Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1981~! BRET~! BELLOMO~! DIETER~! MOROWSKI~! GORO~! KIMURA~!

10/23/81 Hanover

Bret Hart vs. Paco (Francisco) Ramirez

MD: We only barely hear Bret come out to Some Girls by Racey which is the highlight of his matches in Germany generally. Paco Ramirez was really leaning into the bandelero thing with the hat and the music and the pancho as best as we can see at least.Nice bit to start. Bret pressed Ramirez to the ropes and Paco tripped him. Then he tried it again and Bret sidestepped and whacked him. Paco let the crowd get under his skin pretty well. They did some bits where Bret outwrestled him only for Ramirez to hair pull and then get run over. This was all sound but clearly Ramirez had more connection with the crowd. 

You know who else had more of a connection? The ref. At one point Ramirez refused to break a hold so the ref dropkicked him out of the ring to a huge pop. I'm not sure this helped either Bret or the match though. Bret got a big comeback out of the corner reversing a whip and all of his babyface offense (forearms and dropkicks and a legdrop) looked crisp, crisp enough to score him the win.

ER: I think I like Germany Bret Hart a lot more than Matt. I see this guy a couple years into his career, and am kind of blown away by his execution and poise. His connection to German crowds wasn't there, but who do you expect him to be, Sal Bellomo? He works this match at a very brisk pace and I was impressed by the deep bag he brought. He played wet behind the ears rookie to Ramirez's sneaky vet, but his ring work did not look like a rookie's. He has snap on everything he does, every collision looks honest, every throw or takedown is physically sound. These are the full grown snapmares of a man who understands the physics of a snapmare, understands the physics of an armdrag. When he runs at Ramirez, his approach is believable whether he connects or misses, because there's an honesty to his work. I am a big fan of Established Bret and one of the things I love most about his work is his honesty. 

There is a logic to his progression, he clearly mentally keeps track of what kind of offense he "should be able to do" as a match progresses, and the execution is that of someone in his current match condition. He is never a worker who is going to work the match the exact same in minute 15 as he was in minute 2...but that seems like a much more impressive skill for someone to have this early in their career. He is not fully formed Bret, but he's much closer to that level than we could have reasonably assumed. The one noticeable thing he grew out of as he continued to improve, is he lost that kind of hunched shoulder stillness during what should be the glue moments. I think of Bret as a strong Glue Guy because he is never caught in a state of stasis in between The Action. He's good at occupying space, good at gluing spots together with body language. Here he was still standing there in a wrestler's hunch, waiting for the next thing to happen. I wonder when he grew out of that. Owen never grew out of that. You can watch almost any 1998 Owen match and see him standing dead still in that same hunch, waiting in place for the next thing to happen. 

Sal Bellomo vs. Manuel Lopez

MD: If you asked me fifteen years ago if I'd rather see a comparable Bret or Bellomo match... well, Bellomo was beloved here. Lopez came out to bullfighting music but with less aplomb than Ramirez. This was face vs face and had a lot of fun tit for tat type spots. Lopez would flip Bellomo and play it up, then Bellomo would do it to him. Lopez would escape a hold by lifting Bellomo and carrying him to the top turnbuckle and seating him there, then Bellomo would escape one by positioning Lopez onto the apron. All fun stuff. Handshakes and sportsmanship. In the second round, Bellomo escaped a headscissors by scooting around and kicking at Lopez' belly a bunch which popped the crowd. Then they went into a bodyscissors sequence that ended with them stuck together by their legs.

Lopez had a lot of fun stuff. They did a bow and arrow, a stump puller (which is not something you see often), and he had ways of stepping over and whacking the arm to unlock things. All that and a ripcord spinout backbreaker. Bellomo was happy to take all of it since shortly thereafter he leaped up to the second rope and hit a flying body press off of it to pick up the win. Pretty fun stuff while it lasted though.

ER: Many in our community love to "build books" on guys. Do a dive into someone known or unknown, see if there are any things that were missed, anything we can mention about someone's work that could change an opinion or inspire further digging. There are sexy names to do dives on, and, well, less sexy names. Salvatore Bellomo feels like a guy who is being discussed only by me and Matt, a German sensation who showed next to none of his babyface crowd connections in his WWF undercard work. We had no idea about Bellomo in Germany and even after writing about several of his German appearances, I feel like he is still a guy only being experienced by me and Matt. Are some deep dive names so unsexy that even upon finding revelations about said sexless wrestler, they inspire more of a "we'll take your word for it" approach rather than a "I too will now form opinions on this man on whom I had none"? I have yet to see Salvatore Bellomo Discourse outside of what Matt and I have written, but I suppose I also have not sought it out. We are alone on our Bellomo Islet, down here in our Bellomo Mines.   

All that to say, Bellomo works in Germany like I have never seen him work anywhere else. There was an armdrag spot where he flew up around and over Lopez and it had so much snap that it looked like a Tiger Mask spot, only Bellomo's had more quick burst speed. Who is this guy? The bulk of the match is built around Bellomo holding a near pornographic body vice in a long, extremely entertaining sequence. The holds were strong and believably cinched in, Bellomo refusing to break a snug body vice while the talented Lopez found ways out or attempted to lock in his own. I need to see Bellomo's early 80s striptease routines because the way he keeps his legs locked around Lopez in various positions points to someone who would have incredible pole control. When the round ends there's one of the best ref untanglings I've seen. The bell sounded while their legs were fully tangled, standing on their heads no differently than a spot I'd see live 20 years later between American Dragon and Low Ki. I am going out on a limb assuming that neither were inspired by early 80s Sal Bellomo, but now I know it only would have made their spot better. The ref had to work hard to unlock these holds, both men crying out in theatrical pain while what sounds like Dutch pop music plays buoyantly over the top.  If that's not better, maybe it's better to just leave Matt and I on our islet. 

Axel Dieter/UFO vs. John Quinn/Grand Vladimir

MD: So until last week or so I had no idea that Kaiser was Axel Dieter Jr. That just shows you how tuned out I am I guess. Maybe Eric knew? Anyway, they chant for Axel as he's announced and for UFO after that. Fans love these guys and for good reason. 

This might have been for some sort of title or an end of tour tournament or something since the faces got big wreaths at the end. Shine at the start was a blast. Dieter is so good at presenting himself as a star and taking up space. UFO is beloved but more wins slugfests or out-techniques opponents. Vladimir shines as a stooge (Quinn does more teeter tottering but is probably better on offense). Dieter had all of the headstand toupie takeovers before he finally got beaten into the corner. After quite a bit of doubleteaming but nothing that stood out, he got punched into the corner and UFO came in hot to win the fall. Second fall had heat on UFO leading to a Canadian backbreaker, with the third fall continuing the heat leading escape of more backbreaker attempts to a much bigger hot tag to set up the finish. I'm not sure the heel control was quite as compelling as I'd like for a double heat even with some threats of cards and what not.

ER: I had no idea that Ludwig Kaiser was Axel Dieter Jr. but I also haven't watched WWE in so long that the last time I did that guy was named Marcel Barthel and wasn't 't a big crossover star in a Mexican lucha fed that The Undertaker is booking, so there are probably a ton of things in life that I don't know. Who knows what kind of sons Le Gran Vladimir could have out there. Water softener repairmen, HVAC guys, insurance salesmen. Matt and I are the only ones who speak the name Vladimir, who knows who he has spawned. I love teaming up the two tallest foreigners to fight the two biggest babyfaces, made this seem like a big match from go. Quinn and Vlad are very similar workers (at least they're working a similar style in Germany) and their simple control is easy for crowd favorites Dieter and UFO to build off into bigger things. Dieter works more FIP while UFO is the one coming in and trading blows with the big men.

Neither big man does anything spectacular - that's not really the big heel German style - but they're good at basing for things like Dieter's complicated headscissors, and they can break out some surprisingly vicious stuff, like when Quinn stomped down hard on Dieter's face. Vladimir hits one of the biggest and baddest kneelifts I've seen, after Quinn roughly whips UFO into the buckles, tagging in and moving UFO's whole body several feet with the power of his knee. It didn't look like UFO leaping in response, it looked like a man being launched against his will by a powerful knee force. They are powerful, but we need to believe they can be felled by our heroes, and they're good at getting felled. Vlad is great at felling them. There's an excellent spot where UFO is uppercutting Vlad in the ropes, getting into a rhythm, hitting him again and again, and when Vlad's body is anticipating the next recoil UFO steps aside to break the rhythm and send Vlad faceplanting to the mat. 

Karl Dauberger vs. Kengo Kimura

MD: First round had some good dueling armwork, including Kimura getting a hammerlock on repeatedly. When Dauberger started to take liberties in the ropes, Kimura showed real fire with the ref. He had some nice escapes from holds with various scissors including one on the arm I haven't seen much before. Second round was mainly Dauberger grinding down on him with chinlocks and headlocks until Kimura was able to get some kicks in right at the bell. Kimura came back big in the next round with some huge whips and kicks. Dauberger could sell being whipped into the corner (and bump big and stylized along with it). He took over when the ref finally pulled Kimura back (too fiery for his own good). On offense Dauberger was very meat and potatoes with his clubbering and leaning. Kimura came back one more time but Daubuerger got him to the apron and attacked his leg from the floor until he got DQ'ed. Maybe this is why Kimura ended up in his trademark leg brace. Probably not.

ER: Really good stuff, a great asshole Dauberger performance and some always engaging selling from the underdog Kimura. Dauberger goes after Kimura's leg with nothing too fancy, just being a brute, and I was super impressed with Kimura's selling. It felt like someone selling an actual knee injury and not Wrestling Selling. Even between rounds he was stretching his leg on the ropes, in a way that wasn't fully attached to the match. He wasn't limping his way through sequences, he just looked like a guy convincingly working hurt and it gave him this subtle fire that got people fully behind him the deeper he went. Dauberger leaned his weight on him and smothered him, and whenever they were apart he would start trolling Kimura again. There was a great moment where he kicked Kimura in the face while drawing the ref's attention to his complaint, then casually sidestepped Kimura's dropkick response. This needed more of a Kimura comeback to evolve into something special, but I also liked that Dauberger recognized when he had gone too far and fucked Kimura up a bit more before taking the DQ. No comeuppance, just suffering. 

Moose Morowski vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: This had moments where it looked like it was going to hit a different gear, but never quite made it. When they were slugging away, it was good. When Neidhart was charging at him, it was good. Problem was, he started the match by having Morowski move and knock him out and ended it by having him crash hard into the corner and get pinned. In the middle, he got a bearhug on a few times and knocked him over the top once with a hard shot, but it was more posturing and teasing them really going at it than them really going at it. 

ER: It's true this never grew to the power struggle it could have, for reasons that might be Neidhart's inexperience or maybe even his inability to do more. He doesn't have great strikes for various reasons. Either he's not good at throwing worked strikes, or was told to never put weight behind his strikes, so I don't know if he has it in him to escalate this match the way it could have. This is not me saying Neidhart isn't a tough guy, more that I wish his toughness would come through in some fucking slug out with a hoss like Moose Morowski. It doesn't. Neidhart rarely gets to that level. We have more than enough footage of the guy to determine that he just does not have that level in him. We've heard enough stories about how hard he partied, so you'd think reaching that level in a ring would be second nature, but it may be that he was actually conserving his energy for partying while holding back as much as possible in the ring. I don't think I can find fault with that mentality within pro wrestling, really. An NFL practice squad guy should be an expert at violently crashing into guys nicknamed Moose, so we know it's a conscious decision when he does not do that. The power grappling was what made this worth watching. Morowski holding Neidhart in a painful crossface, forcing Neidhart to break by grabbing handfuls of Morowski's hair into a snapmare, that kind of thing. Do more of that and it's a heavyweight struggle that wouldn't need strikes. But I do love Morowski capitalizing on Neidhart's meathead idiocy, essentially painting a tunnel on a rock face and tricking him to run full speed into it...twice. 

