walking around on the ropes like that, and how does he make it look so easy. He'll use the ropes like he's cornered in a cage, and exploiting a loophole by climbing the cage and still attacking from the top of the cage, as if he's thinking of the ring as a bowl shape and the top rope around the ring as the top of the bowl. But while his rope walking is a cool trick - leading Tommy around by the head as he takes way bigger strides than you'd think possible - I love it even more when he is standing still up there. There's a moment where he knocks Rich to the floor and quickly scales the turnbuckles, then just stands there on the top, lording over Rich on the floor, looking like he was primed to plancha to his death, but just keeps standing. The visual is so odd, he's facing away from the ring but leaning his weight back towards it, defying physics with no respect before leaping off with an elbow. 

He cheats in fun ways that must have been a joy to see live. I loved him throwing the wooden ring steps into the ring before the match even starts, felt like something Terry Funk would do on a northeast indy show in the 90s, just to get the crowd buzzing while he stalks the ringside. My favorite bit was also before the bell, when he pretended to adjust a weapon in his tights just to piss off one small corner of the arena, a small magic trick only meant to be seen by some. His bumping was so dangerous for an old man (one year younger than I am). The way he got hung up by the knee missing a corner charge was something that Chris Hamrick stole and used with a much smaller frame, but I gotta know...is Don Jardine our first flying ringpost bumper? The Great Ringpost Bump has been a thing for ages with several ways to do it, but is Jardine the first guy to fly through the turnbuckles and nail the ringpost? I've seen him do it earlier than here, but it wouldn't surprise me if Spoiler was the one to invent the Cassandro/Super Dragon wrap around ringpost bump. The man had a gift for taking something you thought you'd seen and presenting it in a whole new light. This is a 1984 Omni show so naturally Paul Ellering was required for the finish, but that doesn't take away from this gem of a performance. 

Road Warriors vs. Sweet Brown Sugar/Pez Whatley

MD: Fun first few minutes here as the Roadies stooged and bumped all over the place in a way that would have seemed ridiculous two years later. I enjoy seeing them early on because they feel so different but this was obviously the genesis of what would make them into what they were. Once the extended heat started, the match sort of slowed to a crawl. We've seen this crowd go up huge for Pez but it wasn't happening on this night and they weren't really going up for Young either. It wasn't the most compelling heat in the history of the world but usually that didn't matter so much. Not sure what was going on. Maybe they were just ready to get on to the next program. Sugar and Pez had gotten close with a double headbutt but Hawk broke up the pin and the ref had to toss the match out as it devolved into chaos. But the crowd got to go home happy as Sawyer and Bundy came in to clear house post-match. 

ER: This was worked completely differently than I was expecting and was so much fun in the way it defied expectations, until it just became very boring and lost all energy. This did not go the way you expected it to go on paper, in three different ways: You wouldn't expect Pez and Sugar to control for as long as they did, you wouldn't expect the Road Warriors to be so boring when they went in control, and you wouldn't expect Pez or Sugar to be so boring working from underneath. What an odd match. It's weird (but very fun!) when Pez is in control and Hawk is bumping around for him, and then it's as if everyone forgets how to work a crowd. Suddenly there is no underneath fire from Pez or Sugar, and there is no energy from Hawk or Animal. Some of the loud reactions for Pez in this Omni footage have been revelatory, but here it's like everyone forgot who he was. However, for several minutes, we got to see Pez Whatley smothering Hawk and not let him get any offense in, and that's hilarious. Hawk looks as intimidating as ever, and he just can't get anything going against Pistol Pez...until he does, and opts to do nothing. Such is life. This is the ONE match on this card where Don't Look Now Donald Sutherland fan in. a sad Ordinary People marriage had the correct, bored reaction. 

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 83~!

