Found Footage Friday: ANDRE~! JUMBO~! KI~! NECRO~! CORNETTE~! A FLAIR~! LAWLER~! BABA~! TAUE~! CHRISTOPHER~!

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue AJPW RWTL 11/20/90 - EPIC

MD: Instead of reviewing this, I just want to list all the cool moments. At this point it'd been almost a year since Taue and Baba wrestled each other and Taue grew a lot in 90. He'd throw headbutts at Baba only to eat the brain chop. He'd come back with the palm strikes against the ropes and hit Baba with his own Russian Leg Sweep, only to piss Baba off so he hit him with one of his own. It had been a year (the last RWTL) since Jumbo fought Baba and the crowd buzzed huge when Jumbo tagged in. Early on, Jumbo put on the breaks so Baba couldn't get him with the big boot and Baba gave him a sort of "Aw, shucks" expression.

Then there was Andre, who only faced Jumbo or Taue a handful of times in his career. Taue tried to hit him with an enziguiri but could only get to the middle of his back. Jumbo tried to knock him over with a shoulder block and recoiled with as much over the top selling as I've ever seen out of him (it was warranted). Then Jumbo and Taue combined with a double jumping knee to trap Andre in the ropes but failed utterly to double suplex him. After the aforementioned Baba/Taue exchange, Taue was actually able to slam Baba, though he could have milked it more. Unfortunately, then Andre came in and manhandled him (being Taue!) like he was a child. Andre returned the favor from Jumbo's selling, recoiling from Tsuruta's punches and even going down (though he did toss him on the kick out), and then Taue ran into Andre's fist in the most glorious way possible. They finally got that double suplex, but on Baba, but he was able to ultimately survive the onslaught and tag Andre. Then Taue tried to waistlock him as he was going to German Suplex him and paid for it just like you'd expect.

See, all cool stuff. There was a pretty good match in there too, but that's a lot of cool stuff for a fifteen minute video and a ten minute match.

ER: Man this was awesome. This is the biggest bumping Andre performance of the 90s, and I'm not sure how far back into the 80s you'd have to go to find a match where he bumped more, but it's pretty far. It's amazing. To think, they aired the Andre/Baba RWTL '90 match against The Land of Giants, but their match against the Funks, this match, and the drool worthy Abdullah/Kimala II match all happened on house shows. This show was not officially taped, but was a house show the size of a TV taping, and obviously our intrepid cameraman saw how important this was. I'm so glad he did. I've gotten used to seeing inactive Andre performances, and seeing just how much he can add to a match with as little movement as possible, relying on body language and his incomparable selling and acting. There is so much to gleam from minimalist Andre, that seeing him get in and out of the ring multiple times and taking 4-5 bumps is downright shocking. When he and Baba entered the ring and I saw how Andre was pulling himself up onto the apron and climbing the turnbuckle rungs like a ladder to get the rest of his body upright, I assumed this was going to be a lot of Andre punching people from the ring apron. I've seen plenty of matches where just getting into the ring past the ring ropes looked like Andre pushing a boulder up a mountain, and I'm always excited to see how he can integrate his body's pain into a match. Instead, he made this into so much more. 

There were still great apron Andre moments, like the way he kicked at Taue's foot when Taue was breaking a submission, but I was surprised at how much Andre did in the ring. He worked really well with both Jumbo and Taue, and that first showdown with Jumbo felt special. I loved how Andre sold for Jumbo, how their first exchange went so much differently from their later showdown. When Andre squares off with Jumbo for the first time, Jumbo comes barreling in with a shoulderblock that hits a wall and sends Jumbo recoiling back into the ropes, and when he tries it against Andre just grabs him by the neck and face and squeezes, then blasts him with a headbutt. When a weaker Andre squares off with Jumbo late in the match, it's all about Andre's selling. I loved how Andre staggered around for Jumbo's hard elbow smashes. Andre is a man with somehow impeccable balance, who is able to sell as if he's a man with no center of gravity, always in danger of toppling over. Jumbo hits him with a couple elbows and sends Andre staggering, and Andre has to lunge for the ropes just to dodge Jumbo's big knee. The dodge does not deter Jumbo, and seeing that Andre is still staggered, he knocks him to the mat with a definitive elbow smash. It's wild to see Andre getting knocked down by a strike, and I couldn't even guess the last time it happened before this. 

Taue/Andre was fun in a different way, as Taue is the young punk (I like how a young punk in All Japan is someone who has wrestled almost 500 matches) who boldly fires off shots against the biggest man in Nagoya. I thought the Taue enziguiri looked great, catching Andre in the base of his neck (Andre sold it perfectly, like he just got punctured by a larger than average mosquito), then throwing a couple of jumping knees into Andre's torso before sending Andre careening backwards into the ropes with Jumbo's help. Andre had a great look of panic while stuck in the ropes, and was freed relatively quickly so that Jumbo and Taue could try an ill-advised tandem suplex. I loved how Andre dropped to his butt to block the suplex, as it made the suplex look that much more threatening. Andre did not frequently wind up on the mat during his All Japan run (he winds up on the mat more in this match than in several other available Andre AJ matches combined), so him willingly dropping to the mat only made it look like Jumbo and Taue were *that* close to suplexing him. 