10/20/81 Hanover, Germany

Sal Bellomo vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: This threw me at first since Bellomo had Kauroff as a corner man and Tsurumi had Kimura and they got announced in their track suits and everything and that doesn't usually happen. This was going all the way and they really milked it. Some great lockups in the first round leading to them trading headlocks. Second round was about armholds and armdrags but again they were working it and it felt very competitive. 

Goro opened things up in the third with shots and stomps and was able to control the arm accordingly. Bellomo had some great hope in the fourth, including a rolling leg pick and a kip up followed by a dropkick but he ended up right back into holds and was really selling the arm by the end of the round. That continued into the fifth which was all Goro. He'd do waterpumps and even cross arm breakers and while Sal tried to fight back, he couldn't get anything going. 

Sixth round had him scrambling, just trying to survive and avoid Goro getting his arm. Lots of rolling away or spinning out as the fans cheered for him. He somehow managed a drop toe hold and things picked up to rope running. That let him hit a back body drop and finally take control on the leg. Seventh had him press his advantage with a roll up into a leglock but Goro had enough and started chopping away, getting real heat since he didn't go to this until things had turned on him. Bellomo took a real beating through the round with Goro's bs kung fu looking good. Eight had Bellomo start to fire back. He'd get cut off a few times but would power through and the fans loved it. He ended it with holds but unable to put Goro away. The last round was a testament to their wind as they really went at it, but just as Bellomo was going to win with his leaping back body block, the time expired. It was pretty good but maybe not worth the time investment if I'm going to be totally honest. Sal really was super over in Germany though.

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New Footage Friday: HANOVER 1981~! BELLOMO~! TSURUMI~! NEIDHART~! KIMURA~! VLADIMIR~! MOROWSKI~! QUINN~!

Hanover Germany 

10/20/81

Sal Bellomo vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: It's insane how much this crowd loved Bellomo. And he gave them lots to root for. The first couple of rounds here had him ducking every Tsurumi shot and then firing back big. Tsurumi was game for it too. He got a throat shot or knee to the gut in here or there but ended up getting stretched by Bellomo. Bellomo got to slam him but he really had to work at it including a gut punch. He hit a bit back body press off the second rope but it was at the end of a round. Tsurumi finally took over with a great bear hug into a belly to belly, which he followed with nasty abdominal style stretches that were half octopi but Bellomo kept on fighting as much as he could nonetheless, surviving to the end of the match and the draw. Post match, he and Tsurumi hugged. 

ER: I love Goro Tsurumi's matches with Sal Bellomo. They officially have a series and we are documenting it, and it's one of those great things wrestling offers us, giving us something unexpected to look forward to. You watch enough wrestling, you find yourself getting excited by sometimes unexpected things. Matt and I wrote about a different 1981 Goro/Bellomo match a few months ago and it was a good feeling, gaining an opinion on Salvatore Bellomo. Isn't it great when you gain an opinion on a wrestler, especially one who you've known about so long? Wrestlers are just footage waiting to be found. It's never too late to recognize how good Iron Mike Sharpe was. Sal Bellomo was a German babyface superstar before and after he worked interminable undercard matches in WWF. Goro Tsurumi is a dude tough with throwing power, and they build the first two round into a wild 3rd round fight. 

Bellomo thinks he came a beat away from winning the match at the end of the 2nd, so Goro charges out like a wild man in the 3rd and goes straight into the buckles. When he finally recognizes he can't out-quick Sal, he drops to his knees and challenges him to a fight. In the 1st, Bellomo was landing every punch and dodging every overhand Baba chop Goro threw; in the 3rd, Goro goads Sal into a kneeling fist fight, and before long they're trading meaty headbutts. The 3rd round is one of the best individual rounds of all the 1981 Germany we've written about. It's a real fight. Bellomo throws himself into a Thesz press but Tsurumi catches him in a bearhug, holds him a beat, then throws him with a belly to belly like 1991 Scott Steiner. Tsurumi comes off so dangerous that the crowd screams in unisons, counting down the final 10 seconds of the round, relieved that Bellomo was simply going to survive. They cheer for Bellomo not tapping out to an abdominal stretch like they were watching David Hasselhoff perform on the Berlin Wall. Sal Bellomo was there. 

10/6/81

Grand Vladimir vs. Sal Bellomo

MD: This wasn't bad by any means, but it was a little dry, especially considering just how good a stooge Vlad can be and how into Bellomo the crowd could be. This was stark, that's a good word for it. Vlad controlled a lot of it by cheating, hairpulls, cheapshots, just laying stuff in. My favorite thing he did was an alternating clubber/headbutt in the corner. Whenever Bellomo would start to come back something would work against him. The ref would hold him back in the corner and he'd eat a gut shot around him or the bell would ring. He did come out one round guns blazing and gave Vlad the what for, but Vlad was able to turn things around and chuck him over the top. That was the beginning of the end and Vlad ultimately put him out with a cobra clutch. Post match he helped him up just to deck him (which was great heeling). Bellomo fired back but Vlad cut him off since he was still groggy and left with his head high in victory.

ER: There are different things to value about Sal Bellomo in his matches against someone as large as Vladimir vs. someone his size but with a different skillset like Tsurumi. Vladimir doesn't react to Bellomo's strikes at all, isn't moved by them at all. So, Bellomo starts throwing uppercuts as targeting missiles, leaving his feet and flying up into Vlad, and that starts to move him. I loved Eddie Guerrero's flying back elbow, thrown like a full body block like a Darby Allin cannonball. Bellomo's weren't that advanced, but it made them look more raw, like when Bill Dundee would leave his feet for a few fired up punches. Bellomo didn't throw uppercuts like this to Tsurumi, because he didn't have to. He changes full range of motion depending on opponent, and a year ago that's something I wouldn't have known Sal had in him. The finish was great work from Vlad, choking Bellomo out but helping the referee get him back to his feet, only to knock his ass back to the mat. That's for the 8th flying uppercut. 

Mile Zrno vs. UFO

MD: They introduce Mile Zrno as "Super Talent" and yes, yes he is. How do I put this? When you watch Mile Zrno you realize that you've been taking so much for granted. The world is a more vivid place during a Mile Zrno match, even with this not ideal video quality. There's more snap to everything, more torque, more struggle, more balance, more rotation. One thing I tend to try to do as I write about wrestling is talk more about structure and story and feel and mood and plot than actual execution. Because I can tell and understand stories but I haven't done any martial arts since I was a teenager and certainly not most that come into play here. But with Zrno, you can just see the technique on the screen, it's undeniable.

UFO is obviously no slouch and he is the aggressor for the brunt of this, but everyone knows what's going on. He's there to put on a hold so that Zrno can escape in the most spectacular way possible and put on a tricked out counterhold of his own. There are so many bridges and flips into bridges and rotations and everything. In the second round, UFO takes things to strikes first and has an advantage because of it, but Zrno can fire back that way too. They take this just about as far as they can, going right to the bell in the last round. They're really slugging away and trying quick takedowns and pins as the fans are counting down. As good as it sounds.

ER: Mike Zrno is a great Girlfriend Wrestler. I've watched a lot of pro wrestling with a lot of unlucky girlfriends in my life. Since wrestling is such a constant dripping faucet that is leaking every day, my girlfriends have all just gone through the same habits and same projects as I have, experiencing DVDVR 80s sets and other neverending streams of dvds and video files in my own real time. They absorb maybe 5-10% of it and I have only modest influence over what is absorbed. Zrno is a guy who moves in a way that gets noticed, gets absorbed. The way he floats on kip ups, the way he fights hard and falls odd. He is noticeable. All the girlies watching Mile Zrno's kip ups and Bob Della Serra's lightning fast lucha maestro drop toeholds are over here in the corner, unnoticed. Bob Della Serra is Silver King to Zrno's Juventud. Zrno is Baryshnikov and Della Serra is...uh, whomever Baryshnikov's thicker rival was. Both men throw different kinds of violent strikes and strike like cobra's on single leg takedowns. The second round has grinding matwork and UFO slamming his way out of a flying headscissors attempt. The third fall builds to a sick fight down the home stretch. Both men move with such grace and control that it looked like two Cirque de Soleil performers miming Futen. 

Goro "Tanaka" Tsurumi vs. Moose Morowski

MD: Two guys who really knew what they were doing in this setting. Morowski didn't break clean right at the start and controlled the entire first round, including tossing him out liberally. Tsurumi carried himself in a way that it was clear once the round was over, he was going to strike back hard, and he did, taking basically the whole second round with karate shot after karate shot. When Morowski came back it was with an extended atomic noogie, so that was great. He hit a pile driver to cement it. Morowski drove him off of the ropes throat first repeatedly, only for Tsurumi to come back with one of his own to a big pop. Finish had Morowski jamming a roll up off the ropes and then hitting a shoulderbreaker. Straightforward stuff but they worked very well together. 

Kengo Kimura vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: If there are WAR tags, there should be weird 1981 Germany match ups. This one is so bizarre on paper, but it worked. Neidhart screwed around by breaking Kimura's full nelson to start, but then ate a dropkick after he broke it the second time and Kimura switched it right into a mare the third time. Kimura then started in on the leg with a take down and later a low kick. Neidhart sold it well and eventually escaped to the floor while Kimura theatrically helped the ref count. 

Second round had Neidhart charge right in with an eyerake and clubber down on him. After a while, Kimura ducked a shot and came back with chops and overhand karate strikes. Neidhart actually took the bret face first bump into the corner. Neidhart tried to charge in again in the third round but Kimura ducked it and started chopping. He hit a body block but got caught in a side backbreaker the second time. Then Neidhart hit the stampede for the win. Pretty good for two and a half rounds. 

Axel Dieter/Klaus Kauroff vs. Karl Dauberger/John Quinn 

MD: Pretty unsubstantial tag, a feel good sort. The heels never really controlled for any length of time and it was straight babyface pins. Dauberger got the worst of it, just getting knocked around the ring with hard shots from both Dieter and Kauroff. Fans loved Kauroff and would stomp when he was pounding on his opponents. Quinn fared better and could more than hold his own. Against him, Kauroff needed to pull out headbutts and the like. But it was all feeding and stooging for the most part. Dieter got a pin with a nice rollup for the first fall and Kauroff took the second with a big slam. Sometimes I guess you just need to send people home happy.

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Found Footage Friday: Hanover 1981~! KENGO KIMURA VS BRET HART~?!

9/28/81 Hanover

Salvatore Bellomo vs. Pat Roach

MD: The great mystery to be solved in this footage, as much as anything else, is just why and how Sal Bellomo and Bob Dellaserra (UFO) were so over. Because they are the two most over guys in 1980 and 1981 Bremen, even over locals. And they're not people who are known to be THIS over anywhere else.

I think you actually can find part of the answer in this one. Roach obviously dominated this match. In the first round he overpowered Bellomo, ran through him, but Bellomo kept on it, dropping down and dodging so that he could dropkick Roach out. Yes, Roach came right back and chucked Bellomo out for revenge, but he had his little victories. In the second round, Roach pounded on him, but Bellomo kept at it, firing back, bouncing off the rope with a forearm, even staggering him at times. 