GCW Omni 8/28/83

ER: I'm so glad they included the opening promo package for this show, it's so good. Tommy Rich called Bill Irwin "Jack" (the greatest promo guys in history knew to call their opponents Jack), Mad Dog Sawyer has the greatest pro wrestling body imaginable, and the Brisco Brothers cut an honest to god excellent promo on the Roadies. Gerry is a bit rigid but he keeps calling their match a Texas Tarnado Match and talks about how they wrestle tarnadoes in the Great State of Oklahoma every day, but Jack is the real killer. I am not a big Jack Brisco guy. He is one of the All Time Greats whose work doesn't really thrill me. But he sounds so damn cool in this promo. He is calm, and delivers it with a smirk like he really doesn't give a good goddamn about the Road Warriors. There is no fear at all. He even makes fun of their big arms, and asks what they're going to do with those big arms when the Briscoes bend them behind their backs and they start gasping for breath, and then Gerry starts doing this incredible tongue out gagging. These Oklahoma men in their tan suits just out here mocking the fucking Road Warriors. Incredible. That sold me on their match so hard, I can't wait. 

Mr. Wrestling (Jesse Barr) vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Good mat-based opener to get over the idea that the fake Mr. Wrestling is capable enough. Lightfoot is basically the definition of a good undercard hand. I may or may not have mentioned it last time, but he was useful in Portland as a guy to build up Jay Youngblood coming in by giving the heels someone to beat first. They worked in and out of holds with some solid rope running. Barr did one of my favorite bits of mat wrestling where he has a toehold on and has to rotate around while keeping the toes in order to avoid his opponent from grasping his head. It's the slickest thing imaginable. Great finish here as he jammed a second headscissors takeover by turning it into a hotshot on the second rope, setting Lightfoot up for the running knee and then a back bridging pin for good measure.

ER: I dug this a lot. Barr does a lot of little things that I really like. I liked how he lay in wait to break Lightfoot's full nelson, holding his hands behind his head over Lightfoot's, motionless, before striking down in one quick motion. His drop toehold to set up his Indian deathlock was so tight. His fistdrop? A great, workmanlike Dibiase style fistdrop. He fell into the ropes selling for Lightfoot's comeback in a way that made it feel like he could accidentally slip through them. The finish is great, with Lightfoot going for a flying headscissors and Barr falling back with a hotshot that drops Lightfoot on the top rope to the middle. He sets up his Mr. Wrestling kneelift like an asshole, calling for it in the corner like an actually cool version of Edge. But the real asshole move was his jackknife neck bridge pin. I would have wanted to murder the guy if I were one of the front row men with their arms crossed. 

Brett Sawyer vs. Bob Roop

MD: This is an aside but I listened to an episode of Roop's podcast (#12 about his first tour of Japan) the other day and it was quite good. I'd suggest it. The more we see of Wayne, the better he comes off. Amazing connection with the crowd. Great seller. Throws everything into both his bumping and his shots, especially his comeback shots. Roop did a great job throwing himself into things too, especially his knee strikes. He used one to knock Wayne out of the ring early and Wayne came back a bloody mess. Blood on the second match on the card is a choice but it worked out here. Some great moments of comeback and cutoff, including a picture perfect posting reversal by Roop. Except for that wasn't a cutoff at all. As Roop tried to get back into the ring, a staggered Wayne managed to roll him up making it for two great, novel finishes in a row. Very good stuff for what it was.

ER: I really love Brett Sawyer now. I used to have not much of an opinion on him. All of these 1983 Omni shows have been so much fun, and everyone on them has had their stock raised by the new footage. Brett Wayne might just be the guy who has been raised the most, for me. Now, a lot of other guys had such high ceilings that they had less room to move up, but that doesn't matter. The Other Sawyer is great. This match was awesome. Bob Roop is one of the toughest men in wrestling history and looks like Ned Beatty. Sawyer looks like the ugly bassist in an 80s hair metal band, but he's just such a fucking great babyface. He has skills completely different from his brother. He was Mad Dog's younger brother, but by a lot less time than you'd think. They were a year apart but Brett Wayne was in permanent Kid Brother mode. Brett Wayne Sawyer was a GREAT Kid Brother wrestler. 