I know I'm focusing a lot on Andre, but I thought this was a tremendous Baba match too. Really, it was a tremendous Everybody match, but I digress. Baba had some fun small stuff with Taue to start, giving Taue a great oldhead "okay, okay!" look after Taue backs him into the ropes and chops him. He does a slick armdrag takedown of Taue and works the headscissors, then later breaks out a rolling ankle pick on Jumbo, rolling down Jumbo's leg from a hammerlock to force Jumbo's momentum forward. It's always weird fun watching first couple years matches from guys like Taue or Tamon Honda, as they have 100% different movesets than during their peak years, and it's barely like watching an early version of the same wrestler, it's more like watching a completely different guy. Taue does Jumbo kneelifts instead of big running kicks, hits Baba with a bodyslam/elbowdrop/legdrop combo that he completely dropped, even throws a great lariat that I don't remember him using past 1992. I loved their dueling side Russian legsweeps (a move that always looks like it might cause Baba to shatter), and how Taue and Jumbo pulled off the tandem suplex on Baba, then took turns seeing who could hit him with a harder lariat (jury is out, both Taue and Jumbo really aimed to wreck their boss). Taue has Baba on the ropes and keeps that energy when Andre tags in, and it goes terribly for him. Taue chops away on Andre until Andre has had enough, then just shoves Taue into the corner and triumphantly squishes him over and over again, whips him into Baba's boot, and then drops that elbow. You can see Andre digging that elbow into Taue's chest as he presses down on his sternum with his palm, making sure the punk stays down. Another 90s Andre classic.

Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher vs. David Flair/Jim Cornette 3/31/2002

MD: There's a moment in here where David has Lawler backed in the corner and lays in some punches. He'd developed pretty decent ones at some point and Lawler might be the best guy in the history of wrestling when it comes to sympathetically taking offense in the corner. I've seen him as an old man build matches over the last couple of years just around that. Anyway, afterwards, Flair goes over to Cornette and eagerly asks if he did good before getting nailed from behind and stooging. That, right there, was probably David's ceiling, but it was a very effective moment. David looking for fatherly acceptance from Russo or whatever obviously didn't work, but a couple of years and a number of matches later, with Cornette in that role? That might have had some legs.

Having Christopher in there (and I have to admit, he sort of felt like 80s Greg Gagne, after he'd already had some success, teaming with Verne) makes you think that David's best was sort of as a poor man's version of him. Where he stood out the most wasn't trying to be Ric Flair but the slightly off-kilter stooging, just how Christopher was best as an over-the-top stooge. Still, he had a pretty decent cut off punch and got some heat with pile drivers. He also took a neckbreaker in an ugly manner. Bumping just wasn't his strong suit. It didn't need to be here, though, since Cornette carried a ton of weight: with the pre-course promo, with the super padded trunks, by trying to coach instead of wrestle until Christopher tossed him in, by getting shaken up and tagging Lawler hilariously, by using the powder and getting believable shots in on the outside. This was pretty close to the whole Cornette experience and the Lawler family knew how to get the most out of it.

ER: This was great, and really there was only one reason to think this wasn't going to be great, but it's a pretty important reason. That said, this is probably the most complete I have ever seen David Flair look in a wrestling ring. Flair is a complete unnatural ("The Unnatural" would be a really funny gimmick for someone like Renegade or Flair to have worked), a guy who looks like he's never moved athletically in his life, who always took the weirdest bumps while having no idea what to do with his body on offense. Here, more than any other awful David Flair performance I've seen, he knew exactly what to do. Before the match, Cornette got on the mic and talked a lot of great hyperbolic BS about how "David Flair is going to be the best wrestler of the 21st century!" And, you know, I gotta say there are nothing but fascinating matches from the last 100 matches of Flair's career, so maybe he was onto something Has anyone here seen any of the Puerto Rico, All Japan, or even remember if the TNA stuff was any good? Any lucky souls get to see Regal/Flair in South Carolina, taped as a Velocity dark match? I hate how I'm talking myself into seeing more David Flair. 

My favorite part of this was how everyone got to show off their right hands, and honestly, every person in this match had a good right hand. Lawler having a good right hand won't surprise you, and he used it well here (including blindsiding Flair with a right before dropping to his knees with a fistdrop), and Cornette at this point is someone who is established as having a great right hand. But they aren't the ones who throw the most punches in this match. We get two actual punch outs between Christopher and Flair, and they were good! They each showed a bit of light on two of them, but the form of Flair was what stood out the most. This was a man who, just a couple years before, did not have good form on ANYthing. And here he is throwing actual punches to the chin and jaw, not cheating by trying to throw them past Christopher's head or doing that weird Abyss punch where he sands the top of their head. David Flair was throwing actual worked punches in 2002, and they were good. He has a nice gutwrench slam and an even better pair of piledrivers, and you can color me impressed. He still looked like he couldn't really bump, taking a neckbreaker like a baby wiggling in his high chair to avoid the mashed carrots. Also, I love how Cornette was the biggest bumper in the entire match. Every piece of Cornette shtick was great, like tagging out to Lawler after getting punched around by Christopher. Cornette even took a big bump to the floor, and all of his big back bumps to sell punches were perfect. I always love how good Cornette is at bumping despite looking like, well, a guy who would be filmed berating a Wendy's employee.  

Low-Ki vs. Necro Butcher JAPW 5/19/07 - EPIC

PAS: This is honestly one of the great all time match ups in wrestling history. I am not sure how I had no idea they wrestled in JAPW in addition to the two IWA-MS classics the year before and the fun brawl a few years later in IWA-EC. Having this show up is like finding a new Santo vs. Casas or Lawler vs. Dundee match. Necro is really the perfect opponent for Ki: he is willing to meet his recklessness and stiffness with recklessness and stiffness of his own. Ki throws full force kicks to his head, and Necro responds with hard shoot punches to the jaw, just sick stuff both ways. FUTEN shit. There is a moment where Ki lands a double stomp on Necro's back and you can see his spine invert. Necro punches his way out of the Warriors Way double stomp and hits a crazy looking top rope rana. They do the thumbtacks spot with Necro getting Irish whipped and stepping on them with his bare feet. It is an incredible spot the first time you see it, but Necro went back to the well a couple of times with it. Still that is a minor complaint for an otherwise hellacious monster of a match.