The match continued as such. Roach had a clear advantage, but Bellomo just wouldn't quit. He'd chip away, never for long, but just enough to let the crowd know he was worth investing in. Eventually he was able to get Roach into the corner and did the Van Buyten flying leap into a ten count punch and they went nuts for that. Then he drove Roach back with shot after shot and tossed him into the other corner. Roach took a wild bump over the top and on the way back in Bellomo slammed him and the place went nuts at the upset. Lightning in a bottle.

Mile Zrno vs. Manuel Lopez

MD: This was as good as you'd expect. First round was all Lopez with Zrno in a hammerlock and lots of different escape attempts. Zrno would go over the top but end up right back in it. He'd try again and get shrugged down to the mat. Second round had him returning favor with a cravat that he held on to until they went into teeter totter monkey flips. Zrno had a lot of fun bridges and Zrno did this great ripcord into a backbreaker. Then in the third round, they got in and out quickly, with some rope running, an arm drag slam by Lopez, some gut shots by Zrno, and then roll ups with Zrno winning it with a nice bridging cradle.

Axel Dieter/Klaus Karoff vs. Moose Morowski/Grand Vladimir

MD: Kauroff was super over. Dieter maybe over by association (and his own crowd pleasing stuff). The first half of the first fall, they really kept it paired up. Dieter was paired with Vladimir and would do bridging headcissors takeovers and a lot of mares and what not. Morowski and Kauroff would just do the clash of the titans stuff, with Kauroff often getting the better off him with these big whacks. A couple of times, Kauroff was able to drag him to the corner and take over but never for too long. At one point, after a comeback, Dieter tagged him in and the place was literally rocking, the camera shaking all over the place due to the fans stomping. Dieter and Kauroff took the first fall after a Dieter catapult onto Vladimir off the ropes and back onto his knees and then a body slam.

Second fall had a lot of quick tags from Dieter and Kauroff but the ref ended up distracted with Kauroff and Morowski finished Dieter off with a shoulder breaker. That led to the most real heat in the match in the third fall as they beat down Dieter. An errant kneelift from Vladimir brought Kauroff back in and the place started rocking again. Ultimately, I think Kauroff and Dieter lost it after Dieter back body dropped Vlad over the top but they cleared the ring and ended up standing tall in the end and the crowd was with them as they celebrated.

Kengo Kimura vs. Bret Hart

MD: I'm not saying 'this is why we go through the footage', because while this is an interesting match, it's not nearly as good any of the first three matches, but is it ever a novelty? Can you imagine this match in 1987? That's not my favorite Bret year or anything but he still has the SNME Savage match. But this is 1981 so a very different beast. Anyway, Bret's out to Racey's "Some Girls" like always. Kimura's out to "Japanese Boy" by Aneka. 

This was a pretty good first match on a NJPW or Mid-South card. Clean wrestling, aggressive, hold-based. Kimura ended the first round working the leg with some nice falling back deathlocks. Bret worked the arm a bit in the second and they did some rolls up. In the third they started chipper and went right to the rope running. The finish was a bit wonky as Kimura just ran through him with a strike. Perfectly fine wrestling here but pretty vanilla overall.

UFO vs. Jim Neidhart:

MD: I took a break after the Bret match and forgot who Neidhart was facing. Well the crowd reminded me quickly. "U-FO, U-FO, U-FO." over and over. Neidhart took a lot of this mainly by charging at UFO and slapping on chinlocks. When he missed and UFO got the better of him, the fans went up big for it, and UFO worked his way out of the chinlock again and again and it always worked but it wasn't the world's most interesting match, maybe. It ended just as you'd expect, with UFO dodging a corner charge for a roll up. Still, you can't say this wasn't effective and a good use of Neidhart's football credentials. Neidhart did have a lot of raw energy and charisma that would become more honed and stylized for good and ill later on.

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10/10/81

Klaus Kauroff vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: The appeal here is that these two are bigger, or at least thicker, than a lot of wrestlers. They still had a ton of skill though. Both had some takeovers that were quite impressive, but made all the more so given the size. Kauroff had a headscissors (sort of bridging) takeover that I wasn't expecting and they really went over on some of the arm flips. The first round was mostly arm control but bookended with takeovers. The second they started to clash with big shots a bit more. There was one leapfrog where Kauroff was turned completely sideways as Tsurumi vaulted over him in a way I don't think I've seen before. Third fall had a bit of rope running and a quick slam. Fans liked both of these guys and it never boiled over but it was okay for a relatively short three round affair.

Achim Chall/Sal Bellomo vs. Karl Dauberger/Jim Neidhart

MD: Neidhart and Bellomo worked well together to start. Bellomo would dodge him while rope running and come back with a dropkick. He agreed to three point stance charges and got knocked around only to leapfrog one so Neidhart went flying. Fans loved it. Neidhart played reactive and prickly well already. Chall and Dauberger did a great bit out of a double knucklelock where they went up and down with it before Chall stepped over and did a spin kick. That caused Dauberger to lose his cool and then run right into a shot as he careened off the ropes. Then Neidhart went for a handshake (obviously a cheapshot set up) and Bellomo clowned him with a behind the back lure-in. So fun stuff in the early exchanges. 

They cycled into a few minuets of full nelsons after that, with Neidhart making a bit show of it. He'd escape Bellomo's and then let go of Bellomo to show his superiority. He got kicked in the face for his trouble. Then they did it with Chall, trading off until he escaped that way a few minutes later too. Bellomo came in hot but got tripped from the outside and pinned.

Second fall had them bullying Bellomo in the corner, but Dauberger got cocky and Chall returned the favor from the end of the first fall, tripping him so that Bellomo could pin him. Clever stuff. 

Third fall was a long, long heat on Chall, and it was good, if simple. A lot of front facelocks as he strained towards the corner with Neidhart either getting a shot in or coming in from the outside to pull the tights to yank him back. That'd draw Bellomo in and then allow for the double teaming. Eventually, against Dauberger, Chall made it and the place went nuts. Problem was that they were working towards a draw so there was still another five or six minutes of back and forth with some attempts to draw back into heat and some major bits of comeuppance before the bell rang as they were brawling. If this thing ended shortly after the hot tag it would have been a lot better. It still was one of the best performances out of Bret or Neidhart that we have on this tour.

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Found Footage Friday: BREMEN 1981~! BRET~! WRIGHT~! CASWELL~! ROACH~! UFO~! DIETER~! MOROWSKI~! QUINN~! NEIDHART~!

Bremen 10/20/81

Bret Hart vs. Steve Wright

MD: This show starts with footage of the vending tables and other things which give a really nice slice of life for the time. This match, like the Roach one we covered last month, is amazing just to exist. Steve Wright and Bret Hart! Who knew. And it goes much like you'd expect, with Hart a real game opponent for Wright. The first round and a half has Bret getting little flashes (including dropkicking him out of the ring to start) but Wright mostly controlling and making Bret work his way out. There's a nice cravat exchange where Wright hangs on, for instance. Bret does get the better of him at the end of most of these though. Wright is definitely not clowning Bret like he does others and he goes out of his way to shake his hand between rounds. 

In the middle of the second round, he starts bullying with slams and big whips and Bret flies around for him. This ends with a bridge by Wright that Bret sneaks out of, leaving him there, the biggest comedy of the match but it was quite funny. Into the third round, they pick up the pace including a great bounding mirrored monkey flip sequence, before Wright gets a backslide out of nowhere. I could have used another round and a bit more clowning but this was very good stuff overall. (And for what it's worth Bret still comes out to "Some Girls" by Racey, look it up).

ER: It's weird that Bret only mentioned Steve Wright's hairline and skinny build in his book, and didn't praise his work style the way he praised similar (and arguably lesser) workers. He didn't have a ton of praise for many of the guys on these Germany tours, if I remember correctly, so either he had a bad time doing nightly tent shows or didn't like how Wright was throwing him 10 feet on hip tosses. I remember him saying that he worked so hard on night one that all the old guys got jealous and he was buried the rest of the tour. But Wright wasn't even 30, an old man by hairline only, and seems like the kind of worker Bret would have liked; their styles are a natural fit. 

This was exactly what I would have expected a 1981 Bret/Wright match to look like, and that's a good thing. It's just a wee taste, ending in the third when things felt like they were just heating up. There's a lot of mirror exchanges but done properly, with tight execution and a sense of monkey see, with big headlock takeovers, Bret getting flipped with tight headscissors. Bret's escape in the 2nd got a laugh out of me, leaving Wright in a neck bridge briefly unaware of Bret's absence. Wright's handshake when he got to his feet felt like a fun fourth wall break, different from his attitude the rest of the match. Bret wrecks him with an uppercut in the 3rd (a "lifter" as Bret called them) and it stood out extra because it was really the only big strike of the match. Maybe that's why Wright went to the finish so quickly...

Caswell Martin vs. Pat Roach

MD: Very, very good stuff. These two matched up so well. I like Martin against anyone really, but here there was contrast and basing and something for him to overcome. I think they may have even wrestled in the UK in footage we might have right around this point, but the familiarity is absolutely there. Roach would try to clubber or bully him and Martin would have to outslick him in multiple ways, whether it was taking a hold and just hanging on through everything or using a headbutt out of nowhere or just bounding about with interesting escapes. 

The two that stood out the most were one where Roach was slamming his head into the mat and Martin just rolled through which I've never seen before and another when he was going for a side backbreaker and Martin was able to take the upward momentum and just keep going around with it. Incredible stuff really. So much of what Martin does are things I've never seen anyone else do and he does it so effortlessly. The match ended sort of abruptly after Martin almost pinned Roach with multiple double leg nelsons over and over; Roach had enough and ground the leg in the ropes until he got DQed. Very good while it lasted though.

ER: I was shocked by how much this match was built around big bumps over the top rope. Many of them were Roach hurling Martin up and over, my favorite being a short shoulderblock that sent him flying backwards to the floor. The more Martin would get up, the harder Roach would throw him, and the more Martin endured the more he aimed to throw Roach over the top. Martin couldn't out-strike him, so Roach was able to bully him, always attacking after the bell, kicking him in the head any time Martin was down, and I loved how Martin had his big hard head as a weapon when the elbows weren't fazing Roach. Roach is good at selling strikes appropriately, not over the top, and doing simple things well, like really smashing his face into turnbuckles and taking Martin's tricks well. This is another one that felt like it had more story to tell, but the story we got was good fun. 

Sal Bellomo vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: Not a lot to say here. Tanaka came out to the Bridge Over the River Kwai whistle march which is kind of chilling when you think about it. Bellomo is always over. First two rounds were quite subdued with a lot of Tanaka holding an arm. They moved in and out of it a bit but only a bit. There was at least one great Bellomo dropkick. Things opened up in the third round and when they were slugging it out it was pretty good. Likewise the fourth until they both went sailing over the top and drew the countout. This had less of Tanaka being a showman but I suppose that's more when he's up against heels.

ER: I think it's good we are documenting this Germany footage, for little things like the Sal Bellomo footage. In the last decade plus we've gotten a lot of new footage of all time legends that only solidified their cases as all time greats. The Omni footage alone has helped the reputations of a dozen different guys. Seeing a bunch of new Greg Valentine or Buzz Sawyer and thinking they're even better than we thought is great, but I love how much I look forward to Brett Wayne Sawyer matches now. I didn't realize how much I connected to his work until finally seeing the right footage 40 years later. 