The Omni crowd sat with their arms crossed during a good opener, but Brett Wayne is the one who gets the old ladies waving their arms and pumping their fists for his comeback. This whole match is built around a big posting, where Roop runs Brett down the apron. Sawyer is great at dramatic falls, and I love how he absorbs the posting, how he falls off the apron, the time he took to get back in the ring. Sawyer is a great bleeder too, and as Roop hits a snaring clothesline you can see he has good color from the posting. Sawyer's selling is so good as he's fighting back, and it all builds to this incredible moment that mirrors his earlier posting. Sawyer now has Roop on the apron, now it's his turn for revenge, the fans all want it, the old ladies are screaming for Brett...and instead it turns out to be an incredibly done reversal. Sawyer runs Roop down the length of the apron and at the last second Roop smashes Sawyer's face into the turnbuckle, a shot maybe ever tougher than his posting earlier. I thought that would have played as a great, if demoralizing, finish, buy my boy Brett surprises me again when he gets a tight roll up immediately after, as Roop is getting back in the ring. I bit at all the exact things they wanted that Omni crowd to bite at, their storytelling and Sawyer's babyface fire hooking me just as it hooked ATL over 40 years ago.

Paul Ellering vs. Bruno Sammartino Jr.

MD: Seeing David with the Bruno Jr. name really hammers home how doomed the guy was. He was stocky and there's a world where he could have had a totally different name and been in Florida or Memphis teaming with Jim Neidhart and they could have been a hugely successful heel team, I think.  What we had instead was Ellering really guiding him through one. Paul would eat the mat and end up in cross toeholds again and again, then complain to the ref when he got out. He finally took over working the eyes and he had a great way of selling his fists after the punch or continuing to sell the leg that had him coming off like a vulnerable manager instead of a former muscleman wrestler. The fans were behind David when he came back. Weird spot down the stretch as he got pressed off the top (like Flair or someone would) by Ellering, but he came back again after that and hit a suplex and a belabored press slam before Ellering took a powder for the count out. Pretty transparent overall but still better than you'd expect and a testament to Ellering.

ER: That David Sammartino has BS all over his boots, poor kid really stepped in it. As Matt said, what chance did this kid have? He had his dad's build and none of his timing or charisma. There was a moment where he swept Ellering's legs late in the match and Ellering was just lying on his back, directing Sammartino to start punching him, and it took him forever to pull the trigger on them. Ellering did what he could, but you but my boy Brett Wayne in the same match and he'd have Ellering scrambling and begging off all around the ring. I did like Sammartino standing on Ellering's neck while holding his legs in a deathlock, but much of this was Ellering just making do. When Paul finally took over with a punch to a grounded Sammartino, shaking out his fist, I said aloud "finally" at my desk at work. Ellering had several nice punches and was good at working to get heat, since Sammartino was incapable of connecting with these people. Sammartino's big press slam was a good thing to end on. It looked good and I like how he really threw Ellering, but Ellering was great at deciding to take the count out loss, almost swinging at a cop on his way out. 

Texas Tornado Match: Road Warriors vs. Brisco Brothers

MD: This was already out there so I'll just hit it quickly. Gerry saying "Texas Tarnado" never gets old. What was most striking here was how this was so unproduced and raw. There weren't the sort of momentum shifts that you'd expect. It had all four men in the ring at the same time but very often one Brisco was in charge of a Roadie and a Roadie was in charge of the other Brisco. There were a few moments of double teaming if they got a Brisco out and a few moments of clear comeback, but in general, it was just barely controlled chaos. That's extremely refreshing even if it meant any possible narrative had to be entirely implicit. The finish was fun too since it had the Briscos resorting to using chairs (within the rules) and making it so the Road Warriors were too wary to come back into the ring. They got swung at every time they tried and that forced them to get counted out. It's a match that simply couldn't exist today.