MD: This was as good of a brawl-with-plunder 2000s match as you'll find, really, two guys who just threw everything they had at each other and did everything they could to prevent the other from doing the same. Violence and struggle from beginning to end. What made this better was that it was at St. Joseph's gym, with a priest obviously holding the keys to letting JAPW run there and getting to do the ring introductions in turn. So, he got to introduce Necro with his "Choose Death" shirt. That's as pro wrestling as you get basically. You can almost imagine Fat Frank reassuring the guy it was okay because Ki was going over so it was a parable about good vs. evil, with good overcoming the excesses of evil...or something. I especially appreciated the fight out of the Warrior's Way set-up because Necro had previously sort of sat around draped on the top rope for the double stomp. It was a great double stomp, but that had seemed a bit off given the match they were having. The fact he refused to allow such a thing to happen again was great and pulled me right back in. It was the sort of a match where the announcers and the crowd would go just as nuts for Necro taking the Cactus Jack plunge through a table as they would for something like Ki hitting a power drive elbow on the floor. Agreed with Phil on the thumbtacks spot, though it obviously worked for the crowd on that night and they used it effectively in setting up the finish. Necro probably went to that well as often as he did because it protected him in a loss.

ER: Athletically, these two couldn't be much more different. Low Ki has maybe the best body control in American wrestling history (I used to say "in wrestling history" but all of our unearthed French Catch footage kind of popped that balloon) and Necro Butcher wrestles like the proverbial bull in a china shop. It's one of wrestling's great juxtapositions, and they meet in the middle with stiffness. Necro takes so many kicks in this match, all to the body and head, and no matter how many times he punches back at Ki and sticks digs his fingers into Ki's mouth, nose, and eyes, those kicks keep coming. I loved Ki kicking Necro right in the eye, causing Necro to get stuck in the ropes like a death match Andre. Necro has a lot of fun ways to fight back, seems like he was always punching while off balance, from his knees, from his back, even hanging upside down. But I thought what set this apart wasn't just the stiffness, it was the way they each sold strikes and how they each fought for offense. A Necro punch is always a great thing, but when Ki slips out of a powerbomb and gets decked right after, Ki - limp bodied - bounces and flops down to the mat while hitting every rope on the way down, and that's just wrestling perfection. When Necro tries to powerbomb Ki into a table, Ki tries to fight out, making Necro fight against physics to re-lift Ki and finally drop to his knees with a powerbomb. when Ki goes for the Warriors Way, he tries to keep Necro in the tree of woe by grinding his boot into Necro's kneecap, causing Necro to reflexively punch up at Ki until he breaks. Necro getting run barefoot through the thumbtacks is a great way to set up offense, distracting Necro long enough to shotgun dropkick him through a table. Their stiffness was often used as a means to distract, not as a means to an end, and I think that's something that really elevates their feud to all time status. Monsta Mack's screeching Chicken Lady impression over every single awesome part of the match couldn't hold this one back. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LAWLER

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW KI

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New Footage Friday: Last SMW Show Ever!

Smokey Mountain Wrestling 11/26/95. This is a HH of the final SMW show and it is great to see Jim Cornette go out on his sword.

Wolfman vs. Sgt. Rock

PAS: Sgt. Rock is Miss Jackie/Miss Texas, and she is always going to be worth watching. Wolfman is a big hairy guy who kind of looks like a Moondog. Compact fun scrap, with Cornette talking shit to the Wolfman, thus giving Rock a chance to potato the shit out of Wolfman with some nasty forearms to the back of the head. We get a Wolfman comeback including a spanking spot (because this is 90s indy wrestling), but another bit of Cornette interference leads to some powder in the eye, a  Rock low blow (and she really puts some mustard on it) and a DDT for the win. Very formula match, but Miss Texas always brought a bit of shocking violence to everything she did.

MD: What stands out immediately is just how credible Jackie with a drill sergeant gimmick was here. She came off as way more dangerous than Wolfman, being a vaguely sympathetic poor man's Valiant. Honestly, if your promotion is saddled with a bottom-of-the-card guy due to your sponsor, you could do worse than a moderately charismatic fake Valiant. Everything she did (even if it was mostly maring Wolfman by the hair/beard) looked crisp and sharp, including a nice back elbow. Even so, she was full on heel, geting advantages due to powder and a low blow due to Cornette's distractions, missing en elbow drop and then begging off, etc. It's 1995 in Tennessee so while Jackie could be presented as dangerous, she was still going to get spanked. The match didn't need it, but the crowd sure expected it. In general, I thought this was effective and was the sort of thing that would have gone a long way in making Sgt. Rock into an effective part of Cornette's militia if SMW had continued.


General Jim Cornette vs. Butch Cassidy

PAS: This is pretty much everything you would want from a Cornette vs. Midget match. I loved the spot with Cornette challenge Cassidy to a pushup contest and Cornette doing knee pushups, great bit of wussy heel stuff. I am also a fan of the running the ropes until you pass out. Cornette had some pretty good looking offense, and took some fun bumps, including taking a midget suplex (although to be fair Cassidy isn't super short, he is probably Adam Cole's height). Sgt. Rock runs in to kick Cassidy's ass, and she is an amazing second, always ready to beat the shit out anyone.