But not every wrestler needs to have A Case made for them. Not all new footage needs to give us a new overlooked wrestler to categorize a Favorite, we don't need to fall in love with everyone we see. No matter our opinion on someone as a worker, it's automatically good to see every worker we can At Their Best. I have so few opinions on Salvatore Bellomo. I have opinions on so many workers, and only so many can make the cut. Maybe I've seen a dozen Sal Bellomo matches, maybe I've seen 50. I don't know because I think about so many other wrestlers before I think about Sal Bellomo. I think of Tony Garea and Terry Daniels more than I think of Sal Bellomo, but that doesn't mean I think they are better workers. 

Bremen Bellomo feels like we're seeing Sal Bellomo at his best, loved by an energetic crowd in a language he doesn't speak. If we suddenly got several Puerto Rico Frankie Lancaster matches and Puerto Ricans a hundred feet away in a baseball stadium were going nuts for this jacked guy who always looked old it would be revelatory. If Goro Tsurumi was working this kind of snug basics loud chops wrestling but had the afro of 1984 Goro Tsurumi would he have been the surprise German cult favorite? I don't think Bellomo got over as well in the Bruno Italian markets as well as he got over in Germany, but maybe I need to watch more Bellomo and soon I'm thinking about his matches. 

Goro Tsurumi and Bellomo are guys who have never been reevaluated. Is Goro a great lost 90s worker? Could be. Do we have late 90s IWA Kokusai? Is his 1994 FMW run good? Sounds good. I watched plenty of Goro during the All Japan 80s Project and none of those matches made the cut. When does Goro start making the cut? 

Moose Morowski/Jim Neidhart vs. Gran Vladimir/John Quinn

MD: A bruising, entertaining heel vs. heel match here. The second fall came quickly after the first and there weren't really big momentum shifts. Morowski was throwing big shots throughout. Really, they all were. It broke down a few times. Neidhart's strength was played up as he ran through people and broke holds and won shoving matches. He got overly rambunctious at the end of both falls and got caught, first by an arm drag slam by Vladimir and then later by Quinn's boot. I can't imagine anyone being too disappointed by this because it was so hard hitting though.

ER: Matt's not wrong about Racey's "Some Girls" by the way. It sounds like a lesser Dave Edmunds track. Jim Neidhart is another guy I've seen a lot who I don't have much opinion on, but Neidhart as Moose Morowski's humongous 12 year old son, is perfect casting. It is such a perfect on paper fit that maybe this was the territory that would have given us out best Anvil. He's billed as American Football Champion Jim Neidhart and I wonder if Germany ever went through a Raiders Gear era or if that's not really a thing because I've just lived in California all my life. Being billed as American Football Champion is so cool it could be on the Survival Tobita shirt. Neidhart is a name that sounds insane when shouted by a German, feels like the place he would have become a legend. He would have eventually been turned into a beer pounding babyface like like Da Crusher, had he wanted to be an 80s German pop culture star instead of a guy pounding pitchers and placidyl at the Rockford Holiday Inn. More money, sure, but there's probably nothing like being an American star exclusively to Europeans. A man pounding a boot, leaning his weight into the ropes and using big stomach and broad keg hoisting shoulders to deliver full weight shoulder blocks. Another life. 

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10/23/81?

Bob Della Serra/Axel Dieter vs. Gran Vladimir/John Quinn

MD: I've been sitting on watching this match for a couple of months and it honestly seemed pretty special. I have no idea what's going on here or what this is for but the winners got wreaths and the crowd was going nuts. This is shot from ringside, underneath, as opposed to the almost hardcam handheld view from all the rest of the footage so far. We really don't miss any of the action but it's a little harder. 

And it's just very good. It's in three falls like most of these tags. It's really more about the babyfaces, I'd say. Dieter has a lot of tricks and stuff on the mat including a toupie headspin takeover. Eventually he does get swept under and they work him over well, only for UFO to come in super hot. The fans absolutely love him punching again and again and again. Just super spirited stuff. The babyfaces took the first fall but he got swept under in the second, a second round of heat even though he'd try to punch from literally underneath as he was getting back to his feet (which looked great from this angle). Quinn finally got him with the over the shoulder backbreaker. 

It's amazing how beloved UFO was. Dellaserra was just so over in this territory. A lot of the babyfaces were, to be fair. Dieter is too but UFO just had a special connection for this balding guy in red gear who doesn't otherwise stand out. Maybe it's just because they love chanting UFO but his fire and his punching probably had something to do with it too. He got the hot tag to Dieter here and they went into a finish where Quinn tried the backbreaker twice more but Dieter got out and was able to pick up the win as the place exploded. I'm not sure this is the best match we've seen in this but even with the camera angle it felt truly special to this crowd.

ER: I love the affinity Germans have for their balding boys, truly people of men. UFO looks and wrestles like a proto-Franz Schuhmann only without Schuhmann's quiff. Dieter is the guy who gets the loudest reactions from the German crowds and it's cool we got a babyface super squad to take on the Mighty Quinn and a big Russian. This was a smartly paced tag, with the babyfaces washing over everything in the first fall and the crowd laughing and singing, loving Dieter's snapmares and boot scrapes and headscissors and the way their balding boys kept foiling the larger heels. The second fall is where this really picked up. In the first, UFO looked like he has bottom 20 percentile uppercuts, but when he feels how hard Quinn is hitting him suddenly the uppercuts get better, and soon he's bouncing Vlad between his uppercut and the ropes, back and forth, until Vlad falls on his face. 

When UFO is swinging wide left and right punches into Quinn's ears during the 2nd fall, they're some of the best most unique punches I've seen. All of the punch exchanges between Quinn and UFO were great, real original stuff, switching up angle of attack and mixing combos, no exchange looked similar to another. UFO throws great punches to the body from his back, fighting to his feet, but it's those wild swinging shots to the side of Quinn's head that fired me up. In the third fall, Quinn and Vlad battered UFO with kneelifts and closed fists to the back and neck, and I was surprised the crowd wasn't even more alive to rally him. The OOOF-OH! chants seemed so much louder in the first fall when they were on top, now they seemed resigned to his loss. But when Dieter tags in they are fired up anew, and Dieter seems to beam with pride over the punishment UFO endured. Matt is right that this is not one of the greatest German matches we've seen, but it's a completely different view of the action than we've seen before and it gave everything a totally different feel, like you were right there with them. I don't know if I've ever seen any of their faces so clearly. 

Moose Morowski vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: There were moments of this, given the weird camera angle, how big these two were, and just how hard they were going at each other, that reminded me just a little of Andre vs. Hansen. But they didn't keep it up, and it's probably fine they didn't, because they couldn't, and that wouldn't have made for much of a match. Much of this was Morowski bullying Neidhart and Morowski containing Neidhart. Whenever they fought even it was way more interesting though, because Neidhart was an out of control fireplug.The first round was them trading holds (70/30 Morowski) but in the second they started to slug it out and for a few seconds, it was pretty glorious. They took it back down and Neidhart had to more or less work from underneath. Neither of these guys were beloved but Morowski was more unlikable and people wanted to see Neidhart unchained. He came in hot in the last round, charging in and doing well by it right until Morowski got out of the way and he crashed into the corner allowing Morowski to score a quick pin. Some of the footage in the margins here of people filing out at the end gave a real sense of a time and a place as well. 

ER: This doesn't build to the war it could have and should have been. Neidhart was still really new and Morowski was having a match with a new bull and that's still a cool match structure. I like the way Neidhart takes punches, and liked how Moose was dishing out 1-3 strikes for every forearm that Jim would fire off. Moose looked like he was holding Jim down and trying to make him get off the mat and an old vet challenging a new guy to "just get up" is a perfect match to work with a guy who got tortured in a Stu's Dungeon. There's somewhere on the timeline that is The Right Time for these two to cross paths, and maybe this wasn't it. 

Jim Neidhart vs. Moose Morowski from 1985 is the new Grail. Who was taping at the Vancouver Saddledome in '85? 

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10/21/81? 

Steve Wright vs. John Quinn

MD: These two certainly knew what they were doing. We come in mid-stream so no Mighty Quinn entrance for John. Wright would outwrestle him (making sure to make a show of it with multiple attempts before a headlock takeover, for instance) and then Quinn would get frustrated and clubber away. On the comebacks Wright took umbrage and laid in some kicks on the ground which the crowd loved but the ref did not. 

Unfortunately for Wright, Quinn was just as good at stomping away as he was, better even, and after Wright missed a charge into the ropes and ended up clotheslining himself on them, Quinn took over. He got carded for his trouble but stayed in charge even through rounds. He would miss an elbow drop and Wright had a big comeback but he went sailing towards those rope again, this time getting hung up in them. Wright couldn't just let things be though and went on the attack. That got him another card and drew the DQ. Anticlimactic finish but one way to get out of a match, I guess. Before that this was very good contrast.

ER: I loved all the struggle in this one, with Wright having to constantly fight to take down the Mighty Quinn. They did some struggle spots I've never seen and others that need to be brought back, and it always made it look like Wright had really earned every advantage he had. The best examples of this are Wright's headscissors and his headlock takeovers. I don't often see such fight over a flying headscissors. You see guys trying to escape grounded headscissors (well, not know, but when people fought over matwork you saw this) but rarely fight to escape a flying headscissors. Wright at one point was on Quinn's shoulders, legs wrapped around his head, for so long that Quinn was essentially wearing him as a hat. Quinn expended a lot of effort to stay upright and Wright stayed balled up on his shoulders to make himself heavier, finally taking him over. The spot someone should really steal is the headlock takeover, where Wright has the headlock in tight and keeps working to pull Quinn over his body, Wright expelling energy to get him over while Quinn fights to stay standing, only to finally get dragged over on the sixth or seventh attempt. This built beyond those things, as it should, but those are the things that really leapt out to me. 

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09/13/81?

Karl Dauberger vs. Klaus Kauroff

MD: This one threw me at first. Look, in watching this footage, I should have a better sense of Dieter vs. Dauberger vs. Chall, etc., and I'm getting there. What was striking here was that Kauroff was the heel. Kauroff had teamed with Dieter on this tour and the fans were behind him. Of course they were, because he'd have these big hammering shots on his comebacks. The first round here was wrestled even, with Dauberger opening things up in the second by stomping away and taking liberties. The crowd really went up for Kauroff's comeback shots and he won it in the third fairly easily with an armdrag slam. 

Caswell Martin vs. Steve Wright

MD: This was not on the listing and is a heck of a bonus. Unfortunately, it cuts off and we don't get to the full time limit draw but we still get ~3 rounds and 10+ minutes of these two going at it. It's like vs like, trickster vs trickster, skilled genius wrestler vs skilled genius wrestler, face vs face, and the crowd is absolutely delighted by it. Wright is more apt to rush at Martin (and even goes flying out of the ring at one point). Martin is more apt to throw a headbutt or strike. In general though, they're incredibly even with an answer to every question; no one gets an advantage for long. They just go in and out of holds and do sequences and bits. A couple of times they bring the ref into it and it's all highly entertaining. Maybe nothing I've never seen before here, but they're able to fire things off in such rapid succession and even incomplete as it is, it's very enjoyable. 

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Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1981~! STREET~! WRIGHT~! HART~! NEIDHART~! ZRNO~! TSURUMI~! ROACH~!

MD: Another Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers) special. Another pretty amazing find. Go check out his patreon if you want access. 