ER: I thought this was mostly pretty bad. The Briscoes wrestled nothing like they said they would wrestle and the Tarnado stipulation played to nobody's strengths. Much of the fighting looked soft and slowed down. Many of the strikes looked so bad I had to check that I hadn't actually been watching the other matches in 1.5x speed and then got brought back to real life. Nope, it was just them moving slowly and throwing bad strikes. Animals kept doing this little hopping stomps, everyone moved like they didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone else, Gerry did a run of four push off double boots out of the corner and not only did it look like the Roadies didn't want to run into them, but Gerry threw them like he didn't want them to make contact. Jack did a couple things I liked, getting out of a bearhug with a big telegraphed eye poke, and I liked the visual of both Briscoes kicking their own Road Warrior in the knee around the ring at the same time, but then that chairs finish quickly brought this back to bad. The wrestling grapplers who were going to immobilize the muscle bound freaks on the mat, instead resorting to getting weapons (the Road Warriors did not do a single untoward action toward them!) and throwing the worst chair shots you've ever seen. Gerry's were especially terrible. The second match on this card had blood, motherfucker, throw a glancing blow off one of their heads or something, anything. No good. 

Mr. Wrestling II vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: Totally down my alley. Mr. Wrestling II was an absolute folk hero here and Zbyszko was just the perfect heel. II started by dropping the belt between them like a line in the sand. Then, of course, Larry stalled. Until II gave chase and finally caught him as he thought he was free and clear to slide into the ring. A massive beating ensued until Larry stalled more into the corner. Then as he finally let the ref allow II to get close, he hit a kick, pulled the turnbuckle back and smashed II's head into it. That allowed him to control for a while, including a very interesting chinlock where he put it over by leaning to the side. Such a little thing but it was visually effective. II made it up and Larry went for the exposed corner again but II turned it around on him, leading to another beating and the eventual finish, which had Larry hold the rope on a roll up after he couldn't get a pile driver to work. Post-match II hit a kneelift and Larry tossed the belt straight up in one of the best visuals I've seen in a very long time. This was exactly what it should have been.

ER: Now we're talking, now we're back to the good stuff. The Omni Zbyszko has been so good, and this continues that trend. But this is also a tremendous Wrestling II performance, just fire the whole way through. The crowd starts swelling when Larry begins removing the turnbuckle pad, knowing what's coming, and once he smashes II into the buckle the real great shit begins. I love how these two fall for each other. Look how II smashes into that buckle and falls slowly down the ropes to the mat, and look how explosively Larry falls when the tables get turned. The second time Larry got smashed into the exposed buckle he sold it so well that I was sure he broke his nose, lying there on the mat covering his face, I fully expected a bloody nose and mouth when the hands came away. Wresting II was pushing 50 and his work was excellent. He beat Zbyszko's ass around the ring (paying him back for those great punches Larry threw right across his jaw) and scraped his boot all over Larry's face. Zbyszko took at least three back body drops from the guy, fast ones. Wrestling II has the best kneelift in wrestling: short, quick, sharp, damaging. I loved him dropping standing into Zbyszko's head and neck, doing a quick fist shake out to straight his arm after one to the dome. Zbyszko's finish was real scummy, great hold of the ropes after a cool piledriver reversal from II, and the post match fire was excellent. Wrestling II nailing him with another all time great kneelift causing Larry to toss the belt up into the air as he bumped. 

Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin (Loser Receives Lashes)

MD: When this show came out, I think people undersold just how great this one-two punch was, as one match led into the next and heated it up to a massive degree. Pez had the crowd anyway and the Kabuki/Hart act was super over; plus you had Ole to cheerlead, but it was all incredibly cleverly done. 

Rich and Irwin really did have great chemistry. There was a way that the two were visually balanced, something about how they both moved, emoting for the back row, big arm movements, a sort of lankiness where the sum of the two was more than the individual parts. And they had a certain explosiveness to how they hit the ropes, and whipped each other. They'd bring it up and down here, going right back to that explosiveness. Tommy got color early, because of course he did. He'd have a great hope spot where he reversed a smash in the corner and fired away for a bit until he got cutoff back in the corner again. The finish had him hitting the damndest small package out of nowhere, with the legs hooked just right. The fans went nuts and then doubly so as he handcuffed Irwin in the corner and started whipping. They had to deliver on the gimmick at least a little so he got a few shots in before Hart and Kabuki ran down to break it up. Then they got some shots in on a prone Rich before the place really exploded as Pez and Ole charged in to stop it. 