MD: A lot like the Jackie match, this would have been better if they went 20% away from what was expected and leaned into what they had in front of them. Cassidy's body type wasn't the same as a Lord Littlebrook or Cowboy Lang or whoever. He was leaner and looked stronger and had his kneeling pose down. It meant that the logical comeuppance for Cornette was for him to get overpowered and they gave us that, to good effect, but only after doing the hand-biting first. Again, the crowd expected what it expected and you probably had to give it to them, but there was a better, tighter match in here. This also went twenty minutes, more with the pre-match talking and intros, and I think the opening comedy, as fun as it is to see Cornette do his thing, outwore its welcome. The heat was about the right length but they should have cut that first bit in half. Cornette is a great bully when he gets the chance to be, but I think the crowd had moved on by the time the comeback came. The big suplex spot at the end was hit to near-silence.


Wildfire Tommy Rich/The Punisher vs. Bullet Bob Armstrong/Buddy Landel

ER: I love a 10 minute tag with 5 minute announcements about the 60 minute time limit. I wouldn't have put it past Cornette to run a broadway match on the last SMW show, and this one features my favorite black wrestler, The Bullet! You know Bullet has the sweetest damn moves as he glides across the floor during his entrance, finishing it by tossing a casual as can be looping high 5 to Landel. The Bullet was obviously going to be the heroic hot tag at the finish, meaning this was going to be the Wildfire show the rest of the runtime. Tommy Rich works the entire ring with shtick, circling Landel and refusing to lock up, backing Mark Curtis into a corner, "accidentally" cheating from the apron whenever possible (really getting the crowd riled as he executes a corner choke while Punisher is the legal man), and the moments of Wildfire and Nature Boy throwing punches in the middle are the kind of moments that make me love SMW. Punisher also looks good, better than I remember Bull Buchanan looking several years later (although the camera keeps going unfocused whenever he gets in the ring, so maybe the cameraman was just giving us Punisher's fairest angles), and we get a great spot where Cornette is banging on the apron directing Tommy, and Bullet comes in and stomps Cornette's hands. This was all super simple, low bump count stuff, and with the personalities involved it didn't need to be anything else.

MD: Couple of things here. They set this up at the start of the show with the announcement that Le Duc wouldn't be there and Armstrong offering Landell his pick of partners. It almost felt like the world's best Raw-format as they got the promo section out of the way at the very start of the show. They just did it in a couple of minutes instead of half an hour. From the listing, I was expecting Bob Armstrong but I wasn't expecting the Bullet, so that was a nice surprise. I don't think they'd used the gimmick for a year and a half at this point and the fans popped big for the music cue. I don't have strong feelings about SMW in general but I do have a real soft spot for the Bullet gimmick and they worked the match with the Landell as FIP and the Bullet getting the hot tag. We lost clarity on some of this due to VQ but best as I can tell, this was a good paint-by-numbers short southern tag that hit the marks you'd want: you had a good punch or two in the shine, the heels cut off the ring well, the hot tag had a flourish. It was definitely a little surreal to witness a world where Tommy Rich was the heel and the fans were chanting Buddy, Buddy.

PAS: Fun basic southern tag match which built to the big Bullet hot tag well. They wrapped it up pretty quickly right after that, I would have liked to see the Bullet juke and jive a little more. The blurriness made it hard to see exactly what the heels were doing to Buddy, but there was a great moment where Tommy Rich just unloaded on him.


Heavenly Bodies/Robert Gibson vs. Tracy Smothers/Dirty White Boy/Ricky Morton

ER: You didn't come to this one for wild spots, you came for sustained southern heat, and that's what they delivered. This was all about opportunist Robert Gibson not wanting to tangle with Ricky, and Cornette at ringside keeping the crowd all worked up. It's a simple and effective match, not many highspots and yet 100% crowd pleasing. Ricky starts things off, Robert does a great head fake like he's going to join him no problem, but clearly he's not. And from there we get a fun affair, mostly punches, armdrags, cutting off the ring, Gibson finally coming in when Ricky is down, Smothers flying off the top with an axe handle to the arm using all of his best goofy Smothers arm movement, you know the stuff you'd expect. Heavenly Bodies always come off so scummy to me, just looking at them and the way they walk around with their chests and bellies out, they always ooze the perfect amount of undeserved arrogance. Cornette comes in and bashes Smothers in the ribs, part of a nice fun twist where Smothers spends just as much time cut off from his boys as Ricky did earlier. Naturally, Cornette eventually brains his own man with the tennis racket to give the good ol' boys the win, but that arguably sets up the most important part of the match. 

This being the very last SMW show, half the locker room comes out to beat the shit out of Jim Cornette. Landel is out taking shots, everybody in the match that just happened is taking shots, Mark Curtis is throwing punches (he also threw a punch in the breakdown of the match itself), Cornette is out here like drunk Christmas party Vince taking everyone's finishers, including a stuffed piledriver. When the ring is cleared the Heavenly Bodies spend a hilariously long amount of time milking a potential racket shot to a stationary Cornette, and Ricky gets on the mic like a devil on the Bodies' shoulder and starts urging them to KILL James E. Cornette! He even starts a chant over the house mic of "Kill him! Kill him!" Ricky Morton is out here actually getting a crowd hyped to witness a murder! This is the final SMW show, and I'm sure this was all inspired by the Kids in the Hall all being buried in a mass grave to end their show, so what better way to close up shop than by killing your main character!? The Bodies milk it for several more minutes, Pritchard threatening to decapitate and/or castrate Cornette with the racket, before finally helping him up (with Cornette amusingly falling right back down when they're no longer holding him up). On the way out of the building, Jimmy Del Ray shoves a security guy in the back and then laughs about it.