John Quinn vs. Pat Roach

MD: It's definitely a mood to watch the darkened picture as Quinn stands in the ring waiting for Roach as the entirety of The Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann plays in 1981 Hanover, Germany. This was exactly what you'd expect it to be. They started slow with Quinn holding on to an inner chicken wing/armbar for the entire first fall and into the second as Roach tried to get out with increasing desperation before finally powering out. Then they crashed into each other for a while. And things ultimately built to a massive slugfest with two giant bruisers just going at it. Quinn had more sweeping blows, over the top, from the side. Roach hit from underneath or straight on. Occasionally they'd get a move off the ropes or a slam. Occasionally they'd both go down. It went round after round until it looked like Roach might win it with a slam and then a backbreaker but a foot was on the rope for the first and the bell ran on the second and as they called it a draw, he just stormed out of the ring, a professional ready to move on with life. Hard to fault a match where two guys hit each other as hard as these two hit each other here.

Jim Neidhart vs. Goro Tanaka (Tsurumi)

MD: Straightforward stuff with Tsurumi directing traffic. When they were doing shtick it was a lot of fun, things like Neidhart breaking out of the full nelson and calling for it again only to get dropkicked in the back or eating chops or running into the corner. He had some pretty good clubbering offense too. This didn't go more than three rounds, and had a lot of Neidhart taking liberties and getting admonished by attacking after rounds. More importantly, it didn't wear out its welcome. Tsurumi had a real attraction feel to him where he leaned hard into the chops and the sumo stretching. I'm not sure Neidhart would work as well against one of the real technical guys at this point of his career but he was a good foil for Tsurumi.

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Jim Neidhart vs. Bret Hart

MD: This was a lot of fun actually. They worked extremely hard against one another Neidhart (Who is the one who has Racey's Some Girls as his theme, not Wisokwski!) charged in right at the start with a killer tackle in the corner and didn't look back for a while. The ref got a big pop by pulling him off with a hairpull. Whenever he tossed Bret in, Bret flew in harder than anyone. That's both against the ropes and into the corner. Bret finally started to fire back and get some revenge. They'd get chippy with one another at the end of the falls. Anvil was using this great Oklahoma Stampede as his finish here and he also did a bodyslam variation that I've never seen before. Bret fought valiantly but he got tossed out one too many times and Neidhart was able to just pick him up from the apron and hit the stampede after crashing into two corners. This was good though. Neidhart had lots of zing and both guys really crashed around for each other.

Mile Zrno vs. Achaim Chall

MD: Two masters being absolutely masterful. We really didn't have much Chall before so it's nice we have a few more matches now, even towards the end of his career. Zrno, on the other hand, is one of those rare wrestlers where you want to see every exchange just to see how he gets out of it. He was the slicker and more agile with Chall being more the one to put on holds so he could get out but Chall certainly held his own with some bigger and trickier spots.

They told a dozen little stories in here, one going to the next. It might be Zrno clapping Chall's ear on an escape and Chall following up with a facewash before cooler heads prevailed, or both escalating things into some nasty shots. They did a short arm scissors exchange with gotch lifts. They had this amazing up and over with dragon sleepers (1981 remember) until they got lost in the ropes. And Chall had the armhook rana mid match where Zrno did a great bridging escape, only to go for it again at the end and get folding pressed for the loss. Definitely a treat to see these two ply their trade.

Moose Morowski vs. Bob Della Serra (UFO)

MD: Another very long Morowski match where they start by trading a round of holds (headlock, armbar) each, before things start to get heated and never really look back. This includes some great exhausted selling as time goes on too, as well as a few sojourns to the floor and a Morowski pile driver (jammed on the second attempt), and his share of cheapshots. The crowd was behind Della Serra with plenty of UFO chants and Moose got (and deserved heat). Not too much to say about the specifics except for that once they started pounding on each other it got quite good but didn't really build to anything meaningful.That didn't mean it wasn't enjoyable for what it was though.

Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka vs. Ed Wiskowski

MD: These two worked well enough together that I'm sad Wiskowski didn't bring Tsurumi back to Portland to face Buddy Rose (though the timing of that may be off anyway). Wiskowski would get a cheapshot in to take over, Tsurumi would work from underneath with some big karate chops. Wiskowki would run head first into things while bumping for them. Wiskowki would take back over by tossing Tsurumi out and fighting him on the outside. And it would all repeat. Very fun stuff with some unique bit of stooging out of Wiskowski until it got called off and he got DQed. Tsurumi wasn't at all happy with that and wanted to keep fighting but the ref awarded the match to him anyway.

Paco Ramirez/Karl Dauberger vs. Kengo Kimura/Caswell Martin

MD: This didn't go super long even at 2/3 falls but it was a lot of fun. For one thing, I'm not sure I've ever seen Kengo Kimura in a comedy match but he was working as Martin's second banana and there was one clear sequence where he did some fun 2 s 1 stuff. He had a headlock, got hit a with a gut punch from outside, put it back on, and then did the headscissors/headlock combo takeover with a big pumping arm to get the crowd going. They also did a bit where Martin catapulted one into the other while he was holding Kimura so Kimura got out of there at the last second. Stuff like that. All fun. Martin, as always, was confident and creative. He had one bit where he was in a leg stretch and kept making his legs wider to force Ramirez to try to keep up (he failed). We had seen Ramirez as a stylist in the later French Catch stuff so nice to see him get so into this stooging role.

Adrian Street vs. Steve Wright

MD: I cannot begin to do this justice. I could tell you how all wrestling is symbolic and that this was a comedy spotfest with one hilarious bit after the next. I could explain how Steve Wright usually eats up his opponents and here he was up against someone who made fools of them (at least in Germany). I could tell you how they bridged that gap by having both wrestlers menace the ref, with Wright doing it more and more as the match went on and countering more and more of Street's antics by giving it back to him, or how he spent the entire match with a sort of wild whimsy you wouldn't expect. I could explain how the crowd was laughing uproariously the whole time but how they still built to big moments. I could explain specific spots including maybe the funniest ref bit I've ever seen. But, none of this does it justice. No even close. I can't do it with words. Maybe someone could. Not me. This match was buried for decades in a private collection. It only got transferred because it was at the very end of a tape with Bret vs Neidhart on it, an unlisted match from a different card. I think it might be the funniest pro wrestling match ever, though don't show it to your grandmother.

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Found Footage Friday: Hanover 1981

Hanover 1981

MD: Another Richard Land (@maskedwrestlers on twitter) find. He has a ton of these from a recent haul that he'll slowly go through. We've already seen the next and it's full of great stuff. If you are, however, let's say the biggest Adrian Street fan in the world, do feel free to reach out to me. Some things really need to be seen.

Achim Chall vs. John Quinn

MD: Quinn had a size advantage here and could pepper in shots from almost any angle whenever he wanted. Chall was obviously skilled, both generally and in kayfabe, presented as such. He was able to score clever takedowns and get in jumping knees. The problem is that Quinn gave him no room to breathe. He was constantly being admonished by the ref for picking Chall up too early or kicking at him while he was down or stepping on him. When he hit moves, it was dropping him throat first on the ropes. He would put illegal holds on and hide punches with a headlock. You could hear the announcer mention some slight he did every few seconds. Eventually the ref had enough and red carded him, awarding the match to Chaim. It wasn't satisfying but because of those little glimpses of Chall's skill maybe it was effective in getting Quinn heat for the tour overall, allowing Chall to beat him without hurting Quinn at all (even if it didn't help Chall a ton) and reinforcing the rules, always important in the grand scheme of things.

Adrian Street vs. Francisco (Paco) Ramirez

MD: Street's song is so effective at making him stand out, even in 1981 Germany. It just transfers anywhere and is so unique relative to everyone else's presentation even though people tend to come out to music here. But he was going to stand out anyway. This was one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen. He was a babyface at times in the States but he was still the Other and it was much more about seeing the heel get embarrassed in the South by someone who you'd never invite to dinner. This was different. It was celebratory in the most German way. It was Cabaret. There was pure elation for everything he did, whether it was using Ramirez' arm to mimic sexual acts while in an armbar or dancing with high kicks between falls or menacing the ref. Street may or may not have been the best wrestler in the world on this night in 1981 but he was the most appreciated and maybe the most alive. I've never seen him quite so free to be this over the top in everything he did but the fans absolutely ate it up. It was on Paco Ramirez, one of our old friends from the later French footage to play the straight man. Yes, Street was over the top, but it took incredible skill and understanding of pro wrestling (including, yes, the mechanics) to make this all work. No one could have done it quite like him and we've never had footage of him doing it quite like this.

PAS: Killer stuff, the decadent Weimar Germans are eating up his act with a spoon, really reminded me of a crowd super into an all timer lucha exotico like  Pimpinela or Cassandro. Really made me wish we had an epic bloody lucha Adrian Street apuestas match. Not a ton of actual wrestling in this, but you could tell that Street was a master of that part of it all as well.  This was a couple of years after Bowie moved to German, but it had that Bowie spirit. This isn't the kid of thing which encourages a lot of written scrutiny, bit what a delight.

 

Alex Dieter vs. Moose Morowski

MD: There's a noted classic 1980 match between these two that I'm not nearly familiar enough with, but I can say safely that these two were familiar with one another here. Dieter attacks right from the start and controls for the entire first round and the fans chant his name and love it. You get the sense that Morowski deserves it as well. Nothing flashy but a thorough beating. Then Morowski returns the favor in the second round with violent, rudimentary offense incensing the fans. After tossing Dieter out of the ring, a fan decides to take matters into his own hands and tosses a chair in. Morowski immediately beelines towards the ropes and charges at him and that's basically all she wrote for this one. We see the camera trying to track what's going on but it's hopeless. Completely unexpected. Totally wild. True heat and immediate consequence. Pro wrestling, everybody.

PAS: I loved the 1980 match

https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2016/11/all-time-moty-list-head-to-head.html

This felt like a house show version of the epic 1980 match, and clearly had some building to do until the fan chucks the chair at Moose ending the match. Would have loved to see the beating Morowski clearly put on that dude, and that is certainly a legit memorable finish. 

Grand Vladimir vs. Caswell Martin

MD: Pretty enjoyable stuff! Vladimir is very funny at first, doing everything over-the-top sporting to Martin and the crowd's surprise. A lot of raising his hand and shaking his hand and really making a show of it. Martin returns the favor by holding on to a cravat for the entirety of the second round despite every attempt by Vladimir to escape. One idea executed perfectly. In the third round, Vladimir goes for another handshake and then hits a gutshot and tosses Martin out as the ref is distracted and it's lovely payoff to all of the build. He ultimately gets disqualified but then is run off post-match. 

Goro Tanaka (Tsurumi)/Kengo Kimura vs. Cowboy Ed Wiskoski/"American Football Star" Jim Neidhart. 

MD: Goro totally gets it. He does a big sumo introduction including a split where Kimura bounces on his back. Wiskoski comes out with a cowboy hat and to "Some Girls" by Racey which is not a song I had ever heard before but it's quite the entrance overall. This is two out of three falls but none of the falls get a lot of time. Tsurumi is working for the last row and Neidhart is a tank. He catches Kimura off the ropes for a stampede to end the first fall. Second fall ends with them doing a bunch of silly karate moves on Neidhart, with the third ending abruptly with a dropkick to reverse a bodyslam into a pin. Things were simple and straightforward here, with one inversion instead of six, but it was all very effective. Just a weird match on paper and in practice though.