ER: Yeah this is another reason why we're here, this is what we want. Two wild men, Wildfire and Just Wild, one of the best bleeders of all time against a guy who will throw a couple dozen pump kicks into a bleeding man's face. Everyone in Georgia was so complementary to each other's style, everyone synced up so well, everyone was great at feeding for everyone else. This footage really is magic. Even before the blood, I could have watched a match built around these two hitting the ropes and Irwin doing drop downs. Irwin stayed on Rich and Rich was great at getting kicked around. It's a simple formula that they kept going to most of the match and I never tired of it, because Rich kept finding great ways to put over the kicks to his bleeding head. My favorite moment was Irwin busting Rich open because before you see that Rich is busted open, you see Irwin looking at his fist after punching Rich, and then shake his fist off. He clearly does not shake his fist because of the impact of his punch, he is shaking it to get the blood off. It's so good. The small package finish works really well, love how Rich grapevined those legs and how Irwin was wiggling to kick out. All of the pins in this were great, now that I think about it. Irwin had a great one where he posted up on Rich's laid out arm, body weight on one arm and his arm pressed down onto Rich's flattened arm, and I have no idea how Rich kicked out. Irwin missed a charge into the buckles really violently, perfect way to set up Rich cuffing him around the ropes. There were only a few whippings before Hart and Kabuki got in there to break it up but they all looked nastier than I expected, Rich really airing out that whip. 

Pez Whatley vs. Great Kabuki

MD: That led right into the Pez vs. Kabuki match, with the crowd on edge from the start. Pez dismantled Kabuki from the get go with each shot drawing that Ooooof noise that is so welcome in these early 80s matches. He got too close to the ropes as he was goozling Kabuki though and Hart got him in the eye. Hart was entertaining throughout since he was constantly trying to evade Ole. They brought it up and down with nerveholds but the fans got up for Pez's comebacks each and every time. Then they built to bigger spots with Kabuki coming off the top until Pez caught him and tossed him off. Finish had Hart grab the leg on a suplex attempt from the outside in but Pez actually kick out (the babyface never kicks out that scenario) and then Ole trip Kabuki off the ropes so Pez could hit the jumping headbutt for the win. Place went nuts, Ole celebrated with Pez. Post-match they had Kabuki ALMOST go after Hart until he got him under control; just beautiful pro wrestling all around.

ER: How good are these OOOF shots!? They added to every match they gave the OOFs and in such an ahead of its time wrestling crowd way. What's the fan crossover of fans who were doing the Omni OOFs and Knife Edge WOOs? Every shot in this match and the other Good Ones had it's own punctuation and since everyone in the territory was capable of throwing a great punch the matches feel like constant exclamation points. That's another reason the Road Warriors/Briscoes match was so bad, it was just a sloppy tornado with punches and soft kicks and a weird legdrop and nobody could find the rhythm. Nobody was timing their strikes for impact they were just in each other's way. No OOFs. 

If Brett Sawyer is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the Omni stuff started showing up a few years ago, then Kabuki is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the DVDVR Texas and All Japan 80s sets. The Chris Adams series was the peak but Kabuki revealed himself to have a real consistent TV match quality and a style I really like. Maybe our greatest Mysterious Asian Striker gimmick worker. He felt violent like Abby but with no weapons, just the savate kicks and throat thrusts and aura. Pez Whatley has been a real treat on these Omni shows too - they're a gift that has raised many boats - and his big headbutts and the way people were living with his selling were so good. The way Kabuki bumped for Whatley's first headbutt, flying back into a leaping bump for the first time all match......then the way Gary Hart bumps for Whatley's headbutt!!Hart takes it on the apron and leaps up high enough that I gasped, thinking he was crashing off the apron to the floor, but instead he gets tangled in the ropes in seven different ways before getting to the apron. It's the best Tangled in the Ropes bumping ever done among heel managers with the latest name Hart. Kabuki leapt high in the air to absorb Whatley's flying headbutt and it was the right amount of cartoon impact the crowd needed for one gigantic OOF. 

Dick Slater vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD:  The first thirty seconds of this went exactly how I was expecting. The two meet up on the floor and you get every impression that this was going to be a wild draw. But then it went in a completely different direction and stands as an incredibly complete match, just a real heated, grudge-filled but grounded main event (with some big high points) and it's almost surprising there wasn't a title match involved given how they worked it.