MD: I'm a fan of Morton vs. Gibson from GAB 91, so it's nice to see the roles reversed. This was exactly what you'd expect it to be, guys who can do one thing as well as anything, and that one thing just happens to be one of the best version of wrestling possible. The shine had lots of feeding and stooging and joyfully cheating babyfaces. The heat had the heels mocking the faces to draw them in for interference, hope spots based around pin attempts (which is one of my favorite ways because it's not about hitting offense, just about snatching opportunities). If you want to compare the Bodies and the (second) MX, maybe, just maybe, the Express were better at tandem offense and keeping things interesting and the Bodies were better at cutoffs. Maybe. The finish is perfect. Gibson pays for relying on Cornette. The post-match is the perfect way for SMW to end. Everyone decides that Cornette is the common enemy of the world and comes together to teach the world to sing a song of pain upon the odoriferous snake. Morton egging the Bodies on to finish him is a perfect pro wrestling temptation (salvation?) and they end it all by squeezing out the very last bit of heat. If a promotion had to die, it's not a bad way to go.

PAS: Morton had left the promotion due to a drunken fight between Morton's girlfriend and Smothers wife at a bar. So this weekend was his surprise return teaming with Smothers to take on Gibson who had turned heel when Ricky left. They really didn't give us much Morton vs. Gibson (which I imagine would have been a big feud if SMW survived), but everything we got was pretty great. I thought the big finale was pretty perfect with everyone cleaning out Cornette, that is really the way ECW should have ended too, with the locker room taking out the bounced checks on Heyman.

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New Footage Friday: Great American Bash 7/16/88

Larry Zbyszko/Rip Morgan vs. Tim Horner/Bugsy McGraw

ER: Really dug Zbyszko in this one. With these raw footage shows it's always great to here more ring noises, and here we got Zbyszko shit talking Horner and yelling at Morgan to pull McGraw's hair. My favorite part of the match was when Larry tagged in and kicks Bugsy in the stomach, and then punches him three times right in the side of the head. I am becoming so much of a Larry guy. Rip Morgan works this like Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, and it's pretty great. His heel crazy was a nice counterpoint to babyface Bugsy. And Morgan is good at being that stumbling type of bully who Horner can do all his graceful armdrags to. Horner is always a treat to watch, a real underrated babyface who should have been bigger. He just seems like a nice guy. I liked the fun simplicity of this.

MD: This never really had the depth for anything to set in. It felt like the cliff notes version of a match. I wonder if that was frustrating for them since there was so much repetition on this tour. I imagine they were just glad to get paid. Horner and Larry looked solid. McGraw was a poor man's Valiant by this point, but the shtick of him reacting to the Haka was obviously well worked out by this point. None of the hope spots or transitions or finished felt earned. Larry worked hard, bumping around the ring.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Itallion Stallion

ER: This was great. It goes about a minute, and heel Ronnie Garvin is now my favorite wrestler. I need to see all of the post NWA champ Garvin, because he was the smuggest asshole here and it was the best. Garvin does a fake towel toss to the crowd, and the crowd HATES him and it makes Italian Stallion a big babyface. Garvin sure doesn't let him do much with that though. This whole thing is Garvin faking an ankle injury off a leapfrog, really well, and the entire crowd getting louder and louder the longer he fakes it. It's classic, simple stuff, but Garvin is a much better actor than he's ever gotten credit for. The crowd knows exactly what's happening and they are desperately trying to warn this goof Italian Stallion that they've been forced into cheering by default. And of course, Garvin, after begging off and holding his ankle in agony, hops off and finishes off Stallion with one shot, sitting on his chest for the pinfall with the greatest grin. 1988 Ronnie Garvin is the best.

MD: One of my favorite sub 1-minute matches in forever. I'm not sure I've ever seen much of this short heel run and we were robbed of something long and meaningful. He was such a glorious dick, demanding to wrestle in one ring instead of the other, having Hart force Tony to announce him as the former world champion, almost immediately faking a knee injury, popping up for the fist of stone and then sitting on Stallion for the win. What a glorious jerk. Can you imagine him riding into 89 with this gimmick as a foil for guys like Sting and Steamboat?

PAS: Matt and Eric pretty much cover it, but man I want to third the greatness of Ronnie Garvin. His career is basically over four years after this match, but this version of Ronnie Garvin should have had another decade of just being a heel dipshit.

Dick Murdoch vs. Gary Royal

ER: The raw footage is a blessing for Dick Murdoch matches, as the way this match is shot is almost cinematic. This is Dick Murdoch in a John Cassavetes movie. He even looks like David Rowlands. The camera is in so tight on everything, and this honestly feels like the greatest footage ever filmed of Murdoch. And Murdoch is perfection. He holds headlocks, ignores Teddy Long, throws hard elbows across Royal's throat, throws punishing stomps from the apron, and the camera zooms in extra close every time Murdoch locks in a headlock and throws his greatest ever headlock punch. This cameraman knew what people wanted to see. Murdoch struts around the ring and ringside area so cockily, really taking his time to lay down a beating on Royal. I especially like him throwing Royal into the scaffolding that was set up at ringside; Royal took a couple great hard chest bumps right into it. Murdoch hits a gorgeous brainbuster, really holding that vertical suplex for a long time before dropping him, and that toothless grin he flashes during the pinfall is right up there with the greatest things I've ever seen in wresting. I would watch a match like this every time over a "great match".

MD: A great lost Murdoch squash. His interactions with Teddy Long here were just off the chart. We're blessed here by the lack of commentary, since you can hear all the jawing perfectly. He was a bit like a poked bear as Royal kept trying to take advantage early, and then when he came unleashed after Long admonishes him, he just used the entirety of the ring, including the scaffold and the apron to demolish the poor jerk. The delay before the brainbuster was the icing on the cake.