Moose Morowski vs. Pat Roach

MD: Roach took the first quarter of this by controlling the arm with a double wristlock and all sorts of other offense. But once it opened up, they absolutely pounded on each other and never looked back. Just a total war of attrition. It spilled out multiple times and came back in. There were cheapshots at the end of the round and then cheapshots to counter the cheapshots at the end of the next round. I don't think there's a whole lot to say about it, but that it's just great pro wrestling, blurry, gritty, full of animosity, with the most believable late match selling you'll see. Of course they were exhausted. Of course they could barely get up. They'd been going for minutes upon minutes just laying it in on one another. You could get parts of a match like this today but not, I think the total sum of it.

 

Achim Chall vs. Bret Hart

 

MD: This being on the tape was why it was prioritized and I'm glad it was for the Morowski matches and the Street match, but there's not a lot here. Chall is obviously very skilled at doing simple things extremely well. This is all Bret working the arm and Chall countering with some fun cravat stuff. They'll work up to their feet and crash into each other and go back down into the holds. Perfectly solid stuff. The highlight was probably Bret doing one of those bridge arounds to keep the hold that always look so slick and that I've never seen him do before. It ends just as simply with Chall falling on Bret for the pin.

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Found Footage Friday: STEAMBOAT~! ORTON~! PIPER~! ORNDORFF~! HARTS~! BEES~!

Ricky Steamboat vs. Bob Orton Jr. WWF 3/6/86

MD: We've got a trio of matches from Richard Land's patreon that weren't in ready circulation here. It's worth checking out. There's a well known Steamboat vs Orton match from Landover in 85 and this is a good partner to that.

They go fairly long here (I thought it was headed to a draw actually, especially after Orton survived the flying body press), and it's relatively back and forth thought with fairly lengthy stretches of momentum. Orton's a bump machine here, flipping into the corner and flying all over the place for Steamboat's shots.

Likewise, Steamboat sells like you'd expect him to. After the first minute or so, you can tell that they were going long, but it really picks up in the back half. Steamboat gets a win out of nowhere but then Orton pile drives him after the bell and hits the ref, getting himself suspended immediately (got to put over the PA commission).

Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff WWF 3/6/86

MD: Even Monsoon said this feud had been going on for a while at this point, but they get in and out and get the job done here. Great hot start. Piper's one of the best at throwing fists to start like this, making sure to lose and get knocked out of the ring, only to throw a drink right into Orndorff's face.

Orndorff spends most of the rest of the match selling the eye, and Piper uses to to full advantage anytime Orndorff starts to get over on him, including one great fall away (in the basketball sense, not the wrestling sense) eyepoke. Just when Orndorff finally has Piper on the ropes (or in a Crab as it is), Orton rushes in to cause the DQ. The feud was a little worn out at this point, maybe, but they covered a lot of ground with high energy in just a few minutes here.

Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees WWF 3/17/86

MD: We come in slightly JIP here, but this was really good. Anvil takes the first chunk of it, getting clowned by the Bees. Brunzell has a great drop toehold, but more of a trip with his arms and there are some good rope running spots. Hart sneaks in on commentary to complain about the (legal) doubleteaming.

Harts take over on Blair and they keep it moving and interesting. Brunzell's hotheaded and draws the ref repeatedly giving this a real southern tag feel. Choking with the ring rope. Double teams (including a modified decapitation). Illegal switches. Some really good hope spots in there as well. Brunzell comes in hot after the (very earned) tag and hits the dropkick for a nearfall. The Bees pick up the surprising (to me at least) win after another bit of miscommunication. Honestly one of the best heel Hart Foundation matches I can think of.

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1992 WWF Boy Scout Troop 3 Fundraiser 1/18/92

Full Show


ER: If you like the sound of a wrestling show where the wrestling is treated with as much value as the day itself, and don't mind 50% of the tape being taken up by non-wrestling, then I invite you to settle on in. This here's a recently unearthed WWF fancam of a show many of us didn't realize even happened, filmed by any old dad as more of a memorable church picnic than as a man filming a pro wrestling show. When my dad got a video camera in 1988 (the kind where the VHS tape slid into the camera itself), he quickly produced half a dozen tapes that were filled entirely with him recording the yard, doing commentary about how the yard looked, filming my toddler sister following a frog, just a grill dad enjoying his new toy while acting out his inner Terence Malick. I still know where tapes of our old Easter egg hunts and 4th of July parties exist at my folks' house, even if they haven't had a VCR to play them on in at least 15 years. This show is the closest to the vibes of those home movies than any wrestling fancam I have ever experienced.

The man who recorded this, is a man recording this event the way my dad recorded every event of our lives over a period of several years. This is not a man recording a pro wrestling show, this is a man recording his niece's wedding, his son's little league game, his daughter's school play; this tape would exist no matter what the event was. If the fundraiser had been a chili cookoff, there would be a tape of Boy Scouts Chili Cookoff and we would likely not be writing about it. But this is a WWF Boy Scouts fundraising show, and this man - I presume - is affiliated somehow with this specific Shelton, CT branch of the Boy Scouts.

Growing up, we used to have a big Harvest Festival every year with all of the 7th Day Adventist churches in our county, held in the gymnasium of a local high school. This wrestling fancam is the exact movie of my dad filming us and several other families and students on a Saturday morning, setting up for the Harvest Festival and decorating a gymnasium. This man is not worried about saving tape space for the matches, he is more concerned with documenting the entire experience, and we're lucky for it.

One of the early joys, is that it's never actually even apparent that any attendees enjoy interacting with our cameraman even in the slightest. Most in attendance don't even act as if they know who he is, let alone act socially familiar with him. But HE feels familiar to these people, and nobody appears to be startled by his presence, so we can assume he's at minimum welcome and/or tolerated. Also, among the 80 or so volunteers in the building, he is the one guy just walking around with a camera and not doing any kind of set up or physical work, so "tolerated" is probably a more believable stance.

Letting yourself get taken in by these home movies, you really appreciate the well oiled machine that is the volunteer staff of Scouts and family of Scouts, as we get to see the ins and outs of what's happening at Shelton High School on a winter Saturday. Our Connecticut Attenborough helps paint the mise en scene by mostly letting the camera do the talking, outside of segment-introducing observations such as "Lots of chairs to be set up" or "Here's another popcorn machine being set up, down at the end of this hall" or "Still setting up these chairs, 600 of them" or "Mopping the floor" or "Taking a break from setting up all these chairs?" or "Gonna sell a lotta merch tonight?" or "Hey how many chairs did you bring in the truck?" The candid interviews aren't particularly insightful, and he is not a very probing interviewer. These interviews do give us some insight into a truck that broke down that was carrying a lot of chairs, and we get some unblemished brief backstage footage that gave us more of a look behind the scenes than any "matches only" fancams have ever bothered with.

Not only do we get to see the catering spread for the wrestlers (literally just a half dozen 6 foot long party subs from Subway), but we get the Bushwhackers signing autographs for all the nerdy adorable Scouts, and what appears to be one specific family meeting the incredibly jacked Chris Walker. One of the Double Trouble members is also there milling about, and we get to see anti-drug PSAs from Virgil and Sgt. Slaughter. It's kind of amazing that this guy was allowed to film Virgil as he took several re-dos on his not great Say No promo. Slaughter cuts his with ease, salutes a local LEO ("from one Sgt. to another"), and then points directly at our camera as we fade into a packed gymnasium. Our ring announcer (who as we saw was there 3 hours early and showed up wearing a great brown leather jacket) is now in a suit looking like the coolest possible Perd Hapley, and announces that due to illness, Bret Hart would not be facing The Mountie tonight. Hart had lost the IC title to Mountie literally the night before, but the crowd is justifiably excited to find out that Roddy Piper would be replacing Hart in that IC title match.

MD: I can't add much more to what Eric's written here about the non-match footage but I will note a few things: First, I was pretty much the target age here. This was January 92. I was 10 years old. I'd watched WWF for less than two years at that point, getting into it late. I'm from the Northeast. I also had some small experiences backstage due to a friend's uncle working for Titan in some capacity. That consisted of meeting Bret backstage after his match with Barbarian in the underdwelling hallways of the Boston Garden, and then, two years later (Survivor Series 93), having a photo shoot opportunity with the Smoking Gunns and getting a free shirt. I can say that the company changed incredibly in those two years when it came to that sort of thing. This is right in the middle.

I was absolutely terrified of meeting the Bushwhackers as a kid, because I didn't want to get licked by them. This was a completely irrational but very, very real fear of mine, especially as I wandered into these backstage scenarios. I wasn't a germaphobe, but I guess I had some texture issues, and the idea of it was literally terrifying to me. They scared me as much as anyone this side of Papa Shango, what with the sardines and the missing teeth. Obviously, they're absolutely great with the kids here, even if they do lick one. Sarge has it down to a science (I caught him at a signing when I was in college and while it was a conveyor belt, he'd still find a way to engage with anyone who engaged with him). You could tell how much value he still had to the company in a show like this. It was also nice to see Sherri interacting with people, though obviously not getting mobbed like Slaughter. What really stands out though, what I will remember forever, is Virgil being completely unable to hit the "Don't do drugs" speech. I always wondered why he never got pushed more; Repo Man helps Dibiase gets the $$$ belt back a little before this and he just tumbles down the card. His liberation from Dibiase was such a huge storyline in 91 and he was legitimately over with the crowd (and he'd become surprisingly engaging destroying jobbers by the end of 92), but seeing this promo attempt makes it all make more sense.


British Bulldog vs. The Barbarian

MD: While we have a thousand Bulldog vs. Warlord matches, this is a more novel pairing. Unfortunately, we don't get much of it.

ER: We get about 90 seconds of this, nothing close to a finish, but mostly a mid match test of strength, a nice Bulldog bump to the floor, and a Barbarian clubbing forearm. But our cameraman shows a strong knack for recording wrestling, knows when to follow the action and knows when to zoom in on holds. That's a good sign. This brief glimpse of a match segues immediately into...


Beverly Brothers vs. The Bushwhackers

ER: In which Luke is biting Blake's rump, and I believe that is the start of the match. The first two minutes of this is so great, the Beverlys bumping all over for shoulderblocks and clotheslines, both taking pratfalls over the top to the floor, all leading to them smoothly transitioning to a classic cut off the ring tag match. The Beverlys look like they're having so much fun, the perfect heel team for a house show like this, the kind of time that makes a gym echo with high pitched little kid anger. Luke is just about the worst person ever at putting over offense, never falling right, barely regarding punches, but it doesn't faze Blake and Beau. Blake is dropping elbows and we get a nice cut off spot where Blake drops a falling lariat on Luke, and when we get to the Butch hot tag we get another run of big flipping Beverly bumps, with Beau bumping to the floor off a battering ram. Blake is making Butch lariats look far more powerful than they should be, and Beau expertly hooks Butch's leg from the floor, really upending him for the finish. Beverlys continue to soak up the hate on their victorious walk to the back, with Blake wiping sweat off himself and flinging at fans.

MD: This was the match that made me realize that I had to absolutely make sure Eric caught this show. If you told 10 year old me how much I'd love a Bushwhackers match like this, I'd tell you that you were crazy. If you'd tell 20 year old me, I'd tell you the same but with worse language. Every single person reading this over the age of 25 was programmed by every sheet-writing print or internet personality to hate matches like this, and it's the craziest thing in the world! Because not only is the match amazingly fun, but there's so much crafty, savvy, old tricks, put into this: the timing at the beginning where the Beverlys try to run in only to be unable to get the advantage, the fact they actually work in the hope spots and cut offs, the Beverlys working the crowd from the apron, and the bumping towards the end. Luke and Butch had this match with the Rougeaus, the Beverlys, the Heavenly Bodies, maybe even Honky and Valentine, spans of six months feuding with these guys around the horn. I'm watching this and I can feel the frustration for these kids that even at the charity show, they can't just put the Bushwhackers over here. Of course the Beverlys were happy. They had the most receptive audience possible, got to go over, and didn't even have to bump for the Road Warriors (or, if they could see their future, the Steiners).