Slater controlled the arm early. They'd go out of it and right back into it. Sawyer would pull the hair or get a cheapshot in but they'd run two or three bits and then Slater would drag him back down. Varied stuff, hammerlock and wristlock variations, with the best of it being Slater throwing in a bunch of headbutts while he had the arm. The transition here had Ellering get involved, whacking Slater as his head was between the ropes and Buzz had the ref distraction.

First heat was chinlock heavy but they worked it well and the fans went up for every hope spot with the cutoffs being sufficiently weighty, including the last one where Sawyer tossed Slater to the floor. He started to hulk up out there and came back with big punches. This could have well built to a finish but instead the ref went down, Ellering handed Buzz some knucks, and they went around for a second bit of heat, Slater now bleeding. He survived the power slam, though, started firing back again, beating Slater around ringside. When things got desperate and Buzz went back to the knucks, Slater got them and KOed him right in front of the ref for the DQ. 

Just super complete. That's the best word for it. This is one of those matches that closed every parenthesis and was full of compelling stuff in the middle. Second time I went through this (even not remembering the details), I could feel every banana peel slip or cut off by Buzz coming but it all felt just right, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. You could program a match like this but of course it's Buzz and Slater's mannerisms and wild abandon that turned it from theory to gripping practice.

ER: 20 minutes of new Buzz Sawyer means 20 more minutes cementing him as one of my favorites. Can you imagine seeing a guy looking like and shaped like Buzz Sawyer walking into an Olive Garden in a mint green polo? A guy with that hairline who is jacked in that specific way looks like Instant Trouble. I don't know that there are five looks in wrestling history that I love more than Buzz Sawyer's. The fact he's not just a Perfect Look but he knows how to use it is lighting in a bottle. The way he uses his look, the way he bends his back taking payoff punches, the way he false starts and stomps before locking up, the way he walks around in a circle before bringing it back around to taking a shot. He's the beefiest Chris Candido possible and Dick Slater is like a strong silent Roddy Piper. People respond to both. 

They can work slow and they can work big and they have no problem filling 20. They could have filled 30. There were three different points where it felt like they were peaking things to the finish and they all worked, and the small stuff in between was no less interesting. The highest peak - and what certainly felt like the push to the finish - was Slater finally zombie staggering furiously after Ellering at ringside, throwing chairs and kicking tables in a rage while Ellering runs away in his silk robe like Don Knotts. Mad Dog grabs Dick from the ring and gets his lights punched out. You'll see two different great powerslams, Slater throwing a series of 8 consecutive headbutts short arm headbutts after also being the one to hit a charging JYD headbutt earlier, two hidden weapon punches that look like the finish, a great ref performance from Nick Patrick - a guy who needs to get more praise for everything he does - and a post match sour grapes stuff piledriver that could have started a riot. Pro wrestling. 

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Found Footage Friday: RYUMA GO~! BARR~! BRUISE~! HAMADA~! SCORPIOs~! ESTRADA~! ARANDU~! SUPER PUNK~! DIFUNTO~!

Super Punk/Kendo Star/Milo Caballero vs Sultan Gargola/Ulises/Difunto CMLL 1992

MD: I thought this would be uneventful since we only get ten minutes of in, but we come in during the segunda right at the comeback with Difunto's masked ripped to shreds by Super Punk (Luciferno?) and the tecnicos getting some serious justice on the rudos. Super Punk's mask had been ripped as well and between the segunda and tercera they continued to really go at it.This got a little silly with the tercera exchanges (though I ended up kind of wanting to see more Caballero and his unnecessary flipping) before settling down to Punk and Difunto smacking each other in the face again. The finish was great though. In the midst of the brawling, Difunto ended up on one of the refs. Super Punk tried to leap off the top on him and landed on the ref. That let Difunto get in a foul. Pretty creative stuff. Just at a glance, I don't think we get the undercard apuestas match that this hopefully led to. That's a shame. As for the match itself, who doesn't want to watch ten minutes of goofy chaos, right?