Rick Steiner vs. Jimmy Garvin

ER: What a fun 90 seconds of pro wrestling. The fans are louder for Jimmy Garvin than they are for maybe anyone so far on this card. Rick Steiner looks super formidable, really crashing into Garvin with a hard lariat and big punches to the head. When Garvin starts firing back the crowd really loses it. Kevin Sullivan gets involved, Steiner grabs Garvin for a powerslam, and Garvin gets the great small package surprise win. This was 90 seconds, but was a great use of 90 seconds.

MD: Good aggression from Steiner. Great punches from Garvin. This was ultimately nothing, but the way the crowd rallied behind Garvin and Precious was one of those things you wouldn't believe on paper. Garvin felt like the biggest babyface in the world here when he went to save Precious from Sullivan. You have to love this crowd.

The Rock n Roll Express vs. The Sheepherders

MD: This never quite settled down, but in a good way. Once they got past the initial goofiness with the flag things were pretty loose and chaotic. Morgan was a near constant presence and they weaved him in and out of the match believably enough. The Sheepherders had some memorable driving kneedrops and their usual ability to create an atmosphere of violence. The finish matched things well, coming out nowhere but feeling believable and triumphant.

ER: This ruled. I love how the Sheepherders match up against a team like the Rock n Rolls; Butch Miller especially always bumps around big for babyface offense (he had a fantastic bump from the ring to the apron to the floor here) and the Sheepherders work viciously enough that they come off like a threat. I love when the Rock n Rolls match the savagery of their opponents, and Ricky always comes off so tough against roughneck types. This felt like a real chaotic brawl, Rock n Rolls hitting crossbodies on both Sheepherders, Ricky taking a super fast bump to through the ropes to the hard floor, Butch hitting a great leaping fistdrop, everyone throwing punches. This is the kind of constant motion wrestling that I want.

Brad Armstrong vs. Al Perez

MD: I liked this but didn't love it. A lot of it was by the numbers, with the heel getting more and more frustrated at getting outwrestled until he took over by roughhousing, etc. Hope spots, comeback, the good type of heel manager finish with a leg grab. Like I said, a lot to like. For a cold match, the crowd was into it. Perez could be pretty emotive when he was getting clowned. He had some fun offense. Hart was very effective on the outside. The hope spots were really spirited, with Brad just flying across the ring at one point, and the comeback had a great revenge spot with a slam to the floor. There was just a disconnect when Perez was on offense. His stuff looked good but it didn't flow. There was a story they could have told following up on Brad's back and building to the hope spots and cut offs better and it just didn't happen. This would have been a great opening match on a more balanced card but without an underlying reason for the fans to care and even with the effort put in, it was more of a testament to the crowd than the match that this was still fairly over.

ER: This is the first match of the card that I wasn't super into. It just felt a little long, Al Perez threw on a chinlock for awhile, felt pretty time filler. There were some inspired moments, like Armstrong interacting with Hart on the floor and getting slammed into the scaffolding, or Armstrong's brief but fiery comeback down the stretch. But this match was a little too dry in the middle of a card that's been checking off all my boxes.

Midnight Express/Jim Cornette vs. The Fantastics

ER: The Midnights' gear is the stuff of wrestling miracles. Eaton is an Alabama crop top, kneepads over beat up jeans, a flat out gorgeous outfit for a bunkhouse match. Stan is dressed like a front row Malibu aerobics boy toy, tank top and pink/turquoise bike shorts and shag. Fantastics are both wearing tank tops, jeans, kneepads over jeans. It's the fucking code and everybody looks like the encyclopedia image for "What to Wear to a Fucking Bunkhouse Match". It's incredible. And this whole entire match is as great as it looks on paper. Bobby Eaton was god level here, it was the best in ring performance I've ever seen from Cornette, Stan Lane had meathead frustration bumping down to a science, and The Fantastics were throwing punches like the best fired up babyfaces. I think Bobby Fulton is underrated as hell, and his exchanges with Bobby were flat out pro wrestling punch master classes. You wanna punch? You watch the Bobby's. Throw Bobby Heenan and Bobby Blaze into that mix. Eaton vs. Fulton was awesome the whole match through, Eaton going from vicious puncher to man taking highest backdrop. When the match broke down they had a fantastic chairshot sequence, with Fulton bashing Bobby with a metal folding chair. As someone who great up with the weird wooden folding chairs of WWF, it's always shocking for me when I see metal chairshots to the head in the 80s. Fulton's shots to Eaton's head looked great, and Eaton would get his hand up while looking like he was getting totally obliterated by these shots. He take ones in the aisleway that the super hot crowd flips out for.

Now, James E. Cornette may have been the superstar of the match. As great as Nick Patrick looked in my absolute dream of a match against Jericho, Cornette looked here. This was the best in ring Cornette I have ever seen. He dropped an elbow on the floor, two picture perfect fistdrops, a great leaping elbowdrop, and some genuine top 20 all time punches. His punches were hot fire, and when it came time for him to bump for the Fantastics you know he flew into offense like he was Heenan. This was the kind of 15 minutes of wrestling that makes me love all of this so much.

The Road Warriors vs. Ivan Koloff/Russian Assassin #1

PAS: I am a scaffold match fan. I can just imagine how insane it must be to watch live, knowing you might see a murder. Ivan was especially great at teasing death, and Animal even tried a dropkick. Hawk and Russian Assassin spent most of the match brawling near the ends of the scaffold which had guardrails, which is kind of pussy. I don't need you to die, but at least tease me a bit.