Roddy Piper vs. The Mountie

ER: This was great. Tragically cut short by our fearless editor, so naturally we don't get the finish, but what we do get is great. Piper is such a great house show guy, and this felt like Piper with a decade shaved off his life, working like he was a Portland babyface, just an excellent school gym performance. Piper is super fired up here, and Mountie is game to work some fast exchanges with him. This would have been Mountie's first and only IC title defense after beating Bret on a house show, and it's a cool scrap. They do this great sequence that felt like a WCW Finlay sequence, with Roddy doing quick rope running and making Mountie do two quick leapfrogs, ending with Piper dropping an awesome fistdrop after Mountie drops down. Later, Mountie bails to the floor off an Irish whip, jaws with the fans, and Piper runs around ringside to punch him right in the side of the head. I wish we could have gotten the whole thing, but Mountie's heel control and Piper's crowd control made this great for what we got.

MD: We haven't gotten a ton of new Jacques over the last few years but one thing we did get was his last WWF singles match for a while, against Bret. Between that and this, I'm thinking we probably missed out on a nice long IC title run where he would have been more or less what Honky is remembered to be: a hugely entertaining, vulnerable champion with a big mouth, getting a ton of heat. Piper hits all the marks here perfectly and the fans love to see him, but Jacques is 100% on for every moment, and you buy into the stakes of it (even though it's non-title so there are no stakes) because he obviously cares so much. Even as he tries to express that he doesn't, like when he stalls and beats a ten count at the last, panicked moment. The transition point of the ref grabbing Piper's arm on punches in the corner looked great from the angle we got it, and the ref (Davis? I forget now) kept the heat off of him for the most part by being so frustrated at Jacques taking advantage. We lose the finish, but it seemed to be poetic, with Mountie trying to run one last time only to have Piper come after him. Piper got the cheap pop with the local high school shirt after the match and Jacques stayed completely on, smarmy and disaffected, until he was entirely out of sight.


Ted Dibiase/Repo Man vs. Tito Santana/Virgil

ER: Repo man actually makes some sense as a Million Dollar Man teammate, though I'm not sure it ever crossed my mind until now. We could have gotten a whole Capitalism stable with Repo and Money Inc. that would have been decried by dorks as the Worst Workrate Team Ever. And we get 5 or 6 minutes of a classically structured house show tag match, and even with guys like Repo Man in there it is so obvious how a simple southern tag structure is a much more interesting structure than the modern wrestling tag. It's a simple layout, the pros can easily hit all the beats, and the interesting ones know how to fill in the connecting stretches. Dibiase really takes it out on Virgil, laying into him with a great chop/short forearm combo in the corner that lays him out. The child heavy crowd is way behind Virgil, and Sherri is active the entire time getting into it with fans and cheating for Ted. We get a great build to a Tito hot tag, including Repo Man sneaking over and yanking Tito off the apron just before Virgil could get there. When Tito eventually gets in the building is molten, all three members of the heel squad are bumping for him, and sadly our cameraman misses the end of match Sherri involvement. We get a quick cut and the match is over, Sherri lying on the floor, and you just know Sherri took some too dangerous spill on a fundraiser show that wasn't even going to be a part of listed company history. After the match, we get some footage of Slaughter and Sherri signing autographs and shaking hands, then get a brief interview with Miss Valley, a pretty young blond wearing her pageant sash and acid washed denim romper.

MD: We lose the beginning and end of this, unfortunately, but we can see how it's laid out. I always like wrestlers with unique stances, and Darsow worked as Repo Man with a hulking hunch, even as he's coming to and exiting the ring. Dibiase does everything right here, but he's more going through the motions. We only see a bit of him, but it's obvious Darsow's more engaged. He wanted to go babyface with the character and be beloved by children. He claims to have quit in 93 because they wouldn't let him. This is the crowd for him. The heat's ultimately on Virgil and it seems ok and lets Tito come in later on with some great sweeping dropkicks when the hot tag happens, but the guy filming gets bored of it all midway and focuses on Sherri for a minute. You can't really blame him, both for Sherri's qualities and what was going on, but it's pretty funny, nonetheless. Also funny is that we miss the Sherri involvement at the end, anyway, and just cut to her being disheveled as she walks out with her losing team. A big run of Dibiase/Repo Man would have probably been better than what we ultimately got with Money, Inc.


Berzerker vs. Sgt. Slaughter

ER: I had a hunch this wasn't going to live up to my internal expectations, because how was the only recorded singles match between Berzerker and Slaughter going to do that? There is only one singles match on the books between them, and that was a 1986 AWA show in Oakland (cruelly just an hour away from me, but I was a dumb baby who didn't even know what pro wrestling was). This show is entirely off the books, and this man somehow didn't understand the magnitude of the history he was recording. The cruelty is in what we won't ever know. Did Berzerker take any big bumps? Not on the footage we have, but we have no way of knowing how much of the match we missed. What we did see was Slaughter being enough of a lunatic to take his signature bump, and I just HAVE to assume that if Slaughter is flying stomach first over the top to the floor, then Berzerker had to have at least done so twice. I had no clue Slaughter was doing that bump on 1992 house shows, and considering Berzerker was a guy who didn't let Curt Hennig outbump him, no way in hell was Sgt. Slaughter's bump going to be the only time in the match that a giant man flew to the floor of a gymnasium.

Slaughter's bump was the clear highlight, but I loved Slaughter dropping Berzerker crotch first on the top rope, because as we know Minnesotans are the best in pro wrestling history at selling their butt and balls. So Berzerker gets bounced on the top rope by Slaughter, then rolls to the floor and massages out his sore balls while still Hussing in the faces of children. I love this man. Berzerker also had a fun diving punch to Slaughter's balls, which made a ton of sense as payback for Slaughter's prior ball torture. The finish left a lot to be desired, with Berzerker arguing with the ref and leaving himself open to a schoolboy, but the match was filled with joy. I wish we got a shot of Berzerker signing autographs for Scouts after, just because I needed to see how huge Berzerker was while standing next to some kiddos.

MD: Bit of a reverse structure on this one as Nord stooges early with groin based stuff, working big as always, but maybe showing a bit more ass, to the point that he had to hit a low blow to take over. Sarge's corner bump out of the ring looked great and good on him for breaking it out given the setting. I imagine no one does it now because it defies physics, but it's a great bump and people would be into it. Nord worked the ref and the crowd and his stuff all looked credible, and Sarge is capable at garnering big sympathy so everything worked. I would have just liked to see a little bit more of it due to the clipping. Sarge took the win with a shoolboy out of nowhere, which was kind of a shame as I wanted to see Nord bump all over the ring for his comeback. Not the match I wanted, but perfectly fine as the match we got.


Orient Express vs. The New Foundation

ER: Strong house show tag, the opener of the next day's PPV, but a match that felt like a main event. Kato was really good at riling up the crowd, and the fans were way more into Owen than I realized in 1992. My favorite was a kid screaming for his attention during their entrance, wanting nothing more than to touch Owen's hand. Orient Express were unsurprisingly big bumpers, both whipping over on Owen's armdrags and taking hard ring bumps for Neidhart's shoulderblocks and lariats. Owen was super active, doing a bunch of double dropkicks and crossbodies, really felt like he was zipping around. Neidhart comes off like a real force with an almost Masa Saito presence, but he is also someone who will grab a chinlock out of absolutely nowhere, which is always so odd to see from a babyface. Tanaka was either really gassed and Neidhart was doing him a favor, or Tanaka was great at putting over the damage of a Neidhart chinlock. Still, the crowd was into all of this and again, it felt like a main event on a show with some pretty impressive star power. This was a great crowd, but obviously a crowd with 80% or more children in attendance is going to be a great crowd. Kids are the greatest wrestling fans possible, and a hot crowd made up of tiny excited screaming kids just hits differently, makes you remember the best parts of pro wrestling. 

MD: Cliff notes version of their Royal Rumble 92 match: no Fuji, shorter all around, and weirdly, less Owen working the crowd with clapping or stomping. Some sequences were exactly the same, including Owen's bridge up, springboard backflip, rana bit, and the finish with the dive and rocket launcher. I liked the hot tag here, which wasn't so much a tag as just a frenetic burst of motion as Owen zoomed across the ring until Neidhart was ready for the slingshot. The crowd was into all of it: Owen's flashy moves, Neidhart's size, energy, and charisma, the Express beating down Owen as Neidhart got increasingly frustrated, and the comeback, but it was missing a bit of a spark I was expecting given the setting and the rest of the show.


ER: And with that, we brilliantly close with a fleeting shot of Ted Dibiase, sitting backstage wolfing down a section of those Subway party subs we saw earlier, wearing the brightest purple Zubaz pants and a gym shirt that looked like a girl's blouse from Urban Outfitters. It was arguably the great wrestling fit I have ever seen. What an incredible coda to the most unique wrestling fancam I have ever seen.

 

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New Footage Friday: FINLAY!! MUTOH! 2 COLD!! RAMBO! BORGA!!

CWA Euro Catch Festival 12/16/95

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Danny Collins

PAS: This was a pretty basic mid 90s juniors match. There were a couple of nifty flourishes by both guys,  Collins had a nifty jumping rana and I always love Scorpio's standing flip leg drop. Still I thought most of this was relatively dull, I think I would still like high end 90s juniors matches, but the average ones are really not my speed. Always happy to get more Scorp footage, but this was mostly skippable.

MD: I'm a little bit higher on this than Phil, but just a bit. Collins got good effort marks at least, and had a lot of stuff, even if his ambition was sometimes bigger than his prowess. Scorpio was a natural in front of this crowd, coming out to his Slam Jam theme, dancing to Can't Touch This between rounds, etc. He was great at mixing his fighting from underneath with his selling, garnering both sympathy and admiration, but there's nothing new there. It's always nice to see it in a different setting. There were some stuff that felt off, both in Collins' execution, but also an arm drag or two that felt like they came way too late in the match. It was fine.


Ice Train vs. Big Titan

PAS: This was pretty fun, I am surprised that Ice Train never really went anywhere. He is big, agile and hit hard. I feel like he just got caught up in the churn of WCW, with too many guys under contract. Feels like the WWF might have been able to do something with him. I would have liked to see this run back a couple of years later with Big Titan as fake Diesel.  I especially liked Train's big second rope shoulder block, and Titan had a nice stiff clothesline.

MD: On a show with a number of big guys, Titan worked kind of small here, getting off his feet a lot on offense. I've heard him complain he was frustrated having to work like Diesel in the WWF because it neutered a lot of what he liked to do. I don't think it'd always have worked, but it did make for a nice contrast with Ice Train here. Train was still very green but charismatic with a couple of big memorable spots and a good act. I think he would have really done well ten years later, towards the end of the territories where he could go into a place for a few weeks as a special attraction tag team partner and move on before the act got stale.