Gigante Warrior/Scorpio Jr y Sr vs Solomon Grundy/Gran Hamada/Centurion CMLL 1992

MD: Pretty out there attraction match. I think that Gigante Warrior is Butch Masters who I've spent a bit too much time with in late 90 AJPW. He'd been around a bit by this point and could contribute in a match like this, even if he'd never be your first choice. Scorpio, Sr. always comes off like the world's best possible Rey Mysterio, Sr. opponent in size, shape, and temperment, so take that as you will. Hamada is there to give this a weird WAR feel. Honestly, I almost had the vibe of one of those matches with Porky and Marco Corleone in them, just with less charisma. Hamada, even in 92, still had bursts of explosiveness and some solid strikes. Scorpio, Jr. could match up with anyone on the other side, which says something, I suppose. Centurion didn't exactly impress, however. Grundy was there to get hit by Warrior and splash people in the corner. I'm never not going to have at least some fun with a matchup like this, but your mileage, gentle reader, may vary.

Jerry Estrada/Arandu/Angel Blanco Jr vs Blue Demon Jr/Panterita del Ring/Transformer CMLL 1992

MD: Pretty straightforward match here. Up front, the biggest things to note are how well Estrada and Arandu fit together visually  and that Panterita continued to feel like a big deal locally. Demon did not impress for the most part, but I'm not surprised there. It did surprise me a little how he let Angel Blanco kind of eat him up on the mat (even with simple things) in their initial exchange and had to goad him back for another go around so that they could at least feign evenness before tagging out. Transformer is Super Kendo, I think, and he's got fun gear but didn't stand out a ton otherwise. Estrada's stooging and selling had the announcers proclaim he was out to get the Oscar for Best Actor. Arandu still wasn't afraid to bump out of the ring.

They went around a couple of times in the primera with Demon looking a little better on his second exchange with Angel Blanco. He did have his timing down on the punches on the outside at least. The beatdown in the segunda was solid but probably not long enough in the grand scheme of things and then the comeback and finishing stretch in the tercera was blink and you'd miss it though Demon did hit a tope to set up the finish at least. Nothing egregious but not super interesting either.

Bruise Brothers (Ron and Don Harris) vs Ryuma Go/Jesse Barr Orienal Pro-Wrestling 12/3/92

MD: As best as I can tell, they'd been feuding both in general and over the tag belts and otherwise off and on since July. This was the big blowoff, a Texas deathmatch in a cage, but one that otherwise followed tag rules for the most part, and Ryuma Go's last match in the promotion.

There was a lot going on here but most of it really worked for me. Bruise Brothers were more apt to break the rules and double team while the faces tended to wait for tags though there were a lot of transitions based around the partner having enough and intervening. The Texas Deathmatch rules allowed for any number of big impressive bombs from Ron and Don (assisted powerbomb, double suplex, Slaughter Cannon with a double axe-handle, top rope power slam, etc.) which would lead to the three count and then the drama of whether Go, or for a huge chunk of the match, Barr (who took the broader heat), would be able to beat the count. Mostly everything else would lead to a somehow still dramatic two count.

The Harris Brothers were good at imposing themselves and solid at clubbering even if they were never quite as wild as you'd want. Maybe they made up for it with the big power moves. Early on the cage was the equalizer for Go and Barr (that and Go's headbutts and Barr's fire) but between it and the Deathmatch rules, it never became quite the force I would have wanted. It wasn't a huge part of the beatdown on Barr for instance, just there as part of the connective tissue at times. That's not to say the beatdown and the instances of just barely making the count after some big bomb wasn't compelling, because it was (gushing blood or no; here it was no). I thought it was so well done that my biggest criticism of the match is that he recovered way too soon after the hot tag to set up the finishing stretch (wherein they did this neat belly to back/high angle side slam combo). It also ended on an Octopus Hold, and I get the idea that surrender is probably valid in a Texas Deathmatch but you want to see the count come into play at the end, just like you do the cage; that said, it was really novel to see it used as it was, to ramp up the drama during a face-in-peril segment of a tag match. I can't think of many other tag team Texas Deathmatches and I can say pretty safely that as a proof of concept, there's more there to mine.

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