MD: Not a ton to say here. As scaffold matches go, this was ok. The falls were bs, but are we really going to complain about that in 2019, especially knowing they had to work this match around the loop? In general, I was impressed with how well they moved around up there. A little can go a long way in a setting like this. The fans, again, were generous, happy with all of this, especially the half-baked falls. Great crowd.

ER: Yeah Scaffold matches are a gimmick match I absolutely adore. I couldn't imagine how much I'd be flipping out if I saw a scaffold match live. I would be standing the whole time with my mouth wide open. The Dundee/Koko 2/3 falls scaffold match was my #1 match of the 80s Memphis project. They come off so scary to me! Look at how narrow this damn thing is! Look at how HIGH this thing is! It is one of my all time favorite gimmicks and too many people undersell what a damn attraction a scaffold match can be. THIS crowd knew exactly how big a treat they were getting, and I was right there with them. It turns out Ivan Koloff is a master of scaffold matches. I need to know what other Koloff scaffold matches exist on tape, because I want to write about them. Koloff is the guy running around up there, he's the guy taking big bumps for Animal, he's the guy who takes a ridiculously high fall while swinging from the bottom of the scaffold, he's the one falling dangerously close to the edge; Koloff was 45 years old here. He's the oldest non-JJ Dillon guy on the card and he's in the running for craziest guy on the card. Animal tries throwing a dropkick and it doesn't totally hurt, but Koloff makes it special by getting bounced dangerously close to the edge butt first, and later Animal and Koloff both hang off the edges and the bottom in fun ways. Hawk and Assassin (who was Angel of Death) play it safer on the edge with a guardrail, but even that railing was rickety as hell so I was still feeling the danger. Scaffold matches are the ultimate gimmick attraction for me, and this didn't let me down at all.

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Jose Lothario Wished He Weighed a Thousand Pounds, So He Could Crush All Those Bullies and Demons Down

Jose Lothario vs. Tonga John WCCW 11/19/83 - FUN

PAS: Tonga John is the future Barbarian and it is interesting to watch him this early. He is pretty much a punch and kick guy at this point, and you don't want to try to punch it out with Jose Lothario, even at this point. This was very much an opening match on a TV card with all that entails, but Jose threw some really great looking hooks and even went up top twice, once with an axhandle, once with the bombs away to win. Lothario still looked great at this point, and if Tonga John had a little of the seasoning he was going to get, I could see this theoretically being a banger but in actuality it was more of a curiosity.

Jose Lothario vs. Jim Cornette WWF Mind Games 9/22/96 - FUN

ER: This match is only 1 minute and basically worked like the Bossman/Heenan matches a few years prior, with Cornette's lumpy body elegantly squeezed into tights, talking trash before the match (loved him shoving Finkel as he grabbed the mic away) until Lothario comes out to shut him up. Cornette naturally gets no offense, it's all Lothario haymakers and that downward chop to Cornette's nose. Cornette is a really great stooge bumper, we've seen dozens of enhancement guys over the years who couldn't put over an opponent this well. I do wish Lothario would have laced into Cornette on his final two punches. They were worked well but thrown too open handed. But I liked Lothario decking him with a right and thinking about going for the pin, but then calling for one more and decking him with a left. It's so weird that this PPV had a Vader/Sid match as a dark match, but aired this. I'm glad they did, but it's gotta be a major sign of Michaels' pull with Vince. I mean who at home was buying this PPV for Lothario/Cornette when Vader/Sid could have been on the table?

PAS: Obviously not a ton to write about a 90 second match, but Cornette is a really athletic bumper for a guy who looks like he doesn't have an ounce of athleticism, and Lothario still threw a mean punch into his 60s.. We got to see all the variations, the right, the left and the uppercut and Cornette took them all like a champ.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JOSE LOTHARIO

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Jose Lothario Has Scrapes to Prove, Proves it Was He Who Fell

Jose Lothario/Shawn Michaels vs. Jim Cornette/Vader WWE Raw 9/23/96 - GREAT

ER: You knew this was going to mostly be a Vader/Michaels match, but it's a pretty fascinating anomaly that they would even put Lothario in the ring. This was before they were frequently using AARP members in the main events of shows, so seeing an old guy main eventing Raw was more odd in 1996. The show isn't even in San Antonio, it's in Pennsylvania, so it's odd they'd choose this show to have Lothario in a match at all, but the crowd is hot throughout. Cornette knows what he's doing and comes out in a Vader red lycra top and is great on the apron throughout, while Vader is mugging Michaels. Vader was great in this, squishing Michaels with avalanches and throwing big headbutts, even does a couple of fun almost lucha teases: setting up Michaels for the Vader Bomb and teasing crowd reaction by acting as if he's thinking about going to the top rope and then waving them off. Michaels' offense still looks below Vader, but it's alarming how much better it actually looks than the Michaels offense we grew accustomed to a decade later. It helps that '96 Michaels moved fast, so at minimum was running into Vader with some speed and force, and we got a big moment where he went for a fast crossbody with Vader ducking out of the way, sending Michaels into a big bump over the top to the floor. We also got a great moment where Vader ducked the superkick and just leveled him with an awesome left arm clothesline for a convincing nearfall. 

The Lothario hot tag was short but sweet, with Cornette tagging in first with the advantage, but squandering that advantage by shadowboxing with Vader. Michaels gets to Lothario and the crowd reacts big, and Cornette reacts big. Lothario drops Cornette with a couple punches, then Lothario smacks him downward over his nose and Cornette takes a big comical back bump. I was going to type how it was great seeing an old non-wrestler like Cornette bumping big for Lothario, but then I realized that Cornette in this match was younger than I am now, and it just made me melancholy. Also, annoyingly, Lothario just completely disappears after his hot tag. Not just that he isn't in the match again, but I don't think the camera even showed him again. Vader got the win and then Sid ran in, and by this point Lothario may as well have been backstage. But this whole thing was good. And kind of weird. It was good and kind of weird that they did this.