ER: This was fine, but served more as proof that WCW really figured out how to present Ice Train. Ice Train matches in WCW were always 4-6 minute power sprints, so you got a big powerslam, big chops, big shoulderblocks, and then got the hell out of there. Here you see what happens with 10 minutes, and it's mostly Big Titan holding cravates and chinlocks. But this was fine! Because we also got a couple of great big man vertical suplexes, a couple of Train's big flying shoulder tackles, a beast of a standing lariat from Train, big missed splash from Titan, and Titan *did* have a nice cravat. I love the cravat variation of just pressing both palms against one side of a guy's head, rather than one hand twisting the chin. Here Titan just mashed palms into the left side of Ice Train's head, really introducing Train's right ear to his shoulder. Ice Train is a real heavy lander, one of the heaviest, and it rules. Other guys are bigger, but Ice Train lands with such weight that it really makes simple things like a standing splash or legdrop look colossal. And I also just realized that while Big E has the best standing splash of modern wrestlers, Ice Train probably had the best of his era. Big E is really working a spiritual Ice Train successor gimmick and that somehow makes me like both of them more.

Kama vs. Viktor Kruger

PAS: I thought this was a fine CWA heavyweight match. I am surprised that I liked Kama more than Kruger in this match. Kruger seemed a bit off, and Kama had a nice taped up right hand, and wins with a great looking huge spinebuster. I think I am more into C- heavyweight matches, then C- juniors matches like Scorp vs. Collins.

MD: Pre-match Kama came off like more of a star than he ever had in his career with any of his characters. He rode in on the back of a motorcycle to Thunderstruck and looked jacked (gassed?) to the gills. He juts seemed larger than life. The first minute or so worked out too, with him bumping around a bit. I think the reality of his bulk caught up to him after that, however. Kruger was disappointing. For a guy who clapped so much on the way to the ring, he really didn't seem to have any idea how to engage the crowd when working out of holds, and this match needed that badly.

ER: This was a pretty dull match with a very fun first 1 and final 3 minutes. Putting the best stuff in the first and final minutes at least makes it feel like a better waste of time, and saving big moments for the end is a smart structure for guys without a ton of big moments in them. I always forget how big Kruger is, as Kama is a huge man and Kruger matched him for size, basically Mike Awesome without any actual highspots. Kama routinely has heavyweight "pulling" matches, which are a time filler kind of heavyweight match that revolves around each guy just kind of pulling the other guy into things. Every transition is some variation of "okay I'm in the corner, now I'm going to pull you into the corner and now I am out of the corner, throwing slow punches at you, and then you kinda pull me into the corner and do the same" and you end up with a couple of giants just hitting soft shots and tugging each other around the ring for 10 minutes. But I loved Kama bumping for Kruger's shoulderblocks to start, and the big stuff down the stretch plays great: Kama's big Vader bomb into knees, Kruger's fantastic full steam lariat that sends Kama over the top to the floor, and Kama's high rotation spinebuster finish.

August Smisl/Tony St. Clair vs. Cannonball Grizzly/John Hawk

MD: The more I see Grizzly in these matches, the more I like him. He's a superheavyweight heel with a couple of good power spots that engages the crowd and that can go chickenshit and work vulnerable. That's one of my sweet spots if it works as a contrast to other things going on and here it absolutely did. This hit a lot of marks. Grizzly and Hawk controlled the ring well enough with plenty of cheating. St. Clair was fiery on the outside to screw his partner by distracting the ref. For the only tag match on the show, it was lacking a hot tag in the stretch. The first face win was off of a lightning power move reversal. The second one was off of a lightning cross body. There was a hot tag in the middle but so distanced from either of the finishes that it made the whole thing feel anti-climactic. None of the wrestling was bad. It just needed to be organized differently.

Fit Finlay vs. Franz Schuhmann

MD: This was excellent. Finlay was top notch here and Schuhmann was more than game in keeping up with him. Finlay was do-no-wrong beloved here which gave this a face-vs-face star-vs-star feel despite Fit absolutely acting like Fit, wrestling a merciless style and increasingly taking what advantages he could. He had a sort of shrugging charm that won the day. This went seven rounds with round three standing out especially as Finlay just moved from one piece of brutal business to the next, each one with purpose, always keeping the crowd engaged and active. It started with a powerbomb and ended with the reversal of one, telling a mini story within a few minutes. Schuhmann was able to get his revenge in the fourth (though it wasn't quite linear), with Finlay mounting an ambush at the start of the fifth and the two of them going back and forth until the end. The finish, with Fit stopping Schuhmann's momentum by catching him off the ropes and hitting the tombstone he was only able to attempt (and was reversed on) back in the fourth, was made all the better by Finlay waving his arms in elation right before he hit it.

PAS: I loved this too, mid 90s Finlay is pretty close to wrestling perfection and Schuhmann is a great dance partner. Schuhmann has really great looking suplexes, really popping his hips and dumping Finlay on the back of his neck. Finlay was a big bumper at this point too, he just flies over the top rope, and takes all of Schuhmann's moves in painful ways, Schuhmann applies maybe the greatest drop toe hold I have ever seen with Finlay looking like he tore his MCL going down. Of course he is an all time great offensive wrestler too, and we get some of the great Finlay signature spots, knees right to the nose, hard unforgiving bodyslams and an absolutely brutal hard tombstone finish. Rounds match can always be a bit choppy, but the actual wrestling in this match was tremendous.

ER: I honestly don't think there is another wrestler better at execution, illusion of violence, or selling than Fit Finlay. I think Lawler is his best competition, but 90s Finlay especially looks like my exact vision of perfect pro wrestling. This is one of his greatest performances (think of the ground that covers), and it's even better because this also happens to be the greatest performance I've ever seen from Franz Schuhmann. Finlay has this special ability of elevating nearly every opponent to his game, not necesarily working a match around an opponent's strengths, but actually getting his opponents to work up to him. If they don't they'll get left behind by way of cruel beating; if they're game, he rewards them by making their offense look better than ever before. In this match alone Finlay rewards a great dropkick by flying impossibly fast over the top to the floor, takes a bridged German suplex so perfectly that it should be motion captured, and takes a drop toehold and manages to make it look like Jaws was biting through his leg. This match could have been a total flop, and this drop toehold would have made it infinitely memorable. Schuhmann grabbed such a perfect grapevine of that leg, and Finlay sold it in a few nasty stages: Screaming out in anguish as it's applied, buckling a knee while fighting to stay standing, going down hard and grabbing for his leg when he realized his struggle could have injured him further. What a moment. His offense was as great as expected, one of the few men who can make a nerve hold genuinely look like the best way possible to bring a man to his knees in pain, grabbing Schuhmann's trapezius and forcing him to the mat, yanking his head back by the maxilla, and dropping a 12 to 6 elbow right across Schuhmann's nose. It's a classic Finlay sequence, and yet he never makes it look like he's going through any kind of motions. The tombstone Finlay finishes this classic with is one of the greatest I've seen, Finlay joyously catching Schuhmann and dropping hard to his knees, Schuhmann held cruelly at a bent neck angle before being left to flop dead to the mat. This was magic.

Keiji Mutoh vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: I'm not even sure how I'd classify this, maybe as an "overperforming, lost, late Neidhart performance." I really liked his presence here, coming out to Alice Cooper, chumming around with Kauroff, having Mutoh pull his beard, clubbering him on a table on the outside. It got a little hold heavy in the middle (though I was happy to see the Anvilizer, his Summer 1993 WCW finishing Cobra Clutch). This was ultimately more of a Neidhart match than a Mutoh match, though he got some of his stuff in at the end, but I'm not sure it would have worked any other way. Honestly, I think we all would have been better off with Collins/Neidhart vs. Scorpio/Mutoh.

Rambo vs. Ludwig Borga 

MD: Midway through this match (at the point where Rambo outright missed a jumping back elbow), I had the conscious thought "Well, at least Eric is probably going to go out of his way to watch the Finlay match too." This wasn't good. Rambo was more giving than I've seen him in this footage, but it didn't really matter. This had the same sort of dynamic as Finlay vs. Schumann, just with more of a heavyweight "clash of the titans" feel, but couldn't at all follow it. Too much of the crowd was behind Borga and while he laid in the cheapshots and eased into the heel role in the match, he just didn't go far enough with it for what they were trying to do. He neither lost nor excited the portion of the crowd that had been cheering him, so Rambo could only get so much support. It built into a few good nearfalls towards the end but then just sort of ended in a way no one in the crowd would even remember the next day. It probably could have used more violence on the outside as well. It just needed more sharply drawn lines, really just more volume on everything that it tried to do.

ER: I was actually really into this, and perhaps all the HBK tribute acts of all shapes and sizes have just made me more excited for slower paced 90s house show heavyweight style. I thought Borga was great here, really played a brick wall bully who still bumped for bigger Rambo spots. If you looked at the overall match you could think that Borga dominated this one, but there were key moments at the ends of rounds that showed Rambo may have been a victim of bad timing. Borga was much slower getting up at the end of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the first after attempting to throw Rambo with a suplex while trapped in a headlock, and the second after eating a nice vertical suplex back into the ring. After two straight round breaks of Borga being slow to his feet, it's no surprise that he ends the next two rounds with cheap shots and warnings. You get the sense that Rambo could have beaten him had his timing and placement been a little more fortunate. But Borga's performance elevated this for me, as he works slow bruiser really well, making his strikes really resonate and allowing time for them to be sold. Big Borga hooks to the kidneys or breadbox look devastating, so I love that he doesn't make them useless with overuse, instead landing one big shot at a time, one big punch to the gut, one big downward strike elbow right to Rambo's chest, one big clubbing shot across the shoulder blades, really getting across the power of his strikes.

I liked the way Borga laid out big misses that sometimes later lead to big hits, like a big missed avalanche that gave Rambo an early opening, that we later got to see cashed in when Borga actually hits this big avalanche (getting enough height to also get tangled in the ropes, which made it look like the impact of the avalanche was really drove home); or, when he got brought back in the ring with that vertical suplex, and later walked Rambo over to the same location to give Rambo his own suplex, dropping him hard across the top rope with a front suplex. I even loved how Borga handled Rambo's awkward missed back elbow, as instead of selling it (which I imagine a missed leaping back elbow would almost always lead to both guys lying on the mat figuring out how to recover), Borga immediately drops down and grabs a nice grounded side headlock. Borga also showed tons of weakness on the floor, crashing into a table that gets shoved into the crowd, then eating an awesome ringpost shot (he and Lesnar really show that 100% of the guys who look like them, also take really great post shots), always going down for Rambo's biggest shots. The finish could have been better, as I kept expecting a Rambo final comeback, but instead they just had Rambo die a slow death. But even down the stretch I was into the attention to details from Borga, like his super low swinging missed clothesline, or the specific way he choked Rambo over the bottom rope, or how he just stepped right on Rambo's face as Rambo was trying to get back in the ring. That kind of stuff will always elevate a match for me, and Borga had plenty of that.

PAS: I am sort of in the middle on this match, don't dislike it at much as Matt, but think Eric is pretty severely overrating it. Borga is a guy who is always fun to watch and I will always be down for him bulldozing someone in the corner and unloading those beautiful hooks to the body. I am someone who always loved throwing body shots back in my boxing days, and Borga is really one of the only professional wrestlers ever to make a body shot look great. Rambo was real bad in this though, the best Borga matches have been him going to war with a fellow big hitters like Hashimoto or Vader, Rambo just had nothing on his stuff, and it was tough to watch Borga try to credibly sell for bad looking corner punches or lame bulldogs. He tried his best, but this was a one man show, and as much as I enjoy Borga he isn't pulling off both sides of a match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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