PAS: I would have liked to see more of the Cornette vs. Lothario stuff, even though this had a bunch of big Vader vs. Michaels main event exchanges, I enjoyed the sideshow stuff the most. Cornette coming in and working the mitts with Vader was a great bit of heel horseshit (although Vader could have moved the mitts a bit, let Jimmy work on his combos), as was Cornette swinging for Michaels' legs with the racket, only for Shawn to jump over it like Super Mario. The brief Lothario in ring stuff was fun, he still had a great punch and Cornette bumped like Jim Cornette, I will have to check out their singles match for sure. Vader looked like Vader in this, wailing on Shawn in the corner, beheading him with a clothesline and smashing him and pinning him clean. Michaels takes some bumps and flies around the ring well, but I have a hard time buying him denting Vader at all. Still this was exciting television wrestling.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JOSE LOTHARIO

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ALL TIME MOTY LIST Head to Head 1990: Onita/Goto v. Kurisu/Dragonmaster V. Midnight Express v. Steiner Brothers

Midnight Express v. The Steiner Brothers WCW 10/20/90

PAS: Someone uploaded a WCW Handheld from October 1990. While there are some really classic WCW stinkers on this card (Mike Rotunda v. JW Storm, Sting v. Black Scorpion), we do get an awesome chance to watch the Midnight Express, one of the greatest bumping and stooging teams of all time, take on the Steiners, one of the greatest offensive teams of all time. It is great to see all of the shtick the MX break out on a house show, Jimmy Cornette takes a bump off the apron and challenges the ref to a fight, the MX do a Brazos style dissension spot which included Cornette slapping Bobby. We move into a classic face in peril section, with the MX breaking out a ton of cool double teams and Cornette cheap shots. Rick Steiner is an all time great hot tag, he is so explosive and is so much fun to watch running wild. Finish was pretty cool with the Steiners hitting Steinerlines from the front and the back to pin Bobby, kind of wanted to see one of the insane Steiner finishes, but it was still decisive.

ER: Wow, pro wrestling is fucking great! This is a real classic and had it been on PPV it would still be talked about fondly today. And because of some true hero in New Jersey, we get to see it. And it's great. It's as great a match in execution as it looks on paper. And you really get the best of both worlds, with class house show stooging, with taped for a larger audience spots. It starts with a bunch of amusing spots with Lane complaining about non-existent tights pulls off hip tosses, gets into things with the ref, gets Cornette into things with the ref, watches as Cornette makes the worst "put up your dukes" pantomime and then falls into the ropes when the ref throws back, Lane gets into things with Bobby, which leads to Bobby taking a nasty apron bump when those weren't common, which leads to Cornette slapping Bobby, which leads to the crowd momentarily turning Bobby face as he grabs Cornette by the jacket to threaten him before making up. Really if this is the most we got from the match, all of us would have been satisfied as hell. Except we get a lot more.

When the Midnights are finally on the same page, Eaton tries to beat Scott with speed. Scott looks like an absolute monster and moves like Eaton, and when it looks like Eaton might get the duke after some leapfrogs Scott fakes him out and gets him in an electric chair, and Rick does a nasty bulldog off the top. Lane blasts Scott with a racket and throws some wicked stomps to Scott's ribs, Eaton bashes him with a chair, and then we get to see what a great FIP Scott was. Eaton is athletic as hell and had nasty offense that doesn't get enough credit. We all know he has great punches (and he shows off several varieties of them, and a guy in the crowd exclaims loudly after each one, and I love a man whose favorite part of a wrestling show is Eaton's punches), but watch him hit a shockingly forceful fist off the top, really leaping into it, and in my favorite spot of the match watch him shove Scott into the turnbuckles and blast him with one of the hardest lariats I've seen as he stumbles back out. Did you know Eaton threw one of the greatest western lariats? Because apparently he does. Scott gets some great flash comebacks, a sunset flip, and some beautiful big windup punches that looked like Rocky swinging for the fences. The ending is a bit sudden, but total dynamite: Scott hits the frankensteiner (a truly amazing spot) and Rick comes in with a huge Steinerline. Phil is right about Rick being a tremendous hot tag, it's something that really doesn't get talked about enough. And the end being so sudden is always believable with the Steiners, as they're clearly so powerful and explosive that they look like anything they do could be a finish.

Onita/Goto v. Kurisu/Dragonmaster review

Verdict: 

PAS: I loved this tag match, one of my favorite things in wrestling is to discover and watch hidden gems like this, and I have never heard anyone talk about this match before, especially cool because these two teams have only matched up a couple of times on tape. Still that FMW tag is such a perfect slice of violence, I have to go with it, it feels like picking the WCW tag would be recency bias.

ER: Damn this was great. Tag team wrestling done properly might be my absolute favorite wrestling (or fat guys, or punches, or guys pointing at their head, or elbow drops, or...) and this was white hot. There is definitely recency bias at play, as oftentimes the newest thing is going to feel like the coolest thing, but I loved this so much I'm having a hard time remembering how damn much I love that FMW tag, and how I've watched that tag like 4 times this year. This tag feels like it could have those legs, and I think with a slightly escalated finish I'd vote for this match in a heartbeat. This wasn't a blowout at all, this was a worthy, awesome challenger, but I gotta go FMW.

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